After I had returned from the war, I took the needed rest, enjoyed
the company of my family and got myself together for a new life. I
had the consciousness of having done my duty to my country, of having
contributed something to the liberation of my people from the galling
yoke of slavery, and now the time had come in my life for me to
determine upon what course I could enter that would contribute most
to the working out of the salvation of my people upon lines of peace
and prosperity. This was no little task. I decided that the best way
to find out what God wanted me to do, was to follow the leading of
His Providence in my life. I knew of no other way by which a man can
ascertain the will of God. God is in the life of every individual as
fully and really as He is in the life of a race or a nation. So I
surrendered myself to His leading, determined that I would follow Him
whatever might be the cost. I felt a double assurance now that He had
delivered me from death in many bloody struggles, that He had something
of importance for me to do. I was not content to take up the old life
that I had lived before the war, to remain in the fields of manual
labor, not that I considered myself above such a life, but I felt that
there was a course that would be vastly more valuable to my brethren,
to my race. And I did not consider it egotism to honestly conclude that
God had given me talents that warranted me in seeking such a course.
“To every man according to his ability,” is the law of service. A man
must find out what his ability is, God already knows what talents He
has already alloted to this or that man according to his ability. In
this way and this way only, can God and man be brought together, in the
work of life.
[Illustration: BISHOP JABEZ P. CAMPBELL, D. D., LL. D.