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Now, this jargon, this false application of scriptural expressions, is from a reverend Divine, -- a D. D. -- a President of an American College; and the fanatical excitement, the terror, the agony, the intense cerebral action which he was exciting in youths committed to his care, is a fair specimen of what is going on, probably at this moment, in several parts of our country, under the name of religious revivals. You are probably aware that a regularly organised system of measures is often put in action to get up a revival; that almost any one may, if he has the recipe, and a knowledge of human nature, succeed in doing so. One of these measures is the protracted meetings; which are continued for days and weeks together; which call women from their domestic duties, children from their schools, and men from their workshops, to play a part in an assembly, little if any more reasonable, than a set of dancing dervishes. A late writer says on this subject, --

"It appears to me, there is not a candid and intelligent person in the community, but will acknowledge, that thus assembling men, women, and children, and talking to them, exciting them, and making them anxious and disturbed for days and weeks, on any other subject than religion would prove injurious to their health. How then can any one doubt, that continued mental agony on the subject of religion, is not as dangerous as similar excitements upon any other subject; or suppose that people are more likely to escape disease, if exposed to its causes when attending religious meetings, than they would be, if similarly exposed, by attending theatres, balls, or assemblies of any other kind?"

No one who has attended the religious meetings under consideration, or who has read accounts of them in religious periodicals, will say they are not powerfully exciting, and productive of great mental distress. Indeed, this is what the conductors of these meetings seek to produce, and what is published as evidence of their utility, and of the operation of the Holy Spirit. The most careful narrators of the proceedings at these meetings, and of the effects which they produce, mention the "unusual excitement," the "great solemnity," the "tears and groans," the "audible sighing and sobbing," "weeping aloud in the sanctuary," "trembling and turning pale," of "despair," &c. And then of "relief from suffering," of "joy and rejoicing," of "glowing and burning with holy love," &c. &c. Those who become excited and agitated, are called "the mourners," "the anxious," "the alarmed," or by other names, significant of their disturbed minds.

Now, I shall say nothing of the demoralizing effects which often arise from these excitements, nothing of the humiliating exhibitions of fanaticism and folly, which accompany them; my business is with their physical effects; and if there is any virtue in human reason, any dependence upon human science, these are injurious, dangerous, and often eventually fatal.

Excessive cerebral action, strong and continued nervous excitement is always injurious; nature knows no exception to her laws; and it is absurd, to suppose the Holy Spirit arrests their operation in these particular cases. Besides, it is certain that those particular states of extacy -- of trance -- of inspiration, "which the zealous point out with such triumph, are sometimes brought on by various nervous diseases; are seen in catalepsy; and may be produced by animal magnetism; and if they are the result of the operations of the Holy Spirit in the one case, why are they not in the others?

But I need not dwell on this subject; it will be conceded, I trust, that religious excitement in the extent to which it is often carried in this country; violates the laws of nature, by causing excessive cerebral action, that it must be prejudicial to physical health, and that whatever is so, cannot be of God.

The effect of all these various causes of too great cerebral excitement which I have mentioned, may be classed in two divisions; such as arise from an undue expenditure of the cerebral influence as a whole; or such as arise from over stimulus of particular organs.

Under the first head may be noticed many forms of disease, peculiarly prevalent in the United States, which evidently arise from excessive cerebral action; but of which I shall only notice dyspepsia and insanity.

Dyspepsia, that canker-worm which gnaws at and slowly undermines the soundest constitution, prevails in this country to an extent unknown elsewhere in the world: of this there is no manner of question; nor is there a doubt, that it prevails much more in the present, than in past generations. The causes are obvious: there must be a communication between the stomach and brain, by means of the nerves, in order that the digestive process may go on well; interrupt this communication, and you stop digestion; restore it, and it goes on again. Now, if the brain is exhausted, if its influence is carried to another part, and not to the stomach; or, if it be so impaired that it cannot afford nervous stimulus to the stomach, digestion is impaired, precisely as the muscles of the body cannot contract without the necessary cerebral stimulus is sent to them, and as the strength of the contraction is mainly dependent upon this stimulus. Now, give to two dogs a full meal, let one lie down and rest, so that the whole cerebral influence may be exercised over the stomach; and set the other to hunting, let the cerebral influence be expended upon the muscles, and withdrawn from the stomach, and in four hours, examine the two; the stomach of the first will be found almost empty, and the food converted into chyle; the other will contain what the dog had eaten, and but half digested. But I will spend no words on what is now admitted as an axiom by all physiologists, phrenological, and anti-phrenological; there is no doubt but the great majority of cases of dyspepsia in this country, arise from an abuse and over excitement of the cerebral organ; and those few which form the exception to this, arise from some violation of the organic laws; from eating too much, or too fast, or too hot, all of which may be claimed as American, and errors of our social system. And, we may add, that we take not sleep enough for digestion; Caesar would have found few here to answer his purpose, when he said, "Let me have fat, sleek-headed men about me, such as sleep o'nights." But he would have said of us as he did of Cassius, "Yon Yankee has a lean and hungry look; he thinks too much; such men are dangerous."