All accounts concur in representing the state of religion and morals in this country at the commencement of the eighteenth century as most deplorable. The court of Charles II had been more profligate and less patriotic than any court in Europe; and during his long reign of thirty-six years, and the short reign-four yearsof James, his successor, liberty, religion, and national honor declined and expired together. The accession of William III restored our honor and liberties, yet we discover few signs of improvement in morals; and during the reign of George I and George II, England sunk lower in ignorance and immorality than at any period since the Reformation. Among the educated classes, a sneering skepticism was almost universal. Bishop Butler, in the preface to his Analogy, dated 1736, remarks: "It is come, I know not how, to be taken for granted by many persons, that Christianity is not so much as a subject for inquiry; but that it is, now at length, discovered to be fictitious. And accordingly they treat it as if, in the present age, this were an agreed point among all people of discernment, and nothing remained but to set it up as a principal subject of mirth and ridicule, as it were, by way of reprisals, for its having so long interrupted the pleasures of the world." Nor were the morals of the upper classes better than their creed. Marriage was despised; sisters, daughters, and wives of the most loyal subjects, the greatest generals, the wisest statesmen, and the gravest judges, not only practiced, but unblushingly avowed the grossest licentiousness. The. most noble and elegant ladies of the court, in their ordinary conversation, were accustomed to utter such oaths as are now heard only among navvies and bargemen. The poet-laureate, in 1681, published a poem, in which he appears to advocate polygamy, or something worse; and this work of his is said to have been univer

sally read and quoted, even in discourses from the pulpit. As to the magistrates, the vivid picture which Macaulay has given of Richard Baxter before Jeffries, is a specimen of the manner in which scores of justices of the peace conducted business. The poor man withdrew unheard; the rich man transgressed with impunity; justice was sacrificed to interest; and many a magistrate, intoxicated as he sat upon the bench, swore, "I never have committed a gentleman yet, and I never will."

While the upper classes were in such a condition, it is not to be expected that the people should be either refined or virtuous. Scarcely a novel or a play published during that period could now be read throughout in any family circle in the kingdom, so gross was the public taste as compared with what it is at present. Even the polished compositions of Pope and Prior contain passages which, at this day, no one would think of reading in a mixed company. The contempt in which marriage was held led to family discords, and mutual bitter hatred of relatives, among all ranks, from the first two Georges downward, to an extent of which it is difficult for us in this age to form any conception. John Wesley mentions how painfully he was affected, at the beginning of his labors, by the cursing and swearing of little children. As to the Sabbath, it was no where kept. Respectable shopkeepers, even professors of religion and members of Churches, regularly did three or four hours' business on the Sunday morning; closed their shops about ten o'clock, and attended divine service afterward. In the villages, when Church services were over, the congregation turned into the church-yard, or strolled toward the village green, with the parson at their head, to enjoy a game of cricket; the evening was spent at the ale-house, with beer and cards, often under the same reverend sanction. "The latter part of the day," writes

rural parsonages, the reverend resident occupied no higher position, as it regards his tastes, his language, his style of behavior, or even his education, than would a country cattle-jobber of the present day. In 1713 Bishop Burnet wrote the following description of the candidates for holy orders, and of the younger clergy: "The outward state of things is black enough, God knows; but that which hightens my fears rises chiefly from the inward state into which we are unhappily fallen. Our ember weeks are the burden and grief of my life. The much greater part of those who come to be ordained are ignorant to a degree not to be apprehended by those who are not obliged to know it. The easiest part of knowledge is that to which they are the greatest strangers; I mean the plainest part of the Scriptures, which they say, in excuse for their ignorance, that their tutors at the universities never mention the reading of to them; so that they can give no account, or at least a very imperfect one, of the contents even of the Gospels. Many can not give a tolerable account of the catechism itself, how short and plain soever. The ignorance of some is such, that, in a well-regulated state of things, they would appear not knowing enough to be admitted to the holy sacrament. The case is not much better in many, who, having got into orders, can not make it appear that they have read the Scripture, or any one good book, since they were ordained. These things pierce one's soul, and make him often cry out, O that I had wings like a dove, for then I would fly away and be

at rest."

And in what condition were the Dissenters? We find the best men among them deploring the unhappy condition into which their body had fallen. Among the Baptists, Dr Gill, the commentator, and others, declined, in their pulpit ministrations, to urge sinners to repentance.

This was called the "non-application scheme." Ivimey, in his history of the Baptists, observes, "What with the anti-evangelical and moral discourses of the principal Presbyterian ministers, the stiff regard to precision of discipline among the Independents, and the cold, dry, uninteresting doctrinal statements of the leading Baptists, had not God raised up the Methodists, men of another character from each, and uniting the excellences of all of them, the rapid decline of the Churches must have gone on with an accelerated motion." No wonder the Churches were declining, for we find Dr. Guyse, a leading Independent, exclaiming, "How many sermons may one hear that leave out Christ, both name and thing, and that pay no more regard to him than if we had nothing to do with him!" "Alas," cried John Barker, then seventy years old, "Christ crucified-salvation through his atoning blood-sanctification by his eternal Spirit, are old-fashioned things, now seldom heard of in our churches. A cold, comfortless kind of preaching prevails every-where." The more fashionable Dissenters of that day had learned to sneer at their noble Puritan fathers, and had lost all power over the mass of the people. Watts had done good service by his admirable hymns, and by his other writings, but he was in feeble health. Doddridge was a charming Christian— sound in faith and practice, and lamented the state of things; but he was timid. "If I err," he said, "I would choose to do so on the side of modesty and caution, as one who is more afraid of doing wrong than of not doing right. But when the world is to be remarkably reformed, God will raise up some bolder spirits, who will work like your London firemen; and I pray God it may not be amidst smoke, and flames, and ruin." There were many excellent men among the Dissenters of that day, but they were afraid of being thought informal.

To quote the Rev. Robert Philip, "They were as great sticklers for order as some of the bishops. Field preaching was as alarming to the board as to the bench. The primate could have as soon quitted his throne, as a lead. ing Non-Conformist his desk, to preach from a horseblock or a table in the open air."

But the time of visitation was at hand. God, who often spared the Hebrew people for the sake of their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and who delayed the infliction of judgment on Solomon for the sake of his father David, was pleased not to permit the light which had been kindled in these realms by Ridley, and Hooper, and Latimer, and rekindled by Baxter and Howe, to be totally extinguished. The lamp had burned brightly of old, fed by the prayers and labors of great and brave men then laid down to rest; it was now burning dimly, and the smoking wick indicated that it must soon expire; but He who doth not quench the smoking flax was secretly qualifying and preparing his servants to go forth, and once more enlighten and arouse the nation. At a country inn in Gloucestershire, a round-faced, bright-eyed lad of fifteen, in his blue apron, was washing mops, scouring rooms, and drawing beer for his widowed mother, the landlady. He had been educated at a grammar-school, for his mother had intended him for some thing better; but her business having declined, her son had become her common drawer. At a country parsonage in Lincolnshire, a poor but noble couple were struggling with poverty, debt, and a large family; the income was insufficient to maintain eight children, besides which, neighbors had cheated them, and their house and furniture had been twice burned down; so that the little lads had to run about without shoes, and occasionally to go to bed with a mother's blessing instead of a supper; yet that mother gave her children the rudi