A perplexing phase of the relation of missionaries to their own governments develops in times of disturbance. Should missionaries remain at their stations when their minister or consul think that they ought to withdraw to the port where they can be more easily protected? Should they make journeys that the consul deems imprudent or return to an abandoned station before he regards the trouble as ended? This question became acute in connection with the Boxer outbreak when mis- sionaries sometimes differed with ministers or consuls as to whether they should go or stay. On the one hand it may be urged that missionaries are under strong obligations to attach great weight to the judgment of their minister or consul. If they receive the benefits and protection of citizenship, and if by their acts they may involve their governments, they should recognize the right of the authorized representatives of those governments to counsel them. The presumption should be in favour of obedience to that counsel, and it should not be disregarded without clear and strong reasons. But the fact cannot be ignored that, whatever may be the personal sympathies of individual ministers or consuls, diplomacy as such considers only the secondary results of missions, and not the primary ones. Government officials, speaking on missionary work, almost invariably dwell on its material and civilizing rather than its spiritual aspects. They do not, as officials, feel that the salvation of men from sin and the command of Christ to evangelize all nations are within their sphere. Moreover, diplomacy is proverbially and necessarily cautious. Its business is to avoid risks, and, of course, to advise others to avoid them. The political situation, too, was undeniably uncertain and delicate. The future was big with possibility of peril. In such circumstances, we should expect diplomacy to be anxious and to look at the whole question from the prudential viewpoint. But the missionary, like the soldier, must take some risks. From Paul down, missionaries have not hesitated to face them. Christ did not condition His great command upon the approval of Caesar. It was not safe for Morrison to enter China, and for many years missionaries in the interior were in grave jeopardy. But devoted men and women accepted the risk in the past, and they will accept it in the future. They must exercise common sense. And yet this enterprise is unworldly as well as worldly, and when the soldier boldly faces every physical peril, when the trader unflinchingly jeopardizes life and limb in the pursuit of gold--I found a German mining engineer and his wife living alone in a remote village soon after the Boxer excitement-- should the missionary be held back?