W. B. Godbey - Enter His Rest

In my case, it was simply a matter of military necessity. From the very hour that the Lord sanctified me in 1868,
He turned me into a cyclone of fire, and wherever I preached the Holy Ghost fell on the people, and a glorious
revival broke out. There was at that time a vast open field for Holy Ghost revivals in the Methodist Churches, as
they had so long been browbeaten and intimidated by the belligerent preaching of the Campbellites, constantly
challenging them for debate and ridiculing the mourner's bench, that the people became much prejudiced against
it, and the preachers had no courage to invite them to it. Meanwhile it seemed that the Campbellites would get
all the people into their Church and we would have none. Therefore Bishop Kavanaugh advised us to invite
them to join the Church as seekers, rather than not get them, and take chances afterward to get them saved.
Consequently it just seemed that Holy Ghost religion would actually die out of the Methodist Church; therefore
the Lord sanctified me and gave me the blessed Holy Ghost and I stood alone in the Conference witnessing to
that blessed experience; as it was fifteen years before the Movement reached us, in 1883.
My brethren, far from persecuting me, gladly availed themselves of the good work which the Lord was doing
through my humble instrumentality. As I was flooded with the Spirit and the fire, I just could not run revivals on
the church-joining line, as my brethren were generally doing. I had to unfurl the banner and beard the lion in his
den, preaching Holy Ghost religion like lightning, and, of course, as an inevitable consequence, exposing the
silly sophistries of Campbellism, which had so long been preached by those unconverted preachers, showing
neither distinction nor mercy, but keeping Hell constantly uncapped and shaking the unconverted over it with
Herculean hand.
Therefore the Holy Ghost fell on the people in mighty conviction, crowding my altars day and night.
Meanwhile souls were constantly passing from death to life. As I incessantly showed up the devil's delusions,
hallucinating people with water baptism and church membership as substitutes for clear, radical, know-so,
experimental salvation, hosts of church members crowded the altar, and many of the Campbellites came
constantly seeking and finding the Lord. After the experience they always left their Church, in which they had
fought experimental religion with all their might, and joined the Methodists or the Baptists.
I am happy to say that the Baptists in all of that country, like the Methodists, suffered so terribly at the hands of
the Campbellites that they rallied with me without a single exception, fighting heroically, and frequently getting
a large share of the converts, whom I had received into their Church right there in my meetings. As the Holy
Ghost so powerfully fell upon the people, and honored His precious truth in the salvation of souls, all sorts of
religious people who believed in the Holy Ghost rallied with me. Meanwhile the Campbellite Church was losing
members all the time, who got converted, crowded our altars, and then joined the church that believed and
preached Holy Ghost religion. Amid this state of things, they literally forced me to debate with them. I had to do
it in order to protect the cause and establish my converts in experimental religion, which had been denounced
and vilified for a whole generation. Therefore we just had to make a new departure on the Holy Ghost line,
which utterly upset Campbellism.
There are now four times as many Methodists in Ohio as in Kentucky. Did you know that Bishop Asbury
established the Methodist Church in Kentucky, and came from there over to Ohio and established it? Now how
do you account for the great difference? It is the simple fact that Campbell's doctrine took better in Kentucky
than in any other state in the Union. It is a notorious fact that the Campbellite Church was built up in Kentucky
by taking in the children of the Methodists and Baptists, who really had that state before the arrival of Campbell;
with the exception of a few Presbyterians. As I preached everywhere in that state during the first thirty years of
my ministry, I became conscious of the fact that the Campbellite Church, which predominated in the bluegrass
region, was constituted of Methodist and Baptist families which they had captured in their sins, by preaching
that easy water salvation. Of course it is easy, because they only run down stream. This follows as a logical
sequence, because they positively reject experimental religion and fight the Holy Ghost and all His fire; without
which they cannot possibly stem the current and run up stream.
In 1873 the Kentucky Conference sent me to preside over my home district in which I was born and reared, and
where my father had preached for fifty years, amid a constant war with water regeneration, and with incessant
challenges for debate ringing in the air on all sides. Meanwhile the Baptists, who were as interested in Holy
Ghost religion as the Methodists, more frequently entered into public discussion with them. Their champions