carefully; for "ye are God's building"--"ye are God's husbandry."




REVIVALS.

I.

THEIR NEED.


"An awakening" expresses better than the stereotyped phrase "revival,"
the idea of a wide-spread interest in religious truth. This is the
response to the righteous demand, "Awake, thou that sleepest, and
arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light," for at such a
time men but awake to the reality of truth, which was previously dim
and shadowy to them as things seen in dreams; or formerly the awful
facts of God's revelation had been as pictures hung up on the wall,
which now suddenly become alive.

Before entering on the discussion of this rather delicate subject, there
is one question which we would respectfully press upon the attention of
the reader, and that is, Whether he would like a revival of genuine
religion? We do not question him regarding his sympathy with any
particular form in which the supposed revival might come, far less with
any of those peculiarities which are supposed by some to be necessarily
characteristic of a revival; but supposing that such an awakening or
revival occurred by means of any agency, or any process, that it was
accompanied by such outward signs of calm and peace as he himself would