The Azusa Street Revival

William Seymour came to Los Angeles from Houston, Texas, at the call of a group of believers there, who sent his fare (The Apostolic Faith (Los Angeles) vol. 1 no. 4 (December 1906), p. 1). He taught that the baptism with the Holy Ghost was something more than sanctification and was shown, as in Acts 2, by speaking in tongues, and the mission on Santa Fe Street that he had come to take charge of locked its door against him (The Apostolic Faith (Los Angeles) vol. 1 no. 1 (September 1906), p. 1). Frank Bartleman, who met him at a cottage meeting shortly before 26 March, remembered him as “a colored man, very plain, spiritual, and humble”, blind in one eye, and says that white and colored believers were meeting for prayer in a house on Bonnie Brae Street (Bartleman, How Pentecost Came to Los Angeles p. 43).

On 9 April, the mission’s newspaper says, the fire of God fell in the cottage on Bonnie Brae; Seymour himself received the experience three days later (The Apostolic Faith (Los Angeles) vol. 1 no. 4 (December 1906), p. 1). The meetings moved to Azusa Street, into a former Methodist church that had been partly turned into a tenement, with a large unplastered room on the ground floor, and ran from about ten in the morning until late at night (The Apostolic Faith (Los Angeles) vol. 1 no. 1 (September 1906), p. 1). By September the paper counted about 150 people in the city who had received the gift of tongues (The Apostolic Faith (Los Angeles) vol. 1 no. 1 (September 1906), p. 1).

The paper set out the mission’s teaching in three steps: justification; sanctification as a second work of grace; and the baptism with the Holy Ghost as “a gift of power upon the sanctified life”, with speaking in new tongues as its evidence (The Apostolic Faith (Los Angeles) vol. 1 no. 1 (September 1906), p. 2). It reported healings, and held that the tongues were the languages of other nations, given for missionary work (The Apostolic Faith (Los Angeles) vol. 1 no. 1 (September 1906), p. 1). “The work began among the colored people,” it said, and “Ethiopians, Chinese, Indians, Mexicans, and other nationalities worship together” (The Apostolic Faith (Los Angeles) vol. 1 no. 1 (September 1906), p. 3). Bartleman wrote that at Azusa the “color line” was washed away in the blood (Bartleman, How Pentecost Came to Los Angeles p. 54).

The paper traced the movement to a Bible school at Topeka, Kansas, led by Charles Parham, where students had spoken in tongues in January 1901 (The Apostolic Faith (Los Angeles) vol. 1 no. 2 (October 1906), p. 1). Its first issue called Parham “God’s leader in the Apostolic Faith Movement” and announced his visit (The Apostolic Faith (Los Angeles) vol. 1 no. 1 (September 1906), p. 1). In December it said that he was not the leader of the work at Azusa, and described Seymour as “simply a humble pastor of the flock” (The Apostolic Faith (Los Angeles) vol. 1 no. 4 (December 1906), p. 1).

By January 1907 the paper reported that the news had spread “in two hemispheres” and that some of those baptized with the Holy Ghost were at work in foreign lands (The Apostolic Faith (Los Angeles) vol. 1 no. 5 (January 1907), p. 1). Its first issue had said that the movement was too large to be confined in any denomination or sect (The Apostolic Faith (Los Angeles) vol. 1 no. 1 (September 1906), p. 1).