For years past, there had been a sensible decay in the life and power of godliness in Scotland; but, in 1740, Mr. Robe began to preach upon the doctrine of regeneration. Meanwhile, a glorious revival of the work of God occurred at Cambuslang; and, on April 25, 1741, at Kilsyth. Sixteen children began to hold prayer-meetings in the town of Kirkintilloch, and the godly excitement became general. On every hand were heard cries, groans, and the voice of weeping. On the 16th of May, above thirty persons were awakened under the ministry of Mr. Robe, and, in a short time after, hundreds were converted in the country round about. Drunkenness, and swearing, and other flagrant sins were instantly abandoned; family worship was set up; meetings for prayer were established; and the people generally flocked to the house of God. Young converts held prayer-meetings in fields, barns, schoolhouses, and the manses of their ministers. Cambuslang, Kilsyth, Campsie, Kirkintilloch, Auchinloch, St. Ninians, Gargunnock, Calder, Badernock, Irvine, Long Dreghorn, Kilmarnock, Larbert, Dundee, Bothwell, Muthill, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and other towns, villages, and parishes were visited with a most gracious outpouring of God’s Holy Spirit; and scenes of mercy were witnessed quite as striking as those which were occurring simultaneously both in England and America. Not a few of the converts, about one sixth of the whole, suffered such distress of mind, and were under such powerful religious influence, that they not only cried and shrieked aloud, but trembled, fainted, and were convulsed in their bodies most mysteriously—exhibiting the same physical affections as the converts in New England; and this evoked considerable opposition, and led the Associate Presbytery at Dunfermline, to pronounce the movement a “delusion, and the work of the grand deceiver.” Some were seized with such trembling that their friends had to render them support. Many of the females went into hysterics. Numbers, on finding peace, broke forth into rapturous weeping, and had their countenances so lit up with serenity and brightness, that their neighbours declared they had obtained not only new hearts, but new faces. A few, but not many, professed to have visions of hell, of heaven, of the devil, and of Jesus.