From the Founder of our mission work in Thailand. An excerpt from his Memoirs……
A VENTURE IN GRACE
(Auto-Biographical)
By Don E. Rulison
SECTION 1 – PREVENIENT GRACE – (1916 – 1940)
So what is Prevenient Grace? prevenient |priˈvēnēənt|
adjective formal preceding in time or order; antecedent: John Wesley referred to God’s work in the unconverted as prevenient grace.ORIGIN early 17th cent.: from Latin praevenient- ‘coming before,’ from the verb praevenire, from prae ‘before’ + venire ‘come.’
Shellstone Hill Beginnings (1916 – 1921) Age 0 – 5
I was born Feb. 1, 1916, at the Rulison homestead on Shellstone Hill. Dr. Harry Howard of Minaville was the country doctor who came in all kinds of weather, sometimes in winter in a car fitted with skis on the front and caterpillar track on the back, as we lived on an unsurfaced dirt road.
My dad’s name was Earl Rulison. His father was Norwegian and his mother, Henrietta, was English. My mother, Anna Elisabeth Larson was of Norwegian parents, Barney and Lesa Larson, who migrated from Norway and settled in the Delanson area.
Because I was sometimes sickly, Dad bought a goat which daily produced milk, primarily for my nutrition to help my heart condition (whatever it was).
We acquired a harness for Nancy, the goat, but never succeeded in getting her to pull the sled in the snow as we dreamed. After many years, Nancy suffered a painful death from bee stings as she was tethered too close to the bee yard and couldn’t flee to safety in the nearby woods.
My earliest memories include playing in the upstairs of the barn, in the grain bins, hay loft and sort of workshop, and also down in the woods making dams with stones and mud in the creek. I have been persuaded to include another little incident dug up in memories from pre-school days. It was springtime and we Rulisons were all involved in planting our vegetable garden down between the bee yard and the woods. While my elders were busy cultivating the soil, marking out the rows and planting seed, I was playing around and somehow got into the container of seeds, just investigating and exploring, I suppose. Well, a couple of days later, I complained of pain in my nose. Home remedies didn’t help. So finally I was taken to Dr. Howard’s office in Minaville. His examination revealed a growth in my nose cavity which he removed with tweezers. It was indeed a non-malignant growth, a germinating pea seed that somehow had got stuck in my nose instead of in the garden soil. Thankfully, it didn’t take root. That should have taught me to keep inappropriate things out of my nose as well as to keep my nose out of inappropriate matters.
Dad was a bee-keeper and our home was known as Sunnyside Apiaries. Dad started keeping bees and selling honey back before 1900. So the honey house furnished early memories for me, especially during the “honey flow” each year when Dad extracted honey and the old gasoline engine powered the 4-framed centrifugal honey extractor after Dad uncapped the combs by hand with the uncapping knife.
I had two older brothers, John (four years older than I) and Howard (three years older), also sister Ruth (one year younger) and a third brother, Richard (seven years younger). I recall the thrill of rocking baby Richard to sleep in my arms when he was only a week or two old. It was mid-winter in that upstairs bedroom with heat coming up through a vent in the floor from the heated dining room below.
School Days (1921 – 1932) Age 5 to 16
My first seven years of school were in the one room Scotch Bush School. Miss Gladys DeGraff was my only teacher those years. She taught just those seven years at that time, before she married Earl Sheldon and moved away to Frankfort, NY. I kept a diary some of those years, and often referred to my teacher as being cranky, etc. But I did realize that she was beautiful and able. She believed in discipline and used the ruler on me. She had quite a task, teaching all the required subjects thoroughly to around forty pupils from grades one through eight, in a one-room school house, with two little coat and toilet rooms. When I finished high school (or perhaps it was college) I invited her to my graduation, calling her “My Best Teacher.” I believe that she did read the Bible to us and maintained high standards of moral conduct. I recall some of the signs which were fastened on the walls such as, HONESTY IS THE BEST POLICY.
I remember the fun times when we would play tag ball and “Kitty I Over” outside the one room school house, also “Ducky on the Rock” in the school yard. In the wintertime we went sledding down the hills, sometimes in the road on Luke’s Hill with a long train of sleds hooked together, occasioning some great spills. Then there was also the walking to and from school every day one and one-half miles one way by road and often going “across-lots,” which involved quite a lot of fences to negotiate by climbing over them or otherwise.
My last year there, seventh grade, Miss DeGraff allowed me to take the state regents eighth grade exam. (I took it at Minaville
School) which I passed, so I entered Amsterdam Junior High School in September 1928, age twelve, 9th grade. I recall that in that Regents exam I wrote an essay about aspirations for the future, that I would like to be a missionary. This aspiration was motivated by a visiting missionary to India a year or two before who had described an incident on a hunting excursion, when they came upon and captured a wild boy whom they took back to their mission station where they nourished,tamed and taught him. I recall no evidence of spiritual understanding but was impressed by the seeming adventurous life.
From earliest childhood, Dad took us to Sunday School and Church at the Minaville Methodist Episcopal (M.E.) Church. Dad was S.S. Superintendent part of the time. We were very regular church goers – every Sunday a.m. There were different pastors during those years. I recall John A. Lavender, Daniel Hill, Pastor Liberty and Howard Myers. Howard Myers had been Dad’s pastor in a Baptist church many years before and had been a spiritual help to Dad (perhaps instrumental in Dad’s conversion back then.) Dad was an honest faithful man, who maintained righteous standards, prayer at meals and a good example, free from smoking, drinking, swearing, etc. – a good testimony before us five children. I recall sitting and giving careful attention to the Sunday sermons. My concept of a Christian was of one who tried to obey the Christian teaching, and I recall being conscious that I failed. Then I would try to mend my ways, but would soon drift back into misconduct, like mistreating my sister Ruth. At age twelve, I considered it was time that I should be baptized and join the church. My Dad believed in immersion, so Pastor Myers baptized me in the Schoharie Creek by their cottage over toward Schoharie. I went into the water a dry, unsaved sinner and came out a wet, unsaved sinner with no spiritual change.
Pastor Liberty took Dad and me fishing in the wintertime at Sacandaga Reservoir using “tip-ups” that Dad made. We caught a few Northern Pike. Pastor Dan Hill wanted me to go to the Methodist Boarding School (high school) at Cazenovia where he had gone but I didn’t end up going there. And he and his wife Fran gave me a book to read, Trail Blazers of the Middle Border, something about pioneer days in mid USA. Pastor John A. Lavender had a book store in Troy, N.Y. After his few years’ pastorate at Minaville M.E. church, every year at Christmas time, he gave our family a book. The Lord was pleased to use the book he gave us in 1940 toward my conversion. (details in later chapter).
Our car back in those days was a Model T Ford, until about 1923, when we got a Baby Grand Chevrolet open touring car – a larger and more powerful model. Dad drove that a few years until one Sunday,going to church at the blind corner where our Shellstone Road reached the main paved road (now Rt. 30), we had a head-on collision. No one was seriously injured (only Richard’s head bumped against the windshield). So the old Baby Grand was traded for a second hand Chrysler Imperial sedan, which took us all, the very next week after acquiring it, on a great trip to the State Beekeepers Meeting at Ransomville, NY. From there we visited Niagara Falls and on returning back East, we also visited Watkins Glen, a vacation spot on one of the Finger Lakes.
Dad took us on fishing trips to Indian Lake in the Adirondacks more than once, where we camped in our tent in a public camp ground, ate the bullheads we caught and trolled vainly for Northern Pike.
It was during my high school days that the Methodist church in Minaville closed, so we moved our membership to the only other church in the village, the Dutch Reformed Church. We five Rulison children joined in with their young people in Christian Endeavor and other activities.
One summer, we young people of the Church took a trip north and climbed Mt. Marcy via John’s Brook Trail. Mr. Schaufelberg, my friend Earl Shaufelberg’s father, then 54 years of age as I recall, went with us. I never could forget the thrill of standing on Mt. Marcy (5344′ elevation) in mid-August with snow falling, nor of thatcold night, sleeping in the stone shelter on the summit.
Going to high school in Amsterdam involved daily commuting seven miles. There were no school buses in those days, so for most of the time, elder brother John drove our car, picking up other commuters along the way. John became a very skilled driver, able to negotiate country roads even in muddy spring time and also during the most snowy and icy winter weather. What thrills we had charging through those high snow drifts down Shellstone Road, blinded by the flying snow but coming out of the careening dash still on the roadway. And there was that morning when already late, we had to stop for gas at McDuffeys, John pumping the gas pump. In his haste, he forgot to take the gas pump hose out of the car gas tank and after going a quarter mile up Signboard hill, looked back to see the hose with its spiral lining dragging along behind. Well, we got to our first class only a minute late and just in time for Earl Schaufelberg, who was in my class, to be called up to give his oral English presentation. Earl had not prepared, so he ad-libbed on the subject “How I Got to School This Morning.” I hope that he got a good grade. I sat there amazed by his ingenuity.
Forestry College (1932 – 1937) Age 16 to 21
Having finished high school, I was encouraged by my family to go to college. I was somewhat drawn toward studying chemistry, but finally was attracted more to forestry, so I applied to the New York State College of Forestry at Syracuse University, only three hours from home and tuition free. It began with a freshmen camp at Barber’s Point, Cranberry Lake, in the Adirondacks. I surely loved it with the rough outdoor ventures.
Then came the academic routine and my first extended time away from home. Was I ever homesick! Some evenings I would walk out east to Route 20, the Cherry Valley Turnpike which was the route toward home. Finally the opportunity came and after school one Friday I walked to Rt. 20 and did my first thumbing down the turnpike, 120 miles to Duanesburg; from there I climbed the hill in the dark to dear Uncle Anton’s farm to stay till morning, when I could phone home for someone to come to pick me up. I think that it was on this first trip home, as John or Howard picked me up, that I found out that our honey house with 10 tons of honey and hundreds of supers of combs plus thousands of memories had just gone up in flames. When I arrived at the scene, I just had to take a walk down into the sanctuary of the good old unchanged woods and over through the pine plantation on “The Flat” to alleviate the brokenness of my heart.
Starting college at age sixteen, I was just a kid, weighing less than one hundred pounds. After the first semester with PE, I chose wrestling as my extra curricular sport and, along with the meals at the Home Ec. Cafeteria at $3.50 for a week (6 days), I grew like a weed and added about thirty pounds. So the following summer I was ready to help Dad working in the bee yards and in the new honey house extracting honey. During that summer, “The Boys” (John and Howard) were State Bee Inspectors helping to quell the American Foul Brood epidemic.
During that first or second year I recall being called to the College financial office one day to receive notice that I had been awarded a scholarship ($100 a year) for the remainder of the college course because of my academic record at Amsterdam High School. That was a very pleasant surprise, as I had not even been aware that such scholarships existed. I kept close account of all my expenditures and Dad financed my schooling. My expenditures for the 4 years of college were just about $1600, or $400 per year including school fees. It was a N.Y. State college and therefore tuition free.
The second summer I attended the ten week summer camp at Cranberry Lake – great life in the outdoors learning the practical side of such skills as surveying, map making, cruising timber, canoeing, exploring, etc. This complemented and augmented the college formal academics with their hands-on labs and field trips in botany, zoology, Dendrology, entomology, plant pathology, along with some liberal arts courses like English literature, speech, physics, chemistry, geology, etc. During my Junior year I joined with two car loads of fellow students for the Christmas – New Year’s vacation on a Forestry tour under Prof. Ed McCarthy toward the South as far as the Carolinas.
At college, I boarded with a few other Forestry students in “Ma Pennington’s” Boarding House on Clarendon St. I was pretty much of a bashful country boy in college, diligently participating in the academic and practical learning, but with minimum participation in anything of a social nature. I did attend a local Methodist church and also the University Chapel (Hendricks Chapel), even volunteering once to try to teach a boys’ S.S. Class, but for one Sunday only.
I enjoyed Forestry study, worked hard, got good grades and graduated magna cum laude, second in the 1936 class of about a hundred and with a B.S. in Forestry degree. I was offered a $500 fellowship for one year which I chose to take in the Department of Silviculture and Forest Management under the guidance of Professor Svend Olaf Heiberg, who truly helped shape my mind. He was Danish and a pioneer in some phases of forestry research where I assisted him. His productive thinking and decisive pursuit of truth were a telling example to me of seeking for truth and pursuing it, without being discouraged by the mocking or criticism of others who do not, will not, or perhaps cannot agree. Though his English had not been perfected, his mind was clear of many erroneous concepts in matters of science and economics regarding forestry. It was under his guidance that I assisted him in the Spring Southern Tour of a month for two and a half truckloads of students to cardinal points of interest as far south as a logging operation in a cypress swamp in the Osceola National Forest in Florida.
Before that last year I acquired my first car, a used 1932 Model A Ford coupe, for $200. This car served magnificently for two years. My wife, Kathy remarks that her first car was a 1940 Ford coupe.
After graduation I applied to take the U.S. Forest Service Junior Forester Civil Service Exam, which was scheduled one day during the summer at Syracuse. So I took that day off from working with Dad in the bee yards to go to Syracuse to write the exam. The day before my going for the all-day exam, Dad had to prepare to fill a rush order for some honey, so onthat day we had to go to a bee yard to “take off” supers of honey. It was a dismally cloudy day, the kind of day when the bees are “hanging around home” and not wanting to be bothered. As we invaded their privacy with this “hurry-up order,” the bees didn’t welcome us, and it’s the only time that I recall of both of us being literally driven out of the bee yard to the refuge of tall weeds and bushes to escape some stings. That evening I estimated that I had gotten around two hundred stings, the most concentrated dose of bee venom in my experience. I surely was thankful that my resistance had been built up to the point that it did not seriously hinder my taking the Civil Service exam the next day, on which I got the rating ofnumber 26 in the U.S.A.
In my fifth year at Forestry College I assisted Prof. Heiberg and worked on my Master’s studies. Much of my work with him dealt with the study of forest soils. The subject of my thesis for M.F. (1937) was titled The Economic Status of Farm Woodlots in Onondaga County. I still have a bound copy somewhere in my stuff and there may be a copy or two in the college library or archives.
SECTION 2 – SAVING GRACE
U.S. Forest Service and Conversion (1937 – 1942) Age 21-26
After graduation in May 1937, I began work on the U.S. Forest Service Experimental Station at New Smyrna, near Norwich, N.Y. One of the interesting things that I did there was to “shoot Polaris.” The Experimental Station area of perhaps 200 acres (more or less) was laid out in sections, but there was the need to establish a true North-South base line through the area. I had studied this procedure at college and here was the opportunity to do it by “shooting Polaris,” in other words establishing a true N-S line by taking a theodolite sighting on the North Star (Polaris) when at its eastern elongation or western elongation and then turning off the angle to true North. The North Star has a bit of an orbit too, hence the need of observing it on the eastern or western extreme of its orbit. We selected a suitable night and it all worked out well.
Well, while working there at the New Smyrna Experimental Station, I received an offer of a Civil Service appointment with the U.S. Soil Conservation Service to Salina, Kansas. That did not appeal to me and I refused it, but I knew that I had toaccept one of the first 3 offers or lose the Civil Service rating for which I had qualified on the exam taken months before. Then came another offer of a Forest Service appointment to a national forest at Glenwood Springs, Colorado. (It was either Glenwood Springs or Colorado Springs – Memory fails me.) I conferred with the director of the Northeastern Experiment Station, New Haven as to what I should do. He wanted to keep me, so he recommended to the U.S.F.S. that I should receive the same grade appointment (Junior Forester) in the Northeastern Experiment Station of the U.S.F.S. of the U.S.D.A., which offer I gladly accepted. This was a secure and permanent appointment; so, for 4 years, my headquarters location was 335 Prospect St., New Haven, Conn., but my actual fieldwork was mostly elsewhere.
For several months I was involved in flood control surveys – first, for the upper reaches of the Merrimac River in New Hampshire, enjoying the field work in the beautiful White Mountain area, and then in the same sort of work in a farmland area around East Aurora (near Buffalo, N.Y.)
In about 1938, I was transferred to Cooperstown, N.Y. to serve as forest control technician with the Otsego County Forest Products Cooperative. I was still with the U.S.F.S. Experiment Station but helping in this farmers cooperative venture. I enjoyed the life and work in that naturally beautiful area within a thirty mile radius of Cooperstown onOtsego Lake, the setting for James Fennimore Cooper’s “Last of the Mohicans” and Leather stocking Tales. It was also where Doubleday invented baseball in 1839, so I was there for the Centennial Celebration in 1939, and even saw the aging Babe Ruth swing the bat in Doubleday Field.
Dates are difficult for me to remember, but I think it was during the summer of 1940 that I took a month’s vacation, and we four – Mom, Ruth, Dick and I traveled in my 1937 Ford 2-Door about 10,000 miles. We visited relatives and beautiful places: relatives in Iowa, Uncle Adolph and family in Montana, the Black Hills, Yellowstone, Grand Coulee Dam in Washington, Crater Lake in Oregon, the Redwoods, the Sequoias, World’s Fair in San Francisco, Cousin Harold Rulison and Hondre, Santa Monica beach (swimming in the Pacific surf), Grand Canyon, and Bryce Canyon. We enjoyed southern hospitality in Oklahoma and many points and people in between. It was such a memorable experience. I recall how Virginia Weatherson at their ranch in Columbus, Montana, impressed me because of her Christian testimony which I did not understand at the time; however, a year or so later, I wrote to her that I had received Eternal Life and now understood.
Now all these past events and experiences fade in importance in my memory compared to what God brought to pass there in Cooperstown toward the end of 1940. For here it was in my room in the boarding house of Horace and Martha Weeks at 33 Lake Street on the evening of December 29th or 30th, 1940, that I met the Lord and He quickened me, using Ephesians 2:8 and 9, so that a New Life began in and for me. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.” Following are some background and details.
That year the Christmas present that John A. Lavender (mentioned earlier) sent to our family was a novel by Grace Livingston Hillentitled Sunrise. Having spent Christmas at home on Shellstone Hill, I took the book back with me to Cooperstown (only fifty miles) to read the following week. I cannot say that I was in any sordid condition of distress or despair. Outwardly I was well-situated indeed, with pleasant and secure work, everything that I desired financially and educationally, and with no disruption in my routine of quite regular church-going and my self-satisfying moral standards. The only adverse matter that I recall is that an emotional girl-friend crush had dissipated, causing me a bit of heart searching and the feeling that I might have a spiritual need of some kind.
I do recall another incident from those days that indicated my concern regarding spiritual matters. One evening I attended a meeting where a lady doctor gave her report of recent experiences in Russia, when she and her husband aided in Soviet Russia’s “Five year plan.” After her lecture she was asked this question, “Did you meet Communists who were religious?”
Her reply was, “As a matter of fact, some of the Commmunists that I worked with lived what I would call exemplary Christian lives.”
I wondered, “If Communists can live ‘Christian lives’, then why should I try to be a Christian? – What is a Christian anyway?”
My elder brother John had been saved during the past year. He had witnessed to me, both by word and a changed life, neither of which could I understand. For example, one Saturday I came home for the weekend and invited John to go with me to the movies in Amsterdam. He quietly declined, and I surmised that his “religion” was the reason for his not going with me. My elder brother John had in many ways been my hero figure. So when he turned down my invitation, I retorted, “All right, be a bigoted old reformer if that pleases you.” And I went by myself. John did not argue with me nor scold me. His testimony was clear and Bible based. He prayed continually for me, I’m sure.
Then later that year the Lord saved my younger brother Dick (Richard) who then began studies at the New York State College of Forestry (in the chemistry department, called Paper and Pulp.) And some weeks before Christmas he wrote me a letter telling about his school activities and at the end of the letter wrote, “Ephesians 2:8-9.” It puzzled me as to why Dick had written that to me. I looked up the verses in my Bible but could not understand them, though the words were all simple and mostly monosyllables. Here I was, a college graduate with two degrees. Though I was not conscious of any serious problem, I still could not understand what was going on. My pride was suffering as I vainly looked to myself for answers and satisfaction.
Well, as I read Grace Livingston Hill’s Christian novel, Sunrise there in my boarding house room, I was captivated by the story and I identified with one of the young men – a “good church-going boy,” like myself. On page 121 that boy asked a question that could have come from me, “Sir, how good do you have to be to be saved?”
The answer given him, as I recall, was something like this, “Son, to be good enough to go to heaven, you must be completely righteous and without any sin whatever.” The boy replied, “Sir, I don’t see how anybody can be that good. I sincerely try, but I admit that I fail. If what you say is true, I’m afraid that I can’t possibly be saved.” Whereupon were these words of reply, “Son, don’t you see? That’s where Jesus Christ comes into the picture. It is His righteousness, not your achieving, that can qualify you for heaven. He took your sins and paid for them, and He will give you His saving righteousness as His free gift.”
As I read, I suddenly understood that that very transaction had just taken place in my heart and mind. It happened to me right then and there. I looked up Ephesians 2:8-9 and understood the meaning clearly, which only minutes before had been hidden from my understanding. I remember going to my bedside there in my room, kneeling down and thanking God.
I now possessed something that I did not possess before. I had become someone (spiritually) who I had not been before, for Christ had comeinto my heart and life. As a result I began to encounter various experiences.
Perhaps the first one occurred when I went home for the next weekend. I got out of my car and met John in the dining room. I could not wait but said, “John, I want to tell you what’s happened to me.” He did not give me time to say more but replied that he already knew because even my countenance had changed, revealing a new Life. However, during theafternoon, when my sister Ruth and I went out in the field on our skis, I said to her that something very wonderful had happened in my life. She tried to guess the reason, suggesting that I had a new girl-friend. Iexplained to her how God had changed me through Christ His Son. Dear Ruth could not understand, but praise God, before two years had passed, she would understand, when she too would be saved by this same Lord through this same saving grace.
Back at Cooperstown, I received a letter in the mail from cousin Everett Rulison, who incidentally, had brought the Gospel to my brother John a year or so before. He had addressed the envelope in this way: Donald Rulison, B.A., 33 Lake St., Cooperstown, N.Y. I wondered why he had written B.A. after my name. I don’t think that I had a clue, so I opened the letter and read. He said that it meant, “Born Again.” That was news to me because that phrase was not yet in my vocabulary, though I had experienced it in my heart. In this same manner, I soon ran across the Gospel tract, Four Things God Wants you to Know. It thrilled me because it seemed to be describing what had already happened to me. When I was able to get some, I began giving them out to others, hoping that they too might be saved. The tract thrilled me, not because it told me how I might be saved, but it seemed to outline how God had already saved meeven according to the Scripture verses quoted in the tract.
In my work in Otsego County farm woodlands I had the help of some pacifists, volunteer conscientious objectors, who lived together in a large house in Cooperstown. They were, for the most part, serious-minded young people who objected to having a direct part in the war effort but could conscientiously help in the field of forest products, etc. Various ones of them would accompany me surveying woodland areas and in estimating (cruising) timber. One day Dusty Miller, a Christadelphian believer accompanied me as my helper. I had shared with him how God had saved me and given me the assurance of eternal life with Him and I quoted some appropriate Scriptures. As we were driving along a country road bordered by big maple trees, he asked me, “Don, tell me the truth. If we careened off the road into one of those trees and were killed, do you know for sure that you would go to heaven?” After just a few seconds’ thought, I could reply with assurance to this matter on which I had never been tested and really had never known before, “Yes, I am sure!” That assurance has been tested severely at times since then, but it remains “as sure as Jehovah’s throne.”
On another day a well-educated fellow accompanied me. Perhaps his name was Ed. He had had some theological training as I recall. As we were cruising timber that day in a portion of the massive Cooper Estate, I reiterated to Ed how the Lord had saved me only a few days before. He listened carefully for a while and then ejaculated, “Don, you’re a Calvinist.” I did not know whether it was a compliment or a derogatory remark, because, though I had probably heard the designation of Calvinist, I had no idea what it meant. Later I came to understand probably why he said it. It was because my simple testimony indicated that I had no consciousness that I had asked God to save my soul or to give me eternal life nor had I done anything to merit any rewardfrom God. All I knew was that quite suddenly my understanding was quickened, I was changed by Someone who imparted His new life to me, and I understood and possessed that which I neither understood nor possessed before, i.e. that I was free of guilt and shame. I understood that God had changed me. I had no sense that I had done anything to merit, to earn or to acquire what now had become mine. All I could do (which I did do) was to rejoice in my heart, to open my Bible to read Ephesians 2:8-9, which now I understood, then kneel by my bedside and thank God for His Gift which I had received. God had answered the prayers of my brothers, John and Richard, my cousin Everett, and others whose petitions God heard. He had also used the words in the book Sunrise written by Grace Livingston Hill, and He had used Pastor John A. Lavender who sent us that book at Christmas time. He used the apostle Paul to write Ephesians 2:8-9. Finally thanks and praise belong to God the author and finisher of faith, mine included.
In Cooperstown I knew no one who even professed assurance of salvation. There were a number of churches including Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, Episcopal and Roman Catholic. I first visited the young Presbyterian pastor and was disappointed to find that he did not seem to understand what had happened to me. He shared with me what he knew about the Apostles’ Creed as his assurance of faith. Then I heard that there would be a young people’s meeting at the Baptist Church. So I went and found that it was a meeting to look into the reason why young people were not attracted to church or young people’s meetings. When I was asked what I thought, I was constrained to tell them that I thought it was because the Church was not giving them the message that they needed to hear, the message that would meet the need of their hearts and lives, the Gospel of the Grace of God. At the Episcopal Church there was only the Gospel in their prayer book and liturgy. At the Methodist Church I heard nothing but the “social gospel”. It was only at the Catholic Church that there was teaching about Christ’s suffering on the cross, though the teaching was otherwise very suspect to me. I had gone there that day to accompany a R.C. girl friend.
I recall an experience one day that thrilled and encouraged me. It was wintertime and I had worked all day out in the woods doing my forestry work. Returning to my boarding house room in late afternoon, I was tired and, without removing my heavy shoes and warm clothes, I flung myself across my bed just to relax a bit. There on my bedside stand I had a simple radio with a short wave band. I snapped it on and tuned up and down the dial. Suddenly I heard rather faintly some chimes rendering the gospel song, “We have heard the joyful sound, Jesus saves, Jesus Saves.” I tuned the radio more carefully and heard the announcer say, “This is The Voice of the Andes in Quito, Ecuador, H C J B – Heralding Christ Jesus’ Blessing.” What gladness flooded my soul; to think that I was hearing the Good News of Salvation from that distant land away down in South America! I seldom could tune them in again, but on that occasion, it was truly Good News from a far country to a thirsty soul. As near as I can recall, that was in 1941 at which time HCJB had not been in operation very long. (Just now, 59 years later, Kathy and I just listened to the news and a missionary interview from that same radio station, H C J B.)
I had been given some Gospel tracts and found them so informative. So I began to get a supply and then found out how to roll them with bright colored plastic to make “Gospel Bombs”. I distributed them quite profusely but not very openly, as I was still too shy; but they were picked up and read, including many that I placed along the sidewalks by the church entrances on Sunday mornings. Though I gained personal satisfaction through doing this, I did not notice any positive effects. Perhaps the following paragraphs will offer a clue to the reason why.
I had begun a new Life, and it was Life from God, but I had no Christian friends nor fellowship except when I visited home occasionally. The devil laid his snares and I was caught in them, which later I came to recognize and by His grace escape – yet not without cost. (The principle of sowing and reaping- Galatians 6:7-8)
Only two or three weeks after meeting the Lord, in the course of my duties of visiting farmer members of the Cooperative, I met the attractive daughter at the door of one home, and subsequently my unbridled youthful flesh took the ascendancy. It was a Catholic family and I should have known better, but I was weak in the lesh and drifted into a captivating infatuation, which went on for months. At the same time I was reading my Bible, praying, and desiring to witness on my own. One of my fellow-workers who served in the office was Ziggy Poreda, also from Roman Catholic background. I witnessed to Ziggy, and he listened to my words but also observed my lifestyle. One day he asked me, “Don, how is it that you continually preach to me and at the same time continue to go out with your Catholic girl friend?” I lamely replied, “That is a good question, Ziggy. Maybe it is like in the fall of the year when the green leaves which have been essential to the tree dry up and fall off. Why? Because they are dead and no longer desired by the tree. Perhaps some of my old habits and ways, like this girl friend, will no longer control me when I’ve realized that they are not compatible with my new Life.” (A pretty feeble attempt to justify myself, but it shows how desperate was my helpless condition, and how necessary the Grace of God for my deliverance.) My brothers John, and Howard, his wife Mary Elizabeth and others were praying for this weak-willed child.
Yes, Howard and Mary Elizabeth both had been captured by our great loving Lord in that winter of 1941. They were married on November 2, 1940, and I was honored to be my elder brother Howard’s best man. Howard was so occupied in the bee and honey business that they took only a few days honeymoon, and postponed their more extended honeymoon until February, 1941, when they went to Florida with their little house trailer. They too had witnessed cousin Everett’s visit and John’s changed life. Mary Elizabeth especially was concerned about her relationship with God.
One Sunday afternoon while they were honeymooning in Florida, they went to visit a fellow-beekeeper whom Howard knew. They located his house and Howard went in to see him. While Mary Elizabeth waited, she found in the dash compartment of the car a copy of the little tract, Safety, Certainty and Enjoyment. While she read, the Holy Spirit opened her spiritual eyes. She understood and was saved.
A month or two later, after returning north to N. Y. State and while attending the Presbyterian church in Esperance where Clayton Crooks was pastor, the following occurred one Sunday evening.
It was during the closing prayer that Pastor Crooks quoted the verse Romans 10:13, “And whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord shall be saved.” After church, the two returned home and Howard was greatly distressed in his heart by his pressing need for God’s merciful help. . . As he expressed his anguish to the Lord, he said something to this effect. “Lord, I want to call upon the Lord and be saved. But how can I call? I don’t know how to call on You to be saved.”
It seemed that the Lord quickened his spirit to understand, “In my anguish now, what am I doing but calling upon the Name of the Lord? I am calling and indeed, He is saving me!” Howard became a new person, and he and Mary Elizabeth were eternally bonded, not just with earthly wedding vows but with God’s great bonds of love in Christ their Lord and Savior.
It was after that 1940 summer that I heard that an Evangelist named Doug Roe (I think) was to speak in the first Baptist Church of Oneonta (20 miles from Cooperstown). So I invited Ziggy Poreda to go with me, hoping that God might do something for him. He kindly accepted my invitation. We sat in the back row of the church. I was impressed by the message and hoped Ziggy would respond to the invitation. He did not respond. But the evangelist extended the invitation by asking if any believer present needed deliverance from something in his life that was not pleasing to his Lord. I knew that this applied to me, so when asked for hands to be raised, I lifted mine quickly. The Evangelist recognized it along with others who did likewise. As the congregation was dismissed, the speaker requested that all who had raised their hand for whatever reason should stop momentarily in the small room off the vestibule for a further more intimate word. I confess with shame that I started to walk out with Ziggy when he turned to me and said, “Don, didn’t you raise your hand?” I replied, “Yes, I did”, and I joined the perhaps fifteen others in the inquiry room. The evangelist shared Romans 10:13 with us, which I already knew and they gave me a small booklet to take home to read. That night, upon arriving back in that same room where I had first met Christ months before, I read through the booklet which pointed out the “reasonable response” to Christ’s sacrifice for us, as expressed in Romans 12:1,2: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” I understood and agreed. Then there was the space for me to sign my name to signify my personal commitment. For a moment I halted as I listened to a thought saying, “I don’t need to sign it. I agree to it. That’s good enough. I don’t believe in signing. Is not my word enough?”
Thank God for His mercy, there was this response, “Just why are you not willing to sign your name in the presence of your Savior?” I signed it and I’m so glad – eternally glad for His abounding grace for that moment. “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound” (Romans 5:20b). The immediate result was that there were no more dates with the girl friend but rather shame that I had been such a languid lukewarm follower and that I had so grievously offended my Lord and others in my lustful pursuits.
After my spiritual eyes had opened I began to seek God’s guidance regarding my own future course. War clouds were gathering about the world. The U.S. had begun the military draft, and I was rated as an A-1 candidate for the draft, being physically O.K. and having no restrictions as to family or occupation. At the official drawing I received a relatively high number (something over 8000) which meant that it would be several months before I would be “called up.” While in college I once attended a meeting of “pacifists” because at that time I was completely ignorant of the movement. Now I wondered if that should not be the direction I should take since now I was a child of God and did not want to sin by killing people. I mentioned this to my brother John who had become my spiritual mentor. Though he was not subject to the draft because of his responsible occupation in the national economy, he also was exercised concerning the matter. He had prayed and done some study in that regard. He counseled me to pray and study the Word before coming to any conclusion. He also gave me a current copy of Moody Monthly magazine in which there was an extended Bible Study article on the whole matter of pacifism and conscientious objection. I followed John’s advice, and it was not long before I concluded that I had the responsibility under God to serve my country because of my love to God and therefore my desire to obey Him. I was to serve God and not hate anyone but sin and the devil. I thank God for His Spirit’s enlightening John to give me such godly counsel, essential preparation in the light of what was coming. Indeed, it was the foundation for standing for God in my present place of daily contact with the people in the conscientious objectors’ work camp who were my helpers in forestry work.
I drove to Syracuse to visit my brother Dick on that Sunday, December 7th, 1941. We spent the evening reminiscing together and it was about time for me to get in my car and drive back to Cooperstown. Dick turned on his radio to catch the news and we were shocked to hear that Pearl Harbor had that morning been attacked by Japanese Air and Sea Forces causing thousands of casualties and great loss of American ships. We did not have much to say. It so surprised us. I knew that my military draft number would soon be called and I would be in uniform. The remaining question was, which uniform? I checked with the Marines, the Navy and the Army. I believe the Lord moved me to decide on the Army. I went to the U.S. Army Recruiting Office in Amsterdam and enlisted in the U.S. Army Engineers. I was given the date of January 15, 1942 to report there for induction.
INTERFACE
I am calling this brief insertion “Interface” because it seems an appropriate location in the account to include a bit of explanation, which I hope may be helpful.
As I have written thus far, I have come to think that perhaps I should make some explanation concerning the way in which I am intending to write. I have had the thought vaguely in mind that I desire to write the autobiographical incidents as much as possible with the mind-set that I had at the time when I experienced them. This would explain why I did not explain the happenings, as I now understand them, since now I have a different level of spiritual discernment than I had then. Everything that occurred before I was born again at the age of twenty four happened when I possessed zero amount of spiritual discernment because I was without the Holy Spirit’s presence in my life. I was confronted by much knowledge and truth at home, school, by family, friends,teachers, pastors, and in reading some books including the Bible. But I had no discernment concerning the grace of God until I was saved. And at the time of that Cooperstown boarding house revelation concerning Ephesians 2:8-9, did I instantly receive full spiritual discernment? No, but I did receive God the Holy Spirit into my life and instantly experienced new life of which I previously knew absolutely nothing. So, from then on I began to understand experiences from a spiritual perspective. Since then, the level of understanding increased or decreased, depending upon many factors, mainly, as I now see it, upon my response to God’s gracious dealings primarily through His Word, and Satan’s deceptive attacks through his strategies using my flesh (self life) and the world as his allies. It gives me awful grief to realize a little of how my spiritual coldness and immaturity have hindered God’s purpose that I should continually “…grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” 2 Peter 3:18. But it also gives me hope and joy to know that God is mercifully patient and that I still have days remaining to trust and obey, “For that is the way to be happy in Jesus, simply trust and obey.” (Dr. Robert McQuilkin’s suggested improvement on the chorus of that hymn, “Trust and Obey.”)
Born in 1916 near Amsterdam, NY, Don Rulison was raised on a farm with goats, bees and a vegetable garden like other kids those days. But this was no Ordinary kid! This young, skinny and sickly kid desired to be a missionary from the ripe old age of 12 being impressed by a missionary from India. And that is exactly what God intended for him……..after 5+ years in the Army during WWII and spending time in China, he went back to China in the Lord’s Service.
I had the pleasure of knowing this Man of God and I will never forget the last time I saw him in Changmai………..”looking up”, he said…….as if the Chariots of Fire were approaching for a long awaited trip Home to his Savior. Keith Johnson
