MARRIED MISSIONARIES.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 88, 7 January 1908, Page 6

MARRIED MISSIONARIES.

, The Rev. A. M. Johnson, Home Secretary to ' the London Missionary Society, in the course , of his address on Sunday evening, said that a lady of his"acquaintance in London had offered 3 to pay. the expenses of a. worker in the foreign 1 mission field, but- stipulated that it' must be a 3 single missionary. She did not'bolieve in r married missionaries. Tliey wero too expen- [ sive, ac tliey had to keep a home and a wife , and family. The speaker warmly defended the married missionaries and the great work that 3 was being done by their wives. If it was a ; question of money, why send missionaries at J all? They, could not live for nothing—could 5 not even reach their fields of labour for noth- . ing. Did they know, for instance, that the people of India had no adequate equivalent i for that sweetest of all English •words—home. Tho establishment of homes amongst tlieni, 3 the example that existed in tho English rcspcct and admiration of womankind, was in * itself a' great, factor for good.. Not long ago 3 a missionary was married to a lady missionary i in North China, and amongst the guests were , several Chinese women'of the place. What 1 these women could not understand or realise - in the slightest degree was tho fact that the ] bride laughed and was happy, for to them ! it was an occasion for sorrow rather than joy. i Tho presence, of married missionaries in the , field was assisting the natives to have a higher ' and better idea of marriage and their woman--1 kind, and lie trusted that the work of tho i° married missionaries would be for ever blessed. r ========