Chapter I: FOREIGN MISSIONARIES.--In considering the question of duty to enter

the foreign field, the first inquiry necessarily relates to qualification, since without this no mere desire or emotion in regard to the work can have any weight. As among the more obvious requisites for the missionary work the following may be mentioned: 1. _A sound body._ Most of our mission-fields are in the East, in an enervating climate, and under conditions such as severely test the vigor of the physical constitution. No person already enfeebled by disease or seriously predisposed to disease should venture into the foreign field, as the probabilities would all be against his ability to labor there. On this point, it is obvious, skilled medical advice should be sought. 2. _Common sense._ The practical administration of the affairs of the mission, temporal as well as spiritual--its building, its finances, its business contracts and relations, the whole management--usually falls upon the missionary, and requires large practical tact and sagacity. In a new field he has no reliable advisers and must depend on his own judgment in deciding on all the temporal concerns of the mission. In the older fields, while some of the business cares may be devolved on native helpers, he must still move among the native churches as a practical and influential adviser, guiding their affairs, settling their difficulties, and correcting their mistakes. An unpractical, visionary mind, however scholarly and brilliant, is obviously unfitted for such a position. 3. _Facility in learning to speak in a foreign tongue._ A foreign language, and most of all an Oriental language, is difficult to acquire, especially so as to use it readily and fluently in common speech. Some men of good abilities have here failed in the foreign field, and, though useful perhaps in other departments, have never been effective in preaching. There should be, at least, an ordinary aptitude for language sufficient to ensure that with persevering effort the man will be able to master and use the vernacular of the people. 4. _Power as a preacher._ Preaching, among the heathen as elsewhere, is the grand means of evangelization, and the conditions of power in it are everywhere essentially the same. The missionary must be "apt to teach," with a ready command of his faculties for argument and illustration, and a mastery of the art of putting things. In the conversational method of preaching in heathen lands, he is often obliged to meet in popular argument acute and profound reasoners, when his defeat before the people might prove a serious check to the Gospel. 5. _Faith, energy, and perseverance._ At these outposts of Christianity a timid, wavering spirit, faint-hearted and irresolute, will be sure to fail. Courage, determination, energy, alone will achieve permanent results. Carey and Judson waited years with unfaltering confidence for the first convert, and without substantially the same elements of character no man will succeed in pioneer work.

In deciding on the qualifications of a young man, however, it is to be remembered that he is as yet, in many respects, undeveloped, and qualities now present only in the germ and tendency will often in the actual work reveal themselves in marked power. Abroad, as at home, circumstances and emergencies develop the man. No young man, therefore, may hastily dismiss the question of a personal call to the foreign field on the ground of disqualification. Rather, he should carefully study his own character, and seek counsel of those best fitted to judge his capabilities, that in deciding a question of such moment he may act deliberately, with a full and impartial view of all the considerations, and with a clear conscience, always recognizing the danger that unconsciously to ourselves our selfishness is likely to magnify the reasons adverse to a missionary life and underestimate the force of those in favor of it.

The nature of the missionary work and the manner of its prosecution I shall not here consider: these will be found very fully presented in the work of the late lamented Rev. M. J. Knowlton, D.D., _The Foreign Missionary,_ and in that of Rev. Dr. Rufus Anderson, entitled, _Foreign Missions, their Relations and Claims._ The position of a missionary is in some respects one of great delicacy, and requires on his part the most careful circumspection. Here may be mentioned: 1. His relation to the Missionary Board at home. Charged with the administration of the funds entrusted to them by the churches, the Board must of necessity exercise a certain measure of supervision and guidance in the conduct of the foreign work. The exact line of demarcation between the authority of the Board and the independence of the missionary in directing movements is not always easy to discover, and without a spirit of gentleness, forbearance, and concession the most serious complications may arise. In the expenditures of the mission, also, the keeping and rendering of an exact account are of the utmost moment, so as to avoid even the suspicion of wastefulness or malappropriation. The rule of Paul is here, as in all financial trusts, the only safe one: "Being careful of this, that no one should blame us in this abundance which is administered by us; for we provide for what is honorable, not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of men" (2 Cor. viii. 20, 21[1]). 2. His relations to the native pastors and churches are also of great delicacy. In the older missions the work of the missionary is largely that of general supervision of the native churches. But in this the missionary may not exercise an arbitrary power. He is not a bishop with authoritative episcopal power, subjecting the pastors under control and ignoring the independence of the churches. Rather, his power is moral, and his work is to train the churches and pastors for the independent exercise of their respective functions. He should, therefore, carefully guard against an arbitrary spirit or any methods of procedure which could militate against the just independence of pastors and churches. It is a distinguished proof of the high character of the noble men who have gone out as missionaries that, while in these and other respects their relations are of such delicacy, difficulties between them and the home Board have so rarely arisen, and the churches they have trained so fully exemplify in their character, organization, and working the simplicity and independence of the churches of the New Testament.

II. HOME MISSIONARIES.--Most of these are pastors of new or feeble churches, and their position differs from that of ordinary pastors only in the fact that their support is derived in part from some missionary organization, and that they are under consequent obligation to render a report of their work to the body which thus aids in sustaining them. Some of them, however, are engaged in purely itinerant ministerial work in the waste places of our cities, or in newly-settled or unevangelized parts of our country, visiting from house to house, preaching as Providence may give opportunity, organizing Sunday-schools, and forming churches. Few positions demand more force of character, soundness of judgment, intellectual ability, indomitable energy, and self-sacrificing devotion. Among the men occupied in this work are some of the noblest and most devoted servants of Christ. Their duties, however, being in most respects the same as those of ordinary pastors, do not need here a separate treatment.