Heroines of the Cross

"Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” It is more than eighteen hundred years since these words were spoken, and in them we find the warrant for the attempts which have been made to evangelise the world. They form the God-given charter of missionary enterprise. In obedience to that Divine command, men and women have gone out into distant lands to carry the glad tidings of salvation to the heathen. In the performance of their mission they have shown, not only to savage and idolatrous races abroad, but also to their civilised and Christian brethren at home, a spirit of heroism for which no other field of human effort can supply a parallel.

The pages of missionary history literally sparkle with romance, and there is none so brilliant as that which tells of woman’s work. Yet it is only within comparatively recent times that woman has had justice done to her work in the mission-field. She was at one time simply “a missionary’s wife.” She shared his labours, his dangers and privations, and bore burdens of which he knew not the weight; but her part in his success was not recognised.