Prayer-meetings." When they were written, the author had seen the "Life of the Rev. Thomas Scott;" and the chapter was certainly prepared with the intention of inducing prayer-leaders to be careful. From the desire to avoid the admixture of controversial with devotional subjects, the matter was, however, but very briefly alluded to; and it is also desired that nothing in this edition of "The Gift of Prayer" should partake of any spirit which would be inappropriate to what ought to be its general character. But prayer-leaders should be made acquainted with the observations which have been made concerning them; and it may also be as well that their censors should know that, though their criticisms occur in very estimable volumes, we do not acknowledge the conclusiveness of their reasoning.

No one thinks of publishing a book in reply to the memoirs of SCOTT and HEBER; or to the episode in the biography of NEFF; but the friends of prayer-leaders do question the justness of some of the remarks in those volumes, and conceive that they inflict an undeserved imputation on a most useful exercise, and on some of the best men in various departments of the Church of Jesus Christ.

The reader will at once perceive the intention

of these suggestions, by attending to the following extract, from pages 152-155, of the second edition of "A Memoir of FELIX NEFF, Pastor of the High Alps, by W. S. GILLY, M.A., Prebendary of Durham, and Vicar of Norham."

"The practice of holding prayer-meetings, or assemblies of Christians for mutual edification, has been frequently put to the proof, but I have heard of very few instances (and those only where the organizations and proceedings were under the most sage control) in which they have not proved a temptation and a snare to some of those who have been engaged in them, for want of being kept under proper and competent management. There is a seductive tendency in them, which ministers to vanity and fond conceits; and while the humble and the diffident may be rendered uneasy and distrustful of their condition, because they cannot take a ready part in the conversation, or act of supplication in behalf of the rest, the forward may be puffed up, and indulge in lofty opinions of their own attainments. I remember well, that, in my visit to Dormilleuse, my companions and myself brought away an unfavourable opinion of a young man, who represented himself as leader in one of these assemblies, and who certainly held himself in high estimation above his companions, because of the fluency which he had acquired. Whether it was simplicity, or forwardness, he made no hesitation in telling us, that the prayer-meetings could not be maintained without him.

"A clergyman of our own church, whose name, in many places, is one of no small authority, the Rev. Thomas Scott, was once the curate of a parish where the system had been tried, under the most cautious and prudent superintendence, but he found himself constrained to refuse giving his countenance to it. For modest reasons of his own, he did not oppose himself to the practice in that parish, but he watched

its effects, and pronounced decidedly upon its inutility. He afterwards went so far as to declare that he thought it very unlikely that prayer-meetings, under any regulations, 'could be conducted in such a manner that the aggregate good would not be counter-balanced, or even over-balanced, by positive evil.' His opinion is of the greater value, because of the diffidence with which he offered it, and of the reasons he assigned for it. But I am, I fear, prejudiced,' said he, 'as the evils which arose from those meetings at Olney induced such an association of ideas in my mind, as probably never can be dissolved. Two or three effects were undeniable. 1. They proved hot-beds, in which superficial and discreditable preachers were raised up, who, going forth on the Lord's-day to neighbouring parishes, intercepted those who used to attend Mr. Newton. 2. Men were called upon to pray in public, whose conduct afterwards brought a deep disgrace upon the gospel. 3. They produced a captious, criticising, self-wise spirit, so that even Mr. Newton could seldom please them. These things had no small effect in leading him to leave Olney. 4. They rendered the people so contemptuously indifferent to the worship of God at the church, and, indeed, many of them to any public worship in which they did not take a part, that I never before or since witnessed anything like it, and this was one of my secret reasons for leaving Olney."*

"The necessities of his mountain parish, and its deprivation of ministers and regular services, may in some degree justify Neff for proposing an expedient of so doubtful a nature; but one, who, like himself, went forth into a region where the harvest was ready, and the labourers few, has left his testimony on record, that, even in extreme cases, we must not resort to measures which are liable to abuse. The effect of them,' said Bishop Heber, when consulted upon this subject, is not only often confusion, but, what is *Life of Scott, 7th edition, p. 518.

worse than confusion, self-conceit and rivalry: each labouring to excel his brother in the choice of expressions, and the earnestness of his address; and the bad effects of emulation mixing with actions in which, of all others, humility and forgetfulness of self are necessary. Such too is that warmth of feeling and language, derived rather from imitation than conviction, which, under circumstances which I have mentioned, are apt to degenerate into enthusiastic excitement, or irreverent familiarity.'

These are grave charges; and they are made by persons for whom a large number of the friends of prayer-meetings have much Christian esteem. Their "works praise them in the gates;" and it seems difficult to account for such language, as proceeding from such men, without supposing either that each had witnessed some unlovely exhibition from some inconsistent prayer-leader; or, that the esteemed objectors were severally regarding prayer-meetings through some medium of vision common to them, but not that through which hundreds of other ministers of Jesus Christ have been accustomed to regard them. If the former of these suppositions be correct, it is of great consequence that prayerleaders should exercise a profitable care, lest their unwatchfulness should pain benevolent and pious minds, and cause even their "good" to be "evil spoken of." The latter case would involve some questions of ecclesiastical polity, the merits of

other institutions, and the rights of Christian laymen, to the discussion of which it might be inexpedient to devote this preface; but even on that supposition, it would not be undesirable that the distinctive positions of the objectors should be observed and understood. On either hand, therefore, especially as these objections have been poured forth in successive editions of valued biographical works, it may be proper to remember,

1. That Felix Neff had found the prayermeetings useful in his particular circumstances; and that his biographer was opposing, not illustrating, the practices of the pious subject of his memoir.

2. That the "re-unions" in the High Alps differed considerably, in their peculiar character, from the ordinary routine of an English prayermeeting; and that, if they even had produced the supposed effects, other prayer-meetings would not, of necessity, be liable to similar objections.

3. That whatever may have been the experience, or the observation, of the esteemed objector, there are pious persons and ministers who have heard of many instances in which prayer-meetings "have not done harm."

4. That the establishment of a few cases in

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