Brother Warner felt that he should return to Upper Sandusky to assist in the meetings that were being held there. In a day or two after returning he was called back to Dunkirk to preach the funeral of the young colored sister. The brother who had prayed for her and a sister who had strong faith believed that God would raise the departed sister from the dead in answer to their prayers. Brother Warner announced the funeral for 10 A. M., if the Lord did not direct matters otherwise. He prayed and examined the scriptures relative to miracles and found that (1) Christ aroused and inspired faith and admiration in the people by miracles, (2) the final commission teaches miracles, (3) they were the means of the success of the apostles, (4) the gift is set in the church. Hence, he concluded that miracles were to be a permanent factor in the system of salvation. He does not say that he was particularly impressed that God was going to work a miracle in this case. He rather fell in with the idea as urged by the sister who felt so impressed. At her home she and her husband and Brother Warner waited in prayer for some time, then went to the house where the corpse lay. The two brethren kneeled in prayer while the sister uncovered the body and commanded the departed to arise in the name of Jesus. Their faith for some time was wonderfully strong and they confidently expected to see her arise. They held on with unwavering faith for half an hour, when they all felt relieved and that the will of the Lord had been done. Brother Warner preached the funeral the next day. He writes that this incident seemed only to increase their faith and that he believed that God was well pleased with the effort to exert this faith; that if not through them, God would through some one else revive this element of apostolic power.
There was a report, intended to ridicule, and published by some who opposed Brother Warner, that he with others tried to bring a dead body to life by standing it on its feet and commanding it to walk, etc. This of course was untrue.
Remaining in Dunkirk for a few days, he held meetings which resulted in about twenty conversions. He found himself much attached to the brethren and sisters here. They had come out of the United Brethren and Methodist Episcopal denominations and had formed themselves into a Wesleyan body. Many of them, however, were not satisfied with a human church and creed and there was a strong tendency to come to the apostolic faith. Returning to Upper Sandusky he assisted in the meetings there. In company with Father and Mother Keller he visited the jail and prayed with the convicts. One of those, by name, John Bristol, was gloriously converted. Bristol said he did not care a cent to get out of jail so long as Jesus stayed with him. He had been badly abandoned and had followed shows, drinking, balloon ascensions, etc. He once fell sixty feet from a balloon, breaking an arm, a leg, splitting a hip socket, etc. The sparing of his life was only by the mercy of God.
For the 7th of March 1878 we quote the following:
Fellowshiped some fourteen souls in the Church of God formed on a congregational basis, with holiness the principal foundation-stone. On the 31st of last January the Lord showed me that holiness could never prosper upon sectarian soil encumbered by human creeds and party names, and he gave me a new commission to join holiness and all truth together and build up the apostolic church of the living God. Praise his name! I will obey him.
In March an evangelistic effort was made in Tiffin, but with difficulty. The denominational houses seemed to be closed to holiness. A few meetings were held in a private house and in a rented room. He states that at this place Sister Warner was called to go to Mansfield to assist in a holiness meeting. This was a peculiar test and he thus speaks of it:
23. Sarah left today. The Lord tested our loyalty by requiring us to labor apart. At first I disbelieved that it was the order of God and was decidedly opposed to her going. So were Father and Mother Keller. I thought it would give place to the devil and hurt the sacred cause and endanger our domestic happiness. But this morn I arose early and consulted the Lord. I laid down all my understanding and the many seemingly plain reasons for her not going and besought God to direct the matter, and to my astonishment the Holy Spirit confirmed Sarah's call by reminding me of my solemn covenant with God, that there I had laid her on the altar and given her back to God to use her where and as he saw fit. At the same time all unwillingness vanished from my mind. In fact, a desire was at once created within me for her to go.
O God, thy ways are not our ways, but we will walk in thy ways all the days of our life. Season sad. Here she is greatly needed; there is a strong old band. How would it look for me to work for God here and she whom the Lord had joined to me go elsewhere? Were I at home, not at all in a meeting, then there could be no appearance of evil in her going. But ah! I now see there would then be no test, which is just the thing God intended. Abraham's faith would not have been half so much tried and proved had not Isaac been the heir of the promise. Father and Mother still strongly opposed her going, so that doubtless she would have shrunk with a burdened heart from the call had not God raised help in me.
On the 4th of April he received a letter from her stating that the meeting at Mansfield was excellent for the establishing and strengthening of God's little ones, and that she had gone home.