w utterly
inadequate these few scattered workers are to the great problem
which they have to face! What is needed at the present are medical
missions. A medical man would be welcomed by the people in all these
places. The time for the preacher has yet to come. It would not be
wise, even were it possible, to send up clerical missionaries and
evangelists into these parts at present. But the doctor will find
his sphere everywhere, and will find his hands full of work as soon
as he arrives. He will be able to overcome suspicion and prejudice,
and his timely aid and sympathetic treatment will disarm opposition,
and his life will be a better setting forth of Christianity than
his words. There is a door everywhere that can be opened by love and
sympathy and practical service, and no one is more in a position to
have a key for every door than the doctor.

I have already said much to show how powerful an agency medical
work is for overcoming prejudice, but I will cite one instance
more, where the doctor was the son of a convert of the very place
where he was working, and had succeeded by his loving and skilful
attentions in overcoming the opposition and much of the prejudice of
the people. The first branch dispensary in connection with the Bannu
Medical Mission was opened at Shekh Mahmud in 1895. This is a large
village near the Tahsil town of Isa Khel, on the right bank of the
Indus River. About thirty-five years ago a landowner of this place was
converted to Christianity, and, together with his family, received into
the Christian Church. At first he passed through great vicissitudes:
his house was burnt over his head by his fellow-villagers, and he and
his family barely escaped with their lives. His enemies then tried
to expatriate him by erasing his name from the village registers, and
swearing in court that he was a stranger to the district. Eventually,
however, their perjury was found out, and the court restored him
his lands and had a new house built for him in the place of the one
that had been burnt down. This man passed to his rest trusting in
our Lord Jesus Christ, leaving three sons, who were all following
in their father's footsteps, and have been privileged to see many of
their former enemies brought to Christ themselves. The eldest son has
also died, but leaving two sons, of whom the elder has obtained the
Government qualification of doctor, and is destined to take charge
of the branch dispensary which we are abou