ΤΟ

THE MINISTERING WOMEN

OF

AMERICA AND ENGLAND,

WHO, LIKE THE MARYS AND MARTHAS, THE JOANNAS AND SUSANNAS OF OLD,

FOLLOW IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE MASTER,

"MINISTERING TO HIM OF THEIR SUBSTANCE," IN PALACE BEAU-
TIFUL, OR IN LOWLY COTTAGE, IN "EVERY CITY AND
VILLAGE" WHERE HE, IN THE PERSON OF HIS
DISCIPLES, IS "PREACHING AND SHOWING

THE GLAD TIDINGS OF THE KING-
DOM OF GOD,”

AND ESPECIALLY TO MY BELOVED FRIEND

MRS. CHRISTOPHER R. ROBERT,

OF NEW YORK,

WHO, FOR TEN YEARS, VOLUNTARILY AND GENEROUSLY DEFRAYED THE EXPENSES OF MY MISSIONARY LIFE, AVOIDING ALL

PUBLIC ACKNOWLEDGMENT, AND ONLY STIPULAT

ING THAT I SHOULD REST, WHEN WORN

AND WEARY,

THESE SKETCHES

ARE

LOVINGLY INSCRIBED.

INTRODUCTION.

BY THE AUTHOR OF THE

“SCHÖNBERG-COTTA CHRONICLES.”

MISS WEST has asked me to write an introduction to this record of missionary life and work in the East.

If her written words touch hearts in America, as I have seen her spoken words move educated women among us, and a company of poor mothers in the East of London, they will need no introduction from any one.

But a few words of most reverent and affectionate sympathy with the noble Christian work of American missionaries in the East, I feel it a delight and an honor to have an opportunity of giving.

I have seen and known American men and women devoted to those Oriental missions, who seemed to me to come as near to the first type and the last ideal

*

of Christian life as any I hope to know; lives laid down for the Master and the brethren with such entire consecration, and simplicity, and joy, that when, at last, from one of these, the life was demanded, and laid down in death, we felt it was scarcely a fresh sacrifice, but merely the natural fulfilment of all that had gone before. Their motto might have been, from one of the finest of our Collects, "That so they, being ready in body and soul, might cheerfully accomplish all that Thou wouldest have done." It was to no mere controversy with external error that these lives were devoted. It was to a penetration of dead words and dead forms with new life. It was to a piercing of consciences and kindling of hearts. It was to a bringing home of the lost and bewildered sheep—not into one human fold or another—but to the Shepherd of all the Flock of God, to the One Shepherd of the One Flock in heaven and earth.

May the record of such work in these pages, do as much for bewildered hearts which need it as much, in America and in England.

* Rev. Augustus Walker, of Diarbekir, Mesopotamia.