W. B. Godbey - Enter His Rest

one felt exceedingly fortunate if he could only get inside, as without no one could endure the cold. Ladies stood
four solid hours without moving. Meanwhile the power of the Almighty so inundated the multitude that
situation, environments and all temporalities sank into oblivion.
I was under the necessity of securing the service of two stalwart brethren, one on either side, to actually take
charge of my person, in order to get standing room. Could you not have gotten it in the pulpit? No, I had to
vacate that for the babies, as there was no other place where they would have been at all secure, and the interest
was so intense that nobody was willing to stay at home with them.
My ushers had all they could do to keep the crowd from pressing me out of all the standing room in the house.
With great difficulty we managed to get the seekers together so we might pray with them; the major part of the
altar work, however, took place after the crowd had been somewhat relieved by the retiring of some of the
people after the benediction, which was given soon after the sermon, in view of possibly relieving the immense
pressure of the multitude.
Not only the Methodist Church, with which we held the meeting, received an accession of more than a hundred
members, but the Baptist received about fifty. When a great Baptist D. D, in St. Louis heard of the big
sanctification in Farmington, fearing the “heresy” might affect his church in that place, he came to preach a
series of sermons in which he proposed to refute the “fanatics.” When he arrived and started off on that line, the
brethren unhesitatingly put the brake on him, notifying him that the “sanctification” meeting had done them
more good than their own preacher had done in twenty years. Therefore, while they gladly welcomed his
ministry if he would content himself to preach the Gospel, if his purpose was to refute the doctrine which they
had heard in the revival, they said they would respectfully excuse him, because they had received an accession
of fifty members out of that revival and could not afford, under any circumstances, to permit anything that
would discourage them. Therefore the great D. D. returned to St. Louis, where he wielded a more potent
influence than he was about to get at Farmington. When I heard it I praised the Lord for giving those Baptists
good, solid sense, as well as religion. When the same man wrote me up in his paper of which he was editor,
epitheting me a “modern sanctifier,” he stated that he must admit that along with my “heresy” I managed to
crowd in more of the real Gospel than my comrades.
The pastor at Frederickstown, Mo., from the time he heard of me in the state, had been so persistently calling
me, that I knew he must be in a serious dilemma, some way. At that time sanctification was an utter novelty in
that country, and very alarming to the churches, as the reports of wild fire and fanaticism had gone everywhere.
A general trepidation was prevailing, lest the infection might get into the church. When I got to Frederickstown,
and called at the parsonage, the preacher's wife said to me that I was too late; that when God sanctified her
husband a short time previously his members pronounced him crazy, and held a meeting in view of discarding
him from the pastorate. Though in this they did not quite have the necessary majority of the official board, their
effort so discouraged him that he had concluded to resign his pastoral charge and was then gone to St. Louis to
negotiate for some business by which he could make a living; meanwhile he would do his preaching to the
neglected poor in the slums. I had her telegraph to him to come home at once.
On his arrival I said to him, “Now, brother, I am here to help you in a protracted meeting, as you called me, and
though you have made up your mind to resign the pastorate, while you have it in hand God is opening the door
for you to glorify Him in the salvation of the people to whom your Conference sent you to preach the living
Word.” Thus I persuaded him to let me proceed with a protracted meeting, though the difficulties had so
discouraged him that he had given it up altogether.
I told him that the only available remedy for the trouble in the Church was the grace of God; which is as free as
the air we breathe and there is no reason why we should not have it.
So we proceeded at once. The Lord came in wonderful, Pentecostal power, giving us about one hundred bright
conversions, a glorious sanctification work and a general revival in the city, resulting in an accession of about
four score to the membership. Though the people had made an effort to turn out their pastor for insanity, because
he got sanctified, when they got the same kind of dementation, it would have done you good to see them hug
him. It actually seemed like they would pull the dear man to pieces.