after this, as our ship was lying in Gibraltar bay, I heard that Mrs. Nicholayson was on board an English brig that, after suffering severely in a storm, had just come in and anchored; and procuring a boat, I went within speaking distance, for the brig was in quarantine, and we were not permitted to go on board. She was then taking her little children to England for the purpose of putting them to school, and among society less hurtful to youthful minds than that of the east; and after thus leaving them, was to return to her far distant and now childless home. If in all this is not a picture of self-denial, and patient endurance, and Christian boldness, and painful sacrifice, I do not know what is; and yet it is only a plain statement of facts. In our ships we are apt to complain of discomforts; and yet we have plenty of medicines, and good surgical attendance, food such as we are accustomed to at home, and society and abundance of comforts of every kind; and yet it seems a hard case to be three years from home; and I now speak of ships in particular, because their inmates know what it is to be a long time from one’s native land. But suppose it were for life; and a life separated from the comforts to which we have been accustomed, shut out in a great measure from intelligent society; a life of drudgery too, offering knowledge to those who care not for it; simplifying its nature, and bringing it to the capacities of all, and yet exciting little interest, and perhaps a sneer? Is this a life to be sought for, for the sake of worldly considerations? I think not. There is only one way in which we can reconcile it even with common sense; and that is, by supposing that missionaries are sincere; that they love their work; that the promises of the gospel, and the cheering influences of heavenly grace, support them; and that they look to eternity for their exceeding great reward. And when we look at them in this point of view, how engaging is their work, and how Godlike the errand on which they are gone? And it was a truly noble act in that church which I now love doubly to call my own--the Episcopal church,--when, at the last General Convention, its clerical and lay deputies from all parts of the country unanimously resolved that the whole Episcopal church be hereafter a Missionary Society; and declared that the cause of missions is the cause of religion, and a love for missions an essential part of the Christian character.