W. B. Godbey - Enter His Rest

heard of his death so soon afterward, I felt deeply impressed that God took him at his word and let him die.
When they closed me out at Whitesburg, Texas, and I had to leave, it so happened that my next appointment was
five hundred miles distant, and, as usual, I had two red-hot young men, whom I carried as helpers in the work.
At that time no evangelists in the South received any railroad favor.
Therefore we needed forty-five dollars to buy tickets to the next appointment in northwest Missouri.
From the day the Lord sanctified me, in 1868, I have always lived by faith, never charged anything for my work,
nor even insinuated for a contribution. As these people had rejected us and closed us out, of course, I would not
dishonor the Lord by asking them for traveling expenses.
At that time, we lived at Carlysle, Ky. All my life I always made it a rule never to let my wife get out of money,
even if I borrowed it. In my travels in all of the early years of my ministry, before I had written books and
carried them with me to donate and sell to people, to help them experimentally, I frequently found it necessary
to borrow money to make my next run, invariably sending back the first I got, even if it necessitated my
borrowing again. So at this time I had no money anywhere on the earth, but when I reached this dilemma and
the time came for us to travel, minus the necessary finances, I got on my knees before God, and turned over to
Him Farmers' Bank of Carlysle, Ky. I stayed on my knees till I heard from Heaven and realized that God had
His hand on that bank; then, taking the pastor to identify me, I went to the bank in Whitesburg, and presented a
draft on the Farmers' Bank of Carlysle, Kentucky, and drew out all the money we needed to purchase the three
full fare tickets. Independently we went to the depot with shouts of victory ringing from our lips, bought our
tickets and went on our way rejoicing. Long before we completed our tour and returned to Kentucky, the Lord
gave me the money and I sent it to the bank.
On reaching home I went at once from the depot to the bank to face the officers with a personal apology for
drawing on them when I had not a cent of money on deposit, which is very irregular, from a financial
standpoint. Looking over the counter as I went in. I said to the cashier, “I have come to apologize for drawing on
you when I had no money on deposit.” He looked me in the face and said, as a tear came to his eye, “Preacher,
when I received that draft, as it put me in an awkward position, knowing that you had no money here, I turned it
over to the Board for them to decide before I paid it off. This done, then I read it to them and told them that you
had no money on deposit and asked them what to do. After a silent minute the oldest man among them said, 'I
like that preacher; he is an honest fellow, and I expect he is in a tight place; I move that we pay it.' The motion
carried unanimously. So, preacher, if you get in a tight place again, call on us and we will help you out.” Pastor
Avarill had gathered up the people, built a big bush arbor and pitched a campmeeting in a thickly settled region
of Cartwright Prairie, Texas, and called your humble servant to preach. The people had grown rich and
prosperous, cultivating that wonderful soil, black as a crow and about one dozen feet deep. They had been much
neglected by the Gospel heralds and had grown desperately wicked. Of course I just had to go down into the
cesspools of iniquity, unearth the vices and expose their follies, without distinction or mercy. We had an awful
battle with the powers of darkness of earth and Hell combined against us.
As the days went by the battle waxed hotter and hotter. My plain, rough preaching made them awfully mad.
They beat me twice with prairie dirt because they could not find rocks, as there were none about, but those clods
felt on my body hard as rocks. They also poured the eggs on me in unstinted profusion. I remember well the
physique of the hoodlum who led the ruffian rabble in egging me. I could see old Diabolus in him, big as a
rhinoceros. Of course I never expected to hear from him again, but several years afterward when I was
preaching for the Free Methodists in St. Louis, they told me about the evangelist who had conducted the
campmeeting, calling my name, and telling the circumstance of pelting me with the eggs, saying that when he
threw an egg with all the power of his stalwart arm, hit me between the eyes, deluging my face and knocking
my spectacles off, and I took it so sweetly and lovingly, manifesting not the slightest resentment, then
conviction struck him like lightning. Of course he thought nothing of it, expecting it to evanesce very quickly,
but in this he was mistaken. On the contrary it held on like a leech and went down deeper and deeper till he felt
he would die, broke down, sought and found the Lord. Then getting convicted for sanctification, he at once set
out to get it. Toiling on day after day and trying to make his consecration, he reached the point when he had
actually run up against great old China, where they kill the missionaries but can get no farther. Then he said,