The Road to Salvation

by

Samuel Houston Harrold

(1848 - ca. 1910)

Sam Harrold and his family attended Hardins Chapel before it was Hardins Chapel.  He started at the old log church that he refers to as the Old Kidwell School House and later attended at the first brick church, which in his youth was known as New Kidwells or Kidwells Chapel.

I was born and reared up in the Gass Valley in Greene County, Tennessee, 2 miles due north from the old historic town of Greeneville, the home of Andrew Johnson, 17th President U.S.A.

Twas May 19th 1848 when I was permitted to see the light of this old world. Twas Friday morning and old Grandma Daughtery the mother of President Andrew Johnson was present to officiate.

I am the 5th son and 7th child of Andrew Lewis and Ann Martin Harrold.

My first school teacher was Valentine Hardin in the fall of 1856 and in the old Kidwell school house. Late in the evening of my first day at school I said to Mr. Hardin: “as you have not table to eat off and no bed to sleep in tonight I am going home.” So I ran and jumped out the door and started home in a run. However my oldest sister Amanda Jane ran and caught me and took me back into the school house to remain until Mr. Hardin dismissed and we all went home.

My first Sunday School teacher was Mr. William Swatzell in the year 1856 when I was just 8 years old. The Sunday School was held in the old Kidwell School house, where we committed to memory then and there verses and whole Psalms which I can repeat today from memory, it now being 50 years ago. The first verses I committed to memory and said publicly before my Sunday School were Matt. 11:28,29, and 30 verses: “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall find rest unto your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

The most remarkable feature of the above is this coincidence in the history of my life. Ten years after the recital of the above Scriptures Rev. Henry Smith used this Scripture as a text and it was the means in the hands of the Holy Spirit of God in my conviction of sin.

My personal consciousness and first conception of sin quickening conscience was in February 1865.

Between two fires

-- Major Kidwell (known more intimately in our immediate neighborhood as Squire or Uncle John) lived just one mile north of where I was raised. His farm and my father’s joined in the woods. John had a very fine sugar orchard and camp where he made a great deal of sugar and syrup every year. It was in February 1865 that my father sent me over to Uncle John Kidwell’s to see if he wanted my father to mark some stock for him week and to know the day.

When I arrived near his sugar camp I heard Uncle John in the camp talking, as I first supposed to his only son Frank, who was about my age. But when I drew a little neared, I learned better. He was praying and talking to the Lord.

By the time I had approached pretty close to the camp and could hear each word distinctly, so I took off my hat and leaned up against a large sugar tree with awed reverence until Uncle John was through his prayer. Then I approached a little nearer. Uncle John was my Sunday School teacher and therefore had been praying for me specially. I was at this time a very hard sinner indeed!

So when Uncle John was through his prayer in the sugar camp he came out singing “Amazing Grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me!” He approached where I was still standing against the sugar tree and said good morning. And he spoke and he took me by the right hand and warmly pressed my hand in his while the big round tears dropped off his round smooth cheek and his white hoary head bent forward so those tears dripped on my hand in his.

He said, “Samuel, I have just been praying for you and I am glad to see you,” so there as he gripped my hand in his he said “O Merciful Father, save all my class and especially this young man for Christ’s sake, Amen!”

I thanked Uncle John for the great interest in me, while those tears and prayers were burning in my heart as nothing had done before. Uncle Kidwell was a man that lived Christ in his home and daily life and like the great apostle Paul who said “For me to live is Christ, but to die is gain.” So with Uncle John. I told Uncle Kidwell my business and returned back over the hill we all called Morgan’s Ridge or Morgan’s Defeat and when on the south side of said hill on my father’s land in his woodland I heard someone talking farther down on the Southern slope in the beautiful white oak forest. I recognized the voice at once as the voice of my father. So I hastened on down toward the voice to see who it was my father was talking to. And when I had come in sight of where a very large limb had blown off a very large white oak that stood on a very prominent knoll while the leaves were on.

Here in this leafy limb of old monarch white oak that had been severed from the parent trunk the summer before was my father in humble prayer too. I drew near and leaned up against one of those monarch oaks that pointed like an index finger pointing up toward God and heaven. I took off my hat here as I had done at the sugar camp but a short while ago when Uncle Kidwell was praying for me.

Here I stood in the presence of my heavenly father and my old earthly father who would soon be three score years old now, pleading at a throne of grace and mercy for me. Oh how my heart did quake and my very inward consciousness smack me as I stood there in the great dense forest surrounded by large oaks, each pointing up to God who made them and set them there in the mother earth and my father praying for me, a poor sinner boy.

My father prayed, saying, “Oh, my Lord and Dear Redeemer, grant if is thy will to spare our great country and unite us all again in harmony and peace. Send our sons, the dear boys we love, home again. Dear Lord, not only my boys, dear Lord, but my neighbors’ sons and the husbands of dear old mothers and wives. O my dear Lord and Master, remember my dear boys, the two especially that are in prison at Salesbury. May they be permitted to get home. Now, O Lord, in conclusion, grant that we may have peace again once more in our land and country for Jesus’ sake and let my boys all come home from the war if it is thy will. Remember, O my dear Lord and Master, my dear boy at home, who is the youngest and is still in his sins. Holy Father, save him for Christ’s sake, amen!”

When father was through his prayer he came out of the tree top and came directly to where I was standing against the tree and when he approached me said, “Well, Sam, I was just praying for you that the good Lord will save your soul and that you may be saved from your sins for the sake of Jesus.”

I thanked father for the interest he had taken in me and I certainly did appreciate this warm and fervent praying that Feb. morning, first by Uncle John Kidwell in the sugar camp and then my father in the tree top on the brow of the hill. Not withstanding my sinfulness and alienation from God, my father, I never have felt my personal responsibility to the Lord my god before this morning.

Do you wonder since I was between two great mortar guns whose accuracy I never had and never did doubt as far as Christianity is concerned? Oh my! How my very heart did condemn me that day and how those personal prayers did ring in my ears and God’s Holy Spirit quickened my soul and spirit then and there.

I never did fully forget that February morning as being an epoch in my life that was of very great value to me spiritually. It was twelve months however before I fully surrendered to Jesus my Savior.

Old Uncle James Murphey and Uncle Henry Smith were to hold a protracted meeting in our  neighborhood at Kidwell’s Chapel. These two old soldiers of the cross had been at our home and were special friends socially and religiously with my father and mother and I may say of all the family as well. It was announced a month previous that these two old Methodist preachers would begin and hold a protracted meeting beginning on Saturday before the 4th Sunday in January 1866. This would include the holidays of course.

.......

When I arrived in sight of home all tired and feeling very sad indeed I saw at once that the doors were shut and I knew at once that the meeting was still going on at Kidwell’s Chapel. I turned my horse around in the road with the full determination to return to my aunt's but as it was now growing late in the evening this suggestion came to my mind: it is so very muddy and you and Mollie your mare are tired, go home and feed and get yourself something to eat and then you can ride back to cousin Billy Hope’s and stay all night which was only 4 miles away. So with these suggestions I returned Mollie toward home again.

After I had fed my mare and while I was searching for something to eat my oldest brother Billy came in. “Well, Sam, I am certainly glad you have come home, we will now feed the horses and cows and milk them and we will go to the meeting. We are having a great meeting indeed.” then Billy my brother commenced to tell me who had made professions of the neighbors and my schoolmates. Se we done our work and now he said “let’s get ready to go.” The Devil suggested that I stay at home and sleep. I said to my brother I would stay, but he insisted on me to go. I really wanted to go, but was actually ashamed to go.

Finally I got ready and went but was very mute all the way only answering questions my brother asked me. Finally when we arrived at the church the congregation was singing the song “O the blood the precious blood, that Jesus shed for me.” The house was already very near full. Satan suggested for me to take a back seat, something I had never done. However, I sat back about two windows from the front determined to jump out at the window and go home if the meeting got too warm for me.

Bro. Henry Smith preached that night, using for his text Matt. 11:30, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.” His whole sermon was a very strong invitation from beginning to finish to the sinner and especially so to such a condemned sinner as I was that night. He seemed to look and gesture to me and me alone. After he was through with his sermon he invited all that felt their need of the very Savior who spake the words the text to come forward and kneel with people of God while they all prayed. Quite a goodly number responded and went forward and asked an interest in their prayers. My schoolmates and my neighbors all asking the way of life. O, how I too wanted to go forward and ask those two old men, Uncle Kidwell and my father, to pray for me but it seemed I couldn't move.

The preacher made his way to me directly and plead with teary eyes for me to go forward and accept Jesus my Savior, but to no result. I seemed to be glued to my seat. Just now my father was called on to lead in prayer and the Holy Spirit seemed to pray through my father and especially fro me his prodigal son. My father closed his prayer with a warm heart and arose exhorting and he too came directly to me and took hold of my hand and exhorted me in the name of Jesus my Savior to repent and to believe the gospel. Here I sit dumb and condemned. My father returned back to the front and then they called on uncle John Kidwell to pray and he got very humble before the Lord and the Lord exalted him.

About the time Uncle Kidwell’s prayer was through my mother having bowed with Miss Lizzie Hardin, my schoolmate and neighbor girl. My mother was praying specially for Lizzie when she believed on Jesus as her Savior. O, how happy both were and they too came to me and mother bowed at my knees and Lizzie laid her hands on my head and ho, how they both plead with the Lord for me a poor lost and condemned sinner. When Mother and Lizzie had finished their prayer they invited me forward and mother said, “My children are all in the way of life eternal and have all believed on the Savior who is able now to save you, but are left out. Will you go on in open rebellion against Jesus and your parents and friends at last land in hell. Will you say, Sam? Farewell my boy, fare you well!” As my mother and Miss Lizzie turned to leave me with this farewell I just could not resist for my life following them right up to the altar and bowing down.

Oh! how happy my father mother were then and there. Directly the preacher said we will all that profess to love the Lord Jesus Christ as our personal Savior, come as near to our friend Samuel who is now the only penitent sinner left around the altar. Then Uncle Kidwell came pressing in until he bowed down near me and gently laid his hands on my head and my mother took hold of my right hand and old Uncle Lemeul Cox led the prayer and when he was through Uncle Kidwell began and prayed his very soul out for me, but all seemed to only condemn and mock me. Just after this prayer I felt some relief only for a moment or two. Then all was dark and gloomy as night to me.

Those two old ministers said, “We will have to bring this meeting to a close tonight because in the first place we are expected on Wednesday night to begin a meeting at Ruhama and we are very tired and worn and need rest as we are old we must have some rest sure.” So they closed out the meeting that night to my sad and still condemned condition. We all returned home and I only a very miserable wretch indeed.

After we arrived home father read the 8th chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans and then all joined in singing but one that old song, “How tedious and tasteless the hours when Jesus no longer I see.” Father then led in a very fervent prayer to God for me, after which we all retired to bed. But there was no sleep for me again that night. All through the night I was restless and would turn on my pillow like David of old. My brother asked me several times what was the matter, for me to only respond, “O my soul!”

The next morning I could hardly get up from my bed, but did however and helped feed and then tried to eat some but it was with great difficulty. This was a very fine sunny morning but cool in January. I told my parents after breakfast I must go to school that day over to the old Kidwell Schoolhouse; old Uncle Allen Mcferrin was the teacher. So I started off to school without a single book or slate. After I had gone near a quarter of a mile up on the Southern slope in our woodland here I resolved to never go any farther toward school. For I very well realized that I could not learn any at school while in this condition.

So I thought of the leafy limb where my father had been praying for me the year before. There on the south hill side lay the old leafy limb in this I threw myself with the intention of staying until my poor bursting heart was relieved. I then went deeper into the limb and cried unto the Lord. In this condition and with this resolution I cried unto the Lord, “Save oh save such as sinner as I am, for Jesus’ sake!”

The first thing I knew that beautiful sunny morning I was throwing my hat as high as I could throw it in the air and running toward home. My father and mother ran down through the horse lot and met me in the end of the lane leading out from the barn into the fields. Mother was first to call out, “What’s the matter, Sam?”

“Oh, I have just come back to tell you what the Lord has done for my soul.” Then we had a heart to heart and soul to soul communion and love feast with the Lord. We then went to the house and I met Martha my sister, with whom we rejoiced. I then asked mother to sing that precious old song of sweet memory, “Amazing Grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.” My mother had learned me this song many years before and now it seemed sweeter to me since I could sing and realize its true meaning.

After the song was sung I said to father I have often heard you pray both for me and others. Now I am better prepared to hear and received your prayer. I want you to pray now. So my father prayed and in fact we all prayed and got full of the Holy Spirit of God and when the prayer was ended we sang, “Nearer my God to thee, nearer to thee.”

Mother shouted glory to God! Do you blame her? I don’t. After all this rejoicing and praising the Lord there that beautiful day, in the old home it is one of the sweetest days in all my life. After while I was like Andrew the Apostle, “Now, let’s go down to Aunt Laura Gass’ and tell her the good news.” (Aunt Laura only lived one half mile down the valley in sight.)

So my father and mother and I went to see Aunt Laura and told her the good news of Jesus had done for my soul that morning. Of course Aunt Laura joined us in rejoicing and singing praises to the Lord our God. Aunt Laura was my Sunday School teacher and therefore she was happy to know that I had found the Lord. David Gass was Aunt Laura’s oldest son and about my age and his health was declining with that dreaded disease, consumption. He was without hope in Christ at this time. We all sang together that good old song my Mother had learned me, “Jesus, lover of my soul, let me to thy bosom fly.” Father then led in a very warm and fervent prayer.

We all prayed together and we could hear our friend and neighbor boy David asking the way of life too. “O my Savior, save me” he was saying, so Father continued to pray and Aunt Laura the dear mother was heard too as she said, “My dear Redeemer, do save my precious boy for Jesus’ sake!” At the close of father’s prayer we all sang again, “Alas and did my Savior bleed and did my Sovereign die.” Aunt Laura and mother shouted praises to god and father exhorted David and then and there he believed in Jesus our Savior and his mother’s Savior. O! what a happy day we were all having.

By this time the old clock on the mantel was about ready to strike off 12 o’clock and mother suggest to father and I that we return home. “No, no!” said Aunt Laura and David, “stay and we will have some dinner.” Father got the old bible and read to David and I from the Gospel of John 14th chapter and talked and explained to us from this chapter. It made such a deep and lasting impression on my mind that it has ever since been my favorite chapter in the New Testament. O what true comfort and consolation the words of Jesus my Savior gave me then and there and all along through life. Listen at Jesus, “Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” Oh how charming and encouraging are those words of the Master.

After dinner, I suggested that we all go down to Uncle John Kidwell’s who only lived about a half mile below, as old Aunt Nellie could not go out to church on account of rheumatism and their only son Frank was quite shy and he too being about my own age and a lost sinner I was quite anxious about his soul now. So we all got ready and off we went to Uncle John’s: my father, mother, Aunt Laura, and David and I. When we all arrived Uncle John, Aunt Nellie and Frank were just getting up from dinner and had a good warm fire in the sitting room into which we were all cordially invited. We told them what the Lord had done for us that day and that we were not willing to have all the good feasts alone, but had come down to ask the good Lord to share the rich blessing with them too. So we all sang together that old song, “Jesus lover of my soul” and father led in prayer and then we sang “Am I a soldier of the cross” and Uncle Kidwell led in prayer. Then we sang “O for a closer walk with God.” Aunt Nellie got so happy that her soul ran over and kindled all the rest and all of us received a precious blessing from the Lord. Frank became penitent and while he died not believe then and there gave himself wholly to the Lord Jesus Christ in the near future.

O what a glorious precious and happy day indeed was this to my poor soul! This 26th day of January 1866 to me was and is the happiest day in all my life. Because I was spiritually born anew to see and realize what I am and know that Jesus is really my personal Savior and that I am his and his mine forever more. Thanks be to God forevermore!

Thus was spent the first day of my new birth into the kingdom of my Redeemer. Twas the blood of Jesus my Savior and his Holy Spirit that led me in this everlasting way of life. I will ever praise the name of Jesus for such spiritual and praying parents that good Lord used in leading me a poor rebellious prodigal son to see the light of his truth. O, that I may ever lean on the strong arm of my blessed Savior for grace to overcome all the crosses and temptations in this sinful old world of sin.

The Devil has often succeeded in tempting me and gaining the victory over me, and in robbing my poor soul of a thousand joys I might have enjoyed, but he never has, nor can he drive me from this sweet communion with God the Father through the Lord Jesus Christ my Savior on this 26th day of January 1866.

Why? Because Jesus washed me in his own precious blood and saved me then and there. My faith in Christ Jesus was sufficient. He did all the rest and my soul found him and he embraced me in his everlasting arms of mercy and I said in my heart of hearts, “Thanks be to God for his victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”