MEASURING THE MISSIONARY. 
that the work began to prosper. One of the most 
successful means of removing suspicions and dis- 
trust is the missionary's mastery of the native lan- 
guage. But that requires time. The first mis- 
sionaries get no help from books, because there 
are none. There is nothing for it but to go about ask- 
ing : '^What's this? What's the name for that? " 
As though that were not enough, wrong answers 
are often given in order that the missionary might 
be landed into difficulties, and the people have 
some fun. Then it sometimes happens that two 
words which sound very much alike, have very dif- 
ferent meanings. One of my missionary friends 
thought he was asking a mission youth how old 
he was. When the lad replied, with his hand to 
his body, One," he knew there was a mistake 
somewhere. He found out that instead of employ- 
ing the right word he had used one that sounded 
very like it, but which made his question to run : 
How many stomachs have you got?" One of 
our missionaries in Central Africa had quite as 
awkward an experience. At evening prayers, with 
all the mission people about him, he asked God 
to give them good sleep that they might work well 
on the morrow. Unfortunately he said boloko " 
instead of boroko," and so the natives heard him 
ask for good cow-dung instead of good sleep. A 
very different thing, eh ? Through the preaching 
of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the natives are helped 
to understand the missionary. In what he preaches 
they find the explanation of his presence amongst 
them, as likewise his life and ways. It takes most 
missionaries a long time before the}^ can preach 
and write the Gospel in native speech. Until then, 
I 
