XV THE MAN WHO WOULD GO ON (_Livingstone_) 131
XVI A BLACK PRINCE OF AFRICA (_Khama_) 136
XVII THE KNIGHT OF THE SLAVE GIRLS (_George Grenfell_) 150
XVIII "A MAN WHO CAN TURN HIS HAND TO ANYTHING" (_Mackay_) 158
XIX THE ROADMAKER (_Mackay_) 164
XX FIGHTING THE SLAVE TRADE (_Mackay_) 172
XXI THE BLACK APOSTLE OF THE LONELY LAKE (_Shomolakae_) 186
XXII THE WOMAN WHO CONQUERED CANNIBALS (_Mary Slessor_) 196

BOOK IV: HEROINES AND HEROES OF PLATEAU AND DESERT

XXIII SONS OF THE DESERT (_Abdallah and Sabat_) 213
XXIV A RACE AGAINST TIME (_Henry Martyn_) 224
XXV THE MOSES OF THE ASSYRIANS (_Dr. Shedd_) 236
XXVI AN AMERICAN NURSE IN THE GREAT WAR (_E.D. Cushman_) 249
XXVII ON THE DESERT CAMEL TRAIL (_Archibald Forder_) 260
XXVIII THE FRIEND OF THE ARAB (_Archibald Forder_) 271

THE BOOK OF MISSIONARY HEROES

PROLOGUE

THE RELAY-RACE

The shining blue waters of two wonderful gulfs were busy with fishing
boats and little ships. The vessels came under their square sails and
were driven by galley-slaves with great oars.

A Greek boy standing, two thousand years ago, on the wonderful
mountain of the Acro-Corinth that leaps suddenly from the plain above
Corinth to a pinnacle over a thousand feet high, could see the boats
come sailing from the east, where they hailed from the Piraeus and
Ephesus and the marble islands of the AEgean Sea. Turning round he
could watch them also coming from the West up the Gulf of Corinth
from the harbours of the Gulf and even from the Adriatic Sea and
Brundusium.

In between the two gulfs lay the Isthmus of Corinth to which the men
on the ships were sailing and rowing.

The people were all in holiday dress for the great athletic sports
were to be held on that day and the next,--the sports that drew, in
those ancient days, over thirty thousand Greeks from all the country
round; from the towns on the shores of the two gulfs and from the
mountain-lands of Greece,--from Parnassus and Helicon and Delphi,
from Athens and the villages on the slopes of Hymettus and even from
Sparta.

These sports, which were some of the finest ever held in the whole
world, were called--because they were held on this isthmus--the
Isthmian Games.

The athletes wrestled. They boxed wi