The year of the king's death was rendered memorable by the rise
of a remarkable influence of a spiritual kind in Scotland, which continued for
years to act upon its population. This invisible but mighty agent moved to and
fro, appearing now in this district and now in that, but no man could discover
the law that regulated its course, or foretell the spot where it would next
make its presence known. It turned as it listed, even as do the winds, and was
quite as much above man's control, who could neither say to it,
"Come," nor bid it depart. Wherever it passed, its track was marked,
as is that of the rain-cloud across the burned-up wilderness, by a shining line
of moral and spiritual verdure.
Preachers had found no new Gospel, nor had they become suddenly clothed with a
new eloquence; yet their words had a power they had formerly lacked; they went
deeper into the hearts of their hearers, who were impressed by them in a way
they had never been before.
Truths they had heard a hundred times over, of which they had grown weary,
acquired a freshness, a novelty, and a power that made them feel as if they
heard them now for the first time. They felt inexpressible delight in that
which aforetime had caused them no joy, and trembled under what till that
moment had awakened no fear.
Notorious profligates, men who had braved the brand of public opinion, or
defied the penalties of the law, were under this influence bowed down, and
melted into penitential tears. Thieves, drunkards, loose livers, and profane
swearers suddenly awoke to a sense of the sin and shame of the courses they had
been leading, condemned themselves as the chief of transgressors, trembled
under the apprehension of a judgment to come, and uttered loud cries for
forgiveness.
Some who had lived years of miserable and helpless bondage to evil habits and
flagrant vices, as if inspired by a sudden and supernatural force, rent
theirfetters, and rose at once to purity and virtue. Some of these converts
fell back into their old courses, but in the case of the majority the change
was lasting; and thousands who, but for this sudden transformation, would have
been lost to themselves and to society, were redeemed to virtue, and lived
lives which were not less profitable than beautiful.
This influence was as calm as it was strong; those on whom it fell did not vent
their feelings in enthusiastic expressions; the change was accompanied by a
modesty and delicacy which for the time forbade disclosure; it was the
judgment, not the passions, that was moved; it was the conscience, not the
imagination, that was called hire action; and as the stricken deer retires from
the herd into some shady part of the forest, so these persons went apart, there
to weep till the arrow had been plucked out, and a healing balm poured into the
wound.
Even the men of the world were impressed with these tokens of the working of a supernatural influence. They could not resist the impression, even when they refused to avow it, that a Visitant whose dwelling, was not with men had come down to the earth, and was moving about in the midst of them. The moral character of whole towns, villages, and parishes was being suddenly changed; now it was on a solitary individual, and now on hundreds at once, that this mysterious influence made its power manifest; plain it was that in some region or other of the universe an Influence was resident, which had only to be unlocked, and to go forth among the dwellings of men, and human wickedness and oppression would dissolve and disappear as the winter's ice melts at the approach of spring, and joy and singing would break forth as do blossoms and verdure when the summer's sun calls them from their chambers in the earth.
One thing we must not pass over in connection with this
movement: in at least its two chief centres it was distinctly traceable to
those ministers who had suffered persecution for their faithfulness under James
VI.
The locality where this revival first appeared was in Ayrshire, the particular
spot being the well-watered valley of Stewarton, along which it spread from
house to house for many miles.
But it began not with the minister of the parish, an excellent man, but with
Mr. Dickson, who was minister of the neighboring parish of Irvine. Mr. Dickson
had zealously opposed the passing of the Articles of Perth; this drew upon him
the displeasure of the prelates and the king; he was banished to the north of
Scotland, and lived there some years, in no congenial society. On his return to
his parish, a remarkable power accompanied his sermons; he never preached
without effecting the conversion of one or, it might be, of scores.
The market-day in the town of Irvine, where he was minister, was Monday; he
began a weekly lecture on that day, that the country people might have an
opportunity of hearing the Gospel. At the hour of sermon the market was
forsaken, and the church was crowded; hundreds whom the morning had seen solely
occupied with the merchandise of earth, before evening had become possessors of
the heavenly treasure, and returned home to tell their families and neighbors
what riches they had found, and invite them to repair to the same market, where
they might buy wares of exceeding price "without money." Thus the
movement extended from day to day.
The other center of this spiritual awakening was a hundred
miles, or thereabout, away from Stewarton. It was Shotts, a high-lying spot,
midway between the two cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh. Here, too, the movement
took its rise with those who had been subjected to persecution for opposing the
measures of the court.
A very common-place occurrence originated that train of events which resulted
in consequences so truly beneficial for Shotts and its neighborhood. The
Marchioness of Hamilton and some ladies of rank happening to travel that road,
their carriage broke down near the manse of the parish. The minister, Mr. Home,
invited them to rest in his house till it should be repaired, when they could
proceed on their journey. This gave them an opportunity of observing the
dilapidated state of the manse, and in return for the hospitality they had
experienced within its walls, they arranged for the building, at their own
expense, of a new manse for the minister. He waited on the Marchioness of
Hamilton to express his thanks, and to ask if there was anything he could do by
which he might testify his gratitude. The marchioness asked only that she might
be permitted to name the ministers who should assist him at the approaching
celebration of the Lord's Supper. Leave was joyfully given, and the marchioness
named some of the more eminent of the ministers who had been sufferers, and for
whose character and cause she herself cherished a deep sympathy. The first was
the Venerable Robert Bruce, of Kinnaird, a man of aristocratic birth, majestic
figure, and noble and fervid eloquence; the second was Mr. David Dickson, of
whom we have already spoken; and the third was a young man, whose name, then
unknown, was destined to be famous in the ecclesiastical annals of his country
— Mr. John Livingstone. The rumor spread that these men were to preach at
the Kirk of Shotts on occasion of the Communion, and when the day came
thousands flocked from the surrounding country to hear them. So great was the
impression produced on Sunday that the strangers who had assembled, instead of
returning to their homes, formed themselves into little companies and passed
the night on the spot in singing psalms and offering prayers.
When morning broke and the multitude were still there, lingering around the
church where yesterday they had been fed on heavenly bread, and seeming, by
their unwillingness to depart, to seek yet again to eat of that bread, the
ministers agreed that one of their number should preach to them. It had not
before been customary to have a sermon on the Monday after the Communion. The
minister to whom it fell to preach was taken suddenly ill; and the youngest
minister present, Mr. John Livingstone, was appointed to take his place. Fain
would he have declined the task; the thought of his youth, his unpreparedness,
for he had spent the night in prayer and converse with some friends, the sight
of the great multitude which had assembled in the churchyard, for no edifice
could contain them, and the desires and expectations which he knew the people
entertained, made him tremble as he stood up to address the assembly. He
discoursed for an hour and a half on the taking away of the "heart of
stone," and the giving of a "heart of flesh," and then he
purposed to make an end; but that moment there came such a rush of ideas into
his mind, and he felt so great a melting of the heart, that for a whole hour
longer he ran on in a strain of fervent and solemn exhortation.
Five hundred persons attributed their conversion to that sermon, the vast
majority of whom, on the testimony of contemporary witnesses, continued
steadfastly to their lives' end in the profession of the truth; and seed was
scattered throughout Clydesdale which bore much good fruit in after-years. In
memory of this event a thanksgiving service has ever since been observed in
Scotland on the Monday after a Communion Sunday.
Thus the Scottish Vine, smitten by the tyranny of the monarch who had now gone to the grave, was visited and revived by a secret dew. From the high places of the State came edicts to blight it; from the chambers of the sky came a "plenteous rain" to water it. It struck its roots deeper, and spread its branches yet more widely over a land which it did not as yet wholly cover. Other and fiercer tempests were soon to pass over that goodly tree, and this strengthening from above was given beforehand, that when the great winds should blow, the tree, though shaken, might not be overturned.
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