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The Lord Baited Carroll’s Hook With Promise Of REST

On this day, 15 November 1866, Benajah Carroll was ordained as a Baptist pastor in Waco, Texas. For the ten years previous, nothing would have seemed more unlikely. Although reared in Christian faith and baptized at the age of thirteen—his father was a Baptist minister—he soon asked to have his baptism rescinded and become a skeptic, even writing a book against Christianity.

I now know that I never doubted the being, personality and government of God. I was never an atheist or pantheist....But my infidelity related to the Bible and its manifest doctrines. I doubted that it was God’s book; that it was an inspired revelation of His will to man. I doubted miracles. I doubted the Divinity of Jesus of Nazareth. But more than all, I doubted His vicarious expiation for the sins of men.

He knew the Bible so well and had such a good memory of anything he read that he could beat any local defender of Christianity in debate. Carroll joined the Texas Rangers at the start of the Civil War. Deserted by his wife months after their marriage, he desired to die and placed himself in the forefront of danger. (Carroll’s wife met someone while Carroll was gone to war, divorced him when he took a leave to plead with her, and remarried two days later.) Embittered, Carroll became more than ever divorced from Christianity. 

Wounded by a minié ball in his thigh at the battle of Mansfield, Louisiana (8 April 1864), he survived because the bullet passed between the bone and artery. His military days were over. But God was not done with him. The great fisher of men knew how to hook his fish. Skepticism and philosophy left Benajah dry, able to tear down but not build up. By contrast, 

At this time, two books of the Bible took hold of me with unearthly power. I had not a thought of their inspiration, but I knew from my experience that they were neither fiction nor allegory – the Book of Job and the Book of Ecclesiastes. Some soul had walked those paths. They were histories, not dreams and not mere poems.

He had sworn never to step into another church. His mother persuaded him, for her sake, to attend a camp meeting. So in the Fall of 1865 he found himself listening scornfully to third-rate Methodist preaching. But at the end of his sermon the preacher asked some questions that seemed meant for Carroll.

“You that stand aloof from Christianity and scorn us simple folks, what have you got? Answer honestly before God, have you found anything worth having where you are?” My heart answered in a moment: “Nothing under the whole heaven; absolutely nothing.” As if he had heard my unspoken answer, he continued: “Is there anything else out there worth trying, that has any promise in it!” Again my heart answered: “Nothing; absolutely nothing. I have been to the jumping-off place on all these roads. They all lead to a bottomless abyss.” “Well, then,” he continued, “admitting there’s nothing there, if there be a God, mustn’t there be a something somewhere? If so, how do you know it is not here? Are you willing to test it? Have you the fairness and courage to try it? I don’t ask you to read any book, nor study any evidences, nor make any difficult and tedious pilgrimages; that way is too long and time is too short. Are you willing to try it now; to make a practical, experimental test, you to be the judge of the result?” These cool, calm and pertinent questions hit me with tremendous force, but I didn’t understand the test.

The test was to give a trial to the Scriptures that say “If anyone desires to do his will, he will know about the teaching, whether it is from God” (John 7:17); and “Then shall we know if we follow on to know the Lord.” (Hosea 6:3). He went forward. When some shouted with joy he stood and told them he was not converted; his heart was cold as ice. He was merely agreeing to test the promises. 

The meeting closed without any change upon my part. The last sermon had been preached, the benediction pronounced and the congregation was dispersing. A few ladies only remained, seated near the pulpit and engaged in singing. Feeling that the experiment was ended and the solution not found, I remained to hear them sing. As their last song they sang:
O land of rest, for thee I sigh,
When will the moment come
When I shall lay my armor by
And dwell in peace at home.
The singing made a wonderful impression upon me. Its tones were as soft as the rustling of angels’ wings. Suddenly there flashed upon my mind, like a light from heaven, this Scripture: “Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” I did not see Jesus with my eye, but I seemed to see him standing before me, looking reproachfully and tenderly and pleadingly, seeming to rebuke me for having gone to all other sources for rest but the right one, and now inviting me to come to Him. In a moment I went, once and forever, casting myself unreservedly and for all time at Christ’s feet, and in a moment the rest came, indescribable and unspeakable, and it has remained from that day until now.

He kept the change to himself until he could ascertain it was not just an emotional reaction. An orphan child noticed a change in his demeanor and mentioned it. Carroll went to his room. His mother followed him in. 

She pulled my hands away from my face and gazed long and steadfastly upon me without a word. A light came over her face that made it seem to me as the shining on the face of Stephen; and then, with trembling lips, she said: “My son, you have found the Lord.” Her happiness was indescribable. I don’t think she slept that night. She seemed to fear that with sleep she might dream and wake to find that the glorious fact was but a vision of the night.

Afterward Carroll became a notable pastor and educator among the Baptists of Texas and the Southern Baptist Conference.

—Dan Graves

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For more about Baptists in America, see CH 126

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