"When the number of our years got well past the single figures, then we went to 'the States,' to carry on the education begun at home. Then came the saddest disappointment of all our lives. We found we were yet a good way from heaven. For me, the last remnant of this dream was effectually dispelled when I came to teach a Sabbath-school in a back country-neighborhood, where the people were the drift-wood of Kentucky and Egyptian Illinois. Thenceforth the land of the Dakotas seemed more the land of promise to me. From that time the claims of the work in which my parents were engaged grew upon my mind. "Of late years the children of missionaries have everywhere furnished a large portion of the new reinforcements. This is both natural and strange. It is natural that they should desire to stay the hands of their parents, and go to reap what they have sown. On the other hand, they go out in face of all the hardships of the work, made vividly real to them by the experience of their childhood. They are attracted by no romantic sentiment. The romance is for them all worn off long ago. For instance, those of us on this field know the noble red man of the poet to be a myth. We know the real savage, and know him almost too well. Thus those who follow in the work of their missionary fathers do not do it without a struggle--often fearful. On the one hand stands the work, calling them to lonesome separation, and on the other the pleasant companionship of civilized society. But if the word of the Lord has come to them to go to Nineveh, happy are they if they do not go thither by way of Joppa. "I have spoken of the drawbacks to entering the work, but the inducements must also be remembered. They are greater than the drawbacks. We know them also better than strangers can. If we have known more of the discouragements of the work, we also know more of its hopefulness. We know the real savage, but we now know and fully believe in his real humanity and salvability by the power of the cross. Now, too, when the work is entered, the very difficulties which barred the way grow less or disappear. We find the dreaded isolation to be more in appearance than reality. We here are in connection with the best thought and sympathy of the civilized world, whether it be in scholarship, statesmanship, or Christian society. And not unfrequently do we have the visits of friends and the honored representatives of the churches. One may be much more alone in Chicago or New York.