The Journal of John Long

YEARS:
Preface  1872-1889  1890  1895  1896  1897 
1898  1899 
1900  1901  1902  1903  1904  1905  1906  1907 
1908  1909  1910  1911  1912  1913 
1914  1915  1916  1917 
1918  1919  1920  1921 
1922  1923  1924  1925  1926 
1927

1897-1898 "Revival Years" Revised Version 

About John Long
Finding John Long's Journal
Significance of John Long's Journal
Treatises and Writings by John Long
Inspirational Poetry by John Long
Photos of the John Long Family

John Long was born on September 15, 1872 in Burntwood, Cloughjordan, County Tipperary, [Ireland], to Gilbert and Ann (Turner) Long.  He died in 1962, at age 90.  There were eight children born into his family:  Eliza Jane 1868; Maria 1870; John 1872; William 1874; Anne Ellen 1876-77 (lived 9 months); Samuel 1879; Anne Ellen 1881; and Thomas 1883.  John worked from the age of seven in the peat bog cutting turf in the summer, and attending Newtown School in the winter months.

Under the ministry of John Govan, Director of Faith Mission, John Long "was convicted, and first publicly decided for Christ in Cloughjordan about the year 1890." In 1899, at a "Mission in Stoney Acre...my mother, William, Annie and Thomas were led into a saving knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus; and began to pray and testify." 

When he was 23 yrs old, his father contracted pneumonia and passed away on June 18, 1895. His brother Sam died while in the Boxer Persecution in Singapore in January 1902. His sister Annie passed away in 1910. In 1916, his mother and brother Thomas died one day apart, and his sister Maria died later that year.

He was appointed a Methodist Colporteur on September 3, 1895, and resigned in November, 1898. He ceased to be a Methodist in November 1899.  He began to be a member (not a pilgrim worker!) of the Faith Mission Prayer Union in 1898 and did not renew his membership after September 1915. On January 1, 1899, he started on "the new Lines of Faith in God. Faith Lines is a preacher going forth without any fixed or stated salary, neither any public collections at meetings, but just trusting in God to put it into the hearts of God's people to give to the support of them who ministered in Spiritual things." He is shown on the 1905 Workers List as entering in the work in 1899 and he was excommunicated from it in 1907 by Wm. Irvine.

After he was excommunicated in 1907, John Long returned to his previous work distributing religious literature and conducting independent missions. He was working in northern and central Great Britain during 1908, during the first days of British Pentecostalism and converted to it.  Back in Ireland, he eventually became an early preacher with the Elim Evangelical Band, the spark which produced the Irish Pentecostal movement, and played an important role in its initial development. "He cut an idiosyncratic figure in Pentecostal circles, familiar to many of the leading figures of the movement." In late December 1919, he resigned from Elim Band stating that "he preferred to be free from a membership in the Band, believing that he was acting in accordance with the leading of God." He resumed an independent, itinerant ministry similar to the Go Preachers, but this time pursued with pentecostal sympathies. He spent much of his remaining life traveling throughout the UK and Ireland, often on bicycle, as an unsectarian, itinerant evangelist, well-known in early Pentecostal circles.

On December 25, 1920, Christmas Day, John married Maggie Keegan from Gorey, Co. Wexford.  He was 48 years old, and she was 28 years old. They moved to Oldstone, Muckamore, N. Ireland in 1922. John Long was 51 years old when he became a father for the first time. They had four children. Their eldest child was a daughter, Miriam, born March 1, 1923.  After that followed a son, Gilbert, born January, 1927;  daughter Rhoda, born May 1929; and son John Long, born March 15, 1931. John Long passed away on July 4, 1962 at age 90, and is buried in a public cemetery in Antrim County (Ireland); his wife Margaret predeceased him on February 19, 1956.  His son, John Long, recalled that his Father used a bicycle, and only returned home about once every six weeks.

John Long made another copy of his Journal in 1920 and left the original with Ralph Walker, Cloncannon House, Ballygar, Co. Roscommon. (From:  John Long's Journal, April 1923).  The author visited Mr. John Long in his home on July, 29, 2004, and personally inspected the two Journals written by his father.  They are not identical.  The forward in the second one states that it contains some additional information that came to his mind as he was copying from the first Journal he wrote.

John Long's son John, was born in 1931. His lovely wife, Mary, served us our first tea in N. Ireland. They had been married for 47 years in 2004 and have three children, two sons and daughter, John, David and Ruth. Mr. Long was a retired Presbyterian minister in Ian Paisley's Free Presbyterian Church, 297 Finvoy Rd, Rasharkin, Ballymena, Co. Antrim, N. Ireland

The Author is much indebted and thankful to John Long's son for his express permission to reprint his father's Journal on the Telling The Truth website, as well as additional information he has so generously provided.  The value of his Journal is immeasurable.

Go To:  John Long's Journal


READ:  The Significance of John Long's Journal

Photos of the John Long Family