COCOANUT GROVE, Fla., Feb.19.

 

Last Monday afternoon I was called to preach the funeral sermon of a little child, the infant son of Mrs. Geo. Thompson of this place. The child was nearly three months old and the idol of its mother's heart. The parents were both unsaved and their grief was almost unbearable.  The mother especially was in a very critical condition, having cared for the little one in its sufferings and watched over it as only a loving mother can. With the father, she had watched it for days, as it seemed to hang between life and death.

I had talked with the father and he told me he could not ask God to spare it. Three times, he said, he had promised God if He would answer prayer and spare his loved ones, he would serve Him, and then had gone on in sin as before. "God Is not to he fooled with," he said.

The heart-broken mother was unable to be in the service.  Her strength was almost exhausted and she was prostrate on the bed. They brought her in to view the corpse for the last time, and it was a pitiful scene. It took three or four to get her back to the bed where she fainted away and was unconscious for some time during the burial service.

We went in to speak to her before leaving, and she called my wife to sing for her. They carried the little folding organ in by the bed, and she sang, "1 remember Calvary." And the mother sprang up, knelt by the organ and cried, "Pray, Mrs. Eckert, I must get ready to meet my darling babe." So after two prayers, she got back on the bed again and said, "Sing." My wife sang three more songs, "Anchored in Jesus." "Lean upon the arms of Jesus," and "Mansion In Heaven," and the mother joined in the last chorus, smiling and waving her hands. Then she raised up and they repeated the chorus again.  Then, with the light of heaven in her face, she told us about those mansions in heaven and that she was going there to see Jesus and her darling babe." She said, "Jesus Is here." Then she began to sing, this time all alone; and as we listened to catch the words, we recognized the "voice divine," and she was singing and speaking in a foreign language, just as they did on the day of Pentecost. (Acts, 2:4) Glory to God!

After singing and speaking for some time, she said. "Jesus is coming soon, He told me." She also sang in English about the soon coming of our Lord then began telling us what God had done. She said. "How good God is, see how quick He done it! Why He just came down and washed me clean, took away all of my sorrow and pain, and then just came In Himself and filled me. Oh you don't know how good He is!" Then she would sing and speak in tongues and praise God, and plead with her husband and other friends to pray.

We remained with them nearly two hours, and she spent all of that time shouting and praising God-Her strength was restored, and when we asked if she wanted nourishment, she said, "No, I am strong. I don't need anything." Several were present who had been very much opposed to the baptism with the Holy Ghost and the speaking in tongues, but they were convinced.

Last night she was at the cottage prayer meeting, and again we heard her tell her wonderful experience and sing and speak in tongues. We had prayed very earnestly for God to use the death of the child to save the parents; and before going to the funeral, I had gone off to my place of secret prayer and asked God to make it a Pentecostal funeral. And He answered In such a wonderful way that we were made to understand more fully what Paul meant in Eph., 3:20. Glory to God!  What can be too hard for our Father?

We have a band of seventeen baptized saints here who speak in tongues as the Spirit gives utterance.  Several hungry hearts are still seeking and people are being convinced of sin.—

 

Clark Eckert. Pastor Holiness Church.

 

From: The Apostolic Faith, Vol. I N. 13, Los Angeles, Cal. May 1908

 

 

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