Chapter 1—Counsel to Missionaries en Route to
Africa
Moss, Norway
June 18, 1887
Dear Brethren on Your Way to a Distant Field of Labour,
I have desired to talk with you, but dared not, because I have not felt
that I had strength to do justice to any subject in private conversation.
When before the people I am always sustained by the Lord.
There is great importance attached to the starting in right at the
beginning of your work. I have been shown that the work in _____ has
been bound about without making that decided advancement that it
might have made if the work had commenced right.
Far more might have been done with different modes of manage-
ment, and there would have been less means actually taken from the
treasury. We have a great and sacred trust in the elevated truths com-
mitted to us. We are glad that there are men who will enter into our
mission fields who are willing to work with small remuneration to
open the truth to those who are in the darkness of error in far-off
countries for the love of Christ and their fellow men. Money does
not weigh with them in the scale against the claims of conscience and
duty.
The men who will give themselves to the great work of teaching
the truth are not the men who will be bribed with wealth or frightened
by poverty. But God would have His delegated servants constantly
improving. In order for the work to be carried forward with efficiency,
the Lord sent forth His disciples two and two. God has a church, and
these churches are organized on the foundation of the apostles and the
prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone.
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No one man’s ideas, one man’s plans, are to have a controlling
power in carrying forward the work. One is not to stand apart from the
others and make his plans and ideas the criterion for all the workers.
There is to be with the individual members sent forth together, a board
for counsel together. One is not to stand apart from the others and
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