a marked change was visible. His sermon, like his own soul, was irregular and unbalanced. The quick eye of Dr. Wentworth discerned the minister's condition. Now it was that friendship could make itself felt. He affected to have much need of the minister. He carried him to-day in one direction to counsel a dying person to- morrow he consulted him respecting some orphan cliildren. It was necessary, too, it seemed, that he should go with Dr. Wentworth to a school district lying remote from the village. During these rides, which were every day varied, he gently drew from the minister an account of his experiences, and prescribed so skilfully for both his moral and his physical need, that months of suffering, and perhaps the usefulness of his life, were saved. " Nothing exhausts vitality faster than the exer- tion of the will," said Dr. Wentworth. "Already the tone of your nerves is lost. You are still ) VILLAGE LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND. 211 further reducing yourself by attempting to re- strain and combat irregular and morbid action by simple will-power. The disease and the remedy are both of them exhausting you. Let yourself alone. Avoid solitude. Turn to the help of others. Take on business which will occupy without tasking your mind. Nothing is half so medicinal for our troubles as benevolent sympathy and occupation in the troubles of others. This is the true moral recreation." " But is it right, Doctor, that one should seek relief firom trouble sent of God, except by going to the hand that has afflicted ?" "He seeks God who accepts His laws," said the Doctor. "The best prepartion for personal communion is a devout fulfilment of the duties owed to God through natural laws. He who asks God's help should at least show respect to his laws, and not make prayer merely a petition for the suspension of the penalties of the violated laws of mind." Dr. Wentworth's efibrts availed so &r as to rescue the minister from the danger of breaking down in health. Little by little his spirits rose. Yet life seemed changed and emptied. He turned p 2 212 nobwood; ob,' all his powers into his ministerial work. A new fervour filled his preaching. His appeals became more tender and solemn. It was noticed that gradually the audience was filling up. Men listened with more earnestness. Week after week the community were moving together in one direc- tion, under the influence of the profoundest sentir ments which can inspire the human souL Judge Bacon was sitting [in Dr. Wentworth's library, one Sunday evening, and seemed unr usually talkative. Yet there was an emphasis and point not ordinarily observed in his half- negligent and polished manner. " The parson has a grand batttie on hand." ' Ah ! I don't understand ? " "Why, he has for several weeks past been sweeping around the people with his grand doc- trines; and now the circle is formed, and he is driving in toward the centre. Oh, you'll see rare slaying before long!" Dr. Wentworth made no answer, but sat as one who is meditating. ' You can see," said Judge Bacon, " every Sunday he advances a step. I've seen this thing before. I know how it will end. By and by there VILLAGE LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND. 213 Will come a break-down ^then, like frightened sheep, a crowd will make a rush toward the church-doors, pell-mell. After a while a count will be made and the results published. The upshot of it will be, that while before one hundred selfish bustling disagreeable people lived outside of the church, afterwards they will live inside of the church that's all ! " Still Dr. Wentworth made no reply. At length Judge Bacon said abruptly, " Doctor, do you believe in revivals ?" ^^ Certainly.'' " You surprise me ! I had supposed that you were too firm and intelligent a believer in Natural Law." " It is on that ground that I believe in Eevivals. In every department of life men are moved in masses, and as it were with social contagions. Few men in anything act alone. They kindle themselves in the simplest employments by social contact. Social enthusiasms have characterized the progress of the race in every department of society." " Because societies have been rude," said Judge Bacon, ^^and men have been animal in nature; 214 nobwood; or, and it is no wonder that their animcd feelings should be excited." " On the contrary," replied the Doctor, ** animals are not subject to social enthusiasms, or only in the most rudimentary manner. Men are sus- ceptible of such excitement, in proportion as they recede from animal conditions. In art, in amuse- ments, in social improvement, in patriotism, men tend to act in masses, to be kindled by each other to enthusiasm; and such conditions develop, not obstruct, the active i)owers. This social excite- ment is favourable to taste, affection, judgment, and reason. I do not know why moral emotions should be exempt from this same law. "But you can plainly see that these things are got up. I can give you a prescription for a revival." "Why not?" replied Dr. Wentworth. "Is not education * got up'? Is not art culture *got up ' ? Is not your own profession and mine *got up'? Why should men be afraid to speak of moral states as the result of deliberate and intentional effort? Why should not men apply the term education to moral fetculties as well as to others ? and study for moral results as they VILLAGE LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND. 215 do for social or aesthetic? Are not the moral sentiments subject to laws as much as any other parts of the mind ? " " Yes ; but church people imagine that revivals descend upon them from above, that they are mysterious and divine, ^that the less human agency is concerned in them the purer they will bel" "It is only another instance/' said the Doctor, " in which a fact is recognized before the theory of its causation is understood. I do not the less believe that a divine influence is experienced be- cause it pursues the channels of established law* Men account for phenomena by natural laws, as far as their knowledge goes, and then they ascribe whatever is left over, beyond their knowledge of causation, to superior beings. The higher ranges of human experience are the most complex and subtle, and seem mysterious because the lines of causation are finer and more spiritual. But the profoundest mysteries of human experience will one day be found to furnish the most admirable illustrations of the universality and constancy of natural laws." " I don't see, Doctor ; but you are as bad as the 210 kobwood; ob, rest of tlicm. I shall have to be a philosopher without company. It will never do for as to Hubrnit to tin's influence. An enthusiasm in my mind would mix up things worse than a wind in my study would dishevel my papers. I shall stand aloof and see others act." I'hc Doctor continued *' All nations pretending to moral life have been Kul)ject to these outbursts of feeling. It is all very well to declare that a gradual and constant progress in goodness would be better. Such is not the law of development. Nations advance by [Miroxysms. The race has gone up, not by steady imi)rovcment but by leaps with long rests between. At a later period, when society has reached a higher plane than at present, progress may become even, uniform, and constant. At present that 8e(jms impossible. And we are to regard these moral freshets as admirable, relatively to the wants of the whole commimity." Here the discussion ended, for that time. We have little idea of the power of truths till we see their action, without obstruction, upon a whole community that is aroused to a sensitive and sympathetic condition. Truths ordinarily run VILLAGE LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND. 217 through societies as gold does in rocks a thin vein shut in by wide measures of stone. When enough men hold a truth in common to give to that truth a social influence, its range and power become greatly increased ; but no one knows the very royalty of a truth until the whole com- munity are aroused, made sensitive and sympa- thetic, and give to truth the force of glowing enthusiasm. Not only is the power of a truth thus disclosed, but a community is knit together and enriched by being made subject to some one worthy impulse all together, by consciously hold- ing some great truth with a common enthusiasm. And if the truth is a profound moral truth, and the enthusiasm a moral enthusiasm, no man can measure the cleansing, inspiring, and strength- ening influence arising &om such a unity and intensity of experience as it produces. The indirect effects of those moral experiences called revivals, in vivifying the moral sense, ele- vating the sentiments, and giving to daily life a larger moral element ^in bringing over secular things the shadow of the Infinite, are so impor- tant that they should be accounted great benefits. 218 nobwood; OB, quite independently j^of the special personal re- formations which they work, This religious movement, which was itself re- motely connected with Dr. Buell's bereavement, was one of the occurrences which we alluded to in the last chapter as having an important in- fluence upon Barton's life. It brought to a head a long train of moral symptoms. With his mental organization, and with the domestic influences which had from his child- hood been acting upon him, Baxton Cathcart could hardly fail to be of a religious turn. But in New England, pre-eminently, the religious dispositions and affections are required to be conjoined with the great philosophical 'state- ments of religious truths. It is not enough that one is good, he must be sound. There is a practical toleration toward those whose lack of education or feebleness of mind gives no power of reasoning upon such themes as are involved in the great doctrines of revealed religion. But in proportion as men are educated is the demand intensified that right affections shall proceed from right beliefe. VILLAGE LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND. 219 Young Caihcart, during the last two years of his college course, had found his religious life passing from a state of acquiescent acceptance into one of eager questioning. His Beason was asserting its sovereignty. Should he believe be- cause his parents and teachers did? Should he suffer himself, among so many sects, holding widely different beliefs, to be located without any deliberate investigation or honest judgment of his own ? Was a man to be superscribed by his parents, like a letter, and sent to this or that church?" To this rebound of reason from youthful faith was added the influence of scientific studies, to which his taste had strongly inclined him. But the result was far other than he had anticipated. He proposed to himself to open, investigate, and settle, one by one, the great truths of religion* He but half succeeded. He opened, but could not close. He had power to bring into doubt every one of his childhood beliefs; but he had neither the experience nor the grasp required to conduct them back to certainty. He began to feel that convictions did not follow logic. The feelings must be consulted, and the 220 NORWOOD; OB, imagination as well as the reason, in re-establish- ing faith. At one time he would drift far away from ail positive belief. All the more familiar truths seemed paralyzed. As men look back upon na- tions in the olden time, and know that amid their fondest convictions they were in profound error that their gods were myths, their histo- ries half fables, and their theology a mere fio- tion ; so now and then it came