s entire
life. He accompanied a surveying expedition to the state of Washington.
The party put up for a while in Merrysville, a rough-mannered,
tough-living town of the old West. Into this place there came one day a
circuit rider who fearlessly preached the Gospel in the face of
opposition and outright hostility. This Methodist minister was utterly
sincere, and Nelson saw what could be done by the sheer power of the
spirit against the forces of evil. It surged over him that a man can
hold the mastery over wrong, an inner conviction which at the same time
was set aflame by a Communion Service held for the surveyors in the
out-of-doors. The circumstances and surroundings were strikingly
different from those associated in his mind with such a service.
Possibly for the first time in his life he was intensely conscious of
the presence of God. As in all such experiences the vision illumined and
deepened his thinking and living. It has been said that in all great
Christian leaders and reformers are found two elements: "The imperious
commission from above, and the tumultuous experience within." Both these
elements were present in the experiences of that eventful summer, and
all Frank Nelson's doubts and waverings concerning the ministry were
resolved. He returned East aware of being called to preach the Gospel.
In the light of this happening one is not surprised that later when a
professor dogmatically stated that there could be no true Sacrament
without the Apostolic Succession, Nelson walked out of the classroom
saying to himself, "It is a lie." To those who knew him through his
forty years' ministry in Christ Church, this experience in the far West
sheds light upon his burning sense of mission, for in those hours of
inward tumult he had come close to God in the breaking of bread and in
the society of his fellows, conditions which he preached throughout his
life as being always the essence of fellowship with God.

On September 18, 1890, he matriculated at the General Theological
Seminary in New York City. The General Seminary is directly under the
government of the General Convention of the Episcopal Church, and while
it has always been characterized by a conservative type of
churchmanship, all shades of opinion were and are to be found within its
faculty and student body. At this time the respectability of the
Episcopal Church was considered an asset and not a liability, and the
Seminary community was in the social forefront