ances sets, and the restriction entailed in conforming to
local custom, young missionaries may often feel that the chance for
any normal kind of romance is snatched from them. Small wonder that
the summer resort and the post office, the two avenues of courtship
left open to them, are speedily utilized, and that engagements are
often made on what would seem at home to be too short acquaintance!
If _you_ knew that you had only a few weeks in which to become better
acquainted and do your courting, and that when those few weeks had
passed each would return to his own station, with no opportunity of
meeting again for at least another year, perhaps you would speed
things up too!

If the choice of a life partner were a matter to be decided purely "on
one's own," then this sort of situation on the mission field might
lead to many a tragedy. Thank God, that is not the case! After all, He
is the One whom we want to make the choice for us, and He can be
depended upon. Certainly any young missionary should make this a
matter of definite prayer. If God has chosen the two for each other,
He will see to it that they meet; and He will bear witness in their
hearts as to His leading, so that they need not hesitate or fear. If
we set our hearts on some certain thing, irrespective of whether or
not it is His will, disaster will result. If we commit the matter
entirely to Him, and trust Him to work out His own perfect will, we
can go ahead, with confidence, knowing that the union (if He indicates
it) will be as the path of the just, that "shineth more and more unto
the perfect day." If anyone doubts this, let him look at any
missionary couple. In spite of all the difficulties and dangers, the
percentage of happily married couples must be greater among
missionaries than it is anywhere else!

To any thinking young person, another problem, not yet discussed, must
be evident. If there are twice as many single women as single men on
the mission field (and there are), some of the women must either marry
men who are not missionaries, and so leave the field, or else remain
single. The shortage of men on the mission field is often deplored,
and it is true that in many cases the work would be better off with a
larger proportion of men. I shall always remember, however, hearing
one of my sisters say: "Before I came to the mission field I thought
that the reason there were more women than men on the field was that
more of the women were wholly consec