And this, if only for the possible impression likely to be created by such an action among the peoples of those countries to whom, with ridiculous inconsistency, we presume to send missionaries for the purpose of “converting” them to a Creed we ourselves drag through the mire of doubt in our daily press. Fortunately, however, the matter, deplorably as it has exhibited our “religion” to the eyes of “heathen” nations, has now come to an end. It has worked no change,--it has strengthened no weak places,--it has helped no struggling effort towards good. The Soul of the Nation has not been moved thereby, and it is the Soul of the Nation--that great, silent patient and labouring Soul with which all religion has to do,--that Soul, which the Christian Creed, ever since it was first preached in Britain, has raised to such a height of supremacy and power, that it needs all its reserve of sober courage and devout humility to help it bear its honours greatly. For has it not been said--“Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall!” One may look upon the innate spirit of Revivalism, exemplified in the hysteric wave of preaching, praying and psalm-singing that has recently spread over Wales and other districts, as so much instinctive and natural popular rebellion against the insidious flood of atheism which has for the past ten years been striving to poison all the channels of man’s better health and saner condition,--rebellion too against the apathetic coldness and shameless indifference of the ordained clergy to the clamorous needs of those neglected “flocks” which they are elected to serve. “Enough,” say the People, “of shams and shows!--enough of ministers who only minister to themselves and their own convenience!--enough of the preaching of the Gospel by men who do not and will not fulfil a single one of its commands in their own lives and actions! Let us have something forcible and earnest,--let us be permitted to _feel_, even though we shout and sing ourselves hoarse with the emotion which has been seething in us for years,--an emotion which we cannot explain to ourselves, but which craves, with a passion beyond all speech, for some touch of Heaven, some closer comprehension of that ‘After-Death,’ which God keeps back from us like a prize or a punishment for His obedient or rebellious children! Anything is better than the cold dead inertia of the Churches, sunk as they are in a blind lethargy from which they only bestir themselves dully when a chance is offered to them of engaging in some petty personal quarrel. We are weary of priestly humbug, selfishness and inefficiency--we will gather ourselves together and re-assert our faith in the world to come, as true disciples of the Lord!” And whether such Revivalists elect to march under the banner of Cocoa Cadbury, (an excellent advertisement for Cadbury,) or any other emblazoned device of a successful trading concern, is not a matter of much moment. Starving folk will march