"I grieve very much that I did not see you before you left; but I believe that the seed you have sown will continue to spring up to the end of the world. You asked me, in your letter, to tell you about my work. I have a greater work than any of my companions, but it is in a place covered with thick darkness, like that of Egypt. The people are stiff-necked, wise to do evil, but of God they have no knowledge. Temptations surround me as mountains; they rise up about me like the waves of the sea. While Kamo lived, I was comforted, for he loved the truth. Every day he used to read the Scriptures with me, and ask the meaning of each verse. I had hoped he would have Paul's zeal in the work of the Lord. I had expected that we should have schools in our village after a year or two, and that the places of concourse for idle conversation would become places for reading the Scriptures, and for prayer. But it has pleased the Lord to give me a great and heavy affliction. He has smitten me with his own rod, making this world a vale of tears. But it is the Lord; let him do what he pleaseth. It is all for my profit. "I want to ask you and your friends to pray for me, that I may endure to the end." The feelings of the pupils, after the departure of Miss Fiske, are graphically expressed in the following letter from Hatoon, of Geog Tapa:-- "My heart longs to tell you of the change in our dear school. Our return, after vacation, was much like that of the Jews from Babylon, when they found their city laid waste, and their temple in ruins. Every time they looked on the spot where it had stood, their hearts were crushed. So when we did not see you, and went not to take your hand and be kissed by you,--when we saw not your ready feet coming to the door, to bring in each one and make her happy,--our hearts were broken, and we could not restrain our tears; especially when I remembered the times that the daughters of the church used to meet in your room to mingle our prayers, our tears, and our joys together. These recollections leave an aching void which cannot be filled. It seems to me that the ways of your room mourn, because you come not to the solemn feasts. If Jeremiah were here, I think he would say, 'How doth Miss Fiske's room sit solitary that was full of people! How do the daughters of the Oroomiah schools mourn, and their eyes run down with water, because Miss Fiske is far from them?' These changes show us that this world is as down driven by the wind. Perhaps you will reply, in your cheerful way, 'Do you feel so? There is much that is pleasant in the world.' I know it; but our school was always such a pleasant place to me. I was so happy in it and its heavenly employments, that not even the death of friends could destroy that joy. But now I seem overshadowed by dark clouds, and sinking in deep mire. Yet I will try, in all this, to bow my will to the holy will of Him who doeth all things well." CHAPTER XX. COMPOSITIONS.