MICH.—­Woman’s Home Miss.  Union, Secretary, Mrs. Mary B. Warren,
Lansing, Mich.

WIS.—­Woman’s Home Miss.  Union, Secretary, Mrs. C. Matter, Brodhead,
Wis.

MINN.—­Woman’s Home Miss.  Society, Secretary, Mrs. H.L.  Chase, 2,750
Second Ave., South, Minneapolis, Minn.

IOWA.—­Woman’s Home Miss.  Union, Secretary, Miss Ella B. Marsh, Grinnell, Iowa.

KANSAS.—­Woman’s Home Miss.  Society, Secretary, Mrs. Addison Blanchard, Topeka, Kan.

SOUTH DAKOTA.—­Woman’s Home Miss.  Union, Secretary, Mrs. S.E.  Young, Sioux Falls, Dak.

* * * * *

“Twenty-three unanswered letters look down upon me.  Eighteen came to-day.”  Such is the burdened sigh of one of our earnest, self-denying missionaries, who is upon the mission field that she may relieve the suffering, teach the ignorant and save souls, and for whom the days are all too short for these duties alone.

Have our readers ever felt the burden of unanswered letters?  Pastors, Sunday-school teachers, housekeepers—­busy people that you are—­have you ever felt the twinge of unrest, almost discouragement, because some friendly letter, which you enjoyed receiving, lay unanswered waiting a spare hour?  And have you ever had to “brace up” to what, in a life of leisure might be a pastime, but in a life so full of care and responsibility becomes a task?  Then you will surely be ready unselfishly to

  SPARE OUR TEACHERS.

How can it be done?  Not by withholding your letters from them.  If any missionaries anywhere need words of appreciation and good cheer they are those who year after year sacrifice social life and religious privileges to mingle with the ignorant, uncultured—­yes, and impure—­that they may lift them up into the healthful ways of righteousness.  Write to them, encourage {140} them, but do not ask for a special letter for your next missionary meeting.  Tell them not to write, that you have heard or can hear from them every month through their letters sent to the officers at New York and that you learn of the work through the A.M.A. magazine.  Thank them for making this monthly missionary letter so full and interesting.

“But that monthly letter is a copied letter,” some one answers, “and we wish our teacher to write to us, to us alone, and in her own hand.”  Yes, it is a copied letter in order that it may be sent to others who are interested in, and helping, the same work, and that the missionaries’ time may be given to the work about them instead of being spent so largely in writing.  But it is a fresh letter.  It has the latest monthly news and was written for you, and if not in the same hand is as truly yours as a typewritten letter, which is the sort most of us receive and give in the high-work pressure of now-a-days.