Men whose hearts are not in the work have little patience during such trials, while even earnest workers are liable to be made discontented while always hearing the grumbling of others, and knowing that it is not without cause. Still amidst much to dishearten them these poor fellows had their day dreams. Hope, the last goddess to forsake the miserable, hovered about their home in the desert. A good story is told of a small party whose walk brought them by chance to the banks of a beautiful rivulet. Amidst the impressive vastness of the African forest, and all the rare scenes of a new country, their hearts were ready to admit most brilliant hopes. As one of them looked about the rivulet he fell on something whose effect was magical. All at once his manner became dignified, the tones of his voice changed, at last he had found a balm for his sorrows. “It’s gold! yes, gold! we need never lift a hammer again.” But alas! the vision of splendour was not realized. It gave place to the usual wrangling about rations, and the proverb “Golden dreams make one awake hungry” was painfully appropriate. It is most essential for a Church to see that when a band of artisans is sent to places so isolated, every cause of irritation should be avoided; when this is not done the results may be serious. When a great play is acted on this world’s theatre it is one thing to sit as a spectator, and another to be admitted behind the scenes. When I read, as a little boy, of Waterloo, and such celebrated battles, I thought everything connected with the victorious party must be great, and good, and glorious,—that every soldier and officer must be a model of virtue and excellence. But once I met with a Waterloo veteran, and my pre-conceived opinions received a cruel shock. This man told me with the greatest complacency, as if it had been the merest matter of course, that soldiers were put under the strictest discipline, that many of them were men that required this, that frequent quarrels took place, and that many a soldier welcomed a battle as an opportunity for killing not the public enemy, but some private enemy who belonged to his own side and fought in his own regiment! Though man has heavenward aspirations, it is true, alas! that he standeth upon the earth. We arrived at Blantyre at a very critical period of the Mission’s history. A few months before, an able Missionary on quitting the settlement, said that he left it either to “sink or swim,” and hinted that the former alternative was not improbable. Many of the artisans did not wish to continue in the service of the Mission, believing that they would find it better to become traders and chiefs among the natives.