Sundays were continuous revival meetings. Famous fishers-of-souls came
every week. All methods from the most spiritual to the coarsest were
used to wean us from our sins. It was "Salvation" Milton, who landed
me.
He was the star attraction of the summer’s program. He stayed in the
camp two weeks, fourteen days of tense emotion, bordering on hysteria.
To many people "Salvation" Milton has seemed a very Apostle. His
message has come to them as holy words from the oracle of the Most High.
To such it may, I fear, seem blasphemous for me—a criminologist—to write
of him as a specimen of pathology. But I have met many who were very
like him in our criminal courts.
I have no doubt of his sincerity—up to the limit of his poor distorted
brain. He had moments of exaltation when he thought that he talked face
to face with God. He believed intensely in his mission. He had lesser
moments, which he regretted as bitterly as did his friends who, like the
sons of Noah, covered him with a sheet that his drunken nakedness might
not be seen by men. He was pitifully unbalanced. But I think that if he
had been given the strength of will to choose, he would have always been
the ardent servant of God we saw in him at the camp meeting.
He was a master of his craft. By meditation and fasting and prayer he
could whip himself into an emotional state when passionate eloquence
flowed from his lips with almost irresistible conviction. He was also
adept at the less venerable tricks of his trade.
It was his custom in the afternoon about four to walk apart in the woods
and spend an hour or more on his knees. Once he took me with him. I
remember the awe of sitting there on the pine needles, in the silence of
the forest and watching him "wrestle with the Spirit." I tried to pray
also, but I could not keep my mind on it so long. Suddenly he began to
speak, asking Christ’s intercession on my behalf. And walking home, he
talked to me about my soul. For the first time I was "overtaken by a
conviction of sin." That night he preached on the Wages of Sin.
I will never forget the horror of fear which held me through that
service. Milton was in the habit of dealing with and overcoming men of
mature mind. Such a lad as I was putty in his hands. When, out of the
shivering terror of it, came the loud-shouted promise of salvation,
immunity from all he had made me feel my just deserts, I stumbled
abjectly up the aisle and took my place among the "Seekers." I must say
he had comfort ready for us. I remember he put his arm over my shoulder
and told me not to tremble, not to be afraid. God was mighty to save.
Long before the world was made He had builded a mansion for me in the
skies. He would wash away all my sins in the blood of the Lamb. Milton
had scared me into a willingness to wade through an ocean filled with
blood if safety lay beyond.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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