(First Baptist Church) #1 - What Revival Is — J. Edwin Orr

How the Meaning of Revival Has Changed

We spoke this morning about how words change meaning. Now, many of you were at the meeting this morning. What did I speak on? What does repentance mean? Now, you remember that. Now, I told you also that not only has the word repent changed to mean just to feel sorry, but it really means to change, to change your attitude.

But the word homely, I gave as an illustration, in the rest of the English speaking world means home-like, whereas in the United States it means ugly. So I'm going to speak on another word that's changed meaning.

I was in Griffin, Georgia, talking to a good Baptist there. I said, the country's in such a mess, don't you think we ought to pray for revival? He said, yes, but closer to the time. I said, run that past me again.

Well, he said, we always pray for revivals in August. What's the good of starting to pray until July? The word revival obviously has changed meaning in some places. I saw a sign outside a church in the San Fernando Valley which said, revival every Monday.

What they do during the rest of the week, one can only consider. But I got a clue down in Burbank, five miles away, there was a sign outside another church that said, revival every night except Monday.

Left me wondering what they did on Monday night. And I was preaching in their great center of learning, Baylor University. Oh yes, first time I spoke there was 1950. But a Baptist pastor there said to me, brother, oh, we had a revival here last fall and nobody got revived.

Well, I said, then you didn't have a revival. Oh yes, we did, he said. And he gave me the name of the evangelist and the name of the song leader and how much money they put out on publicity. But he said, we never got off the ground.

This must be the only country in the world where a non-event may be considered an event just because you call it that. In other words, it's a revival whether anyone gets revived or not. Now the word revival is not found in the English Bible.

But the word revived is. The word came into the English language, revival, 1702. It was described as an awakening in or of evangelical religion. That's the standard definition. You'll find it in all the encyclopedias and in all the dictionaries.

But since about 1930, American dictionaries give a second definition. A is what I've just said. B, also a week of meetings, especially in the south. Now when we use the word revival, what does it mean?

The poor guy was pulled out of the creek. But through artificial respiration, he was revived. What does that mean? To bring back to life again. If they say he was in the creek for two days, nobody tries to revive him.

He's dead. But if he's got any life, you can bring him back to life. That's the meaning of the word. But we also use it in other ways. You might say, Baylor University has decided to revive a program of Shakespearean plays.

What does that mean? It means it's been in abeyance for a while. They decide to bring him back to life again. The plain meaning of the word revive means re, again, vive, life. You know the Spanish word viva.

It's the same idea. Bring back to life. But there's a more serious controversy, and that is, can you organize a revival? Jonathan Edwards said revival is a work of God. But Charles Finney said revival is nothing more than the right use of the appropriate means.

In other words, if you do certain things, you'll get certain results. In other words, revival is a program. How we love programs. In fact, some people have said we worship the Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Program.

We have programs for everything. Is revival just a program? Now, Finney gave us his illustration, in case you think I'm not being fair to him. Just as a farmer chooses a day to plow a field, and chooses a day to sow the seed, and chooses a day to reap the harvest, so you can have revival.

In Georgia, of course, always in August. At least in certain parts of Georgia. Now what is the truth about this? The scripture says, wilt thou not revive us again? Who? Thou. And who's that? God. It doesn't say give us a blueprint or a program to revive ourselves.

Wilt thou not revive us again? The prophet says, revive thy work, O Lord, in the midst of the years. In wrath remember mercy. Who does it? The Lord. According to scripture, the work of reviving God's people is the work of God.

Whereas we have made it into a human effort. We plan it. We arrange for speakers. We arrange for special music. All this is proper in evangelism. I believe that what Finney says about the right use of the appropriate means applies every time to evangelism.

Evangelism Requires Appropriate Means

When I was in New Guinea with the United States Air Force, I had a chaplain's assistant, a godly young man, a Methodist. He had the strange idea that if he spoke English loudly enough, the natives would understand.

Any time he addressed a native, he always raised his voice. Now that's not the right use of the appropriate means. I'm a professor in the School of World Mission. We have nearly 300 missionaries in mid-career coming to study this year.

But they learn that you use the appropriate means. You better learn their language. And second, you better learn their culture. That's equally important. Now in evangelism, the right use of the appropriate means.

But you can't say, we're going to have a revival. And we're going to arrange it from the 15th of November onwards. And we better get it out of the way by Thanksgiving. Because we've got a lot of important things to do on Thanksgiving.

You can't talk about the work of God like that. Now how can we give this a scriptural background? I'm going to quote some very familiar text to you. The Lord Jesus met with his disciples for the last time.

And they said, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel? They had been taught that when Messiah came, he would deliver the people of God from the tyranny of their enemies. They wanted liberation.

What did he say? It is not for you to know the times or the seasons. You can't fix a date. You can't have a blueprint. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. He didn't give them a program.

He said, you will receive power. Now, did that result in the disciples forming a committee and discussing the various ways of doing it? No, no. It says in the same chapter of the Acts, all these, after naming the disciples, with Mary, the mother of Jesus, and the half-brothers of Jesus, continued in prayer.

They just prayed. And then when the day of Pentecost had come, quite unexpectedly, the Holy Spirit was outpoured upon them. Now the apostle Peter stood up before that vast multitude and said, these men are not drunk as you suppose.

It's only nine o 'clock in the morning. But this is that which was spoken of by the prophet Joel. It shall come to pass in the last day, saith God, I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.

And that long quotation ends with, they that call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. This is what we call the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. If you read 19th century literature, the days of Moody and Torrey and Finney, and these other great preachers, you'll find they often talked about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

Sometimes they used a more Latin term, the effusion of the Holy Spirit. We seldom hear the term today. Even in the charismatic movement, which is so concerned about the gifts of the Spirit, it's so often an individual experience.

What will this do to me? That there's very little concern about a general outpouring of the Holy Spirit. And this is where we begin. If we get this first stage right, we'll understand what revival is, and what evangelism is, and what God does in this work of His.

The Holy Spirit as the Author of Revival

Now if I were to ask you the question, is the work of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit the work of God or the work of men? What would you say? The Lord Jesus answers for us. The wind blows where it lists.

You can't tell where it's coming from or where it's going to. So it is with the Spirit. Now in Western Canada in 1971, a remarkable movement of God broke out in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Spread all over Western Canada.

One of the leaders came down, he was a Mennonite brother, belonged to the Mennonite brethren, came down to Fuller to study for his doctorate. So I asked him, is the Canadian revival movement in its second stage yet?

He said, I don't know what you mean. I said, the first stage of revival is spontaneous, simultaneous. It just breaks out here, there and everywhere. Nobody knows where it will be next. But the second stage is export.

Those whose lives have been transformed decide to carry the message elsewhere. There's a godly Baptist pastor, William McLeod from Saskatoon. It was in his church that the great movement began. And I found he was down in San Antonio and down in Brownsville in Texas preaching in different congregations.

He didn't set Texas on fire, but he brought blessing by bringing the message of that revival. That's the second stage, export. The third stage is fellowship. People who have had the same experience like to look together, as in the charismatic movement.

And the fourth stage is organizational. They may form what we call a para-church movement or else they may form a new denomination. You see, we talk about Methodist revival. Actually, there was a general revival in the days of John Wesley.

Not only among his followers, but others. It was worldwide. But John Wesley organized his converts and friends into classes within the Church of England and that became the Methodist denomination. There was general revival, but when it reached that organized stage, it became a denomination.

Revival Requires the Response of Believers

Now, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is exclusively the work of God. World Vision, the Billy Graham Organization, the Southern Baptist Convention, none of them are capable of organizing and outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

Imagine God consulting the Home Mission Board. When do you think we should begin? God bless my friends in the Home Mission Board. I've just come back from Australia with Glenn Sheppard, a man of God. Well, Glenn would agree with me.

You can't organize the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. So that's the work of God exclusively. But what's the result of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit? The first effect is the reviving of God's people.

Now, you see, by saying reviving, you weren't misled. I didn't say the result is a revival organized in August. No, no. It's the reviving of God's people wherever they're found. That always happens. The Holy Spirit is outpoured.

The Holy Spirit brings us back to what we ought to be. Quickens our prayer life. Gives us conviction so it will put things right. That's His work. Now, could you say that revival of that sort is the work of God or the work of men?

I've already answered the question. It's the work of God, but it requires the response of believers. Tomorrow night, you're going to have Robert Coleman speak on the Asbury College revival. During that revival, a team from Asbury College visited a Baptist seminary, and the president wouldn't let them speak because he said this is not part of the program of the convention.

It requires the response of believers. I'll tell you this. If a pastor of a church is opposed to revival, you won't have revival in that church. God recognizes leadership. The godly people may be praying, but their prayers may be answered in the illness of the pastor or his removal or his call to somewhere else.

Revival, Evangelism, and the Awakening of the Masses

But the leadership of a congregation can frustrate the work of God. So you could say revival is the work of God with the response of believers. Now, I used to hold the view, revive the church and win the world.

As a matter of fact, Evan Roberts, the man whom God so signally used in the great Welsh revival, I knew him personally, he used a slogan in Welsh, bend the church and win the world. But is that always true?

Now, get a church on fire for God, you're bound to win some people to Christ. Very seldom does it happen otherwise. But will it change the whole community? Not necessarily so. You see, the apostle Peter preached Christ crucified, Christ risen from the dead on the day of Pentecost.

And 120 believers overnight became 3 ,120. That's what my colleague Dr. Donald McGavin calls very satisfactory church growth. 120, 3 ,120. What was the secret? Peter preached the word, Peter was filled with the spirit.

Does that mean that if you're filled with the spirit and preach the word, you're going to see very satisfactory church growth? Not necessarily so. Stephen was filled with the spirit, the scripture says so.

He preached the word just as faithfully as did Peter. But they murdered him. And it taught me something else. We need to pray for an outpouring of God's spirit, not only upon believers, but upon the masses.

I used to think that John Wesley was such a genius of an evangelist, that when he started to preach, strong men broke down and wept. But when John Wesley began, he was a rather stuffy high churchman. You read in his own diary, in his journal, I made a series of appeals to the intellect, will, and emotion.

Just talking like an Oxford professor. Well, what happened? The same Holy Spirit that had revived Wesley and Whitfield at Oxford was poured out upon the non-churchgoing masses, that never darted a church door.

If you want to try and visualize it for yourself, can you imagine a huge crowd like Woodstock, one of these rock concerts, and the Holy Spirit being poured out upon them, so they repented with strong crying and brokenness.

That's what happened in that revival. We need to pray for the revival of the people. I took a team with me to New Zealand and Australia in 1956 -57. We wanted to reach all the denominations, so we had an Episcopal evangelist, a Presbyterian evangelist, a Methodist evangelist, a Baptist evangelist, and we also had Corrie Ten Boom.

No doubt you've heard her name. But when we took her, nobody knew her name. Very few knew her name. She was a member of our team for three years. We adopted as our slogan, the evangelization of the world through the reviving of the church.

And there's truth in that. But it's not the whole truth. We need God to work upon the people. There are more and more people in America who are secularized, couldn't care less about the church. They don't persecute us, but they're just indifferent.

So we need to have an outpouring of God's Spirit upon the masses. Is that the work of God or the work of man? That's the work of God. But it takes the response of unbelievers. When God begins to work among the masses, perhaps some man will say to his wife, You know, honey, we haven't been to church since we were married.

We've got children growing up. We've got to do something about this. They look around for a church. In this pluralistic society, they're not quite sure what church to go to. He says, well, I'm Presbyterian way back.

What were you? And she says, well, I'm Mission Covenant, but I haven't been there for so long. They may start going to a Baptist church. They might go to Christian Missionary Alliance. They might even go to a Christian science church.

They don't know any better. But they get hungry for God. That's where we come in. That's where the work of man comes in. God has chosen to work through us. He could send a legion of angels to proclaim the gospel, but he's chosen not to do that.

That's why he needs to revive the church so that we do it. Now the church then engages in evangelism. Let's say evangelizing and teaching. There's the Great Commission for you. Go into all the world, preach, teach.

What do we mean by evangelism? The best definition I know was written by a good friend of mine, Canon Max Warren of Westminster Abbey. Died a few years ago. He said, to evangelize is so to present Jesus Christ in the power of the Spirit that men may come to put their trust in him as Savior and to serve him as Lord in the fellowship of his church and in the vocations of the common life.

That's the best definition I know. Is that the work of God or the work of man? That is the work of man. That's the work of converted men. We have to do it. Also teaching. You see, we evangelize inquirers, but we teach disciples, those who wish to follow.

We teach them the commandments. Also we teach their children. And then I find in every great movement of the Holy Spirit there is social reform. Out of every great movement of God's Spirit there has come social change.

Evangelism, Teaching, and Social Action

You say, well, do you equate social action with evangelism? No. I would say this just in passing. Many Southern Baptists confuse revival and evangelism. Many Northern Baptists confuse evangelism and social action.

I remember when Valley Forge adopted what they call lifestyle evangelism. I thought, that's great. I said to one of the men there, how is it getting along? He said, we're doing wonderful. He said, we've got at least six firms to stop investing in South Africa.

Now is that evangelism? I said, that's social action, all right. But is that evangelism? No, no. So I can't equate evangelism and social action. Then is there any kind of priority? I think there is. Now don't misunderstand me.

The scripture teaches social witness. We're told to visit prisoners, to visit the sick, to help those who are in distress. Inasmuch you've done unto the least of these, you've done it unto me. There is a place for social action.

Most of the social action in this country has come from the great revivals. But I made an interesting discovery. I was speaking at that great Methodist center, Asbury College, with Stanley Jones and Frank Laubach in 1969.

Frank Laubach was called Mr. Literacy. He was a missionary to the Philippines. He was studying nowhere. He was in Mindanao, working among the Muslims. Getting nowhere. Winning no converts. And he sought the Lord.

Lord, what's wrong with me? And the Lord said to him, you don't love these people. You're just trying to get converts the way some people go out and get scalps. If you love them, why don't you teach them to read and write?

They need to learn, don't they? So he started to teach them to read and write. He still was an evangelist. But he became so famous, he coined the phrase, each one teach one. And he became consultant of third world and colonial governments when they wanted to teach their people how to read and write.

That was his work. That was social action, all right. But when I was in China recently, I had to admit the communists had done a good job in teaching the Chinese people to read and write. Everyone agrees about this.

Even their greatest enemies. So you see, if we Christians don't have a social testimony, if we don't engage in social action, somebody else will. But if we don't preach the gospel and teach the commandments, nobody else will.

They're not interested. So I see a certain priority. But I don't criticize people who have gone into social action. I told you we had a team of evangelists in Australia. One was an Episcopal, another Presbyterian, another Methodist, another one Baptist.

The Methodist fellow today is Speaker of the Tasmanian Parliament. A fine Christian man. Standing for Christian things in political life. And I believe there are many men like that in Washington. In spite of the way we all like to criticize things that go on in Washington, there are many good Christian men there.

And if God calls one man to work for him in that way, I say let him follow the leading of God just as much as Billy Graham has followed his leading. So I've given you terms to think about. The Holy Spirit is the author of revival.

The outpouring of the Spirit is the work of God. The reviving of the Church is the work of God with the response of believers. The awakening of the masses is the work of God. We can't do it ourselves with the response of the masses.

The Great Awakening of 1857–1858

But what we can do, the work of man, the work of believers, is to evangelize and teach and to give our testimony for righteousness. Now the best way to illustrate this is from what has happened. Now let's see anyone who keeps up with current affairs.

If I were down at Baylor all sorts of students keep up with current affairs there. That's one of the departments of study I suppose. Does anyone remember how much the deficit is in United States glory?

Some months ago it was 200 billion dollars. What is it today? I think it's 280. Is that the figure? 280 billion dollars. Does anyone know what the national debt amounts to? You say what's the difference?

The deficit is what we owe the bank. The national debt is the mortgage on the house. It's more than 1 trillion dollars. I can't keep up with it. It's maybe 1 trillion 500 billion. Now when James Buchanan became president of United States in his inaugural address he complained, believe it or not he complained that the United States government had too much money in the treasury.

Too much surplus in the bank. He said our present financial condition is without parallel in history. No nation before has ever been embarrassed from too large a surplus in its treasury. Could you imagine President Reagan getting on TV and saying we've got a different problem today.

We've got too much money. So President Buchanan proposed paying off the national debt. Just as a man may be doing so well in business he said let's pay off the mortgage. We'll never have another chance.

We're getting on so well. The country was so flourishing. You say where did all the money come from? You ever hear of the California gold rush? All that gold was accumulating. People who washed out gold nuggets from the rivers of California didn't keep them in their pocket all the time.

They traded them in as soon as they can. And of course finally the treasury had so much money they didn't know what to do with it. Yet 32 weeks later every bank in the United States went bust. Now I don't know what bank you deal with.

But recently in Ohio there was a run on the savings and loans. And people heard the rumor they were queuing up hundreds of people every morning waiting to get their money out. That's what happened. A bank panic that closed every bank in the United States.

And it lasted from the middle of October until the middle of December. All the banks closed the whole time. Men went to bed dreaming of their millions and woke up in the morning broke. What a disaster.

Now it was followed by the greatest awakening this country ever knew. There's a professor at Brown University Professor William McLaughlin who calls the great awakening of 1858 the bank panic revival.

In fact he says the only way to explain it is that businessmen in New York panic stricken turned to God in their distress. And this resulted in a revival spreading all over the country. Now evangelicals say no no that's not the way it happened.

They say it was a man called Jeremiah Lanphier started a prayer meeting in New York. All the population of about a million only six showed up. But the following week there were twenty. And the following Wednesday there were forty.

And on the day of the bank panic there were a hundred. Only a hundred out of a million. That didn't suggest hysteria or a panic in turning to God. And they said this prayer meeting spread all over the country and that resulted in the great revival.

But McLaughlin turns around and says that happened at the time of the bank panic. So what? I decided to re-research this movement and find out what actually did happen. I found out to my amazement that the revival began in Canada.

Oh before that there were prayer meetings all over the United States as well as Canada. One thing about the churches in those days they knew what to do when times were bad. They prayed. I can give you an illustration of that you know that our Presbyterian poems are noted for their soberness and their rather staid denomination.

But here's what was said in the State of Religion message of 1857. One Presbytery declares that dearth of a revival influences is alarming. Another says the church needs a refreshing from the Lord. Another touchingly declares we would upon our bended knees offer the prayer of Habakkuk Oh Lord revive thy work.

These were the official reports of the Presbyteries to the General Assembly. Here's what it said and I was struck with these words. This longing for revivals we cannot but consider as a cheering indication of the movers life.

Next to a state of actual revival is the sense of its need and the struggle to attain it at any sacrifice of treasure, toil or time. I'm going to emphasize that. I'm going to say to Pastor McDonald and I'm going to say to my friend John Cramp next to actual revival is the sense of its need.

And if there are people in this congregation praying for what Southern Baptists call a real revival that's the most cheering news you can have if they're not satisfied with the general run of things. I found that all over the United States there were prayer meetings and all over Canada but the actual outbreak occurred in Hamilton just south of Toronto in Ontario.

Revival in Canada and Among Enslaved Black Americans

The Methodists still sing some hymns written by Phoebe Palmer she and her husband, her husband is a doctor were very people but they used to speak in camp meetings. They used to go to Canada for the summer go back to the States for the winter.

While they were up in Canada their baggage went astray. Nowadays when your baggage goes astray it ends up in Hawaii or somewhere like that but in those days it didn't go that far so they deemed it worthwhile to stay in Hamilton until they found their luggage.

They didn't want to cross the frontier through United States customs without their baggage so they decided to wait in Hamilton for two or three days. The minister said while you're here why don't we have a few meetings?

But they didn't even have a Sunday to publicize them. Only 86 people came from five different churches but that night Phoebe Palmer couldn't sleep because she had a premonition that God was going to work in an unusual way.

And that's what happened. I found out there was only one sermon preached during the Hamilton revival of 1857. That was the first night because next night the Holy Spirit took control of the meeting and it became a spontaneous revival.

The mayor of the city was converted doctors and lawyers were converted farmers and housemaids were converted drunkards and prostitutes. It was called the Hamilton revival but I found as I researched it it spread all over Canada.

I just don't have the time to tell you how it reached Nova Scotia and even Newfoundland. This happened before the bank panic and the American bank panic didn't affect Canadian banks because they have a different system.

So you can't say the bank panic caused the revival. I made another interesting discovery. The first community in the United States to experience phenomenal revival were the black slaves of Virginia and the Carolinas.

Now in those days of slavery the clerks met in the same churches with the hearts but they occupied a gallery or a side of the church. They would punctuate the address of the speaker with amen and lordy lord and so forth.

They were used to that in the South but they had mixed meetings generally speaking. Sometimes they had a special church for blacks only. There was a very godly Presbyterian John Gerardo a brilliant theologian one of the greatest preachers of the South.

He could have had any white church he wanted in South Carolina. But he had a love for black people so he started what we would call a mission church. He had 48 black members and 12 white members. No doubt the white members were office bearers because the black student had much education in those days.

He decided to start what was called a protracted meeting a prayer meeting for revival. He said we won't have any preaching we'll just pray until we feel the power of the Holy Spirit. But the meetings got so crowded the prayers got so fervent that his elders said don't you think you ought to preach?

He said we'll wait until we're sure the Holy Spirit is present in our midst. One evening while some black brother was praying Dr. Gerardo was sitting in the pulpit when he felt he was hit by an electric bolt.

It was as if it was an electric bolt. He trembled to his toes. He never had an experience like this in his life. He stood up then he sat down again then he stood up again then he sat down again there was nothing in the Presbyterian order of service to account for this strange experience.

Then he said I believe in answer to prayer the Spirit has come. We will start preaching tomorrow night. Like a good Presbyterian he wanted to prepare a sermon. He pronounced the benediction but nobody moved.

Then he said like a gentle rain people began sobbing all over the meeting. So he decided not to wait for preparation. He began exhorting them in the name of the Lord. He was there dealing with them until midnight.

And for the next six weeks he was speaking to 1 ,500 to 2 ,000 people. Lots of white people came in to see what was happening. Some came to scoff but stayed to pray and the revival was on. There's a little town in South Carolina called Beaufort.

They call it Beaufort down there but it's Beaufort. That's the French pronunciation. And the pastor there was a Southern Baptist pastor called J .M .B. Breaker. I think the number he baptized in three months was 348.

And it became the largest Baptist church in the world. 3 ,511 members. That was something in the early days. Now you won't find this mentioned in American church history. You won't find it in American religious journals.

I found it in Canadian magazines. They call it the slave revivals. In Virginia so many blacks wanted to pray. Why did they want to pray? The Holy Spirit was working on them because they were involved in what was going to follow the war between the states.

The Holy Spirit worked on them so much they wanted to pray. The churches couldn't hold them. They took over the factories and warehouses. Their supervisors or overseers or whatever you called them were there to see that everything was done decently and in order.

But in Canada they called them the slave revivals. I found about 100 ,000 blacks were converted. Now I'm sure there may be one or two who may know of this but it was a great surprise to me as an historian to find that in 1857 four years before the Civil War there was an army of 100 ,000 blacks drilled ready for an insurrection planning to march on Atlanta.

I've never heard of this. But so great was the revival that the chief of that movement they were called the Knights of Tabor had a revelation from God that God was going to intervene in the matter of slavery and that they were certainly to wait upon God.

Now had that insurrection taken place before or during the war between the states the South would have crushed it. They were ready. You know the Southern Confederate troops ran rings around the Union troops for two years.

They would have crushed it and there would have been reprisals and white folk would have been killed on their farms and then retaliation on the blacks. It would have been a bitter, bitter struggle. But instead of that the blacks remained quiet.

It was as if God said slavery is a sin. There will be a blood atonement. 600 ,000 white Americans died. It was the worst war of the 19th century. But nobody either North or South could blame the blacks for slavery.

You couldn't say it's your fault or your slaves. So the Lord said you keep quiet. Wasn't it interesting? Have you ever thought about it? Confederate soldiers left Texas to fight against the Union armies and left their women and children in care of blacks.

Some humorous things happened. I read one case of a lady mistress of a plantation and the Yankees were coming closer so she called a meeting of all the servants and said the Yankees are coming closer.

Maybe burn our farm. Let's have prayer. So they all prayed including the black servants. Lord spare this farm and don't let anyone be hurt here. And so she stayed for a couple of hours but they continued praying and after she left she said bring the Yankees closer all the time.

They were praying for liberation. It was a strange situation. But you see when you think about it those black slaves didn't have a dime in the bank. They weren't allowed to open bank accounts. You can open a bank account for a ten year old boy.

But nobody could open a bank for a slave. He was a non-person. And this knocks McLaughlin's idea that the revival was caused by the bank panic. Then we find revivals breaking out all over the United States in the fall of 1857.

Revival Spreads Through Churches and Armies

I think I can give you an illustration from Texas. It's right here. It was in December. A great movement of revival began in a Baptist associational meeting in Waco. Now listen. The occasion participated in by ministers of the Baptist, Methodist and Presbyterian denominations.

Have you ever heard of a Baptist association in which the Methodist and Presbyterian participated? This is most unusual. A month later the interest was unabated and the excitement high. Here's the actual words of the report.

Never before in Texas have we seen a whole community so effectually under religious influence. Day and night the church has been crowded during the meeting. Our schools have suspended operations until after this religious excitement abates.

Our community has been thoroughly regenerated. Now this was at a time when conditions in Texas were rough. And this was long before Jeremiah Lanphier's prayer meeting in New York started to spread. I won't wear you with detail but I have reports from Ohio, from Iowa.

Among all denominations a Lutheran church of six became 26 overnight. Movies were brought out among the settlers on the frontier. General revival but in the churches. Then a strange thing happened. There was an editor called Horace Greeley.

Chiefly famous for saying go west young man. He sent a reporter in horse and buggy around prayer meetings in New York. The Fulton Street prayer meeting started by Lanphier had spread to other places. And so he thinks this will make news.