Hubert's Wife / A Story for You

by Minnie Mary Lee

"As soon as you please; you shall lead and we will follow," answered the associates.

Notwithstanding this ebullition of energy at the outset, month after month, nay, year after year elapsed without the least material progress. What was termed a school would be sometimes kept up for weeks together, at which some few children could be coaxed to come; but after the supply of pictures, ornaments, etc., with which they had been attracted gave out, the attendance languished and the idle urchins sought amusement elsewhere.

Bibles were flung out with a lavish hand to men, women, and children who had never before possessed such a treasure as a book; and this book might for them just as well have been a bundle of old almanacs, for all printed language was Greek to them. And they, these missionaries, did not believe that the mere possession of the holy word of God could impart or draw down God's grace upon the possessor; for that would be akin to the miraculous, and they eschewed faith in miracles.

An attempt was made at expounding and hearing the word of God on Sundays. There was good enough will in these expositions, but the ears and the hearts for receiving were far away. People, it is true, would come some days in crowds, but it was not for instructions; they went as young America goes to see a band of turbaned Turks, or Barnum's latest humbug.

Where was the use of spending so many persons' energies upon such a stolid, indifferent, intractable people? They were wedded to their idols, why not leave them alone? Why should they cast pearls before swine?

These were questions the missionaries asked themselves; and answered too, if not to their satisfaction, to the best of their ability. Their time became more and more consumed in the care of their increasing families.

These missionaries in their home-reports might well speak of hardships. The women were often sick, help could but rarely be obtained, and then of the poorest quality; thus these gentlemanly graduates of Yale, Dartmouth, and Princeton had often not only to cook meals for the family, but to wash, iron, attend the sick wife and helpless infants, and suffer all the anxieties and annoyances that human flesh is heir to. What wonder that they came gradually to lose sight of the grand aspirations that had animated their early manhood? To forget, as it were, the objects and aims of their holy mission, and to sink into the mere paterfamilias, like other good masters of families? There seemed no alternative; the routine of domestic duties must be accomplished; the sick must be attended to; hungry mouths must be fed, fast-coming forms must be clothed. Where was the time to go forth seeking the heathen or compelling him to come in? The wife and children could neither be taken nor left alone. In fact, the missionaries found to their great surprise, as all experienced men have found, that the care of a family is a never-ceasing, all-engrossing responsibility. The outside work could be very small indeed; all had to centre in that one spot, home. They cultivated small gardens, and in this way eked out their subsistence on the small salaries received from the Board of Missions.

Thus lived they from year to year, hopeless of the present, but overflowing with hopes for the future. Though they could labor not now in Christ's vineyard, they might do so by and by; though they might live to behold no fruit of their labors, they might, unknown even to themselves, have sown the good seed, and their children's children, and the children of heathendom might arise up and call them blessed.

Della Lisle's life—or rather Della St. Leger's—in the land of her adoption, lasted but five years; she had buried two little children, who, so brief was their existence, could scarcely be said to have lived at all. As her third trial was approaching and her health in wretched state it was deemed best that she should be taken by easy stages to Constantinople, where English medical advice could be procured. The journey proved invigorating, and Della landed at Dr. Adams' in almost as good health as when she had left, more than four years previously.

There was always good company at the house of Dr. Adams. English and American travelers, whether religious or not, were wont to claim his hospitality.