County Antrim
The Blaze of the Revival
The object of this chapter is to trace the continuation of the Revival by giving eye-witness accounts of its spread with outstanding power to various places in each county of Ulster. We bring you but a few incidences from each County. Many more first hand accounts appear in Dr. Paisley’s book.
Ballymena is the most important town in the county of Antrim. It is situated in mid-Antrim and in 1859 had a population of some 6,000 people and was the principal seat of the linen trade.
The revival here, as in Connor, was preceded by special prayer. A number of young men held a weekly-prayer meeting in the town. The leaders of this meeting were William Carlisle, James Compton, and William Bortrick. James McQuilkin, one of the leading Connor converts who worked in Ballymena, also joined in this prayer gathering.
The first remarkable manifestation of the movement in those resident in Ballymena took place in a house in Springwell Street. The first converts in this manifestation were Hessie Herbeson and Mary Beattie. This house in Springwell Street was quickly crowded by a deeply moved throng, those within having cried out to their neighbours to come and hear the great things that God had done for their souls.
So great was the quickly-assembled multitude that the windows of the house had to be removed so that those without might participate in the worship and praise of those who had gained admittance. A school in the same street, called Jackson’s Schoolhouse, was soon brought into use and there the first public meetings of the movement commenced. Converts multiplied and regular weekly prayer meetings were established in Springwell Street, Fountain Place Schoolhouse, William Street, Broughshane Street, Ballymoney Street, Galgorm Road, Coach Entry, Mill Street Place, Mill Street, Galgorm Street, Robert Street, Brocklamount, Drumclug, Harryville Schoolroom, Meetinghouse Lane, Alexander Street, Bridewell Street, Bridge Street, and Railway Street.
A Union Prayer-meeting was held in the Town Hall at noon on Tuesdays and Fridays. This meeting was largely attended by the ministers and members of the Presbyterian, Methodist and Episcopal Churches. An eye-witness records: “The week which began with May 17 can never be forgotten, though it cannot easily be described. When the great outpouring came, worldly men were silent with an indefinite fear, and Christians found themselves borne onward in the current, with scarce time for any feeling but the overpowering conviction that a great revival had come at last. Careless men were bowed in unaffected earnestness, and sobbed like children. Drunkards and boasting blasphemers were awed into solemnity and silence. Sabbath-school teachers and scholars became seekers of Christ together; and languid believers were stirred up to unusual exertion.”
Rev S J Moore, minister of Third Presbyterian Church, writes: “On my return, after two days’ absence at a meeting of Synod, I found the town in a state of great excitement; many families had not gone to bed for the two or three previous nights. From dozens of houses, night and day, you would hear when passing along, loud cries for mercy from persons under conviction, or the voice of prayer by kind visitors, or the sweet soothing tones of sacred song; business seemed at a stand-still. In some streets, four or five crowds of people, in houses, and before the open doors and open windows, engaged in prayer or in praise, all at the same time. A goodly number of young men, in business establishments in town, and not a few young workmen, shoemakers, carpenters, sawyers, and labourers, who were depending for their daily bread on their daily wages, gave up almost their entire time, day and night during the first week, to minister to the religious instruction, and physical and spiritual comfort of the poor stricken sufferers. I put this on record to the honour of these young members of the church. But for them, in this crisis, I do not see what would have been done, for, in their first alarm, the people of both town and country would demand that a minister, an elder, should be in a dozen places at once. Prayer-meetings, in town and country, became very numerous: in private houses they were held in the principal Presbyterian churches every evening; latterly they are held alternatively in these churches: at each meeting addresses are delivered and prayers offered by converts, the minister presiding.”
Of the vast crowds attending the prayer and preaching meetings in the district, the Presbyterian Magazine of June 1859 reports: “It is not unusual to see thousands assembled for prayer in a graveyard or a large gravel pit; on an ordinary week evening one or other of the spacious Presbyterian churches of Ballymena has been filled to overflowing by an intensely serious congregation; and what is still more extraordinary, on the evening of Saturday – the day of the great weekly market, when, at other times, a dozen persons could scarcely have been convened for such a purpose – the capacious Presbyterian church of Wellington Street has been crowded in all its parts by a prayer-meeting.”
Eyewitness accounts in the book from the Co. Antrim towns and villages including: Aghoghill, Rasharkin, Cullybackey, Whiteside’s Corner, The Grange, Portglenone, Broughshane, Loughguile, Kilraughts, Cloughmills, Ballyrashane and Ballywatt, Ballymoney, Ballycastle, Portrush, Bushmills, Donegore, Carnmoney, Ballycarry, Ballyeaston, Ballyclare, Hyde Park, Ballinderry, Dundrod, Whitehouse, Carrickfergus, Straid, Islandmagee, Larne and Glenarm.
Revival in Belfast
To three Presbyterian congregations and an Episcopal church can be traced the beginnings of the revival in Belfast.
On 17th April 1858 Rev Thomas Toye, the minister of Gt George’s Street Presbyterian Church, after hearing of the great awakening across the Atlantic, commenced prayer meetings in his church especially for revival.
The first visit of the converts to Belfast was to Great George’s Street Church. Mr Toye describes their visit:
“In the end of May 1859 I brought three lay brethren, two of them converts, from Ahoghill to Belfast, who held meetings, morning and evening, for three days, and whose visit awakened great interest. There were no screams nor prostrations during their addresses, but there seemed to be a deep and evident impression.”
Rev Robert Knox, Moderator of the Belfast Presbytery and minister of Linenhall Street Church invited the converts to address his evening service on the first Sabbath of June.
On the Tuesday following the same two converts, along with Mr Knox, held a revival meeting in Berry Street Presbyterian Church. At this service a young woman and a young man cried for mercy. Dr Hugh Hanna, the minister of the church reports:
“After the meeting was formally dissolved the people were reluctant to depart. The meeting was reconstituted, prayers were offered, and two others were brought to a deep conviction of sin, and expressed their feelings in such a way as made a profound impression on the audience. The hand of God was visibly at work, and acknowledged in our midst.
“The next evening was that of the congregational prayer meeting, conducted by the elders and other praying people in no exciting address; but God made bare His arm in a most marvellous way. Many were convinced and converted. The meeting was large, and great fear fell upon all the people. It was resolved to continue every evening the meetings that God has thus signally owned."
“There had been, for many months, in Great George’s Street Church ( Mr Toye’s) a faithful band who, on every evening of the week, besieged the throne of grace. They waited, like the believers of old, for the ‘Consolation of Israel.’ With the exception of these, the meetings in the Berry Street Church were the first assemblies indentified with the revival movement in Belfast. And so they continued for six weeks on every evening of the week. The church was literally crammed; every available spot within and around it was occupied. Many thousands of souls must have been brought within the influence of the truth under the most solemn circumstances during those six weeks. Not only from the population of the town were their audiences drawn, but many earnest souls came from great distances in the country. It was now no uncommon thing for persons to travel forty miles for the sole purpose of seeking God where he was pleased so marvellously to manifest himself, and an incalculable good was done. During that period nearly eight hundred souls were visited at their own houses by the minister and office-bearers of the church – all brought under conviction of sin at the revival meetings. Many more, and by far a larger multitude, there is reason to believe, were overtaken by the grace of God, and brought to Christ by the silent inspiration of the Spirit.”
The incumbent of Trinity Episcopal Church, Rev Theophilus Campbell, also experienced the early droppings of the revival shower. He testifies: “During this time, that is, prior to May 1859, the Lord also vouchsafed more numerous instances of His blessing on the seed of life sown among the people, than previously among young men.
Botanic Gardens Open Air
On Wednesday 29th June 1859 a monster open-air union prayer meeting was held in the Botanic Gardens. Just a year before, on the same site, the Prince of Preachers, Rev C H Spurgeon, had proclaimed the gospel to the largest audience which ever assembled up to that time, to hear the gospel in Ireland. Now a far vaster throng gathered, not to hear the voice of man but to commune in prayer in order to hear the “still small voice” of God. The lowest estimate of the number attending this monster gathering was 15,000, the highest 40,000. Somewhere about 25,000 would probably be the right figure. The vast audience was made up of crowds from Armagh, Tyrone, Antrim and Down who came by railway trains packed to excess, and other throngs from the immediate neighbourhood and the city itself.
Revival Continues in Belfast
In July the revival tide continued to rise. Rev H Grattan Guinness was the most popular preacher in the Ulster Revival, and he addressed at this time in Belfast a crowd of 15,000 in another great open-air meeting. Speaking of the revival fifty years afterwards, the great preacher said:-
“The predominating feature was the conversion of people of all ranks and positions, in ways sudden, startling, amazing. Before that time I had seen tens, or scores, brought to Christ under Gospel preaching; but this new movement of 1859 was something quite different. Ministers were occupied until midnight, or even till two or three o’clock in the morning, conversing with crowds of inquirers who were crying: ‘What shall we do to be saved?’”
Brownlow North, another great evangelist, preached to great indoor and open-air gatherings during the summer months of 1859 and the Presbyterian Assembly recorded their thanks for his help.
Full reports and eyewitness accounts from those Ministers in Belfast appear in the Book.
