. The Church has seemed to
be satisfied with this. She has thanked God for His smiles, but has made
little effort to increase the number of her laborers as fast as the demand
for them increased. Now God is trying another plan. Her laborers are
dying off and the question comes to her, not merely whether she will
advance or not, but, whether she will retain that which she has already
gained. She has volunteered in a glorious warfare. Will she hold the
positions she has won, and make further conquests, or will she permit her
soldiers to die at their posts without being replaced, and thus retire from
the field? Important interests are at stake. The honor of our Church is
at stake. The salvation of souls is at stake. It is a crisis with our
mission. We cannot endure the thought that the labors of those faithful
servants who have been called home shall be in a great measure lost by
neglect. We have received lately impressive lessons of the uncertainty of
human life. The thought steals over us that we, too, are liable at any
moment to be cut down in the midst of our labors. This liability is
increased by the amount of labor which necessarily devolves upon us. Now
we are only two in number. As for myself I am only beginning to stammer in
this difficult language. This, too, in a field where there is labor enough
to be done to employ all the men you can send us. You will not think it
strange then that we plead earnestly.

"Our new church edifice was completed soon after Brother Pohlman left for
Hongkong. As he had done so much of the work in gathering the congregation
and had originated the idea of the building and had watched its erection
with so much interest, we were desirous that he should be present at its
consecration. We therefore delayed opening the building for worship until
we received the definite news of his death."

In an address on "Reminiscences of Missionaries and Mission Work,"
delivered by Dr. Talmage during his later years, he refers to the early
missionaries at Amoy in these words:

"The men God gave the Church were just the men needed to awaken her
missionary spirit and shape her mission work. So for laying the foundation
and shaping the plan of the structure He would have us erect at Amoy He
gave us three men, just the men needed for the work,-David Abeel, William
J. Pohlman and Elihu Doty. The more I meditate on what they said and wrote
and did and suffered in the early days of that work, and see whereunto