Now I will continue with the incident in my own young life.  First, I want to say that from a child I loved the Lord and my parents taught me what sin was and I didn’t want to displease the Lord.  But I was not above temptations.  So when I saw this little doll, I was tempted by the devil.  I had an overmastering desire to have that doll and I was enticed by the hope of the reward of having it for my own and thought no one would know about it.  So quickly I picked it up and took it home.  You see, when I let lust, or that overmastering desire, become conceived, or formed, in my mind, and I took the doll, I committed sin.  Sin was finished and I was cut off from God.  Spiritual death took place in my heart.  No longer could I come to God and have communion with Him.  Sin had separated me from God.  So as the Scripture says, “when it [sin] is finished, it bringeth forth death.”

I brought the doll home with me, but oh, I didn’t feel good in my heart!  I knew I had sinned and I wished I had not taken the doll, but I had it and was on my way home.  I came into the house and my watchful mother saw it.  She asked, “Where did you get that doll?”

“Old Tennessee gave it to me,” I quickly said, which was a lie.  Another sin was added to my first sin.  The devil not only gets a person to sin but he gets them to commit other sins to cover up the first sin.  Thus, he leads people on and on, and deeper into sin they fall. (Old Tennessee was an elderly black man who drove a horse and wagon by our home, filled with junk that he had collected.  Sometimes, when he would stop and talk to us children, he would give us some of his junk which we would value.)

I took the doll upstairs to my room and put it in my dresser drawer.  I didn’t want to play with it.  It didn’t look so pretty anymore.  My heart was heavy.  I didn’t rest very well that night as I dreaded going back to school.  I just knew the teacher would guess that I had taken the doll.  To my surprise, nothing was said the next day about the doll.  I avoided the girl and hurried home after school.  But yet the fact of stealing that doll weighed heavily on my heart.  A few days later I took the doll out in the alley and took a brick and smashed it all to pieces and buried it, but that didn’t take away the sin or the guilt.  I had sinned against God and was still a liar and a thief.  Oh, how bad I felt!  I had been taught to pray from a little child, and had always prayed, but every time I would try to pray that sin would come up before me, so finally I quit praying.

School was soon out and a few weeks passed by.  Bro.  John Wilson came to our house from Missouri and held a few nights’ meeting at the chapel.  One night he preached on hell fire.  Oh, I could almost feel the fire of hell around me!  I trembled, but hurried out as soon as meeting was over and the invitation had closed.  I went home and to bed as soon as possible, but not to sleep.  I rolled and tumbled on my bed.  The weight of sin was