The lectures were closely examined by Mr. Sawyer before large congregations. It was a grand opportunity, and he improved it. This review was afterwards given to the public through the press. The attack intended to check the spread of Universalism served to increase and strengthen it. During Mr. Sawyer's subsequent pastorate of thirteen and a half years, other controversies followed. With Rev. Mr. Slocum, a Presbyterian clergyman, he held a discussion that occupied fourteen evenings, and added twenty families to the Universalist congregation. He answered Rev. Mr. Remington, a Methodist clergyman, and reviewed Rev. Dr. Parker's lectures on Universalism. These lectures of Mr. Parker had been preached and published in Rochester some years before, and were, without essential alteration, repeated in several churches in New York. Mr. Sawyer happened to possess the Rochester copy of the production, and very much to the astonishment of many he replied to the learned Doctor's lecture on the very evening after he had delivered it in the immediate neighborhood in the morning. Another debate was also held by Mr. Sawyer with Rev. Mr. Hatfield, the substance of which was published in a small volume entitled "Universalism as it is." It was a rule with this sentinel on the Universalist watch-tower in that city never to allow any antagonist of "the faith," whose position and character deserved attention, to pass unnoticed or unanswered. The Orchard Street Church was emphatically a success. After Mr. Sawyer left it in 1845, it enjoyed the effective pastorates of Rev. Otis A. Skinner, since deceased, and Cyrus H. Fay (still useful and honored among our older ministers), and others. It has probably done more for the diffusion of Universalism than any other single society in the State. All the societies in its immediate neighborhood, Bleecker Street, Murray Street, Fourth Street, Brooklyn, and Williamsburg, were first formed by members of Orchard Street, and may be regarded as offshoots from that parent stock. It labored not merely for itself, its own ease or aggrandizement, but for the good of the cause, a veritable missionary institution.