The following is a fictionalized composite of several articles and journal entries taken from writers of the time,
Los Angeles November 23, 1924
Tonight I walked down Asuza Street to the old stables. It has been almost twenty years since the great revival started here on Bonnie Brae Street.
It has been some fifteen years since the meetings were closed, but O what days those were.
The doors never closed. The altars were filled with men and women from every walk of life, every color, and every nationality. None were exempt from the convicting power of God. None were beyond His Grace. It seemed as if the ministers were the ones who fell the hardest. It was difficult for them to turn loose of the pride, but once they loosed their grip, God would break their hearts and put them back together in such a wonderful fashion that they became completely new.
No one noticed their fall however. The rest of us were so caught up in the transforming presence of God’s power that we could see nothing but His face, could concentrate on nothing but His glory.
It was such a wonderful sight, washerwomen praying with ladies of refinement. Lawyers were ministering to stable-hands and hod-carriers. Men who had been agnostics and atheists a few hours previous sharing the love of God with the minister who had just recognized his need of grace.
Crude crutches lay piled with jeweled canes as the healing power of God touched the infirm. Testimonies of miracles filled the newspapers, and people came from every continent to be a part of what God was doing.
We sent them back changed, and thousands more traveled to every continent to preach the gospel of power with which it seemed we had been entrusted.
It was said of Asuza Street that the whole earth was touched by the fire that was kindled there.
Tonight, some twenty years later, there is a chill in the wind that blows trash down empty streets. A few assemblies survive, many with grand programs, but it seems the power is gone. There is an emptiness that pervades all.
I shudder against the wind, and against the bitterness in my heart.
You see, I am one of the men responsible for the closing of the meeting. We really didn’t intend for it to happen that way. We were only trying to bring some order to the chaos, and to address some of the excess that we saw.
What began as a committee to organize leadership soon turned into a cacophony of accusations. No one was exempt from the pointing of fingers.
I think it was months later that we realized the Spirit of God had left us. Perhaps it was time, but I shall always wonder. Would to God we could have walked in unity. How much better the face of God with chaos than the hand of man with order.
