In The Service of the King

CHAPTER I. Tue Escape

. SToRM SIGNALS .

. THE Homecominec .

- QUICKSAND : . “THE FLAMING Saree! . Love Opens a Door

WEDDING BELLs .

. Tracepy Lanp .

. THERE’s A Way

. Brack Is WHITE

. SOUTH WITH THE Birps

. BeautiruL ANGELUS TEMPLE

KIDNAPED. .

THe SHOWDOWN .. .

110 119

140 149

192 207 255

245 260 271 280 291

CHAPTER I THE ESCAPE

Sanp!

Gray sand!

A wilderness of sand!

Lost in the desert—and night closing in!

“Help!”

“H-e-l-p,” I cried as I stumbled over the wasteland.

“H-e-l-p,” came the mocking echo, growing softer and softer in the distance until it sobbed its way into the deathlike stillness of the desert dusk.

How small in that great infinitude, how utterly futile was my voice! The sound of it was as a drop of water absorbed by the great sponge of that endless expanse—swallowed up by the maws of space.

A drooping, forlorn, cotton-clad figure, I trudged falteringly into the swelling gloom. I wavered, staggered, scarcely able to lift one foot after the other. ‘The heavy shoes, far too large for me, chafed burning blisters.

Sinking to my knees, I swayed uncertainly, arose, went on, only to fall again. Cupping up the sand with my hands, rounding it into a pillow, I sobbed to myself that I could go no farther—must wait the coming day or the sight of a human being.

The desert night, a thing of living beauty under happier circumstances, was filled with terror and nameless dread. No sooner would I lie down and my frightened eyes close, than the desert life would stir; strange, eerie, crawling sounds under the cactus and sage brush—rattlesnakes? Gila

Ir monsters? lizards? or merely a harmless prairie dog—I could not tell.

One moment too tired to go on—the next, too frightened to stay, I would rise again and, fear prodding leaden feet, move on.

From clumps of desert growth night birds would start up with a whir of wings and circle my head, uttering weird, scolding cries.

A pair of gleaming eyes blazed like balls of fire.

Cougar? Coyote? Dog? Overwrought mind raced through tales of wild life in desert and prairie—harmless creature or wild roamer of the sands—I could not decide.

Alone, there amidst the vast silent beauty which is the Southwestern desert, surrounded by the eternal stillness and the fantastic silhouettes of rock and mesquite, I prayed in short broken sobs, prayed God that I might reach some place of habitation. Looking up at the stars, myriads of them, twinkling from their compass points, in the ethereal chart of the sky, I tried to fix my direction. But in the distance, the mesas were gaunt dreams rising up out of the dark; the valleys were doubts to engulf me.

Behind me, but a few hours before, I had left a small, rough, tumbledown shack which had been my involuntary home for weary days. I had been taken there a prisoner, bound and muffled with a blanket, by two men and a woman.

But I had made my escape, and footsore and spent, after my strenuous but random effort to put as much distance as possible between myself and that place, I fled over the desert floor.

Whenever my eyes closed for a moment, it seemed impossible that I had broken away from my captors—impossible that instead of the close confining walls of the shack, I was free under the open vaulted sky.

To-day, in my study, writing these words, in the secure, quiet sanctity of the church edifice, it seems impossible that that lone woman with the wildly beating heart was I!

Impossible, that that person trudging through the night

THE ESCAPE 13 was the practical, ever-busy pastor of beautiful Angelus Temple at Echo Park, Los Angeles, California, with its weekly attendance of more than twenty-five thousand worshipers !

Impossible, that that half-distracted being whose cries were unheard, was 'the poised, composed president of that great Bible Training Academy, with nearly one thousand students!

The entire grotesque episode—the kidnaping, the dark, blind moment when I sank into unconsciousness beneath the smothering blankets on the floor of that automobile the afternoon of May 18, 1926; the wild flight of that strange car which bore me away from the beach at Ocean Park, adjacent to Los Angeles, and some sixteen miles to the westward—bore me away—into nowhere; the captivity in that first house; the hurried move to the crude desert shack in Old Mexico, just over the border from Douglas, Arizona, four weeks later; the escape, the trek through the torrid heat, the stumbling, groping progress—all, all seem impossible.

Here, surrounded by thousands of loyal friends and members, dwelling in the shadow of the Temple walls with the massive, concrete columns and arches rising high to support a great dome and rear aloft those slender, silvered radio towers, it seems doubly impossible.

Looking down from my rose-draped windows upon the thousands of happy children trooping to Sunday school, the hundreds and thousands of members swarming up the streets for the morning sermon ;

Looking over the peaceful greens of Behe Park where slender, graceful eucalyptus and lacy willows trail fresh, green fingers down to the crystal surface of the lake;

Looking down upon the electric cars unloading their quota of passengers at our door, the teeming motor cars parked as far as eye can see in every direction, the serene worshipers, Bible in hand, making their way to the House of God, it seems not only impossible, but as totally incongruous with my entire life of nineteen years in the ministry as would be a page, torn from a dime novel, staring up from my open Bible, or an armed bandit with smoking guns appearing at the altars.

Of course, a church like this would naturally have its enemies.

In the drawer of my desk there had long reposed lists of addresses where the laws against bootlegging and narcotics were constantly violated in that ‘“‘world” which is ruled completely and unquestionably by the powers of Satan—a world which is scarcely known or recognized by those of the upper strata of society, yet a world which is very real to a minister whose privilege and duty it has been to open the gates of hope to those bound by dope, liquor or the white slave traffic.

Ladies with their soft hands and sparkling diamonds, gentlemen with their formal garb and business airs, may raise their brows questioningly when one speaks of “the underworld” but it is no myth to one who has kneeled beside penitents at the altar and heard the sobbed-out stories of crushed hearts and broken lives which have been ground down by the ruthless wheels of this giant evil force. Being a woman evangelist, I have held in my arms scores of trembling little forms and listened to stories which it is doubtful a masculine evangelist would ever hear. To me this kingdom which exists just beneath the thinly veneered surface is a grim reality. It is a definite foe with a definite leadership, a real force with which to reckon.

Time after time, those converted and delivered from the shackling chains of dope, drink and the devil at the Temple altars, had risen to their feet with shining faces and sent their testimonies ringing out over the heads of the great assemblage, and incidentally, over our powerful radio. In recounting their experiences they had named people and places where they had obtained narcotics or liquor, or where they had gambled away homes and fortunes.

THE ESCAPE 15

Frequently there had lain in my desk letters and notes of dire warning that kidnaping or death would result if we did not “lay off” such exposés.

The thing had gone so far that one cf the large Los Angeles newspapers had published, the year previous, a headline article claiming to have uncovered a plot to kidnap me.

Kidnap? Impossible! Such things did not happen in this day and age, and above all, to an evangelist, the pastor of a large church who lived her life with her people and her children. I had dismissed the thought with an incredulous smile and had laid the threats aside as ‘“‘crank” notes and promptly forgotten them. We had dealt telling blows at the underworld, but the thought of anybody striking back with a telling blow at the church had not been deemed worthy of serious consideration.

True, our faith had ever kept us at the battlefront in the march against the forces of sin, and had forced us into some very definite stands at the election polls, but even so, my kidnaping seemed impossible.

Absurd! Ludicrous!

But at night! At night when the mind slows down from the tension of the exacting days, then I know that it is true.

It is then that I live again those anguished hours—again look back over my shoulder for an approaching automobile with gleaming lamps, bumping over the sand, torn between hope that it will bear succor and fear that it will be driven by that iron woman from the shack.

Lying upon my pillow when the roar of the city is hushed, I am again, for the moment, that selfsame frightened pilgrim. The impressions of those awful weeks are still burning welts across my memory. ‘The walls of my parsonage bedroom move out and once more I am lost in the desert.

It seemed impossible, that June night—the night of my escape—that the shack was gone and in its place was an endless expanse of desert.

The dark adobe walls and ceiling were replaced by the star-slashed heavens.

The fitful flickering of the kerosene lamp had given place to the mystic night light of the heavens. The silvery moon, like a triumphant resplendent queen, had mounted her radiant throne—a coldly beautiful queen, tiara agleam with the twinkling gems of the night, worn high upon her regal brow. Her gown of trailing gossamer clouds floated about her as she swayed her jeweled scepter o’er the farflung chasm-shadowed land.

The little open window through which I had made my escape had become the windows of the night and opened upon the vast infinitudes of space.

The crude floor of that rude hut had been replaced by the warm undulating floor of the desert—hard packed like pavement, with loose gravel scattered here and there.

Gone were the broad shoulders of Steve framed in the doorway, gone the other dark-visaged man with the shaggy eyebrows who kept such silent and vigilant watch, gone was the ample-bosomed form of the woman they called Rose. There were no forms near me save those of the skeleton cactus lifting gaunt arms toward the sky.

During the day my cotton dress had been turned over my head for a crude sunbonnet to protect my face and arms from the rays of the sun; but now it was turned over my shoulders as a protection from the cool night wind which came as the Balm of Gilead to soothe the burning of my chafed wrists and ankles so recently held fast by bonds.

Truly the Father who never forgets His children, who sees each sparrow that falls, and who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, was looking down that day; for, as later testified by desert dwellers, the day was cooler than any for some time either before or after.

My lips were parched and my tongue was dry, but I was not suffering acutely. I was fortunate, too, in that

THE ESCAPE 17 during most of the day my travels had led through a somewhat mountainous region, several degrees cooler than the flat desert.

Late in the afternoon I had set out toward a dark hill which [I later learned to be Niggerhead Mountain, where I hoped to find water and shade. Fortunately, by walking toward a definite goal I had safeguarded myself against wandering in circles.

‘The moon was shining brightly and all the stars were looking down upon the desert ere I reached the hill. It was a beautiful sight, but I, who love the heavens, was in no mood to enjoy their glory on that night. I remembered with increasing dread many stories of people who had died in the desert, hopelessly lost, perishing for food and water.

“O God,” I prayed, ‘““Thou who didst lead the Children of Israel across the wilderness and guide them in all their journeys— Thou who didst provide for them insomuch that they were fed from the skies and watered from the rock, and didst even keep their shoes from wearing out—Thou who didst care for the three Hebrew children, and kept them safe, though cast into the fiery furnace, so that not a hair of their heads was singed, nor was the smell of burning upon their garments—Thou who hast ever looked down in pity upon Thy children in their trials—heard and answered their prayers—Thou hast never failed me before and Thou wilt not fail me now—hear my prayer and guide my weary footsteps to safety, for I am lost and sore distressed.”

Scarce had I uttered that earnest plea for guidance, when to my unspeakable joy, having mounted a small elevation at the foot of Niggerhead Mountain, I saw a glow in the sky. Looking closely I distinguished a cluster of lights, too low, too bright for the stars.

It was—it was a city! How far away it seemed—yet there it lay! Thank God!

How many miles to those lights? Could I make it?

Yes, and I would!

As I afterward learned, the fitful glow in the sky was the smelter fires of Douglas, Arizona, and the dancing white lights were those of the little adjoining village of Agua Prieta, Old Mexico. They were the last brazen lights burning within the houses of revelry and sin, in dance hall, saloon and gambling den; but to me that night they were the welcome lights of a city—-a city that meant safety and rescue.

Winding my way down, I came to a road which showed signs of travel. New courage and inspiration came to me. I pressed on. My trembling limbs were becoming very uncertain and undependable.. How far had I walked that day—ten miles or fifteen? It seemed that it must have been a score! The road made walking, oh, so much easier!

Ere long I saw, on my left, a small building. Was it a human habitation?

“Help!” I called. ‘“Who’s there?”

No answer.

The hut was deserted.

I went back to the road and started again. After more weary miles, distant lights appeared at my right. I shouted but my voice sounded discouragingly thin and small.

“Yoo-hoo! Help! H-E-L-P!”

Not the ghost of an answer.

At times I walked with my eyes closed, eyelids refusing to stay open.

“Y 00-0-0-hoo-o-o!” I called again.

This time I heard dogs barking in the distance. As I suddenly lifted up my head and took cognizance of my whereabouts, I saw a dark blotch which outlined itself against the sky. Was it—yes, it was a building, and a large one too—a great hulking shambling affair, the farthermost outline of which slunk away into the inky shadows.

If I could just keep going a little longer—just a little longer—

When the walls towered above me, I called again:

“Help! Won’t you please help me? H-e-l-p!”’

Instantly a volley of deafening barks and blood-curdling

THE ESCAPE Lo snarls brought me sharply to a standstill riveted to the spot by the menace of this pack. Every call for help brought forth a fresh bombardment that shattered the brittle silence of the night. The huge dogs leaped against the straining fence—fell back and leaped again. Their savagery struck terror to my heart.

Was there anything prophetic in the dim outlines of that building, which a few minutes later I found to be a slaughter house? Anything prophetic in those crouching forms with taut muscles, in those deep-chested rumbles and sinister growls? Was there cause for chill foreboding in the black shadow of the walls or the barbed wire which wounded my hands as I sought for support?

How marvelous that our God shrouds the future with an impenetrable cloud—drops a veil over all the to-morrows of our lives that not one of us may know what a day nor an hour will bring forth! Marvelous, and infinitely kind; for if we knew all that the future held, we might not always have the stamina to march on. Resolution might falter, courage might swoon at the fantastic monsters and the hooded goblins that lay just ahead. Gaunt specters might reach out their clammy hands, take us by the throat, denude us of our strength and leave us broken, fear-shattered by the way.

Had I been a seer with prophetic eye that night in the desert, I might have placed some significance in the fact that the first house I came to was a slaughter house, and the first person I met was a butcher.

Had I known all that was to come, would I have had courage to go on?

Had I known that the kidnaping and captivity, terrible as it had been, was but a tiny preface to a giant volume, a minor prelude before a crashing jargon, the first splash of rain before a cloudburst, the striking of a match before the conflagration ;

Had I known of the clouds of religious persecution, calumny, innuendo that were primed to belch forth their lightning of lurid hate upon the church, thunder forth anathemas and pour down such a deluge of malicious propaganda upon my own unsuspecting head—such a deluge as was cunningly calculated to annihilate the pastor of the work its enemies sought to destroy;

Had I known that even amidst the shouts of rejoicing of my people at the deliverance of their leader whom they had mourned as dead, there would be mingled the low, sinister rumblings of thwarted greed and foiled hatred already marshaling for a second attack;

Had I known this attack would be cunningly planned to throw a shadow upon my integrity, to discredit the kidnaping and cast aspersion and doubt in an effort to break my spirit and destroy my influence;

Had I known of the hideous nightmare months that would follow in seemingly endless procession all because one afternoon at the beach I had been approached on an errand of mercy ;

Had I known of all the “stories” that would be hatched in the incubator of evil minds, some for material gain, some for publicity, and some through honest but blundering mistakes ; .

Had I known, as I stood listening to the barking of those dogs, of the newsboys who would soon be barking their papers—little fellows, some of them scarcely larger than their own headlines, huge bundles of pink, white, yellow or green papers under their arms, yelling to the four winds, edition after edition;

Had I but known as I was brought to a halt by the mad barking of the dogs, would I have gone on or would I have gone back?

In weaker moments, during the tribulations of those following hideous days—days upon which I look back with a shudder—days when taut nerves and breaking heart and quivering spirit cried out for respite and surcease from the burden which had fallen upon my shoulders because of my

THE ESCAPE 21 refusal to lower our standard of faith, I felt that, had I known what was coming, I should have cried out that night in the desert:

“Father in Heaven, I can never drink this cup! Let it pass—Oh, let it pass from me!”

No sooner, however, would I stand again in the pulpit to preach, no sooner would I look out upon the sea of upturned faces of those who listened to the Word of God, than I would realize the unworthiness of such weakness. In that atmosphere of faith and love, I would be made to know that the good God, who “will not suffer us to be tested above that which we are able to bear,” would have given me grace to say:

“Thy will, O my Father in Heaven—Thy will, not mine, be done.”

For had I known all that would befall me, known of the court, the woman, the falsehoods, the people who would say they saw me here, there and yonder; had I been able to penetrate that which was wrapped in the misty future, I should also have known that “truth crushed to the earth will rise again,” and that right would vanquish wrong. I should also have known that on the tenth day of January, 1927, the telephone would ring and that lifting the receiver from the hook, I should hear the voice coming over the wire announcing that the case was dismissed.

To rend the veil of the future would mean clear vision of the good as well as the ill it holds—the victory as well as the struggle.

I should have known that when the clouds had rolled back and the smoke of battle cleared, when the devil with his dragons had gone skulking back into the shadows from whence they came, the church would still stand firm upon the solid Rock of Ages.

If the barking of the dogs that night held any sinister warning or presentiment, if there was any significance in the slaughter house dripping with fresh blood, naught of it was borne in upon my weary mind. My whole tkovght at that time was of refuge, a telephone, the police, home, children, church and work.

The veil was well lowered over the face of the future.

CHAPTER II STORM SIGNALS HEAavy steps

A sputtering match.

A streak of flame through murky shadows.

Gray forms still leaping against the straining wire fence.

A man’s voice thundered, silencing the dogs.

“Hello! What you want?”

As I stood there trembling with mingled joy and exhaustion, clinging to the fence, a light was struck in the house and a man came out.

He appeared rather rotund as he emerged, lantern in hand. His entire manner, voice and appearance, was gruff. His hair was awry and the thick stubble of beard on his face and the heavy hair on his arms made him appear unkempt. He was clothed only in his under garments.

Holding the lantern high, he peered into my face and through the barbed strands demanded in guttural, foreign accent:

“What you want?”

I had intended asking shelter, nourishment, care, but somewhat taken aback and discomfited by his gruff manner, I said:

“T’ve been kidnaped—I want the police—the police and the telephone.”

Evidently understanding little but the word “police,” he shook his head and pointed his finger in the direction I had been going. Vainly I tried to make him understand my plight until it seemed that I would drop where I stood on the other side of the fence.

The outskirts of the village were so near that I determined to press on. There I would be safe from recapture. I inquired:

“Have you an automobile?”

“A horse ?”

“No— Come through fence—’Merican side.”

“What is this place?” I asked, pointing up at the hulking outlines of the great building beside me.

“Slaughter house,” he informed me. ‘Come in, you in Mexico now.”

“Slaughter house!’ I shuddered. ‘‘Mexico!”

The realization that I was on the international line was borne in upon me, but I was too tired to be amazed.

It was only a little way to the nearest house in the village, so I struggled on, away from the gaunt death-tainted shadows of the butcher’s domain. Only a short distance—but oh, what an endless stretch!

Dancing dimly before my eyes was a light, by now the last, lone flicker in Agua Prieta, the Mexican village. Again I heard dogs barking, torturing the night air in a general uproar.

I came to the light. It was on the piazza of a large house which was surrounded by a fence and neatly kept hedge. Here I trusted would be hospitality and succor. I rattled the gate, more dogs barked.

“Help me!” I called. ‘Will you please help me?”

“What is it? Come in,” a man spoke in a mixture of Spanish and broken English.

I made my way up the walk to the piazza.

“What do you wish, Sefiora?” This asked by the same man’s voice from the shadows beyond the open window of a sleeping room.

“I want—police. Please—help. Have you tel—phone ?” My tongue just wouldn’t form the syllables.

“No, Sefiora, telephone across street, one block.”

Turning from the piazza, I went down the steps and started down the walk saying to myself dully:

“One block—just—one—more—block—now. Just one more—”

Wavering to and fro on the walk, I reached the gate, partly opened it, then crumpled. The last thing I remember was that when I fell my head was lower than my body, and I was half in and half out of the gate. They tell me that I was unconscious for two hours. The people had come out of the house, and they said afterward they had thought me dead. When they saw life was still in me, they laid me on the piazza and covered me with blankets.

What kindly folk they were! Though they did not understand much English, they grasped my first request and pressed a glass of water to my lips.

How good it was! I called for a second glass. Water and the police were the two words uppermost in my mind just then.

The man raised my head while the woman chafed my hands.

“Sefiorita—sefiora,” I heard him say through that mist of half-consciousness.

“What is the matter? What is the matter?”

How good it was to look into a kindly woman’s face again. I thought of “Rose” back there in the shack—of the hard, cruel look that even her gushing “dearie”’ could not hide.

How different was the woman’s face, now bending so anxiously over mine! How beautiful she looked to me!

The next faces I saw were Mexican, too, kindly and anxious.

In answer to my questions I was told by one of the men that this was Agua Prieta.

Agua Prieta? Where was that? In Mexico, surely, but where?

“Douglas—’Merican city—over there,” volunteered another man.

“The police—I want the police,” I whispered.

“Sefiora, I am of the police,” was the reply.

The people into whose yard I had stumbled had sent for an officer. I seized his hand. Here were the police, law, authority—the power to protect me.

When I had revived a little, these kindly folk summoned an American taxicab driver who took me across the border to an American hospital in Douglas, Arizona, and called an American policeman.

This policeman told the hospital authorities that he would guarantee my bill, whoever I was. I was an American woman in need of care. ‘That was enough for him.

At the hospital I had difficulty in persuading any one that I was Mrs. McPherson.

“Are you sure you are Mrs. McPherson?” they would ask. 5

“Absolutely.”

“Have you any proof of it?”

“Do you mean that you are Aimee Semple McPherson ?”

“Xe, Lido.

A man came in and looked at me closely. He paced back and forth across the floor, hands behind his back, then came to the bed and looked at me again. Time after time he repeated this, shaking his head. Something seemed to be troubling him greatly.

“Would you mind—” he finally began apologetically.

“Mind what?” I asked.

“Would you mind—”

“What is it?”

“Would you mind blowing your breath in my face— just once?”

“Why, no,” I said wonderingly, not realizing what he might mean by such a request. I did not understand that because I had been found across the border, he would think I was some poor woman who had been drinking and had just imagined I was Mrs. McPherson.

At last they believed me and a nurse hurried out to telephone my home in Los Angeles.

Almost hysterical with weariness and excitement I lay there waiting. Some one was impatiently clicking the receiver hook on the telephone outside my door. Would they never get the call through?

Then Los Angeles was on the line.

Having mourned me as dead, when the news of my presence in that Douglas hospital first went singing over the wire, my people were naturally incredulous.

The nurse came running into the room. What would I have her say for me that would prove to those far away who I was?

Quickly I searched my mind, then repeated little things about my girlhood that no one but my immediate family would remember.

I told her to say that the scar on my finger was from a cut suffered when a little girl, and that the man who cut me in that accident was named Pinkston. I told about my pet pigeon, Jennie, and the cat named Whitetail.

But there had been so many rumors, so many sensational reports of which I knew nothing—so many times the word had come, “She is here—she is there.”

At last the men who had brought me to the hospital reentered the room.

“Can you manage to come to the telephone yourself?” they asked.

Could I? If that telephone had been a mile away, even a mile of desert road, I would have gone to it.

I could scarcely hold the receiver or control my voice in that first eager greeting.

And back over those miles of wires came voices I had never expected to hear again.

In that Douglas hospital, clinging to the telephone with the nurses smiling around me, I breathed this prayer of joy: “Thank God! Oh, thank God!”

Joy was unbounded at my end of the line; but at the other end, so they afterward told me, it overflowed all banks and leaped all barriers of restraint. In Temple and Bible

School the congregation and students gave a shout! Services and school were forgotten on the instant.