It will be evident to all that in 1881 the working force of the mission was entirely inadequate for occupying and cultivating the broad and inviting field, now opened to us as never before. The medical work, constantly enlarging, occupied the physician’s whole time. Mr. Wilson’s physical condition, never very strong, confined his labours to the station and its immediate vicinity. The attention which these alone required would more than fill one man’s time. The death of Miss Campbell made imperative an associate for Miss Cole. So, even if the trip to the United States had not been rendered imperative by considerations of my own health, the best interests of the work itself seemed to demand that some one should go to seek reinforcement by direct and personal appeal to the church at home. As for Mrs. McGilvary, after spending the spring of 1880 with her brother in Oakland, California, she came on with our younger son to Statesville, North Carolina, where she could be with our daughters, and not far from our elder son in Davidson College. On my arrival in New York, I hastened on at once to North Carolina, where I spent the summer with my family and friends, lecturing from time to time in the churches. The fall of this year I spent in Texas and Arkansas, visiting relatives and friends who had migrated thither from the family nest in North Carolina. In Texas I attended the meeting of the Southern Synod, and both there and elsewhere I found many opportunities for presenting the cause of foreign missions; and everywhere I encountered warm reception and eager interest in the work among the Lāo. In the winter I came north to visit the Theological Seminaries, and to enlist men for the Lāo mission. On my way I stopped in Oxford, Ohio, where I met Miss Lizzie Westervelt (afterward Mrs. Stanley K. Phraner), then in her senior year in Miss Peabody’s Seminary, and preparing for missionary work among the Lāo, upon which she entered in the following year. This was the school which had given us Miss Mary Campbell and Miss Edna Cole a few years before. [Illustration: DR. McGILVARY 1881] [Illustration: MRS. McGILVARY 1881]