there should be a pause or a lull, so that I could stand some chance of making myself heard, I would give them a piece of Jack Wheatley’s mind. In a word, I resolved to give them a downright scolding, and to tell them plainly what fools they were to suppose that they could please God by acting like so many bedlamites or howling dervishes. “Well, after some fifteen or twenty minutes, there came a slacking up, and I opened my mouth. I remembered what my old rhetoric master had taught me, though how I came to is a puzzle, and resolved to begin in a modest and conciliatory manner. It would not do to shock them in the outset. I must first gain their ears and their good-will. So I began with a grave face and a solemn tone, and made some commonplace remarks on religion, and the duty to love and worship God, meaning, (after my preliminary remarks, intended to gain the jury,) to bring in, with crushing effect, my rebukes. But the brethren did not wait. Mistaking me for a pious exhorter, they cried out almost at my first words, “Amen!” “Glory!” “Bless the Lord!” “Go on, brother!” Will you believe it? Instantly I caught the enthusiasm, became possessed by the =genius loci=, entered in spite of myself into the spirit of the meeting, and gave a most magnificent methodistical exhortation. The brethren and sisters were edified, were enraptured, and when the time came for the meeting to break up, the leader requested me to close the performances with prayer, which I did with great fervor and unction. The spell lasted till I got out of the house into the open air.” “So Saul was among the prophets,” remarked Mr. Winslow, as Jack concluded. “I am not surprised, for something similar occurred to myself when I first began to preach. There is, I believe, something infectious in these Methodist gatherings, and a wise man often finds himself acting in them as a fool acteth.” “Few wise men, I should think, ever go near them,” I remarked.