”DEAR SIR: Your letter has just come to hand, and thanks for it. I am glad you saw father, for your sake, for his, and for mine. Touching the question of our former conversations, this is my position: My pride tells me that if the only question in life were personal advantage, he is on the right road who is _developing truth within himself_, and the road to truth lies in _one’s own self_, and not in the place where he lives. But my conscience tells me, and, I thank God, my whole heart goes with my conscience, that the grand question in human life is the work of benevolence—the doing good on _our_ scale, just as God does on _His_. I am sure that the shortest road to one’s own happiness is by making others happy. Now, in this work, the labor of _usefulness_, if there be one thing which, above all others, I especially abhor, it is this _cant_ talk about ‘_taking care of one’s influence_’; going where one can ‘_use his influence to best advantage_’; refraining from this or that for fear ‘_of ignoring influence_,’ and all suchlike trash. A man’s _influence_ is simply the shadow which _usefulness_ casts. Let him look out that he is _doing enough_, and doing the right things, and then he may spare all time usually employed in looking after his shadow lest it should give him the slip. “As to _where_ a man shall live and labor I have no plan, no theory except this: That God has a very sufficient ability to make Himself understood when He wants a man. A man should work _just where he is_ until he is clearly _called_ somewhere else. This keeping one’s ear open to hear if God is not calling, this looking out every little while to see if one is not wished for somewhere else, is rather of the nature of _self-seeking_. A minister, like a maiden, ought not to make the first overtures, nor to be over-eager to have them made to him. “Now, I set forth this long preamble because it has occurred to me that my situation and my conversations with you were a little _queer_, and that it was worth while to state explicitly where I stand. “Whenever it clearly seems to me that God has work for me to perform, I shall, I hope, perform it, wherever it lies and whatever the work may be. Moreover, when God has work for me in another sphere, I do not doubt that He will make it so plainly His voice that calls me that I shall be in no more doubt about it than Abraham was when called to leave his native land or when called to offer up his son. I have no plan for staying here, or for going to the West, or for going to the East. I leave it entirely with Him who called me to the ministry where I shall live, where and when I shall die; and in all fields, actual or contemplated, I do desire above every other thing to have a heart prepared to receive that welcome _call_, joyous to every one who has tasted of the powers of the world to come, _to go up and labor in a higher field_, with ennobled faculties and results, every one of which shall be both perfect and illustrious.