The Ulster Revival of 1859 - Preface, Chapter 1

This congregation , before the revival, was in a most unsatisfactory state as to religion . The people were not immoral, nor
without a religious profession ; but Laodiceanism characterised
them. From my first entrance on the work of the ministry, I
believed that the faithful use of the means of grace should be
followed by their appropriate effects, as certainly as the tillage
of a field is followed by a crop, or as diligence in any profession
is rewarded with success ; and bitter, therefore, was my disappointment as year after year passed and still no fruit appeared.
In grief I wondered at what I considered the mysterious with
holding of the Spirit, and set myself to account for it. What
alarmed me most was the disinclination, almost hostility, of the
people to hold prayer-meetings.