He was pastor at Elizabeth, but his influence and activity extended through all that part of New Jersey, and he became easily the leader of the rapidly growing communion of Presbyterian churches in that province, and the opponent, in the interest of Christian liberty and sincerity, of rigid terms of subscription, demanded by men of little faith.

There is a great career before him; but that which concerns the present topic is his account of what took place "sometime in August, 1739 (the summer before Mr.Whitefield came first into these parts), when there was a remarkable revival at Newark....

This revival of religion was chiefly observable among the younger people, till the following March, when the whole town in general was brought under an uncommon concern about their eternal interests, and the congregation appeared universally affected under some sermons that were then preached to them." Like scenes of spiritual quickening were witnessed that same season in other parts of New Jersey; but special interest attaches to the report from New Londonderry, Penn., where a Scotch-Irish community received as its pastor, in the spring of 1740, Samuel Blair, a native of Ireland, trained in the Log College of William Tennent.

He describes the people, at his first knowledge of them, as sunk in a religious torpor, ignorance, and indifference.

The first sign of vitality was observed in March, 1740, during the pastor's absence, when, under an alarming sermon from a neighbor minister: "There was a visible appearance of much soul-concern among the hearers; so that some burst out with an audible noise into bitter crying, a thing not known in these parts before....