assembly disperse. I have not thought it necessary to mention the prayers and singing which are interspersed among these exercises. The meeting on Thursday generally continues until half past one or two o'clock, and has been the most interesting meeting on those occasions when I have been present, which I have ever witnessed.

do

5th. The next question is, “In what form or degree you hold the church in your connection, subject to your discipline or control?" I anwer, in no form or degree. For myself, I consider a particular church the only ecclesiastical court established by the great Head of the Church; and if the Conference, from a love of power, were to assert any authority over the churches, I would not attend another meeting.

6th. You ask, "Is a church allowed to secede, and what is the penalty of secession ?" Churches choose delegates or not as they please; they send them to the Conference when they please.

7th. You ask, "What is your mode of communicating with distant churches ?" We have no mode of communicating with any churches, unless they send delegates to the Conference.

8th. You ask, "Do you require evidence that their pastors concur with them?" (that is the churches.) No question is ever asked about the pastors. If the churches send delegates, they are received, and form part of the Conference; if the churches omit to send their delegates, no questions are asked. If the church

es have got pastors who are opposed to sending delegates, they must settle the controversy among themselves. The Conference has nothing to do with it. With respect to your observations on the subject of intemperance, if I remember right, the Conference did in one instance recommend to the churches to adopt measures to prevent intemperance. This is a subject that the churches can manage for themselves.

All the other questions in your letter I believe are already substantially replied to. I have taken pains, Sir, to give you this detailed account, that no misapprehension might rest on your mind, or on that of any of the brethren of your church. These meetings have been so signally blessed by the Holy Spirit, that we are afraid to alter them in any particular; and where the Lord leads, we need not be afraid to follow. In these operations of the churches, the prophecy is literally fulfilled, "there shall come people, and the inhabitants of many cities; and the inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, let us go speedily to pray before the Lord, and to seek the Lord of Hosts; I will go also."

That the Lord may warm the hearts of all the brethren, and of all ministers, so that they may earnestly and sincerely desire, and labor and pray that revivals of religion may be extended and enlarged, is the prayer of yours, T. DWIGHT,

It was natural for Mr. Dwight and others who had taken an active part in these Conferences, and who had shared so richly in their blessings, to regard them as an important means of promoting revivals of religion, and to desire the renewal of them upon any indication of general attention to religion throughout the State. Two or three attempts were made to revive the Conference, (one so lately as the last winter,) but they were unsuccessful. The probability is, that it could not be resumed with any thing like its former interest and usefulness. It originated in peculiar circumstances. It grew up gradually and naturally. Its novelty enhanced its interest, and the general prevalence of religious solemnity prepared the way for its extensive usefulness. To go to work mechanically to introduce the same system without regard to circumstances, to recommend it as an infallible mode of awakening interest in religion, because it had once proved eminently successful, would be a sort of religious empiricism, at variance alike with the dictates. of good sense and the laws of Divine Providence. If circumstances like those in which it originated should again arise, we doubt not that it would prove, as it then did, a highly useful measure. We should love to witness such scenes as are described in connection with the Conference of the Churches; but we cannot make them; they must come "from above."

What has been said of the Conference of the Churches, is true substantially of protracted meet

ings, and the labors of itinerant evangelists. Mr. Dwight approved most heartily of both these methods of promoting revivals of religion. He animadverted somewhat severely through the columns of the New York Evangelist, upon the resolutions of the General Association of Connecticut in 1836, respecting itinerant revivalists, known familiarly as "the Norfolk resolutions." His theory upon the subject was, that there is in human nature a love of novelty, which will bring a congregation together to hear a distinguished preacher from abroad, at times when they would not assemble to hear their own pastor; and also, that the thoughts must be concentrated upon the truth by frequent preaching, before the power of worldliness can be broken, and the soul subdued to Christ. These are correct and important principles.* Their soundness is admitted by many of the leading clergymen of our land. They are precisely the principles upon which politicians conducted the great Presidential campaign of 1840, and on which they are again acting at the present hour.

It was not characteristic of the Athenians alone, that they "spent their time in nothing else but either

* On the same principles, Mr. Dwight was of the opinion that churches might be benefited by a somewhat frequent change of pastors; but in this he attached too little importance to the character and influence which a minister acquires by long residence among a people, and which constitute an accumulating capital for future years of usefulness.

to tell or to hear some new thing." We must avail ourselves of this love of novelty and excitement in religion; and endeavor not only by the ordinary and established means of grace, (on which we must place our main reliance,) but also by extraordinary measures, varied according to circumstances, to arrest the attention of worldly men to the truths of the Gospel. But on account of this very love of novelty, (if for no other reason,) the system of protracted meetings, anxious seats, and preaching by evangelists, should now be modified or discontinued. These "measures" are no longer "new;" and "that which is old is ready to vanish away."

Ten or fifteen years ago, the appointment of a "four days meeting," or the visit of an evangelist, would of itself excite general attention, and bring together a large concourse of people. But it will not do so now. Could a pastor in a season of mere ordinary religious attention among his people, announce from the pulpit on the Sabbath, that Mr. Whitfield or Dr. Nettleton would preach in the place during the week, there would be no difficulty in securing a large congregation; though even their preaching might produce but little effect. But if he should give notice simply that A. B. or C. would hold a series of religious meetings during the week, who does not know that A. B. or C. would preach to empty seats?

The providence of God is leading his people at the present day to a deeper sense of personal responsi