‘Your sweet Mother threw out a suggestion about my going home next year; but it seems to me, love, that if I did so,--unless circumstances change,--I should deserve to be shot as a deserter. Even if I were to become blind or paralytic, I believe that it would be well to stick to Batala. I am the only apology for a European Missionary here; and, curiously enough, my very _age_ is an advantage. What might be a great hindrance elsewhere is rather a help here.’