Church History Minute notes: Calvary Covers It All

Walter Taylor – Calvary Covers It All

Born in 1865 in Pittsburgh, Walter Taylor was an ideal student. He got great grades and had a great reputation. However, there was a darker side to him: as a youth, Walter ran with a gang. As a youth, he habitually broke into rail cars, stole from street vendors, and seemed to love to cause havoc. He was very adept at avoiding getting caught.

As a young man, his overriding interest was making money. Walter, nobody knowing about his darker side, got a teaching credential. He moved from teaching to contractor work, to auditing, and back to teaching again – always chasing the jobs that paid more money. Eventually, as a young man in his early 30s, he became an executive in a Chicago-based pharmaceutical company and later became one of three men who entered into an agreement to buy the business.

With his life looking up, tragedy struck Walter in 1896. His young wife struck ill and died. She was a godly woman, a partner who begged him to come to faith – something he snidely mocked her for. She asked to have women over for prayer meeting – another thing he stubbornly refused. At her funeral, when all others had gone, he was alone in his room. Remembering all the vile things he said about her faith, all the complaints he gave her about her faith, he fell to his knees. In his heart, he realized that she was in Heaven and that if it had been him in the coffin, that he would not have gone to Heaven. On his knees in his own room, he came to faith.

Taylor wanted very much to serve his Lord. He prayed that God would extract him from his pharmaceutical company contract. Not long after, his two partners asked if they could buy him out of his part of the partnership – something he readily agreed to. Feed from the financial burden, he threw himself into Christian work at the Y.M.C.A. He then attended Moody Bible Institute while volunteering at Chicago’s Pacific Garden Mission to the homeless. It was at the mission where he was set to sing a gospel song and he asked if there was a pianist who could accompany him. A woman named Ethel, visiting for Christian work from Cleveland, stepped forward. She played the piano and accompanied him vocally – and their voices meshed beautifully together. In 1898, they were married.

Walter took his bride to a mission in Colorado, ministering to coal miners and rail workers. After that, he accepted a position in Montreal. While both ministries were fruitful, he later acknowledged that he was, in fact, running from God’s true calling of him to minister to the homeless. He resisted because he remembered working in Chicago’s Mission, and specifically remembered catching lice from a man he had put his arm around. He finally surrendered to God’s call when the Pacific Garden Mission called him back to lead the ministry. Walter and Ethel, known affectionately as ‘Ma’ and ‘Pa’ Taylor, expanded God’s Kingdom among the most beat-up people in society.

It was during their tenure there that Ethel noticed a man in the service. He was called “Happy Mac” – an alcoholic and a former dancer. She and Walter had shared the Gospel with him many times and, despite his reluctance, he kept coming back. This time, however, was very different. She could see him intently listening to the words of the sermon – and could see that he was clearly troubled. Catching up with him afterward, she asked him how he was doing. “Mac” broke down, grieving his sin, saying “You don’t know how bad I am. I can’t be saved, I’m just too bad.”

Ethel, remembering the words a guest speaker had used recently, told him, “Mac, Calvary covers it all! All the sin of your past life, Calvary covers it all!” “Mac” asked her to repeat it and she did. God used those words to bring “Mac” – later to become the great evangelist Walter MacDonald – to faith.

Reflecting on “Mac’s” conversion, Ethel later went alone into the mission worship center, sat at the piano, and wrote the words to the great hymn, ‘Calvary Covers It All’:

Far dearer than all that the world can impart; Was the message that came into my heart;

How that Jesus alone for my sin did atone; And Calvary covers it all.

Calvary covers it all. My past with its sin and stain;

My guilt and despair Jesus took on Him there,

And Calvary covers it all.

The stripes that He bore and the thorns that He wore; Told his mercy and love evermore;

How my heart bowed in shame as I called on His name, And Calvary covers it all.

How matchless the grace, when I looked on His face; Of this Jesus my crucified Lord;

My redemption complete I then found at His feet, And Calvary covers it all.

How blessed the thought, that my soul by Him bought, Shall be His in the glory on High;

Where with gladness and song I’ll be one of the throng, And Calvary covers it all.

Christian History e-mail: 09/03/2021