Depressed in spirits, I told my troubles to a good lady who I knew was "one of the salt of the earth," and noticing a smile come over her face, I asked her what she was smiling at. She replied, "The third was as bad as the other two!" Just here is one of the greatest hindrances the missionary has to contend with. I am not sure but it rivals the saloon. One missionary I visited told me that in one little hamlet, on his field, there was not a single family living in lawful wedlock. It is next to impossible to do anything with the parents in such cases. But there is one bright side to this dark picture. Almost without exception, they like to have their children attend the Sabbath-school. Here is prolific soil in which to sow good seed, and we cannot commence too soon. We are living in rushing times. I have just read in a paper that one town in Ontonagon County, one year and a half old, has three thousand inhabitants, forty-five saloons, twelve hotels, two papers, forty-eight stores, two opera houses, and an electric plant! With villages springing up in every county, and the immense onflowing tide from foreign shores, the lone missionary on the frontier ofttimes would despair, but for the promise of the Master, the miracles of the past, and the joy of hope's bright harvest in the future. And so, "going forth weeping, bearing precious seed," he sows beside all waters, with full expectations that "He shall come again rejoicing, bringing His sheaves with Him." That the reader may have an idea of the vastness of the field, and the distances between the workers, I will jot down a few facts. In 1887 there were thirty Congregational churches in the three conferences of Grand Traverse, Cheboygan, and Chippewa and Mackinac. These conferences had an average width of sixty miles, and stretch from Sherman, in the south of Grand Traverse Conference, for a hundred and fifty-eight miles, as the bird flies, to Sugar Island, in the north of Chippewa and Mackinac Conference. No one can say we were crowded. My nearest neighbor was sixteen miles away, the next thirty, and the next forty; and, unless a change has come very lately, this is the only self-supporting church in the three conferences--and that because it was settled thirty years prior to many of the other churches. Ten years ago there were hundreds of miles of unbroken forests where to-day are crowded summer resorts and busy villages, filled with representatives of the most diverse nationalities under the sun. I have preached to a good-sized audience with not a single person in it that was born in the United States. And the cry is, Still they come. Now send on your harvesters! XXIX. "HARVEST HOME."