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the finder of the bundle , and the man accompanied her home and recovered every article of the lost property . She lived five miles from Harrowgate . " In commenting on this story , the writer says , " the impression was obviously of a preternatural origin , and probably made by one of those celestial spirits who are sent forth to minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation . "
Now , wherein is the difference between a Catholic and a Methodist miracle ? How gross is the credulity , how gross the ignorance , that still prevail in the midst of this nation , found not merely in the private village and the humble cottage , but in religious books , intended to enlighten the mind and save the soul ! Another instance of a like delusion occurs to us , wT ^ ich we lately met with in the review of a book just published , the Memoirs of Oberlin , a pastor of the Ban de la Roche , a man of considerable piety and goodness . The anecdote relates to the choice of a wife . " Only two days before the period fixed upon for her return to Strasbourgh , Oberlm felt as though a secret voice within whispered ' Take her for thy partner ! ' He , however , resisted the call . 'It is impossible , ' said he , almost aloud ; ' our dispositions do not agree . ' « Take her for thy partner , ' the voice still continued .
He spent a sleepless night , and in his prayers the next morning solemnly declared to God that if he would give him a sign , by the readiness with , which Madeline should accede to the proposition , that the union was in accordance with his will , he would cheerfully submit to it , and consider the voice he had heard as a leading of Providence . After breakfast the same morning , he found the young lady sitting in a summer-house in the garden . Placing himself beside her , he began the conversation by saying , ' You are
about to leave us , my dear friend : I have had an intimation that you are destined by the Divine Will to be the partner of my life . If you can resolve upon this step , so important to us both , 1 expect you will give me your candid opinion about it , before your departure . ' Upon this Miss Witter rose from her seat , and blushing as she approached him , placed one hand before her eyes , and held the other towards him . He clasped it in his own . The decision was made , a decision he never found cause to regret . "
The belief in supernatural and extraordinary influence has been a constant concomitant of nearly all the excesses which have lately disgraced the religious world , whether in America or England . It is the grand instrument in the hands of Revivalists , an instrument which they have wielded with terrible effect . Nor is its use limited to the more ignorant part of the religious community . Scarcely a month has passed for a long period , but one or more of the religious periodicals , under the sanction of grave divines , has
enforced the duty of praying for a large and fresh effusion of the Holy Spirit . True , the sense of decency , which the better informed have , prevents their errors from running to the excesses which prevail among the ignorant ; though we must be allowed to think that in proportion as they yield to die claims of good order , they abandon their principles , and we doubt not that the less informed religionists hold the belief of special interposition in its proper and genuine shape . We have had an opportunity of seeing
something of the way in which the notion of miraculous agency operates among them . We have seen something , and heard more on veritable authority , of the scenes which prevail when a society of Primitive Methodists undertake to convert a sinner . The priests of Bacchus were hardly more riotous and noisy in their terrific orgies . Imagine a poor creature of strong passions , of passions half frenzied by former excitements both in private and public , of passions rendered morbid by the consciousness of crime , lying
Untitled Article
Evangelical Mode of choosing * a Wife . 39
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1830, page 39, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2580/page/39/
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