From “Aimee Semple McPherson,” which appeared in the December 1927 issue of Harper’s Magazine. The complete article—along with the magazine’s entire 174-year archive—is available online at harpers.org/archive.
There is a blare of trumpets, and the murmur of more than five thousand people hushes sharply. Glances swing abruptly toward a staircase that comes down to a flower-decked platform. A figure descends—plump, balancing an armload of roses. She takes stage and lifts the bouquet, her face a garland of interwoven roses and smiles. Upon it plays the calcium—violet light, pink light, blue light, golden light. And now the vast gathering rises to its feet, breaks into clapping.
No, it is not a famous prima donna’s opening night, the entrance of a world-renowned tragedienne or queen of the flying trapeze. It is “Sister.” This was my first sight of Aimee Semple McPherson. From it I received the impression that in this Los Angeles house of worship called Angelus Temple, the Almighty occupies a secondary position, playing an important part in the drama but ceding center stage to McPherson. It is in her praise that the band blares, that flowers are piled high, that applause splits the air.
Sunday after Sunday the same phenomenon is seen. Thousands travel to Angelus Temple, packing the streetcars and mobbing the doors, standing with aching feet in the hope of gaining admittance. And this happens not for a brief period of hysteria; it is no nine days’ wonder. For several years it has been going on, with ever-growing enthusiasm, and bids fair to continue. McPherson is staging, month after month, and even year after year, the most perennially successful show in the United States, with performers of all kinds in a number of routines.
Only after the appetite for vaudeville is appeased does the headliner appear, the great act of the evening: Sister’s message. It is in what she terms “illustrations” that she gives full vent to her showman’s genius. These are her master effort, a novel and highly original use of lights, sounds, and mechanical devices to point her message. Heaven and hell, sinner and saint, the fleshpots of Egypt, and the temptations of a bejazzed world are made visual by actors, costumes, and theatrical tricks of any and every sort that may occur to her mind.
Aimee Semple McPherson and a group of tambourine players leading a service at Angelus Temple. Courtesy Los Angeles Public Library/Herald Examiner Collection
One of the first questions raised by the observant visitor to McPherson’s ministry concerns the audience. Who are they that pack a huge building week after week, who have been doing so more and more since it was opened, almost five years ago? Some from the transient population of the Southwest drift in and out because they have “heard of her.” But there are thousands who attend faithfully, a large part of them as signed members. A glance about shows that they are largely represented by the Middle West farmer or small-townsman. On every hand are old men and women, seamed, withered, shapeless, big-jointed from a lifetime of hard labor with corn and pigs. The men wear what would be their Sunday best in Iowa. The women are often gaudy in the short, tight, adolescent garb that some salesperson has foisted upon them, and their gray hair is bobbed. The couples drag tired old bones to the temple and listen as if at the gates of heaven itself.
But although, after sitting in various parts of the auditorium and talking with many individuals, I was convinced that the majority are more or less ignorant, credulous, susceptible to cheap emotionalism, I have nevertheless met a few intelligent and educated persons who believe thoroughly in Sister’s inspired leadership. The glance of her companionable eye, the flash of her comprehending smile possess the electrical quality to an all-conquering degree. I confess to having felt it like a warm and overcoming current. My intellect may have sat back disdainfully.
Whatever she has won she has worked for—worked in a ruthless drive, with no pity for her own fatigue. Six days a week she preaches, often more than once a day, hurling her tremendous force into every word she speaks. She utters platitudes in a way that gives them the guise of inspiration. And this is only a fraction of her labor. She manages a great business enterprise in the temple. She writes articles, books. She plans and directs the weekly vaudeville with its ever-fresh “illustrations.” She teaches in her Bible school; she marries, baptizes, heals, buries. Breathless with wonder, you ask how one human being accomplishes it all. “It’s the Lord working in her,” say the faithful. “She’ll retire a millionaire,” retort the scoffers.
