I cannot end this account of our life in k.u.maon without giving expression to our grat.i.tude for the kind aid afforded us by friends in the prosecution of our work. Among these friends, one of the steadiest and kindest was the cantonment magistrate, Colonel, afterwards Major-General, Chamberlain, who identified himself with the Mission, and was ever ready to do all he could to promote its prosperity. During our lengthened absences from the station in the cold weather, and whenever I could not officiate, he conducted service with the English soldiers, and he was ready in every way within his power to render help. In addition to aid in carrying on the Mission, we received great personal kindness from him and his partner, of which we shall always retain a grateful recollection. He retired to England a short time after us, and within a little more than a year he was suddenly called away--to his own gain, we are sure, but to the grief of all his friends. It gives me a melancholy pleasure to render this tribute to his memory. For steady friendship and most valuable aid our best thanks are also due to Captain, now Lieut.-Colonel, Birney, R.E., the resident Chief Engineer; Robert Troup, Esq., a tea-planter in the neighbourhood; and Mr.

Ashhurst, engineer. Among the friends not resident at Ranee Khet, to whom the Mission is largely indebted, are Sir Henry Ramsay and Sir William Muir. Besides the friends I have mentioned, many others contributed liberally to the Mission, without whose aid much which was done must have remained unaccomplished. By the liberal contributions received the operations of the Mission were carried on, and valuable property was created at very little expense to the Society.

We left Ranee Khet at the close of 1876. As we were leaving India with no prospect of returning, we spent two months in visiting different stations, seeing their Missions, and holding intercourse with friends and brethren. In the course of these months we visited Bareilly, Shahjehanpore, Agra, from which we went to see that wonderful deserted city, Futtypore Sikree, with its magnificent tombs, Jeypore, Lucknow, Cawnpore, Allahabad, Mirzapore, Benares, Jubbulpore, and Bombay. At Agra we attended the native service of the Church Mission. The minister who preached was a native who had been educated in our central school at Benares when I was superintendent, and was there led to the knowledge of Christ, though he was not baptized till his return to his native city, Agra. On this tour we saw and heard much which interested us greatly, as it showed the work of evangelization was being vigorously prosecuted with tokens of G.o.d's blessing resting on it. We embarked at Bombay in February, and arrived in England at the end of March.

We left India, where we had spent the greater and, I may say, the better part of our life, with feelings I will not attempt to describe. I can only say when we review our Indian life, that while deeply humbled at the recollection of many errors and defects, defects in wisdom, zeal, and love, we are deeply grateful for having been privileged to labour for so many years in the service of our adorable Redeemer, not, we trust, without proof that good was accomplished through our instrumentality; and so long as we breathe, our hearts will steadily turn towards India with ardent love, and with fervent prayer for the spiritual and temporal welfare of its inhabitants.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE MISSIONARY IN INDIA.

On reviewing these reminiscences I find there are several subjects of interest to which I have only casually alluded, and others on which I have made no remark. My readers will, I hope, bear with me while I detain them by stating facts and expressing views which will make the narrative more complete.

It is unnecessary to describe the office of missionary to the heathen.

No one has rightly entered on the office without being deeply impressed by its greatness, arduousness, and responsibility. It is equally unnecessary to describe the qualifications required. No one can contemplate the demands the office makes on intellect, heart, and conscience, on love to the Lord Jesus Christ and love to souls, on wisdom, perseverance, and courage, without exclaiming with the great missionary Paul, "Who is sufficient for these things?" The idea that one unqualified for work at home would do for a missionary abroad is so preposterous that it is strange it should have ever been entertained by the most heedless.

There is, however, a great difference between an office and those who serve in an office. Because an office is great and honourable it does not follow that those who hold it have always the high character it demands. The question may, then, be fairly asked, Are missionaries worthy of their office? I, of course, use the word "worthy" in a relative sense, and I remember our limited acquaintance with the human heart. It must be acknowledged there have been a few, happily a _very_ few, who have shown themselves utterly unworthy of the office, some by lack of intellectual fitness, and others by want of spiritual character and by indisposition to the work. There have been cases of the utter failure of character, but these have been extremely rare. Of missionaries generally it may be confidently affirmed they have been true men. I have a wide acquaintance with the missionaries of Northern India. During our long residence in Benares we saw many of all Societies, of all Churches, as they travelled up and down. Benares is one of the great halting-places between Bengal and the Upper Provinces, and residence there gives many opportunities for acquaintance with brethren. We have the most pleasing recollection of many we have met, and we have followed their course with deep interest.

[Sidenote: MINISTERS AND MISSIONARIES.]

I should be acting in opposition to my settled conviction if I were to speak of missionaries as more devoted to Christ's service, more self-denied, more ready to endure privation than home ministers. This glorification of missionaries, as missionaries, was much in vogue at one time, and is still sometimes heard. Our Master, the Lord Jesus Christ, gives to every one his work, and our devotedness is shown, not by our office, but by the way in which we do the work a.s.signed us. Predilection to a certain sphere, supposed fitness for it, temperament and circ.u.mstances, have much to do in indicating to us the sphere our Lord would have us to occupy. Tried by the test of devotedness, as shown in daily life, I have never seen any reason for placing one cla.s.s of Christ's servants above the other. Among ministers there is, as we all know, a great difference, not only in talent and attainment, but also in love, zeal, wisdom, and endurance--in every quality which their work demands. Similar is the variety among missionaries. There are many degrees of efficiency and, it must be acknowledged, of inefficiency.

They, as well as their brethren at home, can go through the routine of their work in a very perfunctory and unsatisfactory manner; while they, too, can consecrate all their powers to the service of their Lord. It would be easy to select from the home field ministers who, in unwearied labour, self-denial, and privation for Christ's sake, greatly excel the ordinary run of missionaries; and it would be equally easy to select from the foreign field missionaries who greatly excel most of their home brethren.

In several respects there is a marked contrast in the position of ministers and missionaries. Ministers labour in their own language, among their own people, amidst home surroundings and a.s.sociations; while missionaries have to part with loved relatives and to betake themselves to a foreign land, where they have to learn a foreign language, often languages, at the cost of much time and of wearying application, have for years, as in the greater part of India, to bear a severe climate, are called to prosecute their work among a strange, an unsympathetic, and sometimes a hostile people, and, what is felt by family people to be the greatest trial of all, they have to send their children to England, and to live separate from them for years. Some of these trials missionaries share with their fellow-countrymen, who from secular motives go to foreign lands, but others are peculiar to their vocation.

While I mention the trials of a missionary career I cannot forget the trials of ministerial life at home. We should require to shut our eyes to patent facts if we were to ignore the privations many excellent men are called to endure, and the varied difficulties they have to encounter from the character and circ.u.mstances of the people among whom they labour, from the peculiarities of our times, and from the abiding qualities of human nature, as it is now const.i.tuted. Missionaries are not rich, but they have adequate support, for good or evil are not dependent for it on the goodwill of those to whom they minister, and receive it as regularly as if it came from an endowment. With children sent home for education they have times of great pressure, but much has been done to aid them in meeting this additional expense. Viewed merely as to the comfort of living, and ease of mind as to support, the advantages are not all on the side of the home minister. To counteract the advantages of the missionary's position to which I have referred, it must be remembered the average career of service in India is short--some returning very soon, and others after a few years. Those who return after years spent abroad, and yet in the prime of life, are rightly expected to enter the list of the home ministry; but the work they have left and that on which they are entering are so different, that the mental habits acquired in the one are felt to be a poor preparation for, and often even an obstacle to, efficiency in the other.

[Sidenote: SPIRITUAL CHARACTER INDISPENSABLE.]

In their duties, joys, and trials, ministers and missionaries have much in common. We have to deal with the same human nature, manifesting the same characteristics, though in different forms. We have the same message to deliver. We have the same great end in view, the salvation of those to whom we minister, their restoration to the character and joys of G.o.d's children. Whether we labour at home or abroad, we are required to endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ. If we have not entered on our work from love to Christ and love to souls, with an intense desire to spend and be spent in Christ's service, with a belief that He has called us to it, and given us a measure of fitness for it; if we are conscious of being dominated by inferior motives; if we have not delight in our work, even when there is great pressure on both mind and body; if we do not long for the success of our work, it is obvious we have missed our vocation, and it would be better for us to sweep the street, I would say it would be better to walk the treadmill than occupy our position for an hour. This I must say for myself, I am deeply thankful for having been privileged to labour in the foreign field, and consider it the highest honour which could have been conferred on me.

With my brethren I have had many trials to endure, some privations to bear, some perils to encounter, but I have never for an hour regretted my early decision to give myself to Christ's work among the heathen. I am sure I here speak the feeling of my missionary brethren.

I have endeavoured in my reminiscences to give such a representation of a missionary's position and work in Northern India, that home ministers who may read my narrative can have no difficulty in comparing and contrasting ministerial and missionary spheres. It will be seen how varied are the duties devolving on the missionary, and how great are the demands on thought and effort for their proper discharge. They have, in many cases, to attend to hara.s.sing and perplexing secular work. A number give their time and strength to teaching, and I know enough of this department to testify that those who give themselves to it in a climate like that of India lead very laborious lives. I have said little of the translation of the Scriptures, and the preparation of Christian books and tracts. This is a department in which there has been much exhausting effort of both body and mind, as all know well who have done even a little in it. In the prosecution of direct evangelistic work the missionary finds much to interest and encourage him, but also much to grieve and depress him, especially if he has a sensitive nature, and has no natural love for debate. Even to those who do not shrink from discussion there is often not a little which is very trying. I have a vivid recollection of times when I have returned from Benares to my home in the suburbs, so wearied in body and grieved in spirit by the opposition I had encountered and the blasphemies I had heard, that I have felt as if I could never enter the city again. But I went again, and perhaps the next time was much encouraged.

Missionaries at the same station are much more closely a.s.sociated than ministers at the same place at home. The management of the mission, the policy to be adopted, and the respective places to be filled, are under common arrangement and control, subject to the district committee, and through them to the home directors. Many perplexing questions come before missionaries thus a.s.sociated, and human nature in them must have parted with its usual infirmities, and put on peculiar excellence, if difference of judgment and consequent variance of feeling had never appeared. We cannot plead exemption from human imperfection. It cannot be denied that at times there has been strong diversity of judgment and painful alienation of feeling, when missionaries have too closely resembled Paul and Barnabas in their sharp dispute at Antioch; but it can at the same time be most truly affirmed that with very rare exceptions discord has soon come to an end, and those who have differed widely have become attached friends, as we know Paul and Barnabas did.

The normal state of things is that of mutual love, respect, and helpfulness.

Missionaries have also had their differences with the Societies that have sent them out and supported them. The respective position of home committees and foreign missionaries are so different, that a difference of judgment is in some cases unavoidable; but confiding as they have done in the goodness of each other's motives, full harmony has been soon restored. I must be allowed to say of the London Missionary Society, whose agent I was for so many years in India, that my warmest acknowledgments are due to it for all the kindness and consideration shown to me and mine. If I were now to begin my career with my knowledge of the past, there is no Society with which I could so confidently connect myself.

[Sidenote: INTERCOURSE AND CO-OPERATION.]

All have heard of the friendly intercourse among missionaries of different churches. They, too, when near each other have had occasional differences; but with rare exceptions they have been on terms not only of courteous bearing, but of affectionate intimacy. There is nothing in our Indian life to which we look back with greater pleasure than our intercourse with Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, and Episcopalian brethren. With the Episcopalian and Baptist missionaries at Benares we were on as warm terms of friendship as if they had been members of our own Mission. For many years we were in the habit of meeting weekly with them for the study of the Scriptures, prayer, and Christian communion.

Most Europeans take no interest in missions, look on missionaries as good men engaged in a Quixotic enterprise, and know almost nothing about their work, but still they treat them with courtesy. There are, however, some of our own countrymen who take a deep interest in our work, visit our schools, occasionally attend our native services, and contribute liberally to our mission schemes. These do much to cheer our hearts and promote our success. Again and again my work would have been at a standstill but for the help given me by European Christians, and our intercourse with some has resulted in close and enduring friendship. If persons have a temperament preparing them for friendship, I cannot conceive any position more favourable to its formation and strength than that of a missionary in many of our Indian stations.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XXV.

THE MISSIONARY IN INDIA (Continued).

It has been already stated that missionaries have an income, which enables them to live in a way conducive to the health of themselves and families. Things which would be luxuries at home are necessaries in India, and all they can do is to alleviate the suffering caused by the climate. As missionaries are often more stationary than European officials, both military and civil, and spend much less than they do on horses, establishments, and entertainments, their houses have an air of comfort which is surprising to those who know their income, and has led to much misrepresentation on the part of those who know not and do not care to know what it is.

Not infrequently young men have gone out to India as missionaries with the firm resolve to live to a large extent in the native fashion, and to eschew what they conceive the undue indulgence of those who had preceded them, but the experience of one hot season has generally brought them to another mind. Individuals have adhered to their resolution, and the result in one case I know was insanity, in other cases utter failure of health, and in others speedy death. A band of Germans determined to live, if not in the native style, at least in the simple style of the Fatherland, as to habitation, food, and service, and with scarcely an exception the plan was soon abandoned. The only successful case I have heard of in our day has been that of Mr. Bowen, a devoted American missionary in Bombay. We have had no William Burns, in Northern India at least. I can say for myself, that so far as the mere comfort of living is concerned I should greatly prefer a humble abode and simple fare in England, to the finest house and the most sumptuous fare in the plains of Northern India. It has been maintained by some that our only hope of success lies in our becoming ascetics, and outstripping by our austerities the Hindu saints. In other words, by acting as if we accepted Hindu principles of religion we are to overthrow Hinduism, and win the people to Christ. The proposal calls for no consideration.

Of late a good deal has been said about the substance of missionary teaching. Missionaries as a cla.s.s maintain and teach the doctrinal views of the Churches whose messengers and agents they are. In these Churches a sifting process has been going on for a considerable time, which has led in some cases to a reversal of belief in matters of great moment, and in a greater number to the modification and softening of views. .h.i.therto entertained. Every one must decide for himself how far the sifting has been wisely done, how far chaff and only chaff has been given to the wind, and precious grain gathered into the garner.

Missionaries have unquestionably been affected by doctrinal discussion, in a few instances, I believe a very few, to the reversal of some of their former views, in all, perhaps, though in different degrees, to a readjustment of their doctrinal position, to giving more prominence to some aspects of truth and less prominence to others, under the conviction that such is their relative position in the Word of G.o.d.

[Sidenote: MISSIONARY PREACHING.]

However much imbued missionaries have been with the views of their respective Churches, their position among the heathen has always led them to the constant and simple presentation of the great facts and doctrines of the Bible. These have been set forth in the manner deemed best fitted to commend them to the understanding, conscience, and heart of the people. Familiar ill.u.s.trations have been largely used, and elaborate doctrinal discussion shunned. While the missionary finds much in the narratives and teachings of the Old Testament which is helpful to his object, he dwells chiefly on the life of Christ, His deeds, words, living, and holy example; death to redeem men; man's urgent need of such a Saviour, because guilty and depraved; the claims of Christ on His love, trust, and service; the blessedness of compliance with these claims on character and state; the misery and doom incurred by their persistent rejection. How often have I seen the heathen greatly moved by the parable of the Prodigal Son!

The missionary, like the home minister, has to guard against one-sidedness, if he would keep to the Book which he professes to be his standard. The many-sidedness of the Bible, its appeal to man's whole nature, is one of the most marked proofs of its superhuman origin. While it addresses itself continually to man's moral nature, to his sense of right and wrong, while it appeals to his intellect and heart, it also speaks to his fears and hopes. These appeals are made to all, whatever may be their diversity in character and condition. If we were to follow the course of many in our day who condemn appeals to fear, we should be ignoring a large part of Scripture, including many of our Lord's utterances, and at the same time ignoring that fear of hurtful consequences which the Author of our nature has implanted in us as a great means of self-preservation. To hope as well as to fear much is addressed in the Bible, and the missionary who would approve himself to his Master is bound to appeal to both principles, while, like his Master, he makes his constant and main appeal to the higher part of man's nature.

[Sidenote: MISSIONARIES COUNSELLED.]

While the missionary ought to strive to understand the people among whom he labours, and to discover the most promising avenue to their minds, while he ought to commend himself to every man's conscience as in the sight of G.o.d, he is not to seek acceptance for his message by accommodating it to the views of his hearers. He knows that between their views and his message there is not only a marked discrepancy, but on many points radical opposition, and the one must be displaced if the other is to be accepted. We have here for our guidance the example of our Lord and His apostles.

I have endeavoured to give a faithful description of the tenor of missionary teaching. It appears many are dissatisfied with it. We are told we must part with our narrow traditional views of doctrine, and become imbued with the larger and more liberal views of our times, if we are to hope for success. In the late Dr. Norman McLeod's "Life" we find him saying, "The chief difficulty in the way of advancing Christianity in India is unquestionably that almost all the missionaries represent a narrow one-sided Christianity." I cannot conceive what could have been his ground for this astounding statement, except his impression--it could not have been anything beyond an impression--that missionaries adhered to the doctrines of the Churches that had sent them out, his own among the rest, and had not followed him in his changes. Every one who comes out with new views, or modification of old views, a.s.sures us that success will speedily follow the acceptance and preaching of _his_ phase of doctrine. Some tell us we must preach the moral aspect of the atonement, and part with what has been called the forensic aspect; we must only speak of the love it shows to man, and say nothing of its bearing on the Divine law and government; and then the great cause of so-called failure will be removed. So far as I know missionaries, they accept both aspects of the atonement; they believe both aspects are taught in Scripture, and they are convinced that instead of enfeebling they strengthen each other, while the doctrine thus presented meets man's deepest wants. Others, again, tell us we must preach what is called Life in Christ--the utter extinction of impenitent sinners, while others say this is a shocking doctrine, and we must preach universal restoration. This is no place for discussing the teaching of the Bible regarding the great Beyond, which is at present exercising so many minds. All I will say is that neither in the old views nor in the new is there anything which a Hindu or a Buddhist will accept, while he remains a Hindu or Buddhist. So far as I am aware, all students of Hinduism and Buddhism are agreed that eternal conscious existence, with ident.i.ty of being firmly maintained, is alien from both systems. They do not hold the doctrine of either eternal happiness or eternal misery. To be extinguished, in the sense of being absorbed into Brahm and losing all conscious personality, is the reward of high virtue, while the wicked have to pa.s.s many miserable births before they reach this longed-for goal. With them salvation, liberation, is not deliverance from sin, but from conscious existence. They have both heavens and h.e.l.ls--heavens supernatural in their surroundings but intensely earthly in their character, doings, and strifes, and h.e.l.ls full of everything which is repulsive and painful; but both, after vast lapses of time, will be emptied into the great ocean of being, into the One without a Second.

Cessation of conscious existence is not with them the punishment of wickedness, but the eagerly desired consummation of their being, the goal which is quickly reached by the eminently good.

Let missionaries by all means listen to what is said in favour of new views, let them modify or change their views if they think they see scriptural authority for the change, but I am profoundly convinced no shifting of our doctrinal position will secure success. Looking over the whole field of foreign missions since the end of last century, it is undeniable that G.o.d has done great things by them, for which we have abundant reason to be glad; and we know the teaching by which the desert has in many places blossomed as the rose. New phases of doctrine have yet to win their triumph. We must look in another direction for a greater degree of success--to more unreserved devotedness to Christ on the part of both missionaries and those who send them out; closer communion with Him; a higher degree of attainment in the mind which is in Him; a more persuasive deliverance of our message, and a larger effusion of G.o.d's Spirit.

[Sidenote: THE HEART'S OPPOSITION TO THE GOSPEL.]

The great obstruction at home and abroad to the acceptance of Christ as the Saviour is moral obtuseness, a dormant conscience. Our Lord's words throw a steady light on man's neglect of the great salvation, "_They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick._" Till men know they are sick, and recognize the deadly nature of their sickness, there will be no application to the Great Physician. In addition to the indurating effects of sin everywhere, the people of India have been for ages so drugged, I may say, with pantheistic and polytheistic teaching, that if man's moral nature had been destructible it must have been destroyed ages ago. Happily it can not be destroyed. Perverted, stupefied, dormant, though it is, it still exists, and to it we can therefore address the message of Heaven, while we look up to G.o.d to make it effectual by the teaching of His Spirit. When man knows himself to be a sinner, when he knows what sin is, then, and only then, whether in India or in England, he casts himself with joy into the arms of the Saviour.

I am surprised when Christians speak as if only a modification or a new statement of doctrine was required in order to achieve full and immediate success, as if they had never read such pa.s.sages as "_The carnal mind is enmity against G.o.d_;" "_The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of G.o.d_;" as if they were ignorant of the facts by which these statements are so amply and mournfully attested; as if they had never heard of One who appeared, as ancient sages longed to see, clothed with perfect virtue and dwelt among men, and was yet rejected and crucified by them; as if they knew nothing of His apostles, who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, and yet had to lament over many hearers to whom their message was the savour of death unto death.

Musing over the controversies of the day, the wish has often arisen in my mind: Would that the nature of sin was not kept so much in the background! Would that it was seen in its offensiveness to G.o.d and injuriousness to man--persistently daring high Heaven, while corrupting, degrading, disquieting, and ruining man! Would that the scriptural view of sin and sinfulness, which receives such ample confirmation from human experience and history, was more considered in the adjustment of doctrine! All readjustment in which the nature and effect of sin is not kept steadily in view must lead to serious error--error which misrepresents G.o.d's character and government, is inconsistent with facts meeting us on every side, and must prove most hurtful to man. I am convinced that while on some points there has been progress, and wise modification of doctrine, on the subject of sin the theology of former days was truer to Scripture and fact than the theology of our time.

[Sidenote: "IN MEMORIAM."]

I cannot conclude these remarks about the Indian missionary without mentioning--and I can do little more than mention--the names of loved fellow-labourers who rest from the toils of earth, and have entered into the joy of their Lord above. A feeling of sadness and yet of thankfulness comes over me, as I see before my mind's eye brethren of our own Mission with whom I was a.s.sociated--Buyers, with his intimate acquaintance with the native languages, his large knowledge, and his kindly disposition; Shurman, the keen, impetuous, plodding German scholar, whose great monument is his translation of the Old Testament into Hindustanee; Mather, first of Benares and afterwards of Mirzapore, one of the most enterprising and devoted missionaries ever sent to India, whose peculiarity of temper and urgency with new plans led in his early years to unpleasantness, but who, when well known, was one of the truest and kindest of men, with whom for many years we had an intimate friendship, and whose memory and that of his excellent wife we shall always revere; and Sherring, one of the most amiable of men and most pleasant of colleagues, a man of marked attainments, and an indefatigable worker. The agents of other missions at Benares call for affectionate mention. I have in an early part of my reminiscences spoken of Smith, the founder and for many years the sole agent of the Baptist Mission at Benares, a quiet, diligent, Nathaniel-like man. This mission had for years George Parsons, a man of large linguistic attainments, of most amiable, meek, and devout character, than whom it would be difficult to find a more conscientious labourer. The Church Missionary Society was highly favoured in having had for a long period at Benares two men, Smith and Leupolt, who, in their respective departments, had, I believe, no superiors in India. For many years Smith, with resolute perseverance and great efficiency, often with severe strain on both body and mind, prosecuted evangelistic work in the city and the surrounding neighbourhood. No man was better known and more highly esteemed by the entire community. He had success to cheer him in the form of persons avowing themselves the followers of Christ, but the number was so small that he was often greatly depressed. I cannot doubt that by his ministry seed was sown in many minds which will yet bear fruit. During our later years in Benares, Fuchs was one of the agents of this Mission, an excellent biblical scholar, a diligent labourer, who required only to be known to be loved and esteemed, with whom we had much pleasant and profitable intercourse. He was suddenly called away in the midst of his usefulness, and in the prime of life. I have been confining my remarks to the departed; but I must mention two who survive--warm-hearted Heinig, of the Baptist Mission, now set aside by age and infirmity, after a long life of great toil in the service of Christ, and our greatly-loved friend Leupolt, of the Church Mission, who is still doing good service now in England, and was for many years the fellow-labourer of his friend Smith. His name and work at Benares will last for many a day.

Our departed brethren had their imperfections; who of us are without them? But I can truly say that in their general character, work, and bearing they were the messengers of the Churches to the Gentiles and the glory of Christ.

Looking beyond our Benares missions we remember a number of faithful labourers, whom we knew and loved, who have joined the majority, such as the learned and kindly Owen, the venerable Morrison, the apostolic Ziemann, and many others besides. I do not use these terms in a conventional sense, but as justly applicable to the men. Those I have named laboured, and others have entered into their labours, men worthy of all esteem, love, sympathy, and help.

[Ill.u.s.tration]