When the Spirit fell on the Rose City -- Portland's famed 1905 revival remembered a century later

By JOHN FORTMEYER
CNNW publisher

PORTLAND - Envision a typical busy workday in the Rose City's downtown core suddenly coming to a halt at midday. Thousands of employees and customers alike stream out of Nordstrom, NikeTown, the KOIN Center, and hundreds of other businesses and make their way to the Keller or Schnitzer auditoriums or any number of other venues. They go with a single-minded purpose.

To spend time hearing about Jesus Christ. To listen to His Word. To devote their hearts to God.

Sound improbable or impossible? Change the names of the businesses and the meeting locations to what they were 100 years ago, and you have a true story that took place in Portland, Oregon in 1905.

It happened that spring, an outgrowth of a worldwide revival that began in Wales, and it is more than well documented. A Portland woman, Hildene Westerlund, today readily shares the newspaper clippings of that era that she has collected. She contacted Christian News Northwest in hopes of reminding readers that the events of a century ago indeed took place in a city not known today for its devotion to Jesus.

"Army of Christians Marches About City," proclaimed the top of the Oregon Journal newspaper's front page of Friday, March 31, 1905. "At Midnight Nearly Ten Thousand People, Singing Hymns, Proclaim the Power of Revival."

The Page 1 story detailed that it was "the unique night of Portland's history - a shaking up such as the town had never known before."

In a front-page editorial of that same issue, Edgar Hill of the Journal stated that the demonstration by the city's believers was "the most impressive evidence of the strength, unity and aggressiveness of Christ-ianity in Portland that could possibly have been given ... The city is in the throes of a religious upheavel such as it has never known in all its history."

And the fervor continued. Five days later, on April 5, the Journal's front page headline was "City Asks for Grace." The accompanying story told how daytime business came to a literal standstill in the city while masses of people elbowed into four of the city's largest auditoriums, or stood outside - as thousands did. Largest gatherings were at the Marquam Grand Theater.

"To the Christian the services were, as (visiting evangelist) Dr. J. Wilbur Chapman put it, "a foretaste of heaven," reported the newspaper. "To the outsider they formed a marvelous exhibition of what an old-fashioned religious revival can accomplish when once it is in motion.

"Jew and Gentile, Catholic and Christian, believers and unbelievers, met together and sang together."

Revival historian J. Edwin Orr records that in Portland, 240 major stores closed from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. each day to enable people to attend prayer meetings. The store owners signed an agreement so that no one would cheat and stay open.

Portland was not the only location in the United States touched by God' s Spirit in an unusual way in 1905. For example, at Yale University, 25 percent of the student body was enrolled that year in prayer meetings and in Bible study. In Atlantic City, N.J., out of a population of 50,000, there were only 50 adults left unconverted, according to the city's clergy.

According to Orr, the Welsh revival began as a movement of prayer and swept through Britain, Scandinavia, Germany, North American, Australia, Africa, Brazil, Mexico and Chile.

The Portland outpouring, while seen as a sovereign move of God, was assisted by the presence in the city of a team of evangelists led by Chapman, a New York Presbyterian. Among his group of 21 "moral crusaders" who arrived on the Southern Pacific railway were John P. Hillis, Rev. Henry Ostrom, Clarence B. Strause, R.A. Walton, W.E. Biederwolf, J.L. McComb, Charles Stelzle and Fred Butler. Many of them had been influential in a similiar move of God in Denver, Colo., and they came to Portland with great expectations of something similar happening here.

"Famous Revivalists Come to War with Flesh and Devil," headlined the Journal on March 22, upon the evangelists' arrival. The subhead read, "J. Wilbur Chapman Urges People to Get Ready to Be Saved."

The meetings were held in a wide range of denominational churches locally, including First Presbyterian, Centenary Methodist, Sunnyside Congregational, Calvary Baptist, Forbes Presbyterian Salvation Army and more. The newspaper reported that at least 50 churches throughout the city flew huge banners to indicate their support in the evangelistic effort.

"Chapman Campaign for Souls is in Full Swing," proclaimed the March 24 edition of the Journal's competition, The Oregonian.

In preparation for the evangelists' meetings, about 100 cottage prayer meetings were held in the home of some prominent Portland residents.

Considering the heavily secular nature of today's daily newspapers, a scan of the headlines in Portland's newspapers published during the revival meetings clearly shows a different attitude prevailing in the 1905 newsrooms regarding the things of God.

"Revival Spirit Spreads Over City," "Fighting the Devil," "Say Goodbye to God and You Surely Die," "Religion Vital as Blood in the Veins," "With Help of God Will Follow Jesus," "World Revival is Now at Hand" "Men and Women Go Weeping to Altar" "What Salvation Means to People," "Be Sure Your Sins Will Find You Out," and "Bible's Message to the Everyday Man" were just a few examples of the dozens of newspaper articles that outlined the revival 's day-to-day events.

Now in her 80s, Westerlund developed an interest in the Portland revival through a course on historic revivals that she took in Bible college. She also had heard reports about the Portland event through local churches. She said the evangelists targeted their efforts to middle-age business men who otherwise had no interest in church.

Her personal interest in seeing people reached for Christ was shown in her work as a Sunday School teacher to local children whose parents worked in shipyards during World War II, and also when she served as a secretary for Billy Graham's 1950 crusade in Portland. Her hope is that remembering what happened a century ago in Portland might prompt a new generation to pray for a similar move of God in the Rose City.

"I can tell that the Last Days are near," she said. "I just want to be a tool to be used by God to reach more people for Him."