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For much of his early life, preaching the gospel was the last thing on the mind of Charles Grandison Finney, a New York lawyer and confirmed atheist. Because of his brilliance and hardheaded approach to life, many people in town doubted that his conversion was even possible.

Finney was born in Warren, Connecticut, on August 29, 1792, but his family migrated west to the frontier town of Hanover in Oneida County, New York, when he was only two years old. As a student in the local academy, he did well and developed both musical and athletic abilities. From 1808 through 1812, Finney taught in the district school at Henderson.

Finney wasn’t content to teach, however; he wanted to practice law. After several years of independent study and training, Finney joined the law office of Judge Benjamin Wright in Adams, New York. In 1818, he was formally admitted to the bar.

The young lawyer seemed to have found his role in life. His logical mind and oratorical skills proved valuable as he argued cases before the bar. Even when outside the courtroom, he would take up any cause and present a convincing argument.

From Atheist to Revivalist

Finney was well known in Adams as one who also argued against the existence of God. That’s why people were surprised and suspicious when Finney announced he’d experienced a dramatic religious conversion on October 10, 1821, and intended to abandon his law practice to preach the gospel. In 1824 Finney was ordained by the Presbyterian Church; a dozen years later, the lawyer-turned-evangelist aligned himself with the Congregational Church.

Throughout his ministry, Finney used his skills as a lawyer to argue God’s case before his audiences. Unlike the pastors of many of the churches where he preached, he strongly emphasized human accountability before God. As people were called upon to renew their obedience to the Lord, Finney’s ministry was often marked by revival.

One of the most remarkable revivals in his ministry occurred during his six months of ministry in Rochester, New York, in 1830. When the invitation to preach in Rochester reached the evangelist, he had several other invitations. He began making inquiries about the city, but the initial reports were not promising.

The Third Presbyterian Church, which had invited him to come, was currently without a pastor and needed a supply preacher. An elder in that church was involved in a major dispute with the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church. The pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church was alienating the congregation with his preaching.

It wasn’t the sort of situation in which Finney would choose to preach, yet he couldn’t get the request off his mind. He consulted with several praying friends in Utica, New York, telling them about several open doors to ministry, including the Rochester situation. After several prayer sessions together, his friends agreed Finney should turn down the Rochester invitation and travel east to accept the more promising invitation in the larger cities. Finney agreed and decided to leave the next day.

That evening, however, Finney began rethinking his decision. As he went to rest, a question came to his mind, “What are the reasons that deter you from going to Rochester?” Finney had no difficulty listing good reasons why he should turn down the Rochester invitation. “Ah! But are these good reasons?” a voice seemed to ask. “Certainly you are needed at Rochester all the more because of these difficulties. Do you shun the field because there are so many things that need to be corrected, because there is so much that is wrong? If all was right, you would not be needed.”

As Finney recognized his motives for turning down the Rochester invitation, he was embarrassed. Before he went to sleep that night, he made up his mind to go where he was needed most. Early the next morning, he informed his wife of the change in plan and later that day began the journey to Rochester.

When he arrived in the city the next morning, he and his wife were taken to the home of an elder who provided hospitality. The next day, the evangelist met with the pastor of First Presbyterian Church and established a working relationship with the church leader.

The “New Measures”

We should note that by this time Finney was already a focus of controversy, in part because of his use of “new measures,” or new techniques, in evangelism. Some of his critics charged that his methods were manipulative; others simply objected that things had never been done that way before. Ever the pragmatist, Finney typically justified his strategies by pointing to their success in obtaining conversions.

One of the “new measures” in revival that Finney introduced was the public invitation, or “altar call.” Though people under conviction had typically rushed forward in meetings during the Cane Ridge Revival a generation before, that pattern had emerged spontaneously. Finney, on the other hand, issued an explicit invitation to come down in response to the gospel, a move that was quite effective in bringing about the desired result.

Because of this and other innovative techniques, Finney has been called “the Father of modern revivalism” and is generally considered the prototype of American evangelists.

Not long after Finney began his ministry in Rochester, the wife of a respected lawyer in town was converted. As he preached the gospel, others soon became anxious about their salvation. Sometimes that anxiety was manifested physically as people squirmed in their seats or began weeping in the pew.

Finney found such responses distracting, both to himself and to those gathered to hear him preach. To solve the problem, he introduced in Rochester yet another of the “new measures”: the “anxious seat.”

The evangelist arranged to have several pews near the front of the church emptied. Then he urged people who felt they needed to get right with God while he was preaching to make their way to these pews to occupy the “anxious seat,” so they wouldn’t disturb others around them. As a result, many` people began moving to the anxious seats during his messages, a much larger response than he’d anticipated.

Results of the Revival

The anxious seat proved to be an effective tool to reach the professionals in the community. Finney noted, “Very soon the work took effect, extensively, among the lawyers in that city” There had always been a large number of the leading lawyers of the state resident at Rochester. Finney began attracting them. They grew quite anxious about the state of their souls and came freely to the meetings of inquiry. Numbers of them then came forward to the anxious seat and publicly gave their hearts to God. By the end of the Rochester Revival, every doctor, lawyer, and businessman in town was converted.

Because the rift between the First and Third Presbyterian Churches had been healed early in the revival, a spirit of kindness and fellowship began characterizing church relations in town. When the pastor of the First Church asked Finney to preach for him, the crowd was so large that it created stress on a building already in need of repairs. During the meeting, one of the timbers came through the roof and broke a window. In the panic that followed, several people were injured, but none seriously. When the church leaders investigated and realized they could no longer use the building for services, the Second Presbyterian Church offered their facilities. Three churches that had once been at odds with one another were now working together. Soon, churches of other denominations in town joined them in a common effort to reach people for Christ.

As the revival progressed, many were overcome with conviction. One morning, the principal of a local high school found his students in such a state of anxiety that they couldn’t carry on their studies. He sent one of his teachers to Finney, asking for help.

When she explained the situation, the evangelist returned to the school with her. By the end of the day, the principal and most of the students had been converted. Forty of the students who were converted that day later entered the ministry, many as foreign missionaries.

In the course of six months, 1,200 people joined the churches of the Rochester Presbytery. Soon, news of the Rochester Revival traveled east to New England. According to Finney, “The very fame of it was an efficient instrument in the hands of the Spirit of God in promoting the greatest revival of religion throughout the land, that this country had then ever witnessed.”

According to one estimate, news of the Rochester Revival sparked revival fires in 1,500 towns and villages throughout New England. Years later, the respected preacher Lyman Beecher stated, “That was the greatest work of God, and the greatest revival of religion, that the world has ever seen, in so short a time.” He estimated that 100,000 had been converted and added to the churches in a single year through the revivals sparked by news of the Rochester awakening.