id="Page_21" class="x-ebookmaker-pageno" title="[21]"/> for foreign mission work, then sat down. This action brought matters to a crisis. Here was missionary money and something must be done with it.

After consultation it was decided that the donor be appointed Foreign Missionary Treasurer, and any desiring to donate should give their offerings to him; and that, as soon as sufficient money was in the treasury to justify the measure, active steps would be taken toward sending out missionaries. By the close of the day thirty-five dollars had been placed in the hands of the Treasurer. The funds increased slowly but steadily.

At the Conference of 1895 held in Ontario, "A Foreign Mission Board, consisting of Brethren Peter Steckly, B. T. Hoover, and J. E. Stauffer, was appointed to hold office for five years, subject, however, to the advice and control of General Council." At the next meeting of Conference in 1896 in Pennsylvania, "The Treasurer of the Foreign Mission Fund, J. E. Stauffer, submitted his report, and he was congratulated for his successful effort. The amount in the treasury is $419.60." This amount had been donated in two years. These data have been given that it may be seen how the work has grown.

At this meeting it was decided that the funds had increased sufficiently to take an advanced step. The Board was increased to twelve members with an operating board of three. Of this Elder Samuel Zook was appointed treasurer, Elder Henry Davidson, chairman, and Elder Jesse Engle, secretary. The Board was empowered to secure volunteers for starting a work among the heathen in some foreign country, no particular country being designated.

Of the General Board of twelve members, Brethren Peter Steckley, J. R. Zook, and Peter Climenhage are still on the Board after a lapse of eighteen years.

Just what was done in the interim I cannot say, but on January 15, 1897, there appeared in the Evangelical Visitor the following:

AN APPEAL

We would call attention to the fact that the committee appointed at last Conference is ready to act on the foreign mission work, but up to this time they have received no applications. Why is it? Does the Lord not speak to some hearts? Or is it because the Church is not praying the Lord of the harvest to send laborers into His harvest?

The field is white. The harvest is ready. Who will go forth in the name of the Master, filled with the Holy Ghost, ready to lay his or her life down for the cause of Christ's salvation to the heathen? It means something to be a foreign missionary. It means a full sacrifice of home, friends and self—a perfect cutting loose. But, praise the Lord! when it is done for Christ's sake and the Gospel's, we shall receive an hundredfold in this life and eternal life in the world to come.

The Lord has provided money—somebody was willing to give it, but who will give himself? I believe the Lord has spoken to your heart. Just say, "Lord, speak, thy servant heareth." And if the Lord tells you to go, don't do as Jonah—try to get away from the Lord—for as Jonah did not fare well, neither will you. But if you obey God, He will go with you into the ship. We are ready and waiting to receive applications, but somebody must be willing to obey God or the work will be delayed while souls are perishing.

If the Lord lays it upon your heart to give because you can not go yourself, please send your donations to Elder Jesse Engle, Donegal, Kansas, as he is the committee's secretary and will keep a correct account of all money received and hand it over to the treasurer. The committee has not decided yet where the field shall be, but will decide when such workers present themselves as are believed to be called of God. South Africa has been spoken of; also South or Central America. No doubt God will direct when the time comes that somebody is willing to go. Who shall it be?

SAMUEL ZOOK.

At that time I was teaching in McPherson College, Kansas, and was greatly enjoying the work. It was my seventh year at that place, and just the day before the article had appeared I had entered into a verbal agreement with the other members of the faculty to remain for some years, the Lord willing. No thought of the foreign field had entered my mind previous to this, except a readiness for whatever the Lord had for me to do. Up to that time I verily thought I was doing His will by being in the classroom.

The day that "The Appeal" appeared in the Visitor, it was read like the other matter and nothing further was thought of it; but the day following the Lord came to me, as it were, in the midst of the class work, in the midst of other plans for the future, and swept away my books, reserving only the Bible. In reality He showed me Christ lifted up for a lost world. He filled me with an unutterable love for every soul who had not heard of Him, and with a passionate longing to go to worst parts of the earth, away from civilization, away from other mission bodies, and spend the rest of my life in telling the story of the Cross.

We prefer not to dwell too minutely on the feelings of that sacred hour. Sufficient to say that there and then He anointed me for service among the heathen. Not that I have measured up to all that He placed before me on that day. On the contrary I have fallen far short; but the consciousness of that call has ever been with me, and has strengthened and kept me, in the thickest of the fight in heathen lands. Even when the battle was sore and defeat stared me in the face, the conviction that it was His appointment and His work for me kept me fast.

My first step was to go to my colleagues and ask to be released from the agreement into which I had entered with them. They were as much surprised at the turn affairs had taken as I had been, but readily agreed not to stand in the way of the Lord's call. A letter was then sent to the Mission Board, informing them of the call to service and my readiness to go and at once if they deemed it advisable to send me.

Much had been said about missionary work and many had seemed eager to go, so that I somewhat tremblingly awaited the result, feeling that they might not consider me fitted. At the same time a private letter was dispatched to my father, who was Chairman of the Board, telling him of my convictions and call. A letter came first from dear father. He had been quite unprepared for the news contained in my letter, and his answer can best be summed up in two of his sentences: "How can I say yes? and how dare I say no?" He closed the letter by advising me to wait a year or two until others were ready to go. The official letter from the Board through the Secretary, Elder Jesse Engle, stated that I was the only applicant so far and had been accepted, but that there would be time to finish the year's teaching. It was quite a surprise and disappointment to me to learn that there were still no other applicants, but not long afterwards word came that Elder Jesse Engle and wife were likewise seriously considering the question.

He, as many of my readers know, had realized a call to give the Gospel to the heathen while he was still a young man, but probably from lack of encouragement and from other seemingly insurmountable obstacles had not obeyed. Now, at the advanced age of fifty-nine years, he still felt that his work was not done; and he was ready to enter the field, if his way opened, even though it might appear to be at the eleventh hour. And she, who had nobly stood by his side for so many years, could still say, "My place is beside my husband. Where he goes I too will follow."

In the meantime the question as to the location of this first missionary venture was beginning to agitate the minds of some of us. The Board felt that