Issue 21 Changing MindsBlog | The Late Greats – Phoebe Palme
The Late Greats – Phoebe Palme
Author: Andy PeckPost Date: 10.12.19
A prophet might sometimes be without honour amongst her own people, remarks Elaine Heath. ‘In the case of Phoebe Palmer, honor (sic) was lost posthumously, for within a few years after her death her name had all but disappeared.’1 During her lifetime, however, the name of Phoebe Palmer was well-known on both sides of the Atlantic and, in an age where women preachers were very few and often discouraged, revered by the thousands who f locked to listen to her.
She was born in 1807 in New York. Brought up in a pious Methodist household, Phoebe Worrall was, apparently, a pious child. She married a physician, Walter Palmer, in 1827. The first three decades of the 19th century are sometimes referred to as the Second Great Awakening in the United States, a time when revivalist preachers, many of them Methodist, were popular and effective; both the Worralls and the Palmers were heavily influenced by the Awakening.
Phoebe, however, struggled with some of the expectations of the revivalists, questioning why she was not experiencing an emotional response to the gospel in which she believed. The turning point (her ‘day of days’)
