These reasons, any or all of them, are sufficient in the eyes of the missionary for building a good, substantial house, but there are other reasons, quite as patent to him, but they may not be to one who has never been in his place. The natives like to see their missionary build good dwellings, for then they think he has come to stay, and because he has come to stay and is willing to work and to train the natives, he sometimes has a better house than some of his white neighbors. And we are loath to think, as some affirm, that it is a reproach to be better housed, if he himself builds it. There is another and more subtle reason for a good house, and one which the writer could not enter into until the last few years. If one has access to a town he has an opportunity to see other civilized places and has a change of scenery and companionship, which is both interesting and beneficial. Especially is this so to one who is continually surrounded with uncouth barbarism in its many forms. When, however, one is far removed from all civilized associations and sees nothing that is beautiful and uplifting, week after week, month after month, year after year; when all this time only dirt and squalor meet the eye as he steps off his own premises, his range of vision becomes so narrowed, his brain so benumbed by the monotony, that he feels he can endure it no longer. He is not tired of his services for the Master; he is not tired of the dark faces surrounding him; but his spiritual vision has become so befogged that, as he rises before the people to give them the message, he feels that he cannot give what he longs to. He cannot even take hold of God by faith in prayer as he did, and he must get away for a change. But what has this to do with a good house? Just this: If one has a good home and pleasant surroundings, good and helpful literature and a few of the things which minister to the aesthetic as well as to the spiritual part of his nature, he has a change, at least, in his own home, and when he can snatch time, from the many duties which continually confront him, for a little quiet, the surroundings are pleasing and restful. He is then just that much better fitted to cope with the opposite conditions, and he can cope with them for a longer time and do better work for the Master. On the other hand, missionaries are human and make many mistakes, and we in the mission field need also to guard against the other extreme of spending too much time in beautifying our surroundings and making ourselves comfortable, to the neglect of that God-given message.