We may add to this statement, as showing in some degree the extent of this revival, that while in 1729 the number of members in the Congregational and Presbyterian churches of this country may be estimated at thirty-three thousand, the number of communicants in 1745 could not be less than seventy-five thousand. "The _special_ revivals of religion," says an able writer in the "American Quarterly Register," vol. 4, 1832, "were probably the means of adding from twenty thousand to thirty thousand members to the churches." The same writer adds, "The genuine fruits of holiness appeared, according to the acknowledgment of all parties, in multitudes of those who professed religion. They were Christians, who endured unto the end. This is the unanimous testimony of those men who were the best able to judge. Great numbers who were convinced of sin by Mr. Whitefield's preaching, gave ample evidence, living and dying, of sincere and fervent love to the commands of God. There is reason to believe that a _preparation_ had been made for the descent of the Holy Spirit, many years before the revival commenced. The fasts and public reformations, the prayers and tears of good men, from 1700 to 1730, were not in vain." One fact connected with the testimony against Whitefield, published by the faculty of Harvard college, we quote, as showing that then, as well as now, a difference of opinion existed as to written and extempore sermons. They thought his extempore manner of preaching "by no means proper," because extempore preachers are of necessity less instructive, the greater part of the sermon being commonly "the same kind of harangue which they have often used before, so that this is a most lazy manner" of preaching; and because it exposes the preacher to utter rash expressions, and even dangerous errors, as Whitefield, they thought, had done in several instances, probably from that cause. Assuredly he preferred extempore preaching to any other; yet he never pretended to preach without previous study. His sermons usually cost him as much previous labor as if they had been written; so that, in his case at least, it was not "a lazy way" of preaching. The errors which they said he had uttered, were a few hasty expressions, which he had retracted as soon as he had been reminded of them.