WILLIAM TAYLOR

 

God extended the 1958 revival around the world through the ministry of William Taylor, a fire-baptized American Methodist evangelist and later bishop of Africa.  Few people have ever made the world their parish as Taylor did.

 

Taylor was converted in 1841 at the age of twenty.  He began Methodist ministry the following year as an itinerant preacher. Taylor evangelized in California during the Gold Rush and then returned to the eastern United States and Canada during 1858 revival.  God called him to international ministry and gave him fruitful evangelism wherever he preached.

 

Taylor was continually on the move, but God worked quickly, and the local churches almost instantly experienced revival wherever he went.   In South Africa, God began with a movement of the Spirit and numerous conversions among the English-speaking churches, which subsequently spread to the Xhosa speaking people.

 

Taylor preached to the believers in a day service on the verse, “Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Spirit is come upon you,” and in the evening to outsiders on “Turn ye from your evil ways, for why will ye die?” 

 

Taylor traveled from place to place, seldom staying more than a week in a circuit.  His coverts were of every age from ten to sixty, both married land unmarried, and from all social ranks.  In two years, the Methodists increased 40% in membership, and many Presbyterians and Dutch Reformed churches were also blessed.

 

Taylor’s ministry had lasting impact.  J.Edwin Orr summarized: “Missionaries and national pastors experienced a baptism of the Holy Spirit and went everywhere preaching repentance and faith, pardon and purity, to illiterate and semi-illiterate tribesmen.”