David Wilkerson - The Cross and the Switchblade: A True Story

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Table of Contents

FROM DELINQUENCYTO DELIVERANCE

Dear God, Im the dirtiest sinner in New York. I dont think You want me. If You do want me, You can have me ...

As Nicky talked, a hush fell over the room. For we were witnessing a miracle....

Books by David Wilkerson

THE CROSS AND THE SWITCHBLADE
(with John and Elizabeth Sherrill)
RACING TOWARD JUDGMENT
THE VISION

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THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
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THE CROSS AND THE SWITCHBLADE

A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

PRINTING HISTORY
Twenty-three previous printings
Jove mass-market edition / October 1977

Copyright 1962 by Dave Wilkerson.

All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form
without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in
violation of the authors rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

eISBN : 978-1-440-67396-2

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To my wife, Gwen

CHAPTER

THIS WHOLE strange adventure got its start late one night when I was sitting in my study reading Life magazine, and turned a page.

At first glance, it seemed that there was nothing on the page to interest me. It carried a pen drawing of a trial taking place in New York City, 350 miles away. Id never been to New York, and I never wanted to go, except perhaps to see the Statue of Liberty.

I started to flip the page over. But as I did, my attention was caught by the eyes of one of the figures in the drawing. A boy. One of seven boys on trial for murder. The artist had caught such a look of bewilderment and hatred and despair in his features that I opened the magazine wide again to get a closer look. And as I did, I began to cry.

Whats the matter with me! I said aloud, impatiently brushing away a tear. I looked at the picture more carefully. The boys were all teenagers. They were members of a gang called the Dragons. Beneath their picture was the story of how they had gone into Highbridge Park in New York and brutally attacked and killed a fifteen-year-old polio victim named Michael Farmer. The seven boys stabbed Michael in the back seven times with their knives, then beat him over the head with garrison belts. They went away wiping blood through their hair, saying, We messed him good.

The story revolted me. It turned my stomach. In our little mountain town such things seemed mercifully unbelievable.

Thats why I was dumbfounded by a thought that sprang suddenly into my headfull-blown, as though it had come into me from somewhere else.

Go to New York City and help those boys.

I laughed out loud. Me? Go to New York? A country preacher barge into a situation he knows less than nothing about?

Go to New York City and help those boys. The thought was still there, vivid as ever, apparently completely independent of my own feelings and ideas.

Id be a fool. I know nothing about kids like that I dont want to know anything.

It was no use. The idea would not go away: I was to go to New York, and furthermore I was to go at once, while the trial was still in progress.

In order to understand what a complete departure such an idea was for me, it is necessary first to know that until I turned that page, mine had been a very predictable life. Predictable, but satisfying. The little mountain church which I served in Philipsburg, Pennsylvania, had grown slowly but steadily. We had a new church building, a new parsonage, a swelling missionary budget. There was satisfaction for me in our growth, because four years earlier when Gwen and I first drove into Philipsburg as candidates for the empty pulpit, the church didnt even have a building of its own. The congregation of fifty members was meeting in a private house, using the upstairs as the parsonage and the downstairs for the sanctuary.

When the Pulpit Committee was showing us around, I remember, Gwens heel went right through the parsonage floor.

Things do need fixing up a bit, admitted one of the church women, a large lady in a cotton print dress. I remember noticing that her hands had little cracks around the knuckles and that the cracks were filled with dirt from farm work. Well just leave you to look around.

And so Gwen continued her tour of the second floor alone. I could tell by the way she was closing doors that she was unhappy. But the real blow came when she opened a kitchen drawer. I heard her scream and rushed upstairs. They were still there, scurrying about: seven or eight big fat black cockroaches.

Gwen slammed the drawer shut.

Oh, Dave, I just couldnt! she cried.

And without waiting for me to answer, she raced to the hall and ran down the stairs, her high heels clacking loudly. I made hurried apologies to the Committee and followed Gwen over to the hotelthe only hotel in Philipsburgwhere I found her waiting for me with the baby.

Im sorry, honey, Gwen said. Theyre such nice people, but Im scared to death of cockroaches.

She was already packed. It was obvious that as far as Gwen was concerned, Philipsburg, Pennsylvania, would have to find another candidate.

But things didnt work out that way. We couldnt go before evening because I was scheduled to preach the Sunday night service. I dont remember that it was a good sermon. Yet something about it seemed to strike the fifty people in this little house-church. Several of the rough-handed farmers, sitting there before me, were blowing into their handkerchiefs. I wound up the sermon and was mentally getting into my car and driving out through the hills away from Philipsburg when suddenly one old gentleman stood right up in the service and said,

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