At noontime, Fulton Street in New York's Financial District is a busy place, with workers

hurrying to restaurants and meetings. Some street vendors set up at the corner of Fulton

Street and William offering a quick lunch. This is about three blocks away from Ground Zero,

and tourists mingle among the lunchtime crowd.

Few of the people walking down Fulton near William Street realize the significance of this spot.

Most of them don't know what happened here 150 years ago this week at noon among a group of businessmen on their lunch hour.

On Wednesday, September 23, 1857, small group of businessmen gathered to pray at the North Dutch Reformed Church on Fulton Street. That meeting marks the beginning of a revival that

would spread throughout the nation. This revival swelled church attendance, it changed people's

behaviors, and it inspired whole new missionary endeavors,

but mostly the revival inspired God's people to pray.

This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Lee DeMoss for Thursday, September 27th.

Nancy's in a series called Seeking Him,

all about what it means to experience personal revival.

And the timing is perfect for this series

as we mark the anniversary of a revival

that had a huge impact in New York,

then other eastern cities,

then the Midwest and South, and the entire nation. Nancy will tell us more about this revival, which began 150 years ago this week.

The prayer revival of 1857 is sometimes called the layman's revival. Unlike some other historical awakenings, there was no well-known preacher at the center of this revival.

Now, to give you some context, the nation at this point was in the throes of the Industrial Revolution. People

were making money hand over fist, and most people really didn't feel a great need for God or for

prayer. Against that backdrop, in his providence, God raised up a layman who became burdened

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