In February 1950 Marshall Keeble is 71 years old. Two decades have passed since his greatest conquests as an evangelist, chronicled by A. B. Lipscomb. It is nine years since his ironic engagement with FEW. This is the Keeble of living memory, telling the story yet once more. Keeble is now a statesman, "president" of a "school," raising money and making friends . . . and, as always, teaching in parables. Close readers of Acts might want to ask what text he is using in chapter 10 (p 149), but the lesson he finds there (p 153) is indeed there for those who have ears to hear and eyes to see. It is creative exegesis and daring hermeneutics, conveyed with subtle irony. Ironies abound in this address, a plea for the Christian education of blacks delivered to a mostly white audience in the auditorium of an institution that is intentionally and constitutionally segregated.

That we have here a verbatim transcription we may not doubt; yet no text can capture all of Keeble. Indeed, some aspects of his idiom have eluded his editors, caring and well-intentioned though they are. This is the text as it was printed.

[Abilene Christian College Lectures 1950] (Austin: Firm Foundation Publishing House, 1950) 142-156.

This is one occasion that I am at a loss to find words to express my gratitude and appreciation to Brother Morris for inviting me to have a part in this great program. I feel my unworthiness and unfitness for such a great occasion. I have prayed continuously to God to give me strength and power to guide me in whatever way that he thinks is best, or rather knows best, that I might say just those things that are appreciated and that are essential and necessary, on an occasion of this kind. I feel that in the common expression, I feel that right at this time I am "on the spot." That's the way I feel. Nevertheless, we may have just a little enjoyment, a little laughter, but all of us sincere. I think sometimes the trouble with the church is we carry too long faces in order to appear sincere. That don't count. So I am glad to have the privilege to be here.

When Brother Morris first wrote me, I had an engagement at Los Angeles for about a month or 45 days, but when I got that call I cancelled that meeting and decided I would go to Los Angeles at some future time, that this was more important. Some of you might differ with me-- leaving off a religious work, godly work, to come and lecture on an occasion of this kind for a material matter. I don't see it that way. I see that I came that I might help in a great cause that the Negro preacher would be better qualified to go to Los Angeles. They have done a fine job, but there is something needed that all of them do not have and this meeting is for the purpose of giving to us just what we need to meet these intellectual giants that strut up and down the country and challenge the church of Christ. You are responsible for it. You can either prepare us or you can let them slaughter us. Take your [143] choice. It's up to you. Or you can turn around by silence and indifference help them to slaughter us. You can--you know how to do that.

Now then. Dr. Young not only is a doctor, he is a great doctor; has a great record and has made a great record in Dallas--not only in Dallas--throughout the United States Dr. Young is known. But he has time to be an elder, church of Christ. He has time to take off from his work that he is needed to do and help to foster a cause or to lead us in a cause that will develop a race that is badly in need of civilization. I expect if we had any way of checking on Dr. Young on his stay up here, materially speaking, thousands of dollars have been lost. That's the way you look at a man to find out whether he means it or not. Thank God for him. He has been an inspiration to me. The church where he is an elder has helped our school for six or seven years, and six hundred dollars a year. The Board of Trustees of the Southern Bible Institute has established the policy of soliciting funds from individuals only--not from church treasuries. Gentlemen, let's not get excited, brethren and sister [<>], about helping the school. All these missionaries you heard talked about that's over yonder doing a great work, we are all praying for them. You hear Brother Morris and you hear Brother Pullias and you hear Brother Tiner and you'll hear Brother Hardeman tell you they are students of ours. Aren't we proud of them? I know you are. These presidents have a right to say they are their students. They have sat at the feet of the faculties where they are presidents. They have a right to claim them. And the church has a right to claim the whole thing. You know, I would like to have a few amens. Little as you think of it we are retarding the progress of the church trying to be quiet, trying to be up-to-date and modern, and the preacher don't know when he has said anything that suits anybody. We are afraid we will go sectarian that it's just as bad to pull off a bridge as to back off. After you get through, you're off. It's a great pleasure to see these great men [144] like Brother Morris, Brother Young and the whole faculty of this school behind this movement. David Lipscomb College's being behind the Nashville Christian Institute is the reason we have made the progress we have. When we run out of a teacher or need one we know where to borrow one. He will be there in a about [<>] half an hour and take the class in charge, and competent and prepared to do it. Abilene Christian College is right behind this movement, a greater thing they have never undertaken in their life. And it is a great thing, and one thing I am proud of that the president and the college, all the members of the faculty I don't believe are ashamed of it. I really believe the whole thing is a hundred per cent behind Brother Morris. I do, I do. And God is leading us.

I tell you what happened to me. I was holding a meeting once at a place and there was a colored man that happened to have finished college, had some advantage of me intellectually, and he knew that he had it because you could tell from our discussion in the language that I was using that I was short, and the verbs that I was splitting and the adjectives that I was bursting. He could tell that I was unprepared intellectually to stand before him and he attempted to take advantage of me. And here's what he said. When I quoted Acts 2:38, he got up right in the audience and asked me, "What is the Greek on that?" He knew that I knew nothing about Greek. What's the Greek on that? I stood there puzzled, didn't know what to say about it, and didn't want the cause of Christ to suffer, but he had me. This thought came to me, and I was proud of it. I said everybody in this audience that knows Greek, lift their hands. I looked around and I saw nobody's hand up. I turned around to this great preacher and I said, "What's the need of discussing Greek? Nobody out there knows it," and I got away with him and felt sorry for him. But this institution that Brother Young is the chairman of the Board of Directors, are trying to prepare young men that can meet that problem. After a while you'll ask for that in your audience and about half your audience raises their [145] hand and you're in it. But I got by with that. I am a little afraid that the young men coming on behind me will not be able to make it that way, so it is up to you and it's up to our colored brethren that are doing everything they can; it will be very feeble, but they will do the best they can. The colored man can pay for anything if you put it on a small enough basis. Make the installment payment small enough and we'll buy this whole city of Abilene.

I don't want to forget one young man who deserves a lot of praise in this institution goes up or down. Brother Kirkpatrick deserves a lot of praise. He was chosen by the Board to travel around and inform the churches and the brethren and I know he has a hard job. I know he met some that didn't want his message and he met some that accepted him warmly. I meet them, but I never get offended. I go back again; if you don't mind on a second trip, I am accepted. Don't ever be disheartened. Just continue to trust God in a problem of this kind. Brother Young said that at first he was opposed, he was opposed to this. Why, that's natural. He had his privilege to be so. And many of you may be opposed to it now. That's the reason this meeting is here--to knock the opposition out of you! If we can introduce enough facts or enough things for you to think on, by this time next year you may be with Dr. Young, our opponent no longer. There was a time that the white brethren over this country opposed holding meetings for the colored people because they feared they were too spasmodic. I have had white brethren to tell me that we ought to have done this 20 years ago, Keeble, but we thought your people were excitable and spasmodic and this would not appeal to them. Thus, we didn't offer it to them. But when they called me, or called for another colored preacher and the colored man responded they forgot--they forgot if they ever did know--that the gospel can take the dance out of the man, stop him from dancing, pull him out from under a mourner's bench and set him up on a seat. That's all they need. But look [146] how long the colored man suffered with a misunderstanding and a misconception of the white man.

The same is true today. Somebody said the southern problem and the northern problem. When you meet my brethren in Christ in the north, in the south, in the east, in the west, there is no problem. My brethren in Christ today, white, are looking out every way possible to bring the negro to Christ, north, south, west and east. I see no problem. Only thing i see is this: let's carry the gospel to the lost souls of the world. And if the young man needs preparing to carry it, let's establish an institution where he can get the preparation, where he can be prepared, where he can meet these intellectual giants that come out of these sectarian colleges. I don't have nothing to boast about, but I'm just bragging a little. Now then, somebody is worried about whether a mixed faculty will work. That has come up and naturally it would come up; some white people on the faculty and some colored--will that work? Gentlemen, if it'll work in a sectarian school, it ought to work better in a school where everybody is a Christian. It works in sectarian schools. Fisk University, a congregational school, had a white president and white people on the faculty for the last 75 years and we have more of the spirit of Christ than they had, I think. Don't get excited--it's God working to lift the people that have been possibly misled. And now your hearts are running out for them. The very spirit of Christ is in your heart or you wouldn't be interested in us. It's the interest of the church of Christ that has missionaries in Africa, it's the interest of the church of Christ in America that sent Brother McMillan and all the missionaries to Japan after they had stabbed us in the back. That's fine. That's the spirit of Christ. I believe these missionaries have forgot that attack at Pearl Harbor. The gospel of Christ will knock out of us all the prejudice and malice we have against any man. It will knock it out. And when it hasn't done so, we haven't absorbed enough of the spirit of Christ. Gentlemen, I must appeal to you. This has been my ex[147]perience for the last 50 years, working with both races, and the colored people are anxious to be led.

I was holding a meeting at Hopkinsville, Kentucky, and the white preacher met me when I came down on the Pan-American-- a lot of colored people standing on the platform. When this white man grabbed both of my grips and put them in the car and me following along behind him, it excited the Negro in Hopkinsville and he couldn't understand that. He never will till he obeys Christ, then he will understand it. This white brother was trying to make me welcome and show me that they were behind me a hundred percent--that was all--get me ready for the messages I had planned to deliver; letting me know that I had friends in Hopkinsville. That was what he was trying to do. Made a good job of it. Carried me on to where they had selected for me to stay, told the lady here's the man. He tried to tell her what kind of a character I was and not to be any ways uneasy; he'll act right. So many of us don't. I ate at that home and then I said to this preacher, "I would like to go over there where you are putting up the tent at." He said, "Well, come on." I got over there and about 20 white brethren were putting up the tent, driving stobs, wet with perspiration in August; not a colored man on the ground. Well the colored people were interested. They walked over there and they said, "What is this?" They said, "It is going to be a meeting." "Well, who's gonna do the preaching?" He said a colored man. "Well, how come you all are putting it up?" He didn't understand it; the white brethren understood it. And then a white man walked up to me and he said this to me. I thought he was a brother of the church of Christ when I first met him, but he asked me this question: "You gonna do this preaching here?" I said, "Yes, sir." He said, "Well, there's no need of you preaching to your people. Why you're not a nation. The gospel is not for you all--it's the nations--you're not a nation." He said something there. I don't really know how now what I am. There you are--I don't know. Really to tell you the truth I know I'm not [148] an African. I know that. But what are you, Keeble? I'm a natural born American. I was born in America and I am proud of the fact because it is the greatest country in the world. It's the richest country in the world. We are lending money now to everybody. We are feeding the world, ain't that right? Sure! Amen. America--who wouldn't be proud of the fact that he's an American? Who wouldn't? A man that isn't proud that he's an American he needs to get off somewhere and be examined. Something is wrong with him, mentally, my friends. He said the gospel is to all nations and you all are not a nation. "Well," I said, "what are you gonna do about Mark? Mark said go preach the gospel to every creature. So if I happen not to be a nation, I'm creeping around here." And that man couldn't answer that question. He walked right on off and never said another word to me and left the ground. The white brethren said, "Keeble, we're glad you handled that that way. He has been after us all day"--after the white brethren all day trying to discourage them.

I want to tell the colored people that are present here today if you are saved in heaven and you happen to recognize Mark, when you get there, shake hands with him. Ain't that right? Why? He's the only one that included all. Thank God for Mark. If I ever meet him, I'll say, "Mark, you took care of all me." Thank God. Matthew said "nations," Luke said "nations," Mark said "creatures." And we wouldn't know today that baptism saves us if Mark hadn't told us. Matthew didn't say that it saves, just told us what to baptize in--what name; Luke just tells us it starts at Jerusalem and he quits, but Mark says it's for "every creature." That includes the whole world--anybody that is eligible to believe the gospel has got sense enough to understand it according to Mark; he's eligible. Gentlemen, I'm proud of Mark.

And we're going over now to the tenth chapter of the book of Acts and show you what misunderstanding does--misunderstanding. Peter was down at Joppa. He had [149] the keys of the kingdom, but he misunderstood how to use them. He had let about 3,000 in on the day of Pentecost, he walked and talked with Jesus, he was on the mountain of transfiguration with him, he heard him say "go teach all nations," but yet Peter misunderstood that commission. He misunderstood it and when he gets down to Joppa he refuses to go preach to the Gentiles whom the Jews looked upon as dogs. He said I'm not going. God carried him up on a housetop and performed a vision there, a miracle you might call it, or whatever you want to call it. A net was let down knit at the four corners containing all kind of fowls and four-footed beasts of the earth and creeping things, rather, of the earth. and there was in that net, no doubt, a hog 'cause he is four-footed. The Adventists ought to read that and see that they can eat him now. God told Peter to slay and eat, and Peter stood up there on the housetop and told God he wasn't gonna eat it. When he got through with him, he was willing to eat everything in the net. Why did he eat it? He said, what I've cleansed, I've cleansed, don't you even call it common or unclean. That settled that. Peter didn't argue any more, came down off of the housetop and he finds six Jewish brethren that he brought there with him, they were down there waiting for him to come down. There were some other men there waiting for him to tell him they want him at Caesarea Philippi, at Cornelius' house, and they went up there.

Now I'm fixing to tell you something that ain't written now. Just what I'm fixing to say isn't written, but it is inferred. I'm reading now between the lines--I'm fixing to. Those six Jewish brethren went along with Peter, they didn't see the transaction on the housetop; they were not up there. Consequently, they don't know what happened. When Peter came down, no doubt they objected to going along with Peter. But Peter might have prevailed with them and got them to go on down there. It appears to me that there was a little discussion between them as they went on up there by the way the language reads. They [150] trodded along, it is possible, some of them said, Now Peter, I'll go along with you but I'm not going to have a thing to do with them--they're not in it nohow. Now Peter said, come on, something might happen to change your mind.

That ain't written, now don't you all go home and look for that. That ain't in there nowhere. That's what the Baptists ought to do when they're calling for mourners. They ought to say come on to the mourner's bench, but it ain't in the Bible nowhere--come on. Then the man would know whether to go or not. The same way with the Methodist when he's fixing to sprinkle. Tell the man to let you sprinkle some water on his head but it ain't in the Bible, then he would know whether to be silly enough to sit there. Now somebody says, Brother Keeble, that's the only objection we have had of you for years--you call names. But Jesus calls them, he calls them, and I don't think a better preacher lived. I don't think so. He called them, he called them. And when you find preachers dodging these names, it's a little dangerous--it's a little dangerous to dodge these names. Now the only way I would suggest that you call a name or you fight another man's doctrine, always wrap your message up so he can receive it. If you were to go to a store tomorrow, say for instance to buy meat, or steak or something, and the man just handed it to you without wrapping it up--without wrapping it up-- would you carry it dangling on out of the door? Wrap your messages up with love. Let the individual see that you're telling him because you love him and your messages will be well taken. I've never run a man off yet. If I did, he came back. You can tell them, you can tell them, but you must show to him that you are interested in his soul and you're not doing it with malice neither with prejudice, nor hatred in your heart, and he will take anything you tell him. Why you can call a man a liar, just straight out liar, if you know how to call him it! And if you don't know how to call him that, I would advise you not to call him that. So, therefore, names don't hurt [151] nothing; names help the gospel because the man knows you're not hinting at him.

You know, we have a lot of brethren today said now, when they stand in the pulpit and I have been sitting in the audience many times--I know what the preacher wanted to say--you could almost see him wanting to say it--almost. He said, you sectarians--there you are, there you are, and the denominational world--well that do sound good. But, brother, you don't get far. The man you're talking about doesn't consider himself what you called him. So you missed him completely. If you had said, Brother Baptist, and you could call him that without any violence to the Scripture, Ananias called Saul brother before he baptized him, so you don't hurt nothing--don't get excited, it won't hurt--that's the way you do it, and you call him that. Jesus walked up to the grave of Lazarus and called him by his name. But why did he call him by his name? If he hadn't called him by his name everybody in the cemetery would have got up. He called him by his name and Lazarus came out of the grave and Jesus told those who were standing by to just loose him; he didn't have the power to get up. You didn't have the power to raise him, but you can loose him. Whatever you can do, God wants you to do it. And that you can't do, impossible, He'll do it for you. That's the reason I believe in telling a man who you are talking about.

I was preaching in Los Angeles, California, about 20 years ago. There was a young white man in the audience--I talked about every church I could think of. I called every name imaginable that entered my mind, but I had missed this young man's church. Did you know he wouldn't sit down when I said be seated? He remained standing. He was about six feet, weighing over 200 pounds, in the middle of the tent-- he said, "What about my church?" There's a man mad, because I missed his church. There you are. It doesn't hurt, brethren, to call names. I looked at him, I said, I didn't know a thing about the Latter Day Saints--he says, "I'm a Latter Day Saint." I said, "What [152] are you? Latter Day Saint?" I hadn't said nothing about them because I didn't know nothing about them. I didn't know enough about their doctrine for me to discuss that, so I was puzzled as to how to answer that, and I asked him again, "What did you say?" I understood him at first, I'm thinking now while he is giving me his next answer--I had the answer for him--or rather his next question--I had my answer ready. I said, "You say Latter Day Saint?" He said, "Yes, Sir." I said, "You're too late." You're too late--too late! And when I told him that he sat right down. Did you know that that answer satisfied him? And the next night when the invitation was extended he came walking down the aisle and was baptized at the Central Church of Christ in Los Angeles. He was baptized that night; I went right on over--I wanted to see him baptized. and when he came out of the water and got dressed, I met him and shook his hand and congratulated him for not being ashamed of the gospel, and he said, "Bother [<>] Keeble, I don't stay in nothing too late"-- nothing too late--nothing too late! Gentlemen, it's wise to give these people an answer--if you got it--of some nature. I'll help a man--help him to see the light of the gospel of Christ if you call his name. That young man never would have obeyed the gospel had he not stood up and told me what he was. It doesn't hurt--it doesn't hurt--it doesn't hurt.

Now, I know this: Dr. Young is about all I know here that'll bear me witness on this. Somebody else might do it, but Dr. Young knows that many cases that he had had needed to be operated on, but he doesn't advise an operation right suddenly. He advised first precaution--see if we can scatter that--see if we move it through some other process. I hate to cut. No preacher here likes to stand up and cut on people; if he can preach the gospel and scatter it, why he'd like to do it, and if not take the Sword of the Spirit and cut it out--perform the operation. And that's what men and women ought to be willing to cut on--with the word of God--until they are stripped of [153] everything that might prevent them from entering the eternal city. And then again, Cornelius' case. When Peter preached to Cornelius and the Holy Spirit came down upon these Gentiles for the first time, Peter turned around and says this: "Who can forbid water?["] Don't that sound like they had had an argument? Don't that sound like an argument happened there? Can you all forbid water? Don't you see the Holy Ghost coming on them like it did us Jews down at Jerusalem? Can you kick on it now? It looks like, brethren, that's between the lines. Is that right? Something must have come up or he wouldn't have used that language. And then Peter said, now, now we know that God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is acceptable with him.

I'm closing with this. A few days ago in our chapel one of our students sent up there by the Rossville church of Christ--paid his tuition--might be some members of that church here--but they'll ge[<>] glad for me to tell this--a fine example for the other churches that want to help the unfortunate boy. This boy was sent up there and they paid his tuition for four or five years--$270 a year--furnished him clothes, that white church done that. I've never been there, but, this boy stood in chapel the other day and preached the gospel and 22 students came stepping down the aisle and they were baptized for the remission of their sins. That's a nice point there for Christian education. That't[<>] a nice place to tell you that you needn't to get scared of helping the school. I got something, ain't I, brethren? Now then, if that ain't missionary work, if that wasn't missionary, work,[<>] after dismissal some of you all tell me what that was. And that isn't the first time. I've preached there one time at the school when I was in, and 22 came forward and five of them were teachers. Now, somebody said, "Oh, oh, had teachers not members of the church!" Brother McMillan is going to experience this. He is going [154]to find that the colored man that's qualified won't want to teach for the salary that the Board authorized pay [<>]. You'll run into that, Brother McMillan. We ran into it. Our colored brethren and sisters said no. I can get so-and-so; I'm not going to teach for that small amount, and that forced us out there to get a Baptist, and to get a Methodist and finally got a Catholic as principal of the school. Now there all of you look at me excitable. I told this at Dallas. Brother J. W. Dunn was sitting in the audience, and when I said these teachers were not members of the church of Christ he turned right red, right red--he didn't like it. But when I said I baptized all of them--Catholic and all, the whole thing have been baptized--Brother Dunn said, "Hire some more of them!" Don't get excited. You preach the gospel--you can handle that fellow--hear the gospel every day. Ain't nobody can stand it every day, every day, every day, every day! There ain't nobody. He'll either have to quit or obey it. Now then, they were baptized. The principal was a Catholic at that time. And I wish to say to you, my friends, that the gospel has power.

Brother J. W. Brents, one of the best Bible teachers we have in the brotherhood, has been on our faculty now for about six or seven years, on our faculty. He says it is the greatest work he ever done in his life--and there isn't a greater missionary in our brotherhood than J. W. Brents. He hasn't done anything but missionary work since he has been in the ministry. But he says, this is his greatest work. That man ought to know what he is talking about with the experience he has had. And you brethren ought to take his word for it and not question him. That's the trouble with the church of Christ now--we try to question one another. You know, my friends, and not only that, a lot of these students that obeyed the gospel were girls that sit at the feet of Sister A. R. Holton every day. When these girls heard that boy preach why they were ready for the gospel because of the godly woman that teaches them in the classroom every day. So that [155] little boy didn't have much to go to get them to come out. They were already softened. My friends, you have to learn. And I don't think there's a better Bible teacher--now I don't mean no harm, Brother Morris, I don't mean a bit of harm--but I don't think you've got a better teacher than Sister Holton. You've got good teachers all right. Now I don't mean a bit of harm by that. Ain't nobody a better friend to me than Brother Morris, but I've got to let him know that what we have in our school on our faculty is equal to anybody in the brotherhood. Now you all don't know this. Sister Holton and Brother Holton and Brother S. H. Hall and Brother Goodpasture who teaches quite often in our school and comes out--and I'll tell you another thing about Brother Goodpasture--he preaches better for us than he does at his own church. Yes, sir. I'll tell you what Brother Goodpasture said one day. He preached for us one day and the students looked like they were taking his messages so good and taking it down, and when he did stop, he said, "This is closer to heaven than I've been in my life." Brother, he wasn't joking--the tears were in his eyes--it was the way we received his message. Not a greater man among us that[<>] B. C. Goodpasture, but he hadn't had nobody to stimulate him that way. You know Babe Ruth. Babe Ruth used to knock home runs. Why he had a right to knock them. He wasn't that much better than any of the rest, but the rest of them were not able to get their fans to back them up like Babe Ruth. When he started after the bat they commenced yelling. Who couldn't knock a home run? If you all were to yell right now I could knock one. Just ain't got nobody to do it.

I am in sympathy for the gospel preacher in the church of Christ. Why? He stands up to preach in a frigidaire. The congregation sits out there and try to free[<>] him. Some good pious brother just looks like a cake of ice looking at him. When I find one trying to freeze me I don't look at him no more. I want to say a word to the young gospel preacher. Don't get discouraged when they try to freeze you, 'cause they know a little more than you do and you're [156] just making your first effort of all and they'll try to freeze you. But don't get excited--you'll make it. I want to tell you what to do. When you see one trying to freeze you, you do like you do with your modern frigidaire--turn on your defroster. That's right. That's right. I've got a defroster on you all this evening; that's the reason you're smiling and encouraging me. You started in here freezing, but I have you defrosted.

I hope and pray that the day will come when we all can see this school headed by Brother McMillan and also endorsed by Dr. Young as the chairman of the Board of Directors, one of the greatest colleges in the world, educating boys and girls of the Negro race and preparing them to get out and meet anybody that rises up against the church of Christ. And these men will rejoice and when they are in their graves, beneath the sod, they will live in the hearts of these young men that go out and preach the gospel to a lost and dying world. Brother Morris and the faculty of this school will live on into the hearts of these boys and girls when they go out into the fields in foreign lands, they will live on and on in the hearts of these boys long after they have deceased.

I now conclude with this thought. May the grace of God dwell in your heart and may the grace of God cause you to look upon no race as being inferior, but let's make him what he ought to be and lift him on a higher plane that Jesus can bless you and give you a crown that fadeth not away.