We take the liberty to point out one way in which they can do this.
Our missionaries are, many of them, returning at this time of year for a brief rest at the North. They need it. They have earned it. It may seem wrong to tax these brave workers, but we venture to say that if they are invited to tell the public the story of their experience they will not refuse to do it; and we venture to say further, it will be a story the public will be glad to hear. Let them have a royal welcome home by the churches. In the language of Rev. Sam Jones, the noted Southern Evangelist, as he counseled the churches to receive the new converts, "Let it not be on the tips of your fingers or on the palms of your hands you receive them, but, on your hearts," and God will bless the welcome to the churches, to the missionaries and to the work. Hear their story, heed its lessons, and it will not be long before the clouds shall roll away and our financial storm-signal be taken down.
The exercise of benevolence Christ never conditioned on human recognition. The publicans and heathen furnished examples on that plane. When Christianity uncovers its roots there is never anything commercial even hinted at. Sinners need salvation. That is enough. Divine love moves in the presence of necessity. Its movement is electric. Even if ingratitude smite it in the face; nay, worse, if malignancy would summon forces for its crucifixion, without relaxing an iota it breathes the prayer, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Unswervingly Christ held along, doing right because it was right. Passion in all its forms of unbalanced feeling lay far beneath His holy life. A righteous indignation against Phariseeism He felt; He was moved with compassion when He saw the people scattered abroad as sheep without a shepherd; in numberless forms in the presence of sorrow and want His emotion was stirred, but the machinations of wicked men against the establishment of righteousness, He contemplated with imperturbable equanimity. It was not merely that He had a strong faith that all such opposition was the imagination of a vain thing. He knew that it was so.
It may not be given His disciples to walk so much by knowledge as did the Master, but where He leads, they can follow in a faith that shall sustain them and give them triumph in every path of duty. Opposition may meet them. Difficulties may lie in the path. Evil men may oppose them, and good men, misinterpreting their motives and misunderstanding their work, may misrepresent them. But what matters it? Conscious in the strength that they are doing right, they will work on unhindered and undisturbed. Christian virtue finds in its own development all the reward necessary to stimulate continuance in well doing.