Such teaching would yield good fruit any where, and
the good seed found good ground in Persia.
So much for the instrumentality; but, then, influences are every
where at work to check the growth of the plant of grace, and these
must be overcome. There is danger that missionary education may be
made worse than useless by allowing the sympathies of pupils to
become alienated from the masses around them. Children from heathen
families may be puffed up with an idea of superiority to their own
people. Their taste may be cultivated so as to render disgust with
heathen degradation stronger than the Christian desire to do them
good. A foreign language, foreign dress, and foreign habits may
widen the gulf that separates them from their people, till, what
with an undue exaltation on the one hand and a suspicious jealousy
on the other, usefulness is well nigh impossible. But here such
tendencies have been carefully watched and guarded against. The
pupils have been trained with the view of doing good among their own
people. No line of separation has been drawn in dress or diet,
furniture or household arrangements.
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