Tom Haire is a rare compound of deep, tender devotion, amazing good sense and a delightful sense of humor. There is about him absolutely nothing of the tension found in so many persons who seek to live the spiritual life.
Tom is completely free in the Spirit and will not allow himself to be brought under bondage to the rudiments of the world nor the consciences of other people. His attitude toward everyone and everything is one of good-natured tolerance if he does not like it, or smiling approval if he does. The things he does not like he is sure to pray about, and the things he approves he is sure to make matters of thanksgiving to God. But always he is relaxed and free from strain. He will not allow himself to get righteously upset about anything. "I lie near to the heart of God," he says, "and I fear nothing in the world."
It is not with Tom Haire the Irishman that we are concerned here, however, but with Brother Tom Haire, the servant of Christ. So fully has he lost himself in God that the text "Not I, but Christ," actually seems to be a reality in his life. I think I have never heard him quote the text, but his whole being is a living exemplification of it. He appears to live the text each moment of each day.
After two years of growing acquaintance with and increasing appreciation of this man of faith I concluded that I owed it to the Christian public to share with them some of the good things God has given me through His servant Tom Haire. I have long felt and still feel that the practice of writing up living men and spreading them before the public is questionable. Especially is it bad when new converts are seized upon as gospel propaganda and paraded before the world as evidences of the truth of the Christian religion. Converted cowboys, opera stars and such have so completely captured the attention of the Christian public that it has become increasingly difficult to hold a sober view of the faith of our fathers. I do not want to contribute to this delinquency in any form, but I felt that a man who has been praying for fifty years as Tom has, and whose long godly life has been open to critical examination for that time, was safe material for a brief write-up. And besides, Tom is just a plumber, not a celebrity, so any interest he may arouse among Christians is bound to be spiritual.
After Tom is gone someone will undoubtedly write a book about him. In the meantime, there are thousands of persons who might profit by knowing something of his life and teachings now. So low has the level of spirituality fallen among the churches that it is imperative that every effort possible be made to raise it; and one effective way to inspire Christians to press onward into the deep things of God is to show them that there are a few saintly souls among us even now, that the complexities and iniquities of the twentieth century have not wholly destroyed the art of prayer and spiritual communion of a Biblical quality. This knowledge may easily do more to encourage men and women in the pursuit of God than a thousand sermons could do.