If it will not be out of place, I would like to state
here a bit of personal experience. In 1886 the General Conference
Committee wrote to me, stating that they wished me to go to New Zealand,
and asked what I thought about it. It was a new suggestion; I did not
understand it; I did not have any definite light; but to be a good,
obedient servant, I said to the brethren: "I do not know whether I ought
to go or not, but if you think I ought to go, I will go; but I will ask
you to take the responsibility of the trip." I had been taught by
precedent, and believed the talk I had heard in Conference matters, that
that was the way to go; but after my letter had gone, I was aroused, and I
was told that that was not the position at all for me to take. I was made
to realize that I was the servant of the living God, that He had called me
to preach the gospel. The field was His, and He was the Lord, and He was
to tell me where I ought to go. The brethren might make a suggestion, but
God must tell me and make me understand it: and I will tell you, brethren,
I went off up into a barn, and I got down there in the hay, and I told the
Lord all about it. I told Him I was His servant; He was the Lord, and He
must tell me whether I ought to go to New Zealand or not. And I stayed
there until God did tell me, and I got just as clear evidence that the
Lord wanted me to go to New Zealand.
I came down from the haymow, went to my desk, and wrote
another letter to the General Conference president. I said: "I want to
take back what I have written; I want to tell you that I know where God
wants me to labor. He has called me to New Zealand, and I am now ready to
go there, and to go for life, and take the responsibility that will be
connected with the trip." I wrote it, and God let the peace and light come
into my heart. Brethren, I took my things, what little I wanted to take, a
couple of trunks,-I cut the tethering line, and I said, as far as I
understood it, an everlasting farewell to everybody in the United States.
I went to New Zealand for life. I never expected to set foot in this
country again. I thought the Lord would come before this, and that when I
met my relatives and my brethren, I would meet them either on the way to
heaven or around the marriage table of the Lamb. That is the reckoning I
made in that thing.
When I got there, I found difficulties, and it was not
long till great darkness came over the situation. But, brethren, in all
the darkness and difficulties of fourteen years, I have never had a single
doubt as to my field of labor. I have known that I stood where God placed
me; and when darkness came I knew there was light beyond. That knowledge
sustained me and brought me into light and victory.
I believe that God wants us to get our bearings. He
wants us to know where we stand. He wants us to stop conferring with flesh
and blood in this matter. God is our Lord; the field is the world; all
souls are His, and we are debtor to all; and we are here at this
Conference to hear the voice of God speaking to us regarding the awful
claims of the world, and telling us where we are to labor, and to whom we
are to administer the loving ministry of our lives. 0, I pray that God
will select His men here, and baptize them for service. Are we going to
dally with these things forever? Are we going to let this Conference pass,
and receive no clearer impressions than we have had regarding our duty to
the world, and then go back to our homes to live the same humdrum life,
and wither and narrow down?-God forbid. I tell you brethren, there is a
different experience for us. I know this is a good time for every minister
of Jesus Christ to feel for the foundations, and to find them. (General
Conference Bulletin 1901, p. 49.)