CHAPTER NINETEEN
A FEW INCIDENTS IN MY FIRST REVIVAL
Brother Everett Allen, a colored boy, and I conducted it in the Mission where we were converted a year before. We met in the mission to pray. We asked the Lord to send in the worst there were in the town to be converted. The meeting lasted for six weeks. In the second week, I was preaching when a young woman opened the door. She put both hands out as if she were going to put them against the door casing, but she did not touch it. She found a seat about half way to the front. I saw Everett look at her, then drop his head in his hands, and begin to cry and pray. I could hear him say, "O God, I covet that soul for Thee." His tears dropped on the floor as he wept and prayed. When the altar call was given, about a dozen responded, but I kept holding on for the young woman.
The superintendent of the Mission said, "Brother Poe, the people have to work. We'd better gather around to pray." I said, "All right," and went straight to that woman and asked her to come to the altar. She looked up and said, "I am too low in sin to disgrace that holy place. I am low, degraded." I said, "Jesus loves you and will forgive you." She said, "Nobody loves me." I said, "Yes, they do. Jesus has put love in my heart and Everett's heart for you. Let us kneel here and repent and ask God to forgive you." She knelt and was soon wonderfully converted.
That woman arose and gave her testimony. "I have been in jail more times than I have fingers and toes. Everett and I used to go to school together. He knows me. I just got out of jail and thought I would go out to let the tough men know I am out, but when I left the house I came across the tracks toward the Mission. I thought, 'What am I coming this way for?' But it seemed I could not turn. I heard this man preaching. I said to myself, 'I am not going in there,' but I did. As I opened the door, I tried to put my hands against the door case, and stop, but a strange power gripped me. As soon as I was seated, an awful conviction seized me. I felt so ashamed and sorry for my sins I could not keep back the tears. I am glad that God for Christ's sake has forgiven me, but oh, what will I do!
"I have no place to go but back to a house of shame that my folk are running. You know I had a sister that jumped off the river bridge at the Whitmore mill and drowned. My folk have run a house of shame for years. When we girls were old enough, they asked us to sell our bodies so they could make more money. I sold myself, but my sister said she would rather die than do so, and she was asked to leave home. She left that night and drowned herself. I went into a life of sin and shame, but God has forgiven me. But what will I do when I go back tonight? The bad men will be there. How can I protect myself?"
"Take this along," I said, as I handed her a new Bible that I had just bought, "and tell them that you are saved and are going to live like this Book says." Jesus said that class of people would enter in before the self-righteous would.
The next night the woman returned, bringing with her another woman from that place. She, also, was moved upon by the Spirit and cried all the while Brother Allen preached. She sought God with all her heart and was forgiven. The next night each of them brought a woman from the house of shame, and they were so moved upon just before I was through preaching that they both ran to the altar. The next night those four were all there with one other woman and the man who helped to get others to that house of shame. The latter both claimed to pray through. The man and woman that ran that place sold out and left the country. Most of those women came into the light of holiness and claimed the victory. The first one claimed her call to preach, and preached her first sermon in that meeting. The last I heard of her, she was in Minnesota preaching holiness.
One night in the summer before the meeting, my brother-in-law was at the county fair. He saw a man with whom I had worked on the railroad, My brother-in-law asked him if he had seen me or my wife at the fair. He said, "Pearl, at the fair? He has salvation; he won't be here." I had never thought of the fair. When my brother-in-law came to my house to see me, he told me what this man had said. In my heart I said, "If that is the way John thinks about it, I surely never will let him down."
John had gone into much sin. One night during this revival, John and another man were walking up the street. John stopped and said, "Listen, I hear Pearl preaching. Let us go hear him." In a few moments the old-time power of conviction got hold of them, and they wiped tears. I finished by telling of my conversion. Both men came to the altar. John gambled and drank and did other sinful things. After he had prayed a while, he took out a deck of cards and put them on the altar, then his dice, then a bottle of whiskey. Then he pulled out a revolver and handed it to me, and said, "Here, Pearl, take that and unload it." I said, "John, I never was cowardly enough to carry one of those." I laid it on the pulpit. They, with others, prayed through. When John arose, he picked up the firearms, took out three cartridges, and said, "One of them was for my wife, one for another person, and the other for myself. I had heard of Pearl's conversion and that he was preaching. We used to work together. Since he quit the railroad and said he was going to become a Christian, I have been watching him." How glad I am that I did not go to the fair, for if I had, he would not have had confidence in me. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven. We are the light of the world.
I was holding a meeting one time and a drunk woman came. She was a very rough, bad woman, and was drunk most of the time. She would attend the services and when I would give the altar call she would invite sinners to the altar, and was very successful in getting them to go. One night I saw her start to a young girl about sixteen. I made it a point to speak to a young man just in front of the girl. I heard that poor fallen woman pleading and crying for that girl to go get saved. She said, "Just look at me, poor miserable wretch. I once was pure and innocent like you, but I rejected God when I was convicted. Look at me! Oh, please, don't follow my path." She brought about fifteen persons that night and someone every night she was there.
I was asked to stop her, but I said, "Not for the world would I interfere." On the last Saturday night she took sick during service, and vomited on the floor. She left. I saw her the night the meeting closed and asked her to come to meeting and give her heart to God. She said, "Since I threw up on the floor, I won't come back. But, preacher, God left me when I wouldn't serve Him, and I don't want anyone else to suffer the hell I am in. Oh, it is terrible! It seems thirsting demons and lust demons have me under their control all the time. I don't want to be bad, but I cannot get loose. I cannot help it. I run after men and drink." She is to be pitied, but my God could have delivered her if she would fully have repented. But it is dangerous to reject the Holy Spirit. You do place yourself the more in Satan's power.
ONE TIME WHEN I LIVED IN OSKALOOSA
I came home from work on the railroad, and without washing or cleaning up, sat down in the shed to read my Bible. Suddenly, I felt a great urge to go down town at once -- the Spirit drawing me a little as He did Philip, I think. I did not say a word, but obeyed. When I reached the main part of town I saw a man with long hair in curls, and a woman -- called a virgin -- sitting near him. He was lecturing a false doctrine. I listened to him until he was ready to sell his books, then I raised some questions with him. I asked, "Sir, I heard you say that there is no heaven or hell. If there is no heaven, where did Jesus go?" He said, "You know there is nothing impossible with God. He may be behind some big iceberg around the North Pole." I said, "Your argument is as cold as that iceberg. You said that there is no hell. Where are the spirits of the wicked dead?" He tried to explain to me, using Greek words, but the God that sent me there had also arranged that a Greek from Greece -- a professor -- should be standing by me. The man was hushed on his false Greek. I said, "Mister, you say that if we live right we will never die physically." "That is true," he said. I asked, "Why do babies die?" He said, "Because of the sins of their parents." I said, "Because of the sin of Adam," and showed my Bible high in the air, and shouted, "Be not deceived, for in the last days false prophets will rise up and deceive many." I heard the town clock strike four. God came on me in mighty power and I stood on that street corner and preached until I heard the clock strike twelve.
I had been preaching for about an hour when the man who had been lecturing packed his things and left town. But the crowd gathered, until at times there were, no doubt, three hundred there; some came and went and came again with others. Many listened by the hour. Folk, God did that; it was not I. I only furnished the body for Him to use. That man with the false doctrine told the Salvation Army officer about it. He said he did not get to sell a book, but he never had heard anything like it. Oh, my soul is hungry to be used more of God. I am spoiled for anything else. I have seen the movings of God and been moved by His great power. Formality never can move the soul and fire the Spirit and satisfy the soul. When I reached home, wife said, "Where have you been?" I said, "On the street, preaching since four o'clock." The sweat had made streaks down my dirty face. I had on my dirty railroad clothing, but that was not thought of on my part. Glory! Well, praise the Lord! I still get a touch from God as I recall the past. Amen and Amen.
I WAS TRAVELING FROM A CAMP MEETING IN OKLAHOMA
to Trenton, Mo. I had been praying, "Lord, help me to pick up some hitch-hiker that I can help by telling about You and Your salvation." I had not gone far after praying until I saw a Negro man. He was so black. I stopped and said, "Get in, my friend I would not have picked you up if you had not been so black and for Jesus." I asked him if he knew Jesus as his Savior He said, "No sir, I sure don't. You see, down where I come from they done told me we Negro’s don't has any soul." I said "Well you do, and God so loved you colored folk He gave His only begotten Son to save you. He then told me, "My mother died when I was just a baby. I don't know where my father is; I have never seen him. He gave me away after Mother died. I have been told that she was a good woman." As I talked to him about the love of Jesus, he said, "Nobody loves me." Tears were in his eyes, and mine, too. I said, "Yes, my boy, I love you. If I didn't I wouldn't have been interested in your soul and future happiness. I do love you." By this time he was crying. I put my hand on his knee and said, "Sonny, it is God speaking to your heart, wanting you to be saved from sin," and quoted several Scriptures. Crying, he said, "Parson, nobody ever told me I had a soul. They said I didn't have. Nobody ever talked to me like you is." We came to the parting of our roads. I prayed for him before letting him out. He started to go but came back to the car crying, saying, "I is so glad I ever met you -- a person I could feel loved me. I sure is going to do what you said. No one ever talked to me like that." I told him I would be praying for him. He said, "I sure is goin' to pray." I said, "Good-bye and may God direct you, and we will meet in heaven." In traveling I always ask God to help me speak to some hungry soul.
AN EXPERIENCE WHILE RIDING A TRAIN
At the next stop after I boarded the train, a young woman came on whose reservation put her in the seat next to me. It was in the forenoon. I asked her if she were a Christian. She said, "I am a member of the such-and-such church." I said, "I asked if you were a Christian, not a church member. Have you ever been born again, prayed through until Jesus gave you a new life and His Spirit bore witness with your spirit, until the old things you once loved have gone out of your life and Christ is living within? Paul said that it was not he that lived, but Christ that lived in him." She said, "According to what you quote, I am not a Christian, but a member of a denomination." Then the Lord helped me to give plenty of Scripture. I read a few verses and explained them. She said, "Mister, I have heard more gospel in the last forty-five minutes than I have heard in fifteen years before."
That evening I said, "You have a right to the seat you are sitting in and I have a right to the one I am in. You could sleep in your seat and I in mine. But just behind us is a boy and his mother. Now, if you want to sit here, I will ask the woman if she cares to change and sit with you through the night." I asked, and the little boy sat with me for the night. The next morning, the women said, "We know now that you are a Christian."
Another time I was leaving Seattle, Washington, for Minneapolis, Minnesota. While at the station I felt the sacred nearness of the Lord, the presence of His great love. I would shed tears, get up, and walk around the room. Once, while I was walking, I saw two U. S. Police come in with a man to the ticket window. They had him to buy a ticket to New York to see a certain rabbi. This man was a Jew and had come to this country without a passport. He had been a lawyer in Germany, and when so many Jews were put to death there, he left his wife and daughter and hid out, going to different countries to get to the U. S. A. The police were sending him to this rabbi to secure papers for his stay in the States. On the train he sat just in front of me.
God had me greatly charged with His Spirit. At once I entered into conversation with this Jew. I told him the only hope for the Jew was Jesus Christ. He said, "I am a lawyer from Germany and because of what I have seen, I am an unbeliever." I said, "Impossible. You cannot be. You are too smart a man to be so stupid as to not be a believer in the Lord." I began with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Moses, the prophets, then Jesus and the saying of the Jews "Let his blood be upon us and our children."
Two hours passed All in the coach were spellbound. Then I spoke of Paul, the veil of Moses that still is over the eyes of the Jews, and that veil of unbelief in the Messiah, God's Son, Jesus Christ; and for another hour I talked about Jesus and Him crucified. Then he broke in, saying "This is extremely interesting." I said, "Here is a new Bible; just read it and believe. I will make you a present of it." It was now late, and they turned the lights out.
The next morning, the man was reading, and now and then he would ask a question as to what this and that meant. God helped me to explain it, sometimes taking a half hour on one subject. I felt under the power of God all the way on that trip. In that coach were two rabbis from Czechoslovakia, a Catholic priest, and a Catholic woman, who was a missionary. These sat in separate seats across from me. Just behind me sat a River Brethren preacher, and across from him, a Nazarene preacher. I kept much in prayer in my heart that God would use me. I noticed that one time the Catholic priest had his paper upside down for over an hour, not reading, surely!
While I was explaining to that Jew what Jesus said to Nicodemus, "Ye must be born again," I felt God helped me especially. I pressed the point hard. No works of our own, no matter how good, could ever save us. Joining churches, learning catechisms, or creeds, or mode of baptism -- none of these can save us. I said, "Mister, you are not far from the kingdom. If you will repent, confess your sins to God, tell him you are sorry, and accept Jesus as your sacrifice for your sins, accept Him as your Savior, the true Messiah, you will be saved." Tears were in his eyes. He said, "I do believe He was the Messiah." I said, "If you fully repent and accept Him as your personal Savior, He will save you, and I believe He will work for you that you may see your wife and daughter also." He stood and gave me his hand, and said, "I do," and hugged me. He had gone to the lounge room and was there a while. I felt he had prayed.
When we arrived in St. Paul, he received a message from Seattle. The message said, "Your wife and daughter are in New York. Arrived last night." If you ever saw a happy man, he was one. He hugged me, and said, "Oh, I thank God, I found the Messiah. Now, my wife and daughter. I can never thank you enough." Most of the folk in the coach were in tears. The Catholic woman shook hands and said, "I never learned so much about the Bible in all my life. I have enjoyed this trip." The priest looked rather annoyed when she said that. But to God be all the glory.
Most of the people on the coach shook hands with me before I left. One man and woman said, "When you walked past us in the depot, we asked each other, 'What is different about that man? There is a look on his face as if he were very happy.' " I said, "It was God."
That incident happened when I was in the thickest of thorns. God did encourage me now and then. Oh, He never left me, but I had to go through those thorns without many great overflows; however, there were experiences rich and deep.
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