The magazine was hugely popular. Within four months of its debut, the magazine had 850 subscribers. While stories stressed the Protestant ethic, they were never boring. Caroline Healy Dall wrote in the "Unitarian Review" in 1883:"No child who read the "Juvenile Miscellany" ... will ever forget the excitement that the appearance of each number caused. ... The children sat on the stone steps of their house doors all the way up and down Chestnut Street in Boston, waiting for the carrier. He used to cross the street, going from door to door in a zigzag fashion; and the fortunate possessor of the first copy found a crowd of little ones hanging over her shoulder from the steps above. ... How forlorn we were if the carrier was late!"