Protestantism in Scotland - James Aitken Wylie

formed themselves into little companies and passed
the night on the spot in singing psalms and offering
prayers. When morning broke and the multitude
were still there, lingering around the church where
yesterday they had been fed on heavenly bread, and
seeming, by their unwillingness to depart, to seek
yet again to eat of that bread, the ministers agreed
that one of their number should preach to them. It
had not before been customary to have a sermon on
the Monday after the Communion. The minister to
whom it fell to preach was taken suddenly ill; and
the youngest minister present, Mr. John
Livingstone, was appointed to take his place. Fain
would he have declined the task; the thought of his
youth, his unpreparedness, for he had spent the
night in prayer and converse with some friends, the
sight of the great multitude which had assembled in
the churchyard, for no edifice could contain them,
and the desires and expectations which he knew the
people entertained, made him tremble as he stood
up to address the assembly. He discoursed for an
hour and a half on the taking away of the "heart of
stone," and the giving of a "heart of flesh," and
then he purposed to make an end; but that moment
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