Reverend John Blackader was an eminent minister of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ during the 17th century, in the south of Scotland, and suffered much under Episcopal persecution as a faithful and courageous witness for the Truth of God. In his memoirs there appears from the pen of his son the following account of the awakening and conversion of a man under his ministry.
“I was once with my father at a conventicle (as they call it) on the Craig above Balecaras, in Fife, where was a great confluence of people, and many of distinction. His text was Job xxiii, 3, ‘O that I knew where I might find him!’ While he was setting forth the miseries of those who had lost God for ever, and despaired ever to find Him in mercy, a country man, with a blue bonnet, standing hard by me, dropped down all of a sudden and tumbled over and over upon the ground. My mother, who was sitting upon the stones beside me, cries, ‘Dear sirs, will ye take care of the poor man for he is sick’—but none durst come near him. After he tumbled and wrestled about half a minute, he threw himself upon his back at full length, takes himself all in his arms, and hugs himself; then lift up his eyes to heaven (it seems they had been shut all this time) and cried out, ‘O blessed be the Lord that ever I did see this happy day!’ With that he starts quickly upon his feet—his hair all hanging about his eyes, his bonnet lying under his foot, and cries, ‘Let me tell him, for the Lord’s sake, let me tell him’ (meaning my father), and came near the tent. All this while there was such a noise and disturbance among the people that my father was necessitate to desist for a time, not knowing the matter, till he observed the poor man pressing to be near him. Then he gave a sign to the people to give way and let him come forward, which they did, till he came to the very tent door, when my father began where he had left off—the poor man staring him all the while broad in the face, and hearing every word as if he had been sucking it out of the preacher’s mouth. When all was over and my father going to a neighbour’s house with some of the gentry to take a little refreshment, the poor man comes to the door, and would needs be in. The people of the house told him he could not have access as yet. But the man was importunate, and cries, ‘Dear sirs, hinder me not, for I maun speak with the minister,’ which they acquainted my father with, who caused all present to withdraw, then called him into the room, where he made a clear breast, confessing what for a notorious sinner he had been all his life, an enemy to everything that was good. Such instances of the power and irresistible grace of God, he used to say, rejoiced his heart, and did him more good than twenty years’ stipend.”