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284 CHINA MISSION YEAR BOOK.the first time we are where we may hope that women ofeducation will be prepared to take such places. Alreadythe school girls of twenty years ago are middle-agedwomen They have known the Gospel from their youthand been trained in -the church in the habits of thoughtand action of its membership. This marks great advance in the possibilities of their instruction of others.In a few instances God has already given, by His Spirit,a special call to one or another to this service. In nota few of the stations are widows, some of them young,who have dedicated their lives to God for the preachingof the Word, and here and there an unmarried woman,whose serious purposeis to consecrate that which shehas received, not to the beautiful ministries of the home,but to the wider needs of the church.The great immediate evangelistic work is still, asalways and everywhere, to be done, however, in theChristian home. Here we see the best and most promising of all the fruit grown from the long years ofseed sowing. A generation of children are growing upwho study comparative religions in college and mustlearn from text-books or from their teachers the tenetsof the great faiths of their ancestors. They knowneither the theory nor practice of Buddhism and Taoism.They have been trained from their youth in the Scriptures and are getting now in our mission schools a careful knowledge of these not surpassed and rarely equalledin the home lands in the courses of study of the young.What may we not hope for as these become the womenof the church ? The contrast between the home life ofthose who love and honor God and those who have noother than the standards of Confucian ethical teachingsis already attracting the attention of some thoughtfulminds, and one hears not infrequently tribute paid tothe personal character of women neither wise nor learned,but who having sat at the feet of Jesus have a gentleness,forbearance, and devotion which are witness to his grace.As such as these are brought more and more in contact