Heaven's Ditch by Jack Kelly

Author:Jack Kelly
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2016-05-05T16:00:00+00:00

It worked. “All Rochester was moved that winter,” a resident remembered. “You could not go upon the streets, and hear any conversations, except on religion.” Religion became the rage. Every person who was converted instantly became an evangelist. You could not believe and keep the good news to yourself. You took on an obligation to spread the Word.

Prayer groups roamed through the city seeking the unconverted. Students at a high school administered by a skeptical teacher became anxious about their souls. They refused to continue their class work. Many wept, terrified of damnation. Their master was “confounded.” He called on Finney. When the famous man strode into the school, the effect among the teenagers was electrifying. “The revival took a tremendous hold of that school,” Finney related. The teacher was himself converted. Many of the students resolved to devote themselves to the ministry.

Finney had engineered many revivals, but none like this one. He gave credit to the Holy Spirit, but he was the one who made it happen. Up at dawn for prayer meetings. Wading through snow-packed streets to visit house after house. Preaching every night, three times on Sunday. He wore himself to exhaustion, then pushed on.

From the beginning, Finney targeted for conversion members of Rochester’s upper and rising middle classes: men of property, manufacturers, physicians, mill owners. He had barely stepped down from the canal boat when he was introduced to a “lady of high standing,” the wife of a lawyer. She was “a gay, worldly woman, and very fond of society.” She was afraid the revival would interfere with her high-toned pleasures. Conversing with her, Finney saw that under her haughty demeanor, she was wrestling with doubt, with the suspicion that she was a sinner.

“I pressed her hard,” he remembered, “to renounce sin, and the world and self.” He emphasized the line from Matthew that had troubled him so deeply in his own time of doubt: “Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” The words took hold of the woman’s mind. As little children. Finney closed his eyes and prayed for her to embrace Jesus in this way—as little children. When he opened them he saw “tears streaming over her face.” She accepted the faith from that moment and became “zealous for the conversion of her friends.”

Finney directed his energy toward the “highest classes of society” for a tactical purpose. If they were converted, others would follow their example. Accepting Jesus would become fashionable. He did not leave the matter to chance. He identified likely targets among the town’s elite, visited their homes, pressed them to attend services, exhorted them by name during sermons, and soon had them sweating on his anxious bench. Each conversion was newsworthy.

With the passing months, Finney’s efforts in Rochester bore more and more fruit. Word spread through religious circles around the country. Something miraculous was happening in western New York.

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