Pentecostal Possibilities or "The Story of My Life"
by Milton Lorenzo (M. L.) Haney
CHAPTER 38
Sickness and Rest
When Vicksburg fell, I had strength enough to hold myself up by clinging to the limb of a tree till I witnessed the surrender, and then passed through the most serious sickness of my life. My regiment had gone with Sherman to East Mississippi, in pursuit of Johnston and returned to Black River, where they went into camp during the hot weather. I was weak when disease left me, but was anxious to rejoin the 55th. So I began by riding a little each day, preparatory to the longer ride. The day before leaving, I rode down into a valley, where I watered my horse, and to the right of me saw a slave woman washing clothes. I felt a suggestion within to turn aside and talk with her about her soul. Looking all about me, I saw no human being but her, and it seemed questionable whether I ought to go, Satan can impress God's people in the name of the Holy Spirit, and anybody who will follow every impression which is made will be pretty sure of ruin. I asked the Lord if this impression was of the devil that He drive it away, but if of Him, to let it settle into conviction and I would obey.
On returning I became clearly convinced that I should go, and turning aside, came to where she was. She was, I suppose, short of fifty years old. I accosted her and she responded, but looked a little confused, as I was a stranger. To relieve her of all fear, I asked: "Colored woman, do you enjoy religion." And, staring at me, she said: "Sir?" Thinking her so ignorant that she did not understand what I said, I changed the question, asking, "Do you belong to any church?" She answered quickly, with force, "No, sir; I don't belong to no church on dis here lower erf, but I do belong to de church of de First Born in heaven!" Her answer moved me deeply, and the question came to me: How could this poor, ignorant creature find out this deep spiritual truth of the New Testament? So I asked: "Aunty, what church have you where you live?" "There was no church, sir." Thinking the dear soul surely did not understand me, I asked: "Were they Baptists or Methodists where you lived?" "There was neither, sir." And I was well nigh confounded. "Well Aunty, won't you tell me something about where you have lived?" "Yes, sir; I was born off yonder on old Massa ----'s plantation, in Southern Mississippi, and he was a good man, sir, and the Methodists had class meetings in de quarters, but when I was eleven years old, old Massa broke up, sir, and we's all sole by de Sheriff, sir. I was sole to old Massa ----, over in Central Mississippi, and he was very wicked, and allowed no 'ligion to come on his plantation!" The names of both her masters were given, but they have gone from me.
The whole story is this: Her first master was a good man and gave his slaves opportunities to be religious, but they were all sold when she was either nine or eleven years old. She had never known a letter of the alphabet, nor read a syllable of God's word, an since she was eleven years old, at the farthest, she had not seen the face of a minister, heard the gospel preached, nor been in a gathering for prayer. Her last master had prohibited all religious people and religious service on his immense plantation. "Well," I said, as I was bewildered with her knowledge of God, "how did you find out you were a member of the church of the First Born?" "O, sir," she responded, "seven years ago I was in de cotton field, and dere was a great load of sin on my soul, and I prayed and prayed! One day I went down into a deep holler and got down by the side of an old log, and prayed and prayed! De load on my soul was so great that I thought I would die. But, sir, dere came a great light, and wid dat light dere come a voice, and dat voice told me I was a member of the church of the First Born! Since dat time, sir, when-eber dere's great trouble, and I feel I can't go through, dat voice come back and tell me, 'You are a member of de church of de First Born!' " I found by after inquiries, and talk, that she had stumbled into the experience of heart holiness, and was revelling in the joy of perfect love. There are millions of intelligent Christians who claim they have not sufficient light to get wholly sanctified; but this slave woman had! She had no learning, no Sunday School, no Bible, no preacher, no church, but she found God! John 6:17
I felt I would never be in that valley again, and God opened my mouth to pour out His truth on His lone child, who had now been such a blessing to my soul. Having bade her goodby, I rode off in unspeakable gladness, and a hundred yards away I faced about to take a last look at my bloodwashed sister, and, sitting on my horse, I said audibly and God heard it: "You blessed saint, black as you are, I love you, and I will see you in the morning!"
The next day I had a joyful meeting with my boys of the regiment, in Camp Sherman on Black River. Here we had rest from the burdens of war for a time, and God was with us. During our stay the boys arranged a large seating for Divine service, and we had glorious times. For some days we had a protracted meeting, where forty sinners were converted, and a number of Christians were beautifully sanctified. One Sabbath I was led to preach on the experimental evidences of Christianity. A great crowd was there, and God in the midst. I aimed to show that a rational faith could be exercised in Jesus Christ, as a Saviour, and in the Bible as the inspired word of God, by those who were utterly ignorant of letters and knew nothing of the evidences upon which that revelation is asked. Taking up an ignorant, unsaved sinner, I showed how wondrously the teachings of God's Spirit within him were in accord with what the same Spirit had said in His Book. From this beginning I took him through conviction, repentance, faith, pardon, regeneration and entire sanctification, showing at every point that what God had written in the Book he now wrote within the soul, etc., etc. Profound silence reigned during the preaching, except an occasional sound from one voice, which I did not locate.
Dismissing at once, in view of evangelistic services at night, I still stood on the platform when a Captain of middle years, with an excited appearance and great drops of sweat standing on his face, said: "I have never heard the like of this before," with other statements concerning the sermon. He was what is often called an established infidel, and a lawyer by profession. He added: "I was sitting on the back seat and there was an old, stupid nigger sitting on the ground behind me, and when you had made each point in that sermon he peeked his head between the soldiers, and, grinning all over, he said: 'Dat's so, bless de Lord!' Now that stupid old slave could no more have made these points than he could have made a world, but when you made them, he saw he had all you described, within his own soul, and you may count on me being a Christian from this day!" Glory be to God!
Not twenty years ago I was preaching a sermon to an audience of strangers and gave this recital, stating I had forgotten the name and regiment of the Captain, and an old soldier with a happy face came to me before leaving and said: "That Captain was in my regiment, and had destroyed the faith of many of the boys with his infidelity, but on his way to our camp, as he came from your meeting that day, he fell down before God at the root of a tree, or by a log, and was soundly converted. He came into camp praising the Lord, and went right to preaching to the boys he had ruined till he brought them, and many others, to Christ, and died and went to heaven in thirty days." It was not the greatness of the sermon which saved the Captain, but the testimony of the dear old slave. His infidelity fled like a cobweb before a hurricane when he saw that "stupid old slave" had the glory of that truth within him! It is Christ in us that is to convert the world. At least three preachers came out of that soldiers' revival. Had I been an infidel myself, and seen the triumphs of the cross which I saw in the army, it seems to me it would have made me a Christian.