“We have endeavoured to obtain all the information we could upon this important subject, and we are astounded, both from our own personal experience, and from reports which reach us from numerous quarters, at the fearful havoc that goes on yearly in the ranks of the various missionary bodies who labour in these foreign mission fields. We have seen scores and scores of men come to the country seemingly full of vigour and spirits, who within two or three years either die at their posts, or retire disabled temporarily, and often permanently, with enfeebled health or utterly ruined constitutions. “From one of the statements sent us we learn that the mortality has been as high as twenty-two per cent. in a society that only finds a small portion of the monthly maintenance allowance for its missionaries. In another society that works on similar lines the death-rate is eighteen per cent. per annum. In another, in which the members work without any allowance, and are compelled to find their food, shelter, and clothing among the very poorest of the Indian people whom they seek to convert, the mortality has been as high as thirty-two per cent. per annum; while its invalid list yields abundant evidence that its methods, while they may be praiseworthy in their ascetic simplicity, are too sacrificial to European life to justify their toleration and continuance. “Missionary zeal and missionary enterprise have done more for India than any State effort could ever hope to accomplish, and the best work has been done by those societies which, having a due regard for the health and safety of their workers, have provided for the proper conservation and protection of their lives; and lives thus prolonged and preserved have brought with them accumulated experience, which has yielded the advantage not only of laying the foundations of lasting and useful work, but of seeing it cared for, nourished and brought to fruitful perfection by the hands that inaugurated it. Work to be productive of good in the mission fields of India must be lifelong. The short service system is both imbecile and expensive. The languages and habits of the varied peoples of this vast empire cannot be familiarised sufficiently for effective work in a few years. But to enjoy good health and to protect the lives of missionary workers, it is the bounden duty of the great religious societies of England and America to make a full and ample provision for the support and comfort of their representatives in India.” CHAPTER XVI. _OUR EARLY EXPERIENCES IN THE BURMA MISSION._ I would like to give the reader some intelligent idea of what it means to establish a new mission in a new country, with an elaborate religion like Buddhism in possession of the field, and difficult to dislodge.