08. The First World War (Final Experiences)

THE FIRST WORLD WAR (FINAL EXPERIENCES) BACK TO THE FIRING LINE After passing through the spiritual crisis for sanctification on October 23, 1916, I had to remain at the base camp for several weeks and I experienced much spiritual I blessing. I enjoyed happy fellowship with my “Holiness” brother and had the joy of helping from time to time in the meetings in the Salvation Army hut and dealing with enquirers when they came out to the front for salvation or sanctification. General Higgins, then Commissioner Higgins, came one Sunday and conducted the evening service and I had the joy of leading two souls to the Lord at the conclusion of the meeting.

During those weeks I also visited the Soldiers’ Christian Association hut, and I well remember two Christian I workers there who greatly encouraged me. The first was Mr. H. W. Verner, late Home Director of the Japan Evangelistic Band. I was introduced to him by the “Holiness” brother already referred to. Mr. Verner was behind the counter serving tea and buns, etc. He was one of the first to whom I testified of my newly found blessing. He listened very sympathetically and then he asked me a very pertinent question. “What effect has it had on your comrades?” he enquired. The other worker whom I also met behind the counter for chats was a Mrs. Mozley, another member of the J.E.B. It was from her that I first heard of the J.E.B. Convention at Swanwick. “I never should have been able to come out here and serve Lord will let me have another seal on the first anniversary of my sanctification day, I thought. Gradually the Holy Spirit gave me liberty to ask the Father that I might lead another Christian into the blessing of entire sanctification on the first anniversary of the day on which I entered in myself. So I prayed and waited on the Lord. A few days before October 23,1917, the first anniversary day, I came into contact with a bright young Australian in a Salvation Army hut.

I had happy fellowship with him, and to my delight I found that he was most responsive to the truth of entire sanctification. He felt his need and on October 23, 1917, on my anniversary day, and almost at the very same hour of the day, also in a quiet room in another Salvation Army hut, I knelt with this dear Australian Christian and he took the same step of faith that I had taken myself exactly a year previously. When I saw him the next day he was beaming with joy. “Yes, my heart feels pure now.

Something has been taken away from it,” he testified. Needless to say I was filled again with joy at this further seal that the Lord gave me to my faith for entire sanctification. A few days afterwards I left this particular camp and so did not see my Australian friend again. It seemed as if the Lord had purposely guided my steps to this spot in order that I might get in touch with this Australian Christian in time to lead him into the blessing exactly on my sanctification anniversary day. After the war I came back to England and he returned to Australia, but the link of fellowship has been maintained by correspondence for nearly thirty years. He has six sons, and in a recent letter I have received from him, it is clear that he is still going on in the way of faith, rejoicing in the Lord. the Lord like this,” she told me one day, “unless I had received a wonderful blessing from God at the last Swanwick Convention.” At the time I did not realize all she meant. Since then, however, I have greatly enjoyed the published accounts of the J.E.B.

Swanwick Conventions and understand much better the nature of “the blessing of Swanwick” that Mrs. Mozley enjoyed. Both Christian workers have now passed to be with the Lord. I well remember the last occasion on which I saw Mr. Verner. I was present at a holiness meeting in London on November 3, 1945. There I met my “Holiness” friend of 1916, and while we were chatting Mr. Verner came up to us. His face lit up as he shook us warmly by the hand and greeted us with “How wonderful! We three first met in France nearly thirty years ago, and here we are still going on with the Lord! How wonderful is His preserving mercy!” and we all joined in a hearty “Praise the Lord!” I must now return, however, to continue the story of the first world war. The time came when I had to leave the happy spiritual atmosphere of the meetings which I enjoyed during my stay in the base camp. I had then been over one year and nine months in France, and once again I had to face the stern realities of that terrible world war and rejoin my battalion in the trenches. But the blessing of the Lord that I had experienced had given me greater courage to face the dark, unknown future. The experience of the infilling of the Spirit imparts power, not only to witness in a spiritual meeting, but to face the realities of life as they are, day by day, whether dark or bright, threatening or peaceful. The word that the Lord had given me as a seal to my sanctification was that I should not only be filled with joy and peace, but should also “abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost,” that is, that I should keep on believing and hoping in the Lord no matter how dark and trying the circumstances.

There were times in France when I felt utterly wearied, but there were two blessed promises which sustained my soul in the midst of all I passed through. They were: “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able,” and, “Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”

Whenever I was tempted o faint in soul, these promises came with wonderful reviving power. Early in 1917, after being rested in body and refreshed in soul, I rejoined my battalion at the front. During that year I was in action on the Messines Ridge and “went over the top,” fortunately under the protection of a very heavy creeping barrage from the British artillery. Later on I was with the battalion in the Ypres salient, and I was stationed once at Menin Road. On one occasion at Menin Road, I felt the rush of air as a shell passed by me and fell a few feet away. It dropped, however, without exploding; otherwise I doubt whether should have survived to tell anything about it. Toward the end of the summer the whole of our brigade was engaged in intensive training in preparation for an important attack at Passchendaele. During this period of training, one or two other Christians and myself arranged some little informal prayer and Bible reading meetings in the camp. These meetings were held in a small wooden hut, and for about a week or two we had some of the most blessed gatherings we ever experienced with the battalion. We started the meetings with only three or four, but they gradually increased in numbers until the little hut was filled, with some sitting on he floor. The chaplains heard about the meetings and came and joined with us. One night some of the men asked me to give them an address on the second coming of the Lord and so the next evening I came prepared with a rough diagram of the lines of the teaching of the Second Advent Testimony and Preparation Movement and had a very attentive hearing. These meetings were the crowning spiritual blessing I had while I was with the battalion. Then one morning when the brigade were on parade in full marching order to proceed to another sector of the line, I suddenly fell ill and collapsed. The strain of the two-and-a-half years in France had at last told on me. I was taken away by ambulance and never again saw the firing line but was given light duty in France until the Armistice in 1918.

PRESERVED THROUGH THE GREAT WAR Through the mercy of God, I was preserved unhurt in body during the furnace of the Great War. When I came out to France, I was one of three Christians in our company and we were nicknamed the “holy trinity.” One of the three was reported missing. It was never known what really happened to him, but it was feared he was killed. The other was severely wounded. Through the mercy of God, I came through unhurt. But most wonderful of all was the deep spiritual blessing which I experienced during that terrible time. It seems simply wonderful to me to think that, during all the darkness and pressure of those terrible war years, the Lord should bring me into the light and experience of entire sanctification while serving in the army. Truly God gave me “the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places” (Isaiah 45:3). Praise the Lord, He will be the same blessed Resource to all who put their trust in Him, even in the midst of the darkest and most trying circumstances. During the Great War, I came into contact with many but have lost touch with them since. There is one link of Christian fellowship, however, forged in the furnace of the war, which has not been broken and that is my fellowship with my brother in Christ of the International Holiness Mission whom I met at Staples in 1916. As each Armistice Day comes round, we endeavor to meet each other or write, and compare notes as to our spiritual experiences. It was during the war, when I was home on furlough, that I had the privilege of meeting that man of God, the late Mr. David Thomas, the founder of the international Holiness Mission. On one occasion I spent the last night of my leave in his home before returning to France. It was a blessing to me to gather with him and his family in worship at the end of the day. I had to leave early the next morning in order to catch the boat train, but David Thomas was up early to see me off. As a parting gift, he handed me A Holiness Manual, by the late Dr. G. D. Watson, which was a great help to me. As David Thomas bade me “Godspeed” it was a great encouragement to me to feel that I had the benediction of this man of God as I faced the unknown future and once again returned to the scene of the war. THE “GRAND DEPOSITUM” OF METHODISM In closing my account of my spiritual experience during the Great War, I must acknowledge the great blessing I received through reading holiness literature. Next to the Bible, holiness literature and the truths concerning the second coming of the Lord were the greatest blessing to my soul out in France. I read with great interest Wesley’s Christian Perfection, Fletcher on Entire Sanctification and his Checks to Antinomianism, Dr. Daniel Steele’s Milestone Papers, Wesley’s Sermons, and any other writings that expounded entire sanctification by faith. The holiness writings of Dr. G.

D. Watson, of America, were a special blessing to me. I owe a great deal to Dr. G. D. Watson’s works. I As a result of my study of this literature in the light of my own experience, I discovered what Wesley meant by his reference to “the grand depositum of Methodism,” namely, that the Lord had raised up the Methodist people “to spread scriptural holiness throughout the land,” and to witness to the distinctive truth of entire sanctification by faith. I had been brought up among the Brethren and had never come into close contact with Methodism and I was ignorant, therefore, of the Methodist teaching on holiness. I did not fully appreciate, at the time of my spiritual crisis on October 23,1916, the deep and wonderful way the Spirit of God was working with me. I can see now, however, that, though I was ignorant of the Wesleyan teaching, yet the Spirit of God was leading me into the heart experience of that distinctive blessing of entire sanctification by faith which was so much emphasized by the Wesleys and the early Methodists. I was not aware of this, however, until some time after I had taken the step of sanctifying faith. I then discovered that the old Methodist hymns on “full redemption,” which I had not known before, just expressed my heart experience; and it was a delight for me to find that the blessing which the Holy Spirit had made so real to me had been the theme of the preaching and the hymns of the Wesleys and of the writings of Fletcher, of Madeley, over 150 years before. I felt like a spiritual explorer entering into new and beautiful territory and discovering to my joyful surprise what a delightful company of holy men and women had entered this territory long before my arrival and with whom I could now enjoy blessed fellowship in this deeper experience of grace. Of course he truths concerning this fullness of blessing were all the time in the Bible, but I needed the special infilling of the Spirit to make those truths a living, vital reality in my experience. The aspirations wrought in my heart by the Holy Spirit during the Great War are beautifully expressed by the following verses of Charles Wesley: — Open my faith’s interior eye, Display the glory from above; And sinful self shall sink and die, Lost in astonishment and love.

Confound, o’erpower me, with Thy grace; I would be by myself abhorred; (All might, all majesty, all praise, All glory be to Christ, my Lord!)

Now let me gain perfection’s height, Now let me into nothing fall, Be less than nothing in my sight, And feel that Christ is all in all.

FOREIGN MISSIONS One of the immediate results of the baptism of the Spirit in 1916 was to stir me up to a deeper interest in foreign missions. Five weeks after that blessing I wrote Mr. David Thomas as follows: — “One result of the fullness of the Holy Spirit’s indwelling Presence has been to intensify and deepen my love for souls. The Lord has now specially laid the burden of the unevangelized heathen on my heart by mean of Oriental Missionary Standard. I feel I must make a real offering to the Lord for this work and so I am sending you $ — for the work of the Oriental Missionary Society.”

Two days after sending his letter, I wrote in my pocket Bible: — “Decr. 3rd, 1916. O Lord, if Thou shouldst tarry until the conclusion of this war and wilt preserve me safely until the end, I promise I will offer myself to Thee for service in the foreign mission field, and by Thy grace will go if it be Thy will for me to do so.” It was not, however, the Lord’s will for me to serve Him on the foreign mission field.