The late Duncan Campbell

A personal testimony as shared during a visit to Canada
I was converted under strange circumstances. I cannot take time to tell it all. I was a piper and a step dancer. I was playing at a concert and dance outside Oban when God spoke to me. God spoke to me in the dance. I had a praying father and a praying mother. I left the dance to go home, I shut myself in the barn and knelt among the straw prepared for the horses in the morning. I cried " God I do not know how to come, I know not what to do but if you save me as I am I am coming now" And God saved me! God saved me.. Can I say that never for one moment had I ever doubted the work God did in my heart that morning. God did a sovereign and supernatural work and set me gloriously free. I can honestly say that Godliness characterized every part of my being Body, soul and spirit in that wonderful experience.I am not talking of sanctification or the deeper life. I am just talking of a soul born again when God does the work.

But shortly after that I joined the forces and found myself in France during the first World War. Soon I found out that there were powers resident in me that were more than a match for me. You see I was cradled in the midst of Godliness and here I found myself in the midst of extreme ungodliness - extreme ungodliness. Again and again I cried " Oh God speak the word of deliverance along this particular avenue"

To make a long story short I am in a cavalry charge and in it I find myself knock to the ground and lying there badly wounded. The last Cavalry charge of the British Army outside of Alver on 12.04.1918 was by the Canadian Horses. As they charged over the battlefield a horse's hoof struck me in the spine and I groaned. That groan was heard by a young trooper and registered with him so much that after the charge of the hill and taking the guns he came back to rescue me. He dismounted and threw me across the horses back and carried me to the first casualty clearing station. I thank God for that young Canadian whoever or wherever he is..

On that horse back I entered into a experiance which revolutionised my life. I cried a prayer frequently prayed by my father "God make me as holy as a saved sinner can be" and God swept into my life - God the Holy Ghost.

I could not speak very much English then. Gaelic was my language. You know this, I began to talk about Jesus in Gaelic....in Gaelic and there wasn't a soul there who could understand me but by the time I left the casualty clearing station, seven, yes seven Canadians were gloriously saved. Seven of them

After a year in hospital and several month in Bible training I went out to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ. I was the Mid Argyll revival. God moved in those parishes in a mighty way and hundreds were swept into the Kingdom of God.

And then the evil hour struck. I stepped out of the will of God. I began to study for the ministry. I am sorry to say that during that time I drifted away from God in my mind and my heart. Oh I was still evangelical, came out a minister and for seventeen years minstered in two congregations. I was asked to address conventions and conferences and I knew how unfit I was. Oh the deceit of the human heart. I knew barrenness, such barrenness in my spirit. Prayer was a burden and God's Word a dead word to me.

Then one day....oh how I thank God for that day my young daughter came to me a girlie of sixteen years of age. She came to me and said "Daddy I would like to see you in your study. I have been praying for you daddy and I want to speak to you. She led me to my study and there threw herself on my knees as daughters sometimes do. She put her arms round my neck and I can still see the tears streaming down from her eyes as she said " Daddy when you were a pilgrim with the Faith Mission after the War you saw revival. How is it that God is not using you in revival today. Tell me daddy when was the last time you saw a soul saved" Oh thank God for faithfull daughters but how what she said shook me. I was Campbell the convention speakers, Campbell the evangelic minister etc etc but before my daughter I was a broken man smashed by her question.

I was booked to speak at Keswick that year and went to the convention because of the deceit of the human heart and I had my address ready but the only things that kept on speaking to me was my daughter's words "when did you last time I saw a soul saved daddy".

God change the plans of that convention and I was freed for continueing in my deceit. Tom Fitch gave his own testimony that night on which I was supposed to speak and I went home resolved that unless God would do something for me and give me back what I had lost that I would certainly leave the ministry.

After coming home I asked my wife and daughter to leave me alone in my study as I was going to seek God. I closed the door and in front of the fire lay down on a rug.

In that time God spoke to me words of pardon, words of forgiveness and words of re-commission and as I cried to God to give me again what he gave me on the battlefield so God hear my cry and did it all again. At 2am My daughter came in and encouraged me and said "whatever it costs dad go through with God." "Sheena" I said "I am going through whatever the cost." As I lay there wave upon wave of the Holy Ghost came upon me The love of God was sweeping through me like a river. My daughter concerned for her father prayed "Oh God keep his reason with daddy" She was concerned that her father was going insane but I was never more sane in my life. As the Holy Spirit touched me I cried and laughed and I prayed.


The next Sunday I stood in my pulpit and made a public apology for pretending to be what I was not. Five office bearers left me within a week. They wouldn't have a fool in their pulpit. God sometimes does that. He makes subtraction before He makes additions.

Some people ask me if I spoke in tongues. No my dear people I have never spoken in tongues or been at a meeting where I was aware of such a thing happening but I am not denying the precious gift mentioned in the New testament but all I can say is that it never came to me.

In Edinburgh a professor said to me "Now tell me Campbell... they say that you had a wonderful experiance in your study. "Yes" I said "God came to me" "what difference does it make to your life" he asked "Well" I said "I went out to preach the same sermons I had been preaching for seventeen years but there is one major difference I now see hundreds converted, hundreds brought to Christ. And if God in His mercy has been prepared to use me in some small measure I can trace it back to that moment when Sheena my daughter said to me "Whatever it costs Daddy, go through with it. And tonight I say to you " whatever it costs....go through with it