======================================================================== WRITINGS OF HENRY C MORRISON by Henry C. Morrison ======================================================================== A collection of theological writings, sermons, and essays by Henry C. Morrison, compiled for study and devotional reading. Chapters: 29 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TABLE OF CONTENTS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1. 00.00. Morrison, Henry C. - Library 2. 01.00. Baptism with the Holy Ghost 3. 01.01. Stating the Case 4. 01.02. When Obtained 5. 01.03. Who it is for 6. 01.04. Who are Eligible 7. 01.05. What he does 8. 01.06. His Indwelling 9. 01.07. Experiences 10. 02.00. Confessions of a Backslider 11. 02.01. Early Reminiscences 12. 02.02. Off for College 13. 02.03. Begins a Fast Life 14. 02.04. Seeks Revenge 15. 02.05. Army Experiences 16. 02.06. A Delightful Acquaintance 17. 02.07. Deepening Friendship 18. 02.08. Homeward Bound 19. 02.09. Taken Prisoner 20. 02.10. A Symphathetic Friend 21. 02.11. A Pardoned Sinner 22. 02.12. The Rainbow of Promise 23. 03.00. Five Great Needs 24. 03.01. The Hickory Limb 25. 03.02. The Mourner's Bench 26. 03.03. Education 27. 03.04. Employment 28. 03.05. The Policeman's Billy 29. S. Will a Man Rob God? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 1: 00.00. MORRISON, HENRY C. - LIBRARY ======================================================================== Morrison, Henry C. - Library Morrison, Henry C. - Baptism with the Holy Ghost Morrison, Henry C. - Confessions of a Backslider Morrison, Henry C. - Five Great Needs S. Will a Man Rob God? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 2: 01.00. BAPTISM WITH THE HOLY GHOST ======================================================================== Baptism with the Holy Ghost by Henry Clay Morrison Chapter 1. Stating the Case Chapter 2. When Obtained Chapter 3. Who it is for Chapter 4. Who are Eligible Chapter 5. What he does Chapter 6. His Indwelling Chapter 7. Experiences http://www.riseupministries.net/Classics/morrison/baptism.htm PREFACE It is scarcely worth-while to say to the reader that in this booklet on "The Baptism with the Holy Ghost," I have not attempted anything exhaustive, but have tried to set forth an important Bible truth in a plain, simple way. I have often wished for a booklet on this subject so cheap that the poor could buy it, so small that the busy could read it, and so plain that those of the most ordinary learning and intelligence could understand it. I have preached the truth herein contained to many thousands of people, and God has graciously put the seal of His approval on the Word in the conversion of a multitude of sinners, and the sanctification of many believers. I send it out with the prayer that God may make it a blessing to many, and with the request that those who read it with profit will pass it on to others. Your brother, H. C. Morrison formatted for e-Sword by ======================================================================== CHAPTER 3: 01.01. STATING THE CASE ======================================================================== CHAPTER 1 -- STATING THE CASE In discussing the important doctrine of the Baptism with the Holy Ghost, I wish first of all, to state the case; then I shall introduce the inspired witnesses and argue the case from the testimony given by them. (1) In the great scheme of human redemption God has provided that all of His children may receive the baptism with the Holy Ghost. (2) The baptism with the Holy Ghost is bestowed subsequent to regeneration; not at, but after pardon. (3) The baptism with the Holy Ghost is for believers only, and is never bestowed upon the unregenerate. (4) The baptism with the Holy Ghost purifies believers’ hearts, and empowers them for service. (5) The Holy Ghost dwells in, abides with, comforts and teaches those who receive Him. (6) The rejection of the Holy Ghost is fatal to Christian experience. It will be appropriate just here to call attention to the fact that the Holy Ghost is a person. He is the third person in the Trinity, and is one with the Father and the Son, equal with them in eternity, holiness and honor. This fact is plainly taught in the Scriptures, especially in administering the rite of baptism, and in the apostolic benediction. See Matthew 28:19 : "Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." In the closing verse of the last chapter of his second epistle to the Corinthians, St. Paul fully recognizes the equality of the Holy Ghost with the Father, and the Son, in these impressive, beautiful words of benediction: "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen." All of Christ’s sayings about the Holy Ghost, prove His personality. Take for example, John 16:7. "It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you." Notice here the pronoun-Him. It is never proper or scriptural to speak of the Holy Ghost as a thing, but always as a person. Then let us bear in mind that the Holy Ghost is as essentially a person as is Jesus Christ, and that as certainly as Jesus made His advent into the world in Bethlehem, the Holy Ghost made His advent into the world at Jerusalem, on the day of Pentecost, and that the times in which we live are especially the dispensation of the Holy Ghost. We will now consider the first proposition in the statement of the case. "In the great scheme of human redemption, God has provided that all of His children may receive the baptism with the Holy Ghost." When John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness, the burden of his message was the coming Christ, and the baptism he would bestow. Only those who believed John’s message, received John’s baptism, and all of them were assured that when Christ came they should receive from Him another baptism. "I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but He that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire." Matthew 3:11. John administered water baptism with the distinct understanding that the baptism he gave was but a preparation for the greater baptism of the Holy Ghost, which Christ would administer when He came. I have never been able to understand how it is that persons can receive John’s testimony with regard to water baptism, and reject it with regard to the baptism with the Holy Ghost, for as certainly as John administered the one, he promised that Christ should administer the other. So far as John’s testimony is concerned, the baptism with the Holy Ghost is Christ’s prime credential, proving His Messiahship. After John’s definite declaration that Christ would bestow the baptism with the Holy Ghost, if Christ had not bestowed him, John’s testimony would have fallen to the ground. Let us suppose that an intelligent, though sinful Jew, attends upon the ministry of the great wilderness preacher. As John speaks his awful denunciation against sin, crying, "Oh, generation of vipers," and declaring that the "ax is laid unto the root of the trees," and that every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit shall be hewn down and cast into the fire, this Jew is made to tremble because of his sins. He believes the message, the Messiah is coming. He forsakes his sins, and with faith in the Christ that John is preaching, he asks baptism at the hands of John. John baptizes him and says to him, "He that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire." Could this Jew ever forget the promise of John? Would he not say to his friends, "John has baptized me with water, but, he has promised me another and greater baptism, which I shall receive from Christ who is greater than John!" Would not that Jew naturally believe that in proportion as Christ is greater than John, the baptism with the Holy Ghost, which Christ administers, is superior to the baptism of water, which John administers? When Jesus appears, will not this Jew, if he be a true believer in John, follow Jesus, expecting to receive from Him the baptism with the Holy Ghost? Most assuredly he will. That is exactly what they did do. John fully understood the situation. John willingly gave up his disciples that they might follow Jesus. He said: "He must increase, but I must decrease." These disciples of John had been instructed by him that he was only a herald of the coming King, that Jesus was the true Messiah, and He it was that should baptize them with the Holy Ghost and with fire; and they followed Jesus with no other expectation than that they should receive from Him this baptism; and they were not disappointed. After the promise made by John, if Jesus had said nothing of the baptism with the Holy Ghost, those who followed Him, full of faith and expectation, would have been forced to the conclusion that John was a false prophet, and that Christ was not the true Messiah; but they were not doomed to disappointment. John was a true prophet, and Christ was the Son of God, and what John promised, Christ graciously bestowed. The disciples had not followed Jesus long until He confirmed John’s testimony concerning Himself. It was on the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, "If any man thirst let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out. of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake He of the Spirit, which they that believe on Him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified From these Scriptures we learn that the Holy Ghost was to be given to those who believe on Christ. This gift of the Spirit was not limited to the apostles. Notice the breadth of the promise: "If any man thirst, . . . He that believeth on me, . . . They that believe on Him should receive." This promise takes in all believers. It is a narrow and unscriptural view that limits the baptism with the Holy Ghost to the apostles only. These plain words of Jesus, "Any man," "Him that believeth," "They that believe," sweep away all barriers that men would erect between God’s children and the baptism with the Holy Ghost, and teach unmistakably that this divine baptism is for all of God’s children. We notice that Christ repeats the promise of the gift of the Holy Ghost in John 14:16. Jesus had just said to His disciples, "Whither I go ye cannot come." This filled their hearts with sorrow, and He comforted them with those immortal and sure words of promise, found in John 14. "Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." But God had provided still more fully for their comfort, and Jesus said to them: "If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him: but ye know Him; for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you." In the twenty-sixth verse of the same chapter, Jesus tells the disciples that this Comforter, whom the Father will send, is the Holy Ghost. It was after the resurrection, and just before His ascension, that Jesus further confirmed the prophecy of John, and the promises which He had previously made his disciples. See Acts 1:4-5. "And being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith He, ye have heard of me: For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost, not many days hence." These words are plain and easy of comprehension. Command and promise could not be more specific. The pledge of the gift of the Holy Ghost, of which the disciples have heard so much, in which they are bound to be so deeply interested, is vouchsafed in unmistakable language. In obedience to the commandment, and with faith in the promise, the disciples tarried at Jerusalem. The protracted waiting in the upper room while ten days passed by, shows an obedience and faith in the early disciples which modern, impatient professors of discipleship will do well to imitate. No doubt in these long days of waiting by the faithful hundred and twenty, there is a valuable lesson for us. There must be in the disciple of Christ a spirit of genuine submission, obedience, and faith, that will tarry in patient waiting so long as the Lord may see fit to tarry in His coming. When Christ gives a commandment to wait and promises a blessing for those who do wait, we must learn to wait, and to wait without murmur or complaint, until the promised blessing comes. The disciples waited, and not in vain; for, "when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place." How fortunate they were "with one accord." No rebellious spirit, or unbelieving heart, broke the harmony of that glad, humble, patient group, who waited in the upper room. There is a peculiar blessing in the mutual faith of those who love the Lord. In Romans 1:11; Romans 1:12, Paul says, "For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established. That is, that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me." Those who do not believe in, or seek for the Holy Ghost, but rather oppose those who do, will not know the damage they have done the church, or the hurt they have been to the cause of Christ, until the books are opened at the last day. The inspired record says, "And suddenly" (reader, mark that word suddenly). It is thus that the Spirit comes upon believers. "There came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues, like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost." John’s prophecy was fulfilled, and Christ’s promise was kept, in this wonderful baptism with the Holy Ghost. Without doubt John was a true prophet, and Jesus of Nazareth is the true Messiah, the world’s Redeemer. The disciples are confirmed, the world is convinced, sinners are convicted, and three thousand souls are converted on the spot. Lest some one should say this baptism with the Holy Ghost was only a temporary gift to the church, or a special gift, to the early Christians, God, in His wisdom, put in Peter’s mouth words that are plain and unmistakable. "Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized, every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." Acts 2:38. These words of Peter were addressed to the three thousand who, being, pricked in their hearts, had said, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" St. Peter encourages them with the following words of assurance: "For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." Could a promise be stated more plainly, or be more comprehensive? The baptism with the Holy Ghost was for the eleven apostles, for the one hundred and nine per sons in the upper room with them, for the three thousand to be bestowed after they had received remission of sins, for the children of the three thousand, for ALL that are afar off, even as MANY as the Lord our God shall call. The word "call" here evidently means convert, or pardon, or regenerate. Even as many as God shall regenerate, have the promise of the baptism with the Holy Ghost. Beloved reader, with these plain Scriptures before us there is but one reasonable conclusion at which we can arrive, and that is, that in the great scheme of human redemption, God has provided that all of His children may receive the baptism with the Holy Ghost. Permit me to close this chapter, by addressing to you the words of the Apostle Paul to the young converts at Ephesus: "Have ye received the Holy Ghost SINCE ye believed?" If not, it is not because there is not abundant provision made in the atonement, and oft-repeated promises of such a baptism contained in the Scriptures. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 4: 01.02. WHEN OBTAINED ======================================================================== CHAPTER 2 -- WHEN OBTAINED The baptism with the Holy Ghost is bestowed subsequent to regeneration; not at, but after pardon. The above statement is not only abundantly taught in the Scriptures, but is strikingly illustrated in the case of the apostles, and those believers who were with them in the upper room at the time of their receiving the baptism with the Spirit. I am aware that some persons, when hard pressed in their efforts to prove that the baptism with the Holy Ghost received on the day of Pentecost was not a blessing received subsequent to re generation, have contended that the apostles and their companions were only converted on that occasion. The fallacy of such reasoning is quite plain when we refer to the following Scriptures. I call attention first, to Luke 10:20, where Jesus said to the disciples, "Rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven." Now we know that evil spirits are not subject to sinners, but sinners are subject to the evil spirits: but the evil spirits were subject to the disciples; therefore the disciples were not sinners. We know also that sinners names are not written in heaven, but the disciples’ names were written in heaven. Therefore the disciples were not sinners. Now, when we remember that the words of Jesus quoted above were uttered some months before the baptism at Pentecost, we are forced to the conclusion that the disciples were pardoned, regenerated men, long before they received the baptism with the Holy Ghost. We also read in John 17:12, "While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name; those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition." If none of them were lost but Judas, then the eleven disciples were saved; but unpardoned sinners are lost, therefore the disciples were not sinners. Judas himself had once been in a pardoned state, for the Scriptures say that, "Judas by transgression fell." Had this unfortunate man not been in a state of grace, he could not have fallen. In the sixteenth verse of the same chapter, Jesus says, "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." When we remember that all these sayings of our Lord took place some time before Pentecost, we cannot believe any candid mind will ask for further proof that the disciples were regenerated men long before their sanctification by the baptism with the Holy Ghost. We call attention to the history of the revival at Samaria, held by the Evangelist Philip. This was a genuine work of grace. The people with one accord gave heed to the things which Philip spake."... "Unclean spirits, crying with a loud voice came out of many that were possessed with them."... "And there was great joy in the city." The reader may be sure that the great joy was not among the sinners, who rejected Philip’s message. Those who rejoiced were doubtless of the number out of whom the unclean spirits had been cast, and others who, believing the Gospel message, had forsaken their sins and accepted Christ. No Bible Christian will question the excellence and thoroughness of the work done in this revival. "But when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women." Acts 8:19. No language will express what followed so well as Luke’s own inspired words. Hence we quote him: "Now, when the apostles which were at Jerusalem heard that, Samaria had received the word of God, they sent unto them Peter and John: who, when they were come down, prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Ghost. For as yet He was fallen upon none of them." There it is, honest leader. They had received the word, believed in Jesus, the unclean spirits had been cast out of them, they had great joy, and had been baptized. Who will dare say they were not pardoned? But they had not yet received the Holy Ghost. But when Peter and John prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Ghost, and laid their hands on them, they did receive the Holy Ghost. All must agree that this baptism with the Holy Ghost was subsequent to regeneration. Nothing could be plainer. Now, let us take the case of Cornelius. That this man was a pardoned man prior to Peter’s visit to him, and the falling of the Holy Ghost upon him, we cannot understand how anyone can doubt. The Scripture says of Cornelius that he was "A devout man,..... one that feared God, with all his house," ..."gave much alms," ...and prayed to God alway." The angel who visited him said, "Thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God." Can anyone doubt this man’s Christianity? Can the reader conceive of a "devout" sinner, "fearing God, with all his house?" This man’s piety had drawn his family with him into the love and service of God. "The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, but the prayer of the upright is his delight." Proverbs 15:8. Had Cornelius been a wicked man his prayer and alms would not have come up for a memorial before the Lord. But his alms were accepted, therefore he was not a sinner. "He that turneth away his ear from the hearing of the law, even his prayer shall be abomination." Proverbs 28:9. But the prayers of Cornelius were pleasing to God, therefore he did not turn away his ear from hearing of the law, but was obedient, devout, upright. Take the testimony of Peter himself, on his meeting and salutation of Cornelius. "Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons. But in every nation he that feareth Him, and worketh righteousness is accepted with Him." What need have we of further proof, that this man is a servant of God, of a very high order? Sinners do not "fear" God, "and work righteousness," neither are sinners "accepted with him." But Cornelius was accepted with the God he feared, obeyed and worshipped, therefore he was not a sinner, but a Christian. His sins had been pardoned, he was justified before God, "accepted with Him." But he had not yet received the baptism with the Holy Ghost, for this baptism is a blessing bestowed, not before, or at the time of justification, but subsequent to it. While Peter preached to this "’devout," prayerful, charitable, righteous, obedient, God-fearing man, the Holy Ghost fell on him and his God-fearing household, purifying their hearts. We could not wish for a clearer case of sanctification, by the baptism with the Holy Ghost, subsequent to regeneration. I could give other instances, and quote other Scriptures, but if these Scriptures given do not convince the reader beyond all doubt and cavil that the baptism with the Holy Ghost is bestowed subsequent to regeneration, not at, but after pardon, it seems to me that with such an one an appeal to Scripture is useless. To every humble, believing heart, I will say, The Comforter is promised you. Tarry at the mercy seat in faithful prayer until you receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. Through all the history of the Church of Christ, witnesses can be found who will gladly testify from personal experience, that the promise was not restricted to the few, but was vouchsafed to "all" that were "afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." "Seek and ye shall find, ask and ye shall receive." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 5: 01.03. WHO IT IS FOR ======================================================================== CHAPTER 3 -- WHO IT IS FOR The baptism with the Holy Ghost is for believers only, and is never bestowed upon the unregenerate. Shortly before Jesus was crucified He promised His disciples that the indwelling, abiding Holy Ghost should be their Comforter. "Even the spirit of truth," said He, "Whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him." The term "world," here refers to the unregenerate, and Jesus says of them that they cannot receive the Holy Ghost. This fully explains the opposition to the Holy, Ghost, and his manifestations among many professed Christians. They either have never been converted, or they have fallen away into a sinful, cold, formal life, and have ceased to be the true children of the Father. When Jesus came in the flesh to the Jewish church, only those who were Israelites indeed recognized and received Him as the Son of God. The chief priests and scribes could not understand that Jesus was the Messiah even when He healed the sick and raised the dead. Simeon and Anna, the prophetess, had no trouble recognizing Him, even when He was a helpless babe in His mother’s arms. "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him." Jesus Himself said of the unbelieving Jews: "He that is of God heareth God’s word: ye therefore hear them. not, because ye are not of God." John 8:47. Again, in 1 John 4:6, Jesus says: "He that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth and the spirit of error." Just as the unbelieving and godless Jews in the church under the old dispensation rejected Jesus, so do the unconverted and backslidden in the Christian church under the new dispensation reject the Holy Ghost. There is not only the provision in the Gospel for the gift of the Holy Ghost to purify and comfort believing hearts, but there is in truly regenerated hearts a crying out for the gift of the Holy Ghost, an inward longing for the Comforter. Jesus calls it "hungering and thirsting after righteousness." It was to this class that He addressed himself on the last great day of the feast, when He said, "If any man thirst let Him come unto me and drink. . . . This spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on Him should receive. For the Holy Ghost was not yet given." Sinners in the church know full well that the Holy Ghost has His place in the Scriptures. They are willing for him to have a place in creeds and confessions. He may even be alluded to in songs and sermons, but they would shut Him out of the hearts of men. They object to His demonstrations and manifestations. This is so, because spiritual things are spiritually discerned, and they have no spiritual discernment. The unregenerate cannot receive the spirit of truth, "because" they "see him not, neither know him." And now, O reader, if you have not received the Holy Ghost, and have no longing desire for Him, at least at certain periods in your life, without doubt you are in an unpardoned state. And I must close this chapter by addressing you in the language of the Apostle Paul to Simon the Sorcerer: "I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity." May the mercy of God bring thee to a speedy and sincere repentance. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 6: 01.04. WHO ARE ELIGIBLE ======================================================================== CHAPTER 4 -- WHO ARE ELIGIBLE The baptism with the Holy Ghost Purifies believers’ hearts and empowers them for service. Uncleanness remains in the hearts of pardoned believers. This is clearly taught in the Scriptures and sadly experienced by Christians; not only by the early followers of Jesus, but all who come into the kingdom of God by faith, find remaining within themselves a root of bitterness, a strong tendency to evil, a proneness to wander from the God they love. Paul calls this remaining uncleanness, "Sin that dwelleth in me," "The carnal mind, "Our old man" and, "The body of death." This "filthiness of flesh and spirit" remaining in believers greatly impedes their Christian growth, and hinders their usefulness. It manifests itself in unholy pride, vicious tempers, covetous desires, unclean thoughts and imaginations. The soul struggling with this inward enemy is often made to cry out: "Oh wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Only those who are truly justified, and are striving to live a New Testament life in look and thought, are acquainted with these internal conflicts with the "Old man." The unregenerate and the backslidden in the churches are so under the dominion of this evil nature, the "Old man," that they have no conflict with him but are under the sway of his dominion, humor his whims, gratify his lusts and feed his appetites. It is those who have passed from death to life, and are striving after holiness in heart and practice, who find within themselves "a law that, when" they "would do good, evil is present with" them. They learn to their sorrow that the carnal mind is within them, and that "the carnal mind is enmity against God." Writing to the Corinthians in the first verses of the third chapter, Paul declares the situation very plainly: "And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and not with meat; for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. For ye are yet carnal!" The reader will notice that these Corinthians were "Brethren." Yes, they were "Babes in Christ." But they yet had the carnal mind in them. "For ye are yet carnal," says the apostle. What clearer testimony could the Holy Ghost give than this to the fact. that the carnal mind re mains in those who have been born again. These brethren could not have been babes in Christ if they had not been born again. But they were babes in Christ so without doubt they had been born again, born of the Spirit, yet they were carnal, the carnal mind remained in them. How true to experience are the inspired statements found in Romans 7:21; Romans 7:22; Romans 7:23 : "I find then a law, that when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man. But I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind." Observe here that the inward man delights in the law of God. The sinner has no inward man except the "old man," and you may be sure the "old man" does not delight in the law of God. The inward man spoken of here is the regenerated man, the new man, imparted by the grace of God to the penitent sinner by regenerating grace, at the time of his justification. This new "inward man," delights in the law of God, but the "old man" remaining in the nature makes war on the new man, and when the new man would do good, the "old man," (evil) is present with him, to hinder him in carrying out his good intentions. The Christian reader will at once recognize the undoubted truthfulness of these Scriptures for they are corroborated by the everyday experience of believing souls, who, struggling against the "old man," have often been made to cry out. "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death." The baptism with the Holy Ghost casts out the "old man." And the casting out of the "old man," the plucking, up of the root of bitterness, the destruction of the body of sin, the eradication of the carnal mind, the purging out of "the sin that dwelleth in me," are all one and the same thing, which is accomplished by the instantaneous baptism with the Holy Ghost, purifying the heart by faith. This is entire sanctification. This purifying of hearts took place with the disciples on the day of Pentecost, when they received the baptism with the Holy Ghost. Not only do their after lives, as contrasted with their former behavior, manifest this to be true, but Peter bears testimony to this fact in relating his experience with Cornelius and his household. "And God, which knoweth the hearts, bear them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as He did unto us; And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith." Acts 15:8-9. Peter is here referring to the baptism with the Holy Ghost, which fell upon the household of Cornelius and the exact similarity between it and the baptism received by the disciples on the day of Pentecost. The one important feature of the baptism to which he calls attention was the PURIFYING of their HEARTS. When Jesus was present with the disciples assembled in Jerusalem after His resurrection, and commanded them not to depart out of Jerusalem until they received the promise of the Father, He said unto them: "But ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you." This enduement of power was to especially qualify them, not only for their life work, but for personal victory over Satan and sin. This enduement of power which is to be obtained only by the baptism with the Holy Ghost, is the great need of the church in the times in which we live, not only for those who stand in the sacred desk, but for those who sit in the pews also. The work of winning souls from sin to Christ is not shut up alone to ministers of the Gospel, but it is the duty and privilege of all. saved souls so win lost souls to the Savior. It seems like a dangerous and arrogant presumption to undertake the work of Christ and, at the same time, refuse to apply to Him for that Power which He has definitely promised, and which we so manifestly need. It is a sad sight to see an institution claiming to be the church of God undertake to do with organizations, entertainments and festivals the work that can only be done by the enduement of power which comes with the baptism with the Holy Ghost. No natural gifts, mental developments or scholastic training can possibly take the place of the divine energy and unction which alone can be imparted to men by the gift of the Holy Ghost. "We wrestle not," says the apostle Paul, "against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." Reader, shall we go forth to do battle against these mighty foes in our strength, or shall we tarry in humble, faithful prayer for the coming of the Holy Ghost, and the Power which His coming brings? If we wait in humble prayer until we receive Him, then doubtless it can be said of us, "Greater is, He that is that is in you, than he that is in the world." If we must go forth to war against devils and mighty evil spirits! If we must meet in combat the prince of the power of the air, let us meet them endued with the power of the indwelling Holy Ghost. When men enlist as soldiers in the services of the kingdoms of this world, the government for which they fight is expected to furnish them with arms and ammunition. Those who enlist in the services of the King of kings may be sure that He will not ask them to go to war without equipment, and that equipment will be an "enduement of power from on high," received in the baptism with the Holy Ghost. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 7: 01.05. WHAT HE DOES ======================================================================== CHAPTER 5 -- WHAT HE DOES The Holy Ghost dwells in, abides with, comforts and teaches those who receive Him. (1) The baptism with the Holy Ghost inaugurates between the redeemed soul and the eternal Father the most intimate and sacred relations. The human body out of which the carnal mind has been cast, at once becomes the temple of the Holy Spirit. "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" 1 Corinthians 3:16. Again, in the same epistle, 6:19, we read: "What know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?" The kingdom of God is "within you." Luke 17:21. "The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." Romans 14:17. When our Lord promised the disciples that He would pray the Father to send them another Comforter, "even the Spirit of truth," He assured them that the world could not receive this Spirit , "Because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him; but ye know Him; for He dwelleth with you, and Shall Be In You." One of the best preventives against temptation and sin for those who have received the baptism with the Holy Ghost, is the constant memory that God, in the person of the Holy Ghost, is dwelling in them. The thought will keep out all desire for sin, and break the power of the tempter. It will constantly gird up the soul with a blessed assurance of victory, knowing that He that is in us is greater than he that is in the world. (2) I call the reader’s attention to the fact that when the Holy Ghost comes into His temples, our bodies, and purifies them, He comes "to abide forever." When Jesus said to His disciples, "Ye shall seek me; and as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go ye cannot come, so now I say to you," their hearts were filled with sadness, and He comforted them with the promise that He would prepare a place for them, and come again and receive them unto Himself, that where He was, there they might be also. He further assured them that if they loved Him and would keep His commandments, He would pray the Father, and He would give them another Comforter, "That He may abide with you forever." Christ made it a point to put in this word "forever" for the good reason that He desired the disciples to be encouraged with the assurance that the Holy Ghost would abide, not only in the Church, but in the individual who received Him. Not for a few brief years, as He had done, and then grieve their hearts by separating himself from them as He, their Lord, must now soon do, but the Comforter would abide. There would be no more painful separation like that for which He was now preparing them, which must take place in a few days. (3) The Holy Ghost should not only be a purifier (being, sanctified by the Holy Ghost), an indweller, abiding forever, but He should also be a Comforter. This is an important office of the Spirit, the comforting of the hearts of God’s children. In sickness, in poverty, in trials and persecutions, when deserted by friends and pursued by enemies, when in a strange land, and in all the conflicts and vicissitudes of life, the blessed Spirit abiding in the heart constantly gives assurance of His presence, of the salvation of the soul, of the love of God for it, of the efficacy of the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ, and thus keeps the soul in a state of blessed comfort. Let those who have cried to God for comfort in times of distress, learn to cry to God for the gift of the Holy Ghost, and then they will have the abiding Comforter within themselves. (4) Christ not only promised that the abiding Spirit should comfort, but that He should also be our teacher. In John 14:26 He says: "But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, He shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." Again, John 16:13-14, our Lord says: "Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth; for He shall not speak of Himself, but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak, and He will show you things to come. He shall glorify me; for He shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you." With these Scriptures before us, the reader will appreciate something of the importance of the baptism with the Holy Ghost, and the various offices He performs in the redemption of the souls of men. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 8: 01.06. HIS INDWELLING ======================================================================== CHAPTER 6 -- HIS INDWELLING The rejection of the Holy Ghost is fatal to Christian experiences. The greatest sin in past history was the rejection of Jesus Christ by the church under the old dispensation. Often our minds have been amazed and our hearts have shuddered as we have read: "He came unto His own and His own received Him not." We have marveled at the stupidity and hardness of the Jews, who looked into the face of Jesus of Nazareth, heard His words, beheld His miracles, and yet ridiculed and rejected Him. Reader, think you that those ancient Jews were sinners above all men? I tell you they were not, and without doubt those members of the Christian Church under the new dispensation who reject the Holy Ghost, will commit even more grievous and fatal sin than that committed by the Jews in rejecting Christ. In proportion as our light is greater than was theirs, our sin will be more inexcusable than theirs. In the final day of judgment I would as soon stand there an ancient Jew who rejected Jesus, as to stand there a modern Gentile who rejected the Holy Ghost. In fact, to reject the Holy Ghost is to reject the Father and the Son, also. To come to the actual truth, those Jews who really had the Father, did not reject the Son, but, like Simeon and Nathaniel, they recognized and worshipped Him. So it is with those who really have the forgiveness of their sins and true fellowship with Jesus Christ. They will, if properly instructed, gladly receive the Holy Ghost for whom the Son prayed, and whom the Father hath sent to all those who believe in and love His Son. All the preliminary steps in grace, all the elementary blessings in Christian experience, are the preparation of the soul for the reception of the Holy Ghost. It is fitting up and preparing the temple for His dwelling place. The reception of God in the third person of the Trinity into the soul is a climax in the history of personal redemption. It is a sealing of the heart for eternal glory. It is the reception of the Sanctifier, Comforter, Revealer, Teacher and Guide, sent by the Father in answer to the prayer of His Son to cleanse, sanctify, and keep His followers from the evil one, and by His incoming, and abiding to prepare them for residence in the New Jerusalem. The willful and final rejection of the Holy Ghost would prove destructive and fatal to all Christian experience. "I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord having saved the people out of the ’land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not." -- Jude. The grace that one receives at justification does not justify that one in the rejection of the additional grace to be bestowed in the development and perfection of experience, and Christian character, but it obligates the soul thus justified to go forward searching out, seeking after, and submitting to all the will of God. "Now the just shall live by faith, but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him." Hebrews 10:38. Reader, there comes a time in the history of every justified believer, when the Father will answer the prayer of the Son, and send to that believer the Comforter. The Holy Ghost is the promise of the Father, and the promise of the Father shall not fail. He will come suddenly into His temple. Woe will be to the soul that rejects Him when He comes. God is longsuffering. Patiently He will wait, earnestly will He entreat; the Spirit will knock again and again for admittance and full control of the believer’s heart, but God has said: "My Spirit shall not always strive with man." Repeatedly rejected, He will finally take His departure to return no more. Then the poor soul will find its house desolate indeed. Having rejected Comforter, Guide, Cleanser, Empowerer and Teacher, its condition is sad to contemplate. The last person in the Trinity has come, been trifled with, rejected, grieved, and has finally taken His departure from those who would not receive Him in His sanctifying and indwelling power. The last state of such a soul is worse than the first. May God in mercy help the reader of these pages now to make so complete a consecration. and to exercise so strong a faith, that the Holy Ghost, in His sanctifying and keeping power may enter into his or her heart in all His blessed fullness, and never hence depart. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 9: 01.07. EXPERIENCES ======================================================================== CHAPTER 7 -- EXPERIENCES That the reader may understand that the views set forth in the preceding chapters are not peculiar to the author of this booklet, I will give in this chapter several quotations from distinguished Christian scholars, whose views and teachings are quite in harmony with the main thought of what I have written. First, I will quote a paragraph from a work on "The Holy Spirit," by the Rev. John Owen, D. D., some time vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford, an eminent Presbyterian minister. On pages 222 and 223 of this work, under the head of "The Positive Work of the Spirit in the Sanctification of Believers," we find the following: "We now proceed to the positive work of the Spirit in the sanctification of believers; for he not only cleanses their natures and persons from the pollution of sin, but He communicates the great, permanent, positive effect of holiness to their souls, whereby He guides and assists them in all the acts and duties thereof. "I shall comprise what belongs to this part of his work in the two following propositions: "1. There is in the soul of believers a supernatural principle or habit of grace, wrought and preserved by the Spirit of God, whereby they are enabled to live unto God, and perform that obedience which He requires and accepts, and this is essentially distinct from all natural habits, intellectual or moral, however acquired or improved. "2. There is an immediate work of the Holy Spirit required unto every act of holy obedience, whether external or internal . . . (p. 226). We may learn from hence how great and excellent a work this of sanctification is, and that it is a greater matter to be truly holy than most persons are aware of. It is so wrought by ’the God of peace Himself,’ by the blood of Christ, and by the influence of the Spirit." The pious reader will be pleased with the following from the pen of that eminent Methodist preacher, Rev. William Arthur, A.M. We read on pages 62, 63 and 64, of "The Tongue of Fire" (a book that all Christians should read’) : "What a labor of expression do we find in 2 Corinthians 9:8, where Paul wants to convey his own idea of the power of grace, as practically enabling men to do the will of God. ’And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things may abound to every good work.’ Here we have ’abound’ twice, and ’all’ four times in one short sentence. ’Abound’ means not only to fill, but to overflow. The double overflow, first of grace from God to us, then of the same grace from us to ’every good work’ is a glorious comment on our Lord’s word: ’He that believeth on me, as the Scriptures hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake He of the Spirit, which they that believed on Him should receive; for the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified.’ The believer’s heart, in itself, incapable of holy living, as a marble cistern of yielding a constant stream, is placed like a cistern in communication with an invisible source; the source constantly overflows into the cistern, and it again overflows. Happy the heart thus filled, thus overflowing with the Holy Spirit! Where is the fountain of those living waters that we may bring our hearts thither? ’He showed me a pure river of water of life clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.’ (Revelation 22:1). There is the fountain, there the stream: the Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son to the throne of grace! to the mercy seat! and you are at the fountain of all life. Nor seek a scant supply at the source. ’Be filled with the Spirit,’ sounds in your ears, and it you believe, not only will a well ’spring up within’ you, but rivers shall flow out from you. The Spirit, as replenishing the believer’s heart with actual virtues and practical holiness, is ever kept before our eye in the apostolic writings. ’That ye may walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God: strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, unto all patience and long suffering with joyfulness.’ Putting these various expressions together, what a view do they give of the riches of grace! ’all sufficiency’ ’in all things,’ ’always,’ ’abound to every good work,’ ’fruitful in every good work,’ ’strengthened with all might,’ ’according to His glorious power,’ ’according to the power that worketh in us,’ ’filled with all the fulness of God,’ Eternal Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son, answer and disperse all our unbelief by filling our hearts with Thyself. The expression ’filled with the Holy Ghost,’ places before us the human spirit restored to its original and highest fellowship." In speaking to how to obtain this experience, Mr. Arthur says on pages 320 and 321: "As to the way in which this power may be obtained here we have only to recall the lesson of the ten days -- ’they continued with one accord in prayer and supplication.’ Prayer earnest, prayer united, and prayer persevering-these are the conditions, and these fulfilled, we shall assuredly be ’endued with power from on high.’" Nothing could be more plainly set forth than Mr. Arthur’s teaching here that the Holy Ghost is to be sought and obtained in answer to prayer, by believing Christians. Perhaps no pastor in the United States, in the last quarter of a century, was more widely known, and more genuinely beloved, that the Rev. A. J. Gordon, a Baptist minister of Boston, who walked with God, and was not, for God took him up to Himself. In an excellent little volume entitled, "The Ministry of the Spirit," on page 76, Mr. Gordon says: "It seems clear from the Scriptures that it is still the duty and privilege of believers to receive the Holy Spirit by a conscious, definite act of appropriating faith, just as they received Jesus." On page 92 he says: "It seems to me beyond question, as a matter of experience, both of Christians in the present day and of the early Church, as recorded by inspiration, that in addition to the gift of the Spirit received at conversion, there is another blessing corresponding in its signs and effects to the blessing received by the disciples at Pentecost-a blessing to be asked for and expected by Christians still, and to be described in language similar to that employed in the book of the Acts. Whatever that blessing may be, it is in immediate connection with the Holy Ghost." On page 98 he says: "It is easy to cite cases of decisive, vivid, and clearly marked experience of the Spirit’s enduement, as in the lives of Dr. Finney, James Brainerd Taylor, and many others. And instead of describing these experiences-so definite as to time and so distinct as to accompanying credentials we would ask the reader to study them, and observe the remarkable effects which followed in the ministry of those who enjoyed them. The lives of many of the co-laborers with Wesley and Whitefield give a striking confirmation of the doctrine which we are defending." The late Phillips Brooks, Bishop in the Protestant Episcopal Church, reaches a beautiful climax in a sermon on Acts 19:2, in these impressive words: "But here at Pentecost, what was there to call out such prodigies? If what we have said is true, was there not certainly enough? It was the coming back of God into man. It was the promise in these typical men of how near God would be to every man henceforth. It was the manifestation of the God Inspirer as distinct from and yet one with God Creator, and God Redeemer. It was primarily the entrance of God into man, and so, in consequence, the entrance of its spirit and full meaning into every truth man could know. It was the blossom-day of humanity, full of the promise of unmeasured fruit. And what that first Whit-Sunday was to all the world, one certain day comes to any man the day that the Holy Spirit comes to him. God enters into him, and he sees everything with God’s vision." On December 26, 1899, funeral services were held over the remains of Dwight L. Moody, at Northfield, Mass. One of the principal spokesmen on that occasion was Dr. Schofield. Among other things he said: "The secret of Dwight L. Moody’s power lay: "First-In a definite experience of Christ’s saving grace. He had passed out of death into life and he knew it. "Secondly -- Mr. Moody believed in the Divine authority of the Scriptures. The Bible was to him the voice of God, and he made it resound as such in the consciences of men. "Thirdly-He was baptized with the Holy Spirit, and he knew that he was. It was to him as definite an experience as his conversion. "Fourthly -- He was a man of prayer. He believed in a living and unfettered God. "But, Fifthly -- Mr. Moody believed in work, in ceaseless effort, in wise provision, in the power of organization, of publicity. I like to think of Dwight L. Moody in heaven. I like to think of him with his Lord, and with Elijah, Daniel, Paul, Augustine, Luther, Wesley and Finney. "Farewell, for a little time, great heart, may a double portion of the Spirit be vouchsafed to us who remain." I call the attention of the reader especially to the fact that Dr. Schofield said, "He was baptized with the Holy Spirit, and knew that he was. It was to him as definite an experience as his conversion." Mr. Moody himself says: "The blessing came upon me suddenly like a flash of lightning. For months I had been hungering and thirsting for power in service. I had come to that point that I think I would have died if I had not got it. I remember I was walking the streets of New York. I had no more heart in the business I was about than if I had not belonged to the world at all. Right there, on the street, the power of God seemed to come upon me so wonderfully that I had to ask God to stay His hand. I was filled with a sense of God’s goodness, and I felt as though I could take the whole world to my heart. I took the old sermons I had preached before without any power; it was the same old truth, but there was new power. Many were impressed and converted. This happened years after I was converted myself." These quotations will suffice. The doctrine of the baptism with the Holy Ghost is not only a Bible doctrine, but is taught and experienced by the most devout men of all the evangelical churches. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 10: 02.00. CONFESSIONS OF A BACKSLIDER ======================================================================== CONFESSIONS OF A BACKSLIDER By Henry Clay Morrison Chapter 1 - Early Reminiscences Chapter 2 - Off for College Chapter 3 - Begins a Fast Life Chapter 4 - Seeks Revenge Chapter 5 - Army Experiences Chapter 6 - A Delightful Acquaintance Chapter 7 - Deepening Friendship Chapter 8 - Homeward Bound Chapter 9 - Taken Prisoner Chapter 10 - A Symphathetic Friend Chapter 11 - A Pardoned Sinner Chapter 12 - The Rainbow of Promise ======================================================================== CHAPTER 11: 02.01. EARLY REMINISCENCES ======================================================================== CHAPTER 1 - EARLY REMINISCENCES Few people living have an adequate conception of the powers of the human mind to grasp and retain the things that pass through it in a lifetime. I have had ample opportunity to experience the marvelous powers of memory. A man’s mind is like a great storehouse or depot in some seaport in which a thousand things may be stowed away. They are perhaps forgotten, time passes, but by and by some clerk will take a waybill and search from room to room, garret to cellar and drag out dusty bales, boxes, and packages, that had not been thought of for months, but there they are with the proper stamp and address upon them. So it is with a man’s mind. It is stored with a multitude of things that, for the time, he has forgotten, but when occasion arises and he rummages through the garret and cellar of his memory the past events rise up with familiar faces and look him in the eye. I cannot say that I have been a hard student. The fact is I never did give myself up to industrious study of a language, a branch of science, or difficult and hard problems. I didn’t have the industry in me that calls for that kind of work, but I was a great reader, fond of histories, magazines, novels, stories of travel, and all that sort of thing, an d from my boyhood I delighted in reading, and early in life formed the habit of reading late into the night. When reading an interesting novel, I have sometimes read all night long and it was quite a common thing for me to read until one and two o’clock and then lay abed late the next day to the inconvenience of other people. In this way, I contracted the habit of wakefulness and could not sleep until late at night, rarely going to bed even when I had nothing to read, before one o’clock. When I was locked up in the institution from which I write these chapters (and I may as well in the outset confess that I write from a prisoner’s cell) I found myself at great disadvantage because of these irregular habits. The light is turned out on us here promptly at nine o’clock and then I must lie in total darkness and think, while the clock strikes ten, eleven, twelve, one, and sometimes two, before I can find relief in sleep. Could I have had a light in my cell, and books to read, I never would have realized the retentive powers of my memory. But, without a light, lying in the darkness, I have learned to entertain myself with reflections on the past, and I have been surprised to find that all of my past life is written indelibly on the pages of memory. It seems that I have really forgotten nothing. I have been able to go back to my early childhood and to follow myself through life to this sad, dismal place, in a remarkably minute and accurate way. The acts of my life, the places where I have acted, and the very dates, have been burned into my brain. It has occurred to me that there are some thing connected with my sad career that may be communicated to others to their advantage, so I come to you with some of the fragments of the story of my misspent life. I should regret to appear to blame others for my misdeeds and for the calamities which have come upon me. Nevertheless, as my identity is completely concealed and as what I shall say cannot bring any sorrow or hurt to those of whom I shall speak, I shall not hesitate to try to describe, to some extent, the influences that went into the building of my character which made me unfit, and unable to battle against the temptations before which I have fallen. My father was a good man. He was not a man of college education, but had been to the common schools, and was a man of natural ability, read many good books, kept up somewhat with the political and general news of the times, and was quite a reader of religious books and the church periodicals. He was a diligent man in business and accumulated quite a comfortable living. He was a positive man, almost to sternness, a man of just principles and a tender, true heart. My mother was my father’s second wife. He had one son by a former marriage who was a boy ten years older than myself, my brother John, my ideal and delight. Poor, dear John! He was deeply fond of me, played with and cared for me in my childhood and loved me faithfully to the last. It is some comfort to me that my father and John both went away in peace to heaven before I brought disgrace upon the family. My mother was a graduate of a woman’s college. A place where they gave more attention to exact grammar, careful pronunciation and correct spelling than they did to the higher things that belong to the soul. Not that I have anything to say against thoroughness in education, but my dear mother was much more careful of my mental training along these lines than she was in the development of my moral character. She was much more anxious that I should learn how to speak grammatically than she was that I should learn how to make an honest living in the sweat of my brow. Poor woman! She always seemed to feel that I was too precious to do good, honest, hard work with my hands; one of many deluded mothers, with whose unfortunate sons I am now associating in a place where we are forced to do the work that we were, unconsciously, taught to avoid when we might have done it in honor and happiness. My mother had taught school a few years before her marriage to my father and had developed quite a spirit of controlling other people. She never was able to get over this and it was always a question who was the head of our house, and not infrequently we children heard discussions at the table and about the fireside between our parents, which were most unfortunate in their effect upon us and our general family government. I remember well it was the occasion of great disappointment and sorrow to my boyish heart when I was made to realize that my parents did not have the affection and love for each other that is necessary to a genuinely peaceful and happy home. My parents were church members. They were so religious, but they failed to reach that state of piety that would deeply impress their children with the importance of seeking early the one thing needful. I was a willful child, selfish, hard to control, and while my father was inclined to be severe with me, my mother was quite inclined to be indulgent. Perhaps both of them went to extremes and they rarely, if ever, agreed with each other with regard to what I should do, what I should wear, what books I should study, what places I should visit, with whom I should associate, or how I should be corrected and dealt with for my many disobediences and misdeeds. In the end, my mother became my champion and protector, and gradually my father sadly and unwisely, yielded to the situation and gave me up. I can remember clearly when I began to realize that my mother and myself were getting the victory over him and coming to rule the house as we chose, and I began to feel that I could largely do as I pleased without any fear of punishment. The thoughtful reader will agree with me that these circumstances were most unfortunate for my child life. From my very early childhood I attended Sabbath school and was carefully instructed in the great doctrines of Christianity, and believed them very firmly and many times had a strong conviction in my heart because of my disobedience and sinful acts. There is no memory that stands out more vividly before me than the revival meeting in which I was converted. I was just turning into my fifteenth year. There were evangelistic services held in the Methodist Church of which my parents were members. It was a great time of awakening, and many of my schoolmates and best friends were saved, myself among the rest. I need not go into details, but I had a great struggle of soul. There was a strong bent to evil in me, but finally I surrendered and after many tears and much earnest praying, was soundly converted. I can never forget the sweet peace and joy that came into any heart. For quite a number of weeks I ran well, kept company with earnest young Christians and enjoyed the various services of the church, but my early training had not put into me the kind of character that makes stalwart Christian. A child who has not obeyed his parents will find it difficult to live in obedience to the law of his God. While I soon lost the first glow of love which came into my heart at the time of my conversion, I kept a tender conscience and my faith in God, the inspiration of the Scriptures, the deity of Christ, and the personality of the Holy Ghost was clear and unshaken. If I could only have gotten into a Christian school I might have become established in my spiritual life and have made a happy and useful man, but my going away to college proved my undoing. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 12: 02.02. OFF FOR COLLEGE ======================================================================== CHAPTER 2 -- OFF FOR COLLEGE My parents took a deep interest in my education. They had ample means to give me a thorough college training and however they may have disagreed about other matters concerning me, they were united in their purpose to give me good school advantages. I do not care to name the college to which I was sent. The president was a large man of striking appearance, varied learning, and wide experience in the world. He was genial and warmhearted and the students loved him devotedly. While he was a member of an orthodox church, in his religions convictions he was quite in harmony with the modern higher criticism, and I think a sort of Unitarian without any firmly fixed faith in anything only that lie was not in sympathy with any orthodox or evangelical preaching, and frequently made light of what he called sudden conversions." In his chapel addresses he used to say that lie did not like the expression, "getting religion;" that a man got religion like he got an education; that every man was the architect of his own character, that good deeds were like so many bricks laid into a wall of good character. That we must not be looking for some outside influence, or power, to save us or make us happy, but that we must live right, be honest, tell the truth, and despise little and mean things. I think this man worshipped at the shrine of his own works. He had a very attractive and eloquent way of presenting his thoughts. He rarely, if ever, mentioned Christ or the atonement made by him, and I am confident I never heard him mention the Holy Spirit. He talked much of manhood, of self-reliance, of independence, of becoming good by doing good, and all that sort of thing. My teacher in natural science was quite a bright and fascinating young man, enthusiastic in his advocacy of the teachings of Darwin. It was his delight, in a covert way, to ridicule preachers, to point out what he claimed were contradictions in the Bible and boast of his determination to be free from the dominion of the priesthood and to do his own thinking. I well remember that he took the entire hour of one of our recitations to lecture the class on the fact that the orthodox Christian faith had become obsolete, and many of us were quite surprised at the large number of university and college presidents he cited as having turned away from the Scriptures and being in harmony with the views advanced by himself. Under these influences I neglected the Bible, prayer and church, and finally I gave up my faith, and came almost to hate the Bible, and joined with other boys in ridiculing the old faith. I well remember how, while passing through this stage of my experience, I sometimes awoke in the night with a great ache in my heart and a solemn fear would creep over me that I was being led astray, but our professor taught us that these fears were mere superstitions and were common to all heathen people. "There is nothing to fear," he would say, with a great show of assurance. The pastor of the church we attended was quite in harmony with the spirit that characterized the college. He preached much on historical, scientific, and literary subjects. He was quite an orator and large numbers of students attended his church, especially at night when he gave us sermons or lectures on Shakespeare, Browning, Longfellow, and other distinguished literary men. It would have been difficult for any student of my age to have maintained his simple faith in Christ as a Savior from sin under the pressure which was brought to bear against us. I am confident that a number of our professors were delighted when they saw the boys drifting away from their religious moorings. They said it was an evidence of growth in a fellow to find him doubting the legends and superstitions which had been taught him by people who had not had the advantages of modern, scientific education. Gradually all of the anxiety and fear connected with the change which was coming over me, passed away and I exulted in a sense of liberty and felt quite free to think and do as I pleased, and soon learned to laugh at any protest of my own conscience. It startles me as I reflect on the moral condition of that institution of learning. Boys who came there with good religious experiences and a clearly-defined faith in the great doctrines of Christianity, were soon robbed of their belief, their spiritual life was destroyed, their consciences benumbed, and directly they were playing Cards, drinking whiskey, swearing profanely, and falling into those vices which hardened their hearts and polluted their bodies. Not infrequently students were sent away from the institution because of having contracted loathsome diseases from which it seemed impossible to recover them. As I reflect over the wrong that was done me and many of those bright young fellows, I can but feel that our teachers will be held responsible at the judgment bar for the manner in which they trifled with our faith. As all interest in spiritual life died within me, a great love for college sports took possession of me and I wasted my time, neglected my books, and deceived my parents in order to indulge my abnormal love for sports. the money which my father sent to me to defray my legitimate expenses, I wasted in following my college baseball team from place to place, having him afterward to suffer embarrassment and inconvenience by having my bills sent to him for settlement. I was a poor student, lost interest in my books, and after two years left the college, which I first attended, and went farther east to a large and popular institution where I found less of faith, more of immorality, and stronger temptation to indulge my abnormal desire for the excitement of the various college sports, and for games of chance, in which I was frequently indulging. After four years in the two colleges mentioned, I wasted two more years in a university where I was fully confirmed in the unbelief and skepticism which had taken root in me in the colleges of which I have spoken. I am amazed as I look back at the bitter prejudices which seemed to possess both teachers and students in these institutions against the Bible, against the doctrine of the virgin birth of Jesus Christ, against the sinfulness of sin and the beauty of holiness. I do not believe ministers and religious people of this country have any true conception of the condition of unbelief and immorality that exists in many of our great seats of learning. Whatever may be said of the education to be obtained in them, of the opportunities for scientific study and research which they afford, I assure nay readers that there is, in many of these great schools, a condition which tends to brutalize men, to give them a low appreciation of every sacred thing, God, the church, womanhood, the home, the civil law, and everything that ennobles life and makes good character permanent and beautiful. In many of our schools there is a subtle drift toward anarchy; disregard of divine law and human law, a tendency toward the belief that every man should be a law unto himself. A diabolical feeling that there is no sacred Sabbath, that it is stupid to regard one day as any better than any other day, that there is no such thing as sin, that there is no harm in adultery, in taking advantage in business transactions; that after all life itself is not the sacred thing that the Bible would make you believe it to be; that we are to be governed by the great law of "the survival of the fittest," and that every fellow is to get the most out of life for himself that he can, largely regardless of his fellow beings. it is this spirit that has led to revolts and strikes in some student bodies that has at times seemed to threaten the existence of some universities. Of course no professor says these things point blank in lecturing in classes, but as I have intimated there is a strong under current drifting in this direction. As already stated, I was at no time a hard student, but picked up quite a smattering of knowledge of history, literature, geography, and the sciences. I was proficient in nothing. In these schools I enjoyed many social advantages which gave me a certain polish that enabled me to pass for a gentleman and has paved my way to the sins and crimes which have brought me to the cell from which I write these letters, with the hope that some one, reading them, may take warning and avoid the snares into which my feet have become entangled. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 13: 02.03. BEGINS A FAST LIFE ======================================================================== CHAPTER 3 -- BEGINS A FAST LIFE When I finally returned home from college, without graduation, but somewhat disgusted with myself and yet without the shame and reproach that I ought to have felt because of my repeated failures, my father was very anxious for me to go into business with him, but, knowing his serious views of life and intending to be free from the restraints which I felt be would place upon me, I accepted a position as bookkeeper in a large livery and sale stable in the city. Here, you may be sure, I came in contact with a class of men who were of no moral advantage to me. I bad become passionately fond of baseball and spent much of my time reading the sporting newspapers and indulging in loud conversation and heated disputes over this, that, and the other champion-losing not a little of my salary betting on my idols. The first thing I stole was the time that belonged to my employer. When I ought to have been busy with my bookkeeping, I was at a baseball park, race track, or pool room. Frequently he spoke to me about my negligence and I made promises and many good resolutions but did not have in me the power to keep them. The wasting of one’s time, which bus been paid for by one’s employer, is the beginning of dishonesty that will deaden the conscience and lead by and by, at least in many instances, to the appropriation of money. I spent almost two years on my first job and then secured employment as a commercial traveler. I succeeded very well in this business and got a good salary, but wasted my money in fine clothing and high living. Occasionally I visited my father who was growing old rapidly. He was what is called a "hen-pecked" man. He had resigned himself to the situation and had become a deeply pious man and spent much of his time reading his Bible and, I have no doubt, lived a life of true devotion. When I would visit him, he showed the tenderest concern for me and frequently tried to talk to me about my wild ways. I could see that he was full of anxiety and fear for my future, and while I treated him with courtesy, I felt perfectly safe and independent of all his counsel and warnings; thus the time went by, my heart growing harder and I drifting further and further from the path of righteousness. My brother John became a Christian when but a boy and always looked on the serious side of life. He was not a melancholy man, but a sober man. He was a fine student and graduated from college with honors. While in school he commenced preaching and directly after his graduation entered actively upon his life work of preaching the gospel. John followed me with many letters, good books, and prayers. I neglected his letters, read but few of the books he sent me, and felt a sort of pity for him that he should be so dull as to imagine his prayers were of any account to me. After about a year on the road, I learned to play cards successfully. I played at first for small sums of money to make the games exciting, and finally, as I became more expert, I bet to win money and was sometimes quite flush never winning large sums but frequently up into three figures and perhaps three or four times reached four figures. I thought quite well of myself and was beginning to believe that I was quite an expert with brilliant possibilities ahead of me at games of chance; but frequently I was so badly beaten at cards and horse races that betting, for a time, lost its influence over me, and I gave myself more diligently to my business and, for a few months, saved up nay money with careful economy, only to risk it again and lose; while I did not give up my employment, I spent many a night at cards. There is no more exciting and dissipating life than that of gambling. Games of chance stir the blood, excite the mind, affect the nervous system, break down the morals, assassinate the conscience, and degrade a man as few things practiced among men. Constantly on the road, spending almost every night in some pool room or gambling den or theater, I became passionately fond of excitement and gave almost no time to the companionship of religious friends Or the reading of books of any kind except the most exciting works of fiction. All the time I had a great faith in, and a great love for my brother John and would frequently visit him; his influence calmed me. I delighted to take long walks with him and talk over our early life and the happy days we had spent together. He was pastor of a large church in one of our northern cities, which had been builded for middle-class people in a thickly settled residential part of the city. Most of his people were poor, at least in moderate circumstances. In his church there was a widow who kept a small millinery establishment and did quite a prosperous little business. Her daughter a tall graceful, beautiful girl, sang in John’s choir This widow and daughter took the greatest possible interest in all the meetings held at the church, both of a religious and social character. On visiting the place, I was strongly impressed that they had designs on John and gave him a word of warning. He spoke very earnestly of their sincerity and devotion as Christians and their deep devotion to the church, but felt that I was mistaken in their feeling any selfish interest in their pastor and I saw in the course of the conversation on the subject, that John was quite fond of the young lady and was not surprised, some months later, when I received an invitation to attend the marriage of John to the pretty daughter of the milliner. Somehow, I had learned that the girl was the discarded sweetheart of a medical student and felt that she was not the girl for John to marry, but attended their wedding and hoped in my heart that she would make the wife that so true a man deserved. Directly after his marriage John was moved to another city and to quite a prominent church which paid him a very respectable salary. At once the mother of his wife closed up her establishment, went out of business, and went to live with John and his wife, and I noticed how readily they assumed considerable superiority, put on all manner of high-toned airs and sought the association of the most wealthy and cultured people, not only of John’s congregation, but of the wealthy class living in the neighborhood of his church. I shall not forget how angry I became on visiting John sometime after lie had moved to this new field of labor when, the table, his mother-in-law absorbed most of the conversation with a dissertation on the kind of husband a man ought to be; how he ought to provide for his, wife, how he should treat her, and how he should shield her from hardship and how patient he should be with her in her various nervous states; in fact an eloquent lecture on the duties of a husband, with many remarks on what a woman’s needs were, how impossible it was for a pastor’s wife to meet her social and church obligations without certain servants and various equipments. She talked as if John were receiving a salary of four or five thousand per year instead of fifteen hundred. John bowed his head in meekness, was deeply in love with his wife, and had learned that when his mother-in-law proposed to give a lecture it was best to remain silent. I spoke to him about it afterward. He admitted that the situation was unfortunate but could see no way out of it and was quite disposed to go forward making the best of the circumstances. John’s wife soon purchased a fine bred, fox terrier puppy, on which she lavished much of her time and affection. A little later on, she was quite inclined to become a fashionable invalid and spent no little time at the telephone calling up the drug store and asking for advice from a handsome, young, infidel doctor, whom she had selected as her family physician and whom, I learned afterward, had been an intimate friend of hers while attending medical college in the town where her mother kept the millinery store. From some friends I learned that this young doctor was quite a reprobate, and suggested to John that it would be wise to secure an older and more experienced man for his family physician. He said it would suit him to have some one else, but that this man was an old friend of his wife’s and she preferred him to all others. Having had quite a little experience with the world and its wicked people, I had a very uncomfortable feeling over the drift of things in my brother’s home and although far from what I should be, I loved John devotedly, and was jealous for his happiness and usefulness. The doctor suggested that my sister-in-law attend a certain watering place through the summer. Her mother went with her, John paying the bills for both of them. I made it convenient to drop into the place about ten days after they went up and was not surprised to find that the young physician was spending his summer vacation at the same watering place and he and my invalid sister-in-law were having rather a gay time together. I left the place without any of them knowing that I had been there or had observed their movements, but with a spirit of vengeance burning in me, making up my mind to say nothing to John but that if I was fully convinced of infidelity I would take the matter into my own hands. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 14: 02.04. SEEKS REVENGE ======================================================================== CHAPTER 4 -- SEEKS REVENGE In the fall of the year I made my headquarters in the city where my brother was preaching, Securing rooms in a hotel only a few blocks from the parsonage. My sister-in-law and her mother seemed quite displeased that I should be so near a neighbor, but I made it a point to see but little of them and conceal from them my knowledge of their distaste for me. Meanwhile I took a devoted friend into my confidence, and, without the young doctor suspecting it, kept a close eye on his actions and found plenty of material to confirm the fears I had for sometime harbored. Up to this time, wicked as I had been, I had never taken a human life or felt any desire to do so. As I have already said, I had become a gambler. I had stolen my employer’s time and in representing my goods and settling up accounts with the firm for which I labored and their various customers with whom I dealt, I had not been strictly honest and yet I by no means looked upon myself as a this but my heart was hard and wicked and bitter hatred was rising in me and I could feel the spirit of murder taking possession of me. I had secured a pistol which I carried constantly and, frequently passing the young doctor’s office, I felt like stepping in and shooting him down at his desk. If I could have induced my brother to leave his wife, I would have cheerfully given every dollar I had to have taken him to any part of the country or over the seas or anywhere to get him entirely away from her and her influence and the disgrace that I felt, sooner or later, she would bring upon him. But knowing his love for her, I never breathed a hint of my suspicious to him. Frequently I would be out of the city for weeks and sometimes months at a time and my mind would become somewhat relieved on The subject that agitated and enraged me, but on my return my confidential friend would tell me of things that had occurred during my absence end would throw me into a frenzy of anger and yet neither of us were positive that I would be justified in shooting the wretched man on the basis of the unwritten law. The next summer John’s wife again went away to the watering place, the young physician went up and spent his summer vacation and I drifted along in his wake and looked with venomous eye on his devoted attentions to the beautiful, silly woman, who was breaking my innocent brother’s heart. John was so devotedly in love that he was quite blinded to the faults of his wife and yet her treatment of him had become such that he had been forced to conclude that she had no real affection for him. I shall not go into the details of what followed, but suffice it to say that directly after my sister-in-law’s return from the summer resort, my brother went away from home to spend a week at a religious convention. My confidential friend sent me a telegram to come at once to the city. He met me and we talked together and arrangements were made. That evening, which I remember with a shudder in my poor soul, my friend and myself went to the parsonage, it being near midnight. I crept quietly to a back porch where a back door led to an alley way. At a given moment, my friend rang the door bell violently; all was quiet. He rang again and then heat with his fiats upon the door. I heard a noise in the house and directly the young physician, with his coat on his arm and his shoes in his hand glided from the back door on to the porch. I had an electric flashlight in my hand and threw the glare of it in his face. I shall never forget his startled look as he recognized me. No word was spoken; it all occurred in an instant. The electric light was in my left hand, the forty-four in my right, and there was a tremendous crash. The muzzle was within a few feet of the poor fellow’s left breast, and he sank to the floor without a word. I ran rapidly through the alley and down a back street for three blocks, came out quietly into the street with a cigarette in my mouth, entered the hotel at the side door and went up a back stairway, threw off my clothing and leaped into bed and assumed to be sound asleep when some one beat on my door and said there was a telephone call for me to come instantly to the parsonage, my brother’s residence. I dressed hastily, ran to the telephone, and called up to know if anyone was sick. My brother’s mother-in-law said: "For mercy sake come quickly and bring a physician with you if you can find one convenient." I left word with the night clerk to send the hotel doctor around at once, and ran to the house. I found my sister-in-law fainting with hysterics, her mother wild with excitement. They said an awful murder had been committed on the back porch. They sup posed that possibly two burglars had met there and fought with each other, that they heard a pistol shot and the mother-in-law looking out of the window could see the dead man in his shirt sleeves without his shoes on. She supposed he must have been undertaking to rob the house and had been shot dead. I called for a lantern and going out with the doctor, who had by this time arrived, turned the unfortunate man over and the mother-in-law, who had followed me, screamed out, "Why it is Dr. George Prater!" The coroner was summoned, the undertaker was called, and the next morning a little after daylight the dead body was taken away. I telephoned my brother to come home at once and I shell never forget the look or his sad, white face when ha came. His wife was in a hysterical condition, he did all he could to solace her but she refused to be comforted. A few days later she was sent to a sanitarium and my brother, being granted leave of absence from his church, went away to visit our father. The newspapers were full of accounts of the tragedy, the reporters indulging in all sorts of guesswork and imaginations. No one seemed to suspect me of being in any way connected with the unfortunate affair. The young doctor seemed to have no near relatives in the city and those best acquainted with him, knowing his character, said that his untimely death was the logical sequence of the course he had followed, let his blood be upon his own head, and so there was no special effort put forth to ascertain the cause of his death, or who was the perpetrator of the deed. Being a little afraid to hasten away lest I should be suspected, I remained in the city for several weeks and flattered myself that I succeeded in wearing an air of perfect innocence. Afterward I went about my business as usual, traveling here, there and yonder, and carrying with me a load much heavier than I had anticipated as I had thought over the matter. As I lay awake many nights reflecting over the matter, I thought of many better ways out of the trouble than the one I had chosen. I condemned myself for my action upon the ground that the woman was not worth the price I had paid in seeking vengeance for my brother. I deeply regretted that I had not left the family to their fate trusting my brother in the merciful hands, of the Christ he loved instead of madly determining to blot out the life of a fellow-being. The thought of this tragedy has haunted me through the years. Sometimes I have almost succeeded in convincing myself that I did right, but then my better judgment, like a rising tide, would sweep away the frail barriers that I had tried to build, and I would again have to admit my unwisdom and the great wickedness of my action. I grew restless and found that I was incapable of attending to business and would hurry from town to town and city to city, hardly taking time to show my samples or to take orders from the merchants who desired to purchase goods from the firm I represented. I had resigned my position and was making arrangements to join Gomez in Cuba and help the patriots in their struggles against the Spaniards, when war was declared against Spain. I at once joined a volunteer regiment and was thoroughly glad that my regiment was ordered to the front, hoping that in the excitement of battle and becoming familiar with death, would have the effect of quieting my anxieties and relieving my mind of the distress which had fastened upon me because of the sad tragedy that now hung as a black cloud over my life. The excitement attending our landing in a new country, the strange and interesting surroundings, the effect of marching, the thrill of battle, the benumbing influences of walking about among dead men, did very much to occupy my mind and, for the time, I found not a little relief from the gaunt specter that haunted me. Sometimes I felt like it would be best to so expose myself that I would be killed, at other times I was inclined to rush headlong into all manner of sin and try, if possible, to so harden my heart that I would be without feeling, and then again, I would wonder if it was possible for me to repent and find that pardon I had once enjoyed, but in these better moments the skeptical teachings that I had imbibed from my unbelieving teachers in college would rise up and chill my soul, and I would hope that after all we were all only well developed apes, hardly responsible for what we did. And thus I was tossed about twixt hopes and fears. Although I laughed loud, and recklessly, I was a very unhappy man. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 15: 02.05. ARMY EXPERIENCES ======================================================================== CHAPTER 5 -- ARMY EXPERIENCES There were a great many young college and university men in the volunteer army during the Spanish-American war. No one looked for a long war or much serious fighting, and we all believed in our superiority over the Spanish soldiers as fighters, and many of us young men looked upon the war as a sort of outing or picnic and went in for the excitement of it and a jolly, good time generally. The fighting did not amount to so much, but there were some distressingly hot moments before it was over, and a number of fine young fellows were cut down by bullets and a great many more, in fact some thousands of the boys, were swept by disease into untimely graves. "Strange to say in those days and nights about the camp fire, while I was trying hard to persuade myself that I had certainly ascended from apes, and that it mattered but little if one ape should kill another, I found myself quite inclined to talk on religious subjects. My distressed state of mind drove me to seek to confirm myself in unbelief. If I could only have found some one who could have proven to me, beyond a doubt, that the Bible was a concoction of stories and fables gotten up by uninspired and designing men it would have lifted a load off of my guilty soul. I was not much surprised, and somewhat comforted, to find most of our college and university men, especially those from the East and Northeast, were unbelievers in the Scriptures. I met with quite a number who, like myself, had once been Christians but had been robbed of their faith in the Scriptures, in the schools they had attended, and, like myself along with the giving up of their faith, had given up their morals also, end had le miserably wicked men. Skeptical college professors seem to forget that the old faith which they regard as musty superstition, has a powerful moral effect upon men’s lives; that it lifts up high standards of honesty, sobriety, and virtue, and these in the way of promised rewards and punishments, offer most powerful incentives toward a right course of conduct, and true manly living. There is that in the nature and surroundings of a young man, that draws him very strongly toward an improper and dangerous course of conduct. An unquestioning faith in the Bible and the future life, revealed in its pages and what it says of the final fearful outcome of sinful conduct, places a powerful restraint upon a man. It gives him both hopes and fears to check and brace him to resist temptation and to develop strong and pure character. The modern destructive critic in the college or pulpit, destroys this wholesome faith in the Bible, takes off the restraints, unbridles the appetites, cuts loose the latch of the passions and sends young men into rampant wickedness. Of course, that is not their purpose, nevertheless it is almost certainly the result of the course they pursue, many of them are doubtless acquainted with the facts, and yet seem perfectly willing to take the risk involved in the propagation of their free and easy notions about the inspiration and authority of the word of God. The soldier in the United States army finds very little to restrain himself from sin, or to help him, self to a life of purity and right living. A large per cent of the army officers are materialistic in their views. They too have the taint of unbelief that is so common today in many of our schools, and among a large per cent of the public man of the country. Comparatively few army officers, whatever their views may be with reference to the Scriptures or the religious life here and hereafter, wield an influence that has any moral effect upon their soldiers. The chaplains themselves seem to be for the most part, political chaplains. That is, they were men who had a pull. They were not appointed to the chaplaincy because of any especial fitness for the position, but because they had friends who were able to secure for them the position and they wont along for the money, the recreation, and the novelty of it instead of to watch over and protect the boys from the ruin of army life. It is wonderful how the social vulture will gather about an army camp. The very worst of men and women come flocking in there from all quarters and settle down around the soldier boys to live off of them. Saloons and brothels, gambling dens and dives, will spring up like mushrooms at any place where soldiers are stationed for even a few weeks. In the Cuban campaign, the people swarmed like flies about our camps and the sin and degradation were something fearful. Just after the war closed, and while we were still in camp in Cuba, I received a letter from my father telling me of the death of my poor brother John. It turned out that John had been suffering from diabetes, and while the doctors felt that the tragedy which had occurred at his house had broken him down and perhaps helped to hurry his trouble, nevertheless the die had been east for the poor fellow, and it would have been impossible, under the most favorable circumstances, for him to hare lived but a short time. This aroused all of my compunctions of conscience. I could see now if I had let the matter entirely alone, John would soon have gone away in peace to heaven and been saved beyond those so unworthy of him, to live and sin as they saw fit, and I would have had no blood on my hands, no guilt on my conference. John’s death seemed to be the breaking of the one last link that held me on somewhat to hope for hater things, and seemed to fall away deeper into unbelief and indifference than before. I plunged into excess, frequently drank to drunkenness, gambled away what money I could get my hands on and rushed into sin, not only to gratify my carnal inclinations, but with the deliberate purpose of so hardening my heart that my wicked enjoyments might not be disturbed by the cries of my conscience. Wicked as I was, I do not suppose that I was any worse than a very large per cent of my associates. I do not think that the average minister of the gospel has any real conception of the amount of sill that is going on around about him, of the number of fearfully hard men one will meet with in a day who live as if there were no Bible, no God, no judgment, and no hereafter. So far as any outward observation is concerned, that is the way a very large per cent of us lived in the army. And, as to that matter, sad to say, in many of the great colleges and universities. When the Cuban war closed, I came home for a time, found my father ill rapidly declining health, and deeply concerned for me. While he looked upon me with great solicitude and I could easily imagine his thoughts, he was careful of his words and the dear man did not dare to exhort, entreat, and warn me as I am sure his heart ached to do. As for my mother, I have chosen not to discuss her in these articles. I might say however that she was quite a proper woman, attended her church, had very rigid notions with reference to table etiquette and other little things that she magnified into matters of great importance, devoted herself largely to literature and gave some attention to philanthropic movements most of which concerned people over the seas and far away. I doubt not she had real love for me, and there was yet lingering in me enough of the human to have a very tender regard for my mother; in fact, too much for me to say more of her in these articles. I remained at home but a little while; found myself restless and without any desire at all for employment or care for setting myself up in business, or looking ahead to the accumulation of property, or what people called success. The army suited me better than anything else, so I re-enlisted with the regulars and went to the Philippine Islands, where I lived as the animal, I had been taught in the university to believe myself to be an army brute of sin. I found, in the regular army, more men than you would think who had had some advantages in the world, but, like myself, had made poor use of them and were now seeking to bury themselves alive. We had but little fear of death and the lives of others were not sacred to us, so the camp, the raid, the skirmish, and the excitement of man hunting, suited us about as well as anything in which we could have been engaged to kill our time and throw our miserable lives away. During my time of service in the army I found several soldiers, who, like myself, were carrying a burden of blood; had been connected with killings, one way and another on account of women, sweethearts, wife, or sister. I think in every case they had lived to regret the folly of their rash deed, and like myself, they were seeking to drown the voice of a guilty conscience in the noise and excitement of army life. Men may ridicule the old Bible all they choose, but those who trample upon its commandments will, in the end, kindle within themselves a fire of torment they cannot put out. Sometimes they may flatter themselves that they have about extinguished it, but it will break out and blaze up afresh, consuming all their happiness and all their hopes. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 16: 02.06. A DELIGHTFUL ACQUAINTANCE ======================================================================== CHAPTER 6 -- A DELIGHTFUL ACQUAINTANCE When my three years term in the army expired, I started for the United States, but stopped off in Hong Kong, ran up to Canton, and knocked about considerably in southern China. I fell into bad company as was my habit, and my little savings, received from Uncle Sam at the close of my term of service, were soon swept away in drinking and gambling. I worked my way on a steamer to Shanghai expecting to seek employment, earn some money and return to the United States. But it is easy when one is well on the way down the hill to go from bad to worse and at Shanghai I drifted into fearful depths of degradation. I failed to find employment in Shanghai that would give me anything like good remuneration, simply picking up a job here and there, became discouraged, and spent most of what I earned for bad whiskey, stopping at once of the cheapest lodging houses I could find and lying around the wharf to help load a ship, or discharge a cargo, or pick up any odd job that came in my way. Frequently, when recovering from one of my drunken sprees, I was strongly tempted to commit suicide, often trying hard to persuade myself that the teachings of my college professors, who sneered at the Bible and made so little of human life and the hereafter, were correct, but the memory of my experience of my early boyhood clung to me and although I sometimes stood upon the brink, I feared to take the leap into the dark. It was when I had reached a very deep depth of degradation and hopelessness that all incident occurred which was really a turning point in my life. I was working on a small steamer that ran down from Shanghai to the mouth of the river to meet the incoming ships. As the channel of the river is not deep enough to permit the large ships to come up to the city, they anchor near the mouth of the river and small steamers run down to bring up the passengers. One day we were bringing up quite a large company of people. I was, at the time, fireman on the boat, and being quite warm had come up out of the boiler room do catch a breath of fresh air. I was covered with perspiration and the dust and grime from the cool I had been shoveling, and certainly in my bloated and red-eyed condition I presented anything but all attractive appearance. As I leaned on the rail of the boat, a group of elegantly dressed and unusually handsome ladies sat on the lower deck conversing with each other. It was so delightful to hear the English language spoken by Americans, that I turned about and looked at the party, almost unconsciously gazed at them; when one of the women, a beautiful creature with golden hair, fair face, and blue eyes, looked up to me and asked the distance from the mouth of the river to Shanghai. When I answered her, "About twelve miles," she smiled beautifully and said, "Excuse me, but you are an American," to which I answered that I was. Upon this she asked me with reference to my native state and on my telling her that I was from a certain state, "Why," she said, "that is my state," and upon further inquiry it turned out that I was quite well acquainted with the city in which she had been born and raised and in which she now had her home. She came and stood with me by the rail of the boat and we conversed for several minutes. Under the spell of her charming influence I forgot my soiled and disgusting appearance and also forgot my duties until the stern voice of the engineer aroused me and called me back to my coal heaving. During our conversation I learned that this young woman was going out to visit her brother, an American gentleman who was connected with a large business firm in Shanghai. While I had no acquaintance with her brother, I knew of his business firm, something of his reputation as a substantial man of affairs and knew him when I saw him on the street. Fortunately he did not know anything of me. After I had fired my engine and just as our boat was pulling into the landing at Shanghai, I again went on deck and was surprised and delighted that the fair young woman, with whom I had been talking, as she came out with some hand baggage, looked up and nodded me a kind good-bye, and catching a beautiful rosebud which was pinned at her breast and handing it to me she said, "Take that to remember a friend from your old state over the ocean." I do not think that I ever had a possession that I prized so dearly as that little flower. Poor prisoner that I am tonight, with my little effects in a box here at my feet, treasured away in a piece of oiled paper and shut up in a little case made out of cedar wood with my own hands, is that precious little rosebud. Somehow through the drifting years it has been a sort of link that has bound me on to hope and again and again, when it seemed that I was ready to despair, the rosebud has reminded me of the smiling and beautiful face that thrilled me with some of the noblest desires that ever came into my depraved heart. I heard the young lady remark to some one of her group of companions that she expected to remain in Shanghai for at least a year, and that night on the ragged soiled bed in the old shack in which I lived, I lay awake and dreamed of the past and the future. I thought of the golden opportunities which I had thrown away, of the cultured people with whom I had once been associated and the miserable creatures among whom I now lived. I was able to see myself by contrast. I could but compare the beautiful young woman with the fair face, golden hair and beaming eyes with my own bloated, sin-burdened and begrimed self. There seemed to be a great gulf fixed between us so wide and deep that there was no hope that I would ever be able to cross it, but a strange change came to me that night. I determined to give up the use of strong drink and tobacco, to work hard, to save my earnings, and to strive to at least be a decent human being. I will not undertake to tell the reader of the tremendous conflicts I had with the appetite for strong drink, but I won the fight. I was receiving fairly good wages on the little steamboat and saved my money with greatest care. Within two weeks’ time that little rosebud had lifted me out of the old shanty into a fairly respectable boarding house and by the end of a month I was decently dressed and in my leisure moments avoided the vile portions of the city of Shanghai and walked the decent streets and was pleased and comforted when anyone spoke to me in my own language. I went to the American consul and told him something of my story, of course keeping back the worst part, but informed him that I had served in the army and was anxious for a more remunerative and respectable position than the one I now held. Through his influence, I was able to secure a clerkship in a freight office on one of the large wharves at quite a good salary and a few weeks thereafter had a little bank account, was stopping at a nice boarding house and wearing the first tailor-made suit I had had on since I first joined the army. The reader may be sure I had not forgotten the beautiful woman who gave me the rosebud. By following her brother from his business house, I located his place of residence and also found out where he, with his wife and sister, attended church. I had not been inside of a church in many years, but I fully realized that unbelief and the wickedness which had come along with it had been my undoing, and, influenced no doubt more by the woman of whom I had spoken, than by any desire to become a Christian man, I commenced attending church. The services were rather formal; the preacher was not a good speaker nor did he seem to feel the power of the truths he was proposing to proclaim. I suppose I was a poor listener and very incompetent to judge of the good qualities of a sermon; at all event, I did not seem to derive much benefit from the preaching. But it was a change and a change for the better and the novelty of it entertained and somewhat refreshed me. The singing sounded very sweet and took me back to the days of my boyhood, reminded me of my dear brother, John, and his warm heart and earnest Christianity. While I had given up faith in the Bible, or at least tried to do so, I could not give up my faith in John, and while I had striven hard to doubt my own immortality, I could not for a moment help believing that John was somewhere in a conscious state of existence, and that he was in a state of peace and happiness. During my time in the army and the dissipation which followed, I had sadly neglected reading, but I now secured some good books and when not engaged at my work put in much of my time reading and in six months from the time I had come so unexpectedly into the possession of the beautiful little rose, I was a very much changed man. I was no Christian, but I was sober. My heart was not changed, but there had awakened desires and longings in me which were certainly drawing me in the right direction My health was fully restored. I stood six feet tall in my stocking feet and was a robust well proportioned man with strength above the average As the time went by I was promoted, my salary increased and in some business matters I was brought in contact and became acquainted with the brother of the young lady I had met on the steamboat. He in turn introduced me to has wife and sister at the church and in due time I was invited to visit their home where a delightful acquaintance sprang up between myself and Miss Rosalind Fawnsworth. This was the name of the woman who by one little act of kindness had started me on the road to better things. Of course, I said nothing of our previous meeting and, it would have been impossible for anyone to have recognized me as the poor bum to whom she gave the little flower that had done so much for me. I frequently walked home with her from church and occasionally took her out for a drive, was introduced by her to a group of intelligent and interesting people. It seemed that a new era had dawned upon me and I sometimes felt as if genuine happiness was a possibility, and I should have been happy, but for the sad secret I carried hidden in my heart. A man who takes the life of his fellow-man shoulders a fearful burden to carry through life. Only those who have had the experience that has haunted me can have a real conception of the unrest that attends the man who has taken away the life of his fellow. The specter leans with him over his books at the desk, walks with him on the street, sits with him at the table and is hanging on his bedside when he goes to his restless pillow, startles him from. his slumber, and grins with a cruel familiarity in his face when he arises from his broken rest to meet another day of remorse. I would that those who may read these lines may fix a deep resolve within their hearts to be saved from the burden I had so foolishly taken upon my shoulders. In spite of it, however, there was hope rising up in me for better things. It is useless for me to tell the reader that I was passionately in love. The object of my affection was in every sense worthy. She was of good family, educated and accomplished. She had a high moral sense, she was a Christian with an unclouded and restful faith. She was tender-hearted and compassionate, and was full of cheerfulness; there seemed to be no unkind thought or impulse about her. She was one of those women in whom a man could confide absolutely. Like all true women, she was genuinely affectionate, and as the days went by, although a modest and reserved woman, she gave frequently cause for me to believe that she had some feeling for me other than mere friendship which so readily springs up between people from the United States who meet even casually in the far away. oriental countries. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 17: 02.07. DEEPENING FRIENDSHIP ======================================================================== CHAPTER 7 -- DEEPENING FRIENDSHIP I now began to feel an interest in life I had never known before, and devoted myself to business with great earnestness. Notwithstanding I had failed in the proper appreciation of my school advantages, nevertheless I passed easily as an educated man and had picked up much information in college, university, army and foreign travel, and such reading as had come to me, all of which enabled me to be quite useful to my employers who evidently thought well of me and advanced me in my work until my salary was sufficient to keep me comfortably and put by a neat little sum of savings. The change which had come to me was quite remarkable. Next to the religion of Jesus Christ, there is nothing that will so powerfully influence a man as an ardent love for a good woman. As the time went by I received encouraging indications that my attentions and devotion to Miss Fawnsworth were genuinely appreciated, and I will not delay the reader with details of a story which is thoroughly interesting to me, of how I courted her and won the pledge of her love. For a while my past was at times almost blotted out of my memory, and I was a happy man. My way was clear, save for a small cloud upon the horizon, which now and then swept across my sky. No man can be genuinely happy who does not believe the Bible and rest his faith in Christ. He may have pleasures, hopes, and many blessings, but he is an unanchored man, his soul is not at rest. So it was with me even in my brightest days. There was uneasiness haunting me because of the knowledge of my past life, the memory of my crime and the fear of detection. Some people doubt the existence of a personal devil. During these days I came to be almost orthodox on the subject of a personal devil. It seemed that he whispered to me almost audibly, and told me my happiness could not last, that my crime would be found out, that Miss Fawnsworth would learn the story of my past life, that if she, the beautiful, pure Christian that she was, only knew my history and real character, she would fly from me frightened as a dove from a filthy vulture; and thus was I harassed more or less in the midst of the new joy that had come to me. The year passed. Miss Fawnsworth extended her stay in Shanghai three months longer; three happy months; the memory of them brings to me a rift in the cloud’s that have settled about me and here in my prison, in the dark nights, lying on my cot, I love to pull down the curtain of my past life up to my meeting with her and, as far as possible, to shut out what has followed those happy months and to think, and dream, and hug to the heart of my memory those golden days. Before Miss Fawnsworth sailed for the United States we became engaged to be married. I should have come with her, but I was under written contract to remain with my employers for some months later. My salary was now quite large and I knew that I would have great need of this money with which to set up housekeeping after my marriage. Painful as it was, we agreed that she should return home and I should remain some months yet in Shanghai. When the sad day came I went with her down the river on the little boat, the very craft on which I had first met with her. I shall never forget her graceful form and beautiful face as she leaned on the rail of the ship after I had bidden her farewell on the deck, and looked down at me as I stood on top of our little steamer and she waved her handkerchief as the ship sailed away. I watched her from the top of our boat until the distance swallowed up the ship and it seemed that my heart sank within me. I occupied myself with my business, found some pleasant pastime with the new acquaintances I had made, practicing the closest economy and looking forward to the happy day when I would sail away to the United States to take my beautiful bride. There were dark hours of trial and temptation and many suggestions that I would be detected if I should ever return to the United States. The letters came and went on every ship from our American shores. Instead of relaxing, distance only intensified my ardent love and longings for the happiness I felt the future held for me. I gathered from hints in the letters that came to me that Miss Fawnsworth’s health was not good. Her brother finally confided to me that her physicians and friends at home were very uneasy about her. My anxiety was almost beyond endurance and I wrote begging her for permission to come to her at once, but she urged me to continue at my post of duty and assured me that she would soon be much better. Her trouble developed rapidly and the physicians decided that an operation would be necessary. Of course, I knew nothing of this. The day before going upon the table she wrote me a most beautiful letter. It lies here upon my table by me tonight and long before that letter reached me in Shanghai, she was sleeping quietly in her grave and her beautiful spirit had flown away beyond the stars. I shall not undertake to tell the reader of the disappointment, agony, and desperation that seized my heart with the grip of a demon when the sad news of her death came to me. I felt as if the great Being who knew my secret and my many sins, had intervened and caught the beautiful creature away from the eager arms of a poor wretch that were extended to embrace her. I strove hard for a short time against the waves and billows that went over me, but it was in vain. The change that had come to me for the better was not a change of my moral character so much as a change of my habits, and that upon a selfish basis. It had not been the love of Christ that had so remarkably affected me but the love of a beautiful woman. Had she lived and had our lives been united, it may be that I would have won out in the long run and it may be as the years went by the real beast that lurked in me might have broken loose and brought sorrow to her heart. I regret to have to confess that I turned to drink to bury my sorrow and soon became unfit for business and lost my position. I recovered somewhat, steadied myself, and determined never again to go back to the awful depths of a gutter drunkard. I was restless and it seemed impossible for me to remain in any one place. I had no desire whatever to come back home, so falling in with a young fellow from Philadelphia, who was going out to India to buy goatskins, I put in what of my little savings I had not squandered and we sailed down to Hong Kong, round Singapore, up the straits and landed in Calcutta. We traveled extensively in India buying goat skins and shipped them to the United States. The country was so intensely warm that I found I must abstain from strong drink in any considerable quantity or make a quick run to my grave; and as little promise of happiness as this life held out to me, I dared not take the leap into the uncertainties of the future. While traveling in India I fell in with a very interesting young missionary engaged in evangelistic work; a young fellow who had come out from my own country some years before and was traveling among the English-speaking churches holding revival meetings. I spent several days in a city where he was engaged in meetings, we stopped at the same hotel, I attended his services and got deeply interested in him and his work. He was a man of culture, of unusual intelligence, and remarkably gifted for the work in which he was engaged. He spoke with great earnestness, sometimes with genuine eloquence and, in the pulpit, in the hotel, and on several long walks which we took together, I was made to feel that I had found in him the highest type of Christian I had ever met. He was fully endued with the spirit of Christ as revealed in the New Testament. My conscience was somewhat awakened and I was thinking very seriously as I sauntered about the streets and parks and sat in my room waiting for several days to meet a native who represented a large firm engaged in our business, but unfortunately, one day I stepped into a news stand and bought one of the leading magazines from the United States, in which was a lengthy article setting forth the views of a number of leading university presidents and prominent educators who utterly repudiated the old Christian faith, speaking in contemptuous terms of the views of orthodox Christians such as the young man with whom I had been associating. It was like a blighting frost upon the tender plants that were striving to break through the hard ground of my heart into the sunlight of hope and faith, and I flung away every vestige of purpose and, as far as possible, the desire for a better life. After some time in India, we came on through Aden, up the Red Sea to Port Said. We did some business in goatskins in Egypt and Palestine, came on through Europe, stopped for some time in Paris, where I spent most of my savings and the profits on my recent enterprises, drinking, gambling, seeing the world and plunging into it with a hollow laugh and a hardened heart. While in Paris I engaged in some enterprises that I had never participated in before in the way of dishonest transactions, trying to reason with myself that this life was all there was for me and I ought to seek to get out of it the most possible. I barely escaped arrest in Paris for my misdemeanors, was shadowed by the police but was able to evade them and slip away for London. Strange to say this new venture in wickedness seemed to affect me as human flesh affects a man-eating tiger which, after having once tasted, he does not relish any other repast than one made up of a human being, and; I found arising in me a strange fascination in the secrecy and vigilance necessary to a criminal course. I was possessed with the desire to match my shrewdness against that of the police with the notion that I could commit almost any crime and get away without detection. I found myself reading with great interest any account of criminal transaction, their escapes, arrests, punishments, etc., and entertained myself and my companions pointing out their mistakes and the clumsiness with which they had managed their affair, and how cleverly it might have been done. This new passion was coming to master me and, strange to say, the appetite of strong drink somewhat abated and while I drank frequently, I was able to so control myself that I rarely felt anything like intoxication. I spent some months in London, the great rendezvous of thieves, crooks, and criminals of every kind. It was far from my mind to become a sneak thief, or to indulge in any of the worse class crimes, but I had gotten the idea that there was little or no harm in taking fine jewelry or a purse which was left lying around carelessly about a man’s premises and indulged in such things with something of the zest with which an old fisherman seeks a clear, rocky stream for bass, or an experienced hunter goes into the mountains for deer. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 18: 02.08. HOMEWARD BOUND ======================================================================== CHAPTER 8 -- HOMEWARD BOUND Finally, there came into me a desire to return to the United States, and, like many another hopeless, hapless human being tossed like driftwood on a stream which is heat first upon this coast and then that, I sailed away for New York. Upon landing I undertook to get a letter to my father and learned in a note from the postmaster that he had died quite a while ago and that my mother, whose health was poor, was spending the winter either in southern Florida or in Havana, Cuba. This information was something of a relief to me. I felt sure that if there was any better world father and John had met there in great peace, and faulty as I was, I felt it would be my duty to visit my mother if I knew where to find her, but so long as I did not know where she was., I was under no obligation to visit her and therefore tossed away all thought of any sort of responsibility and plunged into the seething human ocean of sin in the great American metropolis. In time I drifted to Chicago where I was arrested for burglary and brought to trial, but escaped the justice which I deserved for lack of testimony; drifted to St. Louis, helped to rob a bank in a little western town, got away with a few thousand to my share which was soon squandered, and roamed about the west assuming to be an easy-going, careless fellow seeking the boldest and most wicked of associates, never missing an opportunity to talk against religion and the Bible and reading with interest and, as near delight as was possible for myself to feel, anything, and everything that was said in the Outlook, Literary Digest, daily papers, and other literature against the old faith of the devout people who really loved God and trusted in Jesus for salvation. Those men who boast of being higher critics and who cast doubt on the inspiration of the Scriptures, and the awful responsibilities which a man must meet in the other World for his wicked conduct here, may be sure that their writings are hailed With delight in bar-rooms, brothels, and all dives of sin and iniquity. Men who give themselves up to wickedness nevertheless are men. They have some intelligence, they have some conscience however dead it may be and, again and again, there is an inclination to be stirred with fear lest they must meet, and be held responsible for their conduct at some judgment bar or in some awful afterworld where the heart and life are uncovered in the white light to the gaze of the intelligent universe. To destroy these convictions among the vicious class, is to take a very dangerous risk and I predict that the time is coming in this Union when there will spring up from the seeds of doubt that are now being sown, a fearful condition of utter unbelief and widespread anarchy. It is not at all impossible that in this unbelief in the colleges and universities of the country, lie the germs that will lead on to a state of society that will ultimately result in the overthrow of the republic. The great civilizations of ancient times were destroyed. The great cities, centers of commerce, art and culture are now places of desolation and waste. History makes plain to us the fact that this desolation and waste were brought about by the abounding wickedness of the people. My experience forces me to believe that as the Bible has been held up to ridicule, and disbelief in the fundamentals of the gospel has been taught far and near, and faith has dwindled and died, along with the increase of doubt, there has come an increase of deviltry and disregard of great laws and forces that lie at the very foundation of civilization. The man with strong, natural inclinations to sin, and strong outward temptation urging him on in the direction of his natural inclination, with the fear of consequences removed, is a very dangerous factor in society. I understand very readily that there is a class of people who will ridicule such preaching as this from the cell of a prison; there are others, who, remembering that I was well born, and grew up in a Christian home with all the advantages of good society and college and university life, will realize that after such varied experiences as I have passed through that I have a right to speak. That it is my duty to do so; that it is perfectly consistent that I should point out With the finger of warning to the young men of the rising generation the pathway that led to my undoing. There is no doubt in my mind, but today, I might be a happy and useful member of society had I retained the faith and followed the example of my devout father instead of listening to the sophistries and ridicule of conceited college professors, who were as unsound in their philosophy as they perhaps were, in some instances, in moral character. In my drifting westward, I was finally brought up on the Pacific coast and landed in San Francisco, the center of worldliness, with the same reckless "don’t care," with reference to the hereafter. The rebuilding of that city had drawn to the place great numbers of strong, rough, determined men and it was the general belief that whether God had used the earthquake for the destruction of the old city or not, that the new city had as far surpassed the old one in wickedness, as it did in the magnificence of its modern architecture. The very atmosphere of San Francisco seems surcharged with movement and energy. The ordinary man farther East, seems to become extraordinary in whatever line he follows, when he strikes the rushing current of life in San Francisco, and I here turned myself loose in wickedness with the notion that it would be quite easy to evade the representatives of the law. I was soon however apprehended and brought before the courts, was found guilty and served my first term in prison. Six months penned up behind iron bars seemed only to whet my appetite for adventure along the line of my profession and, on being set free, I started East with a couple of acquaintances who, like myself, had wandered out West, and being unwilling to return to New York without the means for high living, we determined to rob a train. This was the most dangerous and desperate enterprise in all my history as a criminal. We selected our place near the top of a long grade in the mountains of Nevada, carefully planned the enterprise, but unwisely spent a few days in a village near the place where we proposed the robbery, which we carried out quite successfully, so far as the mere transaction was concerned, but not so far as the amount of booty obtained, which was trifling in comparison with what we had promised ourselves. As soon as the robbery became known, the officials of the village on missing us suspected that we were the guilty parties, struck our trail and pressed us hard for several days. One of my companions was shot to death. Poor fellow! To all human appearances he went out utterly unprepared. We had abandoned our horses and had gone on foot into the mountain crags where we were closely pressed by a posse of officers who never missed an opportunity to take a snipe at us with their long-range rifles. One of my associates and myself ran some twenty paces from a huge boulder to a cliff where we could not only screen ourselves for the time, but from behind which we could travel quite a distance without exposing ourselves to the fire of our pursuers. When number three undertook to run across the clear space he was fired upon and hit in two places. One shot broke his left limb below the knee and the other, passing through his body, perforated one of his lungs and cut a vein from which the poor fellow soon bled to death. When we saw that he had fallen we waited for him, and he dragged himself to the protection of the cliff where we pulled off his coat, made a pillow for his head and, while my associate climbed to the top of the rock and took several shots at our pursuers which forced them to halt and conceal themselves, I gave our dying friend some water out of a canteen which I carried and asked him if I could render him any service. He gave me his watch and what valuables he had on his person and looking me in the face said to me: "I have never told you my true name; I came of good family and enjoyed excellent advantages but wasted them. Many a time during my reckless life I have determined to down-brakes and change for the better, but it is all up with me now. It seems hard to die in this place alone, but it looks like one who was getting as little real happiness out of life as I was ought not to complain." He weakened rapidly from the loss of blood, became quite exhausted and fainted but rallied somewhat; his mind wandered; he called for his mother, then seemed to be greatly frightened at something, struggled almost to a sitting posture and fell back, stone dead. I called to my companion who was firing away at the top of the rock, that he was dead and we had better continue our flight. He leaped down and we ran away, but were soon hemmed in by some parties who had made a circuit during the delay, and forced us to change our course. We separated and I ran on not knowing whither I went or what had become of my comrade. I afterward learned that he was captured a short time after our separation. The sun was burning hot on the barren mountain, the glare almost blinded me and perspiration trickled down my face into my eyes. I had eaten all of my scanty rations and was weak and hungry and the water in my canteen was hot, though I treasured it to its last precious drops which I drank and threw away the canteen. A feeling of desolation came over me. Here I was, a desolate, ruined, hunted man. In the nature of things, every good citizen on earth must be against me and was bound to unite with the forces that pursued me as a wretch unfit for freedom and a dangerous menace to society. As I stumbled on, I determined if I could make my escape this time, I would reform my life and strive once more for better things. Sometimes I had a strong impulse to turn and stand at bay and fighting to the last to court death. But bad as I was, I couldn’t find it in my heart to shoot down another one of my fellowmen, and I was somewhat opposed to being shot. I could hear the yells and shots of my pursuers. There were not less than fifteen or twenty men following me in the shape of a crescent on the right hand and on the left, I judged very close and now and then I caught the glimpse of a man dodging from rock to rock about even with me. I had climbed up out of a depression to a slope reaching the edge of a broad plain comparatively free from any obstruction or place of concealment. It was my judgment if I undertook to cross this plain, I would be shot down, so I unbuckled my cartridge belt and flung it away, tossed my pistols and rifle into a gulch, pulled off my coat, made a pillow of it and lay down utterly exhausted in the shadow of a great boulder. As I lay there waiting for my captors, not knowing but they would perforate me with bullets the moment they saw me and caring little what happened, my life passed before me. I thought of my home, of those who had once loved me with tender solicitude, of the happy days I had known in my early life, of the battles and defeats that had come to me later on and I was forced to admit that whatever the opinion of the higher critics and college professors with reference to the inspiration of the Scriptures, there was one statement written in the Old Book that my own experience had sadly verified, namely: "The way of the transgressor is hard." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 19: 02.09. TAKEN PRISONER ======================================================================== CHAPTER 9 -- TAKEN PRISONER As I lay there waiting and thinking, I thrust my hand into the pocket of the left breast of my shirt, and took out a small photograph and a little rosebud wrapped in a piece of oiled paper. The photograph was of the woman of whom I have written, whom I have loved so dearly and who was torn so soon from me by death. The rosebud was the one she had given me on the deck of the little steamer the first day I had looked into her angel face. As I looked at these little tokens, my heart cried out within me against the cruel fate which had followed me, and for the first time in many days tears came into my eyes. Folding up the precious little mementos I replaced them where I had carried them for so long and, overcome with fasting and fatigue, I fell asleep. After some time, I know not how long, I was aroused by a voice saying, "Wake up here!" and opening my eyes I found I was surrounded by a group of not less than half a dozen men with their Winchester rifles pointed at me. "Throw up your hands!" My hands went up as I rose to a sitting posture and I said: "Gentlemen, I am your prisoner. I have thrown away my arms and shall make no resistance." One of the men came forward and with a good deal of display of authority clicked handcuffs upon my wrists and jerked me to a standing posture. Fortunately for me there had been no one killed in the train robbery, or I believe these men would have made short work with me. As it was there was much profanity, rough talk, and threats, but having killed one of our number, and captured the other two of us, they were very well pleased with themselves and, after the first excitement which followed getting me safely into their clutches, they treated me as kindly as I could expect under the circumstances. We had a rough journey back from the mountains and attracted great attention at every point where we stopped for refreshments, took a train, or changed cars. I was finally landed safely behind the iron bars of a prison, and I must confess a sense of relief came over me after the excitement of the robbery, the flight into the mountains, the chase and exhaustion, and then the weary journey of return. I seemed to be dead inside, feeling was almost entirely gone from me and I was more brute than human. I ate my food, slept soundly, read the newspapers, looked back over the past, which seemed like a troubled dream, and into the future, which looked blank and dark enough. I had sown the seeds of am and was reaping the harvest of sorrow. As the days went by my nerves relaxed, my whole physical and nervous constitution rested from the tremendous tension of the past few years, and I seemed to wake out of a strange dream. Like the Prodigal Son of whom I had read in the good old Book in my boyhood days, I came to myself, and realized that I was indeed in a far country. But it seemed too late to resolve to arise and go to my father’s house. Strong iron bars stood between me and the home of my childhood. My father was dead and gone; my mother, I had no idea where she was, and was fully determined that if it were possible for me to keep my secret, she should know nothing of my checkered career. There are many such men in the world. Men who have drifted from their homes and then fallen into sin and crime. They are lost to all who ever knew them, lost to society, to hope, liberty, and they wear out their poor miserable lives toiling in some prison, concealing their identity while their sad hearts quietly eat themselves away in bitterness and disappointment. The reader must not understand that I was a penitent. I had not reached the point where I grieved for my sins; I grieved that I had been detected in my sins and brought to account for them. As the time of my trial approached, which was very soon after my incarceration, I felt no disposition to employ a lawyer, I never had denied my crime, I felt sure of punishment and doggedly awaited it, feeling that it would be something of a relief to begin to work out the weary years between me and liberty, with some sort of employment that would give exercise to my body and a degree of activity to my mind. My trial was quite a formal affair and I was sent to the penitentiary in short order for a period of not less than ten, and not more than fifteen years. When I was brought to the prison and stood inside of a circle line, and my clothes taken from me and burned, my hair shorn close to my head, and I was bathed and put into a striped suit, my heart sank within me and there settled upon me a dead heavy weight of disappointment, shame, and protest against my fate which seemed to blind my soul, and crush my very body. I was one of the practical evil results of modern popular unbelief, which is disseminated from so many colleges and universities, and not a few pulpits, and that too by men who are so shallow and ignorant of the real philosophy of life that they imagine themselves to be benefactors of society. It was my good fortune to be placed in a prison whose chief warden was perhaps as suitable a man for the position he occupies as any other man ill the country. He was genuinely interested in the welfare of his prisoners, he was careful to see that we had a sufficiency of healthy food, proper baths, and were made as comfortable in our cells as prisoners could hope to be even in these progressive times, when the spirit of humanitarianism is abroad in the land. Our chaplain, at the time of my incarceration, was merely a political chaplain. He had been appointed because of the pull he had with certain men in office, and not because of any special qualifications he had to fill the office; he was of no special benefit either to the prisoners or the state. There did not seem to be anything especially bad in him; he was simply a figurehead. He went through the discharge of his duties in a perfunctory way, drew his salary, came to the prison when he had to, and got away as soon as possible. Many of the guards, and not a few of the foremen about the prison were coarse, rough men who seemed to take pleasure in the discomfort of the unfortunate men under their control. I am quite safe in saying that there is no doubt but many of our penal institutions, instead of being places of penitence and reform, are schools of vice in which men are hardened in sin and crime. Several of the foremen and guards of our institution seem to take delight in annoying and torturing those under their control, and not a few of our prisoners were so hardened and imbruted in their crimes, that they in turn sought every opportunity to provoke and in any possible way annoy those who had charge of them. Of course, they sought to do this so as not to bring the wrath of their tormentors down upon themselves. On entering the prison I resolved to be as good a prisoner as possible and make the best of a bad situation. To be sure, I was overwhelmed with my situation, discouraged, and outraged, and somewhat sullen. I was pat to work in a paint shop. My employment was that of staining and varnishing chairs. I soon learned to execute my work with a degree of efficiency and was able to complete my task and have some time to work for myself, which I did with some financial advantage, saving up a little money which I deposited with one of our prison officials, taking a receipt for same. The money was to be turned over to me when my time was up, or at any time I should demand it. After my first year in prison we were fortunate in securing in the chaplain a man who really loved the poor souls of the unfortunate fellows he had come to minister to. He spent almost all of his time in the prison, moving around among the prisoners, speaking kind words, looking after our sick, finding out about the location of the families and affairs of our poor boys, and writing letters for those who could not write for themselves. His influence for good was felt in the prison in a very short time after his arrival. He preached with great earnestness, not infrequently weeping while offering salvation to the poor condemned wretches who sat before him. His influence affected the guards, there was less of roughness among them, there was general improvement in the discipline and conduct of the prisoners, and not long after the arrival of our new chaplain, several of our men claimed to be converted, and the change in their lives and conduct gave good reason to believe that their claim was not without foundation. Among the religious workers who came to the prison there was a man and woman ,who played the organ and sang. They had a beautiful little girl, a flaxen-haired child, about three or four years of age of whom the prisoners were very fond. Up to this time I had taken no part in religious services. My seat in the chapel was far back from the front and while it was my purpose to treat the whole matter of religion and personal responsibility with indifference, in spite of myself. I soon found some sort of an awakening going on within me. I got interested in the chaplain, the young man and his wife and baby. I found a longing within my heart to get the beautiful little girl in my arms, and one afternoon as the gentleman and his wife came out of the chapel I reached out my hands to the little creature and she came to me very gladly, patting my cheek and said in her baby way, "Mr. Man, where is your little dirl?" and looked into my face with such tender and kindly interest that my heart began to throb, and there came rushing into my mind a thought of the silent grave away up in one of the middle states where slept the beautiful woman who had loved me so dearly and promised to bless me so much. This little child awakened in me a genuine interest, and I found myself longing for the time when she would come with her parents to the prison. Her presence in the chapel gave the entire service a new meaning to me and scarcely a Sabbath afternoon passed that we did not have some sort of friendly chat, and frequently it was my privilege to carry the little creature in my arms to the gate leading from the prison. I found myself preserving any little card, clipping, some picture from a magazine, or whittling out at odd moments a little toy, to please the fancy of this little friend of mine. Her parents seemed pleased with the kindly feeling that had sprang up between the little girl and myself, and while it did not occur to me at the time, I am quite sure now that they were earnestly praying that this beautiful little creature might in some way thaw out my heart raid sullen nature, and open up for me the return road to a better life. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 20: 02.10. A SYMPHATHETIC FRIEND ======================================================================== CHAPTER 10 -- A SYMPATHETIC FRIEND At the close of my last chapter I was telling the readers of the new interest in life which had sprung up within me, because of the acquaintance and friendship I had formed for the little daughter, whose parents came for religious service on the Sabbath afternoons in our prison chapel. This friendship deepened into a genuine love on my part and, strange as it may seem, I had every reason to believe the little child had a genuine love for me. She reminded me very much of the beautiful creature who had given me the rosebud on the steamboat of which I had spoken before, and somehow the hardness in me melted under her influence and almost unconsciously, I found myself having a more kindly feeling toward everybody and in me there were rising up hopes that even yet there might be for me some victory and usefulness in the world. Meanwhile I had joined a Sabbath school class, and had for my teacher a quiet, little widow, who was well advanced in years and certainly one of the most kind-hearted and earnest Christian women I have ever met. She seemed to be full of faith and love for everybody. I learned afterward that her father, though a member of a very respectable family, when she was a little girl, had been sentenced to prison because of an unfortunate appropriation of funds which had been intrusted to him. He had died in prison and this tenderhearted woman who had loved and stood by him faithfully through the years of his disgrace and suffering, had formed a great, deep Christian love and solicitude for all the men who wore stripes in the prison in which her father had been incarcerated, and from which he had been taken forth and buried in a grave of shame. She soon found out that I was a skeptic and labored faithfully to rid me of my doubts and lead me to faith in the Christ. My faith faculty seemed to be almost paralyzed or destroyed. Her solicitude was so great, her motives evidently so unselfish that I could not account for her attitude toward me in any other way than that she possessed a love and sympathy for us poor prisoners that did not belong naturally to human nature. I figured that it must be something that had come into her heart through acquaintance with the Man of Galilee. I remember one day she brought me a little book, the title of which I cannot exactly remember. It had been written by a Catholic priest, and was an answer to some lecture or article from the celebrated infidel, Robert Ingersoll. It was the most scathing piece of sarcasm I ever saw in print. The priest had handled the skeptic without gloves. He had punctured the windbags of his opposer, laid bare the falsehoods contained in his statements, and held him up to public ridicule in a most remarkable way. One could not read the book without being profoundly impressed with the remarkable skill of the priest. Ingersoll had been something of a champion of mine before, but time and again while reading this book I was forced to laugh heartily at my hero. The priest certainly placed him in a very unenviable light and swept away many of the false notions under which I had been taking refuge. I remember one paragraph in the book read almost like the following: Mr. Ingersoll’s friends, to prove that he was a man of infinite jest, liked to tell of his war record, which consisted in marching down south and marching home again. Mr. Ingersoll was captured by some southern soldiers in a hog pen, and Gen. Forrest, whose sarcasm was as keen as his sword, exchanged him for a mule, and Col. Ingersoll hastened back to the north where he found more money, and less danger in ridiculing the Bible, than in meeting a brave rebel soldier with a gun in his hand. If Gen. Grant, and the boys in blue who followed him to war, had have had as little fear of God, and as much fear of rebel soldiers as Col. Ingersoll had, there would now be six million slaves in the United States." This put me to thinking about the leading infidels in whom I had been interested, and whom I had believed were such great men, and I asked myself what good these men had done with their teachings, which had destroyed the faith of multitudes of people. Who had been made better, or more hopeful and happy by giving up his faith in Jesus Christ, the immortality of the soul, and a happy hereafter? Who in the wide world could say that he was a better and happier man because of the writings of Hume, Voltaire, Tom Paine, or Robert Ingersoll? As I lay awake at night on my little bad these thoughts rambled through my mind for many hours. I asked myself What skeptic, from the college professor who had first shaken my faith in the Bible, and genuineness of the Christian religion, down to the poorest, most degraded sot I had ever heard swearing over a glass of whiskey in a bar-room, who of all these doubters had brought any help or strength or light into my life. Not one of them and as I thought over the matter I was forced to believe that not one of these men was himself a happy man. Come to think of it, happiness rises more out of our hopes for the future, than out of our enjoyment of things past or present, and the Christian always has a hopeful future. When every thing else fails, he can take Job’s view of the situation and rejoice because of what he expects in time to come. He carries in his heart the hope of a resurrection and a life with his Lord on the other side which shall be free from all temptation, disease, sorrowful separation, or sin, and this hope is an anchorage to him in all of the vicissitudes of life. I thought over the people who had been of any value to me, who had wakened anything good in me, and without an exception they were "Christians. There was my devout old father, faithful and patient and true now no doubt in heaven; and there was my brother John; all the while, in the days of my unbelief and sin, I could see John as a white saint, no stains on him, no selfishness in him, no blot of unbelief, and I never could feel as if John were dead. Somehow in the midst of my infidelity I had a profound feeling that John was living conscious and happy, somewhere. Then there was the sweet angel of the rosebud. How firm was her faith! How spotless her life! How radiant her hope! It could not be that she had been blotted out of existence. No, No! Somewhere in God’s universe she and John were together and if, in the other world, people remember, and if they love those whom they loved on earth, doubtless they feel for them genuine solicitude, and if they are with the compassionate Christ who never turned away a penitent heart on earth, they were evidently praying for me. I shuddered at the thought that they should know anything of the life I had been living, and my present humiliation and disgrace and yet there was within me a hope that they did know and that they did pray for me., And thus the weeks passed by, my mind and thought throughout the busy day at the table, in my cell at night, turning again and again to this subject. My Sunday school teacher had brought me a Bible with many texts marked in red and blue pencil, and I was reading this with an interest I had never known before. Many times it seemed to me as if the type almost spoke with a tongue. It thrilled and startled me. Nothing struck me more than the words in John’s gospel: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life." This fastened my attention. Could it be possible that God loved me? Then why this checkered life of mine, and this miserable failure? But I reasoned that notwithstanding God’s love I was a free agent, it had been my own choice, the things in my history and life which had brought sorrow and shame had come because of disobedience to God’s commands, and sins against his righteous laws. The ruin which had come to me was no proof that God did not love me. The scriptures themselves had plainly said "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap," and I had sown with a liberal hand, and now my harvest time had come and with blistered, weary hands I struggled in a vast harvest field that swept far beyond the horizon, and promised me nothing but failure and disappointment and shame, not only in this life but also in the life which was to come if the old book was true, and if the only people that I had ever known who were really happy and who had been of any value to me, were not fearfully deluded in their faith and hopes. In the midst of all these thoughts passing again and again through my mind, there rose very clearly the memory of my own conversion. It stood out with a freshness and reality which I had not known for years. Without doubt in that old Methodist Church one night at the altar I had really met with Jesus. He had blotted out my sins, lifted up my burdens, and brought a strange restful peacefulness into my heart. The days following this remarkable experience were some of the happiest days I had ever known. There could be no doubt about it. I had been metamorphosed at the college, my professors had led me on step by step into the dark regions of unbelief, they had robbed me of my childhood faith, and then leaving me bruised and wounded they bad passed on the other side. Now, in my misfortune no infidel came to me with a prattling babe to take into my arms, or beautiful flower to cheer me for a little while a good book with which to wear away the time, or kindly word of encouragement and promise of forgiveness of my sins and happiness and rest in the days to come. This, the Christians had done, the followers of Jesus were eager to help me and never seemed so happy as when I gave any sort of evidence of repentance, or of turning for salvation and hope to the Savior of Whom they spoke so much and with such confident assurance. I was now devoting almost all my spare time to the reading of good books. J lost all taste for skeptical works or trashy novels, and found myself interested in religious literature _ tracts, religious papers, the biographies of Christians, missionaries, ministers. How absolutely different they were from myself, and the people with whom I had associated. No doubt they had their weaknesses, made their mistakes, and had their sorrows, but in spite of all this they lived in an entirely different world from that in which I had my miserable existence. My little Sunday school teacher was radiant with happiness over the change that had come to me, and urged me to give my heart to Jesus, and I found myself wishing that I could do this thing which seemed so impossible; and in the sighs and groans which came involuntarily from my lips, there were words of prayer, and I was surprised and startled to hear myself saying: "Have mercy on me, help me, forgive me." The reader may be sure that I was very far from happiness. I had no hopes or rest, day or night, but there was this change that had come to me, I scarcely knew how or when my profanity was all gone, my skepticism had about withered; I had no sort of pleasure any more in any sort of rough talk or ridicule of religion and there came to me a flash of hopefulness and at last a dream of the possibility of pardon and peace somewhere in the future. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 21: 02.11. A PARDONED SINNER ======================================================================== CHAPTER 11 -- A PARDONED SINNER There were quite a number of unbelievers among the prisoners shut up with me, and While we had but little communication with each other, our new chaplain, the earnest man of whom I have spoken, visited and talked with us and got at our hearts secrets. This led him to preach a sermon against skepticism, not perhaps exactly that, but a sermon in which he laid down the grounds upon which the Christian could find a reasonable basis for his faith. I remember one morning he spoke especially of what he called the "Prophetic Method." He pointed oat the fact that God had so arranged the plan of revelation that the honest man who gave the subject proper investigation could hardly evade believing. He showed how the prophets had foretold many centuries before, the things that did afterward come to pass, and he showed how these prophets were 80 many and minute that guesswork was out of the question. He proved that these prophecies were contained in old records that had stood the test of criticism, that critics and infidels themselves were bound to admit that the Old Testament Scriptures had existed long before the birth of Christ, and that in Christ’s life, ministry, and crucifixion these prophecies had been fulfilled in such exact detail, and that too in many instances by men who knew nothing of the prophecies and had no faith in Christ, that no honest man could conclude that these men had any purpose to fulfill the prophecies or any knowledge, or remote thought that they were doing so. For example; he referred to the prophecy of Christ being crucified between two thieves and being buried in a rich man’s grave. He also called attention to the fact that the prophet had said that "none of his bones should be broken" and quite a number of prophecies which I cannot recall just now, but made a very decided impression upon me at the time and were so very clear that it seems to me impossible to answer them. My candid judgment is that the average infidel has not made anything like a careful and honest investigation of the evidences of Christianity and the many proofs in favor of the inspiration of the Scriptures. In many instances the skeptic is not seeking for proofs of the existence of God and the inspiration of the Bible. Generally the skeptic is a wicked man and like I had done for many years, he is so anxious to avoid the consequences of his sins that he would be only too glad if he could become fully convinced that there is no God and that the Scriptures are not inspired. I became so interested in the subject that I was led to ask the chaplain several questions which resulted in his securing for me a number of books which I read with great interest. Among them was a large old volume called The Elements of Divinity." He marked several chapters and paragraphs for me to read which very clearly settled all my questions, removed my doubts and left me fully persuaded that the Bible is an inspired book and that Jesus Christ is able to save all men, even the most unworthy, from all sin. This matter fully settled, the memory of my conversion as a boy loomed up before me in the clearest light imaginable, and along With it came trooping about me a harrowing memory of my many sins. There was one scripture that pierced me through as a sharp sword; that passage which says: "No murderer shall enter into the kingdom of heaven." This seemed to shut the door effectually in my face. I called our chaplain’s attention to it one day and asked him if it would be interpreted to mean that the poor fellow in prison who had committed murder had no hope for salvation. He explained that a man who was a murderer at heart, whether he had killed his man or not, could not enter into the kingdom of heaven, that the scripture referred more to a murderous condition of heart than to any act a man might have committed, and that it was possible for even a murderers to so repent of his wicked deed and trust in Jesus that all malice and hatred would be removed from the heart, and also the stain of sin placed there by any murderous act, desire or intention of the past. He convinced me that this scripture did not close the door of hope to my disturbed soul. I spent much time in prayer. Sometimes much of the night passed with me upon my knees at the side of my cot calling for mercy. My fountain of tears was well-nigh dried up. I often wished that I could weep but I had become so hardened by infidelity and sin that it seemed almost impossible for me to weep. The chaplain, and my Sabbath school teacher took a great interest in me and one Sabbath afternoon when they had called for those who desired salvation to remain in the chapel after the services were dismissed, several of the prisoners, myself among them, remained for prayer and instruction. We were called forward to kneel at a bench which was put out near the preacher’s stand and while the choir sang and the Christian friends instructed us we waited in prayer. I shall not undertake to tell the reader of the startling and awful sins which passed before me that afternoon. They stood out with huge deformity and blackness. The time I had wasted in school, my neglected opportunities, my disregard of the instructions and entreaties of my father, the waste and folly at gambling and drink, the profanity, dishonesty, and untruthfulness of my past, all crowded about me like so many devils and seemed to hiss and jeer and ridicule in my ears till it seemed the blood would almost congeal in my veins. The cold perspiration broke out on my body and my hands seemed to be as cold as if chilled with death. I fell into a state of blank despair. It seemed that I could neither weep nor pray nor trust. But the friends urged me, sang and prayed and insisted that I should utter certain prayers regardless of my doubts and feelings of despair. These exercises seemed to give me some relief for a time, but my hopes and better feelings were very temporary and there came to me a fearful conviction that I had sinned, away my day of grace. I had not only violated God’s divine law, but I had rejected his compassionate mercy, I had broken his commandments, and sneered at the Christ who had come to save me. I had denied his very existence, I had uttered most fearful and profane things with reference to his religion, his character and his death. Was it possible that he could forgive one like myself? I seemed to give up all hope and concluded that my eternal punishment was a fixed and awful fact, but there came into my mind a positive resolution to sin no more, and even if I should at last be shut up in the region of lost spirits, I determined to defend God, to say that my punishment was just, that there was no one to blame for my sad end except myself. If I should be lost, I determined to become a witness to the goodness and mercy and justice of God even in the midst of the profane and miserable souls in the depths of outer darkness. Despairing as I was, dead as seemed all hope to me, urged by my friends I continued to pray. All at once my burden vanished. Fear seemed to depart absolutely from my heart, I rose at once in triumphant laughter and praise and got the chaplain into my striped arms and held him to my heart. It seemed to me that I loved everybody in all the wide world. Some of the guards and the prisoners came back into the chapel and as I finally passed out, they cast some taunting words at me, giving me to understand that there was no better scheme to undertake to secure a pardon or parole than that I should make much of religious matters. But I was so wonderfully blessed and for some days so graciously kept, that I felt comparatively indifferent to the taunts of the guards and prisoners. The change that had come to me was marvelous beyond all of my power to describe. My cell seemed to be a little palace and I remembered in joy that I had heard my old father sing a song in which were these words: "Prisons would palaces prove if Jesus would dwell with me there." How real all things became to me. How clear, true and reasonable the Scriptures, how wicked and unreasonable it was to sin; profanity and all harsh and vulgar words became offensive, the finer sensibilities awakened in my nature. Old things had passed away and I was certainly in Christ a new creature. I felt no shame or hesitancy in telling every one that I was a Christian, that I had found in Jesus a Savior. The delight of our chaplain and my Sunday school teacher seemed to have no bounds. They rejoiced with me, so did all of the Christian prisoners, and not a few of those who were not converted seemed to be profoundly interested and genuinely pleased that I had found forgiveness. I read the Scriptures with great delight and it was sweet to go into my little cell and betake myself to my knees. I availed myself of every opportunity to speak a kind word of exhortation to prisoners, guards, or visitors, and feel confident that my labors were not in vain in the Lord for not long after my conversion there were several others brought very consciously and very blessedly into a gracious relation with Christ, I think I may safely say as the fruit of my personal work. I confessed my real name to the warden of the penitentiary and with the assistance of my chaplain wrote quite a number of letters to parties whom I had treated grossly, confessed my sin to them, begged their forgiveness, and told them that Christ had graciously saved me by his grace. Having been skeptical, I now found real delight in reading the very best books I could get hold of whose authors were making war on unbelief of every kind. I enjoyed a little book called "The Man of Galilee" which was written by a Bishop Haygood, I think, of Georgia. It was a wonderful little volume. I sought every opportunity to put books and tracts into the hands of prisoners whom I had found skeptical. I fully realize that I am suffering the just reward of my deeds and should not blame other people. At the same time it is perfectly clear to me that if I had gotten into some good, religious school, instead of the skeptical institution where I was robbed of my faith, I would no doubt have been a happy and useful citizen instead of having lived a miserably wicked life and being shut up here in prison through these weary years with but little probability of much usefulness in the time to come. If the words of a prisoner are worth anything, I would most earnestly urge parents and guardians to keep children under their care out of skeptical colleges. They will find it almost impossible to stem the tide of ridicule and unbelief that is so common among college professors and students, and so likely to spring up in the conditions surrounding the average institution of learning. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 22: 02.12. THE RAINBOW OF PROMISE ======================================================================== 12 -- THE RAINBOW OF PROMISE I feel that my story is told and my confession made, and it is hardly Worth while for me to hold my readers longer. I am the legitimate fruit, the sad outcome of two conditions that exist widespread in our country today. Conditions as unfortunate as could well be imagined. One, a lax family government, a lack of authority to command, discipline, control, and give the authority to the home, in the building of character among the children that can stand the test. Nothing can take the place of home discipline, nothing can atone for the wickedness and waste of manhood and womanhood that will manifest itself in life when a generation has grown up, without proper family government. There are many very good people, moral and religious, earnest and truthful, who are negligent and lax at this point. If my father could have had control over me and taught me strict, implicit obedience, I am confident I should never have been the inside of these walls. My mother was an intelligent, good woman, but she had no proper appreciation of the importance of careful and rigid discipline over a boy. It is too late, however, to lament these things with reference to myself, but I should certainly feel glad if some one might be benefited by what I have had to say here. The home must have order, there must be some sort of rule and regulation, and day and night the children, without hesitation or fretfulness, must be brought to obey their parents, or they will bring grief to them in the end. The other condition to which I refer, of which I am a victim, are the loose teachings in our schools. The infidelity and unbelief in the Scriptures, in God, in Christ, in the Holy Ghost, in the future punishment of the wicked, in the supernatural power of regeneration and sanctification, in great essentials of revealed religion, and genuine experience. I am amazed at the startling amount of infidelity that is blasting the rising generation, that is taking the foundations from under the young manhood and womanhood who are receiving college and university educations. I am surprised that the religions press of the country does not cry out in constant and vigorous protest, and that the pulpits of the country do not fight against this rising and sweeping tide of unbelief. I suppose, that the lethargy and seeming indifference arises out of the fact that many editors, and prominent preachers are themselves, without a strong and active faith in Christ, and a deep and warm love for the truth. Their faith is defective, their zeal is cool, they are seeking degrees, office, and larger salaries, no doubt many of them are not willing to take any risk of arousing against themselves criticism or opposition. They choose rather to let the faith go than earnestly contend, and take the awful risk of a generation of people who spurn the Bible, and turn their backs on the great doctrine of the Messiahship of Jesus Christ. I have had golden opportunities in the world; the lack of home discipline and skeptical teachings in the colleges, made me unfit for an honorable place in life, increasing my wickedness and irreverence which made of me a criminal, and has shut me up in prison, and but for the devout love and zeal of a few of Christ’s little ones, who would cheerfully die for the truth, who sought me out and led me to repentance and faith, I should in the end have been shut up in hell. I look forward to the future not without hope. Not only is he, our great deliverer, able to save us from all sin, but he is wonderfully powerful to deliver us from evil consequence, and in spite of our failures, to bring to us happiness and victory. If my health should be preserved, and I should live to wear out my sentence, or if the clemency of those in authority should see fit to trust me again, a free man in society, I shall earnestly seek to redeem the past somewhat with a devoted, upright, and earnest life. I can conceive of nothing that would bring to me such great pleasure, as would be mine, could I in some way influence the students of our colleges and universities, who are traveling in the path that led me so far from the right way, to give up their unbelief and turn to inspired truth for guidance and salvation. With malice toward none and charity for all, I remain, faithfully and gratefully yours. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 23: 03.00. FIVE GREAT NEEDS ======================================================================== Five Great Needs by Henry Clay Morrison CONTENTS Chapter 1. The Hickory Limb Chapter 2. The Mourner’s Bench Chapter 3. Education Chapter 4. Employment Chapter 5. The Policeman’s Billy FOREWORD In my observation of conditions in our country, I have become fully persuaded that the Five Great Needs in order to the preservation of our homes, the spirituality of the Church, in its mission of evangelization of mankind, the building of character, enforcement of law, and the development of an intelligent, righteous and progressive civilization are: First, good family government, with discipline and guidance, which produces obedience among children. Second, the regeneration by the Holy Spirit of the individual in the early morning of life. Third, that Christian Education which prepares one for the duties of life, and produces intelligent, conscientious citizenship. Fourth, industry, beginning in early youth, that will take the place of the advantages of the city gymnasium; hoe handle exercises that will make one healthy, industrious, guarding against wastefulness and producing a spirit of economy. Fifth, the prompt enforcement of law, so that those who are criminally inclined will be deterred, realizing that if they do violate the law they will be promptly and severely punished. Leaving out the items mentioned above, or any one of them, we break the strong, golden chain that would bind our civilization together for the very best there is for the times in which we are living, and the future history of our country. I am hoping this booklet will have a wide circulation and thoughtful reading. Respectfully, H. C. Morrison ======================================================================== CHAPTER 24: 03.01. THE HICKORY LIMB ======================================================================== CHAPTER 1 -- THE HICKORY LIMB A new-born babe is one of the most helpless, dependable creatures in the world and, at the same time, most interesting and lovable. It would be a cold, hard heart that would not respond to the plaintive wail of a baby. Left to itself, a babe would soon die; it requires most watchful care. One of the first things a babe responds to is its sense of taste. For some time it is governed almost entirely by the tip of its tongue, rather than by its intelligence or conscience. So soon as it gets sufficient strength to exercise its members we notice that, when its elbow bends, its mouth flies open. It will eat stone coal as readily as it would angels’ food, or drink a deadly poison as quickly as it would drink nutritious milk. So completely is a babe or child controlled by taste that it is constantly seeking for the pleasure it derives from tasting things; as a result, when its mother’s back is turned it slips its hand quickly, though slyly, into a convenient sugar-bowl. Young children are largely controlled by appetite and taste. In many large congregations I have asked that all men who did not steal sugar when small boys to stand up; I have not found one who could stand on that test. This sugar proposition covers a larger variety of appealing articles of food. This petty pilfering is usually confined for a while to the tid-bits that can be slyly appropriated about one’s home. If this inclination is not properly restrained, it frequently falls into a habit that extends its field of operation, and soon the little thief is pilfering a neighbor’s apple orchard and melon patch; thus many a criminal record has been begun which has led to hold-ups, bank robberies, murders and the gallows or electric chair. It is an interesting but sad fact that, in the criminal wave that has for a decade and more been sweeping over this nation, a very large per cent of those, guilty of violation of law are in their teens or early twenties. These crimes are by no means limited to minor offences, but are of a character formerly committed by hardened criminals. A community is often shocked by the murder of father or mother, sometimes both parents, by a son or daughter under twenty years of age, for no other reason than that the parent refused to gratify some whim, or oppose some improper conduct on the part of their offspring who, in a frenzy of hatred, without hesitation, shoots down its parents. If you will make inquiry of grocery merchants in cities, towns and villages, they will tell you that many children have to be watched closely, or they will take advantage when a clerk’s back is turned, to snatch fruit or sweetmeats, and get away with anything they can lay their hands on; and this pilfering is not confined to children of the slums, or of the very poor. A brilliant writer, in a recent issue of `The Forum,’ one of our best monthly publications, tells us of a druggist who informed him that after basketball games, when the youngsters of the school were turned loose, he closed his store rather than suffer the break age and theft that poured in upon him. It is well understood that a child left to its natural inclination, without proper direction, restraint and correction by older persons, to have its will and way, will most certainly become a disturbing member of society. One of the great needs of the times is a revival of family government, where children are controlled and guided by the brains, the heart, and the experience of their parents, until they have developed intelligence and character of their own. That teaching of scripture has been very largely ignored which says, "Train up a child in the way it should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." Solomon further says, "Withhold notcorrection from the child, for if thou beatest him with the rod he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod and save his soul from hell." Proverbs 23:13-14. This word beat sounds a bit harsh; let’s substitute for it chastise. The instruction of Solomon is quite in conflict with modern psychiatrists, writers and teachers who contend that any mode of corporal punishment is wrong. Sometime ago in conversation with one of the great preachers of the gospel in this country, he was telling me of how much he, owed to his saintly mother, of his early inclinations to waywardness, and how his mother prayed for him and "spanked the meanness out of him." Wide observation leads me to believe that children who grow up under kind, but strict discipline, sometimes enforced by the slipper, or rod, on a convenient part of the anatomy, not only make better citizens, but feel more respect and affection for their parents than those young people who grow up without restraint and correction. This writer is confident that the teaching of evolution in the schools -- that we came from brute: ancestors -- has much to do with the beastly conduct of many of our young people. It is quite probable that philosophers, searching after the cause and cure of the vandalism, disobedience and crime among the youth of the land, have entirely failed in their diagnosis. It is likely that a large percent of this lawlessness comes from lack of intelligent, positive family government and, it may be, that an ounce of hickory limb, properly applied, would be better than ten pounds of a policeman’s billy later in life. We can think of nothing more cruel and reprehensible than an angry parent beating a child unmercifully. One of the worst men I have ever known told me that when he was a lad fifteen years of age his father, who was a very strong man, in a heat of passion at some minor offense, seized a limb and beat him severely. He tried to explain; he begged; he plead for mercy; he fell upon his knees and entreated his father, who paid no attention to his cries, but continued to smite him in a most unmerciful manner. He said he rolled on the ground, foamed at the mouth, cursed his father with the most bitter oaths and turned into a demon. He said, "I ran away from home. I hated my father and I had murder in my heart. I have been a criminal for years. The cruel treatment of my father changed me from a very good sort of boy into a demon. I have lived a life of crime against God and humanity." Such parents are not fit to have the care and control of children. I know a family where the children grew up under wise but strict discipline; not tyrannical, but insisted upon obedience, guarded the children against falsehood, theft, discourtesy to neighbors and teachers, or imposition upon small children of other families. The rod was frequently used, without excitement or severity, but in such a way that its use was rarely necessary. Out of that family came a great doctor, one of the best dentists in a large city, a college professor, a fine gospel preacher, an excellent and prosperous farmer, who is a blessing to the social and religious life of his community, and two most excellent daughters. It is impossible to train up a family of children to be honest, truthful, decent, and to make of them sober, intelligent, useful citizens, without intelligent family government that insists upon and has obedience in a way that brings the child to trust in and respect the wisdom and affection of those who have them in care and training. After a long life and wide observation, I am fully convinced that one of the great needs of our times is a proper application of the hickory limb. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 25: 03.02. THE MOURNER'S BENCH ======================================================================== CHAPTER 2 -- THE MOURNER’S BENCH Some people of the present generation may not understand the little picture on the cover of this booklet, nor the term, "Mourner’s Bench." When I was a lad, the term was well understood, especiallyamong Methodists. It was a little bench that sat in front of the pulpit, to which penitent sinners went and kneeled to pray for the forgiveness of their sins and salvation by faith in Christ. There are many thousands and tens of thousands of souls in Paradise today who found Jesus Christ as a personal Savior at the mourner’s bench. It will be well understood that there is no virtue in a bench, by whatever name it may be called, but it was good for the sinner, before the congregation and community, to rise up in open surrender and come forward and kneel at that humble little altar, as a confession of sin before his fellow beings, throwing him or herself upon the mercy of God. If the Scriptures teach anything, they teach that human nature is fallen; that the evil effects of sin are as universal as humankind. In order to pardon there must be repentance. Our Lord Christ has said positively, and with repetition that, "Ye must be born again." This statement of Jesus Christ is applicable, not to humanity in the mass, but to each individual. The religion of Christ is personal. God in some things may deal with the multitude, but when it comes to the forgiveness of sins, and that strange and blessed transaction, which our Lord called the new birth, it is just as personal as a physical birth. Men are not physically born in the mass, but one by one they come into this world, into a conscious state of existence, and each one grows up as a person, distinct from all other persons. It is just so with reference to repentance. This is not a matter that can be attended to in a great mass of people, a sort of social reform, or uplift; but the individual sinner must repent of his or her sins, must forsake sin, exercise saving faith, and be born of the Spirit. He must pass from spiritual death to spiritual life. One of the great needs of the times is the mourner’s bench, well crowded with individuals seeking forgiveness, and that new life which comes from Christ in the gracious operation of the Holy Spirit which makes each individual a new creature and, whereas that individual once loved sin and committed it with eagerness and pleasure, it now hates sin, guards against it, watches and prays for deliverance from temptation, and delights in the law of the Lord, keeps the commandments, and communes with the Holy Spirit. There has been, it appears, a sort of race between the various denominations of this country for members, a boasting of the large number that this or that church enrolls. The emphasis has been laid more upon quantity than quality, and it is evident that the mourner’s bench has been sadly avoided and forsaken, and multitudes of people without any profound conviction for sin, without the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit, have come into our churches and continued to live quite like they did before making a profession, receiving baptism without a new heart or any intention or effort to live separate f rom the worldly multitude about them, and walk in humble, glad obedience to the teachings of our Lord and Saviour. It is plain to see the great numbers of church members who pay no heed to that saying of Christ in which he gives us to understand that if we would become his disciples we must deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow him. When the church receives large numbers of people without the regenerating grace of God, they have the same unchanged sinful natures, the same loves and the same hatreds. They look for their pleasures, amusements and pastimes to the same sources from which they derived them before their profession, baptism, and entering into the church. Such large numbers of people of this character have been received into our churches that worldliness abounds; all sorts of entertainments and pastimes, which cannot possibly be a means of grace, are introduced into the church. Devout people are grieved, and sinners on the outside are amused and disgusted. The reader will readily understand I am not making a plea for the little bench of other days, called the "mourner’s bench;" I am simply using it as a symbol of repentance, of a place of prayer, of earnest seeking of the soul’s salvation by faith in our crucified and risen Christ. One thing is sure: A worldly church cannot bring a lost world to Christ. And it is well understood by thoughtful people everywhere, within the church and on the outside, that there is a great slump in spiritual life which has resulted in the lowering of moral standards, and is having a fearful effect on individuals, the home, and the entire life of the nation. The standards that have been set up in preaching and teaching in this great country of ours have been too low. We are in need of the ministry of such men as Charles Finney who, with the sword of the Spirit, searched the lives and hearts of the people and brought great numbers of church members to realize their lost condition, repent of their sins, and seek the peace and rest for their souls which can be found only at the foot of the cross, trusting in the Christ who died thereon for our redemption. Somewhere for each individual who would be saved, there must be a place of repentance, of sorrow for sin, of deep grief and mourning, because of a profound sense of having sinned against a compassionate, patient and merciful God. One of the greatest needs of this nation is a tidal wave of conviction for sin, a godly sorrowing and turning away from wickedness. Somewhere between the present state of those who are in rebellion and sin against God, and a state of salvation, there must be a time and place of godly sorrow, acceptance of Christ as an only Savior, and a blessed consciousness that sins are forgiven. If we have a revival that will save this nation, bring back the sacredness of the home and the marriage vow, replace the Bible, and make the house of God a place of communion with the blessed Trinity, that revival must begin within the church. The ministry must sound loud, long, and insistently the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." It was an unfortunate hour in the history of Methodism when Decision Day was substituted for the annual revival in Methodist churches. In the salvation of the individual, there must be a decision, a forsaking of sin, a seeking of Christ and tarrying in prayer for assurance of pardon, which will always be witnessed by the Holy Spirit to those who forsake all sin and trust in Christ for forgiveness. Children can be converted -- and by this word I mean regenerated -- very young. It is just as easy to lead them to Christ as it is to teach them the Catechism, which is quite proper, but it cannot take the place of the work of the Holy Spirit, making the child, in Christ, a new creature. I well remember when a small child, I had a deep sense of my need of a Saviour, and I am confident I could have been genuinely saved, had I have had proper instruction, when I was six years of age. There are those who teach that a child does not need a sense of sin, to repent, to pray at an altar, to seek the Lord, as older persons do, and to have a definite experience of forgiveness and the peace which that brings to the soul. Such teaching is not only wrong, but dangerous, and has become common, and has defrauded a vast number of our church members out of the gracious experience of regeneration. It should be remembered that this matter of making the individual a new creature in Christ, is wrought by the Holy Spirit, and one of his most gracious works is revealing to the individual, young or old, the fact that that individual is lost in sin, and must experience a change of heart, which will mean a change of the entire attitude, a definite change of life; a child can have a very profound sense of its lostness and its need of a Saviour; and it can easily be led, with proper instruction, to trust in Jesus, and experience a sense of forgiveness and love that it can carry on the voyage of life, both as sail and anchor. There is nothing finer and more helpful in the hour of temptation, than a clear and gracious memory of the time and place where one met with God in the salvation of the soul. In the fifty-eight years of my ministry I have traveled among the churches as extensively as any other living man, in evangelistic work. I have preached in our greatest city churches, in towns,county seats, villages, country churches, isolated communities, tents, brush arbors, and in this work I have come in close personal contact with thousands of church members; I find numbers of church members who were brought into the church on Decision Day who have never been born of the Spirit, and have no assurance of sins forgiven. They are not hypocrites, but did what they were told to do; but when they read in the Scriptures of the peace and joy, the witness of the Spirit, and those gracious experiences, they know nothing, whatever, of them by experience. These unfortunate people become the easy victims of modernistic teachers who, in time, may destroy their faith in every essential truth of the Bible; others, in the hungering of their hearts, can be drawn away to the Christian Scientists, Unity, and other false philosophies which promise them peace, which their Decision Day religion fails to bring them. To undertake to prove the Bible Wesleyan doctrine of entire sanctification to these unregenerated people, is like casting pearls before swine. Having not received the first work of grace, the new birth, they are unprepared to receive the second work of grace, the crucifixion of the carnal nature. One of the greatest needs of our time is a revival within the church; the regeneration of vast numbers of people who have been brought into the church on Decision Day and Easter occasions, and often at the ordinary Sunday services, without any experience of the gracious work of the Holy Spirit, making them the children of God. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 26: 03.03. EDUCATION ======================================================================== CHAPTER 3 -- EDUCATION The open book on the cover of this pamphlet stands for education. It is a tragedy that any human being should be shut up in the prison house of illiteracy and ignorance. One of the highest duties of the family, church and state is that of the education of the youth of the land. Among the many enterprises that are being set on foot in this time of experiments, one could wish that there was a widespread and determined effort to bring the benefits of the rudiments of a common school education to every person under our beautiful flag. Illiteracy ought not to exist in a country like ours. By some means sufficient training ought to be brought to every person, not only the young but to older people who have had no educational advantages, so they could at least read and write. How unfortunate the blind who cannot see the glories of our physical world and the beauties with which they are surrounded in sunrise and sunset, the towering mountains, the great trees, the beautiful shrubs, the fresh flowers, the birds with their colored plumage. One always grieves to look upon a person who is blind and walking in darkness without the hope or possibility of looking out upon our world with its changing panorama of constant attraction, beauty and wonder. How unfortunate that person with blind mentality, who has no power to read, who knows nothing of the world’s literature, who cannot scan the daily news, or turn with delight the pages of history, or read the heart throbs of the poets who have written down the soul’s deepest emotions and highest aspirations; for a human being to go groping about in ignorance of all the vast resources of literature, science, philosophy, fiction, travel, story, with none of the enjoyment or consolations of searching the Scriptures; of the delightful pastime of reading the history of one’s native land, of perusing the pages which contain the best thought of the world’s greatest thinkers, or amusing one’s self with the interesting stories which carry such charm as to make one forget their cares. Sad indeed are those who cannot read the Holy Scriptures, inform themselves of the dealings of God with men, ponder the wisdom of the Proverbs, tune their hearts to the songs of David, follow the teachings of Christ, or journey with St. Paul in his evangelistic tours, or stand amazed at the lifting of the curtains of the future in Revelation. One of the highest duties of parents is to look after the early education of their children, to teachthem to study the proper books, to place before them not only the textbooks of the schools but to furnish them with reading that will charm and instruct them, that will not only develop their intellect but mold, strengthen, and build good character. No child, white or black, red or yellow, in this nation, or its possessions, should go without the rudiments of an education. They should at least be taught to good books, reading matter of a character to create a desire for learning an that will promote clean moral thinking, and have a tendency to produce high ideals and build good citizenship. May I suggest to any reader of this booklet that while you may not be able to open the eyes of the blind, in order that they may see the beauties of nature, you may be able to help some person who has not had the advantages of an education; you may open mental eyes that will bring enlargement of life, the development of intellectual capacity, and create within some unfortunate person, by your assistance, an intellectual hunger that might lead on to greatness, that will at least add wonderfully to a life that otherwise would be drab, dull, uninteresting, and largely unprofitable. The great English writer, Blair, in one of his essays has a sentence that reads thus: "If in springtime there be no buds, in summer there will be no beauty, and in autumn there will be no fruit. If youth is barren of improvement, manhood will be contemptible, and old age will be miserable." How unfortunate are those who have no opportunity for education and mental culture, and how reprehensible those who have opportunity for education, who could walk the paths of science, roam the wide field of literature, enjoy the story and songs of human history, and yet refuse, or fail to improve their opportunity and seek out of the best of the literature of the past that which will enlarge their capacities for usefulness and happiness, enabling them to make the most generous contribution to the advancement of human happiness, civilization and progress of mankind. I cannot lay too much emphasis upon the importance of religious education. The young mind is hungry for information, hence the many questions of the little folk about our feet and knees. They want to know; the young mind is retentive; even in our old age, we find what we learned as children, remains permanently with us. Then, how important the fundamental truths of Christianity, like beautiful filling, be woven into the warp of the education of the young, so that, from their childhood, they have a consciousness of the Divine Being, his presence, his providential care, his guiding wisdom and compassionate love. Into the early life, and throughout the mental training of children and young people, there should be so deeply ingrafted a profound reverence for God, and a belief in his revealed truth, that it will grow into their beings and produce the fruits of righteousness and good citizenship. Men and women who fear God and keep his commandments can safely guide the affairs of Church and State, which will always mean the sacredness of the home, the guarded liberties of the people, and the safe and constant development of our American civilization. Unfortunately, much of our education today is not only without religious emphasis, but is decidedly anti-religious. It is a lamentable fact that many teachers in our common schools, colleges and universities are atheistic. The trend of their thought and teaching faces toward the "far country" of unbelief, and, worse still, immorality. It is most unfortunate, indeed, it is reprehensible, that the State should employ and pay infidels to lead the youth of the land into the wide wilderness of all of those false philosophies that deny the existence of God, the divine revelation from him as written in the Holy Scriptures, and our obligation of reverence and obedience to God, justice and helpfulness toward our fellow beings. How fortunate those children who, in their home training, are so rooted and grounded in religious truth, that in after years it is impossible to tear them away from their spiritual moorings, destroy their faith, break down their Christian character and lead them into the "far country," from which few prodigals return, and many finally starve about the swine-pens of their own lusts and sin. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 27: 03.04. EMPLOYMENT ======================================================================== CHAPTER 4 -- EMPLOYMENT One of the most sacred trusts of any country is its child life. The youth of today is the citizenship of tomorrow. Directly, the children at our fireside and in our schools will govern and control the destiny of the nation. Our best citizens do not come f rom the very wealthy classes where children grow up in luxury and idleness, with little or no responsibility, but with ample time to indulge their appetites and stimulate their more dangerous inclinations; neither do they come from the very poor class where children do not have necessary nutriment, or the comforts and opportunities to encourage and draw out that which is best in them. Our best citizens come from the vast middle class; those people who, by industry and frugality, are able to live respectably, with many of the common comforts of life, whose children are taught industry and assist their parents cheerfully in those lighter services which they can perform without damage to themselves, physically or mentally, who become habituated to work, and that economy which most children practice who are taught to earn their own spending money. Through a long life, much travel and wide observation, I have been impressed with the fact that a vast majority of our most successful and influential men, as lawyers, physicians, preachers, business men, teachers, and that army of respectable people who make up a worthwhile and progressive population, come from the middle class of respectable, industrious people by whom they were taught the important lessons of industry and economy. Having been a College President for a number of years, and having contact with thousands of young people, I have had opportunity to observe that many of those students who worked to pay part of their expenses through school, developed the best character; they do not neglect their studies, they become self-reliant; while learning how to exercise their mental faculties, they also become accustomed to the exercise of their physical being, and on the whole, such students are better prepared for the battle of life than those who have the advantages of wealth, and do not enjoy the privilege of honest and worthy physical service. It is quite probable if Abraham Lincoln had been born of wealthy parents, had grown up in a city, attended high school, lived in idleness, attended a dozen dances each semester, and spent a few nights each week in some vaudeville show, we never would have heard of him. He had the advantage of silence, of time for meditation, of hard work, of the careful improvement of whatever leisure came to him in study. His intellectual and moral life rooted itself in toil, longing, aspirations and behold the man! King David, one of the greatest men of ancient times, the musician and poet who wrote the Psalms, the hymn book of the Hebrews, grew up in the midst of toil and responsibility. As a lad, he herded his father’s sheep when bears and lions were plentiful and mutton hungry; but he had learned the use, under these trying circumstances, of all of his physical powers, and was one of the very best rock throwers of his time. He practiced on lions and bears which he slew with slingstones until he was ready to strike down the armed champion of the Philistines, turn the tide of battle, and save his nation. He never could have hurled the stone at Goliath with such accuracy if he had not grown up in earnest, cheerful toil protecting his father’s sheep. I am in full sympathy with Agur’s spirit when he prays, "Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me: lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the Lord? Or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain." Proverbs 30:8-9. Wide observation and considerable experience among my fellow beings compel me to believe thatthe best homes in which to grow sons and daughters, who will eventually become leaders of the people, are the homes of the middle class families that live industriously, frugally and piously, where every member of the family has its task, properly adjusted to its age and capacity, and performs the same in happy harmony with the best interests of a well regulated home. There is a proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States, should it be ratified by three-fourths of the states of the Union, Congress will have power to regulate and prohibit the labor of all children under the age of eighteen years; in other words, the Federal Government would take charge of the child and youth life of this nation. It would not seem possible that any state legislature would vote for such a law, and yet, quite a number of state legislatures have done this very thing. One is curious to know where such a proposition originated. It has a strong odor of Soviet Russia, and there is no question in the mind of this writer, but that it is the effort of the communistic spirit to get hold of and control the young life of this nation. Sometime ago, Miss Frances Perkins, United States Secretary of Labor, discussed this child labor amendment to the Constitution in an issue of `The Forum,’ and by the way, she is a strong advocate of this amendment to the Constitution. Parents should make a note of this fact. The proposed amendment would be to give power "to Congress to limit, control and prohibit the labor of all persons under eighteen years of age." Miss Perkins makes a plea for this amendment, and makes various claims in which she endeavors to camouflage the danger of such legislation. In her discussion she says, "The claim that it, the amendment, was inspired by communists, is most incomprehensible." The fact is, that in a discussion before the Committee, it was learned that the amendment was drafted by Mrs. Florence Kelley Wischnewetsky. What a name! That’s certainly Russia! What business has a woman with that sort of name undertaking to interfere with our Constitution? It appears also, that she was assisted by Mrs. Julia Lethrop, Grace Abbott and Anna Louis Strong. It turns out that this woman, with the difficult name, beginning Kelley, has been a disciple of Engels, a leading communist of Germany, and she was the editor in Berlin, Germany, of a socialistic paper. It appears that she has been a lobbyist about Washington for socialistic legislation. Miss Strong was once an American press agent for the Moscow Soviets, and editor of the `Moscow News’. Miss Abbott has been fed up on the same sort of pabulum with the other members of this group. With these facts before her, how is it that Miss Perkins will deny communistic influence is seeking to get hold of the young life of this nation? What sort of family government could we have if children grow up with the understanding that their parents have practically no control over them, and cannot command them to perform any simple task or service about the home. You will never convince this writer that these women do not represent the spirit of Soviet Russia; and it would seem impossible that any group of legislators could be found ignorant enough to be beguiled into voting for any such legislation. The time has come when this Perkins woman should hear from an intelligent and indignant people all over this nation. Legislators, congressmen and senators should be duly warned against any legislation that would interfere with the practical regulation of the child life of the American home. Children should be protected from the slavery which was once imposed upon many of them in cotton mills and factories, and most states have such legislation. This chapter is being written in the state of Florida, and I find that this state has certain laws for the protection of children which seem to me to be practical, that safeguard the childhood of the country, and at the same time, do not interfere with proper family government. In the state of Florida, no boy under ten years of age, and no girl under sixteen years of age, can be lawfully employed in sellingnewspapers in any city of the state of 6,000 population or more. Selling and distributing newspapers is hardly the work of a girl, and certainly not the work of any girl in a considerable city. The reader will note that this law does not prohibit the selling of papers in towns or villages where the child is much safer and better protected than in larger populations. The law provides that children under twelve years of age are not permitted to work in stores, offices, or in the transmission or sale of merchandise, or the delivery of messages. This protects children from dangers involved and temptations that they may not be old enough to resist. No child under fourteen years of age is permitted to work in mills, factories, workshops, mechanical establishments, laundries, or on the stage of any theater. The reader will remember that children under fourteen years of age are small and tender and not fitted for heavy work that would stultify their physical growth or subject them to the dangers of machinery of factories and mills. It is a good law that forbids young children to act upon theatrical stages. The law also provides that persons under sixteen years of age cannot be employed in mills or factories except by permission given by the county superintendent of public schools, after that official has made a careful and thorough investigation of all facts involved. The next prohibition is very excellent. No person under twenty-one years of age may lawfully be employed in any pool-room, billiard-room, brewery, saloon or bar-room where intoxicating liquors are sold. The law also provides for the safety, comfort and protection of children coming within the prohibitive age. It occurs to this writer that these laws are reasonable, equitable, protective, without any effort to interfere with the common services that can be rendered by children in the life of any well regulated family. It is high time that the people of these United States awake to the dangers that beset us on every hand, from visionaries and dreamers who would legislate laws that would take all of our much beloved freedom away from us, and tie us hand and foot in the exercise of common liberty, personal freedom, and the direction and control of our individual affairs. Russia, Germany, Italy, and a number of other countries have either willingly, or under compulsion, given up the entire spirit of true democracy and exalted despots, who rule the people with a rod of iron, and having, while they promised freedom, enslaved the masses of the people and do not hesitate to slaughter in cold blood any one who interferes with their despotic control of an enslaved and oppressed people. The people of this nation ought, en masse, insist upon the maintaining of their personal liberty. Of course, this should be without selfishness and a spirit of co-operation for the best interests of the entire people; but it is not to the best interests of any people that communism thrust in upon us its exaggerated and dictatorial spirit that means the wreckage of all of the best and highest ideals of our American civilization. Children should, and must be, protected from physical slavery, hard work and heavy burdens that would stultify the development of their bodies, hinder the advantages of education and opportunities for exercise, innocent amusement and healthful play. These are the rights of children, which are sacred and should be secured, if necessary, by the legislation of proper and equitable laws. The drift is in the direction of extreme and fanatical legislation and usages which are out of harmony with our past history, the teachings of Holy Writ, and all of those things that contribute to the growth and development of the best American life and spirit. "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." The good people of this nation must be awake and ready for action, and we do not want men and women with those unpronounceable Russian names, and their coadjutors, to be lobbying around the halls of congress, in the capital of our nation. The proper use of the hoe handle is a means of grace; healthytoil is excellent exercise; it fosters an appetite, assists digestion and is followed by restful sleep, growth and development of all that is best in the building of sturdy, self-reliant American citizenship. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 28: 03.05. THE POLICEMAN'S BILLY ======================================================================== CHAPTER 5 -- THE POLICEMAN’S BILLY The little picture of the policeman’s billy on the cover of this book signifies the enforcement of law. We can have no such thing as a safe and progressive civilization without law for the government, protection and proper adjustment of the economic and social relationships which exist among men. The true statesman is the man who is able to study, search out and legislate into law the principles of justice and equity which should obtain in a well regulated community, state and nation, composed of intelligent beings. Law, without penalty attached, calling for the punishment of those who disregard or violate law, would be of no benefit to mankind; there must be adequate punishment for those who violate law. If laws are not enforced and the guilty punished, it becomes a dead letter and the lives and property of the people are at the mercy of those whose greed and viciousness know no law. The disregard of law, of the rights and liberties of others, and the failure to arrest and inflict punishment upon the lawless, brings discord, confusion, riot, mobs, and the destruction of all that is worth while for the happiness, peace and prosperity of a civilized people. We regret to be compelled to record the fact that the United States has become, in a large per cent of its population, one of the most lawless nations in the world. Crime of every description is constantly committed in this great country of ours, and while there is not adequate punishment, and a large per cent of our criminals go unwhipped of justice, yet the money expended in the work of our courts, the employment of our officials, the trials and confinement of our criminal population amount to hundreds of millions of dollars annually. If, by the waving of some magic wand, crime could be made to disappear, the money now expended in the prosecution of criminals, and their confinement in prison, would be ample to provide free hospitals for all of our cities, excellent institutions for care of all of our orphans, pensions to provide amply for all of our aged people who are not in condition to care for themselves, and our land would be blessed with a peace and happiness approaching that gracious state supposed to exist in the Millennium. What are the causes of the great tidal wave of crime that so constantly rolls over this nation? Petty thieving calls for a lock on every door; hold-ups that make it dangerous to walk the streets of village, town or city after dark; the bold and hazardous robbery of banks; the shooting down of helpless people for a few dollars; sometimes enraged robbers kill their victim because he does not possess the few dollars. We are not thinking so much now of the dishonest money-getting schemes in high places, the sale of worthless bonds, the various life insurance enterprises that rob the people and leave them without hope of remuneration, the army of bankers in government prisons, the graft that is so characteristic in the administration of office, from the village to the towns and great cities. So much dishonesty and graft have been revealed in high and low places within the past few years, that it has come to pass that, to be an official, with an opportunity for pelf, means to be suspicioned. We have come to a very serious situation in our country, which greatly retards the restoration from the depression, and that is, loss of confidence. There has been so much of dishonesty that people have become suspicious of each other. Nations have come to regard solemn and signed treatise as mere "scraps of paper." Great governments have refused to pay their just debts; the repudiation of sacred obligations has becomeso common that one is reminded of the statement of the Apostle Paul when he declared that, "In the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof; from such turn away." 2 Timothy 3:1-5. Satan has been called the "lawless one." He is the enemy of all good order, peace, harmony, reverence and everything that brings permanent happiness and prosperity to humankind. It seems that he has broken loose with a strange and destructive power in the homes, among the youth, in the schools, the church, the factory, the army, the seats of legislation, the places of business, where men gather for counsel, representing the nations, seeking to avert war and promote peace -- everywhere there is a powerful influence of evil that breaks up peace, fosters discontent, selfishness and crime. A -- ORGANIZED CRIME One of the causes of crime in this nation is the gathering of vast multitudes of foreign-born people in our large cities, who have lived under oppression, have forsaken homeland and come to this country of opportunity, where they find a chance for riches in loot; they form powerful combinations; they secure the protection of officials with whom they divide the profits of their pilfering. In some of our cities these organizations of robbers are as bold and reckless as the daring pirates who used to sail the seas. In some communities to appear as a witness against a member of these robber gangs, is to invite assassination; the attorney who prosecutes them, and the judge who condemns them, does so at the risk of their lives. I am not unmindful of the fact that many of our most desperate criminals are home products, frequently coming from decent, and apparently, well regulated, law-abiding families. B -- FAMILY GOVERNMENT There is no question that much of the crime which is so common and startling, committed by children and youth, is the logical result of a sad lack of family discipline. Many children are allowed to have their own way, almost without any sort of intelligent or positive, parental control. In my wide travels as an evangelist, I have often been entertained in the homes of people supposed to be educated, intelligent and pious, who appeared to have no parental authority over, even small children. The children acted as if they had no respect for their parents, teachers or any one else. They certainly appeared to follow their impulses. Those shallow philosophers who insist that you must never say "don’t" to a child, or undertake to control and direct their natural inclinations and impulses, would be delighted to see the utter lack of discipline in a large per cent of our American homes. For a number of years the writer was president of a college. Directly after school opened we were able to note the students who had grown up without home discipline, or an trace of respectful obedience to their parents. Such students invariably became a source of solicitous concern; and you will find that parents who thought their children were too sweet, beautiful and good to be restrained and disciplined, are almost certain to object to the college officials exercising control or discipline over them. Children who do not obey their parents will not obey their teachers; students who do not obey their teachers will not obey the police, the judge, or the God of the universe. The spirit of the "lawless one" gets into them and dominates them. Unless some divine power gets hold upon them, they will become criminals, disgrace their families, wind up their career in prison, and spend their eternity in outer darkness. A child can have no more dangerous enemy than an indulgent parent who exercisesno intelligent discipline, no rules or laws for the government of the family, and no punishment of any kind to be inflicted because of disobedience. C -- LAWLESS TOYS We have in the State of’ Kentucky, and I suppose every state in the Union, a law forbidding the carrying of concealed weapons. The habit of carrying a deadly weapon that can be used in a moment of excitement and anger, called in the courts, "sudden heat and passion," had led to tens of thousands of killings, and years of sadness and regret behind prison bars. If the law were enforced against the carrying of pistols, crime would be greatly reduced. Millions of toy pistols are sold every year; the imitations are almost perfect; they have with them caps that make quite a report when snapped, and the little fellows armed with these pistols imagine themselves to be desperadoes and charge about in mimic hold-ups and robberies. It seems strange that any parent would buy a toy pistol, and in this way sow the small seeds in the imagination, desires and actions of a child that are likely to prepare the way for the carrying of deadly weapons and the use of them. State legislatures ought to enact laws preventing their manufacture and sale. D -- THE MOVIES The moving pictures, as we have them in this country, are breeders of lust and schools of crime. It is difficult to conceive of a group of human beings with such low and selfish greed for gain, that they would, for sheer gain, put before the public, especially the young who are easily impressed and fascinated, the kind of pictures that have flooded this nation with filth for the past decades. They are schools of vice. They dull and deaden the better impulses, arouse and kindle the most dangerous passions that can degrade human beings. It is passing strange that our people permit the existence and display of these pictures so destructive to everything that is good, and the fostering of everything that is evil in human nature. There is much talk, but little action; and these degrading influences are allowed to go forward with their desecration of the home, the marriage relation and the young life of our nation. E -- THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC When one comes to think of the liquor traffic he finds ample room and play for righteous indignation. He is forced to the conclusion that money is the god of the godless. It is almost impossible to believe that men and women can become so selfish, such human demons, that they are not only willing, but eager to take advantage of the weakness of their fellow man, degrade and destroy them, most miserably, for this life and that which is to come, for money. These liquor demons who manufacture and sell liquor for the destruction of their fellows, can never get enough money. Nothing in all the world has fostered selfishness, greed, crime, misery, degradation, physical death and spiritual ruin, like the liquor traffic. We assemble the manufacturers of intoxicants, wholesalers, retailers, and lawmakers who, for money, turn the liquor traffic loose upon the people and put them into one great, guilty, godless class of selfish, deluded human beings. We believe that manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, promoters, voters and the whole outfit, millionaires and paupers, society women and demagogues in political high places, must repent of their evil deeds, or, finally keep company with each other in hell. The degradation of human beings and lawlessness which has been, is being, and will be, produced by the liquor traffic cannot be estimated by figures or described in human language. Lawmakers and law-enforcers confess that human beings are naturally so weak in virtue and so strong in vice, thatlaws for the suppression of the liquor traffic cannot be enforced. We are not ready to admit the truthfulness of this statement. We believe laws can be enacted, and officials may be elected, punishment can be so severe, and inflicted so promptly, that the liquor traffic would almost disappear from the land. Politics have become so corrupt, and politicians so lacking in the high and noble virtues, that the majority of the people of this nation have been led to believe that it is so impossible to enforce prohibitory laws against the manufacture and sale of liquor, that the nation, the President, Senate, Congress, Governors, Legislators, enforcement officers, and the Church of God must surrender to these evil forces, and make the liquor traffic legal, and out of the wreck and ruin of the family, human bodies and human souls, gather blood money to support, the nation, which means vast salaries for an army of demagogues. By this statement we do not mean that there are no statesmen of honor and integrity, and no officials who are true to their oath of office; but it looks as if that same powerful person who offered Jesus Christ the control of the kingdoms of the earth, if he would fall down and worship him, has brought the majority of our people to their knees with his false promises, and largely guides and controls them in their actions, especially, at the ballot-box. If we would save this nation, we must begin with the hickory limb, which, by no means must stand for cruelty, but it must mean home discipline; if necessary, the use of the rod to guide the young along the path of obedience which leads to good character and useful living. We must recognize the Mourner’s Bench, the supreme importance of the office and work of the Holy Spirit in the regeneration of each and every individual who comes to years of responsibility; this gracious work of God secured, the individual, the home and the nation are safe. We must insist upon Education that considers, not only the body and mind, but the immortal spirit, and is so directed that reverence for God, respect for law, and the principles of integrity are woven into the life of our people in the years in which they secure their education. We must insist upon toil. Every one should be a willing worker. Useful employment is not only healthy, but a means of development of the spirit of self-support that brings, not only self-respect, but an interest in all others who eat honest bread in the sweat of their brow. A nation of idlers will become a nation of criminals, who will not only violate human, but divine law. There must be a revival of law enforcement. There can, and should be, provided a net that will catch the violator and bring him to the courts of justice. Trials ought to be speedy, and punishment severe. Men should be made to fear to commit crime. No one man should have power to pardon and turn loose criminals upon the public; no one juror should have power to prevent the bringing in of a verdict of "guilty." There ought to be a widespread and general determination to sweep out of existence many of those things which sow the seeds and breed the spirit of lawlessness and crime. As I approach the sunset of life, looking backward, around me, and forward, I am forced to believe that the five greatest needs of our times are suggested by the little pictures on the front cover of this booklet: The Hickory Limb, The Book, The Mourner’s Bench, the Hoe, and the Policeman’s Billy. Let us have wise family discipline, the regenerating power of God in the hearts of our youth, Christian Education, Industry which provides support and self-respect, and the proper enforcement of law, and our nation is safe, and our people will be a progressive, Christian nation happy and hopeful in the life that now is, and that which is to come. Respectfully yours, H. C. Morrison ======================================================================== CHAPTER 29: S. WILL A MAN ROB GOD? ======================================================================== Will a Man Rob God? by Henry Clay Morrison PREFACE The law of tithing is plainly written in the Scriptures. There is no hint in the Bible that it has become obsolete, and there is no better or more reasonable way to meet the financial obligations of the church, than for each individual member of the church to perform his or her duty to bear their part in the support of the church and carrying forward the work of our Lord in the spread of the gospel. This sermon has been preached effectively and it is hoped will prove helpful to all who may read it. If you should find it interesting and suggestive, place it in the hands of others. H. C. Morrison THE MESSAGE Text: "Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings. Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation. Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it." -- Malachi 3:8-10 In this text God through his prophet, brings a serious charge against the Hebrew people. He begins with an explanation as if he were surprised that a people would be so wicked and so rash as to rob the God who created them, and has preserved them, and upon whom they are so entirely dependent. He brings the accusation straight home to them. He tells them that they are cursed with a curse, and gives as a reason that they have robbed Him. He also assures them if they will bring the full tithe into his storehouse that he will open the windows of heaven and pour them out an overflowing blessing. There was a covenant between God and the Hebrew people. There were certain obligations that they were duty bound to observe; certain tithes that they were pledged to pay. They had broken their pledge, failed to perform their obligations, a curse had come upon them and in the text God is pointing out the curse, explaining the cause, and assuring them of the possibility of a remedy, but they must meet their obligations by bringing in their full tithe. It is unthinkable that an intelligent God would undertake to set up a kingdom among men in the world, that must necessarily involve considerable financial expense, and not make some definite plan or arrangement for the meeting of those expenses. All governments arrange for assessments and taxation to secure an income sufficient to meet the running expenses of the government; the divine government is no exception to this rule. The provisions made in the divine law to meet the expenses of the kingdom of God in the world are most equitable and liberal. His kingdom is to be run with the most careful economy; the expenses are to be met by all of the subjects of this kingdom in proportion to the income of each subject God asks men for a seventh of their time and a tenth of their income. They must give to him the Sabbath day and in turn he makes this contribution of time one of his greatest gifts to men. On the Sabbath they are to rest, relax their nerves, rest their minds, refresh their physical strength, enjoy the companionship of their families, direct their thoughts to their Maker, engage in worship and social religious service with their neighbors and fellow-beings. Undoubtedly, the Sabbath day is one of the greatest benefits and blessings that God has ever bestowed upon the human race. The importance of keeping the Sabbath is not only written in the Holy Scriptures, but it is written in the nature of things. It is not only important that man should cease from his toil one day in seven for physical rest and the refreshing and renewing of his bodily strength, but it has been found that this is equally true with animal or brute creation. It is also true in the mechanical realm; the utensils of toil will last longer and render better service when they are laid aside for a seventh day rest from use. We see in the law of the Sabbath a gracious concern in the mind of our God and Maker for the dumb brutes that have been created for the service of mankind. God has taken pains to specify that his dumb creatures shall have the privilege of a seventh day rest. It is a shame and a sin for any owner of dumb beasts to work them hard through the week and then drive or gallop them about on the Sabbath day, regardless of their worn bodies and of the gracious commandment of God that was meant to protect them from overwork. The law requiring a tenth of the income is certainly most liberal toward the tenant. God furnishes the land, the rain, the sunshine, the seed, the animals with which to cultivate the soil, the health and strength for the labor, and then proposes that when we dig the potatoes we put nine of them into our basket and one into his; that when we thresh the wheat we put nine bushels into our bin and one in his; that when we gather the corn we put nine wagon loads into our crib and one in his, and so on, with all the products of our fields, our factories, our shops; in a word, we are to take nine parts of all the products of our labor, the increase of our activities and give to him only the tenth. This is certainly a most liberal arrangement; it is a plainly written law, and God clearly teaches us in the text that those who fail to comply with this arrangement are robbers. They are not only thieves, but they have the audacity to steal from God while his all-seeing eye is resting upon them. A Christian civilization without the Sabbath and the Church, and all those institutions for education, the care of the aged, the orphan, and the sick, which necessarily spring up about the Church, cannot be maintained without considerable expense; but it has been found that if all members of the Church will promptly pay their tithe these expenses can be bountifully met and that there will always be money in the treasury of the Lord. Some years ago, when I was in India, I heard the complaint among some of the educated natives of that country, that Great Britain sent out high officials from England for the government of India; that these officials received large salaries, and that they sent away this money collected by taxing the native people, for investment in England, and thus the country was gradually drained of its wealth; that a stream of money constantly flowed from India into England which would never come back. This is not so in God’s administration of his kingdom among men. He collects his tithe, but he does not gather it up into the storehouses of heaven; he invests it in our midst, and for our benefit. What becomes of the tithe we give to God? He turns it back to the givers; with it, he builds churches in which we are educated; he erects the buildings in which our orphans are cared for, the hospitals in which our sick find comfort, nursing and healing. How infinitely gracious and good is God! There is no sort of selfishness in the administration of his kingdom. Our welfare, salvation and happiness is his one great concern. When we rob God we rob ourselves. Not only is this true, that God gives back to us for our own use, what we give to him, but he also pledges prosperity to the liberal giver. "Give, and it shall be given you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom." Let no one suppose he can be stingy or dishonest with God and escape the notice of his all-seeing eye; let such an one remember that God hath spoken of him in plain terms; he has called him a robber; that tenth which he holds is not his own; it is an act of theft as really as if he had stolen from his neighbor’s field, or extracted the purse from the pocket of his fellow man. God is displeased with him and will call him to account. Because of these robberies by vast multitudes of church members the cause of God struggles in the world. Churches are not built and the people go without the benefits of the sacred sanctuary; orphanages are not erected, and little children who are without parents go unprotected and grow up ignorant and vicious; missionary enterprises languish, and the heathen that might have been saved and civilized, live in darkness and die in their sins. It is no small matter to rob God; to go through life indifferent to his divine commandment with reference to the very small tax he would collect of us while we live on his earth, breathe the air, enjoy the fruitage, and dwell amidst the countless blessings that he has poured upon us with unstinted mercies from a bountiful hand. Many a man has been stingy and dishonest with God. He has clung grudgingly to that tenth which belongs to his Maker and Preserver. He has hoarded it up and held on to it with a grudging, thieving spirit, died in his sins and gone up to meet the God from whom he had stolen all of his life, and left the fruits of his robbery to be the curse of extravagant, wasteful, and godless children. There is a story told of a peasant who, in a beautiful valley at the foot of a mountain, laid his sacrificial lamb as an offering upon the altar of God; kindled the fire to consume the lamb, fell upon his knees and closed his eyes in worship. An eagle perched upon a tall crag above the nest of its young, sniffed the odor of the consuming meat and swooping down, snatched the lamb from the burning altar, and mounting to its erie, dropped the stolen sacrifice into its nest to feed its fledglings, while the astonished peasant gazed in grief and sorrow upon the bird which had stolen his sacrifice, and now perched above its nest, far beyond his reach. As he gazed with grief upon the thieving bird, he saw a smoke rising from the eagles’ nest, and then a flame shot up. The mother bird screamed with agony and flew helplessly about the crag while the nest was consumed and her helpless young were burned to death. It chanced that a live coal of fire had adhered to the stolen sacrifice and dropping into the nest had kindled the dry sticks into a flame, which had destroyed the objects of her care and love. This fable strikingly illustrates the folly of those parents who have robbed the altars of God in order to satisfy the extravagance and lusts of their wicked children who have been consumed in the fire of their own carnal passions. There is a feature in this wise law of tithing that must not be forgotten; forgetfulness of God leads to all manner of sinfulness. The memory of God is the best preventive against wickedness of every kind. Doubtless, one of the objects of the law embracing the keeping of the Sabbath and the paying of the tithe, is to keep in our minds the thought of God, his presence in our midst, his right to rule the inhabitants of the earth; the mercies he has extended to us, the grace and compassion revealed in the gift of his Son, and the salvation provided in his sacrifice upon the cross. No one can keep the Sabbath and carefully and conscientiously pay his tithe, and forget God.* Obedience to these commandments will keep the thought of God, our obligations to him, our dependence upon him, and our trust in him, always before our eyes. If man neglects the Sabbath, forgets to keep it holy; if he refuses to pay his tithe, he will forget God; he will forget that God owns the world; he will come to believe that he is the owner of the earth he occupies instead of a mere tenant remaining for a little while and hastening on to some other world where he shall give a strict account for his stewardship here. We do not believe that infinite wisdom could have devised a better method of keeping the thought of God and reverence for him in the minds and hearts of men, than is provided for in the keeping of the Sabbath and the paying of the tithe. In conclusion, let us remember that a blessing is pronounced upon those who bring in all the tithes; and God has not forgotten to keep this promise. We believe it is the universal testimony of those who carefully keep accounts and pay their tithe, adding to this obligation frequent thank-offerings, that God has graciously blessed them in basket and in store. We have known persons who date the beginnings of their prosperity to the time when they commenced to carefully pay their tithe. It is pitiful and distressing to hear people who claim to be religious, whining about and saying, "My present circumstances are such that I cannot pay my tithe," as if they could not get on with their ninety cents without stealing a dime from God almighty. We have heard others complain thus: "I am in debt, and I feel I must pay my debts before I can pay my tithe," as if it were necessary to rob God of the few dimes one owes to him in order to pay a debt to some one else. This is not only poor religion; but it is poor business; it is transacted at great risk. In our text God says, "Ye are cursed with a curse." What intelligent being, professing to be a Christian, is willing to steal God’s ten-cent piece and with it, take his indignation and curse? Let us heed the divine exhortation: "Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse," and dwell under the window from which overflowing blessings are poured out. ======================================================================== Source: https://sermonindex.net/books/writings-of-henry-c-morrison/ ========================================================================