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In January of 1857 the editors of a national magazine published a portrait of Phoebe Palmer (facing page). Being honest men, they admitted that the woman herself was neither as young nor as pretty as the picture made her appear. They did say, however, that she was smarter than she looked. Palmer was probably not offended by their comments. She was friends with the editors and shared their Wesleyan heritage of plain speaking. Anyway, physical beauty was unimportant to her; what mattered was the beauty of the soul. She wanted "the beauty of holiness" that empowered one to live a well-balanced, useful life.

During her life (1807-1874) Palmer spoke to over 100,000 people about Jesus and sparked a revival that brought nearly a million people into the church. Her influential theology paved the way for such modern holiness denominations as the Church of the Nazarene and the Church of God (Anderson, Indiana), and for Pentecostalism as well.

Being a well-known female speaker made her a feminist, though what would today be considered a "conservative" one: she championed the right and duty of women to speak publicly for the Lord. But Palmer did more than talk about Jesus. She put his love into action in New York City's worst slum, pioneering a new kind of incarnational philanthropy.

The heart-felt Methodism in which Phoebe was raised insisted on emphatically emotional experiences of conversion and sanctification. A bright, intense girl, Phoebe could never feel she had attained this. At the age of 13, she did have a vision of Jesus coming to enfold her in his arms and bidding her "be of good cheer." Yet despite this and other experiences, she continued through her teens to wrestle with the Methodist emphasis on emotional experience.

Distracted by the comforts and the social duties (for example the perpetual "visiting") of middle-class life, Phoebe yearned for a steady consciousness of her redemption and union with Christ—in short, for the Wesleyan sanctification experience that would overcome her constant failure to live for God, replacing it with "perfect love" towards God.

After ten years of marriage and the birth of three children, Palmer's yearning was intensified by a shattering experience. On July 29, 1836, Phoebe rocked her beloved 11-month-old daughter Eliza to sleep and placed her in her crib before retiring to her own room. Soon after, Phoebe heard screaming from the nursery and came running. A careless helper had tried to refill an oil lamp without putting it out. When the flames shot up, she had thrown the lamp away from her. It had landed in the crib, splashing burning oil all over the child. Stricken, Phoebe cradled the infant in her arms. Within hours, Eliza was dead.

Phoebe paced the floor, filled with anger and grief. This was the third of her children to die in infancy. She cried out in anguish to God and heard an answer that, though it seems harsh, brought her comfort: God had taken her children because she had loved them too much and was spending too much time on them. "No other gods before me" was his command. At that moment, she resolved that she would surrender to God everything she held dear. She wrote in her diary: "Never before have I felt such a deadness to the world, and my affections so fixed on things above. God takes our treasures to heaven, that our hearts may be there also. And now I have resolved that the time I would have devoted to her [Eliza] shall be spent in work for Jesus."

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