BV MRS. DAVIDSON, GOWANWELI„
My first acquaintance of Mr Ross was in 1865. He was at that time superintendent of the North East Coast Mission. The village of Newburgh being on the coast, it was often visited by him, along with the late Mr Brand, of Aberdeen, and others. I remember being at his first meeting there. It was very small. He was much impressed with the spiritual destitution of the people of the village. He stayed at the Temperance Inn - I could scarcely call it a hotel, but just a respectable house where two or three could be put up. He left next morning, but, before leaving, he told the master of the house that he was coming back, as the Lord had laid the place on his, heart. "Oh," said he, " you need not care for - coming here. Your kind of preaching wouldn't take. "But," said Mr Ross, " I'm coming." And so he came.
During the first week very few came to the meetings, but, notwithstanding, the interest began. His landlady was the first to be saved, then the daughter of a Free Church elder. When he saw that the Lord was working, he began an after-meeting in one of his landlady's rooms. It was often crowded to the door, where he stood asking everyone as they passed out how it was for eternity with them. We were so unaccustomed with such a mode of procedure that we were puzzled to know how to answer him. Many passed from death into life at these after-meetings. Some who did not stay were saved in their- homes. I especially remember the manifest leading of the Spirit in the case of two careless young men, who, while the open-air meeting was going on, stood in the distance and scoffed. They decided to go to the inside meeting and see the "fun." Having borrowed a New Testament, they went in. After the opening hymn and prayer, Mr Ross gave out his text. After doing so, he looked up, and said -" Oh, people, many of you don't know your Bibles; the uncut leaves condemn you." One of the young men trembled when he discovered that the leaves of the borrowed Testament were uncut at the place where the preacher had chosen his text. God laid hold of him. His, sins rose up before him like a mountain. He had no rest until he was enabled to "look and live." A sailor's wife wrote to her husband in Sunderland that she was a "new creature in Christ Jesus." This made him very uneasy. When the ship came to the bar, the pilots, who went to guide the ship into the harbour, told him his wife was "wrong in her mind." He was very angry. However, that night he came to the meeting. The strong man was bowed beneath his load of sin and led to Christ. It was truly a wonderful time. One old woman was so overjoyed that she held up her hands and blessed the Lord that "her eyes had seen His salvation." Mr Ross was greatly blessed all round the east coast. I remember being at a meeting which was held by him in Fraserburgh. After he had finished preaching, he asked one of the brethren to pray. I was sitting near him, and he whispered to me, "The blessing is coming; I feel it." In a few minutes, two fine young men stood up and cried, " I am saved; I see it all." One of them is with the Lord, and the other remains to this day following "in the way."
From, Donald Ross, Pioneer Evangelist.", pages 187-9.