draw tears from thousands of hardened colliers,
upon such a society as that of Mr. Turner and his friends, accustomed
only to the discourses of their boon companion, the Rev. Mr. Porter.
The prevailing licence and the prevailing moral consciousness were
elements especially adapted to the work of the religious revivalist.
The effect of the sermons of Berridge is thus described by an
eye-witness[186]:

I heard many cry out, especially children, whose agonies were
amazing. One of the eldest, a girl of ten or twelve years old, was
full in my view, in violent contortions of body, and weeping aloud,
I think incessantly, during the whole service. * * * While poor
sinners felt the sentence of death in their souls, what sounds of
distress did I hear! Some shrieking, some roaring aloud. The most
general was a loud breathing, like that of people half strangled
and gasping for life. And indeed, almost all the cries were like
those of human creatures dying in bitter anguish. Great numbers
wept without any noise; others fell down as dead; some sinking in
silence; some with extreme noise and violent agitation. I stood on
the pew seat, as did a young man in an opposite pew--an
able-bodied, fresh, healthy countryman. But in a moment, when he
seemed to think of nothing less, down he dropped with a violence
inconceivable. The adjoining pews seemed shook with his fall. I
heard afterward the stamping of his feet, ready to break the boards
as he lay in strong convulsions at the bottom of the pew. * * *
Among the children who felt the arrows of the Almighty I saw a
sturdy boy about eight years old, who roared above his fellows, and
seemed, in his agony, in struggle with the strength of a grown man.
His face was red as scarlet; and almost all on whom God laid his
hand turned either red or almost black. * * * A stranger, well
dressed, who stood facing me, fell backward to the wall; then
forward on his knees, wringing his hands and roaring like a bull.
His face at first turned quite red, then almost black. He rose and
ran against the wall till Mr. Keeling and another held him. He
screamed out "Oh! what shall I do? what shall I do? Oh, for one
drop of the blood of Christ!"

These were violent remedies, but they were applied to a powerful
disease. If the revivalists did harm by the religious terrorism which
they excited, they yet had a