."

J.W. agreed, though not without mental reservations. He knew how true
it was that many of the home folks did not rightly value mission work,
but he was not so sure about their "little parish affairs." He watched
to see if Miss Morel meant to expand that idea.

But she evidently had thought at once of something else. Said she,
"Sometimes I think that if the gossip about missionaries and missions
which is so general in the Orient gets back home, as it surely does in
one way or another, it must have a certain influence on what people
think about the work."

"Oh, that," said J.W., with no little scorn. "That stuff is always
ignorant or malicious, and I doubt if it gets very far with church
people. Of course it may with outsiders. I've heard it, any amount of
it; you can't miss it if you travel in the East And there's just enough
excuse for it to make it a particularly vicious sort of slander. You
could say as much about the churches at home, and a case here and there
would not be lacking to furnish proof."

"Certainly," said the teacher. "And yet missions are so wonderful; so
much more worth while than anything that is being done at home, don't
you think?"

There it was again. "I'm afraid I don't follow you, Miss Morel," J.W.
said, with a puzzled air. "Do you mean that the churches at home are not
onto their job, if you'll excuse the phrase?"

His companion laughed as she answered, "Maybe not quite as strong as
that. But they are doing the same old thing in the same old way. Going
to church and home again, to Sunday school and home again, to young
people's meeting and home again. But out here," and her hand swung in a
half circle as though she meant to include the whole Pacific basin, "out
here men and women are doing such splendid pioneer work, in all sorts of
fascinating ways."

"True enough," J.W. assented. "I've seen that, all right. But the home
church isn't so dead as you might think. Just before I left Delafield to
go to Saint Louis, for instance, a new work for the foreign-speaking
people of our town was being started, with the Board of Home Missions
and Church Extension backing up the local workers. They were planning to
make a great church center for all these people, and I hear that it is
getting a good start."

"Oh, yes, I can well believe that, Mr. Farwell," Miss Morel hastened to
say. "I think work for the immigrant is so very interesting, don't you?
But, of course, that's not quite what I meant.