“They soon found that they were in the midst of one of the most extraordinary religious movements of modern times, silent, and sometimes untraceable, but potent and pervasive. In every important town of the empire where there were Armenians, there were found to be as early as 1849, one or more lovers of evangelical truth. But it was no causeless movement. The quiet working of the ‘little leaven’ was traceable almost from its source by indubitable signs. It was a notable sight to see when, in 1838, the Vartabed and the leading men of Orta Keuy, on the Bosphorus, where the missionaries first gained access to the Armenians, went and removed the pictures from the village church. It was another landmark when, in 1842, the fervor of the converts not only filled the city with rumors of the new doctrines, but, after a season of special prayer, held in a neighboring valley, sent forth priest Vartanes on a missionary tour into the heart of Asia Minor. A still more significant fact was when, in that year and the next, the Armenian women were effectually reached and roused, till family worship began in many a household, and a female seminary at Pera became (in 1845) a necessity. The brethren had observed the constant increase of the inquiries, often from a distance, and they had found, even in 1843, such a demand for their books as the press at Smyrna was unable to supply. In many places and at Nicomedia, Adabar and Aintab, books and tracts began the work. “The preaching services at Constantinople would be occasionally attended by individuals from four or five other towns. At Erzroom one Sabbath (February, 1846), there were attendants from six different places. The seminary for young men at Bebek (a suburb of Constantinople) drew visitors from great distances and from all quarters, as far as Alexandria, St. Petersburg, and the Euphrates. The native brethren also had been engaged in disseminating the truth, and the first awakenings at Killis, Kessab, and Eodosta, for example, were due to their labors. “From this time forth the enterprise became too broad even to trace in this rapid way. If the whole movement shall ever be suitably recorded the history of this reformation will be second in interest to no other than has ever been written. There are scores and scores of villages, each of which would furnish material for a volume, and multitudes of cases that recall the fervor, faith, and fortitude of apostolic times.”[89]