Biblical Landmarks

IN one of the western counties, the writer of this paper was recently present at an evening Evangelical prayer-meeting. The congregation were partly church-goers, partly dissenters of various denominations,
united for the time by the still active revivalist excitement. Some were highly educated men and women farmers, tradesmen, servants, sailors, and fishermen made up the rest: all were representative specimens of
Evangelical Christians, passionate doctrinalists, convinced that they, and only they, possessed the ‘Open Sesame’ of heaven, but doing credit to their faith by inoffensive, if not useful, lives. One of them, who took a leading part in the proceedings, was a person of large fortune, who was devoting his money, time, and talents to what he called the truth. Another was well known through two counties as a hard-headed, shrewd, effective man of business; a stern, but on the whole, and as times went, a beneficent despot over many thousands of unmanageable people.

The services consisted of a series of addresses from different speakers, interchanged with extempore prayers, directed rather to the audience than to the Deity. At intervals, the congregation sung hymns, and sung them particularly well. The teaching was of the ordinary kind expressed only with more than usual distinctness.