A person employed in direct missionary work among the natives, especially if his employ is somewhat itinerant, can easily make long and interesting journals.
The course that I have uniformly pursued, ever since I became a missionary, has been rather peculiar. In order to become an acceptable and eloquent preacher in a foreign language, I deliberately abjured my own. When I crossed the river, I burnt my ships.
It is my growing conviction that the Baptist churches in America are behind the age in missionary spirit. They now and then make a spasmodic effort to throw off a nightmare debt of some years' accumulation, and then sink back into unconscious repose.
I have considered the subject of missions nearly a year and have found my mind gradually tending to a deep conviction that it is my duty personally to engage in this service.
I esteem it the crowning mercy of my life that not only the chief ends I contemplated on becoming a missionary are attained, but I am allowed to see competent, faithful, and affectionate successors actively engaged in the work.
For many years, the work advanced but slowly. One denomination after another embarked in the undertaking; and now, American missionaries are seen in almost every land and every clime.
Amboyna seems to present the most favorable opening. Fifty thousand souls are there perishing without the means of life, and the situation of the island is such that a mission there established might, with the blessing of God, be extended to the neighboring islands in those seas.
A mission to Rangoon we had been accustomed to regard with feelings of horror. But it was now brought to a point. We must either venture there or be sent to Europe.
My views of the missionary object are, indeed, different from what they were when I was first set on fire by Buchanan's 'Star in the East' six years ago. But it does not always happen that a closer acquaintance with an object diminishes our attachment and preference.
Missionaries must not calculate on the least comfort but what they find in one another and their work.
