ll, we have nothing but gratitude that in the last
year of a long and exhausting war, here in this far-away section of
the world, the keynote has been one of progress.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE FUTURE OF THE MISSION

What is the future of this Mission? I have once or twice been an
unwilling listener to a discussion on this point. It has usually been
in the smoking-room of a local mail steamer. The subtle humour of W.W.
Jacobs has shown us that pessimism is an attribute of the village
"pub" also. The alcoholic is always a prophet of doom; and the wish is
often father to the thought.

In our medical work in the wilds we have become a repository of some
old instruments discarded on the death of their owners or cast aside
by the advancing tide of knowledge. Seeing the ingenuity, time, and
expense lavished on many of them, they would make a truly pathetic
museum. Personally I prefer the habits of India to those of Egypt
concerning the departed. If the Pharaoh of the Persecution could see
his mummy being shown to tourists as a cheap side show, I am sure that
he would vote for cremation if he had the choice over again.

It sounds flippant in one who has devoted his life to this work to
say, "Really I don't care what its future may be." I am content to
leave the future with God. No true sportsman wants to linger on, a
wretched handicap to the cause for which he once stood, like a fake
hero with his peg leg and a black patch over one eye. The Christian
choice is that of Achilles. Nature also teaches us that the paths of
progress are marked by the discarded relics of what once were her
corner-stones. The original Moses had the spirit of Christ when he
said, "If Thou wilt, forgive their sin--and if not, I pray Thee, blot
me out of Thy book." The heroic Paul was willing to be eliminated for
the Kingdom of God. It seems to me that that attitude is the only
credential which any Christian mission can give for its existence. If
I felt that my work had accomplished all it could, I would "lay it
down with a will."

As in India and China the missionaries of the various societies are
uniting to build up a native, national Church which would wish to
assume the responsibility of caring for its own problems, so when the
Government of this country is willing and able to take over the
maintenance of the medical work, this Mission would have justified its
existence by its elimination. All lines along which the Mission works
should one d