life of most missionaries) that they confessedly get to know the habits and language of the natives. In the home life of his own station, the missionary takes his meals with his family of course, he probably spends a part of every day with them, he may spend several more in his study, and what is left? His intercourse with the outside world in an official manner, if it can be called intercourse, is confined to public services, Bible-classes and schools, and the special interviews he may have with those who come to him for advice or on business.

He sees nothing of the people in their social life. He seldom hears them talking to one another, for he is either talking to them or they to him. He rarely, if ever, sleeps in their huts, or camps, or takes part in their meals. He may live all his life in the country, and at the end of it have a very inadequate acquaintance with the language simply as a language, not to mention a perception of the inner modes of thought and feeling of races far removed from his own sphere. He is, in fact, destitute of a knowledge without which his preaching must for the most part fly over the heads of his audience, however faithful and earnest he may be in intention.

Surely no one will have the boldness to contend that the married missionary has the advantage on the score of economy. This is not the view taken by those who are likely to have a tolerable share of practical experience, namely the executive of our missionary societies. In the printed regulations of one, the scale of personal salary is for the single missionary as seventy, to one hundred for the married couple, and this irrespective of the allowances for children to which the latter may become entitled. In many places servants are not to be had. It ceases to be a question of good or bad servants, it is a matter of no servants at all. I have known missionaries who under these circumstances were engaged not for months, but for years, in personally assisting the wife who, perhaps in feeble health, is struggling with a load of domestic duties.

This brings me to one of the weightiest arguments which to my mind can present itself. A young married lady who is suddenly transferred from her English home to a missionary station in some wild heathen region, commences life under signal disadvantages. She and her husband are equally inexperienced, and it is as true here as elsewhere that experience must be slowly gained by each for him

self. She has to encounter a set of conditions entirely new to her, a foreign and perhaps unhealthy climate, a special sense of isolation at a time when the presence of human helpers is especially needed; she has to commence and learn housekeeping under conditions altogether unfavourable, and her husband, the only person upon whom she has to fall back, is as new to the whole thing and as inexperienced as herself. No situation could be imagined in which a lady commences life with the odds so terribly against her. If she is not discouraged and broken down in spirit and in health at the very outset, she may drift into a style of housekeeping most undesirable; the drawbacks of which may cling to her all the rest of her life. Much is said about the difficulties which encompass the housekeeping of the supposed unfortunate bachelor missionary far from any help. If he be a man with an ordinary fund of resource, his position is by no means so unenviable; indeed, it is not impossible that he may be a stranger to the discomforts and privations of the unlucky family-man who, with a sick wife and two or three little children on his hands, is left without servants, without things which in his situation are stern necessities, but at the want of which he would laugh were he alone.

As soon as

He need not remain unmarried longer than he wishes. his position becomes undesirable, or when the mission in which he is engaged has so far prospered that it would no longer be a cruelty to take a wife into it, he can marry, and though his wife must of course face the inevitable difficulties of the undertaking, those difficulties will have lessened, and her husband will in unnumbered ways by foresight and experience be able to save her unnecessary hardships, and economise her strength. It is not merely a question of comfort or discomfort, but of efficiency. We may listen with great admiration to the tale of woman's heroism, we may shudder to hear what delicate and refined ladies have had to go through; but the dry question will be asked, What was the good of it? Was that particular mission any better conducted, or would the results have been less decisive, if the ladies had not suffered these things, or, indeed, if they had not been there at all? The missionary enterprise is a campaign. Soldiers never take their wives and families to the front; sailors go away on a three years' cruise as a matter of course. Slow and cumbrous methods of evangelising the world must give place to some more active and mobile agency, at least in part, unless we are prepared to see the

work taken out of our hands. The mission to Lake Nyassa, and I believe those starting from Zanzibar for the Equatorial region of East Africa, are perforce conducted on the rational principle of pioneers going unmarried or leaving their wives and families behind them; but the principle is capable of far more general adoption.

I believe attention only needs to be drawn to this aspect of the subject to secure plenty of volunteers, and given a man who is willing to work in this way, it is a sin to discourage him. The conquest of the world is not going on so rapidly that we can afford to be apathetic about trying every agency. New modes of Christian work must develop every year; we are only, after all, in the midst of preliminaries; we have but reconnoitred the outskirts of the enemy's country; some of his largest camps are in the heart of what is called Christendom. With this overpowering work before us, how can we be content to go on in the old jog-trot fashion, or to fritter away the strength of our soldiers?

L

THE SENTINEL AT GIBRALTAR.

OUD roar'd the dread artillery of heaven,

bright

And the bright lightning seam'd the thunder-clouds
With veins of liquid gold, revealing all

The outlines of the fortress. But, above
The elemental war was heard the boom
Of cannon fired by the besieging foe.

The English general who held the fort,
Suspecting an attack, himself went round
Inspecting all the outposts; fearful, lest
At some unguarded point, the enemy
Might gain an entrance. Well he knew, how one
Unmindful sentinel might ruin all

His well-concerted plans. When, suddenly,
He came upon a soldier, standing still,
And silent at his post; yet holding not
His musket, or presenting arms. Surprised,
The general exclaimed: "Ho, sentinel!
Dost thou not know me? Why neglectest thou
Thy duty thus?" He instantly replied:

"I recognised my general at once,

And knew my duty also; but, alas !

Within the last few minutes I have lost

Two fingers, and the others cannot grasp

My musket." Why not go and have them bound?"
The general inquired. "I cannot quit

My post until relieved," he answered him.
"I'll take your place," brave Elliot replied,
Dismounting from his horse. But, even then,
Although the noble soldier was relieved,
He hasted to the guard-house, and desired
The officer in charge to send at once
A sentinel to take his place; and then
Had his own bleeding fingers dressed and bound.
But, 'twas not in the power of medicine
Or surgery to make the wounded hand
Fitted for active service. And the king,
The father of his people, George the Third,
Sent for the noble fellow to his Court;

And told him, that the country, and himself

Were proud of such as he; and though no more
He might be capable of bearing arms

In active service, for his bravery

He should be made an officer, and serve,

In that capacity, his grateful king.

JOHN RYLEY ROBINSON.

N

INDIA: ITS PEACE AND PROGRESS.

BY WILLIAM TALLACK.

EARLY five hundred million human beings (for whose

salvation the sacred Redeemer lived and died) inhabit the vast realms of southern and eastern Asia. These multitudes are still pagans, except a mere sprinkling of Christians, here and there. But the rapidly increasing facilities of telegraphy and steam transit are bringing them into closer relations with Christian countries, and raising problems of the deepest interest. Our religious and moral

obligations, our policy of peace or of war, our commercial and home interests, will be, henceforth, more and more interlaced with that far East. Indeed, we have already learnt, by the painful lessons of Indian and Chinese wars and Japanese bombardments, the necessity which exists for a wise and vigilant care in every transaction with these countries.

A modest volume recently issued contains much material for thought in this direction, especially in reference to India. It is written in a pleasing style by a practical Christian philanthropist, who has condensed into its pages the results of much valuable information personally communicated to Europeans in the countries visited. Many larger works of travel do not contain a tithe of the really important knowledge presented by Mr. Fowler in his terse and graphic summaries of the prominent questions of interest which formed the subjects of his inquiries.

him by the chief resident

The future peace and welfare of the inhabitants of India will mainly depend upon the successful solution of the difficulties connected with Caste, Education, the Salt Tax, Opium, and the Central Asian question.

The first of these, Caste, at present furnishes one of the greatest obstacles to the progress of Christian missions. A poor Brahmin thinks it derogatory to eat at the same table with a wealthy Sudra, another caste. Again, the English themselves, powerful as they are, are secretly despised, or at least regarded as inferiors, by Hindoos of each caste. When the native chief Scindiah entertained the Prince of Wales at Gwalior, he would not condescend to sit at table with him, but merely entered the banqueting hall after dinner to propose the health of the future Emperor of India. It is not in the power of any Government to devise a direct mode of destroying this pride of caste. Perhaps the extension of the railway system will be the most effective, though indirect, means of accomplishing this desirable object. Meanwhile caste remains an immense obstacle to schemes of Indian progress.

Education has been pushed on greatly by successive Viceroys. Yet even in Bengal, the foremost province, only half a million children, out of a population of sixty-three millions, or one in every hundred and twenty, attend schools of even the lowest grade. So *“A Visit to Japan, China, and India." By R. N. Fowler.