for its having so long interrupted the pleasures of the world."

Dr. McFarland, in his History of Revivals of the Eighteenth Century, says:

"About the end of the seventeenth, and beginning of the eighteenth century, most of the churches, whether in the United Kingdom or the American Colonies, were in a comparatively low state. Arianism and Deism prevailed in England. In Scotland the old style of preaching was being fast laid aside, and cold, formal addresses, verging toward semi-Arianism, were becoming fashionable."

Stevens, in his History of Methodism, speaking of the same period, says:

"From the Restoration, down to the early part of the eighteenth century, both Churchmen and Non-conformists unite in deploring the decayed condition of religion and morals."

Taylor, in his History of Methodism, says:

"When Wesley appeared, the Anglican Church was an Ecclesiastical system, under which the people of England had lapsed into heathenism; or a state hardly to be distinguished from it.”

Dr. Houston, in his History of the Prayer-Meeting, says:

"The awakenings which took place in various parts of England, under the ministry of Wesley and Whitefield, led to the establishment of social prayer-meetings; and, at this period, when within the pale of the National Establishment, and without it, all was under the torpor of spiritual death, this organization was a powerful means of exciting earnest minds to pursue after eternal concerns, and to impress them upon the serious attention of others.

While spiritual death thus reigned, a few students at

Oxford formed a prayer-meeting, which, by the blessing of God, spread its hallowed influences over that kingdom for a period of one hundred and forty years, down to our own time. Whitefield and Wesley were there. Revived in their humble little prayer-meeting they gathered others around them who were warmed by the fire of their burning zeal And in the course of ten years from the organization of that praying circle-a despised little band of students though they were there went forth earnest men, like apostles, over England, and Wales, and the American Colonies, reviving not only religion in the dead churches, but reviving the prayer-meeting wherever their influence extended; so that from that time forth, the history of revivals and of prayer-meetings became identified and inseparable, as in the preceding times, Reformation and the prayer-meetings had been.

Wesley, whenever he began to organize churches, organized the prayer-meeting, where from ten to twenty members could be grouped together. These "class meetings," subordinated to the most rigid and methodic rules, have been the instrumentality, perhaps, more than any other, in giving to that church compactness, union and increase. Among groups of emigrants cast together in any locality, in any newly-settled country, soon formed into a classmeeting, assembled together weekly, held together by this bond, seldom ever were they turned aside from the church and lost to her communion. With a steadfastness scarcely exceeded by the Scottish Cameronians have they adhered to their profession and to their church. Just here, perhaps, lies the secret of the unparalleled success of the Methodist Church, in its first organization, in all the early settlements of the colonies, and in the new Territories of the West. They were always organized into prayer-meetings, or class-meetings, which held them together while other

churches, without prayer-meetings to rally and train their scattered members, soon lost their sheep wandering without fold or shepherd. So, history confirms the importance of SOME fold, however humble, for the preservation of every flock, however small.

Whitefield, though not so methodic as Wesley, and not so successful in organizing as evangelizing, left behind, wherever he labored, the spirit of the prayer-meeting. Whitefield's revivals, like all true revivals of religion, were characterized by their prayer and by their prayermeeting.

With pleasure, here, we quote a page from Dr. Humphrey's Revival Sketches. He says:

"One of the most important revivals of religion, when the effects are considered, is that which occurred in the 'Principality of Wales,' during the second quarter of the eighteenth century, under Howell Harris and the Rev. Daniel Reynolds; and this was carried forward and fostered by means of private societies for prayer and religious conference. The Welsh, who had been previously left almost wholly neglected and in ignorance by the ministers of the Established Church, when they were awakened embraced the truth in its simplicity, attended upon ordinances administered with a large measure of Scriptural purity, and exhibited a practice becoming the gospel.

The

Welsh Calvinistic Methodists, as they are designated, have continued to be distinguished for a strict adherence to evangelical doctrine, and for godly practice, above any other class of Dissenters in England, and it is an honorable testimony borne to the inhabitants of the Principality, that the time when the last census of religious worship' was taken, a much larger proportion of them was found attending upon public ordinances than of the inhabitants of any other part of England. It is.related of Harris, who may be considered 'the father' of the body, that 'He fre

quently attended the meetings which the people held for the purpose of teaching to sing the praises of God, that he might thus have an opportunity of impressing them with a sense of their eternal state. On these occasions many were convinced of their sinfulness. This encouraged Mr.. Harris to establish regular meetings of serious persons for religious conversation in several other places; and this was the commencement of the Private Societies, which have ever since taking into consideration the great importance in strictness attached to their observance-formed a principal feature by which the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists may be distinguished from every other denomination of professed Christians."

"Rowlands availed himself of the same ordinance to extend and perpetuate the revival; and when the Welsh Calvinistic body became organized as a distinct section of the church of Christ, they embodied in their Constitution and Fundamental Regulations the ordinance of FellowshipMeetings, and required the members to attend upon them with all diligence. It is, doubtless, owing to the punctuality with which this regulation is observed by the Welsh Calvinists, in the various places where they are scattered, that they are enabled to preserve among them the doctrines of the gospel uncorrupted, and to maintain, above any other religious body in England, a strict Scriptural discipline."

It is worthy of notice here that Dr. Scott, the venerable Commentator, in his impartial vindication of the Synod of Dort, and Harmony of the Confessions of Faith of the Reformed Churches, gives the Confession of the Welsh Calvinistic Church an honorable place.

THE PRAYER-MEETING AND REVIVALS.

Reformation was the cognomen formerly used to designate improvement in religion, whether in regard to faith, prac

tice, or vital godliness. The history of reformation and the prayer-meeting have always had a remarkable affinity -they have always been found linked together in their operations like the twin graces-faith and love—the one working by the other." We now use the term Revival, as nearly a synonym of Reformation. Revival is the Scripture term, and beautifully significant. True revival lives in prayer. Prayer draws power from revival. We need only to follow the way-marks of their remarkable history to be satisfied of their inseparable unity.

Our limits forbid us to attempt, in noticing the progress of revival during a period of over a century and a quarter, more than to bring to view some prominent points in the narrative. We have already noticed the prayer-meeting in the armies of the Protestant Reformers, when in the field battling for civil and religious liberty, and for national and individual life. Let us turn from the peaceful walks of Christian life at home and in the churches, and again look over the tented field for revival and the prayermeeting.

Shortly after the wonderful revivals in England, Scotland, and Wales, under the labors of Whitefield, Wesley, and their cotemporaries and followers, remarkable revivals were enjoyed in the English armies, both at home and abroad. The remarkable coincidents here, of the resort to the prayer-meeting, under the most unfavorable circumstances, in the army, among the soldiers, in every instance where revival has been enjoyed, are worthy of notice. In the English army in Flanders, about the year 1745, very interesting revivals arrested the attention of the public journals of that period. From these, many important historic gleanings have been gathered and preserved, taken mostly from letters of officers and soldiers of the army.