May 6 – Miracles on the Gallows
Psalm 97:10: Let those who love the Lord hate evil, for he guards the lives of his faithful ones and delivers them from the hand of the wicked.
The miracle occurred at Columbia, Miss., on February 7, 1894, when Will Purvis, an innocent 21-year-old farmer, was to be hanged. In Marion County in 1893. On the day of the hanging, 3000 men, women and children thronged the scene at Court House Square. Deputy sheriffs tied his hands behind him, tied his ankles together. One held the black hood ready, Will declared, “I didn’t do it. There are men out there who could save me if they would.”Near the Court House steps was Rev. W. S. Sibley, pastor of the Columbia Methodist Church. He had visited Purvis in jail and converted him; until then, Will had belonged to no church.Their one hope was that God would act. The night before the hanging, Rev. Sibley held a prayer meeting by torchlight in the Court House Square where hundreds knelt. After this meeting Rev. Sibley went to pray again with Will. The condemned man, chained to the floor, was completely calm. “I have no worry,” he said, “over the destiny of my soul.”
The next day, as the black hood was placed over Will Purvis’ head, Rev. Sibley and those who doubted Will’s guilt again prayed together aloud: “Almighty God, if it be Thy will, stay the hand of the executioner.” The black hood was placed over Will Purvis’ head. The Sheriff said, “God help you, Will Purvis,” and threw the lever. The crowd cried out as the body shot down through the opened trap door and the rope jerked hard.Purvis lay on the ground under the gallows, the black hood still over his head, his hands and feet still bound. He was very much alive. Rev. Sibley leaped to the scaffold and cried to the crowd, “People of Marion County, the hand of Providence has slipped the noose. Heaven has heard our prayers. What do you say, friends? Shall Will Purvis be hanged again?” “No! No!” they shouted. The miracle had changed their minds. They began to sing, to shout, to praise the Lord. No new evidence was discovered, but public opinion turned. The God-fearing citizens of the community were convinced that a sign from Heaven had declared Will Purvis’ innocence. And now the hand of man took hold. Will was granted an extraordinary favor by officials of Marion County. He was transferred from the strong jail to the shabby little prison in his home town of Purvis, “so he could be near his friends for the last weeks of his life. ” Probably the officials were not surprised when, a few days before Will’s sentence was to be carried out, a mob overpowered the guards at midnight and rescued him.
Then a new governor was elected. During his campaign he had declared that a miracle had been performed, and he had promised to commute Will’s sentence. Will gave himself up, and his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. Two years later, in response to a petition signed by thousands of citizens, including the District Attorney who had prosecuted him, Will was pardoned. He was free not because any new evidence had been found but because the majority of the people of Mississippi believed that God had overruled the jury’s verdict.He moved onto a back-country farm, and a few months later married the daughter of a Baptist minister.
God heard their prayers and saved his life. “Miracle on The Gallows,” Reader’s Digest, January, 1945, by Jerome Beatty (Adapted by Beatty from an article by Charles F. Furey in 1934 and from the “True Life Story of Will Purvis” published by Will Purvis in 1935)
Rita
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