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I have generally observed a rule of not eating my evening meal until after the evening service. One evening in Sweden I ate a little fish out of a can that had been standing open for some time. After eating a little of the fish I remembered that the can had been standing open and did not eat any more. About a half an hour after I had retired and gone to sleep, I woke up feeling deathly sick with ptomaine poisoning. It seemed as if I was to be taken out of this world. All through the night Brother Forsberg, Sister Bettie Miller and others kept praying for me and the next day my life seemed to hang on a thread, but at five o'clock that evening we got the victory and I was perfectly healed, and able to speak in the service that night.
Some years afterwards while at Camp meeting at Anderson, Ind. I was poisoned in about the same manner. A number of brethren prayed for me without my getting any relief. Finally, Brother George Green, now pastor at Hanford, California, a true yoke-fellow of mine who loved me dearly, broke down and wept and had compassion on me and prayed a short prayer of faith and rebuked the devil and the sickness, and I was healed instantly. The Bible says of Jesus, "He had compassion on the people and healed all that came unto him."
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On one ocassion in 1933 I was not feeling very well. I was on my way to California and stopped in Minneapolis where my three boys live. When they saw that I was not well, they were determined to take me to a doctor and have me examined. He ordered me to a hospital where five doctors took six x-rays. After taking the x-rays, the doctors asked me, "What do you think you have?" I said, "The same as you think." They said, "What do we think?" "Cancer!" I said. "No," they said. I said, "Why do you lie, you said it was cancer and a bad one." They said, "Do you understand Latin?" I said, "I understand that much." In the evening the doctor called my son Clarence and said to him, "Shall I tell your dad what the matter is with him, or will you?" He answered, "It doesn't matter who tells him, as he is ready to live or to die; we want to know the worst." The doctor said, "It is the worst. Bring him to my office tomorrow at three o'clock." I heard the five doctors talking the case over between themselves, stating the position of the cancer.
On coming to the office the next day the doctor said, "I have good news for you, Reverend, you have no cancer." I asked him, "When did you lie to me, yesterday or today?" He said, "Neither, the picture clearly shows cancer. They forgot to take your food test so you had to go back to the hospital to have it taken and in the food test there was no cancer." The doctor asked, "What did you do, once a cancer but none now?" I said, "I did like a little story we ministers have about a little boy and his sister. They were out playing, and at eleven o'clock Mary was hungry and went in to ask mother for a slice of bread, but mother said, it is soon time for lunch, go out and play now, until lunch is ready. Then Freddy went in and asked for bread and he came out with a slice of bread with butter on it. Then Mary said, 'What did you do to get it?' 'I cried for it,' answered Freddy," so did I.
The Lord made them forget to take the food test at first in order to verify the miracle.
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One day I was plowing, since I had asked the boys to let me plow for the exercise it gave me. It was about ten o'clock in the morning and I had stopped and gotten off the gang plow to let the horses rest and stood looking south in the field when I saw six or eight feet before me dear Brother A. G. Ahrendt standing and smiling at me, just as real as if he were there in the flesh. "Brother Ahrendt is leaving Grand Forks by my orders," the Lord said to me. "If by your orders he is leaving there, amen," I replied. I then turned to get on the plow when on the other side of the plow there stood a lady minister and the Lord said, "Some are contemplating getting her as the pastor and that will be the ruination of the work in Grand Forks." (Not because there was anything wrong with her as a minister but because she would not fit in the place). The vision disappeared and I went to plowing.
Two or three days later I became so burdened about Grand Forks that I was almost sick, so I wrote to Brother Ahrendt and asked if anything was wrong or anyone sick, for I was so burdened. I expected an answer right away, but didn't get it, so wrote again and still no answer. The next week I wrote for the third time telling them that I was going through Grand Forks on my way to Raab for a meeting, and would be in Grand Forks and they could arrange a meeting for me over Friday night, Saturday and Sunday if he wanted me. Then a letter came from Sister Ahrendt saying her husband was away and that they were leaving Grand Forks.