Chapter 9
So far in writing up my story I have said nothing about the books I have written. It might be a good idea here to just give a little sketch of them.
The first book that I wrote was “Sunshine and Smiles.” I wrote this book in 1902. We sold out the first edition of 5,000 copies and as you will remember I told you of going to Boston to join Dr. Fowler in the fall of 1902. By the time we had traveled as far west as Chicago, the Christian Witness Company secured the copyright and we enlarged the book some and they got their copyright in 1903. Many editions of this little book have been sold, and it has been a blessing to humanity wherever it has gone. A good portion of my experience has been translated into two or three languages. A portion of it was translated into Chinese and Japanese by some missionaries. Some friends have translated a good part into the Spanish language and given it out in tracts, so the reader will see it has been a blessing. In 1904 I wrote a little book called “The King’s Gold Mine,” the conversion and sanctification of the disciples before the day of Pentecost. This little book has had a large sale. That same year I wrote a little booklet, “Walking with God or the Devil, Which?” This has also had a large sale. In 1905 and also 1906 I wrote a beautiful book that was called, “The Pitcher of Cream.” This book was published by Dr. H. C. Morrison along with the other two pamphlets that I had written. “The Pitcher of Cream” is a beautiful, cloth-bound book of 160 pages. When a man goes to writing books and gets it into his blood he must work it out some way, so by 1908 I began to study that remarkable character recorded in John 11th and 12th chapters, the story of Lazarus. By 1909 I had this book ready for the press. Dr. Morrison also brought out this book. It is made up of sixteen chapters: The Sick Man, The Dead Man, The Bound Man, The Entombed Man, The Putrefied Man, Christ Went to Town, Christ the Resurrection and the Life, Christ Inquires for the Dead Man, Christ Sought the Dead Man, He Found Him and Wept Over Him, The First Command to the Church-Take Ye Away the Stone, Lazarus Called out of the Tomb, Lazarus Set Free, Lazarus Feasting with the Lord, Lazarus Persecuted, and Lazarus the Great Soul Winner. I believe this little book has been a blessing to tens of thousands.
By 1912 I was writing another book. I took my time and went through the Bible and found all the beautiful things that transpired on the mountains of sacred history. By 1913 I had my book ready for the press, and the book was named, “Mountain Peaks of the Bible.” Dr. Morrison also published this book. This is a very beautiful book which has had a large sale and blessed humanity wherever it has gone. By the time I had “Mountain Peaks of the Bible” on the press I was giving every spare minute of my time to writing a book of sermons. I completed this book early in the fall of 1913. I wrote seventeen sermons. The title of the book is “Honey in the Rock” and was published by God’s Revivalist Publishing Company of Cincinnati, Ohio. The headings of these sermons are as follows: Why I Believe in Scriptural Holiness, The Abundant Supply, The Two Works of Grace, The Three Ways, Exploits, A Fixed Heart, Christian Perfection, The Blood of Christ or Our Hope of Heaven, The Holy Anointing Oil, The Dangers of the Soul, The Threefoldness of Salvation, The Blameless Life, Repentance and Danger of Neglecting It, The Necessity of Conversion and Sanctification, The Four Confessions, The Three Last Testimonies and The Eye of God.
The next book that I wrote was “My Hospital Experience.” As the reader and my friends know, on the first day of June, 1919, in San Francisco I was struck by an automobile, knocked about thirty feet, was taken up with nine broken bones and dislocated joints. I lay on my back for nearly six months growing my bones back. The devil said I would die and many of my good friends thought I would but I said I would get well and preach holiness all over the United States and I believed around the world. My expenses ran to about $600 per month and I was out of the field six months. I made the best wages I almost ever made in my life while I was lying in the hospital growing my bones back. The money came in to pay all the bills. It came from every quarter of the United States and some from across the ocean. In fact, I went to the hospital with ten dollars and all those bills were paid and I came out with a big rag tied up with money. I won’t say here how much it was but it was a large sum. It had been left by my good friends and sent in through the mail. I will not try here to give my hospital experience as it is already in book form published by the Pentecostal Publishing Company at Louisville at 15c each or seven for a dollar. This little pamphlet has had a big sale.
By 1920 I was hammering the keys of my old typewriter again, bringing out another book. This, I think, was one of the most beautiful books I have written. The title of this book is “Bees in Clover.” It has nearly two hundred pages, beautifully bound, large, clear type and it is published on the finest quality book paper. This book is published by the Nazarene Publishing House, at 2923 Troost Avenue, Kansas City, Missouri, and was copyrighted in 1921. To my way of thinking there are more beautiful things in this book than any I have ever written. But no sooner was “Bees in Clover” off the press than I began to gather up beautiful things from the writings of men and women and other things that the Lord has given me as I preached and travelled and by 1924 I had written another book and I gave it the title of “Nuggets of Gold.” This book also was published by the Pentecostal Publishing Company of Louisville, Kentucky, of which Dr. H. C. Morrison is president. So the reader will see that I haven’t been lazy and have not lain down on the job, but from the day God converted me until this good hour I have had my face set as a flint to go to heaven and carry everybody I possibly can with me. So here I am now writing another book that will in a few weeks be on the press and then I hope it will be read by my friends by the tens of thousands from ocean to ocean.
When I began telling about my books you will remember we had come to our great General Assembly in 1911. This was held in the fall. At the close of this General Assembly, W. B. Yates and I went to Louisville, Kentucky, to hold a meeting for Rev. Howard Eckel, who was pastor of the First Church of the Nazarene there, and at the same time District Superintendent of Kentucky and Tennessee, so you will see this old boy had a great job. Then Brother Yates and I had meetings together off and on for a number of years. That winter we went to Florida and held meetings in Webster and Taylorsville and went down as far as Fort Ogden on the west coast. The Lord gave us some very great revivals.
In the spring of 1913 we came back from Florida and had a great meeting in Thompson, Georgia, with dear Brother Bob Edlemonton and his brother H. L. but better known as Henry, who came down from Atlanta and stayed with us. If ever four old boys had a good time it was these Edlemonton fellows and Yates and Robinson.
From there we made a run to East Liverpool, Ohio. We had a beautiful room in the home of Brother Homer Taylor and Sister Pearl, his good wife. Brother Ben Harker, who at that time was in charge of what is known as the People’s Mission, one among the best I had ever seen up to that time, stood by us nobly and we had great crowds to preach to and some of the hardest cases I think I have almost ever met were gloriously saved in that meeting. Since those good days our precious Brother Harker has been translated and has gone to live with Jesus.
At the close of this convention Brother Yates went to some point in Kentucky and I went to Meridian, Mississippi, and held a meeting for the Beeson brothers. I was there over Easter Sunday, and Brother Joseph H. Smith brought a great message on the “Resurrection” on that day. In our two weeks we had over two hundred and fifty at the altar. Beloved, those were great days in the holiness movement. If the holiness movement could have been received by the people called Methodists I believe that hundreds of thousands would have been saved and sanctified that will probably be lost forever. Of course, in those days when people were driven out of the church for the doctrine and experience of entire sanctification they naturally had to go to schoolhouses, brush arbors, old storehouses, courthouses and under the old gospel tents, but thank God for the tens of thousands that I have seen go down crying and come up flying, washed in the beautiful stream.
Beloved, the end is not yet; God is still on the throne and the government is still on His shoulder, and of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end.
Before I get too far into 1913 I must not forget to tell you that in 1912 I sold my home in Peniel, Texas, and moved to Pasadena, California. I located on the school grounds of what is now the Pasadena College. My home is on Bresee Avenue at 1169 but I have given but very little time to my home and to this beautiful climate. Of course, the reader will understand that I have come out home about once a year for rest, and evangelistic work for about three weeks up and down the coast. 1914 found me with a slate for three years ahead. Sometimes I received as many as nine hundred calls in a single year, preaching from four to five hundred times a year and travelling from 25,000 to 35,000 miles annually.
In the fall of 1914 Rev. M. Edward Borders, who was then pastor of our church at Malden, Mass., began to write me to give him a great convention in April, 1915. I had so many calls that I didn’t see how I could go but finally Dr. C. J. Fowler wrote me one of the most beautiful letters I ever read and pleaded for me to make one more trip through New England, that he wanted to be with me some more before he went up and I finally arranged the date. I worked through Kentucky and Tennessee during the latter part of the winter and early spring. By March I had reached Columbus, Ohio. There we had a handful of members and Brother Robert Kell was their pastor. I went up and while there we secured the big Presbyterian church that they own today. They were unusually kind and gave us such easy terms that it was easy to buy so we bought the church and moved in, but it had been closed up for three or four years and oh, the dust and cobwebs in that building. It took a number of our Nazarene people almost a week to clean it up and if ever two boys worked it was Bob Kell and Bud Robinson. We cleaned up the big stoves in the basement and got everything ready down there. We went to a big grocery merchant and told him we wanted him to supply us with groceries until that meeting closed. He said to us, “Anything that you men want in my store come over and get it,” so we marched over and laid in a good supply of groceries, which our good Nazarene women cooked. We had all day meetings for a month and made no charge for meals but we put up a little box in the dining room with a hole in it with the words, Free Will Offerings. During the month we fed up eighty dollars worth of groceries and only served dinner.
I will never forget one rich old Methodist brother from out of town who was at the altar and got blessed. We marched him down to dinner and after he got all the roast beef and mashed potatoes he could eat he said, “Whom do I pay now?” We said, “Sir, the only way we collect money here is in this box, whatever you wish to pay put it in there.” He walked up and put a twenty dollar bill through that hole and said, “This is the greatest day of my life; to go to a meeting and get saved and sanctified and have all I can eat and nobody to present a bill beats anything I ever experienced in my life.”
During this meeting of a month we had over five hundred at the altar. We took in twice as many members as we had and the offerings came up and overflowed everything. It is remarkable how people give when God comes to town. We hadn’t been there long until the boys at the railroad Y. M. C. A. put in a special plea for us to give them one afternoon of each week so we went there and had a great time and the revival reached the railroad shops, and the railroad boys began to request noon meetings, so we would go over there and give them a great rally. I think we went four or five times while in Columbus. During this campaign there were three Presbyterian Sunday school superintendents beautifully sanctified. In that meeting big Brother Beckett, who had been saved in the Billy Sunday meeting, who had been train caller in the great Pennsylvania railroad station for thirteen years, knelt at the altar and God sanctified him. Bless his memory; in a few years he had been translated. Some two years ago his good wife followed on.
Beloved, it is remarkable the number of people I have seen converted or sanctified that many years ago have gone to live with Jesus. While I am on that point, in Long Beach, California, in the great building on the docks, while we were touring the state in January, 1920, in a coast-to-coast campaign, I gave the story of my life and there were people from twenty-five states and fifty different cities that had been converted or sanctified in my meetings who stood up and testified to it. So you will see that I have got to walk straight. We used to say when we were preaching and the people would jump up and down and shout, that all we required of them was that they walk straight when they came down, so the Lord requires at my hand what I required at the hands of the people.
At the close of the great campaign in Columbus I ran over and gave two days and nights at Marion, Ohio, and from there I went to Boston. I got off the train at the old South Station, and was met by Brother William McDonald and his good wife and a young lady that was keeping house for them and, if I am not mistaken, Brother Border’s older daughter, Miss Irene Borders. It was a wonderful trip through Boston in those days in an automobile. I was entertained in the home of Brother McDonald and there the Lord gave us a most glorious revival. I will never forget the scenes around the altar. The people became so interested that they would come to church and fill the church almost an hour before preaching would begin and when I would come over the only way I could get in would be to go around and come into the church through the big door that opened into the parsonage. I don’t think I ever worked with a man in all my experience that had a greater influence in the city than Brother Borders had. He had a fine backing in his church. One of the most cultured gentlemen of New England, Brother Peavy, was the chairman of his church board and Borders and Peavy were like Jonathan and David. To me Brother Borders was one of the most interesting preachers I had ever met. He told me some days nothing could be done while maybe within twenty-four hours the same thing that could not have been done the day before could be done. He said, “Brother Bud, you have got to do everything at the psychological minute.” I had carried with me my trunk packed full of books and people began to call for them, but Brother Borders would shake his head and say, “I will tell you when to open it. When the psychological minute comes I will notify you.” So one night when we had the house packed until they were standing around the walls, Brother Borders came in with a big grin and his eyes sparkling and said, “Unlock your trunk at once; the psychological minute has arrived.” I opened my trunk and within a few minutes he sold every book and had orders for fifty more and we wired Chicago to send them next mail. He had just remodeled his big church and had it newly decorated until it was a beauty and he needed $1500 to pay up that bill. One Sunday morning he walked up and said, “The psychological moment has arrived,” and laid his watch on the pulpit and in ten minutes the people had given him $1800.
But going back just a little before that when Brother Borders had taken the church, if my memory serves me correctly, there was a mortgage for $7,000 and that old boy had raised every dollar of that and paid it and burnt it and had had his church remodeled for the Robinson campaign.
The first two weeks I was with him we had some great noon meetings at the city hall. There was a young man that worked with him that was named Robinson though no kin to Bud. The last week that I was with Brother Borders the New England District Assembly met in his church. The people came from all over New England; he had good homes for everyone and fine entertainment. I have never seen a District Assembly entertained in my life better than it was at that time. Dr. H. F. Reynolds, General Superintendent, presided at this great assembly and Brother Washburn was District Superintendent. It was at this assembly that they elected delegates to the General Assembly to meet in Kansas City in the fall. It was very interesting and I remember good Brother Lanpher, who is pastor of our First church in Portland, Maine, got up and offered a resolution to memorialize the General Assembly to drop the word Pentecostal from their name and go back to the first name that Dr. Bresee gave the church when it was organized, and take the name The Church of the Nazarene. They had some mighty interesting speeches. I think that the motion put before the assembly was lost, but I thought it was beautiful for the brethren of the East who were the founders of the Pentecostal Church to memorialize the assembly to drop the word Pentecostal from the church name. They gave for their reason that the great band of Pentecostal people called the unknown tongues people were known far and wide by that name and that many people had somehow confounded the Nazarenes with the other folks. But the name was not dropped until the General Assembly in Kansas City in 1919. There the word was dropped and the church has been known as “The Church of the Nazarene” until the present time. We had at that great assembly our beloved Brother George Franklin who was outgoing missionary to India. He made a very great missionary speech and called mourners and filled the altar.
At the close of this assembly I rested up for a couple of days and then went to Lowell, Mass., where our beloved Brother Riggs and Brother Beers were the pastors of the great church there. I was with the brethren thirteen days and we had a real good convention. My home at that time was with a fine family by the name of Cove. Miss Mary Cove has been an active missionary worker in this country. From there I went down to Portsmouth, Virginia, and held a meeting in the First Friends church. At that time Brother Claude Rome was pastor. My recollection is that he stayed at that church for nine years, and before that Brother C. H. Babcock, of national fame as preacher, orator and writer, was pastor for seven successive years. The Lord gave me a fine meeting with Brother Rome. I suppose if I were to try to describe every meeting that I held, it would make this book entirely too large.
From the east coast of Virginia I made my way back into Ohio. During the summer I was on about seven great camp grounds; visiting Roscoe, Ohio; Jamestown, North Dakota; Red Rock, Minnesota; Indian Springs, Georgia; Wichita, Kansas; and on from place to place until late in the fall. I held campmeetings right up until the General Assembly in Kansas City, then after that went on with my work as before.