is a crown of glory in heaven for me, which I shall shortly wear." "A few minutes before he expired, holding his brother William by the hand, he broke out in the following rapturous expressions: 'Farewell, my brethren! farewell, father and mother! farewell, world with all thy vain delights! Welcome God and Father! welcome sweet Lord Jesus! welcome death! welcome eternity! Amen.' Then, with a low voice, he said, 'Lord Jesus, come Lord Jesus!' And so he fell asleep in Christ, and obtained an abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom of his God and Saviour."* Charles, his youngest brother, was also a minister, but his character suffered an eclipse. Mr. William Tennent was a most laborious minister. "He hated and despised sloth," says Judge Boudinot. He was a faithful servant of Christ, and considered no work too much to do for the Lord he loved, and for souls he wished to save. His last days were spent amidst the revolutionary struggle for independence. This cause he aided by his prayers. In March 1777 he was seized with fever, which terminated fatally on the 8th. Among the last words he uttered, addressed to the medical gentleman attending him, were these: "I have no wish to live, if it should be the good pleasure of my heavenly Father to call me hence." He was buried in his own church, in the presence of his people, who "loved him as a father, revered him as the pastor and bishop of their souls, obeyed him as their instructor, and delighted in his company as of a friend and brother." "Memoir," by Gilbert Tennent. Spirit, by whose operation Faith and holiness proceed, Source of heavenly conversation, Strength in weakness, help in need! Spirit, by whose inspiration Prophets and apostles spake, Martyrs bled, and tribulation Saints endured for Jesus' sake! Lord, endue us with Thy blessing, Give us Abram's faith unshaken, Give us Joseph's chaste behaviour, To herself, with frowns or smiles; Give us grace and strength for shunning This ensnaring Potiphar, Wisdom to elude her cunning, Give us Moses' intercession, When he pleaded, wept, and prayed, 'That the people's sore transgression Might not to their charge be laid. Let us not with selfish coldness See the sinner go astray, But with Moses' holy boldness Plead and wrestle, weep and pray. Give us David's bold defiance Of the Lord's and Israel's foes, And, in trouble, the reliance Which on God, his Rock, he shows; His right princely disposition, Friendship, constancy, and truth, But still more his deep contrition For the errors of his youth. Arm us with the stern decision Of Elijah, in these days When men, led by superstition, To false gods new altars raise. Let us shun the mere profession Common in our days and land, Witnessing a good confession, Even if alone we stand. Give us the apostles' daring, And their bold undaunted mood, All shall taste and know through Thee. Give us Stephen's look collected, Show us Christ at God's right hand. Spirit, by whose operation Faith and love and might are given, Source of holy conversation, Bearing seed and fruit for heaven. Spirit, by whose inspiration SPITTA. VI. TIIE REV. ASAHEL NETTLETON, D.D., THE AMERICAN EVANGELIST. HEN it pleases God to send a time of unusual refreshing upon any portion of his Church, and to pour out in great measure his Holy Spirit upon the souls of men, it is highly becoming and indispensably necessary that his ministers and people should evidence the highest wisdom in all their dealings with the souls of the awakened, the recently converted, and the revived. A time of revival is a season when the mighty power, the unbounded love, and the unsearchable wisdom of God, are strikingly displayed. But on this very account is it necessary that the greatest wisdom, prudence, charity, and order of men of God, should be exhibited in their highest degree. There is a tendency in the world to revile the work of God; in the formal to discredit it; and in the cold professor to doubt it; while there is a tendency in the awakened and the converted, and sometimes even in the spiritual director, to be ex travagant, to mix faith and sense, and to set up visions and fancies for the oracles of God. We may learn a lesson from those who have gone before, and who were the honoured instruments, in the hand of God, of a saving blessing to thousands. Sketches of the revival work of such men as Nettleton, M'Cheyne, Burns, and others of recent times; of Edwards and Tennent, Robe and M'Culloch, Whitfield and Wesley, Berridge and Grimshaw, and others of a past epoch, cannot fail to be full of suggestions of great practical value. Ere proceeding to the subject of this sketch, let us make another remark. In the commencement of the dispensation of the Spirit, awakenings and conversions on a large scale were the experience of the Church. In a very short period after the outpouring of the Spirit, eight thousand converts were added to the Church in Jerusalem. In the last epoch of this dispensation, as pictured by the pen of prophecy, conversions on a large scale are evidently to gladden the Church. The question, then, may be fairly asked, Are these the normal effects of the gospel? The history of revivals proves that at every period of spiritual awakening, conversions were Has the Church, then, lost at times the art of prayer and faith, in relation to the awakening of souls? Have its formal prayer and feeble faith made the heavens decline their showers and the hearts of men their furrows? It is to be feared that we have not been rightly aroused ourselves, and have not laboured in faith and with prayer for large blessing. May the tide of awakening which has been in our day rising on every side, bear all God's people, as well as many careless sinners who are high and dry upon the strand, out into the ocean of unbounded blessing. numerous. ASAHEL NETTLETON was born in North Killingworth, Connecticut, U.S., April 21, 1783. He was first aroused to spiritual anxiety in 1800, during a period of Pentecostal blessing to the churches in the land of the Pilgrim |