Dunlop is within three miles of the town of Stewarton, where, in 1630, a remarkable work of grace began. The godly Mr Castlelaw, the minister of the parish, sowed the seed. But it was given to David Dickson, of Irvine, to gather in the harvest sheaves. Such was the eagerness of the people to hear the word that he established a weekly lecture on Monday, the market day, when the town was thronged with people, from the surrounding parishes. The people of Stewarton, encouraged by their own minister, attended those services, and such was the result that a great and glorious work of awakening spread in the town of Stewarton, and extended for miles along the slopes of the Anwick, the Stewarton water.
As now, even so then, "the ignorant and proud secure livers," says Robert Blair, "called them the daft people of Stewarton.
Ayrshire was then called "the garden of Scotland." May it yet become "like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters fail not."WILLIAM PINKERTON. Free Church Manse, Kilwinning, Nov. 6.
I assume that the revival was in the Free Church.