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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 the missionaries should be consulted in the matter. The conditions then existing in South America were attracting the attention of the Christian world. Some countries, notably Equador, were for the first time being opened to missionaries. The sore need there appealed to me and led to correspondence with others in reference to that field; but no one was ready to go there. Later I learned from Brother Engle that he was led to Africa, the country of his early call. The location was immaterial to me, for my call was to the neediest field, and I soon realized that Africa, with its unexplored depths, its superstition and degradation, its midnight darkness, was surely in need of the Light of Life.

The cheering news soon came that Miss Alice Heise also had applied and been accepted as a foreign missionary. That increased the number to four.

At the General Conference in May, 1897, at Valley Chapel, Ohio, the following report was given and adopted:

Report of the amount of money in the hands of the Treasurer of Foreign Mission to date, $693.46.

Four candidates presented themselves for the foreign mission field and have been accepted as follows: Elder Jesse Engle and Sister Elizabeth Engle, his wife, of Donegal, Kansas; Sister H. Frances Davidson, Abilene, Kansas; and Sister Alice Heise, Hamlin, Kansas, and if approved by Conference, it is recommended that they should be ready to start for their field of labor as early as September or October, provided that sufficient means are at hand to pay their passage to their place of destination, which means are to be raised by voluntary contributions as the Lord may direct, and to be sent directly to the address of each of the missionaries.

The Board recommends that to complete the number of workers there should be one more added to the number in the person of a brother as an assistant to Brother Jesse Engle.

The Board further recommends that the Conference now in session select some well qualified brother to fill the vacancy occasioned by Brother Jesse Engle on the Foreign Mission Board. Brother W. O. Baker was appointed to fill the vacancy (provided Brother Engle should go); all of which is respectfully submitted.