Around the World in 88 Years

AROUND THE WORLD IN 88 YEARS By Arthur Burt The Story of Arthur Burt Prepared by Nina Snyder for Original Publication Nina Snyder resurrected a project that was put on the shelf long ago and brought this book to life. She pieced together a vast collection of tapes, the recordings of Arthur Burt’s life story, and went on to prepare the original text of Around the World in 80 Years… The Story of Arthur Burt. Around the World in 88 Years is a new edition, revised and edited with new stories. — The Publisher AROUND THE WORLD IN 88 YEARS Copyright © 2001 by Arthur Burt Published by The Emmanuel Foundation Stuart, Florida 1st Printing, 1993 2nd Printing, 1998 3rd Printing, 2001 (Revised) Scripture quotations are from: The King James Version. The Holy Bible, New King James Version, (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, Inc.) 1982. ISBN 0-9667720-3-2 Printed in the United States of America Book Orders & Information Web Page: www.arthurburt.com E-mail: [email protected] Or write: The Emmanuel Foundation 39 N. River Road Stuart, Florida 34996 USA Books can be ordered in the U.K.: Arthur W. Burt “Bron Wendon” Conway Road Penmaenmawr, Conwy LL34 6 BB North Wales, UK Telephone 01492 62 3338 Other books by Arthur Burt include: The Lost Key Cock-A-Doodle-Do! Boomerang: The Funeral of Failure The Silent Years: A Divine Apprenticeship Contents 01 Father ...................................................................... 1 12 Walking On Water ................................................. 15 13 The Storm .............................................................. 31 14 Pastor Burt ............................................................ 45 15 The Button ............................................................ 63 16 The “Conchee” ..................................................... 77 17 The Blackout .......................................................... 91 18 “The Glory Meetings” .......................................... 107 19 Forbid Them Not ................................................. 121 10 Walking the Land ................................................. 139 11 The Proceeding Word .......................................... 159 12 Climb the Mountain! ............................................ 179 13 These Foolish Things ............................................ 193 14 Far & Away ......................................................... 209 15 Crumbs from a Broken Loaf................................. 223 Preface In more than 70 years of ministry, I have proved many truths — sometimes by doing things right and sometimes by doing things wrong. A few of the stories I relate might offend some readers. My hope is, by exposing my misdeeds and the lessons I have learned through God’s dealings, I might spare others from falling as they learn from my mistakes. It is not my intention to stir up mud or to deal with the sordid, but rather, by uncovering myself, to be a blessing to others. At the turn of this century, I look back over the 88 years of my life, with more than 70 years as a Christian, and sometimes feel as if I am dreaming and will soon awaken. I cannot believe that all those years have gone by! Most of my contemporaries are gone. Except for a handful, the people from my generation who I knew, loved, esteemed and fellowshipped with are gone. I have never been important in the eyes of men, never one of the “greats”. If you ask me who I am, I will tell you. I am nobody. And the message I bring today is that every somebody will now have to become nobody. We must lose our identity in the Body of Christ, because Father will not give His glory to anybody but Christ. — Arthur Burt 1 Father “Oh God, help us! The Germans are here!” Mother cried out, awakening me. She snatched me out of bed and carried me down- stairs where we cowered, trembling to the thud, thud, thud, as the plummeting bombs exploded almost completely destroying Whitley Bay. We were twelve miles from Vickers Armstrong’s ship- building yards in Newcastle, and the Germans were after that. Along the way, the Germans devastated our town. In the morning I discovered my friend’s house had collapsed in on him. The roof and some of the rafters crushed the top and bottom of his bed, but he was still alive underneath. Miracu- lously, our house was untouched, while everywhere around us was absolute wreckage. Later in the war, after Great Britain had captured some German prisoners, I trembled when I saw 200 or 300 of these Germans marching down the road with red, white and blue targets on their backs. Oddly enough, there was only one British soldier with a gun conducting them along the seacoast to where they dug trenches. They seemed to be glad to be out of the war, con- tent to be prisoners. The end of World War I came in 1918, along with my sixth birthday. An aura of mystery surrounded my father. Although these are some of my earliest recollections, I suppose all stories really begin at the fathering of something. My father was thirty years older than my mother and had two sons from his first marriage who were older than she was. Emerging into a world of conflict, I was born in England in 1912, the only child by 1 my father’s second marriage. Many years would pass before I could fully comprehend my background. An aura of mystery surrounded my father, a doctor who had been crossed off the medical register for misconduct. He had been performing illegal abortions and peddling drugs. He was a blas- pheming, drunken, gambling man, and yet, a man who was su- perior in many ways to most people around him. Once Father had entered into moral disgrace, he did like most people would do. He fled from where he was known, down in Southampton, and moved up to Newcastle-on-Tyne where he opened a drugstore. A young girl of 15 entered that drugstore one day, and that was the be- ginning. Nine years later, that young girl, who would one day be my mother, married my father. Father invented a false background for himself so no one would know of his secret past Father and private life. Later, we would learn that his first wife, a schoolteacher, had left him in a grievous situation. They had two sons, and her brother lived with them. One day, during a drunken brawl, my father picked up a poker and split his brother- in-law’s head open. His wife took the two boys and left him, never to return. My father continued this kind of life, gradually sinking into more and more sin and wickedness. I don’t know how many women he had. I do know at least one woman, his housekeeper, lived with him for a time and had a baby by him. It was difficult to learn anything more about this because of the scandal involved, so this part of his life remained in the past. My grandfather, on my mother’s side of the family, had a public house, a drinking saloon in Newcastle-on-Tyne. Grandfather was 2 a jovial, lovable man who would take me out and buy me sweets and clothes. Our rare visits to him were like going to heaven! The only occasions I ever remember drinking was when I was a youngster of seven or eight and showed off before the men in the saloon by sipping out of their glasses. They laughed and said, “He is going to be like his Granddad.” I loved my grandfather, in spite of his drinking. But I hated my father and his drinking, because Father’s alcoholism played such a tremendous part in mak- ing our lives grim. Father lived a separate life from my mother and me, leaving the house every day by 11:00 AM to visit the different drinking sa- loons. He would come back at 3:00 PM and would go out again at 6:00 PM. We never knew what time he would return at night. He lived his whole life in an atmosphere of gambling, under- cover drugs and other evil activities. Before I was born, he had a very serious accident when he was mixing something with pestle and mortar, probably while he was under the influence of drink. The stuff exploded in his face, and his eyeballs came out on his cheeks. Doctors put his eyes back in, but his sight was pretty well gone. So when I was 10 years old and he was 65, I became very valuable to him — as his eyes, like blind people use a dog. Everyday when I came home from school, I had to read the news- paper to him, and it would take me at least an hour. After reading, I mixed medicines and drugs, struggling through books like The British Pharmacopoeia and The Bloodless Phlebotomist. I made the medicines, wrote the labels and stuck them on the bottles, wrapped them in white paper, and delivered them to countless peoples’ houses. Also, I made whiskey at Father’s instructions in his still in the cellar. His other illegal activities, such as performing surgery, were done in the pubs and the clubs secretly. Because most of my hours were filled with school, mixing medicines, reading to my father… my liberty was worth its weight in gold to me. My father’s sternness made me a disciplined boy and I dared not openly disobey him, so I developed a subtle, stealthy manner. If I could creep out of the house, my only opportunity of liberty, I would do so. But my father’s ears often made up for his eyes! So I mastered how to lift the latch silently and how to 3 avoid each stair that creaked. I would have made a wonderful burglar! I knew when I’d come home, I’d probably be in trouble because I had been out playing with the lads. I would hear, “Arthur, where have you been?!” “Oh,” I would answer, “I have been out with the lads.” “You didn’t ask me.” Just Arrived! 4 I would present him with my excuse, “You were busy with someone in the consulting room.” If any- one was in with him, I was off.

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