the more rational
since she had, seven or eight years before, made the same tour of the
missions which I had in mind. To her therefore a large part of the
information in the following pages is due, for in all my journey she was
my guide, philosopher, and friend.

Our tour would not have covered so much ground nor have been so crowded
with incidents of interest, if it had not been for the foresight and
assistance of the Reverend Louis Agassiz Gould. He was a student in our
seminary forty years ago, and after his graduation he became a
missionary to China. Though his work abroad lasted only a decade, his
interest in missions has never ceased, and he is an authority with
regard to their history and their methods. I was fortunate in securing
him as my courier, secretary, and typewriter, and his companionship
enlivened our table intercourse and our social life. But he was bound
that we should see all that there was to be seen. Without my knowledge
he wrote ahead to all the missions which we were to visit, and the
result was almost as if a delegation with brass band met us at every
station. We were sight-seeing all day, and traveling in sleeping-cars
all night. Though I had notified the public that I could preach no more
sermons and make no more addresses, I was summoned before nearly every
church, school, and college that we visited, and fifty or sixty
extemporized talks were extorted from me, most of them interpreted to
the audience by a pastor or teacher. My letters to home friends were
often written on the platforms of railway stations while we were waiting
for our trains, and after six months of these exhausting labors I still
survived.

These preliminary remarks are intended to prepare the reader for a final
statement, namely, that the papers which follow were written with no
thought of publication. They were simply a record of travel, set down
each week, for the information of relatives and friends. I have been
urged to give them a wider circulation by putting them into print. In
doing this I have added some reflections which, for substance, were also
written at intervals on my journey, and these, with sundry emendations
and omissions, I have called my "Conclusions." I submit both
"Observations" and "Conclusions" to the judgment of my readers, in hope
that my "Tour of the Missions" may lead other and more competent
observers to appreciate the wonderful attractions and the immeasurable
needs of Oriental lands.

I ca