By itinerating I do not mean going here and there and everywhere. One should have a regular circuit which he travels for God, and go around it as often as possible. This work I believe will pay better than the teaching of a handful of

natives to read and write. Unless the school is one where salvation is continually held up as the principal and the only thing that can really benefit them, it will be a failure. Some schools in India which are supported by Christian people have

graduated young Hindoos who, upon receiving their degrees. have taken their New Testaments and thrown them into the fire. There is no employment in heathendom for natives who can read and write in their own tongue any more than for anyone else, so that they are not really benefited, even financially, unless they should be employed by missionaries on that account.

A boy we knew at Inhambane professed to be a Christian and was sent to a seminary in Natal. He stayed there four years and graduated. When he went home he went back agair. into heathenism, and to-day is wallowing in the mire. This boy never was saved, never really knew Jesus Christ, so that, after four years' study he could only repeat over what the missionary told him, about like a parrot. Such an one will do more harm to the cause of Christ than anyone else. Every backslider, whether white or black, of course injures the cause of Christ, but it is different in the case of such a native as above mentioned. He was picked out from thousands of others, sent to Natal at the missionary's expense, fed, clothed and educated for four years, and then came back home to tell his people that he had gone through the whole thing and that there was nothing in it. The people, looking up to him, would of course believe him much sooner than they would a white

man.

Mr. Agnew is certainly right in concluding that, unless scholars are continually impressed with the fact that religion is not a money-making business, and that unless they get really converted it will profit them nothing to become smart and wise, the greater part of the missionary's labor will be in vain. "The testimony of many is," to use his own words, "that boys who have been brought up on mission stations are generally sharper tricksters than the raw heathen. In the Transvaal where selling liquor to natives is prohibited, many mission Kaffirs forge passes for the purpose of obtaining liquor in the name of some white man. One in the compound right beside me was sentenced to six

months' imprisonment for this offense. They can write a beautiful hand, speak splendid English and have spent years on mission stations, while perhaps hundreds of dollars have been wasted on them by good people at home; but over in the Transvaal hundreds of such are leaders in wickedness, since they are looked up to as being above the common herd, and their influence is very damning."

CHAPTER XXV.

SECOND TRIP TO AMERICA-AT GENERAL CONFERENCE -AT THE BATTLE CREEK SANITARIUM-RETURN

TO AFRICA-MARRIAGE-BEREAVEMENT.

Should Sorrow come and lay her hand upon thy shoulder,
And walk with thee in silence on life's way,

While Joy, thy bright companion once, grown colder,
Becomes more distant day by day;

Shrink not from the companionship of Sorrow;

She is the messenger of God to thee;

And thou wilt thank him in his great To-morrow—

For what thou know'st not now, thou then shalt see;—

She is God's angel, clad in weeds of night,

With whom we walk by faith and not by sight.

-Unidentified.

In the fall of 1894 Mr. Agnew made a second visit to America, chiefly to be in attendance at the general conference to be held in Greenville, Illinois, in October of that year. On arrival in New York bay he would have been subjected to an unpleasant delay in passing quarantine had it not been for the special kindness of the quarantine doctor, who, on learning that he was a missionary, showed him special kindness, giving him early consideration and enabling him earlier than he could have hoped otherwise to secure his pass and get away. The night of his arrival in New York he attended a large and excellent meeting, where he enjoyed a rare treat in listening to a sermon on prayer from Dr. Arthur T. Pierson. Referring to this, he says: "It did

my soul good, and made me to rejoice that I was once more in a land where I could hear preaching."

Arriving in Chicago a few days later, he received a most cordial welcome from the Rev. J. G. Terrill, who had been elected as missionary secretary since Mr. Agnew was in America before. The kindness and consideration the new secretary showed Mr. Agnew at all times greatly encouraged him, and is mentioned in his journal in a most appreciative way. Both have gone to their reward, Mr. Terrill's departure, due to excessive exertions in the interest of the foreign missionary work, having preceded Mr. Agnew's by several years. Of both it may be said, "They rest from their labors, and their works do follow them."

Referring to his attendance at the general conference on this return to America, Mr. Agnew says:

It was the first time I had attended such a gathering, and I was deeply interested in the discussions and in the sermons preached. In heathendom about all the preaching one hears is what he does himself or what the natives do. Native preachers are, however, at times quite interesting, and many times one will get blessed, while listening when their preaching is in the Holy Ghost. Some of their illustrations are beautiful, and they make points that are worth remembering.

His presence and public addresses at this gathering did much to quicken interest in the foreign work, while his counsels were of great value to the missionary secretary and to the missionary board in planning for its further development. Misses F. Grace Allen and Ida Heffner, both returned missionaries from South Africa. being also present and full of zeal in representing the needs and possibilities of the African work, an extraordinary interest was awakened regarding that particular field, which has since materialized in decidedly practical ways.