Excerpt from The Revival in Its Physical, Psychical, and Religious Aspects

Tun striking forms taken by the Revival in Ulster have attracted so largely the attention of the public, that one main difficulty to a serious consideration of the subject has been overcome. All classes are satis fied, however various their modes of accounting for the revival movement, that they are in the presence of a great fact. Whether it be true, as so many think, that it is due to the direct working of the Holy Spirit, or as many others think, that it is the direct working of the Devil to lead souls astray, or as the Materialists think, that it is simply a reproduction, in a somewhat new form, of a physical disease, its facts are ac knowledged after the keenest scrutiny, and are testified by thousands of intelligent witnesses.

This is a great point gained, for there have been many movements, which did not receive such acknow ledgment through the older days, of spiritual forces, not entirely similar in all their points of interest, but bearing a strong analogy with the now revival, and by the light of which, the true nature of what we are now inquiring into can be better discussed, and more broadly enquired into. Indeed from a review of those older movements, one is inclined to think that probably the newest thing about the present revival is the temper of the time upon which it has fallen, which has given so large an audience of atten tive listeners, and so many intelligent and enquiring Christian men, who, admitting its facts, want to know in what they originate, and how they are to be accounted for.

This is the large enquiry, then, which is before us. Are these the days spoken of through the prophet Joel, I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions, and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my Spirit 1 Or is the whole a snare of the Satan, against which we should raise the warning voice, and hold up the strong arm to repress it? Or shall we invoke the aid of medicine and drugs to restore that healthy condition of the body, the-want of which alone per mits the continuance of the phenomena which are brought so strikingly before us?

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