afford a good recommendation,—much encouragement for us to work solely through them, as Dr. Tucker demands, and put 'every dollar" of our money into their "control?" I know there are good men in the South, and always have been,-good and true friends of the colored man, deeply interested in his welfare. I am glad to believe that the number of such is rapidly increasing, and that Dr. Tucker, with all his mistaken ideas, is one of them. But, taking the southern whites as a whole, or as they average, what do they know, or think, or believe, or what have they done, to give them special fitness for mission work and to be the absolute almoners of our bounty, in behalf of the black man? Always regarding and treating him as an inferior, working for him condescendingly, if at all; disposed to approach him in a manner that, to all others, seems alike insulting to the race and opposed to the spirit of the gospel; adopting a method of dealing with him, if they adopt Dr. Tucker's plan of labor, that would degrade him were he to accept it; often reproaching him for the awful moral debasement, to the extreme depths of which he was plunged by their trampling, for two centuries, on all the sacred rights and duties of his social and domestic life; holding him up, ofttimes, to scorn, because of his alleged promiscuous animalism, which came of their annihilating the family in his race; and now lifting up their hands in holy horror because he calls his old heathenism by a Christian name, when he was trained to it by their persistently withholding from him the key of knowledge for all the generations of his bondage, and compelling him to live in continuous violation of all the commands of the Decalogue; and, finally, suffering two decades to pass without making any great effort to deliver him out of all his distresses, often hindering him in his own struggles to rise, often sadly ignoring, ostracising those who went down to do him good,that Dr. Tucker should judge men of such antecedents, sentiments and proclivities either fitted or available for good mission work among the Freedmen, or think the Freedmen would ever be willing to accept the treatment and teachings of such men, shows how little he as yet understands human nature, especially how "barely he knows a Negro when he sees him," and how utterly ignorant he is of the first conditions of success in 49

VOL. VI.

religious and educational work among any people. No wonder that, in his "appeal" to us of the North for means, he insists upon our doing as much for the white people, "the workers," as we do for the work, "if we would chain them to it and make them enthusiastic over it." But, in missions, the men who have to be "chained to the work" by such considerations, or by any thing save by the simple love of it, as done to Christ and his poor, will never be either very enthusiastic or very successful.

Another mistake which Dr. Tucker makes, the greatest and most fatal of all, and the last I will name,-indeed one to which I have already referred, is his adopting and urging the "color-line" as a base or condition of all educational and religious work in the South. His "plan" of separate schools, separate churches, a school and a church on one side of the street for the whites, a school and a church on the other for the blacks, though one school and one church were enough for both, a double system with, as he says, "double the expense," -such a plan, if adopted and acted upon, even for a time, would be found equally damaging,-just as slavery was,-to both races and all classes, intolerable, impracticable, and doomed to an ultimate, ignominious failure; being, as it would be, equally opposed to the word of God, especially to the example of our blessed Lord and the teachings of his apostles, to the genius of all our time-honored institutions, to the best phase of the in-coming and on-going spirit of the age, and to all the essential, undying elements, best instincts, and holiest aspirations of our common humanity.

ARTICLE III.—REVIVAL EXPERIENCES DURING THE GREAT AWAKENING IN 1741-44, IN NEW LONDON COUNTY.

THE Rev. Jonathan Parsons was the minister of the church. in Lyme, west parish, from 1730 until 1745. Shortly after his settlement there was "a great effusion of the Holy Spirit upon the people. There appeared to be an uncommon attention to the preaching of the Word, and a disposition to hearken to advice, and a remarkable concern about salvation." Mr. Parsons says: "I urged them very much to works, and gave it as my opinion that such awakened souls ought to attend upon the Lord's supper. And in less than ten months fifty-two persons were added to the church, and several whole families baptized." "But," he adds, "although there was such a fair prospect of a considerable harvest of souls, I have no special reasons to make me think that many were savingly converted to God in that season of concern."

The letters from which these sentences and the following account are taken were written thirteen years after this first awakening in the parish; and although at the time, Mr. Parsons was satisfied with the simple desire of people to unite with the church, he afterwards expresses doubts as to their conversion, requiring those who came to the church to relate their experiences of religion; which were certainly remarkable, according to his account of them to the Rev. Mr. Prince of Boston. In these letters he accuses himself of being "greatly in love with Arminian principles," and of "especially abhorring the doctrine of God's absolute sovereignty," at the time of this first revival in 1731, and expresses the opinion that "that might be one reason why awakened souls fell short of a saving change, and settled down upon the righteousness of the law." He renounced Arminian principles however, and turned "quite about in some of the most important doctrines of the Christian religion," and having changed his opinions he changed his style of preaching, which, together with the accounts that came to

the parish, of Mr. Whitfield's labors, caused an unusual interest in religion; the account of which is given by him to Mr. Prince, in April, 1744, when there were, he says, "upwards of of eighty families belonging to our congregation, besides some Baptists within the parish bounds." Mr. Griswold, who was then settled in the East Parish, now East Lyme, says there were then in his parish "betwixt sixty and seventy families, leaving out the Churchmen and Baptists."

This droll way of "leaving out" Churchmen and Baptists, prevents our knowing how large a proportion.of the population they formed; but indicates that they held aloof from the meetings of the Congregationalists, and did not sympathise with them in their extraordinary experiences. They seem to have been the conservatives then in New London county, though the Congregationalists have changed places with the Baptists in this regard, since then.

I extract from the letters of both Mr. Griswold and Mr. Parsons, accounts of the revival of 1741, in order to present as full a view of it as possible. "We, as well as the rest of the country, were grown very careless and stupid in matters of religion but little of the life and power of godliness was to be observed among us;-the communion was thin, the world and the follies and vanities prosecuted;-there was but little good discourse to be observed on the Lord's day."

If "thin communions" are an indication of the proximity of a revival, it would seem as though one were imminent now. And in tracing the events prior to the "Great Awakening," we find very much now-a-days so similar as to almost lead to the expectation of a general and intense revival of religion in the near future. "Thus things run, till the Rev. Mr. Whitfield came into the country, and people began to talk of religion and the best things." Mr. Parsons took special interest in Whitfield, and afterwards became his co-laborer. He gave him a home when he settled in Newburyport, after leaving Lyme; and there Whitfield spent his last days, and was buried; by the side of whom Parsons was laid at his death. When people began to talk of Whitfield and his work Parsons preached about it, and, he says, "this history, and the application of it in this sermon, had greater visible effects upon the auditory, than ever I had seen before."

"On the first of April, 1741, the Rev. Mr. Gilbert Tennent preached two excellent sermons in this place,-which were blessed to a great awakening among my people; and two or three were deeply wounded, so that they discovered it in their looks and behavior. The concern spread and increased apace, and persons were solicitous what they should do to be saved. And evening religious meetings were set up."

On the 14th of April, Mr. Parsons preached in the East Parish, and there it was that the remarkable exhibitions which characterized the revival, were first manifested. "The word fell with great power on Sunday. Some had fits, some fainted. After this, cryings out at the preaching were frequent. Outcrys, fainting, and fits were oft in the meetings." "Many have had such discoveries of the love of God and Christ, as to be overcome, and to lose their bodily strength thereby; which (latter peculiarity) I think was observed to begin toward the latter end of July, 1741."

On Sunday, December 10, 1741, Mr. Griswold preached in New London, North Parish, and on Monday also, when "the distress was so great among the people, that I was obliged to speak to compose and still them;-within the space of about two or three minutes after the blessing was given there seemed to be a wonderful out-pouring of the Spirit, many souls in great distress; and about three or four hours were spent in counselling and praying with them."

Mr. Parsons in a letter to Rev. Dr. Colman of Boston, dated December 16th, 1741, says of a sermon preached May 14th: "In the midst of this sermon, the Spirit of God fell upon the assembly with great power, and rode forth with majesty upon. the Word of Truth. In a minute's time the people were seemingly as much affected, as if a thousand arrows had been shot in among them." And to Mr. Prince he wrote, "several told me they had lived for years under the preaching of the gospel, and had never felt the power of God upon their hearts as at this time. Before, it was the cry of their hearts, when will the sermon be over ?'-but now the minister left off too soon, and the time between sermons was too long. Sometime in this month Mr. Griswold invited me to preach a lecture for him, and I consented. While I was preaching I observed many of