A MAN NAMED CHRISTMAS

On December 25^th, 1766, a son was born to shoemaker Samuel Evans and his wife, Joanna, in Llandysul, Ceredigion. The couple named the child Christmas. That boy would grow to be a tall, husky, bushy-haired preacher who would lead the spiritual revivals in late 18^th- and early 19^th-century Wales. But he had a hard road to the ministry he would pursue from Anglesey to Cardiff for over half a century.

            Evans’ father died when the boy was only eight or nine years old, leaving the family in poverty. Living with a drunken uncle, Evans received no schooling and by age fifteen, he still could not read or write. His illiteracy grieved him, and with dogged determination he set out to teach himself, plodding through Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress with the help of friends. They also studied the Welsh Bible together: “We bought Bibles and candles, and were accustomed to meet together in the evening in the barn of Penyrallt, and thus in about one month I was able to read the Bible in my mother tongue.”

           At 18 he was converted under the influence of Presbyterian pastor David Davies, and soon began preaching in cottage meetings, having memorized published sermons. Without financial means to further his education, Christmas Evans went to England to earn money in the harvest fields. But in England he began to despair of his prospects in the ministry and nearly lost interest in spiritual matters altogether. The turning point in his life came when he was attacked by a mob, apparently provoked by Evans’ objection to their ungodly activities, and was beaten unconscious. When he regained consciousness, he found that he was blind in his right eye. This crisis awakened his faith and his determination to serve God. At age 20 he was baptized in Aberdare by Baptist pastor Timothy Thomas and joined that congregation.

            At the Baptist Association meeting in 1790, Evans accepted a call to minister in Caernarvonshire. He was ordained at Lleyn to serve five small Baptist chapels in that area. It was there that he met and married Catherine Jones, a member of one of the chapels. Though his preaching was well received, the ministry there took a toll on his health. So after some months in Caernarvonshire, Evans took a vacation to Pembrokeshire. Since he could not afford a horse, he traveled on foot, preaching in every town along the way. Crowds followed him from town to town, spreading revival throughout western Wales.

            Refreshed by his coastal tour, Evans threw himself back into the ministry in Lleyn, walking twenty miles every Sabbath to preach in various chapels and open-air meetings. Yet in spite of the many converts from his ministry, Evans was not pleased with the level of spirituality on the peninsula, and in 1792 he accepted a call to the island of Anglesey, where, for a salary of 17 pounds a year, he was to be responsible for ten chapels. On Christmas Day – his 26^th birthday – he and Catherine crossed the Menai Strait to take up residence in a dilapidated cottage with a ceiling so low the six-foot-tall preacher could not stand up in it! His ministry there prospered, however, and within two years he saw 600 converts, and the ten chapels had doubled to twenty.

            In 1823, Evans’ beloved spiritual companion Catherine died, and the same year he developed an eye problem which necessitated treatment in Aberystwyth. By 1826, the number of chapels in Anglesey had increased exponentially and Baptist preachers numbered twenty-eight. Evans then moved to Caerphilly where 140 more converts were added to the Baptist congregations. From there he ministered in Cardiff, then back to Caernarvon, “where he contended with great difficulties from church debts and dissension.” (Armitage, The History of the Baptists, 612)  On a trip to Swansea to raise funds for the Caernarvon chapels, he suddenly fell ill and died on July 19, 1838. His last message was, “I am leaving you. I have labored in the sanctuary fifty-three years, and this is my comfort, that I have never labored without blood in the basin,” a reference to Exodus 12:22. In his last breath he voiced the words to an old Welsh hymn and passed into eternity.

            Christmas Evans is reputed by some to be the most dynamic preacher of “the golden age of itinerant preachers” in Wales. Historian John Davies takes note of Evans, along with Calvinistic Methodist John Elias and Independent William Williams (William o’r Wern) as the prominent preachers in the revivals that swept Wales in the early 1800s. (The History of Wales, 359) It is estimated that between 1801 and 1851, a new chapel was built on average every eight days. Many of those chapels were the result of the tireless ministry of Christmas Evans.

           

 Copyright 2015 by Thomas L. Jones  First published in Ninnau, Nov-Dec 2015

THE EVANGELIST WHO INFLUENCED PATRICK HENRY

In a Presbyterian meeting house in Hanover County, Virginia, a bright young boy listened intently to the preacher, trying his best to absorb every word. He had too. For he knew that his mother and older sister would quiz him on the sermon during the carriage ride home. That boy would grow up to be the eloquent American patriot Patrick Henry, who would credit that influential preacher for much of his oratorical skill, as well as his view of liberty. That preacher was Samuel Davies, acclaimed as “the outstanding preacher of Colonial America” and “the animating soul of the whole dissenting interest in Virginia and North Carolina” (Sweet, 65).

            In the struggle for religious liberty in the American colonies, two Welshmen stand out: Roger Williams in New England (see Ninnau July-August 2015) and Samuel Davies in Virginia and North Carolina.

            Samuel Davies was born November 3, 1723, to David and Martha Davies, Welsh Baptists of New Castle County, Delaware. The Davieses were deeply religious, and Martha named her son after the prophet Samuel with the hope that he would enter the ministry. Yet when Samuel was of age, the Davieses lacked the finances for a university education, so they sent him to be tutored by the Rev. Samuel Blair in Blair’s academy in Faggs Manor, Pennsylvania. Blair’s institution was one of several disparagingly dubbed “log colleges.” The first so-called Log College was founded in 1735 by the Rev. William Tennent to educate his younger sons and other promising young men for the ministry, one of whom was Samuel Blair. After Blair assumed a pastorate in Chester County, Pennsylvania, he opened an academy similar to Tennent’s. Samuel Davies was to be his most renowned graduate and leader of The Great Awakening in the Southern Colonies, particularly in Virginia.

            The Anglican Church had held official status in Virginia since its founding, receiving tax support from the colonial legislature. Dissenting religious groups were tolerated, but their right to formal worship was effectively denied. In 1743, the colonial legislature of Virginia licensed Presbyterian “reading rooms” in Polegreen and three communities in and around Hanover County. Samuel Davies was commissioned as an evangelist to Virginia in February of 1747, and at age twenty-three he set out for the South with his bride of four months, Sarah (Kirkpatrick). Davies was determined to minister to folk of any denomination, preaching in dissenting communities and evangelizing wherever the opportunity arose.

            In September of 1747, tragedy struck: Sarah Davies died in childbirth only a month before their first anniversary. The loss hit Samuel so hard that he began to believe that he, too, always of frail health, might not have long to live. That thought drove Davies to redouble his evangelistic efforts. By 1748, Davies had set up his base of ministry in Hanover County, Virginia. In October of that year, he married Jane Holt from a prominent Williamsburg family. They would have six children together, one dying at birth.

            In the 1740’s, Davies was the only revivalistic – “New-light” or “New Side” – Presbyterian preacher in the county. There were, however, a few traditional – “Old Side” – Presbyterians, who presented little threat to the Established Church. Davies was determined to avoid conflict with the Established Church clergy, so his sermons were free of rancorous rhetoric or attacks on other denominations. He focused, instead, on careful exposition of Scripture and clear presentation of the Gospel. The strategy worked, much to the chagrin of the same Established clergy Davies had studiously avoided attacking. In 1752, Commissary William Dawson wrote the following to the Bishop of London:

The Dissenters were but an inconsiderable number before the late arrival of certain teachers from the northern colonies. . . . But since Mr. Davies has been allowed to officiate in so many places . . . there has been a great defection from our religious assemblies. The generality of his followers, I believe, were born and bred in our communion. (Cited in Sweet, 66)

            Davies would eventually establish seven Presbyterian congregations in five counties and win greater religious freedom for dissenters of all denominations.  Through his legal astuteness, he was able to secure in Virginia the application of England’s Toleration Act of 1689. His advocacy of the principles of the “free-born mind” or “liberty of conscience,” after the model of Roger Williams, eventually led to the establishment, after Davies’ death, of Virginia’s Declaration of Religious Rights (1776) and Statute for Religious Freedom (1786).

            Few colonialists, especially in the South, questioned the propriety of that “peculiar institution” of slavery, nor did Samuel Davies oppose it. He did, however, conduct a vigorous and extensive ministry to the slave population. Unlike the Baptist and Methodist missionaries who focused on a personal experience of salvation alone, Davies insisted that slaves be taught to read since an understanding and application of the Bible was essential to the Christian life. Davies himself estimated that he had ministered to over a thousand African slaves and had baptized hundreds. African converts were admitted into his congregations and were permitted to preach. He even wrote specific hymns for African ministry. The Negro spiritual, “Lord, I Want to Be a Christian in My Heart,” is believed to have been inspired, if not composed, by Samuel Davies.

            In 1753, Davies accompanied fellow Presbyterian minister Gilbert Tennent on an eleven-month fundraising tour of England and Scotland on behalf of the College of New Jersey, an outgrowth of Tennent’s Log College, during which Davies preached sixty-three times. The mission raised six thousand pounds, including a large contribution from the grandson of Oliver Cromwell.

            In 1759, Davies was offered the presidency of the College of New Jersey (which became Princeton University in 1898), succeeding Jonathan Edwards, who had died after only six weeks in office. At first Davies demurred, believing someone else more qualified, but he eventually accepted. Davies’s own tenure was also to be short. He died on February 4, 1761, at the age of 37.

            Few American ministers have had as much impact on the formation of the yet-to-be-founded United States of America as Samuel Davies. Davies influenced not only the eloquence, but also the principles of the noted orator and patriot Patrick Henry. Davies’ fight for religious liberty in the middle and southern colonies, formed the groundwork for the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.

            As for Davies’ spiritual contribution, historian William Sweet sums it up well:

“Among the many prolific eighteenth-century preachers, few if any can be read more profitably today than Samuel Davies.” (Sweet, 70)

Resources

Sweet, William Warren. Revivalism in America. Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1965.

http://www.sermonindex.net/modules/articles/index.php?view=category&cid=221

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord,_I_Want_to_Be_a_Christian

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Davies_(clergyman)

First published in Ninnau, Sept-Oct 2016. Copyright 2016 by Thomas L. Jones.

The Americans Liberated Us: The Story of Alfredo Gallina

Alfredo Gallina is one of a diminishing number of Italians who experienced the liberation of Italy from fascist and Nazi tyranny. But more importantly, Alfredo also experienced spiritual liberation that gave him victory over the tyranny of despair.

In 1938, at the age of 17, Alfredo joined the Italian army to fight for Mussolini’s fascist state. Alfredo tells his story:


I call myself Alfredo. I live with my wife, Annamaria, in the central Italian city of Terni. Terni is a steel manufactur¬ing city, and is predominently communist. During World War II, it was destroyed by Allied bombing.


I grew up under fascism. I knew nothing else. At school, once a week, we boys were made to dress in black shirts and to perform military drills all day with wooden rifles. To be a good Italian was to be a good fascist and Roman Catholic. In 1929, Mussolini signed a pact with the Church which made "The Holy Roman Apostolic Church...the only Church of the State of Italy." Thus, both our political and our religious beliefs were decided for us.


During the war, I served in the Italian army. I felt it was the right thing to do. After basic training, I spent time in Rome, where I met my wife. My unit was eventually sent to Albania. We saw no action against the Allied forces, but we met with some stiff resistance from the local partisans. The spirit of these partisans forced me to think. Why were we fighting this war? Why were we here, upsetting the lives of these people? Later, I would see the same sacrificial resistance by Italian partisans.


I was in Bari on the Adriatic coast when Italy signed the armistice with the Allies. When Italy declared war on Germany, I made my way back to Rome, where I joined the Allied troops under General Mark Clark. I drove a supply truck during the long, bloody battle at Montecasino. I saw many men die. One was a close friend.


It was with the Americans that a spiritual change began in me. The American troops had chaplains of all denominations. One could choose what worship he preferred. And I noticed that all these different chaplains got along well—there was a certain respect. This was totally new to me. I had known nothing but Roman Catholicism. But among these Americans, there was a choice.


Through the Americans I fell in love with America, even though I had never been there. The American soldiers taught me the dignity of the individual. In the Italian army, even on the battle field, the officers ate good meat and vegetables, while the enlisted men drank a weak soup. The enlisted men were literally the slaves of the officers.


In the American army it was so different. Not only did the officers and enlisted men eat at the same mess, but it was first come, first serve! Officers, even high ranking ones, waited in line behind privates and corporals! And I thought I had seen it all when I saw a colonel washing his own car!


So the Americans liberated us not only from the German occupation, but also from our own religious narrow-mindedness and our social caste system. The liberation from the Germans was quick and complete; the other liberation has taken much longer and is still incomplete.


After the war, I studied the history of the United States, particularly the War of Independence. I thought of emigrating to America, but with a wife and two children, financial concerns held us back. I started a business and pursued riches and la dolce vita.


But spiritually there was a void in my life. I was thinking only of pleasure, comfort and security. I had turned my back on the Church—and with it, God—when I was 14. But God had not turned His back on me!


God in His grace began to work in my heart. Suddenly, all the material things I had seemed nothing. Even the earthly relationships so dear to me seemed vain and transitory. It was then that I began to seek a spiritual answer to life. I read the writings of all the major world religions. I found some truth in all of them, but not The Truth. I did not find the peace I sought.


With much reluctance I returned to the study of Christianity. My wife had remained a faithful Roman Catholic, but if Christianity were ever to mean anything to me, I would have to find it for myself.


I considered it logical to begin my study of Christianity with a study of Christ. I bought many books on the life of Christ, but they were by secular authors who treated Jesus as merely a great man, a historical figure, not as God incarnate. Years passed and my spiritual confusion grew worse. At times I thought I would go insane.


Then one day I saw on television a man who talked from the Bible in a way I had never heard before. He explained what the text meant without any appeal to ecclesiastical authority. His message spoke to a profound need in my heart. At the end of the program, he offered a free Bible to everyone who wrote in. Suddenly it hit me that I had been studying the life of Christ from many writers, but I had never read the Bible, the primary source! I sent for the Bible and began reading it. My desire to know Christ grew strong. In my heart, I felt that I did accept Him, but in my mind I had doubts. How could Jesus be both God and man? And how could God be sovereign and man responsible? I was reading the Bible, but I could not understand much of it.


Then, one day, two young men came to my door who said they were from The Bible Today. My wife and I were delighted to see them. They were generous with their time, and they helped me resolve my spiritual problem. They showed me verses of Scripture that presented all aspects of the questions which troubled me, and then they showed me a principle I have found most valuable. The Bible says, "The just shall live by faith." It is by faith that we accept what God says even when we do not understand how it all fits together.


The missionaries gave me another verse which eased my mind—Deuteronomy 29:29: "The secret things belong unto the Lord our God; but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law."


I saw that my responsibility was simply to accept what God had revealed and apply it to my life, and then rest in the Lord regarding those things which are not revealed.


We prayed together with the missionaries, and as we concluded, I sensed a great joy and peace in my heart that has been there ever since. It was settled. I was free at last in Christ. The world around me had not changed, but I had, and so had my dear wife. We rested in the fact that Jesus had died for all our sins and was now living to give us peace and victory. My mind and heart were at last united...by faith.


God has brought Americans into my life in times of great crisis, and each time they have brought liberation. But the liberation I treasure most is my liberation in Jesus Christ!

End

A MAN CHRIST TOUCHED

In my thirty-eight plus years of ministry, I have received many compliments on my sermons – some sincere, and some, well . . .  But the compliment that means the most to me came from a fellow missionary after I had preached at a missions conference.  The missionary said, “You remind me of a professor I had at San Francisco (San Francisco Baptist Seminary).”  I knew immediately who he meant because that same professor later took a position at Detroit Baptist Seminary teaching homiletics, practical theology, and church history.  It was there that I had the privilege of sitting at his feet: That professor was Eugene J. Petersen.
 Dr. Petersen was an inspiring teacher, but it was --and is -- his example more than his instruction that has had the greatest impact on my preaching.  Through my admiration for the man, his preaching style has rubbed off.  I'm not nearly the preacher Eugene Petersen is, but I'm moved that someone thought I sounded like him.

            Dr. Petersen, who is now 92, was born in southwestern Iowa to Danish immigrant parents. He was raised in Harlan, Iowa, and studied at the University of Minneapolis, the LeHavre School of Education in France, and Fuller Theological Seminary.  He received his Doctor of Ministry degree in homiletics from Fuller.

            As a young man, called to preach the Gospel, Eugene found himself caught up in World War II. He preached his first sermon in 1943 shortly before shipping out to France.  He fought in eastern France where, according to Paul Fussell, the average life expectancy of an infantryman in the front lines was 17 days.[1]  But Christ had his hand upon Eugene J. Petersen.

            After the war, Eugene continued his studies and his preaching, pastoring churches in Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, California, and Michigan.  He also taught seminary for 30 years in San Francisco and Detroit.

            My favorite sermon by Dr. Petersen is curiously titled, "Christ Honors A Donkey."  It touches me because Dr. Petersen encourages guys like me that Christ uses the ordinary, the less than ordinary, and those who make mistakes.  The repeated theme in that sermon never fails to touch my heart and lift my spirit: “Whatever Christ touches, He dignifies.”  Christ touched Eugene Petersen and dignified his long, productive ministry. 

---

[1] See The Boys' Crusade and Wartime by Paul Fussell. The horrific battle endured by Petersen’s 275th Infantry Regiment, 70^th Division, is recounted in a book co-authored by Eugene J. Petersen, titled Ordeal in the Vosges.

Abel Bingham, The Soldier

In the spring of 1814, the war between the young United States of America and Great Britain was reaching a climax.  The now celebrated Battle of New Orleans (December 23, 1814 – January 8, 1815) would turn out to be anti-climactic.  Both sides knew the war was nearly over and they were fighting mostly for advantage in negotiations.  For instance, where would the border be drawn between Canada and the United States?  Who would get Lake Champlain, and who would control the Great Lakes?  Those questions made the Battle of Plattsburg, New York, of critical importance.

In the spring of 1813, Abel Bingham and his wife Hannah Olmstead Bingham sold their farm in Jay, New York, with the intention of joining Hannah’s father and other friends who had moved to Caledonia.  But Bingham’s militia company was called up for duty in Plattsburg.  Bingham was an orderly sergeant at the time, and though some militiamen in Bingham’s company paid the allowable bounty for being excused from service, Abel Bingham said, “I will go.” According to his daughter’s memoir, Bingham “wrote his friends at Caledonia that he must first serve his country before he could join them in their new and pleasant home.”  Though the tour of duty was supposed to be for three months, Bingham did not return home for a year and a half, and at one point his wife was convinced that he would not return home alive at all.

During the campaign in New York, Bingham’s company made several incursions into Canada, engaging the British and taking prisoners near Lake Champlain.  In the spring of 1814, Bingham was promoted to lieutenant, and when the company captain was granted leave, Bingham assumed command.  In early September, 1814, the British launched an infantry assault on the American positions across the Saranac River near Plattsburg.  On September 11, the naval assault began, and in a fierce two-hour naval battle, the American fleet forced the British to strike their colors, thereby cutting off all support to the British ground troops.  General George Prévost, seeing that any further military action would be useless, ordered a British bugler to sound retreat.  But the 76^th Regiment of Foot, which had been diverted from the main assault force by a fierce skirmish with the New York militia, did not hear the retreat signal.  The regiment was surrounded and captured by the militia, one detachment of which was commanded by Lieutenant Abel Bingham.

During the battle Bingham was struck in the forehead by a British musket ball and fell bleeding on the field of battle.  As his apparently lifeless body was being carried off the field, a militiaman cried out, “Lieutenant Bingham has been killed!” News of his death spread through the ranks before his real condition could be confirmed. Although the ball had fractured his skull, Bingham showed signs of life and was carried to a nearby farmhouse where his wound was dressed.  Soon after regaining consciousness, Bingham returned to the battle!

  

Hannah, still living in Jay, was near enough to the battle to hear the rumble of cannon shot, so news of her husband’s death arrived quickly.  She had hardly begun to grieve when to her joyous shock and elation, Abel showed up at the door!

Abel Bingham was a good story-teller, which undoubtedly contributed to his later success as a missionary.  In recounting his near-death experience in the Battle of Plattsburg, he mesmerized audiences to the point that some forgot who was telling the story. On one occasion, when he got to his vivid description of the ball striking his head, one spell-bound listener exclaimed, “Did it kill you?”  General Winfield Scott, upon hearing the account on another occasion, remarked, “Well, Mr. Bingham, you had your face the right way.”

The American victories at Plattsburg and Baltimore secured American rights to Lake Champlain and guaranteed shared access to the Great Lakes in the Treaty of Ghent, signed December 24, 1814.

Abel Bingham’s heroism at the Battle of Plattsburg would display itself in the years ahead as he followed in the footsteps of pioneer missionaries Adoniram and Ann Judson in taking the Good News of Jesus Christ to fields of spiritual battle.

Copyright 2014 by Thomas L. Jones

Distinguishing Traits of Christian Character

Back in 1982, a very dear Christian friend gave me a copy of Gardiner Spring's book, Distinguishing Traits of Christian Character.

I have returned to in many times over the decades, always with new blessing and insight.  Gardiner Spring was a close friend and classmate of Adoniram Judson, the latter of whom would become America's first foreign missionary, who along with his wife Ann Hasseltine Judson departed for Burma in 1812.  Gardiner Spring's father, Dr. Samuel Spring, was one of New England's prominent conservative ministers and a vigorous champion of foreign missions.  Gardiner Spring became the distinguished pastor of Brick Presbyterian Church in New York City where he ministered for over fifty-five years.

Judging from Dr. Gardiner Spring's little book, there were many more professing Christians than possessing Christians even one hundred-eighty-five years ago, and the problem is much more evident today.  Many people profess salvation and believe they are on their way to heaven, yet they show few if any distinguishing marks of a biblical, born-again Christian.  The chapter titles from Spring's book challenge professing believers:  Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!  (2 Corinthians 13:5)

Here is the table of contents organized in outline form.  I highly recommend this little book, which is available from Amazon.

I.  TRAITS THAT NEITHER PROVE NOR DISPROVE THE PRESENCE OF GRACE IN THE SOUL

1. Visible Morality
2. Speculative Knowledge
3. Form of Religion
4. Eminent Gifts
5. Conviction for Sin
6. Strong Assurance
7. Time of Your Supposed Conversion

II.  TRAITS THAT PROVE THE EXISTENCE OF GRACE IN THE SOUL

1. Love to God
2. Repentance for Sin
3. Faith in Christ
4. Evangelical Humility
5. Self-Denial
6. Devotion to Divine Honor and Glory of God
7. The Spirit of Prayer
8. Brotherly Love
9. Separation from the World
10. Growth in Grace
11. Practical Obedience

These chapters are richly supported by Scripture in Spring's book.  Oh, how this dark world needs genuine Christians!  And churches need to be purified! May God send revival!

THE PRAYER MEETING THAT SHOOK AMERICA

The summer of 1857 had been frustrating for businessman and lay missionary Jeremiah C. Lanphier.  Business itself had been good, but week after week he had knocked on doors in lower Manhattan, inviting people to worship services at the Dutch Reformed Church at Fulton and Williams Streets with little success.  The church had fallen on hard times. Old families had moved away and the neighborhood had become a business district, populated by transient laborers and recent immigrants.

            But the bigger problem was prosperity.  The young nation was in its Golden Age. Railroads and steamship lines had expanded trade and facilitated the great westward movement. New cities were springing up and states were being added.  The telegraph speeded communication, and gold was discovered in California!

            The boom was on!

            But the increase in gain brought a decrease in godliness.  Church attendance was pitiful. The new materialism was also having political repercussions as the cloud of civil war hung over the land.

            Lanphier knew that the only hope for the nation was a spiritual awakening.  But how could he get the message of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ to a money‑mad nation? Lanphier took his frustrations to the Lord in prayer.

            Later, while making his rounds of visitation, the answer came to him.  Businessmen might be interested in a noonday prayer meeting once a week.  Excited, Lanphier passed out handbills and put up placards announcing the first noonday prayer meeting for Wednesday, September 23, 1857.  Five businessmen and the pastor showed up.  The meeting seemed in no way extraordinary.  But unknown to Lanphier, God was about to do something that very week that would bring the nation to its knees.

            On September 25, the Bank of Philadelphia failed.  Twenty men came to the next prayer meeting.  The third week there were forty, and Lanphier decided to hold daily meetings in a larger room.  On Wednesday, October 14, the nation was struck by the worst financial disaster in its history.  Fortunes evaporated, banks closed, railroad companies went bankrupt, unemployment soared, and families faced hunger.

            In a short time, the Fulton Street prayer meeting had taken over the whole church building, drawing crowds of more than 1,000 people.  People from all walks of life attended: “leading capitalists, prominent lawyers and judges, eminent physicians, merchants, bankers, mechanics (and) tradesmen.”  Shop keepers hung signs on their doors at noon: “Closed—Be back after prayer meeting.”  Police and Fire stations provided space for meetings, as did Burton’s Theater and the New York City Music Hall.

            Because of the large numbers at the meetings, rules were drawn up and posted:

Brethren are earnestly requested to adhere to the five‑minute rule:  Prayers and exhortations not to exceed five minutes in order to give all an opportunity.

            Prayer meetings spread throughout New York and Canada.  A revival broke out in Hamilton, Ontario, and a New York newspaper reported that over 300 people were converted within a few days.

            By January, 1858, there were at least twenty daily meetings in New York City, drawing as many as 10,000 people in total.  Newspaper reporters were sent to cover the meetings, and “The Progress of the Revival” became a regular headline.  Stories of human drama abounded.

            A man bent on killing his wife and himself wandered into the Fulton Street meeting and listened to a fervent exhortation urging repentance.  Suddenly, the desperate man cried out, “Oh! What shall I do to be saved?”  Then another man stood with tears streaming down his cheeks and asked the people to sing “Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me.”  By the end of the meeting, both men had put their trust in Christ.

            Noted prize fighter Earl “Awful” Gardiner was converted at another meeting.  He then visited Sing Sing Prison to give his testimony to some old friends there.  As a result, Jerry McAuley, a notorious river pirate, was converted.  McAuley later founded the Water Street Mission, one of the nation’s first rescue missions.  The spiritual movement not only reached the lowest of society, but the highest.  President James Buchanan began attending meetings in Bedford Springs, Pennsylvania, and showed great interest in the progress of the revival.

            In a Midwestern church, twenty-five women began meeting once a week to pray for their unconverted husbands.  Later, the pastor traveled to the Fulton Street meeting to testify that the last of the twenty-five husbands had repented, trusted Christ, and joined the church.           

At a special meeting in Kalamazoo, Michigan, a prayer request was read to the group:

“A praying wife requests the prayers of this meeting for her unconverted husband that he may be converted and made a humble disciple of the Lord Jesus.”  A stout, burly man arose.  “I am that man,” he confessed.  “I have a pious, praying wife.  This request is for me.  I want you to pray for me.” As soon as he sat down, another man got up. “I am that man,” he said.  “I have a praying wife. She prays for me, and now she has asked you to pray for me.  I am sure that I am that man, and I want you to pray for me.”  As many as five men stood up claiming to be that husband in need of prayer.

            Prayer requests flooded in by telegraph and mail from all over North America and even Europe.  No request was refused.  Letters told of many specific answers to prayer.  A Chicago newspaper summed up the results of the revival in that city:

So far as the effects of the present religious movement are concerned, they are apparent to all. They are to be seen in every walk of life, to be felt in every phase of society.  The merchant, the farmer, the mechanic—all who have been within their influence—have been excited to better things, to a more orderly and honest way of life.  All have been more or less influenced by this excitement.

            It has been estimated that no fewer than 300,000 and perhaps as many as one million people were converted to Jesus Christ through the influence of the Fulton Street Prayer Meeting Revival.  And the greatest impact was made in one year!

            The repercussions, however, were felt for years after.  While the revival did not stop the Civil War, neither did the Civil War stop the revival.  The Confederate Army Revival saw 150,000 conversions, and by the end of the war Confederate soldiers professing faith in Christ made up one third of the army.

            The effects of the revival were also felt across the Atlantic in the “awakening” which swept the British Isles.

            The slow, frustrating labors of Jeremiah Calvin Lanphier had culminated in the most intense, fast‑spreading revival in our nation’s history. It was also the last great national revival in the United States.  Could it happen again?  Could our present economic distress be the avenue to spiritual renewal?  Should we not be praying?

End

First published in Conquest, January 13, 1987  Copyright Thomas L. Jones 1987

SAULT SAINTE MARIE'S FIRST BAPTIST MISSIONARY

Bingham Avenue in Sault Sainte Marie is lined with stately two- and three-story homes, with steep roofs to shed the heavy snows that come off Lake Superior and the River every winter.  Following the avenue towards the downtown district, businesses, office buildings, and a couple of churches occupy the land that was once fields of hay and livestock.  The Chippewa County Courthouse now stands on the spot where in 1829 a mission building was built by the first Baptist missionary to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula – Abel Bingham.

Since the mid-1600s, Catholic missionaries, often traveling with the French fur traders and voyageurs established missions at various outposts in the Upper Peninsula. Names of streets and cities – Marquette, Baraga, St. Ignace – serve as constant reminders of the French Catholic history of the area.  French Jesuits named the river that connects Lakes Superior and Huron, Sainte Marie, after the Virgin Mary, and the voyageurs called the falls and rapids, “Sault Sainte Marie,” Falls of St. Mary. Yet the heroic Baptist from upstate New York is neglected, even in books dedicated to Baptist History.

Abel Bingham was born in Enfield, New Hampshire, on May 9^th, 1786.  His mother died when he was six, and in 1798, his father moved the family to Jay, New York.  The same year, Elder Solomon Brown, a Baptist minister moved to Jay, formed a congregation and began worship services.  Although he was “seriously impressed on the subject of religion” at the age of nine, it was not until he was twenty-two that he was constrained, under the ministry of Pastor Brown, “to seek a Savior, instead of seeking salvation from punishment.” He was baptized and joined the church in 1808.  In 1809, Abel Bingham married the pastor’s daughter, Hannah O. Brown.

The War of 1812 disrupted Bingham’s plans to join his father-in-law in Caledonia, New York.  Abel was one of three sergeants in his militia company to be called into service in 1813 to fight along the Canadian front.  The other two sergeants paid a bounty to be excused, but Abel answered, “I will go.” He fought valiantly and was commissioned as a lieutenant.  During one fierce British attack across the Saranac River, Bingham was wounded in the forehead and thought to be dead.  His head wound had fractured his skull, rendering him unconscious, but he regained consciousness in a nearby house, and with a bandaged head, he returned to the battle!  Bingham valued his military service, saying, “It made an excellent school of discipline.”

The war over, the Binghams moved to Caledonia and purchased a farm.  But Abel’s thoughts were more and more occupied with the ministry, especially missionary work.  He had a special burden for the Seneca Indians on the Tonawanda Reservation near Buffalo.  As he prayed over this burden, friends told him of an opening on that reservation. 

Bingham served on the Tonawanda Reservation near Buffalo, New York, for six years, during which he and Hanna buried two children.  In spite of vehement, and at times violent, opposition from traditional chief Red Jacket, Bingham and his wife persevered to establish a school and church with the assistance of Chief Little Beard and his Christian party.  In 1827, Bingham requested to speak privately with the aging Chief Red Jacket.  Bingham’s diary records the following:

“One day, in the summer of 1827, I met Red Jacket on the street, and, after the usual salutations, informed him I wished to converse on the subject of religion. With his usual adroitness, he intimated I was moving in an ordinary circle, having charge of only a small mission, while he was a principal chief of the Seneca Nation, had traveled extensively, visited many cities, been six times to Washington, and also visited Europe, leaving me to infer that he could not receive instruction from me. I said, I do not wish to talk with you about Washington, but of your soul, death, judgment and eternity. I know you are a great man in your nation, and you have a great mind, but you are an old man (now sixty), and must soon die. I thought I could speak with you on this subject, and not offend you.”[1]

At the conclusion of the conversation, Chief Red Jacket replied: “My son, I am truly thankful for the very friendly talk we have had at this time; it has made a solemn impression on my mind.”[2]

Sensing that his ministry at Tonawanda was concluded, Abel looked to the mission board for a new assignment.  In July 1828 Abel Bingham was appointed as “missionary to the Ojibway Indians of Lake Superior at Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan.”[3]

 

Bingham’s missionary outreach in Michigan’s rugged Upper Peninsula was even more energetic that it had been in New York.  The Binghams established a mission house that accommodated a boarding school and regular Christian services.  Abel Bingham’s burden for the spiritual well-being of the Indians of the U.P. moved him to make regular journeys to spread the Gospel.  He reached out to native bands on “Sugar Island, Garden River, Muskotasauging, Tequamenon, Whitefish Point, even extending his tours as far as Gooley's Bay, Grand Island and Marquette.  In summer he traveled in his boat or canoe, and in winter on snowshoes, with his dog-train, carrying provisions and bedding; visiting each different band at least four times a year.” After one such journey Abel recorded: 

“Arrived at home much fatigued; was absent twenty-seven days, preached fourteen discourses, camped sixteen nights in the woods, and was detained one day by severe weather.”[4]

Abel Bingham left a lasting spiritual legacy when he and Hanna retired from mission work 1855, both aged seventy. Only the name Bingham Avenue survives as a memorial of the mission, but First Baptist Church, not far from the original mission traces its heritage to that first Baptist mission.

                                                                                                                 

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[1] SKETCHES OF THE LIFE OF REV. ABEL BINGHAM. Prepared by his Daughters,Mrs. Ann H. Hulbert and Mrs. Sophia H. Buchanan— Read at the Annual Meeting, February 7, 1878.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

Copyright 2013 by Thomas Lawton Jones