Evangelical revival in Scotland
The early revival mainly spread in the Central Belt, but it became active in the Highlands and Islands, peaking towards the middle of the nineteenth century.
Events came to a head in the Great Disruption in which many of the evangelicals, particularly in the North and Highlands left to form the Free Church of Scotland.
Evangelicalism had permeated Scottish leaving a legacy of strict Sabbatarianism and had helped foster local identities in the Highlands.
On Friday, known as the question day, lay catechists, called "the men", would give their interpretations of Bible verses chosen by the minister.
[3] Most of the new converts were relatively young and from the lower groups in society, such as small tenants, craftsmen, servants and the unskilled, with a relatively high proportion of unmarried women.
A popular preacher, he corresponded with religious leaders in other countries, including New England theologian Johnathan Edwards (1703–58), whose ideas were a major influence on the movement in Scotland.
[9] The evangelical revival was a movement that arose within Protestantism at roughly the same time in North America (where it is known as the First Great Awakening), England, Wales and Scotland.
[1] It began to manifest itself in Scotland in the later 1730s as Protestant congregations, usually in a specific locations, experienced intense "awakenings" of enthusiasm, renewed commitment and, sometimes, rapid expansion.
This was first seen at Easter Ross in the Highlands in 1739 and most famously in the Cambuslang Wark (work) near Glasgow in 1742,[10] where intense religious activity culminated in a crowd of perhaps 30,000 gathering there to hear the English preacher George Whitefield.
[4] Revivals in the Highlands probably peaked towards the middle of the nineteenth century, fed by the Ten Years Conflict and the Great Disruption.
In the major manufacturing districts of the country, prayer meetings were held in offices and factories and in the streets of Edinburgh and Glasgow.
[15] The revival saw an innovation in the introduction of the professional revivalist preacher, including Charles Grandison Finney (1792–1875), who visited Edinburgh in 1859.
[16] Together with Edward Payson Hammond, he introduced the distinctive revivalist service of a short sermon, joyous hymns and calls for members of the congregation to come forward.
[19] After prolonged years of struggle, in 1834 the evangelicals gained control of the General Assembly and passed the Veto Act, which allowed congregations to reject unwanted "intrusive" presentations to livings by patrons and the Chapels Act, which put the ministers of Chapels of Ease on an equal footing with ordinary parish ministers.
When the Claim of Right was rejected by the General Assembly the result was a schism from the church by some of the non-intrusionists led by Thomas Chalmers, known as the Great Disruption of 1843.
[21] In the nineteenth century the country began to gain relatively large numbers of non-conformist churches and congregations, which were evangelical in outlook.
[24] From 1879, they were joined by the evangelical revivalism of the Salvation Army, which attempted to make major inroads in the growing urban centres.
[26] A strand of evangelicalism developed in the Church in the early nineteenth century, mainly among English and Irish immigrants to Lowland towns.
[27] In 1843, the same year as the Great Disruption, a group in Edinburgh, under its leading figure David Drummond, broke away to form a separate English Episcopal congregation.
In 1797 James Haldane founded the non-denominational Society for the Propagation of the Gospel at Home, whose lay-preachers established independent churches across the Highlands.
Chalmers' experiment in St. John's, Glasgow, published in The Christian and Civic Economy of Large Towns (1821–26), provided a model of urban mission based on lay visitation.
The Tent Hall was opened on Glasgow Green in the city in 1876, which hosted poor relief, serving 1,000 breakfasts a day,[1] and evangelical meetings.
As well as the cult of Livingstone, Scottish missionary efforts were also fuelled by the rivalry between different denominations in Scotland, and may have helped distract from problems at home.
The missions were popularised at home by publications and illustrations, often particularly designed to appeal to children, and through the new medium of the magic lantern show, shown to audiences in church halls throughout the country.
[33] The evangelical effort began to decline in intensity in the final decades of the nineteenth century, both in Scotland and in major cities throughout the UK.
[37] As a movement Scottish evangelicalism began to divide into those who welcomed modern knowledge and science and those that pursued a more rigidly literal view of the Bible.
[1] Evangelicalism came to permeate Scottish society by the late nineteenth century and can be seen in areas such as the Kailyard school of literature, which moved its focus beyond the middle class to encompass the religious life of working people.
