To bring all these up before the tribunal of their own consciences as to the extent to which they had discharged all the obligations they took upon them when they first engaged to form and lead on the forces whose duties, in so vast a territory, must be too varied and too difficult to prescribe by any fixed routine, could not but be of priceless value.

Would to God that all persons engaged in missionary work were periodically passed through such examinations, by fire! How easily may any one in such solitary spheres yield to discouragement, or to some ill-feeling towards a predecessor in the same appointment, or towards some leader who has not seemed sympathetic enough! Remembering that each of these has to go back to some position of lonely toil, with no guarantee of salary, and no prospect of improving circumstances, in a country whose large towns could be counted on the fingers of one hand, you can understand the supreme importance and the after-effect of such Meetings.

The letter goes on:-- "On this and the previous day, my host, the Doctor, had invited guests to meet me at luncheon.

Yesterday we had the ministers, who were mostly very friendly and sympathetic.

As the Doctor put it, 'To-day we had the sinners,' who he reckoned were by far the most enjoyable--Judges, Commissioners of Crown Lands, etc.