Tom Slaughter was the brother of my mother's mother's father's mother.
He was a medical doctor who was injured in the Civil War and left
on the battlefield. He prayed that if he could survive that he would
devote his life to the ministry. He became a well-respected
Methodist preacher in Alabama. There was a man in his congregation who
was a drunk and wife-beater. Time after time, the man would come to
the front to pray for forgiveness of his sins. Finally, after one
of these 'conversions,' when the man was at the front of the church,
Tom prayed for the man to be forgiven, and for God to kill the man
that instant , before he had a chance to break his word again.
Although the man didn't die anytime soon, 
it did scare the wits out of him .

Robert Stapleton's Family Photo Gallery