peared among them at unexpected times and in unexpected places; remained with them for a few hours and then vanished-they knew not where. There was a mystery which must have awed them. During the forty days between the resurrection and the ascension theirs must have been a "fearful joy." Then came ten days of prayer and hope and wondering expectation. Then Pentecost. The great promise was fulfilled. The Holy Ghost descended. The new morning in all its splendour broke upon them. The visible presence of Christ was no longer with them; but there is no hint or trace that they looked back with any regret either upon His

earthly ministry or upon

which they knew that at might appear to them.

those six weeks in any time their Lord They had abounding

happiness - the energy, the spring, the high spirits of youth. "And the Lord added to them day by day those that were being saved;" and this increased their joy.

We are celebrating the hundredth anniversary

of the opening of this building for Christian worship. When it was opened there was a similar buoyancy of spirit in the Evangelical Churches of this country; and of them, too, it might be said, in the very words of Luke, "the Lord added to them day by day those that were being saved."

The Congregational Church meeting in this place was founded in the year 1785. Their first minister was Mr. Tuppen. Some years before, while living an irreligious life, he had gone to hear George Whitfield, who was preaching on a common near Portsmouth. He went-not, indeed, from mere curiosity; nor did he go with any wish to receive religious benefit, but to disturb the congregation and to insult Mr. Whitfield. He says, 66 I had therefore provided myself with stones in my pocket, if opportunity offered, to pelt the preacher; but I had not heard long before the stone was taken out of my heart of flesh, and then the other stones, with shame and weeping, were dropped one by one out upon the ground." He became one of Mr. Whitfield's

preachers, and was, for some time, a minister

at Portsea.

When he came to Bath in 1785 the congregation was very small, and consisted of less than thirty persons; in the course of three or four years it rose to 700 or 800. They worshipped for a few years in a building on the Lower Borough walls, but this soon became too small for them, and they built a new chapel on this site, which was opened on Oct. 4, 1789. When the chapel was opened, however, Mr. Tuppen's health was broken, and he was never able to preach in it.

The first sermon was preached by Mr. Jay, who was at that time about to leave his first pastorate, at Christian Malford, and who had often preached for Mr. Tuppen during his illness. Early in 1790 Mr. Tuppen died, and Mr. Jay, who had become the minister of a chapel at Clifton, belonging to Lady Maxwell, accepted the invitation of the Church to become his successor. Mr. Jay remained the pastor of the Church for sixty-two years; in October, 1852, he

resigned. He had recently been suffering from severe and alarming illness, and felt that his strength was gone. In the December of the following year he died.

It is not my intention to follow the history of the Church and congregation during the years which have passed since Mr. Jay's death. But I propose to say something of the Evangelical Revival of the last century, of which this building is the visible monument and memorial.

This building, I say, is the visible monument and memorial of the Evangelical Revival. Those who erected the original chapel on this site-which, I think, was twice enlarged during Mr. Jay's ministry-had caught the new fire which the Revival had kindled in innumerable Christian hearts. Their first pastor, as I have reminded you, was drawn to Christ under the preaching of George Whitfield, and his conversion, in its suddenness, and in all its circumstances, was typical of the conversions of that glorious time. Mr. Jay's conversion was also

the result of a Methodist service.

He was

careful indeed to express his dissent from those unwise persons who, he says, "refer to their conversion not as the real commencement of a work which is to continue increasing through life, but as something which may be viewed as a distinct and unique experience immediately produced, originated, and finished at once, and perfectly determinable as to its time and place and mode of accomplishment." He had no such story to tell. His boyhood was free from grave sins; "but I began,” he says, " to feel my deficiencies with regard to duty, and to be dissatisfied with the state of my heart towards God." Just then a private house in the village where he was living was opened for Methodist services, and he tells us that he was "peculiarly affected" by "the singing, the extemporaneousness of the address, and the apparent affection and earnestness of the speaker; and what he said of 'the faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners,' was like rain upon the