[The following extract is from the “Memoir of the Rev. William C. Burns, M.A.” and is Mr. Burns’ own account of the beginning of the great revival at Kilsyth. Mr. Burns’ father was minister of Kilsyth and this was the second notable outpouring of the Spirit—the former being in the time of the Rev. Mr. Robe. Mr. Burns’ labours were signally owned of the Lord at Dundee, Aberdeen, and in Breadalbane. In 1844 he visited Canada and we can never forget as we heard form the lips of some of the old Ontario pioneers who are now at their everlasting rest their expressions of deep veneration and respect for his memory. God’s blessing followed his labours there and many of the soldiers in the 93rd Highlanders were converted.* The work he did in China only the Great Day will declare.]
HAVING a spare hour, it has occurred to my mind that it may be for the glory of God that I should at last record my recollections of the marvellous commencement of the Lord’s glorious work in this place in the month of July, 1839, and I entreat the special aid of the Holy Ghost, that I may write according to His own will and for the divine glory regarding these wonders of the Lord Jehovah. During the first four months of my ministry, which were spent at Dundee, I enjoyed much of the Lord’s presence in my own soul, and laid in large stores of divine knowledge in preparing from week to week for my pulpit services in St. Peter’s Church. But though I endeavoured to speak the truth fully, and to press it earnestly
*This is the Sutherland regiment, which in its early days was under the chaplaincy of that eminent servant of Christ, Dr. Ronald Bayne. A non-commissioned officer gives the following graphic account of the effect of William C. Burns’ preaching on the men of the 93rd: “I have known the Rev. W. C. Burns to send this famous regiment, these heroes of Balaclava, home to their barracks, after hearing him preach, every man of them less or more affected; not a high word, or breath, or whisper heard among them; each man looking more serious than his comrade; awe-struck; like men that dreamed they were; and when at home, dismissed from parade, they could not dismiss their fears. Out of thirty men, the sub-division of a company under my charge, living in the same room, only five were bold enough that Sabbath evening to go out to their usual haunts; and these must go afraid, as if by stealth, their consciences so troubled them; the other twenty-five, each with Bible in hand, be-moaning himself. Now, looking at the whole regiment from what took place in this one room of it, you may be able to judge of Mr. Burns’ powers as an ambassador of Christ with clear credentials. (Memoir of the Rev. William C. Burns, M.A., p. 265).
on the souls of the people, there was still a defect in my preaching at that time which I have since learned to correct, namely that, partly from unbelieving doubts regarding the truth in all its infinite magnitude, and partly from a tendency to shrink back from speaking in such a way as visibly and generally to alarm the people, I never came, as it were, to throw down the gauntlet to the enemy by the unreserved declaration and urgent application of the divine testimony regarding the fallen condition of man and the necessity of an unreserved surrender to the Lord Jesus in all His offices in order that he may be saved. However, I was gradually approaching to this point, which I had had in my eye as the grand means of success in converting souls, from the first time I entered the pulpit, and even from the day of my own remarkable conversion, of which I trust the Lord may enable me to leave some record behind on this earth for the glory of His own infinite sovereign and everlasting love in Christ. During the last three Sabbaths that I was at Dundee, before coming to Kilsyth, I was led in a great measure to preach without writing, not because I neglected to study, but in order that I might study and pray for a longer period; and in preaching on the subjects which I had thus prepared, I was more than usually sensible of the divine support. The people also seemed to feel more deeply solemnized, and I was told of some who were shedding silent tears under the word of the Lord. I was to have preached on the evening of the fast day at Kilsyth, July 18th, but the burial of my dear brother-in-law, George Moodie, at Paisley, was fixed for that day and I was obliged to be present thereat. His death was accompanied with a blessing from Jehovah to my soul. I never enjoyed sweeter realizations of the glory and love of Jesus, and of the certainty and blessedness of His eternal kingdom, than when at Paisley on this solemn occasion. The beautifully consistent and holy walk of our dear departed brother, with the sweet divine serenity that marked the closing scene of his life, made his death very affecting, and eminently fitted to draw away the heart of the believer after him to Jesus in the heavenly glory. This was its effect in my soul through the Lord’s power. On the way to the grave I wept with joy, and could have praised the Lord aloud for His love in allowing me to assist in carrying to the bed of rest a member of His own body, of His flesh and of His bones; and when I looked for the last time on the coffined body in its narrow, low, solitary, cold resting place, I had a glorious anticipation of the
second coming of the Lord, when He would Himself raise up in glory everlasting that dear body which He had appointed us to bury in its corruption and decay.
I have taken this retrospect of circumstances in my own history previous to the time of my coming to Kilsyth, as they bore very powerfully on my own state of mind, and were among the means by which the Lord finished my preparation, a preparation which He had begun even in my infancy, for being employed as His poor and despised but yet honoured instrument in beginning and in assisting to carry on the work that followed. I was appointed to preach at Kilsyth on Friday evening. I did so from Psalm cxxx. 1, 2; a subject I had lately handled in Dundee after studying Owen’s treatise on this psalm. I believe I preached with considerable solemnity, and in a manner in some degree fitted to alarm unconverted sinners and sleeping saints. I remember that some of the people of God seemed to respond with great fulness of heart to many of my petitions in public prayer, that while I was preaching there was a deep solemnity on the audience, and that some of the Lord’s people met me as I retired apparently much affected and testifying that the Lord had been among us. On Saturday I preached at Banton from Psalm cxxx. 3, with considerable assistance as far as I can recollect. My uncle, Dr. Burns of Paisley, seemed to feel as if the Lord was with me, and kindly asked me to take his place at Kilsyth on Sabbath evening, leaving him to fill mine on Monday forenoon. He spoke also, I remember, in the family of its not being my duty to go abroad as I was on the eve of doing, but that I should be a home missionary in Scotland. I myself did not speculate anxiously about the future, but desired to be an instrument of advancing His work at the present time. In the evening of Saturday I met with one or two persons under deep distress of soul; and one of these, who is now a consistent follower of Jesus seemed to enter into the peace of God while I was praying with her. This brought the work of the Spirit before me in a more remarkable and glorious form than I had before witnessed it, and served at once to quicken my desires after, and encourage my anticipations of seeing some glorious manifestation of the Lord’s saving strength. On Sabbath every thing went on as usual until the conclusion of the third table service, if I remember right, when Dr. Burns kindly shortened his own address and introduced me to the people, that I might
give a short address, not only to the communicants but to all present in the church.
I had no precise subject in view on which to speak, but when rising was led to John xx., if I mistake not, simply by its opening to me and appearing suitable. This subject I tried to generalise as depicting the experience of a saint in seeking communion with Jesus, and the manner in which Jesus often deals with such. I had much assistance, and was especially enabled to charge hundreds of the communicants with betraying Christ as a Saviour. I heard afterwards of some that were much moved at this time, and in particular of one woman who was then first apprehended by the Spirit and has been to all appearance converted. In the evening I preached from Matt. xi., 28, but, as far as I can recollect, without remarkable assistance or remarkable effects. At the close, however, I felt such a yearning of heart over the poor people among whom I had spent so many of my youthful years in sin, that I intimated I would again address them before bidding them farewell—it might be never to meet again on earth; and that I would do so in the market place, in order to reach the many who absented themselves from the house of God, and after whom I longed in the bowels of Jesus Christ. This meeting was fixed for Tuesday at ten a.m. as I intended that day to leave Kilsyth on my return to Dundee. On Monday evening we had a meeting of the Missionary Society—Dr. Burns preached from Isaiah lii. 1, in which some things were said upon Christ’s wedding garment which touched my heart. In speaking I felt the ease of the heathen lying nearer my heart than I think ever before or since, and was enabled, though without any previous idea of what I was to say, to speak with the liberty and power of the Holy Ghost.
This and all other similar facts I would testify as in the sight of Jehovah, and as being obliged to do so for His glory. May He enable me to give the glory all to Him, and none of it at all to my own cursed flesh. The people seemed to be much impressed. The meeting, however, was not very large. I can hardly recall the feelings with which I went to preach on Tuesday morning—a morning fixed from all eternity in Jehovah’s counsels as an era in the history of redemption. May the Holy Ghost breathe upon my soul and revive in my memory, too faithless, alas, to the records of the Lord’s wondrous works, the recollection of the marvellous scene which was then displayed before the wondering eyes of many favoured sinners in this
place. Though I cannot speak with precision of the frame of soul in which I went to the Lord’s work on that memorable day, but I remember in general that I had an intense longing for the conversion of souls and the glory of Emmanuel, that I mourned under a sense of the awful state of sinners without Christ, their guilt in rejecting Him as freely offered to their acceptance, my own total inability to help them by anything that I could do, and my complete unfitness and unworthiness to be an instrument in the hands of the Holy Ghost in saving their souls; while at the same time my eyes were fixed on the Lord as the God of salvation with a sweet hope of His glorious appearing. I have since heard that some of the people of God in Kilsyth who had been longing and wrestling for a time of refreshing from the Lord’s presence, and who had during much of the previous night been travailing in birth for souls, came to the meeting not only with the hope, but with well-nigh the certain anticipation of God’s glorious appearing, from the impressions they had had upon their own souls of Jehovah’s approaching glory and majesty, especially in pleading at His footstool. The morning proved very unfavourable for our assembling in the open air, and this seems to have been a wise providential arrangement; for while on the one hand, it was necessary that our meeting should be intimated for the open air in order to collect the great multitude; on the other hand it was very needful, in order to the right management of so glorious a work as that which followed that we should be assembled within doors. At ten o’clock I went down to the middle of the town, and with some others drove up before us some stragglers who were remaining behind the crowd. When I entered the pulpit I saw before me an immense multitude from the town and neighbourhood filling the seats, stairs, passages, and porches all in their ordinary clothes and including many of the most abandoned of our population. I began, I think, by reading the 102nd Psalm, and was affected deeply when reading it I came to these lines:—
“The time for favour which was set
Behold is now come to an end.”
That word “now” touched my heart as with divine power, and encouraged the sweet hope that the set time was really now at hand. I read without comment, but with solemn feelings, the account of the conversion of the three thousand on the day of Pentecost; and this account, I am told, affected some of the people considerably. When we had prayed a second time, specially imploring that the Lord would open on us the windows
of heaven, I preached from the words, Psalm ex. 3: “Thy people shall be willing in the day of Thy power.” This subject I had studied and preached on at Dundee without any remarkable effect; and though I was so much enlarged on this occasion in discoursing from it, I have not been able to treat it in the same manner, or with the same effects, at any subsequent time. The following was the plan of the remarks which I was led to make upon the words:—1. The persons spoken of—they are God’s elect—those given to Christ by the Father. 2. The promise of the Father to Emmanuel regarding these persons—”They shall be willing.” (1), They are willing to be saved by Christ’s righteousness alone. (2), Willing to take on His yoke. (3), Willing to bear His cross. 3. The time of the promise—In the day of Emmanuel’s power. (1), It is the day of His exhaltation at the Father’s right hand. (2), It is the day of the free preaching of the divine Word. (3), It is the day in which Christ crucified is the centre and sum of the doctrine taught. (4), It is the day of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit—”The Lord shall send, etc.” I was led under this last particular to allude to some of the most remarkable outpourings of the Spirit that have been granted to the Church, beginning from the day of Pentecost; and in surveying this galaxy of divine wonders, I had come to notice the glorious revelation of Jehovah’s right hand which was given in the Kirk of Shotts in 1630 by John Livingston who was preaching from Ezekiel xxxvi. 26, 27, when it pleased the sovereign God of grace to make bare His holy arm in the midst of us and to perform a work in many souls resembling that of which I had been speaking, in majesty and glory. In referring to this wonderful work of the Spirit, I mentioned the fact that when Mr. Livingston was on the point of closing his discourse a few drops of rain began to fall, and that when the people began to put on their coverings, he asked them if they had any shelter from the drops of divine wrath, and was thus led to enlarge for nearly another hour in exhorting them to flee to Christ, with so much of the power of God that about five hundred persons were converted. And just when I was speaking of the occasion and the nature of this wonderful event, I felt my own soul moved in a manner so remarkable that I was led like Mr. Livingston, to plead with the unconverted before me instantly to close with God’s offers of mercy, and continued to do so until the power of the Lord’s Spirit became so mighty upon their souls as to carry all before it like the rushing mighty wind of Pentecost. During the whole of the time that I was
speaking the people listened with the most riveted and solemn attention, and with many silent tears and inward groanings of the Spirit; but at the last their feelings became too strong for all ordinary restraints, and broke forth simultaneously in weeping and wailing, tears and groans, intermingled with shouts of joy and praise from some of the people of God. The appearance of a great part of the people from the pulpit gave me an awfully vivid picture of the state of the ungodly in the day of Christ’s coming to judgment. Some were screaming out in agony; others, and among these strong men, fell to the ground as if they had been dead; and such was the general commotion, that after repeating for some time the most free and urgent invitations of the Lord to sinners (Isaiah lv., Revel. xxii. 17) I was obliged to give out a psalm which was soon joined in by a considerable number our voices being mingled with the mourning groans of many prisoners sighing for deliverance. After Dr. Burns and my father had spoken for a little and prayed the meeting was closed at three o’clock, intimation having been given that we would meet again at six.