9. What's
Wrong?
WHEN HENRIETTA MEARS was seventeen and a senior in high school, all the spiritual influence of her childhood seemed to culminate in a complete decision for dedication to Christian service. It was the last meeting in a series that had been held by Dr. Riley, in her church, and Henrietta was attending the meeting with her best friend, Evelyn Camp. The closing sermon was a great challenge for vocational Christian work and life service for the Kingdom and with one accord Henrietta and Evelyn felt a tremendous sense of complete commitment to go wherever the Lord wanted them to go and to do whatever work the Lord wanted them to do. They both marched down to the altar when the invitation was given to witness to this decision.
Henrietta was very sure that the Lord would give her an immediate call for China. She didn't particularly want to go to China, in fact she didn't want to go at all, but she was firmly convinced that China was the only place that the Lord did call anyone to vocational missionary work. So to China she would go, if that was the Lord's desire.
The two girls studied and planned and prayed over their futures. When a missionary, Miss Mead, returned on furlough from Japan, the girls listened to her vivid description of the needs in Japan, and both girls were stirred by the challenge. Right away Evelyn became deeply concerned for Japan and soon felt that it was the place for her, and her desire and interest deepened toward that end.
But Henrietta did not feel this call; try as she would, she felt no urge to go to Japan. She saw the need, and she felt greatly concerned
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for Japan, but she did not feel personally led to go there. She became very upset about it and felt that something was wrong in her life. The more Evelyn prepared for Japan, the more Henrietta prayed in deep concern lest something was wrong in her life that kept her from going also. "What's wrong with me?" she asked, over and over again.
When high school was completed the big decision was whether she would continue on to the University, with her eyesight as poor and failing as it was, or stop and do something less demanding on her sight. The specialists were predicting that she would be blind by the time she was thirty, and they advised her not to go on with any more schooling. Her mother asked her very seriously what she wanted to do about this advice.
"Well," reasoned Henrietta with her inimitable logic, "If I'm going to be blind, I want something in my head. I'm going to study as hard as I can, for as long as I can." The steady refrain in her heart supported her: "My grace is sufficient for thee."
Through the succeeding years of study she utilized every hour. She began the practice of going immediately after class to the nearest empty room to do her studying and preparation for the next class. She finished her work while it was still fresh in her mind, and while her classmates were idling away a free hour on campus, as they returned leisurely to their rooms or paused for refreshments, she was preparing for the next class session. Soon she had the reputation of never having to study, for her work was done when the others groaningly did theirs the last minute before the next class. Through it all she learned another vital Christian precept: "The Christian life lived in the present is the strong life and the only way to live it." In all her reading, writing and studying, her failing eyesight was a constant reminder of her dependency upon God. Her weakness in physical sight became her greatest spiritual strength.
Her mother had insisted from the time she was a very small girl that she must always finish what she started; she could undertake anything she wanted, but she must always finish it. Sometimes her mother would try to advise her against undertaking something too ambitious, but if the advice failed, and Henrietta proceeded, then finish it she must at all costs.
There was the time when the idea of making a beautiful white blouse, very much in vogue, with elaborate balloon sleeves with tiny ruffles and intricate embroidery, became her great ambition. Her mother pointed out to her young daughter that it was a very elaborate
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and ambitious project; but do it she must, and undaunted, she began. The first sleeve was completed with great interest and diligence, and much work. And then, in dismay, Henrietta realized there was still the second sleeve to do, and this thought was overwhelming. One sleeve had been enough to cause her to lose all interest in the project, but finish it she must. And she did! To this day, Miss Mears often reminds someone, "There's always the second sleeve, remember!" when she wants him to count the cost before he begins a task. She has always treasured the lessons taught her in her mother's careful training.
In 1910, on the twenty-ninth of December, her mother died. The one who had taught her so much and had been such a constant spiritual strength and companion, was gone. It was a time of great spiritual testing for Henrietta, a time of absolute surrender of everything she had counted on, to complete dependency upon the Lord. It was a great experience for her. She who had always been the life of the party wherever she went, loving people and activities, drew apart more and more into spiritual solitude. It seemed as though the Lord was drawing her away from everything, testing her to see if there was anything she would not be willing to yield to Him. Her father and sister Margaret were concerned for her.
"Won't you please go out with the young people? You shouldn't be alone like this. This isn't like you!"
It seemed as though her entire life were narrowed down until it became a relationship that existed exclusively between herself and the Lord, as though the doorway was so small that only she and the Lord could go through, a "needle's eye" experience in faith. After she had shown her willingness to surrender everything, to let everything go out of her life if need be, on the other side of the doorway ever since that experience there have been friends without number, an ever-widening scope of social occasions and an increasingly tremendous outreach and association with others. At her mother's funeral, her pastor, Dr. Riley, placed his arm around her shoulders and said, "Henrietta, I hope the spiritual mantle of your mother will fall upon you." Now the mantle was settling into place.
Her mother had always fixed baskets for the poor at Christmastime, and Henrietta had always gone with her to do the shopping for them. They always bought butter and jelly as well as the staples for the baskets. "The Lord doesn't just give dry bread you know, Henrietta," her mother would say. "And we will put in milk and cream too, for the Lord always gives the extra things."
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Now, remembering this, the first Christmas after her mother died, Henrietta and Margaret went shopping for the baskets. They also wanted to carry on the tradition of inviting guests to their home for Christmas. On their trip to find their guests, they found a family of children whose mother was away from home working as a laundress to make a living. An eight-year-old child had been left in charge, caring for a boy aged three and a baby, who was tied to the clothesline. The sisters returned to their brother's office and enlisted aid from the men working there for the little family they had found. They took the children shopping and invited them to their home for Christmas.
Henrietta told the maid to fix the table with the finest silver and linen. "We're entertaining the Lord, you know," and the spirit of the absent mother was echoed on this first Christmas of her absence. The finest foods were prepared. And for dessert? "Let's have pudding with lots and lots of whipped cream!" said Henrietta, her eyes sparkling. She had an idea that whipped cream standing in high, frothy peaks would be a delight to the children.
The pudding was served. the children looked at it seriously, eyes round. Then the three-year old boy burst into tears; his grief was inconsolable. "Mommy, my pudding's ruined. It's got soapsuds all over it!" However, encouraged to tackle the whipped cream, he soon decided that they were the best-tasting soapsuds he had ever had.
Sometimes it takes a time of death, which is an experience rather than a fixed date, to give the impetus for great spiritual comprehension. The Bible says, "When King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord." When her mother died, Henrietta, in her loneliness and grief, turned to the great spiritual truths with new comprehension and "saw the Lord." For it was at this time that Paul Rader, minister at the Moody Church in Chicago, came to hold meetings in Minneapolis, and it was a significant spiritual milestone for her. She would come over from classes at the University and slip into the meetings. He was a strong, forceful speaker, using such marvelous illustrations that afterwards she could recall the entire sermons almost word for word.
She was greatly impressed with Paul Rader's concept of the grace of God, the love of God, and of spiritual freedom from the law provided by what Christ had done in freeing us from obligation; and she was thrilled with the potential of living the life under grace. From understanding gained now, she later developed her strong lesson from the sixth chapter of Romans: know, reckon, yield, gain the knowledge,
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and act upon the knowledge, let go and let God. Multitudes came to hear Rader preach and a great tent was put up at Midway.
God seems to send the person along who is needed at a particular time, and so it was with Henrietta Mears as she was especially ministered to by Paul Rader. God spoke to her heart in a very real way, and issues that had been vague and unreal became very real and vital in her life.
Rader told her later that he noticed the well-dressed young girl who sat in the front at the meetings, but before he could meet her she had always slipped away. They did finally meet, and a lifelong friendship developed. When he was on his deathbed years later, she was the only other person he called for outside his immediate family.
She sat under the ministry of the great spiritual figures of the day and through her mother's hospitality they were entertained in her home: Gratin Guiness of London, Dr. Graham Scroggie of Scotland, Dr. G. Campbell Morgan, Dr. S.D. Gordon, Harry Rimmer, Dr. William Evans, Dr. R.A. Torrey, Gypsy Smith, and many others had great influence in her life.
Her first real effort in Christian service was being superintendent of the junior department in Sunday school when she was a freshman in college. God gave her a great vision for His service during those days. It was a tremendous challenge for her in every way to be responsible for this energetic group of "activists" and she came to see that this age-group was open to Christ in a very unique way to receive Him as Saviour and Lord.
It was a cold, Minnesota night in midwinter, and the stars were crisp and fairly crackling in their cold brightness, the way they do in a Minnesota winter sky; perhaps the northern lights were blazing, but Henrietta Mears did not notice, for she was kneeling alone in her room at home, in solitary prayer. The absorbing problem in her life was that she wanted God to give her power in her spiritual life, she wanted to be used for the fullest extent of His will. "Lord, I've given up everything for You and I cling to no one else. I want my whole body presented as a living sacrifice to you, filled to the fullest with the power of the Holy Spirit," she prayed. The room was still. Then into the quiet of her heart came the verse: "How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him." Right then and there, in quiet faith and complete acceptance, she knew the matter was settled, and she thanked God. She knew the Holy Spirit was present in the life of every Christian or else they would never have come to Christ, but
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she wanted the fullest possible extent of His presence with nothing hindering His complete use of her life. Now she knew the matter was settled. "Thank you, Lord. I accept by faith the filling and the power of the Holy Spirit, just as I accepted Christ as my Saviour."
The first significant result of the spiritual experience of fully possessing the power of the Holy Spirit, or the Holy Spirit's complete possession of her, was her Bible class at the University of Minnesota. In her junior year she started holding a Bible study class each Thursday afternoon in Shevlin Hall, the campus center for University women. The class was fifty minutes in length and Henrietta was the only teacher. At first just a few came; then they brought their friends and it grew until there were more than sixty University women her own age coming together to listen to her teaching and to join in prayer. Most of the girls were Christians, but soon they brought their non-Christian friends, so there was always an evangelical appeal for others. The class continued through her senior year and there was nothing like it on campus. Several girls from the group went out as missionaries, and none of them have ever forgotten the spiritual impact.
Through the years of her life, Miss Mears has always joked and been light-hearted about the "singleness" of her life. She has laughingly told the college young people that she never married because she did not live in the same dispensation as the Apostle Paul and she had never found anyone to match him in this age, although she is still looking. This seems perfectly acceptable to them. When teaching the story involving the woman at the well who admits to Christ that she has had five husbands, Miss Mears will twinkle, "Now she must have been a real glamour girl. She could get five husbands and I couldn't get one!"
Yet this too was a matter of real testing. There was one romance that had a real effect on her life and that drew her to a place where she knew what the Lord really wanted her to do. There was only one young man whom she ever loved and considered for marriage. He was tall, handsome, black-haired; outstanding, splendid and fine in every way. He was intellectually challenging and a delight socially, a young banker in a small Minnesota town. Yet as his attentions increased she sensed that something was wrong in their friendship; their way of worship was vitally different. Since it was a small town, their paths were continually crossing and they were thrown together constantly; she couldn't walk down the street, but he was there. Going into the post office
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would often result in an impromptu meeting; a trip to the drug store would bring about an unexpected visit, and so the friendship grew rapidly. He far outdistanced the people of the small town; he was a graduate of Dartmouth and had traveled extensively.
As the friendship developed and love grew, a fear struck her heart and she knew she would have to terminate this relationship. She thought perhaps she could handle it in such a way that the issue need never be faced squarely, and the opportunity seemed to arise when he was out of town on a business trip and the young dentist of the town asked her to go out with him. But even though she had several dates with the dentist, it only served to sharpen the issue when the young banker returned, for instead of dodging the issue of marriage, it brought the question into sharp focus.
He tried to make her see that he admired her religious convictions; he tried to persuade her that they could establish their home and she could go on and believe and do just as she wanted and she wouldn't have to change in any way. He promised her that they could go to another town and find a new atmosphere in which to start their family, if she desired.
A home had always been very important to Henrietta. She loved children and companionship, she loved entertaining and the social life and she loved the young man who was doing the persuading. Yet wouldn't she be compromising her faith, her beliefs, to share her life with someone who had a different faith than she?
The Minnesota spring came on, the winter fields were covered with spring green. The orchards blossomed with fragrant flowers and it seemed as though even nature was conspiring against her sense of conviction. Yet she could not get away from this thought: it would be like establishing a home and deciding that the husband would eat in the dining room and she would eat in the parlor each night. They would both have a good meal, but they would not be dining in fellowship. If in the matter of faith they could not sit at the same table and have fellowship together, their relationship would be impossible. It was the time of her greatest decision.
Again she knelt in prayer, this time on a Minnesota spring night, and she prayed in solitude: "Lord, you have made me the way I am. I love a home, I love security, I love children, and I love him. Yet I feel that marriage under these conditions would draw me away from You. I surrender Lord, even this, and I leave it in your hands. Lead me, Lord, and strengthen me. You have promised to fulfill all my needs.
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I trust in you." She knew that she would leave at the end of the year and terminate their friendship.
She hadn't been called as a missionary to Japan, now this love was being denied her — what had the Lord planned for her? A growing consciousness deepened that the Lord was calling her to a unique ministry for Him. Her years of counseling with young people gave her a depth of understanding that she would need and use. Decades later she was to say, "The marvelous thing has been, as I look back through the years, that the Lord has always given me a beautiful home; He has given me thousands of children; the Lord has supplied everything in my life and I've never felt lonely. I'm a very gregarious person and I thought I'd be lonely, have a feeling I didn't belong — but I've never had it, never. I've never missed companionship. Through one experience after another the Lord has shown me that He had something peculiar and special for me to do. After I went through that final door, where it was just the Lord and myself, I've gone out into wide open spaces of people and things and excitement, and life has been an adventure. It has been a tremendous thing to see how the Lord has filled my life so abundantly with all these things and I just want to witness to the fact that wherever the Lord God puts you, if He puts you on an island of the sea some place with Himself, He absolutely satisfies you. Through the years young people have so often come to me and said, 'Oh, Miss Mears, I want to be just like you. I never want to be married. Your life is so wonderful, I want to be just like you.' And I always tell them, 'Nonsense! The Lord intends for you to marry; that is the way He has planned us, that is what He intends for us. It just happens that in my case it was different, that's all!' But it has pleased me to know that they have been able to see my happiness and my complete satisfaction in the life that the Lord has given me."
Her first year after she left the University, Henrietta went to North Branch, Minnesota, as chemistry teacher and high-school principal. There she attended the Methodist church and helped with the Sunday school and the youth groups. As she walked from her boarding house to church she passed by an inspiring estate that belonged to a wealthy lumberman. The brick house was situated on an elevated site with large, sweeping lawns, enclosed by a wrought iron fence. One topic of conversation among the teachers was the thrill it would be to
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go inside the house and to be a guest at dinner. No one had ever been invited from the school faculty.
There were five children in the family, two boys and three girls. Everett, the problem child, was in Miss Mears' class. the other teachers had found him incorrigible and lost no time explaining the fact to the new principal. But as far as the new principal was concerned, she treated Everett as if she didn't have a doubt in the world but that he had very good reasons for being the most difficult pupil in the class. She acted as though the two of them together would just have to be brave about the whole thing and rise above the problems. She swept him along in a manner of expectant comradeship.
One afternoon as she looked up from her desk she saw Everett taking steady aim so he might send a spit-ball ricocheting from the neck of his unsuspecting victim. She caught his glance and smiled magnanimously upon him and with pretended nonchalance he began to scratch his ear, obviously to let her know that her faith in him had not been misplaced. The next afternoon a note was delivered to her desk. It was an invitation from Everett's family to have dinner with them in the brick mansion on the hill. They wanted to meet the teacher who had been able to win Everett's admiration and respect. They had assumed it was impossible.
So Miss Mears began a close association with the family, and was privileged to counsel them spiritually. She spent many evenings with them in social companionship. A few weeks ago, the older sister was a visitor in Hollywood and called on Miss Mears, and said, "Oh, those wonderful days when you were with us in our home! We will never forget them. You revolutionized North Branch. Our whole family was changed because of your influence on our lives."
The next year she went to Beardsley, Minnesota, to serve as high school principal and chemistry teacher, with speech and dramatics thrown in. Of course, this was over forty years ago, yet when she found the morals of the high school students so low, she decided that "God made the country, man the city, and the devil the small town." She met challenges that were beyond her years, but she looked objectively at the situation and when she found that most of the high school boys were spending all their free time loafing at the poolroom, she decided there was nothing to do but to try a one-woman reform. But, as usual, she did not approach her reformation with righteous anger and disapproval and negative asperity, but rather was overflowing with enthusiasm, stamina and a progressive program. She coached all the
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plays, formed choirs, raised money for victrolas and pianos. There was no football team so she immediately set about organizing one, helped find a coach, and encouraged the entire team by going to every game wherever it was, trudging through mud or sleet to root from the bench.
Again she taught the young people's class in the Methodist church, and most of the football team sat in the pews to listen to her spiritual coaching. One night in the Sunday meeting she said it was about time for testimonies; that was not greeted with any great show of enthusiasm. Cheerfully she announced the hymn, "Let's all stand and sing hymn number sixty-three."
The group decided that this was better than testimonies so with great eagerness the group jumped to its feet and sang the hymn lustily. "Now," said Miss Mears with a bright, vivacious smile, looking out at the standing assembly, "anyone who testifies may sit down!" The spiritual ice was broken, and after that she had no trouble getting members of the group to express themselves.
When the drive for missionary funds was announced in the church, she took the group into her confidence. It was in a time of depression when even the smallest amount of cash was hard to raise, so her announcement was startling. "I want each one of you to earn as much money as you can for the missionary drive; as much money as you can raise, I will match with my money. But let's not tell anyone what we are doing until it is time to make our announcement in church."
They charged out of there as if they had a mission too hot to handle. No one had any time to loiter at the poolroom, or wanted to. One of the women of the community was heard to report, "I don't know what's gotten into these young people. I never knew Charlie to be interested in picking up my corncobs before!"
As the young people scrambled to turn in their money, they watched with great awe as Miss Mears put double the amount in the missionary box. Missionary Sunday arrived, the roll was taken in the small church, and each group was asked to report the amount of its donation. The amounts were reported: $1.25; $3.00; $2.50, the ladies' aid society gave $15.50. And then the minister called, "Young people's class, Miss Henrietta Mears, teacher." Charlie jumped to his feet. "One hundred and twenty dollars!" he announced in a loud voice. Such a donation was unheard of, and the young people were triumphant.
One afternoon, two boys in her class who played on the football team waited to talk with her after class.
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"We were wondering if you would start a Bible class for us some night when we could get together. You keep telling us we should study our Bibles, but it's hard to get started by ourselves."
"Why, I'd be glad to," Miss Mears agreed. "You can come to the home where I stay and I'm sure we'll be able to use the parlor. Invite some of your friends to come, too."
The Bible study class began that night. As the nights progressed, they soon had to sit on the floor, then in the hallway, part way up the stairs, and as the spring evenings started to get warmer, they opened up the windows in the living room and the ones who couldn't squeeze inside stood outside the windows and listened.
The young Catholic priest in the town came over to see her at the high school on several occasions, to talk with her and to see if there was anything he could do to help. He said it was amazing what she had been able to accomplish with the young people, and that the town would be filled with undying gratitude for her achievements. They had long, interesting talks on spiritual matters.
It was a crisp October night, with the first hint of frost in the air, and a harvest moon was hanging low. A group of the teachers went out into the country to attend a corn-husking party in one of the big red Minnesota barns. While there, Miss Mears was introduced to a handsome young man, a Harvard graduate whose parents owned the town's hotel. When he asked her if he could take her home, she accepted. They had much in common and laughed and talked all the way home. For the next two weeks he gave her a big rush, and they went for drives in the autumn afternoons, and drove to the lake at Watertown for dinner in a charming inn there. She began talking with him about the serious things of life, and about the faith that gave purpose and direction to it. He promised to visit church with her.
One day the president of the school board stopped by to talk with her. Something was obviously afoot.
He asked Miss Mears about the young man she had been dating. "What kind of a young man is he, Miss Mears?"
"Why, just wonderful," she answered. "He is very intelligent, gracious, polite — very charming in every way."
"Well, I always knew that someone, some day would find a good side to him," he agreed. "The trouble is that he has such a bad reputation that if you continue going with him the town simply will not believe that you are reforming him, but instead—! You see he has the
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worst reputation in town. I always felt he had possibilities, but it seemed there was never anyone to challenge him. But you will ruin your reputation instead of improving his."
She could hardly believe it, but there was no doubting the necessary action that must be taken. When he called her that night she told him that something had come up and she would not be able to see him any more.
"I don't care whether you let me come or not, I'm coming. I simply must talk with you. I know what you have heard."
That night she let him in, saying that only a few minutes of conversation would be possible.
"I know what you've heard," he said miserably, "and the trouble is, it's true. I know it would be too much to try to live down, so I'm going to leave town. I didn't care until I met you. Now I'm sorry."
"It's too bad that you didn't have enough courage to be true to yourself," she said gently.
"I know. I want to make a fresh start. At least I want to thank you for making me want to start over again somewhere else."
He left town suddenly and completely. His mother visited her a few days after his departure. "I just want to thank you for making him change and for inspiring him to want to be different," she said.
Now as the school year drew to a close, and her apprenticeship was served in Beardsly and West Union, she felt that her place was back in Minneapolis. She would make her home with her sister, Margaret. And from that moment on, until the day of her death, Margaret devoted her entire life to her sister, encouraging her, supporting her, running the household, making a place of hospitality for Henrietta to share with others in her Christian work.
Margaret was always a wonderful contrast to Henrietta. She was a very successful business-woman in her brother's firm and in other establishments for over twenty years. Her keen, practical approach to everything kept all projects on a solid foundation. She had a sharp, dry wit, and a stimulating humor that kept everyone intrigued. Everyone seemed to gather around her: men loved to talk to her about investments, business and politics; women were interested in the way she managed her household like a business institution and wanted to learn her methods. She could meet anyone in any stratum of society. She was interested in everyone, had no inhibitions, and immediately established a rapport with the person with whom she talked. Her sly sarcasm
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in good-natured fun kept everything on an even keel. A marvelous hostess and the cook of bountiful meals, she called the church dining hall, the "Royal Gorge." She would ask, "Hasn't this meeting ended yet?" but would counter it with, "If it's for prayer, then it's all right. Pray as long as you like. Come over any time you want, if it's for prayer." She invited everyone in for a meal or to stay for a few days; their home was a center for the humble and distinguished. The home was beautifully ordered and was ready for a visitor at any time, and everyone felt at home. It was good as a physical background for Henrietta's spiritual career: the atmosphere was always uplifting, pleasant, and a contrast to all the serious issues that she constantly had to face.
Margaret took every physical responsibility from Henrietta: she paid the bills, did the shopping, ran the household, bought all of Henrietta's clothes, hats and accessories, shoes, gloves and purses. Henrietta never had to give a thought as long as Margaret was alive for what she "should eat, or drink, or wherewithal she would be clothed." Margaret would never marry, for she felt that her responsibility was to Henrietta, to help her devote full time to her unique Christian ministry.
People got the habit of referring to her as "Miss Margaret" and to her sister Henrietta as "Miss Mears." But if she ever heard this Margaret would snap, with humor, "I'm Miss Mears. You must mean my sister, Henrietta!" Much of this book was written in the beautiful Margaret Mears memorial Cabin located at Forest Home, and it should be so.
When the year at Beardsley ended, the night came that Henrietta was to board the train for Minneapolis. She was met by a delegation from the school board who were making one last try to get her to return. The spokesman said, "We have your contract here and in addition we have a bonus for you if you will sign and return for another year." But since her convictions called her elsewhere, no amount of bonuses could make her return.
Back in Minneapolis she contacted the board of education and told them she would like to have a high school teaching position in chemistry; this is what she had trained for and this was what she wanted. But there was no high-school opening of any kind, and not for chemistry either. They offered her instead a position in a junior high school. She agreed to take it but
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only on a substitute basis; she had been trained to teach high-school students and that was the only permanent position she would accept.
After teaching in the junior high school for one year, she was again asked to accept a permanent position there, but still she refused. She knew what she wanted, and she knew what she had been trained for. Again she was assured that there would be no possibility of a teaching position in high school chemistry for a young woman of her age.
However, in the fall she was asked to go over to Central High School to teach mathematics. At least this was in high school, so she cheerfully accepted. It was the first day of teaching and the teachers' meeting was in progress. Various items were discussed and problems analyzed. Rapping the gavel for attention, the principal announced, "I'm sorry to have to report that one of our staff has been called into the service of our country, and Central High School is without a chemistry teacher. Do any of you know anyone we might obtain to fill this position?"
One of the teachers stood up. "One of my former students has joined our faculty as a newcomer this fall. Knowing of her work in the University, Miss Cohen, head of the chemistry department at the University of Minnesota, told me that this former student of mine had the most brilliant mind of any student she had taught, and I agree. I suggest that we could find no better candidate than Miss Henrietta Mears!" All the teachers broke into applause.
The moment came when the principal led Henrietta to the floor of the building which contained the chemistry labs and lecture rooms: "Young lady, here are the keys to a very important group of rooms, probably the ones with the most hazardous potentialities. Do you think you can handle the job?"
Seriously the young woman looked up at him. "May I try it, and see?"
"You certainly may," he said. And she "tried it" for ten years. She was put on the regular staff of the high school as the chemistry teacher and thus achieved her goal, because she insisted on doing that which she had been trained to do and would not be satisfied with second best — a policy she has always followed. During the ten years she remained as head of the chemistry department, she was appointed senior class advisor. The senior boys started dropping in of their own accord during the eighth period, to talk things over. They discussed everything and soon they called themselves "The Wrangler's Club"; it became a standing group. She drew out those who never expressed
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themselves, urging them to take a part, and she was able to exert a strong influence on the young men in fields other than chemistry. Even as Grandmother Everts had a "genius for dealing with young men," so Henrietta demonstrated that this ability had been bequeathed to her.
When she first returned to Minneapolis from Beardsley, Margaret begged her to take over the Sunday school class she was teaching in the First Baptist Church, a group of eighteen-year-old girls who called themselves "the Snobs." "You're younger and you'll understand them better," implored Margaret in despair. She did understand them, and after she had been teaching them for a few months, not only did they stop calling themselves "The Snobs" but when the Sunday school was reorganized, every one of them answered a call to serve on the staff. Miss Mears was left with only one girl in her class, a visitor who had been in the class just once. So the two of them set out and called on every home in a radius of a mile of the church where there was a young woman in the family between eighteen and twenty-five years of age. On the first Sunday, fifty-five girls came to the class, and this was the beginning of the "Fidelis Class." They started meeting in one small room. The class grew to one hundred, and they took over a larger room. Soon the sliding doors into the adjoining room were opened and Miss Mears stood in the middle of the room on each side and taught a class of two hundred. Then the class took over the entire junior department on the second floor, as it grew to three hundred. In ten years the group had grown to five hundred, and a Mrs. Jackson built a special hall in the new church for the Fidelis Class. The girls came from everywhere. In later years, a woman who had attended the class said, "Miss Mears, you didn't know it but we just stood around waiting and hoping that you'd come and talk to us individually and ask us if we didn't want to accept Christ." One wealthy young girl who persisted in attending the class was told by her parents that if she continued in her folly she could just pack her clothes and leave home. So she packed her clothes and left home, and the result was that her entire family was won to Christ.
Another result of the first visitations made for this class by Miss Mears is revealed in this letter from Minneapolis: "It was my good fortune to know, love and adore Teacher in her youth. Such vitality and Christian fervor is seldom encountered. It was during a Sunday school house-to-house calling campaign that Miss Mears visited our home. My mother and her people were Roman Catholics, but the personal
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evangelism and subsequent interest and prayers of Miss Mears, and the impact of the Word of God, brought conviction and conversion to me and to the members of my home. Indeed, I thank God upon every remembrance of her . . . Can I ever forget the new Dodge, and driving down Hennepin Avenue full speed, even though she had only that day had her first lesson in driving! She is the one who reminded us that Sunday school is the time of impression but Christian Endeavor is the time for expression. Though the emphasis was ever on the spiritual, she never did neglect the mind and body. Laughter and fun, wholesome play and entertainment, sightseeing and conversation were ever in high gear. I adored her, copied her, shadowed her and quoted her!"
So the class flourished with Henrietta as teacher and leader and sister Margaret as booster and greeter, the inseparable combination that was to continue for some thirty-three years. Another witness to the effectiveness of her ministry during these Minneapolis years come from Dr. Louis T. Talbot, of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, California, who writes: "She has been a great inspiration to me ever since I first met her in Minneapolis in 1926. She was associated with Dr. Riley and I began in that year my pastorate of the Olive Presbyterian Church. Her ministry among the young people of the First Baptist Church of Minneapolis was unusually blessed of God and this blessing extended to every church in the city and state. She was a great inspiration to me, not only during my ministry in Minneapolis but all through the following years. As I journey through all parts of the world I constantly meet people who have come to know Christ through her ministry. She is indeed God's gift to the Church Universal."
As an outgrowth of the Fidelis Class, Miss Mears originated the "Dorcas Group." She thought it would be a good idea if the young married girls from the class would meet each month for prayer and to sew for the missionaries supported by the church. The idea met with tremendous success, meeting in the different homes, sewing, discussing Christian motherhood, and other spiritual aspects of life. The group is still meeting to this day. "If the project has a purpose, and that purpose is never forgotten but continually fulfilled, then 'the light shines in the darkness and nothing shall put it out,' " says Miss Mears.
Then Evelyn Camp came home on her first furlough from Japan. She told of her experiences to the large class taught by Henrietta. And Henrietta thought back to the time of spiritual questioning in her life
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as to why she too had not been called to Japan. When Evelyn returned to Japan, Ann Kludt, who had been president of the class for three years, went with her. Others in the class answered the call for the mission field. And suddenly Henrietta Mears knew what her calling was in the Christian field. She had been called to train leaders and to nurture the spiritual growth in thousands who could go in her place to penetrate the world with the Gospel of Christ. Only one Henrietta could have gone to Japan.
Because of this experience, she has been able to point out through the years that it is not a need that calls you to any one place or to any particular work. The need speaks, but there are thousands of needs and thousands of places, but God must call you to the one place, to the one work He wants you to do. She points out that God does not call you to do something you do not want to do: first, he renews your mind and gives you the desire to do that work. "If you're afraid God is going to call you to China, forget all about that. There are so many people in China now they probably don't want one more. I thought China was the only place God would call me and when He didn't I wondered what was wrong! God will lead you and give you the desire in your heart for the one place He wants you to fill." Finally, in the end, there is the desire, the burning eagerness to do the will of God. "Lord, what will you have me to do?" she has prayed through the years with her thousands of children and has taught them to pray it for themselves.
In 1927, Henrietta took a sabbatical leave from teaching; she knew this was the critical year. She must decide whether she was to continue teaching in the high school, or choose another field. If she was to remain in teaching, it was time for her to go to Columbia University to prepare for administration work. She remembered so vividly the night she had definitely given her life to Christ for vocational Christian work, when she was seventeen, but God had not called her to the mission field. Now the one thought uppermost in her heart and mind was definitely to find the place and work where God wanted her to be.
The need for decision had been precipitated by a visitor from California.
It was a blustery, cold, March Sunday in Minneapolis when Henrietta and Margaret went to church. Dr. Riley was absent from the pulpit and in his place was a visitor, a magnificent figure of a man preaching eloquently, fearlessly and movingly on "The Love of Christ." He had been presented as Dr. Stuart P. MacClennan of the First Presbyterian Church
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of Hollywood. After church Margaret usually invited the visiting pastor to their home for dinner, but this time she spoke to one of the deacons and said she thought that it wasn't fair that they should always have the privilege and that perhaps someone else would invite the visitor from California to dinner. But the deacon said, "Oh, nonsense, Margaret. You know he'll enjoy himself more at your house than anywhere else." So the invitation was extended and he accepted.
With great consideration, Henrietta said on the drive to their home, "Now, we know how difficult it is to try to visit with strangers, especially when you have a Sunday evening service; so right after dinner we will drive you immediately to your hotel."
Conversation was stimulating through the meal and when it was over, Henrietta said, "Now, we'll drive you back to your hotel." Dr. MacLennan looked up in dismay. "Oh, do I have to go?" He was assured that of course he didn't, they merely wanted to make it possible for him to relax and rest before the evening service.
"Well, I'm writing a new series of sermons on the Person of Christ, and I'd like very much going over them with you," he said. So the afternoon was spent in a discussion of his new series of sermons. He decided that Henrietta must come immediately to Hollywood. But she just laughed; it was the biggest joke she had ever heard. Dr. MacLennan returned to Hollywood, but extracted a promise that they would return the visit if they ever came to California.
So now it was her sabbatical year. Her pastor, Dr. Riley, said, "Henrietta, why don't you and Margaret take a year to travel and discover what God wishes you to do. It may give you a vision of this world that will determine the direction of your life."
And they did. They traveled that summer through Europe and after their return, decided to spend the winter in California. When they reached California they looked up the church on the corner of Gower and Carlos and paid it a visit. It was two years since Dr. MacClennan had preached in their Baptist church in Minneapolis, and they were interested and curious to visit his Presbyterian church in the heart of Hollywood.
They were thrilled at what they saw and heard. Dr. MacLennan had taken a little country church and in just a few years had built it into one of the most powerful churches in the nation; the church was known for his teaching of the Word of God, for its spirit of evangelism and for sending its youth to the far corners of the world in Christian service.
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The Wednesday night prayer meetings were crowded to the doors and often had to move up to the main sanctuary. The Macs-men's class of from five hundred to one thousand men met once a month.
Dr. "Mac" was delighted to see them when they greeted him on their first visit, and Henrietta was invited to speak on several occasions during their stay that winter. Just before their visit in Hollywood was to come to an end, Dr. "Mac" extended the invitation to Henrietta Mears to come to the church as Christian Education Director. During the winter many doors had opened for her in Los Angeles, but she could not make up her mind to leave the home and city where she had grown up and where all her friends and relatives lived, and where the position that offered her so much seemed to be. Her thoughts kept her in torment. What should she do?
She returned to Minneapolis; when she told of her proposed plans to return to Hollywood everyone felt she was absolutely "crazy" to consider such a plan. She besought God for His guidance. She must not make a mistake. Again she returned to Hollywood to contemplate the situation, still not knowing what she should do.
She knew that even though she might be a success in Minneapolis, that didn't mean she would be a success in Hollywood, a fabulous city of make-believe so far removed from anything she had ever known.
One afternoon, deep in thought, she walked down Hollywood Boulevard and came to the Pig and Whistle restaurant. Deciding to go in for a bit of lunch, she walked to the front door and it opened wide in front of her. She had not touched the door nor had anyone else placed a hand on it, yet silently, effortlessly, it opened before her. It was her first experience with a door controlled by an "electric eye." As she walked through the door, her constant prayer suddenly become light-hearted. "This is just what must happen to me, Father. I must not, dare not, open the door to the decision for myself. You must open it for me. If it is Your will that I should come to Hollywood, open the door, reveal Your plan." A great peace struck her heart, and she knew that God would lead the way.
The "visit" to Hollywood turned out to be the decision for a lifetime.
