of the lives that gave them birth. The Nation lays grave responsibility upon the leaders of its armies. But what shall we say of the man who, with holy egotism, assumed just as grave responsibilities for God and Home and Native Land? The heart must speak its own tribute, for human words fail. Like our sturdy Scot in the struggle for American Independence, they risked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honour. We cannot know the cost they paid; but we can sacredly cherish the boon they bought, and hand it down with rich increase, to the coming generations of the mountains, the Nation and the world like the soldiers of the free Republic, many have gone to their rest in unknown graves. But thank God, they did not fight in vain. Their struggles and their tears, their prayers and their devotion, are written indelibly on the full pages of American progress, and in God's own book of remembrances." (Dr. R.. M. Donaldson.)

The Rev. Henry C. McCook, D.D., after mentioning some of our great and devoted missionaries, says, These are some of the men who framed the policy of imperial missionary extension, which has spread our great church, with all its beneficent acts and institutions, from the Atlantic slope to the Pacific Coast. Having sublime trust in God and in the future, they threw down the gauntlet to the seemingly impossible and challenged the religious chaos of a continent and claimed it for God. Since

the times when the Lord's apostles sallied forth, a mere squad without money, or rank, or social power, to evangelize a hostile world, there have been few acts of sublimer faith or loftier Christian heroism."

The Rev. William Bryan, D.D., has also written his appreciation of the home missionary, saying "If half as much testimony was given to the heroism of the home missionary, as is given to the heroism of the foreign missionary, an excellent library might be published. People say in a general way that the home missionary does not have to live among the heathen. How do they know? Have they ever tried it? The heathen do not all live in Asia and Africa and the isles of the sea. There is plenty of favourable soil in both Europe and America for cultivating varieties of heathenism; and the crop is very large. It grows midst winter frosts and summer droughts. Any community that ignores God, is heathen; and the intentional heathen is several shades darker than his unintentional yellow or black brother. Think of a land, with the heritage of the Pilgrim Fathers, surrendering its heritage for mere sordidness. That is heathenism, and unpardonable heathenism at that. Whether that community is in Maine, or California, in Montana or Florida, it matters not; it is heathendom if it votes God out of life. A missionary who goes to such people needs the grace of God fully as much

as does the man who goes to China, or to Africa, as an embassador for the Master. In fact there is a great deal more of the poetry of life in going to China than to any part of a nominally Christian land where religion has been declared to be a needless luxury.

"Then there is another phase of heroism about the genuine home missionary, that is one who travels and preaches over a big, needy territory, he is as lonely as most of our foreign missionaries. Probably he has counted the cost, and is happy in his work; but the isolation is no less real. He voluntarily devotes his energies and abilities to trying to bring men into personal relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ. Plans for study are abandoned in the pressure of a life largely made up of journeyings over prairie or mountain side. He never before realized what the Master's 'Follow me' meant. He is very likely quite unconscious that he is doing anything heroic. His reward will not come in this life. But it will come in God's way and time."

If Thomas Carlyle were living, he might add a new chapter to his "Hero Worship," and if the pulpit ever wears out by much preaching on the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, a new roll of heroes may be found in the record of our home missionaries. Nor is there any volume on chivalry or knight errantry in our libraries that will surpass

these stories of devotion on the part of home missionaries. In his life, heroism is a living, vital principle and force. For the most part they live in obscurity and sad to say in straitened circumstances as to this world's goods. There are no monuments erected to their memory, nor do they need any beyond those that now stand to their honour.

The countless churches, the schools and colleges, the redeemed communities, these are their monuments, these the symbols of their reward.

CHAPTER V

EVANGELIZING THE REMOTE PLACES

T

HE word "evangelism" has become a very familiar term in our religious vocabulary the last few years. It has been written in both small and big letters; it has been the prologue and the epilogue for many religious articles; it has been the salutatory and valedictory of many public discourses, and the climax of many spiritual orations. It is the fashionable modern substitute for the word revival as used in the days of Wesley, Whitfield and Finney.

But when present day evangelism is compared with that of Peter and Paul, there are only a few things in common. Apostolic evangelism had for its field missionary territory. The professional evangelist of to-day, however, could not be persuaded by the love of Christ to go elsewhere than to churches well organized, where there are settled pastors to make all conditions ready for his convenience, and where a large number of Christian people will pledge their prayers weeks ahead