Lee Hanks - A Biographical Sketch
The Gospel Messenger, 1889 I was born in Pittsylvania County, Virginia, June 13, 1861, and was the youngest of twelve children, of whom were nine boys and three girls. My parents, William and Frances Hanks, were not members of any denomination. (I baptized my mother last summer.) My parents were extremely poor. My father was badly afflicted and died of consumption when I was a very small boy, leaving a wife and eight children. When my father died we were very destitute; he did not have a hat or coat to wear and we were destitute of provisions. We made one little piece of meat do us from April until late in the fall, and of course had but little meat and but very little bread. I suffered greatly with hunger, and have gone to neighbor's houses and begged for a morsel of bread. I have suffered so greatly that I could eat lard or candles, or almost anything. The first hat I ever had I was going on fourteen. I have had to labor in the winter, and my feet cracked open and the blood would run out on the cold ground. I was turned out without a home at the age of eight years and six months, and have had to wander from place to place and receive the severe abuse of infidels and wicked persons. My clothes were so ragged I have often had to tie them on me with hickory bark. I knew' nothing of the advantages of going to school or even associating with good society, but was looked down upon by those who had superior advantages. I cannot find language in so short a spice to tell of the severe abuse and the sufferings of hunger and cold. My mother was feeble and went from place to place. At the age of fifteen, while living in Bland County, Virginia, where I had taken my mother, and we had cleaned out an old stable and split slabs for a floor, and we were living in the stable and a portion of the time had to exist on Irish potatoes, I was there enabled one night to see that I was forever lost and to view the justice of God in my condemnation, yet previous to this I had been very moral at times, and had had many serious impressions about my eternal welfare, yet I did not think it would take long for me to get religion (as it was called). But there I saw the elect of God in their glorified state all adorned in heavenly draping and I was cast off with the wicked where I soon had to forever make my abode in an endless perdition with demons. Oh! the deep agony of soul that I was in! My sins were as mountains before me day and night. My heart, I saw was a sink of sin, being deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. I would go away off to find a place to pray, but no place was secret enough for me. I would fall upon the earth and my tongue would cleave to the roof of my mouth. My heart was as hard as adamant. I tried to cry but could not cry; I tried to pray but could not pray, yet that awful burden was pressing me down as a mighty weight that I could not get rid of. I could not wear it off in society; the more I tried to work the deeper in sin it seemed to sink me. I was brought to see that I was helpless, my strength gave way, and I looked around me and the earth was shrouded in darkness; there were no charms on earth for me. I felt that I should soon die and be forever lost, and I started to go to the woods to pray once more before I died, and my strength gave way and I was sinking down, it seemed. While there in that awful dilemma I cried as I thought for the last time: "God be merciful to me, a poor, lost sinner." My burden was taken away and my whole being seemed robe filled with love sweeter than ever before, and all things in creation seemed to be praising God.
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