The Awakening of 1858 in America - Part 2 — J. Edwin Orr

The Holy Spirit Comes to Charleston

Send revival. It constantly increased until the sanctuary was filled. He was urged by his officers to commence preaching, but he declined, waiting, he said, for the outpouring of the Spirit. Then one evening, while leading the petitioners in prayer, he received a sensation as if a surge of electric power had struck his head and diffused itself throughout his whole body.

For a little while, he stood speechless under the strange physical feeling. He stood up, then he sat down again. He was confused. There was nothing in the Presbyterian order of service to account for this.

Then he said, the Holy Spirit has come. We will begin preaching tomorrow evening. So he closed the service with a hymn, dismissed the congregation, came down from the pulpit, but no one left the house.

Then he realized the situation. The Holy Spirit had come not only to him, but had taken possession of the hearts of the people. He immediately began exhorting them to accept the gospel. They began to sob softly at the falling of rain, then with deeper emotion to weep bitterly or to rejoice loudly according to circumstance.

It was midnight before he could dismiss the meeting. In the greatest event of his ministry, I'm quoting him, he preached to crowds of 1 ,500 to 2 ,000 night and day for eight weeks and converts in great numbers, white and black, joined the churches of Charleston.

Intercessory Prayer Spreads Across the Country

Now throughout the fall of 1857, intercessors multiplied throughout the country. Some conventions were far reaching. The ministers and elders of four Presbyterian synods met in Pittsburgh December 1st to pray for revival.

Baptist churches in New York launched united prayer meetings so did other denominations. Not only so, but Baptist, Methodist, Congregations, Presbyterian, Lutherans and Episcopalians reported local revivals in state after state, some as far away as Texas and Iowa.

Now in February of 1858, Fulton Street and other businessmen's prayer meetings overflowed. Horace Greeley, the editor who said, go west young man, sent one of his reporters around the prayer meetings to count how many men were actually praying at noon.

In an hour, the man with horse and buggy could reach only 12 meetings, but he announced 6 ,100 men at prayer. In the evenings, the churches were crowded every night to hear the word and soon converts were coming in at the rate of 10 ,000 a week.

Revival Reaches New England and Pennsylvania

Newspapers gave headlines to the reports of revival. Along the Hudson and the Mohawk, revival stirred the population in town after time. In several places, the Baptists had so many candidates for Believer's Baptism that they broke the ice on the river and immersed the candidates in icy water, and when Baptists do that, they really are on fire.

Revival was underway in New England. It started in concerts of prayer. It spread all over Boston. Finney was preaching at Park Street Church and said it was too gentle to keep any account of the number of converts.

New England's church bells rang three times a day to call people to prayer. In Newark, New Jersey, 2 ,785 of the city's 70 ,000 people were converted in a couple of months, according to reports the most mature of the people.

In Pennsylvania, there were great revivals in 1857, but six weeks or so after the financial crash, a businessmen's prayer meeting was started in Philadelphia. Only a dozen men came out of a population of half a million, but on the 3rd of February of 1858, the intercessors repaired to an empty room in Janes Hall, a great theater downtown, where the attendance has picked up to 3 ,000 a day.

Then the attendance is so great, it overflowed. The hymn written by George Duffield, Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus, was written there and sung for the first time by those men. In Washington, the nation's capital, there were five daily prayer meetings.

Revival Crosses the Alleghenies and Challenges Regional Assumptions

5 ,000 people attended the one in the Academy of Music. However, Charles Finney, strange to say, reported that the only part of the country not affected by the revival was the South, because they were addicted to their peculiar institution of slavery.

But this is not true. I can document the revival from Richmond, Virginia, around to Waco, Texas. The mayor of Chattanooga called for Thanksgiving in February, not November, to celebrate the coming of the millennium.

He thought the millennium had come. The revival swept Ohio and all the western states. The movement crossed the Alleghenies again in March 1858, crowded all the halls and churches all the way to Omaha.

Measurable Growth in Ohio, Michigan, and Chicago

In Ohio, 200 towns reported 12 ,000 converts in a couple of months. Was it lasting? Between 1853 and 1857, Methodist churches in Ohio were losing membership annually, but in 1858 they gained 12%. Michigan Baptist won 168 in four years, but in 1858, 2 ,539.

Chicago had a population of 100 ,000, and yet they had 2 ,000 men meeting each noon for prayer, and the churches were conducting two and three and four meetings a day. Trinity Episcopal Church had 121 members in 1857.

They built a new church for 1 ,400 in 1860. A concerned shoe salesman offered to teach Sunday school class, but he was told that they had 12 teachers and only 16 pupils, so he went out to the streets and rounded up 17 urchins and started classes and founded a huge Sunday school.

That was the beginning of the life ministry of Dwight Lyman Moody. The news of the awakening back east reached California in hundreds of thousands of affectionate letters, and this caused a flocking of Christians to prayer meetings in the churches and other gathering places.

The California Times reported extraordinary interest in religion, and two months later, daily prayer meetings in San Francisco were continuing with unabated zeal. The results were rather disappointing in the southern part of California, where there was very little Anglo-popular.

Awakening Among Seamen, Soldiers, Firemen, and Students

Before the close of 1857, there was a remarkable awakening among seamen in New York and all the other ports. The seamen's friend recorded an outpouring of the Spirit in almost every seaman's bethel around the coasts.

There was an extraordinary revival of religion in the United States Navy, and dozens of army volunteer regiments marched to church services. Firemen in the bigger cities were somewhat of a problem because they often would battle each other and fight the police and civilians as well as dousing flames.

They made a great effort to reach firemen in all the great cities, and many, many were converted. In American colleges in New England, the Middle Atlantic states, and the South and the West, with scarcely an exception, there was a great student awakening.

The work at Yale found no parallel in the whole history of that institution. In the most places, the majority of students professed conversion, and there was a vast increase of candidates for the ministry reported by the seminaries.

Protestant Unity and the Revival’s Public Reputation

Now, this 1858 revival was received by great enthusiasm by the secular press. They testified that great changes were good in every place. With few exceptions, the 1857 -58 awakening was supported by every Protestant denomination, including the Lutherans and the Episcopalians, although a minority in each objected.

These meetings were commended for their quietness and restraint, and they gained goodwill of citizens in every place. Looking back, none of the objections raised about extravagances in previous movements were even mentioned in connection with the 1857 -58 revival.

Looking forward, there were manifested no signs and wonders.