Transcriber's Note:

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

Twice-Born Men in America OR The Psychology of Conversion as Seen by a Christian Psychologist in Rescue Mission Work

PREFACE

I taught psychology for fifteen years at the Atchison Institute, the predecessor of Midland College, located at Atchison, Kan. I was there greatly impressed by the fact that the books gave no adequate analysis of the psychology of the greatest mental and moral change which can come to the human mind, namely, conversion and regeneration; yet these changes make the great difference which we see between men and nations.

A Rescue Mission gives a great opportunity to study mental and moral changes, and my observations and conclusions, made from years of study, are herein embodied.

This book is sent forth with the earnest hope and prayer that it will lead many souls to Christ; also that it will show earnest laymen just how to bring about that psychological change which we call conversion. A Sunday school teacher who brings only ninety per cent of her students through the process of conversion and regeneration is ninety per cent a success and ten per cent failure. The same is true of a pastor with a class of catechumens.

“Ye must be born again,” is just as true to-day as it ever was, and if we believed it as Paul believed it, what live wires we would be.

This book is to remind us that Jesus saves to the uttermost in our day, just as He did when He visibly walked this earth.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I How I Happened to Become Interested in Rescue Mission Work

In January, 1908, a great calamity came to me in the form of destruction by fire of most of my earthly property and the death in the fire of a loved sister. The event had in it some other elements of great pain not necessary to mention here. If my soul had not been anchored in Jesus, the combination of sorrows would have broken down my mentality and sent me to the asylum. As it was, I stood steadily trusting God, knowing that all things worked together for good to those who love God. I was sure I was a lover of God, and so, while every fiber of my body and soul ached with unspeakable pain, I never doubted God's love, care and sympathy.

In the midst of this grief I received a letter from Mr. George W. Wheeler, the President of the Executive Board of the Gospel Mission, saying about this, “Come down to the Gospel Mission, look it over and see if you care to come in with us in the work of saving souls. Unless we secure a woman of large executive ability, our work can scarcely go forward.”

I answered that I would be glad to join them, and the next week, the first week of September, 1908, I received a letter from the Secretary, S. M. Croft, saying I had been elected to the Executive Board of the Gospel Mission, which met once every week.

The following Monday I met with the Board, where I heard a letter from Mr. Tyson, saying that he withdrew from the Board because the dormitories were badly kept. Then followed a letter of the same kind from a Mr. Fritz, and another from Mr. Sidell. As soon as the session, which was largely a prayer service, was closed, Mr. Wheeler accompanied me to look over the dormitories.

I never saw or dreamed of such conditions. The very walls were alive with vermin. In the story above the chapel were fifteen vile beds, and on the third story above us we saw a floor covered with dirty, wrinkled newspapers. I said, “Where do the men sleep?” “On the beds you saw in the third floor and on these newspapers.”

In my heart I said, “Dear Lord, surely not here, amid this vileness?” The answer was as sharp and distinct as though spoken through a trumpet, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord.”

“Mr. Wheeler,” I said, “I see conditions, and I take charge.” He left for his work in the United States Treasury, and I went to the street and hired a force of cleaners, whitewash men, scrubbers, sweepers, etc., and called up Mrs. Claude Myers, the wife of a Presbyterian minister, and two other fully consecrated women who were not afraid of work. I asked them to come at once and bring with them buckets, scrub brushes, rags, soap, etc., while I put in a supply of chemicals for the vermin.

Those women helped to burn the bedding and to send away some as trash. They helped me clean the beds; the whitewashers even entered into the spirit of it, and every crack was filled with plaster of paris; they went over the walls three times with lime and carbolic acid. The Health Bureau in the Municipal Building gave me a preparation used on floors in jails and in hospitals for contagious diseases. Some redeemed men came to our help, and by Saturday night we turned over a clean house.

Every one of us cleaners was obliged to go to the Turkish bath and have our clothing brushed and fumigated before we could go to our own homes.

On Saturday evening I told Mr. Wheeler and Mr. Gordon that besides the good men and women who had helped us for the cause for five days, we had spent twenty-five dollars. Never will I forget the dismay of those two good men. “What! Twenty-five dollars! Where do you think we will get that?” I answered, “Fortunately I belong to a church that lives and works by faith, and to-morrow, being Sunday, I shall tell the Sunday school of the Luther Memorial Church, and we'll see about that twenty-five dollars.”

The next morning I went to the pastor, Rev. J. G. Butler, D.D., and he secured permission from the superintendent of the Sunday school for me to speak three minutes. The superintendent hated innovations, but I can say a lot in three minutes, especially when I state the needs of the lost men of the community. After the school was dismissed nearly every teacher and grown student gave me something, and in less than five minutes I had twenty-seven dollars.

Sunday night I told what the Lord had done for us, and I began to ask all persons present to contribute sheets and pillow-cases. I did this so much and so often that season that a little four-year-old girl of Mrs. Claude Myers upset the gravity of an entire meeting by saying out loud one Sunday evening, “There comes Mrs. Sheets and Pillow-cases again.” Well, before winter was over we had about fifty clean, well-equipped beds for which, when they had it, men gladly paid ten cents per night. If they did not have it, the beds were given as long as they lasted; but, after the beds were filled, often fifty men slept on the floor with only the boards under them and no covers.

We had no heat in the dormitories, but one day Mrs. Richard Butler, a wealthy woman of the city, was ordered by the Spirit to visit the Mission. She came by Mr. Gordon's office in her carriage and he took her through our building. She saw our first need was heat. She sent immediately to a hardware store and ordered a large stove for the third floor with a drum for the fourth story, and through her kindness the men were given heat, but not until after two deaths, caused by cold, hunger and wet clothing, had about broken our hearts.

I remember a young, fair-haired man from Virginia, evidently well born and bred, coming in one night, slightly under the influence of liquor. It was a rainy, snowy night; his clothing was wet and he was suffering from a severe cold. When the meeting was over he started to go up stairs, which had nearly a zero temperature. I begged him to stay by the fire and sleep on a bench, if needed, but he petulantly refused. He was dead by nine o'clock next morning. I had wept all the way home, for I feared just what happened.

Mrs. Butler's stove put an end to that. She furnished coal for the entire winter.

Now that we had beds and heat, I saw we could not keep the beds clean without bathing facilities. So at our next Board meeting I said, “Brethren, we need a good shower-bath with warm and cold water so that men soiled and weary can have the comfort of a warm bath.” All the members of the Board demurred on account of the expense. Then I said, “Brethren, if I make myself responsible for the eighty-five dollars needed and you are in no way held for it, may I have the bath put in at once?” Of course, they wanted the bath, as they saw how much it was needed, and gave cordial consent. I purchased a rubber stamp, and on the outside of our first circulars which we issued I stamped the words, “I have made myself personally responsible for the cost of a shower-bath. Help a little.” And with my own contributions the bath was paid for as per contract.

That fall we put out a circular folder, of which the following is the open letter, and is introduced only to give the continuity of this work so that my friends may know the aim, object and history of the Mission from the beginning:

Under the blessing of God and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, a Rescue Mission has been opened at No. 1230 Pennsylvania Avenue, N. W., where nightly gospel services will be conducted and the Lord Christ held up to view as a Saviour “mighty to save and strong to deliver.”

Our corps of workers is composed of consecrated and Spirit-filled men and women, many of whom have had long experience in efforts of this character. On the occasion of the opening service (Saturday evening, May 12) God set His seal to the work by drawing seven earnest seekers to our altar for prayer.