Among many other interesting cases was that of a Dutchman. "Mine brodders," said he, "I have also mine story to tell about Gott's mercy. I was a great sinner, but I tot I was good enough. I tot it was enough to mind mine own business, and hear de parson once on a Sunday. All de rest of de Sunday I sat on de bench before mine door, drinking beer, smoaking mine pipe, and tinking about mine crops. But mine Shonny come home one day from one of de Metodist meetings, with his eyes all red, and said, 'O fader, we must come unto Christ, or we be all gone to ruin.' Shonny had been strange some days, and now, tot I, he is lost his senses. I called mine wife, and said, 'O wife, Shonny is ruined.' 'No, fader,' said he, 'I am seeking Gott's merey, widout which we be all gone to ruin.' And den he talked at me one quarter hour wid tears, telling me about sin, hell, and de Saviour, Jesus Christ. When I went to mine bed dat night, mine eyes could not be shut; I tot only of dese tings. I tot wat goot would be all mine lands and cattles if I die and go into hell? De next morning I could not eat mine breakfast. I said to mine wife she must send for de doctor. But I could not wait, mine heart jumped, and I fell on mine knees and cried out, 'O, mine Gott, have mercy on me,

for I am going down into hell.' Shonny prayed wid me, and we prayed so every day, and we went to de Metodist meeting, and, glory be to Gott, he had mercy upon us, through our Saviour, Jesus Christ, and saved us from going down into hell. And now, mine brodders, I trust in mine Saviour, and try to get to heaven."

Such are specimens, interspersed among some fifty or more other testimonials, most of which came burning from the heart, and were responded to audibly by the joyous and yet weeping assembly. I have selected the most remarkable, but others were worthy of record, had I space for them. Some were strongly characteristic, some full of the marvelous, others despondingly humble. A few spoke of dark and mysterious workings of the mind, baffled with spiritual anxieties; others stood on Pisgah's top and saw

"Sweet hills array'd in living green,
And rivers of delight."

Some were rejoicing in the enjoyment of perfect love, others had just entered into spiritual life, and a few, trembling with penitential anguish, implored the prayers of the assembly. Rapturous songs varied the scene, most of them

spirit-stirring stanzas from Charles Wesley, for the ditties of latter times had hardly begun to appear yet.

As I studied the scene before me I could not but admire the indications of character which it presented the felicitous effect of religion on all varieties of temperament, and the remarkable operation of the energetic system of Methodism in seeking out and combining, in a common brotherhood, such diversified elements.

The meeting closed by singing the beautiful and appropriate hymn,

"Blest be the tie that binds

Our hearts in Christian love;
The fellowship of kindred minds
Is like to that above."

LITERARY AND MORAL ASPECTS OF ENGLAND AT THE BIRTH OF METHODISM.

"Perilous times."-Paul.

THE circumstances which mark the origin of Methodism are no less interesting than those which distinguish its subsequent periods-they are in striking contrast with the latter, and must be considered in any just estimate of the singular success which has attended the development of the system.

The literature of the eighteenth century, particularly of its earlier part, is an important index to the moral character of that period. It presents a brilliant catalogue of names, among which are Addison, Steele, Berkeley, Swift, Pope, Congreve, Gray, Parnell, Young, Thomson, Rowe, Goldsmith, and Johnson, besides a splendid array in the more profound departments of knowledge. The intelligent reader may easily conjecture what must have been the moral aspects of English society when the loose wit of Congreve was the attraction of the British theatre, and, as Dryden declared, "the only prop of the declining stage." Never was the drama in higher repute: the theatre might

in fact be called the temple of England at this period. The best of her public writers, like Addison and Johnson, aspired to its honors. What must have been the respect of the people for the church when, among the clergy, could be found men like Swift and Sterne to regale the gross taste of the age with ribald burlesque and licentious humor? And what were the popular Peregrine Pickle, Roder

fictions of the day? ick Random, Tom Jones, and Joseph Andrews. The names of Smollet and Fielding obtained a renown which renders them still familiar; while that of Richardson, who, as Johnson says, 66 was as superior to them in talents as in virtue," is barely remembered. These were the parlortable books of the age, while on the same table lay also the Metamorphoses, translated by the wits of the period, with Dryden at their head, dedicated to the first ladies of the court, embellished with illustrations which modern delicacy would hardly tolerate, and teeming with the sensual pruriency which pervades the polite writings of that and the preceding age. Dryden died at the beginning of the century, and his writings, as full of vice as of genius, were in general vogue. The infidel works of Hobbes, Tindal, Shaftsbury, and Chubb, were in full circulation, and were powerfully reinforced by the