the anticipation 'that these universal commotions are the forerunners of something exceeding glorious approaching' (iii. 414). The limited area of the disturbance perhaps raised less difficulty than the equivocal nature of many of the manifestations. In Edwards' imagination, Satan was always on the watch to produce an imitation, and, it would seem, a curiously accurate imitation, of the Divine impulses. As De Foe says, in a different sense-- Wherever God erects a house of prayer, The devil always builds a chapel there. And some people were unkind enough to trace in the diseases and other questionable products of the revival a distinct proof of the 'operation of the evil spirit' (iii. 96). Edwards felt the vital importance of distinguishing between the two classes of supernatural agency, so different in their source, and yet so thoroughly similar in their effects. There is something rather touching, though at times our sympathy is not quite unequivocal, in the simplicity with which he traces distinct proofs of the Divine hand in the familiar phenomena of religious conversions. The stories seem stale and profitless to us which he accepted with awe-stricken reverence as a demonstrative testimony to the Divinity of the work. He gives, for example, an anecdote of a young woman, who, being jealous of another conversion, resolved to bring about her own by the rather naif expedient of reading the Bible straight through. Having begun her task on Monday, the desired effect was produced on Thursday, and she felt it possible to skip at once to the New Testament. The crisis ran through its usual course, ending in a state of rapture, during which she enjoyed for days 'a kind of beatific vision of God.' The poor girl was very ill, and expressed 'great longings to die.' When her brother read in Job about worms feeding on the dead body, she 'appeared with a pleasant smile, and said it was sweet to her to think of her being in such circumstances' (iii. 69). The longing was speedily gratified, and she departed, perhaps not to find in another world that the universe had been laid out precisely in accordance with the theories of Mr. Jonathan Edwards, but at least leaving behind her--so we are assured--memories of touching humility and spirituality. If Abigail Hutchinson strikes us as representing, on the whole, rather a morbid type of human excellence, what are we to say to Phebe Bartlet, who had just passed her fourth birthday in April 1735? (iii. 70). This infant of more than Yankee precocity was converted by her brother, who had just gone through the same process at the age of eleven. She took to 'secret prayer,' five or six times a day, and would never suffer herself to be interrupted. Her experiences are given at great length, including a refusal to eat plums, 'because it was sin;' her extreme interest in a thought suggested to her by a text from the Revelation, about 'supping with God;' and her request to her father to