It was sad to leave them crying so, but at that moment we were certainly better away. The children came with us to the well outside the village, and we sat on its wall and went on with our talk. They would hardly let us go, and begged us to come back and "teach them every day," not the Gospel--do not imagine their little hearts craved for that--but reading and writing and sums! As we drove off some of the villagers smiled and salaamed, and the little children's last words followed us as far as we could hear them: "Come back soon!" Sometimes, as now, when we come to a new place, we dream a dream, dream that perhaps at last it may be possible to win souls peacefully. Perhaps these courteous, kindly people will welcome the message we bring them when they understand it better. Perhaps homes need not be broken up, perhaps whole families will believe, or individual members believing may still live in their own homes and witness there. Perhaps--perhaps--! And snatches of verse float through our dream-- "Oh, might some sweet song Thy lips have taught us, Some glad song, and sweet, Guide amidst the mist, and through the darkness, Lost ones to Thy feet!" It sounds so beautiful, so easy, singing souls to Jesus. And we dream our dream. Till suddenly and with violence we are awakened. Someone--a mere girl, or a lad, or even a little child--has believed, has confessed, wants to be a Christian. And the whole Caste is roused, and the whole countryside joins with the Caste; and the people we almost thought loved us, hate us. And till we go to the next new place we never dream that dream again. CHAPTER III Humdrum "A missionary's life is more ordinary than is supposed. Plod rather than cleverness is often the best missionary equipment." _Rev. J. Heywood Horsburgh, China._ "Truly to understand the facts of work for Christ in any land, we must strip it of all romance, and of everything which is unreal." _Miss S. S. Hewlett, India._ THERE have been times of late when I have had to hold on to one text with all my might: "It is required in stewards that a man be found _faithful_." Praise God, it does not say "successful." One evening things came to a climax. We all spent a whole afternoon without getting one good listener. We separated as usual, going two and two to the different quarters of a big sleepy straggly village. Life and I went to the potters. Life spoke most earnestly and well to an uninterested group of women. After she had finished one of them pointed to my hat (the only foreign thing about me which was visible--oh that I could dispense with it!). "What is that?" she said. Not one bit did they care to hear. One by one they went back to their work, and we were left alone.