Under the Water Tank

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In my childhood days my home was in the backwoods, where there was but little chance to obtain an education. When the Lord called me to the ministry, I could scarcely read and my hearing was defective.

When I heard the word of God preached, it sent conviction to my soul, and I yielded to the wooings of the Spirit, and He saved my soul and helped me to learn to read. As I learned to read the promises in His Word, I was made to know that they were for me as well as for others. For twenty-three years it had been very difficult for me to hear on account of the affliction of my ears, but the Lord healed me, for which I give Him all the praise.

After I began my work as a minister, I had many interesting experiences, one of which I desire to relate for the glory of God and the benefit of others.

On the 4th of July, 1901, I landed at Keystone, South Dakota, with the blessings of God upon my soul. On account of the drought in Missouri where I had been living, I contracted debts that I was unable to pay when due. The next day after my arrival, I began to work in the timber and remained there in the Black Hills until April 1902. The Lord blessed my labor and helped me to meet all my obligations. We then went to the plains and began working on a ranch for a cattleman. On going to South Dakota I left my family in Missouri, but sent for them about a month later. My work on the ranch was irrigating hay-land, branding cattle, etc., and my wife did the cooking for the workmen.

One day a Baptist minister came and asked me if I was a Christian. I told him that I was.

“What church do you represent?”

“The church of God,” I replied.

I told him that we believed in preaching and practicing all the Word of God. He invited me to attend his Sunday-school and be free to teach what the Bible says, as he said the Sunday-school was for that purpose. He further said, “If you have more of the Bible than we have, you are the man we want.”

On the following Sunday we went to that place, and after Sunday-school the superintendent asked me if I ever preached. I told him that I had preached a few times, and he invited me to preach the following afternoon. I accepted the invitation, and God blessed the effort put forth in preaching the Word to the good of the people, and from that time we had services every two weeks the remainder of the summer. The people seemed to be very much interested and came for twenty-five miles to hear the Word of God. The cowboys would hang their spurs and revolvers on their saddle-horns and come in and listen with amazement to the preaching, while tears coursed down their cheeks.

One Sunday afternoon, after listening to a gospel message under the anointing of Holy Spirit, some of them came and requested me to preach this gospel in their neighborhood. I told them that I did not have time to do so, as I had hired to a Mr. Cox and believed in being a good servant.

On our way home my wife told me how bad she felt when I told those men that I could not go and preach for them. She said she believed the time had come that God wanted us to get out of that place and preach the gospel.

“Oh, wife,” I replied, “you are homesick. You may go home on a visit, and I will stay here and hold my good job down, and when you get your visit out, you can come back.” We went on with our work as usual until the next Sunday, when my wife said to me, “I want to read you some of the Word of God,” and she read from Ephesians 6:5-7: “Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters, according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; not with eye service as men pleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; with good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men.”* (Ephesians 6:5-7)

“Now, which are you going to do from the heart, obey God, or man?” she said.

“Oh, wife, you are homesick. If you want to go home, you can go, and I will not object.”

“It is not me but you that God is after,” she said.

But I kept repeating, “You are homesick. I have the best job I have ever had in my life and making money the easiest.”

I did not wish to give up my good job. I had ten good horses, a new, $45 saddle, two new spurs, and a lariat rope, and everything necessary to eat.

My wife said to me: “You are not as spiritual as you once were. God wants us to flee out of here as Lot did out of Sodom.”

Again my reply to her was, “You are homesick.”

She rejoined, “If you do not get out of here, something will happen to you or to the children or to me.”

The next day I went to haul water in a water-tank with a four-horse team. The tank held six thousand pounds of water. After hauling one load and putting it in the cistern, I went back after the second load. While I was coming down the breaks of the Cheyenne River, the front wheel of the wagon dropped into a ditch, and the tank turned bottom side up and caught me under it. I tried to jump, but my brake rope, which was across my lap and was fastened at both ends, caught me and doubled me up. The tank fell across my back, leaving my head and feet outside.

When this happened, the first thing I thought of was what my wife had told me the day before—“If we do not get out of here, something will happen to you or to the children or to me.” I saw that God had me fast so that He could talk to me, and I began to call upon Him for mercy. I had told those men I did not have time to preach the gospel to them, but God said, “It is preach the gospel now or lose your soul,” and I saw that to rebel meant destruction. I was now ready to listen to God. The relish for my good job had fled away as fog before the morning sun.

My little children who were with me came rushing to me, crying, “Oh, Papa! Papa! What shall we do?” I told Minnie to go and tell her mama. The house as a mile away from where the accident happened. The child ran all the way and told her mother, who said, “I knew something would happen.” She came to my rescue, and upon her arrival I saw the very same look on her face that I saw the day before when she told me that she knew something would happen.

“You will obey God now, won’t you?” she said.

“Yes, wife, and I ask your forgiveness for not taking your admonition yesterday.”

I was helpless, only being able to move my tongue and right hand. I had been asking God to spare my life until I could ask my wife’s forgiveness, having already asked God to forgive me; and when I did that and promised God to obey Him, it seemed that Jesus and a host of angels hovered around the tank to deliver me.

It is not difficult to imagine my condition while there with a 6,000-pound tank on my back, and my head between my feet. I was then ready to say yes to God. I wish to say by way of warning to others, that if God is calling you to His service, or to help His cause with your means, you had better say yes to His will.

My wife took a new inch rope, doubled it, and pulled the wagon off the top of the tank; then she hitched the team of horses to the tank to remove it from me. It was a square tank made of two-inch planking and full of water. I had a steady team of 1400-pounds weight. The tank had to be rolled up hill. My wife spoke to the horses, and they took a steady pull, lifting the tank perhaps ten inches, when the rope broke, letting the tank drop on me again. She then discovered a heavy log-chain, which we had not noticed before, and fastened it to the tank and rolled it off me, telling me to get up, but I could not move. She then came around the wagon and pulled me away from the tank, and I fainted, and for a time it seemed that my life had fled away. My wife got some water, washed my face, and offered up a prayer to God, and He came to my rescue again. About this time one of the cowboys came and saw what had taken place, and at my wife’s request, he went to procure a wagon and a featherbed and laid me in the wagon and took me home. On the way we met another cowboy, who went back with us and helped carry me into the house. My wife wrote a request to the Trumpet office, which was then at Moundsville, West Virginia, asking for prayer in my behalf.

Mr. Cox, the man for whom we were working, came in and looked at me and suggested that we send for a doctor, as he said blood-poisoning would set in and kill me. I told him that we had no need for doctors or medicine, as we trusted in God. He then went out and told my wife that I was out of my head and did not know what I was talking about, and that mortification would set in and kill me. But she told him that I knew what I was talking about, and said, “We will trust God.”

That night the cowboys did not want to go to bed. They said, “He will die before morning,” but my wife told them to go to bed and said that she would take care of me and that if she needed help she would call them. They were very good to us and willing to do anything that they could for my comfort. The next morning Mr. Cox came to our room and asked how I was getting along. I told him I was feeling as well as could be expected under the circumstances.

The next day the news began to spread among those to whom I had preached divine healing, and when they came to see me, they would ask me what I was going to do, and would tell me that my back was broken and that I could never walk again. I told them that whether I lived or died, I would trust God to the last. It took two men to turn me on a sheet, and, like Job’s comforters, they gave me no help or encouragement in my trusting God.

This continued for about a week. I did not know which way the tide would go with me, but it was all submitted to God. I promised God while upon my bed that if He would raise me up I would spend the rest of my days preaching the gospel, even if I had to live on bread and water. After about a week, while I was lying on my bed talking with God, we received The Gospel Trumpet; and in looking over its pages, I saw the testimony, with eight names signed to it, of a sister who had been raised from the dead by the mighty power of God.

I said to my wife: “I am not dead yet, and if God can raise that sister from the dead He can heal me, and I am now ready to be healed. Your request for prayer has just about had time to reach the office at Moundsville.”

We then called the children and prayed, and our faith took hold upon the promises of God, and He healed me. I turned myself, got out of bed, stood upon my feet, and, in the name of Jesus, I began to walk. My limbs began to tingle as if pierced by a thousand needles, and from that day until this I have been walking. Whether or not my back was broken, I do not know, but I can say as did the blind man (John 9:25), that, whereas I could not turn myself in bed, I now walk. All glory to His precious name! He is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8).

But the tempter was not through with me yet. Mr. Cox offered me every inducement to get me to stay and work for him, but my wife said, “We will not stay here for all his possessions.”

So we left there, and from that time until now, we have been going forth, preaching the everlasting gospel, earnestly contending for the faith once delivered to the saints.