The Year of Grace

Rev. William Gibson

A visitor, at the beginning of the awakening, thus describes the presence and address of a Brougshane convert at a meeting in a quarry pit, at which there were several thousands in attendance

“Near the end of the preaching one old man stood up to address the multitude. He was a remarkable-looking man. I was beside him before he rose. A dealer in rags would not have given more than sixpence for all the clothes he had on his person. He bore the marks and tokens of a ‘hard liver,’ a confirmed drunkard. He spoke something to the following effect, as nearly as I can remember: - ‘Gentlemen,’ and he trembled as he spoke - ‘gentlemen, I appear before you this day as a vile sinner. Many of you know me; you have but to look at me, and recognise the profligate of Broughshane. You know I was an old man, hardened in sin; you know I was a servant of the devil, and he led me by that instrument of his, the spirit of the barley. I brought my wife and family to beggary more than fifty years ago; in short, I defy the townland of Broughshane to produce my equal in profligacy or any sin whatever. But, ah, gentlemen, I have seen Jesus; I was born again on last night week; I am, therefore, a week old to day, or about. My heavy and enormous sin is all gone; the Lord Jesus took it away; and I stand before you this day, not only a pattern of profligacy, but a monument of the perfect grace of God! I stand here to tell you that God’s work on Calvary is perfect; yes, I have proved it, His work is perfect. Had it not been so, it would have been capable of reaching the depths of iniquity of, the profligate nailer of Broughshane.’”

The following statement, dated 26th April 1860, by the Rev. Archibald Robinson, of Broughshane, sets forth the character and progress of the work in that important district.

The First Case — “The first case of awakening here was of a very peculiar and solemn kind. It was in 1858. It was that of a man who had been a drunkard. He was drunk the week before. In the middle of the night he awoke and roused the family out of their beds—said he had had a dream—an angel came and told him to be up and busy praying for mercy, for he would die at one o’clock, or, if not at one, decidedly at four o’clock next day. He dressed, and gave himself up entirely to reading and prayer. People thought he was mad—in delirium tremens. He refused all solicitations to induce him to drink—went about wringing his hands and entreating mercy, till about one o’clock—went to his bed, and died happy about four!

The Full Outpouring —” It was not, however, till May 1859 that we were visited with a most gracious and abundant outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We had been praying for and expecting some such precious blessing, but were, notwithstanding, taken by surprise, so sudden, powerful, and extraordinary were the manifestations of the Spirit’s presence. Persons of every shade of temperament and character were mysteriously affected, overpowered, prostrated, and made to pour out the most thrilling agonising cries for mercy. Most of those thus impressed and awakened found peace and comfort in a very short time, and then their countenances shone with a sweetness and glory beyond description. Very many of them received a marvellous fluency and power of prayer. A hatred of sin, a love for the Saviour, a zeal for His cause, an affection for one another, and an anxiety about perishing sinners, took possession of their hearts, and literally ruled and governed their actions. For about six weeks almost all agricultural operations, and indeed every kind of secular employment, were suspended, no man being able to think of or attend to anything but the interests of his soul. Night and day the sound of praise and prayer never ceased to float upon the air. An overwhelming sense of awe and terror held in check the boldest sinners, while thousands who till now had lived as if eternity were a priestly fiction seemed for the first time to realise its truth and presence, and to feel as if the end of all things was at hand. I should say about one thousand people were suddenly, sensibly, and powerfully impressed and awakened. Fully one half of this number, if not more, have profited by their experience, and are as fair and hopeful cases of conversion as one could well desire, while not less than five hundred were silently, gradually, and without observation brought, I may say, from death unto life, or from a state of stupor and coldness into a state of activity and warmth, and are now rejoicing in the peace that passeth understanding. Not less than twenty Roman Catholics came under the power of the truth, and were made to acknowledge the errors of the Church of Rome. Three of these were re-baptized at their own urgent request, and afterwards admitted to the Lord’s Supper. The others still attend the prayer meetings, and now and again the public worship of the sanctuary.

The Praying Matrons — “In one district of country almost all the matrons within an area of more than two miles were graciously visited and converted in the most satisfactory and conclusive manner, if we can so speak about another’s conversion at all. These women have exercised a mighty influence on their families and neighbourhood; and if one wishes to see the religion of the Cross in its loveliest features, in the simplicity, beauty, and power of primitive times, he has but to pay this district a visit and see and hear for himself. I have no doubt he will return, saying that the half has not been told him.

“The gift of prayer bestowed on these matrons is beyond conception, and certainly it is not left to rust. They have a prayer-meeting of their own—none but females being admitted—the exercises of which are praise, prayer, and reading the Scriptures without note or comment. This meeting has tended greatly to fan the flame of love in their own hearts, and kindle it in others who come. We have many such female prayer meetings, and I am satisfied of their utility.

“About the month of August the physical features of the revival in a great measure passed away, but we had abundant evidence that the work of the Lord was still going on, more silently but as progressively as ever. The Holy Ghost, we rejoice to say, has not been as a wayfaring man with us. His gracious operations have not as yet ceased. From time to time we have been constrained to note unmistakable signs of His presence and power. Seldom does a week elapse without some groping, hoping, praying soul finding Christ, pardon, and peace in a way more or less marked and visible. Frequently our prayer-meetings have experienced a sudden, mysterious, overpowering impulse, swaying the whole assembly as one man, and leaving all weeping, praying, rejoicing. Men have felt as if the Lord had breathed upon them. They were first affected with awe and fear—then they were bathed in tears—then filled with love unspeakable. Such a scene as this occurred about a month ago in the midst of the ordinary services of the Sabbath.

General Results. — “True and undefiled religion has received a mighty impetus here. Since May 1859 it has been progressing in the most satisfactory and cheering manner. Never in the experience of the oldest members of our church were the spiritual interests of the people of this parish so far advanced and so promising. Without any fear of exaggeration or disappointment I may say we can count true and decided cases of conversion, not by tens, not by fifties, but by hundreds. The house of God is filled Sabbath after Sabbath by an overflowing congregation of anxious worshippers. Temporary seats occupy the passages, and these are crowded, and many are content to stand at the door during the whole service. The very countenances of the worshippers declare the anxious and the happy feelings they possess, some seeming to say, ‘Sir, we would see Jesus,’ and others, ‘we have tasted, and are now come to drink—we have found Him whom our souls love, and He is indeed precious.” The thirst of the young for Sabbath-school instruction is intense and insatiable. Not less than fourteen hundred children attend every Sabbath morning, desiring the sincere milk of the Word, while my own class averages some eighty young men and women. We are reading the ‘Confession of Faith,’ and have circulated through the congregation some two hundred and fifty copies of it, with about an equal number of Paterson’s Shorter Catechism. Social meetings for prayer, reading the Scriptures, and exhortation, are held throughout the parish, each district having it’s own prayer meeting, and each prayer meeting its own staff of conductors. No person is allowed to engage in the services unless approved of by these managers. The meetings are attended by the whole population, with very few exceptions— young and old, rich and poor, Episcopalian and Roman Catholic taking pleasure in listening to the simple prayers and earnest exhortations of their Presbyterian neighbours. The interest in them is still well sustained, and in the darkest, fiercest nights of winter, and now in the busiest days of seedtime, the number of those who meet together to thank and praise the Lord has not diminished.

“Previous to 1859 the voice of family prayer was seldom heard. Urgent appeals from the pulpit to erect a family altar were unheeded. Now family worship is rather the rule than the exception. There is a marked improvement in the public morals of the community. Men are ashamed of doings that formerly were considered things of course. Two public houses have been obliged to close. The owners of others have assured me their trade is gone, and two more intimated their intention not to renew the licence. One of them said it was unsafe to himself and injurious to others. A deceased publican told him, he said, “that it was a cursed trade; that he knew many in it, and, with two exceptions, he never knew one but the devil got a hold of, and these two had to give up and run, or he would have gotten them also.’ Sabbath desecration, profane swearing, drunkenness, uncleanness, unseemly strife, and such like sins, are much abated and decreased, not one instance for every five we had in previous years; while temperance, meekness, brotherly kindness, a holy reverence for the name and glory of God, have started into new life, and are putting forth new vigour. The Bible is the book of constant study. Many carry it about with them and read it by the wayside, or at intervals in their labour, and refer to it for the settlement of every disputed point. Two of our National School-houses have been enlarged, in order to make them capable of accommodating the prayer meetings, and we have subscribed about £550 for a new church.

“It has been said that lay agency has done more harm than good in the successful promotion of revival work. My experience is the very reverse. I have seen indisputable proof that the Lord greatly honoured and blessed the zealous self-denying efforts of the Christian people. He touched their hearts, opened their mouths, and then rewarded their labours. Here they have been most useful auxiliaries to the ministry, and through their aid an amount of work has been overtaken which no half-dozen ministers could have performed. These young men deserve the highest praise, and I bear testimony that I have seen literally nothing of that overweening conceit and spiritual pride, so natural and so much feared by some good men.

Illustrative Cases. — “On the 12th of July the Orangemen of the district asked me to preach them a sermon; about four thousand assembled in the open air without beat of drum or any insignia of their order, and after engaging in religious exercises, returned peaceably to their homes, no drink and no disorder appearing among them. On the Broughshane June fairday a band of strolling players as usual made their appearance; a prayer meeting was immediately convened opposite their showy platform. The players had but two visitors in the persons of two Roman Catholic policemen. The business of the fair was summed up by a prayer meeting of not less than five thousand people.

“I saw a young girl in great distress about her soul, weeping bitterly; her mother stood by and said, ‘Oh, dear, why do you take on so?’ The girl threw the shawl from her shoulders, dug her long bony fingers into the flesh of her naked bosom, and cried out, with bated breath, ‘ It’s sin, sin, sin, cursed sin, here.’ The mother, ‘Oh, no, you were always a good girl.’ ‘Mother,’ said the girl, ‘don’t talk that way to me; I’m tempted sorely enough to think I’m not so bad, but oh, I am bad, very bad; oh, what a great sinner I am; Lord Jesus, have mercy on a poor, wicked, guilty wretch.’ A young woman was forbidden by her employer—a minister of the Church of England—to go to the prayer meeting, but if she was very anxious she might go down the back way and listen to what was said, through the wall of the churchyard where the meeting was held. That night she was awakened, and found peace. The next day the minister rebuked her, saying, ‘How’s this? Did I not command you not to go there? ‘ She replied, ‘Yes, sir; but you said I might go down the back way, and God found me by the back way as well as if I had gone by the front way.’

“A lady remarked that she thought the presence of the Lord was very near to her; she almost felt as if God was in the air beside her. A man at the close of one of our prayer-meetings asked us to remember a poor stranger from Dungannon, who was in the midst of us, and anxious about his soul. Next night he came back and told us that he came to see the work of the Lord, and had found the Lord Himself; ‘and this,’ said he, ‘was the way I found Him: I went up to my own little room, and took my Bible, and then went down on my knees and prayed over what I had read, and then read again, and then again prayed, and this is what I said in my prayer: ‘Thou art a great God, and I am a poor sinner; I would come to Thee, but I have no offering to bring, no sacrifice to present, and Thou wilt not accept me without a sacrifice; O Lord Jesus, Thou hast a sacrifice; Thou hast offered Thyself a sacrifice; oh, present Thyself before the Father for me, and take me by the hand and lead me to Him, and make peace between us by the blood of Thy cross.’ And then,’ said he, ‘I felt a movement in my soul, and the Saviour came and took me near, and I found there was peace between my Father and me; and now I am so happy.’

“A young man was passing along one day, and heard voices on the other side of the dyke. He looked and listened; three children were there, and one was in the exercise of prayer; when one finished another began; the third boy said he could not pray, and when urged, burst into tears; his two companions put his hands together, and said, ‘Pray, mon; try it, if it be only the publican’s prayer; say, God be merciful to me a sinner, and that will do.’ The boy repeated the words, when one of the others said, ‘There, now, may be that was the best prayer of the three.’

“A social tea-party met one night in a farmer’s house. His wife, a very zealous Christian, felt that one of the guests had no right feelings about his precious soul. Something said to her she must not let this man away without faithfully warning him to seek the Lord. She retired to her closet and inquired of God what He would have her to do, but no plan was suggested to her. There was family worship; she felt the prayer was cold and not sufficiently pointed to warn her friend, about whom she was so suddenly interested. Just as they were all rising up from their knees, she could restrain her anxious feelings no longer, and, though contrary to her notions of female delicacy and duty, she burst forth in the most earnest and impassioned supplications, throwing out such warnings, and imploring such mercy for the careless, thoughtless ones of the number, as not only relieved her own breast of a burden, but sent a thrill to the heart of him for whom she felt so strongly.

“A poor man, after finding peace, said, ‘Yesterday I was a poor, lone, desolate, friendless creature, caring for no one, and no one caring for me, without father or mother, house or friend; this day I am rich and happy, and would not exchange places with the Queen on the throne, for God is my Father, Christ Jesus is my Brother and Master, heaven is my home, and all God’s people are my friends.’

“It was towards the end of May 1859,” says the Rev. H. W. Carson, “that the first symptoms of the great awakening began to discover themselves in the parishes of Lochguile, Kilraughts, and Dunaughy.

“The first in these parts deeply moved about her sins and eternal interests was a middle-aged woman. After six years’ absence from the house of God, she felt a sudden inclination to return. The Word of God that Sabbath proved sharper than a two-edged sword. Her distress of mind grew deep; and never shall I forget the picture of misery she presented, as I found her sitting by the roadside wringing her hands, and, with upturned, tear-dimmed eyes, suing for mercy. Her sins were indeed many and dark, but she never saw them before in the same colours. Let us trust we can add, ‘Her sins, which were many, have been forgiven her.’ This woman may be regarded as the type of a large number who have passed ‘through fire and through water into a wealthy place.’

“No doubt the Lord drew not a few gently under the shadow of His cross. There was a youth of fourteen who attended a monster prayer-meeting in the village of Cloughmills, when there could not have been less than 2000 present, and when the arrows of the King flew thick, so that many fell down before Him in penitence; and, as he afterwards related, he felt his heart opening to Christ, while tears flooded his eyes. Another, somewhat older, who has since often told the story of his conversion, and earnestly invited others to taste the grace that was so abundant to himself, acknowledged, ‘Oh, He drew me in gentleness and love!’ The hearts of these youths, and others like them, opened like the leaves of a rose to the light of morning. Sitting in the sanctuary ere the exercises commenced, a middle-aged man began to think of the blood of Christ, (to use his own description of his blessed experience,) thought he saw blood, and then his heart, in a stream, flowed towards Christ. He went quietly home, retired to thank God for the revelation of His Son in him, and soon began to experience joy unutterable. His exclamation, on first meeting me afterwards, was, ‘Lovely! Lovely!’ ‘What?’ said I He replied, ‘Jesus is lovely.’ This was indeed a revival, or a vivid revelation of Divine things. The man had spoken of Christ, thought of Christ, but never before had he such a clear and lively impression of Christ. He was ever to him an historical personage, but now He is a living reality with him, on the right hand and on the left.

“But while these were drawn gently, God dealt differently in the majority of conversions. Most passed through a terrible ordeal, and received, like Bunyan, a fiery baptism. Spectral-like, their sins affrighted them; mill-stonelike, their sins pressed them down. As the prisoner in the dock, hearing his sentence, and realising his awful death, has been known to shrink and swoon away, so, awakening to a sense of their condition, beholding the pit opening, and the devils come to drag them down, they have uttered doleful cries, heartrending shrieks. They have been carried out from the church; we have followed them to the green, and marked the writhings of the body, expressive of the commotion within; and we remember, while standing over the quivering frame of a youth, a convert, turning round to a stout man, a somewhat unmoved spectator of the scene, and saying, ‘If sin does that in one so young, what must it do in the like of you, sir?’

“A noticeable stage in the spiritual history of the converts has been frequently that of severe mental struggle with infernal power. Satan, tenacious of his prey, has contended with the Saviour, and in the rage of disappointment and mortification of defeat, has thrown down, as in the days of Christ’s sojourn on earth, the sinner coming; yea, has torn him in expulsion.

“Is liberality to missions a token of grace? There is a poor farmer who once gave only his sixpence on a day of missionary contribution, but now he lays down his pound note, and feels it more blessed to give than to receive. It was thought this was done out of gratitude to God for reclaiming a vicious son. This may have been one reason, but the chief reason is that his own once-niggard heart has been enlarged—his once-closed hand has been opened by the Spirit of God. Are daily communings with the Host High significant of conversion? There are fifty houses which a heathen might have visited, and only discovered their inmates not to be heathens by the absence of everything like heathen devotion; lo, now they are ‘the tabernacles of the righteous, in which is heard the voice of joy and rejoicing.’ So strong is the testimony borne by the Spirit against the use of intoxicating drinks, that four public-houses in the parish have closed, and those publicans who remain in the trade find their occupation almost gone.”

The Rev. Robert Park, for upwards of forty years the esteemed pastor of one of the Presbyterian churches in Ballymoney, writes as follows

“At nearly the close of a lengthened ministry to be permitted to see many of my charge brought to the Saviour, to know that some, over whom my heart has often yearned, are rejoicing in Jesus, and to believe that there are others in a hopeful state for eternity, has been not only gratifying, but greatly encouraging.

“As in other districts, the Divine sovereignty was exhibited here in the conversion of some of the despised of the people; but the larger proportion of those who have given evidence of a real saving change were connected with our Sabbath-schools, either as teachers or receiving instruction, or were members of families well instructed in Divine truth, and more or less regular attendants on the means of grace. It was not the least interesting fact in the history of God’s work here that He so touched the hearts of many young men who have since been zealously active in religious things.

One most interesting case occurred in one of the country parts of my district. A man, about thirty years old, born deaf and dumb, who had been educated at the institution of Claremont, near Dublin, and who is in attendance on my ministry, was working in the bog, preparing fuel for the winter. He was alone, with no exciting appliance. The Lord touched his heart. He felt the pangs of sin and intense anxiety to have it removed. He endeavoured to make his way to his sister’s house, where he resided. So prostrated was he in bodily strength, that he required to lie down and rest twice before he reached his home. During the night, and until the family were at breakfast the next morning, and preparing for public worship, it being the Sabbath, he was not relieved. The description of his manner and appearance, as given by his sister, was most striking. Literally, he jumped some height from the ground clasped as if some person to his bosom, his countenance beaming with delight, and his whole person indicating gratitude and love.

“In my conversation with him afterwards by fingers, he made me to understand that the first text of Scripture that impressed his mind and awakened comfort was Luke xv. 7, ‘Joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth;’ the second, I Tim. I. 15, ‘This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.’ And again and again he laboured to show me ‘how happy he was in coming to Jesus.’ In this, and in many instances that are before me, I fancy myself with Christ in the days of His ministry on earth, and almost see before my eyes the miracles that testified that He was the Messiah.”