Page:Signswondersgodw0000wood.djvu/58

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
52
Signs and Wonders

for me. For all we had such a time of rejoicing, the devil was in the camp. As in ancient times when the sons of men came to worship, Satan came also, as he did in the Garden of Eden, only in a different form, but with the same motive and jealousy. The devil was always jealous of God and his work. In the beginning he rebelled in heaven and tried to take the throne, but God cast him out, "and he fell like lightning." Then when God made Adam and Eve in his own image, Satan came around with his flattering speeches and lying tongue, and by pretending to do a better work tried to destroy what God had done. He has been working on the same line ever since. There never was a glorious work done for God, but that the devil came around in person or in the form of a Judas and tried to overthrow it. So in this case, everything was done to confuse me in order that I would make a failure. My head was aching so that I could hardly see. I had not a moment to prepare or collect my thoughts, and I had never stood before such a multitude.

I felt that I must talk on the deepest subject in the Bible, "the Unpardonable Sin and the Office of the Holy Ghost." I cried: "Lord, help me, and glorify thyself." The words came: "And he said unto me, Son of Man, stand upon thy feet, and I will speak unto thee. Be not afraid of their faces, neither their look, lest I confound you. I am with you to deliver you." Bless God, I had not spoken five minutes until I had forgotten the roaring in my head, and my enemies, who perhaps were praying for my failure.

I forgot everything but the multitude before me rushing on to Judgement, I never had more power and liberty. The subject was revealed to me as clear as day. The words came faster than I could: speak. Glory to God for his loving kindness and present. help in every time of need!

There was an aged minister present who came to me and said; surely God was speaking through the clay; he had never heard the subject made so plain in all the points; that people had received light; and that Eternity alone would tell the result of that meeting.

I held a series of meetings at Sheldon, Allen County, Indiana, in 1884, in the Methodist Episcopal Church. I found the membership very weak, a good deal of contention among them, and very few in working order. Shelden was said to be the hardest town