lands; they brought to them the scent and colour of the Orient and the
tropics; and they introduced into the quietude of orderly homes the din
of the bazaar and harem and kraal. These men and women in the far
outposts became heroic figures to the Church, and whenever they
returned on furlough the people thronged to their meetings to see for
themselves the actors in such amazing happenings, and to hear from
their own lips the story of their difficulties and triumphs.

Mrs. Slessor never missed hearing those who came to Dundee, and once
she was so much moved by an address from the Rev. William Anderson as
to the needs of Old Calabar that she longed to dedicate her son John to
the work. He was a gentle lad, much loved by Mary. Apprenticed to a
blacksmith, his health began to fail, and a change of climate became
imperative. He emigrated to New Zealand, but died a week after landing.
His mother felt the blow to her hopes even more than his death. To Mary
the event was a bitter grief, and it turned her thoughts more directly
to the foreign field. Could she fill her brother's place? Would it be
possible for her ever to become a missionary? The idea floated for a
time through her mind, unformed and unconfessed, until it gradually
resolved itself into a definite purpose. Sometimes she thought of
Kaffraria, with its red-blanketed people, but it was always Calabar to
which she came back: it had from the first captivated her imagination,
as it for good reason captivated the imagination of the Church.

The founding of the Mission had been a romance. It was not from
Scotland that the impulse came but from Jamaica in the West Indies. The
slave population of that colony had been brought from the West Coast,
and chiefly from the Calabar region, and although ground remorselessly
in the mill of plantation life they had never forgotten their old home.
When emancipation came and they settled down in freedom under the