by Rudy Mitchell
Senior Researcher, Emmanuel Gospel
Center, Boston
Outline
Part One
Revivalism
First Great
Awakening in Boston, 1740
PART TWO
The Revivals of 1823-24 and
1826-27
Boston Revival of 1841-42
Part Three
Revival of 1857-58
Dwight L. Moody Revival Meetings, 1870s
Billy Sunday
Revival of 1916-17
Billy Graham Revival of 1950
Bibliography
The Revivals of 1823-24, 1826-27
During the 1800s, Boston experienced several cycles of revival
and church planting which reflected a general renaissance of
evangelical Christianity in the city. In general this was related
to the northern development of the Second Great Awakening. As
Charles Hambrick-Stowe points out, the awakening did not have a
clearly defined beginning and end, but can be seen as the ebb and
flow of revivalism even through the 1840s and beyond; it is useful
to see it as “the renewal of the evangelical spirit in American
society.”35 During the early 1800s, Park
Street Church, Old South Church and Andover Seminary were very
active in forming missionary organizations. They commissioned
missionaries, and raised money to send them off to Hawaii,
Jerusalem, India, the Pacific Islands and other distant lands.
This evangelical effort and the planting of new churches in Boston
were closely related to revival and growth in Boston’s evangelical
church community. The mission efforts encouraged revival and in
turn benefited from it. Likewise, revivals resulted in church
planting. Park Street Church and Old South played a role in
starting many churches during the first half of the nineteenth
century. Many of these church plants also participated in the
revivals of the period.
Growth of Evangelical and Christian Orthodox Churches
in Boston: 1808-184236
Church group
|
No. of churches in 1808 |
No. of churches 1842 |
No. of total members (in 1842) |
|
Congregational Trinitarian |
1 |
14 |
5,000 |
|
Baptist |
3 |
9 |
4,000 |
|
Episcopalian |
2 |
6 |
1,300 |
|
Methodist |
2 |
9 |
2,613 |
|
Other |
0 |
7 |
1,116 |
|
Total |
8 |
45 |
14,029 |
Prior to the revival of 1823, Congregational pastors had met
together during the 1822 annual convention to pray for revival,
and had later joined with the Baptists to establish a union prayer
meeting.37 Rev. Benjamin B. Wisner of Old
South Church says, “In January 1823, the church in full meeting,
unanimously voted, to ‘observe a day of fasting and prayer, to
humble ourselves before God for their sins, to seek direction as
to their duty in endeavoring to promote the work of God, and to
supplicate the more plentiful effusions of his Holy Spirit.’” 38 That same month three young women
at Park Street Church came under “deep conviction,” and this was
considered the start of the 1823-1824 Revival. Soon both men and
women were meeting more often in homes for prayer and confession.
The three orthodox congregational churches were holding special
weekly prayer meetings. “By the end of March,… some 250 persons
were attending the inquiry meeting at Park Street Church, while
100 were present in Old South.”39 “During Mr. Huntington’s ministry
[at Old South] there were continual accessions [to membership],
frequently of five, eight, and ten persons at one time. And since,
there have been two seasons of general attention [revival]; each
of which, in less than two years, added above an hundred
members.”40 Many conversions were occurring,
and special meetings were multiplying. “Lectures, public and
private are held as often as ministers can attend them. Seasons of
fasting and prayer have been numerous and manifestly followed with
a blessing.”41 In 1823, Park Street Church added
97 new members by profession of faith, thereby growing by 34 per
cent in one year.42 The Boston leaders then sent for
help from Rev. Lyman Beecher in Litchfield, Connecticut. He had
experience in revival preaching and in battling the Unitarians.
The Litchfield church allowed Beecher to come to Boston for a
month of ministry beginning in April 1823.
Rev. Lyman Beecher was an important figure in the revivals of
the 1820s, first as a guest preacher from Connecticut and later as
pastor of the Hanover Street Church. He was educated at Yale and
studied there for the pastorate under Timothy Dwight, who was a
“revivalist-oriented preacher stressing decision and
commitment.”43 Beecher recalled this time of
study:
“[A] new day was dawning as I came on the stage… Dwight was a
revival preacher,… and I was baptized in the revival spirit.”
However, the kind of revival to which he referred was not of the
same cut as that which flared out again and again on the edges
of the cultural centers and on the moving frontiers. This was
not a revivalism of ‘jerks’ and expostulations, of camp meetings
and visions. The revivalism of Dwight and later of his students,
like Beecher, was centered more fully in the existing church’s
life. It was indeed a sharpening and focusing of this life in
such a way that all attention was directed to the issues of life
and death…. Its preaching and teaching called on the hearers to
take their stand immediately in the army of the Lord, that they
might fight against the hosts of infidelity and darkness.44
The new Hanover Street Church, which called Rev. Lyman Beecher,
had a core group of leaders who were involved in many of the
city’s revival activities. The church had been started by Park
Street Church, Old South Church and the Union Church. In January,
1826, Beecher agreed to begin his pastorate in March. When he
arrived the city was already in the midst of a new period of
awakening. Hanover Street Church was to become a fortress of
orthodoxy and a fountainhead from which many other new churches
would flow. Hanover Street Church in the next few months had many
seeking salvation, and the inquiry rooms were regularly filled
with 50 to 60 people.45 By the fall, the revival was
cross-fertilized among the churches by an agreement to have
orthodox pastors preach in one another’s pulpits. By November,
there were 300 people inquiring after salvation in the three main
churches holding revival meetings.46 The revival was also
characterized by combined prayer meetings. During Beecher’s first
year at the new Hanover Street Church more than 150 conversions
had taken place. However, Beecher had a larger vision for Boston.
He wrote to his son Edward:
As to the importance of the stand in Boston,… I have never
stood in such a place before, and do not believe there is, all
things considered, such another, perhaps, on earth. It is here
that New England is to be regenerated, the enemy driven out of
the temple they have usurped and polluted, the college to be
rescued, the public sentiment to be revolutionized and restored
to evangelical tone. And all this with reference to the
resurrection of New England to an undivided and renovated effort
for the extension of religion and moral influence throughout the
land and through the world.47
The Revival of 1841-1842
The Revival of 1842 was primarily a Boston area revival, and it
produced a remarkable amount of church growth in a large
percentage of Boston’s churches. In many cases its focus was
within the local churches and among the laity. Although the
complementary styles of ministry of Rev. Edward N. Kirk, Charles
Finney, and Elder Jacob Knapp had a great impact, many people were
converted in their churches apart from the work of these
evangelists. This revival began as early as July, 1841 in Boston’s
Garden Street Church, and by autumn was evident in several other
churches with an increased spirit of prayer. Martin Moore
summarized the testimony of a number of churches which experienced
increased prayer and the beginnings of revival in the fall of
1841: “It is evident that there was an awakened spirit of prayer
considerably extensive in the city during the autumnal months.”48 The Bowdoin Street Church,
Marlboro Chapel, the Central Congregational Church, South Boston
Baptist, and several Methodist churches were among those
experiencing early signs of revival.
In October, 1841, Charles Finney came to speak at the Free
Congregational Church (Marlboro Chapel) at the invitation of his
friend Willard Sears. He was not sponsored by other churches in
this visit, but did minister to inquirers from various other
congregations. The Marlboro Hotel, which was the base of his
ministry, was a Christian hotel and chapel bought by Christian
abolitionists. The Free Congregational Church meeting there was
open to revivalists, abolitionists, and others promoting social
reform. Finney reported, “I …preached with all my might for two
months. The Sprit of the Lord was immediately poured out, and
there became a general agitation among the dry bones. I was
visited at my room almost constantly every day of the week by
inquirers from various congregations in all parts of the city, and
many were obtaining hopes from day to day.”49
One of the other evangelists who was even more visibly involved
in the revival was Rev. Edward N. Kirk. In the summer of 1840 Rev.
Kirk first preached in Boston at Park Street Church. “He preached
the Gospel with great fervor and directness, and in a most winning
manner… he had few equals in the land in making a popular
impression.”50 He began a nine-day series of
messages with a sermon titled “Prepare to Meet Thy God.” “The
daily services, afternoon and evening, were soon attended by
overflow crowds, the people filling the aisles and the pulpit
stairs. Many were turned away for lack of space.”51 In a letter, Kirk wrote, “All
this week I have had three meetings a day… The interest in
religion is rising here. The Unitarians are said never to have
taken so much interest in the orthodox service before.”52 That fall he returned for a
campaign of several weeks. Prayer meetings were held before and
after each meeting, and the deacons had a daily prayer meeting. At
an evening service after this campaign, seventy-one persons gave
their testimonies of conversion. One hundred and one new members
were added to the church as a result of the revival meetings.53 Rev. Kirk gave another series of
revival messages at Park Street Church in the fall of 1841. One
noteworthy aspect here was the awakening of spiritual interest
among young men and children in the congregation. Following the
third series of revival meetings by Rev. Kirk, a number of
evangelicals led by Daniel Safford and Rev. Silas Aiken helped
organize the Mount Vernon Congregational Church and, in 1842,
called the evangelist to be the founding pastor.
The third and most controversial leading evangelist in this
revival period was Elder Jacob Knapp. Being a Baptist preacher, he
primarily ministered in the Bowdoin Square Baptist Church, the
First Baptist Church, the Baldwin Place Baptist Church, the
Harvard Street Baptist Church, and the Tremont Street Church. He
arrived from Providence, Rhode Island, at the end of December,
1841, and preached continually until March 18. His schedule
included preaching afternoon and evening services and, for part of
the time, a predawn service in South Boston. Knapp said, “Even at
this early hour the house [South Boston Baptist Church] was
crowded, for the religious interest was so intense in the
community, that almost any sized house could have been filled at
almost any hour in the twenty-four.”54
He dressed in a humble fashion, and his preaching style has
been compared to John the Baptist. He spoke out strongly against
false teaching, the liquor trade, and other things, arousing
strong opposition. In January, when he was speaking at the Bowdoin
Square Church, mobs gathered and threatened to stone or club him,
as the mobs in Lystra attacked the Apostle Paul. The mobs grew
more fierce and intense day after day, until through prayer,
support of other pastors, the mayor, and the newspapers, the tide
finally turned. One of the opposition “sat up all night preparing
clubs with which to break my head,” said Knapp, “but coming in to
hear me, God broke his heart. The chief officer, who called out
the Lancers to quell the riot and disperse the mob, confessed that
his heart was in sympathy with the mob and, that he hoped they
might succeed, though at the same time he was resolved to
discharge the duties of his office. He was convicted of his sins,
and became an inquirer after salvation.”55
Though some said Knapp’s preaching was not always in good
taste, most people agreed that he spoke with great power and was
greatly used by God. One seminary professor said, “He is a man of
genius and power, and though his preaching is not always in good
taste, yet no thief, or profane swearer, or drunkard, or
adulterer, can sit and listen to him a great while without feeling
that the constable is after him.”56 On February 9th, a periodical
called the Reflector said:
The work has now attained to a degree of prevalence and power
that renders it utterly impossible for us to convey to our more
distant readers an adequate conception of what God is permitting
his people to witness and enjoy in Boston. Every day brings to
light facts and scenes of the most thrilling interest. Among the
converts which now amount to hundreds, there are persons from
every class and of every description of moral character.57
Knapp was especially concerned that churches welcome the poor
and neglected, and not just cater to the wealthy. In the early
months of 1842 dozens of new members were added to each of the
Baptist churches. Martin Moore, in Boston Revival 1842,
documents many amazing stories of conversions. The revival was not
only strengthening the churches, but also having an impact on the
city. While the population was flocking to the churches, they were
abandoning the less than reputable theaters. By March 2, the great
Tremont Theater had to close; it was then sold and turned into
Tremont Temple. Billiard halls and bars were neglected, and
several rum dealers were converted. Knapp observed, “You could
scarcely meet a man in the market or on the street whose
countenance did not indicate seriousness and whose language was
not subdued. The Spirit of God was poured out on the whole city,
and all the people seemed to be affected by power of his
presence.”58
As a result of the 1842 Revival, over 4,000 new members were
added to the forty-five orthodox churches of Boston in a single
year.59 Seldom, if ever, have so many
churches received such a large proportionate increase in their
memberships. For example, 266 of First Baptist Church’s 725
members were added in 1842; 126 of First African Baptist’s 267,
and 187 of Baldwin Place’s 861 members.60 Between 1840 and 1842 over four
hundred of Harvard Street Baptist Church’s 558 members were newly
received.61 In 1842 the North Bennett Street
Methodist Church received 530 new members on probation, and some
estimated that as many as 800 people had been converted at the
church. One hundred and fifty new members were received at both
the Bromfield Street and North Russell Street Methodist
Churches.62 Among the congregational
churches, Central Congregational Church added 203 new members in
1842, and the following churches added more than 100 new members:
Marlboro Chapel, Park Street, Bowdoin Street, Salem Street, and
Garden Street Churches.63 The Spirit of God was truly
moving throughout the city during this period, using a variety of
revivalists, pastors and lay people to build up his church.
This article continues here.
Footnotes for Part Two:
35 Charles E. Hambrick-Stowe,
Charles G. Finney and the Spirit of American
Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans,
1996), 204.
36 Moore, 143.
37 Vincent Harding, A Certain
Magnificence: Lyman Beecher and the Transformation of American
Protestantism, 1775-1863 ( Brooklyn, N.Y.: Carlson
Publishing, 1991), 173.
38 Wisner, 64.
39 Harding, 174.
40 Benjamin B. Wisner, The History
of the Old South Church in Boston, in Four Sermons (Boston:
Crocker & Brewster, 1830), 63.
41 Harding, 174.
42 Park Street Church records, Feb.
1809-Feb. 1834.
43 Harding, 25.
44 Ibid., 26-27.
45 Ibid., 222.
46 Ibid., 224.
47 Ibid., 223.
48 Martin Moore, Boston Revival,
1842 (Wheaton, Ill.: Richard Owen Roberts, Publisher, 1980),
135. Originally published in Boston by John Putnam, 1842.
49 Hambrick-Stowe, 205.
50 Increase Tarbox, “The Congregational
Trinitarian Churches Since 1780,” in The Memorial History of
Boston, 4 vols., edited by Justin Winsor (Boston: Ticknor and
Company, 1881), 3:412.
51H. Crosby Englizian, Brimstone
Corner: Park Street Church, Boston (Chicago: Moody Press,
1968), 142.
52 David Otis Mears, Life of Edward
Norris Kirk (Boston: Lockwood, Brooks and Company, 1877),
165.
53 Englizian, 142.
54 Jacob Knapp, Autobiography of
Elder Jacob Knapp (New York: Sheldon and Company, 1868),
125.
55 Ibid., 126-127.
56 Ibid., 134.
57 Ibid., 134.
58 Ibid., 129.
59 Moore, 141.
60 Ibid., 96.
61 Ibid., 85.
62 Ibid., 107, 125.
63 Ibid., 67.
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