said he, ’is always a sad event, and is often peculiarly distressing.  It is so in the instance before us.  There is a sad breach in our little circle at this station.  Situated as we are here, every member of our small society tells upon the happiness of the whole.  Our number is limited and less than a score.  We have few bosom friends, few to cheer and encourage us, few to whom to tell our sorrows and our joys.  Here we are far away from those we love, away from dear friends and kindred and those tender associations which make society so delightful at home.  Hence we feel deeply any breach made in our little circle.  In proportion as our number is diminished in the same proportion is there a decrease in the endearments of friendship and love.  More especially is this the case when the departed was possessed of social virtues and qualified to make all around him agreeable and happy.  We mourn also for these poor deluded heathen.  They have sustained an incalculable loss.  I feel it impossible to give an adequate description of his character.  He felt that in laboring for the heathen he was engaged in a work of the highest moment.  Thereto he bent every energy of mind and body.  That which, by receiving the word of God, we are made theoretically to acknowledge, by the dispensations of His Providence-we are made practically to feel, that man is nothing-that God is All in All.’

“God’s dealings with this mission would seem to be enough to arouse our Church.  Heretofore He has given success to His servants.  He has given us favor with the authorities and with the people.  The Church has seemed to be satisfied with this.  She has thanked God for His smiles, but has made little effort to increase the number of her laborers as fast as the demand for them increased.  Now God is trying another plan.  Her laborers are dying off and the question comes to her, not merely whether she will advance or not, but, whether she will retain that which she has already gained.  She has volunteered in a glorious warfare.  Will she hold the positions she has won, and make further conquests, or will she permit her soldiers to die at their posts without being replaced, and thus retire from the field?  Important interests are at stake.  The honor of our Church is at stake.  The salvation of souls is at stake.  It is a crisis with our mission.  We cannot endure the thought that the labors of those faithful servants who have been called home shall be in a great measure lost by neglect.  We have received lately impressive lessons of the uncertainty of human life.  The thought steals over us that we, too, are liable at any moment to be cut down in the midst of our labors.  This liability is increased by the amount of labor which necessarily devolves upon us.  Now we are only two in number.  As for myself I am only beginning to stammer in this difficult language.  This, too, in a field where there is labor enough to be done to employ all the men you can send us.  You will not think it strange then that we plead earnestly.