Several of the converts in the seminary for boys having rooms near Mr. Stoddard's study, he could hear their voices from morning till night, as they pleaded in prayer, and their petitions came evidently from the depths of the soul. Their natural love for vivid metaphor, combined with much ardor, gave great vividness to their prayers. They begged that the dog might have a single crumb from the table of his master; at another time, they were smiting their breasts by the side of the publican; at another, they were prodigals, hungry, naked, and far from their father's house; again, they sink in the sea, and cry out, "Lord save me, I perish;" again, poor, diseased, outcast lepers, they came to the great Physician for a cure. Those who had given themselves to Christ, now built their house on the Rock of Ages, while the waters were roaring around them; now they washed the feet of their Redeemer with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of their head; and now, having become soldiers of the cross, they planted the blood-stained banner in the inner citadel of their souls. Before the end of May, the boys' seminary was removed to Seir, to obviate the necessity of a long vacation, which might be injurious to the pupils in their peculiar state of feeling. Mr. Stoddard was often delighted, in walking about the mountains, to find pupils praying in secluded spots. A Mussulman once fell in with a pupil thus engaged, and having never before seen a Nestorian praying in secret, he stopped in silent wonder. The young man, on being asked what he was doing, commenced teaching the Mussulman how to pray, and so deeply interested him, that they kneeled down together, and the prayer was renewed in the Turkish language, that it might be intelligible to the stranger. The estimated number of converts in the two seminaries, at the close of 1846, was fifty. The general aspect of Geog Tapa, containing a population of about a thousand, was much changed. Almost every one who had come to years of discretion, gave good attention to the preaching of the Gospel, and as many as fifty seemed to be true disciples. Cases of hopeful conversion were found in eight or ten other villages on the plain. Nor was the awakening restricted to the plain. Of one hundred and fifty hopeful converts, twelve were at Hakkie, and ten at Gawar, fifty miles further west, and both mountain villages.