When wife and I got saved, my brothers and families and wives quit writing
to us, and in four years we seldom heard from them. One evening a letter
came from my sister-in-law telling us that my brother had lost his reason
and had been sent to the insane asylum at St. Peter, Minnesota, and asking
me to come at once. Not having any money on hand to go with, I went to a
near neighbor and showed him the letter and asked him if he would loan me
fifteen dollars so that I could go to Minneapolis and also to St. Peter. He
told me that he would do that even if I were not able to pay him back. The
next day I went to Minneapolis to my sister-in-law and her five children.
Jerome, the oldest boy, seven years of age, said, "Uncle, are you going to
bring Daddy home?" I said, "Son, I cannot bring your Daddy home, but Jesus
Christ whom I serve will bring him home."
My sister-in-law related how it all happened. She went for her pastor and
my brother-in-law, a professor in the Lutheran college. When they came
Jerome said to them, "Won't you pray like Uncle Swen does?" They had
evidently talked about our praying even though they did not write to us.
After they had gone his wife had to let my brother out-doors and he ran
four blocks without a thread of clothing on--until a policeman captured
him.
I went to St. Peter, and Dr. Tumbleson, the president of the institution,
refused to let me see my brother. I told him that I must see him; that as a
minister of the gospel I had a right to go where a doctor could go. But he
still refused and called in two other doctors who said to me, "Your brother
is not only insane but is seriously ill and we do not expect him to leave
this institution alive." To which I replied, "Then so much the more do I
have to see him; and if you continue to refuse to let me see him you will
have two Susags in this institution, for I will stay until you grant me the
right to see my brother." Finally relenting, they sent for a man to take me
to see my poor brother.
As I entered the cell in which he was confined my brother did not know me.
He was walking around the room more like an animal than like a man. I knelt
down in the middle of the floor and prayed. After a while he came and put
his hand on my shoulder and said, "Swen, how does it come that you are
here?" I said, "I have come to help you, Mike." "Thank you, I am glad you
have come; something got into my head and I lost my mind. How is my
family?" I told him they were all well and had sent their greetings to him.
Then the man who had brought me in took hold of me and ordered me out.
But I was satisfied. This was the 22nd of March and I fasted from one meal
every day for seventeen days and some days I would touch neither water nor
food telling the Lord I had promised Mike's wife and his children that I
was going to bring the husband and daddy home; and, "Jesus, I will give you
no rest until you do so."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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