These things made our hearts ache. We saw that in our absence the people
needed some one to give them advice, encouragement, and spiritual help.
Finally my brother said to me, "Mary, I am going to write to the Free
Methodists and ask them if they will send us a preacher that will preach
holiness." It was not long until we received the following letter from the
Free Methodist Conference: "If you get a congregation large enough to
guarantee a minister a salary of five or six hundred dollars a year, we
will send you a man that believes in holiness." As they did not say that
the minister they would send would have the experience of sanctification,
their letter afforded but little encouragement.
While awaiting the reply of the Free Methodist conference, my brother had
visited the Tennyson schoolhouse where we had held meetings sometime
before. He found that no sect minister had yet demoralized the believers,
and the members were more spiritual than those of any congregation we had
yet visited. This occurrence threw some light on our difficulty. My
brother, as was his usual custom when he had anything of great importance
weighing on his mind, resorted to prayer. As it was March and the weather
quite cool, he put on his overcoat and went out to spend the day alone
until he got the leadings of the Lord.
God began to show him the sin of division. Jeremiah did not see matters
very clearly yet, for he asked the Lord how we could get along without any
human organization. The Lord asked him what good they had done, and brought
to his mind the fact that it was only the spiritual ones, those who had not
partaken of the spirit of division, that God could use to any advantage. My
brother then inquired of the Lord how this sin of division had been brought
about, and the Lord showed him that he could find the answer to his
question in history.
When my brother had an opportunity to read history, he found that every
sect builder told his own story. He saw that not one of the human
organizations measured to the pattern of the New Testament church, and that
since the sects have human founders, they could not be the church of God as
that institution is of divine origin.
My brother then went back to the Tennyson schoolhouse, and preached his
first sermon on the subject of the unity of God's people. The people
joyfully accepted the truth and walked in the light. Jeremiah thought that
when I heard what God had revealed to him I would be rejoiced; but, to his
surprise, I could not yet discern the body of Christ. I was still under the
influence of the wine of Babylon.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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