Ballymoney (1859)



A most important open-air meeting was held here on Monday night, in Mr Gordon's meadow—a place ever-memorable, as the spot where the Revival first broke out in this town. There were, perhaps, twenty cases of conviction, and many found peace.

From ‘The Revival Newspaper,’ Volume i p19, August 13th 1859.

"Most of those affected were young girls, but the awakening has spread with so much rapidity that there are now, or were on Wednesday evening, between forty and fifty 'enlightened' as they call it in Ballymoney. One young lad, about fourteen years of age, who has previously, and up to the day of his conversion, been one of the most uncared for lads, who imagined everyone an enemy and who is an enemy to everyone, was one of those affected on Monday night. He went to scoff and exhibited that tendency to many who saw him going to the meeting. But he was brought home making agonising attempts to pray and being tormented with the terrible pangs of a thoroughly awakened conscience. It was not until Wednesday morning that he found peace in believing. He is now rejoicing in assured confidence. There is one peculiarity attached to all who have been enlightened. That is, that they seem only happy in each other's company, and it is no uncommon thing to see ten or a dozen, of those who have found peace, meeting together to visit a 'sister' who has been, like themselves, brought to conviction. "We, ourselves, saw a lot of these young girls — the girl whom we left so weak that she was unable, half an hour previously, to leave her bed, among the others — with Bibles in their hands, going down the street on a visit of this nature. They have a reverence for God's Word and delight to meet in prayer. Even the most degraded class in the community, those who are called 'unfortunates', have furnished in Ballymoney a convert to a life of purity and peace. We have no hesitation in saying that the revival, so far from being as some have said, the 'result of the influence of the evil one', is an agency welded by a Power Who 'bath done all things well.'"

"The Banner of Ulster" June 7th 1859


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