I was reared 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 cord-wood to pay my high-school expenses; of
stumping, logging, and picking stones until the skin was worn off my
fingers and the stones were stained with my blood. I then thought that
mine was a very hard life, but I have long since looked back to those
boyhood experiences as God's way of providing me with a physique that
has enabled me to serve three years as a missionary in British North
America, where the winds were intensely cold and where I was once for
twenty-four hours lost in a blizzard at forty-five degrees below zero.
In sharp contrast, I have been twenty-eight years in India's tropical
heat. This was a preparation for my life-work and in my judgment is
God's general method with all his people.
When I was a boy of ten summers, a boyhood friend of my father's visited
him. They were taking a walk, and, unnoticed, I followed them. Then I
overheard my father's friend praise my brothers and sisters, but say of
me, "Frank will never amount to much." My father vigorously protested
and sang my praises until I made this resolution: "I must not disappoint
my father. I will do something worthy of consideration." 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 missionary sermon, at the end of which
he circulated a subscription. When the paper came to me, I said to my
father, "May I subscribe?" He replied, "If you earn and pay your own
money, you may." I subscribed one dollar. I had it earned long before
the collectors came around, and wished either that I had subscribed
more or that the collectors might come soon. That subscription was the
beginning which ended in my giving myself. Parents, give your children
a chance to link themselves definitely with Jesus in saving a lost world.