This seems to have been a very extraordinary dispensation of providence;
God has in many respects gone out of, and much beyond, His usual and
ordinary way. The work in this town, and others about us, has been
extraordinary on account of the universality of it, affecting all sorts,
sober and vicious, high and low, rich and poor, wise and unwise. I
reached the most considerable families and persons, to all appearance,
as much as others. In former stirrings of this nature, the bulk of the
young people have been greatly affected; but old men and little children
have been so now. Many of the last have, of their own accord, formed
themselves into religious societies in different parts of the town. A
loose careless person could scarcely be found in the whole neighborhood;
and if there was any one that seemed to remain senseless or unconcerned,
it would be spoken of as a strange thing.
This dispensation has also appeared very extraordinary in the numbers of
those on whom we have reason to hope it has had a saving effect. We have
about six hundred and twenty communicants, which include almost all our
adult persons. The church was very large before; but persons never
thronged into it as they did in the late extraordinary time.-Our
sacraments are eight weeks asunder, and I received into our communion
about a hundred before one sacrament, fourscore of them at one time,
whose appearance, when they presented themselves together to make an
open explicit profession of Christianity, was very affecting to the
congregation. I took in near sixty before the next sacrament day: and I
have very sufficient evidence of the conversion of their souls, through
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