About the year 1863 Elder Smith began to exercise his gift in public speaking. In 1866 he was ordained as a minister of the gospel, after which time he labored much in camp-meetings and conferences in the various States from the Atlantic to the Pacific, as well as in pastoral labors in the Battle Creek church, which was his home church. After the opening of the Battle Creek College, he taught more or less in the Biblical department of that institution. In the interest of the Review and Herald he crossed the Atlantic Ocean, in the year 1894, visiting different countries in Europe. While in Syria he contracted a fever from the effects of which he never fully recovered. GSAM 320.4