sionary residence of Dr. Hunter Corbett at Chefoo, China, which looks from a distance like a marble mansion. The real story is told as follows by Dr. Corbett's daughter, Mrs. Hays: "When Dr. Corbett and his young wife arrived at Chefoo, they rented a native house in the city. In that little dismal house with mud walls and narrow windows, surrounded with cesspools and garbage heaps, with the nearest neighbour perhaps dying of smallpox or typhus fever, their first child was born. Is it any wonder that when the missionary had the chance of buying land up on the hill above the filthy city, he thought it a special dispensation of Providence? The board was unable to provide money for a home, so the missionary built a modest, one-storied building of gray brick at his own expense. As the years rolled by, rooms were added to the ends of the house to accommodate the increasing family, and as a protection from heat and storm a veranda was built along one side of the house. Alas! it is this veranda which causes all the trouble. Arches of brick were found to be less expensive than pillars of wood, and when the rash missionary overlaid the brick with plaster and a coat of whitewash, there stood the 'palace' with arches of white marble gleaming in the sunlight.'"

The visitor approaching Fusan, Korea, is apt to remark upon the buildings that stand conspicuously upon the hill, and to hear a sneer about the selfishness and ostentation of missionaries in selecting the best sites. The facts are that when the missionaries went to Fusan, they could not afford to buy in the city and they took the hill site because it was unoccupied and cheap, paying just $75 for the whole tract on which church, hospital and residences now stand. The owner was glad to get that price, as the land was then practically valueless. That time has proved it to be the best site in Fusan and that the mission occupation of it led others to seek the neighbourhood so that the place is now valuable is simply a tribute to the good judgment of the missionaries. Another illustration

occurred in Persia, where the missionaries were accused of having for a summer resort at Lake Urumia "one of the finest palaces in all the land." The "palace" referred to was an old, abandoned one-story and basement mud building which the owner was delighted to sell to the missionaries for $80. They fixed it up as best they could with a private gift of $170 from a kind-hearted lady in St. Louis, and then the several missionary families of Urumia took turns in occupying it a few weeks during the heated term.

A few missionary residences in different lands have been built by wealthy relatives for particular missionaries, and occasionally one is built as a memorial for a deceased friend. But the average missionary residence costs from $2,500 to $3,000, including land. As building in most fields is quite as expensive as at home, the reader can judge for himself how "palatial" such a place must be. The average missionary residence is about like the home of a country clergyman or school-teacher in England and America; though in the tropics, the fertility of the soil, the luxuriance of palms and foliage plants and the cheapness of labour make it easier for the missionary to have beautiful grounds.

There is another phase of this financial question that deserves consideration on the field, and that is the missionary as the handler of trust funds. We do not refer to his salary but to the money that he is called upon to expend for mission work. We have already discussed missionary administration so far as it relates to the board; but the board must administer its funds through the missionaries. The erection and maintenance of schools, hospitals, and printing-presses and the employment of native helpers involve the handling of considerable sums. Some missions receive for this purpose as high as $80,000 a year. This money goes from the board to the treasurer of the mission and is by him paid out through the

1 Chapter III.

station treasurers to the individual missionaries, who, in turn, disburse it for the work that is under their immediate care. The boards have, of course, certain rules governing these expenditures. They provide blank forms for this purpose and they expect a strict accounting, certified by an auditing committee and approved by the mission.

Missionaries sometimes complain about these rules and occasionally one is offended by them. The difficulty ordinarily is that such a missionary has gone to the field directly from a theological or other professional school, with little or no business training. Unaccustomed to the methods of business life, he chafes under the "red tape" that is required of him. We knew a missionary who, when asked to sign a receipt, indignantly inquired whether the board distrusted him. It is unfortunate when a missionary is so ignorant of business principles and methods. The missionary is, in an important sense, a business man, charged with fiduciary responsibilities. The fact that he is a missionary does not absolve him from those obligations that rest upon those who administer trust funds anywhere else. No degree of piety or devotion can take the place of straightforward business habits. No man is morally justified in handling other people's money as a trustee, without taking the precautions that are accepted by business men everywhere as indispensable to the intelligent and safe conduct of such enterprises. The boards have a right to demand vouchers for all missionary expenditures, and they are forced to have them, for those expenditures are checked over by auditing committees. Everything about a missionary's financial methods should be above the suspicion of carelessness. He should be conscientious in making out the estimates for his work, and his associates should be equally conscientious in passing upon them. He should never borrow mission funds, except in health emergencies, and then only in ways authorized by the rules of the board and approved by the mission. The mission or station treasurer who accommodates missionaries by personal

loans of the money committed to his care is guilty of a breach of trust, and the missionary who asks him to do so shares in the wrong. A broad distinction should be observed between personal and mission funds, and any use of the latter that would be improper in a bank cashier is improper in a mission treasurer. A great enterprise cannot be wisely conducted without business rules, and when a missionary is called upon to observe them, he should not imagine that the board has any want of confidence in him.

H

VIII

THE MISSIONARY'S PHYSICAL LIFE

EALTH is indispensable to the missionary. An invalid may manage to be useful in the home-land,

but a sick missionary is almost as useless as a sick soldier. When, as often happens, he needs a well person to take care of him, the loss is doubled. The chances of recovery, too, are usually less than in the home-land where the climate and facilities for treatment are better, and if the health becomes seriously impaired, there is no alternative but a return which involves not only a heavy expenditure of missionary money but perhaps the breaking up of the missionary's life plans. "Nothing hinders a man half so much as dying." Therefore every consideration of prudence as well as of duty dictates reasonable care in the preservation of health.

There are undoubtedly diseases and accidents that cannot be prevented, and if they befall the missionary, he should accept the situation with faith and courage and resignation. His colleagues will ungrudgingly give all needful time to him, and the board will not hesitate to make the necessary grant, if a return to America becomes necessary. The missionary should understand, however, that the means for controlling or preventing measles, malaria, diphtheria, smallpox, dysentery, cholera, typhoid fever, yellow fever and several other maladies are now well known and practically applicable. Moreover, if the general tone of the system falls below a certain point so that one becomes anæmic or depressed, the door of welcome to a half-dozen diseases is thrown wide open, and germs which ordinarily would not find lodgment enter and rapidly propagate themselves. The change of climate and diet and the mental and physical conditions incident to life far from home