"Yes, without cheer of sister or of daughter,
Yes, without stay of father or of son,
Lone on the land and homeless on the water
Pass I in patience till the work be done."

Centuries pass and men of another age, taking the light that Paul had
brought, carry the torch over Apennine and Alp, through dense forests
where wild beasts and wilder savages roam, till they cross the North
Sea and the light reaches the fair-haired Angles of Britain, on whose
name Augustine had exercised his punning humour, when he said, "Not
Angles, but Angels." From North and South, through Columba and Aidan,
Wilfred of Sussex and Bertha of Kent, the light came to Britain.

"Is not our life," said the aged seer to the Mercian heathen king as
the Missionary waited for permission to lead them to Christ, "like a
sparrow that flies from the darkness through the open window into this
hall and flutters about in the torchlight for a few moments to fly out
again into the darkness of the night. Even so we know not whence our
life comes nor whither it goes. This man can tell us. Shall we not
receive his teaching?" So the English, through these torch-bearers,
come into the light.

The centuries pass by and in 1620 the little _Mayflower_, bearing
Christian descendants of those heathen Angles--new torch-bearers,
struggles through frightful tempests to plant on the American
Continent the New England that was indeed to become the forerunner of
a New World.[1]

A century and a half passes and down the estuary of the Thames creeps
another sailing ship.

The Government officer shouts his challenge:

"What ship is that and what is her cargo?"

"The _Duff_," rings back the answer, "under Captain Wilson, bearing
Missionaries to the South Sea."

The puzzled official has never heard of such beings! But the little
ship passes on and after adventures and tempests in many seas at last
reaches the far Pacific. There the torch-bearers pass from island
to island and the light flames like a beacon fire across many a blue
lagoon and coral reef.

One after another the great heroes sail out across strange seas and
penetrate hidden continents each with a torch in his hand.

Livingstone, the lion-hearted pathfinder in Africa, goes out as the
fearless explorer, the dauntless and resourceful missionary, faced by
poisoned arrows and the guns of Arabs and marched with only his black
companions for thousands of miles through marsh and forest, over
mountain pass