Christian History Magazine Collection

Transformed by her child’s fiery death, Phoebe Palmer lit the flames of revival on two continents.

by Charles Edward White from Christian History magazine no. 82

In January of 1857 the editors of a national magazine published a portrait of Phoebe Palmer (facing page). Being honest men, they admitted that the woman herself was neither as young nor as pretty as the picture made her appear. They did say, however, that she was smarter than she looked. Palmer was probably not offended by their comments. She was friends with the editors and shared their Wesleyan heritage of plain speaking. Anyway, physical beauty was unimportant to her; what mattered was the beauty of the soul. She wanted “the beauty of holiness” that empowered one to live a well-balanced, useful life.

During her life (1807-1874) Palmer spoke to over 100,000 people about Jesus and sparked a revival that brought nearly a million people into the church. Her influential theology paved the way for such modern holiness denominations as the Church of the Nazarene and the Church of God (Anderson, Indiana), and for Pentecostalism as well.

Being a well-known female speaker made her a feminist, though what would today be considered a “conservative” one: she championed the right and duty of women to speak publicly for the Lord. But Palmer did more than talk about Jesus. She put his love into action in New York City’s worst slum, pioneering a new kind of incarnational philanthropy.

Youthful Yearning

The heart-felt Methodism in which Phoebe was raised insisted on emphatically emotional experiences of conversion and sanctification. A bright, intense girl, Phoebe could never feel she had attained this. At the age of 13, she did have a vision of Jesus coming to enfold her in his arms and bidding her “be of good cheer.” Yet despite this and other experiences, she continued through her teens to wrestle with the Methodist emphasis on emotional experience.

Distracted by the comforts and the social duties (for example the perpetual “visiting”) of middle-class life, Phoebe yearned for a steady consciousness of her redemption and union with Christóin short, for the Wesleyan sanctification experience that would overcome her constant failure to live for God, replacing it with “perfect love” towards God.

Consecrated Through Crisis

After ten years of marriage and the birth of three children, Palmer’s yearning was intensified by a shattering experience. On July 29, 1836, Phoebe rocked her beloved 11-month-old daughter Eliza to sleep and placed her in her crib before retiring to her own room. Soon after, Phoebe heard screaming from the nursery and came running. A careless helper had tried to refill an oil lamp without putting it out. When the flames shot up, she had thrown the lamp away from her. It had landed in the crib, splashing burning oil all over the child. Stricken, Phoebe cradled the infant in her arms. Within hours, Eliza was dead.

Phoebe paced the floor, filled with anger and grief. This was the third of her children to die in infancy. She cried out in anguish to God and heard an answer that, though it seems harsh, brought her comfort: God had taken her children because she had loved them too much and was spending too much time on them. “No other gods before me” was his command. At that moment, she resolved that she would surrender to God everything she held dear. She wrote in her diary: “Never before have I felt such a deadness to the world, and my affections so fixed on things above. God takes our treasures to heaven, that our hearts may be there also. And now I have resolved that the time I would have devoted to her [Eliza] shall be spent in work for Jesus.”

A year later, almost to the day, Phoebe Palmer at last received the longed-for experience of entire sanctification. On July 27, 1837 she wrote, “Last evening, between the hours of eight and nine, my heart was emptied of self, and cleansed of all idols, from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, and I realized that I dwelt in God, and felt that he had become the portion of my soul, my ALL IN ALL.”

A Four-Fold Ministry

In 1840, Palmer began presiding over the “Tuesday meetings for the promotion of holiness” started by her sister Sarah Lankford Palmer in the parlor of her New York home. Soon these meetings, with their strong emphasis on testifying to one’s experience with God, spread the holiness message across America.

The theology Palmer developed and presented in these meetings was a simplified and popularized version of John Wesley’s doctrine of Christian perfection. Her “shorter way” or “altar theology” taught that one attained sanctification through three simple steps: consecration, faith, and testimony. The believer has only to dedicate all time, talents, relationships, and goods to God; believe in his Bible promises; and then, after receiving the blessed gift of entire sanctification, tell the world about it at every opportunity. This emphasis on attainable sanctification made her the mother of the holiness movement.

As a revivalist, Palmer spoke in more than 300 camp meetings or revival services. In 1857 her preaching sparked the urban “prayer-meeting revival” that brought hundreds of thousands of converts into the American churches. In 1859 she and her husband followed the revival to the British Isles. While there Phoebe Palmer worked to reform British Christianity. Twice she wrote to Queen Victoria asking that the sovereign’s band not perform on Sunday. Once she refused to hold meetings in a church that allowed alcohol to be stored in its cellar. Despite these quirks, more than 20,000 of the Palmers’ hearers experienced salvation or sanctification. Dr. and Mrs. Palmer’s efforts were part of a movement of the Spirit that brought over a million people into the various churches in England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.

Palmer’s emphasis on holiness helped to remind Christians of their high calling when revivalism had flooded the church with people who were comfortable to live a merely social Christianityóholiness leaders would have said, were only “half converted.” She also civilized and systematized the methods of frontier Methodist revivalism, especially the Methodist emphasis on lay ministry. The famed evangelist Charles Grandison Finney had spoken of the role of the laity in revivals, but Palmer was the first to organize their labors effectively in a city-wide effort. Her emphasis on the role of the laity helped prepare laypeople to play a major role in urban revivalism. Palmer’s practice was one of the factors that transformed revivalism from Finney’s clergy-centered campaigns in small towns to Moody’s lay-oriented crusades in large cities.