In perfect wisdom, perfect love,
Is working for the best!"

When we reached Shanghai, thinking to return inland in a few days with
fresh supplies of books and money, we met a Christian captain who had
been trading at Swatow, and he put very strongly before us the need of
that region, and the fact that there were British merchants living on
Double Island, selling opium and engaged in the coolie trade
(practically a slave traffic), while there was no British missionary to
preach the Gospel. The SPIRIT OF GOD impressed me with the feeling that
this was His call, but for days I felt that I could not obey it. I had
never had such a spiritual father as Mr. Burns; I had never known such
holy, happy fellowship; and I said to myself that it could not be GOD'S
will that we should separate.

In great unrest of soul I went one evening, with Mr. Burns, to take tea
at the house of the Rev. R. Lowrie, of the American Presbyterian
Mission, at the South Gate of Shanghai. After tea Mrs. Lowrie played
over to us "The Missionary Call."[2] I had never heard it before, and it
greatly affected me. My heart was almost broken before it was finished,
and I said to the LORD, in the words that had been sung--

"And I will go!
I may no longer doubt to give up friends, and idol hopes,
And every tie that binds my heart. . . .
Henceforth, then, it matters not, if storm or sunshine
be my earthly lot, bitter or sweet my cup;
I only pray, GOD, make me holy,
And my spirit nerve for the stern hour of strife."

Upon leaving I asked Mr. Burns to come home with me to the little house
that was still my headquarters in the native city, and there, with many
tears, told him how the LORD had been leading me, and how rebellious I
had been and unwilling to leave him for this new sphere of labour. He
listened with a strange look of surprise, and of pleasure rather than
pain; and answered that he had determined that very night to tell me
that he had heard the LORD'S call to Swatow, and that his one regret had
been the prospect of the severance of our happy fellowship. We went
together; and thus was recommenced missionary work in that part of
China, which in later years has been so abundantly blessed.

Long before this time the Rev. R. Lechler, of the Basel Missionary
Society, had widely itinerated in the neighbourhood of Swatow and the
surrounding regions. Driven about from place to place, he had done wor