John Lyle wrote two Diaries with first-hand descriptions of what he witnessed at Presbyterian Sacramental Meetings now called "camp meetings" during the Second Great awakening. His diaries are especially important because he didn' t like the supernatural events he describes, thus making him an impartial observer. 

Because he was educated in the Scottish Common Sense Realism of John Witherspoon and William Graham, he considered what he saw to be the result of "animal enthusiasm", and not the sovereign work of the Holy Spirit. His Diaries are the most vivid account of supernatural activity in  American history.

Lyle was exposed to Scottish Common Sense Realism by William Graham when he attended Liberty Hall, Virginia. Fortunately, he had an evangelical background before he was taught that salvation is merely a rational process by Graham. He wrote in the family Bible he was "born again August 17th, 1789" in the revival that took place in Virginia at the time.

He was licensed to preach in 1797, and ordained by the Presbyterian Church in 1799. In 1800 he took charge of the Presbyterian churches of Salem and Sugar Ridge, in Clark County, Kentucky, which gave him a first-hand view of the Camp Meetings.

In 1797, he came to Kentucky as a missionary, and in 1800 took charge of Salem church, where he remained for several years. In 1805 he was appointed a missionary within the bounds of the Cumberland Presbytery, and subsequently a commissioner of the Presbyterian General Assembly.

Mr. Lyle subsequently moved to Paris, where he established a female academy, which became one of the most flourishing in the state, embracing from 150 to 200 pupils. In 1809, he declined teaching, but continued in the active discharge of his ministerial labors until 1825, on the 22d of July of which year he departed this life. he intended to destroy His Diaries, since they did not support the verbal restrictive view of the Holy Spirit taught by Presbyterian schools at the time.  

Presbyterian biographies avoid speaking of  his relationship to the events of the Presbyterian Sacramental Meetings described in his Diaries, saying things like, "He bore a prominent part in the trying scenes through which the church was called to pass during the early period of his ministry". They don't mention his Diaries, because what they describe is completely at odds with the salvation view of Scottish Common Sense Realism.