and answered if possible, lest we
lose someone's prevailing prayer.

The first set of objections may be condensed into a question as to the
right or otherwise of our "forcing our religion" upon those who do not
want it. We are reminded that the work is most discouraging, conversions
are rare, and when they occur they seem to create the greatest
confusion. It is evident enough that neither we nor our Gospel are
desired; and no wonder, when the conditions of discipleship involve so
much. "_We_ should not like strangers to come and interfere with our
religion," write the friends who object, "and draw our children away
from us; we should greatly resent it. No wonder the Hindus do!" And one
reader of the letters wrote that she wondered how the girls who came out
ever could be happy for a moment after having done such a wrong and
heartless thing as to disobey their parents. "They richly deserve all
they suffer," she wrote. "It is a perfect shame and disgrace for a girl
to desert her own people!"

One turns from the reading of the letter, and looks at the faces of
those who have done it; and knowing how they need every bit of
prayer-help one can win for them, one feels it will be worth while
trying to show those who blame them why they do it, and how it is they
cannot do otherwise if they would be true to Christ.

This objection as to the right or wrong of the work as a whole, leads to
another relating to baptism. It is a serious thing to think of families
divided upon questions of religion; surely it would be better that a
convert should live a consistent Christian life at home, even without
baptism, than that she should break up the peace of the household by
leaving her home altogether? Or, having been baptised, should she not
return home and live there as a Christian?

Lastly--and this comes in letters from those who, more than any, are in
sympathy with us--why not devote our energies to work of a more fruitful
character? We are reminded of the mass-movement type of work, in which
"nations are born in a day"; and often, too, of the nominal Christians
who sorely need more enlightenment. Why not work along the line of least
resistance, where conversion to God does not of necessity mean fire and
sword, and where in a week we could win more souls than in years of this
unresultful work?

We frankly admit that these objections and proposals are naturally
reasonable, and that what they state is perfectly true. It is true tha