able Presbyterian ministers, and three-fourths of its people in Ulster were Scottish Presbyterians." 3

The Presbyterian ministers of Down and Antrim Counties held a great religious revival about 1625. The result, according to Woodburn, was "a great ingathering of the Church, especially to that part represented by the Calvanistic ministers. The people in the north part of Down and in the valley of the Sixmilewater received great benefit." This led to monthly meetings of Presbyterian ministers which resembled Presbytery meetings. In connection with these meetings there was public preaching to which the people gathered in great crowds. To present-day Houstons who sometimes squirm in their seats before the end of a 30-minute sermon, the zeal of their forefathers seems nothing short of amazing. At these meetings sermons were delivered by four preachers during the longer days of the summer months, but in the shorter days, there was time for only three sermons. The revival continued for several years. About 1630 one writer reports that the religious fires had spread to adjoining counties from which many came for the monthly meetings and the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. "The throngs were so great that sometimes they were forced to preach without the church as well as within. . . . The people did so hang on them for preaching as to be never enough satisfied."

Unfortunately, the religious freedom was not allowed to continue. In the reign of Charles I of England, William Laud became Archbishop of Canterbury and instituted measures that turned the Church of England back to a close resemblance to the Roman Catholic rituals and customs. He determined to bring all churches under the established English church and to root out all bodies that failed to conform to the rules and liturgy. Such non-conformists included principally the Puritains in England and the Presbyterians in Scotland and Ireland.

Laud drew up a new Liturgy to be used in worship services in all the churches in his kingdom. When the dean of Edinburgh tried to introduce the new Liturgy in St. Giles Cathedral, an incident occured which set off a great conflict in Scotland. As the dean began reading from the new Service Book, a woman, said by tradition to be Jenny Geddes, took up the stool on which she was sitting and hurled it at the minister’s head. A riot of stool-and-book-throwing followed, setting off a resistance in Scotland that defeated Laud’s schemes.

3 Woodburn, p. 79.