Two remarkable healings

Two sisters in the Lord tell their healing-stories

In 1927 Smith Wigglesworth went back to Australia and New Zealand, this time he was accompanied by his daughter Alice – Mrs James Salter. The two following stories confirm that God confirmed his preaching with signs following. Both of these testimonies appeared in the Australian Evangel of April 1^st, 1927.

Miss H. Todd of Naremburn, N.S.W., testified: ‘While engaged in my occupation as nurse in Sydney I met with a serious accident, fracturing the knee-cap and displacing the internal cartilage, which resulted in synovitis and arthritis (chronic). I had the best medical skill both in Sydney and Orange without any permanent relief. I was just up for a while and then back to bed again, and so on for eighteen months; and long, weary months they were, especially when after about fourteen months, I had the misfortune to rupture the fibres of the muscles of the other leg, which resulted in having a lay-up for six weeks. The pain at times was most severe. I was a real invalid with no prospect of ever being able to follow my profession again. Being otherwise perfectly healthy, it was hard to look into the future with both legs crippled, to be dependent upon others to look after and keep me.

How blind I was, for since being invalided to Orange I had lived among folk who believed and tried to get me to listen to the Scriptural teaching of Divine Healing, but I thought differently. Truly the Bible did tell of wonderful things in bygone days, but to me those days were gone and things were different now. There was great talk of Evangelist Smith Wigglesworth, but I was not interested. After the evangelist had begun his mission, which would only last five days, my brother, together with others, spoke most convincingly to me about the reality of the teaching of the Scriptures on Divine Healing, and though I had been adverse to it right up till then, I went to my Bible again and, being like the prodigal son, at the end of myself, I too was led to say: ‘I will arise and go to my Father’. And, praise the dear Lord, what blessings He had waiting to bestow upon me. I had been a Christian many years, but I had to be awakened before I could hear His voice and have Him anoint my eyes. While reading the Scripture I was arrested by the words: ‘One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see” (John 9:25). This kept running through my mind all day Friday and Saturday; also the words of God: ‘I am the Lord, I change not’. So persistently did these scriptures keep coming to me that I made up my mind to go that night to the mission for prayer.

‘On one leg I had a steel and leather apparatus to keep the knee joint from locking and pinching, which caused intense pain, and the other was in tight bandages. With the aid of a pair of crutches I got out to the car to be taken to the meeting, and though suffering intensely, I believed I would be healed. After the address I joined with those who were to be ministered to, and as the evangelist laid his hands on me and prayed I had a strange yet beautiful experience as though cold water with great force was being sprayed in jets upon both my afflicted members where they were injured. So strong seemed to be the force that it even hurt me, and I knew it was the Lord; but on turning to go away I didn’t feel any better, and expressed disappointment to two or three.

All the way home I wept copiously, and poured out my heart to God, and continued to say: ‘Lord, I believe; help Thou my unbelief’. Arriving home, I was helped out of the car, and after walking a few steps, said that I thought I could walk alone. Just as I reached the threshold of the door, a wall of bright shining light confronted me, so exceedingly bright that it almost staggered me, and instantly I cried out: ‘Glory to God, I’m healed’, and truly I was. I went through the house praising the Lord, and up and down the back veranda, glorifying God and walking as I did before meeting with the accident. Seeing the crutches, I said: ‘Take those back to the kind friend that loaned them to me. I shall not want them any more’. So the crutches were returned just before midnight. Hallelujah! On rising next morning I discarded the steel and leather support and bandages, and have never touched them since, for I was made every whit whole.

Two days later I was sweetly baptised in the Holy Spirit according to Acts 2:4. My Bible means more to me now than ever before. I now see my Lord as my Saviour from sin, the Great Physician, the One who baptises with the Holy Ghost, and the One who is coming for His bride very soon’.

The other testimony is from Mrs. M. Legate Pople, Orange, N. S. W.; ‘Genesis 24:27 – ‘I being in the way, the Lord led me’ – seems to be the best explanation of God’s wondrous blessings to me five weeks ago. How I did want to go home! My poor heart was in such a state, past all human aid; even the casing was ruptured so that the least move would cause a lump to protrude like an egg. For sixteen weeks I just lay prostrate, and how lovely it was to feel so near home, so often almost through the pearly gates; how real the dawning of that eternal day was to me, and how I just longed to enter right in. I was so bent on going ‘home to glory’ that when asked if I would like to have Evangelist Wigglesworth pray for me, if I should be here when he came, I said an emphatic ‘No’, and I certainly meant it. Such a band of dear friends were praying for me everywhere that I just felt I wanted no more; my mind and my hopes were all centred on things above and not on things here below. How little did I know what wondrous blessings there were here below that I had not even tasted of, that my dear loving Saviour wanted me to experience before I should pass through the pearly gates, and how graciously did He work to bring it to pass.

Brother Wigglesworth was not expected here for nearly two months, when suddenly dates were altered and he arrived almost without warning. Of course, this did not concern me, for my fellow invalid, Sister Todd (whose testimony is also given in this chapter) ‘and I had made up our minds that we weren’t going to have anything to do with the mission of the evangelist. How true are the Lord’s words: ‘My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord’ (Isaiah 55:8-11). As the mission went on, my friend, who was adverse to the teaching of Divine Healing, began to search the Scriptures afresh to see if these things that were being taught, and which were confidently affirmed by numbers around who believed, were so. She became so convinced of the truth of God, who said: ‘I am the Lord; I change not,’ that she came to my room saying she intended going to the mission for the laying on of hands and prayer.

That night I saw her making her way out on her crutches to the car in great agony, and somehow I felt in myself that she would be healed. After her return she came skipping down the steps to my room, like the man of old leaping and praising God, and saying: ‘Sister, I’m healed, I’m healed’, and so she was, perfectly and completely. Hallelujah! It was wonderful.

All that night I prayed and sought the Lord, and then came the thought – how could I face my dear Lord whom I loved with all my heart if I just slipped home, having refused to prove whether He wanted me to do any more ‘little corner filling’ for Him, when before my eyes He had wrought such a miracle?

In the morning, the closing day of the mission, I was waiting for someone to come down to my room, to ask them if they would take a message to Brother Wigglesworth and see if he would come and pray for me after the morning service. After breakfast I could hear the dear ones of the house holding a prayer meeting, but as they had closed the door I could not hear what was taking place. How I was longing for someone to come in to take my message, but no; time was getting on, and how I pleaded with the Lord. Could it be that they were all too much occupied with their own blessings and were unmindful of me? I questioned. Ah no, but because I had said: ‘No’ so decisively they would not ask me again, and they were all asking the Lord to constrain me to ask for prayer.

Presently different ones came into my room, but did not look at me or give me the usual smile and kind word. I asked each if they would take my message, and not until I had made the request five times did I get a promise that they would. I had said ‘No’ once but had to say ‘Yes’ five times. How long it seemed before that morning service was over; but at last, in came the matron, face beaming, and said: ‘He’s come’. I vaguely remember seeing a man step into the room, and after that saw no man but Jesus only. How sweetly does the dear Lord manifest Himself. The evangelist told his daughter (Mrs. Salter) to put her hands on my knees, and he put his on my head and prayed a wonderful prayer (wonderful to me because I was right in glory). Then he laid his hands on my heart and prayed for my healing, at the same time rebuking death and commanding it to be dashed away in Jesus’ name.

When he first came in he said: ‘Are you ready to get up?’ I said: ‘Yes, I am,’ and now he said: ‘Get up,’ and up I got. My inability to even move just a few minutes before were entirely forgotten. One thought only seemed to possess me, and that was to get dressed as quickly as possible. I rushed across the floor and lifted down two heavy suitcases filled with books in order to get to where I could find some clothing. I was in such a hurry, I wanted to be dressed ready to greet ‘my girls’ of my Bible class who used to flock in after church just to have a peep at me. In the afternoon before I had lain semi-conscious for hours, and those who saw me then thought perhaps it was the last look; and here I was trying to find clothes to let them see me every whit whole! I was just ready when the door opened and a number of them were admitted, and what a shock they got. Some wept; some laughed, then wept; they hugged me, then would think of my heart and let go; but it was all right. I was healed perfectly and completely, and felt no weakness after my sixteen weeks in bed, when I had eaten scarcely anything. All the while I had lain there I was neither hungry nor thirsty, and would take little sips just to oblige those who brought it to me. Now I wanted my dinner, and a good dinner I had. I was changed, a new creation, just filled with God, divinely healed, raised up in a moment, from the shadow of death to abounding life – saved to serve.

The day following my healing I was gloriously baptised in the Holy Spirit according to Acts 2:4, and daily and hourly He fills me with joy unspeakable and full of glory’.

From: Stanley Howard Frodsham, Smith Wigglesworth: apostle of faith, Assemblies of God Publishing House, Nottingham, 1974, pages 61-65

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