The Peniel Mission was an interdenominational holiness rescue mission that was started in Los Angeles, California, on 11 November 1886 by Theodore Pollock Ferguson (1853–1920) and Manie Payne Ferguson (born 1850; died 8 June 1932). It was dissolved in 1949.
History of the Peniel Mission
Origins and early days (1886–1894) Manie Payne Ferguson, along with her husband, Theodore, founded the Los Angeles Mission on November 11, 1886, at the Masonic Hall on Spring Street (near 416 North Main Street) in downtown Los Angeles.Ferguson, Love Slave, 221–222. .The 1858 Masonic Hall, which housed the First Masonic Temple, Lodge No. 42, is the oldest building south of the Plaza, and displays Masonic artifacts. However, after three months they were forced to move to the basement of the Nadeau Hotel (opened 5 July 1886), located on the southwest corner of Spring and First Streets.Ferguson, Love Slave, 223. The hotel was named in honour of its owner, a wealthy French Canadian named Remi Nadeau. See photographs of the hotel in Hinshilwood, p.14. Old Los Angeles and Pasadena in Vintage Postcards; ; and also at: The hotel was a "four-story business block, with a passenger elevator, the first of its kind in Los Angeles. … Los Angeles gossiped of "Nadeau's Folly". Nadeau's folly, and original plans for stores, professional offices and private residences, however, turned into the Nadeau Hotel, when a local hotelier leased the entire building in May 1886. On July 5th, the hotel opened with a magnificent banquet and ball. Through the turn of the century, Nadeau's hotel was the place to be for Los Angelinos. The Nadeau Hotel stood at the site of the present day Los Angeles Times building." (Cecile Page Vargo, "From Freight Wagons to Fine Hotels".) After a year, they were forced to rent the burnt-out Methodist Episcopal Church, South for six months until it could be demolished. The Mission then relocated to rented rooms at 107 North Main Street. In the first eight years, the Mission relocated six times, before establishing a permanent location.
The Mission was eventually renamed the Peniel Mission. Peniel means "Face of God",Frankiel, 107. and "was chosen from Genesis 32: 24–30, and is meant to connote spiritual triumph."Piepkorn 27.
Peniel Hall (1894) From the outset, the Peniel Mission was non-denominational and nonsectarian. In 1894, the Fergusons received a significant anonymous financial donation (from former English cricketer George Studd). With this funding the Fergusons were able to plan to expand the ministry of the Peniel Mission. They invited former Methodist presiding elder Dr. Phineas Bresee to join them in their endeavour, and planned to construct a 900-seat auditorium and ministry centre at 227 South Main Street, Los Angeles. It was decided that there would be four superintendents: Theodore and Manie Ferguson, George Studd and Phineas Bresee.
On Sunday 21 October 1894 the 900-seat Peniel Hall was dedicated. University of Southern California president Dr. Joseph Pomeroy Widney led the 9:30 am Praise Service, while Bresee preached in the 11:00 am service "from the text, "And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved."(Smith, 40). In the initial issue of the Peniel Herald, the mission's official newspaper, it was announced "Our first work is to try to reach the unchurched. The people from the homes and the street where the light from the churches does not reach, or penetrates but little. Especially to gather the poor to the cross, by bringing to bear upon them Christian sympathy and helpfulness.... It is also our work to preach and teach the gospel of full salvation; to show forth the blessed privilege of believers in Jesus Christ, to be made holy and thus perfect in love."Smith, 40.
As Timothy Smith explains: Here were holiness and humanitarianism working hand in hand, as in the days of Wesley. And sectarian feeling was rejected: "Peniel Mission is thoroughly evangelical but entirely undenominational," the Herald declared. Its superintendents would welcome help from all "earnest souls . . . who have any time over and above the work in their churches that they desire to give."
In October 1894 at the dedication of the Peniel Hall, Widney announced his intention to organize a Training Institute, in which Bible and practical nursing were to be the principal studies.Smith, 40; History LA County 201. By December 1894 Bresee had urged in the Peniel Herald the creation of an organization to screen out undesirable workers, and to create a group for "those that are being gathered in, who have no church affiliation, who need care and fellowship, and a place to find a home and work." Bresee and the other three superintendents created a printed statement of belief to be required of all who wished to associate themselves with Peniel Hall. It was a broad one, "embracing in simplest statement… a few of those essential things which are the common inheritance of the children of God.": "The Peniel Mission is an organization for Christian service and fellowship. It will be required that those who seek to become members of the Peniel Mission be sound in the faith on all the main points of Christian doctrine, which may be particularized as follows: "1. The Divine inspiration of the Scriptures, the Old and New Testaments. "2. The Trinity of the Godhead, Father, Son and Holy Ghost. "3. The Fall of man, and his consequent need of Regeneration. "4. The Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ for all men. "5. Justification by Faith in Him. "6. Sanctification by Faith in the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ, and the Baptism of the Holy Ghost. "7. The Resurrection of the dead. "8. The eternity of Reward and Punishment."Peniel Herald (December 1894).
According to Smith, "What Bresee intended, apparently, was a combination of the interdenominational mission idea with that of an independent church, the former for the workers and sponsors who had no thought of forsaking their old allegiances, the latter for the converts and others who had no church home."Smith, 41.
Leadership difficulties (1895) However, by early October 1895, Widney and Bresee were "frozen out" of the Peniel Mission. Frankiel indicates: "At first Bresee joined with the Fergusons at the Peniel Mission in Los Angeles, where he tried to persuade them to open a school and organize to receive members like a church. They refused, however, and other difficulties led to his parting with them after one year." According to Smith, [t]he immediate cause for the organization of the Church of the Nazarene … is not so much to be found in Bresee's differences with the Methodists as in those which developed between him and the proprietors of Peniel Hall. Certainly J. P. Widney must have been disillusioned when A. B. Simpson, leader of the Christian and Missionary Alliance and reportedly an extremist on divine healing, appeared as a special worker at the mission in May . Bresee on his part disagreed with Mr. and Mrs. Fergusons' insistence upon the use of young women in rescue work, and their growing interest in foreign missionary schemes.Smith, Called, 84.
Another cause of disagreement was that Bresee became convinced that the best ministry for the urban poor was to create strong churches that ministered to entire families, whereas the Fergusons believed that the Peniel Mission should focus instead on the "down and outer" and remain non-denominational.
Subsequent developments and expansion (1895–1906)
From the home base in Los Angeles, other missions were established as Peniel Missions, primarily on the west coast of the United States of America, but also in Memphis, New York, Alaska and Hawaii. "With a United States membership destined never to exceed a thousand (in 1906 a government report said 703), the ministry…had an impact on the larger [holiness] movement far in excess of that implied by numbers."Jones, WHM 1:734. By the turn of the twentieth century, more than 25 missions and rescue homes had been started. Among the Peniel Missions established were those located at: 1. San Pedro, Los Angeles, the first branch mission, established 20 November 1891;Love Slave, 226. 2. Grant Avenue, San Francisco (11 November 1893) 3. San Diego, California on 3 March 1895 4. Juneau, Alaska, on June 1, 1895 5. Douglas, Alaska, in October 1895 6. San Bernardino, California, in February 1896 7. Stockton, California, on May 6, 1896 8. Eureka, California, on August 11, 1896 9. 325 Kay Street, Sacramento, California, on August 15, 1896 10. a second mission in San Francisco, California at Third Avenue was also opened in August 1896 11. Memphis, Tennessee, in December 1896 (although it only lasted a few years) 12. 14th Street, New York City, started by Miss Ella Shaw (later Melody) in spring of 1897, but relocated to 39 Bowery in December 1897 and subsequently known as the Peniel Josephine Mission;See "Killed in a Bowery 'Mission' Restaurant, The New York Times (3 March 1901) for an account of a homicide at the Peniel Mission: 13. a third mission in San Francisco was originally started on May 14, 1897, on Sacramento Street, but later relocated to Pacific Street (within two blocks of 49 saloons), and later still to the corner of Kearney and Montgomery Streets 14. 407 Broadway, Oakland, California, opened on June 29, 1897, but later moved to the Oriental Block at 716–724 Washington Street 15. Pasadena, California, on October 30, 1897 16. the Victor, Colorado, mission in the mining camps was opened on 20 November 1897 17. Fresno, California, opened on December 18, 1897 18. Vallejo, California (near the naval station) was opened on 16 March 1898 by three women from San Francisco 19. Long Beach, California, mission was opened on 6 May 1898 20. a rescue home was established in San Francisco in August 1898 to minister to women 21. Hawaii was opened on March 25, 1899, and by 1904 was meeting in a hall on the corner of Hotel and Fort Streets in Honolulu 22. a rescue home was opened in Sacramento on April 1, 1899. Wealthy socialite Margaret Eleanor Rhodes Crocker (1822–1901) donated her Sacramento mansion to the Peniel Rescue Mission in 1900 for the care of "erring young women.";Avella, 71. 23. Wrangell, Alaska, opened May 7, 1899 24. Skagway, Alaska, opened on May 16, 1899, by Victorine Tooley (or Yorba) and her daughter Roberta Yorba, who were members of the Peniel Mission in Sacramento. They decided to establish a mission in Skagway and when they moved up, brought both Justina M Dickinson and Victorine's step-sister, Gusta Carnahan with them. "The Peniel Missions were dedicated to helping the "soiled doves" or prostitutes. There is no record of any of them after 1900, so they may have found better areas to take the Mission (once the gold rush was over, the population of men and consequently prostitutes dropped). 25. 502 Pike Street, Seattle, Washington in 1902.Unknown On 21 July 1913 sailors of the US Reserve Fleet destroyed the chapel in the mistaken belief that it was the headquarters of the Industrial Workers. When they realised their mistake, the sailors took an offering to compensate the Peniel Mission, and then destroyed the headquarters of the Radical Socialists. 26. 247 NW Couch Street, Portland, Oregon (1904),Martha Gies, Up All Night (Oregon State University Press, 2004):76. later 5 more locations including Jefferson and 1st Streets
Other Peniel missions were established, including: 12th Street and Pacific Avenue, Tacoma, Washington Astoria, Oregon Bakersfield, California W 11th St and N Senate Ave Indianapolis, Indiana, eventually leased to the Christ Temple Pentecostal denomination from 1912 and sold in 1915; (DuPree, African-American Holiness Pentecostal Movement, 269–270. Santa Cruz, California.
Decline and demise (1906–1949)
Azusa Street and the rise of Pentecostalism