During a ministry of more than 70 years, I have been privileged to meet, work with, and get to know some of the great preachers of my generation. Most of them have already gone to their rewards, and the memory of them will soon be obscured by the mists of passing years. Preachers of the present generation are eager to learn about these giants of the past, so I am writing brief biographical sketches of some men I have known. Others will be added from time to time.
Many great preachers of the more distant past have influenced my life through what they wrote. I have also been blessed by what was written about them. I have filled my library with such books. Through the years I have read these books, and I continue to read them. I still find a gold mine of information, inspiration, and blessings in them.
The first sermons I ever read were by D. L. Moody. He passed off the scene before I was born, but when I entered the ministry some of his books were still being printed. Later I started buying large out of print books of his sermons.
Billy Sunday was having great meetings when I was a boy, and his name was known throughout the nation. The year I entered the ministry, I heard Billy Sunday preach one time on radio. That was as close as I ever got to him, but I read his biography and it blessed my life.
I met Dr. Mordecai Ham when I was a young pastor. We both had extensive radio ministries. Perhaps that brought us together. Dr. Ham gave me a broadcast he had on a 50,000 watt station in Corpus Christi, Texas. Later he preached for me numerous times when I was pastor in Lexington, Kentucky. I have a brief biography of Dr. Ham on this page.
Gipsy Smith was also famous when I was growing up. He preached well into his eighties, and I got to hear him in a great meeting in his eighty fourth year. I have an article about him on this page.
As a young pastor I came to know much about the ministry of Dr. J. Frank Norris. When I read his book entitled, Inside the Cup, it set my heart n fire. The book gave an account of the spiritual wars Dr. Norris had fought and won. He was pastor of two great churches, First Baptist in Fort Worth, Texas and Temple Baptist in Detroit, Michigan. He commuted between the churches by air. The combined Sunday schools had the largest attendance in the world at the time.
I came to know Dr. Hyman Appelman when he was having great city-wide meetings. I had him and his team in my church for three weeks. An interesting account of something that happened when he was with me in is on this page.
Among the preachers, now in Glory, that I shared the platform with in conferences are, Dr. Bob Jones, Sr., Dr. John R. Rice, Dr. Bill Rice, Dr. Ford Porter, Dr. Harvey Springer, Dr. Harold Sightler, Dr. B. R. Lakin, Dr. Fred Garland, and Dr. Jack Hyles.
Dr. Bob Jones held a revival for me while I was pastoring in Lexington, Kentucky, and he had me to speak at Bob Jones University a short time later. Dr. B. R. Lakin and I were good friends for many years. I had him for his first revival after he resigned as pastor of Cadle Tabernacle and speaker on the Nation’s Family Prayer Period. I took him on his first trip to the Holy Land. I preached for him in some of his tent revivals, and I produced four of his long play sermon albums. When Dr. Lakin gave up his network broadcast, The Voice of the Appalachians because of failing health, he turned the program over to me. I had the privilege of speaking on the Voice for 21 years before I turned it over to Dr. Jeffery J. Fugate. I have some of the wit and humor of Dr. Lakin on my web site, and I plan to write about his ministry in the near future.
I took Dallas Billington, pastor of the great Akron Baptist Temple, which then had the largest Sunday school in the world, to the Holy Land and got to know him well. Dr. J. Harold Smith and I crossed paths slightly. I got to know his friend, J. Bazell Mull, better than I knew him. Brother Mull is still living and working for the Lord.
Some great preachers I know who are still living and preaching are Dr. John Rawlings, Dr. Lee Roberson, Dr. J. R. Faulkner, Dr. Howard Sears, and Dr. Bob Bevington. Some years ago I held several meetings for Dr. Rawlings. I preached with Dr. Roberson in conferences many times, and was privileged to speak at a conference at Highland Park while he was pastor there and president of Tennessee Temple University.
In my early ministry I was afraid of preachers. I could hardly preach when there was a preacher in the audience. Now I enjoy preaching to them. I often tell preachers that, “I don’t know of anyone that needs it more than they do.” Seriously, I consider my ministry to preachers my greatest present ministry.

April 2, 1877 - Nov. 1, 1961

 

Mordecia Ham started preaching about the beginning of the twentieth century. He was reported to have been in the ministry 50 years when his biography was written in 1950. He was one of God’s great evangelists. It has been said that while Billy Sunday was having great meetings in the North, Mordecai Ham was having equally great meetings in the South.
His biographer, Edward E. Ham (a nephew), reported the results of his meetings from 1901 to 1941. His meetings in the early 1900s were not as fruitful as meetings he held later. It was not until 1913 that he had a thousand professions of faith in one meeting. The 1930s appear to have been the most fruitful time of his ministry. In meetings held in this period the converts often numbered in the thousands. Results of some of the meetings of this period are listed below:

 

1934, Birmingham, Alabama 5,600
1935, Spartanburg, South Carolina 8,500
1935, Pine Bluff, Arkansas 3,900
1936, Houston, Texas 7,000
1938, Little Rock, Arkansas 4,900
1939, Jacksonville, Florida 6,800
1939, Chattanooga, Tennessee 7,000

The results of Dr. Ham’s meetings would certainly qualify him to be listed in the Hall of Fame for evangelists. I have in my files an account of the meeting he held in the First Baptist Church of Fort Worth, Texas, J. Frank Norris, Pastor. The Fundamentalist, Dr. Norris’ paper carries this headline in the June 23, 1950 issue. “Mordecia Ham in Greatest Meeting Of His Career; More Than 150 Came First Week.” The subhead reads: “Greater Power and Conviction Was Never Witnessed in Audience.”

Quoting from the article: “Mordecia Ham is indeed a great preacher. One of the greatest of all time. For years he has been holding one-night meetings all over the country. But he has quit that and come back to his first love.
“Last Sunday my wife and I sat together, and she knows preachers. She said again and again, ‘What Preching!’ . . . Ham is the John the Baptist Pauline type of preacher. He knows how to give an invitation like no man in the pulpit.”

I first heard of Dr. Ham in 1935 when he held an extended revival in Lexington, Kentucky. I was a young pastor at the time, living some forty miles from Lexington. It was not possible for me to attend the meeting, but my heart was thrilled by the daily broadcast of Dr. Ham’s messages. Dr. Ham’s personality seemed to project itself through the loud speaker of the radio. He was the first evangelist of reputation that I had heard preach, even on the radio.
Dr. Ham’s delivery was unique and powerful. His voice was slightly high-pitched. He spoke almost in a monotone, yet with great force and clarity. At times he would hang upon a word for emphasis. The effect was captivating. He knew the Word of God and was able to quote from memory any passage he needed to drive home his point.
G. V. Vick, who later became pastor of the great Temple Baptist Church in Detroit, Michigan, was the song evangelist for the meeting. The singing of Mr. Vick and the preaching of Dr. Ham stirred the entire countryside, and the meeting became the only topic of conversation throughout the area. Dr. Ham’s biographer states that there were 2700 additions during the meeting. That was probably the number that joined the cooperating churches.
Some time later I heard that Dr. Ham was to preach on a Sunday afternoon in Frankfort, Kentucky. That time I was able to attend the service. I cannot describe the thrill and the anticipation that filled my heart as I found a seat in the crowded auditorium and waited for the service to begin.
I remember nothing of the opening service, but I do remember Dr. Ham and his message. He was a tall man with a large frame. His head was almost completely bald. His dark eyes, looking through rimless glasses, seemed to burn into my soul. Deep lines between his eyes made him appear intense, but his mouth, with its well trimmed moustache, threatened to smile from time to time. He was dressed in a conservative gray suit, and he looked more like a congressman than a preacher.
In person Dr. Ham sounded much as he had on the radio. His voice and his message held me spellbound. Though I do not remember the text he used, to this day I can remember part of his message. Few men have impressed me and challenged me as he did. Years
Little did I dream that the day would come when Dr. Ham and I would become good friends, and that he would often call and invite himself to preach in my pulpit. In my wildest imagination, I never thought that he would give me a daily radio broadcast he had built up on a 50,000 watt radio station in Texas.
Dr. Ham told me of some of his great meetings. In the days when he was holding his greatest meetings, his revivals often lasted for months. For example, he held a meeting in Nashville, Tennessee that lasted eight months. His biography states that between six and seven thousand new members joined the Baptist churches in Nashville during the meeting. Dr. Ham told me that eight thousand joined the cooperating churches. In this day it is hard to conceive of a meeting lasting that long or bringing such blessed results.
I can never forget the following incident involving Dr. Ham. One Monday morning he phoned me from Louisville and said he was flying to Lexington on business the next day. Could I meet him at the airport? I assured him that I could. His plane was to arrive shortly before noon, so I invited him to have lunch with me. He accepted, and I told him I would be waiting at the airport when his plane arrived.
Later that day some unexpected event took all the money I had. I could have borrowed money from any number of friends, but instead I decided to pray for “daily bread” and trust the Lord to supply the need.
The next morning I started trying to help the Lord answer my prayer. On rare occasions someone would send me a personal offering by mail. I was sure that would happen that day, so I hurried to the post office and got my mail. To my dismay there was no offering for me.
Our church had just finished a new auditorium and often friends would come by to watch my daily broadcast and see the new building. Sometimes one of them would hand me a personal offering before leaving. I was sure that would happen on this day, but no one came to witness the broadcast.
I decided that perhaps whoever was coming was late, so I waited around the church as long as possible. But no one came. At last, with a troubled heart, I started to the airport to meet Dr. Ham. On the way I decided that I would see someone at the airport who would hand me an offering, and I did some more praying on the way.
At the airport the only person I saw that I knew was a policeman. He spoke to me and moved on. He did not appear to have anymore money than I did. He certainly did not offer to give me anything.
Dr. Ham’s plane arrived, and he got off and came through the gate. I led him to my parked automobile. We got in, and I started driving back to Lexington. Dr. Ham was in a talkative mood. I tried to talk with him, but I was doing more praying than talking.
On the way to town I decided that if we walked a couple of blocks on Main Street, we would meet someone I knew, and they would hand me enough money to pay for our lunch.
“Dr. Ham, it is a beautiful day. Would you mind if I park a short distance from the restaurant and we walk the rest of the way?” I asked.
“That would be all right with me. In fact, I would enjoy the walk,” he replied.
When we got to Main Street, I parked two blocks from the restaurant. We got out of the car and started walking. I walked slowly, thinking I would meet more people that way. I never met as many people on Main Street that I did not know as I did that day. I did not meet one person that I did know.
We reached the restaurant, went in and found a table. Dr. Ham continued to talk. I tried to listen to what he was saying, but it wasn’t easy to pray and listen at the same time. I found myself hoping that Dr. Ham wasn’t hungry. I do not know what difference that would have made. I could not have paid for a hamburger.
Dr. Ham ordered a full meal, and the waitress turned to me. I could see myself washing dishes to pay for our food, and I decided that I might as well wash a lot of them. So I also ordered a full meal.
While we were waiting for our food, Dr. Ham continued to talk, and I continued to pray. When the food arrived, and the waitress had gone away, we bowed our heads, and I asked Dr. Ham to thank the Lord for the food. I was still praying for our “daily bread.”
After Dr. Ham finished praying, a man, I did not recognize, came to our table and handed me some bills.
“Brother Arnold, I want to pay for your dinner,” he said. I thanked him and he went on his way.
When Dr. Ham and I finished eating, I paid the check, left a tip for the waitress and left the restaurant with some jingling money in my pocket. God can provide our “daily bread.”
I never told Dr. Ham that I could not have paid for our meal without the donation. It was one of those things that was just between me and the Lord.
Some years later I learned that Dr. Ham was seriously ill. Mrs. Arnold and I went to visit him in his home in Eminence, Kentucky. He was bedfast and nearing the crossing of the river. For a time we talked and reminisced. When it was time for us to go. We prayed together and I told my old friend good-bye. I never saw him again, but I will see him on the other side of the river.
Dr. Ham used to say on his daily radio broadcast, “I’ll meet you on the air until I meet you in the air.” His voice is now stilled. We no longer hear him on the air, but I do expect to meet him in the air.

When I was growing up I often heard of the great evangelist, Gipsy Smith. There were two Gipsy Smiths who were famous evangelists, Rodney and his cousin, Simon. Rodney was the most famous. Even in rural America his name was a household word. Though he had been born in a Gypsy tent in far away England and could not read or write when he was converted as a boy of 16, he had become one of God’s mighty evangelists, and he had international recognition as a mighty preacher of the Gospel.
From the time I entered the ministry, I knew that God wanted me to be an evangelist, so I was greatly interested in evangelists of the present and the past. I read every book I could lay my hands on about evangelists and other books that had been written by evangelists. I became a pastor, but I always knew that one day I would become an evangelist.
Years passed before I heard an evangelist of national, much less international, prominence preach. I never dreamed that I would hear an evangelist whose fame had crossed oceans; so I was greatly excited when I learned that Gipsy Smith was to hold a revival in Huntington, West Virginia, not many miles from where I was pastoring. I decided at once that I would attend every service I possibly could.
I will never forget my first glimpse of Gipsy Smith. I sat in a huge auditorium, packed to its walls with people, both on the first floor and in the large horseshoe balcony. I waited almost breathlessly for the famous preacher to appear.
When Gipsy came on the platform, I saw that he moved quickly and appeared to have great reserves of energy. His hair was iron-gray, and the back of his head was partly bald. His face was slightly dark and almost without lines or wrinkles. Though he was 81, he looked like a man in his late fifties.
Gipsy went to the front of the platform, and, without a glance at the great, expectant audience, knelt with his arm on the railing and bowed his head in silent prayer. A holy hush seemed to settle upon the audience as Gipsy prayed. I felt compelled to join him in that time of silent prayer.
After Gipsy finished praying, he took a seat beside the preachers who were already on the platform. I remember nothing of the introduction of the evangelist. I was only interest in seeing him and hearing him preach. Every eye was upon Gipsy as he went to the podium, picked up a hymnbook, and announced the opening number. He was so relaxed and at home in the pulpit, it hardly seemed strange that he was leading his own singing. He had a remarkably clear, soprano voice, and the great audience joined him in singing.
How shall I describe the service? It was different to any service I had ever attended. It was not divided into the usual devotional part and preaching part. Instead, the service was one unit. One scarcely noticed where the singing left off and the preaching began.
Gipsy often paused to read a verse of the hymn they were singing. His diction was flawless, and people leaned forward, listening, hanging upon every word as he read. The words of the hymn had become a sermon. Then Gipsy started singing, and the people’s voices rose and swelled as they sang with him. So the service went, with Gipsy reading and singing, the people singing with him, and the Holy Spirit in charge.
After a time, without a change in tone or pace, Gipsy laid aside the hymnbook, picked up his Bible, read a text, and continued talking. It hardly seemed that he was preaching. Instead he was talking as if to one person. I felt that he was talking directly to me. Others must have felt the same. There was not a sound or a movement in the great audience. People were listening, enraptured, scarcely breathing. Occasionally Gipsy would stop talking and sing a verse of a song. Then he would continue to talk.
Thus the service went, with reading and singing and talking. Time seemed suspended. Everyone was lost in the present. A spiritual atmosphere pervaded the place. The message ended all too soon, though Gipsy had been speaking for nearly an hour.
So confident was the evangelist of the response that would follow, he seemed reluctant to invite people to come forward lest someone be injured in the crush of people responding. When he did invite people to come forward, great numbers responded at once. Later in the meeting, it was his practice to ask people to stand as an indication that they would receive Christ as Saviour. Hundreds stood in every service, and Gipsy dealt with them as if he were dealing with one person. He explained to them how to receive Christ as Saviour and led them in prayer. Then he asked them to indicate that they had received the Saviour with upraised hands. The ushers were kept busy passing cards to those who raised their hands so they could record their response. The filled-out cards were collected to be shared with the cooperating pastors.
Gipsy reminded me of one of the Old Testament prophets. Never before had I heard a man with such power, and I have not heard another since. His meeting deepened the spiritual lives of believers and brought many sinners to Christ. He touched my life and I was never the same after attending his meeting. I can never forget a service on a rainy night. The rain had come down in torrents all day, and it was still raining when the time came for the people to gather for the service. Attendance was down that night, but when it came time came for Gipsy to speak, he said, “The Lord’s weather does not interfere with the Lord’s work. Often a service like this, when the attendance is down, will be the best service of the meeting. God blesses those who make an effort to come out on a night such as this.” Then he preached to Christians. The invitation that night was for Christians to come to the altar and surrender their lives anew to the Lord.
Numbers responded at once. I felt that I should go forward, but hesitated. Members of my church were present, and I wondered what they would think when they saw their pastor go to the altar. The Spirit continued to deal with me; it was almost as if the Lord was saying, “It does not matter what they think. What matters is your relationship with me.”
At last I went forward and knelt at the altar. There I told the Lord of the shallowness of my life and of my lack of power. There I gave my life to God anew. I arose from that place of prayer with a new joy in my heart and a new power in my life. The next Sunday I had one of the greatest services in my church that I had ever had. From that day forward there was a new dimension in my life and in my ministry. And today, after the span of many years, I thank God that I had the joy of seeing, hearing, and shaking hands with Gipsy Smith.

Included in this article is the account of a somewhat humorous incident that occurred years ago while Dr. Hyman Appelman was with me for a three-week long revival meeting in Lexington, Kentucky.
I first heard of Hyman Appelman when I was a young pastor. A friend told me that Dr. Appelman was being called a modern D. L. Moody. That really excited me because Moody was my hero.
When I first entered the ministry, the only books I could afford were books of Moody’s sermons, published as twenty-five cent colportage books. I read every one of them I could get, and they set my heart aflame. If Hyman Appelman was anything like Moody, I wanted to know all about him. I had no way of knowing then that in time Dr. Appelman and I would become friends, and that one day I would have a humorous story to tell about him.
Not long after I heard of Dr. Appelman, I learned that he was to preach in a large church in the city where I was then pastoring. Of course I went to hear him. I remember nothing of his sermon, but I shall never forget his intensity, and his compassion. The pastor of the church said, “Dr. Appelman has more compassion than any man I have ever met. Compared to him, I have to reach up to touch bottom.”
Some years later, after I had moved to a pastorate near Lexington, Kentucky, Dr. Appelman came to that city for a city-wide meeting. I attended every service except those on Sundays and Wednesday nights. During that meeting, Dr. Appelman and I became friends. After that I visited him again and again in his city-wide meetings and Bible conferences where he was speaking.
Dr. Appelman was a man of prayer. He preached on prayer, challenged others to pray, and prayed himself. High on my list of memories is a time I prayed with him in his motel room. I had traveled to one of his city-wide meetings in Indiana. I heard him preach that night, and the next morning we had breakfast together. When we finished eating, he suggested that we go to his room for prayer. Dr. Appelman prayed with great earnestness, and I can never forget his remark when we arose from our knees: “It sure does make you feel good, doesn’t it?”
Dr. Appelman came to America from Russia with his father when he was twelve. Educated to be a lawyer, he practiced law from 1921 to 1924. After being saved and called to preach, he entered Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas to train for the ministry. He served as a pastor for three years, then became the state evangelist for the Southern Baptists of Texas. After that he started holding meetings all over the United States and in many foreign countries.
Dr. Appelman’s sermons were well prepared and well presented. His voice was hoarse and raspy. He spoke with a brogue, but he was articulate. He had a tremendous vocabulary, and he loved to occasionally use little known words. His delivery was gripping, his illustrations graphic, and his pathos powerful. The power of God was upon him, and he was one of the most successful evangelist of his day.
My closest association with Dr. Appelman was in 1953 when he held a three-week meeting in the Fellowship Baptist Church that I had organized and built in Lexington, Kentucky.
Dr. Appelman flew to Lexington, and I met him at the airport. During the next three weeks I spent most of my time with him. We had breakfast together every morning. Then I took him to the church and had him preach on my daily radio broadcast. Dr. Appelman’s singer, Victor Stroud, and his organist, Jerry Rinkenberger came to help with the meeting, and they met us each morning for the broadcast.
Dr. Appelman and I had lunch together every day and I picked him up in my car each evening and took him to the church. Crowds came to hear him preach, and the big auditorium overflowed on several occasions.
I must set the stage for the humorous event that occurred while Dr. Appelman was with me in the meeting. A year before Dr. Appelman’s meeting, I went to Guatemala on a mission tour. While there, I was intrigued by the beautiful red, yellow, and blue macaws that I saw everywhere, and I decided that I wanted one of them. I arranged with a missionary to buy one and ship it to me after I returned home. A few weeks later the missionary shipped me two young macaws.
I soon learned that the birds were quite destructive, and I had to confine them in cages. After the macaws outgrew their cages, I learned that the proper way to confine them was to put each bird on a table that was supported by a center leg. The table had to be large enough to keep the bird from hanging from the edge by its beak, reaching the center leg with its claws, and climbing down. Macaws do not like to fly and will ordinarily be content to stay on such a table. I kept one of the birds in a room across the hall from my office.
Each day after lunch Dr. Appelman, Victor Stroud, Jerry Rinkenburger, and I prayed together before I took Dr. Appelman back to his hotel. One day we went to my office to pray. I gave no thought to the macaw in the room across the hall until after we were on our knees in earnest prayer. Then I heard her squawk.
She had heard our voices and was trying to get our attention. She certainly had my attention. I fervently hoped she would not squawk too loud or too often. Dr. Appelman was praying now, and he was so intensely in earnest that I dared not distract him by tiptoeing from the room to close the door upon the macaw. I debated with myself what to do. Dr. Appelman could be quite abrupt, I knew. Should I take a chance at being scolded for disturbing the prayer meeting or should I allow the bird to continue to squawk and perhaps be scolded for keeping her near my office.
I was a young man. I had a timid disposition, and I was intimidated by Dr. Appelman. I looked up to him as a man of great stature and reputation. Today I realize that he would most likely have said nothing at all had I left the prayer meeting to close the door on the disturbing bird.
As it was, I stayed quietly on my knees and hoped for the best. Then, to my consternation, I heard the macaw jump to the floor and start walking straight toward where we were praying. Now I was really in a quandary. I knew the friendly bird would come to one of us. When she reached the one she chose she would start climbing with beak and claw, and that would be hard on a tailored suit. She might also bite an ear, and that was a frightening prospect. Her beak was strong enough to bite a lead pencil in half.
I was kneeling beside Victor Stroud, and I was greatly relieved when I saw the bird approach him. When she reached Victor, she cocked her head to one side and, with a twinkle in her eye, looked straight at the button on his suit coat. He gently patted the bird on her head to keep her quiet. She was quiet all right, but she reach up and snipped the button off Victor’s coat. Victor continued to keep the bird quiet and laughed about the loss of the button after the prayer meeting ended. I do not recall Dr. Appelman saying anything unpleasant about the incident. I was greatly relieved. I felt like Victor had saved my life.

I did not know Dr. J. Frank Norris intimately, but our paths crossed a few times. I shall never forget those few brief contacts.
In my early ministry I ordered a book Dr. Norris had written, entitled, Inside the Cup. From that book I learned much of his ministry as pastor of two great churches, First Baptist Church of Fort Worth, Texas and Temple Baptist Church of Detroit, Michigan. Although these churches were 1,300 miles apart, he pastored them simultaneously and still managed to travel and preach in many parts of the United States and in several foreign countries.
When he returned to one of his churches after an extended absence, it was widely advertised that he would preach both morning and evening in the church on Sunday. Record crowds always attended the services when he preached.
From Dr. Norris’ book I learned something of the battles he was fighting. He had declared war on communism, liberalism, evolution, organized crime, gambling, the liquor interest, and corruption in high places. He was fighting battles on many fronts and winning more than his share of victories.
I subscribed to The Fundamentalist, Dr. Norris’ weekly paper. I soon learned that, in addition to his other battles, he was making war on Southern Baptists, and many of their preachers were leaving the convention. Some were bringing their churches out, and others were starting new independent Baptist churches. Eventually I learned that Dr. Norris was to preach in the Lockland Baptist Church in Lockland, Ohio, a suburb of Cincinnati. Ben Hillard was then pastor of the church. Lockland Baptist was a great church at that time, but it had not attained the size or influence that it did later under the leadership of Dr. John Rawlings. Dr. Rawlings moved the church to its present location and renamed it Landmark Baptist Temple. He pastored there for many years, and under his leadership the church reached an average attendance of more than 4 thousand. They frequently had 7 thousand on high days.
I was pastor of a church I had organized in Warfield, Kentucky when I learned that Dr. Norris was to preach at Lockland Baptist, and I drove to Lockland to hear him. Because of the distance and bad road conditions, the service had started when I arrived. Every seat in the auditorium was taken, and I had to stand in the vestibule to hear Dr. Norris preach.
After the service the pastor was scheduled to perform a wedding. Most of the congregation stayed, but Dr. Norris came out and stood in the vestibule while the wedding was in progress. I introduced myself to him and told him where I was pastoring. We talked briefly, and I did not see him again until I visited his church in Detroit a few years later. Apparently he never forgot a name or a face, for he called me by name when I entered his office.
In the spring of 1944 I boarded a train for Detroit, Michigan without knowing why I was going there, where I would stay, or what I would do when I got there. From the human viewpoint, that was the craziest thing I had ever done.
That Saturday morning I had been busy with plans for Sunday services in the church I was pastoring near Lexington, Kentucky. I was to teach a Sunday school class and preach morning and evening. Then there had come a strong impression that I should catch the noon train and go to Detroit. The impression made no sense to me. My people were expecting me to be in my pulpit on Sunday, and had no reason to leave my responsibility and go to a strange city with nothing to do and no one to see. Besides, I really could not afford the expense of the trip.
The impression that I should go to Detroit became stronger, and I became convinced that God must be leading me to go. At last, I told the Lord that I would go, even though I did not know why, if a preacher I knew could preach for me on Sunday. I phoned a brother preacher hoping that he would tell me he was scheduled to preach elsewhere. To my dismay, the brother said he would be glad to preach for me.
I packed hurriedly, rushed to the railroad station and boarded the train. I rode all night, sitting up in a day coach, and finally fell asleep in the early hours of the morning. At dawn, as the train was pulling into the station in Detroit, a man shook me awake.
“We have to get off here,” he said. “This is the end of the line.”
I awoke, not knowing what to expect. I did not know why I had come to Detroit or what I was supposed to do. I knew that Dr. Norris preached in Temple Baptist Church part of his time, but I had no reason to believe that he would be in Detroit at this time.
“My name is Sam Jesse,” the man who had awakened me said, demanding my attention. “I am pastor of an independent Baptist church in Burton, Kansas.”
“My name is Louis Arnold. I am pastor of South Elkhorn Baptist Church near Lexington, Kentucky,” I replied.
“I suppose you have come to the fellowship meeting,” he said.
“I certainly have. Where is it?” I responded.
“Temple Baptist Church. Dr. Norris will be there. Preachers will be coming from all over. The meetings will go all week. We are going to have a great time.”
I told Brother Jesse that I probably could not afford to stay for all the meeting, but he assured me the church would furnish all meals and that lodging would be provided in the homes of the members.
“Then I’ll stay,” I told him.
The train screeched to a stop, and we collected our bags and got off. Two men came out of the crowd that was waiting for the train to arrive and asked if we were preachers. We pled guilty.
“We have come to take you to the church,” one of them told us. There were other men looking for preachers who needed a ride. Our driver found another preacher who needed a ride, then led us to his car.
We were soon driving through the early morning traffic on our way to Temple Baptist Church. When we reached the church we were ushered into a large dining room where breakfast was soon to be served. What a welcome we received. Preachers were shaking hands, talking, getting acquainted and having a good time.
I still remember the hot biscuits, bacon, eggs and coffee we were served for breakfast. After breakfast we were registered and assigned to homes where we were to lodge. Then there was more visiting and fellowshipping until Sunday school time.
Soon we preachers crossed the street to the main auditorium of the Temple Baptist Church. There I attended the largest Sunday school class I had ever seen. There were about 2 thousand adults, including the preachers who had arrived for the meeting. Dr. G. B. Vick taught the class, and it was a blessing to hear him.
I can never forget the service that followed, the great crowd, Dr. Norris’ commanding presence, veteran missionary, Fred Donnelson and family, Oscar Wells and others who had miraculously escaped from Communist China, Dr. Norris’ exceeding tenderness as he brought them to the platform and presented them to the great audience, the great singing, the sermon Dr. Norris preached—and the invitation. I had never seen so many people saved in one service. More than 70 people confessed faith in Christ in that one service. I was overwhelmed. I thought Dr. Norris had preached an average sermon. The invitation had seemed almost indifferent, yet more than 70 people had been saved. The service that night was a repeat performance, great singing, an average sermon, a poor invitation, and more than 30 people made a profession of faith. Again I was amazed. I had never seen such results before.
That night I went home with the church family I was to stay with. I could hardly wait until I was seated in the living room with my host so I could ask him the questions that were clamoring for answers.
“Do you have people saved in your church every Sunday?” I asked as soon as we were seated. He told me that the numbers were not always as great, but that they did indeed have people saved every Sunday.
“How do you do it?” was my next question.
“Let me take myself as an example,” he replied. “I work for Ford Motor Company to pay expenses, but my business is serving God. There are hundreds of others in our church who do the same. They work in various places, but their business is serving the Lord.
“In our church something goes on almost every night. Sunday night and Wednesday night we have services. Other nights people meet for prayer. Then they go out two by two from door to door to win souls. When someone gets saved they follow up and get them in church the next Sunday if at all possible. Then they sit with them, or near them, and pray for them while the pastor preaches. When the invitation starts, they say to them, ‘Come on, let’s go,’ and they lead them down the aisle to make their public profession of faith. That is how we do it.”
That week I learned more about winning souls and building a church than I had ever learned before.
The third and last time I saw Dr. Norris was in the chapel of Bible Baptist Seminary at First Baptist Church in Fort Worth. I did not go to Fort Worth with the intention of seeing Dr. Norris. In fact, Fort Worth was not in my travel plans. But God rearranged my schedule so I would see him.
Dr. Mordecai Ham had given me the broadcast he had been conducting on radio station KWBU, a 50 thousand watt station, in Corpus Christi, Texas. After doing the broadcast by recording for some months, I decided to go to Corpus Christi and do the broadcast in person for a time. I thought that preaching live and making some personal appearances in the area would help build the listening audience.
I started to Corpus Christi in my own plane, but after refueling, in Jackson, Tennessee, the engine started icing up every time I attempted to climb the plane above 400 feet. I couldn’t fly on to Texas at that altitude, so I decided to leave the plane and go the rest of the way by bus. When I returned from Texas I learned that the plane had been refueled with gas that was unsuited for it. If I had not had the problem, I would not have gone by Fort Worth, but the bus schedule took me that way.
When I reached Fort Worth, I decided to spend the night and visit First Baptist Church while I was there. I had no idea that Dr. Norris would be there, but I wanted to see the church.
When I arrived at the church the next morning, I found a fellowship meeting in progress, and I decided to stay and attend the meeting that day.
The meeting was being held in the chapel. I went in, found a seat, and heard one preacher after another preach, but, to my disappointment, Dr. Norris was not to be seen. I kept wondering where he was and if he would make an appearance. At last they presented the final speaker of the morning. When he finished we were to be dismissed for the noon meal.
Just as the brother arose to preach, a door opened behind the pulpit, and 15 or more seminary students burst through the doorway, walked across the platform, down the center aisle, and out the front door of the chapel. Each one of them had a large bundle of The Fundamentalist, Dr. Norris’ paper, under his arm. Of course the brother could not begin to preach with all that commotion going on.
When the last of the students had left the chapel, Dr. Norris came through the door and walked to the pulpit. He pushed the brother aside, cleared throat and said, “Those young men you saw are students in our seminary. The papers they are carrying are copies of the latest issue of The Fundamentalist.” He held up a copy of the paper. On the front page was a picture of a preacher.
“The picture is of Dr. . . ,” Dr. Norris said, pointing. (He gave the preacher’s name, but I have forgotten who he was). Dr. Norris continued, “He’s a modernist. He doesn’t believe the Bible. He’s an infidel, and he’s speaking out on Cemetery Hill.” (He was referring to the Southwestern Southern Baptist Theological Seminary). “Our boys are going out there to pass out copies of The Fundamentalist to people as they go in to hear this infidel. In this article I exposed him for what he is.”
Dr. Norris reached in his inside coat pocket and pulled out a telegram. “Here is a telegram I received from the people out on Cemetery Hill. They say that if any more of our boys come out there to pass out copies of The Fundamentalist, they’re going to have them arrested.”
“I called judge, so and so, a personal friend of mine, and said, judge if they arrest any of our boys and haul them into court, I want a public trial in a place large enough to hold our crowd. The judge said, ‘Dr. Norris, the only place I know of that will hold your crowd is First Baptist Church. If they arrest any of your boys, we’ll try them in the First Baptist Church.’”
Dr. Norris paused, then said, “The old cat has got her tail caught in the crack under the door. She’s scratching the varnish off the floor, but it’s her tail.”
Dr. Norris turned and walked back through the door behind the platform, and the brother who was to preach had to try to go on with the service. I cannot remember what he did or what he said.
What shall I say of Dr. Norris? Certainly he was controversial and flamboyant. He has been called, “The Texas Tornado.” l have heard that he could be harsh, caustic, even mean. From personal observation, I know he could be very tender and compassionate. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of preachers who knew Dr. Norris far better than I knew him. However, this I know. Dr. Norris had much to do with the fundamental movement we have today.
Dr. Norris went to his reward in 1952. Regarding his home going, Walter M. Moore wrote, “Your friend and my friend has been promoted to Glory, “To Die Is Gain” was a favorite text of his. On Wednesday morning, August 20th, 1952, Dr. Norris laid down his Bible and slipped away to be with the Lord. He was a great preacher and Christian statesman. He fought a good fight. He finished his course. He kept the faith. He loved the cause of righteousness. He loved men. He counseled with presidents and kings. He mingled with the common herd. Dignitaries sought his advice, and common people heard him gladly.”
Dr. Norris left the earthly scene at 2:15 in the morning after preaching for Dr. Bob Ingle in Jacksonville, Florida the night before. Dr. Ingle had organized and built a great church in Jacksonville. Dr. Norris had had a tremendous influence on Dr. Ingle, and they had become good friends.
A few years after Dr. Norris’ death I preached for Dr. Ingle. After the night service, Mrs. Ingle told Mrs. Arnold that it was almost as if Dr. Norris had planned his home going from their city. He had preached a great sermon on Sunday night. After the service they had gone to a restaurant with Dr. Norris. He had been in high spirits, and they had had no idea that the next morning he would be gone.
A few years after Dr. Norris had gone to his reward, I attended a fellowship meeting in Fort Worth. In that meeting, one speaker after another said, “From Dr. Norris I learned to weep over souls. From Dr. Norris I learned how to lead people to Christ. I owe the ministry I have to the influence of Dr. J. Frank Norris.”

While I was in a revival at Gypsy, West Virginia, (near Clarksburg), Pastor George Heitman told me about some great camp meetings that were held near Gypsy, starting in the 1840s and continuing into the second decade of the 20th Century. Sam Jones was one of the men who preached at the camp.
During the camp meetings local people moved to the campgrounds and lived in tents or rough frame buildings. Some moved wagon loads of furniture and a cow to the campground. Ten or more preachers lived in a tent that was furnished for them. Lighting for the night services was furnished by crude lights made from kerosene-filled tin buckets with two wicks extended from the sides. A roof-covered, elevated platform, open on all sides, was built for the preachers’ stand. Seats were made of rough, two-inch lumber, supported on logs.
The Monongahela River Railroad was built into the region in 1888, and H. G. Bowles, superintendent of the railroad, brought famed Georgia evangelist, Sam Jones, to preach in a ten-day camp meeting. The railroad ran 15 special trains and brought 15,000 people to the meetings, some of them from as far away as Parkersburg.

When Dr. Frank Norris was a young man he rode his horse all night to hear Evangelist Sam Jones preach in a cottonseed warehouse in Waco, Texas. That night Jones told the story of his conversion. Years later he used the story in some of his sermons. The story follows just as Dr. Norris told it from memory.
“I saw Sam Jones walk out there with a little black mustache. He was a little man physically but a giant intellectually and spiritually. He stood up there and just talked along, and on and on, and I felt like I had made my all-night ride for nothing. Then he started giving his testimony.”
He said: “I was so low down by the curse of liquor until when the bartender would come to close the saloon at night I was lying down in the sawdust covered with my vomit and filth. He would come and say, ‘Sam, get up. It’s time to close up, get up.’
“I would try to stagger to my feet and I couldn’t do it.
“Then he came and kicked me, and cursed me. He dragged me to the door and threw me out in the back alley. There came a terrible snow that night and when the morning came I was nearly frozen to death.
“I staggered to my feet. I got hold of the door. I opened it. I came up to the bar and that old bartender looked at me and cursed me. He called me every low down thing he could, and he told the truth about it.
“I said, ‘Please, please give me a glass of that old busted liquor that was slopped up.' I didn’t have any money.
“He dipped down and gave me a glass of it, and I started to drink it. I held it up, and I looked in the mirror and saw that my hair was matted with filth, and vomit was on my clothes. My eyes, one of them was totally closed, and my lips were swollen. I held up the glass, and I said, ‘Is that all that’s left of the once proud, brilliant lawyer, the most brilliant lawyer at the bar of the state of Georgia. Is that all that’s left?’
“I threw down and smashed that glass of busted liquor on the floor, and I fell on my face and cried, ‘Oh God! Oh God, have mercy!’
“That old bartender came around the bar. He thought I was dying, and I was. The fellows gathered around and picked me up and said, ‘Sam what can we do for you?’
“I said, ‘Just let me alone.’
“I laid there awhile and I staggered to my feet. I went up to the little old cheap rooming house, and I staggered up the back stairway and told the good old lady that was running it, ‘I want to ask you for a favor. Will you please give me a pot of black, hot coffee?’
“She did, and said, ‘Sam, what can I do for you?’
“ ‘Nothing, just leave me alone.’
“For three days and nights I went through hell, but when the morning came something had happened to old Sam Jones.
“I staggered down to a man that I knew in the clothing business, and I said to him, ‘Old Sam is coming back.' I had on old dirty, filthy clothes. I had not shaved for a month. My hair was all matted.
“He said, ‘You are coming back?’
“ ‘Yes, God saved me last night, and I want you to let me have a suit of clothes and everything that I can wear,' and he gave me a great big box—a suit of clothes, shirt, necktie, shoes, handkerchiefs, and hat. Before I left the merchant slipped a hundred dollar bill in my hand.
“I staggered over to a barbershop and I went in and said. ‘Hello boys.’
“ ‘Hello Sam.’
“I said to the barber, ‘I want a bath, a haircut, and a shave. I want you to trim me up.’
“I put on my new clothes and looked in the mirror. I looked pale and I was very weak.
“I went down the street and out to where my wife was living. I had treated her like a dog. She could not stand to be with me. I had beat her until her body was black and blue.
“When she came to the door, she didn’t know her own husband.
“I said, ‘Honey, God has given you a new husband and the children a new daddy, and I want to know if you will take me back and start again.’
“She threw her arms around me and said, ‘Sam, Hallelujah, Hallelujah! I have been praying for this?’
“Folks, ever since then I have been going up and down the country bragging on Jesus that could save old Sam Jones.”
Sam had promised his father on his deathbed that he would quit drinking, set things straight, and meet him and his mother in Heaven. He had kept his promise.
In November, 1872 Sam Jones was licensed as an itinerate preacher for the North Georgia Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He started his ministry in a rural circuit of five churches located in four counties of North Georgia. Soon other pastors started inviting him to hold revivals for them, and by 1880 he was spending half of his time conducting revivals.
In 1884 he held a city-wide meeting, his first, in Memphis, Tennessee. There were an estimated 1,000 decisions for Christ in that meeting. In a meeting in Chattanooga there was another 1,000 decisions. After that he was invited to hold meetings in Knoxville and Jackson, Tennessee, and Waco, Texas. In 1885 he preached for the famed T. DeWitt Talmage in his tabernacle in Brooklyn, New York.
Later that year Sam Jones had a meeting in Nashville, Tennessee that brought him recognition as a truly great evangelist. People packed a tent seating 5,000 three times a day for four weeks. An estimated 10,000 people were converted. Among his converts in that meeting was the infamous river boat captain, Tom Ryman. After being saved Ryman built a tabernacle for Jones and other preachers to use for revivals. The tabernacle was called Union Gospel Tabernacle. Later it was renamed Ryman Auditorium and was for many years the home of country music’s Grand Ole Opry.
Jones preached in almost every city in the south with a population of more than 10,000. He returned to some cities again and again. He conducted 18 revivals in Nashville alone. He also preached in cities in the north and as far west as California.
Sam Jones was eccentric, bold, blunt, outspoken, fearless, droll, and witty. After hearing him preach, D. L. Moody stated in a letter to him:
“God has put into your hands the sledge hammer with which to shatter the formalism of the church and batter down the strongholds of sin, and he is helping you mightily to use it. God bless you.”
It has been said that after a Sam Jones meeting, liquor stores closed, theaters and jails emptied, and cussing was reduced to a whisper.
In one revival the pastors thought that Jones was too negative in his preaching. So they gathered one afternoon to pray that God would change him. Driving past the tabernacle, Jones was delighted to see a prayer meeting in progress, so he slipped in to join them.
The preachers were praying, “Lord, help him to have more tact, change his mannerisms, and on and on.” When they finished, Sam started praying.
“Lord, I hope you won’t listen to one of these preachers. They don’t preach against sin. They don’t visit from door to door. They don’t weep over sinners, and they don’t win souls. And they want you to change me until I’m just like them. O Lord, help these preachers to have enough sense to realize that if you were to answer their prayers, I would be just as worthless and no-account as they are. I’d be too lazy to work too. I’d be too afraid to fight sin, and too cold to cry over sinners, and too indifferent to win souls. Please, God, don’t make me like any of these fellows.”
A year before Jones died, President Theodore Roosevelt called him to the speaker’s platform in Atlanta and said to him, “Sam, you have been doing as a private citizen what I have tried to do as a public servant.”
I have in my library a large, hardcover book of Sam Jones’ sermons entitled, Quit Your Meanness. I bought the book secondhand, and someone who owned the book before I did pasted a newspaper account of his death inside the front cover. The account follows just as it was printed in the paper:

Memphis, Tenn., Oct. 15 (1906) —Sam Jones, the most noted evangelist, dropped dead early today in an Oklahoma, Choctaw and Gulf train, near Little Rock. Mr. Jones’ home is at Cartersville, Ga.
Mr. Jones was traveling from some point west of Little Rock and his destination was Memphis. The body was found in his berth in the sleeping car and was taken off the train at Little Rock.

Sam Jones was born in Chambers County, Alabama, October 16, 1847. He was admitted to the Georgia Bar in 1869. He began his professional career under bright prospects, but his health soon broke down, and he resorted to drink.
Early in 1872 he professed religion and became a Methodist clergyman shortly after.
He held a number of pastorates in the South and was agent of the North Georgia Orphanage for twelve years. Of late years he devoted much time to evangelical work, holding revival meetings and lecturing all over the United States.

I first heard of Dr. B. R. Lakin from a preacher friend I was preaching for in South Kentucky. He insisted that we hurry to his home after the morning service so we could hear Dr. Lakin’s Sunday sermon on radio. (That was before the days of television).
When we reached the pastor’s home, he turned on the radio, and we listened in silence while Dr. Lakin preached. When he finished preaching, I remember saying, “That is the greatest preacher I have ever heard preach.”
A short time later I went to Indianapolis to hear Dr. Lakin preach on the early morning broadcast called, The Nation’s Family Prayer Period. I was fascinated by the professional way the broadcast was conducted. Mrs. E. Howard Cadle sang the opening theme, “Ere you left your room this morning, did you think to pray?” Then Buford, the Cadle’s son, stepped to the microphone, greeted the audience, and announced the song his mother was going to sing. When her song ended, Buford said, “And now, ladies and gentlemen, here is your friend and mine, Dr. B. R. Lakin.” He stepped aside and Dr. Lakin stepped to the microphone, confident, relaxed, and professional. In about eight minutes he greeted the audience and preached as only he could preach on radio.
After that I saw Dr. Lakin often and we became good friends. I probably came to know him better than any other preacher. He preached for me at least twice in what he called his “One Night Revivals.” On both occasions we had great crowds and blessed results. He had me to fly my plane that was equipped with a powerful loud speaker to Indianapolis and announce that he was going to preach in an open air service.
In 1952 Dr. Lakin resigned as pastor of Cadle Tabernacle to go into full-time evangelism. He also gave up his daily ministry on The Nation’s Family Prayer Period which was aired nationwide from the tabernacle. I had him for his first revival after he left the tabernacle. After that I had him hold several meetings in churches I pastored. I arranged a county-wide meeting for him at the fairgrounds in Harrodsburg, Kentucky. I had him in a large tent revival in Lexington, and he had me to come to Dayton, Ohio and preach in a tent revival he was holding there.
I persuaded Dr. Lakin to put some of his sermons on long-play albums and produced several of them. I also reprinted some of the books he had written.
In 1954 I took Dr. Lakin on his first trip to the Holy Land. We roomed together on the month-long tour of fifteen countries. I had never been with Dr. Lakin for an extended period before that, and I thought that in three or four days he would run out of anything humorous to say. I was mistaken. He never repeated himself during the month we were together, and at the end of the month, he was as fresh as he had been in the beginning. His humor was natural. It flowed like an ever-flowing stream.
Dr. B. R. Lakin was born in Wayne County, West Virginia, June 5, 1901. He went to be with the Lord, March 15, 1984. The house where he was born, near where Big Hurricane Creek joins the Big Sandy River, still stands.
In 1919 Lakin attended a revival that was being held by J.C. Simphins in the country Baptist church at the forks of the creek. Brother Simphins was a nephew of Devil Ance Hatfield, the leader of the famed Hatfield/McCoy feud. Dr. Lakin was saved at an old-fashoned mourners bench in that revival. Concerning his conversion he said, “It seemed to me that Jesus Christ came down the aisle with a cross on His back, and with a crown of thorns on His Head, and with spital and slime running down his face. ‘What can I do for you?’ He asked. ‘Lord, do for me that which I cannot do for myself,’ I cried.
From the time he knew anything, young Bascum Lakin thought that some day he would be a preacher. After he was saved he said, “It seems that I was born full grown. When I left the altar, I hit the ground running.”
One week from the time he was saved he preached his first sermon, and during his long ministry he seldom missed a week preaching except when he was in the hospital.
His first revival was held in a small log, Methodist church. Dr. Lakin’s first pastorate was the Evangel Baptist Church. Their one-room building was located on Greenbrier Creek. Young Brother Lakin rode over the mountain to preach to his people once each month. His salary was $7.00 per month. He often spoke of riding to his meetings mule-back with a pair of saddlebags under him.
Dr. Lakin’s next pastorate was Ceredo Baptist Church. This was followed by time out for school at Moody Bible Institute. After that he held pastorates in Louise, Kentucky and Prestonsburg, Kentucky, with time out for revival work between pastorates. Dr. Lakin’s next pastorate was Euclid Avenue Baptist Church in Bristol, Virginia. That was the beginning of his rise to prominence. There were 400 additions to the church in 19 months and the Sunday school increased from 100 to 700 in attendance.
While he was in Bristol, Dr. Lakin started his first radio broadcast and developed the radio style and delivery that served him so well for most of his life.
Twice in Dr. Lakin’s lifetime God intervened and rocked him to national prominence. The first time was in 1939. Dr. Lakin and Colonel Harold H. Earthman, former United States congressman, had their trip to Founder’s Week at Moody Bible Institute interrupted by a February blizzard. They stopped at Indianapolis and attended a broadcast of the Nation’s Prayer Period, conducted by E. Howard Cadle, founder of Cadle Tabernacle. Mr. Cadle invited Lakin to preach the next summer in his camp meeting, He liked Dr. Lakin so well he invited him for a second week. He soon asked Dr. Lakin to become his associate in the work of the tabernacle and his nationwide broadcast over WLW, the nation’s only 500 thousand watt transmitter. Dr. Lakin was soon a nationwide sensation. In Dr. Lakin’s later years, Jerry Falwell invited him to preach again and again on his nationwide telecast. Again he became a national celebrity.
Starting as a mule-back, circuit riding preacher, Dr. Lakin preached his way up to the largest churches and auditoriums in the nation. He won many thousands of souls, and he strengthened churches everywhere he went. Dr. Lakin was polished, dynamic, eloquent, and witty. His voice was captivating, and his delivery was flawless. He was a great preacher, and he knew that he was.
In his latter years he shared the platform with Dr. John R. Rice in a great conference in Louisville, Kentucky. Preachers were there from everywhere. Dr. Lakin was always at his best when he preached to preachers. He always walked about the walls of Zion, and he always had the preachers in his audience climbing the walls. That night in Louisville was no exception. When Dr. Lakin finished preaching and sat down, Dr. Rice said, “You stole the show.” Dr. Lakin replied, “I intended too.”

Harvey Springer was a unique individual and an unusual preacher. Our paths only crossed twice, and I shared the pulpit with him in one Bible conference.
Harvey was tall, and the high-heeled western boots he wore made him appear taller than he was. When outside he wore a high-crowned western hat, and that made him appear really tall. He liked being tall, and he often announced from the pulpit, “I am 5 feet, 17 inches tall.”
In contrast, his wife was small and short. He sometimes had her to come forward in a service and stand under his outstretched arm. She didn’t seem to mind.
Dr. Springer was not only tall, he was a large man. And he was handsome. Before we met I saw him on the street one day, and, though I did not know who he was at the time, I realized that he made a striking appearance.
Harvey often dressed in flashy western clothes. Regarding his flashy clothes he said in the pulpit: “I met a woman down the street awhile ago, and she said, ‘Brother Springer, why do you wear clothes like that?’ I said, ‘Lady, don’t you know it’s against the law to run around naked?’ ”
I first heard Dr. Springer speak at a political rally in Indianapolis, Indiana. John F. Kennedy was then running for President of the United States. Because Mr. Kennedy was a Catholic many non-Catholics were strongly opposed to his election. Emotions were running high, and a minor riot broke out in the audience when Dr. Springer had a small boy and girl come to the platform and wrapped them in an American flag. Officers on the scene quickly quelled the riot, and Dr. Springer continued with his speech.
Not long before Dr. Springer died, I shared the pulpit with him in a Bible conference in Phoenix, Arizona. I went with a brother preacher to the airport to pick up Dr. Springer the day he arrived. We arrived ahead of his plane. When the plane landed and taxied up to the tarmac, we watched as they rolled the deplaning steps out to the plane as they did in those days. When the door of the plane opened and Harvey started down the steps, I thought he was the largest man I had ever seen. That impression remained when he was later presented to preach.
Harvey was so tall he stood on the floor in front of the pulpit, and his voice was so strong, he did not use a microphone. He was stately as he slowly walked back and forth in front of the pulpit, and, though he spoke in a conversation tone, he could easily be heard in every part of the auditorium.
Harvey said his own “Amens.” Often, when he was preaching, he would interject, “Amen, Harvey. You’re welcome, Brother Springer.” His preaching was the “Amen,” kind of preaching. He was dynamic. His messages were spiced with humor, and they were to the point. One does not often hear a greater preacher than Harvey Springer.
While I was with Dr. Springer in Phoenix, he invited me to come to his youth camp the next summer. I was not able to go, and I never saw Harvey again. While he was working at his camp the next year a horse kicked him. That accident cost him his life, and it took from us an outstanding preacher. We shall not see his like again.

Harvey Springer was born January 18, 1907 in a three-room board house in Indian Territory near Shawnee, Oklahoma.
When he was 13 he ran away from home. He landed in North Park, Colorado and got a job working on a ranch. When he was 17 he went to Denver. There he met and fell in love with Evalena Kendall. A year later they were married, but the marriage did not last. He was a drinking, carousing young man, and that caused the breakup.
An accident put Harvy on crutches for a year. During that time he was converted in a revival in his mother’s church, Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Oklahoma City.
In 1928 Harvey hitchhiked to Binghamton, New York and entered the Practical Bible Training School. He had had only two years of high school, but he was accepted as a student because of his burning desire to become a preacher. It was an uphill struggle, but he completed the required courses in three years.
Harvey became pastor of a church while he was in school, but he resigned after his graduation and returned to Colorado to see if his former wife would take him back. Their marriage was restored, and they soon went to Okmulgee, Oklahoma where he held his first revival meeting. After several other meetings in Oklahoma, he was invited in 1930 to hold a meeting in the First Baptist Church of Englewood, Colorado. One year later he returned for a second meeting. The pastor, J. C. Hoover, resigned soon after that, and the church called Harvey to be their pastor.
As pastor of First Baptist Church, Harvey fought modernism in the Federal Council of Churches and started a campaign to get churches and denominations to withdraw from it. He led First Baptist Church to withdraw from the Northern Baptist Convention, and that started a fight that lasted throughout his 30 year ministry. Local Council of Church pastors, businesses, and the city government sought to destroy his ministry. The police tried to lock him out of his church, but all of them together could not stop him.
Harvey used the Bible only in his Sunday school, and it grew to be the largest in the state. The church had to improvise, remodel, and build larger buildings.
Jealous modernist preachers spread rumors and innuendo about Harvey, and the newspapers printed it. But the work continued to grow under his leadership.
Early in his ministry at the First Baptist Church, Harvey started a paper called, The Tabernacle News. Later he started publishing The Western Voice, and mailed it to people across the United States, and he published it until the Lord called him home.
Springer founded the Silver State Youth Camp and located it on a 160 acre mountain ranch southwest of Denver. Silver State was a cowboy-western style camp for young people. The old ranch was also used for weekly rodeos, fishing, hunting, and horseback riding. But the main thrust of the camp was soul-winning and building strong Christian lives.
Other organizations that grew out of the ministry of Harvey Springer were The Rocky Mountain Evangelistic Association, Soul Winning Bible Institute, Silver State Schools, and Silver State Nursing Home, located on 1,000 acres of land near Castle Rock, Colorado.
In 1948 Harvey and several other fundamental pastors founded the International Council of Christian Churches. The ICCC opposed the World Council of Churches, and Harvey did much to expose its liberal bias.
After the death of Dr. J. Frank Norris, Harvey served as president of World Baptist Fellowship, the organization Norris had founded, from 1950 to 1955.
Dr. Harvey Springer went to his reward early in 1966. While working at the youth camp, he was kicked by a horse. He died in the hospital as a result of the injury. Thousands of those he had led to Christ and others he had blessed attended his funeral in the church he had pastored.

Years ago I attended a conference on evangelism sponsored by the Sword of the Lord at Winona Lake, Indiana. Appearing on the program were a number of outstanding preachers, several of them since deceased. I remember well the preaching of Dr. Joe Henry Hankins, Dr. Hyman Appelman, Dr. John R. Rice, Dr. Jesse Henley, Dr. Robert J. Wells, and Dr. Bob Jones, Sr. These men thrilled and blessed me as they preached to the great crowds in the Billy Sunday Tabernacle. Many fond memories of that great meeting remain to this day.
High on the list is the memory of the preaching of Dr. Bob Jones, Sr.
Dr. Jones was an evangelist of the old school. He preached in great city-wide campaigns, and saw marvelous results in the days when Billy Sunday, Mordecai Ham and others were shaking America for God. Dr. Bob Jones, Sr., founded and was president of Bob Jones University at the time of the conference at Winona Lake. He was still holding great city-wide meetings.
Never can I forget his preaching. He was logical, eloquent and powerful. I still remember how he cupped his hand around his mouth, leaned forward and shouted, “Do right if the stars fall.”
Some years later, while I was pastor of Fellowship Baptist Church in Lexington, Kentucky, Dr. Bob held a meeting for me. During the meeting I got to know him well. To know Dr. Bob was to like him. Evidently the feeling was mutual, for he invited me to come to Bob Jones University and preach to his “preacher boys.” While I was there, Dr. Bob had me to preach several times.
Other years passed, and I shared the platform with Dr. Bob in fellowship meetings across the country. Dr. Fred Garland arranged these meetings and brought in the best preachers he could get. Among them were Dr. Lee Roberson, Dr. John R. Rice, Dr. Jack Hyles. Dr. Bob Jones, Sr., was almost always on the program. It was a blessing to be in his company and a joy to hear him preach. I am thankful that our paths crossed so often. Dr. Bob blessed my life. I often recall one of his favorite quotes. “It is not right to do wrong to get a chance to do right.”
Dr. Bob Jones, Sr., the son of a sharecropper, was born in Skipperville, Alabama on October 30, 1883. He was named Robert Reynolds Jones, but he came to be known only as Dr. Bob or Dr. Bob Jones, Sr. He went to be with the Lord January 16, 1968. His last words were, “Mary Gaston, get my shoes; I must go to preach.”
Dr. Bob was saved when he was 11. He started preaching in revival meetings when he was 13, and he was licensed to preach when he was 15. In his early ministry he preached in country churches, in cotton fields and in brush arbors. Later he held city-wide meetings in cities across America, and he preached in many foreign countries. By the time he was 40 he had preached 12,000 sermons to some 15,000,000 people. His converts at that time numbered 300,000. He was an active evangelistic for over 65 years.
One of his great meetings was in Hartford City, Indiana, a town of 7,000. Before the meeting, churches in the town had a combined membership of 1,500. After the meeting these same churches had almost 4,000 members. Sunday movies were closed, and the city voted dry and put 16 saloons out of business.
Some of the cities where Dr. Jones held meetings were Joplin, Missouri, Gloversville, New York, Quincy, Illinois, Zanesville, Ohio, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Columbus, Ohio, Anniston, Alabama, and Steubenville, Ohio.
Newspapers in the cities where Dr. Bob preached usually printed front-page coverages of the meetings. Everywhere he went great crowds attended his meeting, and great numbers were saved.
Dr. Bob considered his meeting in Montgomery, Alabama in 1921 his greatest. The newspaper reported that more than five thousand attended his opening service. The paper further reported that hundreds were turned away at each Sunday service. Services were held in a large wooden tabernacle, seating 5,000. The tabernacle was erected for the meeting near the business center. It was filled to capacity every night. Often there were hundreds standing outside. An estimated 12,000 heard him preach the closing Sunday night.
At the close of a service for men only, over 2,000 men started a great rush to the front, and Dr. Bob was forced to rush back to the platform and appeal to the men not to create a panic.
In a meeting in St. Petersburg, Florida in 1921, the 5,000 seat tabernacle often overflowed, and a second service was held to accommodate the crowd.
His meetings continued with great success into the 1930s and 1940s. In 1947, he held good crusades in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and Asheville, North Carolina. As many as 100 per night were saved in the former, with scores coming forward each night at the latter as well. In 1949, at Presque Isle, Maine, a town of 10,000, between 50 and 200 were saved each night. In June of that year he returned to Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, for a 15-day crusade.
In 1927 Dr. Jones founded Bob Jones College, now Bob Jones University. The university is located in Greenville, South Carolina on a beautiful 180 acre campus. Assets are valued at 40 to 50 million dollars, and the student body numbers between 4 and 5 thousand. They come from across America and 34 foreign countries. One third of them are ministerial students. Many hundreds of BJU graduates are now serving as pastors, evangelists, educators, and missionaries around the world.

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