and the Hindu will laugh at the claims of the gospel. Only faith in
Christ as very God can meet the demands of the hour. "The spirit of man
is the candle of the Lord." In every age Christ has lit that candle, so
that it has given some light. But all who have come before him,
pretending to be the Light of the world, have been thieves and robbers,
stealing from Christ his glory and from man his blessing. Christ alone
can so enlighten us that we can be light and can give light. Let us
arise and shine, because our Light has come, and the glory of the Lord
has arisen upon us!

XVIII

MISSIONS AND MISSIONARIES

No result of my travel has been more valuable to me than the new
impression I have received of the effect of missions upon missionaries.
I came abroad with a lingering idea of my youth that missionaries were a
class by themselves, a solemn set, destitute of humor, and so absorbed
in their work as to be narrow-minded. On the contrary, I have found them
joyful and even hilarious, broad in their views and sympathies, lovers
of the good in literature and art. The mental and spiritual growth of
students who left me years ago for a foreign field has greatly surprised
me. Then they were boys; now they are men. The demands of the missionary
work have drawn out their latent powers; they have found their new
environment immensely stimulating; contact with new lands and people has
widened their outlook; they have become thinkers and leaders of men.

It takes an all-round man to be a good missionary. The learning of a
foreign language in which one has to construct his own grammar and
lexicon requires persistent effort of the most disciplined mind. The
missionary is often called upon to build his own house or church. He
must be both architect and supervisor, for his masons know no English,
and are bent on slighting their work. He has servants who steal and
coolies who lie. He establishes, manages, and governs a native school,
and generally has to evolve his own pedagogy. He comes into relation
with English officials, American consuls, and native functionaries, and
is obliged to know something of social customs. In fine, he is a jack of
all trades, besides being a preacher of the gospel who must adapt his
message to the understanding of the illiterate multitude and of the
cultivated man of caste as well.

All this gives the missionary a training beyond that of any university
course. Herbert Spencer asserted that a nat