The question may arise: Ought a series of meetings to be commenced when there is no special religious interest apparent? I reply: It seems to me that certainly equal reasons exist for the appointment of continuous meetings to awaken interest in the subject of religion, as for the appointment of such meetings to awaken interest in temperance, politics, or science. The same mental law is invoked in all such cases--viz., that _continuous_ attention to a subject causes the mind to become interested and absorbed in it and rouses the will to act respecting it. Now, as the Holy Spirit works in the soul, not contrary to the constitution God has given to the mind, but in accordance with it, the interest thus awakened by continuous attention to the religion of Christ would seem to furnish the natural conditions for the Spirit's work. And as the Gospel of Christ is the most important subject to which the attention of men can be called, there would seem to be the highest reason for the application of this mental law by appointing continuous meetings in order to fix men's attention upon it. In protracted meetings, however, there are sometimes serious evils, which a pastor should carefully avoid. Of these I mention: 1. A mere man-made excitement, in which the effort is rather to inflame the religious feelings than to enlighten and strengthen religious conviction. Such an appeal to the emotional, apart from the rational, nature results ordinarily in a disastrous reaction in the direction of indifferentism and skepticism. Many a field has been burnt over by these _pseudo_-revivals, and they constitute the most difficult fields for Christian labor, because religion has thereby been put under contempt. 2. A protracted meeting entered on for secondary ends, as to pay off a church debt or to strengthen the position of an unpopular pastor. Where a revival is sought without dominant regard to the glory of God and the salvation of souls, the effort is a failure. 3. A tendency to dependence upon protracted meetings to the disparagement of the ordinary means of grace. Great care is needed to guard against this, as it is destructive to the tone and effectiveness of church-life. The pastor, in prayer and sermon, should be careful to keep prominent before the people, not the revival as the great hope of Christian life and progress, but the right us of the usual, constant means of grace. Some ministers habitually speak as if the work of God in conversion and sanctification were restricted to seasons of revivals, and the effect is pernicious. To avoid this false reliance on special services, it is well not to appoint them at any stated intervals, or to push them in any way into special prominence. 4. In the reaction which occurs after the extreme nervous tension of a protracted meeting, guard against relapse in the converts. In the life of a plant the period of greatest peril is when it is transferred from