It is, perhaps, well enough to pay women in the mission field the same sum as that given to men for the same work, though this possibly would be too attractive an allurement for some unworthy persons who might assume the sacred duties in question for the sake of the loaves and fishes. But what seems especially unwise as well as wholly unscriptural, and of which we feel compelled to assert our disapproval, is the provision that women shall be permitted to administer the holy sacraments. See Corinthians i. 14, 34, and xi. 3, 7. There seems to be no serious objection to women preaching to assemblies of their own sex where male missionaries cannot be admitted; but that such an extreme step should be taken as to desecrate and turn into a farce the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper by allowing them to be administered by a woman, is something that we must deplore. Were it not that most of the trustees appointed represent the new school of thought, which seems to rely more on reason than on the Written Word, we should wonder at their being able to satisfy their consciences if they accept responsibilities encumbered by such restrictions. CHAPTER V. LETTER TO AN INTIMATE FRIEND. FIFTH AVENUE HOTEL, NEW YORK, _February —, 18—._ MY DEAR ALICE,—I ran away from Boston without saying good-by to you. Dr. Wesselhoeft predicted all sorts of horrors—hysterics, St. Vitus’s dance, nervous prostration, and I don’t know what else, if I did not at once get away from the hosts of people who drove me distracted with an incessant ringing of the door-bell from breakfast until bedtime. I was not aware that I had so many friends before. Every pupil I have ever had, every passing acquaintance even, has felt it to be his or her privilege and duty to call and congratulate me and bore me to death with their ecstasies and flatteries. I rather liked it at first, I must confess. It was all so novel to me, and it showed some of my acquaintances in an entirely new light, which, I found, gave me an admirable opportunity for a study of character on its drollest side. Whenever I entered the reception room and found it lined with callers waiting all on tiptoe for my appearance, I really felt like a president beset by office-seekers during his first month at the White House. But a few days of all this rather nauseated me, and I thanked my fortune that it had not come at my birth, but had allowed me to make many true and tried friends before bestowing on me what I fear will now always make me suspicious of a lack of disinterestedness in every new-comer.