MOUNTAIN and plain! Snow-capped peaks and sparkling Pacific! Sunshine and flowers!
Los Angeles!
URING THE TIME I WAS PREACHING in tents and traveling by machine, neither of the children had been able to attend school regularly. I taught them for a definite number of hours each day, but the proper association with other children was lacking, and as I was on the move constantly, it was impossible to provide for them the kind of a home which is every child's birthright of memory.
“Mother,” they would say to me as I put them to bed in that little tent, “Mother, why can’t we have a little house some where, with a garden and everything, and go to the same school all the time like other children do? Why can’t we have pets and flowers, and other children to play with?”
In my uniform, ready to go to meeting, Bible in hand, I would kiss them both and say:
“I wonder if I should give up the work of the Lord?”
“Well, Mother," they would ask solemnly, “have you got all the souls converted yet?”
“No,” I would admit, “I haven't.”
“Then you'd better keep on a while longer,” they would say thoughtfully and go to sleep.
And there did seem to be nothing else for me but to go on and on indefinitely, from village to town and from town to city, leaving those two children each night to sleep in the tent just
= 43 back of my platform while I stood in the pulpit and preached the gospel of Christ
Th me that terrible epidemic of influenza which swept over our nation in 1918. We were moving from a revival in New York to open another in New Rochelle. Af ys and nights in which I had gone constantly from one bedside to another, praying for the sick and comforting the dying and the bereaved, my vitality at low ebb from c days of ministering to others, I myself fell prey to the dread disease.
r days a aseless nights and
But my services were scheduled for weeks ahead and thousands of handbills had been passed out advertising them. I simply could not afford to be ill. And so, clinging to my pulpit in sheer weakness, I carried on as best I could, feeling that I could not close the meetings then, for in the midst of that terrible epidemic the people, panic-stricken, with death stalking in their midst, came to our meetings to find through the portals of prayer the only source of divine comfort and hope! God honored my faith and determination.
Just then there were not even enough coffins to bury all the people who were dying, so widespread and so deadly was the epidemic! In the army camps the soldier boys were dropping over like flies.
One night, when I came home from service, I found little Roberta very ill. She, too, had been stricken with influenza and soon it had developed into double pneumonia! Every night, as I went upon the platform I was numb at heart, for, before me, every moment as I spoke, there was the vision of that little white face upon the pillow—and how long it would be until it became whiter still I could not know.
And so an evar a little woman evangelist—sang and smiled and comforted others as they knelt at the altar, while her own heart was breaking. When the last seeker had been pointed to the Saviour, when the last one had departed happy in his new-found comfort, the evangelist went to the bedside of her daughter.
relist:
Arriving home from the meeting on one never-to-be-forgotten day I was told that Roberta was unconscious, that she w not expected to live out the hour! I went upstairs, fell upon my knees and leaned my head against my bed, It seemed my grief was greater than I could bear.
Then suddenly it seemed the Lord was very close to me as, in anguish, I knelt there alone.
“O Lord,"I said, “You took Robert, and I managed to live. But I—I just couldn't stand this, I'm afraid.”
___ At that moment, as clearly as though they had been spoken, these words were born in my heart:
“Don’t cry, my child. Your little girl will live and not die. Moreover, I will give you a bungalow for her in Los Angeles, California, where she can go to school.”
As I hurried down to her room, my heart singing with this new comfort, Roberta opened her eyes and I knew that she was not going to die, knew it just as surely as I knew that God would cause the golden sun to rise the following morning to vanquish the shades of darkness!
“Roberta, dear,” I said, “you're going to get well and we're all going to have that little home you and Rolf always wanted.”
“And can I have a canary, too, Mamma?” asked her thin, tired little voice.
“And can I have some rose bushes, too, Mamma?” asked little Rolf.
“Yes, we'll have a bungalow,” I began, “a nice little nest for Mamma and her two fledglings.”
I stopped. How could I promise these things? How and where were we to get a bungalow? Who would provide us with such happiness? It had seemed so certain in there when I was kneeling, as though the Lord had definitely promised it! Could I have been mistaken? Could it have been the imaginations of an overtortured brain? But no, I could not doubt it. It was real. * Our trip across the continent was a new and eventful experience for all of us. Remember that it was undertaken long before cross-continent motoring became popular. I drove frequently as many as two hundred miles a day, sometimes through adobe mud or sand, holding services in the evenings and then going on again; between towns, when we spent the night in the country, rigging up our well-outfitted camp, preparing our meals
and teaching the children. Roads and conveniences were certainly not as they are now!
Some of our experiences I remember with constant pleasure, and others I just remember! Everywhere, people were marvelously kind, seemingly unable to do too much for us. In some rural communities, where they had heard of our coming in advance, they drove scores of miles to the highway, sometimes merely to intercept the car and pile things into it, and sometimes to insist that we go with them to their homes and hold services.
All along the way we found scores of old friends, some of whom we had never met personally, but who were acquainted with us through my monthly Bridal Call magazine, which I had been editing for several years
Over the mountain passes and across the floors of the valleys we came, until the garden panoramas of the East ended at the edge of the virgin prairie; until the bleak spaces of wide deserts gave way before the neat rows of vivid green and golden yellow of California orange groves.
At Tulsa, Oklahoma, we ran into a particularly severe epidemic of influenza, and we were again kept busy running here and there, praying for the sick, It pleased God, in the majority of instances, to hear our prayers. Everywhere, people came flocking to the car and, as we preached from the seat, they knelt by the running boards to accept Christ as Saviour
At length, after four thousand miles of driving, we came to a city lying upon a plain—a city to which the Lord had bedi oned us now by its own marvelous beauty
We had reached our destination at last. Behind us we had left the mountain passes where my aching arms strained and twisted interminably at the wheel; the flooded riverlands through which we had crawled with sticky mud and swirling water clear to the hub-caps; the sheer drops, unseen, upon the rough, winding roads where our headlights stabbed into the darkness, beyond which there was nothing at all to support us, nd where only the quick apy brought us to a shrieking s
We became mired in virtually impassable roadways and had to skid ourselves out as best we could, with chains and branches cut from trees. We had to stop and lever aside huge boulders, unload and reload the car as we came to the edge of swamps— ication of brak sp before we went over
AN a plugging on across the continent while it rained till we were soaked to the skin, while it snowed till it seemed we must all be frozen.
It was at such times that little Roberta would begin to pe eee And Rolf, her younger brother, would comfort her with:
“Never mind, Birdie—you'll have that bungalow and canary bird pretty soon, and I'll have my garden and rose bushes.”
It was twilight when we entered Los Angeles, California.
We drove from the outskirts into the city proper and through its streets. I suppose that anybody who noticed us at all, noticed us only as another party of tourists, coming to California, After the long ride, we were all weary and disheveled, the car which had been new when we started was mud encrusted, and we were glad to accept the hospitality of some of our subscriber friends,
Our campaign opened in an upstairs room ("Victoria Hall”) in downtown Los Angeles, having a seating capacity of about one thousand. The pastor had been preaching to an average of a dozen people, but from our first meeting, crowds increased steadily. In a few days the people were not able to get into the hall. Prayer room, rostrum, stairway, and corridors overflowed, and many were turned away.
Here in this “City of the Angels,” where the power of the Spirit had so wonderfully fallen years previous (in the old Azusa Street Mission), we learned that divers doctrinal differences had gotten the eyes of many off the Lord, and that there was a dearth in the land, Hungry hearts had been praying earnestly, however, and the Lord answered prayer in a marvelous way. They who had lost their first love reconsecrated their lives. The windows of heaven were opened, hundreds were saved, scores were healed and large numbers received the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Rev. Warren W. Fisher, pastor, wrote concerning these meetings:
“The ‘latter rain’ in great abundance has been falling on the saints since the sister opened her campaign. Old cases, where the individual has been seeking the baptism for years, have been falling under the power of God. Backsliders who have failed God have been swept back into life and are now singing His praises. I never, in all my ministry, saw so many slain under the mighty power of God as have been observed in the prayer room after the call was given for seekers. It has seemed so easy for the people to yield themselves to the Spirit. In all, a great revival has started in our midst. The people are letting go of issues and doctrines, and are joining in with smiling faces, so that the saints are getting the love of God restored in their souls. The messages of the Lord, as given by the sister, are wit nessed to by the Spirit. They are the kind the church is in need of today. They are just the kind of messages that are needed in the city of Los Angeles, where much spurious doctrine has originated. The latter rain is falling, some say even more copiously than the former rain, and we are exceedingly glad to be in the showers.”
#4
Finally, it was deemed necessary for us to rent the Philharmonic Auditorium—the largest at that time in the city of Los Angeles. It was designed to accommodate nearly thirty-five hundred, but actually held many more before the revival was concluded.
A one-week meeting was also held in Bethel Temple, of hich Rey. G, N. Eldridge was then pastor, during which time the Lord blessed in a mighty way. After this, we again took up the revival services in Victoria Hall.
During the week at Bethel Temple the Lord had spoken this command with the promise:
"Go to Victoria Hall Sunday nigh thing wonderful there.”
In the midst of the service on that eventful Sunday night, a woman stood up and said
"T have three lots and I want to give one of them to Sister McPherson to build a bungalow for her babies.”
Bungalow? How did she know I wanted a bungalow? We had told that cherished hope to no one.
t all came so suddenly that I stood there for a moment, trying to catch my breath; and before I could speak, a man stood up, waited until the applause had subsided and said:
“IT want to give the lumber to build Sister's house.”
am going to do some-
“I am a carpenter—I will give the labor,” said a voice from another part of the hall.
“And I am a lather—I will do the lathing,” said still another,
"Shure, and I'll put the cement in for yez,” said a goodnatured voice which betrayed the owner's lineage.
From then on, for a few minutes, it was like a “popcorn” meeting. One after another jumped up, offered to donate the dining-room furniture, the living-room rugs, the kitchen linoleum, until practically a completely furnished home had been promised as a gift from those lovely, warm-hearted people. As for us, we were speechless and tearful before this demonstration.
Then, away in the back of the building, a little lady rose and said:
“T haven't anything big to offer, but I have one of the sweetest canary birds that I would love to give.”
With that, another lady was on her feet saying:
“I didn't think my gift worth mentioning, but since that sister has offered the canary bird—I wonder if you would like some of my lovely rose bushes for your garden?”
That was too much for me! There was the little home, complete, even to Roberta’s canary and Rolf’s rose bushes—and I sank into my chair, overcome with tears of joy and thanksgiving unto God Who had so miraculously fulfilled His promise.
Those people were all as good as their word and they set to work with a will. Soon, long before such a house could possibly have been built in the ordinary way, it was finished, furnished, and we were living in it!
I believe I was correct in calling it “The house that God built.”
All the work was done voluntarily, and every bit of material in it donated—every smooth of the trowel, every tap of the hammer, every swish of the saw, done by willing Christian workers who had risen each to offer his bit at that meeting. All of it, that is, with one exception. The exception was the man who laid the concrete floor in the basement.
All the others were members of my congregation, and as they worked, they sang. Upstairs, while that one man was in the basement, I led their singing. At length he came up where the rest of us were and told us that he had been cheating in that he had only put in one-third the depth of cement in the basement floor his worl
“Pray for me,” he said, “while I go and tear up that floor. I want to be a Christian, too.
Then he went down and put in a flooring three inches deep, so thick and so solid that for years afterward, while other cel lars in that neighborhood were flooded ag the rains, the cellar in that house I ater upon the floor!
in and again during never a drop of flood