into the daily thinking of these people, and Christian purposes
into their controlling motives; to make them understand that the
Gospel means honesty in business, cleanness of heart and body,
health and enlightenment, and whatever makes life worthy here
and now and fits it for the future beyond.

Thousands of such homely frontier missions are molding the
citizenship which makes the very life of the Republic.

All honor to the men and women of character and ability who, as
Home Missionaries, are devoting their lives to such fields--the
most difficult in the world--where no picturesqueness of scenes
or people relieves the strain--where sordid sin, monotony, crudity,
and newness prevail, but where the returns in character-building
contribute to the life of a nation whose mission is the world.

* * * * *

The following quaint letter was written by Rev. Aratus Kent, a
Congregational Missionary at Galena, Ill., to the Congregational
Home Missionary Society under date of April 9, 1844:

"When I came to Galena (in 1829), there was not any church or
clergyman within two hundred miles, and I used to say that my
parish extended from Rock River to Wisconsin. Now I can count
within these bounds twenty-five churches and fifteen ministers.

"Let those then who think little of the influences of the Home
Missionary Society blot out of being those twenty-five churches,
and drive out of the state those fifteen clergymen, and disband