Dates are difficult for me to remember, but I think it was during the summer of 1940 that I took a month’s vacation, and we four – Mom, Ruth, Dick and I traveled in my 1937 Ford 2-Door about 10,000 miles. We visited relatives and beautiful places: relatives in Iowa, Uncle Adolph and family in Montana, the Black Hills, Yellowstone, Grand Coulee Dam in Washington, Crater Lake in Oregon, the Redwoods, the Sequoias, World’s Fair in San Francisco, Cousin Harold Rulison and Hondre, Santa Monica beach (swimming in the Pacific surf), Grand Canyon, and Bryce Canyon. We enjoyed southern hospitality in Oklahoma and many points and people in between. It was such a memorable experience. I recall how Virginia Weatherson at their ranch in Columbus, Montana, impressed me because of her Christian testimony which I did not understand at the time; however, a year or so later, I wrote to her that I had received Eternal Life and now understood.

Now all these past events and experiences fade in importance in my memory compared to what God brought to pass there in Cooperstown toward the end of 1940. For here it was in my room in the boarding house of Horace and Martha Weeks at 33 Lake Street on the evening of December 29th or 30th, 1940, that I met the Lord and He quickened me, using Ephesians 2:8 and 9, so that a New Life began in and for me. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.” Following are some background and details.

That year the Christmas present that John A. Lavender (mentioned earlier) sent to our family was a novel by Grace Livingston Hillentitled Sunrise. Having spent Christmas at home on Shellstone Hill, I took the book back with me to Cooperstown (only fifty miles) to read the following week. I cannot say that I was in any sordid condition of distress or despair. Outwardly I was well-situated indeed, with pleasant and secure work, everything that I desired financially and educationally, and with no disruption in my routine of quite regular church-going and my self-satisfying moral standards. The only adverse matter that I recall is that an emotional girl-friend crush had dissipated, causing me a bit of heart searching and the feeling that I might have a spiritual need of some kind.

I do recall another incident from those days that indicated my concern regarding spiritual matters. One evening I attended a meeting where a lady doctor gave her report of recent experiences in Russia, when she and her husband aided in Soviet Russia’s “Five year plan.” After her lecture she was asked this question, “Did you meet Communists who were religious?”

Her reply was, “As a matter of fact, some of the Commmunists that I worked with lived what I would call exemplary Christian lives.”

I wondered, “If Communists can live ‘Christian lives’, then why should I try to be a Christian? – What is a Christian anyway?”

My elder brother John had been saved during the past year. He had witnessed to me, both by word and a changed life, neither of which could I understand. For example, one Saturday I came home for the weekend and invited John to go with me to the movies in Amsterdam. He quietly declined, and I surmised that his “religion” was the reason for his not going with me. My elder brother John had in many ways been my hero figure. So when he turned down my invitation, I retorted, “All right, be a bigoted old reformer if that pleases you.” And I went by myself. John did not argue with me nor scold me. His testimony was clear and Bible based. He prayed continually for me, I’m sure.

Then later that year the Lord saved my younger brother Dick (Richard) who then began studies at the New York State College of Forestry (in the chemistry department, called Paper and Pulp.) And some weeks before Christmas he wrote me a letter telling about his school activities and at the end of the letter wrote, “Ephesians 2:8-9.” It puzzled me as to why Dick had written that to me. I looked up the verses in my Bible but could not understand them, though the words were all simple and mostly monosyllables. Here I was, a college graduate with two degrees. Though I was not conscious of any serious problem, I still could not understand what was going on. My pride was suffering as I vainly looked to myself for answers and satisfaction.

Well, as I read Grace Livingston Hill’s Christian novel, Sunrise there in my boarding house room, I was captivated by the story and I identified with one of the young men – a “good church-going boy,” like myself. On page 121 that boy asked a question that could have come from me, “Sir, how good do you have to be to be saved?”

The answer given him, as I recall, was something like this, “Son, to be good enough to go to heaven, you must be completely righteous and without any sin whatever.” The boy replied, “Sir, I don’t see how anybody can be that good. I sincerely try, but I admit that I fail. If what you say is true, I’m afraid that I can’t possibly be saved.” Whereupon were these words of reply, “Son, don’t you see? That’s where Jesus Christ comes into the picture. It is His righteousness, not your achieving, that can qualify you for heaven. He took your sins and paid for them, and He will give you His saving righteousness as His free gift.”

As I read, I suddenly understood that that very transaction had just taken place in my heart and mind. It happened to me right then and there. I looked up Ephesians 2:8-9 and understood the meaning clearly, which only minutes before had been hidden from my understanding. I remember going to my bedside there in my room, kneeling down and thanking God.

I now possessed something that I did not possess before. I had become someone (spiritually) who I had not been before, for Christ had comeinto my heart and life. As a result I began to encounter various experiences.

Perhaps the first one occurred when I went home for the next weekend. I got out of my car and met John in the dining room. I could not wait but said, “John, I want to tell you what’s happened to me.” He did not give me time to say more but replied that he already knew because even my countenance had changed, revealing a new Life. However, during theafternoon, when my sister Ruth and I went out in the field on our skis, I said to her that something very wonderful had happened in my life. She tried to guess the reason, suggesting that I had a new girl-friend. Iexplained to her how God had changed me through Christ His Son. Dear Ruth could not understand, but praise God, before two years had passed, she would understand, when she too would be saved by this same Lord through this same saving grace.