To you it hath been granted in behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer in His behalf.-PHILIPPIANS, i, 29. I wrote down my troubles every day And after a few short years, When I turned to the heartaches passed away I read them with smiles, not tears. -JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY. But all through life I see a cross Where sons of God yield up their breath; There is no life except by death. A sound acorn will become a first-rate tree wherever it has a chance to take root. If there is a rotten streak in you-if privation can intimidate you—if desire has gained mastery over will-if the prospect of sweating and whetting can abate your enthusiasm, opportunity is wasted upon you. Quitters and quailers are misfits all the way from the stone-heap to the throne.-HERBERT KAUFMAN. On the farm we have an old and young dog belonging to my brother. The young dog comes up to my house twenty times a day; he is constantly looking for excitement, and follows us wherever we go. He engages in many unnecessary fights and carries many unnecessary scars. He makes many fruitless dashes after rabbits, and digs for hours and days to get at foxes in their dens in the hills, with no success. But the old dog, having been a long time out in the world, knows that little of interest is going on, and spends much of his time sleeping in the sun. The old dog has accepted a hint from Nature; it is a pity men are not equally wise.-E. W. Howe, Independent, June, 1911. T VI TRIALS AND DISCOURAGEMENTS HE missionary to Japan comes to a well-governed country, where life and property are secure, where travel is easy, and most of the things obtainable at home can be secured. He is not in danger of panther, crocodile, nor tsetse fly. The climate is neither torrid nor frigid. He will not be kidnapped for a ransom nor need he flee to the range of a warship's cannon to escape mob violence. Physical sufferings, narrow escapes, and the romantic side of missionary life are seldom experienced in Japan. Yet missionaries in Japan have their discouragements, which belong almost entirely to the psychical realm. Discouragement as well as ill-health drives many a missionary from the field. Worry, homesickness, and the blues bring on ill-health, all of which in turn are aggravated by disease. A sound body and a cheery disposition are valuable assets which can be drawn upon for a long life of missionary service. A sage of Greece said, "Know thyself." Missionaries who come to Japan are well known in their own communities. They think they know themselves and believe that they are known. They know their own names and their own photographs; they know their own purposes, their past histories, and their future hopes. They know how they have glided along the old tracks, just where the curves were, and where they used to put on brakes. But coming to a new land, the missionary's most humiliating experience is to discover that he did not know himself and to feel that his friends never knew him. "The crucial problem has been to make yourselves," said Hud son Taylor to a group of missionaries. Self is the greatest problem and the most prolific source of discouragement on the mission field. A newly arrived missionary, within a few months has experiences of which he never dreamed. If he is over-sensitive, apprehensive, loquacious, so gullible that he believes everything, and so obdurate as not to accept advice, he will come to think, with the poet "Life is not as idle ore A most discouraging thing is the seeming waste of time, or rather the extravagant use of it, in order to accomplish a very little. A striking illustration is the study of the language. David Thompson said to a young missionary, that after twelve years of study on the language it would get easy. After twelve years had passed, he laughingly remarked to the same missionary, “During the next twelve years it will become easier." Waiting, waiting, waiting! "Let no one beat you at waiting," is good advice for every missionary. Whatever it bea building, the establishment of a new station, the education and graduation of the young evangelist-time and prayer seem inextricably and necessarily bound together. It takes time for matters to pass through a sub-committee of the mission; time for the whole mission to consider and pass upon an important item; time to consult the mission society at home, only to be told, perchance, that more time is necessary for the churches are behind in their gifts; or a big and exhaustive appropriation has just gone to some other mission field. The crying need in Japan to-day is a larger force of enthusiastic evangelistic pastors. There is a scarcity of concentrated and able young men preparing for the ministry. Every evangelistic missionary has felt the disappointment of failing to see some chosen Timothy reach the goal. One young man, who entered a Bible school full of zeal, had to retire because of marrying into a family opposed to Christianity. Another gave up and went back to his teaching. Another took up with a scheme which he was sure would prove a great material blessing to his country. Another retired under an accusation. Others are lost, though not always permanently, because of study in foreign lands. Our first convert we hoped would enter the ministry. He did his own choosing and has become a merchant prince. One of the last young men I talked with about the ministry has just graduated from the Imperial University. I interceded that he become a "fisher of men." But he said he could not bring sorrow to the hearts of his parents, as he had been chosen to be the head of the family. The thought of alienation and banishment from home outweighed his consideration of what he could do for Christ and Japan. It is a distressing thing to have a fellow-worker fall or go astray. This is true where the churches are strong and the workers many, as they are in the home land. It becomes a calamity on the mission field where the churches are just forming and where the workers are so few. Separation from loved ones at home is often a source of heartache. A mission family located in an interior city, where there are no foreigners or fellow-missionaries, is most apt to feel the banishment from their own kin and countrymen. During their first years of isolation, and before the growth of warm attachments which spring up later for their Japanese friends, these missionaries are apt to recall the words of the Psalmist : |