1864 335 times. This is not doing justice to his subjects, to himself, to his hearers. However well stocked his mind may be when he starts on his ministry, the matter must be exhausted before long, and the only possible chance of being able to hold the interest of his people will be that he is a reader, and a diffuse reader, so that he is continually taking in stock of various kinds to fill up the vacant lockers in his brain. A Dissenting minister is not thus strained. Whilst I was a youth, the Rev. Robert Aitken was attempting in West Cornwall to infuse revivalist principles into, and adopt revivalist methods in, the English Church. He was ordained in 1823, but withdrew from the Church and became a Wesleyan preacher. However, he returned to the Church in 1840, and was beneficed in Cornwall. He not only conducted sensational services in his own parish, but in any others into which he was invited, and he saw results ; but discovered in the end that they were unsubstantial. If he dared to look below the surface, he would have found that they flattered self-complacency. " A(itken) drew crowded congregations to his church, and made a great stir for about three years. At the end of that time his influence began visibly to diminish, and his congregations had dwindled down to their pristine paucity ; and, still a prophet in every man's parish but his own, his own had ceased to receive him. Self-respect compelled A(itken) to seek another sphere." 1 Of what value are the results that encourage the itinerant and revivalist preacher ? He never stays his hand to weigh them. That they should be evanescent, or mischievous, or spiritually hardening does not occur to him. He never stops to inquire. The superficial result satisfies him. The parish priest of the Church dare not use such methods. Being resident in his fold, he sees the results that ensue from these spiritual frictions. They give the scab to the sheep, and he cannot, he dare not adopt a course which he sees is antinomian or conscience-deadening. A dose of strychnine produces convulsions and contortions: so does a dose of/ spiritual poison. He has to plod on without seeing results, trusting but not perceiving. He has to weed out and strive against the paralysing effect of the deadly night-shade that has overrun the Church during four hundred years. He 1 Clerical Papers, by One of the Club, 1861.
