HIGHWAYS and HEDGES Or the LIFE of E
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HIGHWAYS AND HEDGES or THE LIFE OF E. FAITH STEWART By Grace G. Henry “Go ye out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in.” Digitally Published by THE GOSPEL TRUTH www.churchofgodeveninglight.com Originally Published by Tracts of Truth 1975 Grace G. Henry - Author E. Faith Stewart This book is dedicated to my two sons, Paul and Eldon Henry and their wives, Teresa and Louise, who have long known and deeply appreciated this outstanding saint of God and to Phyllis Martin, whose admiration for this life and whose love for God, has led her to lay down her own life to serve with Faith Stewart in these late years of her ministry. Foreword It was somewhere about the year 1940 that a young minister called at the parsonage in company with a silver haired elderly woman whom he introduced as E. Faith Stewart, a missionary, serving God in Cuba. Hers was no ordinary service, since she was absolutely depending on God for means to carry on her mission work from day to day. As I looked in her face, I knew at once that I was in the presence of an outstanding personality, and in the course of time, I found this to be true. The years went by and we learned more and more of the life and work of this faithful servant of God. Upon being asked that we might present her story to the public in book form, she shrank from the suggestion from innate modesty and the desire to keep her own part of the story in the background. So quite a period of time passed over and only recently, after a serious illness at the age of seventy-eight years, she at last sent for me to come to her for the purpose of doing this work. So it was with pleasure that we came to Cuba to write the story of a warrior of the cross, in a day when true and valiant warriors are scarce, and strong active faith in God for victorious living is apparently at its lowest ebb in the history of the Church. No one, gathering material from time to time in the study of the life of E Faith Stewart, could fail to notice a peculiar thing about it—namely that there has been all through her life history two distinct phases of service to God, if the one phase can be called so. As we began to obtain the necessary information we noticed that at the very first in her early years, she entered into her life work through an experience brought about by physical suffering and an outstanding victory through the healing of her body. Always frail from her youth, there weaves in and out of the picture deep and serious affliction and ultimate victory through faith in God even in the midst of her most ardent labors on the field. Such dreaded diseases as tuberculosis, blindness, paralysis, and others as serious have come upon her. And even as we write she, after a marvelous deliverance from a stroke, is already looking to her Great Physician to heal her of a severe attack of kidney stones. We, who were bearing the load with her and praying for her deliverance asked: “Why have you taken this affliction when you have just been restored of your recent illness?” In the long and hard hours of the night, God spoke to her and answered our question in His own way, saying to her quite plainly: “I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.” And she made answer: “Here I am Lord, for sacrifice or service.” But in spite of these sufferings, Faith Stewart has, with the help of God, labored and built up, battling on in faith and a zeal for souls either raising up a new work, pioneering on almost virgin soil, or entering a burnt-over field, tarrying until strength and health returned to the few that remained and it became alive once more. She labored in Los Angeles, California; Muncie, Indiana; Houston, Texas; Chicago, Illinois and Indianapolis, Indiana. She pastored also at Anderson, Indiana as its first regular pastor. In Cuttack, India, she established a rescue home for little temple girls and pastored a congregation there also. And when over fifty years of age, she went out once more to a new field, learning the language, raising up over thirty congregations, and again establishing a home for destitute boys and girls of Cuba. She was, in this one field, instrumental in bringing over three thousand souls to Christ. During these years she was under no mission Board, received no salary, and trusted God from day to day for food, shelter, and all requirements for herself and every worker in the fields. Humbly and with a sense of unworthiness, we venture out in this biography, hoping to reveal that when God finds a truly empty channel, He works as miraculously and faithfully as in the New Testament Church. And if the reading of this book should help in the least to broaden the vision of the reader or to strengthen the little faith that still remains in the Church, we shall feel that truly the work has not been in vain. —Grace G. Henry Table of Contents Page Sunrise On the Highway ...........................................................1 Losses and Gains ......................................................................13 Highways of America ..............................................................23 Highways of India ....................................................................43 Little Hands, Little Faces of India ...........................................59 Homes, Customs and Friends in India .....................................75 Broader Visions and Greater Faith ..........................................85 Tests and Victories of Faith .....................................................95 “Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall” ....................................107 Highways at Home Again ........................................................125 Highways and Hedges of Cuba ................................................137 New Harvest Fields ..................................................................149 Experiences in a New Land .....................................................157 Hard Places and High Places in the Kingdom .........................165 Little Faces, Little Hands in Cuba ...........................................175 The Timely Purchase of El Hogar ...........................................185 Enlarging the Borders ..............................................................201 In the Valley of the Shadow of Death ......................................207 He is With Us Still ...................................................................217 Thorns on the Highway ............................................................225 Problems and Perils of the Missionary ....................................239 New Fields and New Recruits for the Kingdom ......................255 Intimate Glimpses of Mission Life ..........................................271 La Finca ...................................................................................293 Intimate Glimpses of a Warrior of the Cross ...........................301 The Last Mile on the Highway ................................................325 Sunset on the Highway ............................................................343 Adelante! Los Campos Misioneras Nos Esperan .....................365 Chapter I Sunrise on the Highway “Not any good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly.” It was on a Valentine’s Day in February of the year 1878 that there came to the home of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph H. Stewart, a blue- eyed, auburn-haired little baby girl. How strange and wonderful is this life of ours! Who, looking on this tiny bit of human flesh and blood so lately arrived, would have dreamed of ships and planes, of continents and peoples, or of souls in dark lands brought to a saving knowledge of Christ? How great is our Lord, and His ways are past finding out! These good Scotch parents lived in the small town of Linton, Des Moines County, Iowa. Faithful to the teaching of their accepted belief, they still adhered to the Presbyterian doctrine of their childhood, and so laid the foundation for a nominal Christian life, teaching the same to their children. Up to the age of twelve years, Etta Faith Stewart, the little girl mentioned above, accepted these teachings. About that time the family moved from their location, and in so doing found themselves no longer near their old place of worship. So Faith began to attend services at the Methodist church in the community. Those were the days of protracted meetings among the Methodists. In the course of time, a series of special revival services began. Listening night after night HIGHWAYS AND HEDGES to the old-time messages of conviction and repentance for sin that went forth, she knew in her heart that she did not have this experience. With all her heart, she responded to the call for repentance and the pleading of the Holy Spirit and was saved by the power of God. Because of the physical condition of her mother, early in life, at the tender age of eight years, she began to do a part of the work at home. The mother, being for many years a semi-invalid and unable to be about, was compelled to lay the burden of the housework upon the shoulders of her daughter when only twelve years of age. She took practically the oversight of the entire house. Washing, ironing, and cooking were laid upon the frail shoulders of this very young girl. One day her mother called her to her bedside. “Faith,” she said, “I want you to go out into the kitchen, take all the dishes out of the cupboard, take out the papers, wipe the shelf with a damp cloth wrung out of clear water, put in clean papers, and then put back the dishes.” She went obediently into the kitchen and took out all the dishes, but when they were set out, the paper underneath looked so clean that she merely dusted off the paper and put them back. In doing this she was through much earlier. Her mother awoke from the sleep she had fallen into and called her to the room, saying: “Faith, have you finished the cupboard?” “Yes, Mother.” “Did you wipe off the shelves with a damp doth?” “No, Mother.” 2 HIGHWAYS AND HEDGES “Then go back into the kitchen, remove all the dishes, and take a damp cloth and wipe all the shelves as you were told to do in the first place.” She went back to do the work as she was bidden, and never again did she try to shirk when the patient mother bade her do it right.