we are on the eve of a contest of principles more tremendous than any which past ages have seen. But come when that contest may—the battle of the great day of God Almighty-we know beforehand what its issue shall be. That from that battle-field shall the triumphant shout ascend,-"The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ."

We have thus endeavoured briefly to show, both on general and on special grounds, why a revival of religion is so earnestly to be desired. We have moreover alluded to some of the encouraging circumstances which seem to warrant us in cherishing the humble hope, that the work of revival is already begun. There are still other circumstances of this kind, however, not yet noticed, though very closely connected with the republication of the instructive and admirable volume to which these remarks are prefixed, and to which therefore, in now drawing towards a conclusion, it is suitable and necessary that some reference be made. It is a striking and instructive fact that the very parish that was a chief scene of those memorable and blessed events which Mr. Robe's Narrative describes, has again, after the lapse of a hundred years, been visited with a time of peculiar reviving and refreshing from the presence of the Lord. In reading the statements concerning that parish, recently published by its present excellent minister, the Rev. Mr. Burns, we find almost an exact counterpart of the facts which the Narrative of his pious and honoured predecessor records. How true it is that even as the Lord visiteth the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation

of them that hate him, so does He show mercy unto thousands of them that love him and keep his commandments. As the Jews even at the time when religion had most declined among them, were beloved for their fathers' sakes, and are even now reserved for a glorious manifestation of Divine grace and love, -so would it appear that the spirit of prayer which breathed throughout the parish of Kilsyth a century ago, is still telling on the welfare of its inhabitants and causing them, after a long interval of comparative deadness, to come into remembrance before God.

It is not, however, as furnishing additional materials for theorising on religious revivals, that we consider the reappearance of Mr. Robe's Narrative at this precise period as peculiarly important. It is for the sake of its practical uses, as a guide in seeking after and dealing with actual revivals of religion among ourselves that we chiefly rejoice in its being again sent abroad among Christians. There have indeed of late years been various works on this subject issuing from the press, and both the facts which they state and the encreasing demand for the works themselves are the concurrent evidences of a present revival. We do not of course mean to affirm that all which is represented in these works as partaking of that sacred character, is to be held as truly possessing it. certainly no candid reader can examine such cases for example as those detailed in the valuable work of Dr. Sprague, without feeling abundantly satisfied that they exhibit the undoubted traces of the finger of God. At the same time no record of a religious revival occurring in a foreign country, however interesting and instructive it may be in other respects,

But

can possibly be so serviceable in a practical point of view, as the well authenticated narrative of a revival at home.

There are national peculiarities, and diversities of usage which unfit to some extent the record of the religious movements of one people, for serving as an exact rule to trace or regulate similar movements among the inhabitants of a different land. But no such disqualification attaches to the narrative of Mr. Robe. It sets before us, in the simple and familiar language of a Scottish Minister, the scenes and incidents of a Scottish revival. The lessons it conveys, therefore, bear directly upon ourselves; while they come at the same time with all the added force and attractiveness which the cherished associations of home and of

country never fail to impart. We have already alluded to the similarity between the revival narrated by Mr. Robe, and the recent revival of which the parish of Kilsyth has been the scene. There is an equally close resemblance between the objections to religious revivals heard in the present day, and those which were harped upon in the times of Mr. Robe. Every one of the arguments now in the mouths of scoffers, and would-be philosophical men of the world, we find to have been as confidently and uncharitably adduced against the same work a hundred years ago, and all of them are most conclusively met and refuted by Mr. Robe and his friends.

It

is this very circumstance that lends so much weight and authority, which gives a character so perfectly authentic to the narrative before us. It proves that the events it records were the subject of a strict and searching investigation at the time they occurred.

"The facts themselves," says Sir Henry Moncrieff in his Life of Dr. Erskine, "whatever view may be taken of them, are ascertained by the most unquestionable evidence,-by the testimony of Mr. John Maclaurin of Glasgow, who was most assiduous and minute in his investigation of them,*-by Dr. John Hamilton of the High Church of Glasgow, whose good sense and discernment were worthy of the high respectability of his character,+-by Mr. Robe of Kilsyth, whose integrity was never questioned, and who published a narrative on the subject,‡—by Dr. Webster of Edinburgh, who accompanied Mr. Whitefield and preached with him at Cambuslang: who published an account of what he represented as real conversions there, in opposition to those who pronounced them a delusion, who wrote from his personal knowledge and attested the facts of which he was an eye-witness,—and by Dr. Erskine himself, who was then a student in divinity, and who wrote a pamphlet on the subject, entitled "The Signs of the Times;" and after reviewing the attempts which in opposition to these various writers, were made by others who were unfriendly, to bring odium on the revival of that period, or to explain it away, by ascribing it to mere physical excitement or wild fanaticism, Sir Henry pronounces this temperate and well merited rebuke on the authors of these unworthy efforts to discredit or disparage the work of the Spirit

* Account of his life, prefixed to his Sermons and Essays. In his letters to Mr. Prince of Boston, 1742, published in the Life of Whitefield.

The Narrative now reprinted.

$ Webster's "Divine Influence, the true spring of the extraor dinary work at Cambuslang." And his second edition of ditto, with a preface, in answer to Mr. Fisher's Review.

of God:-a rebuke not inapplicable to some in the present day.

"Whatever opinion, says he, may be held with respect to the means or influence with which four hundred individuals connected a reformation in their moral and religious character, which they afterwards supported through life, no fair man will deny, that such an effect, produced in such a number of human beings, is a subject neither of ridicule nor contempt. Many thousands attended on whom no visible impression seems to have been made. And this fact, according with ordinary experience, and honestly related in the narrative on the subject, confirms instead of lessening their credibility.

"On the other hand, let the thousands who go away without having received any visible impression be out of the question, (though many good effects might have been produced which were neither observed nor related at the time) four hundred individuals who to the conviction of those who knew them, became better men, men more useful and conscientious in their stations and more faithful in their practical duties than they ever were before, and who preserve this character while they live:-exhibits a view of the religion of Cambuslang and Kilsyth, which a wise man will not easily bring himself to reprobate and which no good man, if he candidly examines the facts, and believes them, will allow himself to despise."

This one testimony, from such a man as the biographer of Erskine, preeminently distinguished as he was both for the strength and the soundness of his mind, will, in the estimation of every intelligent Christian, far more than outweigh all the rash asser