Pentecostal Possibilities or "The Story of My Life"
by Milton Lorenzo (M. L.) Haney
Chapter 4
Incidents of Boyhood
It was the order at my father's house that all who were old enough should do something to pay their way. There were two branches of work with which I was identified in childhood, which are well remembered. The picking of brush, and aid rendered in the harvest field. The farm being cut out of a dense forest, acre by acre there were each year trees by the quantity which had to be felled, their trunks sawed asunder, and their large branches cut, leaving the ground strewn with brush, all of which had to be removed. There were periodical "log rollings," to which neighboring men were invited, when the heavier timber was rolled together and piled in heaps for burning. The work at these gatherings was free, and often accompanied with amusements. It was the custom on all such occasions that free whiskey should be served, which was then used in nearly every home. The whiskey then used was distilled from corn, rye and barley, and wholly separated from the poisonous drugs which now make it a curse to those who habitually use it in small quantities. My father utterly refused to furnish intoxicants for his neighbors, and forbade it in his home. The harvests were reaped with sickles, involving many hands. It was often said that "Old Jimmy Haney could not get men to harvest his grain, or roll his logs, or raise his buildings without whiskey; but they always came and the logs were rolled, the harvests gathered and his buildings raised. When their children were married he married them, and when they were sick, or in death, he must needs be present to comfort them and bury their dead.
As the result of his beautiful example and this unbending adherence to the right, no one of his eleven sons ever used tobacco or intoxicants. But all this did not gather that brush into piles nor relieve the younger boys from their appointed tasks. In harvest time my duties were twofold --to keep the men supplied with water and aid in the gathering of sheaves. To this I have no memory of complaint or murmur, except when my uncovered feet were pierced with briars or scratched among the stubble. To this day I render praise to God for my escape from the crime of idleness, and this early attention given to business habits demanded by my father. There was sufficient time given for recreation and I had more fun than any idle boy I have known in seventy years.
My father was, strictly speaking, a self-made man, and largely expected his children to dig out knowledge as he had done. We had a common school of a very imperfect type, which was available five to six months in the year; but habits of study were inculcated;, on rainy days, and in the lengthened evenings when out of school, which were of great value in after years. I was born with a strong attachment for domestic animals, which gave me a deep aversion to all forms of cruelty. My pets gave me great pleasure in childhood and sometimes became my idols. When they sickened and died, or had to be slaughtered, it gave me great pain. I am now persuaded that calamities had to come to my child soul to prevent it supremely centering in the creature, and to produce a trend toward the Creator.
Among my earliest recollections I was the leader of Divine services and preaching to children. Often when alone I would mount a stump for a pulpit and preach to the surrounding stumps as my audience. My mother set me apart from the womb as a gospel minister, and I believe the Holy Spirit never took His hand from me till He thrust me out to help save a lost world. Hence I was always, more or less, under Divine conviction and do not remember when I was not seeking God.
My parents carefully avoided mentioning the faults of Christians, or the failures of ministers, in the presence of their children, so we knew little of anything but good of those who claimed to be the children of God. Our relations were largely with the Methodists, and that church was in her simplicity and purity at that time. Her ministers were to me as the messengers of God and for them my child heart was filled with reverence and love. I was reading the New Testament when in my sixth year, as the Word of God, and have never doubted its Divine authenticity. Before my conversion I had read the whole Bible through twice or thrice. This was done voluntarily, and its reading had much to do with laying the base for whatever of righteousness or truth may have appeared in the years which followed. Sunday Schools were unknown to my childhood, but the care of Christian parents, with the help of godly ministers, resulted in saving a much larger proportion of the children in Christian homes then than now.