is 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. Struck
with a power and majesty in the word of God which they had never felt
before, they crowded his house night and day, making their applications
to him for spiritual direction and assistance, with an earnestness and
solicitude which floods of tears and cries, that swallowed up their own
words and his, could not sufficiently express. The colonel mentioned this
at first to me "as matter of eternal praise, which he knew would rejoice
my very soul;" and when he saw it spread in the neighbouring parts, and
observed the glorious reformation which it produced in the lives of great
multitudes, and the abiding fruits of it, for succeeding months and
years, it increased and confirmed his joy. But the facts relating to this
matter have been laid before the world in so authentic a manner, and the
agency of divine grace in them has been so rationally vindicated, and so
pathetically represented, in what the reverend and judicious Mr. Webster
has written upon that subject, that it is altogether superfluous for me
to add any thing further than my hearty prayers that the work may be as
extensive as it was glo