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Re: Who was Harry Morse ?
9/13/1902 (Leaves of Healing, p. 705) St. Louis, Missouri. Rev. Lemuel C. Hall, Elder in Charge. Rev. Mary MCGee, Hall, Evangelist.
Rome attacks. Zion victorious.
Elder Hall subjected to brutality and imprisoned by Romanist detectives. Court sets him free and rebukes his persecutors.
Rome, full of anger and malice at Zion’s faithful Elder in St. Louis, has made a most brutal and unwarranted attack upon him, but God has, as in always the case when Zion is attacked, given him glorious victory.
Once more has there been a wonderful fulfilment of the promise of God to HIs people: “No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper.”
The following letter from Evangelist Hall to the General Overseer tells, briefly, but graphically, of the outrage perpetrated upon her and her husband by malicious Roman Catholic detectives of the City of St. Louis, in the name of law:
Saturday night, August 30th, Elder Hall, Deacon Cutler and I went to Twenty-third and MOrgan streets, St. Louis, to hold a street meeting. We had been holding meetings there for five weeks every Saturday night.
One one corner was a large church, with a card on the door, telling that the church was closed by order of official board.
The daily papers had contained stories of the dissensions in the church, caused by grave charges against the pastor. On the opposite corner from the church was a saloon.
The crowd that has gathered from week to week to hear the preaching has been an orderly and interested one, and Leaves of Healing has found ready buyers among them.
On this particular Saturday night, when Elder Hall was arrested, a number of Romanists were among the crowd.
This part of town is known as “Kerry Patch,” and is in St. Bridget’s parish.
A Jesuit, whom we have known for a year or more began interrupting the meeting by asking questions, some impertinent.
A group of women, all Romanists, became abusive.
Elder Hall mentioned in his talk an article that appeared in the press of this city, describing the burning of a convent in Belleville, Illinois.
Just here a man cursed Elder Hall repeatedly, and said he was going off after eggs to throw at him.
Two men in citizens dress, who were afterwards known to us as police detectives, had, during the service, interrupted Elder Hall by insulting remarks.
Finally they asked to see Elder Hall’s permit for street preaching. This was shown them, but in the face of this, these two announced to Elder Hall that they were officers and at once arrested him.
Deacon Cutler was left with the organ and literature, and Elder Hall was taken a block away to a police telephone.
I went along.
A crowd of about 500 gathered, and much murmuring was heard against the men who made the arrest.
I asked to know where they were taking Elder Hall, but the information was refused.
One of the detectives who made the arrest said to me, hissing an oath: “We are taking him where you will not see him for forty years.”
Other policemen gathered around as the wagon was drawn alongside the curbing and Elder Hall was roughly pushed in.
I began singing: a policeman struck me with his club and ordered me to move on. I told him I would go on, but could not get through the great throng rapidly.
He pushed and struck me with his club from one street corner to the other, then left me as I went walking on my way. Deacon Cutler joined me, and when we found where they had taken Mr. Hall, we went there.
It proved to be a police station in the very heart of Romanism.
When we went in, they had just made their charge against Elder Hall, telling the most outrageous lies about him. They refused to let me speak to him, or to let him speak to me. They handled him brutally.
Elder Hall says that a police detective pushed him into the prison cell, and said: “I would like to put you in some dark cellar where you would learn what Roman Catholicism is.”
Elder Hall replied: “Yes, that is what Rome is, dark cellars and deep caverns.”
Elder Hall was behind the bars for about two hours and a half, then he was released under a $500 bond.
The case was set for the following Tuesday, Monday being a legal holiday, Labor Day.
When we went down Tuesday, Elder Hall was told the case had been continued to Thursday. An attorney said to Elder Hall: “You would have about as good a chance in this court as a lump of ice in the crater of Mont Pelee.”
A change of venue was granted on petition, and the case set for September 11th.
This morning Elder Hall, accompanied by Deacon Cutler and myself and some of Zion Seventies, attended the police court.
It is almost under the immediate shadow of the largest brewery in the world.
The two detectives, with their witnesses, were present. Two of the witnesses were saloon men. When the witnesses were called to the stand, they all showed confusion, and some showed fear.
I believe they were afraid of our God.
The Judge did not call Elder Hall or any of us to the witness stand, but said the prosecution had utterly failed to make out any case at all.
He cautioned them that they were treading on treacherous ground, and was very incisive in his remarks upon their conduct.
He then said, with a good deal of emphasis, “Lemuel C. Hall, you are discharged.”
The wicked looking men quickly withdrew.
As they went away, in their very gait, so miserable and wicked, I found myself praying for them, and a real longing came into my heart that they might repent and yet know the sweetness and purity of the salvation of Zion’s God, through our Lord Jesus, the Christ.
Mary McGee Hall
Evangelist of Christian Catholic Church in Zion.
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