Ask the gray heads of the Bannockburn Medical Crusade what manner of
life their preachers lead; speak to the Racine Gospel Agency, those
lean Americans whose boast is that they go where no Englishman dare
follow; get a Pastor of the Tubingen Mission to talk of his
experiences--if you can. You will be referred to the printed reports,
but these contain no mention of the men who have lost youth and health,
all that a man may lose except faith, in the wilds; of English maidens
who have gone forth and died in the fever-stricken jungle of the Panth
Hills, knowing from the first that death was almost a certainty. Few
Pastors will tell you of these things any more than they will speak
of that young David of St. Bees, who, set apart for the Lord's work,
broke down in utter desolation, and returned half distraught to the
Head Mission, crying: 'There is no God, but I have walked with the
Devil!'
The reports are silent here, because heroism, failure, doubt, despair,
and self-abnegation on the part of a mere cultured white man are things
of no weight as compared to the saving of one half-human soul from a
fantastic faith in wood-spirits, goblins of the rock, and river-fiends.
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