Pentecostal Possibilities or "The Story of My Life"
by Milton Lorenzo (M. L.) Haney
CHAPTER 16
In Peru
In 1848 and 1849, I was stationed on the Peru circuit. Peru is among the older cities of Northern Illinois, and is situated on the Illinois River, at the mouth of the canal. As is often true of river towns, there was much immorality there in early times. The saloon was among its main features at an early date, and the saloon has never bred righteousness. It is the begetter of the vilest crimes which have ever seen the sun. There was a strong irreligious trend in the people generally, and forms of skepticism prevailed more widely there than in other cities of the state. Evangelical Protestantism has never had a firm hold in the city. We had a small, plain church building, with a weak society and a few devoted Christians. We built a parsonage, though I was still a single man, with a small den which I called my study. The house being rented to a family, I occupied the study and boarded with the family.
Not long after I was settled, a neatly attired young gentleman inquired if I could marry a couple there that evening. I had not long been ordained and this was my first opportunity to marry. I said: "We will meet in the parlor, as this room is so small an inconvenient." "No," he responded, they would prefer to meet here. The house was not completed and my front steps consisted of a high box, which made the entrance inconvenient for ladies. Then the room was very small, having bed, table, stove, chairs and bookcase. So I insisted on going to the parlor, but he was incorrigible, and I had to submit.
At 7 P. M. two couples appeared, and they had quite a time getting up my steps and to find standing room when they had entered. I addressed the young gentleman aforesaid, inquiring if they were ready, and he said yes. He was decidedly the better dressed of the two, and the bride stood near to him. Looking him straight in his eyes, I said: "Wilt thou have this woman to be thy wedded wife; wilt thou, etc., etc.?" and the other gentleman answered, "I will!" I had strength sufficient left to address the bride and asked them to join hands, when I pronounced them husband and wife; but as they blundered down those steps a young preacher was perspiring freely!
We had much hard work in this wicked city, with less results than had usually accompanied my ministry, but souls were saved and God has kept the record. There were three points on the circuit to which others were added before the year closed. It seemed to have been a neglected field, which gave me plenty to do. We had forty souls saved at Troy Grove. where we had a small meeting house. The first time I preached there I noticed a fine looking gentleman near the centre of the church who as my most attentive hearer. I had not gone far till I discovered he was at war with my preaching.
After services closed he came forward and introduced himself to me, saying he believed I was a sincere young man, but he felt he must warn me against false doctrines. I had preached on some phase of holiness as the Methodists taught it, but he was a Presbyterian and had been taught otherwise. He evidently desired to argue the subject with me, but I declined, saying it was a very sacred subject to me, and I purposed never to get into controversy about it; but I said: "I have a book I will give you which clearly covers this whole field; if you will read it." And he said he would. So I gave him "Dr. George Peck on Christian Perfection," which I now think was the ablest book ever written on the subject.
On returning four weeks from that day I poured out more full salvation talk, and at the close said: "If any of my brethren want his wonderful experience I would be glad to meet you here at the altar of prayer." My Presbyterian elder conferred not with flesh and blood, but came at once to my "mourners' bench!" God gave him this experience and he was so enchanted with it that he joined my church and was a burning lamp till he went back to God.
Grand old John St. Clair was my presiding elder, and was a father to me in the ministry. He was a very intensified Methodist, and an old timer. When he came round to my quarterly meeting I told him of the work at Troy Grove, and especially about the capture of my Presbyterian brother. When the recital was finished I said to him: "Uncle John, Presbyterian warp and Methodist filling make good cloth, don't they?" He answered slowly and in a guttural tone: "Yes, if you will get enough of the filling in!" Uncle John was not uncharitable, but he was a tremendous Methodist! He was old and broken, but wide-awake, full of fun and sometimes sarcastic; He was preaching in Peru one Sabbath against Universalism, and made the point that the Universalist faith tended to license sin. This was illustrated by the following incident:
A great Universalist preacher, as such, was making a desperate effort to establish the faith of his followers, and; a drunkard had come in and was holding to a post near the aisle, looking with eager eyes into the face of the minister. When the preacher had reached the climax of his argument the drunken man let go of the post, and staggering into the aisle cried out: "That's you, make it stick if you can; for it is my only hope!" Uncle John at the same time imitated the stagger and drawl of the drunkard so closely that you could think you saw and heard him! This was too much for an old Universalist doctor, who arose in great anger and started out. Uncle John cried out to the fleeing doctor: "Don't hurry, Doctor; wait, and I will become more interesting after a while!"
Lodging with the old elder one night, I noticed he was fussing in the darkness as though everything as out of order. After waiting till my curiosity was about to explode, I cried out: "Uncle John, what in the world are you doing?" "O," he said, "I am trying to get this feather on its edge!" The pillow was very small, and I found in the morning that he had taken a ladies' saddle from the wall and put it under the head of his bed to increase the size of his pillow.
He gave in my hearing an account of his father's conversion, which must have taken place at least one hundred years ago. His father was then in early middle years, and would not yield to God. Sickness took hold on his favorite child, an the little one went hurriedly into the embrace of death. The rebellion of the father was fearful, as he wailed over the death of his child, and the world, with all its charms, had faded from his vision. He tossed on his bed with anguish, and walked his room at night till his life became a horror to him. Friends became distasteful to him, and he wandered through the fields.
One day, while sitting on a fence not far from a neighbor's gate, a shepherd wished to change the pasture of his flock. The sheep had grazed till the grass was poor this side of the gate. Beyond the gate there was fresh and beautiful clover. He had opened the gate and brought them near, but they refused to enter again and again. The shepherd at last rushed violently among them, and, seizing a lamb, he carried it through the gate and set it down in the clover. The mother seeing her little darling had passed the gate into the better pasture, hastened after it, and the whole flock followed. Uncle John said his father seeing this, at once confessed his rebellion against God, and saw that Jesus, the good shepherd, had been compelled to take his lamb into the upper pasture to save him and his flock.
He at once became a Christian, and every one of his father's house had followed, till now so many were in heaven, while the rest were on the way. This is the origin of the incident, which has so often been repeated by ministers on funeral and other occasions to comfort bereaved mothers, and lead sorrowing ones to see the goodness of God. The old hero's soul was wonderfully wrought up, as he gave this incident of his father's past resulting in his own salvation and that of his father's house. He put in his last days in Evanston, that city of culture and refinement.
A friend hearing of his intention to move to Evanston, asked him concerning it, and he said he was going there to fill an empty chair as professor of religion! Dear old Uncle John, he fought a good fight and is with the King.