"WESLEYAN-HOLINESSASPECTSOFPENTECOSTALORIGINS: ASMEDIATEDTHROUGHTHENINETEENTHCENTURYHOL:LNESSREVIVAL" ReadbeforetheSocietyforPentecostal StudiesatCleveland,Tennessee,Novem-ber30,1973byM.E. Fh.D., GeneralSecretaryofEducationalInsti-tutionsofTheWesleyanChurch. Melvin E. Dieter "WESLEYAN-HOLINESS ASPECTS OF PENTECOSTAL ORIGINS:As Mediated through the Nineteenth Century Holiness Revival"IntroductionIn 1885, William Jones, a Holiness evangelist, attempted tolocate the mission of the Holiness movement within the prevailing"Zeitgeist." In a tone reminiscent of Josiah Strong's oft-quotedanalysis of the mission of the American nation and churches at thatsame period, Jones spoke to questions only infrequently raised byrevivalists.lHe discussed the churches' responsibilities to suchdiverse groups as the immigrants who were pouring onto the nation'sshores like an "ever-increasing flood;" "the fetid Indians" thatlingered "in squalor and filth" on the country's "Western borders;"and the millions of "illiterate and imbruted ex-slaves." Themagnitude of these responsiblities, he observed, raised seriousdoubts about the power and the will of the churches to roeet them.However, woven into the often tawdry fabric of the age, Jonessaw the clear pattern of a divine plan which promised a rapidlyapproaching "ultimate victory" over these obstacles. The expectancyof that victory filled the revivalist and many of his Holiness col-leagues with "inexpressable pleasure." To them, the divine destinywas manifest. Everywhere they looked they saw God at work in newways. Crowns and thrones, they said, were "falling like stars inan apocalytic vision;" "conservatism" was being startled from its"death of sleep." Technology, moreover, had become the Lord's hand-1W.A.P.O.- Dieter2 maiden. In the ever deepening thrusts of the railroad buildersinto the heart of Africa, they heard "the footsteps of Jehovah."Itwas as ifa "tremor of invisible forces" were pervadingall lands and thrilling and agitating all peoples.Jones likened the whole to the manner in which engineers haddestroyed the massive outcrop of rock which once restricted the en-trance to the New York harbor. In that instance workers had pain-stakingly tunneled into the bedrock, quietly and carefully set theirexplosive charges, and then in one instant had "loosed the electricspark that converted the potential energy into actual energy." Ina similar manner, Jones, reckoned, God was now "tunneling into theworld and packing itwith His truth" When "the church" got"ready" and "the ministry" believed in "the Holy Ghost" and accepted"his fiery baptism" God would let slip "one spark of Pentecostalfire" and the whole earth would Lecome His kingdom.2It is probably within the context of this kind of late nine-teenth century Holiness rhetoric about "crumbling thrones," "dis-solving empires," and the world-changing potential of "one sparkof Pentecostal fire" that one must search for some of the main rootsof the Pentecostal movement of the twentieth century. In this briefstudy we shall also consider the earlier theological roots in Wes-leyan theology and experience and the later roots channeled throughindividuals and organizations who moved from the Wesleyan Holinessmovement to the Pentecostal movement around the world; but, centralto the whole was the change in the evangelical mood created in largemeasure by the American Holiness revival. The attempt of the revivalto restore primitive Christianity to the churches through a renewalW.A.P.O. - Dieter3 of Pentecostal experience and an accompanying "new age of the HolySpirit" created a spiritual expectancy unequaled in prior Protest-ant history. By the turn of the century some in the "leftwing,,3of the Holiness movement began to define these Pentecostal hopesfor world-wide revival in and experiential terms whichbecame unacceptable to the main stream of the older National Holi-ness Association movement; a separation resulted which formed thedynamic nucleus of the Pentecostal revival.In brief then, the American Holiness movement of the nineteenthcentury mediated Wesleyan theology and experience through Americanrevivalism to almost the whole of evangelicalism around the world.Itwon broad acceptance of a "second blessing" leading to spiritualpower and fullness in the Holy Ghost. New concepts of Christian ex-perience were generated, methodologies for the promotion of thoseconcepts were developed, expectancies of a new age of Pentecostalpower were aroused, tensions were created in the Holiness movementwhich seemed to some to demand better answers than were being given fI,,,Feurfsec,h#and finally in the nineteenth a large numberof its founding leaders and organizations. Fredrick Bruner hasswept itall into one brief summary, "Out of the world-wide Holi-ness movements the Pentecostal movement was born.,,4Wesley's Contribution - "The Second Blessing"The indebtedness of the Pentecostal movement to Wesley had beenrecognized in studies of Pentecostal history from the very early workof the German scholar, Paul Fleisch, to that of recent scholars suchas Fredrick Bruner, Wa;ter Hollenweger, and Vincent Synan.5Only afew years after the effects of the Azusa Street revival had begun to1 W.A.P.O.- Dieter 4 $pread around the world, Fleisch wrote that itwas worthy of notethat the Holiness teaching of a "clean heart" as itwas then beingespoused by the "tongues-speakers" was a return "to the point oforigin of the whole Holiness movement - Wesley's teaching on ho1i-ness.,,6 Therefore, in the sense that Wesley's teachings on Chris-tian perfection, experienced as a "second blessing" distinct fromthat justification, represent the major introduction of this thoughtinto Protestant Christianity, all modern Holiness movements - thePentecostal movement among them - may be said to "stem down" fromhim.7The enduring nature of the centrality of this relationship be-tween \'les1ey' s "second blessing" and the Holiness, Kes-wick, Pentecostal, and Charismatic movements is indicated in thatthis is the one common point at which they frequently have come un-der questions by both friendly and unfriendly critics from withinthe Reformed tradition.8Their conjunction of the life in the fu11-ness of the Spirit with a definite crisis experience of faithand grace subsequent to evangelical justification constitutes theone unacceptable aspect of their teaching.The Modifying Influences of the American Holiness RevivalThe Development of the RevivalWesley, himself, believed that the teaching and propagation ofScriptural Holiness had been made the peculiar responsibility of thepeople called Methodists. However, within less than one hundredyears after Wesley's followers had first transplanted Methodism inAmerica, responsibility for this "grand depositum" of spiritual truthw.A.P.O.- Dieter ., 5 didnotappeartobewidelyacknowledgedbyitstrustees.Inthe earlydecadesofthenineteenthcentury,Methodismspokeofthe doctrineinmutedtonesandthewitnessesoftheexperiencewere sparse.Inthelate1830's,however,anewtwin-prongedandyet coordinated,Holinessrevivalmovementbegantostir.Theespousal ofanessentiallyWesleydoctrineofChristianperfection,ora "secondconversion,"byCharlesG.FinneyandAsaMahanatOberlin Collegeparalleledandsoonreinforcedan"awakening"totheexper-iencewithinMethodisminthehomeofWalterandPhoebePalmer, prominentlaymenofNewYorkCity. ThesubsequentweddingofthemainstreamofAmericanrevivalism underitsmostableleader,Finney,withMethodistperfectionismas representedbythePalmers,wasmostsignificantforthefutureof bothrevivalismandperfectionism.The"newmethods"oftherevi-valistsweresoonusedtocallChristianstoanimmediateresponse toGod'sprovisionofa'lifeofpresentChristianholinessjustas effectivelyastheyhadpreviouslybeenusedtocallsinnerstoan instantaneousnewbirthatthepenitentbench.Therevivalofthe promotionoftheMethodistdoctrineandtheupsurgeoftestimonies totheexperiencewhichensuedseemedtonorethanfulfillWesley's ownprophecythatthedaywouldcomewhensanctificationswouldbe-comeasnumerousasconversions. lO Ontheotherhand,theacceptance bymanyrevivalisticCongregationalists,Presbyterians,Baptists, Episcopalians,andothersoftheneedforafurtherworkofgracein thelifeoftheborn-againChristiangreatlyexpeditedtheMethodiza-tionofAmericanrevivalism.Methodism'sevangelicalArminianism appearedtobeessentialtothegeneralappealofther v i v l i s ~ and thedesireforaqualityofChristianexperiencemorestablethan W.A.P.O. - Dieter6 that which frequently accompanied continual revivalism culminated ina broad acceptance of the Hethodist teaching of a "second blessing"experience or some adaptation of itby the end of the century.ll TheArminianization of revivalism has been rather widely acknowledged;but ithas yet to be as fully recognized how widespread was the shiftto an emphasis on a "second blessing " and the subsequent turn to anew interest in the work of the Holy Spirit and the significance ofthe meaning of Pentecost in the experience of the church.For almost thirty years after the revival of Christian perfec-tion began, evangelists of the movement such as Finney, Mahan, Caughey,and the Palmers dominated American revivalism. Their work - particu-larly that of a Palmers - was especially important to the Revival of1857-58. That revival marked a significant point in American evangel-icalism; by then the Arminianizing of the American churches was al-most complete and the perfectionist leanings were strongly evident.The involvement of the holiness evangelists in the spread of this"Layman's Revival" to Europe in the beginnings of what G. Edwin Orrhas called the "Second Evangelical Awakening" clearly indicates thatItrend.12Their ministry in the British Isles prepared the way forthe burst of holiness evangelism a decade later under Robert PearsallIand Hannah Whitall Smith, lay evangelists of the National Associationfor the Promotion of the Holiness movement. out of Smith's "whirl-wind campaign" his essentially American Wesleyan teaching on the"second blessing" was introduced to many evangelicals who might haverejected the revivalism of the Methodists because of doctrinal ordenominational prejudices. Those influences were preserved by theongoing work of the Keswick Conventions for the Promotion of HolinessW.A.P.O Dieter.. 7Ili and the Gemeinshaftsbewegung - both of which deeply penetrated thefabric of the life of the established churches in England and Ger-many.13The Character of the American Holiness RevivalThe Palmer InfluencesA brief review of the characteristics of Mrs. Palmer's pro-motion of holiness may give some indication of the changes whichwere taking place in the American Holiness movement by the begin-ning of the Civil War Period - changes which illustrate shifts inmood which possibly helped to prepare the way for the rise of thePentecostal movement forty years later.It should be noted first of all that Mrs. Palmer's teachingon the doctrine of entire sanctification vis-a-vis that of Wesleygreatly enhanced the distinctiveness of the second blessing fromthat of the initial experience of regeneration. Wesley generallyregarded entire sanctification as a definite experience, but never-theless a point in a process of growth and gradualism, and therefore,a maturity following considerable experience in the Christian life.[ Mrs. Palmer, however, tended to make the experience "the beginningof days" for the Christian.14The definiteness of her urgent re-vivalism called upon every believer to recognize the Biblical pro-mise of the fullness of the Spirit and to receive the experience by!consecration and faith - now. The result was that the AmericanHoliness revival came to emphasize crisis stages of salvation at theexpense of an emphasis on growth in grace. Dramatic and even revo-lutionary experience frequently became the hallmark of Christian lifeand witness. This distinctive eventually became a vital element ofPentecostalism.15W.A.P.O. - Dieter IIII 8 IfIThe Witness ControversyAs a result of this strong emphasis upon the crisis experiences,the verification of the authenticity of the experiences became criti-cal; they were the touchstones of one's standing before God; onehad to have a firm witness to their reality. Moreover, Mrs.Palmeralso insisted on the believer's regular public testimony to what Godhad done. One could neglect such testimony only to the detrimentand eventual loss of his spiritual relationship. The place and mean-ing of "the witness" consequently created considerable controversy inthe movement. Phoebe Palmer taught, in what has become known as her"altar theology" or "terminology," that the Bible revealed that Christwas the Christian's sanctifying altar; when a believer received thattruth and by faith placed his wholly consecrated life upon that altar,the altar immediately sanctified the gift, cleansing the believer frominbred sin and filling him with perfect love.As a good Methodist, Mrs. Palmer believed that the Wesley's"witness of the Spirit" would surely corne to the believer at somepoint, but whether that was immediate or not, complete consecrationand implicit faith in God's Word were the key to the genuiness ofthe finished work of entire sanctification. Many Methodists - bothfriends and foes of her special Holiness promotion - challenged whatthey regarded as this "easy believism." The venerable Methodist,Nathan Bangs, otherwise a firm supporter of the Holiness movement,cautioned her against what he believed was a non- Wesleyan tack.Bangs warned that the blessing should not be claimed until at thesame instance the Holy Spirit testified that the work in the soulwas complete. The subsequent history of the Holiness movement showsW.A.P.O. - Dieter...9 I !IftI!. that both positions continued to prevail.16The persistence of the issue and its importance to an exper-ience-centered movement undoubtedly agitated interest in alternatedefinitions of the nature of the "witness." That these led someto emphasize a sensate evidence of the Spirit's presence followedfrom a consistent tendency to stress the importance of emotionaland physical evidences throughout the history of the revival. Al-though the Holiness camp meeting movement only rarely exhinred theemotional excesses which were common to the older frontier campmeetings, revivalistic Methodist enthusiasm or "getting blessed"was very much a part of Holiness worship. The "holy" shout, dance,jump, or the trance "under the power of the Spirit" were so commonthat in many areas ifone did not visibly "demonstrate," his spir-ituality might be called into question.The importance which the movement attached to this is pointedup sharply in the experience of Hannah Whitall Smith, author ofthe Holiness classic, The Christian's Secret.17In her autobio-graphy, she tells of her anguish of soul over the lack of the samekind of dramatic emotional witness to her own sanctification exper-ience which her husband, Robert Pearsall Smith, had had to his; hehad gotten the "blessing" in good Methodist style. She finally hadto conclude that the blessing apparently came to each according tohis own nature.18But the problem apparently continued to plagueher as she worked as an evangelist in the movement. In 1871, shesays that she was introduced to a "Dr. R." who revealed to her thatwhen he had received the "Baptism of the Spirit" physical thrillshad gone through him from "head to feet." "No one," he told her,W.A.P.,O.- Dieter II!IiIriI10 "couldreallyknowwhatthebaptismoftheSpiritwaswhodidnot experiencethesethrills."HeurgedHannahWhitallSmithtopray forthis"Baptism."Hisenthusiasmfortheexperienceandherown "hungerandthirstforsometangibleBaptismthatwouldgive theenrapturingthrillsofblissothersseemedtoenjoy,andwould," shesaid,"assuremethatIhadreallyreceivedtheBaptismofthe HolySpirit,"ledhertoseekit;sheneverclaimedtohavefoundit.l9 Suchambivalenceonthe"witness"questions,vocalizedperhaps byonlyasmallpartofthetotalHolinessmovement,nevertheless indicatesthekindofclimatewhichpersistedandcontinuedtopre-vailinthemovementworld-widewhenthePentecostalrevivalsprang upwithitsdistinguishingwitnessof"tongues."Otherfactorssuch astheinheritedultraistictendenciesofaperfectionistmovement andtheinfluenceofthespiritualrapturesintheexperiencesofthe QuietistsandotherCatholicmysticswhohadbeenwidelyaccepted aspartofthetrueHolinessmovementprobablycontributedtothis turnaswell. 20 ForsomethetensionsbetweenMr.WesleyandMrs. Palmerwereerasedinthenewandfullyevidentwitnessof"tongues." Theacceptanceorrejectionof"thesign"quicklybecamethe"water-shed"whichgaveidentitytothePentecostalmovementasawholeand justasquicklysetintotwodistinctcampsthosewhoclaimedtobe Wesleyansandyetstoodoneithersideofthatwatershed. 2l TheDevelopmentofPentecostalSemantics ThePalmermovementalsopreparedthestagefortheriseof thePentecostalmindbyhelpingtopopularizenewterminologyfor describingtherevivalandtheexperiencesit promoted.Atabout thesametimethatWilliamArthur'sinfluentialHolinessclassic, ft r __________________l W.A.P.O.- Dieter 11 TheTongueofFire,emphasizingtheHolySpirit'sPentecostal activitywasfirstpublishedjustbeforetheCivilWar,22 PhoebePalmerbeganusingsimilar"Pentecost"languageinreporting theresultsofherandherhusband'sevangelisminCanada.Her1857 reportsarefilledwithlanguageandexpressionswhichheraldeda majorchangeinthesemanticsandmaybeeventhetheologyofthe AmericanHolinessmovement.Anaccountofatalkonholiness whichshegaveattheMillbrook,CanadaMethodistcampmeeting (shewould never allowthatshepreached)clearlyillustratesthis shift."Welive,"shesaid, underthedispensationofthespirit.Iftheusheringin ofthedispensationofthespirit[atPentecost]wasso glorious,whatoughtwetoexpectnow?- Surelynotade-creaseinpower.[Italicshers.] Shecontinuedtheaddressbyaskingwhethereveryonemightnot nowreceivea"baptismoftheHolyGhost"similartothatreceived bythebelieversatPentecost?Sheurgeduponthecongregationthat sucha"baptism"waseveryChristianbeliever's"privilege"and therefore his "duty. ""Thequestionnowbeforeusis,"sheconcluded, "Mayweaskinfaiththatwemaybeenduedwithpowerfromon high,baptizedwiththeHolyGhostandwithfire.?"Mrs. Palmertestifiedthatthemeetingclosedwith"many"rec8l.ring"the baptismoffire,"andtherest"inexpectationofreceivinga PentecostalBaptism.,,23 Similarlanguagepermeatesherreportsofherwartimeministry intheBritishIsles.Amazedatwhatshesawhappeningthere,she concluded,"SurelynowasintheearlydaysoftheSpirit'sdispensa-tion,PentecostalblessingsbringPentecostalpower."Again,she reportsthatayounglocalpreacherwhoreceived"thetongueoffire," l W.A.P.O. - Dieter12 testified "as the Spirit gave utterance."24In the county of Antrimin Ireland she encountered instances of trances, visions, sleeps,dreams and miracles, "such as that persons who never knew a letter ofthe alphabet when awake could read the Bible distinctly [and] singPsalms and hymns .with eloquence and fluency.,,25 In Scotlanda minister observed that the people who were being filled with theSpirit in the Palmer's meetings reminded him of the Apostles atPentecost. "Clapping his hand, [the minister] leaped andshouted for joy," crying that they were surely "being blessed with.the return of Pentecostal power.,,26The emphasis on the "baptism of the Spirit" and the use ofPentecostal references also arose early in the Oberlin movement.27The emphasis steadily intensified throughout the development ofthe revival following the Civil War. Itwas also evident in thelarge NationalAsrociation camp meetings for the promotion of holinessof that period. Adam Wallace, editor of the accounts of the NationalCommittee's sixteenth camp at Landisville, Pennsylvania, was inclinedat first to title the work "Pentecost Repeated;" finally, however, hetitled it, A Hodern Pentecost.28At the second National Camp Meetingin 1868 at Manheim, Pennsylvania, in a prayer meeting atwhich twothousand were in attendance, "all at once, as sudden as if a flash oflightening had fallen upon the people, one burst of agony andthen of glory was heard in all parts of the congregation "The article continued that many of the people present "declared thatthe sensation was as ifa strong wind had moved from the stand overthe congregation.,,29 In the third National Camp Meeting at RoundLake, New York, following "a most powerful sermon" by Bishop Peck ofW.A.P.O. - Dieter13 the Methodist Episcopal Church, one of the ministers stood anddeclared that the meeting had "rolled the world a hundred yearstowards the millennium " Itwas," he said, "the outflowof God's great Amazon" which would eventually flow around theglobe."30These common experiences of the developing Holiness revivalare merely illustrative of a steadily growing emphasis. They tendto prove that whether surrounded by the optimism of the post-millennialism which commonly dominated the movement's eschatologyduring most of this period or whether deeply involved in the pre-millennialism which ruled itlater, the place of Pentecost in thepreaching, thinking, and experience of the movement took on a pro-minence never before seen in Protestantism. It resulted in astrong belief that the coming of a new "age of the Spirit" wouldrestore "primitive Christianity" to the churches, they in turnwould recover the purity and the power to overcome the forces offormalism, worldliness, materialism, higher criticism and allthe other "isms" which increasingly seemed to threaten everythingthat the first Pentecost had promised.3lDelegates to the Evangel-ical Alliance Meeting in New York in 1873 heard that as long as"Pentecostal effusions" continued to manifest themselves, "primi-tive Chri.stianity survives in one of its chief characteristicsand will vindicate its reality and potency . "32By the turn of the century - one of those points in time atwhich men become especially conscious both of what has been and whatmay yet be - Pentecost as past proof of God's power, Pentecost as thepresent pattern for ~ renewal of the churches, and Pentecost as - 14 the portent of fulfillment of all things in the restoration ofGod's kingdom among men became the pervading atmosphere of theHoliness movement.33Itall blended very well with what RussellNye has called the "American Sense of t-iission" and expressed thatmission in religious terms: a nation rebaptized with Pentecostalpower would serve as an example to the rest of the world of God'splan for all nations.34The Significance of the Healing MovementIn addition to this sense of the renewed activity of the HolySpirit in deepening the personal experience of Christian believers,many Holiness adherents saw the increased incidents of miraculousphysical healing as another demonstration of the new dispensation ofthe Spirit. The belief in and the witness to miraculous divinehealings attended the Holiness movement at every turn. The healingtestimony of John Inskip, president of the National Camp MeetingAssociation, was widely publicized in National Association circles.Dr. Charles Cullis, founder of a Boston home for consumptives andan Episcopalian lay evangelist of the Holiness movement, had prayedfor Inskip's healing.35Cullis's pioneer healing emphasis was fur-thered by evangelists such as W. E. Boardman, author of The HigherChristian Life, who ended his days in a healing ministry in Englandand Europe following the great Holiness crusades there in 1874-75.36Later in the century, Jennie Smith, known as the "railroad evangelist"because of her work among railroad men, spread the story of her claimsto miraculous healing after decades of living as an invalid allacross the country in personal witnessing and in the effective publicforums which the numerous and vigorous Holiness camp meetings afforded.37W.A.P.O. - Dieter15 II frI tI The involvement of other Holiness leaders such as A. B. Simpson of the Christian and Missionary Alliance is well known. Within the Holiness movement the developing "healing question"was thoroughly debated and the teaching propagated in spite of thefact that the National Association eventually proscribed preaching intheir meetings otherIonthat and the so-called/"side issues" which the National leadersbelieved to be detrimental to a singular promotion of Christianholiness.38Both sides of the controversy as to whether or nothealing is "in the atonement" were espoused in the movement. Therooremoderate place given to divine healing in the economy of re-demption by most Holiness churches today is best illustrated inthe writings of R. Kelso Carter, professor at Pennsylvania MilitaryCollege and author of the well-known Gospel song "Standing on thePromises." In a book published in 1877, he first supported the"healing in the atonement" concept later espoused by most Pente-costal groups and then retracted that position in a work writtentwenty years later.39 writings could bQ with great prof+t--by-thes-e-in-the-HoH.-ness PentecoS+a--inevement-whO'"&t:and on aiffereing siaes of the issueThe Four-Fold GospelThe emphasis on healing continued to be a prominent factor inthe formative period of the Holiness churches organized around theturn of the century. The Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene as itwas originally known, and the Pilgrim Holiness Church, the two churchesin which the largest groups of converts gathered together out of theHoliness camp meeting movement, were typical of the Holiness groupswho commonly espoused the healing emphasis in their statements ofW.A.P.O.- Dieter 16 faith. 40 WiththeexceptionoftheChurchoftheNazarenethese samegroupscommonlyincludedanarticleavowingtheircommitment toapremillennialpositionoftheSecondComingaswell. 4l This "fourfoldGospel"of"salvation,sanctification,healing,andthe second-coming,"setapatternofdoctrineandadefinitionofmis-sionwhichfinallybecamealmostuniversallyacceptedintheHoliness churches- inpractice,evenbytheChurchoftheNazarene. SanctificationandPower Thelogicinherentinthisrenewedemphasisontherestoration ofprimitivefaithandholinessthroughtherevivalofthePente-costalexperiencewasoutlinedbyArthurT.Pierson,aPresbyterian whowasstronglyinfluencedbytheKeswickHolinessmovement.At theturnofthecenturyindiscussingtheriseofthehealingmove-ment,Piersonreasoned,','\,,".., If,thereforesupernaturalsignshavedisappearedincon-sequenceofthelossofprimitivefaithandholiness,a revivalofthesemaybringsomenewmanifestationsofthe f o r m ~ .IfinthesedegeneratedaysanewPentecost wouldrestoreprimitivefaith,worship,unity,andactivity, newdisplaysofdivinepowermightsurpassthoseofanypre-viousperiod. 42 IntheHolinessmovement,thegapwhichfrequentlyprevailedbe-tweensuchhighspiritualexpectationsandsubsequentspiritual resultscreatedquestionsoftherelationshipofthesanctifying experiencetothepowerimpartedbythesanctifyingSpirit.At allperiodsinthehistoryofthemovementanundertoneoftensionat thispointconsistentlyparalleledthereportsoftheadvancesthe movementseemedtobemaking.Afewscatteredexamplesfromthehis-torymayoutlinethepatternofthedevelopmentofthe"power"con-troversywhichUltimatelycontributedtotheriseofthe"third - lIII 17 blessing"movementandsubsequentlythePentecostalmovement. In1873,atthebeginningoftheLandisville,Pennsylvania NationalCampMeeting,JohnInskip,presidentoftheNational AssociationfqrthePromotionofHoliness,said,"I,asPresident ofthisAssociation,wanttobeendowedwithpowerfromonhigh, sothatImaydirecttheservicesaright.Iwantthedeepestbap-tismofmylife. ,,43Suchstatementsexpressedadichotomywhich s themovementfullyrecognizedasthoroughlyconsistentwithadis-tinct"secondblessing"experience.Theyinterpretedit according totherecordedprayersofthedisciplesforspecialendowmentsof powersubsequenttotheirownPentecostalexperience;44however, thatdichotomydidestablishthefactthatthereweresomeaspects

ofpowerforservicewhichwerenotautomaticallyinherentinthe powerwhichaccompaniedthemovement'steachingontheinitialbap-tismwiththeHolyGhostinentiresanctification.45 In1884,J.P.Brooks,aleaderofthemoreradicalmidwestern Holinessmovements,expressedtheopinionthatwhatthebadlydivided Holinessadherentsofhisareareallyneeded,wastoseek"thebap-tismoftheHolyGhost.,,46S.B.Shaw,oneofthemovement'searly editorsnotedinthesameyearthat"oflate.it iscommontofind professorsofheartpuritybemoaningthelackoffullness."Shaw wouldnotallowthatsuchaconditionrepresentedthetrueexper-ienceoftherevival."Thatanyoneshouldthinkthatwemaybe entirelysanctified. andnotpossessthefullnessoftheSpirit ofGraceiscertainlyverystrangeindeed,"heobserved.[Italics his.]47In1902,C.W.Ruth,anearlyleaderintheHolinessChris-tianChurch,theInternationalApostolicHolinessUnion,andfinally 18 in the Church of the Nazarene, also defended the traditional stanceof the Methodist center of the Holiness revival that "the Holy Ghosthimself is the power; hence to get sanctified wholly is to getthe promise. The negative and the positive side ofsanctification occur simultaneously."48But the inherent tension between challenge and achievementpersisted. In 1907,a year after the Azusa revival began,an articlein the Nazarene Messenger decried the shallowness of experience whichhad crept into the movement and called upon the movement to "taq:yfor the power" no matter what the past profession may have been. Theauthor continued: "We are not third-blessingites; we have learnedbetter things; but what we want and what our hearts need is a genuinesecond blessing. We need itto save us from fanaticism that is no,,49doubt a result of superficial workAs the above tend to indicate, any lackof spiritual power with-in the movement was generally attributed to the failure of individualsto enter into the "fullness"of the sanctification experience, to thefailureto take advantage of the means of grace which could keep thesoul spiritually strong and alert, or to actual apostacy from sancti-fying grace. Apparently however, some in the movement looked to analternative answer to the question; their thinking tended to centeraround the belief that what was lacking was a third experience ingrace which would bring the desired baptism of power. This tendencyaccelerated with the increasing expectancy of the return of Pentecostalwithpower as the revival progressed and/the introduction of the "Baptism"language which we have already noted in the Palmer ministry. It wascrystallized across the whole movement by the publication of AsaMahan's The Baptism of the Holy Ghost in 1870.50" - 19 Within the milieu, an 1869 article on the subject by Dr. "Asbury Lowrey is instructive. Lowrey, a stalwart in the MethodistHoliness movement and co-editor with Asa Mahan of Divine Life, raisedthe question, "Is the Baptism of the Holy Ghost a Third Blessing?"Lowrey's answer was both "yes" and "no," but definitely tended toseparate the cleansing and empowering work of the Holy Ghost in thebeliever's life. He wrote,I Itthose eventually raised by the "third-blessing" movement.Such an ambience enveloped those in the movement who began to tpromote "third-blessing" teaching toward the end of the nineteenthcentury. In spite of strong opposition, the teaching quickly caughthold in some areas. Vincent Synan and other historians of the Pen-tecostal movement describe the ministry of Benjamin Hardin Irwin,the establishment of this "third blessing" movement, and its conse-But if the question be asked, "May we have a dispensationof the Holy Ghost after sanctification and supplementaryto that grace, a dispensation greater and more powerfulthan necessarily belongs to the state of a pure heart?" Iunhesitatingly answer, Yes. The Gospel evidently promisessuch accessions. (Italics his.)Without this "post-sanctification dispensation," he continued, aChristian's "capacities cannot be developed at all."But with it, "even the weakest believer may do greater works thanthose wrought by the ministry of Christ, Himself."Sl Distinctionssuch as this tended to bifurcate what the main movement held weretwo aspects of a single work of grace and are remarkably similar toquences for the study of Pentecostal origins.52Ralph C. Horner, aminister of the Methodist Church in Canada, also a "thirdblessing" theology. Horner, the founder of what eventually becamethe Standard Church of Canada, began to preach in the late 1880's Dieter20 that the baptism of the Spirit was distinct from His work in sanc-tification. In 1891 he published his beliefs in his book, Fromthe Altar to the Upper Room.53He maintained that modern Holinessteachers had "muddled Wesley." The latter, he claimed, "had taughtholiness by commands, prayers, and promises in the WordHeselected commands from the Old and New Testaments, but didn't useany that were given by the Lord Jesus to the Apostles regardingPentecost." Horner observed that had not been convincedthat the Apostles had already been sanctified and that the Actspassages referred to a "baptism for service," he would most certainlyhave used those passages, for they would have been his strongesttexts. Horner concluded that the experience of the Holiness movementof his time was the practical proof that sanctification did not bring54spiritual power.For some itwas but a short step from such "third blessing"teaching - especially when cast in the dynamic rhetoric of the Ir-win movement-to the Pentecostal movement. The scattered remnantsof Irwin's Fire-Baptized Church eventually took that step.Horner'sgroup did not. They remained on the fringes of the Holiness movementwhose main leaders and organizations rejected the "third blessing"experience as a dangerous aberration at best, and at worst, as heresyand fanaticism.55Nevertheless, the developing history of the Holi-ness and Pentecostal movements increasingly indicates that the riseof this teaching within the more radical elements of the NationalHoliness Association movement, encouraged by a renewed awareness ofJohn Fletcher's use of "Spirit baptism" terminology and the effectivedissemination of the Kes...lick Holiness movement's "baptism for service"teachings by R. A. Torrey, all worked together to create the poten-21 tiality for the immediate, world-wide response aroused by theAzusa Street meetings in 1906.56Men and Methods - the Final ContributionThe rejection of the Irwin movement by the National Holinessmovement and its satellite groups at the turn of the century was anomen of the future; itportended a similar reaction by the center-core leaders to the "tongues" movement almost from the first stir-rings of the Azusa Street Revival. There were some early efforts tomake caution the key-word in judging the new phenomena associatedwith that Los Angeles center. The radii of the revival which quicklyspread acorss the country and around the world were supported, thoughbriefly, by some of the existing institutions of the continuing Holi-ness revival which had similarly circles the world thirty years pre-viously.57 However, when Phineas Bresee, founder of the Church ofthe Nazarene, finally published his first editorial reaction to therevival in his horne town, itexhibited a pattern of reaction andjudgment which has characterized the viewpoint of the Holiness move-ment in general since that time. Bresee said that, at first, he hadquietly ignored the nearby meetings at Azusa Street where "there be-gan something which was called 'the gift of tongues.'IIHe judgedthat all men knew that,so far as itwas good itwas necessarily the same as isbeing carried on with much success in this city of gettingbelievers sanctified and sinners converted, and so far asitpartakes of fanaticism and was fostered by hereticalteachings, we did not care to give itthe prominence ofpublic discussion.The Nazarene leader admonished his readers to cautiously and care-fully examine anything which varied from the standard teaching ofthe movement on sanctification and the baptism of the Holy Ghost. - 22 He believed that these people who were seeking "after the hope ofexceptional or marvelous things" were "more or less" those whoseexperience was "unsatisfactory, who have never been sanctifiedwholly, or have lost the precious work out of their hearts.uHesaid, "People who have Christ revealed in the heart' by theHoly Spirit, do not hanker after strange fire""There is restonly in the old paths where the Holy Spirit Himself imparts to thesoul'/directly the witness of the cleansing and the indwelling,"he concluded.58But apparently there were significant numbers of people in theHoliness movement of Bresee's day who were either dissatisfied orlax, or even apostate in their experiences. Frank Bartleman, a holi-ness evangelist who had preached his way across the country to LosAngeles in a number of Holiness centers, may serve as a typical ex-ample of these; he was at least among the dissatisfied. His reactionsto Azusa Street were quite the opposite of Bresee's. Stirred by therevival in Wales in 1904, he feared that the awakening might pass theHoliness people by. The Holiness people, he judged, were "loaded downto the water's edge with a spirit of prejudice and pharisaism." "Theywere too proud of their standing," he said, and warned that God might"humble them by working in other places.,,59In 1906, Bartleman quickly became part of the Azusa Street meet-;ings and the new movement; he wrote articles for holiness papers such as the Way of Faith and God's Revivalist, seeking, he said, to bringt:the holiness people into the stream of what he believed was the rising !-tide of the revival they had always sought.60Of his eventual separa-tion from the Holiness movement, he said that itbecame necessary be-,Icause the Iioliness leaders were "old timers," many of whom had workedI 23 lII faithfully in their time and day, but now would not join the newrevival to which he had committed himself. Finally failing in hisattempts to win them over, he testified that the Lord told him tolet the holiness people to God. Bartleman, himself, was now to moveon with a "new order of Priests."6lThus the Holiness revival forces were divided. Itwas mainlyin the south that there were significant shifts of groups of holi-ness churches to the new movement.62 However, other holinessbodieswere also affected. In April 1909, H. F. Reynolds, General Super-intendent of the Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene for the EasternDivision, reported to the Pentecostal Advocate that he had notvisited Durant, Florida at that time as he had anticipated, becausein Florida, the "so-called Tongue Movement" had swept all the Naza-63rene churches into its fold except one. Wesleyan Methodist recordsshow that their southern districts were often affected.64Accordingto Conn, all the members of the Southern Florida Holiness Associa-tion except three became members of the Church of God and the N.H.A.camp meeting at Durant became a Pentecostal center.65Much more signficant to the actual continuity between the twomovements than the organizational crossovers, however, were thenumerous individuals - some heralded in the older movement, especiallyamong southern holiness leadership, but most unheralded -- who promptlytook places of leadership in the Pentecostal revival. Itwas theKings, the Tomlinsons, the Seymours, the Bartlemans, the Barratts,the Pauls, the Parhams, the Masons, the Ebys - all out of the Holi-ness movement - that set the Wesleyan patterns that dominated thePentecostal revival's formative years and which are still normative24 for more than half of the movement's members today. These rapidlypassed on the theology, the methodology, and the mores of the oldermovement to the newer. They adopted for the newer movement fromthe older, the Gospel songs; the evangelistic methods, the use ofthe camp meeting as a center of celebration, communication, andcatechism; the Pietistic concern for personal purity and a separatedlife; and the concepts of "faith works," of healing and of pre-millennialism.Rooted in these commitments, the two movements have continuedto be at the forefront of the growing edge of evangelical Christianityaround the world. o ~ h r they form a significant part of the Na-tional Association of Evangelicals. It may do no violence to thefacts nor to human nature to suggest that the differences, the con-flicts, the sometimes bitter recriminations which have been part ofthe past relationships of the Holiness and Pentecostal movements couldbe the strongest proof of the commonality of their origins. It is inone's family that one often has the most difficulty in establishinghis identity and his role; itis especially difficult when one isborn a twin - even ifonly fraternal and not identical.THE WESLEYAN ASPECTS OF PENTECOSTAL ORIGINSlWilliam Jones, From Elim to Carmel (Boston: The Christian Wit-ness o ~ 1885); Josiah Strong, The New Era: or the Coming Kingdom(New York: Baker and Taylor, 1893).2Jones, ~ cit., pp. 78-81.3John A. Hardon, The Protestant Churches of America (Westminster,.Md.: The Newman Press, 1957), p. 305; John Thomas Nichol, Pentecos-talism (New York: Harper and Row, 1966), p. 6.4Fredrick Dale Bruner, A Theology of the Holy Spirit: The Pen-tecostal Experience and the New Testament Witness (Grand Rapids,Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publisher, c.1970), p. 44. Vincent Synanmakes this the "overriding thesis" of his The Holiness-PentecostalMovement: in the United States (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B.Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1971); see ibid., p. 8. Winthrop Hudson,Religion in America (New York: Chas. Scribner and Sons, 1965), p. 345;Willard Sperry, Religion in America (Cambridge: University Press,1946), p. 76; Nils Bloch-Hoell, The Pentecostal Movement: Its Origin,Development, and Distinctive Character (Olso: Universitetsforlaget,1964), pp. 16, 17; Church of God Minutes, 1962 (Cleveland, Tenn.:Church of God Publishing House, 1962), p. 182; Elmer T. Clark, TheSmall Sects in America (New York: Abingdon Press, 1949), p. 148;Charles W. Conn, Like a Mighty Army Moves the Church of God, 1866-1955(Cleveland, Tenn.: h u ~ c h of God Publishing House, 1955), p. xix;Klaude Kendrick, The Promise Fulfilled: a History of the Hodern Pen-tecostal Movement (Springfield, Mo.: Gospel Publishing House, 1961),25 W.A.P.O. - Dieter26 pp.25-36; Nichol, ~ cit., pp. 5-7.5paul Fleisch, Zur Geshcichte der Heiligungsbewegung (Leipzig:Wallman, 1910), pp. 9-46; Bruner, Ope cit., pp. 37-39; W. J. Hol-1enweger, The Pentecostals: The Charistmatic Movement in theChurches (Minneapolis, Minn.: Augusburg Publishing House, c.1972),p.21; Synan, ~ cit., pp. 13-19.6Fleisch, Ope cit., p. 8.7W E. Sangster, The Path to Perfection (London: Epworth Press,1943), p. T. 8"Justification by Faith and the Baptism of the Spirit," Pre-sent Truth, Special Issue (1972),9-15; Russell Hitt, "Tongues:Updating some Old Issues," Eternity XXIV (March, 1973), 8. Alsosee James W. L. Hill, "The New Charismatics 1973," in ibid., p. 33.9General accounts are in Timothy L. Smith, Called unto Holiness:The Story of the Nazarenes, the Formative Years (Kansas City, Mo.:Nazarene Publishing House, 1962), pp. 11-26; Synan, ~ cit., pp.25-54. Smith, Revivalism and Social Reform in Mid-Nineteenth CenturyAmerica (New York: Abingdon Press, 1957), pp. 4 5 l 4 ~ gives a moredetailed account.10Guide to Christian Perfection, I (July, 1839),13.1lsee Glen C. Atkins, Religion in Our Times (New York: RoundTable Press, 1932), p. 19; Melvin E. Dieter, "Revivalism and Holi-ness" (Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, Temple University, 1973), pp. 20-23,210-212.12walter and Phoebe Palmer, Four Years in the Old World: Com-prising the Travels, Incidents, and Evangelistic Labors of Dr. andMrs. Palmer in England, Ireland, and Wales (New York: Foster andW.A.P.O. - Dieter27 f.Palmer, Jr., 1867), passim; James Orr The Second EvangelicalAwakening in Britain (London: Marshall, Morgan and Scott, 1949).13For a thorough though negative account see, Benjamin War-Il field, Perfectionism (Philadephia: The Reformed and Pres-byterian Publishing Co., 1971), pp. 312-464.l4Charles E. Jones, "Perfectionist Persuasion: a Social Pro-file of the National Holiness Movement within American Methodism,1867-1936" (Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, University of Wisconsin,1968), pp. 22-25; John L. Peters, Christian Perfection and AmericanMethodism (New York: Abingdon Press, 1956), pp. 112-13.15 . 20Bruner, ~ CJ. t., p. l6R Wheatley, The Life and Letters of Mrs. Phoebe Palmer(New York: W. C. Palmer, Jr., 1876), pp. 15-26; Smith, Revivalismand Social Reform, pp. 124-29; Dieter, op. cit., pp. 30-37.l7The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life (Westwood, New Jersey:Revell, [1870], 1968).l8Hannah Whita11 Smith, The Unselfishness of God, and How IDiscovered It: A Spiritual Autobiography (New York: Fleming H.Revell Co., 1903), p. 243.19Ray Strachey (Rachel Cossteloe), (ed.), Religious Fanaticism:Extracts from the Papers of Hannah ~ ~ i t a Smith (London: Faberand Gywer, Ltd., 1928), pp. 166-71.20paul Fleisch, Zur Geshichte der Hei1igungsbewegung,p.100.2lHo11enweger, ~ cit., p. 209.22William Arthur, The Tongue of Fire: or the True Power of Chris-tianity(New York: Harper and Brothers, [1856], 1880).23Beauty of Holiness, VIII (June, 1857), 164-65.----W.A.P.O. - Dieter..2824palmer, Four Years, p. 96. 25Ibid., p. 76. 26Ibid., p. 232. 27See the Oberlin Evangelist, II (1840), p. 93. 28Adam Wallace, (ed.), A Modern Pentecost: Embracing a Record of the Sixteenth National Camp Meeting.. (Philadelphia: MethodistHorne Journal Publishing House, 1873).29William McDonald and John E. Searles, The Life of Rev. John S.Inskip, President of the National Association for the Promotion ofHoliness (Chicago: The Christian Witness Co., 1885), p. 201.30Ibid., pp. 203-204. 3lSee Dieter, 2. cit., pp. 102-104. 32Philip Schaff and S. Iranaeous Prime, (eds.), History, Essays, Orations and other Documents of the Sixth GeneralConference of theEvangelical Alliance .. e w York: Harper and Brother Publishers,1874), p. 351.33This "Pentecost line" as itwas called in the movement is bestillustrated by the publishing efforts of Martin Wells Knapp editorof God's Revivalist publications; e.g. Seth Cook Rees, The IdealPentecostal Church (Cincinnati, Ohio: God's Revivalist Office, 1897),and Knapp's series of paper backs called the Pentecostal HolinessLibrary.34Russell E. Nye, This Almost Chosen People: Essays in the His-tOry of American Ideas (n.p.: Michigan State University Press, 1966),pp. 164-207.35McDonald and Searles, Ope cit., pp. 279-280.36Mrs. William E. Boardman, The Life and Labors of W. E. Boardman (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1887), pp. 136-37, 156-60.W.A.P.O. - Dieter, III 2937Jennie Smith, From Baca To Beulah (Philadephia: GarriguesBrothers, 1880).38Jones, Perfectionist Persuasion, p. 175.39Russell ~ e l s o Carter, The Atonement for Sin and Sickness: ora Full Salvation for Soul and Body (Boston: Willard Tract Repository,1884); the same, Faith Healing Reviewed after Twenty Years (Boston:The Christian Witness Co., 1897).40Manual of the Church of the Nazarene, 1940, p. 31. Manual ofthe Pilgrim Holiness Church, 1930, p. 20.4lCompare above: Pilgrim Manual, p. 20, and Nazarene Manual,p. 30.42Arthur T. Pierson, Forward Movements of the Last Half Century(New York: Funk and Wagnalls Co., 1905), p. 401.43wallace, Ope cit., p. 75.44For exarnple.Acts 4.31.45See also, "Getting the Power," Nazarene Messenger, X (June 7,1906), 12.46Good a ~ VI (April 26, 1884), 2.47Michigan Holiness Record, III (May, 1884), 10.48Nazarene Messenger, VII (October 2,1902),5.49Ibid., XII (October 17, 1907), 2.50{New York: W. C. Palmer, Jr.,).5lDivine Life, (August, 1879), pp. 46-47.52Synan, Ope cit., pp. 61-64; Kendrick, Ope cit., p. 33; JosephE. Campbell, The Pentecostal Holiness Church, 1898-1948 (FranklinSprings, Ga.: Publishing House of the Pentecostal Holiness Church,1951), pp. 19lff.53{Toronto: WID. Briggs, 1891).W.A.P.O. - Dieter30 54Ibid., pp. 136-39.55See "Minutes of the Fifteenth Session of the Wesleyan MethodistConnection and Church 1899" (Original "Minute Book" intheWesleyan Church Archives), pp. 146-47; the Wesleyan Methodist, LIV(november 29, 1897), 4: Nazarene Messenger, III (August 24, 1899),2.56Bruner, ~ . cit., pp. 44-46.57pentecostal Herald, XVIII (October 3, 1906), 7; The Way ofFaith,XXV (July 9, 1914), pp. 6-7. Bloch-Hoell, ~ . cit., p. 49.58"Editorial - The Gift of Tongues," Nazarene Messenger, XI(December 13, 1906), 6.59Frank Bartleman, How Pentecost Came to Los Angeles (LosAngeles: Frank Bartleman, 1925), p. 21.60AS late as 1914 letters from Bartleman were still appearinginthe Way of Faith edited by John Paul with such holiness stalwartsas J. M. Pike (founder and former editor of the paper), J. L.Brasher, and Roy T. Williams as corresponding editors; see XXV{July 9,1914),6,7.61Latter Rain Evangel, II (July, 1910), 5.62 .Synan, ~ . c ~ t . Pf I/r;...'7- .3 7.63pentecostal Advocate, XII {April 8,1909),10.64"Minutes of the seventeenth General Conference of the WesleyanMethodist Connection and Church 1907," (Original "Minute Book,"Wesleyan Church Archives), p. 372; Wesleyan Methodist,LXX (August 12,1908), 12.65Conn, ~ . cit., pp. 96-97.