war is serious business. The varied fortune of the battle involves
defeats, incidental and temporary, on the way to the final victory.
Sometimes it is hope deferred.

There are Chinese in whom we have come to be deeply interested, for whom
we have long prayed, who have for years been among the most constant and
most pleasing of our pupils, and for years have been convinced that an
idol is nothing, but that the God of the Bible is the only true God, and
the Christ of the Gospel the only true Saviour, who stop just there.
Over and over again we ask about them, only to find them still _just
there_. Not a step forward seems to have been taken, and meanwhile
time--weeks that grow to months, and months that grow even to years--
time that might be full of service, runs to waste. The heart gets sick
with this hope deferred.

Then there are cases of disappointment. Bright hopes have darkened
almost to the blackness of very despair. A brother whose conversion,
(_must_ I say _apparent_ conversion?) has seemed to be unusually clear;
whose walk as a Christian seemed, while he was with us, to be well-nigh
perfect; whose spirit was singularly humble, devout and Christly; who
was growing rapidly in knowledge of the word, and could already preach
the word with power, goes back to his home in China. Sore pressure is
brought to bear upon him, and he pays some sort of homage at an idol's
shrine. He feels forthwith condemned. He will not be a hypocrite, and
therefore will no longer profess to be a Christian. Now that he has
returned to California, he is ashamed, he says, to show himself among
the brethren. He stands aloof; keeps out of sight, and thus takes the
very path along which Judas hastened to his doom. In vain do we show him
the better way of faith; in vain speak to him of Peter, or of the
Father's welcome to the prodigal, and the delight we once had in him