In 1949, on the Isle of Lewis in the Scottish Hebrides, the churches were struggling to reach a younger generation. In the village of Barvas lived two elderly sisters, Peggy and Christine Smith, aged 84 and 82. Peggy was blind, and Christine was severely affected by arthritis. They could not travel around preaching. They could not organize great evangelistic campaigns. But they could pray, and they became convinced that God was going to visit their island.
The sisters laid hold of the promise of Isaiah 44:3: “I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground.” Night after night they prayed in their little cottage, sometimes for hours at a time, crying out to God for the young people of Lewis. Peggy became convinced that God had shown her the church filled with young people and that revival was coming. They challenged their minister, Rev. James Murray Mackay, to gather men from the church and seek God with them.
While the two sisters prayed in their cottage, men began meeting in a barn to seek God. They prayed for weeks. Then one night, a young deacon stood and read from Psalm 24: “Who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart.” He looked at the other men and challenged them. What good was it to keep asking God to send revival if their own hearts were not right before Him?
Then he lifted his hands and cried, “God, are my hands clean? Is my heart pure?”
He could go no further.
According to evangelist Duncan Campbell’s later account, the young man fell to the floor and an overwhelming consciousness of God gripped the men in that barn. Campbell described it as moving out of the ordinary and natural “into the sphere of the supernatural.” They had been asking God to come down. Now they believed He had answered.
The people invited Duncan Campbell to come to Lewis. Campbell initially had other commitments, but those plans changed and he eventually arrived on the island. Campbell was always careful about one thing: he did not claim that he brought revival to the Hebrides. God was already moving before he arrived. The praying saints had prepared the ground.
Then the awakening began spreading.
Meetings continued late into the night. People packed the churches. But what made the Hebrides accounts extraordinary was what reportedly happened outside the meetings. Campbell described people who had never entered the church becoming suddenly conscious of God. People cried out for mercy.
Homes became places of prayer. Men and women sought ministers and Christians because they wanted to get right with God.
The presence of God was no longer confined to a church service.
Campbell described occasions when a meeting would finish only for another crowd to gather in the early hours of the morning. People came from surrounding communities. Prayer meetings sprang up. Conviction spread from village to village. What had begun with a handful of people seeking God was touching an island.
And one of the most remarkable moments involved a young believer named Donald Smith, who was only about fifteen years old.
During one meeting, Campbell felt that he was getting nowhere with his preaching. Then he noticed Donald sitting nearby with his head bowed, deeply broken before God. The young man had been weeping in prayer. Campbell stopped and asked Donald to pray
.
Donald stood and began crying out to God. He spoke about the open door in heaven and the Lamb upon the throne. Then the young man became overwhelmed and could scarcely continue.
Finally he looked upward and cried:
“God, there is power there. Let it loose! Let it loose!”
Campbell testified that the power of God swept through the congregation. People were overwhelmed by the presence of God. The meeting that human effort could not move was suddenly transformed through prayer.
That was the heartbeat of the Hebrides Revival.
It did not begin with advertising. It did not begin with a famous preacher. It did not begin with a new church program.
It began with people who became desperate for God.
Two elderly women who could hardly leave their cottage refused to accept the spiritual condition around them. Men gathered in a barn and prayed until God began dealing with their own hearts. A fifteen-year-old boy became so burdened in prayer that all he could do was look toward heaven and cry, “There is power there. Let it loose!”
They believed revival was more than better meetings. They wanted God Himself to come down.
And when the people of the Hebrides became hungry enough to seek Him, they testified that the presence of God became something an entire community could no longer ignore.
“Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence.” — Isaiah 64:1
