Daniel S. Warner

“ On occasions rotten eggs, gravel-stones, and mud balls were thrown at us, and through it all Brother Warner praised God and manifested such a calm and gentle spirit one could not help but feel he was a man of God. ”

“ But subsequently she fell through the opposition of her husband and Satan, and we gave security for the money because it was demanded, though we were under no legal or moral obligation to do so.
One can imagine that during his severe trial at Bucyrus Brother Warner felt very much forsaken. But God had many others who were ready to stand with him. There were those who were solicitous with reference to his welfare. In one of the issues of the Trumpet we find this little note:
A brother writes thus, inquiring of us, "O Daniel! ”

“ When time, as we know it, has ended, when old earth itself has grown weary and ceased to go round, and when all the stars of the heavens have forgotten to shine, I shall still praise God for the revelation of divine life that thrilled my soul on that glorious morning. And when I wander over the green fields of the heavenly paradise, or sit down with my Lord in the city of God, I want to renew that association with Brother Warner and thank him for what he did for me. ”

“ Praise God, nearly thirty-five hundred books have gone forth singing the praises of God. May God speed all his flying angels with the everlasting gospel to this dark and wretched world, so near its awful doom. Amen.
Brother Warner remained at the Office until early in March, when, by agreement, he met his little company again at Walkerton, Ind., where they had held meetings almost a year before. Frankie Miller refers in her diary to their meeting in Walkerton on the night of their arrival there. ”

“ They were astonished to find that her vision was there recorded and explained as the church.
[15] Once after her second marriage, while living in Cincinnati, she wrote a letter to her boy, Sidney, who was in the care of his father. Brother Warner had been to visit her twice since their separation, and he was constrained to go again. So he took the boy and went to the city address as given in her letter. She happened not to be at the house just then. So the two walked about leisurely until she should return. While on the opposite side of the street from her house they saw her returning. ”

“ After holding a couple of grove-meetings in Ohio and attending the Beaver Dam meeting in Indiana, during the summer of 1891, the company did not travel together any longer. Brother Warner visited the churches in Pennsylvania and Ontario and then spent the following winter, or most of it, at the publishing office. In April, 1892, came a visit to the churches in the West, including the one at Denver. Before leaving home for this trip he suffered from a severe attack of rheumatism, and recovered only by a constant fight of faith. ”

“ When Brother Warner recovered his spiritual poise, after the terrible conflict at Bucyrus, he renounced Stockwell, and the latter at once dropped all profession.
An incident that occurred at Medina, Ohio, before Stockwell's defection, gave Brother Warner some trouble. A Mrs. Booth had had a vision in which she saw herself caught up with a thousand-dollar note. Stockwell, who was at that time apparently in sympathy with the Trumpet, interpreted her vision to her as meaning that she should give the one thousand dollars to the Trumpet. ”

“ She walked up and down the aisle wringing her hands and crying, "My church! my church!" Another woman said, "These people are either awfully good people or else they are desperately wicked." Once during the meeting flying missiles crashed through the windows. Glass flew across [353] the room, striking a woman on the head and drawing blood. [18] Said Brother Warner:
People have dealt in cheap, shoddy religions so long that they feel like stoning us when we state the cost of that we are commissioned of Christ to offer the people ”

“ At a grove-meeting near Antwerp, Ohio, some roughs came to break up the meeting. They divided into two squads, one to pass to the one side of the congregation and the other to the other side. They were prepared to throw eggs, but the leaders of the two squads said, "Don't throw until something is said to justify." They marched to their places and waited. Brother Warner was preaching with wonderful anointing, and shouting. Finally the leader on one side said, "There shall be nothing thrown at that man by my consent. He is preaching the truth; he is a man of God." ”

“ He planned to attend this meeting after holding a grove-meeting in Medina County, Ohio, and he accordingly announced there would be no Trumpet issued for August 15, since he expected to make this tour. Portions of his report of the Sandy Lake meeting are here given. Quotations direct from Brother Warner will enable the reader the better to comprehend the man and to feel the touch of his saintliness; for there breathes out from his words such a spirituality and devotion as is possessed only by those who are thoroughly abandoned to God. ”

“ By this time the truths of the reformation were being extensively scattered. Besides the workers named in southwestern Michigan, there were G. T. Clayton in western Pennsylvania, C. Z. Lindley in Iowa, J. P. Haner in Kansas, and W. N. Smith and others in Ohio. The Lord was raising up ministers in various places, and many people were accepting the truth.
The first engagement for Brother Warner and his company, after the latter had been definitely formed, [358] was at Walkerton, Ind., in April, 1886. They remained two weeks, and a few souls came out on the clear Bible line. ”

“ The dispensations of God are in their beginning often insignificant and despised in man's eyes. God chooses things that are not, to bring to naught things that are. The fact that Brother Warner's work was done in comparative obscurity counts for nothing against its being the work of God. It is quality that counts. Brother Warner had the right spiritual quality, the secret of which was letting God have his way. His entire abandonment to God in a complete consecration, together with his adaptable temperament and gifts, made him suitable for God's use in this great work, and God chose him. ”

“ How the nations are drunken and are sporting in their shame!
Even scoffing at our Savior and profane his holy name;
Far more blind than Belshazzar, who so trembled with appal,
They still riot on to judgment, with their doom upon the wall.
Brother Warner was not gifted in writing tunes. This necessary counterpart was supplied in J. C. Fisher and his wife, Allie R., also in H. R. Jeffrey, a brother who lived in northern Indiana. Fisher frequently wrote both words and music, as did also Jeffrey. ”

“ The little paper Herald of Gospel Freedom, was in its first year, and its editor, I. W. Lowman, was favorable to holiness and had been impressed that Brother Warner should conduct a holiness department in the paper. The appointment was made at [197] the Eldership meeting, as stated in our previous chapter. As usual when undertaking any responsibility, Brother Warner placed himself in entire dependence upon God. He thus speaks of the project:
Oh, that God may endue us both with grace and wisdom to discharge this solemn and important calling! ”

“ He with his company were on their return from their Western tour. I had been teaching school in Iowa during the previous winter and had also engaged myself for the spring term, but had a two weeks' intermission for vacation, which I decided to spend at my home. How wonderful that the course of life may turn on a mere decision, which at the time may seem to involve no particular consequence. It was during that two weeks' interval that I met Brother Warner and came in contact with the reformation movement. ”

“ In his resumption of the work in Ohio we find Brother Warner in charge, it seems, of the Ashland circuit, with his home at Hayesville, Ashland County. Here, as was characteristic of him everywhere, he was wholly absorbed in spiritual labor, the salvation of sinners and the general spiritual welfare of people everywhere within his reach. In his diary for Dec. 21, 1875, he says:
Went out visiting and talking to the people. ”

“ They longed for the time when God's people should all be one, but chose to believe that the time was not yet. And so they have been believing for forty years, and are today in the greater confusion. They lacked the spiritual equipment. One of Brother Warner's special endowments was that of considerable light on the prophecies. He saw that the sectarian denominations were of the true spiritual Babylon in which God's people were being held captive. He also had in the Spirit the prospective vision of the pure church unruled by man. ”

“ At a meeting at Rising Sun, Ohio, Brother Warner was praying in an opening service when some one threw a pack of cards over their heads. After the preaching the people were gathering up the cards. He said, "Amen, gather them up; the devil has surrendered ”

“ The answer, so far as religion is concerned, depends to some extent on what one has observed in those who make a profession, though it is true that the influence of the Holy Spirit alone—that monitor who makes his appeal to the inner consciousness—sometimes decides the question.
The community at New Washington, where the Warner family lived, was strongly Catholic and Lutheran. There was too much whisky and tobacco and too little of genuine Christianity for a convincing testimony in favor of the latter. As for Dan Warner, he thought to decide the question of religion by trying to be an infidel. ”

“ Warner in which she renounced the movement which she brands Come-outism.
COME-OUTISM RENOUNCED
The following communication pretty fully explains itself. It was written by Sister Warner, the wife of D. S. Warner, the Come-out leader, and editor of the Gospel Trumpet. Those who [320] know Sister W. generally, among the straight holiness people, have confidence in her integrity. God bless her, and may she save her husband from his strong delusions. She desires the holiness papers to copy her article:
Dear Brother Doty: My soul praises God today for a perfect salvation in Jesus. ”

“ Can you stay at home for the sordid dust of earth and let them perish? Oh, fly to the rescue, don't delay; bring the needy to Jesus Christ!
After a few years both Fisher and Jeffrey dropped out of the ranks and ceased to contribute their melodies to Brother Warner's hymns. In their place God provided Brother B. E. Warren. No sooner did this young brother become a part of Brother Warner's company than he began to display a marvelous gift for writing melodies. In the years that followed he filled a large place as a writer of music, and he also learned to write the words as well. ”

“ On the 19th he took train on his journey toward Canton. He stopped at Loudonville and visited the church. Arrived at Canton on the 20th and proceeded immediately to visit congregations on the circuit. Sister Warner and child arrived on the 23d. The search for a house in which to live extended over a period of several days. There were good, faithful brethren who assisted them with provisions, but yet to a considerable extent they were left to provide the necessaries of life themselves. Of his effort to procure wood and hay we observe, for November 6:
Cold. ”

“ My wife stands with me. Let the Trumpet continue to sound louder and louder, until the walls of sectarian Jericho fall.J. C. A.
[299]
The more I deepen in Christ, the better I understand the doctrine Brother Warner advocates; and the more I understand the doctrine advocated and acquaint myself with the early history of the Friends, the greater similarity I find between the two. He does not insist upon entire separation from the world in every form stronger than they did.F. W.
God bless you and yours and the great and glorious work in which you are engaged. ”

“ His strength wore away. He prayed that he might be comforted by some friend, if one were left. There was a brother, a John N. Slagle, whom God had [316] reserved and who had expressed to Brother Warner a forewarning of some trouble. This brother came to him and took him to his home, seven miles in the country, where was enjoyed a sweet sleep and a respite from the storm's rage. The poem Meditations on the Prairie, is very touching in its description of these experiences. ”

“ He let himself be irritated by the lightheartedness of Forbes. He objected to the latter's whistling as he went about his room packing up his traps. He hated a fellow that was always in high spirits. "Why, what has come over you, old man?" queried the artist, stopping to take a critical look at his comrade. "Do you want to get out of it? It's my impression that you haven't taken sulphur water enough."
On Monday morning there was a general clearing out. The platform at the station was crowded. The palace-cars for New York, for Niagara, for Albany, for the West, were overflowing. ”

“ In applying mathematics to the practical purposes of life, in recognizing its mighty utilities to commerce and civilization, Adam Warner was driven to conjoin with it, not only an extensive knowledge of languages, but many of the rudest tasks of the mechanist's art; and chemistry was, in some of his researches, summoned to his aid. By degrees, the tyranny that a man's genius exercises over his life, abstracted him from all external objects. ”

“ THE PARSON. I supposed you would say that he was a minister. There is another thing about those people. I think they are working against the course of nature. Nature is entirely indifferent to any reform. She perpetuates a fault as persistently as a virtue. There's a split in my thumb-nail that has been scrupulously continued for many years, not withstanding all my efforts to make the nail resume its old regularity. You see the same thing in trees whose bark is cut, and in melons that have had only one summer's intimacy with squashes. ”