BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH ISO FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK HIS CONVERSION, CALL TO THE MINISTRY, AND OTHER SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCES TOLD BY HIMSELF WITH A FOREWORD BY W. F. OLDHAM, D.D. BISHOP FRANK W.WARNE OF INDIA HIS CONVERSION, CALL TO THE MINISTRY, AND OTHER SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCES TOLD BY HIMSELF WITH A FOREWORD BY W. F. OLDHAM, D.D. BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 150 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library https://archive.org/details/bishopfrankwwarnOOwarn FOREWORD Whenever a doer of Christian deeds appears we are all anxious to know the secret of his power, and the inner life of the fountain from which the streams of beneficent doing flow. When such a figure is seen against the far horizon of the heathen world our interest is even deeper. Frank W. Warne is one of the conspicuous figures of our day. Stalwart in build, tough in fibre, cease- less in activity, rarely effective and tireless in his ministry — since the retiring of the sainted Thoburn — Warne has been the senior Bishop and the out- standing figure of our triumphant India Methodism. If from anywhere in our foreign missions has come uninterrupted tidings of great and progressive victories, it has been from India. If anywhere tidal waves of salvation have swept great multitudes into an experience of full salvation in Christ it is here — in India. And at the front of all these jubilant hosts, crying “Jai, Jai, Isa ke jai — Victory, victory, victory to Jesus” — has been this strong leader of men. To have this man go into the deeps of his own life and in simplest fashion bare to us the secrets of his soul is to furnish us with a human document of compelling interest. The very simplicity of the story, the quiet earnest- ness, the deep sincerity of it add to its charm. Two things are very clear to me as I read it: First, whatever the language in which they convey it — all God’s effective servants bear witness to two epochal experiences. The easiest terms in which i these can be described are (a) the time of conver- sion, and (b) of entire sanctification. Many of God’s great saints are either unfamiliar with these terms or have been brought up to dislike and avoid them, or to prefer others. But whatever the terms used— the experiences will be found. You will find them in Bishop Warne’s story. And second, it occurs to me that those who profess and openly teach these experiences as being the marrow of the religious life and are anxious to continue on the errand Mr. Wesley set us to do, namely : “to spread Scriptural Holiness in all lands” — cannot find a better agency to do their work than the regularly organized missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church led by such straight teachers of a full Gospel of deliverance as Bashford of China and Warne of India. For thus we insure security of administration and fidelity to the doctrinal stand- ards of early Methodism. Read this pamphlet. Pray for the gathering masses of the India church. Help them. W. F. Oldham. 150 Fifth Ave., New York City, December 14, 1915. 2 HOW THIS CAME TO BE WRITTEN Being in America during 1915, in the vacation weeks I spoke at several camp meetings. In one instance after giving three addresses on the “Mass Movement in India/’ the leader, in an appreciative good-bye address, remarked, “You will notice that the Bishop has told us about missions, but has carefully avoided telling us anything of his per- sonal Christian experience.” I had assumed that it would be taken for granted that one who had given his life to the mission field had an experience. However, while in the train, on my way to another appointment where I would be an entire stranger, I selected a few epoch-making personal spiritual experiences and told them in an introductory address at the next camp meeting, and they proved a bless- ing to the audience. I once heard the story of a man who came to Chicago from New York, and introduced him- self to another man, who had a very wonderful spiritual experience, saying, “I have come all the way from New York to get your experience.” Quick as thought the Chicago man replied, “You can’t have it. Get one all your own.” The spell was broken and the stranger got one all his own. Our loving Father has as great a variety of experiences for His children as He gave them variety of faces. Each child of God can and should as certainly have an experience all his own as a face all his own. But while each must find his own experience, one may help another to seek it. For this reason, and particularly anxious to lead 3 young people and boys and girls into a definite ex- perience all their own, and in deference to the judgment of many others who heard me tell it, I have consented to let the story of my experiences be printed a little more fully but in about the form in which I told it at the camp meetings. F. W. W. New York, December 12, 1915. 4 BISHOP FRANK W. WARNE, D.D. OF INDIA MY ANCESTORS My Cornish grandparents, who lived to the age of over ninety, were Methodists and workers in their younger life with John Wesley. I visited their Cornish home in 1896, when coming from India to America to General Conference, and heard inspiring stories concerning the prayer life of my grandmother. It is there popularly believed even yet, that she healed the sick and wrought other miracles through prayer. My father came to Canada when a young man; he had inherited his mother’s power in prayer and was a Methodist local preacher for over sixty years. He died at the age of over eighty. MY YOUTH I was reared and worked on one of the hilliest, stumpiest, and stoniest Canadian farms I have ever seen. How vividly there come to my mind my boyhood experiences of chopping cordwood to pay my high school expenses, stumping, logging, and picking stones until the skin was worn off my fingers and the stones stained with my blood. I then thought that mine was a very hard life, but I have long since looked back to those boyhood ex- periences as God’s way of providing me with a physique that has enabled me to serve three years 5 as a missionary in British North America, where the winters were intensely cold, and where I was once for twenty-four hours lost in a blizzard at forty-five degrees below zero. In sharpest contrast I have been twenty-eight years in India’s tropical heat. At a farewell occasion while on a visit in that north land, just before leaving for India, a good sister remarked, “There will be no other man in all the Church who will be so well able as you to understand the hymn — From Greenland’s icy mountains From India’s coral strand. It has, therefore, for many years been my work- ing theory that God had a system and plan in build- ing my life, and that what He built into my boyhood was to prepare me for that which was to come later in life and this, in my judgment, is God’s general method with all His people. When I was a boy of about ten summers a boy- hood friend of my father’s visited him. They were taking a walk and unnoticed I followed them. Then I overheard my father’s friend praising my brothers and sisters, but about me he said: “Frank will never amount to much.” My father vigorously protested and sang my praises until I made this reso- lution: I must not disappoint my father. I will do something great. That hour I was intellectually awakened. Parents, let your young people know that you believe in them! About the same time our pastor preached a mis- sionary sermon at the end of which he circulated a subscription. When the paper came to our pew I asked, “May I subscribe?” Father answered, “If you earn and pay your own money, you may.” I wrote down my name for one dollar. I had it earned long before the collectors came around and 6 wished either that I had subscribed more or that the collectors might come soon. That subscription was the beginning which ended in giving myself. Parents, give your children a chance to link them- selves definitely with Jesus in saving a lost world! MY CONVERSION One evening at the setting of the sun, when a boy of about thirteen, my father said to me, “Water the stock.” Soon some boys arrived and, being a real boy, I forgot my work and played. A little later my father asked, “Have you done what I told you?” “Yes, father,” I replied. He knew I had not, and I even now recall how he said not a word, but walked away in the twilight, so burdened and bowed because of hearing a falsehood from his own boy that it suddenly gave him the appear- ance of an old man. The boys left and I watered the stock. Then, boylike, I forgot, went to bed and slept. During the next forenoon mother called me to her and said, “Do you know your father neither went to bed nor slept all last night?” I replied, “No, mother, I did not know. Why didn’t he sleep?” Mother’s answer was: “Your father spent all last night praying for you ” My saintly mother’s words and tears went through my heart like an arrow and rang like a bell in my ears and I became powerfully convicted of sin. Just following that a series of revival meetings were held in our church and I became a seeker and had no rest until I found it in penitence and a con- sciousness of pardoned sin. The revival services continued several weeks and a small boy was the only convert and the critics said, “He will back- 7 slide in a few weeks. The revival is a failure.” That “small boy” is now telling the story. How could I ever reward my now translated father for that night of prevailing prayer? I never could, but God rewarded him by letting him live to see that very boy become a minister, a missionary, and a missionary bishop. Just a few months after my election to my present office, God said to my saintly father, “It is enough. Come up higher.” Mother had entered into rest about two years before. How can I ever be sufficiently grateful for such a parentage and such a home? It is my hope and prayer that the story of my father’s night of prevailing prayer may encourage other parents to pray as he did. I do not believe that parents through prayer can break the wills of their children and compel them to surrender to Jesus, but I do believe that my father prayed until God sent such conviction through the Holy Spirit that sin became such an unbearable burden that I gladly yielded my will to the will of my God, prayed until my sins were pardoned, the burden removed, and I was genuinely converted. I firmly believe the same Heavenly Father will hear the cry of other parents, and for their encouragement I leave this testimony concerning God’s answer to my father’s fervent prayers. I joined the church after my conversion. I re- joiced many days in the delight of that precious experience. I had for months a real and precious joy in the consciousness of pardoned sin, but after a time I found that I did not have a continuous, abiding peace and rest. I tried as a boy very hard indeed to be good, and as I look back I believe that I lived a very correct outward life. I lived among a very godly people, who set a very high ideal before me, up to which I felt I could not live. I daily prayed: 8 Quick as the apple of an eye, Oh, God, my conscience make 1 Awake my soul when sin is nigh And keep it still awake. But I suffered many an inward defeat. MY SPIRITUAL STRUGGLES I cannot now recall that I ever heard a sermon on heart purity, on victory over the power of sin. No person in the church which our family attended professed holiness, nor do I remember that the experience was talked about. The people did speak of “having religion” and “more religion.” There were people in the congregation concerning whom I still believe that they lived holy lives, and the testimony of their lives convicted me, for I knew they had an abiding joy and peace in their “religion,” which I had not. I, therefore, became very dis- satisfied with my inner life, and was struggling all the time for an experience such as I knew others enjoyed. A man attended our class meeting, and his weekly testimony was: “I have just enough religion to make me miserable.” That is, he had too much religion to get his pleasure out of the world, and not enough to get it out of his religion. I always felt that that man told the experience I then had. Three years went by with that exceedingly un- satisfactory religious experience. Then our pastor announced a revival service in the church. Before the special services began I declared, as a boy, in the class meetings that “during the coming revival I will either get ‘more religion’ or I will leave the church and go back into the world.” This was a tremendously serious matter to me, for I felt that to go back was to be lost, and yet to advance in spiritual life seemed to me almost hopeless. 9 The meetings began and continued five weeks. Early in the revival services I made the same an- nouncement before the whole congregation that I had made in the class meeting, and went forward for prayers, though as a church member that was harder for me to do than it would have been if I had not been a church member, for I thought I was bringing disgrace upon the church. Many good people prayed for me privately and publicly. The weeks went by and I went forward to be prayed for night after night, but no relief came to my poor, burdened heart. As my case became more desperate I recalled the story of Jacob praying until the morning, and at the rising of the sun the angel appeared and blessed him. I decided to do the same and during the five weeks of revival I spent five nights praying under a great beech tree on my father’s farm. At early dawn I would slip into my room just before the others would rise. In all these nights of prayer I found no relief. On a Friday night the pastor announced that the revival services would close with the coming Sunday morn- ing service, and I had no more light or joy than when the revival began, and my announcement was out, which I fully felt I must keep. To me my condition seemed desperate and hopeless. MY ENTRANCE INTO A NEW LIFE On Saturday morning, about sunrise, I was on the straw stack in the barn yard, with a long hay knife cutting across the stack to loosen the straw to feed the cattle. While thus working, and in a despondent, meditative mood, wondering what more I could do, there seemed suddenly to float out before me in the air in illuminated letters: “John, three, sixteen.” I began to read : “God so loved the io world.” I caught at “the world” and reasoned, “I am a part of the world, therefore ‘God so loved me’ that ‘He gave His only begotten Son/ ” All was clear that far. Then I came to that all inclusive word “whosoever.” I stopped at “whosoever” and recalled the story I had heard of Richard Baxter, who said, “I would rather have the word ‘whoso- ever’ in John, three, sixteen, than to have ‘Richard Baxter,’ for then I would at once be tempted to believe it was for some other Richard Baxter.” I reasoned, “I know that my name is in that ‘who- soever.’ ” I then read on, “believeth on Him.” “Do I believe on Him?” This was the next question to be settled. I had during several years in com- petition for a Sunday school prize recited the whole four Gospels. In thought I ran over what the New Testament said about Jesus and cried out, “I believe every word of the Gospels. Lord, I do believe.” Then I read on, “shall not perish.” Quick as a flash I saw the weak place in my faith. I had been believing on Jesus, but fearing that I would perish. At this point I sprang to my feet on the straw stack and read it over again, “shall not perish; but shall have everlasting life.” Then I saw that I had through doubt treated the promise as though it read : “Shall perish; and shall not have everlasting life.” I cried out, “Lord, I will reverse it no longer, I will believe it as it reads,” which is : “Shall not perish; hut shall have everlasting life” Then I seemed to have another inspiration. I had long been troubled about understanding what it meant to believe. I had worked out a theory that if I could for a moment forget everything else in the world and see Jesus on the cross that would be “exercising saving faith,” and when praying I would find myself trying to do that. I now asked myself this question: “How do you believe your mother’s ii promises ?” The answer was at once: “I believe because I believe in my mother, the promiser.” The next moment I realized that believing mother’s promises was not a mental effort and struggle such as I had been going through for years, but a mental rest. I just believed that her promise was true without any effort whatever, not because I felt it, but because mother made it. Then I cried, “Jesus made this promise and I believe it.” Then I waited and looked again into my heart for the feeling ; but no feeling came. I then saw clearly, for the first time, that I was trusting partly in Jesus and partly to my feelings. Presently the Spirit showed me that feeling never saved any one, that only Jesus saves. I remember that, standing on the straw stack, I cried out, “Oh, Jesus! I put my all on thy promise and I will leave all with thee.” But, alas, again I waited for the feeling as a witness, and was sure it would come, but it did not come. I was still trusting partly in Christ and partly to feeling. I at last turned away from looking for feeling and cried aloud. “My Jesus, I stake my all on John, three, sixteen. If I never have any feeling and if I am lost I will quote this promise before Thee at the Judg- ment and say: I cast my little all upon it and trusted it, but it failed me. It is not my fault, it is Thine.” I had at last come through years of struggling to where I trusted wholly in “the word of the Lord.” Then suddenly I received a definite assur- ance that I was saved and a great heart-warming peace and joy. At last the Spirit’s witness was mine. I leaped from the straw back, ran to my mother, threw my arms around her neck and shouted, “Mother, I am saved! I am fully saved! I am fully saved ! ! !” 12 I had not up to that time had any teaching con- cerning an experience of sanctification or holiness, and had heard no testimonies concerning such an experience except the testimony of the life of Chris- tians who were living it and professing it under other names. There was in the congregation, where I worshiped, a sweet-faced, white-haired saint, whom we called “Mother Robinson.” She had prayed a drunken husband into the Kingdom and my memory, even to this day, recalls her very high type of Christian experience, and I want to bear my strongest possible testimony to the power there is in the testimony of a pure, sweet and kind life. Now after years of study and hearing the testimony of many, it is clear to me that during these years as a boy I had prayed myself through to the “Abiding Life” and what I now believe to be the experience of “Scriptural holiness,” which, as I understand it, is such a freedom from sin, self-will, and selfishness and such a passionate love for Jesus that it makes the heart long, above all things, for His approval, companionship, guidance, and blessing and that gratefully and joyfully gives Jesus “in all things the preeminence.” THE NATURE OF “THE ABIDING LIFE” To me the higher and highest possible Christian experience is taught by Jesus in His saying: “He that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit.” This is the way in which it all came to me, and, on the basis that each child of God can and should have an experience “all his own,” I love to call the highest possible experience in Christian life “The Abundant Life” or “The Abiding Life.” I love this terminology with all my heart because it describes 13 a life of holiness in the language that Jesus used, and because it makes it all so clear. What fruit would the owner of a vineyard expect from the branch of a vine that had been pulled out and stuck in again and did not “abide in the vine?” Just recall the promises that follow in the teachings of Jesus concerning this abiding experience. To my thinking the sweetest promises in all the Bible concerning answers to prayer, glorifying God and God’s love, are given us by Jesus in connection with His saying, “Abide in me,” while the same utterance gives us a clear-cut statement of the fruit- lessness and uselessness and certain destruction of those who do not have and retain this abiding relation to Jesus Christ. Read again with these great truths in mind: John fifteen, verses five to eight : Already ye are clean because of the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, so neither can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches : He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit : for apart from me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in me he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask what- soever ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; and so shall ye be my disciples. Then in verse nine comes what is to me the most wonderful statement concerning God’s love for His people in the whole Bible. I can never forget keeping a morning watch while I was yet a young man, reading Christ’s description of the highest spiritual life as above quoted, that is “abiding,” when suddenly verse nine stood out as really mine. 14 I read it again and again and again and ever since I live on it, and rejoice in it. “Even as the Father hath loved me, I also have loved you.” I reasoned; God is infinite in love, and that love is lavished on His Son. I suddenly that morning came to realize that Jesus had taught concerning those who abide, that as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who are one, love each other, they unitedly love “even me.” The glory of this new revelation, of the infinite depths of Divine love for the abiding believer, as it came to me in that morning watch through the teaching in the ninth verse overjoyed me, and it has held my heart ever since. I once had an invalid woman in my congregation. She always brought to church her Bible, which had very large print. The church had provided her a special seat and a resting place for her big Bible, and I noticed that whenever I in the pulpit would refer to a verse she would turn to it. I became greatly interested in her Bible and one day in her home I took that Bible and found over the pronoun “you” in John fifteen, nine, printed very neatly with red ink her name, which was “Ella Baker,” and, as I read in her Bible. “Even as the Father hath loved me, I also have loved Ella Baker.” I said: “Ella, your amended verse is as true as anything in the blessed Book.” I anew realized and rejoiced in the fact that if I lived the “Abiding Life” I could put my name over the pronoun “you” in John fifteen, nine, as truly as did Ella Baker,” and that the amended verse would be as true as any other verse between the lids of my Bible. The same is true for you. 15 HOW TO ABIDE? That is a vital question. Jesus always exemplified His teaching by His Life, so in His answer to this, a vital question to every earnest heart, Jesus gives us a clear cut simple answer in words whose con- ditions only require that we should do “even as I have” done. Hear His answer as found in verse ten : If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in His Love. Obedience to Christ solves all the mysteries of how to abide. THE JOY OF THE LORD How I wish I could bear a word of testimony that would help the boys and girls and young people in our homes to see that being a Christian is not to be long-faced or sad-hearted. Some young people seem to think that being a Christian is to obey a series of “Don’t”— “Don’t”— “Don’t”— “Don’t do this,” and “Don’t do that,” until they come to think that to become a real Christian is to surrender all the pleasures there are in life. Such teaching is an unforgivable libel on Christianity. In sharpest contrast with all such false concep- tions concerning the true Christian life, hear Jesus, in verse eleven, of this chapter, sum up the whole matter : These things have I spoken unto you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be made full. “Fullness of joy,” and no long, sad, unhappy faces, is what Jesus has provided for all who abide in 16 Him. His joy is a joy greater, a joy that will last longer and go deeper into your soul than the joy of Abounding health Ambitions attained Abundant wealth and all other purely earthly joys and pleasures com- bined, for it can be truthfully said of all these “They shall cease” but “Love never faileth.” Now let me close my testimony and understand- ing of the “Abiding Life” by bringing before you a better cluster of grapes than the spies brought out of the promised land. It has been hung up for us by the great Apostle, the greatest interpreter of the teachings of Jesus. Look at it. Faithfulness, love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control, tem- perance. Can you not hear the Apostle Paul, as he read over this dictation of the Holy Spirit and meditated upon its fulness and its harmony with Christ’s declaration “He that abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit” say: “Yes, against such there is no law.” I was sixteen when I entered into that new ex- perience; now I am sixty. I want to testify to the praise of His Blessed Name that the consciousness of my “living in Him” which came into my heart during that straw stack experience has remained with me through all the intervening years. I now call it “My abiding life” or “My abiding bless- ing.” What I learned in those years of comparative 17 spiritual darkness, while seeking for a more restful experience, has given me much sympathy for, and insight into the difficulties of others who are in doubt and has enabled me to help so many seekers that I now look back to those years as a very vital part of the preparation for my life work. MY MOTTO-TEXT Some time after I had entered into this experience there stayed over night in my father’s home a good man, and in the morning, conducting family prayers, he read the Thirty-seventh Psalm — that matchless Psalm — and when he came to the fourth verse, which is: “Delight thyself also in Jehovah and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart,” the good man lifted his eyes and looked down at me over his spectacles and said : “That would make an ideal life motto for you.” As I thought of it as a motto, I saw that it contained the same idea of abiding as given in the teaching of Jesus and it made such an impression upon me that I took it and for twenty-five years it had more influence over my life than any one of the verses in the whole Bible. At first, I thought if I would just delight to do the will of Jehovah, He would give me whatever I wanted, but I soon came to see it could not mean that, for I might desire things that were not right, but wrong, and I knew Jehovah could not be a partner in anything that was wrong. But as I meditated carefully over its meaning, all became clear. I found it meant that in this “abiding life” I would be given new desires and that my new desires would be only for things that were right. To abide in Christ is to be so changed inwardly as 18 to hate the evil and love the good. That is what happened in my case. I soon found that I had New desires New affections New aspirations and ambitions and I think it could scarcely be possible for any one to have continuously a happier life than mine has been, for with these new desires flowing into my branch life from the vine life, I have been doing just what I have wanted to do all my life. Now, when one can do just what he wants to do he surely should be happy, and when one can add to that “the witness of a good conscience” and be conscious of God’s approval, surely that is ideal happiness. Here again a “covenant keeping God” according to His riches on a divine scale has blessed me “exceeding abundantly above” all my highest desires or thoughts. MY CALL TO THE MINISTRY During these years of my struggling up toward the “abiding life,” my eldest sister, one of God’s chosen vessels, was slowly but surely being worn down with tuberculosis. Her patient suffering through a term of years had centered our thought as a family on her, but the dread disease continued its work. I never can forget one winter’s night, after a fall of beautiful snow, when the earth and trees were white. It was at the hour of the setting of the sun, when I saw mother holding in hers the hands of my sister, ‘which were so thin as to be almost transparent, rubbing them to warm them. I can still see my sister’s angelic face, and hear her voice as she looked up and said, “Mother, my hands will never be warm again in this world.” Then she called us one by one and said “goodbye.” *9 I had never witnessed a death. The glow of the setting sun was on my sister’s face, and it seemed as if I could hear the rustle of the angels’ wings as they came into our home and carried my sister's spirit back to God. It was glorious, but when it was over a loneliness indescribable settled down upon me. I wept much during the days preceding the funeral. We took my sister’s body from our home to the church, amid throngs of friends. Her coffin was placed in the front of the pulpit and, as a member of the family, I sat on the front seat. I had wept until I could weep no more. Our pastor, greatly beloved, arose and announced as his text the comforting words of Jesus to the sor- rowing Martha: “I am the resurrection, and the life; he that believeth on me, though he die, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall never die.” Our pastor opened his sermon, saying, while pointing to the coffin, “Our sister beloved is not in this coffin, only the frail house in which she taber- nacled is there. She is with Jesus.” I know noth- ing more of what he said. I saw vision after vision of my sister amidst the heavenly hosts and behold- ing Jesus “as He is.” I was lifted into higher realms of revelation and inspiration than I had ever known. Before the close of the service I had reached the conclusion that a religion that could give a boy such a salvation as I had, and such a triumphant dying victory as had been given my sister, and that could give such divine consolation to a sorrowing family at a funeral service, was worth preaching. Before that funeral sermon had closed, I had heard and answered the call to the ministry, and my life was unalterably consecrated to preach that glorious gospel. I had then no thought that I would be 20 honored in preaching it to the non-Christian world, but I had dedicated my life to the ministry and the outcome was with Jesus. EARLY PASTORAL EXPERIENCES (a) A Camp Meeting Experience I pass over my school and college days and my first circuit to tell of my second circuit, which was north of Toronto, among well-to-do farmers, once devout but now wealthy and worldly. During my first sermon in one of the churches on the circuit, I exhorted the people to have a camp meeting. While riding to my next appointment I wondered why I had done that : it was not in the sermon I had pre- pared, and I was entirely unacquainted with the conditions. But as the days went by it became a settled conviction that the exhortation came from the Master. On every hand I met opposition, but the conviction deepened, and I began to talk and plan and work for a camp meeting. I found an unconverted farmer who gave me the free use of a beautiful grove in exactly the right place; a mill owner loaned me his oxen and wagon and I went to work hauling lumber. When the people saw my persevering doggedness, enough persons rallied to my help to prepare the encampment. The first day it rained, the second and the third it poured, and my faith was severely tested. But on Saturday morning, the fourth day, the weather was glorious. A little Irishman preached, and took for his text, “Launch out into the deep and let down your net.** While he preached the downpouring rain of the former days was turned to spiritual downpourings, and the enthusiasm arose all day Saturday and Sunday. While the preacher was preaching Sunday night, I witnessed a scene that was new. I saw 21 people getting up and gathering into groups asking each other’s forgiveness, and persons who had not been on speaking terms embracing each other. Before the preacher had finished, it seemed as if no one was listening. Many were gathered into family groups and praying, others had geen getting into their carriages to start home, but they were under such conviction that they feared to proceed and returned to pray. The praying increased till about midnight when fifteen people were carried to their tents overcome by spiritual power and seem- ingly in a trance. Some continued in that condition until the next day and when they came out of the trance their faces shone with a light from another world. The camp continued several days longer than I had planned. I too became well nigh over- powered by the might of the Spirit. A revival broke out that continued in marvelous power for months in the various churches of the circuit and it proved to be one of the most wonderful experiences of my whole life. I tell it because of the lesson I learned which has entered permanently into the working principle of my life and which later took me to India. It was this — It pays to live up to your very highest inner light and all the leadings of the ever blessed Spirit. I must pass over a wonderful three years’ experi- ence as a pioneer missionary in Manitoba, with the remark that it gave me great opportunity for service and enlargement of outlook. I came from Manitoba to Evanston, and, since I am telling only my religious experience, I wish to remark concerning my theo- logical course that the “St. John of Methodism,” Dr. William Xavier Ninde, was the president of the Theological School and I came under the influence of his holy life, which has been a lifelong inspiration. 22 ( b ) Drawing the Net While a student in Evanston I was a student pastor in Pullman. One night at the close of the sermon I noticed a very devout Swedish brother, an officer of the church, kneeling at the altar weep- ing. I asked him the cause of his sorrow. He looked up through his tears and administered a rebuke which has greatly influenced all my ministry. He said: “Brother Warne, how do you expect to catch fish if you do not draw the net?” Then I learned that there was a wayward son in the home and that all the Sunday had been given up by the father and mother to prayer for his con- version at that evening service. The son was present, the sermon was to the point, the parents were claiming victory by faith, when to their very great disappointment and dismay I suddenly closed the service without giving an opportunity for decision. I afterward sought the boy privately and he gave himself to Christ, but I learned such a lesson that from then until now on all suitable occasions I have “drawn the net.” (c) “Obedience is Better than” Wealth Very early in my ministry I came into close fellowship with a cultured young man who had inherited a prosperous business. He took me into his confidence and confessed that he had been defi- nitely called to the ministry, but added: “I have refused the call because I am unwilling to go through life in poverty. I have determined to be rich.” He thought he recognized business ability in me and urged me to go into business with him. When I refused, he remarked, “You’re a fool.” I moved after a couple of years to another place, 23 and I heard years went by of a number of fires in which that man’s mills had been burned and of other reverses. I went to India and the man and the story were well-nigh forgotten — and more than a quarter of a century passed away. But just after I was elected to my present office in the Auditorium, Chicago, I was taken by a friend into the basement of one of Chicago’s great buildings to see its won- derful machinery. As I walked around I came upon the once wealthy friend of my early ministry working with a shovel in that basement on very small pay as a day laborer. I tell this sad story to say that both experience and observation have assured me that God cares for the needs of all who are wholly true to His call to the ministry, but, alas for those who disobey and forget that “obedience is better than” wealth! OUR CALL TO INDIA I went from Pullman to be pastor at Austin, 111 ., and had an ideally happy pastorate among lovely people, but early in my third year I was strangely impressed that something was going to happen that would change my whole life, but what it was I did not know. At the Des Plaines Camp Meeting in July I presented myself for days as a seeker after light on the problem. The camp meeting closed without any new light, but the impression was deepened. I continued my pastoral work until the Rock River Conference session in the autumn of 1887, without any clearer understanding of the im- pression. One forenoon, during the Conference session, I turned my face toward the door and saw Dr. Thoburn entering (he was not then a Bishop), and I began to clap my hands in an applause of welcome. Others joined me, and the Conference 24 kept it up until the presiding Bishop suspended business and Dr. Thoburn made his speech. He began in his own inimitable quiet way, told of the millions in India who had never heard the name of Christ, of over forty millions who were so poor that they nightly went to bed without sufficient food to satisfy their hunger, with only enough to continue their existence. Then he contrasted that with the Rock River Conference conditions, where men were crowding and competing for admission, and raised his left hand, stretching it out over the audience — I can see it yet — and said : “I call the young men of this Conference to India in the name of the Master/’ As suddenly as a flash of lightning my long drawn out mystery was solved and I knew the interpretation of the abiding impression — GOD HAD CALLED ME TO INDIA I trembled all over and shook the seat. I had thought I was ready for anything, but this was more than I had expected. My wife was not at the Conference, and I could not make my decision without her hearty cooperation. Dr. Luke Hitch- cock, that white-haired saint, was Presiding Elder. I went and told him my story, and he said: “Take your appointment and say nothing here. Then if during the year you go to India, I will provide for the Austin church.” I took his advice, and my appointment. A friend and his wife came home with me, arriv- ing just at dinner time. When we were seated and grace said, I remarked: “Well, wife, what do you think happened at Conference?” She replied, “I do not know; what was it?” I answered, “I have been asked to go to India.” Our friends threw back 25 their heads and laughed at the very idea of Frank Warne going to India and there for the time being the matter dropped. I resolved to say no more about it until I could have a quiet and long talk with my wife. Our friends remained three days, the lady rooming with my wife. On the third morn- ing they left before breakfast, and, as soon as grace was said at breakfast, my wife announced, “Frank, it is all settled.” I inquired, “What is settled?” She replied, “Going to India.” I remarked, “You surprise me. How did it happen?” She answered, “The very moment you mentioned it I knew we were going and I had to get ready.” I, in astonish- ment, asked, “How did you do it?” She replied, “I began by giving up father and mother” — her mother was the saintliest of the saintly, and she never saw her after she left for India — “I gave up one by one — my country, my friends, and so on, one thing after another until I came to the baby.” Here she broke down; the only baby that ever blessed our home was then a few months old. My wife continued, “I have had three sleepless nights, but toward this morning I heard as it were the voice of Jesus saying, ‘Give the baby to Me and I will give her back to you / and I answered, ‘Lord Jesus, I surrender the baby ; I am ready/ ” I fear I had hoped that I could hide behind my wife. I had, however, decided that a matter so far reaching should not be finally settled hastily, but should be prayed and thought over carefully and be genuinely tested before action. I took to reading all the books I could find on India. Shortly after- wards I received a letter from Dr. Thoburn, telling me he wanted me for a Bombay church, asking when we would be ready to sail. I replied, not refusing to go, but saying, “If you find some one 26 else to take that church, may I take that as a token that God does not want me to go?” I received in reply a letter from him in which he carefully re- viewed my case and wrote, “You seem to me to be like Moses before the burning bush, seeking an excuse and finding none. Go and it shall be well with you. Refuse, and” — the “and” was at the left of a new line, and he filled out the line with a long black, heavy stroke all the way across the paper, thus — “And That meant to me that if I refused the Divine call my life’s outcome could be only a very black line and nothing more, and I saw that black line for days. Well, to be short, we went, not to Bom- bay, but to Calcutta, and I tell this story of our call to India to bear my testimony to the fact that we serve a “Covenant-keeping God.” Our separation from the home friends and the placing of our tiny baby into His hands has been greatly rewarded in our Indian home. The child has been preserved in health and we have found many friends as dear as those we left behind. My testimony is that God has kept his promise with me as faithfully as he did with Abraham and for that which we have given up “for my name’s sake” he surely has given to us “an hundred fold.” WHAT CONSTITUTES A MISSIONARY CALL I have ever since rejoiced that I tested my call until I could not doubt it. Many a time in India, when the burden has been overwhelming, have I gone into my room, fallen upon my knees and said, “Oh, Lord, I am here not by my choosing, but by Thy calling. Help me.” And here again I want to testify that our God is a “covenant-keeping God.” 27 I understand that many teach that a realization of the need and an ability to go constitute a call to be a ioreign missionary. I would add from my experience and long observation, that in my judg- ment a genuine call to foreign missionary work requires in addition to the above an abiding con- viction that Almighty God has chosen and called one for that specific service. I could not urge any one to go to the foreign field who does not have such an abiding inward conviction. I believe that I would have given up under the strain of the con- tinuous burden in India had I had any doubt con- cerning God's having called me to India — “even me." LATTER EXPERIENCES (a) A Pacific Ocean Experience It would be a long story to tell much of what has happened since I have been a missionary. It would be the story of working with my beloved fellow missionaries and a great body of wonderful and self-sacrificing Indian ministers and people, and seeing more than 300,000 souls come out of the non-Christian world and become Christians. I will, however, venture to tell of an ocean experience, after my election to my present office. It was neces- sary that I return immediately to Manila, and in crossing the Pacific I set apart one Sabbath day for fasting and prayer, preparatory to entering upon my new responsibilities. I had remained in my cabin most of the day, the sea was rough and the wind high. Toward evening I came on deck and watched the rolling of the majestic billows on the surface of the mighty deep. I meditated on the marvelous contents of a single drop of water as revealed by the microscope and then on their in- 28 comprehensible numbers in that great ocean, which it took twenty days to cross, until the thought of the power, wisdom, and love of God as manifested in the ocean under me, whose mountainous waves had thundered against and washed the shores of two great hemispheres for unnumbered centuries, filled me with a spirit of reverential worship. Then followed a vision of oceans of divine grace, infinitely broader than the mighty deep. Since that vision whenever I have thought of the great con- tinent of Asia, a continent containing ten hundred million souls, I have by faith seen her surrounded by all sufficient oceans of infinite grace, and my faith in her salvation has never wavered, and in this way God in His everlasting goodness gave me, His child, a very special preparation for my new and overwhelmingly difficult task. (b) A Lucknow Experience When the news, not of an advance but of a cut in the missionary appropriations, came to India in 1911, at a time when as never before there were open doors on every hand, it was to me a time of very severe testing. Under that pressure I went one Sunday morning in December to worship in our English-speaking church in Lucknow. Nothing out of the ordinary happened, until the congregation began to sing the stanza — Pass me not, O mighty Spirit, Thou canst make the blind to see, Witnesser of Jesus’ merit, Speak the word of power to me, Even me, even me. Suddenly I had a new and inward illumination concerning the infinite power of the “Mighty Spirit,” and how He could enable “Even me,” the blind, to 29 see through all the financial and other hard prob- lems, and “speak the word of power to me.” The load was lifted by the power of the Holy Spirit, and a wonderful quietness, consciousness of strength, and sense of victory filled and thrilled my soul. The congregation sang on — Love of God, so pure and changeless, Blood of Christ, so rich, so free, Grace of God, so strong and boundless, Magnify them all in me, Even me, even me. Then in addition to the “Mighty Spirit” of the first stanza, the “Love of God,” the “Blood of Christ,” the “Grace of God” for “even me” as mentioned in the stanza being sung, they all sud- denly seemed to combine and assume for me a fuller and richer meaning than I had ever known, and more nearly, than at any other time in my life, I could enter into the thought of being caught up into the third heaven with a question as to whether I was in or out of the body. Again at a time of over- whelming need when under a crushing burden God gave me, “even me,” strength through an extraor- dinary spiritual illumination. He is a “covenant- keeping God.” (c) An Atlantic Ocean Experience On the Atlantic, on my way to the General Con- ference of 1912, I again set apart a day for waiting on God for a preparation for whatever might await me, and again these verses in all their uplifting power would come back, but instead of the “even me, even me” of the chorus, there would persistently come into my mind “even the whole Methodist Church.” Then I lived it all over again, and was rejoiced at all I saw for all Methodism as an in- 30 heritance in the “Mighty Spirit,” the “Love of God,” the “Blood of Christ” and the “Grace of God.” How earnestly I prayed that our beloved Methodist Church and all the churches in a new, and fuller, and more wonderful manner might enter into their glorious inheritance, in the infinite “Love,” “Grace of God,” and the “Mighty Spirit.” May our God hasten in its glorious fulness that eventful day ! ABSOLUTE SURRENDER TO GOD After a long and wearying service on a very hot day in an Indian District Conference I came into a missionary’s bungalow to throw myself on a couch to rest. As I crossed the room I saw on a table a book of sermons. I picked it up to look it over before I fell asleep, and as I glanced at the texts I saw the preacher had taken as one, “And He went a little farther alone and fell on His face and prayed.” My curiosity was aroused to see what he would make out of that text, and so I began to read his description of Jesus leaving in Jerusalem, the world that had rejected Him, then the eight, then the three, His nearest and dearest friends. And then He went “a little farther alone and prayed.” “And His sweat became as it were great drops of blood falling down upon the ground.” But three times He prayed, “Not my will, but Thine.” “And there appeared unto Him an angel from heaven, strengthening Him,” and He arose in that strength and went forth to the Cross, there to redeem a lost world. It came to me in a new sense as I read on, that no follower of our Christ could ever come to his highest and best until, like Jesus, he would leave the world, his ambition, his friends, his nearest and dearest friends, and go “a little farther alone,” and there receive a conscious per- 3i sonal revelation of the Father’s will and plan for his life and service, and be strengthened, and in that strength go forth to do his Father’s special work for him, with a blessed, soul satisfying, per- sonal experience All his own. Brother, sister, Have you done it? If not, Will you do it? 32 “Freely Ye Have Received , Freely Give” Bishop Warne’s experience is published by the Department of Foreign Evangelism, a Department of the Board of Foreign Missions, not for the pur- pose of raising money for missions, but to sound the true note of evangelism. We believe that it will encourage parents to pray, lead young people to Christ, and give them Scriptural instruction con- cerning conversion, consecration and sanctification and show them how to commit their lives intelli- gently for service into the hands of a “covenant- keeping God.” We invite you to share in the circulation of this booklet and will cooperate with you by sending it, with or without your compliments as you may indicate, to all whose names and addresses you send us on the reverse page. You might wish to send a contribution for its circulation and permit us to supply the names. Any of your orders will be supplied at the regular price of ten cents a copy, sent by you to James M. Taylor, Department of Foreign Evangelism, 150 Fifth Avenue, New York City. MY COVENANT I, — — — — , hereby freely and fully give my will, my heart, and my life to Jesus Christ, and pledge myself to follow Him as Saviour and Lord. I will definitely seek to do the will of God and will especially covenant, so far as in me lies, to promote the Kingdom of Jesus Christ throughout the world, dedicating thereto my time and talents so far as God may require, and not less than a tenth of my income. I will seek to develop the intercessory prayer life and will daily remember Christ’s missionaries at the throne of grace.