P XIII THE MISSIONARY AND HIS ASSOCIATES EOPLE at home can hardly realize the seriousness of the problem which sometimes arises out of the relation of 1 the missionary to his associates. The spirit of Protestantism promotes vigour and self-reliance. These virile qualities appear even more prominently in foreign missionaries than in ministers at home, partly because the boards take special pains to secure men who possess qualities of leadership and partly because the conditions of missionary life tend to intensify them. The result is that foreign missionaries are men and women of unusual force and independence of character. But force and independence are not conducive to humility and gentleness. "The truest steel the readiest spark discloses." Many a missionary is at his best in leading and at his worst in following. He is apt to be impatient of restraint, good in initiative but poor in team work. And yet team work is indispensable to the highest success. There must be coördination where several men and women of equal authority are working together, and if this coordination is not harmonious, there will be great unhappiness and an unfortunate influence over the natives. The example of missionary lives is usually more powerful than the effect of missionary words. Friction in a mission station is a very serious matter. "How wearily the grind of toil goes on Of nature, and how hard and colourless Is life without an atmosphere." 1 Whittier, "Among the Hills." • Ibid. It is fundamental to remember that the only persons in this world who are absolutely independent are savages and hermits. The rest of us are set in relations to our fellow men. We are dependent upon them in innumerable ways and they, in turn, are dependent upon us. The higher we rise in the scale of civilization and of Christian service, the more close and complicated these relations become. Each person finds his own field of labour becoming less general and more particular. This is illustrated in our physical life. The civilized man wants many more things than he can produce unaided. He is therefore obliged to make use of the products of others, and he must render an equivalent for what he receives. The labour of a score of men is represented in the clothes he wears, of many more in the food he eats and of a still greater number in the house he occupies. The figure might easily be extended into the mental and spiritual spheres. Each individual is affected by a far greater number of influences exterior to himself than he realizes. The Christian worker, therefore, who tries to dissociate himself wholly from others and who imagines that he has a right to do as he pleases without regard to them, is simply reverting to the conditions of savagery. In this realm of complicated relations, the missionary finds himself. Circumstances that are beyond his control associate him with others and the question of his personal adaptation to them becomes an important one. Sometimes it presents itself at the outset in a startling way. A young missionary recently lamented that one of his greatest trials came where he had least expected it-in his relations to his fellow missionaries. He had fondly believed that all missionaries were angels in disposition. He found, to his surprise and dismay, that they were not free from the common infirmities of humanity. He failed to realize that the trouble was partly in his own conceptions. He expected too much of human nature. He forgot that there are no perfect people in this world. The conditions of life in Europe and America, however, make imperfections less visible to the naked eye. The privacies of family life are more easily maintained. Some people, who have a reputation for unfailing graciousness of manner in public, are peevish and irritable to their own wives and children. The old saying that no man is a hero to his valet expresses a real truth. The world sees the hero; the valet sees the man off-guard, and has an opportunity to note all the petty and fretful words and deeds. On the foreign field, however, there is no possibility of concealment. Distance, isolation, loneliness, pressure of surrounding heathenism and the necessities of the common work unite to force missionaries into closer relations than among an equal number of Christian workers elsewhere. It is notorious that two families had better not live in the same house and that the intimacies of camping in vacations are severe tests of character. Even more intimate are the relations of foreign missionaries. "I have missed the quiet of my own home more than anything else," laments a new missionary. "Here everything is done in the open, everything you do or say, and I sometimes even think, is open to the whole compound. I have often longed for a hidden room or secret passage just to get away and find myself." In such circumstances, little words and trifling deeds, which in other conditions would be unnoticed, are apt to develop irritations. Even the best of people have moments of weariness and impatience in which they are apt to say or do rash things. The new missionary, seeing and hearing all these things at close range, is in danger of forming unjust opinions of his associates. This difficulty is apt to be intensified at the small and isolated station. A missionary who found himself with only one associate despairingly wrote: "I would rather be placed at a station alone than with one man, unless I could choose the man. Socially, I have no escape and no relief from his constant companionship. My reputation is absolutely at his mercy; for there are no eye-witnesses either to restrain or to testify, none to arbitrate, none to judge. Even if two such men are good men, the very best; yet good men may differ and good men's convictions are usually strong. One man may do all the yielding and the other one all the ruling, though the latter may be inferior in judgment and the other more fit to rule. Imagine Cleveland and McKinley made joint Presidents, and that, being gentlemen, it was thought there could be no contention. Being honourable gentlemen, and having opinions so widely different, they are bound to contend. But the imaginary instance does not begin to describe the situation we are discussing. You would need to remove all witnesses, all advisers, all pressure of public opinion and make the reputation of each absolutely dependent upon the report of the other." The result is sometimes disastrous. Here are some extracts from letters which are all too common in a board's correspondence: "Mrs. is in a very nervous condition and must probably go home. It is not the climate; it is lack of proper associates. This does not mean that one missionary is essentially better than another, but that some persons are so diverse in their dispositions that even the indwelling Christ cannot make them live together. Health gives way under strain that comes not from without but from within the mission circle." "It is sad but it is true that there is a lot of incompatibility between missionaries. . . I know two men who have lived together on pins and needles for the past few years. Each man has his own peculiarity. One is lacking in humour absolutely. The other lacks in frankness. The association has proved impossible. Now both these men are genuine, good men. One of them is as near perfect as any man I have met. But pull together in the same ditch, they cannot." Any one in the home-land who is "without sin "in this matter may "first cast a stone" at the missionary. Christians in England and America have their likes and dislikes as well as the missionaries. We once heard a New York pastor sharply declare that certain quarrelling missionaries were unfit to be on the field, when he himself was notorious for his quarrels with his brother ministers. Who does not know congregations and women's societies that have been rent by factions? Is there any reader of these pages who can truthfully say that there is not a Christian of his acquaintance with whom he could not work harmoniously in intimate relations? Those who are disposed to be harsh in judging missionaries may discreetly pause here long enough to read Christ's words in Matthew 7: 1–5. We are not excusing missionaries who cannot agree, but simply calling attention to the wide ramifications of the problem. The new missionary will start right in his relations to his associates, if he is determined not to have trouble with them. Even if they are not altogether congenial, he can usually find some way of getting along with them, if he is really desirous of doing so. The more trying they are, the more definite the test of his Christian grace. Tact and patience and prayer will often accomplish wonders. A friend writes that a missionary of her acquaintance "found herself in close association with a nature which was to hers as fire is to tow. The unpleasant possibility of quarrelling with a fellow worker yawned at her feet. Feeling entirely helpless in herself, she threw herself on her knees in an agony of prayer that God would keep her from anything so dishonouring to Him and His cause. He heard and answered, and from that moment, although they continued to work together in the same station, she never afterwards felt any stirrings of antagonism towards the person in question." It will help one to be patient and forgiving, if he reflects that he himself probably has as many defects as his associates and that he is quite as trying to them as they are to him. It is easier to see the faults of others than to see our own; but we may discreetly remember that, to our associates, we are among "the others." Temperament is often a factor that needs to be taken into consideration. Some men are naturally cold and impassive. The temptations that are attractive to others do not appeal to them at all. Their tempers are so placid or sluggish that they are |