He had never had a holiday, he had never come home to see his friends.

The Secretary of the Church Missionary Society wrote at last, urging him to come to England for rest and change.

His answer to this letter arrived ten days after the sorrowful telegram which told of his death.

He said, 'But what is this you write; come home?
Surely now, in our terrible dearth of workers, it is not the time for any one to desert his post.

Send us only our first twenty men, and I may be tempted to come to help you to find the second twenty.' So he was faithful unto death.
The _people_ blessed the men who willingly offered themselves, and surely _God_ blessed them too, for 'God loveth a cheerful giver.' He who gives to God grudgingly, or because he feels obliged to do so, had better never give at all, for God will not receive the offering.