Pentecostal Possibilities or "The Story of My Life"
by Milton Lorenzo (M. L.) Haney

CHAPTER 46
At Atlanta

While on the cars between Atlanta and Bloomington, I saw the veteran John S. Barger, who, when I was in childhood, made my father's house one of his homes. His hair was now as white as wool, and the glow which was on his face in middle life was gone. I remembered that a sermon he preached when I was a sinner had laid the base in my soul for a holy life, and my heart was moved toward him. Such a discouraged look on his face I had never seen before. Going forward to where he sat, I accosted him, and his face lit up as I spoke. Inquiring as to his work, he said he was now planning to leave it after the coming Sabbath. He was stationed at Atlanta, and his people were fearfully divided. A church quarrel had existed for years, and one side was for him, and the other against him. His friends had thus far supported him, but had reached the end of their means and had frankly told him so, recommending him to resign his charge at their quarterly meeting the next Sabbath, which he purposed to do. My whole heart was moved for the old man, and I said: "Uncle John, don't do that," but he insisted there was no other way. I then proposed to come and help him, and it might be, as I was a stranger, that both sides would come out and hear me, and a possible reconciliation could be reached. He was elated with the proposition, and said: "I will tell the people I have known you from childhood and give you the biggest boost in my power."

His quarterly meeting came on a beautiful day in June, and the Presiding Elder preached Sabbath morning to forty people, including himself and the pastor. Both Elder and Pastor made strong statements in my favor, and urged everybody to take hold with me. I came and preached to forty-two the next Sabbath, and at night about the same, announcing services for the whole week. Monday night I had less than thirty, and drouth reigning all around. So it continued day after day. Dear old Mother Wilmoth had held on to God through all those desolate years, and previous to this time, in an agony of soul was crying to God, when He assured her of victory and showed her the face of the man through whom it would come! She knew nothing of me, but the first time she saw me she shouted, declaring I was the man whom God had shown her in the vision. Hence Mother Wilmoth became my spiritual adviser, and her house my headquarters. But the meeting was, to me, a horror, as I had recently had everything in glorious contrast with it. So I had to tell Mother Wilmoth if this did not speedily change I would have to leave. She was not able to get to church, but was my main dependence. One morning I went up in despair and told Mother W. I was going home that day, and she wept as she said to me: "If God is sending you home, He has not spoken by me!"

Living at Bloomington, I went home that day, but Mother Wilmoth seemed to have a rope around my neck, and Atlanta was before my soul day and night. One morning I said to my wife: "I will have to go to Atlanta again." And so I did. On reaching the city I had to report at headquarters, an Mother Wilmoth was standing in the door looking for me! When I appeared in sight, she shouted, and danced like a girl! Tears of joy were coursing down her old, withered face as I met he, and she said: "I knew you were coming!" We prayed together and I was reminded that many people usually went to the depot when the trains came in, and before the train arrived I had settled the place I was to stand on the platform, and address the people when the cars left. As the train started, I opened up my message and God was in it. That was repeated for days till crowds were there, and, closing about sunset, I dismissed, saying this service would be continued in the Methodist Church, and that church was filled, night after night, as it had not been for fifteen years. Their church feuds speedily melted away, and old Mother Wilmoth saw the dead made alive, and the lost found, as God had showed her in the vision. Blessed old saint, how she did dance before the Lord!

For a whole year my precious wife had been seeking a holy heart, and, at times, with such agonies that I feared for her mind. It really seemed impossible for her to fully yield to God. While preaching at the depot I was impressed to ask her to spend a few days with me at Atlanta. So she came, but when I met her at the cars she said: "Why did you insist on my coming here among strangers?" She had a great aversion to being among strangers. We stopped at the house of a Brother Dills, and her soul was greatly wrought upon. One afternoon when I was preaching at the depot she remained at home, to settle forever the question which was on her soul. Going into her room and locking the door, she fell upon her knees with uplifted hand and said to God: "I will never go out of this room till I have a holy heart!" Coming to that desperate stand, it did not require much time for settlement. The Holy Spirit began at once to take an inventory of her stock and to demand that each item be turned over to Christ. She had so long been seeking that she easily parted with the first items, but He saw her heart centered strongly in her family, and asked if she would give up to Him, in death, her husband and two boys. Over this there was a battle, but the time came when her whole heart said "yes" to the Divine demand. This was so real, that she has declared for many years that it could not have been more so, if she had seen her husband and two boys in their winding sheets. Knowing her aversion to separation from home, and being thrust into foreign countries, the Holy Spirit now asked: "If I want you as a missionary to Africa, will you go and lay down your life there?" Here was another conflict, but it was soon ended by her whole heart saying "yes," and her whole being was down at Jesus' feet. She has since declared if her trunk had been packed for the African coast, it would not have been more real to her. The Lord did not desire the immediate death of her family, nor call her to the African mission, but He did break up her heart centres and get her whole being into His hands for complete inward holiness. This surrender of all brought her, as it will all others, face to face with Christ as her complete sanctifier, and to receiving Him by faith. This transforming work was wrought by the Holy Ghost within, and my wife stood before Him as His bloodwashed temple.

I was preaching on the platform in much pain during this time, and said to a minister: "I must lie down, and will have to depend on you to lead the service at church tonight." Meeting my wife as she came out from Bro. Dill's, I told her to go on to church, but I must rest. I saw her face was radiant, but knew nothing of what had occurred. She had contended through all those years that she was not fit to be a Methodist preacher's wife, because she did not possess talent for speaking, and public prayer. Of course, she had both spoken and prayed many times, but usually had wept over her failures. The preacher was about to close the service, as the altar call had failed, when she arose and asked if she might speak: He answered: "Certainly, Sister Haney," and instead of rising where she was, as a modest little woman, she came out into the aisle and to the front of the altar, and, facing the crowd, told them what God had done that afternoon for her soul. A brother said to me: "There was not a dry eye in the house when Sister Haney was through speaking."

From that hour, on through the years she has had marked and wonderful liberty in prayer and public testimony, and in many instances persons have asserted that she "beat me preaching." Despite all this, however, she has steadily maintained that God called men to be ministers, and her sex to be witnesses. This may be so as a rule, but preaching or witnessing, she has mightily helped my ministry, and could have been an able preacher if God had thus called her.