The trip to Carolina was important for an other reason. I was introduced to a young lady that was attending Pisgah Academy, yet she was from Collegedale. I noticed her to be a very pretty and charming girl. The next year at the beginning of school I saw her in the Ad building, and my interest was again awakened. So Satuday night I asked if she would like to go skating in the gym. She said yes, but her skates were home. Her dad was on the staff at Southern as broomshop manager, and I made arrangments to borrow my brother's car to take her home to get her skates. What a wonderful time we had. So good that I tied her up for several Saturday nights in a row. We became aware that our love was growing together. For the next three years we dated and finally decided to get married May 31, 1953. This was the greatest gift God has ever given me. Another great reason to send our children to God's schools. I was a junior in college at the time, and my grades went up after marriage. I guess the hunt was over, and I could spend the time on studying that we used to spend trying to be together. We prayed earnestly that God would have His will in our lives. Now, I would like to pay tribute to Patsy for being a wonderfull wife to me, and mother in Isreal to our children. No marriage is perfect, but with God's leading it can be a wonderful experience. That is what God gave me in my mate. Our love has always been strong through good times and difficult ones as well. Thanks, Patsy, for being so good to me.
Elder Ted Carsage helded the week of prayer at Southern my first year of college. This preacher held me spellbound all week. He ended the week with a powerful message on heaven, and the privilege that will be ours to sing on the Sea of Glass with Christ, our great choir director. He made it so real to us that I committed my life to that end.
Then the summer of '51, Elder Edward Banks who taught Bible and Evangelism at the college, planned a field school of evangelism in Johnson City, Tennessee. We witnessed some real conversions during that summer, and it gave me a further push toward ministry and music.
In 1952 many experiences come to remembrance. We were still singing for the college, and the Faith for Today television program was interested in getting a quartet together. We received a call to come to New York City to sing for the broadcast. This was an audition for they were wanting to hire a quartet for the broadcast fulltime. We had a great time. It was during Christmas, and New Year's break. The schedule was full getting ready for the broadcast and filming the show. Elder Fagal had a long talk with us about the prospects of joining the team. We were so young, and had a lot of school ahead of us, that after much talking together we decided not to pursue it. Again music in my life afforded the opportunity for me to see how God uses music to win souls for the kingdom.
1952 was our last year together as the Adelphian quartet. My brother took a call to be the youth and education director for the Alabama-Mississippi Conference, and Don Crook graduated from college and took a call into the ministry.
After the quartet broke up we were looking for some new member's to join us. Jack was really a baritone, and my voice range was really 2nd tenor. We hoped for a bass and 1st tenor to join us. Two young men from Mount Vernon Academy came to college and they fit the right parts. Jim McClintock, bass, and Duane Stier, 1st tenor. It seem to be just the right voices and blend. We named our new quartet, The King's Men. We had a wonderful year together. In fact, we made an album entitled, God is Love. Most of the songs were arrangements by Wayne Hooper. We knew that we would owe royalties to him for recording his arrangements. We wrote him a letter and asked what he would charge for the use of his songs. He wrote back and said the cost would be eighty dollars for 500 albums. Then he added, since you are all in college and expenses are high, each of you make eighty dollars first, and then if you sell enough you can send me the royalities. I don't remember making enough to send him any money. You see, the King's Heralds was the quartet all of us looked up to that sang quartet, and Wayne's arrangements were being sung worldwide in our schools. You notice that our new name was as close as we could get to theirs, for they were our heroes.
After that year Jack was drafted into the army. Of course, that broke up the quartet, but we had a wonderful year with very special memories for all of us.
The summer of '52 I received an invitation to be a music leader from the Carolina Conference, and to work with Pastor Archer D. Livingood, in Morgington, North Carolina. It just built on the foundation of ministry from the summer with Elder Banks. The Western part of North Carolina is very beautiful country. The hills and mountains are awesome to behold. I led the music every night in a tentmeeting. I had never met a man more skilled in memory of scripture, and communicating it then Pastor Livingood. He took me visiting with him to teach me, and then he gave me a stack of cards to visit on my own. I was a bit nervous at first, but soon looked forward to my visits.
I remember very well one lady that I visited was in her early thirties. She was a heavy smoker, one right after another. The magazines in her home were all love and sex novels. My first visit she said, "I have never heard anything like this before. This man really knows the Bible. I feel God sent me to the meetings because I need help." She began to relate her story to me. She was a married lady, but left her husband in another state to come home to her parents and begin divorce proceedings. She was eight months pregnant with a child when he came home drunk one night and started to beat her up. Soon it got so violent that he threw her on the floor and repeatedly jumped on her and killed the baby, and left her for dead. God saved me, and now I feel I have a reason to live. The Holy Spirit was working on her and she wanted to respond. She said how do I become baptized. What a challenge for me, a college student, to try to help her. I just bowed my head and prayed for guidance in what to say.
Ruby, you have had a very difficult life and you have turned to many toys of the Devil to hide your sorrow. Alcohol, tobacco, magazines full of filth and crime, and coming to Jesus means turning away from the world and leaning on Him for a new life free from continuing sinful habits. This was my first experience praying for God's power to change a person's bad habits into God's lifestyle. I had heard testimonies to the fact that truly repentive people have been given, through the working of Holy Spirit, victory over the things of the world, but this I saw firsthand.
I told her that the things of the world had to go because they will continue to separate us from living with and for God. She was sincere about wanting to change and asked how to begin. I said first we pray for God's deliverance from these habits, and do our part to keep from being tempted. First, get rid of the magazines you have and stop buying anymore. When you pass a magazine rack in the store pass on by and make no provision for the flesh. Then we have alcohol to ask victory for. She didn't feel that would be a problem for she was not a heavy drinker. The next one was her toughest battle which was tobacco. We prayed together every night after meeting before she went home, yet she was having a hard time with it. I said to her one night you need to get rid of the cigarettes you have around the house, so bring me what you have and I will keep them for you. When you need one so bad you can't stand it, I will give you one. She agreed and that was it for her. God gave her the victory. Now we were coming down to the last week of meetings and Pastor Livengood was asking for those who would like to surrender their lives to Jesus and be baptized to come forward. At the beginning of the next meeting she said, " I believe I'm ready to come forward. A few times you have led the congregation in the hymn, "Pass Me Not Oh Gentle Saviour", and the words ring in my mind. I am not going to let the Saviour pass me by while on others He is calling. I want to respond to His call. If you will sing it at the close, I believe I will respond to His call." This is another experience God gave me to understand how important music is. "Song is one of the most effective means of impressing spiritual truth upon the heart. Often by the words of sacred song, the springs of penitence and faith have been unsealed." (Review and Herald, June 6, 1912)
The second semester of '53 the Georgia Cumberland Conference called me to work with Pastor Nasval, in Albany,Georgia, for an evangelistic meeting. Since I would have to go before the year was out, I decided to go home to Keene, New Hampshire, and work for my Dad in his print shop.
However, the major thing happening in my life was very exciting. That spring was the culmination of a three year courtship with my bride-to-be. I met Patsy Fogg as I have mentioned before, at a youth congress in Asheville, North Carolina. We made God the center of our lives and ask Him to lead us in our decision of marriage, and in His calling to the work He had in mind for us.
We set the date for May 31, 1953. One week after her graduation from academy. I don't think that her getting married so young was the most popular thing to happen with her folks. But we were in love. In the month of April, I went to Albany, Georgia, and we started the meetings right away. Elder Ray Nasval and his wife were very special people that knew how to hold a successful series of meetings. I was song leader and tentmaster. Of course, my mindset was divided between the meetings and getting married. They seemed to be patient and understanding with me. Patsy came to visit me the first weekend of the meetings. I got so nervous and on the way to the meeting I ran a stop sign and hit a car broadside. I was embarrassed when I told the preacher, and of course, he had to tell it to every one at the meeting.
The Lord really blessed with a good harvest of souls. Elder Nasval wanted me to preach one sermon before I left, and I was not sure how to do that. He suggested I preach on music in heaven. I believe it was a God-sent idea, because I started to study the Scriptures and Spirit of Prophecy on the subject of music surrounding angels, heaven, and the redeemed. It became so fascinating to me that I'm still researching the subject.
(See appendix Angels and music.)
My first voice teacher was Harold A. Miller, one of the biggest influences in my life. I loved to go to his studio for lessons. He was never in a hurry and would spend time with me talking about using my voice for the Lord. He drew me to a closer relationship with God. I will always be thankful for his love to me. He continually gave me encouragement to become a music teacher. He had such talent in composing music, and has had many of his songs published through the years. I remember when the college had week's of prayer for the students, the speaker would start his sermon and Professor Miller would listen to the theme of the sermon, and would go backstage to his studio and compose a chorus and come back at the end and teach it to us. On one occasion the speaker was talking about being ready for Jesus to come. And Prof Miller wrote this chorus to close the meeting:.
I want to be ready when Jesus comes,
I want to be ready when Jesus comes.
Earth's pleasures grow dim,
While I'm waiting for Him.
Lord keep me 'til Jesus comes.
I still remember the chorus and sing it once in awhile. Memories flood my mind as my spiritual soul is fed.
I remember the Friday night vespers when he would lead the students in the song service. One of his favorite hymns was "Under His Wings". W. O. Cushing wrote the words, and Ira D. Sankey wrote the music. Both of these men lived in the Ellen White years, and much of the beautiful lasting hymns were written in those years. Let's read the words to this hymn:
Under His wings I am safely abiding;
Though the night deepens and tempest are wild,
Still I can trust Him; I know He will keep me;
He has redeemed me, and I am His child.
Under His Wings, what a refuge in sorrow!
How the heart yearningly turns to it's rest!
Often when earth has no balm for my healing,
There I find comfort, and there I am blest.
Under His Wings, O what precious enjoyment!
There will I hide till life's trials are O'er;
Sheltered, protected, no evil can harm me;
Resting in Jesus I'm safe ever more.
Refrain
Under His wings, under His wings,
Who from His love can sever?
Under His wings, my soul shall abide,
Safley abide forever.
H.A. Miller wrote the music for many hymns. Here are a few that were published in the 1941 Hymnal:
1. Praise - Hymn 23 - Poem by Frances Scott Key
2. Sabbath - Hymns 28 - Poem by Thomas Raffles - 59 - Poem by Anon
3. Majesty and Power of God - 79 - Poem by Harriet Auber
4. Holiness of God - 80 - Poem by Charles Wesley
5. The Love of The Saviour - 147 - Poem by Anon
6. The Life of Christ - 170 - Poem by Daniel Turner
7. The Holy Spirit - 216 - Poem by John Stocker
8. Forgiveness of Sin - 236 - Poem by Simon Browne
9. Repenting Sinner - 240 - Poem by Isaac Watts
H. A. Miller's most popular songs were: "Saviour Divine", and "Like Jesus"
Dr. Adrian R.M.Lauritzen, prehaps the most influential musician in my life, came to Southern my last three years of college as chairman of the music department. What a man to look up to as a mentor for me. Many hours were spent in his office just talking about the joy of serving God in music. Without a doubt he showed me how Christ could be honored in teaching music.
My senior year I became president of my class, and He was chosen to be the class sponsor. This also gave me more time to get acquainted with him from a different viewpoint. Again, it was a wonderful experience. He led in a spiritual way that was a blessing to the whole class. Our graduation exercises were very spiritual.
I remember the beautiful Friday night vespers that Dr. Lauritzen led us in musically. A very reverent and spiritually moving service. One hymn that he loved to sing with us still comes to my mind. It was number 550 in the old hymnal, Beautifull Valley of Eden. Notice the words that talk about the homeland, and the role music will play there.
Beautiful Valley of Eden,
Sweet is thy noontide calm;
Over the hearts of the weary,
Breathing thy waves of balm.
Over the heart of the mourner
Shineth the golden day,
Wafting the songs of the angels
Down from the far away.
There is the home of my Saviour;
There, with the blood-washed throng,
Over the highlands of glory
Rolleth the great new song.
Refrain
Beautiful valley of Eden,
Home of the pure and blest,
How often amid the wild billows
I dream of thy rest, sweet rest.
Yes, I found him to be an inspiration to me that still lasts today. Godly teachers in all areas of education will have many stars in their crowns when they get to heaven.
I can see now how God guided me in my love for music. He put some very important people in my life that gave me direction into Gods music. I was blessed to be given the influence of Godly Teachers, and Ministers during my molding years.