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4 Mighty Engines of Evangelism In 1911 Baptist minister James W. Durham suggested that some congregations expected to attract new members merely by offering “the vocal gymnastics of an operatic choir and the homiletic pyrotechnics of a sky-scraping preacher.” By contrast he praised members of other churches, who “are pulling off their coats, rolling up their sleeves, adapting themselves to changed conditions, and are succeeding handsomely.” The actions to which Durham referred often occurred in a rather reserved manner. On 7 March 1916, a local newspaper portrayed a scene from the previous evening. “Groups of people moved quietly up the avenues and over the cross-streets . . . into private homes. By 8:30 Richmond was on her knees and her prayers were rising from a hundred simple altars. It was unusual. It was heart stirring. No one class and no one denomination prayed.” The account described people involved in cottage prayer meetings at which many small groups of church members assembled in preparation for a citywide revival. The occasion, though striking, constituted just one moment in a larger pattern of activities. As evangelicals, Richmond Protestants cared deeply about converting people to Christianity, about uniting professed Christians with churches, and about rearing devout children. In the early twentieth century, however, Protestant leaders feared that they were not succeeding at these tasks in Richmond. They soon determined that citywide revivals , Sunday schools, and denominational educational institutions could operate as mighty engines of evangelism.1 As Richmond’s population more than doubled between 1900 and 1930, ministers and laypersons warned that local churches were failing to match that growth. In 1903 Baptist layman John Garland Pollard recited statistics from the past several decades and glumly concluded that “the growth of Richmond Baptists . . . has not been encouraging.” Even with later successes, Baptists remained anxious. In 1916 the editor of the Baptist Religious Herald rejoiced that “Richmond is coming to be one of the great cities of the land” but cautioned that “Baptists have not been notably successful in great cities.” In 1904 a Methodist minister observed that church attendance had been falling in Rich- mond. A few years later, a presiding elder regretted that Methodists ranked second numerically and ¤nancially in the capital city and failed to wield “the in®uence in affairs that a great denomination should.” In 1910 the weekly Presbyterian of the South editorialized that “the provision for evangelizing the masses in the city is far short of that in the country.” Later the same publication portrayed the rapid growth of southern cities, including Richmond, and argued that the denomination should invest more money in reaching out to “the countless multitudes of people moving into these communities.” Proud of recent congregational growth, Richmond Episcopalians alone seemed relaxed in the early 1900s. Even among them, there were exceptions. In 1910 a special committee of Episcopal ministers designated Richmond’s westward population growth as a problem and concluded that “the condition so far as our church is concerned is steadily growing worse.”2 Such bleak assessments dared not be ignored by Richmond’s white Protestants , who believed that evangelism was the most important single task of their churches. A Presbyterian editor af¤rmed that “the church’s greatest business is to witness for Christ and to preach the Gospel and to bring men to that attitude toward spiritual things which will induce them to seek regeneration of their souls.” In sermons clergymen urged listeners to embrace Christianity and to join churches. In a typical plea for individuals to receive “salvation,” Baptist James B. Hawthorne urged people to acknowledge they were lost sinners, submit to God, look to Christ as Savior, and try to live pure lives. The Methodist Baltimore and Richmond Christian Advocate declared that any church activity which did not assist in “bringing souls to Christ” or “building up souls in Christ” was “not a proper form of church activity.” In 1925 Christ Episcopal Church proclaimed in its church newspaper, the Trumpet: “In accordance with Scripture, we believe that the supreme work of the church is to win souls for Christ and we give ¤rst place to evangelism.”3 Richmond Protestants found that large citywide revivals could be a powerful means of evangelism. It was a surprising discovery. Ministers repeatedly voiced their misgivings about such mass revivals, and between 1894 and 1909, Richmond did not host a single citywide revival campaign. Several denominations did occasionally conduct weeklong “simultaneous meetings” at their churches. But in 1903, when a few preachers suggested that the...

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