mical, and the most
efficient course by far, evidently is, to collect together a sufficient
number of missionaries' children to form a school, and devote a
competent number of teachers entirely to that work.

But even where such schools can be enjoyed, they must be attended with
many risks and privations, and be only preparatory in their nature.
Those scholars, who may need a thorough education, must be still under
the necessity of visiting a Christian land. It is too of great, and
perhaps indispensable importance, that youth who are trained for active
life should see the industry, enterprise, and intelligence of a
Christian land, and so far, at least, partake of its character and
imbibe its spirit.

Missionaries, then, must either suffer their children to grow up with a
very limited education, or submit to the alternative sooner or later of
sending them to a Christian land. But missionaries see the want of
laborers in the great field of the world, and ardently desire that their
children may be qualified to take part in the work. They choose
therefore the present anguish of separation, bitter as it may be, that
there may exist a reasonable prospect that their children, at some
future day, may be eminently useful in the vineyard of the Lord.

One other difficulty I must name, and that is, that missionaries'
children, if kept on heathen ground, will have _no prospect of suitable
employment when old enough to settle in life_. They will have no trades.
To be merchants they will not have means. They will not be acquainted
with agriculture, and in many countries will not be able to obtain land
to cultivate. Some, who are fit for the work, may become preachers and
teachers, but will not command the influence that they would if they
were educated in a Christian land. Thus the prospect of suitable
employment is very dark, and is a fact in the case of much weight.

These reasons and others that might be named, possess in the minds of
missionaries immense force--force enough, in many instances, to induce
them to tear from their embrace the dear objects of their love, and to
send them over a wide ocean to the care of friends, and often to the
care of strangers. They do not lead all parents to this result; for on
the other hand, there are strong, very strong objections to such a
course. The trial in either case is great; but it is one that must be
met, not evaded. It is wise to count the cost, but it is treason to be
faint-heart