MILK PAIL TO PULPIT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18180, 28 August 1922, Page 8

MILK PAIL TO PULPIT.

WOMAN AS PREACHER. A REMARKABLE CAREER. ["WC TEtKGEAPH. —SPECIAL REPOBTER.] ' ■'■'■• WELLINGTON. Saturday. A remarkable world-wide soul-saving campaign was inaugurated 14 years ago by a Canadian farm girl, then in her 'teens—Mrs. Aimee Semple McPherson. She arrived at Wellington by the Maunganui from San Francisco last week, accompanied by her mother and her two children, and is on her way to Australia, where she will conduct a revival campaign extending over a period of three months. ..-,.'■< Born en a Canadian t'arni, Mrs. McPherson was "converted" at the age of 17 years, and started off on her mission. "I had no-great church to begin with," she said reminiscently, "but now I have the largest in America. My covering was the canopy of God's blue sky, and I only knew that I had been called to preach the Gospel, strange as 1 that may seem. I left ihe milking pail and the farm, and my first church was a lawn. I used a piazza as a pulpit. Finally, I was able to buy a tent—a very old one—aiid then later on a splendid tent. For two years I preached winter and summer in an enormous tent. The early struggles taught rae how to be. my own tent manager, build my own seats, and put up the electric wires. "Step by step, the work achieved success, and before long I preached in the largest building in America, with an audience of 20,000. And now as a crowning glory of the 14 years of ministry comes a great temple, at Los Angeles. I am an ordained Baptist minister, but I work undenominationally." _ Questioned on the subject of faithhealing, Mrs. McPherson expressed her firm belief in the power of prayer to heal, although she wanted it known that her specialty . was obtaining "conversions." I would rather have one person, 'saved' than 100 healed." she added. "We always pray for the sick at our meetings," she said. ' Prior to her departure from San Francisco, Mrsl McPherson conducted a service at a farewell gathering, the audience numbering 25,000: During the two previous weeks' campaign she addressed no fewer than 150,000 people. Mrs. McPherson has preached in countries all over the world, and after her visit to Australia will return to America. Sho must be there during December next for the opening of her large i steel and concrete temple —the largest fire-proof church in America.