“On the 25th July about a thousand persons assembled in Mr Craig’s church for prayer. A deep solemnity pervaded the meeting. Many sobs were heard, many tears were shed, and many were the ‘groanings that could not be uttered.’ The meeting closed, and all separated for their homes. Shortly afterwards intelligence arrived that some persons had been ‘stricken’ on their way home. We started off and the scene which met our gaze will not soon be forgotten. There, on the roadside, with their backs against the ditch, and their faces towards heaven, lay seven persons, supplicating mercy.
“On the 29th July a prayer-meeting was held on the green beside my church, that building being unable to contain the two thousand or more who were present; and at the same place, on the succeeding Sabbath evening, there was another meeting, larger still, attended by not fewer than three thousand. Those were two evenings long to be remembered. None who were present can ever forget them. On the first not fewer than fifty persons and on the second about seventy, young and old, men and women, stretched on the greensward, were heard openly to bewail their sins before God, and ask forgiveness in the name of Jesus. In some few this was accompanied with strange convulsions of body; but in most of those affected there was nothing but tears, and groans, and earnest prayers.
“During the fortnight that followed, many were similarly affected in their own homes, and in the prayer-meetings, which were held in private houses all hours of the day and night. For the time being business was very much suspended. The whole parish was a place of weeping, and praying, and singing, and reading. There cannot be a doubt that there were more Bible-readers, more believing prayers, more loving thoughts of Jesus, in our parish in the month of August than had been in the five years previous.