Related Letters - 1907.12.30 Molloy to Baring-Gould

# Letter > C. M. S. Kienyang, > Via Foo-chow, S. China > Dec 30th 1907 > > Dear Mr. Baring-Gould > > It has been my privilege (a privilege in which I have never felt worthy) to serve the Lord as a C. M. S. missionary for the past eleven years, ten of which have been spent in Fuh-Kien. > > Now God has shown me that He has a life of even greater privilege for me, in which I shall serve Him in direct and entire dependence upon Him for all things for body, soul and spirit, therefore it was necessary to write to you (as I have done today through the C. M. S. Secretary officially) and through you to the Committee, resigning my connection with the C. M. S. This letter is intended for such an explanation of my resignations as seems due to the Society, which sent me to the Mission Field, and has maintained me here so many years. > > The immediate occasion of my resignation was a minute passed by our Women's Standing Sub-Committee on June 25th, asking out different District Committees to appoint representatives on a Review Committee to meet before next Conference in direct contravention of min. 45 of our last Women's Conference, when it was decided that no such Committee should be formed, and also the further action that has been taken in the matter since June; but the causes are various, and will be necessary to go back some time in order to explain them. > > In 1899, the connections between believer's baptism and full salvation was brought before me, and after some months I satisfied myself that it was a mistaken idea---one of the devil's snares for hindering the usefulness of God's people. The following year the questions of entire sanctification as attainable in this life was brought before me, but in this also, like the Pharisees of old, and in the same spirit, I "frustrated the counsel of God" concerning me. Later on, before going home on furlough the debt on our C. M. A. Association (Victoria) so troubled me that I felt I should be obliged to resign, yet afterwards when at home, God did not seem to set me free from the obligations I had incurred by becoming a member of the Society, and so though I saw the higher level of service, I came back to Fuh-kien on the old footing. > > This year God in His mercy has been pleased to bring all these questions before me again, and to give me another opportunity of possessing His best. First of all in Japan this summer, having made me willing by reason of all the failure in my life and the lack of power in my service, for His way of deliverance at all costs, He revealed to me though one of His servants the meaning of 1 Jn 1.7 as regards the power of the cleansing blood of Christ, and that revelation is making a complete revolution in my life. > > Since returning from Japan in all the work throughout the district it has been a time of finding out sin, and during the past three weeks God has led Miss Sears and me to spend much time in waiting upon Him to find out His will for ourselves and the work, and also as to what action we should take with reference to the Minute of Women's Standing Sub-Committee as mentioned above. For me the result of this time of prayer was that on Dec. 18th I ceased to be in heart a C. M. S. missionary and on Dec. 27th I perceived clearly, while in prayer with Miss Sears, that God's Word teaches only one baptism -- the baptism of the believer by immersion and I now only wait for an opportunity to be so baptized, realizing that "the sole way of holiness lies through obedience", and that the first step in obedience is baptism. But it was not baptism that brought me to the decision to resign, but rather the fact that in these past months God has been taking me back to His Word, and showing me that it is still His will for His people in these last days to work on apostolic lines. Therefore there has come a fresh call to 'come out' and be 'separate' from all that is of the world, so that the worldly spirit of "New Regulations" (which after the whole constitution of C. M. S., and seem to some of us almost to amount to a breach of faith with us its agents on the part of the Society), and the evident determination of these in authority at-home and in the field to force these regulations upon us in however modified a form and gradual a manner, would alone be sufficient reason for resigning. Also, while I fully appreciate the good work done by the C. M. S. and other Societies worked on similar lines, it has become increasingly plain to me that it is no longer God's will for me to remain a member of a Society that raises funds by any but the one method of the prayer of faith, and my decision has been hastened by the change in C. M. S's. financial policy of late, in inviting people to invest their money with them. > > I should like to express my deep sense of indebtedness to C. M. S. during all the past eleven years, which I feel have been of little profit to my master and the Society, but of greatest profit to me, as I have learnt to know more and more of God through all experiences and I trust that, what now seems to have been in many ways but a training-time, will issue in a more profitable and fruitful ministry to the glory of God's name. > >I cannot close either without telling how very grateful I am to the Rev. H. S. Phillips and Mrs. Phillips for all their kind help and sympathy since they welcomed me to the North West a little more than four years ago, nor how much I regret having to take a course of action, which on the face of it seems such a poor return for all this kindness, and threatens to cause real embarrassment in the carrying on of the work here. As I said in my other letter to you, my furlough will be due next March but if the Committee should so wish I am willing to stay on here till the summer, pending other arrangements being made for the working of Kienyang. > >With very kind regards and thanking you and the Committee for all past favors and labours on my behalf. > >I am > >Yours faithfully in the Lord, > >Margaret E. Molloy