At the age of sixteen I was soundly converted, and I am glad to be able to say that I have never lost that first precious experience. After laboring for 'five years in the mission field, I was ordained to the gospel ministry, and at that time I realized a quickening of spiritual life, and during the entire twelve years of my ministry the Lord has wrought through my humble efforts for the conversion of many precious souls.
For many years the subject of righteousness through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ has been my favorite theme of study and meditation. I have long loved to contemplate the meaning of the cross. In the year 1928 one of God's apostles came to the isolated mission where my wife and I were laboring, and conducted a series of studies on the cross and its deeper meaning. As I listened to these studies, the deeper significance of the cross and its mighty salvation began to dawn on my mind, and I was led to pray most earnestly that God would reveal to me those things in my life which were hindering me from receiving the outpouring of God's Holy Spirit.
As I prayed, God began to point out to me one sin after another, and I was astonished to find so many things in my life which were out of harmony with His will. I found that to clear the King's highway was no small task. It required that difficult confessions must be made,—to write letters of confession concerning things, seemingly insignificant, that happened fifteen years before; it brought me face to face with the question of debt. But 0, what freedom came when at last my conscience was clear, and I knew I was free from condemnation.
As the months passed I encountered some experiences which led me to feel that I was not appreciated; but how little this mattered to me, in comparison with the experience of entering into sweet fellowship with my Lord.
I also found that when once the King's highway was cleared, it was a joy to endeavor to lead others to Christ, and souls that had resisted the Spirit of God for twenty years, yielded with only a few words of earnest entreaty, and made an immediate and full surrender to Christ.
With the richer experience came a greater determination to study daily God's word and the writings of the Spirit of prophecy, and this study has become more and more precious to me. The preaching of the word has become so much freer and easier, and God has richly blessed my own soul while bringing blessing to others.
I care not for position. My one ambition Is to save as many as I can for Christ, and to lead my wife and children into the kingdom. I do not presume to have attained perfection in Christian experience, "but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."
A Foreign Missionary