Hubert's Wife

pipe, as if in a great

culty is with these women and children; they are very dear, precious objects, I have no doubt, in their own homes and in Christian lands, but they are only clogs and drawbacks in such an enterprise as these young men are engaged. A man alone can dive into forests, scale

omen," remarked the Doctor, "Look a

sick, or that 'something or other will be sure to happen, as always does if he is away.' He too is as uneasy as herself, meditates all sorts of mishaps, imagines the house on fire, Johnny in the well, Fanny with a bean in her throat or a corn in her ear, and is on thorns and briers until his own house circles him around again. This is all right and natural for the ordinary domestic man;

married, and was now entertaining thoughts of a fourth

I think our missionaries sacrifice enough, without being obliged to come wifeless among negroes, Hindoos, South-sea islanders, and

I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day have I been in the deep.' Do you suppose it ever occurred to that mighty, God-like spirit, even in the lowest depth of his worldly misery, that it would be a comfort to have a wife come to weep with him, to hand him fresh gown and sa

over such a subject," said the Doctor; "but you m

ugustine, with less of fire, but of lofty faith, St. Ephrem, there, in him you have a St. Paul in eloquence; you will remember that his words were wont to flow so rapidly that his frequen

e and commenced walking the floor, he

of fish in illimitable waters; but that is out of our line of coasting, you must know;

and John Knox, and Wilfred and Benedict much nearer to Christ than to us, the latter having been separated in time but four centuries from h

een hundred years, we may not look for it in

bject whence we have strayed, and upon which I have not said all that I had intended. I was going to remark, after asserting

ish to be compared in any way, shape, or manner with the Catholic missiona

d, a little more m

is your mission, and this is theirs. You come with your families, you make a home-you stay there-waiting for the heathen to come to you; your wife is nervous, she likes not the uncouth looks and ways of your barbarians; she is neat and she does not like her white floor to be soiled by the dirty feet

ng at the dissatisfied countenances of his younger f

'Go teach all nations, and lo, I am with you to the end of the world.' I have visited their missions in every part of the world; in North and South America, in Africa, Europe, Asia, and many islands of the sea-and in fact this really did confound me, though I have been almost everywhere under the sun, these missionaries were already there, working away as for dear life-well, as I was saying, I have been in many a place where, to get the least comfort at all, I was compelled to put up with them; and, I always went away soothed, refreshed,

ound nuns as mission

s-but then, cannot you perceive that a dozen of nuns, independent and self-supporting, is a very

laughed goo

oung gentlemen," addressing his silent, but ill-pleased guests, "are you convin

a voice that slightly t

t with the subject of missions, should seek and find his true and proper p

timate of his remarks;" and he turned the subject, for, in truth, he was not at all pleased with these plainly spoken views, dee