We had not been in the city a great while until we had more calls than we could fill. People wrote asking us to call on their friends to see if we could not get the truth to them. We were called to visit places that were by no means inviting. We also had calls from suburban towns and other near-by places, and at times we were led to hold meetings for a week or two in places outside the city. Surely we fulfilled the scripture, "Sow beside all waters." We soon learned from experience that not all who came to the home telling pitiful stories of need were deserving of help. Sometimes after giving provisions and even money, we learned that our charity had been misapplied. We soon learned that it was wise to find out whether we were helping the worthy poor or impostors.
After the chapel was built, opportunities for reaching souls greatly increased. We now had meetings whenever we chose, especially on Sunday evenings, Thursday afternoon and evening, with good attendance of saints and truth-seekers. Our expenses, too, were greatly lessened in this way, especially at the time of the yearly assemblies. One year the rental of the building in which the assembly was held, was, I think, $300 for ten days. Before a certain assembly the saints had contributed freely to provide money for the coming assembly. Shortly before the meeting began the treasury was robbed of over $200.
During the ten years I spent in the Chicago work, I witnessed many wonderful deliverances from sin, from disease, and from evil spirits. The account of these experiences would of itself make a large volume; I can mention only a few here. Sister Pearl Horman, who came to the home, was taken very sick with fever. Her case was very serious, the fever being very high. The Lord rebuked the fever and in a short time she was well. Sister Myra Barrett came to a meeting we were having in the chapel one night, and remained all night in the home. Before morning she had an attack of erysipelas in the face, accompanied by a high fever. The Lord put his rebuke on the disease and not many days later she was able to resume her duties in an office in the city.
In answer to a call from Joliet, Illinois, we went to that place and anointed a brother who was very sick with the quinsy. In answer to the prayer of faith, God wonderfully healed him. One winter night a call came from the suburbs of the city for some one to come and anoint a child suffering from a violent attack of pneumonia. The snow lay deep on the ground and the weather was very cold. My brother and I answered the call. As the night was far spent, the street-cars were no longer running in the direction we had to go, and so we had to walk over a mile facing the wintry storm. God answered prayer in behalf of the child. It was better before we left next morning and was soon entirely well.
At another time we were called upon to pray for a boy who had appendicitis. The doctors who examined him said that without an operation he could not possibly live, but his father, being a saint, desired prayer. Brother Reardon and I anointed the boy, prayed the prayer of faith, and the boy was healed. God got the glory that time instead of the doctor, not to speak of the saving of a great deal of suffering and a heavy doctor-bill.
My mother was in the home at the time Sister Barrett was healed of erysipelas. About ten years before this time Mother had the same affliction, and it came near taking her life. As a result, she had an especial dread of this disease. Before coming to the home, Mother had not been able to wholly trust the Lord for healing, but when she came to live with us, she decided to trust the Lord. But when she saw Sister Barrett having such a severe attack of erysipelas, she became a little alarmed and used something as a preventive, not realizing that it would hinder her faith. In nine days she had a severe attack of erysipelas. For a number of days she had quite a fight of faith, and we sent telegrams to The Trumpet Office twice. God in his mercy rebuked the disease, and she recovered rapidly for one of her age. Although she was past eighty-one, her recovery was much more rapid than it had been ten years before, when she had trusted the doctor.
Sometime after mother was entirely well, we found the little preventive she had in her pocket and asked her about it. She confessed with tears that she had been using the preventive. We encouraged her to trust God fully for protection as well as for everything else. From that time forward she has been able to put her trust wholly in God. Some say that people get too old to trust the Lord, but in her case the older she gets, the more childlike becomes her trust in God.
A brother Jones, now of West Virginia, came to the home from a place where there was an epidemic of smallpox. He was just beginning to take the disease; in fact, a pimple or two had already appeared. He would take spells of being deathly sick, a common occurrence before breaking out with smallpox. The brother was innocent in coming to the home in that condition, thinking that he had been exposed to the chicken-pox and that he was just coming down with a bad case of that disease. He trusted the Lord wholly for healing, and we all united our faith with his against the disease.
The Monday following his arrival he, in company with my brother and others of the saints, went to the camp-meeting at Moundsville, W. Va. That same evening God made us who were left at the home to understand very definitely that the brother had the smallpox and that we should pray very earnestly that God would keep him from breaking out until the nature of the disease could be discovered and the brother be put under quarantine to protect the camp-meeting. Our greatest fears were that the whole camp would be quarantined. The Lord encouraged our hearts to continue in prayer that he would overrule the whole matter. In a few days they found out that Brother Jones was taking the smallpox, and they put him under quarantine. Very soon afterward he broke out. God had answered our prayers to keep him from breaking out, and he also protected us at the home and those at the camp-meeting. Our God is able to protect in every time of need.
Two or three days later a boy came from the same smallpox-infected district. By this time physicians in Michigan City had found out that the disease they had there was smallpox, and were going to put the house where he had been staying under quarantine. The brother who had just come thought he had sufficient faith to protect himself and others from the disease; but we who were older in the work and understood the ways of the Lord better, advised him to return, lest if he should have the smallpox in the city, they would put him in the pest-house, where he would not have the same chance to trust the Lord that he would if at home. So he returned to his home and had the disease there. Again God marvelously protected us.