Pentecostal Possibilities or "The Story of My Life"
by Milton Lorenzo (M. L.) Haney
CHAPTER 7
My Conversion
My father's inflexible righteousness between man and man impressed me early in life. I believed he would not intentionally wrong a fellow man for any price that could be offered. He was so unlike the world about him, in this regard, that it gave me an intense conviction of the integrity of God! Our altar of prayer never went down. In those days morning worship consisted of reading the Scriptures, a hymn of praise, and prayer. In evening devotion we usually sang a few verses standing, and then knelt in prayer. Business was never so pressing that this had to be put aside, and the presence of visitors or working men never furnished a reason for its omission. This left the impression that one's duties to God were first. Children brought up without prayer are wronged from their infancy.
The home life of my mother was the greatest human factor leading to my salvation. It was well nigh impossible to shake off the impress of her spirit, or to resist the impression that her religion was Divine. Her life of prayer kept a sense of my obligations to God ever before me. Her care for the company I kept, her scrutiny of my habits, her knowledge of my heart life, her pain when I was perverse, and her hold on God for my eternal salvation made her agency more potent than any other that was human in bringing me to Christ. I can hardly remember when I did not really desire and intend to be a Christian.
A sermon by Rev. John S. Barger, preached at Marietta, Ills., in the spring of 1840, made the strongest impression of any heard in my unconverted life. He was our Presiding Elder at the time, and preached about three hours from I Thess. 5:23,24. His theme was entire sanctification. That sermon marked me for eternal years! I had been secretly seeking God all along, but the truth fastened on my soul that day, put me where I determined never to rest till I found God. My timidity was perhaps the greatest barrier in my way. I was powerfully impressed at times for years, to publicly renounce a life of sin and give myself to God. Had I yielded to that conviction, I would have been saved years before. I would have given a great price, had it been possible, for salvation; but it seemed I could not get to an altar of prayer. I alarmed my mother by staying at home when the family went four miles to the preaching services: when the sole object of my remaining was to get opportunity of being for hours alone with God in prayer. One time I prayed a half day in a woodland, and at the end it seemed like the darkness of the second death begun! I seemed ready to do anything but yield to God. I hated a life of sin. There were no overt acts of crime in which I indulged. I often confessed with bitter tears to God the failure of my life but there was one thing I would not do. The early ministers gave special invitation to sinners in nearly every sermon, and had I heeded their call and come right out before the world, as the Holy Spirit led, I would have been saved at any time in all those years.
Reuben Plummer and Richard Walters were our ministers in 1840 and 1841. They were esteemed as messengers of God, and a great work was accomplished at various points on that wide circuit. During the holidays, Mr. Plummer was in a battle north of Knoxville, and the junior preacher was to hold a watch meeting New Year's eve at Harrisonville (now Hermon), Knox County, Ills. It was twelve or more miles away and the weather cold; but my anxious, weary soul could not refrain from going. A niece of my mother, Miss Eleanor Hull, accompanied me. She was a devoted girl and had often prayed for my salvation. The services up to that time from the first settlement there, had been held in Father Long's dwelling. He was a good old local preacher, and Mother Long one of John's elect ladies. I went, all the way hoping I would not return in my sins, that the long-looked-for time when it would be easy to yield to God would come. I was seated in the farthest corner from the preacher, on the steps leading to the stairway, wanting to find God and so deeply convicted I hardly heard the sermon; yet by subtle devil power put myself where it would be most difficult to find Him!
For years the demand of the Holy Ghost had been plain that I must come out publicly and identify myself with God's people. The Methodists urged all penitents to unite with the church on probation as seekers. I had refused to do it, being wiser than my teachers, as sinners generally are. The preaching being ended an invitation was given to all penitents to come to the altar, but I delayed in tears. A brother came by and asked me to go, but left me on my seat. A young man came and asked me if "I wanted religion." I timidly answered that I did. He suggested that I "go at once to the mourners! bench," but to me it seemed nearly impossible. He put his arm around me and said: "Come now, and I will go with you." Those words of love seemed to put strength into me, and in a moment I decided to go and never to leave that spot till I was born of God!
The decision of that moment was more than equal to all those years of struggle. The preacher had said if any would come, he would remain with them till sunrise, if need be. The Holy Spirit threw light on the pathway of my life, till my past sins rose as mountains before me. Others found Christ, but my sins, as a deep, dismal cloud, obscured everything but the displeasure of God. Midnight had come and the minister was anxious to close, and made several proposals for all the seekers to rise. I remembered his promise and did not obey. I had come to stay till I heard from heaven. All who were seeking had found, and my condition had never seemed so terrible as now. There was a period when it did appear the pains of hell had taken hold upon me and I had such a view of the damnation of the wicked that it has never been erased from my mind. Despair had seized my spirit as though my feet had entered hell's door and all was lost!
At that juncture the minister said: "The Methodist Church is an asylum which receives wounded souls and all who have got religion, and any who are earnestly seeking, can now be taken into the church on probation by giving me your hand and name," at the same time drawing near to where I knelt. The Holy Spirit suggested, "Will you now obey?" I answered, "Yes, Lord I will," and, without rising, turned and gave him my hand, and in less than ten seconds was standing on my feet in the new heavens and the new earth, God's happy and forgiven child! The last point of disobedience having given way, Christ instantly came before me as my sin-pardoning Saviour. He had been there before but the door was closed; now He found it open, and He came in. Rev. 3:20. The change apparent to my sensibilities was the utter and instant removal of my guilt load. Not even a symptom of condemnation was left Rom. 8:1, 2. I found myself consciously possessed of a new life which I had never had before.
I stood in silence before God. Not a word did I utter. The quiet of eternity seemed to be within. The first active emotion was an unspeakable desire to put my arms about all that were there and bring them to Christ! Sixty-two years have come and gone, and I have never lost that desire. The peace then given was a new possession and a new love, never before possessed, flowed back to God and out to universal man. I was now consciously God's own child, as witnessed by His Holy Spirit, and He my Father. Since that time I have never had one minute's trouble about my conversion! Even the devil has never questioned that I was born of God! This great transaction took place in the first hour of 1841.
"O
sacred hour, O hallowed spot,
Where love divine first found me,
Wherever falls my
distant lot
My heart shall linger round thee,
And when from
earth I rise to soar
Up to my home in heaven,
Down will I cast
my eyes once more
Where I was first forgiven."