I was born in an orthodox Jewish family. When I was but four years of
age, my parents took me to England and put me in charge of the late
Rabbi Horowitz of London to fully teach me the basis of rabbinical life.
At the age of seventeen years I completed my course of instruction as a
fully legalized rabbi, but was too young to take the responsibilities of
a district or synagog. At that time I returned to the United States and
soon drifted into socialism and became a socialist orator, traveling
from city to city and State to State, until I left the first principles
of my rabbinical teaching.
While traveling through Canada I became acquainted with an anarchist and
partly accepted his belief. I strayed so far away from my early teaching
that from time to time while speaking, I would hold up my Hebrew Bible
and tear it to pieces, cursing God and denying that there was a God.
I really became so hardened that I almost believed in my heart that
there was no God.
On the twenty-sixth day of October, 1907, I came to Chicago, and while
I was speaking that night on the platform, holding the Hebrew Bible,
tearing it, and ready to curse God, there came a sudden strong voice,
as it were, and, to my surprize, repeated to me the following words:
"They shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn
after him as one mourneth for its only begotten, and they shall be in
bitterness after him as one is in bitterness after his first-born."
While I listened to this, I thought that some one was behind the
platform speaking these words. I looked behind the platform, but could
find no one. When I resumed my speech, the voice came again speaking the
same verse, and I became almost paralyzed for a while. After the meeting
was over, as I walked toward my apartments, I heard the voice for the
third time, speaking to me in stronger terms than ever. The miserable
feelings came stronger and stronger. In fact, I began to look for peace
to my conscience, but did not know how to find it. In this trouble of
soul, no one among all the orators, Jewish rabbis, or religious people
of different denominations came up to tell me how to do better nor to
give me advice.
I left Chicago for New York, but could not find rest. The words of
that voice never left me day or night. One night, while walking the
streets of New York looking for something to comfort me, I saw a sign
reading, "Men Wanted for the United States Army." At nine o'clock
the next morning I went to the recruiting-station and asked for an
application-blank. The man at the station thought it strange that a Jew
would come to enlist, but he gave me an application-blank. I filled it
out and was examined and sent to Ft. Slocum, New York, where I was sworn
in for three years' faithful service for the United States Army. After I
enlisted I began to look for peace; but the more I looked, the worse and
more trouble came to me. In fact, persecutions from different soldiers
were very bitter because I was a Jew and did not do what they were doing.
While in Ft. Slocum I contracted fever and was taken to a hospital. From
Ft. Slocum I was sent to Ft. Sill, Oklahoma, where I was assigned to
Battery B, First Field Artillery. There was only one Jewish man besides
me amongst over three hundred Roman Catholics, and they believed in
making things hot for us, so the more I looked for peace the worse
misery and persecutions I found.
On Decoration Day, 1908, they were playing football, and after the game
they went into the kitchen, procured large butcher knives, and came out
to cut the "sheenies" up. When we saw them coming with the knives, we
ran into the tailor-shop and locked ourselves in, hiding underneath
mattresses between the covers. They broke the door, but through
Providence they could not find us. Then for the first time since I had
embraced socialism I began to think there was a God, since our lives
were so spared.
On the sixth of June we went bathing in the Red River on the
reservation, and the boys came and turned us head down and feet up in
the water and wanted to drown us, but it seemed that through Providence
I was once more saved from being destroyed by these blood-thirsty men.
Upon our return, we found the tailor-shop flooded. This was reported to
the commander, but no action was taken in regard to this or any other
case of persecution.
We decided to desert the army after pay-day. When pay-day came, I had
coming to me about $200 from the tailor-shop and $13 as pay for the
month from the army, but out of the $200 I collected only about $70.
That afternoon we walked to Lawton, Oklahoma, to get the train from
there to St. Louis. Upon our arrival at St. Louis, the other man got a
job, and I wrote to my uncle in Chicago, who sent me a ticket to come
to Chicago. When I arrived there, he advised me to go to Canada and
said that he would support me all the time that I was there, as they
would apprehend me in the United States for a deserter.
I went to Canada, but was still in much distress. Some time later I
had a desire to leave Vancouver, British Columbia, and go over the
border into the State of Washington, but went under the assumed name of
Friedman. While under that name I looked for a position, but could not
find one; so I cabled to my parents for money and two weeks afterward I
received enough money to open up a little store. I took for my next name
Feldman. I opened a book-store, but within three months I lost almost
$3,000. Then I left Seattle, Washington, for Tacoma under the name Gray.
Three weeks later I left Tacoma for Portland, Oregon, under the name of
Grayson, where I looked up a friend of mine. He was at that time manager
of the Oregon Hotel. The next morning I was more miserable than ever
before and thought that I was sick. The night preceding I related to my
friend all my troubles, with the exception of my being a deserter from
the army.
While I was looking for a charity physician who could give me something
to relieve my distress and trouble, I found a Salvation Army man and
asked him if he knew of any physician who worked for charity and would
give me treatment. He told me that he had a friend who was a physician
and who was a lover of Jewish people. This was the first time that I
ever heard that a Christian loved a Jew.
I went to the office of the doctor, whose name was Estock, and he gave
me a cordial welcome. Putting his right hand on my right wrist and his
left hand around my neck, he said that he loved the Jews because his
Savior was a Jew and that he was glad God had sent me to his office in
answer to his prayers. I was dumbfounded and unable to answer. The
doctor said, "You do not need a physician for your body, but you need
the Lord Jesus to heal your soul, for your trouble is with your soul,
and the Lord Jesus is able to save you from your distress and troubles."
He gave me a little bottle and said: "Here is a little medicine, but you
do not need it. The only thing that will help you is prayer, and I will
'phone to my wife and ask her to pray for you, and I will also pray for
you. This will be the only way you will get peace."
The next morning as I was offering my thanks to him he said, "Do not
thank me, but thank God that he sent his only begotten Son, that through
him such poor unworthy people as we should be saved through his love."
"What can this mean?" I answered. "Is there a God that will love such a
man as I am?--a man who curses him? a man that stamped his Bible under
his feet and fought against him? Is it true that he will love me so?"
The doctor answered, "He died for such men as you, that he might
save you." He further said: "My house belongs to the Lord, and I owe
everything to him. The God of Abraham and Isaac is my God, and the
God of David and also the Prophets. He is my God, and he is your God,
whether you want him or not; and I beg you to come with me to my house."
"It is impossible for me to go into your house," I answered, "because I
do not believe that there is a God, and if there is one, I am unworthy
to go into such a house."
He pleaded with me further to go, and I went with him. I lived at the
doctor's house for thirty days. We had the strongest arguments on
Scriptures, he trying to prove to me that Jesus is the Messiah that came
to save his people from sin. I contradicted every word of his with the
Old Testament Scriptures.
On the thirtieth day in the doctor's house I was more vile than ever
before. I got up in the morning looking for the first chance to get
even with the doctor because of his persistence in mentioning the Lord
Jesus on every occasion. When I came down-stairs, they were ready for
breakfast. I sat at the table brewing within myself, full of hatred,
malice, and bitterness against them because of their holding up to
me the Lord Jesus as my only Savior. While at the table I could not
withhold my bitterness, and when they read the Scriptures after the
meal, I began to laugh, mock, and curse, calling them all kinds of
vile names.
While I was doing this they went down on their knees to pray as they did
every morning. Looking up to me, the doctor said, "My friend, if you
will not respect God nor respect me as your only and personal friend
in the city, for the Lord's sake respect this house, for this house is
consecrated unto God."
These words sank deep into my heart, and I kneeled down still with
bitterness in my heart against Jesus and the doctor. While I was down
on my knees, I was cursing, mocking at them and their Lord. The doctor
prayed first, then his wife, and then his little boy, who said, "Lord
Jesus, you have promised to save him; won't you save him?"
These words broke my heart, and I began crying, "If there is a God, come
and prove yourself." The carpet around me was wet with the tears which
I had shed in crying for God to come and prove himself. I felt within
myself a love for the Lord Jesus and soon had a living faith that the
Lord Jesus died for me and that through his death I was saved. After I
rose from my knees, the doctor, his wife, and the little boy stood with
eyes full of tears, rejoicing with me that there was power in the blood
of Jesus Christ to save such a vile sinner as I was.
One hour later I left the house of the doctor to tell my friend, the
manager of the hotel, that the Lord Jesus was now my Savior and that he
had saved me from my sins. He took a heavy chunk of wood and hit me on
my right side, nearly breaking my ribs.
I said, "May God forgive you for this and not hold it against you,"
while the tears were streaming down my face. This is the first time in
my life that I ever said to any one, "May God bless you!" Then I said to
him, "If it were only yesterday that you had done this to me, I would
have killed you; but now the Lord Jesus has taken anger out of my heart,
and I will endeavor to pray for you that God may have mercy upon you."
Walking out of his hotel crippled as I was and holding my side with my
hand, I said again, "God bless you!"
While walking down the street, I saw a company of mission workers on the
corner of Jefferson and Washington Avenues. I pushed myself through the
crowd, seeing that there were some Jews there, and I began to preach
to my own people for the first time that the only way of salvation is
through the Lord Jesus Christ. In answer, there came rotten eggs and
rotten tomatoes at my head and body until I was covered from head to
foot.
After the meeting I walked on singing a song and rejoicing that the Lord
Jesus had seen fit to save such a poor sinner as I was. Thus ended my
first day as a convert. I thank God for the first pay I ever received in
the gospel--a crippled side and rotten eggs. I continued to preach the
gospel to my people in Portland for several days.
Three days after my conversion, while I was on my knees praying, it
occurred to me that I had better write to my relatives and tell them
what love the Lord Jesus had for me, and that he had died to save them
as well as me, and that he was the only true Messiah. I reasoned for
several days against this; but at last I had to write, because I saw
that the Lord was on one side and my relatives on the other side, and
that I had to choose between them. So I wrote to them, sending to each a
separate letter telling them that Jesus was my Savior and that he is the
only and true Messiah.
Sometime after this, answer came from my relatives that they could not
believe that there was any power to save me, because, if I could leave
my first principles and leave my own people, the teaching which I was
brought up under and drift so far away as to curse God, they did not
believe there was any power to save me. I kept sending them Testaments
and Gospels, but still they could not believe.
One day I went to see my sister and told her the truth. She at first did
not believe me, but I asked her to attend a street-meeting which I was
to hold, and she heard me preach Christ. She then wrote to my mother,
who began to grieve herself to death because I had accepted the Lord
Jesus for my Savior. Then they wrote me different letters and were
patient with me, thinking that they would win me back to Judaism. When
they saw there was no hope of getting me back, they were done with me.
On one occasion while standing in the street and preaching, there came
a thought to me with great force, "If the authorities get you for a
deserter, what will you do?" This question troubled me so that I could
not continue my meetings. I went to the doctor's office and said to him,
"Dr. Estock, do you know what they do to a person that has deserted the
United States Army?"
"They give him three or four years in the military penitentiary," he
answered.
"Do you know that I am a deserter from the United States Army?"