HWA Boyhood

ON expert advice, I had put myself through the college of EXPERIENCE -- or, as it is sometimes called, the college of hard knocks. First was a year of want ads on a Des Moines daily newspaper. Later came three years on a national trade journal -- the largest in the United States, involving a great deal of travel, and intensive instruction, training, and experience in writing advertising copy, dictating business letters, and later, writing magazine articles. After six months of Chamber of Commerce work, the seven-year career representing the leading bank journals of the nation began.

All these years I had studied diligently. My "major" in this study, of course, was advertising and merchandising. I studied what books were available. I read religiously the trade papers of the profession. I studied psychology. As a "minor" study, I delved into Plato, Epictetus, and other books on philosophy, and continually read Elbert Hubbard (whom I became personally acquainted with) for style in writing. I read human interest articles and other articles on world conditions and on the business of living, in leading magazines.

At the beginning of World War I, I had been able to obtain written recommendations for entrance into the Officers Reserve Corps from such prominent Chicago men as Arthur Reynolds, president of the largest bank in Chicago and second largest in America, testifying that I possessed more than the equivalent of a college education.

But I had not received my education in college. The Challenge for College Competition

This request from my brother-in-law presented an intriguing challenge. I had taken a confidence-shattering beating in the failure of the Chicago business. But the vanity had not been crushed out of my nature by any means. Here was a chance to match wits with college students. Also it offered a total mental diversion from the Chicago nightmare. It was something I could "sink my teeth into," with energy and a new interest.

But I knew nothing of how college orations were written, or delivered, or judged. As I mentioned, I asked my brother-in-law if he could bring me copies of a few first-place winning orations.

He brought out to the farm a number of them from the college library, printed in pamphlet form. Immediately I noticed that they were all couched in flowery language -- the amateur college-boy attempt at fancy rhetoric, employing five- to seven-syllable words which actually said practically nothing. All the orations were written on such altruistic and idealistic subjects as peace, or prohibition, or love for fellowman. They displayed ignorance of the WAY to peace, or the problem of alcoholism, or of human experience in living. But they did contain beautiful, high-flown language!

This became very intriguing. "Tell me, Walt," I asked, "what is the prevailing style of delivery? Do the oratorial contestants go at it hammer-and-tongs, Billy Sunday style tearing their hair out, throwing chairs across the platform, thundering at their audiences -- or do they speak calmly and smoothly, with carefully developed graceful gestures -- or how?"

"Oh, they try to speak with as much calm dignity as possible -- with graceful gestures."

"There will be six, including me," Walter answered. "All right -- tell me, now -- would you rather enter this contest with one chance in six of winning, or with one chance in TWO?"

He didn't quite understand. "Why, with one out of two -- but what do you mean?" "Well, Walt," I replied, "I guess I'm not much of a conformist. I often break precedent. I figure it this way: if you write a flossy, flowery oration with big words that say nothing, and attempt to compete with these upperclassmen of greater experience on their own terms, you are only one of six contestants, and you probably do not even have one chance in six of winning.

"But if you pick for your subject some red-hot controversial topic -- if you have the courage to actually ATTACK something, give the PLAIN TRUTH about it, open people's eyes about it, and work yourself up to white-hot heat of indignation and emotion, and let it fly Billy Sunday style -- to start a big controversy -- well, either the judges will like YOUR kind of oration, or the other kind. You have one chance in two. If they like the other kind, you lose out -- you'll be voted last place. Then they have to choose among the other five. But if they do like your style, there is no one to choose but YOU -- you'll be the only contestant with that kind of oration. So, I figure you will be either first or last. You will not be second or third."

"Say! That sounds good!" exclaimed Walter. "I don't want to be second or third. I want to WIN. If I can't win, I might just as well be last."

"O.K. Now we must find something to attack and expose -- something that is wrong. Something that will stir up the people. What do you hate the most?"

He didn't seem to hate anything or anybody. There was nothing I could find that he was really MAD at.

"Well," I said finally, "we'll have to find something that needs exposing -- something you can really flay with forceful language. Come to think of it, right now labor leaders are resorting to some very foul practices. There have been murders, and gross injustices, both against employers and against the union members themselves. I remember when I visited Elbert Hubbard at his Roycroft Inn, at East Aurora, New York, I read a pamphlet of his that really flayed dishonest labor leaders -- and he has the best, most prolific vocabulary, and the most effective rhetorical bromides of any writer I know. Suppose we attack labor racketeering."

He didn't know anything about it, but he guessed this subject would be as good as any. Immediately we wrote to Roycroft Inn for this booklet I had read. Also we wrote to Governor Allen of Kansas, who had just been on a fiery debate on labor-leader racketeering that had made national headlines.

The Herrin, Illinois massacre had occurred shortly prior to this -- where many had been killed. We went all out to obtain FACTS on how labor leaders (some of them) were racketeering off of their own worker members. Walter explained to me that we were allowed to use a total of 200 words in the 2,000-word oration directly quoted from published sources. We quoted some of the most forceful phrases from Hubbard and Governor Allen.

We did not attack or oppose the PRINCIPLE of unionism. The first line of the oration stated, in the somewhat flowery language which Walter insisted on putting into it against my advice: "There was a time when the laboring man was brutalized by toil. Capital held the balance of power. Labor was cowed into meek submission."

What was opposed and exposed was the wrong economic philosophy of labor leaders who assumed that management is the enemy of labor -- that the two interests run in opposite directions -- that laboring men ought to use force and the strike to GET all they can, while at the same time they ought to "lay down on the job" and give in return as little as they could. The threat of calling a strike for blackmail purposes -- asking a huge payoff from an employer to a crooked labor leader to prevent his stirring up the men for a strike -- murders and violence -- these things we opposed.

HWA at age 23, with spectacles. He needed glasses to compensate for one weak eye.

Period photo of Chicago, Illinois, traffic on May 17, 1920 at northside of Michigan Avenue Bridge

Elbert Hubbard on board the Lusitania in 1915. Mr Armstrong met the famed philosopher on several occasions

A photo that Herbert sent to his mother shortly before the flash depression of 1920

A reproduction of a letter from Mr. Armstrong to his mother written en route to Chicago July 23, 1917. Mr. armstrong expected to be drafted at any moment

Mr. Armstrong and friend, Ralph Johnson, again in front of Del Prado Hotel - expecting to be drafted

HWA in Motor Iowa, his home state. Iowa then as now, is in the heart of the corn belt and possesses the deepest and richest farm soil in the whole of the United States

The family of Loma Dillon in the mid 1890's: her mother holds younger sister Edith; her father provides her back support in this photo that Mr. Armstrong came later to treasure.

Ms. Loma Dillon beside pool in front of apartment building in Des Moines where she was overnight guest of the Frank Armstrong family

Herbert W. Armstrong and Loma Isabelle Dillon, a vivacious cousin, during one of his Iowa visits in his early to mid twenties

Readers will find this photo a fascinating study in the trends in swimwear. It would be better to label these garments "bathing suits" in the literal sense, as one could hardly swim effectively wearing them.

On the beach of Lake Michigan, at the end of Wilson Ave. Just after honeymoon trip.

Country store in Motor, Iowa. In upper right room HWA became engaged to Ms. Dillon.

Loma Dillon at the time of her marriage in July 1917. She always thought of herself as a country girl

Loma Armstrong with her husband at a sporting event. The dress is typical of World War I period.

Loma's dream letter. In this letter addressed to Mr. Armstrong's mother, Loma Armstrong relates the remarkable incident of her and her husband's calling.

Loma Armstrong, right, and HWA, both in their later twenties. Photo taken the Sunday before their first baby was born.

HWA though born in a small Iowa town, was by nature a child of the city and his intense artistic and cultural interests were reflected in his later work

Now began my first real experience in public speaking. I had given talks before dinner groups of retail merchants three times -- at Richmond, Kentucky, at Lansing, Michigan, and Danville, Illinois, upon completion of merchandising surveys. But I had never studied public speaking, nor looked into any textbooks on the subject. Before this college oratory experience was over I was to become acquainted with the authors of the two textbooks on the subject used in most of the colleges and universities throughout America. As I now look back over the events of those formative years, in writing this autobiography, it becomes more and more evident that the unseen divine hand was guiding me continually into the very experience and training needed for the Great Calling.

After the oration was written, Walter memorized it. He announced that he was finally ready to begin practice on delivery. We went over to the college chapel at an hour when it was entirely unoccupied. I took a seat about two-thirds' way back. Walter went to the platform.

He started his oration. Consternation seized me. He was speaking it in his best attempt to emulate the prevailing college style -- quiet, with dignity, and graceful gestures. Only, his gestures were not graceful. They were so obviously practiced, and not at all natural -- and they were ridiculously awkward. The expression was not natural. I saw visions of "winning" last place in the contest.

This was a dilemma that had, somehow, to be solved. I saw at once that Walter did not grasp the real meaning of his shockingly powerful speech. He didn't feel it. This labor racketeering crisis then so prominently on front page news was something of which he seemed unaware. The oration was just so many meaningless words. Unless he could become aware of the situation, and really feel with white-heat indignation the scathing indictment of these criminal abuses of unionism, he had no chance of winning.

At just this time a living incident made the whole meaning of the oration personal. A strike was in progress at the Rock Island Railroad division point in Valley Junction -- now renamed West Des Moines. The morning Des Moines Register reported a bombing of the locomotive roundhouse. Eleven big locomotives had been destroyed.

We went to Valley Junction, and managed to get through the lines to the office of the superintendent. The superintendent showed great interest in learning of the subject of the oration. He gave us considerable time. We went out through the roundhouse. We saw the twisted and tangled masses of steel of demolished locomotives.

We visited a home in town where the front half of the house had been blown off by a bomb. Inside the house at the time had been the wife and children of a worker who had taken up the tools the union men had laid down. For some little time the workmen who had accepted jobs after the union men had walked out had been kept behind barricaded walls day and night. Violence had become rampant. Nonunion workers had been assaulted upon leaving the yards and returning to their homes after working hours -- hence they had been forced to remain behind defense barriers night and day.

Walter was now really outraged. "When union leaders try to kill innocent wives and children just because their husbands have picked up the tools they laid down, that is just too much!" he exclaimed with heat.

Another nonunion home -- occupied only by the innocent wife and children -- had been rotten-egged.

Back in the superintendent's office he told us one of his problems with the union leaders.

"I was powerless to hire or fire a man without consent of labor leaders," he said. "In the railroad business it is just as serious a crime for an engineer to go to sleep in his cab as for a sentry to go to sleep on duty in the army in wartime. I had such a man. I tried to fire him. The labor leader refused. He said I did not have proof. I had to employ a professional photographer, and keep him here on the job constantly until this engineer went to sleep again on duty in his cab. When we presented the photographic evidence to union officials higher up, they finally consented to firing the man."

The next afternoon at the usual time we went into the college chapel for rehearsal. As Walter began speaking, the words of his oration for the first time conveyed real meaning to his mind. These words described in dynamic language exactly the way he now felt. I had told him to dispense with all gestures immediately after that first rehearsal. Unless gestures are natural, automatic and unrealized by the speaker, they are not effective anyway.

But this time Walter was gesturing. He didn't know it -- but he was gesturing! They were not the most smooth and polished gestures of the professional speaker -- but THEY WERE TERRIFICALLY CONVINCING! Today Walter was really angry! As the words poured forth, their meaning more and more expressed the very indignation he felt. The delivery was a little raw and rough -- it was somewhat amateurish -- but it was POWERFUL and it was CONVINCING!

"There!" I exclaimed joyfully, when he had finished, "HOLD IT!" Hold it right there! Just go into the contest exactly as you went into this rehearsal! Now you have a chance. Of course, the judges still may not like something so radically different from the established style of college oratory. But now you will be either last, or first!"

On the night of the local college oratorical contest, Walter drew last place. He was quite discouraged. He didn't know, then, that the last speaker always has the advantage. He was terribly nervous.

The two students rated the best were, of course, very good as college speakers. Theirs were the usual suave, smooth, flowery big words, delivered calmly with smooth and much-practiced graceful gestures. They were highly applauded. This year the students had high hopes of winning a state championship -- which Simpson had not won for eight years.

Then Walter walked out on the platform for the final oration. He started out calmly but nervously. But after some six or eight minutes the words he was speaking took him right back to Valley Junction. He forgot the nervousness that had seized him at the beginning. He thought only of the outrageous injustices he had SEEN with his own eyes. And for the first time he had an audience to tell it to! He began to gesture. He began to pace back and forth on the platform. He shook his fist. He was in dead earnest! He really MEANT what he was saying -- and HE WAS SAYING SOMETHING!

When he had finished, he knew he had lost -- but at least he had gotten a message over to that audience! He had that much satisfaction.

The judges' decision was announced. First came the third-place choice. It was one of the two supposed best orators. The other was announced as second. First place -- Walter Dillon!

There was little applause. The two favorites had lost out to a green, nonfrat freshman! The judges had been moved by his speech. They had liked it. But the student body and faculty apparently disagreed.

In the days that followed there was only one topic of conversation on the campus -- the merits or demerits of labor unionism. It became a heated controversy. The professor of economics took it up in class. He disagreed with Walter Dillon's economics. He favored the union brand of economics. Apparently he had slight socialist or Communist leanings.

One senior said to me, "I hope Dillon won't disgrace us in the state contest. We might have won this year, but now, with a green freshman representing us, we haven't a chance. BOY! but wasn't Sutton's oration good?"

"Yes," I rejoined. "It was smooth and well delivered. By the way, WHAT did he talk about? I can't seem to remember."

"Why -- why -- " stammered the student, "I -- I can't seem to remember, either. But it certainly was a great oration!"

"Well, really, was it -- if neither you nor I can remember a thing he said? Everyone in town seems to remember what Dillon said. He really stirred up a hornet's nest! Do you really think a speech is good if it doesn't say anything?" He went away somewhat angrily.

A short time later came the state contest. It was held that year at Central College, Pella, Iowa. There it was the same. Walter was very nervous. I walked with him over the campus grounds while the first few contestants were speaking. Once again he was last speaker.

Once again, after a calm and somewhat nervous start -- not necessarily obvious to the audience -- he relived the scenes of violence at Valley Junction. When he came to the Herrin massacre, the bombing of the Los Angeles Times plant, and the other outrages of violence covered in the oration, he really lived it! Again he paced the floor, shook his fists, rose to a crescendo of indignant and outraged POWER at the climax, then had real pleading in his voice in his final solution of these problems.

Again third place was announced first -- then second. Again we knew he was either first or last. Finally the winner -- Walter E. Dillon of Simpson!

Returning to the campus we witnessed a living example of the fickleness of public opinion. After winning the home contest Walter had been in disgrace. "It was just a fluke decision," most of the students said. A freshman had spoiled their chance of winning a state contest. Walter was avoided on the streets. He was shunned.

But now, he returned the conquering hero. Simpson had won the state championship! Walter Dillon was the hero of the campus. It was the first time any freshman had won a state contest. This was NEWS. It even made the front page of the Chicago Tribune! He had bids to join fraternities. The professor of economics was out of town on vacation several days -- until the reverse opinion on his economics subsided. For now the student body unanimously accepted Dillon's brand of labor economics!

Well, it had been an interesting participation in college activity for me. It helped restore shattered morale. I had helped WIN something. I had begun to study public speaking. I had gained invaluable experience in speaking, which was later to be used. My brother-in-law had been deprived without a chance of his ambition to be one of FIVE to win all-state honors in basketball. But he had won the state championship in oratory, which he didn't have to share with anybody.

Walter Dillon continued in the field of education as a life profession, and, much later, he was to become the first president of Ambassador College, and its first instructor in public speaking.

Actually, our experiences in college oratory continued on another year. I promoted a number of entertainment programs in various towns in Warren County during the following year, with Walter billed as the headliner, and charging 25 cents and 35 cents admission. We brought in some comedy and singing talent from college. A year later, by early 1924, Walter Dillon was a smooth and finished public speaker. Following the national contest of that year, its sole judge, Professor Woolbert of the University of Illinois, author of a much-used college textbook on public speaking, heard him, and told me he probably would have given Mr. Dillon the national championship, had he been entered.

After the rest, and oratorical contest experience of the fall and winter of 1922-23, I realized I had to find something to do.

Once before, the reader will remember, when I was stranded without a dollar in Danville, Illinois, I had brought the merchandising survey experience to the rescue by selling a survey to the local newspaper. It had been highly successful for the newspaper, resulting in a big increase in advertising volume. Newspapers derive their revenue from the advertising.

At Danville, I had made one colossal mistake. Caught off guard when the business manager of the paper asked what my fee would be, I had set it at $50. It should have been $500.

Now the thought of entering upon a business of conducting surveys was uppermost in mind. My brother-in-law borrowed a car, and we drove to Ames, Iowa -- seat of Iowa State College. The idea of the survey was quickly accepted by a Mr. Powers, who was owner or manager (or both) of the Ames Daily Tribune. This time the fee was $500. The price was accepted at once.

This time I put on a more thorough survey than the previous ones. Not only housewives in the town, but students and faculty members, and heads of departments at the college were interviewed. The newspaper put at my disposal a small car. I do not remember the make, but I believe it was smaller than a Ford. This enabled me to interview farmers in all directions.

The survey uncovered some peculiar and astonishing facts. About 75% or more of the day's shopping on school days was done after 4 p.m., when rush hour began in the stores. The women of Ames seemed to prefer doing their shopping when the college girls did theirs -- after class hours.

As usual, most of the trade in some lines went to Des Moines, only 30 miles south, or to the mail order houses. I found out why. Interesting facts were uncovered about certain individual stores.

One department store, not the largest, and one of a small chain of three or four stores, about half or two-thirds owned by the local manager, came in for the most criticism. Women were satisfied with their stocks and styles, and also with their prices. The big complaint was on the salespeople.

"Why, I've stood waiting ten or fifteen minutes to be waited on," one typical customer said, "and then the clerk said they were out of the item I wanted, when I could see it in plain sight high up on a shelf. She just didn't want to reach up that high to get it down."

Women universally reported that the clerks never smiled. I learned it would be the most popular store in town if its sales force would be transformed into smiling, helpful, enthusiastic, wide-awake people anxious to please customers.

I gave a private confidential report to each store, which the newspaper did not see, in addition to the general report and summary which was supplied the newspaper. I distinctly remember the personal report I made to this particular department-store manager. The confidential report hit him personally right between the eyes. I had discovered that he underpaid his sales force. He never smiled at them. He maintained a secret spy system, spying on clerks. He was dumbfounded to hear from me that all his clerks were well aware of this.

"The whole thing is your fault, personally," I said. "But I can show you how to correct it and double the size of your business."

"Vell," he said at last, in a Scandinavian accent, "this is the hardest ting I have ever had to take in my life -- but I guess ve can take it. Vhat do you advise me to do?"

"First, raise salaries -- and in a rather dramatic manner." "Vait!" he cut in. "Look! A store can only pay a certain percent of sales in salaries. I am paying them too high a percent already!"

"Yes, sure, I know that," I responded. "But the way to get the percent of sales paid in salaries down is to RAISE salaries, and get your sales force on their toes -- happy -- smiling. Then sales will double, and the percent paid in salaries will go down."

"All right, here's what I want you to do. I DON'T want you to do any additional advertising in the Tribune at all -- until this new system has been working for at least six weeks. Big-space advertising right now would ruin your business. But, once you get this thing corrected, big-space advertising will quickly double your sales volume. First, I want you to plan a big party for the sales force. Have it on your second floor, in the women's ready-to-wear section. Try to arrange for the Home Ec. Department out at the college to prepare the biggest and finest dinner you ever saw. Hire a dance band. Don't try to beat down the cost -- pay what it costs to get the BEST. Then invite all your employees. Let them know you expect them to be there. I think I can pass the word along through some of them, so they will all come. I have made friends with some of them.

"After they have had the finest dinner they ever ate, and the dance band has them feeling good -- and have all these dunce caps, noisemakers, confetti to throw -- everything to get them into the most gay mood -- then rise and make a speech. Start out by telling them you have been making a big mistake. You have not treated them right, and they have not treated customers right -- but you never realized it before, and probably they didn't either. Then tell them immediately that you are announcing a substantial raise in salaries for EVERYBODY. Tell them that from now on THEY MUST SMILE while waiting on customers. They must be alert. You intend to treat them right from now on, and they must treat customers right -- or you'll get salespeople who will. You'll probably be paying the highest salaries in town. THEY HAVE TO SELL ENOUGH GOODS TO EARN IT -- at a lower percent of sales than present salaries! If they don't, your high salaries will attract the best salespeople, and those who do not respond will be fired."

He said he would do it if I would come to the party, and sit by his side to bolster him up, and make a speech myself.

The party was held. It had an electric effect. "Now," I said to the manager, "hereafter you must personally stand by the front door between 4 and 6 each afternoon, greeting customers yourself with a smile, and being sure they are promptly waited on."

Next afternoon about 4:15 I dropped in. There he was, trying to bow and smile stiffly at incoming customers. Quickly I drew him to one side.

"No, No!" I exclaimed. "That will never do! You are acting like you never smiled before -- like your heart is not in it. LOOK at those fine people coming in here. THEY ARE CUSTOMERS! They are coming to SPEND MONEY with you. DON'T YOU LIKE THEM?

He did, but he had never thought of them in that light before. With a little coaching, he began to realize how much he did LIKE these people. He began to smile a natural smile, like he meant it!

After six weeks, this store began really BIG-space advertising, with the slogans I had suggested -- something like "MOST PROMPT AND INTERESTED SERVICE IN AMES." Or, "Where, you receive quick, attentive, interested SERVICE WITH A SMILE!'

I heard later from traveling salesmen who made Ames regularly that this store had more than doubled its sales volume in six months. Also an Ames shoe store, which had come in for some special criticism and correction. The newspaper DOUBLED its advertising volume.

That was my kind of salesmanship. The newspaper paid a fee of $500, and doubled the size of its business. The merchants found what was wrong with them, and doubled their business. The customers got better service, and were happy. EVERYBODY benefitted! Unless everybody does benefit, salesmanship is not honest! But not many salesmen know that, or the secret of intelligent and PRACTICAL salesmanship!

Next I went to Forrest Geneva, then advertising manager of both the Des Moines Register and the Evening Tribune. He had worked in want ads on the Register at the same time I did on the Capital, and we were old friends.

The Des Moines Register was rated (I think still is) one of the ten really great newspapers of the United States. It has a state-wide circulation, and is delivered in nearly all parts of the state early the same morning of publication.

BUT the Register was not getting the big department store advertising in Des Moines. This is the biggest part of the advertising revenue of any newspaper. It actually meant multiple millions of dollars to the Register to be able to carry the big-space store advertising.

"Forrest," I said, "the one most important thing in this world to the Register is to be able to crack through the barrier and carry the department store business -- and all the other larger stores. I CAN DO THE JOB FOR YOU. I can crack down that stone wall and get you the big-store business."

After I had explained in detail the method of the surveys, and how I proposed a state-wide survey, to show how the Des Moines stores already were drawing a tremendous volume of trade from local stores in other smaller towns and cities all over the state, and how a campaign in the Register, with its STATE-WIDE circulation, which was tremendous, would greatly increase their out-of-town business as well as the Des Moines business, Mr. Geneva expressed his confidence that my method would accomplish the result. Only one dominant morning newspaper, as I remember, in all U.S. major cities, was carrying the local department store advertising. That was the Chicago Tribune.

"Herb," he said, "I believe you have the idea that will do the job. Give me a few days to take this up with the officers higher up. I'm really enthusiastic over the idea."

A few days later I returned. "We want you," said Mr. Geneva. "But we have run into a certain situation. As you know, I am advertising manager over both papers. We also have an advertising manager for each paper, under me. Right now we have no advertising manager for the Register. I cannot get the management to approve the addition at this time of both a new advertising manager and you as a special expert. They want you to fill BOTH jobs."

"But Forrest," I protested, "I would be tied down with the executive job of managing the work of your eight advertising solicitors on the Register, besides all the specialized work of the survey."

"Right," we agreed. "But that will kill everything. I am not an executive. I can't manage the work of others. I'm like a lone wolf. I have to do my own work in my own way. I often work in streaks. When I'm 'on' I know I'm good. But on the off days I couldn't sell genuine gold bricks for a dime. I'd have daily reports to make out, and that's one thing I just never have been able to do. I'd get way behind on the reports."

"Look, Herb," he came back. "I know you will make good on the executive job. I won't let you fail. If you run into a lapse, or your reports are not in, I'll stay down myself evenings and do that part of your work for you. No one will ever know."

But I had no confidence in my ability to direct the work of eight men, and make out daily reports. So I turned down the offer to become advertising manager of a great newspaper.

I was to learn much later, beginning with 1947 when Ambassador College was founded, that I could become an executive and direct the operations and work of many hundreds of employees, besides doing about seven men's jobs myself. And long before that I learned to overcome lapses and streaks. But, had I taken that job I might be there today -- an employee on a newspaper, instead of directing the most important activity on earth. We might have averted several following years of financial hardship. But I know now, in the light of events -- "the FRUITS," that I was being prepared for this Work and was being brought down to the depths of defeat and frustration until I would give up the false god of seeking status out of vanity.

The remainder of that summer, and through the following winter, I put on a survey for a local weekly paper in Indianola, and worked part time writing advertising for local merchants. But most of the time was devoted to working with my brother-in-law on his oratory. We wrote a new oration for the following year, which involved many experiences, although, having won, he was not eligible to enter again at Simpson College.

I was beginning to bog down in the mire. My wife was worried. We were in a rut. I didn't seem to be selling more surveys to daily newspapers. Mrs. Armstrong knew we needed some change to jolt us out of the rut. My parents were living in Salem, Oregon. A complete change of environment might get me started again.

In the late winter of 1923-24, she began to suggest the idea of a summer trip to visit my parents and family in Oregon. "But, Loma," I protested, "we can't afford a vacation trip like that."

But, she had it all planned. We would go in Walter's Model T Ford. We would take a tent and camp out nights. We would prepare our own food, avoiding restaurant costs. She would ask her sister Bertha to go along, paying her share, thus helping enough with expenses to make the trip possible. Bertha was teaching school, and had a regular income. I had earned some money and we still had a little. Along the way, I would contact newspapers and line up surveys for the future -- thus getting a foundation laid for a future business.

My wife knew I liked to travel. I had been over most of the United States, but never yet as far west as the Rocky Mountains. A trip to the coast -- seeing my parents and family again -- was really intriguing.

Walter and Bertha were swayed by her persuasion. In the meantime, about March 1, 1923, my father-in-law had moved from the farm he was renting from a brother-in-law, sold his stock, and bought a small-town general store at Sandyville, only a few miles distant.

I began to make preparations for our trip. On the second floor above my father-in-law's store was a sort of cabinet-making shop. I had taken manual training in high school. So I began to work out a design and to make folding wooden cots and canvas tops for our trip. Later we purchased a used tent of the type that fastened over the top of the car, so that the car formed one end of the tent. We procured a secondhand portable gasoline stove.

The morning of June 16, 1924, we piled the two seats of the Model T high with bedding. We put our suitcases between the front fenders and the hood. The folded tent, boxes of food, the rest of the bedding, the folded cots, the portable stove, and all the rest of our earthly belongings were piled on a rack on the left running board high up on the side of the car. There were no trunks on the rear of Model T's.

How we piled all this stuff on that little car I can't conceive now, but we did -- and an extra spare tire or two besides!

I had said to a friend of my wife, previously, "We'll be back in the fall." But when I wasn't listening, my wife told her: "That's what he thinks -- but we are not coming back!"

So, "D-Day" had arrived, the morning of June 16, 1924! ("D" for Departure.) Walter cranked up the Model T, and we were off for Oregon. One thing we had on the car was air-conditioning. Except for the luggage piled high up the left side, it was all air -- open air. The closed cars, except for very expensive limousines, had not yet come out of Detroit. But we had side curtains to button up in case of rain.

In case of RAIN, did I say? Yes, as, unhappily, we were to experience that very night! We had reached Greenwood, Iowa, the first day out, and pitched our tent beside the car -- with Mrs. Armstrong and me, our two little daughters -- Beverly, age 6, and Dorothy Jane, age almost 4 -- Walter and Bertha Dillon -- all trying to sleep on those flimsy, swaying folding cots I had made.

And then the rains came! We soon discovered the tent leaked! Hurriedly we arose from our rickety cots, delved into the food and utensil box, procured our one wash pan and a fry pan and a stew pan, to catch the leaking drips. There was little sleep. In Iowa, you know, there are sharp and blinding flashes of lightning, followed by deafening claps of thunder when it rains.

For three days and three nights we were marooned there. In those days there were no cross-country paved highways. We were traveling on Iowa mud roads.

Finally, we decided to make a try over the still muddy roads. A try is what we made. Just outside town the car skidded in the mud, and two wheels bogged down hub-deep. Walter and I started out slogging through the mud to the nearest farm house. An obliging farmer hitched up a team and pulled us out.

We managed to keep chugging along until we reached Silver City, Iowa, near Council Bluffs. Later, as we proceeded farther west, we found roads more gravel than mud. Once on dry roads we were able to amble along at a steady gait of between 18 and 20 miles per hour -- when we were not stopped by some new trouble, which was much of the time.

Most days we awoke by 5 a.m., breakfasted, the women made sandwiches for noon lunch -- there could be no stopping through the day -- we packed everything back on the car, and climbed up on those bedding-covered seats with the car cranked up by 6 a.m.

Most days we drove until nearly dark -- allowing time to get the tent pitched and staked, cots and bedding arranged, and dinner cooked before it became too dark to see. We did carry a kerosene lantern. Walter and I took turns driving. We generally managed to negotiate about 200 miles in a twelve or fourteen hour day of driving.

At night we stopped at camp grounds, provided at every town in those days. That was before the days of motels or trailer-camps. Tourists all carried their own tents and camping equipment. Every town along the way had its tent city which usually filled up by sundown. These camps provided water and sanitary facilities -- of a kind. As we journeyed farther west a few cabins began to appear at some of the camp grounds. These were bare one-room, unpainted board cabins. Some had rickety old beds and metal springs -- but not mattresses or bedding or linen, and little, if any furniture. There might have been an old wooden chair.

Our first stop after leaving Greenwood was Silver City, Iowa. My wife's uncle, Tom Talboy, owned a drugstore in Silver City. We drove to the store.

"I don't know which one you are," said her Uncle Tom approaching my wife, "but I do know you're a Talboy!"

Mrs. Armstrong's mother was Isabelle Talboy before marriage. There are definite "Talboy" characteristics, and Mrs. Armstrong has them written all over her face. The Talboy family came from England. My wife's great-grandfather, Thomas Talboy, came to the United States from England somewhere near the middle of the 19th century, and started the first woolen mill in the Middle West -- at least west of the Mississippi -- in Palmyra, Iowa. At that time Palmyra was larger than Des Moines. There was no Des Moines -- except Ft. Des Moines. The woolen mill grew and the town grew with it. But today there is no Palmyra -- except a few farmhouses.

My wife's grandfather, Benjamin Talboy, was a lad of 18 when he came from England with his father, Thomas. He and his wife, Martha, whom my wife as a little girl called "little curly-haired Grandma," reared a sizeable and successful family of nine, of whom Isabelle was one of three daughters. "Uncle Tom," the druggist, as my wife called him, was named for his grandfather Thomas.

We visited the "Uncle Tom" family for a day. Grandpa Benjamin Talboy was living there, age 93. "Little curly-haired Grandma" had died at 84. She had always warned my wife against Grandpa Benjamin. He, she affirmed solemnly, was an atheist. My wife warned me against listening to him. But later we learned that he had dared to look into the Bible for himself, and, discovering these teachings diametrically contrary to the accepted popular version of "Christianity," had rejected the "Christianity." Later we learned that he was probably more of a true Christian, in belief if not in deeds, than his well-meaning little wife!

At Fremont, Nebraska, I took out time to contact the daily newspaper office. Another survey was tentatively lined up for the fall, on our return. But this newspaper call consumed a half day, and we decided not to take out any more time for newspaper calls along the way. Everybody aboard was anxious to reach Oregon.

It was at about this juncture that our tire troubles began. These tire troubles seemed to multiply, the farther we traveled. They were an excellent training in patience! We had puncture after puncture -- blowout after blowout. There were eight of them within one mile on one occasion! We carried a repair kit and patched our own inner tubes. We carried along a few "boots" to plug up blowout holes in casings. Many hours were spent along the drab, dusty roadsides, one wheel jacked up, kneeling beside it, fixing tires.

We bought several used tires -- we could not afford new ones -- and these usually blew out about five miles out of town -- just too far to go back and express our minds to the dealer who sold them!

We made an overnight stop in Central City, Nebraska, at the home of my uncle Rollin R. Wright. His son, John, was one of the two cousins (on my mother's side of the family) I had visited so often as a boy. The Wrights had then lived at Carlisle, Iowa, where my uncle Rollin was an insurance agent. He is the one who gave me and "Johnny" a good sound spanking that time when he caught us shooting off a .22 revolver. John was, within a day, one year younger than I. Now the Wrights were operating a dairy in Central City. It is always somewhat exciting to visit relatives you have not seen for several years. Next morning I went on the milk route with John. Today he is a minister in the Friends Church and has visited us a few times in Pasadena.

It seems we got as far as Grand Island, Nebraska, before our next vexation. We had made a temporary stop under shade trees because of the intense heat. Little Dorothy Jane, almost four, took off one of her shoes and laid it on the right running board, from where it fell to the ground. The loss was not discovered until we had traveled too far to return to search for it. The child had to travel the remaining days of our journey with only one shoe. To buy new shoes on this trip was not within our means.

We made an overnight stop in Ogalalla, where I had intended to visit the other of these two cousins I had grown up with -- Bert Morrow. He had been running some tourist cabins there, but had moved before our arrival.

It was somewhere along western Nebraska that we encountered something worse than a rainstorm. A driving sandstorm came up. The road became so clouded we could not see to drive. We had to pull over to the side of the road, button up the curtains on the Model-T, cover our heads with bedding to keep sand out of our hair, and remain marooned there until the storm subsided.

I SHALL never forget my first view of the Rocky Mountains from a distance. While I had traveled the Alleghenies and the Blue Mountains in the east, I had never seen any really high mountains. I had always wondered what they would look like. They seemed very lofty and awe-inspiring to me.

We drove several miles out of our way in order to dip down into the state of Colorado, before we entered Wyoming. We wanted to be able to say we had been in that state. At Cheyenne we drove up hill to the north end of town to the largest camp we had seen.

But by this time all my hand-made wooden folding cots had broken down, and the canvas tops had split down the middle. We threw them away. From Cheyenne on, we slept on the ground.

In the higher altitudes the nights became so cold we were forced to spread the bed covers on the ground inside the tent, making one long bed. All six of us lined up side by side in that one bed on the ground, to keep each other warm.

At Evanston, Wyoming, the car broke down. We were detained there 1½ days while it was fixed in a garage.

During our journey across Wyoming, Dorothy's arm was bitten by a spider. It swelled up, and she was taken to a doctor. It must have been about this time that we had to telegraph my father to wire us additional funds. We had run out of food, gasoline, and money. Dorothy's arm had to be soaked in hot Epsom-salts water, and held high continually. Mrs. Armstrong, Bertha, and I had to take turns, on one day's driving, holding that arm, lest it hang down.

We stopped off one full day in Salt Lake City. Walter and I played some tennis on public courts near the camping grounds -- we were carrying our tennis rackets with us. We took the guided tour around the Mormon grounds and through the Tabernacle.

At Weiser, Idaho, we visited a day and a half with the families of two of my wife's uncles, Benjamin and Walter Talboy. Walter later held a high government position in Idaho, and once ran for governor.

Leaving Weiser in the late afternoon, we were winding around the "figure eight" sharp curves of the highway following the course of the Snake River. Suddenly, my wife cried out:

"I'm afraid to go further! For the past hour I've been having a terrible premonition of danger! I can't explain it -- but I just can't keep it to myself any longer."

"That's strange," exclaimed Walter. "I didn't want to say anything -- but I've been fighting off the same feeling."

That was enough for all of us. It seemed foolish, in a way. Yet we were afraid to go on. We turned back toward Weiser.

"I'm simply too nervous to drive any further," explained Walt. I took over the wheel. Just before entering Weiser, on a short down-hill slope, I made the horrifying discovery that our brakes had gone out! There were no brakes. There was no reverse! I drove the car into a garage. We were kept one more night at the Talboy relatives in Weiser. Had we not heeded those premonitions, we might have been killed crashing down steep mountain grades around sharp curves without brakes. Later we learned that at the precise hour my wife and Walter had been having their premonitions, my mother in Salem, Oregon, was also disturbed by a terrible premonition concerning our safety. It had grown so strong on her she was forced to remove her hands from the dishwater, and go to a bedroom to pray for our safety! I do not try to explain this. I am merely recording what actually happened!

Finally, July 3, we made our last homestretch lap from Pendleton, Oregon. That was a long day's drive in a Model T. But that night, after dark, we arrived at my father's home in Salem, Oregon, on the eve of July 4.

We had been 18 days on the way. It was fast traveling compared to the covered wagon days. Yet, today you can travel from New York to Los Angeles -- coast to coast -- in 4½ hours, by scheduled passenger JET plane! Allowing for the time difference, if I leave New York at 5 in the evening, after a full day of business conferences with radio stations and our overseas advertising agents, I can arrive in Los Angeles about 6:30 the same evening!

Few people realize the rapid pace at which this world is traveling today -- toward its own DESTRUCTION! It is time we slow down to realize HOW FAR this machine age -- atomic age -- space age has plummeted us in these few short years since 1924!

I had not seen my father, my youngest brother Dwight, or my sister Mary, for twelve years! Dwight and his twin sister Mary had been eight years old when they moved to the west. Now they were twenty.

But the biggest change of all was in my father. In 1912, when I was only twenty, I had felt rather sorry for my father. At that time I knew so much more than he! But I was simply amazed at how much my father had learned in those 12 years. It seems most young men know more than Dad, but they grow out of it later. I could see, now, that he knew more than I! Now I had to look up to my father with respect!

He had a nice home which he had planned and built. It was paid for. He didn't owe any man a cent. He had a comfortable salary as a heating engineer. When we found ourselves out of money on the way out -- buying extra tires and such things -- he had immediately wired me $200.

How many young men, getting to "know it all" from age 16 to 20, have to wait until in their middle thirties to learn how much they ought to respect their fathers! And my father was a GOOD man. He never smoked. He never drank, never used profanity. He never took advantage of another man! I honor and respect his memory. He died in April, 1933, in his 70th year.

After a few weeks' visit with my folks, we drove to Portland to visit my wife's "Uncle Dick" Talboy, an attorney. Our elder son, Richard David, was named after him. He was an Oregon pioneer, having migrated from Iowa first in 1905. He attended Stanford University in California in 1906 and 1907. He returned to Des Moines to finish his law course at Drake University in 1907, returning to Oregon in 1913. It has been his home ever since.

The very next day Mr. Talboy had to transact some legal business at the courthouse in Vancouver, Washington -- just across the interstate bridge from Portland. He invited me to go along. I had not yet been in the state of Washington, and was anxious to add one more state to my list.

Just as we emerged from the bridge, in Vancouver, I saw the plant of the local daily newspaper, The Columbian.

I asked if I might not hop out right there and contact the newspaper regarding a survey while Mr. Talboy went on to the Court House.

The owner and editor was on a vacation at Seaside, but the Business Manager, Samuel T. Hopkins -- who was later to become a business partner of mine -- was in. Enthusiastic over the survey idea, he felt sure Mr. Herbert Campbell, the owner, would be interested on his return. I said I would call back the following week. We were welcome to remain and visit at the home of my wife's uncle. The following week, I found Mr. Campbell as interested in the survey idea as Mr. Hopkins.

"I have only one objection," he said. "I believe it is going to take a man of your specialized merchandising and advertising experience to follow it up and make it pay. We have no such man here. Now what I want to know is, can a newspaper of our size afford to employ a man of your experience and ability permanently?"

Here was a ludicrous paradox. Here I was, down and out financially, my clothes now threadbare. And here was a newspaper publisher asking if he could afford to employ me! Yet I had had a training and specialized experience such as comes to few men. I had taken a severe beating by the Chicago debacle, but I still had the cocky and confident manner. I spoke with a tone of knowing what I was talking about. Evidently this impressed Mr. Campbell sufficiently that did not notice my rather run-down appearance.

The answer came like a flash. "No, you cannot!" I said positively. This was a challenge. Herbert Campbell was cocky, "Well, I think we CAN! How much is it going to cost us?" I had to think fast. Was I going to turn down a survey, because I felt too important to take a permanent job on a small city newspaper? I made a quick compromise proposition.

"Tell you what I'll do," I shot back. "I'll put on the survey for a flat fee of $500. That will take a week or ten days. Then I will stay on your staff as a merchandising specialist for six months only, at a salary of $100 per week. Take it or leave it!"

"O.K. I'll take it," he snapped. I had my wife's uncle draw up a legal contract, which he signed a day or so later.

I rented a house in Vancouver, and started on the survey. Pulling a Clothier Out of the Red

About the time we started on the survey in Vancouver, Walter and Bertha Dillon, my wife's brother and sister started in the Model T their return trip to Iowa; Walter to enter his Junior year at Simpson College, and Bertha for another year of school teaching.

This time Mrs. Armstrong took part in the survey, and proved very adept at eliciting confidential information from housewives of their attitudes and feelings toward Vancouver stores.

The survey soon was completed, together with a complete typed summary of all data, interviews, and tabulations of statistics, as well as an analysis of conditions and recommendations.

With this data, I began counselling with merchants about individual merchandising problems.

One clothing store, for example, was running in the red. The owner asked if I could help him. I insisted on full access to his books and all information. Finally he consented.

The survey had uncovered special facts about customer attitude toward this store. One line this store carried was Hart Schaffner & Marx clothes. I knew that this firm was prepared to extend considerable dealer-help. At my request they sent a qualified representative to counsel with me and this merchant.

A new policy was inaugurated. Certain changes were made. Until now this store had not carried the more snappy styles young men liked. The owner, past middle age, had bought the older men's styles of his personal liking. I induced him to trust the Hart Schaffner & Marx representative fully with selections in ordering.

Also I recommended that he stock in addition snappiest young men's styles in a less expensive line.

Then we began a big-space advertising campaign in the Columbian. I wrote and laid out all his ads. I induced him to spend 7% of sales in this advertising campaign.

"But," he protested, "You have shown me that Harvard Bureau of Business Research figures show that no retail clothing store ought to spend more than 4% for advertising."

"That's right," I explained, "but this big-space advertising will quickly build up your volume. The amount, in dollars, spent in advertising will remain the same. But, as sales volume increases, the advertising expenditure will become an increasingly smaller percentage of sales." Also I explained to him it might take six months before his total expenditures would go below his total income, and his books would get out of the red.

It took a lot of courage. But it was a matter of accept my program or go bankrupt. He finally agreed.

It did take about six months. Twice before that time he lost his nerve and wanted to quit. Twice more I talked him into staying with it. At the end of six months his business was showing a profit. The sales continued to increase. So did his merchandising turnover. And likewise his profits. Finally he was able to sell his store at a substantial profit.

Soon I became virtually advertising manager for a leading hardware store, the largest department-drug store, a furniture store, a jewelry store, a dry-goods store, and others.

But my most important client turned out to be the local laundry. The general survey had brought out some startling facts about the laundry situation. I wanted more facts. So a further separate survey was made to get the facts and more definitely learn customer-attitude toward laundries.

I found that very few housewives entrusted their family wash to the laundry. We unearthed many suspicions. Many women assured me that laundries use harsh acids and chemicals which ruin clothes. This, I soon found, was not true.

"They shrink clothes," said scores and scores of women. "They fade colored things," women assured me. "How do you know?" both Mrs. Armstrong and I began asking women we interviewed. "Has the laundry ruined your things -- have your colored clothes been faded or your woolens shrunk?"

"Oh mercy, No!" they would reply. "Why, I would never think of sending my things to the laundry."

"Then how do you know the laundry mistreats things in this manner?" we would ask.

"Oh, I just know! Why, everybody knows how terrible laundries are on clothes," would come the confident answer.

Scores of women said laundries would lose things and refuse to make good the losses. "The laundries will never make an adjustment or settle a claim," women assured us.

Then I investigated conditions at the Vancouver Laundry, owned by a man of my name, J. J. C. Armstrong, no relation. Actually, I found that conditions were precisely the opposite of the general public conception.

The laundry washed clothes with a neutral chip soap -- I think that particular laundry used Palmolive, a gentle facial soap. To add alkaline strength, without injury to clothes, they used an expensive soap builder -- a controlled alkali, which could not harm a baby's tenderest skin, could not injure sheerest silks or finest table linens, and yet possessed the strength to get greasiest overalls spotlessly clean. This harmless but effective soap builder was not available to consumers on the retail market. It was sold only in barrel quantities direct to laundries. It was the result of then recent and specialized scientific research, manufactured by one of the largest corporations in the laundry industry, a subsidiary of the Aluminum Corporation of America (ALCOA).

Through Mr. J. J. C. Armstrong I met a laundry chemist, Robert H. Hughes, a special technical representative of this company, the Cowles Detergent Company of Cleveland, Ohio. Mr. Hughes explained to me the chemistry of laundering -- why we use SOAP to wash our hands, faces, or clothes.

It's a very fascinating story. Did you ever wonder what causes particles of dirt to cling to clothes -- why clothes become soiled? Did you ever wonder how SOAP removes dirt?

Naturally, dirt would fall off clothes instead of attaching itself to cloth, were it nor for the fact that an acid, or oil or grease, even in slightest amount, is present. This acid holds the dirt to the cloth. Laundries did not use acids, as so many people seemed to believe. There is acid already present on the clothes, else they would not become soiled.

Chemically, matter is either acid, alkali or neutral. These are chemical opposites.

Soap is made from two substances -- fatty acid (oil or fat), and alkali. But alkali, if used alone, would injure and rot cloth. So in the soap factory the two substances, fatty acid and alkali, are mixed by a process called saponification. This converts the two into a new substance, which is neither acid nor alkali, but which we call SOAP.

If the soap be completely pure -- a prominent soap used for faces and even babies is advertised as 99 and 44/100% pure -- there is no free alkali in it. All the alkali has combined with the oil, tallow, or fat, and has been converted into soap. The alkaline content is now utterly harmless. Yet it has an alkaline action that will dissolve the acid that glues dirt to your skin or your clothes, so that the dirt is flushed off in the rinsing.

But a pure facial soap is not sufficiently alkaline to loosen the acid on badly soiled clothes. Therefore soap makers at the time of this story put a certain excess amount of alkali in the laundry soaps sold in stores to housewives. This excess alkali was called free alkali. It was not controlled, or neutralized, in the soap. Alkali is chemically a crystalline substance. In other words, it dilutes into and becomes part of the water. In clothes-washing, it soaks into the fiber meshes of the garment. Rinsing cannot remove it -- it merely dilutes it. The soap and the dirt are flushed away in the rinsing -- but the free alkali remains inside the fiber of the cloth. In the drying process it tends to eat or rot the cloth. It would even destroy shoe leather!

Now WHY does not a pure soap injure the cloth? The answer is that, chemically, soap is a colloidal substance. In solution, or emulsion, it breaks up into thousands of tiny particles. But it does not become part of the water. Its thousands of minute particles discolor the water, float around in the water. In the agitation or rubbing of clothes-washing, the tiny soap particles are flushed in between the fiber meshes of the garment or cloth, but never soak into the fibers. They dissolve the acid, thus loosening the dirt. The agitation breaks up the dirt into tiny particles, loosened from the cloth. The tiny colloidal soap particles have a chemical affinity for the tiny dirt particles, which means the dirt particles cling to the soap particles. The rinsing flushes them away. Even if all the soap were not rinsed off, the alkali is not free but controlled by the soap, and could not eat or rot or harm the cloth.

This scientific soap builder sold by the Cowles Detergent Company contained great alkaline strength, but it was chemically in colloidal form, not crystalline, and the alkali was as completely controlled as in a 100% pure soap. Therefore it could not harm silks, woolens, or the sheerest, daintiest fabrics, although, it had the strength to wash clean the greasiest overalls. Also it restored colors, brought them out newer and sharper than before.

Since those days, however, there has been a complete revolution in the manufacture of clothes-washing detergents sold to housewives. Whether our big-space advertising of the dangers of the free-alkali laundry soaps to clothes then sold for home washing machines had bearing on it, I do not know.

But the chemists on the staffs of leading soap and detergent manufacturers have developed new synthetic detergents. Few housewives, if any, use soap in their home washing machines today. The first household synthetic detergent on the market was Dreft, produced by Proctor & Gamble, in 1933. Colgate came out with Vel later in the 30's. Since, there have been many developments in the field of synthetic detergents. They are not yet perfect or foolproof, but chemists have not yet exhausted the possibilities of improvement.

Our campaigns were in the early days of the home washing machine. These home washers were crude, compared to today's product. In our ads, and in special booklets, we "figured it out" and convinced many housewives it was less costly to send the family wash to the laundry.

I began to write big-space ads for this laundry. Armed with complete information of customer attitude and complete factual and scientific information about laundry processes, I was able to assure housewives that their sheerest, daintiest fabrics were actually SAFER at the laundry than in their own hands at home.

Soon these ads became an item of conversation among Vancouver women. It took time to dispel suspicions and build confidence. But gradually the laundry business began to increase.

Before this campaign, laundry business had consisted mainly of men's shirts, and hotel business. But now the family bundle business gradually began coming to the laundry.

I found that the laundry industry was twelfth in size among American industries -- yet, in aggressive methods, and advertising and merchandising, it was the least "alive," and the most backward and undeveloped. I sensed, here, a tremendous field for a new advertising business.

I began to develop plans for a personalized, yet syndicated advertising service for leading laundries -- one client in each city.

I learned that not all laundries were using as advanced methods as this Vancouver Laundry. Some laundries were still using as a soap builder plain caustic soda -- free alkali. Some lacked efficiency methods of operation. Many were guilty of haggling with customers over claims of losses or injury, and of refusing to make losses good.

I had become closely acquainted with R. H. Hughes and his reputation among laundry owners as the leading laundry chemist and expert on production methods on the West Coast.

So, Mr. Hughes and I formed a partnership. As soon as my six months' tenure with the Vancouver Columbian expired, we set out to establish a new business as a merchandising and advertising service for leading laundries.

I moved my family to Portland. I would start off every campaign with a local merchandising survey, to determine the local customer attitude. We would accept no client unless the laundry owner would give Mr. Hughes complete latitude and authority within his plant, to install the latest scientific methods and equipment, eliminate lost motion, and speed up efficiency.

I had to be able to make big claims in the advertising. The client had to be able to deliver what the ads promised. The client had to agree to settle every claim without a question -- the customer was ALWAYS to be right in any complaint.

The general appeal of the ads was syndicated -- the same for all laundries. Yet certain factors peculiar to each local laundry were altered to comply with that particular client's conditions. We ran two large-space ads each week for each client.

The new business started with great promise. Soon we had as clients leading laundries in Eugene, Corvallis, Albany, Salem, McMinnville, Oregon City, and Portland, Oregon; and in Seattle, Spokane, Tacoma, Ellensburg, Walla Walla, Olympia, Centralia, Chehalis, and Vancouver, Washington.

In six months the business volume of some of these laundries doubled. Our advertising and merchandising service was winning big results for clients.

No matter how many clients we should acquire, I had only one general advertising IDEA to think up and write for the entire number. The new business promised to grow to be a national, universally used service.

This would mean, in another two or three years, an income larger than I had ever before contemplated. Already our fees were grossing close to $1,000 a month. They appeared to promise to rise between $50,000 and $100,000 per month within two or three more years. I began to see visions of a personal net income of $300,000 to a half million dollars a year!

And then -- the bottom fell out! And through no fault or cause of our making. There was one unusual condition peculiar to the laundry industry. They were highly organized in their Laundryowners National Association.

Some bright advertising man, in an advertising agency in Indianapolis, Indiana, put over on the Laundryowners National Association a $5,000,000 advertising campaign for the entire industry -- the entire amount to be spent by this agency in the big-circulation national women's magazines, such as Ladies' Home Journal, McCall's, Good Housekeeping, etc. The campaign was to run three or more years. The Association was to pay for it by assessing each laundry-owner member within ½ of 1% of the maximum percent of sales volume a laundry could safely spend in advertising.

Every one of our customers was taxed by this campaign up to the limit they could safely spend. They had no alternative except to cancel out all their own private local advertising. Our field was literally swept out from under our feet.

In Chicago I had built a publishers' representative business that brought me an income equivalent to well more than $50,000 a year or more before I was thirty. The flash depression of 1920 had swept away all my major clients, and with them my business.

Now, with a new business of much greater promise, all my clients were suddenly removed from possibility of access, through powers and forces entirely outside of my control.

It seemed, indeed, as if some INVISIBLE and MYSTERIOUS HAND were causing the earth to simply swallow up whatever business I started.

Soon every laundry client had been forced to drop all local advertising except one. I still had the account of one of the two largest laundries in Portland, running one ad a week in the Portland Oregonian. This supplied an income of $50 per month.

But $50 per month was not enough to pay house rent, and provide food and clothing for our family. We began to buy beans and such food as would provide maximum bulk and nourishment on minimum cost.

One time, a couple days before my monthly $50 check was due, we were behind in our rent, completely out of groceries except for some macaroni -- we did not even have a grain of salt in the house; our gas and electricity had been shut off. We had a small heating stove in the living room, and nothing but old magazines for fuel.

My morale was fast descending to subbasement. I was not so cocky or self-confident now. It seemed almost as if I was being "softened" for a knock-out blow of some kind.

Some little time prior to this, we had been visiting my parents in Salem. My wife had become acquainted with an elderly neighbor lady, Mrs. Ora Runcorn. Mrs. Runcorn was an avid student of the Bible.

Before our marriage my wife had been quite interested in Bible study. She had been for years an active Methodist.

After marriage, although she had not lost her interest in the Christian life and the Bible, she had not had the same opportunity to express it, or participate in religious fellowship with others. While we lived in Maywood, suburb of Chicago, we had joined the River Forest Methodist Church. The fellowship there had been more social than spiritual or Biblical.

But all Mrs. Armstrong's active interest in things Biblical was reawakened when she became acquainted with Mrs. Runcorn. One day Mrs. Runcorn gave her a Bible study. She asked my wife to turn to a certain passage and read it. Then a second, then a third, and so on for about an hour. Mrs. Runcorn made no comment -- gave no explanation or argument -- just asked my wife to read aloud a series of Biblical passages.

"Why!" exclaimed Mrs. Armstrong in amazement, "do all these Scriptures say that I've been keeping the wrong day as the Sabbath all my life?"

"Well, do they?" asked Mrs. Runcorn. "Don't ask me whether you have been wrong -- you shouldn't believe what any person tells you, but only what GOD tells you through the Bible. What does He tell you, there? What do you see there with your own eyes?"

"Why, it's as plain as anything could be!" exclaimed Mrs. Armstrong. "Why, this is a wonderful discovery. I must rush back to tell my husband the good news. I know he'll be overjoyed!"

A minute or so later, Mrs. Armstrong came running into my parents' home, with the "good news."

My jaw dropped! This was the worst news I had ever heard! My wife gone into religious fanaticism!

"Have you gone CRAZY?" I asked, incredulously. "Of course not! I was never more sure of anything in my life," responded my wife with enthusiasm.

Indeed, I wondered if she really had lost her mind! Deciding to "keep Saturday for Sunday!" Why, that seemed like rank FANATICISM! And my wife had always had such a sound mind! There was nothing shallow about her. She had always had a well-balanced mind, with depth.

But now, suddenly -- THIS! It seemed incredible -- preposterous! "Loma," I said sternly, "this is simply too ridiculous to believe! I am certainly not going to tolerate any such religious fanaticism in our family! You'll have to give that up right here and now!"

But she wouldn't! "Doesn't the Bible say that wives must be obedient to their husbands?" I asked.

It was amazing how many logical arguments came to my mind. But always she had the answer.

I felt I could not tolerate such humiliation. What would my friends say? What would former business acquaintances think? Nothing had ever hit me where it hurt so much -- right smack in the heart of all my pride and vanity and conceit! And this mortifying blow had to fall immediately on top of confidence-crushing financial reverses!

In desperation, I said: "Loma, you can't tell me that all these churches have been wrong all these hundreds of years! Why, aren't these all CHRIST'S churches?"

"Then," came back Mrs. Armstrong, "why do they all disagree on so many doctrines? Why does each one teach differently than the others?"

"But," I still contended, "Isn't the Bible the very source of the teaching of all these Christian churches? And they do all agree on observing Sunday! I'm sure the Bible says, 'Thou shalt keep SUNDAY!' "

"Well, does it?" smiled my wife, handing me a Bible. "Show it to me, if it does -- and I'll do what it says."

"I don't know where to find it. You know I'm no Bible student, I could never understand the Bible. But I know the Bible must command the observance of Sunday, because all the churches observe Sunday, except the Seventh-Day Adventists, and they're regarded as fanatics. The Sabbath was the day for the Jews."

I even threatened divorce, if my wife refused to give up this fanaticism, though in my heart I didn't really mean it. In our family divorce was a thing unheard of -- and beside, I was very much in love with my wife -- though at the moment I was boiling over with anger.

"If you can prove by the Bible that Christians are commanded to observe Sunday, then of course I'll do what I see in the Bible!"

This was her challenge. "O.K.," I answered, "I'll make you this proposition: I don't know much about the Bible -- I just never could seem to understand it. But I do have an analytical mind. I've become experienced in research into business problems, getting the facts and analyzing them. Now I'll make a complete and thorough study of this question in the Bible. All these churches can't be wrong. I'll prove to you in the Bible that you are mistaken!"

This was in the autumn of 1926. My business was gone -- all but the one laundry account in Portland, where we were living at the time. This one advertising account required only about 30 minutes a week of my time. I had TIME on my hands for this challenge.

And so it was that in the fall of 1926 -- crushed in spirit from business reverses not of my making -- humiliated by what I regarded as wifely religious fanaticism, that I entered into an in-depth study of the Bible for the first time in my life.

WE HAD MOVED TO the Pacific Northwest in the summer of 1924. My wife's brother, Walter Dillon, and her sister Bertha, had driven Walter's Model T Ford back to Iowa in August. Walter finished his junior year at Simpson College in Indianola, 1924-1925 school year, and Bertha continued teaching at the same school where she had taught before the Oregon trip.

During that third college year at Simpson, Walter had married a blonde girl of German background whose name was Hertha. In June, 1925, Walter and his young wife, together with Bertha and my wife's father, had returned to Oregon. With a new bride to support, it was necessary for Walter to go back to teaching school, as he had done before entering Simpson. Both he and Bertha obtained teaching jobs, and my father-in-law bought a small-town store.

During the following years, Walter attended summer sessions at the University of Oregon, and managed also to take, part of the time, some night extension courses at the university, in Portland. Walter kept this schedule, while teaching, until he earned his B.A. at the university, and later his M.A. He soon moved up to a principalship, and finally became principal at the largest grade school in Oregon, outside of Portland.

Walter's wife had been indoctrinated with the theory of evolution in college. One day she and I became engaged in a discussion. The evolutionary doctrine came into the conversation. I mentioned that I was not convinced of its validity.

"Herbert Armstrong, you are simply IGNORANT!" accused Hertha. Her words stabbed deeply into what was left of my ego. "One is uneducated, and ignorant, unless he believes in evolution. All educated people now believe it."

That accusation came hot on the heels of this Sabbath challenge from my wife. Of course, Hertha was only about 19, and had had but her freshman year in college. She was yet immature enough to be a bit oversold on what had been presented to her as a mark of intellectual distinction. Nevertheless, her manner was cutting, and a bit sarcastic, and I accepted it as a challenge.

"Hertha," I responded, "I am just starting a study of the Bible. I intend to include in this research a thorough study of the Biblical account of creation. Since it is admittedly one of the two -- evolution or special creation -- I will include an in-depth study of evolution. I feel sure that a thorough study into both sides will show that it is you who are ignorant, and that you merely studied one side of a two-sided question in freshman biology, and accepted what was funnelled into your mind without question. And if and when I do, I'm going to make you EAT those words!"

And so it developed that I now had a double challenge to go to work on -- a dual subject involving both the Biblical claims for special creation, and also a more in-depth study than before into texts on biology, geology, paleontology, and the various works on the theory of evolution.

Actually, this is simply the study into the TWO possibilities of origins. It threw me directly into an in-depth research of what is perhaps the most BASIC of all knowledge -- the very starting point in the acquisition of knowledge -- the search for the correct concept through which to VIEW all facts.

The two subjects -- or, rather, the two sides of the same subject of origins -- should be unprejudicially and objectively studied together, yet seldom are!

Most believers in the Bible and in the existence of God have probably just grown up believing it, because they were reared in an atmosphere where it was believed. But perhaps few ever studied into it deeply enough to obtain irrefutable PROOF.

Likewise, the educated, who have gone on through college or university, have, in the main, been taught the theory of evolution as a BELIEF. They have accepted it, in all probability, without having given any serious or thorough study of the Biblical claims.

I had come to the point where I wanted THE TRUTH! I now had the time on my hands. I was willing to pay the price of thorough and in-depth research to BE SURE!

The reader is reminded that I had chosen, instead of the university, the process of self-education, selecting my own courses of study. I had studied diligently, after leaving high school at age 18, and continuously up to this incident in 1926. But I was now entering on a field of research in which previous study had been minimal.

I began this intensified study by obtaining everything I could find in the way of books, pamphlets and other literature both for and against what was often called "the Jewish Sabbath." I wanted, not only everything I could lay hands on, on the case for Sunday, and against the 7th-day Sabbath. I wanted, also, the arguments or proponents for it, which I hoped to be able honestly to refute.

At the same time, I found, in the Portland Public Library, many scientific works either directly on evolution, or as a teaching in textbooks on biology, paleontology and geology. Also I found books by scientists and doctors of philosophy puncturing many holes in the evolutionary hypothesis. Strangely, even the critics of evolution, being themselves scientific men, paradoxically accepted the very theory they so ably refuted.

But, reading first the works of Darwin, Haeckel, Spencer, Huxley, Vogt, and more recent and modern authorities, the evolutionary postulate began to become very convincing.

It became apparent early that the real and thorough-going evolutionists universally agreed that evolution excluded the possibility of the existence of GOD! While some of the lesser lights professed a sort of fence-straddling theistic evolution, I soon learned that the real dyed-in-the-wool evolutionists all were atheists. Evolution could not honestly be reconciled with the first chapter of Genesis!

And so it came about that, very early in this study of evolution and of the Bible, actual doubts came into my mind as to the existence of God!

In a very real sense, this was a good thing. I had always assumed the existence of God because I had been taught it from childhood. I had grown up in Sunday school. I simply took it for granted.

Now, suddenly, I realized I had never PROVED whether there is a God. Since the existence of God is the very first BASIS for religious belief and authority -- and since the inspiration of the Bible by such a God as His revelation to mankind is the secondary and companion basis for faith and practice, I realized that the place to start was to PROVE whether God exists and whether the Holy Bible is His revelation of knowledge and information for mankind.

I had nothing but TIME on my hands. I rose early and STUDIED. Most mornings I was standing at the front entrance of the Public Library when its doors were opened. Most evenings I left the Library at 9 p.m., closing time. Most nights I continued study at home until my wife, at 1 a.m. or later, would waken from her sleep and urge me to break off and get to bed.

I delved into science. I learned the facts about radioactive elements. I learned how radioactivity proves there has been no past eternity of matter. There was a time when matter did not exist. Then there came a time when matter came into existence. This was CREATION, one of several proofs of GOD.

By the laws of science, including the law of bio-genesis, that only LIFE can beget life -- that dead matter cannot produce life -- that the living cannot come from the not-living, by these laws came PROOF that God exists. In the Bible I found one quoted, saying in the first person, "I am GOD." This God was quoted directly in Scriptures, proved to have been written hundreds of years before Christ, pronouncing the future fates of every major city and nation in the ancient world. I delved into HISTORY. I learned that these prophecies, in every instance (except in prophecies pertaining to a time yet future), had come to pass precisely as written!

I studied the creation account in the Bible. It is not all in Genesis 1. I studied it all! I studied evolution. At first the evolutionary theory seemed very convincing -- just as it does to freshmen students in most colleges and universities.

I noted evidences of comparative anatomy. But these evidences were not, in themselves, PROOF. They merely tended to make the theory appear more reasonable IF proved. I noted tests and discoveries of embryology. These, too, were not PROOF, but only supporting evidence IF evolution were proved.

I noticed that Lamarck's original theory of use and disuse, once accepted as science, had been laughed out of school. I learned that the once scientific spiral-nebular theory of the earth's existence had become the present-day laughing stock, supplanted by (in 1926) Professor Chamberlin's planetesimal hypothesis. I sought out the facts of Darwin's life. I learned the facts about his continual sickness -- about his preconceived theory and inductive process of reasoning in searching for such facts and arguments as would sustain his theory.

I researched the facts about his tour on the good ship Beagle. I read of how he admitted there were perplexing problems in his theories and in what he had written, but that he nevertheless continued to promulgate evolution. I learned how his colleagues glossed over these perplexing problems and propagandized his theory into scientific acceptance.

Then I came to the matter of the human mind. As far back as 1926 I was concerned about the vast GULF between animal brain and human mind. Could that gulf have been bridged by evolution? It appeared that, even if the evolutionary process were possible, in reality the TIME required to bridge this gulf in intellectual development would have been millions of times longer than what geology and paleontology would indicate.

But, most important, I knew that I, with my mind, am superior to anything my mind can devise, and that I can make. Likewise, it became axiomatic that nothing less than the intelligence of my mind could have produced something SUPERIOR to itself -- my mind! Of necessity, the very presence of human intellect necessitates a superior and greater Intellect to have designed, devised, and produced the human mind! It could not have been produced by natural causes, and resident forces, as evolution presupposes. Unintelligence could not produce intelligence superior to itself! Rational common sense demanded a Creator of SUPERIOR MIND!

I came to see that there was only one possible proof of evolution as a fact. That was the assumption that, in the study of paleontology, the most simple fossils were always in the oldest strata, laid down first; while, as we progress into strata of later deposition, the fossils found in them become gradually more complex, tending toward advancing intelligence.

That one claim, I finally determined, was the TRUNK of the tree of evolution. If the trunk stood, the theory appeared proved. If I could chop down the trunk, the entire tree would fall with it.

I began a search to learn HOW these scientists determined the age of strata. I was months finding it. None of the texts I searched seemed to explain anything about it. This TRUNK of the tree was carelessly assumed -- without proof.

Were the oldest strata always on the bottom -- the next oldest next to the bottom, the most recent on the top? Finally I found it in a recognized text on geology authored by Prof. Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin. No, sometimes the most recent were actually below the most ancient strata. The age of strata was not determined by stages of depth. The depth of strata varied in different parts of the world.

How, then, was the age of strata determined? Why, I finally discovered in this very reputable authority, their age was determined by the FOSSILS found in them. Since the geologists "knew" their evolutionary theory was true, and since they had estimated how many millions of years ago a certain fossil specimen might have lived, that age determined the age of the strata!

In other words, they ASSUMED the age of the strata by the supposition that their theory of evolution was true. And they "PROVED" their theory was true by the supposition of the progressive ages of the strata in which fossil remains had been found! This was arguing in a circle!

I wrote a short paper on this discovery. I showed it to the head librarian of the technical and science department of a very large library.

"Mr. Armstrong," she said, "you have an uncanny knack of getting right to the crux of a problem. Yes, I have to admit you have chopped down the trunk of the tree. You have robbed me of PROOF! But, Mr. Armstrong, I still have to go on believing in evolution. I have done graduate work at Columbia, at the University of Chicago, and other top-level institutions. I have spent my life in the atmosphere of science and in the company of scientific people. I am so STEEPED in it that I could not root it from my mind!"

I had disproved the theory of evolution. I had found PROOF of CREATION -- PROOF of the existence of GOD -- PROOF of the divine inspiration of the BIBLE.

Now I had a BASIS for belief. Now I had a solid FOUNDATION on which to build. The BIBLE had proved itself to contain AUTHORITY. I had now studied far enough to know that I must LIVE by it, and that I shall finally be JUDGED by it -- not by men, nor by man's church denominations, theories, theologies, tenets, doctrines, or pronouncements. I would be judged by Almighty GOD finally, and according to the BIBLE!

So now I began to study further into this Sabbath question. Of course I had procured all the pamphlets, books and booklets I could find in defense of Sunday observance, and purporting to refute the "Jewish Sabbath."

Especially I sought out eagerly everything claiming apostolic observance of Sunday as "the Christian Sabbath." Early in my study, I learned about the many Bible helps -- the concordances, which list alphabetically all the words used in the Bible, showing where they are used, and what Greek, Hebrew or Aramaic word was originally written -- the Bible Dictionaries, the Bible encyclopedias, the commentaries, etc., etc.

From the exhaustive concordances I soon learned that the command I sought, "Thou shalt keep Sunday," was nowhere to be found in the Bible. In fact the word "Sunday" was not used in the Bible. That surprised me.

I really became excited, however, when I learned that there are eight places in the New Testament where the phrase "first day of the week" appears. And I read eagerly arguments in tracts or booklets claiming that these established that the original apostles were holding their weekly worship services on "the first day of the week" -- which is Sunday.

But I became painfully disappointed on learning by more careful study, that there was not a single instance of a religious service being held on the hours we call Sunday -- Saturday midnight to Sunday midnight. The Apostle Paul, after spending a "Saturday" Sabbath with the church at Troas, preached to them Saturday night until midnight. But although, in the Biblical manner of ending each day and beginning the next at sunset, that was -- Biblically speaking -- on "the first day of the week," it was not Sunday, but Saturday night, lasting until Sunday began at midnight.

I was further disappointed in this case, when I discovered on careful study, that on that Sunday Paul indulged in the labor of walking some 19 miles to Assos. The others of Paul's company had sailed, beginning sunset when the Sabbath ended, around the peninsula, some 65 miles to Assos. By walking the 19 miles straight across, on Sunday, Paul had gained the extra time to continue speaking to the people Saturday night.

I found there is no command to observe Sunday. Sunday is nowhere called holy time, but to my chagrin, I found this "Jewish Sabbath" is, and is said to be holy to God. There was not even a single example of any religious meeting having been held on the hours called Sunday!

On the other hand, I had to learn, like it or not, that Jesus kept the Sabbath day "as His custom was," and the Apostle Paul kept it "as his manner was." Also Paul spent many Sabbath days preaching and holding weekly services, and in one instance the Gentiles waited a whole week in order to be able to come and hear Paul preach the same words on the following Sabbath!

I learned that CREATION is the very PROOF of GOD! A heathen comes along, pointing to an idol made by man's hands out of wood, stone or marble or gold.

"This idol is the real god," he says. "How can you prove your God is superior to this idol that I worship?"

"Why," I answer, "My God is the CREATOR. He created the wood, stone, marble or gold that your god is made of. He created MAN, and man, a created being, MADE that idol. Therefore my God is greater than your idol because it is only a particle of what my God MADE!

Another comes along and says, "I worship the SUN. We get our light from the sun. It warms the earth and makes vegetation grow. I think the SUN is God."

"But," I reply, "the true God CREATED the sun. He created light. He created force, energy, and LIFE. He makes the sun shine on the earth. He CONTROLS the sun, because He controls all the forces of His creation. He is supreme RULER over His universe."

Then I began to see that on the very seventh day of creation week, God set that day aside from other days. On that day He RESTED from all He had created by WORK. On that day he created the Sabbath, not by work, but by REST, putting His divine presence in it! He made it HOLY TIME. No man has authority to make future time holy. No group of men -- no church! Only GOD is HOLY! Only GOD can make things HOLY. The Sabbath is a constantly recurring space of time, marked off by the setting of the sun. God made every recurring Sabbath HOLY, and commanded man (Exodus 20) to keep it holy.

WHY did He do it? WHY does it make any difference? I found it in the SPECIAL SABBATH COVENANT in Exodus 31:12-18. He made it the SIGN between Him and His people. A SIGN is a mark of identity. First, it is a sign that GOD is the CREATOR, because it is a MEMORIAL OF CREATION -- the CREATION is the PROOF of God -- it identifies Him. No other space of time could be a memorial of CREATION. Thus God chose that very space of time for man to assemble for worship which KEEPS MAN IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE TRUE IDENTITY OF GOD AS THE CREATOR. Every nation which has NOT kept the Sabbath has worshipped the created rather than the Creator. It is a sign that identifies God's own people, because it is they who OBEY God in this commandment, while this is the very commandment which everyone else regards as the LEAST of the commandments -- which they REBEL against obeying!

GOD is the one you OBEY. The word LORD means MASTER -- the one you OBEY! This is the one point on which the largest number of people refuse to OBEY the true GOD, thus proving they are not His people!

I studied carefully everything I could obtain which attempted to refute the Sabbath. I wanted, more than anything on earth, to refute it -- to prove that SUNDAY was the true Christian Sabbath, or "Lord's Day."

I read the arguments about "law or grace." I was pointed to, and read, Romans 3:20: "Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight."

But I looked into the BIBLE, and found the pamphlet had left out the rest of the verse which says: "for by the law is the knowledge of sin." That is true, because I read in I John 3:4 that the Bible definition of SIN is NOT man's conscience, or his church "DON'TS," but "Sin is the transgression of the law." Naturally, then, the KNOWLEDGE of sin comes by the LAW.

"Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law."

I turned to my Bible and read the rest of the same verse: "for where no law is, there is no transgression." Of course! Because the law DEFINES sin. Sin is disobedience of the law!

I read in one of the pamphlets that the law was an evil thing, contrary to our best interests. But then I read in Romans 7: "Is the law sin? God forbid! Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said 'Thou shalt not covet.' " And "Wherefore the law is HOLY, and the commandment holy, and just, and good." And again, "For we know that the law is spiritual" (verses 7,12,14).

I learned that GRACE is PARDON, through the blood of Christ, for having transgressed the law. But if a human judge pardons a man for breaking a civil or criminal law, that pardon does not repeal the law. The man is pardoned so that he may now OBEY the law. And GOD pardons only after we REPENT of sin!

But do not suppose I quickly or easily came to admit my wife had been right, or to accept the seventh-day Sabbath as the truth of the Bible.

I spent a solid SIX MONTHS of virtual night-and-day, seven-day-a-week STUDY and research, in a determined effort to find just the opposite.

I searched IN VAIN for any authority in the Bible to establish SUNDAY as the day for Christian worship. I even studied Greek sufficiently to run down every possible questionable text in the original Greek.

I studied the Commentaries. I studied the Lexicons and "Robertsons's Grammar of the Greek New Testament". Then I studied HISTORY. I delved into encyclopedias -- the "Britannica", the "Americana", and several religious encyclopedias. I searched the "Jewish Encyclopedia", and the "Catholic Encyclopedia". I read Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire", especially his chapter 15 dealing with the religious history of the first four hundred years after Christ. And one of the most convincing evidences against Sunday was in the history of how and when it began.

I left no stone unturned. I found clever arguments. I will confess that, so eager was I to overthrow this Sabbath belief of my wife, at one point in this intensive study I believed I might possibly have been able to use arguments to confuse and upset my wife on the Sabbath question. But there was no temptation to try to do it. I knew these arguments were not honest! I could not deliberately try to deceive my wife with dishonest arguments. The thought was immediately pushed aside. I know now she could not have been deceived.

Finally, after six months, the TRUTH had become crystal clear. At last I KNEW what was the truth. Once again, GOD had taken me to a licking!

It had been bewildering -- utterly frustrating! It seemed as if some mysterious, invisible hand was disintegrating every business I started!

That was precisely what was happening! The hand of God was taking away every activity on which my heart had been set -- the business success before whose shrine I had worshipped. This zeal to become important in the business world had become an idol. God was destroying the idol. He was knocking me down -- again and again! He was puncturing the ego, deflating the vanity.

At age 16 ambition had been aroused. I began to study constantly -- to work at self-improvement -- to prod and drive myself on and on. I had sought the jobs which would provide training and experience for the future. This had led to travel, to contacts with big and important men, multimillionaire executives.

At twenty-eight a publishers' representative business had been built in Chicago which produced an income equivalent to some $35,000 a year measured by today's dollar value. The flash depression of 1920 had swept it away. At age thirty, discouraged, broken in spirit, I was removed from it entirely.

Then, in Oregon, had come the advertising service for laundries. It was growing and multiplying rapidly. After one year, in the fall of 1926, the fees were grossing close to $1,000 per month. I saw visions of a personal net income mounting to from $300,000 to a half million a year with expansion to national proportions. Then an action by the Laundryowners National Association swept the laundry advertising business out from under my feet.

It seemed that I was King Midas in reverse. Every material money-making enterprise I started promised gold, but turned to nothing! They vanished like mirages on a desert.

Yes, God Almighty the Creator, was knocking me down -- again and again. As often as I got back to my feet to fight, on starting another business or enterprise, another blow of utter and bitter defeat seemed to strike me from behind by an unseen hand. I was being "softened" for the final knock-out of material ambition.

Now came the greatest inner battle of my life. To accept this truth meant -- so I supposed -- to cut me off from all former friends, acquaintances and business associates. I had come to meet some of the independent "Sabbath-keepers" down around Salem and the Willamette Valley. Some of them were what I then, in my pride and conceit, regarded as backwoods "hillbillies." None were of the financial and social position of those I had associated with.

My associations and pride had led me to "look down upon" this class of people. I had been ambitious to hobnob with the wealthy and the cultural.

I saw plainly what a decision was before me. To accept this truth meant to throw in my lot for life with a class of people I had always looked on as inferior. I learned later that God looks on the heart, and these humble people were the real salt of the earth. But I was then still looking on the outward appearance. It meant being cut off completely and forever from all to which I had aspired. It meant a total crushing of vanity. It meant a total change of life!

I counted the cost! But then, I had been beaten down. I had been humiliated. I had been broken in spirit, frustrated. I had come to look on this formerly esteemed self as a failure. I now took another good look at myself.

I realized I had been a swellheaded egotistical jackass. Finally, in desperation, I threw myself on God's mercy. I said to God that I knew, now, that I was nothing but a burned-out hunk of junk. My life was worth nothing more to ME. I said to God that I knew now I had nothing to offer HIM -- but if He would forgive me -- if He could have any use whatsoever for such a worthless dreg of humanity, that He could have my life; I knew it was worthless, but if He could do anything with it, He could have it -- I was willing to give this worthless self to HIM -- I wanted to accept Jesus Christ as personal Saviour!

I meant it! It was the toughest battle I ever fought. It was a battle for LIFE. I lost that battle, as I had been recently losing all battles. I realized Jesus Christ had bought and paid for my life. I gave in. I surrendered, unconditionally. I told Christ He could have what was left of me! I didn't think I was worth saving!

Jesus said, "Whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it." I then and there gave up my life -- not knowing that this was the ONLY way to really find it!

It was humiliating to have to admit my wife had been right, and I had been wrong. It was disillusioning to learn, on studying the BIBLE for the first time, that what I had been taught in Sunday school was, in so many basic instances, the very opposite of what the Bible plainly states. It was shocking to learn that "all these churches were wrong" after all!

But I did, later, have one satisfaction. I wrote up a long manuscript about the Sabbath, finally tying it up with evolution, and PROVING evolution false. I gave it to my sister-in-law, Mrs. Dillon. She read it unsuspectingly. Before she realized what she was reading, she had accepted the evidence and PROOF that evolution was false.

IT WAS humiliating to have to admit my wife had been right, and I had been wrong, in the most serious argument that ever came between us.

But to my utter disappointed astonishment, I found that much of the popular church teachings and practices were not based on the Bible. They had originated, as research in history had revealed, in paganism. Numerous Bible prophecies foretold it. The amazing, unbelievable TRUTH was, the SOURCE of these popular beliefs and practices of professing Christianity was, quite largely, paganism and human reasoning and custom, NOT the Bible!

I had first doubted, then searched for evidence, and found PROOF that God exists -- that the Holy Bible is, literally, His divinely inspired revelation and instruction to mankind. I had learned that one's God is what a person OBEYS. The word LORD means MASTER -- the one you OBEY! Most people, I had discovered, are obeying false gods, rebelling against the one true CREATOR who is the supreme RULER of the universe.

The argument was over a point of OBEDIENCE to GOD. The opening of my eyes to the TRUTH brought me to the crossroads of my life. To accept it meant to throw in my lot with a class of humble and unpretentious people I had always looked upon as inferior. It meant being cut off from the high and the mighty and the wealthy of this world, to which I had aspired. It meant the final crushing of VANITY. It meant a total change of life!

It meant real REPENTANCE, for now I saw that I had been breaking God's Law. I had been rebelling against God. It meant turning around and going THE WAY OF GOD -- the WAY of His BIBLE -- living according to every word in the Bible, instead of according to the ways of society or the desires of the flesh and of vanity.

It was a matter of which WAY I would travel for the remainder of my life. I had certainly reached the CROSSROADS!

But I had been beaten down. God had brought that about -- though I didn't realize it then. Repeated business reverses, failure after failure, had destroyed self-confidence. I was broken in spirit. The SELF in me didn't want to die. It wanted to try to get up from ignominious defeat and try once again to tread the broad and popular WAY of vanity and of this world. But now I knew that way was WRONG! I knew its ultimate penalty was DEATH. But I didn't want to die now!

It was truly a battle for LIFE -- a life and death struggle. In the end, I lost that battle, as I had been losing all worldly battles in recent years.

In final desperation, I threw myself on His mercy. If He could use my life, I would give it to Him -- not in physical suicide, but as a living sacrifice, to use as He willed. It was worth nothing to me any longer.

Jesus Christ had bought and paid for my life by His death. It really belonged to Him, and now I told Him He could have it!

From then on, this defeated no-good life of mine was GOD'S. I didn't see how it could be worth anything to Him. But it was His to use as His instrument, if He thought He could use it.

This surrender to God -- this REPENTANCE -- this GIVING UP of the world, of friends and associates, and of everything -- was the most bitter pill I ever swallowed. Yet it was the only medicine in all my life that ever brought a healing!

For I actually began to realize that I was finding joy beyond words to describe in this total defeat. I had actually found JOY in the study of the Bible -- in the discovery of new TRUTHS, heretofore hidden from my consciousness. And in surrendering to GOD in complete repentance, I found unspeakable JOY in accepting JESUS CHRIST as personal Saviour and my present High Priest.

I began to see everything in a new and different light. Why should it have been a difficult and painful experience to surrender to my Maker and my God? Why was it painful to surrender to obey God's right ways? WHY? Now, I came to a new outlook on life.

Somehow I began to realize a NEW fellowship and friendship had come into my life. I began to be conscious of a contact and fellowship with Christ, and with God the Father.

When I read and studied the Bible, God was talking to me, and now I loved to listen! I began to pray, and knew that in prayer I was talking with God. I was not yet very well acquainted with God. But one gets to be better acquainted with another by constant contact and continuous conversation.

So I continued the study of the Bible. I began to write, in article form, the things I was learning. I did not then suppose these articles would ever be published. I wrote them for my own satisfaction. It was one way to learn more by the study.

I had been reared of Quaker stock. The Quakers do not believe in water baptism. But now I wanted to PROVE, by the Bible, whether I ought to be baptized. So I began to study about baptism -- and receiving the Holy Spirit.

As this study of the Bible continued, I was forced to come out of the fog of religious babylon a single doctrine at a time. It was years later before I came to see the WHOLE picture -- to understand God's PURPOSE being worked out here below, and why, and how, He is working it out. Like a jigsaw puzzle, the many single doctrinal parts ultimately fit together, and then, for the first time, the WHOLE picture burst joyfully into view.

It was like being so close to one tree at a time I could not see the forest. I had to examine every doctrinal tree in the religious forest. Many, as I had been brought up to believe them, were felled on close examination IN THE BlBLE. New doctrinal trees came into view. But finally, after years, I was able to see the whole forest of TRUTH, with dead doctrinal trees removed.

That is why students at Ambassador College today are able to learn the TRUTH much more rapidly than I could. That is why the readers of The Plain Truth, the regular listeners of The World Tomorrow program, and the students of the Ambassador College Correspondence Course are able to come to mature knowledge of the truth so quickly. The pioneer work has been done. The weeds have been removed. The very trunks of the trees of false doctrines have been chopped down and uprooted.

And so next, after repentance and surrender to God, came an intensive study of water baptism.

During my initial six months' study, I had studied not only the Bible, but every book, booklet or tract I could get on the religious subjects under study. On the Sabbath question, I had sought out eagerly and studied avidly everything I could find against the Sabbath and supporting Sunday as the "Lord's Day." But I had tried to be fair, and searched also the literature on the other side of the question. But always the BIBLE was the sole authority. Thus I became quite familiar with Seventh-Day Adventist literature.

Also I checked over carefully the literature of the Church of God, with headquarters at Stanberry, Missouri.

Upon surrender to God, I had lost all sense of animosity toward Mrs. O. J. Runcorn, the elderly lady who had started my wife on the religious "fanaticism" which proved to be God's TRUTH. We even came to call her and her husband our spiritual parents. Mrs. Armstrong and I visited with her frequently when in Salem at the home of my parents. Through her and her husband we became acquainted with a small group of "Church of God people" in Salem and near Jefferson, Oregon.

One day when we were in Salem we learned that a preacher of this Church of God had just arrived from Texas, an Elder Unzicker. He and his wife were staying at the home of a neighbor, member of the Church of God. Mrs. Armstrong and I walked across the street to this neighbor's house to see him. I wanted to ask him questions about water baptism.

Next I went to a Baptist minister in Portland, to learn why Baptists believe in baptism. He was courteous and patient, glad to explain his church's teachings.

I went to a Seventh-Day Adventist minister. He, too, was courteous and glad to explain his belief, according to the Bible.

I asked him WHY the Quakers did not believe in water baptism. He explained the Quaker belief. They believe in spiritual, not water, baptism.

"Well, Herbert," he said finally, "I'll have to confess I can't honestly justify our church position by the Bible. This very thing bothered me a great deal when I first felt called into the ministry. At first, I felt I could not consistently become a minister in the Friends Church because this stand on water baptism really bothered me. But then, I looked at some of the great preachers of the church (naming several, including my own great-uncle Thomas Armstrong), and they all seemed to be holy men of God. And so I decided that if such great and holy men could preach against water baptism, so could I."

To me, this was disillusioning and discouraging. It showed me that ministers are human, like other people, after all. As a boy, I had somehow come to assume that ministers of religion are different from other people. Preachers were HOLY. Other people were sinners. Other people had human nature. But preachers were above the temptation and weaknesses of mortal humans. They were a sort of special species, about half way between ordinary humans and God. I had looked on ministers of religion with a sort of embarrassed awe. I think many people think of the clergy in similar manner.

Of course I was not a minister, and at that time did not ever expect to be. In my Bible study up to this point I had become painfully aware that "the heart [human] is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked" (Jeremiah 17:9). This is true of every human, and I had to realize it included me. But I had to come to see that clergymen are human also -- and perhaps have even a harder fight against temptation than laymen.

Actually, though I didn't realize it then, I was, myself, being literally thrust into the Ministry of Christ, though not at all of my own seeking. And I know now that my experience was, in all probability, utterly UNIQUE! Most certainly the manner in which I was put into it was unlike any other I had heard of.

How does the average minister come to enter the clergy? I'm sure most choose the ministry in the same manner that other young men choose medicine, law, architecture or science as a life profession. So, naturally, they enter into whatever course of preparation is provided by their particular religion, church or denomination. Probably they enter a theological seminary. There they are taught the doctrines of their particular religious organization.

But I did not belong to any particular religion, church or sect. I did not CHOOSE the clergy as a profession. Actually, that would have been the very last choice in my case. But, though it was not yet realized, the profession I had chosen, after thorough self-analysis and survey of professions and occupations -- journalism and advertising -- provided the very background, training and experience to fit me for what I was now being drawn into.

I did not enter the course of study of some particular religion or church. I was not being taught by MAN! I had entered on the in-depth study of the Bible to prove my wife was wrong in a new religious belief. Being challenged also on the theory of evolution, my research led me to question even the existence of God and the authority of the Bible. And I had accepted the reality of the existence of God, and the authority of the Bible, ONLY AFTER finding incontrovertible PROOF.

How do most people come to believe what they do? The philosopher C. E. Ayres commented that few indeed ever stop to inquire in retrospect HOW they come to believe what they do, or WHY they believe it. Most people believe whatever they have been taught, or what they have read, or heard, or whatever their particular group, religion, church, political party, or area of the world believes. They simply "GO ALONG." They carelessly ASSUME, because others do.

Our system of education encourages this. It fails abysmally to teach growing children to think for themselves, to question, to seek PROOF before believing. In school and college students are taught to accept and memorize whatever is in the textbook, or given in the lecture. They are graded on how well they have accepted and memorized what has been thus funnelled into their unsuspecting minds. And I know of no seminary that departs from this process, or encourages students to thoroughly question whether their sectarian doctrines are true.

Of course, too, people usually believe what they WANT to believe. That is to say, they refuse to believe what they don't want to believe. But in my case I was forced, on thorough examination and research, to believe what, prior to that research, I had definitely and vigorously not wanted to believe. I was forced, to accept, on PROOF, that which I had started out to prove FALSE. I was forced to admit, under most humiliating circumstances, on PROOF, what I had hoped to disprove.

And what I was forced, on PROOF, to accept was probably the most unpopular belief, and the hardest for most people to accept. But I had, against my wishes, found it to be TRUE, and once proved TRUE, I did finally come to embrace it with gladness and JOY!

In no other manner, I believe, could the mind of anyone have been opened to see the most BASIC, VITAL truths of the revealed Message of God to mankind -- the MOST IMPORTANT KNOWLEDGE OF ALL -- utterly overlooked and unrealized by this world's religions, churches and sects.

It was in this UNIQUE manner that I was brought to discover THE MISSING DIMENSION IN EDUCATION -- the truth as to WHY humanity was put on this earth -- the true PURPOSE of human life -- the CAUSE of all the world's unhappiness, unsolvable problems and evils -- the difference between the TRUE VALUES and the false -- THE WAY that can be the ONLY CAUSE of PEACE between nations, groups and individuals -- the only CAUSE of true success in life with happiness, peace, prosperity and abundance.

No, I know of no one who was thrust into the Ministry of Jesus Christ, untaught by MAN, but by the living Christ through His written Word, in the manner in which I was. I didn't realize it yet, but I was being brought into His Ministry by the living Christ in a manner UTTERLY UNIQUE, and totally unlike any other of which I know!

Finally the study of the subject of baptism was completed. There was no longer doubt. Peter had said: "REPENT, and BE BAPTIZED every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:38). To Cornelius and his house, who already had received the Holy Spirit, Peter said: "Can any man forbid WATER, that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Spirit as well as we? And he COMMANDED them to be baptized in the name of the Lord" (Acts 10:47-48).

It was a command. There was no promise of receiving the Holy Spirit until after being baptized -- although Cornelius, the exception to the rule, had been begotten by the Holy Spirit prior to baptism. Yet even he was commanded to be baptized IN WATER. What I had learned in this study on baptism is recounted on this link "All About Water Baptism".

And so I was baptized forthwith and without delay. Immediately upon coming up out of the water, I definitely experienced a change in attitude and in mind generally. I had already repented and surrendered to God's rule over my life. The natural carnal hostility to God and His Law already had gone.

Yet, now, for the first time, I felt CLEAN! I knew, now, that the terribly heavy load of sin had been taken off my shoulders. Christ had paid the penalty for me. All past sins were now blotted out by His blood. My conscience was clean and clear.

For the first time in my life I experienced real inner PEACE of mind! I realized, as never before, how futile and useless and foolish are the ways of this world, on which most people set so much store. There was a quiet, wonderful happiness of mind in the sure knowledge that now I was actually a begotten son of GOD! I could really call GOD Father!

There were no excitable physical sensations or exhilarating FEELINGS running up and down the spine. Nothing of the nervous system. That is physical -- not spiritual. Nothing of the senses -- nothing sensual, as some people, diabolically misled and deceived claim to experience. But there was a KNOWING! There was an unmistakable renewing of the mind (Romans 12:2).

For six months I had struggled night and day, with a carnal mind, to learn the truth about one single doctrine in the Bible. Prior to that my wife and I had read the Bible clear through -- but I had not understood a WORD of it! Most of the time I asked my wife to do the reading, because she could read faster. We got through quicker. But it was like reading or listening to a foreign language. I simply could not UNDERSTAND the BIBLE!

But now, from this point of baptism on, a strange, wonderful, delightful new thing took place. I could read the Bible and UNDERSTAND what I read! Of course I could not understand the WHOLE Bible in five or ten minutes. I still had to study it a doctrine at a time. But it was UNDERSTANDABLE! It MADE SENSE! Even though it took time, I was now getting some place. But I was comprehending and learning so much faster than during that initial six months' study!

It was like a miracle! And indeed, it WAS a MIRACLE! The very Holy Spirit of God had come into and renewed my mind. I had been baptized by the Holy Spirit into the true Body of Christ, the Church of God -- but I did not realize that fact literally. I was still to search earnestly to find the one and only true Church which Jesus founded, before recognizing fully He had already placed me in it!

WHERE is the one TRUE Church today? That is the question that still haunted my mind in the late spring and the summer of 1927.

During that six months' diligent research, I had run the gamut of disillusionment, doubt, confusion, frustration -- and finally, the SURE knowledge, proved, that GOD EXISTS, and that the Holy Bible is His revealed Word.

Finally, sadly disillusioned about believing "all these churches couldn't be wrong," I began to ask, "where is the one true Church today?" I read in Matthew 16:18 where Jesus said: "I will build my Church."

Therefore I knew He did build it. He said the gates of the grave would never prevail against it. It had to be in existence still. But WHERE? Which church could it be?

I had been astounded to learn that the BlBLE teaches truths diametrically opposite to the teachings of the large and popular churches and denominations today. I saw in the Bible the real MISSION of God's true Church. But these churches, today, were not carrying on the real work and mission of Christ.

The SOURCE of their beliefs and practice was not the Bible, but paganism! There was no recognizable comparison between them and the original TRUE Church I found described in Acts and other New Testament books. Yet somewhere there had to exist today that spiritual organism in which Christ actually dwelt -- a church empowered by His Spirit -- acting as His instrument -- carrying out His Commission.

But WHERE? I was to be some years in finding the answer. I still had to sift out the real truth a doctrine at a time! Mrs. Armstrong and I began to attend many different churches. I wanted to check on each -- compare it with the Bible. I continued almost daily study at the Portland Public Library.

One must not assume, from what has been written about my surrender to God, and the change that came with God's Spirit, that I had reached spiritual maturity and perfection at one quick bound. No one ever does. A human baby must creep before it learns to walk. It must learn to walk before it can run. And it stumbles and falls many times. But it does not become discouraged and give up.

The newly converted are mere babes in Christ. I had not learned much, as yet. Vanity was far from being eradicated.

Upon surrendering to accept God's TRUTH -- as far as I had then come to see it -- my first impulse was to share it with my family and relatives. Once the natural-born hostility to God and His Law had been crushed, the Bible TRUTH appeared as a glorious light -- the most WONDERFUL thing I had ever known. I was suddenly filled with zeal to get this precious knowledge to all who were close to my wife and me. I wanted to get them converted.

Suddenly I began to feel so unselfish in this new Christian experience that I felt my own final fate was not important, if only I could get those related by blood or marriage ties into God's Kingdom.

But sad disillusionment followed every overture. I had absolutely no success whatsoever trying to cram "my religion" down their throats.

Of course the Quaker church, in which I had been reared as a boy, taught that smoking was a sin. But I had been unhappily disillusioned to see that in so many basic points the Bible teaching is the very opposite of what I had absorbed in Sunday school.

"I've got to see the answer to the tobacco question IN THE BIBLE!" I said to myself.

Until I found the answer in the Bible, I decided I would continue as before -- smoking mildly.

I had continued to smoke lightly, averaging three or four cigarettes a day, or one cigar a day. I had never been a heavy smoker.

Now I had to face the question: Is smoking a SIN? I wanted the BIBLE answer, for I had learned by this time that Christ had said we must live by EVERY WORD OF GOD. The BIBLE is our Instruction Book on right living. We must find a BIBLE reason for everything we do.

I knew, of course, there is no specific command, "Thou shalt not smoke." But the absence of a detailed prohibition did not mean God's approval.

I had learned that GOD'S LAW is His WAY OF LIFE. It is a basic philosophy of life. The whole Law is summed up in the one word LOVE. I knew that love is the opposite of lust. Lust is self-desire -- pleasing the self only. Love means loving others. Its direction is not inward toward self alone, but outgoing, toward others. I knew the Bible teaches that "lust of the flesh" is the way of SIN.

So now I began to apply the principle of God's Law. I asked myself, "WHY do I smoke?" To please others -- to help others -- to serve or minister to or express love toward others -- or only to satisfy and gratify a desire of the flesh within my own self?

The answer was instantaneously obvious. I had to be honest with it. My only reason for smoking was LUST OF THE FLESH, and lust of the flesh is, according to the BIBLE, sin!

I stopped smoking immediately. This beginning of overcoming was not too difficult, for it had not been a "big habit" with me. Once weaned, I was able to see it as it is -- a dirty, filthy habit. And today we know it is a serious and major contributing cause of lung cancer!

God designed and created the human body. He designed the LUNGS to take in FRESH AIR to fire and oxidize the blood, and at the same time to filter out of the blood the impurities and waste matter the blood has picked up throughout the body. Befouled smoke, containing the poisons of nicotine and tars, reduces the efficiency of the operation of this vital organ.

The physical human body is, God says, the very TEMPLE of His Holy Spirit. If we defile this TEMPLE -- this physical body -- God says He will destroy us! God intended us, if we are to be COMPLETE, to live happy, healthy and abundant lives, and to gain eternal life, to take in HIS SPIRIT -- not poisonous foreign substances like tobacco.

I was now beginning to grow in Christ's knowledge and in His GRACE. His Holy Spirit had renewed my mind. I could now UNDERSTAND God's TRUTH as I studied His Word.

I had come to understand, the hard way, the truth about Law and Grace. I had come to understand the Bible teaching about water baptism. I had come to see that I could not help others unless I, myself, were obedient and practicing what I preached. I had come to see the truth about tobacco. Now God saw fit to teach my wife and me another most important and useful truth. He let us learn it through severe experience, coupled with Bible study.

Along about early August, 1927, a series of physical illnesses and injuries attacked Mrs. Armstrong.

First, she was bitten on the left arm by a dog. Before this healed over, she was driven to bed with tonsillitis. She got up from this too soon, and was stricken violently with a "backset." But meanwhile she had contracted blood poisoning as a result of being stuck with a rose thorn on the index finger of her right hand.

For two or three days her sister and I had to take turns, day and night, soaking her right hand in almost blistering hot Epsom salts water, and covering her wrist and forearm with hot towels, always holding her right arm high.

The backset from the tonsillitis developed into quinsy. Her throat was swollen shut. It locked her jaw. For three days and three nights she was unable to swallow a drop of water or a morsel of food. More serious, for three days and three nights she was unable to sleep a wink. She was nearing exhaustion. The red line of the blood poisoning, in spite of our constant hot Epsom salts efforts, was streaking up her right arm, and had reached her shoulder on the way to the heart.

The doctor had told me privately that she could not last another twenty-four hours. This third sleepless, foodless and waterless day was a scorching hot summer day in early August.

"Mr. Armstrong," she asked, out of hearing of my wife, "would you object if I ask a man and his wife to come and anoint and pray for your wife's healing?"

That sounded a little fanatical to me. Yet, somehow, I felt too embarrassed to object.

"Well, no, I suppose not," I replied, hesitantly. About two hours later she returned, and said they would come at about seven in the evening.

"What if these people are some of these wild-fire shouters," I thought to myself. "Suppose they begin to shout and yell and scream like these 'holy roller' or 'pentecostal' fanatics do? Oh my! What would our neighbors think?"

Quickly I gathered courage to go to our neighbor who had asked them to come. I told her I had been thinking it over, and felt it better that these people did not come. She was very nice about it. She would start immediately, and ask them not to come. Then I learned she would have to walk over a mile to contact them. They were living in some rooms in the former Billy Sunday tabernacle that had been built for Billy Sunday's Portland campaign some years earlier. This tabernacle was out beyond 82nd Street, near Sandy Boulevard.

It was now in the heat of the day -- the hottest day of the year. I began to feel quite ashamed to impose on this woman, by asking her to make a second long walk on that sweltering afternoon.

"I do hate to ask you to make a second trip out there," I said apologetically. "I didn't realize it was so far. But I was afraid these people might yell and shout, and create a neighborhood disturbance."

"Oh, they are very quiet people," she hastened to assure me. "They won't shout."

After that I decided not to impose on this neighbor who was only trying to help us.

That evening this man and his wife came, about seven. He was rather tall. They were plain people, obviously not of high education, yet intelligent appearing.

"This is all rather new to me," I began, when they were seated beside my wife's bed. "Would you mind if I ask you a few questions, before you pray for my wife?"

He welcomed the questions. He had a Bible in his hands, and one by one he answered my every question and doubt by turning to a passage in his Bible and giving me the Bible answer.

By this time I had become sufficiently familiar with the Bible to recognize every passage he read -- only I had never thought of these Biblical statements and promises and admonitions in this particular light before.

As these answers continued coming from the Bible, I began to understand, and to BELIEVE -- and I knew the same assurance was forming in Mrs. Armstrong's mind.

Finally I was satisfied. I had the answer from the Bible. I believed. My wife believed. We knelt in prayer beside her bed. As he anointed my wife with oil from a vial he carried, he uttered a quiet, positive, very earnest and believing prayer which was utterly different from any prayer I had ever heard.

This man actually dared to talk directly to God, and to tell God what He had PROMISED to do! He quoted the promises of God to heal. He applied them to my wife. He literally held God to what he had promised! It was not because we, as mortal humans, deserved what he asked, but through the merits of Jesus Christ, and according to God's great mercy.

He merely claimed God's PROMISE to heal. He asked God to heal her completely, from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet.

"You have promised," he said to God, "and you have given us the right to hold you to your promise to heal by the power of your mighty Holy Spirit. I hold you to that promise! We expect to have the answer!"

Never had I heard anyone talk like that to God! It was not a long prayer -- perhaps a minute or two. But as he spoke I knew that as sure as there is a God in heaven, my wife had to be healed! Any other result would have made God out a liar. Any other result would have nullified the authority of the Scriptures. Complete assurance seized me -- and also my wife. We simply knew that she was released from everything that had gripped her -- she was freed from the sickness -- she was healed! To have doubted would have been to doubt God -- to doubt the Bible. It simply never occurred to us to doubt. We believed! We knew!

As we rose, the man's wife laid a hand on Mrs. Armstrong's shoulder. "You'll sleep soundly tonight," she smiled quietly.

I thanked them gratefully. As soon as they had left, Mrs. Armstrong asked me to bring her a robe. She arose, put it on, and I walked slowly with her out to the street sidewalk and back, my arm around her. Neither of us spoke a word. There was no need. We both understood. It was too solemn a moment to speak. We were too choked with gratitude.

She slept soundly until 11:00 a.m. next day. Then she arose and dressed as if she had never been ill. She had been healed of everything, including some long-standing internal maladjustments.

We had learned a new lesson in the meaning of faith. Faith is not only the evidence of that which we do not see or feel -- it is not only the ASSURANCE of what we hope for -- it is definite knowing that God will DO whatever He has promised. Faith is BASED on God's written PROMISES. The Bible is filled with thousands of God's promises. They are there for us to claim. They are SURE. God can't lie.

If there is any one attribute to God's character that is more outstanding than any other, it is God's faithfulness -- the fact that HIS WORD IS GOOD! Think how hopeless we would be if God's word were not good! And if a man's word is not to be trusted, all his other good points go for naught -- he is utterly lacking in right character.

Shortly before Mrs. Armstrong had been confined to bed in this illness, she had taken our elder daughter Beverly to the doctor with a felon on her finger. It had not been bandaged for some days.

The morning after her miraculous healing, my wife arose about eleven, ate a breakfast, and then took Beverly to the doctor's office to have the bandage removed. Incidentally this was the last time we have ever called a doctor for any illness in our family.

"WHAT are you doing here!" exclaimed the doctor, looking as if he had seen a ghost.

"I don't believe Mary Baker Eddy has any more 'pull' with God Almighty than I have!" asserted the physician.

"But I don't mean that," Mrs. Armstrong explained, "I mean miraculous healing direct by God as a result of prayer."

"Well -- yes -- I -- do!" replied the astonished doctor, slowly, incredulously. "But I never did before."

This awe-inspiring experience brought a totally new subject before me for study. And remember, I had plenty of time on my hands for Bible study. Only one laundry client remained. We were now reduced to real poverty. Although I had been beaten down and had made a complete surrender to God, giving myself to Him, yet without realizing it much of the self-pride and vanity remained. Of course God knew this. He was yet to bring me down much lower. I was yet to be humiliated repeatedly and thoroughly chastened before God could use me.

In those days we were constantly behind with our house rent. When we had a little money for food we bought beans and such food as would provide the most bulk for the least money. Often we went hungry. Yet, looking back over those days, Mrs. Armstrong was remarking just the day before this was written that we were finding happiness despite the economic plight -- and we did not complain or grumble. But we did suffer.

From the time of my conversion Mrs. Armstrong has always studied with me. We didn't realize it then, but God was calling us together. We were always a team, working together in unity.

And now came a new subject to study, and new enlightenment. We entered into it with vigor and joy. We searched out everything we could find in the Bible on the subject of physical healing. We discovered that God revealed Himself to ancient Israel, even before they reached Mt. Sinai, under His name "Yahweh-Ropha" which means "The Eternal our Healer," or "Our GOD-HEALER," or, as translated in the Authorized Version, "The LORD that healeth thee."

He revealed Himself as Healer through David: "Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who HEALETH all thy diseases" (Psalm 103:3). And again: "Fools because of their transgression, and because of their iniquities, are afflicted. Their soul abhorreth all manner of food; they draw near unto the gates of death. Then they cry unto the Eternal in their trouble, and ... He sendeth His word, and HEALETH them (Psalm 107:17-20).

Then I made a discovery I had not read in any of the tracts and literature we had been sending for and gathering on this subject. Healing is actually the forgiveness of transgressed physical laws just as salvation comes through forgiveness of transgressed spiritual law. It is the forgiveness of physical SIN. God forgives the physical sin because Jesus PAID THE PENALTY we are suffering IN OUR STEAD. He was beaten with stripes before He was nailed to the cross.

After we had made some little progress in gaining Biblical understanding of this subject of healing, Aimee Semple McPherson came to Portland.

She held an evangelistic campaign in the Portland Auditorium. My wife and I attended once, and then I went alone another time. We were "checking up" on many religious teachings and groups. Unable to gain entrance, because of packed attendance, I was told by an usher that I might be able to slip in at the rear stage door if I would hurry around. Walking, or running, around the block to the rear, I came upon a sorry spectacle.

A woman and child were trying to get a terribly crippled elderly man out of a car near the stage entrance. I went over to help them. The man had a badly twisted spine -- whether from arthritis, or deformity from birth, or other disease I do not now remember. He was utterly helpless and a pitiful sight to look upon.

We managed to get him to the stage door. Actually, I should never have been admitted, had I not been helping to carry this cripple in. He had come to be healed by the famous lady evangelist.

We were unable to gain contact with Mrs. McPherson before the service. And we were equally unable, after the service. I helped get the disappointed cripple back into their car.

"If you really want to be healed," I said before they drove off, "I would be glad to come to your home and pray for you. Mrs. McPherson has no power within herself to heal anybody. I have none. Only GOD can heal. But I do know what He has promised to do, and I believe God will hear me just as willingly as He will Mrs. McPherson -- if only you will BELIEVE in what GOD has promised, and put your faith in HIM and not in the person who prays for you."

They gave me their address, just south of Foster Road. The next day I borrowed my brother Russell's car and drove out.

I had learned, in this study, that there are two conditions which God imposes. 1) we must keep His commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in His sight (I John 3:22); and 2) we must really BELIEVE (Matt. 9:29).

Of course I realized that many people might not have come into the understanding about keeping all of God's Commandments -- he does look on the heart. It is the spirit, and willingness to obey. And therefore some who really BELIEVE are healed, even though they are not strictly "commandment keepers." But once the knowledge of the truth comes, they must OBEY. In this case I felt sure that God wanted me to open the minds of these people about His Commandments, and that SIN is the transgression of God's LAW.

Consequently, I first read the two scriptures quoted above, and then explained what I had been six months learning about God's Law -- and particularly about God's Sabbath. I wanted to know whether this cripple and his wife had a spirit of WILLINGNESS to obey God.

They did not. I found they were "pentecostal." They attended church for the "good time" they had there. They talked a good deal about the "good time" they enjoyed at church. They scoffed and sneered about having to obey God. I told them that, since they were unwilling to obey God and comply with God's written conditions for healing, I could not pray for him.

This case had weighed heavily on my mind. I had been touched with deep compassion for this poor fellow. Yet his mind was not impaired, and I knew that God does not compromise with SIN.

Some weeks later I had borrowed my brother's car again, and happened to be driving out Foster Road. Actually at the time my mind was filled with another mission, and this deformed cripple was not on my mind at all. I was deep in thought about another matter.

Coming to the intersection of the street on which the cripple lived, however, I was reminded of him. Instantly the thought came as to whether I ought to pay them one more call -- but at the same instant reason ruled it out. They had made light of, and actually ridiculed the idea of surrendering to obey God. Immediately I put them out of mind, and again was deep in thought about the present mission I was on.

Then a strange thing happened. At the next intersection, the steering wheel of the car automatically turned to the right. I felt the wheel turning. I resisted it. It kept turning right. Instantly I applied all my strength to counteract it, and keep steering straight ahead. My strength was of no avail. Some unseen force was turning that steering wheel against all my strength. The car had turned to the right into the street one block east of the home of the cripple.

I was frightened. Never before had I experienced anything like this. I stopped the car by the curb. I didn't know what to make of it.

It was too late to back into traffic-heavy Foster Road. "Well," I thought, "I'll drive to the end of this block and turn left, and then back onto Foster Road."

But, a long block south on this street, it turned right only. There was no street turning east. In getting back onto Foster Road I was now compelled to drive past the home of the cripple.

"Could it possibly be that an angel forced the steering wheel to turn me in here?" I wondered, somewhat shaken by the experience. I decided I had better stop in at the cripple's home a moment, to be sure.

I told them what had happened. "I know, now," I said, "that God sent an angel to turn me in here. I believe that God wants me to pray for you -- that He will heal you of this blood poisoning to show you His power, and then give you one more chance to repent and be willing to obey Him. And if you will do that, then He will straighten out your twisted spine and heal you completely.

"So now, if you want me to do so, I will pray for you and ask God to heal you of this blood poisoning. But I will not ask God to heal your spine unless and until you repent and show willingness to obey whatever you yourself see God commands."

They were now desperate. He probably had about twelve hours to live. They were not joking and jesting lightly about the "good times" at "pentecostal meetin'." They wanted me to pray.

I was not an ordained minister, so I did not anoint with oil. I had never yet in my life prayed aloud before others. I explained this to them, and said I would simply lay hands on the man and pray silently, as I did not want any self-consciousness of praying aloud for the first time to interfere with real earnestness and faith. I did have absolute faith he would be healed of the blood poisoning.

He was. I returned the next day. The blood poisoning had left him immediately when I prayed. But, to my very great sorrow and disappointment, they were once again filled with levity, and sarcasm about God's Law. Again they were jestingly talking about having a "good time" at church.

There was no more I could do. It was one of the great disappointments of my life. I never saw or heard from any of them again.

IN ALL my experience since conversion one oft-repeated incident has brought sorrow and regret. Many times a certain individual has been used to bring us light, or truth, or help, or certain advancement or stimulus to the Work of God, only to lose out spiritually and be discarded, once his usefulness was over.

It was about this time, summer, 1927, my wife and I had learned an exciting, shocking truth. The resurrection of Christ did not occur on Sunday morning!

The crucifixion was not on so-called "Good Friday." These I had found to be mere traditions, totally unsupported by any evidence, and completely refuted by the sole historic record -- the Bible.

I had learned -- and found completely PROVED -- that Jesus was in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathaea three days and three nights. Jesus Himself said so (Matthew 12:40). It was the only SIGN He gave as a miraculous PROOF of Messiahship.

The usual argument employed to discredit Jesus' statement, that this was an idiomatic expression in the original Greek meaning only three parts of days, or either a day or night, did not stand up. We had the same three days and three nights duration expressed in Jonah, inspired in Hebrew which knows no such idiomatic twist -- or idiotic twist. Also many other passages verified the full 72-hour duration.

The crucifixion was on Wednesday. The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead was late Sabbath afternoon, prior to sunset. This is proved conclusively, not only by all the scriptures on the subject, which are many, but also by astronomy, and by the Hebrew calendar. In the year in which Jesus was crucified -- A.D. 31 -- the Passover was on a Wednesday, not a Friday.

From the beginning of the new Spirit-led life, I wrote, in article form the thrilling new truths being unfolded in this continuous almost night-and-day study. This discovery of the true dates of the crucifixion and resurrection was written in an article captioned "Foundation for Sunday Sacredness Crumbles."

I had found that opponents of God's Sabbath can invent some fifty-seven varieties of arguments to explain why they don't keep the Sabbath. But they have only one argument for observing Sunday -- the supposition of a Sunday morning resurrection.

Of course no scripture anywhere tells us to observe the day of the resurrection. That, too, is a man-made argument.

Actually, there is absolutely NO Bible authority for Sunday observance. The only authority for it is that of the Roman Catholic Church -- a fact I believe any Catholic priest will confirm. Protestants, whether knowingly or not, acknowledge the authority of the Roman Catholic Church in observing Sunday.

With a Sunday resurrection illusion shattered, the last supposed foundation for Sunday observance had crumbled.

This article, "Foundation for Sunday Sacredness Crumbles," I believe, was never published. I did not write the articles, in those days, with the intention or expectation of having them published. I had been a trained advertising-copy and magazine-article writer. It simply came naturally to put into article form these intriguing, fascinating truths for my personal enjoyment and record.

But, exciting as these new truths were to me, I realized fully I was new in the truth -- a novice spiritually -- a "babe in Christ." I deemed it wise to have this newly discovered truth about the day of the resurrection verified by others more experienced in Biblical understanding than I.

It was but natural to look upon the man whose prayer God had so miraculously answered in healing my wife as a "man of God." So, even though I felt sure this truth was proved, I wanted to be doubly sure. Also I sincerely wanted to share this wonderful truth with the man whom God had used in sparing my wife's life. So I walked down to the old Billy Sunday tabernacle, out past 82nd Street, where this man was caretaker, one evening, very shortly after my wife's healing.

This "man of God" promised he would study my article and give me his opinion. Then a few nights later I returned to his living quarters in a corner of the giant tabernacle.

"But did you study into my article about the day of the resurrection?" I asked, since he avoided mentioning it.

"Well, yes, Brother," he replied, "I took it to our pastor and we went over it together."

"Well, did you find any error in what I wrote?" I persisted. "Well, no, Brother," he admitted, "we couldn't find anything wrong with it. It does seem to be according to the Scriptures, but Brother, we feel that studying into that kind of subject is likely to be dangerous. It might get you all mixed up. We feel it would be better for you to just forget all about that -- just get your mind clear off of that. There are more important things for you to think about and study into. It's best to just keep your mind on Christ."

"But," I rejoined, suddenly disillusioned, "if the resurrection was on the Sabbath, and not on Sunday, the only reason anyone has for Sunday observance is gone. Don't you think we might be breaking the commands of God and sinning, if we ignore such a truth?"

"Well, now, Brother," he tried to reassure me, "that's just the trouble. You see how it could get you all upset. All the churches observe Sunday. We can't start to fight all the churches. Now we are saved by GRACE, not of works. We think there are more important things in salvation than which day Christ rose on, or which day we keep. This could just get you all mixed up. It could be dangerous. Better just get your mind off of such things."

I walked back to our home on Klickitat Street in Portland, grieved and sorrowfully disillusioned. I had had a lot of confidence in this man. Now here he was, admitting I had brought him a new TRUTH, proved by the Bible, yet rejecting this LIGHT -- and, more, advising a newly converted man who had confidence in him to reject THE WORD OF GOD!

Arriving home, I happened to turn to Hosea 4:6, where God says that because we have rejected His knowledge, He will reject us.

A week or two later I walked back out past 82nd Street to the huge old Billy Sunday tabernacle. This thing had weighed heavily on my mind. This tall, uneducated, plain and simple man had been an instrument in God's hands not only in saving my wife's life, but also in opening our eyes to the truth of God's healing power. I felt deeply grateful. I hoped that even yet I might help rescue this man from the consequences of rejecting God's revealed knowledge.

"Brother," he said, on looking up and seeing me, "Brother, something terrible has come over me. God has left me. He doesn't answer my prayers any more. I don't understand what has happened."

Poor man! I understood what had happened. He had been a trusting and deeply sincere, if simple, man. God had used this man. God used him to bring my wife and me the knowledge that God actually performs miracles for those who trust Him -- He heals -- if we obey and believe. And how many other people God had helped through this man's prayers I did not know.

Evidently, until God used me to test him by bringing to him a new truth, he had not deliberately rejected truth nor disobeyed God's commands knowingly. God looks on the heart, and until this man followed his preacher in deliberately rejecting light and truth from God which he acknowledged to be truth and which led to willful disobedience, his heart was honest and sincere in his simple way.

His prayers were no longer answered. He was now guilty of disobedience of God's Law. And God reveals through John that "whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and DO those things that are pleasing in HIS sight" (I John 3:22). This man no longer complied with the divine conditions. Yet, if ever I met a man who had the "gift of healing" spoken of in I Corinthians 12:9, this man had had it.

God had used him to bring to us a truth. We accepted it, and began to walk in it. Then God used me to take to him a truth. He acknowledged that it was the truth. He had seen it proved. Yet he rejected it, and walked in disobedience instead of in the light! God used this man no more.

Of course he had MUCH to learn, had he continued as an instrument in God's hands. True Christians must continually overcome, and GROW in grace and the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

The servant of God cannot stand still. Either he advances, and grows spiritually against opposition and obstacles, or he falls by the wayside to be rejected. It is not an easy road.

This incident just described is but one of many of its kind. Later I was to encounter many more whom God used to help me and His Work, only to see them endure but a while, and fall aside. Several of these have been among our closest and most loved personal friends. These experiences have provided our greatest suffering in God's service. They were pictured by Jesus' parable of the sower and the seed. It seems the majority who start out on this straight and narrow road of opposition, persecution, trial and test, self-restraint, continuous attitude of repentance, overcoming, growing, fail to endure until the end.

It has grieved Mrs. Armstrong and me deeply to see so many for whom we were grateful -- who had helped us and God's Work -- whom we learned to love so much, turn aside finally and drop out of the race for eternal life.

As soon as I swallowed my bitterest pill of rebellion, surrendered to obey and trust fully in the Mighty God through faith in the living Jesus Christ, this new Christian WAY became the most happy, joyful experience of my life. Studying the Bible became a passion and a joy. I plunged into it with concentrated zeal.

The all-day sessions at the Portland Public Library did not stop with my capitulation to the truth following the six months' angered study to end my wife's "fanaticism. "

No longer was it an intensive study driven by anger and determination to have my own way. Now it was an enthusiastic study of eager anticipation, literally thrilling to every new discovery of spiritual "light" and basic knowledge.

Now a passion swept over me to "get our families converted." With the best intentions in the world, I set out on a vigorous campaign. To me, it was the loving and intense desire to share the wonders and glories of Bible knowledge with those we felt we loved most. But to most of them, it was an unwanted effort to "cram my crazy religion down their throats."

I did succeed, apparently, in talking one sister-in-law into a certain start. I had to learn later it was a false start. She was baptized, either when I was, or very shortly afterward. But, as too often happens when a high-pressure salesman talks one into something he doesn't really want, she turned against it all shortly afterward.

I had to learn, however, that, even though I had believed I was a pretty good salesman in my earlier business experience, I was unable utterly to "cram my religion down my relatives' throats." My efforts only aroused hostility. They said I was "crazy."

This is a universal mistake committed by the newly converted. Especially is this true where a husband or wife yields to God's truth without the other.

It actually threatened to break up our marriage -- even though Mrs. Armstrong did NOT attempt to inject her new religious belief into me. In our case the marriage was saved because I accepted the challenge to study into it myself, confident I could prove she was wrong.

But most mates will not study into it. Most unconverted mates, especially if the converted one tries to talk the other into his or her religion, will break up the home instead.

In all the years since my conversion, I have known of many marriages that have ended in divorce because the newly converted mate tried to talk the unconverted one into it. I have never heard of a case where the unconverted mate was talked into accepting it.

Of all things evil and harmful a newly converted Christian can do, the very WORST is to try to talk your husband or wife into your religion. WHATEVER else you do, let me plead with every such reader, NEVER commit this tragic sin. If you love your husband or wife, don't do it!! If you love your Saviour who died for you, and now lives for you, DON'T DO IT!!!

Remember these scriptures: "No man can come to me," said Jesus, "except the Father which hath sent me draw him" (John 6:44, 45). Again, Jesus said: "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother ... and a man's foes shall be they of his own household ....He that loveth father or mother" ... (or wife or husband) ... "more than me is not worthy of me .... And he that taketh not his cross and followeth after me is not worthy of me" (Matt. 10:34-38).

God made every human a free moral agent. Thank God! -- no one has power to force on you any unwanted religion.

Every individual makes his own decision. A religious difference between husband and wife is a serious handicap. The Bible forbids a converted person from marrying an unconverted.

But if such difference already exists, do not make matters worse by talking religion to your mate. Do all your talking to God in prayer. Let your mate see your happy, pleasant, cheerful, joyful, loving WAY of life -- not hear your arguments or nagging! Allow your mate complete religious latitude and freedom -- whether to be converted, religious, irreligious, or atheistic!

I am glad I learned that lesson early. I have had to maintain certain business connections with many people, since being plunged into God's Work. I must maintain contacts with radio men, publishers, professional men. I get along splendidly with them. A big reason is that I never talk religion to them.

I never try to talk anyone into accepting Bible truth or being converted. I go to the world over the air, and in print, and everyone is free to listen, or read -- or to dial out or not read. No one gets our literature unless he personally requests it. We try never to force God's precious truth on anyone. That's GOD'S WAY!!

Do you know how the Apostle Paul won individuals to Christ? Not the way people attempt to do it today. He said "I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some." When he talked to an unconverted Jew, do you suppose he spoke as a Christian thinking he is "witnessing for Christ" would do today? Do you suppose Paul said to the unconverted Jew: "Have you received Christ as your personal Saviour?"

No, that is not the way Paul spoke to unconverted Jews. Paul said: "Unto the Jews I became as a Jew" (I Cor. 9:22, 20). Paul spoke to others from their point of view! He talked to a Jew just like another Jew -- from the Jewish viewpoint -- showing sympathy and understanding of the Jews' way of looking at Christianity. Paul did not arouse hostility -- he put it down, so that they were sympathetic toward him, not hostile. He became as a Jew, "that I might gain the Jews." Even so he gained only a small minority, yet it was a large number.

Perhaps you have had your eyes opened to the fact that sin is transgression of God's Law. Most professing Christians have been taught, and consequently sincerely believe, that "the Law is done away." Paul was inspired to write that the carnal mind is hostile to God and to God's Law; "it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be" (Rom. 8:7). If you say to your unconverted mate who is hostile to God's Law, "You're just a rebellious sinner, and your church is just one of these false worldly churches," you have not only aroused hostility, you have yourself been hostile, and you probably have broken up your marriage.

How did Paul talk to such people? Listen: "To them that are without law, as without law, that I might gain them that are without law."

One of the first principles of successful advertising I learned early in my career is that to get results you must first learn the attitude of your reading audience toward whatever product or service you are advertising. You must not antagonize those whom you expect to persuade. You must approach them from their point of view -- not from yours, especially if your viewpoint is contrary to theirs. To win them to your point of view, you must approach them from their viewpoint. Otherwise you only arouse hostility.

I know that these words are addressed to a very large number who have made this terrible mistake. That is why I have devoted so much space to this point.

If you believe God's truth, and your husband or wife does not, NEVER TALK RELIGION to him or her. If your mate normally thinks and speaks only of material and worldly things, then you must speak of material things to your spouse.

If the World Tomorrow broadcast has, probably because of your own aggressiveness in trying to get your mate to listen, become a sore spot, go off to some private room to hear the program. Keep the volume turned down. Make every effort NOT to antagonize your husband or wife.

And again, when you talk about it, talk to God in prayer. Let your mate see your good conduct, in a manner that he or she will naturally approve. Avoid every hostility. Be pleasant. Keep cheerful. Be happy. Radiate JOY! Give LOVE and warm affection! Do everything to cause your husband or wife to like you! THAT IS THE CHRISTIAN WAY!

THIS first chapter of the Autobiography is being written in Rome. It dawns in my mind that there is intriguing significance in the fact that I should be here at the very time when this chapter must be written.

The Apostle Paul wrote some of the books of the Bible here in Rome. It was then the seat of the ancient pagan Roman Empire. It was world headquarters of the pagan religion.

Today it is world headquarters for the largest and most powerful professing Christian church.

We come now to the time, in recounting my life experiences, where I had been sadly disillusioned about organized traditional "Christianity." As earlier chapters have explained, my wife, in early fall of 1926, had begun to observe the seventh-day Sabbath. To me that was the most disgraceful fanaticism she could have embraced. But six months' intensive and determined night-and-day study of the Bible had failed to find the authority for Sunday observance I had felt confident it contained.

"All these churches can't be wrong," I had contended. I felt certain that all their teachings whether Catholic or Protestant, had come directly from the Bible. I did not then realize that the Roman Catholic Church makes no such claim, but claims that church itself is the sole official and infallible authority. The various denominations, I supposed -- just as millions still suppose -- were just so many different parts of the one true Christian church.

I have already told you repeatedly how rudely I was disillusioned. I had seen, with my own eyes, that the plain teachings of Christ -- of Paul -- of the Bible -- were not the teachings of the traditional "Christianity" of our time. Nothing had ever been more shocking to discover. Incredible as it seemed, the beliefs and practices of the churches today, I found, were far astray from the teachings and customs of the TRUE Church as Christ organized it. In fact, in most essentials, the very antithesis!

This emphatically was not what I wanted to believe. It had left my head swimming. I was stunned, perplexed! I began to ask, "WHERE, then, is the real true Church which CHRIST founded?"

My shocking, disappointing, eye-opening discovery, upon looking into the Bible for myself, had revealed in stark plainness that the teachings of traditional Christianity were, in most basic points, the very opposite of the teachings of Christ, of Paul, and of the original true Church!

Could the original and only true Church have disintegrated and disappeared? Could it have ceased to exist? No, for I read where Jesus said the gates of the grave would never prevail against it. Also He had said to His disciples who formed His Church, "Lo, I am with you always."

Then I saw that the very PURPOSE of the Church was to preach Christ's GOSPEL! It is HIS BODY -- His instrument by which HE carries on GOD'S WORK!

I looked carefully at that Gospel as Christ Himself preached it, and taught it to His first ministers. It is recorded in the four books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. At almost every point of teaching that Jesus enunciated, the teachings of traditional Christian bodies today are just the opposite.

THEY WERE NOT PREACHING THE SAME GOSPEL AT ALL, BUT A TOTALLY OPPOSITE MESSAGE! This was shocking -- incredible -- unbelievable! Yet I was compelled to see it was true!

Jesus began the work of preaching the very Gospel which GOD the Father had sent to mankind through Him. He commissioned His disciples -- His Church -- to carry this same Gospel to all the world. And He had said He would never drop the Work He had begun! But WHERE was it going on today?

I knew now that when I found the one and only true Church, I would find a Church obedient to God -- keeping His commandments -- having the testimony of Jesus Christ, which is the TRUTH of the Scriptures.

I had been much impressed by a description of the true Church, as it is to be found in our time -- just before the second coming of Christ. It is found in Revelation 12. It is the time when Satan is filled with wrath against God's Church, "because he knoweth that he hath but a short time" (Rev. 12:12). Satan is making war with "the remnant of her seed." The "remnant" means the very last generation in this age. The Church is definitely described. It is those "which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ" (Rev. 12:17)

My intensive study had revealed one thing plainly: "the commandments of God" mean "Sabbath keeping" to most traditional denominations. They say, "The commandments are done away!" They reject "the commandments of God."

That automatically ruled out all churches observing Sunday. So far as I could learn, it reduced the search to three small groups -- the Seventh-Day Adventists, the Seventh-Day Baptists, and a little, almost unheard-of church called the Church of God, which maintained a small publishing-house headquarters at Stanberry, Missouri.

So I examined Seventh-Day Adventist teachings -- just as I did those of many other denominations. I obtained their magazines, their booklets and pamphlets, their large book of Bible readings, or Bible "home instructor."

The true Church is the one which lives by EVERY WORD OF GOD -- the words of the BIBLE!

It seems necessary to add here that I have never been a member of the Seventh-Day Adventist denomination. False statements have appeared in various church or religious magazines, pamphlets or tracts that I am a former Seventh-Day Adventist. I did obtain much of their literature, to compare with the Bible. I did examine and study it with an open mind, and without prejudice. I was happy to find that, like most denominations, they do have certain points of truth. None is 100% in error.

But my familiarity with Adventist doctrines has come entirely through their published literature. I have never attended a regular Sabbath church service of that denomination!

Next, I looked into the teaching of the Seventh-Day Baptists. I found it to be virtually identical, except for observing a different day of the week, with other Protestant denominations -- especially the Baptists.

But of these three churches to which the search had been narrowed, only one had the right NAME for the true Church. This was the small, little-heard-of Church of God whose headquarters were at Stanberry, Missouri.

Twelve times in the New Testament, I found the NAME of the Church which Christ established plainly stated as "The CHURCH OF GOD."

I looked into this word "church." It is the English word translated from the Greek word ekklesia. It merely means a congregation, an assembly, or group or crowd of people. I found that the word, by itself, had no divine or spiritual connotation whatever. For example, the name "Lutheran Church" or, as it might be otherwise stated "Church of Luther," means simply, Luther's congregation, or assembly of people. A name like "Wesleyan Church," means, simply, Wesley's group or congregation, without any religious or spiritual or holy implication whatever.

In Acts 19:23-41 is an account of an angry and hostile uprising against the Apostle Paul instigated by Gentile pagans who profited in business from the sale of silver shrines to the goddess Diana. Three times in this passage the original inspired Greek language called this angry crowd of citizens an "ekklesia." It is here translated into the English word "assembly." In verse 39 it actually refers to a "legal assembly" (Moffatt translation) in a courtroom. It certainly was not a Christian CHURCH assembled for worship -- nor was it holy.

The only thing that adds sacredness to the word "church" is the true name "Church of GOD." That is not any man's church -- but GOD'S congregation -- those owned, and governed by GOD whom they worship and follow.

In Ephesians 3:15, speaking of the FATHER of our Lord Jesus Christ (verse 14), we read: " ... of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named."

Jesus Christ is the Head of the Church, but it is named after God the Father. Although Jesus is Head of the Church, "the head of Christ is GOD" (I Cor. 11:3).

In His last prayer for His Church, before being seized to be crucified, Jesus prayed: "I have manifested THY NAME unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word ... Holy Father, keep through THINE OWN NAME those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are ... While I was with them in the world, I kept them in THY NAME" (John 17:6-12).

Those in the true Church are begotten children of God. They become the affianced Bride of Christ. Christ is the Son of God. It is a FAMILY. The family, is, properly, named after its Father. The 12 passages, aside from these Scriptures here quoted, which plainly call the true Church "The Church of God," or, collectively as local congregations, "The Churches of God," establish the true NAME.

The only Church I had so far found which "kept the commandments of God, and the testimony of Jesus Christ," and at the same time bore the NAME of the original true Church, was this almost unknown little Church of God with its small publishing house in Stanberry, Missouri.

But this left me quite confused. For this was a little Church, especially compared to the Roman Catholic, the Methodist, the Baptist, the Presbyterian, the Lutheran, or other large churches numbering millions of members. Then I saw where Jesus called His Church the "little flock."

But still I was not completely satisfied. I was deeply concerned. I prayed a great deal over it. For here was a church, which, compared to the large-scale activities of the Catholic and big Protestant bodies, was ineffective. I could see that it was imperfect. It wielded no great power. Jesus had said: "ALL POWER is given unto me, in heaven and earth" (Matt. 28:18). I read how Jesus Christ was to be IN His Church! He guides it! He directs it! He EMPOWERS it! He said His Church was to RECEIVE POWER (Acts 1:8).

No person is even a member of the true Church unless he has received, and is filled and led by, the Holy Spirit -- and the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of POWER! This little church seemed to be powerless -- comparatively impotent! I failed to see where it was bearing much if any fruit! Could a fruitless church be the ONE AND ONLY true Church of GOD on earth?

I was deeply perplexed. Here was a little church, with scattered members probably numbering less than 2,000 -- mostly in rural areas. Apparently, as nearly as I could learn, it had only a very limited number of local churches, none as large as 100 members. As I began to come in contact with some of its leaders, they seemed to be men of little education -- no college degrees -- its ministry could hardly be described as an educated ministry. Their preaching had a certain fire, yet seemed totally to lack the POWER that attracts sizable audiences, that moves people, stirs hearts, and changes lives. I could see no visible results.

Could this be God's one and only true Church on earth? The very question seemed preposterous!

Yes, and yet, small, powerless, resultless, impotent though it appeared to be, here was a church with the right name, "keeping the commandments of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ," and closer, in its doctrines and teachings, to what God had been opening my eyes to see plainly in His Word than any other church of which I knew! Small and impotent though it appeared, it had more Bible TRUTH than any church I could find!

At this time, God was opening my understanding to some Biblical TRUTHS which this church did not accept; and also to some errors, even though minor, which it did embrace. Plainly, it was not perfect. It merely appeared to be more nearly so, and less imperfect, in its beliefs and practice, than any other.

COULD such a church -- imperfect, fruitless, feeble, lacking in any sizable accomplishment, be the TRUE Church of God? Could this be Christ's INSTRUMENT through whom He worked, in carrying on GOD'S WORK on earth? Jesus said, "By their fruits ye shall know them." Its fruits were not evil -- it simply did not seem to produce fruit!

I was bewildered. I was unable to come to the answer then -- or until many years later. The real answer to this perplexing question will come out in this Autobiography later, at the account of the time when I myself found the true answer. I will state here, however, that I did learn later that it was merely the remnant of a church that had been more alive many years before.

Meanwhile, what was I to do? I was not at all convinced this was the one and only true Church. Yet, if it was not, which one was? This one came closer to the Bible qualifications than any I knew.

Therefore, I began to fellowship with their scattered and few members in Oregon, while at the same time refraining from acknowledging membership.

We were living in Portland, Oregon, at the time. I knew of no members of this church in Portland, but there was a sprinkling of them through the Willamette Valley between Salem and Eugene, in Oregon -- mostly farmers or truck gardeners. They welcomed the fellowship of myself and Mrs. Armstrong.

We found them to be simple, plain and humble people, hard working and industrious, and loving the Bible TRUTH -- as much as they had -- willing to suffer persecution for it.

And so it was, in this detached fellowship, that Mrs. Armstrong and I continued the first three and a half years of my ceaseless night-and-day STUDY of the Bible -- of history, especially as connected with Biblical history and prophecy -- and of pertinent allied subjects. These, too, were years of much and earnest prayer. Much of the Bible study done at home was done on my knees, combining study with prayer. Much time was spent during these years, as it had been that first six months, at the public library. I delved into intensive research in the commentaries, Bible encyclopedias, Bible dictionaries, comparing various translations of the Bible, examining Greek and Hebrew texts of doubtful or questionable passages, checking with lexicons and Robertson's Grammar of the Greek New Testament. I made an intensive study of ancient history in connection with Biblical history and prophecy.

But, as mentioned before, all this study and research had to be approached a single doctrine at a time. I was to be some years in getting to the very TRUNK of the tree of the very PURPOSE of which mankind was placed on earth, and getting clearly straightened out with a right understanding of God's PLAN.

Nevertheless, as I've mentioned, having been a trained magazine and advertising copywriter, the results of these studies were written up, purely for my own benefit, in article form. My wife began showing these articles to some women members of this Church of God who lived in Salem. Soon they began to urge me to preach before them. But becoming a preacher was the very last thing I had ever wanted to do. I felt an instinctive aversion to the idea.

Meanwhile, on their urging, a few of these articles had been mailed in to The Bible Advocate in Stanberry, Missouri. These articles began appearing on the front page.

Early in this three-and-a-half-year period, between 1927 and 1930, I decided to try a dual test to help settle the question of whether this was, in actual fact, the true Church of God.

The Church is merely the sum total of its members. By the one Spirit of God we are each baptized, or put into, the true Church (I Cor. 12:13). Jesus promised that when we receive the Holy Spirit, His Spirit shall guide us into ALL TRUTH -- not merely part of it (John 16:13).

But no person can receive ALL truth instantaneously. The human mind receives knowledge gradually. The child of God must GROW in the knowledge of our Lord (II Peter 3:18). Also he must have the spirit of REPENTANCE, always ready and willing to acknowledge error and to turn from it. The Scriptures are profitable for REPROOF and CORRECTION, as well as INSTRUCTION in knowledge new to us. And God CORRECTS every son He loves (Heb. 12:6).

Now it was a simple truism that if each individual member of the Church must be GROWING in the knowledge of God, constantly OVERCOMING, being corrected, and eliminating error, then all the members together, which form the CHURCH, must also be constantly willing to confess error and eliminate it, and to accept that which is "new light" from God's Word to the Church.

I knew of no church or sect or denomination that had ever publicly confessed error or embraced new truth. Yet, plainly, this would be a test of the true Church.

So, as the first step in this test, I wrote up an exposition of some 16 typewritten pages proving clearly, plainly, and beyond contradiction that a certain minor point of doctrine proclaimed by this church, based on an erroneous interpretation of a certain verse of Scripture, was in error. This was mailed to the Stanberry, Missouri, headquarters to see whether their leaders would confess error and change.

The answer came back from their head man, editor of their paper and president of their "General Conference." He was forced to admit, in plain words, that their teaching on this point was false and in error. But, he explained, he feared that if any attempt was made to correct this false doctrine and publicly confess the truth, many of their members, especially those of older standing and heavy tithe payers, would be unable to accept it. He feared they would lose confidence in the Church if they found it had been in error on any point. He said he feared many would withdraw their financial support, and it might divide the Church. And therefore he felt the Church could do nothing but continue to teach and preach this doctrine which he admitted in writing to be false.

Naturally, this shook my confidence considerably. This church leader, if not the church itself, was looking to people as the SOURCE of belief, instead of to God! Yet, here was the only Church holding to the one greatest basic truth of the Commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, kept in the NAME of God, and in spite of this and a few other erroneous teachings, nevertheless being closer to the whole truth than any church I had found.

A little later I tried the second test. After exhaustive study and research, I had found it PROVED that the so-called "Lost Ten Tribes" of Israel had migrated to western Europe, the British Isles, and later the United States -- that the British were the descendants of Ephraim, younger son of Joseph, and the United States modern-day Manasseh, elder son of Joseph -- and that we possessed the national wealth and resources of the Birthright which God had promised to Abraham through Isaac, Jacob and Joseph.

This truth was written in a lengthy manuscript of close to 300 typed pages, and mailed to this editor and leader of this church. I explained that although this new truth seemed to be proved beyond doubt, yet I was still comparatively new in Christ and Scriptural knowledge, and wished the judgment of one more mature and experienced in things Biblical.

I think it was some six months before the reply came. It was written on a train late at night. This church leader stated in his letter (which I still have) that I was most certainly right -- that this was a wonderful new truth revealed by God, and that God surely had a special reason for revealing this new truth to me. However, he stated he did not know what use, if any, he could make of it at that time, but was sure I would hear more of it later.

Did this Church accept and proclaim this vital new truth -- the KEY that unlocks the doors to all PROPHECY? Here was the KEY to understanding of one third of the whole Bible. But this Church refused then to accept it or preach it or publish it though their leader frankly confessed it was TRUTH and a revelation from GOD!

Yet here was the Church which appeared to have more truth, and less error than any other. It did "profess" the commandments of God, and have "the testimony of Jesus Christ." It did have the true NAME of the Church Christ built. Its members did love what truth they had and sacrificed for it! In spite of the fact this Church did not appear to be dynamically alive spiritually -- in spite of its little or no accomplishment -- still it came closer to the Biblical characteristics of Christ's true Church than any I knew!

Truly, this was bewildering! My earnest and prayerful study continued. After some time, I made a discovery in the 31st chapter of Exodus. At least I had found nothing in the published literature of this Church of God or of the Seventh-Day Adventists about it. It became very plain that in Exodus 31:12-18 was the account of a completely different and distinctive COVENANT God made with His people on earth. This covenant established God's Sabbath as binding FOREVER! It was entirely separate and apart from the "Old Covenant" made with Israel at Mt. Sinai.

This was "new light" which I felt impelled to present before these church brethren we had come to know and love down in the Willamette Valley. Repeatedly they had urged me to preach for them. But preaching was the last thing I felt I wanted to do. I had continually refused.

Now, however, I was overcome with an urge to get this new knowledge before them. I was unable to refuse any longer to speak. It was arranged for me to speak, I believe, on the following Sabbath.

The meeting was held in a country store building, but we drove first, for lunch, to the farm home of one of the members south of Salem, near Jefferson. We were taken down by the Runcorns of Salem, who we now had begun to look upon as sort of "second parents." It was Mrs. Runcorn who had opened my wife's eyes to the truth of the Sabbath. I remember they drove a large Studebaker "President."

In the car, en route from Salem to the place of meeting, consternation suddenly seized me. We were to arrive by noon, and all were to have lunch outdoors under a large tree. The preaching service was to be held in the afternoon. Suddenly the terrifying realization dawned in my mind that I might be called upon to give thanks over the food at the luncheon. I realized it would be customary to call on a visiting guest. I had never prayed aloud before others. The thought of doing so frightened me!

But by this time I had gone far enough in my Christian experience and study of the Bible to know what to do. I began praying silently, as we rode along, that, if called upon, God would put the words into my mouth and give me the help that I needed. The fear loosened its grip. I had been learning the lesson of faith. I knew that Christ would be with me and not forsake me, and all embarrassment over the anticipation left.

Sure enough, I was called on to ask the blessing over the food. I did have the help I needed. I don't believe that any there, except Mrs. Armstrong, knew that this was my first audible prayer in the presence of others -- until I told some of them afterward.

The meeting was held in a vacant country store building, nearby. It was known as the old Dever Store. This meeting, I believe, was in the summer of 1928.

If that talk I gave, explaining this Sabbath covenant, could be called a sermon, it was my first. Mrs. Armstrong assured me it was far from being a powerful sermon. Yet it was enthusiastically received. I did have a message, and a sincere, earnest urge to present it.

I remember that one towering member, six feet four inches tall, who had moved to this Oregon Valley from Texas, and was somewhat of a leader among the members, rose to his feet after I concluded and said, "Brethren, I just want to say that I have heard nearly all of the leading ministers in the Church of God, but I have heard this afternoon the best sermon I ever heard in my life." This didn't quite coincide with my wife's evaluation, who said that the delivery was extremely amateurish and inexperienced -- but, I suppose, the fact that the message was new to them, and that I was enthusiastic and in earnest about this new "discovery" of truth, caused it to be so well received.

It has been related in previous chapters how my wife had been miraculously and astonishingly healed in the summer of 1927. Following this, I had plunged into a thorough study of the subject of healing in the Bible.

Consequently when, about a month later, I spoke again at a meeting of these people, at this same vacant Dever Store, my message was about God's power and promises to HEAL.

Apparently the ministers of this church had heard of my previous speaking to these people, and of their request for this second appearance before them. So this time one of the older ministers of the church in Idaho had been sent to Oregon to be on hand to counteract any influence I might have.

I had spoken first. When he followed, he devoted a good portion of his sermon to an effort to refute everything I had said. He warned the brethren that if they relied on God for healing, Christ would say to them, "Depart from me, ye workers of iniquity -- I never knew you."

That was the beginning of years of continuous opposition from ministers. This also brings me to a stage in this history of events and experiences in my life which I have long dreaded to write.

It is simply the fact that from this point on -- from the very second "sermon" -- if those early talks could be called that -- opposition from other ministers, both within this church and without, was met at every turn continually.

So I say candidly that I shall relate these events. I shall try to record truthfully what happened, without feeling of rancor -- and I certainly harbor no resentment or bitterness against these ministers, whatever their intentions. I believe that, as these incidents and happenings are related in the coming several chapters, they will truly open the eyes of many who never knew the full truth about my contacts with, and efforts to work with and cooperate with, the ministers of that church.

For some little time, now, my articles had been appearing on the front page of The Bible Advocate, published by this Church of God in Stanberry, Missouri.

Up until this time, now 1928, there had been no minister of this church in Oregon, except for occasional visits by the minister from Idaho, and the one from Texas of whom I had inquired about water baptism during his visit to Oregon in 1927. But there were at that time perhaps 50 or 60 members of the church in Oregon, from Salem to Eugene.

And, with the beginning of my speaking before these people in Oregon -- and with my articles being featured in their church paper -- no time was lost in sending a minister to Oregon to take charge. He was a young man -- I believe about 28 or younger -- who, I believe, had come from Arkansas or Missouri. He came to see me in Portland. His attitude appeared cordial and friendly. But very soon after his arrival publication of my articles in the Bible Advocate was stopped.

Soon I learned the reason. Probably the most influential member in the state at the time was elderly G. A. Hobbs, of Oregon City. He was past 80 years of age, but very alert, aggressive and active. He had received a letter from the editor in Stanberry, Missouri, explaining that my articles were being discontinued at the request of the young minister newly arrived in Oregon. The grounds were that I was not a member of the Church and it was dangerous to give me this much standing and prestige before the brethren there. I might gain influence and become their leader and lead them astray.

This had aroused the fiery indignation of Mr. Hobbs. Immediately he sent a scorching letter back to Stanberry, a copy of which he let me read. It resulted in reinstating my articles for publication.

As soon as I had heard of this Mr. Hobbs, and the little group at Oregon City, I had visited him a few days after my first "sermon." I found a very small group of brethren who met together in a little church building at the top of the hill, on the Molalla road, in Oregon City.

There were only around 8 to 12 of them, but they habitually met on Sabbath afternoons to study the "Sabbath-school lesson," using the "quarterlies" from the Stanberry publishing house.

On discovering this little group, I began going to Oregon City to meet with them regularly. Almost immediately they asked me to be their leader in the study of the lesson. And soon I was delivering them a "sermon" every Sabbath.

These were days of extreme financial hardship in our home. We often went hungry. Several times there was not enough carfare for my wife and family to accompany me to Oregon City -- in fact it was seldom that they were able to go. At least three times, during the next couple of years or so, I had barely enough for carfare to Oregon City on the electric line -- with no carfare to return home. I even lacked bus fare from downtown Oregon City out to the little church house at the top of the hill on the outskirts of town. It was probably two or three miles up a steep hill all the way, but I walked it, carrying my briefcase with Bibles, concordance, etc.

But in every instance when I had come without carfare to return home, someone would "happen" to hand me a dollar or two of tithe money. And, strangely, no one ever handed me any money on those Sabbaths when I had enough to get back to Portland. And, of course, I never made the need known. But God always had a way of supplying every NEED!

I believe I have recounted in earlier chapters that, following the birth of our second daughter, three doctors -- one an eminent obstetrician of international reputation -- had warned Mrs. Armstrong and me that she could never bear another child. They had said a pregnancy would mean the certain death of both mother and unborn child.

It is natural for every man to desire a son. Before the birth of our first child, neither Mrs. Armstrong nor I had cared whether it was a boy or a girl. Our second child was another daughter. When I was told we could never have another, I was terribly disappointed!

And now seven years had gone by -- by 1927 -- without expectations of ever having a son.

But when, in the summer of 1927, Mrs. Armstrong had been miraculously healed of several things at once -- and when we remembered that the man who had anointed and prayed for her had asked God to heal her completely of everything from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet, we had faith that whatever had made another childbirth impossible had also been healed. We planned, consequently, to have a son. And I had faith that God would at last give me a son.

And GOD DID!! Our first son, named Richard David, was born October 13th, 1928. That day, I said then and for years afterward, was the happiest day of my life. I was simply filled to overflowing with gratitude to a merciful, loving God who so richly LAVISHES on us His grace and blessings completely beyond all we can anticipate or hope for -- IF we yield our lives to Him and do those things that are pleasing in His sight -- IF we seek first God's Kingdom and His righteousness!

We dedicated that son to God for His service. During his college career, here at Ambassador College in Pasadena, California, which God was later to use me in founding in 1947, our son Dick, as we called him, was converted -- his life changed -- and he, himself, gave his life to God.

From that time it was used in God's service, with continually growing usefulness and accomplishment, until his sudden death in an auto accident in 1958. Dick worked hard on his own self, overcoming faults and weaknesses and habits which he freely confessed, repented of, and strove to overcome. He reached the high point of his spiritual growth and development, of overcoming and usefulness -- having established the branch office of God's Work in London and becoming Director of all overseas operations.

God later gave us still another son, Garner Ted, only a year and four months younger than his brother Dick.

EVEN IN 1928, the lean years were to continue quite a while longer. But if these were the lean years financially, they were the fat years spiritually -- years of coming into the true riches. Yet, I still had many lessons to learn. Jesus had said, regarding economic prosperity, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these [physical] things shall be added unto you"! But God doesn't always add the material prosperity until after humans have been tried, tested and proved faithful.

Not only was there much more TRUTH to be discovered and dug out of God's spiritual gold mine -- the Holy BIBLE -- but there was much character to be developed through hard, cruel experience, the dearest teacher of all.

I should not have thought so at the time -- but God knew that I needed much more humbling -- much more chastening at the hands of God!

I had been humbled! O yes! And still, I know now that had God allowed me to have prospered financially at that stage of spiritual experience, self-pride once more would have seized me and the humility would have fled! The lessons so far received by all this chastening would have been lost! I was to have to suffer much more -- and my family to suffer it with me! The material blessings were withheld 28 years!

But do not infer from this that the material riches were my goal. No such idea even entered my mind. I had given up all idea and expectation of material prosperity.

At this time, during 1928, we were living on Klickitat Street in Portland, Oregon. We were falling dangerously behind in paying the rent. The real estate agent who collected the rent came very frequently to the front door. To others he was probably a kind and pleasant-looking man. He taught a Sunday-school class. But to us, he was a dark, foreboding, frightening, almost devilish-appearing man, when, of evenings, he so frequently stood at our front door, demanding in a deep, bass, stern tone: "Can I have the rent?"

We simply didn't have the rent! Whenever he came, we knew just how a whipped dog feels when his tail is between his legs. Actually, this man, who appeared to us almost as an enemy, was kind enough to pay our rent a number of times out of his own pocket.

At one time we were in darkness nights of involuntary necessity. The electricity was shut off because we were delinquent. My wife did her cooking on a small gas plate, and our gas was shut off. Only the water was left running. We were out of food, and out of fuel. Our heating stove was one my father had made, shaped something like an old covered wagon -- with rounded top.

The children were crying with hunger. My stomach gnawed with pain. Like old Mother Hubbard's, our cupboard was bare, save for a little macaroni. But there was no cheese or any of the ingredients used in baking macaroni. There was not even a grain of salt. AND, there was no money to buy any.

I decided to try to cook some macaroni, even without the accompanying ingredients. Without gas there was no oven to bake it in; so I boiled it. Patiently I tore up and crumpled pages of magazines, so I could set a fire in the rounded-top heating stove for heat. I balanced a pan of water and macaroni on top of the stove, and kept throwing in more crumpled magazine pages to keep the fire going.

That is all we did. We did not swallow it. We tried, but the slick, slithery, tasteless mess simply would not go down! You may laugh. I don't know why some Hollywood scenario writer never thought of this as a comedy idea. People love to laugh at the discomfiture of others in the movies. Movie actors pretend to suffer things like this to give audiences big amusement.

But to us it was not a bit funny! It was about this time, while still living on Klickitat Street, that I learned what the Apostle Paul meant when he wrote to the Corinthians of how God "also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit" (II Cor. 3:6).

Most people, I had noticed, thought that the "letter" was done away, and that the ministration of the spirit did away with the law and all obligation for OBEDIENCE to God.

I have told this many times in sermons, and on the air. But this experience occurred at this time, and I believe it belongs in this account.

Our eldest daughter, Beverly, then ten, had been in the habit of bringing books home from the school library. I had noticed they were always fiction. She was an inveterate "bookworm," and a rapid reader. We had noticed that she was beginning to have a little trouble with her eyes, and we attributed it, at least in part, to excessive reading habits. Besides, I had noticed that the constant reading of these fictitious, ready-made daydreams -- which is precisely what fiction is -- was causing her mind to drift and wander, rather than to think actively.

"Beverly," I said one day after my wife and I had discussed it, "Mother and I want you to stop taking these fiction books out of the library. You are injuring your eyes with too much reading."

Two days later, I observed Beverly in her usual slumped-over position in a chair, with a book opened near the middle.

"Let me see that book, Beverly," I demanded. "Isn't this another fiction story?"

"Yes, Daddy," she replied, handing it to me. Already she had read it half through.

"Beverly," I said sternly, "didn't I tell you to stop bringing these books home and rest your eyes?"

"Well, yes, Daddy," came the innocent reply, "but I didn't get this book at the library. I borrowed it from Helen."

Beverly actually obeyed the literal letter of the law, but she completely disobeyed the SPIRIT of what I had told her! The spirit of the law goes much further than the mere letter. It includes the letter, but also its obvious meaning, or intent.

That is the way WE must obey God -- not only the "letter," but the SPIRIT or intended MEANING of the law as well! Jesus explained this in His sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:17-28 -- especially verses 21-22, and 27-28).

It was also while living here, during 1928, that I had perhaps my first experience in applying God's miraculous power of healing, as a personal experience in my own body.

For fuel we burned wood -- when we were able to have it. One day in chopping wood, the axe slipped, and struck my left thumb in mid-air. It cut clear to the bone. I had to pull the sharpened axe out of the bone. It had cut quite a deep gash.

Instantly I prayed, asking God to prevent pain, and to heal it over rapidly, as I ran into the house to wrap and bandage it. At first such a cut often benumbs the nerves, as it did this time -- but normally the pain soon follows. This time I felt no pain at all.

I made one slight mistake later, else I am convinced I should never have had so much as a scar. I left the bandage on for some three days. But I became over-anxious to look at it. When we trust God for healing, we need to keep our eyes and our minds on CHRIST -- not on the physical part. I unwrapped it too soon. I experienced the only pain at any time from that severe cut in removing the wrapping to look at it, and pulling off a scab that had formed.

The result was that there is, to this day, just the slightest trace of a scar across the length of my left thumb. But, even so, it is so slight that one would never notice it unless pointed out. The cut was directly across the knuckle. I believe it could have robbed me of the use of the thumb. As it is, there is no impairment whatsoever.

It must also have been during this year of 1928 that another advertising job was offered me.

I mentioned, in connection with the advertising service for laundries, the soap builder used by laundries manufactured by the Cowles Detergent Company, of Cleveland, Ohio. This company was a subsidiary of the Aluminum Corporation of America. They manufactured an unusual product, unique and exclusive, so far as I know, in the laundry industry. I understood that this company was the largest operation in the laundry industry.

The Cowles Detergent Company had become familiar with the advertising I was writing and designing for laundry clients. Also they were familiar with the astonishing results. These ads had been building the volume of business of my clients in unprecedented fashion.

And so it was that, about this time, the sales manager of the Cowles company, a Mr. Fellows, came to Portland to interview me and offer the post of advertising manager of their company. Actually the job was to organize and establish a new advertising department! Up to that time, they had delegated all advertising preparation and placing to their advertising agency.

Bear in mind, I was not yet a minister. Although I had given a few talks that might by a stretch of the imagination have been called preaching, and had been speaking almost every Sabbath before the little group in Oregon City, I most assuredly did not think of myself as a minister. Nor did I expect, at this time, ever to be.

The laundries of the nation, through their national association, had gone into their five million dollar national campaign. This had pulled right out from under me -- like a rug being jerked out from beneath one's feet -- all my laundry clients, save one. I still had the account of the National Laundry, second largest in Portland. But, as I have mentioned before, this required only about 30 minutes a week of my time. It was our sole income -- $50 per month. It was not enough to pay house rent, and keep us fed and alive.

If you will remember, in 1924 I was offered the job of advertising manager of the Des Moines Register -- rated by many as one of the ten great newspapers of the United States. I had turned it down because I believed that I was not an executive. I believed I could not direct and supervise the work of others. I found it so distasteful to make out reports and keep records -- which would have been a regular routine on such a job -- that I felt I was simply not fitted for such an office.

I explained all this to Mr. Fellows. I told him frankly that one of my faults was that I worked in spurts. I felt I was moderately talented in certain directions, but this was offset by serious faults I had not yet been able to master and overcome. At times my performance would be brilliant. Results would be outstanding. But then I might go into a slump for a week or a month, during which I would accomplish little or nothing. What I did not tell him was that my wife and I had talked it over, and decided that in order to obey God and keep His Sabbath, I must reject the offer.

Lest any suspect that I went into the ministry to make money (and I suppose most could not realize one could have any other motive), I was rejecting a very flattering offer.

Mr. Fellows thanked me sincerely for my honesty in telling him of these shortcomings. He returned to Cleveland. I never heard whether he found the man he needed, and started his new advertising department.

Actually there may have been some providential guidance in my supposition that I could not become an executive. Had I accepted this job, which, as I remember, would have paid a salary of $8,000 a year in 1928 to start -- the equivalent of a much larger figure in today's dollar value -- and about $12,000 if I made good, I would have been snatched away from the calling God was drawing me into. I would probably be back in the world today.

Actually I was mistaken about not being able to become an executive. When God later began to build His Work around me, and the Work began to grow steadily and continuously at the rate of about a 30% increase each year over the year before -- which rate of growth continued for 35 years -- I had to become an executive! And with God's help and power, it was achieved, and the working in spurts was long ago overcome. For many years, now, I have had to work at the same steady pace day in and day out.

Also it was about this time, late in 1928, that our position was so desperate that I prayed earnestly and asked God to open a door for some income that very day.

Having asked in faith, in the morning, I took the streetcar to downtown Portland, seeking the "open door" to a job, or something with some cash in it. All the circumstances have dimmed somewhat in my memory, but I believe that we had to have a certain amount of money by 5:30 that evening, or be evicted from our home. But I knew that if I did my part, God would provide the need.

All day long I sought open doors -- but every door was closed and apparently locked tight. My faith was being tried. Then 5:00 p.m. came. Time had almost run out.

But I still relied on God. At that moment it came to my mind to stop up at the office of a Mr. Davidson, manager of the Merchandising Service Department of the Portland Oregonian.

"Say," he exclaimed, "you're just the man I've been looking for. The advertising agency for the Bissell carpet sweeper people want a survey made in Portland on the relative opinions of women between the carpet sweeper and the vacuum cleaner. You are the only man I know with the experience to conduct such a survey. Can you take time to do it?"

I most certainly could! It was going to pay just the exact amount I needed by 5:30 that evening to prevent being evicted. But the check would not be forthcoming until about 30 days, after the survey was completed.

With brisk step, after having been briefed on what the Bissell company wanted in the survey, I walked rapidly over to the offices of the mortgage company where the house payment had to be made, arriving right on the deadline, 5:30 p.m.!

I explained about the survey to be made immediately. I offered to simply endorse the check and hand it over for our house rent when it came, if the company would accept it some 30 days later. My word was good with them. Since it was definitely sure, they agreed to accept this check 30 days My word was good with them. Since it was definitely sure, they agreed to accept this check 30 days later, on my promise to endorse it over.

1928 ended. It had been a year of great progress in my life. Spiritually, that is -- certainly not financially.

It had been a year of outstanding world events. Trotsky, Zinoviev and other Communists were exiled from Russia January 16th that year. The first all-talking motion picture was shown in New York that year on July 6th. This was preparing the way for our filming The World Tomorrow for television, beginning 1955. October 13th of that year God had blessed us with the birth of our first son, Richard David.

In the spring of 1929 we moved to a house on 75th Street, north of Sandy Boulevard. 1929 was to be a year of struggle, spiritual growth, and miraculous answers to prayer.

In world events, too, 1929 was an epochal year! The notorious "St. Valentine's Day massacre" in Chicago occurred February 14th. On June 7th that year, the Papal State, extinct since 1870, was revived as a state, or nation. The Kellogg Peace Treaty, known also as the Pact of Paris, outlawing WAR, was signed July 24th. Albert B. Fall, Secretary of the Interior, came to his terrific FALL November 1, when he was sentenced for accepting a $100,000 bribe. Commander Richard E. Byrd made the first flight over the south pole November 28. And, biggest event of all, the New York Stock Market crash occurred October 29th. 16,000,000 shares changed hands. The decline in value of stocks was estimated at 15 billion dollars by end of 1929. And stock losses, by 1931, were estimated at 50 billion, affecting directly 25 million people. It plunged America into its worst depression. It prevented me from making a million dollars!

1929 not only ended as a depression year for us -- as it did for millions of others -- it began as just another of the lean years! For us, it was another year of desperation to keep ourselves alive.

Very shortly after moving into the house on 75th Street, we had reached another crisis of hunger and desperate need. Again I prayed earnestly for God to either send us some money or provide a way for me to earn it.

An hour or two later, a strange woman knocked on our front door. Mrs. Armstrong opened the door. There was something mysterious about the woman's appearance.

Who was she? She did not introduce herself. She gave no inkling of her identity.

"If your husband isn't too proud to do it," she said in a low, quiet voice, "there are two truckloads of wood he can throw in at this address. Jot it down." My wife jotted down the street and number.

The mysterious woman walked quickly away and disappeared. People in Portland used wood for fuel. Portland is in the heart of the Oregon-Washington lumber country. Throwing wood into the woodshed, garage, or basement, was an oddjob customarily reserved for the bums who came along. Very few men in Portland threw in their own wood. To be seen doing it was to appear as a down-and-out bum.

We were totally perplexed as to the identity of this strange woman. How did she know we were in such desperate need? Who was she? We never knew.

But I did know I had just asked God to provide. And at once I recognized one fact. This woman was like the mischievous boys playing a trick on a poor widow. Her window had been open. She was praying aloud, asking God to send her some bread for her children. The little boys, playing just outside the window, overheard her prayer.

"Let's play a trick on her," said one of the boys. "Let's toss a loaf of bread through her window."

When they did, she knelt again and gave God thanks. "Ah-ya-ya!" jeered the boys. "God didn't throw in that bread -- we boys did."

"Well," answered the grateful widow, smiling, "Maybe the devil brought it, but just the same GOD sent it!"

No matter who this mysterious woman was, I knew God sent her! And I realized instantly that God was answering my prayer HIS way, and not mine. I knew He was giving me a test to see whether I would accept a humiliating job. I realized I had not yet been freed completely from ego and pride. I knew that God was giving me a lesson in humility at the same time He answered my prayer.

I walked immediately to the address the woman gave. It was about a mile from our house. There was a large pile of wood in front. I went to the door, asked for, and got the job of throwing the wood in the basement.

Realizing God was teaching me a lesson, I resolved to do it HIS WAY, which was to do the best job I could. A thing worth doing is worth doing right! Now that God allows me to be the employer of many men, I insist that they do their work in the right manner -- or else tear it out and do it over.

I stacked the wood up as neatly and orderly as I could. I worked rapidly, and did it as quickly as I could. Several people walked past the house. Every time one saw me, I winced. I knew they thought I was a down-and-out bum. Each passerby knocked off a little more of that vanity. But I just prayed silently to God about it, and thanked Him for the lesson, and asked Him to help me to be humble and industrious.

"Why, you've done that so neatly, and so fast, I'm going to pay you double," she said.

The satisfaction and inspiration this gave was a far bigger reward than the extra money.

About this time a clay mine was brought to my attention. It promised to become a million dollar "gold mine."

My former associate on The Vancouver Evening Columbian, who had been its Business Manager, Samuel T. Hopkins, brought it to me. He had encountered an elderly man who owned a farm on which a mysterious kind of clay was mined. It was located in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains, in Skamania County, Washington.

One day this farmer had cut a bad gash on the back of his hand on a rusty barbed wire fence. He had been digging rather deeply in the vicinity and had dug into a semisoft grayish blue-green clay. Without thinking much about why he did it, he reached down, scooped up a handful of the soft clay and slapped it over the back of the hand to cover the cut. Then he proceeded with his day's work. The clay dried in some 20 or 30 minutes.

That evening on removing the now dried and hardened clay, he was surprised to discover that it had coagulated the blood, drawn the skin together from the wide gash, and virtually healed it over!

The farmer became curious. A member of his family was plagued with eczema. He experimented. This clay was placed over the portion of skin affected, and allowed to dry. There was noticeable improvement. A second and third application was applied. Soon the skin disease disappeared.

The farmer knew Sam Hopkins, and told him about it. Mr. Hopkins made a few experiments on cases of acne and eczema. Results were astonishing.

This clay contained a certain amount of fine sand and grit which proved somewhat harsh on women's skin. So he experimented with rubbing the clay through a very fine copper wire screen, removing most of the sand and grit.

About this time he came to me with his discovery. He thought it contained great possibilities, but didn't know how to market it. He offered me a 50% partnership in whatever we might do with it. I was considerably intrigued. I took a sample to a well-known doctor in Portland who specialized in skin diseases.

"It is certainly a coincidence," said the doctor, "that you came at this psychological time. I have a stubborn skin disease case which has persisted six months. I'm not making any headway with it. I couldn't tell my patient, but I don't mind admitting to you that I am desperate enough to try this clay. Under other circumstances I'd be very reluctant to experiment with anything new."

I returned a week later. The doctor was very excited. "There's something very mysterious about that clay," he said. "Why! a few applications cured that skin disease completely!"

We had noticed that it was 50% heavier than water. A pound-size jar of this clay weighed 24 ounces. He felt it might contain radium, or other radioactive substance. He suggested I take it to another Portland physician, then president of the Oregon-Washington Medical Association, who specialized in cancer and radium treatment. He called this doctor on the telephone and set up the conference for me.

I found this physician maintained a large suite of offices, or treating rooms, like a private hospital, with eight registered nurses in constant attendance.

He made a number of experiments, and became quite excited. It cured acne, eczema, psoriasis. One day he contacted me, requesting a large supply of the clay. He had a patient almost completely covered and his whole body swollen with poison oak -- the most severe case he had ever seen -- and the patient was in critical condition. After the first application of the clay, the painful itching was greatly relieved, and after the second it was stopped. This patient was kept in his private hospital quarters, and after several days the poison was completely gone!

This physician made a photographic test for radium -- not a completely reliable or conclusive test, but he felt it would give some indication. The film, left overnight inside a metal case placed next to a jar of clay, had been exposed to light when developed. This indicated radium! But the doctor would not accept it as final, saying this was not a completely conclusive test.

Some four or five rooms down the hall his X-ray apparatus was located. He said it was barely possible that the film had been exposed by this machine, instead of by the clay. If this were true, I reasoned, then why were not all his X-ray films exposed by that apparatus, so he could never use any of them? But I was not a scientist, I discarded my reasoning as worthless.

This physician acquainted a friend of his, a leading corporation attorney, with the facts about this clay. This attorney had connections in the east with wealthy men and interests who had large sums to invest.

"I'll tell you what I'll do," said the lawyer. "You men cannot afford to pay me the fee I would charge to handle this for you. But the doctor has told me enough to give me confidence in this thing. I'll make you this proposition: I'll handle the legal end of it, and give you whatever advice I can. I will do what I can to get it financed. You either have a million-dollar proposition or nothing. If it fails, you owe me nothing. If you succeed, I'll charge you a double fee, and in that event you'll be amply able to pay it."

We agreed. He drew up an option contract, under which we were to be given exclusive right to all of the clay for one year, at a certain price per gallon. We were given one year to exercise the option and purchase the property. The purchase price was set at about three times the value of the property as a farm. The owner signed the option contract. We had one year to make our million dollars.

It was probably August or September, 1929, when we got the contract signed and were ready to start building our million dollar fortune out of the clay mine.

With the cooperation of this doctor, I immediately sought out the leading, most aggressive and the best-informed beauty shop operator in Portland. Many inquiries in the field led to one certain woman. Since this clay seemed to quickly rid women of acne, eczema, and other common skin diseases, we decided the biggest single market possibility was through the beauty shops.

This woman made experiments. The results were the same. It cleared up splotched faces after a reasonable number of applications. But, she discovered, it had a drawing power too severe for many women. Applied as a face masque, or a "mud-pack," it seemed to hold the face in a stiff vise. Its drawing power was exceedingly strong.

"For use as a mud-pack facial," this beauty shop owner advised, "I recommend cutting down the severe drawing power by mixing a certain facial oil in it. And it must be perfumed."

"We'd better have the advice and cooperation of a top-flight chemist," I said. I went to the chief chemist of the largest wholesale drug house in Portland. He agreed to help. Between him, the beauty shop expert, and the physician, we worked out a formula which the beautician pronounced perfect, the doctor and chemist pronounced safe and harmless, which had the most delightful fragrance, and which, after many tests, we found to have the same powers of eradicating embarrassing face blotches -- except that it required perhaps one or two more treatments than before.

But, just as we were getting everything ready to approach one of the largest cosmetics concerns on a deal to sell them our formula and the raw supply of the clay -- just as we were devising various other possible uses and markets -- that fateful October 29th, 1929, rolled around.

The stock market crashed. The nation was plunged into the worst economic depression of its history.

It became utterly impossible to finance a new business, or sell a new product to a cosmetic firm.

Once again, as if some unseen supernatural hand were taking every business opportunity away from me, another promising business of million-dollar possibilities was swept away by powers and forces beyond my control!

I began to call myself King Midas in reverse! Everything I touched turned -- well, this time -- to CLAY! It was certainly not a gold mine. It was only a clay mine, after all.

By this time I had no means of keeping my family alive, except to try to sell this clay. I had to explain to beauty shop owners that they could not sell these facial masques as a means of healing, or curing a facial disease. They could be prosecuted for practicing medicine without a license if they did. But they could recommend these treatments to customers as the finest of all facials, and suggest that if, incidentally, they found that the acne disappeared, that would be very nice!

I also worked out a formula for poison oak. I called it P.O.P. -- Poison Oak Paste. A certain amount of distribution for this was developed through local Portland drug stores. All who bought it reported astonishing results.

The facial masque, or clay-pack, I named Marve. This I began to sell in "booth-size" pound jars to beauty shops. But each jar actually weighed l½ pounds! Before long, many of the Portland shops were using it, and gradually resales increased.

I found a way to dilute the clay until it became a soupy liquid. All the sand and grit would sink to the bottom. Then I siphoned off the top. Straining it through fine copper-wire screens did not remove all the fine grit. My new way left it soft and utterly smooth. Our kitchen on 75th Street became virtually a clay factory. After the siphoning process, I boiled the clay down to the consistency I wanted it. This boiling did no harm to its curative powers, and made it more sanitary.

Shortly after we moved into the house on 75th Street, a Mr. and Mrs. Charlie Beck moved into the corner house next door. Helen Beck was one of the most cheerful women we ever knew. She seemed full of sunshine and good cheer within and without. She was quite religiously inclined, even emotionally so. She learned and accepted quite a little Biblical truth through us, but seemed unable to see quite all of the truth. Nevertheless she appeared to walk in all the truth she really grasped -- and if I ministered to some extent to her in spiritual matters, she ministered to us in a material way.

She learned that we often did not have enough to eat. When we did get in a little money, we went to the markets and loaded up on beans and food that "went the farthest and cost the leastest."

But often when we were out of food, she would come to our back door with her cheery "Good morning, folks, here's your breakfast," carrying a tray full of steaming hot breakfast. Prior to the bust of 1920 it would have cut my pride unbearably to have received this kind of "charity" from a next-door neighbor. But hers was the kind spoken of in I Corinthians 13, where it says that though you may speak with the tongues of angels, understand all knowledge, have all faith, "and have not charity," you are NOTHING!

Actually this cheerful "good morning" act of charity profited both ourselves and Helen Beck. It is more blessed to give than to receive. She reaped that greater blessing. But I reaped the spiritual blessing of being humbled a little further -- having to swallow more pride, and see the hand of God in it!

And so the year 1929 had come and gone. 1930 was to be another of the "lean years" -- as indeed were several others to follow. We were at rock bottom financially. We had learned what it is to go hungry. But these were, nevertheless, years of spiritual growth.

These were the years in which Jesus Christ, the living Head of His Church, was instructing me in His Word, preparing me for His ministry, humbling me, rooting out the self-confidence, the cocky conceit, the vanity and egotism.

But he was replacing these self-trusting attributes with reliance and dependence on GOD. Instead of self-confidence, He was giving me painful but valuable lessons in FAITH. He was granting us a few miraculous answers to prayer. Some far more astonishing answers to prayer were to follow in the year 1930.

NEVER in my life have I faced a more serious problem than the situation that confronted us at the beginning of the year 1930. Not only were we confronted with another lean year economically -- with our own personal financial condition at rock bottom -- with the whole nation plunging on down, down, DOWN, into the depths of depression -- but it seemed as if we were destitute of faith in God as well.

We were within six weeks of the birth of our fourth child. My wife, who had been so miraculously healed in 1927, was now in an alarming condition. She was anemic. Her blood was lacking in iron. Her strength appeared depleted. The doctor was definitely alarmed. He was afraid of complications at the time of delivery, due to her weakened condition. He insisted she go to the hospital where every emergency facility would be available in event of trouble.

But we had been in such financial depths that the hospital bill for our first son's birth had not been paid. The hospital would not admit my wife again until the previous bill was paid -- or else we paid in advance.

I had prayed for Mrs. Armstrong's healing. But she had not been healed. I had prayed again. And again! But there had been no improvement, and time was running out. We were becoming desperate.

What was wrong? I had learned that God does heal. We had experienced almost incredible miracles. My wife had been healed before. But why not now?

Obviously God had not changed -- He is the same from eternity to eternity. He has promised to heal, and His Word is SURE! The fault could not be with God. I knew it had to be with me. But where? I "searched my heart." One condition to receiving miraculous healing is that we OBEY God.

"Whatsoever we ask, we receive of him BECAUSE we keep his commandments" (I John 3:22).

But I had surrendered to obey God's commandments three years before. FAITH is the second condition. But I believed, as firmly as when God first healed my wife.

There was no more time to lose. I had to find the answer. I knew of only one way. Fasting and prayer! It was the last-ditch resort. I didn't know how one ought to fast and pray -- I had never done it before. But when Jesus' disciples were unable to cast out a demon, Jesus said such a result came only by fasting and prayer. So I began to fast.

The fasting was begun on a Sabbath morning. That morning I ate no breakfast. Not knowing how one ought to go about fasting and prayer, I first prayed and asked God to show me the way -- to open my understanding. Then, since God speaks to us through His written Word, I began to search the Bible for instruction about fasting. For one hour with the aid of a concordance I studied passages of Scripture on the subject of fasting and praying, much of the time on my knees.

Then for one hour I sat in thought and contemplation. I turned over in my mind the scriptures I had read. I reflected on my own life in recent months. I tried to compare it with God's way, as revealed in the Scriptures. Then I spent the next hour in talking to God -- in prayer.

And so I decided to continue in this order -- one hour in Scripture study, one in contemplation, and one in prayer. I did not once ask God to heal my wife -- as yet. I had been doing that for weeks, without result. I was fasting and praying, not for the purpose of bringing pressure on God to force Him to obey my will and give what was asked -- but to find out what was wrong with me! I realized we did not need to nag at God. NEVER fast as a means of inducing God to answer!

I read of Elijah's prayer, in presence of all the priests of Baal, when God answered and the fire came down from heaven. I timed that prayer. It was very short -- only about 20 seconds. But the awe-inspiring answer came crashing from heaven instantly! Elijah did not need to talk God into it by a long prayer, or by repeated prayers. But I knew that Elijah at that moment was close to God -- that he had previously been spending hours in long prayers to be in contact and close communion with His Maker! And he naturally knew His Maker would answer!

Gradually the truth began to pierce through the fog in my mind. Gradually, as this process of fasting and prayer continued all day, and into the afternoon of Sunday -- as I became more and more hungry -- but closer and closer to God, the realization came that I had been keeping my mind more and more fully on this clay project.

This experience in fasting and prayer, and the overwhelming result, has been broadcast over the air, and probably related previously in The Plain Truth. But it is one of the outstanding experiences in my life and properly belongs in this present account, even though a repetition for numerous readers.

This process of self-examination, in the order of one hour of Bible study, followed by an hour of reflection and contemplation, and then an hour of prayer, under the unpleasant weakness of fasting, continued until the middle of Sunday afternoon.

Suddenly I heard one of our daughters cry out: "Here comes Grandpa and Grandma!"

My father and mother were driving their Ford 2-door sedan up our driveway. At the moment I was lying on the bed in our bedroom, in an hour of thinking and reflecting. By this time I KNEW where the trouble had been. I realized fully that I had gotten so wrapped up in this clay project -- the development of formulas -- devising plans for marketing -- and selling enough of it to beauty shops to keep us from starving, that I had unconsciously been drifting farther from the previously close relationship with God.

I had not stopped Bible study or prayer. I had not even realized that I had been diminishing it. But now I realized that I had actually become closer to this clay project than I was to God. It was fast becoming first in my mind, my interest, and my time. And God will not play second fiddle to anything!

I wonder, as I write, how many of my readers are more wrapped up, in their interest, and in their hearts, in some material business, project, or other interest, than they are in GOD! Probably most of you who are reading this need what God had brought me to do.

I realized now that God had mercifully, in His wisdom and His love for me and my family, refused to answer my prayers to force me to fast and pray and come to see where I was unconsciously drifting.

But in a flash, as I heard my father's car drive past the bedroom window, the realization came that the mission of the fasting was accomplished! No need to continue it, now! I must end it, and go out and greet my parents.

And so, in a brief prayer not much longer than Elijah's, but in deep earnestness and absolute faith, I now -- for the first time during this fast -- asked God to heal my wife and put iron in her blood and give her needed strength. Like a flash it came to mind that we were completely out of food -- out of wood for fuel to keep warm (in January) -- so I asked Him to send us food and fuel. I asked Him to send money for the hospital bill for the delivery of the baby. Quickly I thought of my winter topcoat -- it had a big hole at the rear of one hip, which was embarrassing and a handicap in my work -- and asked God for a new coat.

Asking God for these five things had taken less than a minute. But by now my parents were alighting from the car, and I wanted to go out to meet them. Two scriptures flashed to my mind:

"Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him" (Matt. 6:8).

"My God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:19).

So quickly I ended my prayer, saying, "Father in heaven, you know what I need, before I ask -- and you have promised to supply every need -- so I ask you to supply whatever else I need." Then I quickly thanked God for it, rose and ran to greet my parents.

Dad was just handing Mother a big covered roaster out of the car, and then gathering up an armload of wood. He had removed the back seat before leaving Salem, and piled into the entire rear part of the car a large supply of wood.

We soon had a fire going in the kitchen cook stove, and Mother reheated an entire big dinner she had brought in the roaster. Dad had managed to pile about a week's supply of wood into his car. So here, even as I was asking for it, was the answer to two of my prayer requests -- the immediate fuel and food.

Arising Monday morning, my wife's cheeks were rosy red! When the doctor saw her, he exclaimed:

"What in the world has happened to you!" He could not understand how her anemia had so suddenly disappeared. She had her old zip and pep and strength. (Mrs. Armstrong always was an energetic person -- as recorded earlier, her brothers had nicknamed her variously "Shebang," and "Cyclone" as a little girl.)

The very first mail delivery after my prayer request, on that Monday morning, brought a letter from one of my wife's uncles in Iowa containing, most unexpectedly, a settlement from her mother's will, in the exact amount of the hospital bill! My wife's mother had died when she was twelve.

You may be sure that Mrs. Armstrong and I were overwhelmed with gratitude. Our prayers that morning were all of thanksgiving to a God who is REAL, and near to every one of us -- if we will be near to Him!

But Monday was another business day in downtown Portland, and it was necessary to make the rounds of some of the beauty parlors once again to sell more clay. Arriving in the lobby of an office building I would remove my topcoat, and carefully fold it so as to hide the big hole in the side, carry it on my arm, and then enter the shops or offices where I had to call.

About eleven that morning I found myself across the street from the building of the gas company, where my brother Russell was an information clerk. So I crossed over. We chatted for a couple of moments.

"Herb," exclaimed Russell suddenly, eyeing the hole in my coat, "You've got to have a new overcoat. Meier & Frank are having a big sale on overcoats. Today is January 20th. I have a charge account at Meier & Frank's, and anything charged beginning today is not billed until the March 1st statement, and I will have until March 10th to pay and keep my credit good. You go over now, and select an overcoat, and I'll meet you over there at noon and have it charged."

"Oh, no, Russ" I remonstrated, "I couldn't let you do that." But suddenly, as I continued to protest, it seemed as if a still, small voice within said to me: "Didn't you ask God to give you a new overcoat? Are you willing to receive it the way God gives it, or not?"

It is human nature to rebel against God's way. We want to do things in a different way than God commands. We want to live a different way than God's Law. I broke off the remonstrance immediately.

"O.K., Russ," I smiled humbly, and gratefully, "I'll go select a coat -- and thanks a million!" -- as my eyes began to water.

It was humiliating to me to take this coat from my brother. I felt he could not afford it. But I realized it was God's answer, coming the way God had chosen to answer my prayer. He was still humbling me. But this was good for me, and actually, giving the coat was good for my brother. It just did not seem so, humanly.

On Tuesday or Wednesday of that week my other brother, Dwight, drove over to our house in his Ford.

"I got to thinking, Herb," said Dwight, "You may have to rush Loma to the hospital at any unexpected hour of day or night. I've brought my car over for you. I'm going to leave it until you go to the hospital. And in the meantime, just use it as if it were your own."

I think it was on Thursday afternoon Mrs. Armstrong and I were sitting in our living room reviewing what had happened, and thanking God. It was about three o'clock.

"You know, I never should have thought of needing a car for a sudden emergency trip to the hospital," I said. "But I asked God to send whatever else we needed, besides what I asked for specifically -- and He sent it."

"There is only one thing more that I can think of," mused my wife. "I never thought of this before, but I do not have a robe or slippers to wear in the hospital. If I had those, every need would be complete."

We dismissed it from our minds. But that evening, my sister's husband drove her over to our house. She seemed highly embarrassed, and a little flustered.

"Loma," she said, "I don't understand this at all -- and you may think I'm crazy. But this afternoon, about three o'clock, something strange came over me -- an insistent urge to go to my bedroom and pray. And while I was praying something put it in my mind -- just like a voice saying: 'Take your robe and slippers to Loma! Take your robe and slippers to Loma!' I didn't understand it! I never had any experience like that before. You may think I'm crazy, but I simply had to bring these to you."

We then explained how God had answered my prayer, and how, at that precise time that afternoon we had been in conversation about that very remaining need -- the robe and slippers.

It was just a little over two weeks later that the loan of Dwight's car was justified, and I rushed my wife to the hospital.

My wife named him Garner Ted. The name Garner had been a family name in her family and her mother's family for generations. Her maternal grandmother was a Garner before marriage. Several men in the family had been given the name Garner as a first name.

Mrs. Armstrong had known an intelligent young man in college in Iowa by the name of Ted, whom she greatly admired. The name seemed, she said, "so short and simple and direct."

He was our fourth child. For eleven years of married life I had been denied a son. After Mrs. Armstrong's first miraculous healing, in 1927, I knew that, despite warnings from three doctors, we could have another child without fear of fatal consequences. God had blessed us with our first son, Richard David, on October 13th, 1928. That day was the happiest day of my life. I was filled to overflowing with gratitude for a SON after all those years -- a gift from God.

But now, a year and four months later, God blessed us with a second son. And Ted, too, was born as a result of an almost incredible miracle of healing only three weeks before his birth!

I HAVE related previously how my wife nearly died of toxemia eclampsia shortly before our second daughter was born. Three physicians had warned us that my wife could never have another child. We did not know the reason then. It was many years later that we learned we had the opposite RH blood factor -- she being negative, and I positive. This was unknown to the doctors who said Mrs. Armstrong could not bear another child. It probably was not the cause. This, however, was undoubtedly the cause of Ted having been born with yellow jaundice.

This, as nearly as we can remember now, was one of the reasons it was necessary to supplement the new baby's breast milk. Another reason was the fact that Mrs. Armstrong did not have enough to eat. She simply was not able to supply sufficient milk.

One day a few months after Ted was born -- probably early summer, 1930 -- I arrived home from the beauty shop rounds in midafternoon. The baby was crying lustily. "Hurry!" exclaimed my wife, "Go to the store and get a quart of milk. The baby has missed one feeding, and it's a whole hour past his second feeding, and I haven't a bit of milk for him."

"Well, I'm broke. Give me a dime," I said. Milk was then ten cents a quart -- think of that!

"But if I had a dime, I'd have sent Beverly after the milk long ago," she replied. "I've been waiting for you -- praying for God to hurry you home. I thought you'd have at least a dime."

"There's only one thing to do," I said. "We're helpless, of ourselves. There's no human to help us. We'll have to rely on God. He has promised to supply all our NEED -- and this is a need."

Jesus said we should enter into our closet, or small room, and pray to our Father in heaven in secret, and He will reward us openly. The only small room of absolute privacy in our home was the bathroom. I locked the bathroom door and knelt beside the bathtub. God had promised to supply our every need, "according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus." I believed Him.

But we had to have the answer immediately. I had learned that sometimes God does not answer at once -- He sometimes tries our faith in order to develop patience in us. But right now it seemed that little Garner Ted needed his milk more urgently than I needed patience.

I felt there was not time -- or need -- of a long prayer. Instantly the 70th Psalm flashed into my mind. God by His Holy Spirit inspired David to record, as part of the very Word of God, David's prayer wherein he asked God to "Make haste, O God, to deliver me; make haste to help me, O Lord ... I am poor and needy: make haste unto me ... O Lord, make no tarrying." I knew that prayer would not be in God's Word unless it was God's will to ANSWER that same prayer for me. So I asked God boldly to MAKE HASTE!

I arose, unlocked the door, and walked back toward the kitchen. Before I even reached the kitchen, one of our girls cried out from the living-room window:

"Oh Mother, here comes the old rag and bottle man!" "Well, quick! Beverly," called out my wife, "run and stop him! We have a lot of old things in the basement we can sell him!"

The only entrance to our basement, I remember, was from the outside at the rear of the house. In eager anticipation we led the rag and bottle man down the basement stairs. My wife showed him all kinds of things. We expected to get at least a dollar from him.

He only shook his head. "No. Nothing here I want," he said, starting back up the stairs.

Our hearts sank. Halfway up the steps he stopped, glanced at a high stack of old magazines beside the stairs. Slowly he turned and retraced his steps, examining the stack of magazines.

I had asked God to send to us a dime -- immediately -- in haste! When God sent it, within the very minute I asked, we tried to increase it to a dollar or more. But the immediate NEED was a dime for milk. God has not promised to supply our wants -- only our NEED. The need I had asked was a dime -- ten cents! That is what God sent -- immediately!

We had learned another lesson! We gratefully gave God thanks, as I ran all the way to the store and then back with the milk.

Jesus said: "What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and YE SHALL HAVE THEM!" I know that is true. DO YOU?

This incident has been made public before -- over the air and in The Plain Truth -- but it properly belongs here in the Autobiography, so I relate it again.

A family by the name of Melson lived on 74th Street in Portland at this time. Their house and ours were opposite, back to back. Some years later this family became nationally famous. A feature article about them on "How America Lives" appeared in one of America's leading mass-circulation magazines. We can remember that they had three little girls, Anna Lou, Marilyn, and Joyce. Little Dickie, our older boy, called Anna Lou "Ah-woo."

One evening Mr. Melson came over and asked me if I would accept a job with the Wear-Ever Aluminum Company. He was a salesman with that company, selling to retail stores. The job open to me was selling the heavy "New Method" utensils direct to consumers.

The sale of the clay to beauty shops was not providing a living. This aluminum job was the straw a drowning man would grab. We were in such down-and-out financial circumstances we were grateful for anything that promised enough food to eat.

I went to their office. I found this company had developed a type of salesmanship with which I was not experienced -- and they had reduced it to a virtual science. They sold this particular line of utensils, not through stores, but direct to consumers by a system of "demonstration dinners," which they called "dems." First, to see what it was like, I attended one.

A woman was offered a valuable utensil prize if she would invite a number of married couples to a dinner in her home. The prize was in accordance with the number who came. They had to be couples -- husbands and wives. The salesman supplied all the food and ingredients and cooked the dinner. It had to be the most delicious dinner the guests had ever eaten, and of natural foods -- no concoctions.

After the dinner, he gave a lecture on health, and the causes of sickness and disease. I observed that the salesman giving this "dem" seemed to know more about the causes of sickness and disease than the physician who was a guest with his wife -- and he kept quoting nationally known physicians and surgeons for his statements, and then asking the local guest physician if he agreed. Of course he did -- for the statements were all medically correct, and the guest doctor would be disagreeing with outstanding national or international authorities unless he endorsed everything the salesman said.

Before he was through, the guests were impressed that this salesman-lecturer knew more about the minor ailments in their families than their family doctor. Enough of these common ailments had been mentioned -- colds, fevers, constipation, rheumatism, tooth troubles, stomach troubles, digestive disturbances, etc., etc., that every family present was sure to be affected. Then the salesman made appointments to call at each home at a time when both husband and wife would be present, in order to give private and confidential counsel about how to prevent these ailments by proper diet and method of preparing food.

Every couple present willingly made the appointment. I could see that most of them were actually eager to make it. They had never heard a lecture of this type before. It had been sparkling with interest, and had opened up facts about common ailments they never knew before.

I was intrigued. I saw that this job offered me the opportunity to make an intensive study of the causes of sickness and disease, and of nutrition and the part diet plays in health or illness. I had already been doing enough preaching to have had some little experience in giving these lectures. Also, the lectures would provide experience for more effective preaching.

One thing that appealed to me was the fact that a salesman, in this rather unique work, could be doing a great deal of good. I learned, during the following years, that many of these salesmen were conscientious and used their work only for the good of the customer.

My first "dem" was a very large cooperative one, held in a public hall in Oregon City. Several of the men out of the Portland district headquarters participated, a more experienced one delivering the lecture. Actual participation gave me initial experience.

The district supervisor, a Mr. Peach, gave me a list of several books, whose authors were nationally famous physicians and surgeons, on the subject of diet, causes of common ailments, sickness and disease.

At the library and bookstores I searched out other books beside these he recommended. I plunged into an intensive study in this fascinating field. Mr. Peach also gave me mimeographed material, data, and facts which his office had condensed from many qualified authorities -- including many shocking figures and statistics on existing national health conditions. The office also supplied me with large charts, illustrated, showing many of these little-known facts. The charts were used in the lectures.

I obtained pamphlets from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, showing results of scientific government tests made, I believe, at the University of Wisconsin. These tests showed the percentage of mineral elements and vitamins lost from various kinds of foods by cooking at or over the boiling temperature. These figures were astounding. They showed that excessive temperatures, in cooking, rob foods of from 23% to 78% of these vital health elements.

I learned of what the human body is constituted -- primarily 16 elements of matter, 12 of which are alkaline-reacting mineral elements, and 4 of which are acid-reacting carbohydrates. I learned that, while the human body requires for health that the diet be composed of a large majority of the alkaline mineral elements, the average American meal is in fact a dietetic horror -- consisting of an overwhelming preponderance of the starches, sugars, and greases -- the carbohydrate acid-reacting elements which cause numerous ailments and diseases.

Most natural foods are rendered harmful by sauces, gravies and dressings. I learned that leading physicians -- that is, the very few who have studied foods, or the causes of sickness and disease -- estimate variously that from 85% to 95% of all sickness and disease which is not of mental origin is caused by faulty diet, and the small remaining percent from all other causes combined.

Soon I had an eye-opening, interest-compelling lecture outlined. Of course the study was continued intensively -- along with continued Bible study for the next year, and the lecture progressively altered and supplemented.

The details are now dim in memory -- this is being written almost 30 years later -- but it seems that I teamed with another more experienced man in the next one or two "dems."

Then I must have been transferred to the territory around Salem, Oregon. Also it seems this move was influenced by the fact that I had not yet gotten sufficiently established in this aluminum selling to have been able to pay our house rent, and my father was having to pay it for us. Apparently he felt it would be less burden on him for us to move back into the parental home in Salem.

About the time I was getting started in this new work, we acquired the first automobile we ever owned. I had learned to drive a car when I was Assistant Secretary of the Chamber of Commerce at South Bend, Indiana, when I was 23. I had driven cars a great deal. Often I had borrowed my brother Russell's car, and also my brother Dwight's. But it was impossible to hold these "dems" without a car.

So an arrangement had been made with my father whereby I received his car -- a two-door Ford sedan -- and he acquired a better car. Just what the three-cornered deal was is too cloudy in mind to recall.

So, along about October, 1930, we left the house on 75th Street in Portland, and once again moved in with my parents on Highland Avenue in Salem.

The religious interest did not diminish. Rather, this new study of the causes of ill health and disease, and these "dems" with their health lectures, only supplemented my continued study of the Bible.

I learned quite a little about fasting as a means of eliminating toxins and poisons from the body. Always the people I visited after a "dem," had in the family some of these common ailments or diseases. Never before had most of them heard any explanation of why they had these sicknesses.

Most people seemed to suppose it is natural for our bodies to get sick. But sickness is not natural. Sickness comes only from broken physical laws within our bodies. Most of the time it comes from excess of carbohydrates. Part of the time from malnutrition -- a lack of essential elements. Under fasting the body naturally eliminates stored up toxins and poisons.

Many on whom I called were, by fasting followed by right diet, relieved of rheumatism, constipation, colds, and many other chronic ailments or diseases.

Of course most doctors do not recommend fasting. Many M.D.'s refer to fasting as a "starvation diet." At that time some doctors seemed to feel that if a patient missed a single meal or two he or she would starve. No matter what the sickness or disease, if one were admitted to a hospital, one very probably was fed, even if intravenously.

Actually, if people would fast more, as animals do by instinct when sick, and eat more carefully, it might just be that the doctors would starve, not the patients!

But those doctors wanted to stay in business. They did not often recommend fasting.

On the other hand, one should not fast for more than three to five days unless he is under the care of a physician who does understand and believe in fasting, or someone equally experienced. And one kind of fasting is required to rid one of constipation, and another kind is indicated for other situations.

It is regrettable that medical "science" was so narrow that it tried to make a cure-all of one thing -- medicine; or, in some cases, of surgery. One doctor confided to his elderly mother that if all drugs were dumped into the ocean, it would be so much better for humanity, and so much worse for the fish. But such was the "science" of man that all too often it is, as the Word of God says plainly, "science falsely so called." The day will come when the whole world will wake up to that sad fact!

I never did, on these calls, ask people if I could pray for their healing. God's instruction is, "Is any sick among you; let him call for the elders of the church" (James 5:14-15). They are told to ASK FOR IT. And I was not then an elder. I was not then ordained.

However, when the subject of God's truth did come up -- as it frequently did -- if I found the people I was visiting were believers, and they asked me to pray for their healing, I always did. This happened a number of times, and several were healed. But I had learned never to force religion on any one, and the approach to the subject had to come from them. This is God's way.

What I learned during this year of study and lecturing on sickness and disease was actually an important part of the preparation God was taking me through for His ministry.

Along in November of 1930 the Runcorns, neighbors of my parents, asked me to go with them to a business meeting of brethren of the Church of God, being held in the home of Mrs. Ira Curtis, near Jefferson, Oregon.

Although I was a guest -- I had never become a member of this church, whose headquarters was at Stanberry, Missouri -- they asked me to act as secretary and take down the minutes of the meeting. I learned that the meeting was called for the purpose of organizing these Oregon members into an Oregon Conference.

I sensed immediately there was a feeling of division among them. Elder A. N. Dugger was the real leader of the church at Stanberry. He was editor of the church's weekly paper sent to members. He either was, or had been, president of their General Conference. I learned that they were organized as a General Conference, with elections of officers held biannually. Most of the Oregon members lived in the Willamette Valley in the vicinity of Jefferson. Most of them were in attendance at this business meeting.

About half of them were opposed to Elder Dugger. They wanted to organize a State Conference. Some of the other states had state conferences. The purpose of this Oregon State Conference was to hold the tithes and church funds contributed by Oregon members in Oregon.

But actually, it was born of opposition to and dissatisfaction with the Stanberry membership and state conference. The other half were just as verbal in their loyalty and support of Elder Dugger and the Stanberry regime.

The dispute over Stanberry politics and Elder Dugger's personal fitness and integrity waxed more and more heated. One tall man who weighed considerably over 200, and was a leader, spoke of "dirty politics" and called Elder Dugger a "ward-healer." An equally vociferous man on the other side of the dispute rose to defend the honor of Mr. Dugger. Words flamed hotter and hotter. Each side was sincere and in roused earnest. Under the tense pressure tempers were flaring. I became afraid it was going to be settled (or unsettled) by fists.

At that instant I rose, and in a loud but calm voice asked if I might say a word. Since I was a guest, they didn't refuse.

"Brethren," I said, "you all know how, as recorded in the first chapter of Job, when the sons of God came together, Satan came also. You also know how, in the 12th chapter of Revelation we are told that the people Satan is most angry with are those who keep the Commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. That means us. Satan is here. He is stirring up rage and anger in your hearts. I am going to drop to my knees right now, and ask God Almighty to cast Satan out of this house! All of you who wish may kneel with me and pray silently."

Without another word, I quickly dropped to my knees beside my chair, and began asking God to rebuke Satan and this controversial spirit that was rousing these men to anger, and to drive Satan from our presence, and to give us peace and love.

When I rose there were some wet eyes, but there were no angry voices. These people were sincere. They simply believed what they believed and had allowed themselves to be caught off guard, and roused to anger.

The state conference was agreed to and formed. The concept of church government seemed to be that lay members should be in the offices of authority. Ministers were to be employed, and under orders from the lay members. This is essentially the concept of what we call democracy: government from the bottom up. Those being governed dictate who shall be their rulers and how their rulers shall rule them.

The most perplexing subject in all the Bible to me was this matter of church government. I never did come to clear understanding of the BIBLE teaching on the subject until after Ambassador College was formed and well on its way.

I believe that elderly G. A. Hobbs of Oregon City, previously mentioned, was made the first president of this state Conference, and that O. J. Runcorn, with whom I had come to this meeting, was president the second year. I have in my old files my Ministerial License Certificate, which is reproduced in this autobiography, dated March 2,1932, and signed by O. J. Runcorn as President, and Mrs. I. E. Curtis as Secretary. This was almost a year after I was ordained -- probably my second certificate.

At the close of this business meeting, the newly elected officers caused me great embarrassment.

They asked me if I would hold an evangelistic campaign for them in the church building they rented in Harrisburg. I had never preached before the public. Only before these brethren in the Willamette Valley and at Oregon City. As I have stated before, becoming a preacher was the very last thing I should ever have wanted to do. I had been literally drawn into what little preaching had been done before these few brethren. Most certainly I had never pushed myself in.

But to hold a public evangelistic campaign! Consternation seized me! By nature, I shrank from the idea. Yet here were these simple, Bible-loving people, looking to me for leadership. It was as if they were sheep needing a shepherd. They wanted to get the Gospel out. It seemed impossible to refuse. If I was severely embarrassed at the thought of doing it, it would be even more embarrassing to refuse. More and more I was being drawn into the ministry by some power greater than I.

Inexperienced though I still was in the Gospel area, I had come to realize that the success of any campaign depended more on the amount and earnestness of prayer behind such a campaign, than on the oratory or eloquence of the speaker. One thing I knew -- if GOD was in it -- if I were merely an instrument and GOD was really conducting the campaign, it was bound to bear fruit.

"Well, brethren," I replied, "I have never preached before a public audience in my life. All the revivals and evangelistic services I have attended have wound up in altar calls. I'll tell you the truth -- I simply could not do this without a lot of help from God. And I know that results will depend more on the PRAYER back of the meetings than on my preaching. In fact, the effectiveness of the preaching will depend on prayer and the extent to which I can allow God to speak through me. This would really be a very hard assignment for me. But I'll make you brethren a proposition. If every one of you here at this meeting will pledge yourselves right now to devote not less than one hour every day to earnest and believing and prevailing PRAYER for the success of these meetings -- for God to help me and speak through me -- for God to cause the ones He is calling and drawing to attend -- and for God to convict the ones He is calling -- and if you will solemnly pledge to keep up this hour or more a day of prayer, beginning now, and until the last night of the meetings -- then I will undertake this campaign. I could do it at the end of December. Our company does not work from December 20th until after New Year's day. I could start the campaign on Sunday night, December 21st, and eleven nights right up to the end of the year. The Wear Ever company has a convention in Seattle the first week in January and I must be there. But I will have these eleven nights free."

And now, it was their turn to be embarrassed. Perhaps some had been spending an hour a day in prayer -- but I was sure most of them had not. Their tempers would not have boiled over into a near fist fight if they had. But, as I had been too embarrassed to refuse their offer, they were too embarrassed to refuse mine. To refuse to devote an hour a day on their knees would be very un-Christian! Yes, that would have been more embarrassing than to go through with it!

These brethren realized that the Stanberry church was not getting the Gospel to the world with power. In this area the church was virtually impotent. The Oregon brethren were anxious to "get the Work going." Although I had been greatly humbled by business reverses not of my making, and by conversion, they were aware of my past experience in the business world.

And actually, from the time of this business meeting, the brethren in Oregon looked to me for the leadership that would revitalize the work of the Gospel. There had been no minister of the church resident in Oregon. But from this time ministers were to be sent there to counteract the favor these Oregon brethren were showing toward me. Always I was to meet opposition from the ministers.

You may be sure that I, too, practiced what I demanded of them. In fact, I was afraid not to. If ever I had needed the help of God it was now.

I designed a good-sized circular. This was the first time my 20 years of advertising experience was used in God's Work. I did not have the money to have the handbills printed, but the new conference officials agreed to pay all expenses for the meetings. I had the circular printed at the job printing department of the Salem Statesman. I do not remember how they were distributed, but I think church brethren living near Harrisburg must have volunteered to do it. The handbills were distributed to every house in Harrisburg and for some five miles around.

Even before conversion I had attended two or three evangelistic campaigns. A businessman, a prosperous and successful owner of a factory in southeastern Iowa, had conducted a big tent campaign in Indianola, Iowa, during the summer of 1923. At that time I was working with my brother-in-law, Walter Dillon, on his college oratory, and also conducting a merchandising survey for an Indianola weekly paper.

I had attended several of these meetings. The businessman was a vigorous speaker, somewhat of the Billy Sunday style. He had a very effective song leader and team -- much as Billy Graham was to do later on a much larger scale. Always there were altar calls -- the traditional "sawdust trail." Workers urged people of the audience to go forward.

In my inexperience, I took these traditional methods for granted. In these beginning years of my ministry I went along with many of these religious practices -- and even some doctrines -- commonly accepted by the evangelical denominations, and which I later had to UN-learn.

I had to learn one doctrine, and one truth, at a time. The little church building in the little town of Harrisburg, then about 500 population, had seating capacity of perhaps 150. On the first Sunday night we had about 100 or more in attendance.

I think the attendance dropped a little after the first night, but it held up not far under a hundred. Our little group of church brethren assembled in the church about an hour and a half early each evening, and had their hour of prayer together in the church.

We did not have droves of hundreds or thousands "hitting the sawdust trail," but God did give us four who were converted in the meetings.

However, we knew that the greatest good done was the spiritual revival that took place in the church brethren as a result of that hour a day spent in solid prayer!

They were a changed people! They were happy. They were closer to God -- and this was evidenced by their manner, their conversation, their lives!

The subject of water baptism had been the very first I had studied in the Bible, after my original surrender to Christ. Now I had four new converts to be baptized. One of those was my own brother, Dwight Armstrong.

But WHO was to baptize them? I was not an ordained minister. A young minister of the Church of God who had been sent out from Stanberry, Missouri, headquarters, had been in an automobile accident in Harrisburg. He was confined to bed with a broken leg at the time. I consulted him. It was a problem neither of us had confronted before.

We looked at Matthew 28:19-20. "Go ye," said Jesus in His Great Commission, "therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them ... " It appeared that whoever taught those who repented and accepted Christ was to do the baptizing. Nothing was said about being ordained.

We examined Acts 2:37-41 -- the initial New Testament experience on the day of Pentecost. Three thousand were baptized. It was evident that the twelve disciples of Jesus could hardly have baptized this vast number.

In Acts 8, Philip, a deacon, and apparently not yet at that time an ordained evangelist, baptized those to whom he preached at Samaria, and later the Ethiopian eunuch.

We decided that I had the authority of God to baptize those converted during my first public preaching.

I baptized them. This brought stern criticism from "authorities" higher up in the church. There was criticism because the Conference paid expenses when I was not even a member. In fact, from this time I was to meet continued criticism, opposition, persecution, and political maneuvering by ministers. But the lay members looked more and more to me for leadership.

THE YEAR 1931 dawned for Mrs. Armstrong and me, like those preceding, with dark and overcast skies. It was one more of the economically lean years. It was an exceedingly high-point year in my life. It was the year in which I was ordained as a minister of Christ's Gospel, plunged full time into the ministry. Yet this very ordination was to foment multiplied opposition and persecution from the Stanberry ministers.

God did not induct me into His service as an imposing figure impressing others as a man of importance, wisdom and distinction.

Rather, the Eternal put me into His ministry a good deal like the Apostle Paul, who wrote: "And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom ... and I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling" (I Cor. 2:1-3).

I was no VIP entering the ministry. There was no red-carpet welcome -- no pomp and ceremony -- no spectacular acclaim. It would not have been God's doing, had it started out auspiciously. Everything God does through human instruments must start with a humble beginning, the very smallest. God brings down low and to naught the proud and the lofty. The Eternal is able to exalt in His own due time those He first humbles.

Every person has his IDOL. GOD cannot receive and convert a human life until his idol has been smashed or torn from him. My idol had been an egotistical sense of self-importance -- a cocky self-assurance -- a passion to become successful -- to attain STATUS -- in the eyes of the material world. God is creating in those He calls a righteous character which can be developed only through experience; and experience requires TIME. God has a lot of time -- He is Eternal -- He has always existed -- He always will.

It took time to eradicate from my heart the love of the praise of men. God gave me, instead, the false accusations, the unwarranted oppositions, the scheming persecutions of jealous, competitive-minded ministers. It required time to bring me to a place where I no longer set my heart on material possessions and the finer things of this material world.

This process required not one or two years -- not seven -- but four sevens! For 28 financially lean and humiliating years out of the very prime of life, God continued to root out of my life and character this vain idolatry!

From the first, and for some time, I was treated by the ministers as the green-horn tail-ender among them. They used every practice and device constantly to humiliate me and belittle me in the eyes of the brethren. I needed this -- and I knew God knew I needed it! Aware of my need of humility, I felt, myself, that I was the "least of the ministers." However, the brethren loved me and continued looking to me for leadership. The only "fruit" being borne resulted from my efforts. This, naturally, was the very reason for the opposition and persecution.

The first evangelistic campaign was over. It was just a short 11-night campaign in the little rented church building in Harrisburg, Oregon. Attendance had been good for such a small town -- around 100. I had not known better than to follow the Protestant evangelical method of giving "altar calls," for repentant sinners accepting Christ to come up to the altar and kneel. Four had come, and been baptized.

The pastor of one of the churches in the neighboring larger town, Junction City, asked me to hold a campaign in his church. I do not remember which church, but I believe it was the Baptist.

I was still dependent on my job with the Wear Ever Aluminum Company, giving dinner "dems" with health lectures and selling their "new method" heavy aluminum utensils. It was necessary that I attend the annual convention of their Pacific Northwest sales force in Seattle, beginning at or after the first week in January.

This prevented any extended campaign at the church in Junction City. However, it was arranged that I should hold three special services there -- on Saturday night, and on Sunday afternoon, and Sunday night with the pastor himself holding his usual Sunday morning service.

I shall never forget the thrill of accomplishment and thankfulness I experienced as I rode with the Runcorns back to Salem after the Harrisburg meetings. It was a deeper and far more intense sensation than I had ever experienced at a football game.

The Wear Ever district convention was held at the New Richmond Hotel in Seattle. There I met all of the top-ranking salesmen of the district -- some of whom were of the high-pressure type and extremely successful, earning large incomes.

However, this convention was somewhat disillusioning. Actual appointments in homes, with a husband and wife who ostensibly were attending a "dem" lecture, were acted out. The entire district sales force saw these top-ranking salesmen in simulated action. I came to realize that these men who were in the big money used high-pressure methods which I, as a Christian, could not employ. It became apparent that I could never get into the big-money bracket on this kind of a job. I was not making enough to meet the actual needs of my family -- just enough to keep us from starving.

I did, however, learn things I had not known about health, nutrition and diet, causes of disease, etc. One thing I learned which seemed important -- the reason why "One man's meat is another man's poison."

Different individuals are of varying chemical types. One person would be classified as the potassium type. The element potassium is somewhat dominating in his physical constitution. These people are said to be the outdoor type, usually extroverts loving to be with other people.

The salesmen analyzed and classified one another as to chemical types. I gave the most "expert" among them considerable difficulty. I seemed to be a mixture of several types, but they finally agreed that calcium was the dominating chemical constituency in my makeup. This must be true, because I require more calcium than most people. Calcium is found in largest quantities in milk and milk products. I seem to crave and need a goodly amount of milk, cheese, and butter.

Shortly after returning to Salem from the convention in Seattle, a death occurred in the family of a young couple, Mr. and Mrs. Milas C. Helms, who lived near Jefferson. Parents of both of them were members of the Church of God. Their baby son, Richard Leon, born November 23, 1930, had died on Monday, January 12, 1931.

I was contacted and asked to conduct the funeral. This was a new and frightening experience for me. The dread and fear of it grew.

"I can't do it!" I kept saying. "I just can't go through with it! I WON'T! I won't do it!" I finally shouted.

Not many times in my life did my father's powerful bass voice speak sharply and with authority to me. This was one of those few times.

"Herbert!" Dad's voice cracked like a sudden thunderclap, in unmistakable authority, "snap out of that instantly! WAKE UP! Come to your senses! Those people are stricken with grief! They are depending on you! You can't let them down! You are going to sit right down and prepare this funeral sermon. Then you are going down there and fulfill this obligation!"

If I had been almost out of my senses, this brought me back instantly. It was like a sudden awakening from a nightmare.

"Yes, Dad," I said. "Thanks for waking me up. I'll ask God to help me, and I will do it."

I had attended very few funerals. I did not know what customary funeral sermons were like. I did not want to know. I felt it would only be a pagan ceremony. I merely prayed and asked God to direct me through His Word. Soon I had a short sermon worked out from the Scriptures, reading certain basic scriptures on the subject of death and the resurrection, with a few brief comments expounding them.

It turned out that only a graveside service had been planned. When the moment came for me to officiate, my prayer for God's help was answered, and I was calm, sympathetic, and in sincere earnest.

That brief sermon from the Scriptures, together with the grief of losing their little son, deeply affected and moved Mike and Pearl Helms, and resulted in bringing them to repentance and conversion through Christ as their Saviour.

It was the beginning of a very close friendship, and Christian fellowship between us for several years to come. I have always had a very special warm spot in my heart for Mike Helms, and I feel sure it is mutual. We were to go through many rough experiences together in God's Work -- experiences which brought us together like two close brothers.

Mike was a vegetable gardener, and a very successful one. He was a natural leader. Inevitably, you will read quite a lot about him if you continue reading this story of my life, for he became closely connected with it and the many experiences I must relate from this point on.

Through the first half of the year 1931 the study and lectures on the causes of sickness and disease continued. Enough of the heavy aluminum was sold to keep the family alive -- but no more.

Two or three cases during that time come back to memory. One man in Salem was troubled with chronic constipation, and with rheumatism. After my first visit to his home he went on a ten-day fast, followed by a diet of natural vegetables and fruits, lean meats and whole grains -- a diet free of starches, fats and white sugar. Both the rheumatism and the constipation disappeared. Another case was a man who had ulcers of the stomach. He could not even drink milk and hold it down. Yet a milk diet, with nothing else for many weeks, was his logical corrective. I squeezed a half lemon into a glass of milk, stirred it, and had him drink it. Of course it curdled slightly. He held it in his stomach, and was started on his milk diet. His stomach healed over naturally after several weeks.

Because I thoroughly believed in what I was doing, I held "dems" for the church brethren in the Jefferson area. Most of them purchased the heavy aluminum, and began eating natural foods.

In the spring of 1931 my father bought a small farm about fifteen miles south of Oregon City, trading their home in Salem for the farm. Of course my brother Russell had been married several years and was living in Portland, and my sister also was married and living in Portland. My youngest brother, Dwight, went with the "folks" to the farm.

At that time we moved to a house on East State Street in Salem. A number of events were to happen to us in that house -- among others, little Garner Ted being miraculously given his voice. When Ted had been about six months old he had fallen out of his crib, landing on his head on the floor. From that time he had been dumb, and he never learned to speak a word until he was past two years old. But that is getting ahead of our story. He was about 14 months when we first moved to the State Street house.

In early summer of that year a former S.D.A. minister, a Robert L. Taylor, came to Oregon from California. It was practice among these Church of God people to hold all-day meetings about once a month. It was at one of these meetings that Mr. Taylor preached. We were all quite impressed.

"He's a better preacher than any of the leading ministers from Stanberry," seemed to be the common exclamation. Indeed we were all rather "swept off our feet" by his preaching.

After a few weeks, the brethren of this "Oregon Conference," which had been formed the preceding November, wanted to team Elder Taylor with me to hold an evangelistic campaign. They were becoming anxious to see a little "life" in the work of the Church.

They found Elder Taylor very receptive to the idea. By this time a modest balance had accumulated in the new Conference treasury. You will remember that the object in forming this State Conference was to create a local state treasury and keep their tithes and offerings in the state, instead of being sent to Stanberry, Missouri. These were days of rapidly descending economic depression, but several of these brethren were vegetable gardeners. They were doing very well financially.

Elder Taylor said he would be glad to undertake this campaign with me, suggesting it be held in Eugene -- for reasons I was to learn later. We decided to speak on alternate nights, the one not speaking to lead in the song service.

Being ordained and entering the ministry full time meant a complete change in my life. In former years the idea of becoming a minister was the very last thing I should have wanted to do. But by June, 1931, I had been preaching a great deal for three and a half years. By this time my whole heart was in it.

I had come to see, at the Seattle salesmen's convention, that this aluminum sales job was not permanently compatible with the Christian life. I was unable to adopt some of the high pressure methods -- in the interest of the salesman's commission, but not in the customers' interest -- which the top-ranking salesmen employed. I knew I could never make more than a bare existence for my family. And anyway, by this time I think I recognized that God had called me to His ministry.

I had remained in this aluminum selling only because I realized I was acquiring valuable knowledge about food and diet, and the causes of sickness and disease. But now I had devoted a year to this study. There was no point in continuing.

The decision was not difficult. God had now brought me to the place where I really "heard" the voice of Christ as if He were saying, "Come, and follow me, and I will make you a fisher of men."

It was decided by the officers of the Conference that on the next all-day meeting I was to be ordained.

I shall never forget that moment of my ordination. The meeting was being held outdoors. I do not remember where -- except it was in the general rural area of Jefferson. I do not remember other circumstances.

But I do remember the ordination itself. It was one of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences like being married, and being baptized. Only this seemed to me to be the most momentous event of my entire life.

All the brethren -- as many as could get their hands through to my head -- laid their hands on me -- on my head, my shoulders, my chest and my back.

I am sure it was the weight of the experience, from a spiritual and emotional standpoint, rather than the physical weight of hands and arms -- but it seemed I was entirely weighted down with the heaviest load I had ever stood up under.

To me this was symbolic of the tremendous responsibility that now came down on my head and shoulders.

And let it be made plain here: I was ordained by, and under the authority of, the Oregon Conference of The Church of God, separately incorporated; not by the Stanberry, Missouri, headquarters.

This brings us to a series of almost incredible facts. Whether strange coincidence or planned acts of God I cannot now say. But these are FACTS, nonetheless.

I never recognized these facts until just a few months before the writing of this present chapter. Certainly this strange chain of occurrences was not of my planning.

Here, then, are the actual facts: First, Jesus Christ began His earthly ministry at about age 30. God took away my business, moved me from Chicago, started bringing me to repentance and conversion preparatory to inducting me into His ministry, when I was 30!

Second, Jesus began the actual teaching and training of His original disciples for carrying HIS GOSPEL to the world in the year A.D. 27. Precisely 100 time-cycles later, in 1927, He began my intensive study and training for carrying HIS SAME GOSPEL to all nations of today's world.

God set the earth, sun, and moon in their orbits to mark off divisions of time on the earth. One revolution of the earth is a day. One revolution of the moon around the earth is a lunar month (according to God's sacred calendar). One revolution of the earth around the sun is a solar year. But the earth, the sun, and the moon come into almost exact conjunction only once in 19 years. Thus 19 years mark off one complete time-cycle!

Now consider further facts -- whether strange coincidence, or providential design.

The actual ordination, or completing of the ordination and enduement of power for sending out the original disciples into the ministry occurred after 3½ years of intensive instruction and experience. It was on the Day of Pentecost. And the year was A.D. 31.

Exactly 100 time-cycles later, after 3½ years of intensive study and training, Christ ordained me to preach this same Gospel of the Kingdom in all the world as a witness to all nations (Matt. 24:14). This ordination took place at, or very near, the Day of Pentecost, 1931.

I do not remember the exact day of the month of this ordination. No special significance was attached to the date then. Most of those who participated are now dead. But the date was June, 1931.

Christ started out His original apostles preaching the very Gospel of the Kingdom which God had sent by Him, and which He had taught the apostles, in the year A.D. 31. For exactly one 19-year time-cycle this preaching was confined to the continent where it started -- Asia. After precisely one l9-year time-cycle, A.D. 50, Christ opened a door for the Apostle Paul to carry the same Gospel to EUROPE! This was A.D. 50. Before A.D. 70, Roman armies besieged Jerusalem. From that time the Roman government stamped out the organized mass spreading of the Gospel of Christ. Soon a different gospel was being tolerated, later endorsed and then enforced by Roman government. It was Roman paganism now being palmed off under the new name "Christianity."

For nearly 19 centuries the world has been rendered spiritually drunk on the wine of this counterfeit gospel! As prophecy foretold, ALL nations have been deceived. But looking into our time, just before the END of this age (Matt. 24:14), Jesus foretold that His same original Gospel of the Kingdom of God was to be preached and published (Mark 13:10) in all the world as a witness to ALL NATIONS! This was to immediately precede HIS SECOND COMING!

God first opened a door -- that of radio and the printing press -- for the mass proclaiming of HIS ORIGINAL TRUE GOSPEL the first week in 1934! The exact date was January 7, 1934. Exactly one time-cycle later, January 7, 1953, God opened wide the massive door of the most powerful commercial radio station on earth, and RADIO LUXEMBOURG began broadcasting Christ's Gospel to EUROPE and Britain!

My ordination ended the "dems" and selling of aluminum. The state Conference employed Mr. Taylor and me as evangelists at salaries of $20 per week. Remember this was 1931. The country was undergoing rapid deflation.

Immediately Mr. Taylor and I went to Eugene. The Conference owned a small tent. With a small platform across the front, we were able to set up 50 folding chairs -- that is all -- 50!

This tent was pitched on a vacant lot in Eugene on West 10th Avenue. I rented a room with a small kitchenette on the second floor of a house across the street, within the same block. Mr. Taylor and his wife had moved to a small chicken ranch on the outskirts of Eugene. They had a car. I must have left mine in Salem. It probably died of old age at that time, or shortly later.

I do not remember about preliminary advertising, but we must have had some. I was entirely too advertising-conscious after my long years in that profession to have started without it.

I opened the first Sunday night's meeting as MC and song leader. Elder Taylor preached. The tent was full -- 50 people.

On Monday night he opened the song service, and I preached. Thus we continued for the six weeks, alternating each night. Services were held six nights a week -- none on Saturday nights.

In Portland I had gained some little experience with "pentecostal people." I had been somewhat overawed by their "speaking in tongues," and their glib "testimony." I had not yet at that time fully understood it. But I had noticed that most of these people refused to obey God's commandments; almost none had any real sound understanding of the Bible; they customarily had a wide knowledge of certain scattered texts -- verses or partial verses -- which they usually misapplied, entirely out of context, putting only a meaning of pseudo-spirituality on them. They spoke in what was supposed to be spiritual-sounding language. They loved to show off -- to brag, especially about their own spirituality which usually consisted of sentimentality and emotion.

The "brethren" in the Willamette Valley had been decidedly antagonistic toward "tongues" speaking and "pentecostalism" in general. Elder Taylor had also appeared to be opposed to it.

But a couple families of "pentecostal" people began attending our tent meetings in Eugene. Soon I noticed that Mr. Taylor was especially friendly to them. He welcomed, and gradually began to encourage their loud "amens" and "hallelujahs" and "Praise the Lord" expressions during his preaching.

This was my first ministerial experience teaming with another man. Jesus sent His disciples out two and two together. The teaming of two ministers together certainly has Biblical precedence and approval. But if God refuses to use either member of the team, no spiritual results can be produced by the team. This lesson I was to learn.

I was surprised, somewhat incredulous, somewhat discouraged, as our meetings wore on, to notice that no "fruit" was being borne. I could not understand it.

Then one night the lone exception occurred. It was an exceedingly stormy night. Mr. Taylor and I went over to our tent to loosen slightly the ropes, so the shrinkage from soaking would not up-stake them, and also to drive down the stakes more securely. It was a nasty night. We did not expect anyone to come. While we were there, one couple who had attended regularly drove up in the storm. I had noticed this couple. I had felt sorry for them. I supposed they were very poor people -- why, I didn't know, except that he was as far from being handsome as Abraham Lincoln had been, and she had no "beauty" of the worldly sort. Later I was to be much surprised to find that they were very successful and prosperous, though thrifty, farmers -- leaders in their community.

I had not, up to this stormy evening, become acquainted with them further than shaking hands with them at the tent entrance.

"It would simply be a dirty shame for you to have come all the way into town on such a terrible night, and then be deprived of a service," I said sympathetically. "Why not come on over to my room, and we can at least have a Bible study together?"

"That would be splendid," smiled Mrs. Fisher. I had never known their names before.

"Well count me out," answered Mr. Taylor. "It's too stormy to stay around here. I'm going home."

This was my first shock of disappointment in Mr. Taylor. He had been my "ideal" as a minister. But one incident like this could not cause me to lose confidence in him.

Over in my room, Mrs. Fisher said: "I wonder if you would mind giving us a Bible study on the question of which day is the Sabbath of the New Testament. My husband believes the only Bible Sabbath is Saturday. But it never seemed possible to me that all these churches could be wrong. I'd like to have you explain just what the Word of GOD says."

"Why," I replied in some surprise, "that is exactly the way I felt when my wife began keeping the Sabbath. That is the very thing that started me studying the Bible -- to prove that 'all these churches can't be wrong.' I'll be very happy to open the Bible and show you what I was forced to see for myself. This is the very question that resulted in my conversion."

After my opening up the Scriptures, and having Mrs. Fisher read them for herself -- and after answering her rather sharp questions later, and explaining some vague passages she brought up, she smiled and said:

"I thank you, Brudder Armstrong" -- she was Swedish, and talked just a trifle brokenly, "it is all clear now. My husband and I will keep the Sabbath together from now on."

And that was the sum total of the tangible results produced by this entire six weeks' campaign!

But God was to use Mr. Elmer Fisher, and Mrs. Margaret Fisher, in a most important way in raising up this very work which now thunders the true Gospel of Christ worldwide, into every continent on earth! You will read much of them, later!

As our tent campaign progressed, a few little incidents began more and more to disturb me in regard to "Brother Taylor."

I began to notice that he was becoming much more "chummy" with the two "pentecostal" families than others who were attending. Finally he asked me to attend an all-night "tarry meeting" they were going to have out at his place following our evening meeting.

"You need a deeper spiritual experience," he said to me. "You need to pray, and agonize, and 'tarry' until you receive your 'baptism of the Holy Ghost'," he said.

"Brother Taylor," I answered, "I know I need a deeper spiritual experience. I do want a still closer fellowship and contact with God. But I prefer to seek it the way Jesus attained it -- by going out to a solitary place -- perhaps up on a mountain -- or, at least as Jesus commanded, to enter into 'a closet' or small room, alone with God, and pray."

I shall never forget his astonishing answer. "You'll never get your 'baptism' that way, brother!" he said sharply, with emphasis.

I was shocked -- and disappointed. "I'm sorry," I replied firmly. "But if this 'baptism' is something I can't get the way Jesus taught and commanded -- if it is something I have to get from men and cannot receive from God while alone with Him, then it is something I do not want!"

Prior to this, Mr. Taylor had come to me and said: "Brother Armstrong, our people" -- referring to the "brethren" of the Oregon Conference -- "are not spiritual enough. We need to seek a closer walk with God." To this I had agreed.

Now it began to dawn on me that Mr. Taylor was, little by little, attempting to lead the church into the very thing he had told them, in his sermons, he was "against" -- this "wild-fire pentecostalism." When he had first heard that the brethren were "against" it, he assured them he was also against it. But now, by careful and adroit methods, he was gradually beginning to try to introduce this very thing.

Was he, himself, just beginning to believe he had been wrong? Had he been honest and sincere? Was he now honest in claiming God was opening his eyes to see that we were not "spiritual" enough?

"Why, didn't you know?" later exclaimed a man who had known Mr. Taylor much longer than we had, "Taylor has always been 'pentecostal.' He just pretended he wasn't, in order to get in with the church."

But from the moment I turned down his "tarry meeting" invitation, his attitude toward me became coldly courteous, and I sensed repressed hostility.

During this tent campaign in Eugene, we attended Sabbath services with brethren at the church building in Harrisburg. One elderly "brother" whose name was "Rough" as nearly as I remember (pronounced "Row") had been, in his deep sincerity and zeal for a certain contention, stirring up a "row" at nearly every service.

He lived out east of Eugene on the Mackenzie Highway. He contended the church was in error on one scripture. He could shout his antagonism like a lion's roar. The brethren wanted Mr. Taylor and me to visit him and see if we could not change his mind or at least quiet him.

I had just read, some time previous, an article in the old American Magazine on "how to win an argument." The idea was to make your opponent first state his case fully. Ask him questions. Make him state every detail. Exhaust him, till he has nothing more to say. Just listen -- do not reply to any of his arguments -- until you have made him state them all. Then summarize his entire position briefly, showing you fully understand his argument. State it even more clearly than he did, if possible.

Then AGREE with him on those points where you find you actually are in agreement. Then, finally, tear apart his remaining arguments, disproving them -- leaving him without anything to come back with.

We decided to use this method. In our morning session, before noon dinner, we just listened to his reasons. We asked questions, but gave no answers. We drew him out exhaustively.

Mrs. Rough had prepared a delicious chicken dinner. I think this was my first experience with the custom of serving chicken when the minister is the guest. I never understood the reason for it. But I was to eat a great deal of chicken from that time on.

After dinner, we questioned old Brother Rough some more, until he simply had to drift into silence for want of anything more to say.

Then we summarized his arguments, and got him to agree we thoroughly understood his reasons -- which he had always claimed the church was not willing to understand. Next we agreed on certain points.

But, finally, we riddled his whole conclusion by scriptures he had not considered, which totally reversed his whole argument. It left him without any answer or comeback. The "lion's roar" had been reduced to "a kitten's meow." There were no more explosive eruptions from that time on to disturb "Sabbath-School" or church services -- and he remained friendly.

As our campaign neared its close, Mr. Taylor was promoting with the church brethren the idea of building a church building in Eugene. Actually, there were no members in Eugene. Some lived a few miles north, but most of them lived north of Junction City or Harrisburg -- although two families lived out east of Eugene on the Mackenzie Highway.

The Eugene campaign added only the Fishers, and, I believe, one other man who continued only for a while.

It was planned that I was to leave Eugene and put on a campaign up in St. Helens, Oregon, 25 miles north of Portland, with a minister by the name of Roy Dailey, who had just returned from Stanberry or points in the Middle West. The Conference had just employed him. There were now three of us on the payroll at $20 per week. At this rate the Conference treasury was soon going to be empty.

But Elder Taylor was to remain at Eugene, superintending the new building. Many events were to take place in that little church building.

MY FIRST full-length evangelistic campaign with Elder Robert L. Taylor in Eugene, Oregon, came to its almost fruitless end. Mr. and Mrs. Elmer E. Fisher, who lived seven miles west of Eugene, were the only ones added to the church by this campaign. And they had been brought in by a private Bible study in my room -- not in a preaching service.

Mr. Taylor had induced the Oregon Conference members to build a church building in Eugene. He felt sure he could build up a good congregation there.

It turned out that Mr. Taylor had, for some little time previous to our campaign, been in the retail lumber business in Eugene. He had apparently failed, and salvaged out of it only a small amount of lumber. This lumber, although not enough to build it, was put into the new little church building. The money for the remaining lumber, and all other expenses, were contributed by the church members. The members purchased a 50-foot lot just outside city limits on West 8th Street.

However, because of the lumber he donated, Mr. Taylor managed to have the entire property deeded in his name personally. Before leaving Eugene I attended one service in the new church building. It was entirely unfinished. The siding had not been put on the outside. Slabs of plaster wallboard had been nailed up on inside walls, but the cracks had not been filled in, nor had it been painted. Folding chairs were brought in for seats. A small speaker's stand substituted for a pulpit. Actually, that was as far as Mr. Taylor was to proceed in finishing the church.

The officers of the Conference decided to team me up with Mr. Dailey, since Mr. Taylor was staying on in Eugene to try to build up a congregation for the new church building, still to be completed. Actually, he never added a single member.

We were assigned to go to St. Helens, Oregon, 25 miles north of Portland, on the west bank of the Columbia River. In West St. Helens, sometimes called "Houlton," lived a very zealous member of the church, Mrs. Mary Tompkins. She was filled with zeal and a spirit of love -- although we were to learn that she had more love and zeal than wisdom. Mary Tompkins was a "worker." She "witnessed for Christ" in a most active way. She had for a long time pleaded with the Conference to send evangelists for a campaign in St. Helens. She assured them there was a tremendous "interest" there. So the Conference sent us.

Arriving in St. Helens, we first sought out a hall for meetings and rented a second-floor hall. I do not remember whether it was the old K.P. Hall or the old Masonic Hall. Whichever lodge, it had built a new one. However this old hall was reasonably attractive, and appeared quite desirable.

Next we went directly to the newspaper and placed a half-page advertisement, ordering a few thousand reprints to be distributed as circulars.

Then while we awaited the first Sunday night service, I spent some three or four days going from house to house, inviting people personally to come, and leaving a circular. I was surprised at two things. Practically everybody I invited, except those Mary Tompkins had talked to, promised to attend. Elder Dailey and I saw visions of having to hang out the SRO (Standing Room Only) sign. But I was even more surprised to find, at the many homes where Mrs. Tompkins had visited, that the people were hostile, and regarded this dear, well-meaning lady as a pest.

Sunday night came. But the expected crowds did not! To our utter dismay, not a soul showed up!

We couldn't understand it. On Monday, I went to the newspaper office to see if they had an explanation. They had.

"Of course nobody came," the man grinned. "That hall has been condemned as a fire-trap. Everybody knew that but you."

"And you took our half-page ad, and our money -- and also our money for all those reprints, and didn't tell us a word!" I exploded.

He only grinned. I felt he really needed some of our fiery gospel preaching! But we didn't give up immediately. We returned to the hall on Monday night. One couple came. I then heard something I had never heard before in my life. Mr. Dailey mounted the platform, walked behind the pulpit, and preached an entire sermon. And I mean "preached"! His style had a bit of the old "preachy-tone" -- and he preached, full volume, just as if the hall were packed with people. And to only two people! That was a new experience for me!

"Well, we know now," Mr. Dailey said as we went back to our room after this 'meeting,' "that we are not going to have a crowd here. But I know a place where we can draw a crowd -- over in Umapine. It's in eastern Oregon, near Walla Walla, Washington. I have visited one of our members there, Bennie Preston. We can stay at his house and save room rent, and we can draw enough people there to make it worth while."

Next morning, early, he started out in his car for Jefferson, Oregon, to get permission from the Conference Board for this switch to Umapine, and a little additional expense money.

On Tuesday night, left in St. Helens alone, I went again to the hall. Two couples of young people came. I did not preach. Instead I sat down with them and had an informal Bible study, letting them ask questions, and answering them.

On our long trek in Mr. Dailey's car over to Umapine, we exchanged views on a lot of things. I was especially puzzled over the matter of church organization. Not yet having come to see and understand the plain and clear Bible teaching, I had gone along with the Oregon Conference in its idea of government by the lay members. In this Conference the governing board was composed solely of lay members. They hired and fired the ministers.

"If we were to have the ideal organization," opined Mr. Dailey, "all the officers would be ministers -- not laymen." This sounded strange to me at the time. But the question of church organization and government was to keep coming up in my mind for years, before it was finally to become clear. Remember, I still was driven by the persistent question: "WHERE is the one true Church -- the same one Jesus founded?" This Church of God, with national headquarters at Stanberry, Missouri, seemed to be closer to the understanding of Bible truth than any -- yet I was unable to reconcile myself that such a small, and especially such a fruitless church, could be that dynamic fruit-bearing spiritual organism in which, and through which CHRIST was working. Surely the instrument Christ was using would be more alive -- more productive! Yet I had not found it!

We were welcomed by Bennie Preston and his wife, and given a room where Roy Dailey and I slept in the same bed. We quickly rented a hall on the main street, ground floor.

Here, as Mr. Dailey had promised, results were different. We certainly did not have a crowd of thousands, but attendance, as I remember, ran between 35 and 50 which, at the time, we considered satisfactory. We had no local church to swell attendance. We were unknown, locally. None of the factors that produce great crowds was present.

One little event I shall never forget. Bennie Preston raised some sheep. He decided to butcher one for us. He had impressed me as a man filled with true Christian love.

"I should hate to kill this tame, loving little sheep," he said, "if it were not true that God created sheep to produce wool and meat for man. That is their only purpose in existence. Man has a different and far greater purpose -- to become sons of God."

Still, Mr. Preston loved that helpless little sheep, now about to give its life for food for us. He led it to a spot in his backyard. He lovingly caressed it first. Then he hit it a hard, stunning blow on top of the head with the sharp edge of a small sledge hammer, and quickly slit its throat to drain out the blood. The sheep suffered no pain. The sharp, quick blow rendered it instantly unconscious.

After about two weeks of our Umapine meetings, a letter from Mrs. Florence Curtis, secretary of the State Conference, informed us that a business meeting of the board had been called for only two or three days after our receipt of the letter.

"I know what this meeting is all about," said Mr. Dailey. "It means the conference treasury is running out of funds. They are going to have to lay off at least two of us three ministers. If we don't go back there and protect our interests, at this meeting, they will be sure to let you and me out, and keep Elder Taylor on. We're going to start back to the Willamette Valley at 5:30 tomorrow morning."

"Aw, we won't accomplish anything by staying here." "Whatever we accomplish is in God's hands," I replied. "We are merely His instruments. God has sent us here to preach His Gospel. We have people coming. The interest is increasing, and so is the attendance. I'm going to let God protect my personal interests at that Conference Board meeting, Roy; but I'm going to stay right on the job where He has put me, and continue those meetings."

"I told you I'm starting for the valley at 5:30 in the morning," he returned. "If you don't go with me, you'll force the Conference to have to pay your bus fare to get you back home. They won't like that."

But I was just as firm as he. "Regardless of what the men on the Board like, I know GOD would not like it if I desert, while I'm here on duty. To me it would be like deserting an army, and running away, in the thick of battle in a war. This is God's battle. He put me here, and I am staying right here on the spiritual firing line until the campaign is over!"

Why must men always consider only their own personal interests -- and cater to what men will like?

I know Mr. Dailey thought I was wrong. He sincerely believed I was wrong most of the time from then on. But to me it was a matter of duty, and a matter of principle, and a matter of obeying God.

At precisely 5:30 next morning, Mr. and Mrs. Preston and I bade Elder Dailey goodbye, and he started alone, giving me final warning that "the brethren" were not going to like my remaining behind and costing them extra bus fare to get home.

As it turned out, the special business meeting was called off, and Mr. Dailey had raced back to the Valley for naught. But later, just as he anticipated, both he and I were laid off and Elder Taylor kept on -- but not until after I had returned from completing the campaign.

Interest continued to pick up at the meetings in the hall. Results were not great -- but there were results! Details are rather hazy in memory, now. I am not sure whether Mrs. Preston had already been converted and baptized, or whether she was converted by these meetings.

In any event, we had a total of five by the close of the meetings. There were three or four to be baptized. I learned that a son of our Conference president, the elderly G. A. Hobbs, was a local elder in the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. I went to this younger Mr. Hobbs, and through him arranged for the use of the baptistry in the church.

Before leaving, I organized the five members into a local Sabbath school, to meet at the home of Bennie Preston, appointing Mr. Preston as superintendent and teacher. This should have grown. But there was no minister to feed the flock and protect it from "wolves in sheep's clothing." Bennie Preston was a substantial and upright man, but he lacked the leadership and qualifications of a minister.

This tiny flock endured for a while. But some little time later, Mrs. Preston died. I am not sure whether this was the cause of the disintegration of the little Sabbath school, but Mr. Preston was hit a demoralizing blow by her death. Some years later he moved to the Willamette Valley. He had remarried by then.

This Umapine experience was one more in which no fruit could be borne as long as I teamed with one of the ministers of this church, connected with, or springing from the Stanberry, Missouri, political center.

Years later, still in my search for the one true church, still questioning whether this could be that church, still not having found it elsewhere, I asked Mrs. Runcorn (whom Mrs. Armstrong and I looked upon as our "spiritual mother") if she could point out a single real bonafide convert, brought in from the outside, resulting from the ministry of any of the preachers affiliated with "Stanberry." She thought seriously for quite a while. Then she slowly shook her head. She knew of none. I asked several others who had been in the church for years. Their answers were the same.

My first evangelistic effort was conducted alone, at the end of 1930, in Harrisburg. There were conversions. In 1931 I was teamed with Elder Taylor, who had arrived from California. There were no results, except for the night it stormed the meeting out, and in a private Bible study in my room Mrs. Elmer Fisher had accepted the truth. I was teamed with Elder Roy Dailey. There were no results. He left Umapine. I continued alone, and there were conversions. Results then were small -- indeed it was a small beginning, compared to the mounting worldwide harvest of today -- but God was using me, and producing "fruit."

I have always noted, in my years of experience since, that if even one member of a two-man team is not a true instrument of God, there will be none of the kind of "fruit" borne which is produced only by GOD through human instruments. This very undeviating method of God, verified by experience, is the source of great inspiration and encouragement today. For in God's Church today, without exception, every minister or team of ministers is used of God, and God really does things through them! "By their fruits ye shall know them," said Jesus.

I remember distinctly the all night bus ride back to the Valley from Eastern Oregon. Arriving home, on East State Street in Salem, I learned that the State Conference board had run low on funds, and, unable to continue paying three salaries each of $20 per week in the descending depths of the great depression, had decided to retain Mr. Taylor, and release Elder Dailey and me until funds revived.

Also, a few days after arriving home, happy over "success" in the campaign, this sense of elation was rudely jolted by a stern letter from old Mr. Hobbs. He had heard from his son. He wanted to know what a young whipper snapper like me meant, using the prestige of his name with his son, and baptizing people in Umapine without "authority," or special consent from the Board? Shortly following the first evangelistic experience at Harrisburg, Mr. Hobbs had sternly called me on the carpet, asking me what authority I had for baptizing those converted in the meetings. I had answered that I had GOD'S authority -- that of Matthew 28:19 -- where those who do the "teaching" resulting in conversions are commanded to baptize those taught. This rather stumped him, at the time.

But elderly Mr. G. A. Hobbs was a stern, fiery little old man -- a stickler for proper form and system, and proper "authority" for everything. He had been an Adventist since a young man -- probably beginning somewhere around 1870, or perhaps earlier. Adventists during those earlier years were very strict, legalistic, and exacting. Mr. Hobbs had left the Adventists rather late in life when he saw clearly, in the Bible, that the Millennium will be spent on earth and not in heaven. But he retained his strict disciplinary teaching to his death.

But if old Mr. Hobbs was one of my strictest and sternest critics, he was also one of my staunches supporters to the day of his death. He defended me against other critics with the same fiery zeal with which he criticized me to my face. His sharp criticism for baptizing the converts God gave me at Umapine, plus the sudden, though not unexpected loss of salary, did dull somewhat the spirit of rejoicing over the results God granted at Umapine.

But having my salary cut off caused no worry. By this time I had learned to trust God. Already we had experienced many miraculous answers to prayer. I knew God has promised to supply all our need, "according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus" (Phil. 4:19).

So, in perfect faith, I prayed and told God of our need, and asked Him to supply it, and use me wherever He willed.

But I had not yet learned that everything that happens is not, necessarily, from God. I had not learned to "try the spirits, whether they are of GOD" (I John 4:1). While this scripture is speaking of spirits -- angels or demons -- yet we must learn also to test experiences, and happenings, whether they be of GOD.

In serene confidence, I was expectantly awaiting God's answer to supply our financial need. Not more than two or three days later, my former newspaper associate, Samuel T. Hopkins, who had been Business Manager of the Vancouver Evening Columbian, appeared at our door.

He had left the Columbian, and now was Editor and Manager of a new morning newspaper in Astoria, Oregon, the Morning Messenger. He and two Astoria associates, a physician, and the superintendent of a salmon cannery, had started a new newspaper in Astoria. But they were in deep trouble. They had started a brand-new daily newspaper in the depths of the national depression, and without adequate capital.

"Herb, you've just got to come out to Astoria and help us," pleaded Sam Hopkins. "You are the only man I know with the specialized advertising and selling experience who can put this thing over for us. I know you can do it. Right now I'm not even in position to guarantee you any regular cash salary. Actually I'm depending on you to get in the business to make even your own salary possible. But once we put this over, we'll give you a large chunk of the stock in the company -- anything, if only you'll come on out to Astoria and inject the life we need into this paper. I want you to come as Advertising Manager. We'll set your salary at $25 a week at the start, and hope we can pay it. But as we get the paper on its feet, the sky's the limit. You'll have a big salary, and a large chunk of stock."

"But Sam," I answered, "I'm in the ministry now. I can't go back into the newspaper business."

He would not give up. He kept pleading. It was a matter of life and death to him. I began to think of how I had prayed for God to supply our new financial need. In my inexperience, this did seem to be the answer. I did not then realize this was not GOD'S answer. This was not GOD'S WAY of answering.

I did realize that I could not accept this job as a permanent thing. I knew I had been called to the ministry. I had been ordained. I had been successful in a small way. Everything I had ever touched in business, since age 30 in Chicago, had turned to nothing. But in the ministry, everything I did was, in the small way of a small beginning, successful. Yet, this did appear to me, in my inexperience, to be God's answer to my prayer. Since I could not go back into the advertising business, and leave the ministry, permanently, I reasoned this solution:

"Tell you what I might do," I finally said to Mr. Hopkins. "I know I have been called to the ministry. I've been ordained. But my salary is temporarily cut off. It seems to me this is God's answer as a temporary fill-in for our financial need. I'll come on out to Astoria just for one month only. Then I'll have to return here."

How many times, since, have I quoted the scriptures: "Lean not unto thine own understanding," and "There is a way that seemeth right to a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death." Human reason is usually faulty. But this did seem like the right decision. I was to pay a high price over the next 15 months to learn that lesson.

I was to have to learn two basic requirements of God, before He can use one for an important commission in His great Master Plan working out His Purpose here below: 1) Not only must God's instrument "preach THE WORD faithfully," but having been plunged by Christ into God's Work, he must never turn back (Luke 9:62). And 2) he must rely on GOD, and not man, for his NEED -- in, not out of God's Work. The REAL WORK started only after I learned these lessons!

How I found myself caught in a trap of unforeseen circumstance, forced to break all precedent in methods of selling advertising space; and how, after 15 long and almost sleepless months I finally got back into the ministry, is related in the next chapter.

GETTING back into the newspaper business was a tragic mistake. A too dear price now had to be paid to learn an important lesson: when God once truly calls a man into His ministry, he must "keep at it, in season and out of season" (II Tim. 4:2).

And if he attempts, like Jonah, to run away from the mission, God will first teach him a stern lesson and then yank him back to perform what God called him to perform!

Arriving in Astoria, I made a disillusioning discovery. Immediately I made preliminary get-acquainted calls on the leading merchants. It was then, for the first time, that I learned the true state of affairs. It was far worse than Mr. Hopkins had told me. Every merchant told me our situation was hopeless. We faced a predicament unprecedented, as far as I know, in the newspaper business.

It called for desperate and unprecedented measures for solution. And before I realized it, I was caught in a trap of circumstances from which I was unable to extricate myself for fifteen months.

This was the unheard-of situation: Only months before, the opposition newspaper had purchased the old established morning paper, The Astorian, for $50,000. But the opposition publisher had also signed up all local stores which advertised on five-year contracts in which they agreed not to advertise in any other Astoria English-language paper. (There was, in Astoria, a Finnish language daily paper not harmed by the contracts.)

Apparently this publisher and the merchants had assumed the rather general concept of those in smaller cities, viewing advertising in terms of obligatory "support" of the newspaper, rather than as an effective means of selling goods, lowering costs, and increasing profits. This publisher offered to save the merchants from having to "support" two newspapers by buying out and thus eliminating his competitor -- provided the merchants would sign up on these five-year contracts. Every store in town which was a regular advertiser, with the single exception of the J. C. Penney store, had signed.

"But," I protested, "that kind of contract is illegal! It is in restraint of trade!"

"We know that," came the answer, "but there is more to it than mere legality. You just don't know your opposition publisher. Maybe you don't realize what he could do to us in retaliation, if we broke our contracts. He could print things harmful to us, slanting the news so as to reflect against us, or assassinate our character right on the front page. I for one am afraid to try to break my agreement -- and I think the other merchants are as afraid as I am. We just won't take this chance!"

A few days later I learned what he meant. Our news editor handed me a clipping from the teletype. It was a dispatch from Oregon City, Oregon, reporting an automobile accident involving one of Astoria's leading merchants. It exposed also the fact he was having a clandestine "affair" with an attractive woman, who was with him in his car. The press service had sent it along as a nice "juicy scandal" for Astoria papers.

But The Messenger did not print it. Neither did the opposition. I took the teletype strip personally to the merchant involved. His face reddened.

"Thanks!" he exclaimed in extreme embarrassment. "Man! This could have ruined me if you had printed it! It would have broken up my home, and ruined my business. You see, Mr. Armstrong, this sort of thing is the reason none of the merchants dares try to break his contract with your competitor by advertising with you."

Yes, I understood, now, only too well! Our plight was utterly frustrating. Our newspaper was new. The opposition paper was old, well established. The evening paper had the dominant circulation. It was well financed. The morning Messenger, on the other hand, did not have the capital to do those things necessary to build a better paper, or, for that matter, even to keep it on its wobbly feet. And every retail advertiser in town, save one, actually by agreement and by fear was prohibited from advertising with us.

I am going to relate what was done in this predicament, because the experience has a direct connection with the lives of all my readers.

You probably shall never run into this specific kind of problem. But nearly all people do, more than once in a lifetime, find themselves in some frustrating, apparently hopeless trouble.

One of the seven basic laws of success in life is resourcefulness. Resourcefulness is the ability and determination to find a way to solve every problem, trouble or obstacle. It accepts and acts on the old adage: "where there's a will, there's a way!" Another of the seven principles of success is endurance. Nine out of ten who have every other ingredient for success finally give up and quit, when just a little more "stick-to-it-iveness" mixed with resourcefulness would have turned apparent hopeless defeat into glorious success. Of course there is a time to get out and leave whatever you are in: if it is wrong, or if it really is totally dead. But usually it only appears dead.

The seventh and most important rule of success is contact with God, and the guidance, wisdom, and help that can be received from Him.

In this desperate situation, I did invoke these three recourses. I do believe I had made a costly mistake in supposing this call to the newspaper business in Astoria came from God. Yet, once in it, I did call on God for guidance and help. And a way was found to break those five-year contracts, and fill our newspaper with advertising! I think the account of how it was done may be interesting, informative, and -- if you will apply the principles to your own problems -- helpful.

This unprecedented situation, I knew, called for a totally unprecedented solution. Most people are absolutely bound by precedent. They are slaves of habit. They are conformists. They must do just what society does -- the way society does it. I have never been afraid to break precedent, or to go counter to established procedures, if such action is both right and necessary.

Advertising space in newspapers and magazines had always been sold on the basis of a certain price per column inch, or per page. The rate is set according to volume and class of circulation, being influenced also by competition and general circumstances.

So now let me give you a few "inside facts" not known by most of the general public. Full-page advertising space in large mass-circulation magazines costs tens of thousands of dollars.

Yes, for one page in just one issue. But that is not expensive. It is, actually, one of the least costly ways to get a message to people!

The magazine may have a circulation of one million copies, often actually read by two or three million people! Now suppose you try to get just a very brief message to one million homes by inexpensive post cards. You would have to pay not only the costly postage but also for the blank cards. You probably never realized that before. Then figure what you would pay to have your message printed one million times on a million cards. Add the cost of hiring enough people to write names and addresses of one million people on the cards. I think you will decide it would be much less costly to pay for a whole page of space, as large as a news magazine-sized page, which includes the cost of the paper, of the printing, of the postage for mailing, and of the stamping on of the names and addresses. And, more than this, in every home where your message is received, the recipient asked for the magazine to come, and (except for The Plain Truth) actually paid to receive it. If you were to spend money to print and mail out a million post cards, they would be uninvited, and probably unwanted in most homes.

You probably have heard that advertising forces up the price of a commodity or service to the consumer. Many people believe that if they can purchase a non-advertised brand they save money. They suppose the merchant or manufacturer who advertises must add the cost of the advertising to the price.

Let me tell you the true "inside facts" -- The Plain Truth about this supposition. Truly, people as a whole are DECEIVED today, not only about God's truth, but even facts about business.

Actually, if the advertising is intelligently and effectively used, it reduces the price to the consumer! I think it may be interesting to you to know how it works:

Suppose a certain comparatively small store sells $100,000 worth of men's clothing and haberdashery in one year. This store spent nothing for advertising. But it did pay, shall we say, $70,000 for the merchandise to the manufacturers. And it also had to pay, shall we say, $15,000 for clerk hire, and $10,000 for store rent, heat, light, water, wrapping paper -- all other expenses. So you see that for every dollar of goods bought by a customer, the merchant had to pay, over and above the cost of the merchandise, 25 cents which is 25% as a cost of doing business. He had 5 cents -- or 5% of sales -- left for himself. This merchant, then, based on sales price, had a cost of 70% for merchandise, and 25% as cost of doing business, with 5% profit for all his own time, hard work, worry, and return on his capital investment.

Now suppose this merchant tries advertising the next year. This is, approximately, what did happen in a similar interesting case in Astoria, as I shall relate. I am assuming this merchant's advertising is effective.

So the following year this merchant spends $4,500 in advertising. It is effective, and brings in new customers. This year his sales increased to $150,000. But because in the preceding year his salesmen did not have enough customers to keep them busy, he does not need to hire additional clerks. He still pays the same rent, public utilities, and similar expenses -- a total of $25,000, the same as the year before.

But here is the big difference. That $25,000 was a 25% cost of doing business the year he sold $100,000 worth of goods. But now, with sales of $150,000, it is only 16 2/3%. But he did have one increase in business expense -- his $4,500 advertising. But even so, his $29,500 cost of doing business is only 19 2/3%. This merchant passes this saving in total cost of his business expense, per dollar of sales, to his customers, still taking for himself the same 5% of sales for profit.

Now see where this leaves the customers, and what it makes for the merchant. You may think the customers were the only ones who benefitted, since the merchant still took only 5% profit. But the merchant actually made half again more for himself -- because his 5% profit now is taken from $150,000 sales, instead of $100,000. So the merchant did all right for himself! He made $7,500 this year instead of only $5,000. But what about prices to the customers? The same item -- or number of items -- that sold for $100 the nonadvertising year are now priced at only $92.92. It is simple to figure. The merchant still paid $70 for this amount of merchandise. But his business expense now was only 19 2/3%, and profit 5% -- total 24 2/3% instead of 30% the year before. This is $24.67 in expenses per $100 in sales. Add the $70 wholesale price to this $24.67, and the new sale price is $94.67, a savings of over $5 to the customer.

So what actually happened? The merchant saved his customers more than 5 cents on the dollar -- or $5.33 on each $100 of purchases. So his advertising reduced the cost of goods to the customer! At the same time, this merchant made $7,500 for his own year's work, which was $2,500 more than he made the year before he advertised.

You might ask, didn't the advertising cost anything? Of course. It cost $4,500 -- or 3% of his year's sales. Then HOW did it save the customers money, and make more money for the merchant? The answer is that it does cost money to run a store. It does cost money for us who are customers to have a merchant take all of his time, and all of his salesmen's time, to gather in merchandise from New York, from Chicago, from London, from Los Angeles, and assemble it all in one store for the convenience of us customers. But could we go to the clothing manufacturer in New York, the shirt manufacturer in Utica, New York, and the shoe manufacturer in Boston or St. Louis to buy our goods, without spending money over and above the factory cost? Of course not. And if we all did this individually, the manufacturer would have to charge us more, because it would add to his expenses to have to deal with so many people. When the factory sells enough suits, or shoes, or hats for 200 people, or 500 people or more to just one store, he can sell for much less than he could by making 500 different transactions with 500 individual customers. So actually the local merchant renders us a pretty valuable service, far cheaper than we could do it ourselves.

In so doing, he has a cost of doing business. And, as the experience of thousands and thousands of retail stores shows, that cost is reduced by spending about 3% or 4% in advertising, because then he spends less, per dollar of sales, on such other expenses as rent, salaries, public utilities, etc. His total expenses of operating his store are less, per dollar of sales.

That is how it works. Why your local merchants do not use a little of their advertising to just explain these simple but interesting facts to their public, I do not know. But I have spent years of my life as an advertising and merchandising specialist, and I thought that these facts about the price you pay for goods you buy every day -- whether at the grocery store, the clothing store, the dry-goods store, or wherever, might prove interesting. You come in direct contact with this very merchandising operation at least every week of your life.

Now let me relate to you the rather exciting story of an experience with one store in Astoria.

There were four retail clothing (men's) stores in Astoria. Three advertised, and were signed up on these five-year contracts. The second largest, Krohn & Carson, had never spent its first dime in advertising. I checked financial ratings in Dunn & Bradstreet. Krohn & Carson had the highest financial rating of the four.

So I went immediately to Krohn & Carson. I found them as firmly set against advertising as a 50-foot-thick stone wall. Apparently it was even more impossible to crack their stone-wall resistance against advertising than to break these five-year contracts. Yet I did have a will, and I did find a way!

I mentioned above that newspaper and magazine advertising has always been sold by the column inch or by the page. The Messenger rate was 25 cents per inch. The larger evening paper charged 50 cents per inch. But now I deliberately shattered all precedent in newspaper advertising practice.

I proposed an entirely new, completely revolutionary plan to Krohn & Carson. I explained to them what I have explained to you, above, how effective advertising works. The clothing stores in Astoria were each selling only about 40% as much merchandise as they had sold before the depression.

"But," I explained, "for every $100 that men used to spend in these four stores, they still spend $40. Now if we can show Astoria men and their wives that you can save them money in this depression, a larger portion of that $40 will come to you. I can show you how you can still double your business, and your own profits, and at the same time save your customers money by lowering prices!"

It sounded fantastic, preposterous! But it cost them nothing to listen to my plan.

"First," I proposed, "you will put on a big price-reducing sale. Your shelves are loaded with goods that are not moving. Retail success depends more on turnover -- keeping your goods moving -- than on big margins of profit. You have capital tied up in all these goods. Put on a sale. Sell it for less money -- get your money back out of the merchandise, plus a small margin to cover business expenses -- reinvest that money in more goods -- keep it moving. Better make 12 profits a year of only 1 cent on a dollar of sales, than a 10 cent profit once in two years. This way you take 12% on your investment. The way you are doing now you make only 5 cents per dollar.

"Now, here is how we will make this sale a success, and double your business. Harvard Bureau of Business Research figures show that the retail clothing stores which spend 4% of sales in advertising have the lowest cost of doing business, and the highest turnover. To spend less than 4% in advertising means to spend higher percentages in salaries, rent, utilities, and other expenses. To spend more than 4% does not bring enough additional increase in sales to pay. So this is what I propose. It is a new plan. It is unheard of in newspaper advertising! You pay us just 3% of your sales. That is one fourth less spent on advertising than most successful stores spend. Then we will give you absolutely unlimited space in The Messenger. I will give you my own personal service in writing all your advertising. Your competitors cannot afford to bring specially trained professional advertising writers to Astoria -- and they do not know how to write ads that can compete with what I will write for you.

"We will start out with four full pages, announcing this sale. We will make it a BIG sale -- and we will make it look big! We will reprint the four pages in our job printing department as a big handbill, and you can hire boys to distribute those to every house within the entire Astoria trade territory. We will charge you nothing extra for the circulars, but you hire them distributed. We will follow this up with two-page ads as long as the sale lasts. It will be an Astoria sensation.

"Now that people can spend only 40% as much for clothing as they did before the depression, they have to try to save every penny. They are price conscious. These lower prices will bring in crowds of customers from miles around."

"But, Mr. Armstrong," protested the younger partner, Mr. Krohn, who was Mr. Carson's son-in-law, "how can you afford to give us four whole pages, and then repeated double pages, at no increase in cost to us -- just this 3%?"

"Two reasons," I explained, smiling. "First, because I know this policy and this big space will greatly increase your sales. If we double your sales, we double what you pay us. It makes us a partner in your business, in a way. We get paid according to the results we bring you. If we don't bring more customers, you don't pay more. Then there is a second reason why we can afford to do this. We have to print eight pages every day -- never less. The paper now has very little advertising. I am going to write these ads and design them with great, large display type. It will cost us far less to set a page, or two pages of these big-type ads than for our Linotype operators to have set all pages in small news type."

Mr. Krohn persuaded Mr. Carson to accept my offer. The sale drew crowds. Sales soared. During the sale an opportunity came to the store to double its floor space, and still reduce rent. The store occupied a corner location. The landlord had not reduced rent in proportion to reduced business during the depression. A ladies' ready-to-wear store which had occupied a middle-of-the-block location with twice as much space as Krohn & Carson, and with four times as much front window display space, had failed and closed up. The landlord of this storeroom, faced with a no-rent prospect for the duration of the depression, offered this to Krohn & Carson for half the rent they had been paying in their corner location.

"If you double the size of your store, you will have to also double the volume of business, or such a big store space will look rather foolish," I said. "Now, you are reducing your expenses, by lower rent, not adding to them. If you will be willing to try out a new merchandising policy, I think my ads will convince the men of Astoria, and make it work. My idea is that you now keep these special reduced sales prices in effect right along. If you have doubled the sales volume -- or keep up what you are doing in this special sale -- without increasing your expenses, you can make at least as much profit -- perhaps more, and win the good will of the customers -- help the public by reduced prices -- and, as the depression begins to end and prosperity comes again, you'll be the largest and best liked store in town."

They agreed. As soon as the sale ended, and they moved to the new larger store, I began running full-page, "editorial"-style advertisements. They were of the nature of a straight "Man-to-Man Talk" with the men of Astoria and vicinity.

I told the men that, if they would keep up the sales volume, this store believed it would be able to keep these reduced special sale prices in effect every day in the year. I told them of the reduced rent. I told them of Krohn & Carson's well-known financial capital -- how they were able to take cash discounts, and buy for less -- and were willing to pass these savings on to customers, if customers in turn would keep up the sales volume. I explained, as I have above for you, how increased sales volume, if it does not increase expenses, can lower the price to the consumer.

The ads were sensational in policy -- dignified in appearance -- and they had a ring of sincerity that rang true. The men of Astoria responded.

I am taking space to explain in some detail this experience for one reason. I hope many readers may get from it the lesson of a valuable principle: there is always a WAY where there is a WILL!

And let me explain, here, another principle I always followed in my business experience -- especially in advertising and selling. It was never to sell anything, unless I was convinced it benefitted the other fellow, as well as myself.

"Be an expert adviser in your customers' interests" was a slogan I tried to follow. "Know your stuff" was another -- in the advertising man's vernacular. Always educate yourself in your field. Know more about it than your competitors, or your customer. Know how to help your customer. If you are profitable to him, he will stay with you. Another adage I followed was: "A customer is more valuable than a sale." The one-time sales to customers who feel they were talked into something unprofitable costs more to make than it is worth. I have always wondered why more businessmen do not understand these principles. Honesty is the best policy!

But back to our story. As I said, the men of Astoria responded. Soon Krohn & Carson was doing more than half of all the clothing and haberdashery business in town. The ones my work did not benefit -- and for this reason I would never do this again -- were the competitors.

In this experience I learned a few things about Jewish people. Both Mr. Krohn and Mr. Carson were Jewish. So was their chief competitor, who had previously had the biggest business, across the street. In business, these men were bitter enemies. But after business hours -- well, that was different. Then they were friends. At the synagogue they were friends. But in the store -- there they looked across the street at the competitive store with intense rivalry.

It's the same in many other businesses or professions. I certainly do not waste time watching prize-fights on television. But who can avoid seeing a few seconds of one occasionally, turning the dial from one channel to another? Have you ever noticed the end of such a fight? Men who have fought viciously, unmercifully, with the "killer-instinct" trying to knock each other unconscious, will dance to their "enemy" of a second ago, after the final bell, and throw their arms around each other in loving embrace -- and it makes no difference if one is white and the other black! Lawyers who will fight each other angrily in a courtroom during the heat of a trial, will go out to lunch together after it's over, as the best of friends! I've seen bankers who have been bitter rivals forget it completely, and call each other by their first names, "buddy, buddy" fashion, at national bankers' conventions.

But, in business Krohn & Carson's Jewish rival across the street was bitter and now getting more and more bitter!

In desperation, as his customers flocked over to Krohn & Carson's, he ran a half-page ad in the "opposition" paper. It cost him twice as much per inch as our regular inch rate. In it he advertised a price-slashing sale. Mr. Krohn called me to the store.

"Look at this!" he exclaimed, worried. "Now maybe he will get the business, and our new plan will fail after all."

"Oh no," I laughed. "This only means it's time for you and me to get busy. I want you to take that ad, and mark your own prices, cut STILL LOWER, on every item -- item for item -- listed in his 'ad.' Tomorrow morning we will run a TWO-PAGE ad, listing exactly the same items, every one priced LOWER -- and once again reminding the men that Krohn & Carson SAVE THEM MONEY. We'll run a special sale tomorrow, also, on these same items."

Mr. Krohn looked at me and shook his head in amazement, and then began to grin, as he went to work marking lower prices.

Next day all the special sale customers filed into Krohn & Carson's -- the biggest day in some time, while their rival across the street looked more discouraged than ever in his empty store.

Later that day, he telephoned The Messenger office, and asked if I would come to the store to see him.

"Look here," he stormed, "you are breaking my business. I can't afford to run many half-page ads in the evening paper at their high rates -- and even when I do you come out with a bigger one for Krohn & Carson, and they get all the business from my ad as well as their own! You have brought me to the place where I am willing now to take a chance on the evening paper doing anything if I break my agreement not to advertise with you. I want you to make me the same deal you did Krohn & Carson -- and I am willing to sign up right now!"

"I'm sorry," I replied, "but you and all the other merchants turned me down cold when I first came to Astoria. You presented me with a kind of unfair competition such as I never heard of. You forced me to break all precedent to develop new advertisers out of non-advertising merchants. That plan was offered to only ONE merchant in each line. You said you were bound and could not advertise with us. Now WE are bound, and can't give you this same deal of unlimited space on a percent of sales."

"Well, then," he countered, "can I buy space with you at your regular price by the inch?"

"Oh yes, of course" was the answer. "But that is not enough," he continued. "It is the way you write these ads that is bringing the business to Krohn & Carson's. Will you write my ads, as well as theirs? If you will, I will start advertising with you, and quit with the evening paper."

I had not bound myself to exclusive ad-writing service, so I was free to agree. Next morning, his first ad, about a third of a page, appeared.

When I walked into the Krohn & Carson store that day, Mr. Carson was like a wild man.

"LOOK at this!" he shouted. "Anyone would know you wrote that ad. You cancel our advertising immediately, and don't ever come in this store again."

"All right, Mr. Carson, if that's what you really want to do," I said. "But first, I want you to calm down and listen to me just one moment. I never offered you my advertising-writing services exclusively. I have not given your competitor the unlimited space on a percent-of-sales basis at all. He has to pay the regular rate by the inch. Mr. Carson, I have doubled your business for you in the midst of this terrible depression. I have worked hard for you, and made you money. But I am advertising manager of The Messenger, and when my plan begins to really work, and break down these unethical and illegal contracts our 'opposition paper' holds over these other merchants, that is the real reason I evolved this unprecedented system that has doubled your business, and made you the LEADER in Astoria, instead of second-fiddle like you were. Now, if you didn't appreciate that, and want to cancel -- O.K.! I'll walk out of this store, and never come back again -- and now you free me to give this whole plan to your competitor across the street!"

I began to walk out rapidly. Mr. Carson showed surprising and amazing athletic ability in scampering behind the counters to the front door before I could get there! He darted into the doorway, blocked it, holding up both hands.

"Wait! Wait!" he exclaimed. "Don't you walk out of here! Don't you cancel our agreement!"

"Mr. Armstrong," he said, embracing me, "I have loved you like a son. I didn't mean what I said. I want you to still be my advertising manager and adviser -- even if you do write ads for that fellow across the street."

Even though dollars were at stake, Mr. Carson spoke from the heart. He was filled with emotion, now. He was really sincere -- he did really feel a deep love for me. It was not only because of the business success our relationship had brought -- our close personal association had brought about mutual affection. He was a businessman -- he was very conscious of dollars, and had acquired his share of them -- but underneath was a real warm heart capable of real friendship.

Our radio listeners have heard me say that I bear no hatred toward Jews -- I love them, as I love all people. Some, allowing themselves to become "hooked" on the insidious, poisonous "drug" of anti-Semitism, and hatred for Jews, have never learned all there is to know about Jewish people. Sure, many of them, despised and hated and persecuted by race prejudice, have developed a keen sense of "dollar consciousness," but who among us is so free from faults and sins he can throw the first stone? I have learned that many Jews also have very warm hearts of friendship. We have all been carnal, weighted with human nature, until converted and filled with God's Holy Spirit of LOVE, and TOLERANCE!

I have been getting ahead of my story. I have carried this one experience with this one advertising client on to its conclusion, over a period of many months. But I wanted to complete this one case history, as a typical example of the Astoria newspaper experience.

Back, now to December, 1931. In Astoria was one of the two leading hardware stores not tied up on those 5-year contracts, besides the J. C. Penney store, one of the "movies" and several restaurants. I induced most of the restaurants to take out advertising in trade for meal checks for our employees, and the Penney store and the hardware store accepted my unlimited space on a percentage-of-sales basis.

But by December 31, I found I was caught in a trap. We had 23 men employed. If I left then, the paper would have folded and these men would have been out of work. There still was no money in the Oregon Conference church treasury to bring me back into the ministry. I was stuck in Astoria. God intended for me to learn a lesson. It seems that most of the time I have had to learn these lessons the HARD WAY, through experience, and suffering. This was to be no exception. It was not until the end of February, 1933, that my prayers to be relieved of these newspaper responsibilities, and to be allowed to return to God's ministry, were answered.

This website is made possible by the tithes and offerings freely given by God's Chosen Few who have been called to join in this major effort to publish the True Gospel to all the nations... Those who wish to voluntarily aid and support this worldwide work of God are gladly welcomed as co-workers in Christ... Contributions should be sent through Paypal at the link below...