The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1912-10-26
CBY WILLIAM T. ELLIS.)

NJ l..
Striving strengthens the soul, en-
sionary Endurance" Tim. 3: 1O-1I.
The cattle caught in a blizzard on
the plains stand it. up to the point of
death. because they can do nothing
else. They are not to be praised Tor
their fortitude Endurance becomes a
virture only when it is volitional. To
undergo at the bidding of the will, and
for a noble end hardships which one
may escape is heroic. This is the quail
ity which is admired in the missionary
He has deHbera tely elected hardship,
rather than ease because in the hard
place he believes that he can do the
best service for God and the world.
George Meredith, in one of his letters
published this month in Scribner's Mag
azine. wrote to Holman Hunt, both Of
them being aged and AFFECTED, AS TO
us two, We will say that the gods may
rob US of everything except the heart
to endure For this virtue is wrought
into the very soul-stuff of III high and
heroic spirits. Ability to endure what
cannot be remedied. or else what be-
fits ones honor to endure, though an
ignoble escape from it is possible,
marks the gentleman and the saint the
world around.
The missionary lives in an alien land,
amid people of strange speech and other
life than his own: this is burden
which no untravelled person can rightly
understand. And it is noticeable that,
as a class, the other white men resident
in pagan lands speak contemptuouSly
and cOmplainingly of the people amid
whom they live; whereas the mission
aries, as class, praise the natives and
the land. The fact is significant. Its
springs run down to motives. The other
foreigners are exiles for gain: the mis-
sionaries, for service. I'VE seek not
yours but you" say they; and that mo-
tive transforms all.
Poverty is more common on the mis-
sion field than the world knows: The
average missionary. especially If he
have a family. must study economy and
undergo deprivations. The cost of liv-
ing is less in most mission lands than
at home, and money buys more of ma
tive commodities; yet salaries are COM
paratively small.
Especially when he is at home on
Through. paradoxical though it may
seem, the missionary feels the pinch of
poverty. Ordinarily the furlough allow
ance is simply adequate to support a
family. A certain brilliant young mis-
slonary from China, who was called to
address great social gatherings in be-
half of his board was obliged, thanks to
the 1ncrSO1Dle nlggardllr eSS OF his
BOARD, to wear the same frOck coat in
which he had graduated; and the old
overcOat that he had worn on the
famine field of China. II the guests at
the great China dinner in the Hotel
Astor, New York, had known the places
that coat had been they would never
have let their costly garments share the
same coat room with it.
ParadoxicaI as it may seem, the fact
of being a missionary carries with it.
in some quarters, a sort of stigma of
inferiority. A callow clerk in an en-
bassy is rated higher in many social
circles, than the ripest scholar and most
polished gentleman, if the latter by
chance is q missionary. The scientific
achievements of missionaries are not
rated as high as the corresponding work
OF other men, There is a tragic incon-
gruity in the undeniable fact that the |
man who has, from the Hottest motives, |