AUTUMN skies! udding storm clouds!
The summer was over, winter was coming.
| STOOD GAZING SADLY at the white canvas bags containing neatly folded revival tent of which I was now the proud possessor. It was a perfectly good canvas tabernacle, with eight-foot side poles and sectional center poles to facilitate shipping. I had, likewi s were done What a pity!
Tent meeting da many canvas-backed mottoes with two-foot letters proclaiming to the world that “Jesus saves In fact, everything was a to begin; and now the fall fains were upon us and winter was in the offing.
Honk! Honk! Honk!
With nec ally beating the air, a flock of wild geese. flew high above Long Island Sounddays they would preen their h tropic skies and float idly o'er the smooth surface of palm-encircled lakes, The intrepid leader loudly called to those in the rear to speed on read s outstretched and widespread wings rhythmic perfect formation, south! In a few in hers ‘ne;
and on and on toward the Southland. Must we, then, be left behind to hibernate for the winter? Must the white wings of the tent remain folded until next sum mer? Suddenly the urg solution to my problem Within a few hours the tent equipment was routed to Florida on board ship. My tent and I would migrate with the birds of that call from the skies became the to that ever-verdant, palm-decked land, and there I would continue to preach the Word to the residents and multitudes of tourists now speeding thither.
The fields were waiting for the gospel and the splendid offering with which the Corona Baptist Church had rewarded our campaign made it possible to carry it to the Southland, * Our first Florida tent-meeting was held in Jacksonville, the gateway to the lower South.
We arrived in the city, which was strange to us, without a friend or an acquaintance—a city of sparkling fountains and large hotels—a city of crimson poinsettias and flaming hibiscus —a city filled with tourists who had come to await the time when King Winter should have loosed his icy &fasp upon the North and East.
“Lord, help us now to get a start!" I prayed.
Carefully I counted my money. What a hole passage and freight had made in my capital and there were many things which must be done.
First, I must find a lot, centrally located.
Second, I must obtain a permit from the mayor and the fire chief.
Third, lumber must be purchased with which to build seats.
Fourth, electric wiring must be obtained, advertising taken care of, and a piano secured! Handbills must be printed and circulated carefully. I decided to go up one street and down the other asking permission to fasten the bills in the windows with little gummed stickers,
It was the great adventure! Oh, the thrill of a first camp meeting in a new state and city!
At last all was in readiness. The piano, lights, even the altar was in place. As a last flare of reckless buying, I had decided upon a string of colored lights across the top of the tent to make the camp ground cheery and inviting. I dipped the white bulbs I was able to purchase in various-colored paints and was proud of the finished work of art.
Twenty-four hours before the tent-meeting was to open, I returned hot, footsore and weary from a handbill distributing tour. Taking stock, I found that everything was in readiness, every bill had been paid, and, as a proof of good management, I had five cents left. However, it was supper time, I was hungry, and five cents looked mighty meagre!
As I sat on one of the new benches, admiring the moss and palmetto branches which I had gathered and fashioned into decorations befitting Florida's surroundings, I fanned my burr ing cheeks with a wide-brimmed hat. I was startled to see a large shadow cast just before me, and, looking up, to behold framed in the entrance of the tent a ger tously-proportioned colored mammy, white teeth flashing in friendly smile
“Ah sees yo" all's goin’ to have a camp meetin’ right away.”
“Yes, we are,”
“Seein’ as you all is chillun ob de Lord, ah thought yo’ all might help me.”
“Oh we would be glad to, Mammy; what can we do for you
“Well, mah ole man’s been out ob work and sick fo’ a long time. Mah chillun need clothes, food and money. Ef yo" could help us jus’ a little bit, we suah would be obliged and de good Lawd would bless you.”
“Wish we could do more for you,” I replied, “but we just happen to be out of groceries ourselves. As for clothes, ho’ ever, I am expecting some to arrive most any time. The church where we held our last revival promised to send some used clothing for the poor whom I might meet. As for money, here is a nickel, dear, if that will help you; it’s all I have.”
I untied the corner of my handkerchief, then placed the nickel in the creamy palm of the black hand.
hank yo', ma'am! Thank yo’, ma'am!" she beamed. “De Lawd will sho’ bless yo’ fo’ it, and I will be back fo de clothes latah.”
The strip of canvas which protected the entrance dropped back into place, and I was alone again with my thoughts. Only for a moment, however, for the quietude was broken by a car driving up with a squeal of brakes at the entrance. Voices were heard.
“Yes, this is the place. There is the sign. Wonder if she's around?”
A whole catload of people (and how they ever put so many in that car has always been a mystery to me!), who had heard of our meetings in the northern states and who had read some of our earlier writings in Christian magazines, had traveled all the way from Atlanta, Georgia, to attend the services,
With greetings over, and the dusty company afforded an ‘opportunity to wash up, some of the party exclaimed:
“Sister McPherson, we have been on the road so long we are hungry as bears! Is it nearly supper time?”
Changing the subject, I maneuvered the company into the large tabernacle-tent in order to let them view the place, and then I slipped unnoticed into my little sleeping tent, dropped to my knees beside my cot, and prayed:
“Lord, those children of Thine have come far in their journey. They are hungry, and I have nothing to offer them. O Lord, if it be Thy will for us to fast and pray until the meeting opens tomorrow evening, amen. But if it be Thy will that we should have something to set before these people, please supply it, for ‘Thy name's sake.”
T emerged from my tent and returned to the party of people inspecting the large tent. A smile was on my face, for I had shifted the burden of worry and responsibility from my shoulders to those of the Lord, and my mind was at ease.
I stood chatting with the visitors for a few moments, but our conversation was suddenly interrupted. A loud, gruff voice from the street in front of the tent put a stop to the clatter of iron-shod feet upon the cement pavement:
“Whoa, thar!”
Listening for a moment, we heard a loud thud. End over end, a large box was rolled through the entrance of the tent and the expressman, with a cheery smile, held book and pencil out to me for my signature.
“Is it—is it prepaid?” I asked cautiously.
“Yes'm.”
Immediately I thought of the promise made by the Corona church folk, to send me some old clothes to help the poor. My problem of food completely forgotten by now, I ran for a hammer and the cold chisel and pried the lid off the box.
There on the top was a coat, neatly folded—a little worn at the collar, but that colored mammy would feel like a queen in it. There were dresses, a sw clothing crammed into the box
Strange, though, what made them so heavy!
Inspecting further, I found to my surprise that the sleeves were stuffed with round, hard objects; and there were lumps scattered here and there throughout the pile of clothing, I shook the coat which I held in my hands. Out rolled a can of peas and fell to the floor with a thud! A can of corn, another of salmon and still another of sardines followed in quick succession! Boxes and packages, brought to light in a hurry after that, revealed corn flakes, rolled oats, condensed milk, sugar, crackers—in fact, everything we could have desired for supper that ht, and breakfast and luncheon the follow ing day!
I stood for a moment, trembling! My chin began to quiver, tears filled my eyes, and I murmured over and over Thank You, Lord! Thank You!
Crackers and sardines—loaves and fishes!
Quickly starting a camp-fire, I hustled about and had sup per ready in no time at all. Every head bowed as we sang “grace” which I had been taught so many years before on the farm:
ter, and all sorts of articles of
“Be present at our table, Lord;
Be here and every place adored.
‘Thy mercies bless, and grant that we May feast eternally with Thee. Amen
As we sang, the great clock in the next block struck the hour. Bong! Bong! Six times it rang out in the evening air. Our supper had been sent all the way from Corona, Long Island, to Jacksonville, Florida, and it was right here when the clock struck six!
‘The campaign was on!
Within a few days the crowds that came to the meetings had grown so in proportion that the tent was filled and many stood about its borders, I was strengthened for my tasks so that I was enabled, in those days, to lead the singing, play the piano, make the announcements, preach the sermon, give the altar call, pray with seekers, close up the tent, put out the lights, care for my little family and, with but a few hours of rest, be ready for the next day's services. I was publicity manager, musical director, pianist, preacher, altar worker and janitor—all combined!
A few days after the Jacksonville meetings began, I was giving an altar call one evening when I noticed a young man sitting in the back of the tent with his head bowed on his arm. The other arm was in a sling. Seeing that he was in tears, I went to him and asked:
“Why are you weeping, Brother? Could I help you?”
He lifted a face that startled me with the stark tragedy written upon it. He was just a young man, and was dressed in a suit of what was once fine material but now was worn and frayed from much wearing.
“No one can help me now! I was on my way to the waterfront to end it all tonight when I heard the singing in your tent and dropped in.”
“End it all? Why, Brother, what do you mean? Why should a young man like you, with all of life before him, consider such a thing?”
"Sister, you don’t—you don’t understand! I have broken my arm in three places and dislocated my wrist—got caught in a belt at the factory. The doctor says it will be a long time before I can work again.”
“But even so, why commit suicide over a broken arm? Many men have their arms amputated, and do not think of resorting to such an extreme.”
Slipping into the seat beside him, and urging him to tell me all that was on his heart, I heard this story:
AA little more than a year previous the young man, of splendid family, and his bride had been married. The war had broken ‘out, and everything was changed. Business reverses brought about straitened circumstances. His wife was still in Georgia, but he had come to Jacksonville to work in a munitions plant, though unused to manual labor. As he spoke, he pictured to me the awkward fumbling at the machine belt, the sickening wrench of his arm, the broken bone!
Then, in a softer tone and with a ge he said:
look in his eyes,
Sister, my wife needs money now—needs it more than she may ever need it again in her life. 1 thought I going to make everything easy for her. Now I can’t even work and support myself, much less her and the little one who is on the way! In the meantime what will she do? She is too proud to ask help of the people there Down went his head in his arms again as he sobbed convulsively. Laying my hand sympathetically on his shoulder, I was groping for words to speak when my little choir on the plat form, without knowledge of what was transpiring in the back row of the tent, began to sing the chorus:
‘A little talk with Jesus makes it right, all right, A little talk with Jesus makes it right, all right, In trials of every kind, thank God, I always find, A little talk with Jesus makes it right
My inspiration had come! Co: man:
“Brother, listen to the words of that song! A little talk with Jesus will help you. No load so heavy but His love can lift it; no night so dark but His smile can brighten it. He will open the way for you and your wife. Come, let me lead you to Jesus.”
He seemed about to rise, but suddenly a hand was laid upon his arm. I had not observed the young man who had slipped into the seat on the other side of him.
“Don't be a fool! You know there is nothing to this religious bunk!”
My heart sank, then rose again, for without hesitating longer, the young man got up from his seat and followed me to the altar to kneel at the feet of Jesus. I believe he must have been in such desperate straits that he scarcely heard the voice of his friend who, I found out later, was the infidel son of a Methodist minister.
Earnestly we prayed at the alta idently I said to the young
! The long mourner’s bench was filled from end to end, Some one brushed against it, jolting the broken arm of the one beside me,
“Oh-o-oh!” he cried, and his face blanched. "MY ARM!"
“Ob, Brother, I am so sorry,” I said, sick with sympathy at the suffering revealed in his face. “Be careful,” I wamed others kneeling nearby.
When I felt in my heart that we had “prayed through,” I asked the young man to rise with me and praise the Lord for His wonderful love toward the children of men. With his face just beaming with joy he grasped my hand and said:
“Thank God! I believe Jesus saves me, and somehow I feel that things will turn out all right!”
Glancing at his bandaged arm, I could not forget that little wife who needed'money so much at this particular time.
“Brother!” I said suddenly. "Do you believe Jesus Christ can heal your broken arm, just as He has healed your broken heart, so you can work and support your wife and expected child? If Jesus were on earth, He would heal you in a moment. Yet has He not said, ‘Lo, I am with you alway,” and is He not the same yesterday, and today and forever?”
"Y-yes—yes, I believe He can heal me,” he replied, simply.
Closing my eyes,'I laid my hand gently upon the bandaged arm in the white sling, and prayed:
“Lord Jesus, this poor young man has broken his arm. Thou knowest his need and the need of -his little wife. Wilt Thou please heal him for Thy name’s sake? Lord, heal him just now, and we will give Thee the glory, Amen!”
Silence had fallen over the entire tent as the chorus of “Oh, Happy Day" died out, and my voice-had carried further than I realized. In that moment Fear whispered:
“Now you've done it! Suppose he is not instantly healed? This will ruin your meeting. Better to have left well enough alone.”
A momentary wave of depression swept over me, and I closed my eyes. But when I opened them again, I saw that a wonderful change had taken place on his countenance, I glanced at his hand. He was moving his fingers slowly, gently, experimentally to and fro!
“Why—why,” he exclaimed, “I can move my fingers, and it doesn’t hurt when I do so!”
“Couldn't you move them before?”
“No, of course not! My arm was broken, I tell you!” He spoke excitedly. Tenderly, gingerly he felt of his arm, He withdrew it from the sling. Next, he lifted it above his head, and then began to tap harder and harder upon the cast. Without suggestion from me, he took out his knife, cut the fastening of the bandage and began to unwrap his arm
“Don’t make a fool of yourself! You're not healed. Your arm will be in terrible shape now!” His friend from the back had come forward and was standing beside us
With firm resolution the young man continued to unwind the bandage until the last of it had been removed, along with the splints, heeding not the angry mockery of his companion. Slipping his arm into his empty coat sleeve, after again holding it aloft and repeating that he was healed, he fastened the bu tons of his coat with the fingers of the previously broken member!
Slowly every vestige of color drained from the face of the young atheist, Reaching out his hand, he took hold of his friend's arm and shook it up and down, at first gently, then re violently “Does that hurt? There—does that hurt you?”
“No. I tell you, I'm healed!"
The atheist whirled around and went down in a heap with both arms before his face, fairly falling over the mourner's bench, sobbing out the penitent’s prayer:
“O God, be ful to me, a sinner! I have b unbeliever! Lord, forgive me now. I believe!”
That night a telegram was sent to a certain Methodist minister which must have made his heart rejoice. His boy had come home to Christ!
The young man, two days later, went back to work. In a few months his wife joined him.
Sometime later I received a quaintly-framed photograph of the happy husband, the pretty little wife who had just found Christ as her Saviour, also, and their tiny three-week-old baby!
na wicked * Folding the tents at Jacksonville, we set out for Tampa, leaving the Atlantic Ocean and crossing the state to this lovely city upon the Gulf of Mexico. Fortified with a liberal supply $ soon as we rounded the corner J said to the young man: Brother, why did you do that? “Well, he was on his way to hell, wasn’t he?’ fensively But how he asked deyou know he was? And even if he were, that is no way to win souls for Christ! One can do far more with the bait of love than with the club of bombastic, untactful preach:
ing
Did not the incident exemplify the two methods of preachthe Word? One—and there are so many who use it—merely preaching the driving hard law of God; the other, a through the love of Jesus Christ and of the I Father Who His Son freely for our redemption!
peal, ve
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During the two winters that I preached in Florida, the tent was pitched not only in Jacksonville and Tampa, but in St sburg, Orlando, Palm Beach, Miami and as far south as ey West. Space would be too small to contain the half of the interest incidents that come trooping back to my mind—nights of ling with winds and water-soaked canvas—the swinging of the little sledgehammers with blistered hands, hair streaming wet in the driving rain—the experience with hundreds of school children who crawled in under our tent in Key West when it was pitched on the school grounds—nights of journeying into the swamps of Georgia when armies of mosquitoes nearly ate us alive!
io,
There was the experience, while crossing the continent, when our car was stuck in a wind-swept field of mud at two-thirty in the morning! We had run along in front of the car laying the broken skid chains end to end to obtain traction, until the chains were at last hopelessly lost in the deep mire. Chilled to the bone we resorted to the solution of which only a woman would think! We removed our petticoats and sweaters and, tying them round the wheels, we flapped our way a few miles farther! Then we were hopelessly stuck again and were forced to leave the children in the closely buttoned car while I slushed through mud to the nearest railroad junction in search of help, with only a silly little collapsible lantern with a sputtering candle inside for light! Failing to obtain help until morning, I sat in the car all night huddling a baby on each arm, while the wind howled dismally over the unbroken reaches of the prairie.
Then there was the time when, far out in the country, the tadiator froze and a steam roller came along and supplied us with hot water to thaw it out!
"There were times, also, when the little sloping automobile tent which covered the folding bed that was clamped to the running board froze stiff.
However, the more tragic moments were far superseded by the glorious altar calls where sinners found Christ, and the services of prayer where the sick were healed and the lame made to walk!