Revival Stories
The 1857 Hamilton, Ontario Revival
In the 1850’s, God used Phoebe and Walter Palmer to minister powerfully at camp meetings and prayer gatherings around Ontario, Canada. Hundreds of listeners would respond and trust in Christ at these local meetings. At the conclusion of one of their ministry tours, they were delayed in their journey and forced to stay overnight at Hamilton, Ontario. Several churches asked them to help lead a prayer meeting the next day on Thursday, October 9th, 1857. On that first day, all 65 people in attendance prayed intently for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. On Friday, twenty-one people experienced deep spiritual transformation as God released revival upon the quickly expanding group, with people coming from all classes, all ages, and all walks of life. In the next few days, almost 400 more would come to the altar, fall to their knees, and seek God’s grace through the Gospel. The meetings would often last from 7AM to 10PM each day, so intense were the people’s cries to Heaven.
From Hamilton, the revival began to ignite all throughout the province of Ontario and Canada itself. Wherever the reports and stories were told, revival fires would burst to life. The spark that began in the small city of Hamilton would be used by God to fan its flames far and wide. It would, over the next few months, fuel fires of revival in Halifax, Prince Edward Island, as well as in the United States, like New York, and as far as Connecticut. Some revivals of that time period in Ireland and Africa traced their spark back to Hamilton. The distinguishing marks of these revivals were the emphasis on prevailing prayer and the role of non-clergy to spread its stories. The revivals would bring fresh conviction of personal sin, fervent re-commitment to the Lord, and a significant drop in the region’s crime rate. Tens of thousands of lost people would trust in Christ and become aware of the Holy Spirit to empower them to live for Jesus and passionately share the Good News.
The legacy of the Hamilton revival goes far beyond the various nations it touched. It also deeply impacted the generations that followed by influencing many key teachers and missionaries and leaders such as Dwight Moody, David Livingstone, Henry Ward Beecher, and Charles Spurgeon. Groups such as the YMCA and the Salvation Army were birthed by the spiritual awakening that flowed out from this revival. In describing Hamilton’s singular role in all this, it has been said: it was one of those “special times when the Spirit moves men in large numbers. If those days ever come again, we will do well to participate while we can.”
QUESTIONS TO DISCUSS:
- What are your expectations of what God will do when you meet with others for prayer? Does it surprise you that this revival was born out of a seemingly last-minute prayer meeting? What do you notice was different about that October 9th prayer meeting?
- How do you think God prepared His servants and the listeners before revival broke out? What do we learn about the spread of revival? How did it spread so far and so powerfully?
- It is known that in the early days, most other Christian groups completely ignored or missed out on the move of the Spirit in Hamilton. What can we do to make sure we don’t miss out on the next great move of God?