Won to Christ
He political life into which young District Attorney Scofield now found himself plunged, by virtue of his Federal office and work, involved frequent trips from Kansas to Washington, and associations and activities that were not entirely to his liking. The profession of law was his life choice; his political work was interfering with that. He had, indeed, become very much dissatisfied with his own life; he was not living up even to his own ideals, unconverted man though he was. So after two years’ service as United States District Attorney he resigned the office and returned to St. Louis to practise law.
The drinking, loose ways of the political crowd upon whom Scofield had now turned his back had not been to his liking, nevertheless he himself had been living not at all as a Puritan. The moderate use of liquor was a commonplace in the life in which he moved and had
been reared. He drank as he pleased, and, like most men who drink “in moderation,” he soon drank too much.
From 1865 until 1879 his life was intense, largely a life of combat in courts and politics which not seldom became extremely embittered. He says himself of that period: “It must not be forgotten or suppressed that the habit of drink during this period became fastened upon me, for it is due to my adorable Lord that His perfect and instantaneous deliverance of me should be made known, as I have testified again and again in meetings.”
After taking up again in St. Louis the practice of law, a young man of about his own age, Thomas S. McPheeters, became one of his intimate friends. McPheeters was the son of a well-known minister and godly man of great influence, who was pastor of the First (Southern) Presbyterian Church of that city. Another son of that father is Prof. William M. McPheeters, of the Southern Presbyterian Theological Seminary at Columbia, S. C.
Scofield’s father and mother had been true, old-fashioned believers. He was not. He had gone to Sunday-school as a boy because he was made to go. He hated to go; it made little impression upon him; and he learned little there.
Won to Christ Q7
He heard many a sermon, but none that affected him in any way until after his conversion.
In his St. Louis law office, one day, Mc-Pheeters came to see him. After talking a while, McPheeters got up to go. With his hand upon the door-knob, he turned and faced Scofield, saying: “‘For a long time I have been wanting to ask you a question that I have been afraid to ask, but that I am going to ask now.”
“I never thought of you as ‘afraid,’” said Scofield in hearty friendship. “What is your question?”
“I want to ask you why you are not a Christian?’’ came the unexpected reply.
Now Thomas McPheeters was an outspoken Christian himself, utterly devoted to his Lord, and a real soul-winner, at the same time a soclety man in the best sense of that word, mingling with the best social life of his day. He and Scofield had much in common — except Christ.
The lawyer replied thoughtfully: ‘Does not the Bible say something about drunkards having no place in heaven? I am a hard drinker, McPheeters.”
“You haven’t answered my question, Scofield,” the other man came back. “Why are you not a Christian?”
“I have always been a nominal Episcopalian, you know,” said Scofield, “but I do not recall ever having been shown just how to be a Christian. I do not know how.”
Now McPheeters had his answer. He drew up a chair, took a Testament out of his pocket, and read passage after passage from the precious Good News, plainly telling his friend how to be saved. “Will you accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your Saviour?” he asked.
“T’m going to think about it,” said Scofield.
“No, you’re not,’ answered McPheeters. “You’ve been thinking about it all your life. Will you settle it now? Will you believe on Christ now, and be saved?”
The logical-minded, clear-thinking lawyer liked clean-cut statements and unequivocal questions and answers. After a moment’s thought he looked his friend full in the face, and said quietly, “I will.” The two men dropped down on their knees together. Scofield told the Lord Jesus Christ that he believed on Him as his personal Saviour, and before he arose from his knees he had been born again: there was a new creation, old things had passed away, behold, all things had become new. Thomas S.
McPheeters had been used of God to lead C. I. Scofield to Christ.
An old friend of McPheeters, Mr. J. L. Woodbridge, of Pueblo, Colorado, upon reading this incident, has written to the biographer:
“It was a privilege to know Mr. McPheeters, or Tom, as his friends knew him. Big in body and soul, he carried the Saviour about with him all the time; or, rather, the Saviour carried him. I know the account you give is accurate because it is just the way he would go about it. It seemed as if he could approach any man on earth on the subject with perfect confidence. His life was all the Christian life, in business as elsewhere. Welcome everywhere, to all classes, his genial frankness and bonhomie swept everything before it. We were fellow commissioners to the General Assembly of the Southern Presbyterian Church at Nashville in 1904, and in his speeches there his great magnetism affected the large audiences just as it did individuals. His influence, perpetuated through Dr. Scofield and thousands of others, will never die.”
There have been all sorts of inaccurate and misleading stories of the conversion of Dr. Scofield. Passing from mouth to mouth, some of these have gained currency, and, as he says himself, he long ago gave up hope of denying or correcting them. But these facts have been given here as they actually occurred, and as Dr. Scofield wishes them to be known. Shortly before this chapter of the Life Storyjwent to press in its serial publication, the writer received a letter from Dr. Scofield that he gladly incorporates here, so that many may rejoice in the marvel of its testimony:
“Such successes as I achieved in my life in the world of selfish aspiration might easily be made sO prominent in my life story as to leave my conversion an event like the others. I owe it to the Lord and to my boundless indebtedness to His grace to do what I may to correct the notion that it was a brilliantly successful man who, in my person, came to Christ.
“Great opportunities had indeed been given me, and for years I made them my own. But slowly, insidiously, the all but universal habit of drink in the society and among the men of my time overmastered me. It was nota victor in the battle of life — though victories had come to him — but a ruined and hopeless man who, despite all his struggles, was fast bound in chains of his own forging. He had no thought of Christ other than a vague respect, the survival of a family influence. There was no hope that in a church some time he might hear and believe the Gospel, for he never went to church.
“And then Jesus Christ took up the case. Men were beginning to turn away from him, but the Lord of glory sought him. Through Thomas McPheeters, a joyous, hopeful soul, Jesus Christ offered Himself to that wreck.
“It was a Bible conversion. From a worn pocket Testament McPheeters read to me the great Gospel passages, the great deliverance Passages, Jolhin’3 16; 6747; 10728; Acts 13738, 39, and the like. And when I asked, like the Philippian jailer of old, ‘What must I do to be saved?’ he just read them again, and we knelt, and I received Jesus Christ as my Saviour. And — oh! Trumbull, put it into the story, put it big and plain: instantly the chains were broken never to be forged again — the passion for drink was taken away. Put it ‘Instantly,’ dear Trumbull. Make it plain. Don’t say: ‘He strove with his drink-sin and came off victor.’ He did nothing of the kind. Divine power did it, wholly of grace. To Christ be all the glory.
“Yours in His love,
MCS SCOMELD.”
32 The Life Story of C. I. Scofuetd
The writer of this life story knows too well that no Christian ever, under any circumstances, “strove with his sin and came off victor,” to suggest any such false interpretation as that for the victory of the Lord Jesus Christ in the life of this now veteran saint. The secret of Dr. Scofield’s “Victorious Life’? is the same and only secret of the Victorious Life of every believer, wherever such victory is experienced: he “let go, and let God”’; he did not try to add his efforts to God’s finished and perfect work. He yielded and believed: and the Captain of his Salvation, instantly making him more than conqueror, led him in triumph.
Lawyer Scofield was saved, and he knew it. For Thomas McPheeters knew the Gospel, and he had made it perfectly plain to his friend. There was no vagueness or uncertainty in Mc-Pheeters’ appeal, nor in Scofield’s acceptance. From that day to this he has never had any doubt that he was at that time, in the city of St. Louis, at thirty-six years of age, in the year 1879, born again through faith in the Son of God.
Christ came in, and drink went out. The miracle of the Victorious Life was instantly wrought for him and in him: he lost all desire for drink then and there. God took it. It Was gone.
The man who has passed from death into life, from bondage into freedom, from defeat into victory, cannot help telling about it. More than once Dr. Scofield, after he had entered the ministry and was giving his whole life to Christian service, testified to his deliverance from the drink habit. And years later, when he was D. L. Moody’s home pastor at Northfield, Mr. Moody, then his devoted friend, was led to speak to him about this, and advised against it. Mr. Moody said he had noticed that Dr. Scofield would from time to time, in his public messages, tell of his former bondage to drink and of his deliverance, and he said he believed he ought not to do this except in revival meetings where drinking men might be present: that any sin of that sort was in the past, under the blood of the Lord Jesus, and now solely a matter between God and Scofield, and not for the general public.
Dr. Scofield appreciated Mr. Moody’s feeling, and, in giving full recognition to the suggestion, replied that of course Mr. Moody would recognize that he must leave himself in the hands of the Holy Spirit as to this, for whatever guidance He might indicate.
A short time after the conversation Dr. Scofield was speaking at Northfield, addressing an audience of about eight hundred Northfield students. And during the course of his address he was strongly led to give the testimony of his own deliverance, years before, from the power of drink, through the sufficiency of the Lord Jesus Christ. God used his testimony that day mightily and blessedly in the lives of the students.
After the service was over, Mr. Moody went to Dr. Scofield and said, with characteristic impulsiveness and intensity: “Scofield, you take the advice of the Holy Spirit hereafter, and not of D. L. Moody.”
After the young lawyer’s conversion, Mc-Pheeters, now infinitely more his friend in Christ, brought him at once into association with strong Christian men. The St. Louis Young Men’s Christian Association secretary at that time was Walter C. Douglas, the well-known Y.M.C.A. worker who was later the general secretary at Philadelphia, and who has had a long career of useful Christian service in this field. Douglas himself had been a lawyer, and after conversion had gone into Y.M.C.A. work; and he had come under the influence of Dr. James H. Brookes, the remarkable preacher, -pastor, and Bible teacher of St. Louis. Scofield quickly got into Christian work and Y. M.C. A. service, and he was fortunate in securing the personal friendship of Dr. Brookes early in his Christian life. He got into the habit of going to the home of that Spirit-guided and illumined Bible teacher, and there studying the Bible under his direction.
There were probably few if any men of the last fifty years in North America who did as much to influence and guide the Bible study and Christian life of the sound Christian leaders of our generation as James H. Brookes. He was peculiarly blessed of God in making plain dispensational truth and the great fundamentals of the prophetic study of God’s Word. To-day, more than forty years after Dr. Scofield first came under that remarkable man’s influence, he says of him:
“James H. Brookes was the greatest Bible student I have ever known. His great strength lay in the fact that he held truth in balance — he always balanced whatever truth he was giving by some other truth; that is, whether he mentioned the other truth or not, he held it at least in his mind over against the truth that he was giving, and thus was kept from unbalanced or false emphasis.
“Dr. Brookes was an amazing blessing to me, but never more than in telling me this: ‘There is no such thing in the Bible as an abstract proposition. Everything in the Bible is meant to be turned into life. It must first of all be grounded in doctrine. There is such a thing as experience which is real but which is not founded on Scripture; then it becomes either fanatical or a discouragement. Therefore, we are always to interpret experience by Scripture — never Scripture by experience. There is always in Scripture a doctrinal basis, and there is always in Scripture an account of an experience based on that doctrine; and this account is perfectly accurate because it is inspired.’”
A St. Louis man, C. E. Paxson, who made young Scofield’s acquaintance at the Y. M.C. A. soon after his conversion, was seated in his own office one day with a brand-new Bible before him, which he was marking. Scofield came in, and seeing what he was doing, exclaimed, with consternation: “Why, man, you are spoiling that fine new Bible!”
Dr. JAMES H. BROOKES Dr. Brookes was Dr. Scofield’s first Bible teacher. Of him to-day he says,
”
“He was the greatest Bible student I have ever known.
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iy For answer Mr. Paxson pointed him to the place in the eighth chapter of Acts where he had underscored the fifth verse, reading: “Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and preached Christ unto them.” This he had connected by a light line with the eighth verse, which he had also underscored, reading, “And there was great joy in that city.”’ Scofield saw the point at once, and became an advocate of Bible-marking. Many years after he was accustomed to greeting his friend Paxson with the words: “‘Here is the man who first taught me to mark my Bible.”
When the young convert and Christian worker looked around for a church home, he was led to join the Pilgrim Congregational Church, of which Dr. C. L. Goodell was pastor, making this choice because of the warmth of personal friendship that he had found in Dr. Goodell. Goodell and Brookes were great friends, and Dr. Brookes told Scofield that he believed he had done well in connecting himself with Dr. Goodell’s church, “For,” he said, “he is the greatest pastor I ever saw; and I’ll see that you get the Bible teaching you need.”
A man of Scofield’s intensity, and natural leadership, and love of activity and expression could not keep still in his Christian life. He soon got to leading meetings, and even to preaching a little. He felt that the hand of the Lord was upon him.
His Y. M.C. A. friend, Walter Douglas, introduced the young converted lawyer to the president of one of the railroads that came into St. Louis, and asked the railroad man if Scofield might hold religious meetings for railroad men at East St. Louis, at the “bridgehead.” This was where many trains and different roads came in before crossing the bridge to St. Louis proper; it was a locality infested with saloons, and with numbers of railroad men loafing around waiting the opportunity to take their own trains across.
The railroad president gave his cordial permission for the holding of such meetings; but those who knew of it were skeptical — the men wouldn’t come, they said.
Scofield tried his hand at it, however, and he soon found that he could not make much headway in getting a hearing among the roistering, indifferent railroad men of that day. About that time he was led to befriend a railroad man who was sick. He saw to it that the sick man had a good doctor, and whatever else was needed. This Jim Turner, a freight conductor, not only found his health under Scofield’s loving ministry, but he found his Saviour also. Then he went back to the tracks with his new friend Scofield; he would stand alongside and shout out a testimony for Christ, telling his railroad pals that they must listen to the man who had come to bring them a message. Things went better now, and Jim himself was soon made a railroad Y. M.C. A. secretary — a novelty for those days.
With a vision ahead of his time, Scofield saw the need of a building for railroad men where they could write their letters and sit around and take things easy inside decent rooms instead of having to frequent the barrooms for warmth while waiting for their trains. This suggestion was brought before the railroads; they saw the wisdom of it and acted upon it. The result was that a railroad Y. M.C.A. building was put up then and there, and Scofield increasingly won the confidence of the “men of steel.”
He continued to visit the sick men and the families of others; and now, when he preached Christ among them, he won souls.
It was in the spring of 1882 that the superintendent of Congregational Home Missions for the Southwest, who had been watching Scofield’s work, came to him and told him of a little church that had been organized in Dallas, Texas, and that was going to pieces because it had no minister. Would Scofield give up the practice of law, and go to Texas and take charge of that church?
This was a new proposition indeed! Mr. Scofield prayed about it, and he kept on praying. Some months went by. The Home Missions Superintendent came again and urgently renewed his invitation: the church, he said, was losing the few members it had because of the lack of any pastoral head.
“Yes, I’ll go,” remarked Scofield emphatically; and as soon as he could arrange his affairs properly he gave up his St. Louis law practice and went straight down to the Dallas church.