In his Memoirs the celebrated evangelist, Charles Finney from America, recorded: “I remained three months in Edinburgh [from August, 1859], preaching mostly in Mr. Kirk’s church, which was one of the largest places of worship in Edinburgh… many souls were converted.”
Although it was a fruitful time, Finney found that some of the tendencies in the Evangelical Union denomination, in which he was preaching, caused doors to close to him in other denominations, especially in the Presbyterian churches, thus crippling what he was doing. Sadly, this was reminiscent of what had happened with Wesley over Calvinism during the century before. With frustration he left Scotland after a trip to Aberdeen, to pursue a seam of openness in England.
One young man however, had come every night to his meetings in the Brighton Street Chapel. His experience of that week was different to Finney’s record of “many souls” being converted by the end of his three-month trip. William Robertson wrote in his testimony that when he went to hear Finney in November, that “although large audiences attended, still, however, there seemed to be but little interest”.
On the last day he records that he came to Christ through Dr Kirk after Finney had left. His testimony is fascinating because it relates the quest for God of one individual during the revival. He tells us that when he lived in Glasgow, he and some of his fellow teachers at East Gorbals Free Church Sabbath School, decided to go to the Wynd Church at the end of June in 1859, because they had heard about the revival. William Robertson witnessed the scenes of distress of soul and cries for God’s mercy amongst those there, but his “heart seemed as cold and unfeeling as the stones”. This was in spite of the fact that he was a Bible teacher and known to be a “Christian” of good character. When others asked him to help them counsel those seeking Christ from his own Bible class, he turned them down. “I was a hypocrite, at least I was not fit for the position I filled in the Sabbath School”, he wrote, “I was unconverted… All around me in the church, both young and old, were in deep distress, and I could look on it all quite unmoved, needing salvation as much as any of them and yet all unconcerned.”
In September Robertson left Glasgow to take up the headmastership of Pilrig School, which used to be in James St (now Spey Terrace), off Leith Walk. Shortly afterwards he received letters from teachers and pupils of his former Sabbath school in the Gorbals rejoicing in how the revival had broken out there with many becoming Christians. One of his former pupils asked him to read out his letter to the children at Pilrig School, and closed with the words of a popular hymn of that time: “We’re travelling home to Heaven above, Will you go?” He did as was asked, and was stunned that same morning when some of the children asked whether they could start a prayer meeting.
Not long after he was converted, and saw his deputy also turn to Christ. They began to pray every morning for the school, and during the Bible class one of the most restless of the children began to break down in tears because of her sins. By the afternoon they had to close the usual lessons because the same phenomena were occurring throughout the school, as virtually the whole school sought Christ. As God’s presence hung over the school on Friday 18th November 1859, Robertson, the headmaster, wrote: “The holy ecstasy with which He filled us cannot be told. We seemed to be translated from the world and things earthly, and on this and subsequent occasions I thought I could not live because of the joy with which the Lord filled me.”
These children became extraordinary evangelists, sharing their faith and seeing many of their parents, families, and neighbours also converted, resulting even in notorious drunkards and violent men being transformed. The Monthly Visitor tract expressed what many were thinking in the nation during the 1859 revival. “In former times,” it said, “we were wont to hear of an awakening at Kilsyth, or at Dundee, or in Arran, or in some particular and limited district. Now, blessed be God, for the first time, we can speak of the awakening in Scotland.”
If the 1839 wave had brought great times of refreshing to parts of Scotland, the second wave of 1859 eclipsed it in its extent and impact; but a third wave was coming in 1873, which some say overshadowed even that.
“If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14, NKJV).
Image: Fire: Oscar, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.