Schenectady Revival 1820 Nettleton — E.A. Johnston

Asahel Nettleton and the Doctrines of Grace

One of the primary leaders of the Second Great Awakening was the evangelist Asahel Nettleton, whom God used as a mighty instrument of revival. Nettleton preached the great doctrines of grace with unusual power, and when it was rumored that he was coming to a town, it made strong men tremble with the fear, for it was said that the evangelist could read the wicked windings of their heart.

The Schenectady Revival and the Macaulay House

Porphyry vivals under Nettleton occurred under his searching sermons, and one such example took place in Schenectady, New York in 1820 on the campus of Union College. When I was conducting my research for my definitive biography on the life of Asahel Nettleton, I spent a great deal of time at Union College going through their archives as I researched that remarkable revival, and I located the house where this revival occurred.

It was the home of faculty member Dr. Thomas Macaulay. It is still on campus to this day. That house saw great revival occur around the casket of a corpse of a student that was kept in the drawing room as an example of one's mortality.

Nettleton's Eyewitness Account of the Awakening

Nettleton stayed in this house and witnessed the move of God there, and recorded it all in his personal journal. The following is an extract from my biography on Nettleton, and it is Asahel Nettleton's handwritten account, which I copied verbatim from his personal papers at Hartford Seminary in Hartford, Connecticut.

Here now are the words of Asahel Nettleton as he gives an eyewitness account of the Schenectady revival. South from Malta, about twelve miles, is the city of Schenectady and Union College, where I now reside with Dr. Macaulay.

He takes a lively interest in this good work. I first became acquainted with him last summer at the Springs, and more particularly at Malta, where he frequently visited us and preached and conversed and attended the meetings appointed for those anxious for their souls.

Conviction Through Death, Prayer, and the Sense of Lostness

On a Sabbath, when a number were to be admitted to the church in Malta, he brought with him several students from the college. Some of them became anxious. About this time, one of the students was called into the eternal world.

He was laid out in Dr. Macaulay's study. The doctor was anxious to improve this solemn providence to the best advantage. He assembled the students around the lifeless remains of their departed friend and conversed and prayed with them in the most solemn manner.

A number of them engaged to attend to the subject of religion in earnest. From that time, many of the students became deeply impressed with a sense of their lost condition. For them were appointed meetings of inquiry, and in this very room, where they lately beheld the breathless corpse of their young companion and where I am now writing, was witnessed a scene of deep and awful distress.

Conversions and the Expanding Revival

About thirty of the students are brought to rejoice in hope. The revival is now very powerful in the city. Such a scene they have never witnessed before. More than one hundred have been converted. Besides these, we had more than two hundred in our meeting of inquiry, anxious for their souls.

We met in a large upper room called the Masonic Hall. The room was so crowded that we were obliged to request all who had recently found relief to retire below and spend their time in prayer for those above.

The Terror of Judgment and the Throne of Grace

But that evening will never be forgotten. The scene is beyond description. Did you ever witness two hundred sinners with one accord in one place weeping for their sins? Until you have seen this, you can have no adequate conceptions of the solemn scene.

I felt as though I was standing on the verge of the eternal world while the floor under my feet was shaken by the trembling of anxious souls in view of a judgment to come. The solemnity was heightened when every knee was bent at the throne of grace and the intervening silence of the voice of prayer was interrupted only by the sighs and sobs of anxious souls.

Some of the most stout, hard-hearted, heaven-daring rebels have been in the most awful distress. Within a circle whose diameter is twenty-four miles, not less than eight hundred souls have been hopefully born into the kingdom of Christ since last September.

The same glorious work is fast spreading in other towns and congregations. So ends this narrative. It is important for us, friends, to study today historical revivals, to learn how God has moved in former times so we can better prepare our own hearts as we long for revival in our day and pray for it.

A Call for National Revival in America

It's been over a hundred and sixty years since God has sent a national revival to America. We desperately need revival in our day to rouse a sleeping church, to turn the heart of a nation back to Almighty God.

I pray that God will send a revival to America for it's either revival or ruin.