"The  interest  awakened  by  his  lectures  is  of  the  most
deliberate  and  dispassionate  kind,  and  though  it  is  the
greatest  revival  I  ever  saw,  yet  there  is  the  least  passionate
excitement. It  seems  to  take  the  greatest  hold  on  the
male  part  of  the  community. What  pro'duces  the  effect
is  this:  Bro. Miller  simply  takes  the  sword  of  the  Spirit,
unsheathed,  and  lays  its  sharp  edge  on  the  naked  heart,
and  it  cuts;  that  is  all. Before  the  edge  of  this  mighty
weapon,  infidelity  falls,  and  Universalism  withers. False
foundations  vanish,  and  Babel's  merchants  wonder. It
seems  to  me  that  this  must  be  a  little  the  nearest  like
apostolic  revivals  of ,  anything  modern  times  have  wit-
nessed."

A  short  time  after. Eld. Fleming  wrote  again,  as  follows:
"At  some  of  our  meetings  since  Bro. Miller  left,  as  many  as
two  hundred  and  fifty,  it  has  been  estimated,  have  expressed
a  desire  for  religion,  by  coming  forward  for  prayers;  and
probably  between  one  and  two  hundred  •  have  professed
conversion  at  our  meeting;  and  now  the  fire  is  being  kindled
through  this  whol?  city,  and  all  the  adjacent  country. A
number  of  rumsellers  have  turned  their  shops  into  meeting-
rooms,  and  those  places  that  were  once  devoted  to  intem-
perance and  revelry  are  jiow  dievoted  to  prayer  and  praise.'
Others  have  abandoned  the  traffic  entirely,  and  are  con-


48  ADVENT  CHRISTIAN  HISTORY

verted  to  God. One  or  two  gambling  establishments,  I
am  informed,  are  entirely  broken  up/  Infidels,  deists,
Universalists,  and  the  most  a,bandoned  profligates,  have
been  converted;  some  who  have  not  been  to  the  house  of
worship  for  years. Prayer-meetings  have  been  established
in  every  part  of  the  city  by  different  denominations,  or  by
individuals,  and  at  almost  every  hour. Being  down  in
the  business  part  of  our  city,  I  was  conducted  into  a  room
over  one  of  the  banks,  where  I  found  about  thirty  or  forty
men,  of  different  denominations,  engaged  with  one  accord
in  prayer,  at  about  eleven  o'clock  in  the  daytime!  In
short  it  would  be  almost  impossible  to  give  an  adequate
idea  of  the  interest  now  felt  in  this  city. There  is  nothing
like  extravagant  excitement,  but  an  almost  universal
solemnity  on  the  minds  of  all  the  people."

The  same  gracious  effects  followed  Mr. Miller's  labors  in
Portsmouth,  N. H.,  as  in  Portland. 