A few years ago I read a book by Denzil Holman titled “The Altar Builders.” It was copyrighted in 2006 by him and printed by the Pentecostal Publishing House. Some of the chapters were writings of others on the subject of the altar or altars.
Part of chapter 12 was written by J. Hugh Rose and is titled “The Incredible Impact of My Father’s Altar” it is on pages 155-158 and reads as follows:
Very few days have gone by, since the Lord has given me the privilege of following my dear father’s steps as pastor of the Harrison Hills Church, that I don’t have the opportunity of seeing the altar where this dear and godly man spent untold hours and shed many tears as he prayed at this altar, then located in the mission church he pioneered and pastored in Jewett, Ohio. Since our family lived right next door to the church and since in those days, during the warmer months, the windows of the church as well as our home were open, the last thing I heard before going to sleep and the first thing I heard in the morning were the prayers of my wonderful and dedicated dad.
Every memory of this precious man is priceless, and thanks to the excellent work of another quiet and godly man, the late Brother Walter Soptelean, we have the original altar from the mission church set very beautifully in an “altar arrangement” at the front of our prayer room, which is the center of our present church structure. The Lord willing, we will soon have this altar piece pictured on our church’s web page
www.pages.eohio.net/hhupc. This display will be a marvelous memorial to two very wonderful men, Brother Walter Soptlelean and Brother J. Harper Rose.
The Day That I Pray That I Will Never Forget
Brother Harper Rose was such a dedicated husband and father. His wife, Lottie, and each of his four daughters and his two sons were very special and dear to him. His prayer was that God would do for him what He did for Noah, that God would save his entire family so that all of the family would go together into the “heavenly ark” at the rapture of the church. His first son, Paul, was the son for whom he had prayed; however, during his teenage years of his life he took on habits that were very difficult for our parents. When he was only a freshman, we were aroused from sleep to hear that Paul and some of his friends were inebriated and driving quite wildly through the village. We immediately began to pray. In what seemed to be a long time, Paul was brought into the house and laid on the couch where Mother administered the “get sober” remedies and Dad wept and prayed.
This incident made an indelible impression upon me as a very young child, a memory that I will likely never forget. Paul was a very dear person, very kind, but tragically weak in resisting temptation. He fell hopelessly in love when he was in junior high and never stopped loving the girl who actually never loved him and brought unending heartache to him, which was another “reason” that drinking remained a part of his life.
I have mentioned this incident only to create the background for the real reason for this article. Our Dad prayed about everything and for everyone he possible could. Paul tried many times to make things right with the Lord but would find himself over and over again haunted with the temptation to drink. Years later, after Paul returned from WWII where he had a great deal of illness, he was finally diagnosed with leukemia. His post-WWII life was filled with illness and much heartache with the final breakup of his marriage (again, from the woman he never stopped adoring). He spent a good deal of time in and out of veterans’ hospitals. His last hospital visit was the veterans’ hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, just a little over an hour from our family home in Jewett, Ohio. God in His mercy brought a male Apostolic nurse to care for Paul, and thankfully this wonderful and godly man dealt with Paul about his soul and prayed with him until he was renewed in the Holy Ghost.
This was such a thrill to all of us, and we will always be deeply indebted to the young Apostolic nurse who was such a minister of mercy to our brother Paul. Paul passed away in the Pittsburgh veterans’ hospital and was brought back to Jewett. To add to the irony of the total experience, his older daughter was planning her wedding, and the date for the wedding turned out to be the day after Paul passed away.
Dad now had a wedding to deal with during the time when he was grieving (but not as those who have no hope) at the passing of his son. The day that the funeral director brought Paul to the family home for viewing, as was the custom in our small community, the casket was opened, the lamps and the flowers arranged, and all of the sudden, missed Dad. Knowing him as we all did, I knew that the place to look for him was at the church. When I walked quietly into the side door of the church, the Lord allowed me to witness probably one of the most memorable pictures that I would ever have in my entire, now nearly seventy-two years of life. Dad was lying on the floor in front of the altar. His face was “buried” in the place where the carpet of the platform met the carpet in front of the altar, and this was his prayer, “Lord, I will never stop praising your name. You did for me what, even though I sincerely prayed, I could see no way that it would ever happen. I asked you to never let me look upon the face of my son and know that he was lost. Lord, even though I wanted to have faith when I prayed, it seemed as though in spite of everything Paul was going to be lost. But today, Lord, I have come to thank you for bringing my son back to you so that, when he left this life, he would be with you.”
Believe me, hearing a prayer like this from my godly father was more powerful than I can even begin to explain. I had heard him pray for all of his children so many times. When he prayed, he literally “talked things over” with the Lord, so I was not surprised when he told the Lord that even though he had prayed for his son, it looked as though Paul was “hell bent” on destruction.
From that day on, the altar in the mission church in Jewett had new meaning to me. Now, thanks to a very dear man who has also gone to be with the Lord,we have the very altar where faithful saints shed many tears and, in a small mission, many people “prayed through” to the infilling of the Holy Spirit. Thank you, Brother Holman, for the privilege of sharing our story.
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