The Nineteenth Century Awakening

On 28 February 1873, vast crowds poured into Edinburgh to pay their respects to one of Scotland’s beloved pastors. An elderly man on the funeral route was heard to say, “he was a father unto us in very truth. Men may come and men may go, but it will be long before we...

“All the world is wild about Dr Chalmers” wrote William Wilberforce in his diary in 1817. This was some accolade, coming from the Christian MP who led the charge to abolish slavery in the British Empire. Of all the great Christian leaders in Scottish history, Dr...

The question must be asked whether these three revivals of 1839, 1859 and 1873, actually changed people for the good, long-term, or did most of them return to their old lifestyles after the excitement had died down? Lennie, in his books on revival, gives us a balanced...

When two relatively unknown American men, Dwight L. Moody and Ira D. Sankey, arrived to minister in England in 1873, they received an invitation from Revd John Kelman of Leith to come up to Edinburgh with the message of Christ. The previous revival had brought much...

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.”...

In 1859the Edinburgh City Mission’s Annual Report states that “A spirit of fervent prayer and of earnest ‘waiting for the promise of the Spirit’, has of late years pervaded, in a remarkable manner, many of the churches in town, and has found the means at once of its...

It is difficult to pinpoint where exactly in Scotland the 1859 revival broke out first. Some have suggested it actually began in Aberdeen in the winter of 1858. However, Lennie suggests that the epicentre was Glasgow. It is clear though that both cities had been...

For any genuine revival to occur in the church, which leads to an awakening in the unbelieving population, the ground has to be ploughed and prepared through prayer and the sowing of the gospel, before the rain comes and produces a harvest. Before the 1839 revival in...

On 23rd July 1839, something extraordinary occurred in a Presbyterian church in Kilsyth. William Chalmers Burns, who had been converted to Christ in Edinburgh, was preaching to the packed congregation. The people listened attentively to him as he spoke of his Saviour,...

In 2012 The Herald ran an article entitled, “Bid to break dog-fighting rings”. Most of the people in Scotland who heard about this were appalled because we are a nation of animal-lovers. The article went on to say that “dog-fighting rings are operating in Glasgow,...

It is hard for us to imagine the poverty of many in the Victorian period. Today’s Royal Mile in Edinburgh is the busiest street in Scotland. Multitudes come to see this old and iconic place. Running parallel to this famous street is the Grassmarket, with the Cowgate...

We have long grown used to our national education in Scotland and taken it for granted, as if it has always been there. One day I took to the streets to ask British students at the University of Edinburgh from where they thought our education system had come. Not one...