people at Alness; text Job xxxvi. 18. Twenty persons are said to have been awakened. Wednesday; he preached at Tarbet, in the open air, in the Gaelic language-great appearance of seriousness among the people-sobs and weeping. Thursday evening, preached at the Tent in Tain, to an immense congregation. Friday, at Edderton, in Gaelic from Jeremiah 1. 4, 5, 6,-several persons awakened. Same evening, in Tain Church, in the English language, when there seemed to be people affected in different parts of the Church. [N. B.-This was a month after the scene mentioned in the letter No. 1.] On Sabbath last, Mr Macdonald preached an evening Gaelic sermon at home (Urquhart). His text Habakkuk iii. 2. O Lord, I have heard thy speech and was afraid!' He said, in a striking manner, 'My friends, you have for many years been hearing my voice; but, will you not now hear the words of God himself addressing you!'-We trust the Holy Spirit was poured outabout one hundred were alarmed: -but none can yet say with certainty, what it will turn to. The people awakened here, are of all ages, but chiefly young persons."

No. 3.-From the INVERNESS COURIER of August 26, 1840.

"The great Religious movements which are taking place in various quarters of this country, are drawing a large share of attention; and a short account of what has occurred in the parish of Alness may not be uninteresting to some of your readers.

"The usual fast-day preparatory to the celebration of the Lord's Supper was held on Thursday the 30th ultimo, but nothing remarkable was observed on that day. The first symptoms of any thing like an awakening made their appearance on the Friday evening, when, under the ministrations of that faithful and self-denying servant of God, the Rev. Mr. Macdonald, Ferrintosh, a considerable number were brought upder concern, and made to cry out beneath the stings of an awakened conscience, "What must we do to be saved?" During the sermon which completed the duties of the Sacramental Sabbath, the movements in the congregation, which had been begun on the Friday evening, were increased to a much greater extent. Then, but more especially on the services of the following day (Monday), one could not cast his eyes around in any direc tion among the thousands collected on the occasion, without witnessing in almost every half dozen of hearers, one, if not more, deeply moved, some sobbing audibly, others, evidently by the greatest effort, restraining themselves from bursting out aloud, while many, utterly unable to command their emotions, gave vent in loud screams to their agonized feelings. Nor was this confined to any age or sex. The young and the aged, the gray-headed man and the child of tender years might everywhere be observed deeply affected; and we conceive we are within the mark when we say, that on this occasion many hundreds were brought under serious impressions; for there is scarcely a family in the district but has one, two, or more of its members under deep convictions. It was truly a heart-stirring sight, and we could wish that those who make a mock of such scenes could have looked upon it. Insensible to every good and holy feeling must he have been who could have beheld it with cold indifference.

"When witnessing or hearing of such events, one is irresistibly led to ask, Is this the work of the Spirit of God? Though time alone can give a perfectly satisfactory answer to this question, yet there are circum. stances attending this particular work which tend to show that it is indeed genuine, and not spurious. This revival has followed the means which the word of God teaches to employ. Prayer meetings have for some time been established through the parish by the faithful and zea

lous clergyman, Mr. Flyter, who has now had the satisfaction of seeing his labours blessed, and his supplications answered. There was nothing in the instrument which could lead us to attribute the result to him. He is well known to all who heard him, and his style of preaching is as familiar to most of them as is that of their own clergymen; and he has been often known to proclaim the thunders of Sinai with as much, if not with greater force, on previous occasions. Indeed, the terrors of the law and the consolations of the gospel were, as they ever ought to be, blended together.

"But whatever opinion may be formed as to this interesting event, it is a matter too serious to be laughed at or ridiculed; and sure we are, no man who has the fear of God in his heart will talk scoffingly or in mockery of such scenes. Reason against them, pray God to arrest their progress, if convinced that they are mischievous in their tendency; but, beware of hurling at them the withering sneer of contemptuous scorn. If genuine (and what good man would not wish to believe so), they are a token for good, and a proof that, desert her who may, God has not forsaken his church; and that in the difficulties into which she has been brought by Iscariots within, and Herods without, He will stand by her and defend her, and bring her unscathed out of every trouble that can assail her."

No. 4.-THE WITNESS-an Edinburgh Paper, July 22, 1840.

"We owe the following letter to the Montrose Standard. The Editor, a respectable intrusionist, and not at all more inclined to patronize revivals than most of his brethren, describes the writer as a person of unquestionable veracity and great sobriety of judgment. We deem his testimony valuable. Mr. Burns of Kilsyth would have written a different kind of letter in the circumstances, and so would the Rev. Mr. Pirie of Dyce; but it is something to be put in possession of the evidence of an individual who at least strives to write fairly, and who, if devoid of the experience of the one clergyman, would shudder to employ the language of the other.

"Tain, 15th July, 1840.

"MY DEAR ***. -I write you very hurriedly, to inform you of a fact of absorbing interest in this quarter at present, as I am anxious to anticipate the newspaper accounts of it. I mean, a religious awakening in the parish of Tarbat, and in part also in Tain, through the ministry of Mr. M'Donald, Ferrintosh. The sacrament of the Supper was dispensed at Tarbat a week from Sabbath last. Many persons were affected by Mr. M'Donald's preaching, but nothing remarkable was observed until the concluding service on Monday, when an extraordinary commotion spread through the congregation-many crying out in agony-many groaning-many weeping bitterly. He preached again that evening, and has preached several times since. Every night several have been awakened, and several now have found peace, and rejoice, as there is reason to believe, in Christ. One instance:-The man who, as the minster of Tarbat informs me, manifested the most painful bodily emotion of all, was first startled on Sabbath by seeing his wife proceed to the communion table; he used to persecute her for becoming so religious, but he did not know before that she had applied for admission to the Lord's Supper. Mr. M'Donald, in his table service, was led (accidentally? or providentially?) to state, that on the great day we should see the wife enter heaven, and the husband shut out. His agony became in expressible, and continued for several days; on Saturday, he was rejoicing, apparently on good grounds. "I have not been at Tarbat; I must briefly mention what I have witnessed here. On Thursday, there were several cases of awakening

-on Sabbath many. On Monday evening, Mr. M'Donald preached in Gaelic in church; and there occurred the most heart-rending scene I have ever witnessed. Towards the close of the sermon, the groans and cries became so great that the preacher was obliged to pause, and give out some verse of a psalm. Several fainted-many were groaning in agony -very many were weeping

"Now, I have honestly tried to account for this awakening on natural principles; and honestly, I am obliged to say, I cannot. I have supposed it sympathy; but long before the crying began, or those in one part of the church knew that those in another part were affected, many, many were weeping unnoticed, save by a few observers near them; every observer thought the commotion began first in his own part of the Church—it was so instantaneous; it was impossible it could be from sympathy (though very many, of course, were violently excited, when the emotion of those who were awakened, burst forth so violently). Throughout the parish there are many in deep distress and anxiety. I have seen two; one a boy of thirteen; I asked what moved him; he repeated certain expressions of Mr. M'Donald's. I have seen a woman in the deepest anxiety to be found in Christ. The most notorious prostitute in the town is awakened. They all can tell the reason of their alarm; it is not sympathy, then. I have tried to account for it by the eloquence of their preacher; but I have often heard him preach as eloquently, as forcibly, as alarmingly. The only outward antecedent circumstance was much prayer by the parish minister and others for an awakening; much and constant prayer among the men" for the effusion of the Spirit, and many meetings among the pious for that purpose. But outwardly such meetings can never account for the awakening of the careless, the profligate, and the light-headed. Account for it how you will, I have honestly, stated the facts."

6

"In the first Confession of Faith, drawn up by the Church of Scotland (1560), there is a section occupied by the notes whereby the true Kirk is discerned from the false.' Sathan from the beginning,' it is stated, hath laboured to deck first his pestilent synagogue with the title of the Church of God.' And hence the necessity of some distinguishing test. "Now, one of the assured' tokens, it is added, a token which the false Church does not borrow, is the faithful preaching of the Word, as revealed in the prophets and the apostles.' We are convinced that, tried by this test, the revival in Ross-shire will be found to be of no wild or extravagant character. We are not quite unacquainted with the clergymen named in the letter; and we know that sounder or more Scriptural divines are not to be found in connection with the Scottish Church, nor yet more judicious men. All our readers would sympathize with us in our feeling of pleasure of seeing, that the men' have been engaged in the work of revival at Tarbat, did they all know who the men' are. They are the venerable relics of the religious peasantry of a former age-a race well nigh worn out, even in those northern districts, and which, in the greater part of Scotland, entirely disappeared more than an age ago. The reader has but to cast his eye over the death Testimonies of Naphtali, or the Cloud of Witnesses, in order to acquaint himself with the character and the theology of the men.' Some of them have been living in the parishes of Moderate ministers for many years, travelling far on Sabbaths to hear clergymen of the better school,-maintaining churches in their humble cottages, when all around them was sinking into a state of indifferency and torpor; and hoding gloomily for the future as they grew up in years, and saw their devout friends and cotemporaries dropping, one by one, from beside them, and

men of a different stamp rising to occupy their places. It is something to see such men in their twilight of life, for the greater part of them are far stricken in years, finding cause of joy, after a long and dreary winter, in the indications of a second spring time. It serves, besides, to connect the present with the past by more than mere association, and furnishes as a guarantee for the nature of the present awakening, the experience of men recognized, both in their lives and their beliefs, some of them for more than half a century, as Christians of a high order.”

These testimonies are sufficient to attest the fact that there existed, at the time referred to, an extraordinary degree of concern on the part of very many people, in regard to their eternal interests; and that this state of concern was felt to be of a very unusual kind, and not to be accounted for on ordinary grounds. Let the following circumstances be considered.

1.-The Parishes in which these extensive movements have taken place, have not now been hearing the Gospel for the first time. By no means. Tarbet was for many years favoured with the pious ministry and spiritual preaching of the late Rev. W. Forbes. Tain long enjoyed the presence and ministrations of one of the holiest and most fervent of God's servants, the Rev. Dr. Mackintosh, who is gone to his heavenly rest. Urquhart also, for more than a century, has been blessed with a succession of Gospel ministers, some of the chief lights of the country. Alness and Edderton, until lately were not so favoured ;-still, nearly half a generation (or fifteen years) have passed, during which they too have had the truth preached with sincerity and with purity;—and even when they possessed not the Gospel themselves, they were in its near neighbourhood.

2. The chief instrument employed was not a stranger just come amongst the people affected, or one whom they had not before known. He was well known to those several parishes; for, during many years past, he has been in the habit of preaching in them, and so has become familiarly known to the people. His tones, his gestures, his divisions, his applications, are familiar to the Highlanders of Easter-Ross. For twenty-seven years has he been preaching amongst them;— so that his name is a household word with them. In his own parish also he has ministered during that period; and has ever seen the pleasure of the Lord prospering in his hand, in a greater or less measure.

3. This revival was unexpected. There was no previous excitement of mind, calculated to induce the persons interested to lay hold of even a straw, as an indication of a self-created movement. The intentness of mind was fixed on the Gospel of Christ, and not on a revival as a distinct and individual thing; and when the burst of irresistible feeling came, under the

sceptre of the Gospel, then was there surprise and astonishment. In some of the places there was no thought on the subject at all; and where there was, it was not concerning the peculiar externals of a revival, but concerning the grand realities of salvation.

4. Different persons, and of different views in religion agree in the peculiarity of this work, as manifested to them and witnessed by them. By all there is shewn a desire to write cautiously, but decidedly as to the facts of the case. The one class ascribe the effects produced to something extraordinary but impalpable ;-the other class at once attribute it to the agency of the Holy Spirit of God, because it corresponds with what is attributed to that agent in scripture.

But why multiply considerations to shew what, we trust, few of our readers will feel desirous of doubting-Let us rather improve the tidings which have been related, by a few serious thoughts, that may edify us, in our several spheres of action, as the servants of the Lord.

He that hath sent such a blessing there, is our Master here. He is the same Jesus-the same in remote Britain, and in this India. The trophies won there, He wears here. Our Master is honoured, and that is enough to us;-and if we mourn that he is rejected by the Hindu, let us rejoice that he is accepted by the northern Highlander, although we could desire to include both.

How mighty is the Spirit of God when. He comes forth in power! As Sampson rent the lion, so rendeth He a congregation at once. He hath no law of numbers; He doeth as seems good to Him. If there be a semblance of proportion in His operations, it is that He will honour most the agency of those who most honour His ministration. This has been manifest in the agency chiefly employed in the northern revivals-it has ever been distinguished for a distinct, constant, and powerful magnifying of the ministration of the Holy Ghost: alas! how rare a thing!

How unnecessary is the formation of new schemes for the conversion of sinners. The old one is not become feeble with age. The gospel, if preached in the spirit of the gospel, is sufficient in its original form for its original ends. Without any change, save in the purity of its ministration, and in the measure of the Holy Spirit's power accompanying it, the whole world may be converted in a day. No change would be required in its agency, save the multiplication of its messengers. Every minister has in his hand what will one day convert India.

If the time and measure of the effusion of the Spirit, depend