”I will pray the Father,
and He will give you another Helper
that He may abide with you forever –
the Spirit of truth,
whom the world cannot receive,
because it neither sees Him nor knows Him;
but you know Him, for He dwells with you
and will be with you…
The Helper, the Holy Spirit,
whom the Father will send in My name,
He will teach you all things and
bring to your remembrance
all things that I said to you.”
(John 14:17,26)
and He will give you another Helper
that He may abide with you forever –
the Spirit of truth,
whom the world cannot receive,
because it neither sees Him nor knows Him;
but you know Him, for He dwells with you
and will be with you…
The Helper, the Holy Spirit,
whom the Father will send in My name,
He will teach you all things and
bring to your remembrance
all things that I said to you.”
(John 14:17,26)
Samuel Morris was only about seventeen years old. He had been following Christ for some two years. Yet, deep within him was a passion to know this God who had miraculously delivered him out of slavery.
Kaboo, (Samuel’s native name) was a young prince of a tribe hidden in the jungles of Western Africa. “In those regions it was the custom for a chief who was defeated in war to give his eldest son as a pawn or hostage to insure the payment of war indemnity. If payment lagged, he was often subjected to torture.”[i]
Kaboo had been sold as a pawn of war several times. When the father of Kaboo failed to pay the victorious chief a sum suitable to his liking, “the infuriated chief ordered Kaboo to be whipped every day. Each beating was more prolonged and severe than the one before. A thorny poison vine was used as a whip. At each stroke it tore the flesh and implanted a fiery virus. The agonized victim felt as if his whole body were afire.
Each time the chieftain’s executioner tormented Kaboo, a Kru slave, who was an eye-witness of the beating, was sent to Kaboo’s father with a harrowing story of the ordeal, and a warning of worse to follow if he did not redouble his efforts to meet the full demands of his conqueror.
Kaboo’s wounds did not have time to heal. The flesh of his back hung in shreds. Soon he became so exhausted from loss of blood and the fever induced by the poison vine that he could no longer stand or even sit up. A cross-tree was then erected and he was carried out and thrown over it while he was again beaten over his raw back.”[ii]
Kaboo had witnessed several other of his tribesmen, who had been taken as ordinary slaves by this brutal chief suffer similar beatings. “Kaboo had seen them literally torn to pieces by drunken and frenzied men. But he was now faced by an even more diabolical fate.
Already they had dug a pit in anticipation of the possible failure of his father to return. If his final beating induced no further payment, he was to be buried up to the neck. His mouth would then be propped open, and smeared with a sweet mixture to attract the ants from a nearby ant-hill. The resulting torment would merely prepare for the final act when another type of insect – the dreaded driver ants – would be permitted to devour his living flesh bit by bit. After the ants had cleansed his bones of every particle of flesh, his white skeleton would then be placed in front of his execution hut as a gentle reminder to all future debtors.
As Kaboo was flung upon the cross-tree for his final beating, all hope as well as physical strength left him. He longed only for the blessing of death.
Then, suddenly, something very strange happened. A great light like a flash of lightning broke over him. The light blinded all about him. An audible voice that seemed to come from above commanded him to rise and flee. All heard the voice and saw the light but saw no man.
At the same time there occurred one of those instantaneous healings which science can neither deny nor explain. In the twinkling of an eye Kaboo found his strength restored. He had had nothing to eat or drink all that day. Yet he felt neither hunger nor thirst nor weakness. Leaping up, he obeyed the mysterious voice and fled from the astonished natives with the speed of a deer.
What was the source of the mysterious light that had brought him new strength and freedom? Kaboo did not know or suspect. He had never heard of the Christian God. He knew nothing of special acts of Divine Providence. He had never heard of a Saviour who had once been put in pawn, a ransom for many. The earthly prince who had just hung over a cross-tree of torture did not dream of a heavenly Prince who had been mocked and beaten as a prisoner and had suffered a degraded death by slow torture upon a tree.
But Kaboo did know that some strange and invisible power had come to his rescue. At one moment he had been too ill to sit erect and now he was running away at top speed.
It was on a Friday that he made his escape. Kaboo never forgot that day. He called it his Deliverance Day, and as long as he lived he always celebrated that day of the week by fasting, taking neither food nor water.”[iii]
Just as God lead the Children of Israel through the wilderness with a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, this light lead young Kaboo through the deep jungles of Africa. Kaboo hid inside tree trunks and other obscure places during the days and followed the light through the jungle at night. This light also served as a source of protection from poisonous cobras and vipers that lay in wait along the pathway. The great python hung overhead. “But more than the glaring eyes of leopards and the stings of poisonous serpents he had to fear his own kind. In the forests of this vast region lived some of the most savage cannibals”[iv] in this part of the world. This light lead Kaboo to a plantation where he would soon be taken in my missionaries and discover the Person behind the guiding Light.
Shortly after arriving at the plantation, Kaboo was invited to attend church. “He found a crowd gathered around a woman who was speaking through an interpreter. She was telling them about the conversion of Saul; how a light from heaven suddenly shone upon him and a mysterious voice spoke from above.
Kaboo cried out: ‘That’s just what I saw! I have seen that light! That is the same light that saved me and brought me here!’ Kaboo had been wondering all the time why he had been so marvelously saved from death and guided through the forest. Now, in a flash he began to understand.”[v]
If this seems like an amazing account, the rest of Kaboo’s life is no less interesting. Shortly, after his understanding the God behind this light, Kaboo was baptized in a Methodist church by the name Samuel Morris. From this point on, Samuel Morris became consumed with an unquenchable hunger for his Heavenly Father. Samuel would spend endless nights out in the fields “talking to his Father,” as he referred to praying. His life became consumed with communing with God and singing praises about and to God.
Samuel spent countless hours questioning missionaries about Scripture. One day he and a missionary landed upon John chapter 17, which talks about the Promise of the Holy Spirit. Samuel was fascinated with the subject of the Holy Spirit. “He came so often to visit the missionaries and asked so many hard questions about the Spirit that one was finally compelled to confess: ‘I have told you everything I know about the Holy Spirit.’ But he persisted, ‘Who told you what you know about the Holy Spirit?’ She replied that she owed much of her understanding of this subject to Stephen Merritt, who was then home secretary to Bishop William Taylor.[vi]
Samuel Morris then asked, ‘Where is Stephen Merritt?’
The missionary replied: ‘In New York.’
Samuel Morris promptly declared, ‘I will go to see him!’
This began a long and exciting quest of this young prince across course seas and crude sailors. On this quest young Morris would face prejudice beatings and cruel treatment, yet in the midst he grew closer and closer to the heart of God and the power of the Holy Spirit. Neither time, nor space permit us to go into detail here, you’ll have to read the accounts for yourself.
In short, this initial year-and-a-half quest across the windy seas landed him in New York, where he quickly made the acquaintance Stephen Merritt. Within days, God opened the heart of Stephen Merritt to take in this little boy from Africa. Needless to say, this was quite a moving of the Holy Spirit considering the era of the late 1800’s. But these were no ordinary circumstances and this was not ordinary boy, Samuel Morris was a boy, consumed with an unquenchable hunger for God. And it was this hunger for righteousness that would cause him to indeed be filled as Jesus promised in the Beatitudes. Not only would he be taught about the Holy Spirit, but everyone who encountered Samuel would forever be changed by a personal encounter with a person infused with the Spirit Himself.
Within days of Samuel being taken in by Stephen Merritt the following account took place:
“Stephen Merritt was a very busy man. His time was taken up with his church work. That Saturday morning he had to conduct the funeral of a prominent man in Harlem. He took Sammy along with him in the coach. On his way he stopped to pick up two eminent ministers who were to assist him with the funeral services. When the first of these doctors of divinity looked into the coach and saw a black boy sitting there, the minister started to draw back. He waited for a moment, expecting the shabby youth to get out. When they finally got in, they were plainly shocked to be obliged to ride with this humble African. They said nothing but cast glances in his direction that spoke their disapproval.
It was embarrassing to Rev. Stephen Merritt. As a diversion he tried to entertain Sammy by pointing out all the interesting places they were passing such as Central Park, the Grand Opera House, and other notable sights. But Sammy was interested in something even more wondrous than the wonders of this great city. Putting his hand on Merritt’s knee, he said, “Did you ever pray while riding in a coach?” Merritt answered that he had frequently had blessed times while riding about in a coach, but that he had never engaged in formal prayers.
Sammy said, “We will pray.” And they did. It was the first time that Stephen Merritt had ever kneeled down in a coach to pray. Sammy began at once: “Father, I have been months coming to see Stephen Merritt so that I could talk to him about the Holy Spirit. Now that I am here, he shows me the harbor, the churches, the banks and other buildings, but does not say a word about this Spirit I am so anxious to know more about. Fill him with Yourself so that he will not think, or talk, or write, or preach about anything but You and the Holy Spirit.”
What happened in that coach was no ordinary manifestation of divine favor. Stephen Merritt had participated in the consecration of many missionaries, the ordination of many ministers, the installation of bishops, and the laying on of hands by holy people. But he had never experienced the burning presence of the Holy Spirit as he did while he was kneeling in that coach, beside Sammy Morris who was penniless and clad in tattered garments. Merritt’s whole life was changed in that amazing moment.”[vii]
One of the greatest tragedies of the modern church is the tendency to be satisfied with a cognitive understanding of the things of God and Scripture, without that understanding being rendered effectual and experiential through one’s whole being. The Biblical definition of knowing something is always experiential and transformational, if it consists only in one’s cognitive understanding, then it is not true or complete knowledge. The Western world has been greatly deceived by this satisfaction of mental knowledge. Samuel Morris offers a great challenge to us to pursue more than mere mental-understanding and pursue holistic life-transforming-understanding.
Deeper...
Meditate on Samuel’s prayer for Stephen Merritt while in the coach.
“Father, I have been months coming to see Stephen Merritt so that I could talk to him about the Holy Spirit. Now that I am here, he shows me the harbor, the churches, the banks and other buildings, but does not say a word about this Spirit I am so anxious to know more about. Fill him with Yourself so that he will not think, or talk, or write, or preach about anything but You and the Holy Spirit.”
May this prayer, become our prayer! “God, we are so often inclined to talk about this and that, this truth and that truth, without a deep experiential understanding. May we be so filled with Yourself that we will not think, or talk, or write, or preach about anything but You and the Holy Spirit. May we, like the young prince, embark on a life changing journey to deeply and personally know the Spirit of the One who delivered us!”
“Father, I have been months coming to see Stephen Merritt so that I could talk to him about the Holy Spirit. Now that I am here, he shows me the harbor, the churches, the banks and other buildings, but does not say a word about this Spirit I am so anxious to know more about. Fill him with Yourself so that he will not think, or talk, or write, or preach about anything but You and the Holy Spirit.”
May this prayer, become our prayer! “God, we are so often inclined to talk about this and that, this truth and that truth, without a deep experiential understanding. May we be so filled with Yourself that we will not think, or talk, or write, or preach about anything but You and the Holy Spirit. May we, like the young prince, embark on a life changing journey to deeply and personally know the Spirit of the One who delivered us!”
Intentionally set aside times throughout the day this week to quiet yourself and pursue intimacy with the Holy Spirit.
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