Soon after this I heard him in Bible conferences, and immediately the Bible took on new excitement, new dimensions, as it began to open up to me under his teaching.  I disagreed with him violently:  he made the Bible teach me my error.  Very often he would say from the pulpit:  "If you disagree with what I am teaching, just remember I didn’t write it.  I am only the messenger boy delivering the telegram.  If you don’t like what the telegram says, don’t hit the delivery boy -- take it up with the Author!" -- which, of course, completely defeated me.  Now, having known him for eight years since then -- six of them as his wife -- I wonder how I, with my little untrained mind, ever had the effrontery to challenge a mind like his!

But --  "What is he like -- really?"

In his teaching he had much to say about the struggle between the old, carnal nature and the new life of the Spirit implanted supernaturally within the believing Christian. He spoke from the heart, for his own life was a constant battle to subdue an upsurging, cocky, too sure self into yieldedness to the Holy Spirit. That he could live in triumph was due to day-by-day awareness of the struggle. His book, God’s Methods for Holy Living, soon to be back in print, gives the secret and was a tremendous factor in my own Christian growth. The holiness and dedication that shone about him in the pulpit, that sang in the joy of his message, that lifted the listener to higher planes of Christian living, were not lightly achieved, nor permanent possessions. He could be very impatient with minds slower than his, although he was learning to cope with this. He was apt to be a bull in the china shop when trying to be tactful. Often over enthusiastic about people or places or things he liked, he created false impressions. He had the strange ability of detaching himself from himself, standing off and marveling at what the Lord was doing through Donald Barnhouse, appreciating his own God-given talents perfectly humbly -— but appearing to outsiders terribly conceited! All of this would be brought before the Lord at the end of each day, for forgiveness and cleansing and restoration to fellowship with Him.

Yet he never agonized before the Lord on his own behalf. He, great hulking six-foot-two-and-a-half "two hundred and too much" man that he was, came in simple trust to a loving Heavenly Father, and in simple faith and willingness to open his secret heart, accepting the promised cleansing from forgiven and forsaken trespasses. What great lessons I learned!

I have never known anyone who loved more to share his experience of beauty, of joy, of delight. He took me into his heart and made me a part of him -— even saying, "We preached in such-and-such town!"

As a husband, he truly practiced what the Bible teaches, "dwelling with her according to knowledge" (1 Peter 3:7), and how well did he know me! I couldn’t get away with a thing! He was tender, sweet, teasing, loving, appreciative, and sentimental. He remembered birthdays and anniversaries, even though I sometimes forget them. Perhaps the most surprising thing about him was that he was continually amazed to know he was beloved, for him it seemed to be a new fresh miracle each day -- amazed that I loved him, amazed that his audience around the world loved him and, above all, amazed and humbled and exalted that the Lord loved him. And more and more he was burdened to let others know how great a Savior loved them, with how great a love.

Once one has sat under the teachings of such a man, one can never be the same. We who have heard the Word made plain are responsible for acting upon it: first, for believing God truly loves us and then for letting others know how they too may dwell in the love of God, in joy and strength and peace and an ever-increasing holiness.

I wish you could know how much you were all in his heart. I wish you could know how distressed he was over the divisions within the body of Christ. One of the things he said during one of the periods of consciousness in his last illness was: "We must pray for the church, the whole body of Christ. We must cry to the Lamb. He is in us, but He will not be complete until we are all in Him." May each of us be as willing as he was to open our secret heart to the cleansing of the Lord, and then with renewed love toward Him reach out in love toward each other.