The exhortation nearly resembled that which I had heard at “the Revival,” but the result was very different; for, instead of the few hysterical women who had distinguished themselves on that occasion, above a hundred persons,, nearly all females, came forward, uttering howlings and groans, so terrible that I shall never cease to shudder when I recall them.  They appeared to drag each other forward, and on the word being given, “let us pray,” they all fell on their knees; but this posture was soon changed for others that permitted greater scope for the convulsive movements of their limbs; and they were soon all lying on the ground in an indescribable confusion of heads and legs.  They threw about their limbs with such incessant and violent motions, that I was every instant expecting some serious accident to occur.

But how am I to describe the sounds that proceeded from this strange mass of human beings?  I know no words which can convey an idea of it.  Hysterical sobbings, convulsive groans, shrieks and screams the most appalling, burst forth on all sides.  I felt sick with horror.  As if their hoarse and over strained voices failed to make noise enough, they soon began to clap their hands violently.  The scene described by Dante was before me:-

    “Quivi sospiri, pianti, ed alti guai
     Risonavon per l’aere—­
     —­Orribili favelle
     Parole di dolore, accenti d’ira
     Voci alti e floche, e suon di man con elle.”

Many of these wretched creatures were beautiful young females.  The preachers moved about among them, at once exciting and soothing their agonies.  I heard the muttered “Sister! dear sister!” I saw the insidious lips approach the cheeks of the unhappy girls; I heard the murmured confessions of the poor victims, and I watched their tormentors, breathing into their ears consolations that tinged the pale cheek with red.  Had I been a man, I am sure I should have been guilty of some rash act of interference; nor do I believe that such a scene could have been acted in the presence of Englishmen without instant punishment being inflicted; not to mention the salutary discipline of the treadmill, which, beyond all question, would, in England, have been applied to check so turbulent and so vicious a scene.

After the first wild burst that followed their prostration, the meanings, in many instances, became loudly articulate; and I then experienced a strange vibration between tragic and comic feeling.

A very pretty girl, who was kneeling in the attitude of Canova’s Magdalene immediately before us, amongst an immense quantity of jargon, broke out thus:  “Woe! woe to the backsliders! hear it, hear it Jesus! when I was fifteen my mother died, and I backslided, oh Jesus, I backslided! take me home to my mother, Jesus! take me home to her, for I am weary!  Oh John Mitchel!  John Mitchel!” and after sobbing piteously behind her raised hands, she lifted her sweet face again, which was as pale as death, and said, “Shall I sit on the sunny bank of salvation with my mother? my own dear mother? oh Jesus, take me home, take me home!” Who could refuse a tear to this earnest wish for death in one so young and so lovely?  But I saw her, ere I left the ground, with her hand fast locked, and her head supported by a man who looked very much as Don Juan might, when sent back to earth as too bad for the regions below.