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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.)

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