sentiment. (3.) But another element still was the new Evangelistic spirit, which inaugurated and still informs those great movements of Christian benevolence, both at home and abroad, that are the glory of the age.  Dr. Payson’s ministry began just before the formation of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, and before his death mission-work had come to be regarded as quite essential to the piety and prosperity of the Church.  The Lives of David Brainerd, Henry Martyn, Harriet Newell, and others like them, were household books. (4.) Nor should the “revival” element be omitted in enumerating the forces that then shaped the piety and religious thought of New England.  The growth of the Church and the advancement of the cause of Christ were regarded as inseparable from this influence.  A revival was the constant object of prayer and effort on the part of earnest pastors and of the more devout among the people.  Far more stress was laid upon special seasons and measures of spiritual interest and activity than now—­less upon Christian nurture as a means of grace, and upon the steady, normal development of church life.  Many of the most eminent, devoted, and useful servants of Christ, whose names, during the last half century, have adorned the annals of American faith and zeal, owed their conversion, or, if not their conversion, some of their noblest and strongest Christian impulses, to “revivals of religion.” (5.) To all these should perhaps, be added another element—­namely, that of the new spirit of reform and the new ethical tone, which, during the third and fourth decades of this century especially, wrought with such power in New England.  Of this influence and of the philanthropic idea that inspired it, Dr. Channing may be regarded as the most eminent representative.  It brought to the front the humanity and moral teaching of Christ, as at once the pattern and rule of all true progress, whether individual or social; and it was widely felt, even where it was not distinctly recognised or understood.  Whatever errors or imperfections may have belonged to it, this influence did much to soften the dogmatism of opinion, to arouse a more generous, catholic type of sentiment, to show that the piety of the New Testament is a principle of universal love to man, as well as of love to God, and to emphasise the sovereign claims of personal virtue and social justice.  These truths, to be sure, were not new; but in the great moral-reform movements and conflicts—­to a certain extent even in theological discussions—­that marked the times, they were asserted and applied with extraordinary clearness and energy of conviction; and, as the event has proved, they were harbingers of a new era of Christian thought, culture and conduct, both in private and public life.