THE REVIVAL OF 1857

On the corner of Fulton and William Street was located a Dutch Reformed Church in New York City. Things were not going well for the old church. It was located in down town New York City, and people were moving out to the suburbs and leaving the church. The neighborhood was becoming extremely blighted and poverty stricken. It was getting dangerous to go there.

A layman in the church, Jeremiah Landfear, made his rounds walking up and down the streets of the inner city of New York. As he passed businessmen on the street the marks of anxiety were written upon the faces of these businessmen. This nation was standing on the brink of economic disaster, and they knew it. A bubble of prosperity that had been building was about ready to burst. They knew it. They were frightened at the outcome.

Landfear thought it would be a good idea to give these men an opportunity to pray. He circulated very widely in hundreds of offices publicity about a prayer meeting that would take place on the first Wednesday of September at 12 o'clock on the third floor assembly room in the North Dutch Reformed Church on Fulton Street. You did not have to stay the whole hour. You could come and pray and leave. You could come and stay just five minutes, but come and pray.

On that first Wednesday in September Landfear was in the room alone. He prayed for five, ten minutes, fifteen minutes, and twenty minutes alone. Would anybody come? Twenty-five minutes his butterfly was turning to buzzards. Is anybody coming?

At 12:30 he heard footsteps on the stairs. And then another, and another, and another and another. Finally, five men had joined him in prayer. The meeting was such an encouragement that they agreed to meet the next Wednesday. The next Wednesday 20 businessmen were there. It was such a heartening thing to be together in prayer that they met again. The next Wednesday thirty men were there. Then they agreed to meet everyday. On the first day 100 men were there. Many of these men were not Christians. Many of them were lost. In a matter of three months every room in that old North Dutch Reformed church were crowded out with praying men. There was no room. The auditorium, Sunday school rooms, basement, ever room and corner was filled with men praying. Men on the outside were kneeling together praying because they could not get inside the church.

They agreed to open the John's Street Methodist Church just around the corner. On the first day the John's Street Methodist Church was opened for prayer it too was filled with men praying. Again, it was so full that men simply could not get in.

Within six months there were 150 prayer meetings like this going on somewhere in New York City. Fifty thousand New Yorkers were gathered for prayer. With that kind of praying blessings began to fall on New York City in 1857. *

What God did in 1857 He can still do today. Join me in prayer and repentance asking God to do it again. The promise has not changed, and our God does not change. He desires that we have a change of heart and turn to Him.

II Chronicles 7:14, “if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land”

* Frontline Ministries