Signs and Wonders God Wrought in the Ministry for Forty Years/Chapter 26
CHAPTER XXVI
AT MUSCATINE, IOWA
After missions at Arthur, Iowa, and N. Liberty, we went to Muscatine, Iowa, about fifty miles from Iowa City. We pitched our tent in Park Place on the same spot where we held a three weeks’ meeting one year before. The crowds were large and the interest good from the first. When the battle cry was sounded, “To arms, to arms,” companies of blood-washed soldiers, who had been redeemed from the hands of the enemy, from the different fields where we had fought the battles of the Lord, the year before, came up to the help of the Lord against the mighty. Some of these brave soldiers came one hundred miles. Many came over land fifty and sixty miles.
On the Fourth of July, the second day of the meeting, we had a grand reunion. Scores of young men and women drove through the dust and heat from North Liberty, Iowa; they gladly turned away from all the Fourth of July celebrations and came to be witnesses for Jesus. When the multitudes saw the self denial of these converts, young and middle aged, and aged up to eighty, and heard them tell how God had saved and kept them by His power, they had to confess the Lord was with them. Some had been saved from the drunkards’ gutter; from the gambling dens; from infidelity, and many from a dead profession and brought into the real light, and Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ. The city of Muscatine was stirred, and the country for miles around. They said, “The Lord is in our midst in great power.” The man who was taken to our meeting at Iowa City, on his bed, and so wonderfully healed, came to this meeting and told the people he had been well and working hard every day since he was healed. Several came with him. One man who came with him was healed of diabetes and stomach trouble; he was a great sufferer.
The woman who was healed of cancer of the stomach at Columbus Junction, over a year ago, and who had been given up to die by seventeen doctors, attended this meeting and testified before thousands that she was still well. The lady has been out working for Jesus ever since she was healed. She has conducted a number of tent meetings and the Lord has been with her, and blessed her labor.
A lady who had been healed of a tumor, in one of our meetings the summer before was at this meeting and told how she had been healed, and had been perfectly well ever since.
Conviction fell on the people, the fear of God made them tremble. The children of the Lord said, “We had a Pentecost.” Praise the Lord! As Brother Talmage said, “We ought not to be looking at a dead Pentecost of the past, but we ought to have thousands of Pentecosts all along the way.” One day a woman was brought to the meeting on two crutches. She had not walked a step without them for eleven months, and for four months was confined to bed. Her sufferings were so great, she could scarcely endure them. The doctors gave her no hope. As I laid hands on her and prayed, the power of God came upon her. She was saved and healed, and sprang to her feet, walked back and forth through the tent, clapping her hands and praising the Lord. She left her crutches in the tent, and walked away. She attended the meeting until the close, and was always ready and happy to testify how Jesus had healed her. Her minister, and many members of the church of which she was a member, went to her house and came away and reported that she was well.
One of the leading members testified in the tent that he heard of her walking without her crutches, and he did not believe it, and said he would go and see, and if she was not, he would denounce Divine Healing. To his surprise, when he went to her home, he found her doing her own work, perfectly well and free from pain. She had no use for her crutches. He left the house praising God, instead of denouncing Divine Healing. He praised God that he was convinced that He was just the same to-day as in the days of the Apostles. Several women were healed of decay of the ovaries, a disease nothing can, reach or cure but the surgical knife, and then they nearly all die, in, or from the operation.
One of the women who was healed of this disease refused to come to the altar to be saved when asked, but the Lord struck her down in the congregation, she lay like she was dead. At the same time her husband was at the altar seeking Christ. In about an hour she leaped to her feet shouting. She said she was saved and healed. The doctors had all given her up. They said the only thing that might possibly save her life would be an operation, and then she had but little hopes. They told her she was in danger of dying any day of hemorrhages. They said it was not possible for her to live longer without the operation. The day she was saved she had been to see the doctor about putting the operation off till the weather got cooler, but he urged her to have it done at once. She asked him if she would live through it, he told her he did not know, she would have to risk it. She came to the meeting in a very sad state of mind. She knew she was not ready to die, but when the Lord struck her down, she yielded herself soul and body to Him, and she was saved and healed. She rose to her feet perfectly well and happy. The Great Physician cured her without the knife.
She came to the meeting through rain as well as sunshine, and did all her own work. Her face shone with the glory of God, as she told how Jesus healed and saved her.
A lady came over one hundred miles, greatly afflicted with a tumor in her throat, and one under her arm. She had had no use of her arm for eight years; it was always cold and looked like the hand of a corpse. As I prayed and told her in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth to stretch forth her hand, she did so, and it was made whole like the other. She clapped her hands above her head, giving glory to God. She told the people her hand had been asleep for eight years, but was made whole. She testified often and told she was well, that she could feed herself and comb her hair, and that she had been baptized with the Holy Ghost. A lady in Muscatine, who had a withered hand for fifteen years was healed. The bone of her wrist was raised and the fingers were drawn crooked. The hand had been cold and helpless all these years. I took hold of her hand and prayed, and in a moment it was whole as the other. The woman was healed in the presence of several thousand men, women and children, who wept and shouted for joy, at this manifestation of God’s power, just as they did when Jesus was on earth.
One day a lady came to the. meeting suffering greatly from a fractured arm and shoulder, and her wrist had been broken and her fingers crushed, for she had fallen down a long flight of steps with all her weight on her arm and hand. She was very heavy, and she met with this accident eight months before. The arm and hand were very much swollen and inflamed. The doctors gave her no hopes of ever being able to use the arm or hand. Before she came to the altar she rose and told the congregation her condition with tears in her. eyes, and said she believed the Lord would heal her. When we prayed for her the people crowded around the altar to see what would happen; when they saw her begin to move her fingers and hand, and, saw the swelling going down, and saw her: raise that arm and stretch it forth, then clap her hands together shouting, “I am healed”; they could scarcely believe their eyes. Strong men wept who were sinners, and said, “Surely God is here.” The saints shouted, and the fear of the Lord came upon all who saw her. She stayed at the meeting several day and testified of what Jesus had done for her.
One Sabbath while waiting for the street car to take us to the park for the afternoon meeting, we saw the black clouds gathering; there was a great storm coming. The tent was two miles from the city and there was no shelter any place around. I felt anxious to be at the tent with the rest. I began to pray for the Lord to protect them, to be around them like a wall of fire, and protect them from harm. While praying the words of Paul came to me, that he spoke while on the sinking vessel. You remember he said that the vessel would be wrecked but no lives would be lost. I did not understand it, but as we got off the cars, we saw the storm just ready to burst in all its fury. The tent was crowded, they had neglected to put down the side walls and it was too late now to put them down. They were having testimony. The interest was so great that they did not know the storm was upon them. I stepped upon the pulpit and told them the storm was upon us, and not to try to get away but just sit still and put all their trust in God and he would save us. Just as I said this the storm struck the tent, and the ropes broke close around the pulpit, where I was standing. The side poles were flying and cracking. I fell and lay upon the pulpit; all the other ministers and sinners were knocked off; the congregation saw all this; they saw the tent with the two large center poles falling. They saw the tent would soon cover them. Many thought I was killed; when I saw the tent going down, then I knew what the scripture meant that the Lord gave me in answer to my prayers, that the tent would be wrecked, or go down, but no lives would be lost. No one was struck with the poles and no one was hurt. The storm continued. It seemed we would be carried over the tree tops; for nearly an hour it looked like the rain would come in torrents, but there was only a little shower; every one felt the Lord had wonderfully protected us. A man was lying in front of the pulpit under the power of God when the storm came up; the pulpit fell over him, also a pitcher of water and a lot of flowers fell upon him, but he lay through it all praising God!
The Sabbath before we closed there, there were nine thousand people on the ground and the Sabbath we closed there were ten thousand. In the morning meeting there were one hundred and thirty testimonies of the healing of the body, and hundreds of the salvation of the soul.
I must pass over various meetings in several States: readers are referred to the old book “Acts of the Holy Ghost,” to be had from the author.
MARRIAGE; AND MUSCATINE MEETING
On the first day of January, 1902, I married Mr. S. P. Etter of Hot Springs, Ark. Then we went back to Iowa, where I had labored several: years before. We held meetings for seven weeks in Muscatine in the Fair Grounds. This was the third camp meeting held by us in that city. The meeting was very deep spiritually, from the first. The Lord put his seal on it with great signs and wonders, saving souls and healing bodies. Many who had been brought out in a deep experience some eight years before, had died in the triumphs of a living faith; so that the Lord’s work is established around this part of Iowa, and many are living to-day that the best medical skill failed to cure. Their lives were spared to their loved ones, and parents spared to care for their children.
Many are preaching the gospel, and scattering the fragments over the land; giving the Bread of Life to starving souls.