I remember, I remember

Leith Samuel, a former minister of Above Bar Church in Southampton, and senior evangelical statesman looks back on family conversions.

'Janet, are you sure you are married?' the missionary, home from Africa, asked my mother.
'Quite sure,' came the unhesitating reply.
'You can be just as sure that you are saved and possess everlasting life', said the missionary, whose mother lived just across the way from us in New Brighton, Wallasey, Cheshire.
You may have noticed that the issue was not conversion, but assurance. The moment of conversion could be pinpointed by my mother, unlike my experience! She had turned first to the Lord in her bedroom at 17 Longland Road, Wallasey, at the age of 18. That was over a dozen years before the missionary questioned her. When she was 18, she had a vivid dream. In this dream, the Saviour came to the end of her bed. He drew attention to Himself and then pointed to an open coffin alongside her bed (all in this dream!). 'Which will you have? Me or death?' came the question. Without a moment's hesitation, my mother blurted out: 'I want You, Lord Jesus.' She knew she ought not to address him merely as Jesus. He was and is the Lord Jesus. From the beginning of Luke 24, we know that is how angels think of him and how believers should think of him today. Not just Jesus!
So she was converted, but she lacked assurance. Not surprising, for the church she regularly attended with the rest of her family was not known to be an evangelical, Bible-teaching church.

Trust the written Word

So it was that some 15 years later, when the missionary neighbour home on what used to be called furlough (but is now known as 'home assignment' or just 'home leave') asked her if she was sure she was a Christian, she gave the stock answer! She had no wish to appear presumptuous! The missionary assured her it was not a matter of presumption, but of trust in the written Word of God e.g. 'These things I write to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life' (1 John 5.13).
While my mother did not need to go through lengthy processes of thought to be sure that she was married, nonetheless she mentally ticked off the things that made her so sure: she had a wedding ring on the correct finger, the weddings lines in a drawer by the bed, the photographs and vivid memories of the wedding service in Emmanuel Church, New Brighton, where her husband was Scout Master; not to mention the fact that her children bore a remarkable likeness to both herself and her husband. She knew her faith was in the Lord Jesus alone for salvation now and heaven later, and the Spirit made the Word of God alive to her as she pondered it prayerfully.

From romance to mission

Her subsequent change in reading material was quite dramatic! Prior to this, I used to be sent to the local library to get for her some clean, romantic novel. It had to be clean. And it had to be romantic! Not too hard to get in those days! Now I was sent to get missionary material! Small wonder that some years later she undertook to send out Dr. Lionel Gurney's Prayer Letters to his many prayer partners! She was well aware of the birth of the Red Sea Mission Team.
I was not present at my mother's baptism as a believer in some tin tabernacle in Wallasey. But I remember her great joy on this occasion - not that it was this that fitted her for heaven. I only remember her in tears on one occasion. That was when my father could not let his name go forward for the management of the transport undertaking in the town that I was born in; because the people appointing said the new manager must be a freemason. My father could not go 'on the Square' even to get such a promotion - even though he had been earmarked for the job for a long time!
My sisters and I grew up under my mother's godly teaching. The last three years of her earthly pilgrimage she was registered blind, and spent much time in prayer. We owe more to her prayers and the godly living of both of our parents than we can possibly realise ... they didn't pray cream and live skimmed milk. They practised what they preached!

Fear of death

What about my father? He was the first of a long line of Liverpool Jews to turn to the Lord Jesus as Saviour, Messiah and God. A distant relation of his was the first High Commissioner for Palestine, as it then was, from 1920 to 1926. When Herbert came home, he was for a while Home Secretary in a Liberal Government, then elevated to the House of Lords as Viscount Samuel. When he and father stood side by side in Birkenhead Town Hall after a political rally, they could easily have been taken for brothers!
He lived for a long time in fear of death. Crewing for a friend on a yacht in the Mersey Estuary he was nearly drowned. That gave him pause for thought. What would have happened to him if he had been drowned? Where would he go when he died? He had a hammer toe. He went into the David Lewis Northern Hospital to have it sorted out. When he went alongside the bed he was allocated, the man in the next bed said: 'You're another big fellow! Lewis's giant died in that bed last night!' Again the fear of death crowded in. But he didn't know where to turn for help. There was no synagogue in Wallasey, so his father sang in the choir of the nearby parish church, St. John's, Egremont. After all, a lot of what was sung in those days was straight out of the Old Testament (the Psalms). My father followed his father. There was no faith test - only a voice test.

A trip to the dentist

My father got up to all the mischief that he could! One night he scared the other boys in the choir by appearing in the graveyard with a sheet covering him - a ghost! The choir master was also the local dentist. He appeared on one occasion on my grandmother's doorstep. When she opened the door, he said: 'Mrs. Samuel, can you see any grey hairs on my head?'
'Yes, one or two,' replied the lady.
'If I have that lad of yours much longer in my choir, there'll be nothing but grey hairs.' he remarked, quickly retreating. He had made his point.
My father had to see Mr. Lucas as his dentist soon after that. In those days you didn't have to have to make an appointment, so the dentist didn't know who was coming next. When my father appeared in the surgery door, Mr. Lucas said: 'Oh, it's you is it?' rather menacingly. My father meekly admitted that it was him. 'Sit in that chair. Which tooth is it?' One yank and the offending tooth was thrown unceremoniously into the spittoon. 'There's your tooth!' said Mr Lucas. After the tooth went my father's payment - just a shilling in those far-off days. 'And there's your shilling,' said my father, as he made a quick escape. You might be forgiven for thinking that that squared the account. Not so for my father. A large billboard appeared outside the church front gates. Mr. Lucas was to give an organ recital on a certain date. My father made a note of the date. He knew the way in at the back. He chose his moment carefully, nipped up alongside the boy blowing the bellows for the organ, took his feet from under him, and left him with his legs up in the air and the organ winding down miserably to silence! Poor Mr. Lucas! My naughty dad!

Hungry for God

My Jewish grandfather was a silversmith and watchmaker. He could not see his son following him, so he articled him to the Town Clerk of Wallasey. He could not have done worse! One day, my father was sent on Town Hall business across the water (the Mersey) to Liverpool. As he was making his way back to the ferry boat, a timid woman (thank God for her!) went up to my big father and said just four words as she thrust a Red Letter New Testament into his hands: 'Young man, read that!'. My father took it home and started to read it. 'Mad, bad or God?'. Would the real Jesus please stand up? How on earth was my father to know?
He was an NCO in the Queens Own Volunteers. He knew when he was serving under a good officer. He decided to test Jesus for officership. To my father's way of thinking, there was one obvious test that he could make. Jesus was on record as saying: 'When you pray, pray like this ...' So he started to pray what we call 'The Lord's Prayer', There was one phrase in it which he felt in good conscience he must omit. He did not pray 'give us this day our daily bread', for he reckoned he was earning that in the Town Clerk's office. His appetite disappeared. He could hardly eat a thing - and he used to be voraciously hungry. After some time, his mother asked him: 'Rudolph, what is the matter with you? Are you in love?'. My father insisted that it was not an affaire du coeur. He was not in love with any girl, though he had to admit he had given a girl up because she had no interest in spiritual matters - just a 'pretty face'. He confessed to his anxious mother that he was conducting a sort of religious experiment. He explained and she said: 'Why not put back the clause you have been missing out and see what happens?'. He did just as his mother suggested and immediately felt 'as hungry as a hunter'. Imagine his reactions. He knew there was something real in what he was touching.

The Trinity

He became bothered about the Trinity. How could there be three persons in the One Godhead he had always known pious Jews believed in? He went to see the parson in the nearby vicarage, but the vicar was out and the curate answered the door. 'My dear fellow,' he said, 'You must be very depressed to be asking questions about the Trinity! Go and get your pipe out and have a good smoke, you'll feel better after that.'
There was no-one to show him the Scriptures or explain to him that whereas one plus one plus one equals three, one times one times one only equals one. Bewildered and feeling thoroughly let down, he made his way home towards the then Central Hospital, when the pavement seemed to open up and an awful gaping hole lay in front of him. As he trembled on the brink, he thought: 'This is the abyss that I've just been reading about in the last book in the New Testament.' A hand came out and gave him a push over the edge. He saw the face of the parson he had just been to seeking help. Then he started to go down. A horrible sensation which I used to have in nightmares, of which I had many as a child, down, down, down. Then the downward motion stopped, and gentle but firm hands were under his armpits and he was being drawn up again by someone who said nothing to him, but had strange marks under his brow. The pavement was reached. It was as solid as ever. Was he dreaming? Was he suffering hallucinations? Was it all in his imagination? He did not know. So back to his bedroom in the nearby Serpentine Road. Onto his knees with that little book, the Red Letter New Testament. What wonderful words were there for his encouragement. I am not sure if he read them all at once: 'Come unto Me, all you who are weary and heavy laden ['That's me,' he thought] and I will give you rest...' (Matthew 11.28). He turned to Jesus as His Saviour, Lord and God.
He slept wonderfully that night, and told his father at breakfast: 'Father, I've become a Christian.' Would his father have a funeral service for him? No, he reacted wonderfully. 'Well, my boy,' he said, 'We'll see what difference it makes to you.' He lived long enough to see it made all the difference in the world.
My sister believes it made such a difference that Grandfather Samuel turned himself to the Lord Jesus as his Messiah, Saviour and God. I hope she is right. He entered eternity before I was born.

Leith Samuel recalls his younger days and the conversion of some family members