Religious Revival

While, doubtless, these social changes affected the Parish Church and its ministry and, certainly, the Church had to help those whose misfortunes were greatest, it was during this time that a remarkable revival took place
in Lawers and the surrounding districts. The evangelists, the Haldane brothers, whose mission to Scotland had had some success, sent a Mr. Farquharson into the glens of Perthshire as a catechist and Bible reader. Although, at first, “every inn was shut against him” and only three
families received him hospitably, he persevered and, in 1802, there was something of a religious revival during which over a hundred people seemed to be truly converted. This did not come about without difficulty.
Families were divided and there was something like persecution against the evangelists and their converts. At Lawers, however, the minister there, Mr. Robert Findlater, was drawing great congregations. People came over the hill from Glenlyon, from Kuhn, Kenmore and Fortingall to hear his message. It is reported that open-air services attracted as many as 4,000 people.

This remarkable awakening lasted quite a number of years,and,as a result of it, Baptist chapels were erected on Loch Tayside (now converted to the house called Chapelburn to the west of Fearnan), at Glenlyon and
Rannoch. A new church was built at its present site at Lawers in 1833, replacing the old church on the Lochside. Up to 1832 the congregation at Lawers had been served first by the minister of Kenmore and, later, shared a
minister with Ardeonaig. From 1834, however, Lawers had a minister of their own, the Rev. Duncan Campbell. All these changes in his Parish, material, social, spiritual and
ecclesiastical, must have affected the ministry of the Rev. Colin McVean, but he seems to have been a moderate man,who ministered to the needs of his congregation, and did not get over-wrought by the changes going on around him.

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