After these meetings we then went to Oklahoma and held some meetings at Shawnee, Davenport, Chandler and Duncan, and many other places. We did not take any collections in any of these revivals, but went to all these places by faith, trusting the Lord, and had some great revivals. Then we returned back to Arkansas where we went to a very rough community. They were called hill billies, and were certainly rough in those days. Many of them wore kerchiefs around their necks and carried a gun and a pair of brass knuckles.

Well, we started a campaign in one of these communities. In this meeting scores of people were converted and this caused a stir among a certain group of people, so the town was divided. There was in this town a crooked preacher and some dirty hypocrites that made booze and sold it, and did everything but serve the Lord. They formed a mob with this crooked bunch, and of course I preached the Gospel and warned people of the coming judgment and pled with them to turn to the Lord and quit their wicked ways, which many did. The meeting was being conducted in a Masonic Hall. They tried to get us to move the meeting in the city park, with the intention of doing us harm out there, but we did not.

So one night at the close of the meeting this mob hid behind the building till after everybody left and as we turned off the lights and came out of the door they sneaked up and grabbed us. Well, we had no protection as everybody had left. It was a good thing that they didn't start something before the people left, as they would have mobbed this mob themselves who came after us.

They carried us around by the jail house and one of the party said, "Where is the key?" The leader said, "We're not going to put them in jail. We have other plans." So they marched us down a street alongside the river.

I offered no resistance, but only committed it all to the trust of the Lord. As we came near the end of the street, there was a large tree and one cried and said, "Here is the place!" So the thought came to my mind that perhaps they were going to hang us to one of the limbs, but instead they said, "Carry them on, over on the railroad." Being near the river I thought perhaps they were going to tie a weight around my neck and throw me in the river, but instead they turned to the left, up the railroad. Then the thought came that they were going to tie me to a rail and it was only about twenty minutes to the time for a fast train, and they would let the train run over me and cut me up.

Well, dear reader, you can't imagine how you would feel when you knew, or at least thought, you were going to be dead in the next twenty minutes. You would have peculiar feelings. You can see your whole life from childhood to the present, and I thought how I might have improved my life and did more for my Lord than I had, also of the sadness that would come to my home folks, and especially my father. But I was ready to go, and was reconciled to the Lord, and said to myself, "These little light afflictions of suffering will not be worthy to be compared with the glory that He reveals in us over there." Then I thought, "Well, tomorrow while the newspapers will play it all up in the paper that I had been killed and my folks and friends were made sad, I would be up in Heaven walking the golden streets and taking dinner with Jesus."

Well, hallelujah! I began to feel like that since I had preached to so many people Heaven was so real that I was willing and ready to go and see all about it.

While these things were going through my mind and I had consented to death and was willing to go, why, instead of tying me to the rail in front of the train, the leader of the mob said, "Take him through that wire fence, out where the rest of the bunch is." And I looked and it was beside a small lake of water and they had gasoline torches hanging on trees and small tables and kegs of beer, and were drinking, and carrying on. The leader of the mob said, "Well, here they are, boys. Cut you a big hickory switch. We're going to give them a whipping."

Well, you don't know how glad and happy I was to know that I was going to be whipped instead of being killed, and that I would have perhaps some more time to work for the Lord and win souls.

So they cut a switch about six feet long, and were not particular in cutting the small limbs off and leaving sharp snouts along the switch. Then one man about half drunk was to do the whipping. They made me remove my coat and clothes on my body, pulling my shirt around my neck. Then one man took me by the hair of the head, cussed me and pulled me over forward till my chin touched my knees, thus making my hide tight, and propped me against his knees, to hold me steady and solid for the licks they gave me. Of course, being bent over, each lick would cut a gash from four to six inches long, and the man whipped me with both hands, like whipping a horse.

Well, at first it hurts severely, but the Lord spoke to me and said, "You remember in My Word that I promise if thou canst believe all things are possible. So believe it won't hurt any more." So I did this and the remainder of the whipping felt only like some children was hitting me with some strings.

After it was all over with, as I went to walk blood sloshed in my shoes like I had waded in water, and the place on me where they whipped me was about six or eight inches square, just like you had taken a hammer and beat up a beefsteak to fry.

Well, I very often wondered if I could stand things like this, like my Lord did, and the early Apostles, and to bear the marks of the Lord Jesus about in my body, for the Gospel's sake. Now I had a chance to witness it and to my surprise instead of hating these men and wishing them harm, a great love bubbled in my soul and I loved them and pitied them. I knew that they were some mother's darling child and that they had a soul, and Jesus had died for them, and it was not them that did this, but the devil that possessed them. Such love came in my heart for them I could have hugged and kissed each one of them had I been permitted to, and the glory of the Lord so overshadowed me and filled me I never felt so near to Heaven, and God so real, in all the days of my life.

Well, this mob said, "Get out of the town tonight, or we will kill you." So we obeyed orders till morning, so we could make contact with our friends. As we walked down the railroad to the edge of the corporation of the town, the Lord was so real that I could even chew Him like gum and feel Him just at the end of my fingers, and I felt like transparent glass and felt I would fly away like a feather. I asked the brother who was with me to take hold of me. I felt like I was floating in the air as I walked. Then all at once the Lord sent an angel who stood by me and spoke to me. You know, the Lord said the angels are ministering spirits to minister unto them who are heirs of salvation, and the angels camp around about them that fear the Lord. The Lord has always sent angels to be around His people and to protect His people, and on this occasion the Lord opened my understanding and let me actually know this.

We sat by the railroad, praising and rejoicing in the Lord and in the meantime while we were there, the word had gotten out in the town about the preacher being mobbed. One man who had been attending the meeting and was seeking the Lord to be saved, and also had a daughter that was an infidel and could not be touched, this man grabbed his gun and his family went with him and got some more men, and said, "We are going to protect that preacher." After looking for us about an hour and not finding us or the mob, they came down the railroad track and had given up the search and started back home, when this same angel appeared before them and said, "Are you looking for the preacher? Why, you will find him right on the railroad track sitting by the road," and then disappeared. This frightened them, as everyone in the party saw the angel, and they would make an affidavit today of the same.

So they came on and found us, which when we saw them we thought it was the mob coming after us again to see if we had got out of town. But instead our hearts were made glad when we saw it was friends of Christ who had come to help us. By this experience, and seeing the angel, why, the man and his daughter were both converted.

Well, the next day we went back up into town, walked up and down the streets, went to see some of the people that were in the mob to tell them that we loved them and was willing to forgive them and was praying for their salvation.

One or two of these people was businessmen so as I went to the office to see one of them, he went out the back door and went around into a cafe. I went over across the street to the cafe to see him and he ran out at the back door, but it was hooked and he ran through the screen door, breaking it. Well, I couldn't understand it, why he was running away, but I suppose that he thought me and these other two or three men were going to do him harm. No doubt, his conscience was bothering him, but I was only trying to return good for evil.

During the day a lawyer came over from the county seat and wanted to see me. He examined me and said, "This is a clear state case, and we can sue them," as two of the men in the mob was very wealthy. In fact, one of the men was the wealthiest man in the county, and the other one was a banker. The lawyer fixed some papers and said if I would sign them that I wouldn't even have to appear in court, that he would bring witnesses to examine me and also we had plenty of witnesses of the men that were in the mob, and that if I would let him go to court with it, he would guarantee me ten thousand dollars for my part. Then he offered to give me ten thousand dollars in advance as he would sue for enough to take care of me and himself, and it would be impossible to lose the case.

So I prayed over the matter and Romans 12:19 came to me: "Vengeance is Mine; I will repay, saith the Lord," and "be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good," and by being good to your enemies you will "heap coals of fire" on their heads.

Then I thought of my Lord, that if He went to law every time anyone said or did anything to Him, He would have been in a lawsuit all the time and never had time to go about His Father's business. So I said to the lawyer, "I'm going to turn this case over to the Lord and lay this ten thousand dollars up in Heaven for future rewards, and I will turn these men over to the Lord to deal with them as He sees fit."

"Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh: is there any thing too hard for Me?" (Jeremiah 32:27).

Well, the lawyer got mad and said, "You are a fool! Why, if I had been there I would have helped them to whip you." Of course his mind was on the dollar mark and on getting some money out of the case. But I left the case in the Lord's hands, knowing that if I went to the law some soul might have been lost over my action, and I wanted to win these men to God if possible. So I prayed a prayer like this: "Lord, now I put these men in Your hand. I don't wish them any harm. I don't have no ill will in my heart, and if possible save them, and if they are not going to be saved, then deal with them as You see fit."

Friends, I tell you what happened. In less than ninety days five of these men died. In about thirty days after this experience one of the men of the mob who was a janitor at the high school was going out across the school yard early one morning and fell with a stroke. Before they could get him home, he was dead.

Another one of the men also died, and the third, who whipped me like a brute, was a man that worked for the railroad company. One day as they were backing up some box cars he was fixing to couple the rubber air hose brake between the cars, and as he took hold of the air hose to connect it with each car, his foot got hung some way by a splinter getting caught under the sole of his shoe. His hand slipped and as the cars were backing up, his head was caught between the two large pieces of metal that the hose was hanging to, and was crushed flat, his brains running out on the ties. Oh, it was a horrible death!

The fourth man was a banker, and here was what happened to him: The bank went busted and they had to close the doors. He got T.B. and they sent him out West in Arizona to a higher climate, but he lost his mind in a few days and died, making the fourth one.

The fifth man was one of the two doctors in the mob. The Lord spared one of the two to tell the story you read about on the next page. The wrath of God destroyed the other doctor with the four making five of the mob dead. Some of the business men said to him, "Doc, aren't you afraid of the Lord's punishment after helping to punish and whip that preacher, the man of God?" He said, "No, we would be better off if all the preachers were killed and the church was burned. I am not afraid of any God". A few days later he got a call from someone sick in the country. He said, "Son, get my buggy and pony ready while I fix up some medicine". When the son returned he called his dad but there was no answer. He came and found his dad slumped over the table. The son ran to get another doctor. He came and pronounced him dead. Now he was dead and in hell a few days after making his boast that he was not afraid of God and after laying his hand on a man of God. "Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm" (I Chronicles 16:22; Psalm 105:15). Also the wrath of God was against the town that put the approval on the mob. In later years a tornado struck this town and wrecked it. The tornado dropped right down where the mob laid hands on the preacher and blew the main business section right away killing and wounding many. This proves the Bible words that there is danger in laying hands on a man of God or the Lord's work.

Of course, I was made sad to know this had happened to these men and the town, but I had committed it to the Lord as vengeance belongs to Him.

Reader, if we could learn more to trust the Lord and commit our ways to Him He would fight our battles for us. You remember well, in Elijah's day on one occasion when he and his servant were facing a great army coming out against them, his servant said, "My lord, what will we do? There are only two of us," and Elijah said, "They who are for us, are more than they who are against us." He then prayed and said, "Oh, Lord, open this young man's eyes," and the Lord did, and behold, the very element was full of horses, chariots and angels come to fight for them. Oh, if we could only realize that the Lord and the angels are round about us all the time, and we need not fear, but leave it to them! The battle is not to the swiftest, or the strongest, but with the Lord. It is "not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord."

The Lord permitted one of the men, the other doctor, in that mob to live, as an example and a testimony that it does not pay to mistreat one of the Lord's children, or to take a stand against His Gospel. Just a few months ago a lawyer, a friend of mine, told me this story: This man told the lawyer that he and his family had lived in a life of hell and torment ever since he had whipped that preacher over twenty-five years ago. He had never seen a moment of peace and had poor health. His wife had poor health and had been operated on, and he had trouble with his children. He has suffered the agony of torment all because of what he had done.

I wanted to tell you the above experience with only one purpose in mind - not to draw your attention to me for sympathy, but only to show the power and the workings of the Lord and that His Name might be glorified, and to create in the minds of the readers to fully consecrate their lives to God, and not be self-centered and complaining and seeking sympathy. We should thank the Lord for the trials; they are only stepping stones to bring us nearer to the Lord.