James E Mullan
Profile by Dr CUTHBERT CHIDOORI
My First General Conference of the Assemblies of God
The Congress on Mission and Evangelism held in Durban
W F P Burton and some Congo Missionaries
Nicholas
Bekinkosi Hepworth Bhengu
– His Youthful Dreams
– His Preaching
- Bhengu and Education
- Bhengu and Money
- Miraculous Experiences
- Spiritual Happenings
- The Sanctifying Spirit of God
– His Departure
Bhengu’s “Isinthunzi”
- Government and Politics
– Some Faults, Virtues and the Burden
of His Heart
President Lucas Mangope of Bophuthatswana
William
Frederick Mullan
The Fairview Assembly
Fred Mullan and the Gifts of the Spirit
A Miracle and a Vision
The Revival in Norwood
James E Mullan
Paul O Lange
William Branham in Durban
Oral Roberts in South Africa
Billy
Graham in Salisbury and Durban
The American Missionaries from Springfield, Missouri
C. Austin Chawner and the Portuguese Work
August Kast and the Mount Tabor Mission Station
Colin
La Foy and the Coloured Leadership
The Work in Zimbabwe
Mauritius and Reunion Island
Special
Answers to Prayer – 1
Special
Answers to Prayer – 2
A Beautiful Square with Good Vibes
Prayer and the Hippie Revival
The Young Turks
Tensions within the Group
The Split
of 1981 – Part One
The Split
of 1981 – Part Two
The Beginnings of the Faith Movement in South Africa
The Statement of September 1989
The Charismatic Renewal
The Start of the Pentecostal Revival World Wide and The Swedish Pentecostal Assemblies
Epilogue
APPENDIX 1 : How to be Filled with the Holy Spirit
APPENDIX 2 : The National Church by Nicholas Bhengu
APPENDIX 3 : Article from the Argus 5/02/1981
APPENDIX 4 : Pointers to the future of the Assemblies of God in the New South Africa (10/06/94)
Jim and Mary Mullan were an impressively handsome couple totally sold out to the work of God. He was immensely strong physically and could have been a fearsome fighter in his wilder days. In his early 20s God had saved him from becoming enmeshed in the political violence that has cursed his home country, Ireland, for so long. He testified of how he had bought a revolver which he carried about with him, itching for a chance to use it. He claimed to be an atheist but there were two occasions, both during World War I when he served as a wireless operator on a cargo ship when his actions belied his faith. The one occasion was on the dockside as cargo was being loaded. Somehow he got hooked up by a crane and hoisted on high as though he were a piece of cargo dangling helplessly. Then despite his atheism he yelled aloud to God for help. The other time was also on the dock when he blundered into a guarded area and found a sentry’s gun and bayonet pointed at his breast. Again the professing atheist called on the God he claimed did not exist.
Jim Mullan
He was saved through the preaching of Billy Nicholson, the Irish Presbyterian preacher when he attended one of Nicholson’s meetings in the north of Ireland. He did not respond to the preaching and was leaving the hall in a rebellious Christ-rejecting attitude. At the door a young man shook his hand, asking if he were a believer. Jim Mullan said abruptly, “No!”. The young man held onto his hand, quoting the saying of Jesus, “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul, or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” Jim Mullan jerked his hand free and stomped away down a country lane on his way home. But he could not forget those words. They rang in his ears. They took up the rhythm of his walking like a refrain.
Left leg - “What shall it profit a man... ?”
Right leg - “If he gain the whole world...”
Left leg - “And lose his own soul”
Right leg - “Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”
And so it went on ceaselessly until the young incipient “Sihn
Feiner” with
the gun in his belt knelt down under a hedge bordering the Irish country
lane and there alone before God surrendered his life to Christ.
How he came to join an Elim Pentecostal Church I don’t know. I do
know that as a young man he worked with the famous Pentecostal pioneer,
George Jeffries. He helped George Jeffries in his evangelistic meetings
and even prayed for those who came forward for ministry in the healing
services. He recounted how people would drop down to the floor as he prayed
for them in the manner sometimes called being slain in the Spirit, but
George Jeffries did not approve of it. Jeffries made Jim Mullan seat people
in a chair when he prayed so that there would be no falling.
Later Jim Mullan became a missionary in the Congo Evangelistic Mission
where he worked under the direction of W F P Burton, the notable missionary
pioneer and Bible teacher. During the ten years he spent in the C E M he
associated with other great leaders and teachers like James Salter, Harold
Womersley and Teddy Hodgson (who was martyred in 1962 when the Congo gained
its independence). Only one of these, Harold Womersley had any formal Bible
training. Harold Womersley graduated at Cliff College, London. But they
were all intense students of the Word. They studied by themselves. They
debated among themselves. So God taught them. They acquired a deep knowledge
of the Bible and truth gripped them.
After ten years, Jim Mullan came to South Africa having had a dispute with
Willie Burton over the question whether speaking in tongues was the initial
evidence of the baptism in the Holy Ghost. Burton and the C E M said it
was. Mullan held that it was not. He later saw the error of his position
by comparing Joel 2:28 with Peter’s sermon in Acts chapter two where
Peter referred to the speaking in tongues as the prophecy that Joel referred
to. When I got to know James Mullan well he was adamant that speaking in
tongues was the initial evidence of the baptism with the Holy Spirit. That
is the common teaching in the Assemblies of God but in South Africa we
have avoided making the doctrine a bone of contention. In fact, Nicholas
Bhengu himself was equivocal in his teaching on that point. The American
Assemblies of God are very dogmatic about it and regard it as a matter
of doctrine rather than an opinion.
In South Africa, Jim Mullan worked in Tzaneen as a missionary with the
Emmanuel Mission under H C Phillips. But increasingly he felt the burden
to establish white assemblies even though his missionary status required
him to concentrate on evangelising the blacks. Indeed, even while in Tzaneen
he attempted to start a white assembly. He did gather together a congregation
of about 50 strong. When he left Tzaneen he entrusted the incipient assembly
to the care of another missionary, but it folded up. Years later there
was a fresh start made at Tzaneen by Donovan Coetzee, at that time the
minister in charge of the Pietersburg congregation. The work prospered
and Donovan even bought a house to convert into a meeting place for the
assembly. Again the assembly folded up when Donovan was transferred from
Pietersburg.
It was in about 1944 that Jim and Mary Mullan went to Port Elizabeth as
missionaries. Their support came from the Elim Missionary movement in England.
It amounted to a meagre 30 pounds a month, little enough for a married
man with several children.
Accommodation was hard to come by but the Mullans were not deterred by
that. Jim Mullan bought an old home-made caravan, set it up at the Humewood
Caravan Park in Port Elizabeth, and in addition to his missionary activities,
he set about gathering together a white assembly in Port Elizabeth. By
dint of street work, door-to-door evangelism and open-air preaching, he
steadily made progress.
After a few months there was opposition from the Elim Home Board. They
objected to his involvement in pioneering a white assembly. They told him
he received support as a missionary, thus he should devote all his efforts
to converting blacks or Coloured people and not whites. His response was
that the Gospel had to be preached to all peoples. He decided to resolve
the dilemma by resigning from the Emmanuel Mission trusting God for financial
support, which came indeed sometimes from unexpected sources. Among those
who helped him materially was a Plymouth Brethren businessman who regularly
delivered groceries to his caravan and who, I believe, included monetary
gifts in his beneficence. The brother never joined the assembly or even
came to worship there. He never embraced the Pentecostal teaching or slackened
in his loyalty to the Plymouth Brethren connection. Yet in spite of their
extremely dogmatic opposition to Pentecostal teaching and practice, this
elder in the Plymouth Brethren Assembly felt led to help Jim Mullan whose
aim was to pioneer a Pentecostal church.
In 1945 I spent a short holiday with the Mullans in Port Elizabeth. By
that time they had moved into a house in Walmer, a suburb of Port Elizabeth.
The assembly had grown to about 50 members. One Sunday night Jim Mullan
allowed me to preach the Gospel in the assembly. My sermon took 20 minutes
to deliver. Afterwards Jim Mullan gave me the only lecture I have ever
had on preaching. He adjured me never to preach a sermon without referring
to the blood of Christ. I understood that to be the finished work of Christ
on the cross. He also told me I should not be so brief. Both these admonitions
I took to heart. In subsequent years congregations might have had cause
to regret that I took his advice so literally as to the length of my sermons.
There was a memorable happening when I preached that Sunday night. Meetings
were held in the Womens’ Christian Temperance Union hall, a shabby
edifice in Lawrence Street. Its walls were adorned by photographic portraits
of past officials of the WCTU whose grim female countenances made one wonder
whether they were more likely to drive a person to drink rather than deliver
them from it. The preacher in that hall had to stand at a lectern placed
on a small platform. Immediately behind him was a curtained door leading
into an anteroom used to counsel those converted through the preaching.
That night a girl of about 18 raised her hand in response to the message.
Mary Mullan took her into the counselling room while Jim closed the meeting
with a final hymn. To my surprise, a noisy sobbing and wailing began to
issue from behind the curtain. It persisted so loudly that we all had to
sing the last verse of the hymn two or three times to mask the noise so
as not to disturb the final stages of the meeting.
Apparently the girl was a backslidden Pentecostal believer. As she knelt
down with Mary Mullan she burst out sobbing and speaking in tongues. Astonished,
Mary Mullan realised she could understand what the girl was saying in tongues.
She was speaking in a Congolese dialect similar to the Kiluba language
Mary Mullan had spoken when she was a missionary in the Congo Evangelistic
Mission. The girl was uttering a prayer confessing her backslidden state
and giving thanks to God for his mercy and goodness in receiving her back
again. In retrospect one realises the degree of revival resting on the
Assemblies of God 50 years ago in our pioneer days. We did not realise
then how privileged we were.
Evangelising as he did in the streets and in the somewhat slummy areas
in Port Elizabeth it is little wonder that Jim Mullan gathered a mixed
bag of disciples into the Port Elizabeth Assembly. For the main part they
were sincere and simple souls. Here and there some stood out like Neville
Lange, the retired banker and his son Paul. Paul later became an outstanding
minister in the Assemblies of God. There were others of a rougher mould.
Pat, the Liverpool Irishman. He had a dramatic conversion from being a
drunkard but he needed a lot of instruction in the Christian way of doing
things. For one thing, he was a little free with his fists. In an open-air
meeting one Friday night Jim Mullan was preaching. A hostile heckler came
up to Jim Mullan threatening to punch him. Before anyone knew what was
happening, Pat’s fist came shooting past Jim Mullan’s ear and
the heckler was laid flat on the pavement. Pat took some time to be convinced
that God was not pleased to have him stand behind the preacher as a bodyguard
to protect him from hecklers.
But it was not all violence with Pat. It was quite a thing in those days
for young men to go into the bush which clothed the sand dunes of Port
Elizabeth. There they could pray together without disturbance. On one such
occasion Pat received a song in the Spirit. He found himself singing words
in English. He had a stump of pencil in his pocket but no paper. Hastily
he took up a length of tree branch lying on the ground and on the whitened
dead surface he recorded the following words:
“He came alone from all His glory,
He came alone to set me free.
He came alone from all His glory
To suffer and die on Calvary.
Praise His name! Praise His name!
For I know He is coming again;
And He’ll come again in all His glory
Just to welcome me.”
The Port Elizabeth Assembly took to singing it. They called
it “Pat’s
chorus”. Pat had a lovely singing voice. Unfortunately he became lifted
up with pride because of it and backslid tragically.
Another street-preaching incident comes to mind. Jim Mullan was preaching in
the main street of Port Elizabeth one night when a drunk man stood before him,
well-dressed, intense, attentive but mute. Not knowing what to do, Jim Mullan
pointed his finger at the man, uttering the one word, “Repent!” The
man staggered off on his way.
A week later he was back this time sober. It turned out he was a backslider.
He had been in fellowship with The Plymouth Brethren, but because of his drinking
they had excommunicated him. He said that word “Repent” had lodged
in his bosom all week. He wished the preacher to pray for him. He was reconsecrating
his life to the Lord and wanted to join the assembly.
Jim Mullan prayed for him but told him he could not join the assembly right
away. Since he was under the Lord’s discipline through the Plymouth Brethren
his duty was to return to the people who had imposed the discipline upon him.
Once they had restored him to fellowship he would be free to arrange a transfer
to the assembly who would then gladly receive him. He did so and became a member.
He told them that whenever he was drunk he suffered a kind of lockjaw and became
unable to speak, hence his odd behaviour in standing mute before Jim Mullan that
night.
Looking back now, across the years, to the beginning of the Port Elizabeth
Assembly, it would be hard to imagine less propitious circumstances in which
to start a
new assembly single-handedly. Yet Jim and Mary Mullan did so against all odds,
the Lord being with them.
Our thinking in those days was hardly as ambitious as it has become now. Now
we think of an assembly of two or three hundred members as fairly small. In
those days we thought of little more than 50 as being a viable assembly. In
fact, it
used to be taught that when the Lord fed the 5 000 he seated them like flower
beds on the green grass in groups of 50 to 100. That was said to indicate the
ideal size of an assembly as being 50 to 100 members.
No sooner had he gathered together an assembly of about 50 members in Port
Elizabeth than Jim Mullan shifted his aim to East London, setting off to start
a new assembly
there.
The beginning in East London was somewhat easier than in Port Elizabeth. Nevertheless
it was still pioneering against great odds. But the Lord opened doors and gave
vital contacts. Notable among the latter was a Mr Schroder, a Methodist Christian
and respected owner of a mens’ outfitters. He invited James Mullan to conduct
a Bible study group in his home in Cambridge, East London and to have a breaking
of bread service there on Saturday nights. A certain Mr Spencer, the owner of
a small supermarket, was another such contact.
Mary Mullan, Jim’s wife was a vital help as well. With the aid of a small
folding organ she would set up Sunday School on East London’s Orient Beach.
A number of Sunday School children and young people grew up to be solid members
of the new assembly.
The East London Assembly grew to be far more vigorous and healthy than the
Port Elizabeth congregation. It became a sending church, reaching out far and
wide.
From East London congregations were founded as far afield as Salisbury in what
was then Rhodesia. Young men became inspired by Jim Mullan’s vigorous zeal
and powerful teaching. As no other man that I have known, he imparted a vision
and foundation to those he ministered to.
He was a rugged personality. He was never a trained theologian but he had a
vast store of Bible knowledge and wisdom in the things of God. His favourite
preaching
theme was the second coming of Jesus Christ. Thinking of him I can only say
that his grasp of the Scriptures was that of a prophet, imparted to him by
God. He
wrote books on Bible prophecy, notably “Germanic Clay”, an exposition
of Daniel’s prophetical explanation of the huge and dazzling statue with
golden head and feet of clay mingled with iron which Nebuchadnezzar saw in a
dream. Jim Mullan saw the clay as the admixture of the Germanic tribes which
had infiltrated the iron-like Roman Empire. The modern equivalent would be the
Rome-Berlin axis destroyed in the Second World War. Mullan predicted a rise again
in some form or other of Fascism in a Nazi-like recrudescence.
On his blind side I found Jim Mullan often stubborn and unyielding in his viewpoints.
Operating in the milieu he was in at the time when he ministered, it scarcely
mattered that his teachings on worldliness were entirely the product of his
background as a first generation Pentecostal believer. When he handed over
the work to other
leaders in 1970, he had about 25 churches in his group of assemblies, nearly
all of them having been pioneered under his hand. Today there are three times
as many, most of them worshipping in fine buildings with congregations of several
hundred attending the main meetings. He did a tremendous work in his day. I
doubt however whether he could handle the work grown as it has today, existing
in the
rapidly changing world that has come upon us in the 90s. His rigorism, unyielding
traditionalism and his often unhealthy emphasis on the ruling function of elders
sometimes were a hindrance to his ministers and assemblies.
The teachings on ecclesiology on which he structured assemblies, were culled
from the book “The Church and the Churches” by a Plymouth Brethren
writer, G H Lang. I have discovered in my reading that the popular Chinese Christian
teacher Watchman Nee propounded an almost identical ecclesiology or doctrine
of church government.
His interests were not confined to spiritual matters either. He was intensely
interested in ethnology.
Once when I was sharing a caravan with him parked in his yard in Walmer, I
awoke to find him carrying on a conversation with me. I had been talking in
my sleep
and he was hugely amused by my describing the structure of chimneys built by
the Africans in their primitive huts. Needless to say my information thus imparted
came solely from the depths of my unconscious and surfaced in my dreams for
African huts don’t have chimneys. Maybe a psychologist could tell me what I was
actually trying to express.
More scientifically, Jim Mullan wrote an interesting volume on “The Arab
Builders of Zimbabwe”. His thesis was that the Zimbabwe Ruins were built
by Arab invaders of the region, who used Bushmen (or San) as slaves to do the
stonework. He used to discuss with me the “baLemba” and “baVenda” tribes
who swear by “Sayid” (an Arab sultan) and whose aquiline features
and known skill in making metal artefacts he said proved their Arabian origins.
The old brother, being an Irishman, was excessively chauvinistic as well. He
found a distant relative in Ireland and together these two kinsmen compiled
a volume on “The Ulster Clans”, a treatise in which their Irish ancestors
had an honourable mention.
Strangely, when it came to theological scholarship, Jim Mullan was something
of an obscurantist. He was not happy when I studied with UNISA and obtained
a degree. Nor was he pleased when other ministers followed my example. I sometimes
thought that his deprecation had in it a little sour flavour of jealousy. God
rest him!
He was a great man; extremely dedicated, a lover of souls, a bold witness for
Christ and an iconoclast. I cull that word from comments by Nicholas Bhengu
who said, “James Mullan was an iconoclast. His successor will have to be an
administrator and a more flexible personality”.
To the very last days of his life he was a stickler for the forms of worship
and prayer he believed in. My friend, Graham Whiting, visited him in his final
days when he was bed-ridden, waiting for the glorious home-call he expected.
Graham had been warned not to upset him by discussing any problems in the work.
He therefore opted to reminisce on the Rhodesia of bygone days and hunting
in the African bush. The old brother enjoyed the talk immensely. Then Graham
prayed
for him but neglected to round off his prayer with the proper formula of the
Lord’s name. Jim Mullan, all incapacitated as he was, would not let it
pass. He put out his hand, grasped Graham’s arm with his still powerful
grip and added to his prayer, “In the name of The Lord Jesus Christ”.
A stickler to the last!
There was an over-arching consistency and strength in Jim Mullan’s leadership.
He never deviated from the vision he had of establishing Biblically-based assemblies.
Yet within that paradigm, one could note certain weaknesses. I always found him
a friendly mentor, but never felt he was an intimate friend. Rather, we were
co-workers in the same cause. If friendship involves sentiment and affection
like that of David and Jonathan, then any deep friendship was lacking in our
relationship.
No one could doubt his great care for souls. There were at least two instances
where he drove for a couple of hundred miles through the night to minister
to converts who had backslidden and lapsed into drunkenness. A cinema queue
was
irresistible to him. He couldn’t pass one without firing off a few Scripture
verses at the people waiting to get into the show. But I wonder whether his care
was from a tender compassion for the lost sheep or from a sense of duty to his
doctrinaire conviction that he had to shepherd the flock and declare God’s
Word to the lost.
Whatever it was, there was a force and faith in his ministrations. He could
set a church in order or bring one into being right up to the years when he
really
was in retirement. The Fish Hoek Assembly and the Durban North Assembly are
but two examples of these qualities. At Fish Hoek the assembly struggled for
some
years. Through a succession of indifferent ministers, it had got into a state
of financial and spiritual disarray. However, Jim and Mary Mullan lived at
Fish Hoek for a while and took the opportunity to minister there. From that
time,
problems were straightened out and the assembly was able to go forward and
grow.
The Durban North Assembly owes its start to a time when a long-standing member
of the Assemblies of God made his home available for Jim Mullan to conduct
Bible studies there. Jim Mullan’s robust faith and Biblical expositions of truth
were like a seed that just had to bring forth the beginnings of a Church. Whenever
the truth is sown with apostolic power, a church must spring forth.
He had strong faith too, in praying for the sick. There was a time at a General
Conference in Witbank when he came upon my wife, Enid, who was badly afflicted
with some allergic reaction got by using a chemical spray in the garden. It
had become worse through the days of the conference. Jim Mullan looked at her
puffy
inflamed face, took her by the hand, and rebuked the condition. Within a few
hours it had gone. As far as I know, he trusted God for divine health for himself
and his family. I doubt whether he even would take an aspirin for some or other
ailment.
There was a time in Port Elizabeth when he became afflicted with sciatica.
The malady threatened the pioneering work he was engaged in at the time, for
he was
hardly able to walk to give out tracts and visit from door to door. Prayer
did not bring healing. But God dealt with the situation in a peculiar way.
Brother
Neville Lange, Paul Lange’s father, approached Jim Mullan with the gift
of a bicycle which he felt urged to give him. Strangely, Jim Mullan found he
could pedal this “push-bike” quite comfortably, not feeling any pain
at all. Sciatica or no, he was able to get around unhindered in his efforts of
personal evangelism until finally the pain departed from him.
1981 was a sad year for the Assemblies of God. In that year a certain brother,
Sam Ennis, led a split from the white work. Noel Scheepers had been a notable
leader in the work but had already resigned before Sam Ennis led the split.
Mike Attlee, another strong leader also took advantage of Sam’s defection to
leave too, something he had been contemplating for some little while. He had
actually discussed such a move with me several months previously.
By that time, Jim Mullan was becoming senescent. At his age, he should have
been left out of any disputes, but instead of leaving him to his retirement
in peace,
certain people saw fit to use his reputation and influence to further their
own ends. His extreme chauvinism, his rigid fixations about church structure,
and
his ideas of worldliness in dress made him vulnerable to controversy. He actually
resigned from the very work he had founded.
His departure was a personal blow to me, for I had served with him loyally
for many years and had supported him staunchly through the many controversies
he
had endured. There had been at least one virulent attack on his character.
A certain brother had uttered lying accusations against him and brought him
before
the General Executive. This same brother confessed to the Executive that he
had lied about Jim Mullan. Through all this I had been supportive of him. My
support
had incurred certain hurtful attacks upon me. I felt all these factors had
been forgotten by my old leader and my loyalty not even acknowledged.
However, I re-established fellowship with him when I could and I am pleased
to say that I visited him as a friend during the several years before he died
in
1987 at the age of 86.
I believe Jim Mullan was gifted with the special kind of faith mentioned in
1 Corinthians 12 among the nine charismata. He was a colourful personality,
such
as people love to tell “folk stories” about. One such story was recounted
to me by my friend Graham Whiting whom I have already mentioned. Graham was travelling
with Jim Mullan in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) motoring in a remote area.
It was the rainy season. They came to a drift in a swiftly-flowing flooded river.
Most of us would have hesitated to hazard a crossing in such conditions. Not
so Jim Mullan. He cried aloud, “In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ!”,
put his foot on the accelerator, and ploughed through the water in a bow-wave
that splashed higher than the car. They crossed safely to the farther side, Graham
more than a little shaken by the adventure. I think it took a special kind of
faith for Jim Mullan to risk being swept away in the flood on that occasion.
Another happening which could have indicated the operation of the gift of a
special kind of faith took place in East London. A family phoned Jim Mullan
in great
distress. A man in the family (whether husband or son I don’t know) had
gone off his head. He was violent and threatening anyone who came near him. When
Jim Mullan got to the house, he found that in a demented frenzy the man had smashed
the bed in his bedroom and now was standing on the bed using the broken section
of the bed-post as a club to assault whoever tried to calm him. On seeing Jim
Mullan he lunged at him violently so that Jim Mullan had to grasp him about the
waist, rebuking the demon at the same time, for he believed the man was demonised.
There was no immediate effect. The man had to be subdued by force, put into a
straight-jacket, and dispatched by train to Komanie, the mental hospital in Queenstown.
But something happened between East London and Queenstown. The man calmed down.
On arrival in Queenstown, he was examined and sent back home as normal. No doubt
the power of Jim Mullan’s rebuke had continued to work on the evil spirit
so that eventually he had to succumb to the word of faith.
In Tzaneen there was another happening which I have no doubt indicated a special
kind of faith given to Jim Mullan. In the assembly there was a godly woman
married to a hostile, foul-mouthed, slanderous man. He uttered his accusations
freely.
His wife could do nothing to stop him. One day as Jim Mullan was crossing the
main street in Tzaneen, this man accosted him in the middle of the main road
through the town. In the midst of the traffic flowing on either side of them,
he confronted Jim Mullan uttering his usual vile slanders. As he did so, the
Spirit of God came on Jim Mullan. He grasped the man by the hand and prayed, “Oh
God, hear the accusations this man is uttering; I commit him into your hands
for righteous judgement!”
The next day there was a message for Jim Mullan. The man’s tongue had swollen
up in his mouth. He could not speak. He wanted Jim Mullan to pray for him. Jim
Mullan did pray for him and his tongue was restored to normal. Whether the man
repented I do not know; but certainly he could not doubt that he had come under
the righteous judgement of Almighty God.
Jim Mullan’s actions in the whole incident were characteristic of his boldness,
wisdom and faith, as well as his obedience and fear of God in praying for the
man to be healed.