| John Welsh (or Welch) was born in 1568. In 1588 he began
an unfruitful six-year ministry at the town of Selkirk, 38 miles south of
Edinburgh. It was here that he married the third daughter of John Knox.
Kirkcudbright was the scene of a four year ministry where he began to see
a trickle of converts, who responded to his powerful preaching.
It was about this time that the Holy Spirit began to be poured out in
Southern Scotland. In 1596 at the General Assembly in Edinburgh, over
four hundred men experienced a great ‘refreshing from the Lord.’
It seems that Welsh’s preaching took on a new power during this
time.
From Kirkcudbright, John Welsh travelled northward to his third and last
Scottish charge in the county-town of Ayr, with which town his name has
ever after been associated. For it was here that his preaching was most
remarkably owned of God to the pulling down of strongholds and the establishing
of the Reformation. His hearers would often experience the presence of
God and would weep through his messages. Welsh takes his place among a
great number of Reformed Scottish revivalists.
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