David Marks and the “Nothing” Sermon (1828)

On May 13, 1828, itinerant evangelist David Marks preached in Ancaster, Upper Canada, a growing settlement near the western end of Lake Ontario. Public preaching in such communities often drew mixed crowds—some hungry for God, others wary of “enthusiasm,” and a few openly hostile. Marks, used to rough travel and rougher heckling, began by asking what the people wished to hear him preach. From the crowd came a sharp reply: “Nothing!”

Rather than answering insult with insult, Marks displayed a steady kind of courage—self-control under pressure, paired with a readiness to turn opposition into an open door. He accepted the heckler’s word as his text and preached on “nothing,” pressing the Lord’s warning and invitation: “I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in Me, and I in him, will bear much fruit. For apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). His point was not cleverness but spiritual clarity: outside of Christ, the soul’s boasts collapse into emptiness.

Ancaster, Upper Canada, and Frontier Christianity

Ancaster stood at a crossroads of migration and commerce, where farms, mills, and taverns shaped daily life. In such places, faith was tested in public. The same meetinghouse could host prayer one evening and controversy the next. Marks’s ministry belonged to a wider evangelical movement that carried Scripture beyond established centers, insisting that repentance and new birth were not religious decorations but necessities.

Marks’s sermon confronted “nothing” in several forms: no righteousness that can stand before God, no peace that endures guilt, no hope that survives death, no strength that conquers sin. In contrast, he held forth the sufficiency of Christ for the poorest and most burdened hearer: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). The taunt became a summons—away from self-reliance and toward wholehearted dependence.

Legacy: Calm Boldness and Wholehearted Trust

The moment is remembered less for the heckle than for the grace shown in response. Marks modeled a Christian heroism that does not posture, but perseveres: meekness without surrender, boldness without bitterness. His “nothing” sermon urged listeners to confess their need and to find fullness in the Savior who makes sinners new.