---
title: 'John Leighton Wilson’s Desire to Serve as a Missionary'
type: post
author: 'R. Andrew Myers'
date: 2025-05-19
url: https://confessional.org/blog/2025-john-leighton-wilsons-desire-to-serve-as-a-missionary
---

# John Leighton Wilson’s Desire to Serve as a Missionary

“For my own part I would rather live in the lowliest hut with the enjoyment of God than in the most resplendent palace on earth without a hope of heaven….I tremble for myself when I contemplate the solemn relationship which I bear to those of my fellow-creatures about me. We either attract by our consistent and Christian deportment, or we repel by unbecoming behavior and indifference for their spiritual welfare.” — **John Leighton Wilson**, in a letter to his sister dated Feb. 27, 1831, found in [Hampden C. DuBose](/authors/hampden-coit-dubose), *Memoirs of Rev. John Leighton Wilson, D.D., Missionary to Africa, and Secretary of Foreign Missions* (1895), p. 35.