But more than this, missionaries have no business in which to employ their children; and if it were possible to devise business in which to employ them, there is no one to superintend their labor. Missionaries have no time for the purpose, and no other persons, among most pagan nations, can be found who are trusty and competent. This is a stubborn fact, and stands in the way as a very great obstacle. Neither, in most cases, can the children of missionaries be kept industrious in the acquisition of knowledge. Their fathers and mothers cannot devote so much of their time to their children, as to keep their minds industriously employed in the pursuit of knowledge; and as to schools, most missions are not thus favored. Missionaries then, if they keep their children on heathen ground, run the risk of seeing them grow up in habits of inactivity and indolence. This, if a risk, is a fearful one; for missionaries ardently wish their children to be useful when they themselves shall be dead. But indolence and usefulness are the opposites of each other; whereas indolence and vice are closely allied. To prevent then this deadly evil, of having their children grow up in indolent habits, is one of the strong reasons why missionaries resort to the heart-rending alternative of parting with their children, with but little probability of seeing them again this side the grave. Again, as the state of things now is, the children of missionaries, if kept on heathen ground, can possess but _very limited advantages for mental improvement_. Their mothers cannot be depended upon to instruct them much in literature and the sciences. Under the influence of a withering atmosphere, often sick, with no help in many countries in their domestic affairs but untrusty domestics, and often with none at all, and obliged to attend to many calls from the people, or run the risk of giving offence, how can they be expected to find much time and strength for disciplining the minds of their children, and storing them with useful knowledge? They may succeed in giving them an acquaintance with the branches of common education, but to carry them into the higher branches is, as a general remark, entirely out of the question. Such a task is by no means expected of a minister's wife at home, much less can it be expected of the wife of a missionary.