The Land and the People 11

comparatively easy, provided your own heart is
right and you really have a worth-while contribution
to make to their lives, lives that are filled with little
else than hard work. The steamboat, the gas-boat,
the telegraph, the phonograph and, recently the
radio, have been relieving their isolation, but still
they are often almost entirely dependent on the rare
visits of one of our half dozen missionaries, patrolling
this immense territory, for help to a wider outlook
on life, a word of cheer, a book to read, a song to sing,
some other talk than timber, fish, and gas-boats, and
the hearing again, or for the first time, that sweet
old story in which commercial standards and mate-
rial values are ignored and the things which are in-
visible and eternal are disclosed and uplifted. Any-
thing we missionaries can do with voice and pen,
with boat and hands and feet, by influence and ex-
ample, with money, brain, or heart, honourably in
the name of Christ, to smooth their road, guide their
thoughts, ease their burdens, or cheer their hearts,
these things we must strive to do or prove false to
our Master.