The Pleasant Sunday Afternoon Movement: Revival in the West Midlands, 1875–90?

In January 1875 John Blackham, a West Bromwich draper, a deacon and Sunday school teacher from the Ebenezer Congregational Church, went to Birmingham intent on hearing the American evangelist Dwight D. Moody. So large was the crowd that Blackham was turned away from the meeting. He then went to look for an alternative Christian gathering and, in his own words, I came across a room where about 30 fine young fellows were assembled listening to their teacher, a magnificent man, with a marvellous store of information. His address was so long and so good that my head and back ached with the prolonged attention. … I wondered how it was that Moody could get 4,000, while this splendid Bible class leader could only draw about thirty, and as I thought on this the first light broke in, and I saw clearly why we had failed. I learnt also how not to do it. I realised that if the men were to be won, we must give them a service neither too long nor too learned, we must avoid dullness, gloom, and constraint.