“I should be glad,” says he, (in a letter which he sent me about the close of the year 1743,) “to hear what wise and good people among you think of the present circumstances of things.  For my own part, though I thank God I fear nothing for myself, my apprehensions for the public are very gloomy, considering the deplorable prevalency of almost all kinds of wickedness amongst us—­the natural consequence of the contempt of the gospel.  I am daily offering my prayers to God for this sinful land of ours, over which his judgments seem to be gathering; and my strength is sometimes so exhausted with those strong cries and tears, which I pour out before God on this occasion, that I am hardly able to stand when I arise from my knees.”

If we have many remaining to stand in the breach with equal fervency, I hope, crying as our provocations are, that God will still be entreated for us, and save us.

Most of the other letters I had the pleasure of receiving from him after our last separation, are either filled, like those of former years, with tender expressions of affectionate solicitude for my domestic comfort and public usefulness, or relate to the writings I published during this time, or to the affairs of his eldest son, then under my care.  But these are things which are by no means of a nature to be communicated here.  It is enough to remark, in general, that the Christian was still mingled with all the care of the friend and the parent.

CHAPTER XIII.

REVIVAL OF RELIGION.

But I think it incumbent upon me to observe, that during this time, and for some preceding years, his attention, ever wakeful to such concerns, was much engaged by some religious appearances which happened about this time both in England and Scotland, and with regard to which some may be curious to know the colonel’s sentiments.  He communicated them to me with the most unreserved freedom; and I cannot apprehend myself under any engagement to conceal them, as I am persuaded that it will be no prejudice to his memory that they should be publicly known.

It was from Colonel Gardiner’s pen that I received the first notice of that ever memorable scene which was opened at Kilsyth, under the ministry of the Rev. Mr. M’Culloch in the month of February, 1741-2.  He communicated to me the copy of two letters from that eminently-favoured servant of God, giving an account of that extraordinary success which had within a few days accompanied his preaching, when, as I remember, in a little more than a fortnight, one hundred and thirty souls, who had before continued in long insensibility under the faithful preaching of the gospel, were awakened on a sudden to attend to it, as if it had been a new revelation brought down from heaven, and attested by as astonishing miracles as ever were wrought by Peter or Paul, though they only heard it from a person under whose ministry they had sat for several years.