during what would have broken most men's
spirits altogether, were the very ideal of which Ernest had dreamed, but
never expected to realise.

"Did you make many converts among the Hottentots?" he asked one day. "I
remember hearing you say your mission, as a whole, had not succeeded;
but I suppose you made converts here and there?"

"I cannot say I ever made one."

"Not one! And yet you were going back to them again!"

"Certainly. Why not?"

"Rather, `Why?' I should have been inclined to ask."

"Why? because God has commanded that the Gospel should be preached to
all nations, and that command stands good, whether they will hear, or
whether they forbear. It is our business to do His work, and His to
look after the result."

"And you would not consider that a man's life was wasted, if he passed
his whole life as a missionary, without making one convert?"

"No more wasted than if he had made ten thousand. Look here, Ernest.
You have never seen a coral island, I suppose?"

"No," said Warley; "I have read about them, but I have never seen one."

"You have read about them? Then you know that the coral insects labour
on, generation after generation, under the water, raising the reef
always higher and higher, till it reaches the high-tide level at last."

"Yes, that is what I have read, certainly."

"For generations, then, upon generations, the work of the insect was
wholly out of human sight. Ernest, was their work in vain? Did not
they help to build up the island as much as those whose labours could be
clearly discerned?"

"You are right," said Warley. "One soweth, and another reapeth."

"Yes, and both will rejoice hereafter together; claiming, under God, the
work between them. The work of the missionary--of the early
missionary--may seem to man's eyes as nothing, but it is merely out of
man's sight. He is building up Christ's kingdom, as the coral insect,
far down below, builds up the reef; and will, unknown though he be now,
have equal honour hereafter with those whom the world now accounts its
greatest benefactors."

Many such conversations as these were held between the two friends--as,
notwithstanding the disparity of their years, De Walden and Ernest might
be called--and every day the bond between them grew stronger. Together
they visited the Kaffir huts, and held long talks with the occupants;
who were never unwilling to discourse on the subject nearest to De
Walden's heart, little as they