One day back in North Dakota, when a wealthy young man was touring his state, he was handed an Apostolic Faith paper which had been published in Portland, Oregon. He was a college graduate, having had seven years of college training. He had studied and believed the Darwin theory, and had eventually become a scoffer, and unbeliever in God.

After reading the Apostolic Faith paper, he became convinced of the truths it presented; and he was sufficiently interested to travel 1800 miles out West to investigate this particular Gospel work. His life was all wrapped up in business interests. Money had become his god. He had an eight-hundred-acre farm, a beautiful country home, a home in the city and lacked for nothing.

When he came to Front and Burnside and heard testimonies given by men and women who had experienced the hard knocks of life, including the ex-drunkard and the ex-dope fiend, his heart yearned for the joy they had found in serving God. After his conversion, he said in testimony: “I heard a story that appealed to me; and I went down on my knees and proved God for myself. I repented of my sins and told God, ‘If You will come into my life, save me, and deliver me, I will go back and straighten out the old career.” God answered that prayer; and he kept his promise to God. He had prided himself on his character and was highly respected by all who knew him in his home state; but he spent hundreds of dollars making restitutions for the wrongs of the past, dishonest business deals that he considered only clever and shrewd before he was saved. He reimbursed men who had worked for him, men whom he had held at a low wage because it was in his power to do so. Many times he has said in testimony: “I now have a conscience void of offense toward God and man. My soul is flooded with the joys of salvation.”

Out of a heart of appreciation he has through the years put this whole life, substance, and ambition into the work of evangelism.

An interesting feature noted in the conversion of the numerous people from all walks of life in those early days, was that many of the converts became stalwart soldiers of the Cross. Until the time of their death, years later, they labored faithfully in the Gospel work, giving their best in the service of the Master who had wrought such a great transformation in their lives.