After the insurrection was suppressed, great confusion and distress prevailed. The people began to suffer more than ever before. Their labours were increased, and means of support diminished; over-driving became common; and while many causes combined to coerce them to the utmost of their power, or beyond it, their complaints were no longer heard. They were under the yoke and the lash, yea, under the wheel, fallen, crushed, abandoned, hopeless. The tale of bricks was increased, and the straw withheld. Defeated, disappointed, and suffering beyond what they had known before, they seemed in most places to give way to despair.

In that distress we might expect religion would have been their resource for consolation; and, where it really existed, no doubt such was the case. But in themselves, as well as in their condition, appeared a change for the worse, and their improvement for a time was at an end. The wide-spread defection from the profession and practice of piety, over nearly all the disturbed parishes, during the period now under review, shows how empty the profession of it was during the previous period, in the majority of cases, though foolishly dignified, in some quarters, with the name pentecostal. It seemed obvious that many churches and congregations had been swelled by a host anticipating freedom, who, now that their hopes were disappointed, fell away. It was common for a backslider to answer an exhortation thus :—“It is no use, minister; what can church and prayers do for we again?” Then was “every man's work made manifest of what sort it was.”