From Death into Life by William Haslam

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I said, "Let us go in and see him; come along--come!"

So saying, I made for the door and knocked, beckoning to the others to
follow me; but they would not do so. As soon as the door was opened I
went in, and the landlady speedily closed it after me, saying, "I am
glad you are come. How did you manage to get here? I have sent word to
the constable to look out for you, and he is still watching somewhere."

"Why," I asked, "what is it all about? What is the matter?"

"Why, some of the lads here say, that if they could catch you, they
would give you a good ducking in the pond."

"Indeed!" I said. "Then I don't think I will give them that pleasure
tonight." So, sitting down by the fire, I made myself comfortable, and
after supper went to bed.

In the morning, while at breakfast, I saw a number of men playing in the
open space in front of the house. Some were tossing pence, some playing
at ball and other games, while many were standing about smoking, with
their hands in their pockets.

"There, that's the way they spend their Sundays in this place," said the
landlady.

After watching them from the window for a little time, I put on my hat
and went out, and told them "it was time to go home and get ready for
church; that would be far better," I said, "than playing like this on
Sunday. It is a disgrace to men like you--married men, too, with
families! It would be bad enough if you were a parcel of boys. I am
quite ashamed of you!"

They slunk away one by one, and I walked down the street to look about
me, and to see the school-room where there was no school; but I intended
to have a prayer-meeting there in the evening, after the service. I put
up a notice to this effect, and then came back to my lodgings, till it
was near church-time, when I set out, arrayed in my gown and bands, for
the sacred edifice.

On the way there I observed stones flying past me in every direction;
but I walked on, till at last I was struck on the cheek with a patch of
muddy clay which was thrown at me. There was a universal shout of
laughter when the men and boys saw that I had been hit. I put my hand to
the place, and found that the pat of clay was sticking to my cheek, so I
pressed it there, hoping, by the help of my whiskers, that it would
remain. I said to the crowd, who were laughing at me, "That was not a
bad shot. Now, if you come to church you shall see it there; I will keep
it on as long as I can." So saying, I walked on amidst the jeers of the
people.

When I arrived at the vestry, the clerk was in great trouble when he
knew what had happened. He said, "Do let me wash the mud off, sir."

"Oh, no," I replied, "I mean to show that all day, if I can."

During the morning service, at which there were about fifty present, I
succeeded in keeping on my mud-patch, and returned to dinner with the
same.

In the afternoon I said that I would have a service for children, as
there was no Sunday school, to which about twenty came. Before
addressing them, seeing that they were intently looking at the patch on
my cheek, I told them how it came there, and that I intended to keep it
on all through the evening service.

This news spread all over the whole place, and the consequence was that
such numbers of people came out of curiosity, that the church was filled
to over-flowing. I preached without any reference to what had taken
place, and succeeded in gaining the attention of the people; so that
after the service I said I would have a prayer-meeting in the
schoolroom. We had the place crammed, and not a few found peace. I
announced that I would preach again the next evening.

A revival soon broke out in that place, and the crowds who came to the
meetings were so great, that we had as many people outside the large
school-room as there were in.

At the end of the six weeks the new vicar returned, and I was able to
hand over the parish to him, with a full church, three Bible-classes,
and a large Sunday-school. This I did, thanking God for the measure of
success and blessing He had given to my efforts in that populous and
wicked place.

After I had left I received a letter from some of the parishioners,
asking me what I should like to have as a testimonial of their gratitude
and regard; hat they had had a penny collection amongst themselves,
which amounted to several pounds, and now they were waiting to know what
I should like!

I wrote to tell them that nothing would please me better than a service
of plate for communion with the sick. They bought this, and had a
suitable inscription engraved, and then placed it under a glass shade in
the Town Hall, on a certain day for inspection. Hundreds of people came
to see the result of their penny contribution. After this public
exhibition, the communion service was sent to me with a letter, written
by a leading man in the place, saying, "I was one of the instigators of
the opposition to your work here; but the very first evening you spoke
in the school-room I was outside listening,' and was shot through the
window. The word hit my heart like a hammer, without breaking a pane of
glass. Scores and scores of people will bless God to all eternity that
you ever came amongst us."

The revival in this proverbially wicked place, created such a stir that
the newspapers took it up, and thought for once that I "was in the right
place, and doing a good work!" The member for the borough sent me
twenty-five pounds, "begging my acceptance of the trifle." Who asked
him, or why he sent it, I do not know; but the Lord knew that we needed
help. More than this, the vicar of the adjoining parish, who used to be
very friendly with me in my unconverted days, but who had declared his
opposition pretty freely since that time, sent me a letter one Sunday
morning by private hand, to be delivered to me personally. This I duly
received, but expecting that it was one of his usual letters, and
knowing that I had visited some persons in his parish who were anxious,
I thought I would not open it until Monday, and so placed it on the
mantelpiece. A friend who happened to come in, noticing it there, said,
"I see you have a letter from the Prebendary; I dare say he is angry
with you."

"I suppose he is," I said; "but it will keep till tomorrow; and I do not
care to be troubled with his thoughts to-day."

"Oh, do let me open it," said my visitor; "I shall not be here
to-morrow, and I should like to hear what he has to say."

With my consent he opened it and read, "Dear old Haslam, you have done
more good in that part of my parish where you are working, in a few
weeks, than I have done for years. I enclose you a cheque for the amount
of tithes coming from there. The Lord bless you more and more! Pray for
me!"

It was a cheque for thirty-seven pounds. The next morning I went over to
see my old friend newly-found, and to thank him in person for his
generous gift. Poor man, I found him very low and depressed, and quite
ready and willing that I should talk and pray with him. I sincerely hope
that he became changed before I left the neighbourhood, but I never
heard that he declared himself.

By this time, while I was still in Tregoney, Mr. Aitken had found his
way to the village where my family were lodging, and he was preaching at
the church with his usual power and effect. Night after night souls were
awakened and saved. The vicar's wife was in a towering rage of
opposition. Poor woman! she declared that she "would rather go to Rome
than be converted ;" and to Rome she went, but remained as worldly as
ever.

It matters very little whether unconverted people join the Church of
Rome or not; they are sure to be lost for ever if they die in their
unconverted state: for nothing avails for eternal salvation but faith in
the Lord Jesus Christ.

CHAPTER 30

Secessions, 1856.

After mission which Mr. Aitken had held, people came out so decidedly,
that the vicar and curate, who had all along kept aloof, doubting, fell
back into a kind of revulsion, and began to read and lend Romish books.
Eventually, they themselves decided to join the Church of Rome. Whether
they were ever really converted or not, I cannot tell. I thought and
hoped they were, but they seldom stood out on the Lord's side. They
certainly had light, and may have had some experience. At any rate, they
chose such a harlot as the Church of Rome for the object of their love,
instead of Christ Himself.

I loved the curate. He was the man who had the unopened letter in his
desk,* of which he harboured such a dread. Sad to say, he ended by
falling away at last. Poor man! he went over to Rome, and never held up
his head any more. Evidently disappointed, and ashamed to come back, he
lingered on for some months, and then died.

____________________

* See page 256.
_________________

Not long after his secession, we accidentally met in a quiet lane, in
another part of the county, where I was walking for meditation. Perhaps
he was led there for the same purpose. Meeting so unexpectedly, there
was no opportunity to evade one another. I felt a trembling come over me
at seeing him, and he was none the less moved. We held each other's
hands in silence, till at last I said, "How are you? I love you still."

"I cannot stand it!" he said; and snatching his hand out of mine, he ran
away.

I never saw him again, but mourned for him till he died. I cannot help
thinking that he is safe, and that he died in a faith more scriptural
than that of the Church of Rome.

Why do men secede; and break their own hearts, and the hearts of those
who love them? Rome seems to cast a kind of spell upon the conscience,
fascinating its victims much as the gaze of the serpent is said to hold
a bird, till it falls into its power; or as a light attracts a moth,
till it flies into it, to its own destruction. Such seceders mourn and
dread the step; pray about it, think and think, till they are bewildered
and harassed; and then, in a fit of desperation, go off to some Romish
priest to be received. A man who had an honourable position, a work and
responsibility, suddenly becomes a nonentity, barely welcomed, and
certainly suspected.

Romish people compass sea and land to make proselytes; and after they
have gained them, they are afraid of them, for their respective
antecedents are so different, that it is impossible for them to think
together. They get the submission of a poor deluded pervert, but he gets
nothing in return from them but a fictitious salvation. They gain him;
but he was lost the kind regard and sympathy of friends he had before,
and with it all that once was dear to him; and he voluntarily forfeits
all this upon the bare self-assertion of a system which claims his
implicit obedience. The poor pervert is required to give over his will,
his conscience, and his deepest feelings to the keeping of his so-called
"priest" or to the Church, and is expected to go away unburdened and at
peace. Some there are, it is true, who actually declare that they have
peace by this means; but what peace it is, and of what kind, I know not.

Supposing that I was in debt and anxiety, and a man who had no money,
but plenty of assurance and brass, came to me and sympathized in my
trouble, saying, "Do not fear---trust me; I will bear your burden, and
pay off your debt"--if the manner of the man was sufficiently assuring,
it would lift up the cloud of anxiety and distress; but, for all that,
the penniless man would net, and could not, pay my debt. I might fancy
he had done so or would do so; and then, when it was too late, the debt,
with accumulated interest, would fall on me, to my over-whelming ruin,
even though I had been ever so free from anxiety before. So it is with
these deluded ones, who go to the priest instead of to Christ, and take
his absolution instead of Christ's forgiveness.

Any one who carefully reads the Word of God may see that the Church of
Rome has no such priesthood as she claims, nor power to forgive sins, as
she professes to do. The whole supposition is based on a
misunderstanding of the text, "Whose soever sins ye remit, they are
remitted unto them; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained"
(John 20:23).

The disciples (some of them not apostles) who received this commission
or privilege, never understood that they were by these words (men and
women together) empowered to be absolving priests. Even the very
apostles never knew that they had any such power; and it is certain they
never exercised it. They were perfectly innocent of being priests after
the Romish type, and never dreamed of offering a propitiatory sacrifice.
They simply believed that Christ had completed the work of propitiation
once for all; and that there is now no more sacrifice for sin--that
Christ only can forgive sins. Therefore in the words of St. John we are
told, that "if any man sin (apostles and people alike), we have an
advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He is the
propitiation for our sins" (1 John 2:1, 2).

The apostles and early Christians never understood that the power of the
keys meant the exercise of mere priestly authority, neither was the
doctrine known for several centuries after their time; therefore we may
be sure that the peace which perverts have, if it professes to come from
that source, is a delusion. No true remission or peace is, or can be
given, but by direct and personal transaction with Christ Himself.

I am perfectly convinced that the Epistles to the Romans and the
Galatians are the answer to all the pretences of the Church of Rome, and
that a man who will not read and follow them deserves to be misled. God
is perfectly justified and clear on this point.

During that winter six of my friends joined the Church of Rome. One I
have already told about, who died, I am sure, from grief and
disappointment.* Another became bigoted, and with a sullen, dogged
pertinacity, set himself to work for Rome, looking very miserable all
the time, although he used once to be happy in the Lord's work. The
others, without exception, went back into the world, and made no secret
of their conformity with it, its ways, and fashions.

______________________

* See page 263.
________________________

This was a time of trouble in more respects than one. These secessions
to Rome brought great discredit upon the work, and especially on the
effort to promote Catholic truth, and higher Church life. I found my own
refuge and comfort was in working for God, and therefore went out on
mission work whenever and wherever I could.

Early in the spring of this year I went on a mission to Worcestershire,
and there the Lord vouchsafed a great blessing, which has more or less
continued to this day; though I grieve to say the present vicar has no
sympathy with it. The work is still carried on in an Iron Room, out of
church hours, by people who continue to go to church.

The vicar of that time asked me to go and visit a farmer's wife, who was
under deep conviction, and wished to see me. I did so, and as we
approached the door (which was open) the first thing we heard was this
individual saying, in a very high-pitched: voice, "Confound..."

Seeing us, she suddenly stopped. "Go on with your text," said the vicar,
quietly, "'Confounded be all they that serve graven images;' is that
what you mean?"

"No," she replied; "come in, I am so wretched that I don't know what to
do with myself; it has made me cross. Do come in and pray with me."

We at once consented; and on pointing her to Jesus, she found peace. Not
content with praising God alone, she opened her house for a meeting for
the people in the neighbourhood. This being situated on the confines of
the parish, brought us into collision with the rector of the next
parish. He was most indignant at our coming (as he said), "to entice his
people away."

I tried my best to conciliate this gentleman, but nothing would do,
particularly when he heard that I was thinking of settling down in the
district. This plan was however frustrated in an unexpected manner, and
I was not permitted to remain there.

One day, when I was praying about the matter, a letter was put into my
hand from a lady who had been asking the Lord for nearly six months that
I might be appointed to her late husband's church. She had applied to
Lord Palmerston, who was the patron, and though she had received no
answer, yet she had continued to pray.

At last there came a courteous letter from his: lordship, apologizing
for having delayed his reply, adding that he "had mislaid the
application of her, nominee; if she would oblige him with the name and
address of this person, the appointment should be made out immediately."
She gave my name and address, and sent his letter on to me. I
immediately wrote to his lordship, saying that I had not applied for the
living, nor did I want it; but, for all that, I received by return post
the nomination; and actually, it was to go back to the diocese of
Exeter! I did not think the Bishop would institute me, as I had
committed a great many irregularities since his lordship had taken off
my harness. But he did.

Somehow I was unwilling to go to this living, but was put into it in
spite of myself. Here I had a good house, garden, and church, provided
for me, with so much a year. I wondered whether God was tired of me! He
had provided for me and my family during the past year wondrously, and I
began to like "living by faith," and trusting in Him only. I have great
doubts whether this appointment was altogether in accordance with God's
will. Anyway, I had very little success or liberty in preaching, and
could not settle down to work with any energy.

In the beginning of the summer, as usual, I had my attack of hay fever,
which completely incapacitated me, in this place of much grass. If I
went to a town or the sea-side, it was well; but the moment I returned
to the country I was ill again. Altogether, it was a dull and
distressing time; but God was preparing me for a special work.

CHAPTER 31

Hayle, 1857-58.

While meditating upon my present position, and wondering what I was to
do next, I received an invitation to take charge of a district in
another part of the county, near the sea, which suited my health. Here
there was a large population, which gave scope for energetic action;
and, moreover, the people were careless and Godless, and, as such, were
not preoccupied with other systems. So I thought it was the very place
in which I could begin to preach, and go on to prove the power of the
Gospel.

With the invitation, I received an exaggerated account of the wickedness
of the people, and was told that the thinking part of them leant towards
infidelity, and that some of them were actually banded together in an
infidel club. All this, however, did not deter me from going, but rather
stirred me up so much the more to try my lance against this gigantic
foe. I had learned before now to regard all difficulties in my work as
the Lord's, and not mine; and that, though they might be greater than I
could surmount, they were not too great for Him.

There were two large iron factories here, besides shipping. Many of the
people employed were drawn from other parts of England, and were what
the Cornish call "foreigners." They had no love for chapel services, or
revivals, and no sympathy with Cornish views and customs; so not having
a church to go to, they were left pretty much to themselves.

With this attractive sphere before me, I gave up my living and work in
the country, and accepted the curacy at l. 120 a year, with a house
rent-free. My rector was a dry Churchman, who had no sympathy with me;
but he seemed glad to get any one to come and work amongst such a rough,
and in some respects unmanageable, set. He had bought a chapel from the
Primitive Methodists for Divine service, and had erected schools for
upwards of three hundred children. These he offered me as my ground of
operation, promising, with a written guarantee, that if I succeeded, he
would build me a church, and endow it with all the tithes of that
portion of the parish.

Here was a field of labour which required much prayer and tact, as well
as energetic action. In accordance with Scriptural teaching, "I
determined to know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified." I made
up my mind that I would not begin by having temperance addresses for
drunkards, or lectures on the Evidences of Christianity for the infidel,
but simply with preaching the Gospel.

One thing that simplified my work very much was the fact, that the
people were spiritually dead. I used to tell them, that in this free
country every man is accounted innocent till he is proved to be guilty,
but that in the Bible every man is guilty before God till he is
pardoned, and dead till he is brought to life. In one sense it does not
matter very much whether a man is an infidel, a drunkard, or anything
else, if he is dead in trespasses and sins.

It is of very little consequence in what coloured raiment a corpse is
shrouded; it remains a corpse still.

Taking this position positively, I avoided much religious controversy,
to the disappointment of many eager disputants, who longed to ventilate
their views. 'I told them plainly, that whether they were, right or
wrong, my business was with the salvation: of souls, and my one desire
was to rescue the lost: by bringing' them to Christ.

Hitherto I had been to places where the Lord had previously prepared the
hearts of the people, and therefore it had been my joy to see a revival
spring up, as if spontaneously; that is, without the ordinary
preparation by the people of the place. These extraordinary
manifestations of God's power and love; and they showed me what He could
and do. Now that I was somewhat more intelligent on the subject, He sent
me forth to prepare and work for similar results.

Hayle was to all appearances a very barren soil, and the people I had to
labour amongst were greater and mightier than myself. They already had
possession of the ground, and were perfectly content with their own way.
Moreover, they did not desire any change, and were ready even to resist
and oppose every effort which was designed to ameliorate their
condition, or to change their lives. In this undertaking I knew and
understood that without prayer and dependence upon God to work in me and
by me, my mission would be altogether unavailing, I therefore looked
about, and found some Christians who consented to unite in pleading for
an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We agreed to pray in private, and also
met together frequently during the week for united prayer. Finding that
many of the petitions offered were vague and diffuse, I endeavoured to
set before those assembled a definite object of prayer. I told them that
the work was not ours but the Lord's, and that He was willing and ready
to accomplish it, but that He must be inquired of concerning the work of
His hands. Also, in order that our prayers should be intelligent and
united, I put before them the fact, that the people we had to work
amongst were lost; not that they would be lost by-and-by if they died in
their sins; but that they were actually lost now. It is true that many
were quite ignorant of the way of salvation, and were also unconscious
of the power of the enemy who held them captive; and besides, they loved
their captivity too well; but all this would be overcome in a moment,
when they were once enlightened by the Spirit (in answer to prayer) to
see and feel themselves lost. No one could be more ignorant than the
jailor at Philippi, but as soon as he was awakened he cried out, "What
must I do to be saved?" (Acts 16:30).

I showed them that the work we had to do was clearly set forth in
Scripture (Acts 26:18), and that the order in which it was to be done
was also made manifest. We must not begin with giving instruction as if
the people were merely ignorant; but rather by awakening or opening
their eyes to see that they were in a lost and ruined condition. Then
they would appreciate being turned "from darkness to light, and from the
power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins"
(Acts 26:18). I strove earnestly to show them that until people had
received forgiveness of sins, our work was not complete. We made this
our definite aim, and prayed about it with clear expectation. Under the
shadow and influence of this prayer, I began to preach to the people;
not to believe, but to awake and see their lost condition; that is, to
repent, that they might believe the Gospel.

At first there were very few people in my congregation, but by degrees
more came, and listened attentively to the Word. After preaching for
four or five Sundays, I asked the people during my sermon, what in the
world they were made of; for I was surprised at them! They came and
listened to God's truth, and yet did not yield themselves to Him. "Are
you wood, or leather, or stone? What are your hearts made of, that God's
love cannot touch or His Word break them?" I then invited the anxious to
remain for an after-meeting, when I said that I would converse with them
more familiarly; but they every one went away.

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