George-Whitefield-Field-Preacher

THE COMMUNION AT CAMBUSLANG 195
energy of the truth which was all day long preached by several
ministers in different parts was so great that possibly a thousand
more would have done so if they could have had access to
procure tokens. The staff of ministers were assisted at the
tables by several elders of rank and distinction. There was
not wanting that power which perhaps must, if not all, had
come hoping to find. Whitefield himself was in a visible
ecstasy as he stood in the evening serving some tables ; and
at ten at night, his great audience in the churchyard could
heed only his words, though the weather, which had been
favourable all day, had broken, and it rained fast. On the
following morning, at seven o'clock, Webster preached with
immense effect, and Whitefield followed in the same manner
later in the day.
The greater the work the hotter the opposition and the more
furious the denunciations of opponents. The Seceders _were
running greater and greater lengths in misguided zeal, and
were beginning to split among themselves. This was a chance
for the Kirk presbyters, some of whom had no love for the
prelatist, excepting as he fortified their falling Church, to
launch out at him ; and they began to call to account some
of the ministers who had employed him. The Cameronians,
who rallied round the blue flag of the Covenant, rivalled in
a ' Declaration ' the ' Act '
of the Associate Presbytery. They
called their document ' The Declaration, Protestation, and
Testimony of the Suffering Remnant of the anti-Popish, anti-
Lutheran, anti-Prelatic, anti-Whitefieldian, anti-Erastian, anti-
Sectarian, true Presbyterian Church of Christ in Scotland.
the people of Cambuslang, the whole would not have made more than
two-thirds of one of the congregations assembled to hear Whitefield in that
village. In many of the neighbouring places, notably Kilsyth, under the
fostering care of that wise and devout minister, James Robe, a similar work
of grace was proceeding.