Glenlyon (1860)



Multitudes thronged week after week to the House of prayer in the Baptist Church, while congregations on the Lord’s day were also steadily increasing. Latterly, three young men started meeting twice a week after nightfall in a wood adjoining the church. After a time, one of them, the pastor's youngest son, came under deep soul distress and was converted. All the rest, in a short time, professed to have come to the knowledge of the truth and thenceforth began to meet in the church. Many of their friends came along to the meetings, were convicted of their sin and led to the footstool of mercy

At length they felt led to hold public meetings at the Braes of Glenlyon. So many turned up that the young converts began to fear and tremble, thinking that they had undertaken more than they were qualified for! But they were given courage from the Lord and they had no sooner begun than the Spirit of the Lord began also. One here and there began to sob and sigh, being convinced of the plague of his own heart; then another, and another until the whole meeting was bathed in tears. The convicted ones could no longer contain themselves. They were obliged to leave each one for him or herself to cry to the Lord for mercy. And what a spectacle was that which presented itself to the eyes of the originators and conductors of the meeting! In the course of a few short hours, to see numbers whose hearts were up to that night hard as the nether-millstone, now literally prostrate in the dust, before the Lord, confessing their sins! One could scarcely turn a corner without stumbling upon some prostrate wrestler.

From that day onwards they held meetings almost every night, many of them with equal success; and the great zeal manifested by the young converts for the salvation of their companions and acquaintances, and their joy when many of these friends were indeed converted, was described as truly extraordinary. It was no unusual thing for bands of them to travel a distance of 10 miles, there and back, on a dark stormy night, through bogs and heather, with their lanterns in their hands, to attend the meetings. A missionary wrote, “they frequently left my house at one, two and three in the morning, having spent the night in prayer and praise.” 

From, "Baptist Home Missionary Society,'1861, pages 6-9 as quoted in, "Scotland Ablaze," by Tom Lennie, pages 198-200.

Additional Information

Location unknown, somewhere on the side of the hills in the Glen.


Related Wells