Landsman, Hearers PDF

Evangelists and Their Hearers: Popular Interpretation of Revivalist Preaching in EighteenthCentury Scotland
Author(s): Ned Landsman

Reviewed work(s):
Source: Journal of British Studies, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Apr., 1989), pp. 120-149
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The North American Conference on British
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Evangelists and Their Hearers: Popular

Interpretationof Revivalist Preaching
in Eighteenth-CenturyScotland
Ned Landsman
The most persistentdifficultyconfrontinghistoricalinterpretersof

popularreligion in the early modern world is that of establishingthe
relationshipbetween ideas enunciatedby religious leaders and those
held by their hearers. The causes of that uncertainty are obvious;
where historical materials for the former are plentiful, sources that
addressthe latter are far more difficultto obtain. The greatmajorityof
evidence that we have concerninglay religiosity derives from clerical
rather than lay sources, and most of it tells us more about religious
behaviorthan belief. Even those rareaccounts we have that purportto
narratethe spiritualexperiences of ordinarypeople tend to be both
unrepresentativeand stylized, to the point where the ultimateimplications of such materialsfor understandingpopularbelief often are far
from certain.1
Problems of documentation lead to equally significantbut less
often noted distortions in perspective. Where they have lacked adequate source materials for recovering the mental world of the laity,
NED LANDSMANis associate professor of history at the State Universityof New York
at Stony Brook.
1 For some useful general discussions of the problemsof interpretingpopularreligiosity, see Natalie Zemon Davis, "Some Tasks and Themes in the Study of Popular
Religion," in The Pursuit of Holiness in Late Medieval and Renaissance Religion, ed.
Charles Trinkausand Heiko A. Oberman(Leiden, 1974), pp. 307-36; Peter Burke,

Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (New York, 1978); Stuart Clark, "French
Historiansand Early Modem PopularCulture,"Past and Present, no. 100 (1978),pp.

62-99; Jon Butler, "Magic, Astrology, and the Early AmericanReligious Heritage,
1600-1760,"AmericanHistoricalReview 84 (1979):317-46; David Hall, "The Worldof
Printand Collective Mentalityin SeventeenthCenturyNew England,"in New Directions in American Intellectual History, ed. John Higham and Paul M. Conkin (Baltimore,
1979),pp. 66-81; andJohnVan Engen, "The ChristianMiddleAges as a Historiographic
Problem," American Historical Review 91 (1986): 519-52.

Journal of British Studies 28 (April 1989): 120-149
? 1989by The North AmericanConferenceon BritishStudies.

All rightsreserved. 0021-9371/89/2802-0002$01.00
120

REVIVALISTPREACHING
121
historians almost by necessity have had to approach their task as one

of ascertaining the portion and proportion of the expressions of the
ministry that lay men and women adopted. Thus deviations from clerical orthodoxy can only be understood as indicative either of a lack of
intellectual sophistication on the part of the laity, or, at best, of a latent
"folk" worldview that remains almost inaccessible to historical description. Yet there is ample documentation in the historical record
that the laity possessed a rather remarkable capacity to integrate seemingly disparate beliefs and actively forge their own understandings of
the delivered message and create their own religious symbols. The
question ought to be less whether or not the laity was hearing that
message than how they heard it. To date, historians have been much
more persuasive in delineating the gulf that existed between clerical
and lay cultures than they have in elucidating the latter. Only in the
rarest of circumstances have they been able to examine the actual
process by which laypersons engaged the religious message and
adapted it to suit lay needs.2
Problems of this sort are nowhere more apparent than in the history of the transatlantic revivals of the eighteenth century, in which
charismatic evangelists traveled across Britain and its American colonies, spreading a bold new religious style. Their revivals often occurred during times of pronounced social upheaval, yet because of the
scarcity of lay sources and the extensive attention devoted to the personae and styles of the evangelists, the relationship between social
and religious developments has remained substantially conjectural.
Historians working from the same source materials have been led to
virtually opposite conclusions, and the precise fit between religious
experience and social transformation has rarely been detailed.3 While
2 A
strikingexampleis CarloGinzburg,The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of
a Sixteenth Century Miller (London, 1976). Also see Keith Thomas, Religion and the
Decline of Magic (New York, 1971);GeraldStrauss, "Success and Failurein the German Reformation,"Past and Present, no. 67 (1975), pp. 30-63; EmmanuelLe Roy
Ladurie, Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error (New York, 1978); Robert
Muchembled, Popular Culture and Elite Culture in France, 1400-1750 (Baton Rouge,
La., 1985).In contrast, see Clark.
3 Contrast E. P. Thompson (The Making of the English Working Class [London,
1963], chap. 11) with E. J. Hobsbawm("Methodismand the Threatof Revolutionin
Britain," in Labouring Men: Studies in the History of Labour [New York, 1964]) and
BernardSemmel (The Methodist Revolution [New York, 1973]);also Alan Heimert

(Religion and the American Mind: From the Great Awakening to the Revolution
[Cambridge, Mass., 1966]) with Nathan O. Hatch (The Sacred Cause of Liberty: Republican Thought and the Millennium in Revolutionary New England [New Haven, Conn.,
1977])and HarryStout ("Religion,Communicationsand the IdeologicalOriginsof the

AmericanRevolution," Williamand MaryQuarterly,3d ser., 34 [1979]:519-44). There

122
LANDSMAN
the inadequacy of such approaches is obvious, the solution is not, since

historians have rarely uncovered sources adequate to speak with authority about the actual rather than the presumed beliefs and experiences of even orthodox laymen and women, or to trace lay involvement in their development.
Fortunately, we do have available a source that permits us to
examine in depth the religious experiences of a substantial group
among the laity: the manuscript conversion narratives collected by the
evangelical clergyman, William McCulloch, of the parish of Cambuslang near Glasgow during the "Cambuslang Revival" of 1742-45, a
movement similar to, and closely connected with, the coincident Wesleyan revivals in England and the American "Great Awakening."
McCulloch's notebooks, located in the New College Library in Edinburgh, comprise two large volumes in the form of a casebook. Included
are the spiritual narratives of more than a hundred persons from
parishes all over western Scotland, from many walks of life. At the
time, the minister was hoping to publish some of the narratives, and he
selected some forty-six of them, bound together as the first volume of
the manuscript, which he circulated among some of Scotland's leading
theologians, asking for their comments, revisions, and deletions, which
were all too readily offered. All are still visible in the manuscript.
McCulloch's notebooks provide a wealth of data on many aspects of
religious life, and they offer an almost unparalleled opportunity to
explore, rather than simply posit, the development of the oftendivergent views of the revival experience held by preachers and their
hearers. They tell us much about lay input into the conversion process
as well.4
Although McCulloch copied most of the narratives into his own
hand, there is much to suggest that the transcriptions were faithful to
what the narrators had written. Fragments of several originals that the
have been several recent attempts to fit evangelical religion into its social context; see,
e.g., James Obelkevich, Religion and Rural Society: South Lindsey, 1825-1875 (Oxford,
1976); Robert Moore, Pit-Men, Preachers and Politics: The effects of Methodism in a
Durham Mining Community (Cambridge, 1974); and Rhys Isaac, The Transformation of
Virginia, 1740-1790 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1982).
4 William
McCulloch, "Examination of Persons under Spiritual Concern at Cambuslang during the Revival in 1741-42 by the Revd. William Macculloch," 2 vols., New
College Library, Edinburgh. Excerpts from the manuscript were published in D. McFarlan (The Revivals of the Eighteenth Century, Particularly at Cambuslang [Edinburgh,
1846]), and it has been cited extensively, although for rather different purposes, by
Arthur Fawcett (The Cambuslang Revival: The Evangelical Revival Movement of the
Eighteenth Century [London, 1971]) and by T. C. Smout ("Born Again at Cambuslang:
New Evidence on Popular Religion and Literacy in Eighteenth-Century Scotland," Past
and Present, no. 97 [1982], pp. 114-27).

REVIVALISTPREACHING
123
minister copied remain in the manuscript, and those match their transcriptions in almost every particular. Although many of the narrators
appear to have responded to a common set of questions that had probably been posed by the minister, the experiences they described were so
diverse, so different from clerical prescriptions, and so rich in detail,
that they would seem to provide, nonetheless, an unusually effective
window into lay religiosity. Indeed, if we assume that those accounts
were necessarily influenced by clerical interrogations, we only suggest
that actual lay experiences differed from clerical models even more
starkly than the narratives portray.
That McCulloch's notebooks record the impressions of Scottish
Presbyterian hearers makes that divergence especially significant, for
the Scottish populace long had the reputation for being a priest-ridden
people. Ministers of Scotland's national church were long famous for
their emphasis on doctrinal orthodoxy and religious instruction, so that
Scottish parishioners were, to an unusual extent, a catechized people.
Scottish men and women had achieved a high degree of literacy, chiefly
from their ability to read the Bible and the catechism.5 In Scotland's
southwest, in the area around Cambuslang, Presbyterian laymen for
more than a century had stoutly defended their religion with near unanimity, and many thousands had suffered fines, torture, imprisonment,
and occasional executions for their fidelity to Presbyterian orthodoxy.
During the revival, Scottish ministers would strive to maintain unusually close supervision of the beliefs and experiences of the participants. That even in such an environment ministers and hearers could
come to hold such sharply diverging views of the religious experience,
and that converts could create such lay-centered understandings of
conversion, further suggests the need to explore lay involvement in
both the development and dissemination of the revival experience in
order to approach a lay perspective on religiosity and conversion.
*
The parish of Cambuslang lies along the southern shore of the

river Clyde just half a dozen miles to the southwest of Glasgow city
center. For Cambuslang, as for most of its surroundings, the second
quarter of the eighteenth century marked a critical turning point in its
5R. A. Houston, in "The Literacy Myth? Illiteracy in Scotland, 1630-1760" (Past
and Present, no. 96 [1982], pp. 81-102), and more advisedly in Scottish Literacy and the
Scottish Identity: Illiteracy and Society in Scotland and Northern England, 1600-1800
(Cambridge, 1985), has challenged the ubiquity of literacy in Scotland, although his data
still tend to confirm that reading literacy in lowland Scotland was as high as or higher
than virtually anywhere else in Britain. Also see Smout.

124
LANDSMAN
history. The area's inhabitants had long occupied themselves predominantly in agricultural pursuits, but early in the eighteenth century,
largely because of Glasgow's rising position in the tobacco trade,
Glaswegian merchants began making substantial investments in such
rural industries as the weaving of coarse and fine linens, mining, and
shoemaking. The first substantial weaving venture arrived in Cambuslang about 1730; at almost the same time a bleachfield for linen cloth
was established directly across the Clyde at Carmyle, and other similar
establishments grew up elsewhere in the area. Thus the revival at
Cambuslang resembled many other evangelical movements of the
Anglo-American world in that it arrived at a time of prosperity and
change. The suddenness of that change was dramatic: Anderston, on
Glasgow's outskirts, which had been a small, almost rural, hamlet as
late as 1730, developed into a bustling weaving center over the next
decade; by then the local society of weavers admitted as many as
twenty-eight new members per year. In Cambuslang, the cloth industry
that grew up after 1730 employed several dozen households a decade
later and soon involved almost half the inhabitants of the parish.6
The second quarter of the eighteenth century marked an equally
important departure in religious affairs. For fully a century, Scotland's
southwest had been the heartland of Presbyterianism and the center of
the covenanting movement. During the Restoration years, southwestern parishes had shunned their Episcopalian appointees with a near
unanimity of sentiment. Cambuslang had been the home of one of the
more prominent Presbyterian resisters, the Reverend Robert Fleming,
who, after his ouster from the parish in 1662, had ministered to the
Scots Church at Rotterdam for almost two decades. There he had
composed a famous work, The Fulfilling of the Scripture, which demonstrated at length the divine hand in the rise of Presbyterianism in
western Scotland.7
In the years after 1725, the southwest experienced its first significant break with the Presbyterian consensus, also in part the result
of Anglo-American influences such as the spread of "moderate" reli6 See Sir John
Sinclair, comp., The Statistical Account of Scotland, 21 vols. (Edinburgh, 1791-99), 5:241-74; J. T. T. Brown, Cambuslang: A Sketch of the Place and the
People Earlier than the Nineteenth Century (Glasgow, 1884); Robert M'Ewan, Old Glasgow Weavers: Being Records of the Incorporation of Weavers (Glasgow, 1916); "Minute
Book, 1738-1832," Records of the Society of Weaversin Anderston,StrathclydeRegional Archives; and see Alastair J. Durie, The Scottish Linen Industry in the Eighteenth
Century(Edinburgh,1979).
7 Robert Fleming, The fulfilling of the Scripture, or An essay shewing the exact
accomplishment of the word of God in his works of providence (n.p., 1669). The religious
situationin Scotlandduringthe CivilWarandafterhas been discussedmanytimes, most
recently by Ian Cowan, The Scottish Covenanters, 1660-1688 (London, 1976); also see
Fawcett for backgroundabout Cambuslang.

REVIVALISTPREACHING
125
gious principles in Edinburgh and Glasgow and among segments of the

Scottish elite. In the rural southwest, the initial impact of moderatism
was indirect, leading not to any significant support for moderate principles but rather to a breach within the orthodox wing of the church.
During the 1730s, a group of ministers, suspended by the national
church for their vehement denunciation of that church's falling away
from traditional doctrines and practices, formed a separate "Secession" church. The Seceders quickly attracted thousands of hearers in
the Glasgow region and provoked a bitter split between those who
stayed within the Presbyterian establishment, and those who departed.8
For a time, the ministers of the Secession seemed on the verge of
carrying the southwestern populace with them, and in the year 1741, in
an attempt to draw crowds to their churches, they invited George
Whitefield, the English evangelist and chief itinerant of the American
"Great Awakening," to visit Scotland and preach in their meetings.
Whitefield traveled north, but he refused to confine his efforts to the
Seceder churches, which led to a breach with his hosts. Instead,
Whitefield preached in meetinghouses of the national church, whose
ministers were delighted to employ his talents in their struggle to keep
from losing adherents to the Seceders. In the fall of 1741, Whitefield
delivered a series of sermons in Glasgow, attended by persons from all
over the region. There, as in earlier revivals in England and America,
his orations led many hearers into religious concern and conversion.9
The indirect effects of Whitefield's lectures would prove to be
even greater. Included among his hearers at Glasgow were several
Cambuslang inhabitants, including Ingram More and Robert Bowman,
one a shoemaker and the other a weaver. On returning to their parish,
they began organizing prayer meetings within the congregation, and
they circulated a petition among the inhabitants to have their minister
add a regular Thursday lecture to the ordinary course of his preach8
A good moder history of the Secession remains to be written. John McKerrow's

History of the Secession Church (Edinburgh, 1854), though highly partisan, remains
valuable for the many original documents it reprints. See also Callum G. Brown, The
Social History of Religion in Scotland since 1730 (London, 1987). Moderatism has been
more suitably treated by Richard Sher (Church and University in the Scottish Enlightenment: The Moderate Literati of Edinburgh [Princeton, N.J., 1985]). Sher makes a good
case for restricting the designation "Moderate" to the party that formed after 1750; I
have used "moderate" to refer to those predecessors who began to deemphasize the
enforcement of strict doctrinal standards.
9 The
following discussion of the events at Cambuslang, unless otherwise noted,
draws on James Robe, Narratives of the Revival of Religion at Kilsyth, Cambuslang,
and other Places in 1742, 2d ed. (Glasgow, 1840); the narratives printed in Historical
Collections Relating to Remarkable Periods of the Success of the Gospel, ed. John
Gillies, 2 vols. (Glasgow, 1754); McFarlan; Fawcett; and McCulloch.

126
LANDSMAN
ings. William McCulloch was only too happy to oblige; he had spoken
privately to some of his parishioners about the need for a revival as
much as a decade before, and he had been preaching exclusively on the
"new birth"-for most of the year. In
subject of conversion-the
February 1742 the new lectures began.
The first Thursday lecture passed with relative quiet. But one
week later, on February 18, three sisters-Catherine, Elizabeth and
Janet Jackson, who had been actively preparing themselves for a revival for months-began to cry and call out during the sermon. They
and many others stayed at the kirk most of the evening, and before
long, both Elizabeth and Catherine would count themselves among the
Lord's people. They were soon joined by many of their neighbors.
Over the next several months, people journeyed to Cambuslang from
all over the Glasgow region in search of salvation, and some came from
far away. The Cambuslang revival had begun.
Like the other transatlantic revivals, the events at Cambuslang
attracted interest and imitation over a great distance, reaching all over
southwestern Scotland and beyond. By April the revival had arrived at
the parishes of Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch near Stirling; over the next
several months it worked its way to northern Scotland, reaching
parishes in the shires of Aberdeen, Sutherland, and Ross. Yet its greatest impact was always in and around Cambuslang. In July of 1742,
McCulloch held a communion celebration in the parish, and he invited
Whitefield and several other ministers for a three-day marathon of
preaching. Many thousands came to hear the preaching, and several
clergymen lectured simultaneously in the church, in the schoolhouse,
and outdoors on the contoured hillside known as the "preaching
braes." In August McCulloch invited a dozen ministers for another
long communion occasion, where observers estimated as many as
thirty thousand persons were in attendance-an exaggeration, perhaps, but indicative of the relative strength of the movement.
Whitefield, who had observed some of the greatest revival crowds in
England and America, remarked that neither the size of the audience at
Cambuslang nor its intensity had been matched anywhere that he had
been. 0
*
In published source material, the Cambuslang revival is among the

best-documented of the eighteenth-century revival movements. One of
'1 Whitefield'sdescriptionsare quoted in McFarlan,pp. 62-64.

REVIVALISTPREACHING
127
its leading proponents, the Reverend James Robe of Kilsyth, published

a book-length narrative of the revival, and more than a dozen other
ministers wrote shorter accounts. The awakening prompted the publication of scores of pamphlets by both clerical and lay participants, and
the events at Cambuslang were regularly reported in two religious
periodicals, including a weekly paper edited by William McCulloch
that ran for a year. Taken together, those descriptions provide a uniform and consistent, although partial, account of the affairs at Cambuslang. They are unanimous in documenting the extraordinary efforts
undertaken by the ministers at Cambuslang, especially McCulloch.
The pastor's role in those affairs went far beyond preaching; none were
admitted to the communion tables without first submitting to a lengthy
interview with one of the revivalists, who would question that person
at length about the nature of his or her experience, as well as his or her
understanding of the catechism and religious doctrine. As the revival
spread to other parishes, McCulloch and the ministers there devoted
great amounts of time to questioning potential converts and providing
religious instruction, staying up night after night counseling the converts and praying with them.'1
Such efforts by ministers to instruct potential converts were traditional in Scottish religion. Presbyterian clergymen in that country were
noted for the time and effort they devoted to doctrinal instruction and
catechizing; preaching and catechizing were considered the two most
important functions of the Scottish pastor. In some parishes, persons
accused by the church sessions of committing such offenses as fornication, theft, or slander were required to submit to doctrinal examination
by the minister before being accepted back into the kirk. Scottish and
Scots-Irish clergymen on the other side of the Atlantic were equally
concerned with doctrinal matters; there Presbyterian revivalists made
doctrinal knowledge and clerical instruction into the cornerstones of
their evangelical practices.12
William McCulloch emerges as a particularly influential figure in
Robe's narrative. The Cambuslang pastor was much impressed by
news of the American Great Awakening, and for months he read ac1 The two revival papers were McCulloch's Glasgow Weekly History Relating to
the Late Progress of the Gospel at Home and Abroad, which ran from 1741 to 1742; and
James Robe's Christian Monthly History or an Account of the Revival and Progress of
Religion at Home and Abroad, publishederraticallybetween 1742and 1746.

12 One of the best discussions of the role of doctrinalorthodoxyin Scotlandcan be
found in the introduction to James Gordon's Diary, 1692-1710, ed. G. D. Henderson and
H. H. Porter(Aberdeen,1949),pp. 38 ff.; see also Ned C. Landsman,Scotlandand Its
First American Colony, 1683-1765 (Princeton, N.J., 1985), pp. 59-61.

128
LANDSMAN
counts of that revival to his parishioners, hoping they would emulate

the American example. For nearly a year he preached exclusively on
the subject of the new birth; those sermons would mark the initial
piercing of the heart, or "convictions," for many converts. It would
seem that his painstaking efforts began to pay off following his lecture
of February 18, when McCulloch spent the whole night, and many
nights thereafter, counseling and examining those affected by his
preaching. Thus at first glance, the Cambuslang revival appears to have
done much to reinforce authority within the church, creating a revival
movement that appears to have been unusually well supervised and
regulated.
Yet if we turn our attention from clerical accounts of the revival to
the descriptions written by lay participants, the situation looks different indeed. For one thing, in spite of the minister's efforts, it is doubtful that McCulloch and his colleagues played as great a role in awakening the parish or in supervising conversions as their accounts imply.
For the long months that McCulloch had preached on the subject of the
new birth, he had almost pleaded with his parishioners for an awakening, to no avail. For years before that, from the time that he had first
arrived in the parish, the minister had pressed his parishioners in private about the necessity of conversion, with little effect. Even after
Whitefield awakened several Cambuslang parishioners at Glasgow,
McCulloch spent months discoursing on the necessity of a revival without apparent result and to his great discouragement.13
McCulloch, in fact, seems to have been something of an insecure
and despairing sort, a rather striking contrast to the usual portrayal of
the charismatic evangelist. During the early days of his ministry, before arriving in Cambuslang, McCulloch visited the eminent Presbyterian pastor, the Reverend Robert Wodrow of Eastwood, and poured
out his insecurities about his spiritual qualifications for the ministry.
For years he feared that no one would ever employ him. Those who
heard his preaching were more likely to comment on the mildness of
his manner and the softness of his voice than on any charismatic qualities. Indeed, it often seems as though the emergence of William
McCulloch as a revival leader resulted as much from his lack of assertiveness as from any innate leadership ability. On one occasion, one of
his listeners saw fit to wail aloud during sermon, with the tacit consent
of the elders, whose conversations with the affected persons were also
disrupting the service. Far from objecting to the interruption, McCul13
McCulloch (n. 4 above), 2:557-71 (Janet Struthers), and vols. 1-2, passim.

REVIVALISTPREACHING
129
loch told his listeners not to stifle their feelings, but to encourage
them.14
What sparked the awakening at Cambuslang was not so much

McCulloch's effort, which had been almost continuous, but the involvement of leading laymen, including Ingram More and Robert Bowman, following their hearing of Whitefield. Both men were prominent
within the parish's fast-growing artisan community, and the revival
began to take effect only after they had traveled from house to house
within the parish carrying the petition for a Thursday lecture. Those
visits undoubtedly involved more than obtaining signatures since
McCulloch had long before demonstrated that he was more than eager
to preach conversion to the congregation at almost any opportunity. At
the same time that More and Bowman were circulating their petition,
they were establishing a network of prayer societies within the parish,
all led by laymen. In the days before the first conversions at Cambuslang, those societies had been meeting every night, building anticipation and working some of the young people into a fever pitch. Not until
they had suitably prepared the parish for the revival did McCulloch's
sermons begin to take effect.15
When the revival began, the first to be affected were the three
daughters of James Jackson, an elder of the kirk and also a weaver.
What happened thereafter is revealing: as soon as the young women
began to cry out, More and Bowman removed them from the meetinghouse right in the middle of the sermon. They were taken into a separate chamber where several of the elders looked after them. As others
began to cry out, they too were carried out of the sermon and into the
side chamber. There those under spiritual distress were organized into
prayer meetings, led by persons whom More and Bowman appointed.
They were extremely selective in their choice of prayer leaders, refusing to hear the prayers of a prominent elder from a neighboring parish
whose prayers evidenced less than complete certainty of the divine
inspiration of the revival.16
Once the sermon had ended, converts were brought into the minister's manse, but More and Bowman determined which persons were
14
Robert Wodrow, Analectica; or Materials for a History of Remarkable Providences; Mostly Relating to Scotch Ministers and Christians, 4 vols. (Edinburgh, 1842),
4:279-80;McCulloch,1:86(JanetReid), 1:96-97 (MaryMitchell),and passim;and esp.
A Short Account of the Remarkable Conversions at Cambuslang. In a Letter From a

Gentleman in the West-Country to his Friend at Edinburgh (Glasgow, 1742), pp. 5-8.
15 Short Account; McCulloch, 1:17-38 (Janet Jackson), 1:94-101 (MaryMitchell),

1:102-10(ElizabethJackson),and passim.
16
McCulloch, 1:17-38 (Janet Jackson), 1:102-10 (ElizabethJackson), 2:265-296
(CatherineJackson),and passim;ShortAccount, pp. 8-9.

130
LANDSMAN
brought in to see him, and when. Some of the others were taken instead
to a private house for instruction by one of the elders or by Jean
Galbraith, an "experienced Christian" and a neighbor and close friend
of both More and James Jackson. It is apparent from the accounts of
the Jackson sisters that Galbraith had a far greater influence over their
conversions than did McCulloch. When, in the ensuing weeks, other
potential converts called on the ministers in search of spiritual counsel,
More and Galbraith advised them not to rely so much on the words of
men (ministers) but to rely instead on the Bible.17
Although clerical descriptions of the events at Cambuslang portray McCulloch and his colleagues as constant companions of those
attempting to work out their conversions, the converts' narratives suggest that they experienced things quite differently. While most first fell
under spiritual concern in response to the preaching of a minister, as
was traditional in Presbyterian doctrine (awakening normally follows
the hearing of the Word), the majority accorded the clergy little influence thereafter. To those converts, regeneration was something to
be worked out substantially within their own hearts and minds. When
they needed counsel, they went most often to friends and relatives or
to the lay leaders of the congregation. A few of the narratives never
refer to any minister at all, while only a handful of cases portrayed
clergymen as major figures after the initial awakening. In that sense, it
seems as though Cambuslang converts took the Protestant injunction
against spiritual mediators far more seriously than did their ministers.18
The lay leaders to whom the narrators turned came principally
from the artisan community, both within and outside of Cambuslang.
Almost all were weavers. Although in the next century, Scotland's
handloom weavers acquired the reputation of a downtrodden group,
their situation in the middle years of the eighteenth century was far
better. Weavers were much in demand, and their numbers in and
around Glasgow were growing at an ever-accelerating rate. Skilled
weavers were better-paid than their counterparts in agricultural work
and, by contemporary reports, were even able to marry and start
families at an earlier age.19
The weavers of the Glasgow region were an active and confident
group. As their membership expanded, they took the lead in the formation of "friendly societies" devoted to mutual aid and camaraderie.
17
McCulloch,1:27-28 (Janet Jackson), 1:72-73 (Anne Wylie), and passim.

Ibid., esp. 1:368-75 (Janet Merrilie),1:465(John Aiken), and passim.
18
19
Durie (n. 6 above); Norman Murray, The Scottish Hand Loom Weavers, 1790-
1850 (Edinburgh,1978);Sinclair(n. 6 above), 5:241-74.

REVIVALISTPREACHING
131
The local incorporation of weavers, which had existed for centuries,

spawned an array of new societies in the second quarter of the eighteenth century: one in Calton in Glasgow in 1725, another in Anderston
in 1738, another in Pollockshaws in Eastwood the following decade,
and still others in nearby communities within a few years after that.20
The initiative those weavers displayed in the creation of weaver
societies carried over into church life, as weavers increasingly came to
dominate kirk sessions throughout the region. By 1742, weavers comprised a majority of the Cambuslang session and were similarly represented in several neighboring parishes. In Glasgow's Barony parish,
several weavers extended their influence into the realm of religious
publication as well; beginning about 1730, weavers began to band together to subscribe to the republication of orthodox religious tracts in
numbers matched by no other group.21
Those master weavers were similarly influential both in counseling
potential converts and in attracting them to the revival. McCullouch's
notebooks offer evidence concerning the social origins of sixty-two of
those who wrote narratives, and the evidence is striking: more than
two-thirds of those whose origins we can trace derived from the artisanal community, half of those from weaving families, in an area where
the majority of inhabitants still followed agricultural pursuits. Only a
few of those were master weavers, however; as in most revival movements, women and the young predominated-unmarried women alone
comprised a majority of the narrators. Almost two-thirds of the narrators from weaving families were women, all but one unmarried. Even
among male weavers youth predominated: only two of the men were
master weavers, while two were apprentices and two were the sons of
20M'Ewan(n. 6 above); also "MinuteBook of the Weaversof Caltounand Blackfaulds; "Minute Book, 1738-1832, Society of Weavers of Anderston," both in
StrathclydeRegionalArchives.
21 MinuteBook of the Weaversof Caltounand Blackfaulds";"MinuteBook, 17381832";"Recordsof the KirkSession of Cambuslang,"vol. 2 (1722-48),ScottishRecord
Office, Edinburgh;and "Recordsof the Kirk Session of BaronyParish,"vol. 4 (173756), StrathclydeRegionalArchives. Weaverparticipationin the publicationof religious
tracts is discussed in Peter Laslett, "Scottish Weavers, Cobblers and Miners Who
Bought Books in the 1750's," Local Population Studies 3 (1969): 7-15. Weavers from the
Glasgowregion subscribedto many other books in additionto those Laslett cited; see,
e.g., two editions of Thomas Watson, A Body of Practical Divinity, Consisting of above
One Hundred seventy six serons on the Lesser Catechism (Glasgow, 1734 and 1759);
John Nevay, The Nature, Properties, Blessings and Saving Graces of the Covenant of
Grace (Glasgow, 1748); and John Collins [Collinges], The Weavers' pocket-book; or
Weavingspiritualized(Glasgow, 1766). An extensive collection of such books can be

found amongthe early Glasgowimprintsin the rarebook roomof the MitchellLibrary,
Glasgow;see esp. those publishedby John Bryce.

LANDSMAN
132
weavers. Fully half of the narrators whose origins we can trace were
the wives, sons, daughters, or servants of artisanal families, those we
might call the dependent members of the craft community. The narratives of those young persons, such as those of the Jackson sisters, give
abundant evidence of the role their masters or their masters' wives
played in guiding their religious development.22
*
Under the guidance of those master weavers, the Cambuslang

converts forged a concept of conversion that diverged dramatically
from that prescribed by the preachers. Although McCulloch and his
colleagues continuously directed their converts to test their experiences against the standards of scripture and doctrine, Cambuslang's
lay leaders offered different advice. They counseled their listeners to
reflect on the Bible directly, rather than to listen so closely to the
words of men. What they found in those reflections was an experience
that was lay-centered and distinct. Almost without exception, the converts looked not to the preacher's doctrine for guidance so much as
they cast about for sure, external signs of their election, through voices
and visions and signs manifest in their own lives, a process that More
and Bowman explicitly encouraged and that the revivalists repeatedly
decried. In annotating the narratives, the ministers consistently deleted
references to such signs, yet they appeared in almost every narrative,
even among those that McCulloch selected for publication. Indeed, if
the preachers believed that conversion came about most often through
the hearing of the Word, to the converts it came most often from
hearing words, or voices, aloud or inside themselves, a realm of experience beyond clerical control.
A good example of such a conversion can be found in the relation
of Margaret Lap, a servant and collier's daughter from Cambuslang
and an unmarried woman of twenty-nine. As a young woman, Margaret Lap had always maintained the externals of religious behavior,
22
The index to vol. 2 of McCullouch'snotebooks-found at the end of vol. 1describesthe social originsof almostall of the narratorsin the second vol. The index to
vol. 1-located at the end of vol. 2-provides some additionalinformation,and the
occupationsof a few other narratorscan be discernedfromthe narratives.Of the sixtytwo we can identify,there were seventeenmen andforty-fivewomen, a ratiosomewhat
lower than that found in the notebooks as a whole (thirty-fourmen vs. seventy-three
women).Morethan two-thirds(forty-twoof sixty-two)came fromthe artisanalcommunity, twenty-one weavers and spinners or their families, and another nine from the
familiesof shoemakers.See also the accounts in McCulloch,1:17-37 (JanetJackson),
1:39-75(Anne Wylie), 1:78-84 (John McDonald),1:94-100(MaryMitchell),and2:26596 (CatherineJackson).

REVIVALISTPREACHING
133
yet she did not begin to experiencea "new birth"untilWhitefieldcame

to preach in Glasgow in 1741. Thereaftershe began to attend sermons
at Cambuslang,which deepened her spiritualconcerns. By February
18, the night the Jackson sisters stayed late at the minister's house,
MargaretLap was so troubled that she could barely sleep. When a
friend told her that, had she not gone home that night but remained
instead at the minister's manse she might have found relief from her
distress, Lap found herself on the brink of despair. Suddenly, the
words, "He is the same God yesterday, & toDay, & forever," came
into her mind. She smiled, and her whole countenancechangedas she
repeatedthe phraseto her companion.A few days later, her desolation
returned,until the words "hear and fear" suddenly "darted"into her
mind and showed her a way to salvation. She thought she heard the
Lord say to her that he would be with her "throughfire and water,"
and she returnedto her earlierjoyous state. The rest of MargaretLap's
account is composed of repeated peaks and valleys in her emotional
state, invariablyinspiredby words and voices.23
MargaretLap's case was far fromunique;in fact, it was amongthe
more orthodox experiences reportedin the narratives,and McCulloch
assigned it a prominentplace in the volume of cases that he hoped to
publish. Similarin tone was the conversion of Agnes Buchanan,the
daughterof a merchantin the neighboringparishof Shotts, who came
to hear the preachingat Cambuslang.One day, while Buchananwas
walkingthrougha field, she felt herself seized with a "sudden fear &
trembling& darkness& confusion." The "horrid"expression, "Lord
damnmy soul," entered her mind, and try as she would, she could not
get it out. She continuedalong in greatterror,beggingthe Lord to help
her. Just as suddenly, these other words came into her head: "Tho
thou slay me yet will I trustin thee." Agnes Buchananwas troubledno
more.24
Those voices impressed the converts with their power. For six
weeks following her initial awakening, eighteen-year-oldAnn Montgomery was only moderately troubled. Then, one day, the words,
"fearnot, for I am with thee," came to her "with such power" that she
could not help but believe they were from God. KatherineCampbell,
who was first awakened by Whitefieldin Glasgow, heard the words,
"Thou art a chosen vessel unto me," come into her mindwith "greater
power & light than almost any word ever I had met with, so as I was
assured it was from the Spirit of the Lord." James Jack's case was
23
24
McCulloch, 1:9-15.
Ibid., 2:183-96.

134
LANDSMAN
equally dramatic. At the communion table in the parish of Kilsyth, Jack

trembled in fear as the sacrament commenced. Then he heard the
minister say the word, "Take," with a voice that seemed louder and
more forceful "than any man on Earth could speak." That calmed his
fears and led him to a moment of joyous celebration.25
Strikingly, ministers and converts often agreed on the timing of
their awakening without agreeing on the means. Although most of the
converts reported that their initial awakenings had developed while
listening to sermons, as orthodoxy required, it was not always the
preacher's words that affected them. Thus John McDonald, a young
weaver from Cambuslang, sat listening to a sermon when suddenly the
words, "I am he that speaketh unto thee," never spoken by the minister, came "with great power to my heart ... upon which I was made to
believe that Jesus Christ was speaking to me." Such experiences appear repeatedly in the narratives.26
A smaller number of converts saw visions as well. After hearing
McCulloch preach on the subject of the new birth in February of 1742,
Margaret Skene, an unmarried woman of twenty-three, was unable to
work, eat, or sleep for a period of seven weeks. She perceived herself
to be "just hanging over the mouth of Hell." Then one day, as she
listened to McCulloch's sermon, the following words, not mentioned in
the lecture, came into her mind: "I love thee with loving kindness,"
which she took to be directed at herself. The relief she felt stayed only
briefly, and soon her mood returned to despair. Then, one night at her
home, the young woman saw "a flash of fire on the Brae which I took
to be hell-fire .... Winds came with such force I felt, as if it were the
Holy Spirit come rushing home as with a strong stream of Divine
Influences into my Heart." Katherine Stuart, age nineteen, in the
midst of spiritual distress, saw a vision of "Jesus Christ in his bloody
sweat in the garden, and suffering on the cross." She begged the Lord
for a token of his forgiveness, on which "Immediately there came a
sudden glare of fire, that struck me down, and I now was made to cry
out with Joy, 'My Lord & My God.' "27
Still others sought confirmation of their conversions in premonitions. Such a case involved Robert Shearer of Glasgow, age nineteen,
who, while awaiting communion, heard the words, "Whom have I in
25
Ibid., 2:356(Ann Montgomery),1:238(KatherineStuart),1:513(James Jack).

Ibid., 1:78-84 (John McDonald), and see 1:540-41 (Janet Reston), 2:146-47
(MargaretSkene), 2:356(Ann Montgomery),2:361-63 (BetheaDavie), 2:564-65 (Janet
Struthers),and passim.
27 Ibid., 2:148-49
(MargaretSkene), 1:237(KatherineStuart),and see 2:50(Thomas
Foster), 2:472-81 (Jean Wark),2:541 (MargaretBorland),and passim.
26

REVIVALISTPREACHING
135
heaven but thee O Lord." Almost immediately thereafter those very

words were spoken by the minister, which so filled the young man with
joy that he felt as though he could have died for the Lord. John Aiken
of Cambuslang lived much in fear of losing his convictions and falling
into his former sinful ways, until one night he dreamed that he was
taken up into heaven. The next morning, some words from Psalm 107
about being taken up into heaven, came into his mind and calmed his
fears. And Alexander Bilsland of Glasgow, a man of forty-seven, heard
the words from Psalm 18 about the Lord delivering him from the hands
of his enemies, come into his mind with great force, followed by a
passage from Exodus about the defeat of the Pharaoh. Within the hour,
his family received news about a British victory in battle, which he
took to be a divine confirmation of his election.28
The appearance of voices and visions was not new to Scottish
Presbyterians; the legends of the covenanters were filled with tales of
supernatural signs of divine approbation of the martyrs and heroes of
the day and divine retribution against their adversaries. Former Cambuslang minister Robert Fleming's Fulfilling of the Scripture had been
devoted to providing clear evidences of the divine plan to establish
Presbyterianism in Scotland, one of many such works that circulated
within the region. More recently, Robert Wodrow of nearby Eastwood
parish had compiled many volumes of Analectica, or "Remarkable
Providences," all proving the divine hand behind the triumph of the
national kirk. One of his notations concerned the younger William
McCulloch, who had been consoled by a chance encounter with the
story of Jonah just as doubts about his spiritual calling caused him to
consider fleeing Scotland for Carolina.29
What was new at Cambuslang was the application of such providences to the question of individual salvation rather than to national
and clerical causes. In the works of Fleming and Wodrow, divine intervention in the natural world had been displayed primarily to demonstrate the rightness of the Presbyterian interest, both during the
Reformation and in the seventeenth-century battles to secure the independence of the Scottish kirk. The Cambuslang converts extended
those providences to apply to individual concerns, an application that
28Ibid., 1:170-72(RobertShearer),1:463(John Aiken), and 1:130(AlexanderBilsland).
29
Wodrow(n. 14 above), 4:279-80. See also Six Saints of the Covenant: Peden:
Semple: Welwood: Cameron: Cargill: Smith: By Patrick Walker, ed. D. Hay Fleming, 2
vols. (London, 1901),a compilationof worksfirstpublishedduringthe 1720sandrepublished many times.

136
LANDSMAN
IngramMore and Robert Bowman seem to have been instrumentalin

promoting.More, in particular,was notoriousfor discussingevidences
of what God had done for his soul, and both men encouragedtheir
hearersto see and hearthe imageand voice of Christ.Accordingto one
report,Robert Bowman stood over a woman who had faintedduringa
sermon, telling her that "Christis just a coming, he is on his way, he
will not tarry," while Morejoined in with the query, "Do you hearthe
sound of his chariotwheels?"30The extension of such providencesto
questions of personal salvation rather than to broader national concerns became the focal point of the Seceders' attack on the awakening.31While the revivalist clergy were obligedto defend the possibility
of such signs, they invariablyquestionedtheir reliability,both in their
publishedaccounts of the awakeningand in the marginsof the manuscript.
As a group, the converts proved stubbornlyresistant to McCulloch's frequentwarnings.Some simplyreinterpretedthose injunctions,
consideringthem as warningsnot against the hearingof voices per se
but only againstthe hearingof words that did not derivefromthe Bible.
A good example was the case of Anne Wylie, age thirty-two,from Old
Monkland,a parishthat borderedCambuslang.After her initialawakening through the preaching of George Whitefieldat Glasgow, Anne
Wylie experienceda period of intense doubts about her spiritualstate.
She was nearly at the point of despair when the words, "Hear and
fear," came into her mind. RememberingMcCulloch'sinsistence upon
scripturalstandards,Wylie searchedthe Bible at length, but could not
discover the phrase. Just as she felt her despondencyreturn,she came
upon those words, and felt a "heartovercomingpower," and a "sweet
light" shininginto her mind, "brighterthanI saw the sun shiningabout
,,32
me."32
At times clerical warnings were more successful in frightening
hearers than in altering their perceptions. Thus when Anne Wylie
heard McCullochpreach to his audience about the dangersof relying
on inner voices, which he likened to the way of the Quakers, Wylie
grewfearfuland distractedin the extreme. Later, she foundreliefwhen
the words, "In midst of thee there shall not be any strangegod at all,"
30
Short Account (n. 14 above), pp. 15 ff.

See esp. Ralph Erskine, The True Christ no new Christ (Edinburgh, 1742); and
James Fisher, A Review of the Preface to a Narrative of the Extraordinary Work at
Kilsyth and other Congregations in the Neighbourhood, written by the Rev. Mr. James
Robe, Minister of Kilsyth (Glasgow, 1742).
32
McCulloch, 1:39-75.
31

REVIVALISTPREACHING
137
came into her mind and convinced her that she had wrongly come to
idolize her minister.33
Ministerial interference with conversions could lead to quite hostile reactions on the part of those under convictions. Thus Jean Hay of
the parish of Lesmahago, during the course of her conversion, came to
view one of her parish ministers as a "legal preacher," meaning one
whose directives were aimed more at easing her fears than effecting her
conversion, even though that minister was ardently evangelical. The
other minister of her parish, Thomas Lining, listened skeptically to her
story, described her experience as "strange." Later, during a fit of
hysteria, she came to imagine that she saw Lining, also a supporter of
the revival, in the image of the devil himself.34
*
Much more than their visionary quality distinguished lay perceptions from clerical prescriptions; they differed in their views of the
nature of the experience as well. Such differences were evident from
the beginning of the conversion process, the onset of "convictions,"
the realization of one's unconverted state. Before the revival began,
William McCulloch spent many months preaching the terrors of Hell to
his congregation. On at least one occasion, he echoed Jonathan Edwards's "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," preaching on the
frail thread that protected sinners from everlasting burning, in an effort
to awaken his hearers. Yet the Cambuslang converts stated with near
unanimity that the fear of damnation played little part in their conversions. One might be tempted to dismiss such assertions as rhetorical,
designed to counter those critics who sought to discredit the revival by
attributing its power to worked-up emotionalism brought about by hellfire preaching, except that McCulloch and his colleagues actually encouraged their hearers to fear Hell with little effect. Indeed, in several
places in the manuscript, we find the rather surprising spectacle of
converts stating categorically that they did not fear Hell while their
clerical editors argued just as strenuously in the margins that they
really did.35
Even more striking evidence that we ought to take those asser-
33 Ibid., 1:55-72.
34 Ibid., 1:254-81.
35 Ibid., 1:96(MaryMitchell),and see 1:10(MargaretLap), 1:76(JohnMcDonald),

1:180(Jean Robe), 1:282-83 (Rebecca Dykes), and many other referencespassim.

138
LANDSMAN
tions about the role of the fear of Hell seriously comes from the rather
surprisingbehavior of several of those who experienced convictions.
For example, RobertShearer,age 19, and Rebecca Dykes, age 14, both
were so tormentedby theirconvictions that they contemplatedsuicide.
Suicide, of course, would hardlyhave been an appropriateremedyfor
one who was concerned about damnation.Yet several other converts
reportedthat they, too, longed for death to relieve them of their spiritual troubles.36
The case of Thomas Foster, a married man of forty, further
confirms the point. When a sermon preached at Cambuslangfilled
Foster with deep anxiety, he responded by abandoningprayer for
nearly two years. Instead, he tried to drinkhis troubledconscience to
rest. As his anxieties drove him near the brinkof despair,he wandered
from alehouse to alehouse, at one point visiting six in the course of a
particularlyunhappyevening. Only the interventionof voices and visions helped bring Thomas Foster back into the-churchfold.37
What concerned those narratorswas not what mighthappenduring an afterlifebut mattersthat were much more immediateand present. Indeed, those few converts who did express a fear of Hell in their
narrativesportrayed it not as a place to spend their futures but as
somethingimminent.Thus Robert Shearerwas so struckwith a sense
of divine wrathfor his sinfulness that he thoughthe saw God himself,
"with the Sword of Justice in his handjust ready to Cut me down, and
cast me into Hell." Janet Merrilie, age 14, dreamed that she saw a
coalpit before her, with the heat drawingher in and with nothing to
save her. Whatdrove Thomas Foster to drinkwas an image of himself
fallinginto the very pit of Hell, with droves of people marchingin, until
the vision of a beautifulman called him back. Several converts wrote
that they had kept themselves awake for nights on end out of fear that
they would waken in Hell. The specter of Hell apparentlyaffected
those hearersonly when it possessed the same sense of immediacythat
inspiredtheir reliance on voices and signs.38
What did bother those converts, they recordedalmost uniformly,
was not the fear of damnationbut rathera sense of sin and dishonor
that their convictions awakened in them, which they experienced as
36 Ibid., 1:284(Rebecca
Dykes), 1:294(RobertShearer),and see 1:233(Katherine
Stuart),2:9-12 (Janet Tennant),2:589 (Agnes Hamilton),and passim.
37 Ibid., 2:49-52 ff.
38 Ibid., 1:289(RobertShearer),1:368(JanetMerrilie),and2:52ff. (ThomasFoster);

see also 1:96-97 (Mary Mitchell), 1:172(A. Rogers), 1:380ff. (Agnes Glassford),and
passim. John Parkeradded an unusual, though revealing, twist: he conceded that he
fearedthe devil, but not Hell or the terrorto come. See 2:666.

REVIVALISTPREACHING
139
shame. Such expressions of sinfulness and humiliation coincided well

with clerical prescriptions and might be assumed to derive directly
from the guidance of McCulloch and his colleagues-the
clericaleditors never questioned such expressions in the narratives-except
that their hearers extended the concept in some rather unexpected
directions. Consider again the case of Anne Wylie, who was so affected by the hearing of words. The young woman reported that, following the first stirrings of convictions in her heart, she was so troubled
by a sense of sinfulness that she abandoned prayer for several yearssurely not what her minister had in mind-fearing to be alone in God's
presence. Janet Jackson, from a good religious family and the daughter
of an elder of the kirk, avoided discussing her convictions with anyone,
lest "everyone know what a great sinner I was."39
The sense of sinfulness described by those converts differed considerably from what their ministers prescribed. For the clergy, the
essential point was the dishonor done to God; for converts, sinfulness
was equally likely to involve the loss of honor before men and women.
Their shame was linked not only to their spiritual states but to their
positions in this world as well. And where ministers tried to impress on
their hearers that sinfulness derived from the inherent depravity of man
and woman, converts were just as likely to relate it to a sense of
personal unworthiness. The narrators appear to have been intensely
concerned with matters of status and self-worth, which would seem to
have been quite at odds with Calvinistic tenets.
The case of Catherine Jackson, a servant girl and a daughter of
elder James Jackson, provides a good example. After her early conversion under the guidance of McCullouch and Jean Galbraith, her master,
Bartholemew Somers, also a church elder and weaver, brought her to
see the Seceder minister James Fisher, a leading opponent of the revival, in an attempt to convince him of the authenticity of Cambuslang
conversions. Although she was well rehearsed in her story before her
arrival, in the midst of the interview she was unable to help blurting out
that she had seen Christ "with her bodily eyes," a phrasing that Fisher
seized upon to discredit the revival as visionary and ungodly. Although
she never doubted the reality of her conversion, she was stricken with
great shame, nonetheless, fearing that she had been responsible for
discrediting the revival.40
The fear of dishonoring the awakening appeared in other narratives as well. Thus Anne Wylie, who had always sought to convey a
39 Ibid., 1:40 ff. (Anne Wylie), 1:26-27 (Janet Jackson).
40 Ibid., 2:265-96 (Catherine Jackson).

140
LANDSMAN
good impressionof the revival to her neighbors,one day found herself

exchanging harsh words with her master. She later feared that her
indiscretionwould cause people to think badly of the revival "on my
account." Twenty-year-old Jean Robe expressed similar concerns,
fearingthat if she failed to uphold her convictions, she would prove a
"scandal to religion." Often, the tone of the narrativessuggests that
the writers were less concerned with the fate of the revival than with
their own responsibilityfor causing it harm.41
The sense of sinfulness the narratorsexperiencedoften had little
to do with any overt behavior.Scottishpreacherstold themthathuman
nature was inherently sinful, but the converts heard that in a rather
unusualway. JanetReid, for one, expressedgreatfeelingsof sinfulness
even though she believed that she had never committedany "actual
transgressions";she felt herself guilty only of "originalsin." Thatis a
vastly different concept from what the preachers meant by inherent
sinfulness, which was necessarily coupled with actual sins. Otherconverts confessed only to such generalized sins as sabbath-breakingusually more in demeanorthan activity-or "unbelief" or "unworthy
communicating."Their sense of sinfulness was almost invariablyrelated to feelings of unworthiness,a word that appearsrepeatedlyin the
narratives.42
For some, the sense of shame had less to do with culpabilitythan

capability. Janet Struthers, age thirty-two, avoided telling anyone of
her initial awakeningbecause she was barely literate, and she feared
that her ignorance would "defame" the revival. Another grown
woman, MargaretClerk, confessed that she had frequentlyavoidedthe
kirk "because I could not read and I was ashamed that I could not
makeuse of a Bible in the Kirkas others aboutmedid." MargaretLap,
who could read, was ashamed, nonetheless, by her inabilityto "comprehend"the doctrinesof the gospel. Thatsurelywas partof Catherine
Jackson's shame also, when she inadvertently revealed to James
Fisher that she had seen a vision of Christ with her "bodily eyes."
Several converts avoided going to see either ministersor community
leaders even after they felt that they had approachedthe point of
assuranceof their salvation, precisely "for fear of speakingamiss," to
use Anne Wylie's phrase, or for fear of being exposed as a hypocrite.43
The sense of sin experiencedby many converts was closely linked
41
42
Ibid., 1:64ff. (Anne Wylie), 1:188(Jean Robe).

Ibid., 1:189(Janet Reid), 1:385(Agnes Glassford),and passim.
43 Ibid., 2:557if. (Janet Struthers),2:447ff. (MargaretClerk), 1:9 (Margaret
Lap),
1:52(Anne Wylie), see 1:264(Jean Hay), and passim.

REVIVALISTPREACHING
141
to values promoted by the emerging weaving community, including

literacy, sobriety, mutuality, and assertiveness. Janet Struthers was
only one of several converts who expressed shame at her lack of reading skills. Converts were just as concerned with what they read, abandoning frivolous readings for godly works. Frivolity and idleness in
general were sources of shame. William Miller, from a weaving family,
came to shun the company of his former companions who engaged in
vain or "sinfull conversation" and conversed only with "such as
would talk about serious things." Formerly he would "take pleasure in
idle talk, wanton sports, and merry-jests, but now I abhor [them]."
John Hepburn did jest with his friends after sermon one Sabbath, but
his heart "smote" him for it.44
A powerful source of shame to some converts was the inability to
assert oneself in public and speak freely on religious matters. Thus
Elizabeth Jackson found herself unable to tell anyone of her feelings
until the very culmination of her conversion. Shyness of that sort was
most apparent among young women, but occasionally men, too, were
affected; William Causlam, age forty-eight, was called on to lead his
meeting in prayer, but found himself "much straitened" and unable to
pray aloud in public. That convinced him that he should leave the
meeting, believing that it was "better to withdraw than be a reproach
to religion." Only a long period of private wrestling with his anxieties
led him finally to a greater "freedom" in public prayer.45
Thus in spite of the inwardness of the conversion experience,
participants in the Cambuslang revival were quite concerned with the
opinions of others, including friends, family, and those identified with
the religious community. Michael Thomson, an artisan's apprentice,
decided that he should reform his behavior, lest it prove "a blott on my
reputation and be a disgrace to my friends." One "A. Rogers" noticed
that many people that he took to be "good folk" had been affected by
the revival and decided that "if this work were not of god, they would
not be there." That could work in reverse as well. Jean Hay fell into a
fit of despair when she observed that two prominent elders, Ingram
More and Sergeant Forbes, embraced one another without paying any
attention to her, feeling that the children of God loved one another, but
that they "care[d] not for me."46
44 Smout, "Born Again" (n. 4 above), pp. 125-27; 2:557 ff. (Janet Struthers), 2:447 ff.
(Margaret Clerk), 1:418 (William Miller), 1:377-78 (John Hepburn), and see 1:147
(George Tassie), 1:461 (John Aiken), and 2:433 ff. (Margaret Ritchie).
45 McCulloch, 1:107-8 (Elizabeth Jackson), 1:252 ff. (William Causlam), and see
1:12-14 (Margaret Lap).
46 Ibid., 1:479 ff. (Michael Thomson), 1:177 (A. Rogers), and 1:266-67 (Jean Hay).

142
LANDSMAN
To some, conversions seemed to require an audience. Repeatedly

in the narratives we find the spectacle of new converts unable to refrain
from telling friends and neighbors what the Lord had done for their
souls; Elizabeth Jackson, in a relative's house, could not forbear commending Christ, "his love and free grace, to such a poor sinner as I,"
to all of her neighbors. Similarly, Catherine Cameron sat on the
braeside after a particularly visionary moment, "longing for some to
whom I might tell what I had met with... .47
The case of Janet Jackson, one of the three sisters whose conversions helped instigate the revival, provides a particularly telling example. The young women's initial religious concerns developed shortly
after Janet heard George Whitefield preach at Glasgow. Yet it was not
the preaching that aroused her concerns, but rather her perception that
others, especially her sister Elizabeth, had been deeply affected, while
she had not. Then, when she went to hear William McCulloch preach
at Cambuslang, she decided that his preachings were directed "against
my sins and no bodies else" and felt as though he had "named [her] out
before the congregation." The following Sabbth, as the revival began
to take hold, she had to stand in the crowded kirk. When she saw that
Elizabeth had obtained a seat, she took that as a sign of her unworthiness, believing that "[E]verybody knew I was so great a sinner."
Worse was yet to come. Soon, sister Catherine, too, fell under convictions, and when Ingram More himself arrived to summon her to the
minister's house, Janet Jackson decided that she had been shunned by
everyone. All the while she told no one of her shame.48
More than anything else, converts sought a release from that sense
of sinfulness and shame, which became, for them, the essence of assurance, the final stage of conversion, a main concern both of ministers
and their hearers. For the clergy, the principal confirmation of assurance was scriptural, the ability to relate one's experience to religious
doctrine. Such concerns mattered little to their converts, who mentioned doctrinal matters in their accounts almost as rarely as they
discussed meetings with the minister. Instead, they looked inward to
their feelings. In short, where ministers maintained a doctrinal definition of conversion, their hearers adopted an essentially psychological
conception. Read in this fashion, many of the narratives appear as dayto-day histories of the words and experiences that affected their emotional equilibrium.
47 Ibid., 1:107-8 (ElizabethJackson), 1:326(Mrs. C. Cameron),see 1:12-14 (Margaret Lap), 1:30(Janet Jackson),and 1:100(MaryMitchell).
48Ibid., 1:17-37 (Janet Jackson).

REVIVALISTPREACHING
143
Anne Wylie's story provides a typical yet rather moderate example. After first being awakened by Whitefield in Glasgow in 1741,
she began to attend McCulloch's sermons at Cambuslang. His first
sermon so upset her, that she "sate down & wept, that I had got such a
woefull hasty temper." On another occasion, the minister's preaching
filled her with such a sense of shame that she heard and remembered
nothing of what was said. Later, she found her heart "melted down"
during sermon, and "a mighty & sweet power accompanied the words
as they came from [his] mouth." That frame of mind continued only
briefly, and soon she "lost all the love" that she had found while
attending. Wylie's narrative continues for about forty pages, covering
many months of alternate joys and sorrows, of "inward heat & warmth
of love and joy . . . ravishing ... my soul," followed by distress so
great that she could not carry on with her employment. Finally, two
events convinced her of her salvation. On one occasion, when she was
much "cast down" in spirit, the words, "Fear not, for thou shalt not be
ashamed," came into her mind and alleviated the sense of shame that
her convictions had wrought, and she could not forbear kissing her
Bible and calling out, "Now this is just all I want, I care for no more in
the world." Later, hearing McCulloch preach on the nature of conversion, Wylie found her own situation described so closely that "all my
doubts, as to the reality of a work of Grace on my soul vanished; and I
was filled with great joy & peace in believing."49
Although the ministers stressed that full certainty would come
only in the afterlife, their converts almost without exception sought
sure knowledge in this life. Quite a few of the narrators achieved a state
of certainty that was characteristic of the heresy of "antinomianism,"
the belief that the spirit of God dwelt within the believer and freed that
person from error and the obligations of the moral law. Alexander
Bilsland of Glasgow believed that during the course of his conversion
he had learned how to distinguish the voice of Christ from the voice of
the devil, when either gave him orders, as both often did. Katherine
Stuart thought that a voice from the Lord told her directly where and
when to pray. Jean Robe, whose experience was otherwise unremarkable, cried out at the peak of her conversion that God had made a
covenant with her in person, and that Christ would glorify in her redemption. Catherine Cameron was affected by repeated words and
visions from Christ and the devil until finally a voice soothed her by
telling her that she was "not under the Law but under Grace." McCul49 Ibid., 1:39-75. For a morestrikingexampleof emotionalpossession, see 1:316-44
(Mrs. C. Cameron).

144
LANDSMAN
loch and his colleagues deleted all such passages from the text; the
frequent use of such expressions caused them to remove several accounts in their entirety.50
There was no more characteristic symbol of assurance in the narratives than the ability to sing the Psalms with freedom, or, in Anne
Wylie's descriptive phrase, "a frame suitable to the words." One Sabbath, entering the kirk, she heard the congregation singing Psalm 34.
She felt her heart "melted Down in singing the verses," until she came
to perceive that the Lord was calling her. On another occasion, when
entering the minister's manse after sermon, she joined the whole company there in singing Psalm 103, in an "extasy [sic] of joy." Similarly,
Jean Robe, just when she was near the point of despair, heard her
mistress reading the Psalms aloud, which filled her with great joy "at
the assurance I then got that I would be saved."51
The Psalms played a prominent role throughout the conversion
process, and references to the spirituality of psalm singing appear repeatedly in the narratives. Several converts maintained that they had
first felt the stirring of convictions during the singing of psalms. Thus
Janet Barry's initial awakening came as she sat singing psalms at family
prayer, while Margaret Clerk's convictions developed in the kirk, singing psalms before sermon. For others, psalm singing achieved its effect
later in their conversions; Jean Robe experienced her greatest moment
of spiritual joy from hearing the singing of psalms while spinning at her
wheel. Still others credited their awakenings to dreams or visions in
which psalms played a prominent role, for example, Mary Colquhon,
who heard an unstoppable chorus of psalms during the night when no
one was about without any pauses or breaks or ends. Jean Wark heard
Psalm 103 sung in the still of night, again, with no one near. She
described that singing as the sweetest that she ever had heard.52
*
The prominence of psalm singing in the Cambuslang narratives

suggests much about the character of the lay religious experience.
First, it linked the revival's participants firmly to regional and Presby50Ibid., 1:125(AlexanderBilsland),1:237(KatherineStuart),1:185-86(JeanRobe),
1:338(Mrs.C. Cameron),see 1:142(AlexanderBilsland),1:254-81(JeanHay), 1:316-44
(Mrs. C. Cameron),1:475-78 (MichaelThomson),and passim.
51Ibid., 1:42ff. (Anne Wylie), 1:183-84(JeanRobe), 1:596ff. (Agnes Young),and
passim.
52 Ibid., 2:9-15 (Janet
Barry), 2:447 (MargaretClerk),2:351ff. (MaryColquhon),
2:480-81 (Jean Wark),1:183-84(Jean Robe); and see 1:76(John McDonald),1:596-97
(Agnes Young), 2:158-63 (DanielMcLartis),2:541(MargaretBorland),and passim.

REVIVALISTPREACHING
145
terian traditions. Scottish Presbyterians had long retained a steadfastly

conservative attitude toward the Psalms, allowing only the renditions
in plain meter that had first been adopted in the Scottish Psalter of
1650. In regional lore, the most famous Presbyterian martyrs of covenanting days were reputed to have died with the Psalms on their lips, as
in the case of the famous Wigtoun martyrs, who were tied to stakes in
the water and drowned by the Solway tides, singing Psalm 25 as they
perished.53
The symbolism of the Psalms was important, for the metrical
psalms ranked with the catechism as the two characteristic rituals in
Scotland's Presbyterian traditions. But where catechizing was a passive activity promoted and supervised by the ministry, psalm singing
was an active lay endeavor, one that took place not only in the kirk but
also at home in family prayer or in prayer groups. There the singing
was led by laymen rather than clergy. Psalms could even be sung by
oneself, in private prayer, at home or at work.
The singing of psalms stood in opposition to another element of
regional popular culture, the secular harvest song; several converts
noted in their narratives that they had switched from the singing of
harvest ballads and "merry songs" to psalms as a result of their conversions. The entire harvest ritual became suspect to some narrators;
William Miller, for one, came to dread the approach of the harvest,
fearing that its "carnality" would overpower his convictions and lead
him back to his former "light and wanton behavior" while engaged "at
shearing with others." Jean Robe too feared the shearing ritual and the
"carnal discourse" that accompanied it.54
The contrast between the songs of the harvest and the singing of
the psalms reflected a more fundamental transformation that occurred
in the west of Scotland in the middle years of the eighteenth century in
the nature of work and community. In what had been, until recently, a
homogeneous agricultural region, the singing of harvest ballads represented an important group activity that linked the inhabitants of the
area of all social levels in a common enterprise. The sudden growth of
weaving changed much of that, as weavers and spinners worked often
in isolation from others and established a separate set of community
links. Those were evidenced in the rise of the weaver and friendly
53 Millar
Patrick, Four Centuries of Scottish Psalmody (London, 1949), chaps. 8-10;
David Johnson, Music and Society in Lowland Scotland in the Eighteenth Century
(London, 1972),chaps. 9-10.

54McCulloch,1:419(WilliamMiller), 1:192(Jean Robe), 2:333(MargaretRitchie),
and 2:668-69 (John Parker).

146
LANDSMAN
societies, which emphasized a mutuality among members that excluded nonmembers. The codes of discipine they adopted-restricting
membership on the basis of occupation, participation, character, and
behavior-further distinguished their membership from the rest of the
community.55
Those same artisanal groups, especially the weavers, had a pronounced effect on the popular culture of the region. They encouraged
the shift from the singing of harvest ballads to the singing of psalms.
They discouraged participation in such older community rituals as
sheepshearing and the attendance at fairs, substituting participation in
select religious or friendly societies. That is well demonstrated in the
case of John Parker, a linen dyer, who, following his awakening at
Cambuslang, set out on a tour of Scotland's fairs in search of a wife
whose companionship would free him from the necessity of attending
further carnal gatherings. The weavers supported a shift in the reading
styles of their members also, from stories and romances to more serious religious material.56
In their encouragement of literacy and religious study, the weavers helped promote something of a popular enlightenment among
tradesmen and urban dwellers in western Scotland. Between 1740 and
1770, weavers from Glasgow and its environs were responsible for the
publication or republication of scores of religious tracts through the
mechanism of private subscriptions. They vastly widened the range of
religious materials available to the reading public as well, offering not
only Scottish writings-which had predominated previously and which
the Seceders continued to emphasize-but a much larger body of Reformed tracts that included many works by English and American
ministers and theologians. In the process, the populace of western
Scotland developed a markedly greater awareness of the existence and
the affairs of allied religious parties throughout the transatlantic
world.57
55M'Ewan, Old Glasgow Weavers (n. 6 above); Minute Book, 1738-1832
(n. 6
above); "Minute Book, of the Weavers of Caltoun and Blackfaulds"(n. 20 above);
Durie, Scottish Linen Industry (n. 6 above); and Murray, Scottish Hand-Loom Weavers
(n. 19 above).
56 Folklorist David Buchan, in The Ballad and the Folk (London, 1972), has hypothesizedthat duringthe second quarterof the eighteenthcenturya markedseparation
developed between Scotland's oral and writtencultures. Althoughthe bulk of his evidence is drawnfromnortheasternScotland,his analysisis compatiblewith the situation
in the west of Scotlandas well. See also McCulloch,2:661-80(JohnParker),andpassim.
57 See Laslett, "Scottish Weavers"(n. 21 above), alongwith the book subscription
lists in the collectionof early Glasgowimprintsin the MitchellLibrary.Thereis considerable discussion of Americanaffairs in McCullochas well as in the pamphletsand

REVIVALISTPREACHING
147
The revival movement that began at Cambuslang consisted of one

element in that larger transformation. Like the other transatlantic revivals of the eighteenth century, it was initiated by clergymen, both
local and itinerant, who brought with them the language of revivalism
and the evangelical style. Yet their efforts to bring about a revival were
largely unsuccessful at the outset. Although there is much evidence in
the narratives that William McCulloch's first sermons on the new birth
affected several of his hearers well before the outbreak of the revival,
their reaction most often was to hide their convictions out of a sense of
sinfulness and shame. The minister's directives, which promised certain relief only in the afterlife, provided little consolation. Only after
Ingram More and his associates organized lay prayer groups and began
their instructional program, offering the prospects of certainty, emotional release, and religious community in this world, did the revival
begin to take hold.
A century earlier, the perspectives of ministers and hearers in the
west of Scotland may have been closer to one another. At a time when
the principal threat to the region's religious identity had come from
outside, from an Episcopal establishment that was almost devoid of
local support, Presbyterian ministers had raised the banner of the covenants against the innovations and the innovators. The subscription of a
covenant was a voluntary act that linked ministers and their hearers
throughout the community in the common, godly cause. Signs and
personal providences were employed as the common property of
clergy and laity, assuring them of divine approbation of their actions at
a time when one's personal fate seemed inexorably linked to the larger
struggle. That perspective was continued by the Seceders, who railed
against the innovations and evil effects that they invariably attributed
to the Union of Parliaments and the English connection. The Seceders
retained the support of some of the most influential of the long-standing
Presbyterian families in the Cambuslang vicinity.5
religiousperiodicalsof 1742-45; see also Susan O'Brien, "A TransatlanticCommunity
of Saints:The GreatAwakeningandthe FirstEvangelicalNetwork, 1735-1755,"American Historical Review 91 (1986): 811-32.
58 The use of
personalprovidencesin the covenantingera is evidentin nearlyall of
the originalaccountsof the period;see especiallyFleming,Fulfillingof the Scripture(n.
7 above); Robert Wodrow, History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland, 4 vols.
(Edinburgh, n.d.), Analectica (n. 14 above); and Walker, Six Saints of the Covenant (n.
29 above). The Seceder perspective,linkingScotland'stroublesto the Union, is evident

in such works as Ebenezer Erskine, "The Standardof Heaven lifted up against the
Powers of Hell and their Auxiliaries," in Sermons upon the Most Important and Inter-
esting Subjects,4 vols. (Philadelphia,1792),1:447-511;see also DonaldFraser,TheLife

148
LANDSMAN
In the context of post-Union Scotland, such a defensive posture

had only a limited appeal since the changes that were taking place in
the west of Scotland seemed to many to derive from within the region
and within their own communities. Especially for those involved in
commercial or artisanal occupations, the solution seemed to require an
identification not with the whole of the increasingly diverse and fragmented community of western Scotland but also with a distinguishable
religious element both within the region and far beyond: those who
shunned fairs and harvest rituals for religious societies and family
prayer. Several narrators described how their conversions had led
them to abandon not only their prior lifestyles but their former comrades as well. The parish clergy were able to offer the language of
religious conversion but, as parish clergy, they were not able to supply
either the distinct identity or the emotional certainty their hearers required.59
In the psalm-centered rituals of the revival, evangelical Presbyterians in western Scotland found a suitable symbol for resolving their
sometimes conflicting loyalties. They provided at once an identification
with the Presbyterian traditions of their ancestors and with the new and
more selective religiosity developing within the artisanal community
and in important areas of the transatlantic world. Most important,
within artisanal households, psalm singing could provide that link on a
great many occasions: during lay-sponsored group activities such as
religious societies, at home during family prayer, or while engaged in
their increasingly solitary work at their looms or at their wheels.
Among the most vivid images provided in the Cambuslang narratives is
that of the young servant girls who dominated the revival, the lone
spinners singing their psalms as they spun at their wheels. Janet Jackson, after fleeing from Jean Galbraith's questioning out of a sense of
shame, got her first moment of comfort reading the Bible and singing a
psalm at her wheel. Catherine Jackson, before the outbreak of the
revival, sat up all night spinning and singing so that she could attend
William McCulloch's initial Thursday lecture. And young Jean Robe,
after her master denounced her as distracted by her convictions, found
and Diary of the Reverend Ebenezer Erskine of Stirling (Edinburgh, 1831), pp. 253-57.
The Seceders' continuinguse of personalprovidencesis evident from the controversy

over the publicationof Memoirsof ElizabethCairns(Glasgow,n.d.). For evidence of
some long-standingfamilieswho supportedthe Secession, see "Minutesof the Associate
Presbyteryof Glasgow, 1739-1755," Scottish RecordOffice, United Societies MS.
59McCulloch,1:149ff. (GeorgeTassie), 1:352ff. (RobertBarclay),1:377-78(John
Hepburn),1:418(WilliamMiller), 1:420(JamesTenant),and passim. The abandonment
of formerfriendsseems to have occurredespeciallyamongyoungmenwithinthe artisan
community.

REVIVALISTPREACHING
149
herself humiliated and in great doubt that she would ever be saved. But
as she sat spinning at her wheel, her mistress sat spinning and reading
the Psalms beside her. One line, "Assuredly he shall thee save," came
to her with such power that she was "filled with joy at the assurance I
then got that I would be saved." She ran out of the house, on an
errand, to avoid ungodly conversation with her master, to nourish her
feelings alone. She sought out the company of a companion with whom
she could share her feelings of release from the shame of the world.
That degree of assurance and release came during psalm singing more
often than from any other act.60
60 McCulloch, 1:27, 1:33 (Janet Jackson), 1:183-84 (Jean Robe); 2:265 ff. (Catherine
Jackson), 1:106 (Elizabeth Jackson), and 2:539 (Margaret Borland).


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Evangelists and Their Hearers: Popular Interpretation of Revivalist Preaching in EighteenthCentury Scotland

Author(s): Ned Landsman

This content downloaded on Sun, 24 Feb 2013 13:59:52 PM

Evangelists and Their Hearers: Popular

The most persistentdifficultyconfrontinghistoricalinterpretersof

Charles Trinkausand Heiko A. Oberman(Leiden, 1974), pp. 307-36; Peter Burke,

Historiansand Early Modem PopularCulture,"Past and Present, no. 100 (1978),pp.

1979),pp. 66-81; andJohnVan Engen, "The ChristianMiddleAges as a Historiographic

Problem," American Historical Review 91 (1986): 519-52.

? 1989by The North AmericanConferenceon BritishStudies.

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historians almost by necessity have had to approach their task as one

La., 1985).In contrast, see Clark.

3 Contrast E. P. Thompson (The Making of the English Working Class [London,

1963], chap. 11) with E. J. Hobsbawm("Methodismand the Threatof Revolutionin

BernardSemmel (The Methodist Revolution [New York, 1973]);also Alan Heimert

1977])and HarryStout ("Religion,Communicationsand the IdeologicalOriginsof the

This content downloaded on Sun, 24 Feb 2013 13:59:52 PM

the inadequacy of such approaches is obvious, the solution is not, since

This content downloaded on Sun, 24 Feb 2013 13:59:52 PM

The parish of Cambuslang lies along the southern shore of the

This content downloaded on Sun, 24 Feb 2013 13:59:52 PM

situationin Scotlandduringthe CivilWarandafterhas been discussedmanytimes, most

Fawcett for backgroundabout Cambuslang.

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gious principles in Edinburgh and Glasgow and among segments of the

A good moder history of the Secession remains to be written. John McKerrow's

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In published source material, the Cambuslang revival is among the

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its leading proponents, the Reverend James Robe of Kilsyth, published

Religion at Home and Abroad, publishederraticallybetween 1742and 1746.

H. H. Porter(Aberdeen,1949),pp. 38 ff.; see also Ned C. Landsman,Scotlandand Its

First American Colony, 1683-1765 (Princeton, N.J., 1985), pp. 59-61.

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counts of that revival to his parishioners, hoping they would emulate

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What sparked the awakening at Cambuslang was not so much

4:279-80;McCulloch,1:86(JanetReid), 1:96-97 (MaryMitchell),and passim;and esp.

A Short Account of the Remarkable Conversions at Cambuslang. In a Letter From a

15 Short Account; McCulloch, 1:17-38 (Janet Jackson), 1:94-101 (MaryMitchell),

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McCulloch,1:27-28 (Janet Jackson), 1:72-73 (Anne Wylie), and passim.

1850 (Edinburgh,1978);Sinclair(n. 6 above), 5:241-74.

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The local incorporation of weavers, which had existed for centuries,

Weavingspiritualized(Glasgow, 1766). An extensive collection of such books can be

This content downloaded on Sun, 24 Feb 2013 13:59:52 PM

Under the guidance of those master weavers, the Cambuslang

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yet she did not begin to experiencea "new birth"untilWhitefieldcame

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equally dramatic. At the communion table in the parish of Kilsyth, Jack

Ibid., 2:356(Ann Montgomery),1:238(KatherineStuart),1:513(James Jack).

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heaven but thee O Lord." Almost immediately thereafter those very

vols. (London, 1901),a compilationof worksfirstpublishedduringthe 1720sandrepublished many times.

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IngramMore and Robert Bowman seem to have been instrumentalin

Short Account (n. 14 above), pp. 15 ff.

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35 Ibid., 1:96(MaryMitchell),and see 1:10(MargaretLap), 1:76(JohnMcDonald),

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