Pentecostal Possibilities or "The Story of My Life"
by Milton Lorenzo (M. L.) Haney
CHAPTER 44
Great Revival in Williamsville
From the time the vow was made to God to give my life wholly to evangelism, and to trust Him wholly for means to support my family, until that vow was broken, I had a measure of liberty, and power with God and men, beyond any limit ever previously reached. The meeting at Williamsville was by far the greatest I had ever seen, and my soul was left free from every painful care. The meeting went on for weeks, and several hundred were wonderfully saved. Ministers came there to be sanctified, and went away to publish the tidings. Christians, who were hungry, came from other places to find this pearl of greatest price, and were not disappointed. A young lady, who was a very interesting character, came many miles as a seeker of entire sanctification, but for days did not reach the fountain. She was so earnest, it was a mystery to many that she was so delayed. One day, with much feeling, she said to me: "Bro. Haney, can you tell me the reason I don't get sanctified?" I responded in a confident tone of voice: "Why, certainly I can!" She being surprised, said: "Well, I wish you would, then!" So I proceeded to say that the Lord had dug a hole to put her in, in view of covering her out of sight. He had gotten her in, and made several attempts to cover her utterly, but each time she "instantly bobbed up!" Through that eccentric presentation of her case, she was wondrously saved that very hour.
An elderly lady, of the Presbyterian Church, who was intelligent and a real Christian, came from a distance, bringing her whole family to get them converted. I think there were eight of them in all, but may be mistaken as to the number. She remained with her brood till the last one was converted, and immediately left for home. Whether she feared I would make Methodists out of them, or not, I cannot say, but they were on the first train after the last one was saved.
An old minister fell into the meeting who was a great Zinzendorfer, and at war with sanctification as a distinct experience. He seemed to be there to keep some of his friends from getting the experience, but nothing could stop them. The fire so struck him, in the one day he was there, that he filled the room with groans nearly all the following night, and left under fright the next morning. He was a slave to tobacco, and all such ministers have mental difficulties about holiness!
The converts of this meeting were spread over a wide territory. The town being small, the work extended to the country, I doubt whether I have ever seen so deep, and persistent, a spirit of sacrifice on the part of God's people, as in this meeting. All business that could be deferred, was laid aside. We had many services in the daytime, in the county. Our brethren had commodious residences, and a throng each day would go in wagons, and carriages, and beginning early in the day, the work would go forward for hours, from ten till in the afternoon, never stopping for dinner. When it was dinner time, a bounteous table was spread and the lady of the house would come in, and quietly take from the service numbers sufficient to fill it, and the praying, singing, shouting, seeking, and finding, would not in the slightest be interrupted. When these had eaten they would rejoin the battle, and so it would continue till all were supplied. In each of these gatherings souls were saved all along. I think I have never known fellowship so deep, and glorious, between so large bodies of people, faith more simple, light more intense, or God more wonderfully revealed.
A group of people from the Christian Church was gloriously sanctified in this meeting, and, before it closed, they came to me in a body, saying that their people did not understand this wonderful experience, and opposed them in it. The object of their coming was to inquire of me whether they had not better leave that church, and join the Methodist? I answered: "By no means, unless you are certain God has ordered it." I further insisted that their people were in great need of this experience, and urged them to stay where they were, and mix the fire with the water, till it was up to boiling heat! They were people of property, and intelligent, and would have been of value to any church; but there is no church which is not in great need of holy people, and that one perhaps as much as any other. As a rule, it is not best to unsettle present church relations because God has given one a holy heart, but better to remain and spread the holy fire; and yet there are cases where God so orders. The dear souls above mentioned were so pressed, that they all left their unspiritual environment, at a subsequent time, and came to the Methodist Church. If the Methodist Church, as a body, were as true and spiritual as that individual church was, the holiness people would flock to her communion by the ten thousand. The greatest blunder she has ever made, is her attitude to the holiness movement. She has ever been much dearer to me than my life; but I fear her blunder will not be discovered till it is to late. It is amazing that great and good men, as ecclesiastics, seem utterly to fail to learn lessons from history. More mysterious still, the attitude of the church, at whose altars I have given my life, to the movement which is an exact parallel to the movement which gave her an existence among men! She is now taking the same ground against this, that the English church did against her, at the beginning. She is shutting off its leaders from her pulpits, as the Wesleys were driven from the pulpits of the Church of England, and resisting the very teachings which made her a church! Is there no way that this can be changed? Is there no remedy for the calamities which this must bring upon her?
It is amazing that where God has worked wonders through the ages, in almost every place, powerful agencies have operated in view of destroying what has been done. This was eminently true relating to the work at Williamsville, described above. Before that great meeting has reached its climax, a most subtle power was thrust into it, which became, apparently, a part of it. A woman of very superior powers came in, who was eloquent in prayer, and wondrous in exhortation. She had probably once been saved, and had been in company with many holy people. She had studied the mystics, and could formulate statements involving the profoundest experiences. Especially did she make use of the Roman errors concerning salvation through suffering, which error is found among the holiest of the church of Rome. This she brought in with insistent teaching of self-imposed humiliations in order to experiences far transcending complete sanctification. This class of teaching was not addressed to the public, but urged in private, especially with men. The acts necessary to the profoundest humility, and greatest crucifixion, involved the breaking up of the conventionalities of society, and a return to our Eden state. The marriage relation in many cases was simply a human affair, and had no God in it; hence God had the right to dissolve it when He saw best. Certain individuals would have an affinity for certain other individuals, and these were married of God to each other, which delivered the party thus united from marriage relations already existing!
In order to pave the way for all this, she taught that the restraints which society has put upon the sexes were largely the result of the fall; that in the Eden state our first parents were together without restraint, in their holy innocence, though each was without apparel! So, to return to holy innocence, these walls of restraint had to be taken down, by degrees, through self-mortification, and the self-mortification was brought about, largely, by the parties breaking through the conventionalities of society.
These subtle measures succeeded in the overthrow of a group of souls, including at least three ministers, one of whom left his family and lived with her till her death. Not many of the converts of this meeting were involved in this fearful delusion, but when forced out of the community by moral sentiment they accomplished much evil elsewhere. The parties seduced, were mostly these in whom much confidence had been reposed, and people were slow to believe they had been corrupted. If decided measures had been used quickly, to sunder the cancer from the body, much less harm would have resulted, but a very unwise charity delayed justice, till wide damage resulted, and souls had been destroyed for whom Christ died. All taken together, this was the most severe test I ever witnessed, following a great work of God but such was the character of the work, that the mass of those justified, or sanctified, in this meeting, who are not in heaven, are still on the way. Such occurrences gave the enemy wide chances to blaspheme, and should be held up as a warning signal to generations yet unborn! The time to quench such unholy fires, is, when the first sparks are visible. It is of such characters that God has said: "Come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and I will receive you."