1897 AZUSA STREET CONTEXT. Reality Magazine - Acts of Holy Spirit in the World

An exceptionally scarce full year of Reality magazine, a direct precursor to the Azusa Street Revival of 1906. There are no examples in the trade, none at auction, and but two institutional holdings. The magazine apparently completely unresearched in Pentecostal studies. 

Long before the 1906 Revival, Los Angeles had already become a hub of heightened spiritual activity in the west. The city was host to a significant number of local ministries and missions centered on divine healing, the fullness of the Spirit, and eschatological expectation. The present periodical is the soil out of which the new movement would grow. it grew out of exactly this milieu.

The combined contents of each of the three years we are offering (separately) of Reality constitute a pre-Pentecostal manifesto. Recurring themes of divine healing, Spirit baptism, the fourfold gospel (Jesus as Savior, Sanctifier, Healer, and Coming King), missionary urgency are precisely the theological streams that fed into early Pentecostalism. Fascinatingly, fourfold banner photographed at the Southern California Christian and Missionary Alliance Convention [in the 1897 issue] appears word-for-word in the Azusa Street framework.

The periodical saw contributions by Joseph Smale, a direct influence on the Revival. He was pastor of First Baptist Church of Los Angeles, traveled to Wales in 1905 to witness the Welsh Revival under Evan Roberts, returned on fire, began holding revival meetings, was eventually forced out of his church, and founded New Testament Church, which became one of the immediate staging grounds for the networks that converged at Azusa in 1906. His appearance here shows he was already embedded in this healing-and-Spirit movement years before Wales.

There is also repeated content by and about Carrie Judd Montgomery, a significant figure in the prehistory of Pentecostalism. She would later become one of the most prominent Pentecostal women leaders after 1906, having already built extensive networks through her own magazine, Triumphs of Faith, and healing home ministry. Her presence in Reality shows how interconnected the West Coast holiness-healing world was.

There is also repeated engagement with the existence of Glossolalia. One article, "Did the Apostles Preach in Foreign Tongues?," issued nine years before Azusa, demonstrates this Los Angeles magazine was already publishing theological reflection on whether the apostles preached in foreign languages at Pentecost — exactly the question that would become explosive in 1906 when Charles Parham's doctrine of tongues as "missionary languages" (xenolalia) and the Azusa phenomenon forced the issue into the open. Someone in this network was already wrestling with it.

Each month includes healing content, both testimony and theological articulation. Includes material from figures like Dr. Finis Yoakum and demonstrates how divine healing functioned as the entry point into expectation of supernatural gifts more broadly. Yoakum himself would later found Pisgah Home in Los Angeles, a major healing and charity ministry that overlapped with early Pentecostalism.

The magazine pulls together the Christian and Missionary Alliance, the Keswick holiness movement, the healing home movement (Charles Cullis's ministry), and West Coast evangelicalism. These were the overlapping networks — not a single denomination — from which Azusa's leadership drew. William Seymour arrived in Los Angeles already embedded in Holiness networks; Reality shows those networks were already mature and locally active. A completely unresearched primary resources that paints a picture of Azusa as a culmination of pre-existing pressures and forces rather than a sudden eruption.

The above note describes the three years we are offering together. Please see the "Contents" under each year.

Contents include: Tempered with Oil by William C. Stevens; Expelled from the Ministry by Elder Kellaway [for Preaching Holiness and the Acts of the Spirit]; Christian Life by P. F. Bresee; Letter from a Missionary in Jerusalem [Josephine Cowgill]; Prayer as a Ministry by Elder William Kellaway; Monthly Section Entitled "Healing," Can Satan Work Healing; An Invitation to Send in Records of Miraculous Healing; Full Page Photograph of "Convention Group of Ministers" in front of the Banner Jesus. Savior, Sanctifier, Healer, Coming King [meeting of the Southern California Branch of the Christian and Missionary Alliance; J. A. Fraser on The Lord's Advent; The Lord's Healing by H. J. Pierson; An Exhibit of Apostacy; Life of Quon Mow of China by William C. Stevens; Does Jesus Still Baptize with the Holy Ghost?; The Wonderful Works of God - Divine Healing of May Loop [with dramatic before and after photographs]; Cazadero Campmeeting by F. W. Flit; Tent Work in Beautiful Avalon; The Santa Barbara Convention by F W. Flint; An Account of Dr. Finis E. Yoakum's Healing by the Lord [with photograph]; The Operation of the Spirit; Divine Healing in Court; Healing by the Atonement; Glad Tidings of Joy - An Address by Stephen Merritt at the Christian Alliance Convention in Los Angeles, 1897; The Reign of the King is at Hand; Signs of Power; Devil-Conquering and Disease-Healing Christianity; Miss Mary E. Hall's Experience with the Great Healer [with photograph, account of Charles Cullis' ministry]; Part of a Letter about the Healer; Warning with Healing; Nothing in Disease for God; Healing in the Early Days of Methodism; Did the Apostles Preach in Foreign Tongues; Missions and the Gifts of the Spirit [visions, dreams, speaking in an unknown African tongue, etc.]; Healing Assures a Resurrection; Healing of a Compound Fracture of the Hip-Joint; The Lord for the Body; A Conspicuous Cure; The Holy Ghost Life; Effectual Visitation of the Sick [Divine Healing]; Convinced by Healing; The Bethany Family by R. C. Morgan; The Prayer of Faith; Sin the Cause of Sickness; The Pearl of Divine Healing; A Little Girl's Testimony; A Miracle of Divine Healing by Jennie Clark Harris; The Universe not to be Annihilated; Mr Haslam's Conversion [ Keswick ]; Is the Church Dispensation a Failure by Joseph Smale [Azusa Street Revival, with Photograph]; The Power of the Tongue by Carrie Judd Montgomery [with photograph]; Healer of Body and Soul; The Supernatural Life of Christ for the Body; Sick through Ignorance; Recovery of Mrs Carrie Judd Montgomery; etc. etc.  

Kellaway, Elder William. Reality. An Illustrated Monthly Magazine of Spiritual, Scriptural and Experimental Truth Speaking of the Presence and Acts of the Holy Spirit in the World. Volume I. 1897-1898. Los Angeles. Reality. 294pp.

Very good. Some rubbing on spine and corners, a bit bumped. Very solid, crisp, and clean.