The Lewis Revival 1949 - Part 1

Once again, on your behalf, I welcome Dr Colin Peckham. I was reflecting last night when I eventually got home. I felt that last night he laid the table.

He presented a broad canvas. And I'm convinced that what we're about to hear this morning, in this first lecture and also in the second, will begin to fill in the details. Now, I have an hour to work from now.

Well, it's good to be with you again. And God bless you for coming this morning. May the Lord be with us.

I want to speak this morning on the 1949-52 revival. In New York, in the island of Lewis. Often people speak about this revival and say, it's the newest revival.

Well, that's not how it was. There's another lady from London standing behind me. She said, speak a little louder, please.

That's inspections from the back seat. I'm speaking on the 1949 revival. 1952, the island of Lewis.

Often people think of that revival, when they speak about the Lewis revival, they think of the Duncan Campbell revival, 1949-52. But that is not the only revival that came to Lewis. Lewis had many revivals.

And so when you speak about the Lewis revival to anybody there, they think of various ones, various revivals, immediately. They're not stuck on to one revival. As a matter of fact, this goes back a long way.

The highland community, the Gaelic people, were disadvantaged in that they didn't have the scriptures in their own language until 1767, when they got the New Testament, and 1801, when they got the whole Bible. So that's a very important part of the background of Lewis. They didn't know the scriptures.

And they were led by a very cerebral type of Christianity. And they came, they were involved in what they termed moderates. They were of the moderate party, or the hypercritical party, people who didn't believe the Bible to be the Word of God.

And so there was a great problem in Lewis, where there was very little real religion. Then came a man by the name of Alexander MacLeod, and he went to Thuic. That was a milestone in the history of Lewis.

As a matter of fact, the great highland evangelist Finlay Monroe did a good deal of the early ploughing work in Lewis before he came, and then he came in the 1820s. And when he came to Thuic, and Thuic is situated, if you know Lewis, it's situated on the west coast, far removed, far isolated. No roads go from Thuic.

You go to Thuic, and you come back to Thuic. It's right on, the next stop is America. I mean, it's far away.

And he went to Thuic. And when he got there, he found that 900 people of the parish, they all just came and had communion, it was just part of the scene. So he said, we're not having communion.

There's nobody over there having communion. So he cut out communion, and he preached. And he preached the gospel, and he preached so mightily that the people sat and wept and cried, and he had to stop his preaching on occasion, whether they were in distress or so.

He had his first communion meeting on the 25th of June, 1827. There were six from his community who took communion, and 14 from other communities. There were 20 people present in the meeting, but there were 7,000 at the communion.

And it came to a head the next year, 1928, when 9,000 people gathered in Thuic. It's almost impossible to believe. They weren't big brothers.

They walked over the rivers and over the peaks, and there they got 9,000. And that was the massive move of the spirit of God in Lewis. It changed Lewis forever.

The 1820s, the revival which spread from Thuic to all parts of Lewis. Every hamlet, every home, every village was affected. Then they knew the true religion.

And then just after that, that was 1828, and on into the 30s. And then came the 1859 revival, Ulster revival, Scottish Revival, it went right up, and particularly in Ness, where there are 14 villages right in the very north of Lewis, there God blessed mightily, particularly in Ness in 1839. And then in 1900 and 1901, there was one which began at Stornow, at Carlow.

Carlow has been greatly blessed. Carlow, and the preacher, at least the minister there, Peter Macdonald, Stornow, he spoke of this as one of the deepest spiritual movements that had ever been known in the island. That is 1900, 1901.

And that spread all over, also from Carlow, I think. And then from 1903, it began in Carlow with the surrounding villages, and then again in 1903, all the way to 1912, it centered in Carlow, and all the areas on the west coast there were near to Carlow. And then from 1923 to 1926, there was another mighty one, Reverend Roderick MacLeod, a revival of considerable intensity broke out in the district, and it was there for, whilst he was there, he left for Dunbarton after 1926.

And then in Point, this was about 12 miles from Stornow, there were continual revivals. A minister of a free church called Reverend William Campbell went there, and he had revival in 1934 in his church, 1939, 1949, 1957. Four revivals in his ministry in one church.

God might have been there that night. So Lewis knew what revivals were. And then came the 1939 revival, it was widespread.

Some say it started in Carlow, some say it started elsewhere. But it was widespread, over all different places in Lewis. And people were seeking God everywhere.

It was a revival of many, where there were quite a number of manifestations, far more so than the 1949 revival. And there was no minister in the 1939 revival. It was in prayer meetings, and people came together for prayer, and then as they prayed, the Spirit of God would fall upon them, and people would get converted there in the prayer meetings or later on, and so this spread all over.

It was far more widespread than the 1949 revival, of which I'm not speaking. The 1939 revival had enormous impact. But then came the war.

And some of those young men who were saved, went off and never returned. And the war interrupted the movement of the Spirit. But during the war, they were continuing to pray that the revival would cease.

But they were continuing to pray because they knew what it was, and they knew they wanted to move again, and so they continued to pray.