The first campaign, in 1921, was hailed by many of her followers as her very greatest, although a minority would designate the 1931 Boston effort as surpassing Denver. It certainly did in daily attendances and as a media event in the Hub City. However, Boston was only a nine day meeting while Denver 1921 stretched through three weeks, with understandably larger cumulative results. In the earlier years the campaigns continued longer, with consequent drains on Mrs. McPherson's health. Oral Roberts later graduated downward the duration of his crusades from seventeen days eventually to three before eventually leaving the evangelistic circuit in America for some years.

Sister closed the Dallas, Texas campaign one Sunday and opened in Denver on the next, June 19. Her sponsors had done their homework well. "Bless Dean Peck! He means to let the whole city know there is a revival on," she exclaimed, as she noticed posters almost everywhere advertising the meetings and banners stretch across several streets. Dean Peck, pastor of People's Congregational Tabernacle, with the largest Protestant auditorium in the "Mile High City," was one of many denominational clergymen who worked closely with Mrs. McPherson, harbingers of the eventual Charismatic impact in the historic churches. Peck had handled arrangements for the campaign.  Aimee's reliance on and co-operation with denominational churches more than Pentecostal assemblies got her in trouble with her own affiliation. Rev. E. K. Gray would tell me in 1950 how he sat on the presbetry in Denver which gave her an ultimatum to work primarily with the Assemblies of God. Mrs. McPherson emphatically rejected the demand and surrendered her credentials, Gray informed.

A delegation of newspaper men greeted the evangelist and her part "with busy cameras and at least a hundred questions." They too pledged to publicize the revival thoroughly. Sister quoted one, "Why if the reports which have reached us from other cities are true, that thousands are being converted and healed--the world ought to know of the power of Christ, and we will help tell it." And tell it they did--with gusto. Denver had four metropolitan dailies in 1921 and all continuously covered the revival for three weeks and four Sundays, sometimes according it front page headlines. At first the Post � seemed somewhat skeptical about healings and printed a box daily requesting anyone who felt helped by the meetings to contact a certain department. Within a few days the box included the plea that Mrs. McPherson wanted to be informed too.

The first week of meetings had to be held in cooperating churches because a Labor Convention had tied up the Municipal Auditorium. The opening service was billed for 10.45 a.m. at the Second Congregational Church. People began arriving as early as 7 o'clock! The campaign moved to Peck's tabernacle for the afternoon and evening gatherings. Both buildings were crowded beyond capacity.

The response to the afternoon evangelistic invitation so jammed the small  8 area between front pews and platform that the evangelist longed to sacrifice seats for altar space. "Do I dare request removing of the front rows?" she mused and decided against broaching the subject. But the pastor approached with the question, "Sister, can you suggest any way to make more room at the altar?" She mustered the boldness to reply, "Only by taking up the front rows of pews!" Dean Peck half-heartedly objected, "But they are all fastened securely to the floor. And besides, this is Sunday."

"Never mind that," Mrs. McPherson exclaimed. "Souls are at stake." The pastor ordered the pews removed. But the larger altar space available for the evening service also was not nearly large enough to accommodate the multitudes who thronged thither to confess Jesus Christ as Saviour.

Weekday services continued both in the afternoons and evenings, with ever increasing crowds. The first divine healing meeting on Wednesday night witnessed the lame not only walk but run, tossing away crutches and cases, and other miracles. Next-day newspaper headlines screamed, "The Deaf Hear! The Blind See! The Lame Walk!" That swelled attendances to the point that the police had to be called to handle the multitudes because more people assembled outside the church trying to get in than were able to enter the building. Mrs. McPherson sighed, "Oh, if we only had the Municipal Auditorium for this first week, as well as for the coming weeks."

The Municipal Auditorium complex housed two areas, the theater with two rows of galleries and boxes on one end, and the convention hall and dance floor on the other. A stage and asbestos curtain separated the sections and could, when occasion demanded, be removed to make the building one large auditorium  management insisted that the theater section would suffice for the revival. But on Sunday morning, June 26, thousands had to be turned away from the first meeting. The authorities would not have time between services to remove the barricades, but they did allow people to sit in the convention hall section even though they could not see but only hear the proceedings. On Monday morning a crew of workmen united the two ends of the building. And attendances continued to soar. The entire complex proved too small and thousands were turned away daily.

Circumstances compelled the Denver police chief to assign every available officer to manage the crowds. Toward the end of the revival reporter Alva A. Swain quoted the sergeant in charge of the operation as stating, "I don't know how she does it, but his woman has captured Denver. We turn thousands away from every meeting and jam between fifteen and sixteen thousand persons into the building at every meeting. Last Wednesday night we turned eight thousand away. They are coming here in carloads from almost every town in the state. It isn't all cripples who are coming by any means." Critics had carped that mistruth. The quotation continued, "She has a good, old-fashioned religious blessing. She has certainly captured this town, and no man, not even a President, could fill this auditorium two and three times a day for two weeks like she has done."

More than 10,000 suppliants for salvation reached the altars but thousands of others couldn't get near the front of the hall because of the throngs. "The enormous altar calls of this campaign were the mightiest visitations of God's convicting and saving power I had witnessed up to that time," the evangelist reported. "It seemed at times when the invitation for sinners went forth that  almost one-half of the congregation arose to respond." Sister started giving separate altar calls for men and women, and even then the large staff of workers were at their wits' ends to know how to handle the hosts surging forward.

Although, as indicated already, Aimee Semple McPherson was never billed as a Healing Evangelist and her revivals were never called Healing Crusades, the results usually exceeded those claimed in subsequent decades when specialists in healing ministries hit the revival trail. "I wondered whether there had ever been, since the days of the Master, such an assemblage of sick, blind, and lame gathered together in one place," Sister stated. As the campaign continued, requests for prayer cards multiplied. At the last two meetings where these were distributed, more than 20,000 registered to receive prayer.

Organizers arranged special sections for the sick and invalids who were able to sit through the service and walk to the platform. Other areas in the auditorium accommodated the bed-ridden and those in wheel-chairs, anticipatory of services in Angelus Temple, a year and a-half away from opening, when many came to Divine Healing Services in ambulances, bringing dress clothes with them, and went home on the street car!

Mr. O. A. Priest of 3205 Adams Street, a member of Dean Peck's congregation, was one of the first to be prayed for. The gentleman had suffered three strokes disabling one side of his body. He had not been able to cloth himself for months. "Brother, have you faith to believe that Jesus heals you now?" the evangelist challenged. "I have," the seeker announced. "Then, in the name of Jesus, this side is restored to life and strength," she  commanded. He commenced moving it freely backward and forward. Then he started stepping "laughably high, swinging his arms like a flail," Sister recalled. Meanwhile the audience exploded in applause and shouting as Mr. Priest first walked with vigor then commenced running up and down the steps of the platform. Reporters collared him when he finally left the stage to interview him about his recovery.

Hattie White, the mother of a policeman assigned to crowd control was also healed of paralysis, but her son was off-duty when the miracle occurred. After prayer the woman skipped down the platform steps with the lightness of a young girl and hurried home. Somehow the news reached her son and he immediately greeted it with skepticism. He knew his mother's condition. "There's something phony about this somewhere!" his response was quoted. However, upon reaching home Officer White found his mother walking all over the house, singing as she performed duties necessarily neglected since paralysis, and seemingly as healthy as she had ever been in her life.

"Mother! Are you alright?" the son exclaimed. "I certainly am," Hattie testified. "Christ has made me whole!" Then she jumped up onto a chair and next onto the table from which she leaped back to the floor. Officer White picked up his mother and rushed back to the auditorium where he addressed thousands of people, announcing his name and regular police beat before proclaiming, "I want to say that this is my mother who was long paralyzed, and now she stands before you healed." Both mother and son became active workers in the meeting. Hattie White soon received the baptism with the Holy Spirit. Officer White could be seen often helping sick people both with advice and assistance to the platform. A year later Hattie White submitted her testimony  of healing for publication in the issue of Mrs. McPherson's magazine, "The Bridal Call," which featured the story of her second campaign in Denver. The healing lasted!

The Denver press published graphic descriptions of the healing meetings and included long lists of names and addresses of people who testified to cures. Alma Lafferty, a former state senator and one of Denver's most prominent club women, was reported healed of deafness caused twenty years earlier in a crash which broke her eardrums. Mrs. George Dunklee, supported by her son Edward, a former State Senator, after prayer declared her sight had cleared and a slight paralysis had disappeared. The newspapers reported the healing of a widely known attorney, Horace Benson, quoting him, "I have not been able to hear since I was twelve years old, but Saturday evening when Mrs. McPherson prayed with me I heard and have continued to hear since. I know my ear has been healed."

A chapter longer than this would be needed to document the attested healings the Denver press trumpeted.

"'How do you explain that child being cured of menengitis?' asked a reporter when a six-year old was set on its feet and ran pell mell through the audience. 'The same Christ who healed the little children in the long ago has healed that child,' said Mrs. McPherson. 'Remember, I did not heal that child, it was Christ, the same Christ who said, "Suffer the little children to come unto Me".'"

And another:  city official suffering the excruciating pains of rheumatism (and that official was a Jew) and said, 'Dear Jesus, make this man whole,' and the man got up and handed his own cot off the platform to a policeman to carry out while he stood there and testified, the pencils of all the reporters dropped on the press table, and as one of them said, 'Like the story of Creation, no one save God can write it.'"

The press could hardly restrain itself from attributing the cures to some personal power of the evangelist. Mrs. McPherson abhorred such credit. She declared, "Constantly it was necessary for me to emphasize that I am not a healer--even though the press on occasions referred to me as such--that I am but an office girl introducing sufferers to the Great Physician." The evangelist cited an example: "There was this lady high in social circles, but she did not strike me as being very spiritual. She was just as polished as she could be, but I cannot remember ever seeing a tear in her eyes or hearing her call out to God for souls in the meetings. But when I prayed, her ears which had been deaf for years were opened. She took off her acouphone (an old-fashioned type of hearing aid), and radiated excitement and joy. She could hear the talking and the singing. She was very effusive in her manner. She wrung my hands and said, 'You will never know what you have done for me, Sister.'

"'I haven't done anything for you. Jesus did the work,' I told her.

"'Yes, but you prayed, and I am healed,' she insisted.

"'But I couldn't heal anybody. It was Jesus who healed you," I told her over and over again.

"She left the auditorium hearing, but her healing lasted less than a week. And there was a reason. There usually is a reason when a healing does not last.

"'Darling, has anything happened to you?' I asked her, noticing the difference in her manner about a week later. Her eyes no longer sparkled and glowed. It was as if she were shadowed by a dark cloud.

"'I beg your pardon,' she replied as she leaned over close to me. "'Don't you have your hearing?' I asked in a loud voice.

"'I did for a while but it didn't stay very long,' she confessed. 'I can't hear very well any more. But it still isn't as bad as it was before you prayed. But something has happened. Isn't it a shame that it didn't last?"

"'My dear,' I said, "Other people have kept their healing.'

"'Yes, I see they have, but I've lost mine,' she sobbed.

"'What have you been doing?' I enquired.

"'Oh, just the usual things,' she answered. 'Entertaining, and being entertained. I've given several big parties. I've been to the theater I attended a big card party. You know, just the usual run of social obligations.'

"This lady was doing the usual things but she had lost her healing. 'Look here, darling,' I said, "You have done a very foolish thing in asking the Lord to heal you under those conditions. Do you realize you are bringing your body which is to be a Temple for the Holy Ghost to the Lord and asking Him to lay His dear, nail-pierced hands on your body and heal you? Why? So you could hear people talking about the next card they were going to play and listen to the stories they usually tell around the bridge table? Or did you ask Him to heal you so that you might attend the theater and see the shows? Do you think you were asking for your healing for His glory--for His service?'

"'I never thought about it that way,' the lady declared.

"When this little lady understood, we prayed for her again. The Lord opened her ears. And when I returned to Denver a year later, I found her a devoted worker in the Master's service. Needless to say, her healing had lasted.'"

Mrs. McPherson never identified this woman by name, but I wonder whether she might well have been the prominent club woman, Alma Lafferty, whose cure from deafness the press in Denver reported. By the way, the newspapers reported more healings from deafness and blindness during the 1921 revival than  from any other ailments. The evangelist commented, "These are cures that are at once apparent and can be verified by the acquaintances of the victims who necessarily accompany them to the services.

The Pueblo, Colorado Chieftain carried the following account of a restoration of sight written by its Denver correspondent, Alva A. Swain: "Yesterday afternoon a blind man, who in years gone by was postmaster at Colby, Kansas, passed before Mrs. McPherson. He carried a cane and was guided by friends to her side. She quietly asked him: 'Do you believe the Lord Jesus Christ can save you from all sin?' He replied, 'I do.'

"Again she spoke to him in a quiet voice, this time saying, 'If He restores your sight, will you follow Him always?'

"'I will,' said the man.

"Again the woman spoke, saying, 'Do you believe that God, through His Son, can cause the blind to see?'

"'I do,' said the man.

"And immediately the little white-dressed woman held up her hand with the thumb and little finger turned down and said: 'How many fingers am I holding before your eyes?'

"The man let out a "Whooppeeee" that could have been heard to Fifteenth street, and amid his tears yelled, 'Three!'

"A little sister, who had been standing on the other side of him, eagerly watching the strange proceedings, began to cry. Mrs. McPherson quieted both of them, and then pointing across the big auditorium to a gallery said, 'What are those people doing up there?'

"The man answered, 'Waving handkerchiefs.' And he was correct. He afterwards said that he had been blind for several years and that he had been told there was no help for him.

"He walked down from the stage unassisted, and found a seat by himself, without being led by anyone."

In the same article reporter Swain continued, "To this writer the altar scenes are far more impressive than the healing scenes."

Most observers would have agreed. Because the sponsoring churches could provide hardly a fraction of the counselors needed to pray with the flood of converts rushing forward at each service, Denver's chief of police detailed to the campaign all his Christian officers he could possibly spare to help at the altar as workers. These policemen led converts down the aisle when the evangelist called for sinners to come to Jesus. Sister chuckled, "It was just wonderful to see how fast people would move when accompanied by an officer with a big six-shooter in his belt!"

"Sister," Alva Swain confronted after one invitation. "I was walking at random among the people kneeling at the altar when I saw a police sergeant down on his knees praying with a known boot-legger and jailbird. Newspaper instinct caused me to move over and listen to what a policeman could tell the Lord in behalf of a lawbreaker. The prayer shocked me. I heard the policeman say, 'Lord, here is this fellow. I have knocked him around so much, and I have whipped him, but I could not whip it out of him. Here he is, Lord. You see what you can do for him now.'" The bootlegger was glorious converted.

At the same altars with criminals and social outcasts knelt the cream of Colorado society. General Irving Hale, who had commanded the troops from Colorado in the 1898 Spanish American War and who remained for years as one of the state's most prominent citizens, came for salvation. He had suffered from a semi-stroke of paralysis and deafness for a number of years. Rumors had circulated that he had been healed at a meeting a few days before. That report was premature, but--here is reporter Swain's published account. General Hale, he wrote, "...came from a top gallery, where he had been sitting. He walked down the steps around the corridors and came into the main auditorium about the time the rest had all knelt. By his side walked his aide, Roy Campbell, a brother of Polly Pry, of newspaper fame. When the General entered every chair had a mourner kneeling in front of it. Quietly he walked to the steps leading up to the platform, and kneeling on the floor put up his hands in supplemental reverence to his Creator and said, 'God, forgive me of my past sins and make me a Christian.'

"He had not spoken understandably, so his family said, for over two years previous to the time when Mrs. McPherson healed him."

"I didn't heal him, Jesus did!" Sister snorted when she read the dispatch. Swain's article continued: "The writer chanced to be within two feet of where the General was kneeling and over-heard his plea. Campbell, who was standing near, turned to the writer and said, 'You know, I have been a pretty hard- boiled egg. I have been with the General ever since the beginning of the Spanish-American War. I've helped him through many a tight hole. I would like to help him now, but I'm ashamed to say I don't know how. But I'm learning how, and if this woman stays here much longer, I think I'll be recruiting for Jesus instead of for Uncle Sam.' And Campbell meant every word he said.

"A moment later General Hale arose and in a quiet way said, 'I have found Jesus.'"

Police estimated that as many as 2,500 people came forward in single meetings in response to evangelistic invitations.

In addition to the public services conducted twice daily, the revivalist ministered in many special meetings scheduled for children, for stretcher cases, for ethnic groups, and for the elderly. "As I look back on the busy routine," she reflected, "I marvel that God gave me strength to last through such a strenuous schedule. Overdoing it, however, threatened dreadful consequences temporarily, according to Mae Waldron, a close associate of Aimee at Angelus Temple after 1923. Mae told me, "Sister burned out the cartilages in both knees by standing so long praying for the sick in Denver. Doctors said she'd be in a wheel-chair in six months." But the evangelist continued on her feet for twenty two more years, receiving deliverance from the same Jesus whom she ministered to others.

Every Thursday morning Sister conducted marathon mass meetings for children, beginning at 10 and continuing to 1 p.m. More than 5000 congregated on those occasions. Denver's Mayor, Dewey Bailey, requested citizens and businesses to contribute toys and candy, and they responded by with truck- loads. Not a sick or needy youngster left the meeting without having received some gift. Hundreds of orphans and poor children, whose parents hardly could afford life's bare necessities, enjoyed these benefits.

Many Boy Scouts turned out to assist in the children's meetings, including one of their bands. In later years Mrs. McPherson delighted to tell her audiences about the Scout Master who lined up all the boys to sing to the tune of "Where He Leads Me I Will Follow" a "play square" chorus with several verses, "I'll play square at home with mother," "I'll play square at school with teacher," and finally, "I'll play square with Christ, my Saviour, and I'll play square, play square, all the time." As usual, she would draw a lesson from the incident: "I think there's a great deal in playing the game of life square. We must begin when we're children, and it begins just where those fine little manly Boy Scouts began their song: "I'll play square at home with mother."

One morning three thousand children responded to the invitation to receive Jesus as Saviour. Then Sister prayed for the sick and crippled children. "What a heart-rending scene it was!" she described, "Mothers carried babies in their arms. Orphans came, brought by friends. Children hobbled to the platform on crutches. There were wheel-chairs and stretchers, babies shrunken to skin and bones, little tots twisted with rheumatism, too pain-racked to bear handling, so they were brought in trundle beds. Young mothers led children whose sightless eyes were white as milk. Victims of paralysis, curvature of the spine, St. Vitus Dance, epilepsy, tuberculosis, came."

Veterans of the first World War who had witnessed carnage without flinching became completely overcome at the scene of little children so sick and suffering. Several fled the auditorium rather than continue seeing the spectacle which seemed too much for them to handle. "But I was unable to run," Mrs. McPherson reflected, "Since I had been called by the Lord who said, 'Into whatsoever city ye enter, preach the Gospel and heal the sick."

The Denver Post carried the following account under the byline of reporter Frances Wayne: "If I were Aimee Semple McPherson I'd take one look at the eager people packing the auditorium and filling the streets outside, and then I'd run for cover.

"I'd turn and run because of the awful--that's the word-- responsibility hundreds of people were eager to put upon me, because of the tragedy of broken hopes and blighted faith which might follow in the wake of failure to heal the sick, the deaf, the blind, the paralytics, seeking healing.

"But Mrs. McPherson, being herself and not me, stands on the platform of the Auditorium, looking out on ten thousand eager, trusting people, and no more thinks of running from her job or doubting the fulfillment of her promise than she thinks of going to a movie, or sitting in at a game of cards, or wearing a 'Lo and Behold' blouse.

"When at 17 years she was, after the manner of Saul of Tarsus, struck to the earth with a great light, she came up consecrated to the task of believing in the truth of every word in the Bible.

"And chief among these words is the promise that Jesus Christ and his power are the same, yesterday, today, and forever, and that what He did for those who came to Him on the shores of the Sea of Galilee He will do for those possessing faith today."

Does it need to be emphasized that Frances Wayne, Alva Swain, and other newspeople wrote as they did in the secular press?

The healings in the children's meetings were as remarkable as those in the main revival services. The evangelist refused to accept responsibility for cures but instead rolled the burden for helping such pitiful cases on the Jesus whom she hailed "cares for us and has numbered the the very hairs of our heads. What joy to see him answer prayer and bring sunshine in place of sorrow. Blind children danced for joy and declared they could see their mothers' faces. They described flowers, toys, flags. Deaf and dumb children spoke and heard. Three deaf and dumb boys in one family were healed in the same meeting. They stood as though in a trance for a few moments after their ears were opened, looking first at the great pipes of the auditorium's organ, listening to the swelling notes of a hymn of praise rolling forth, and then embraced their mother who stood with hands lifted high shouting the Lord's praises for her son's deliverances. Several lame children left braces and crutches behind, and walked off. Crooked spines were made straight before our very eyes."

The faith manifested by the children in these special meetings impressed both the evangelist and reporters. The boys and girls prayed and praised the Lord just like adults. They vowed to go home and live a Christian life. The results in these children's meetings probably triggered more joy in the Mile High City than any of the other activities of the campaign.

The closing Sunday morning of the revival was designated special stretcher service. The bed-ridden had received ministry in all the regular healing services, but many kept requesting a meeting of there own where, as one put it, "We would not feel we were taking up room from some sinner." Accustomed as she was to such scenes since the first meeting in the Lyric Theater in Baltimore some years before, even Mrs. McPherson was not prepared to see the vast number of beds ranged in front of the stage. Some invalids there on death beds still were not converted. Many had not attended church or heard a gospel message for years. A great number of the victims confessed that they had come primarily to hear about salvation rather than seek healing.

Before the meeting began Mrs. McPherson walked between the stretchers and greeted each sufferer. After she preached, she extended the invitation. The bed-ridden could not stand or come forward, but many received Christ.

The Denver Post ran almost a full page of pictures of the event with Albert Stone's report underneath: "Reporters, as a class, are reputed to be 'hard-boiled.'

"They see life in so many of its phases, and from so many angles they become calloused to its heart throbs and thrills.

"It took Mrs. McPherson to demonstrate that even reporters' emotions can be touched, when she stood on the Auditorium platform Sunday morning and directed the singing of twenty or more old time hymns, for the benefit of the special guests of the meeting, bed-ridden invalids of all ages and classes.

"It is safe to say that a stranger assembly of guests never were gathered together--at least, not since the time of the Man of Galilee.

"They were spread out before the great organ in fan-shaped formation. Every hospital in Denver had been combed for them. Dozens of private homes had contributed their quotas. Cots, stretchers, adjustable invalid chairs, beds--every conceivable kind of furniture designed to hold and add a mite of comfort to the hard lot of a cripple or an invalid--were lined up in solid windrows, each one with an occupant whose gaze never for an instant left the face of the woman in white up there on the platform.

"On every side was the audience--12,000 strong--filling to capacity the main floor, balconies, and galleries.

"'We are going to sing for these poor people in these cots this morning,' Mrs. McPherson announced. "We are going to sing the songs they ask for.'

"Even the quavering, cracked voices of the bedridden guests joined in. Some of them sang with closed eyes. Others couldn't sing, and tears seeping forth from under their white eyelids told why.

"The singing ended, Mrs. McPherson's eyes were wet too. She leaned over and spoke to a worker at her side, 'See that girl reporter down there? She is crying like a baby.'

"She was. So were her companions at the press table, fourteen of them. One man, a journalistic-political war horse who had covered every Democratic and Republican convention in Colorado in the last twenty years--many of them in this same Auditorium--touched another reporter on the shoulder. His hand was trembling and his eyes were suffused. 'Never saw anything like it,' he said. 'Never.'

"The healing session was one of the most impressive of the revival services. It was literally a 'revival of bodies' for many of the victims. A battery of photographers captured the scene on film as person after person rose from their cots and declared themselves healed.

"For two hours and forty minutes Mrs. McPherson labored. 'It is the most remarkable meeting I have ever seen or held,' she remarked once. "Surely the world must see that Christ is the same today as in the days of old.'"

By no means did the evangelist confine her activities to the Municipal Auditorium. She went to hospitals, jails, institutions for the elderly, as well as to private residences belonging to both the rich and poor.

One particular day an auto whisked Mrs. McPherson to speak at a prison and old ladies' home and the residence of the editor of the Denver Post who had never attended the revival and when told Mrs. McPherson was coming to pray for his mother reacted, "I don't believe it." When he realized it was true he told his family, "Excuse me! Let me get out of here before she comes." However, Sister's party arrived earlier than expected. He came downstairs en route to his office without realizing that the evangelist was present. He stopped half- way down the stairs when he saw she was there. The only thing possible for him to do was to come on down. "Won't you meet Sister?" he was invited.

The editor looked startled. He seemed so shaken that he almost forgot to let go of her hand. Mrs. McPherson prayed for the mother. Suddenly the editor lost all interest in leaving. He initiated conversation about the city and the mountains and Pike's Peak and the snow they had once on the Fourth of July. Then he enthused, "Sister, before you leave, we would like to give you a picnic. Will you let the Denver Post give you a picnic? I would like to take you in my car. We have a beautiful automobile, and we will cover it with flowers, and we will print some signs and put them on the cars, and we will all go out for a picnic. What do you say?"

She agreed. On the way up the mountain the editor blurted, "Say, do you know I did not want to meet you?" "Is that so?" she replied. It was the first she knew about it. "Yes, it is so. When they told me an evangelist was coming to the house, I wanted to get out. I expected you to be some old lady, all dressed up stiffly in a sort of suffragette, and be very narrow and straight- laced and long-faced. I can't bear such people. But when I came down and saw somebody looking and acting sort of human and smiling, it just took my breath away." In later years Sister used that incident to encourage, "So when you are angling for souls, do not try to impress upon people the fact that you live a very stringent, long-faced life. That does not necessarily mean that you are a Christian: and you will frighten more people away with your face than you will win."

One Friday evening after the service she hurried to Hop Alley in Chinatown, a haunt of opium addicts and victims of other vices. "You couldn't tell it by what you saw," she described. "Chinatown looked outwardly the same as it does any other night, but I am told that excitement was rampant in anticipation of my visit."

Sister's escort included Henry A. Larson, the supervising agent of the Federal Prohibition Service, agents Westover and Carter of that bureau, Chief Narcotic Agent Harry V. Williamson, and Sergeant Reed of Denver's police department. To salute the evangelist's arrival one elderly Chinese woman ignited a small rocket which whizzed over the room of the Wing-Kook Long lottery house and set it afire!

Mrs. McPherson's pulpit was to be inside the Chinese Lily gambling den. Almost all the paraphernalia of gambling had been removed before her entry to the whitewashed room. The audience grew greater than the place could accommodate safely. Many would criticize the evangelist's appearance at such a place, and others would comment skeptically about any prospects for results among its denizens, but Sister said, "I was determined to preach Jesus Christ."

Mrs. McPherson did not keep all her audience. A few left the room, perhaps sensing conviction of sin but unwilling to break with their life- styles. Those who stayed, however, listened with rapt attention as from a chair upon which she had climbed she recited the love of Jesus. "We've all wandered away, but Jesus loves you and He's here, right in the midst of us tonight, to do the same," she announced. "Oh, I do love Jesus, and I want you to do the same. The Lord was tempted on the mountain. He knows what it is to fight against evil, and he knows how hard we have to struggle. But he's coming here tonight to bring you a ray of sunshine and salvation. Oh, I love you, too, and I'd love to put my arms about you all."

Mrs. McPherson proceeded to summarize her personal testimony, confessing her own temptations as a young girl in Canada and narrating her subsequent conversion and ministry among the Chinese in Hong Kong and Macau up to the death of her husband, Robert Semple, and his burial in Happy Valley. Sobs became audible from every corner of the room well before the evangelist commenced her invitation. "How many of you would like to come to Jesus?" she finally asked. She related the result: "What a thrill it was to jump off my chair and drop on my knees on that dirty floor, my arms encircling the poor, unfortunate dope addicts, as from my heard poured the prayer, "O Jesus, they can't set themselves free from this terrible habit. Jesus, Lion of Judah, come and break the chains that bind them.'"

One convert who had used drugs for a decade jumped up from her knees and blurted, "I'm going home to mother." Some who had used narcotics for as long as forty years received deliverance. "We're coming to the rest of the meetings of the revival," many resolved. A girl gave her narcotics needle to one of the federal officers. The Denver Express carried Eileen O'Connor's account describing the closing scenes of the meeting: "At the end of the prayers the reserve of the Chinese was broken. They crowded around, embracing and loving her. And she went amongst them praying for them and putting her arms around them. The little Chinese children virtually smothered her with kisses.

"News of the wonders of the healing powers had spread to Chinatown and again Mrs. McPherson was called upon to lay hands upon the sick and afflicted. Little Robert Look was brought with a broken arm, while Joseph Schwartz declared he had been cured of neuritis, from which he had suffered for the last three years.

"Veritable miracles, though, were worked in the cases of Luke Jung and Charley Fong. No sooner had the healing hands been laid upon Jung, deaf for 30 years, than he instantly regained his hearing.

"Positive proof was given by W. H. Robinson, a negro friend of Fong, that the 75-year-old Chinaman had been totally blind for the last 22 years. Yet after Mrs. McPherson had prayed for him Friday night, Fong again saw light and was able to tell bystanders exactly how they looked and what they wore.

"There was a veritable skirmish in Hop Alley when Mrs. McPherson left. Crowds trailed her to the automobile, tugging at her and begging her to come again. And amid tears of joy and good wishes, she left behind a night in Chinatown that will long be a memory to its inhabitants."

The evangelist introduced Charley Fong to Charles Clogston, managing editor of the Denver Express and the two walked together down Hop Alley to 20th St. Enroute, Fong noticed a blaze in a lottery house which had been selling fireworks. He broke away to run and report the danger, but Police Sergeant Reed, also on the spot, restrained him, informing that the alarm had already been given. Charley just stood and stared at the fire. "Can you really see it?" asked an old friend. "Yeh! I see it!" Fong replied. When the fire- engines arrived he took notice off every detail. "Laddah!" he barked as the firemen placed a ladder against the building. "Wattah!" he exclaimed as a hose directed a stream at the blaze.

Many congratulated Mrs. McPherson over what they perceived as her feat of healing. "It was a wonderful healing, but I deserve no credit for it," she insisted. "It was the power of Jesus that restored Charley Fong's sight.

Not many revivals in history impacted a whole city as much as did those three weeks in Denver, Colorado in 1921. The ministry of the gospel stirred virtually all strata of society. Public officials boldly bowed their knees to Jesus Christ. Some who were already believers, but secret disciples like Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathaea in the Bible, came out of their closets to commence testifying earnestly concerning their faith. Mayor Bailey delivered an eloquent statement to the crowded auditorium endorsing the meetings. And he co-operated and helped in other ways.

Numerous parties suggested to the evangelist that she announce a city-wide day of prayer to seek God's blessing upon the final services and for the healing of thousands of sufferers who would not be able to receive her personal ministry. Mayor Bailey proclaimed officially that the hour between noon and one p.m. be observed that day, asking that all bells in the city be rung at noon and that traffic and activity stop. People dropped to their knees wherever they were--on the streets, in their homes, in shops, in factories, in stores, in churches. That afternoon's service witnessed many testimonies by people who told how they had been instantly healed during the noon hour.

That same evening Mayor Bailey's wife presented herself for prayer for a foot condition which for three years had caused great pain. She vowed faith that she would receive deliverance. A few days later she told reporter Frances Wayne, "My foot is fine. Saturday night was the first time in three years that I have had any rest with my foot. For months and months I have had to get up and rub my foot before I could go to sleep. Now that is past. The trouble grew out of a broken arch, and an ex-ray taken a short time ago showed inflammation had set in. I have always believed in the potency of prayer, backed by faith, and I am sure Mrs. McPherson's prayers, added to my faith, have resulted in a cure."

Numerous other public officials of city, county, state, and federal agencies also testified to receiving salvation and healing. Alva Swain reported that Colorado's governor "brought a deaf and dumb boy to the building, and he was made to hear and talk."

As the campaign wound down to the final service business men recognized an amazing impact even on Denver's commercial life. While I have found no reports of people who sneaked on street cars inundating the trolley company with payments for stolen rides as happened in Wichita, for example, nevertheless, reports abounded of bills being paid on which creditors had given up hope of being able to collect. Hundreds of converts made restitution for past wrongs. And this was spontaneous. The evangelist did not demand this of the suppliants. She believed the Lord himself would direct the converts.

The final service of the campaign featured a surprise for the evangelist. She would later call it "a gesture of appreciation on the part of the city which I shall never forget." Mayor Bailey interrupted and requested Aimee Semple McPherson to stand in a certain spot and listen to the rendition of one of her favorite musical numbers. As she stood she felt something soft hit her cheek. It was a rose petal. Then suddenly flowers commenced cascading down like a waterfall! Firemen had climbed up to the roof of the auditorium with huge baskets of roses which had been gathered during several days. When they emptied all the baskets she stood ankle deep in a blanket of blooms. Mrs. McPherson always loved flowers.

The overflow audience then commenced chanting, "June! June! June!"--a plea that she return the following year. They waved handkerchiefs as they repeated the one word invitation and refused to be silenced until she promised to come back to Denver the following year in June.