ere "difficult."
It was not their lot to start work in virgin territory, or where the
people were unfriendly. They did not get into any difficult church
situations. The church people were eager to co-operate with them, and
quick to profit by their teaching and example. Even in the matter of
health, they did not have a more than average amount of illness. And
the story of their accomplishments during that first term could truly
be used as a model for the young missionary's emulation!

This is not to say that John and Mary had no difficulties.
Difficulties are the normal thing on the mission field, and they had
their share. But they met their difficulties, and they made good. How?
Chiefly by giving up some of their "rights," and foremost among the
rights they gave up was their chance for a normal home life. There was
rarely an evening when John was at home and without a visitor; and if
such an evening came, he spent it at his books. Later he was away from
home for days and weeks, so that the home had to function without the
father much of the time. John had to give up his right to spend a
normal amount of time with his wife and children. Even Mary could not
spend as much time with the children as she would have liked, nor
arrange things for them as she might have wished. And then, after the
first few years, their home was not theirs alone. Most of the time
they had other people living with them. All the way through they had
to put the Lord's work first, and their home second.

Yet was not this attitude of self-sacrifice the thing that made their
home a real Christian home? If they had put their home first, not the
work--if that home had become a self-centered thing, a thing enjoyed
for its own sake--would it not have failed to be what they wanted it
to be? A home that is absorbed in itself is not a truly Christian
home. John was willing to be away so much, and to sacrifice so much,
because his love for his Master was the all-consuming passion of his
life. It was for exactly that reason that his presence--and even the
consciousness of his absence, and the reason for it--did bless that
home. John and Mary gladly took others into their home, really wanting
them, not because they did not appreciate having their own home to
themselves, but because their concern for the work was greater than
their natural desires. They counted the cost, and sent their child
away from them, away to school, because they knew that it was best for