"Now let me call your attention to a few facts. This age is a wonderful foreign missionary age in the history of the Christian Church. Take a review of the progress of the missionary work." 
"In the year 1800 there were seven missionary societies in the world and 170 missionaries in foreign lands. Today there are seventy central societies or Boards, employing 2,400 European and American missionaries, and 23,000 native preachers and teachers."
"The whole income of all missionary societies in 1800 was $250,000. In 1880 it was $6,250,000 or six millions more."
"The net gain of converts in heathen gains in 1878 was eleven times as large as the net gain of church-members in the same year in our Presbyterian churches in this country,--- 11 percent abroad, 1 percent at home."
"Eighty years ago the Bible had been translated into only fifty different languages; today it exists in 226 different languages; and missionaries have in seventy years given a literature to sixty human languages that before were unwritten"
"In the early part of this century Henry Martyn, the hero and martyr of Persian missions, said: 'When I shall see a Hindoo converted to Christianity, I shall see something resembling the resurrection of a dead body'"
"Missionaries today, men and women, have followed Henry Martyn's steps, and, inspired with his courage, have braved his heroic death, can point to 500,000 Hindoo and Burmese Christians..."
"and to the fact that all acute observers, whether Hindoo priests and philosophers or English Governors-General of India, are agreed in stating that it is the destiny of Christianity to undermine and overthrow the ancient and bloody religions of Hindostan..."
"and that Brahminism is to disappear in these centuries like Roman and Grecian polytheism in the early centuries before the preaching of the Gospel of Christ"
"Yes, this is an age of foreign missions. The cross is being planted in the dark places of the earth. Again, this is an age especially of women's missionary work. Listen to the words of that veteran of Indian missions, Tenpolt:"
"'If any one had said to me twenty-give years ago that not only should we have free access to the native sin their houses, but that the doors of the Zemans would be opened in cities like Benares, Lucknow, Agra, and Delhi"
"and that European ladies and their assistants would be admitted to teach the Word of God to Hindoo women, I would have replied, 'All things are possible to God, but I do not expect such a glorious event in my day'"
"But what has god done? From Calcutta to Peshawar, and in the south as far as Palamcotta, the messengers of. theIndian Female Normal School alone, not to mention others, have opened already more than 1,200 zemans."
"There is nothing in the whole history of Christianity more soul-stirring and wonderful than this great fact of to-day-- the unsealing, the unlocking by the gentle hands of Christian women of the zemans and harems of the East..."
"those degrading prison-houses of millions of our sisters which age after age have been fast closed to the entrance of the Gospel."
"When we think of the wonderful teaching influence of women, whether amongst the ignorant of their own sex or amongst the little children and young people, the power exhibited in all our Sabbath-schools and in all our common schools..."
"we cannot be surprised that the age of woman's influence marks a great era in missionary advance, and that the remarkable uprising of Christian women of this generation in foreign missionary work..."
"should be one of the most notable events in the history of the Church since those earlier days, when women were doing in heathen Greece and heathen Asia Minor just what women propose to do and are doing today in heathen Asia"
"Now, look at some motives that should constrain us to take a deep interest in this work. First a contemplation of the deep degradation and misery of women in all heathen lands. Take, as a single example, the condition of all widows in India."
"It is not many years since the British Government succeeded in abolishing in India the practice of 'suttee,' as it is called, the burning alive of every widow upon the death of her husband. Now that this practice has been done away with, what is the position of the widow?"
"'Mrs. Murray Mitchell, one of the zemana lady missionaries, gives us the account of a Hindoo lady, who came under her influence in whom she took a great interest, and who embraced Christianity"
"This woman had possessed the blessing so rare in India of a kind and gentle husband, who had permitted her to be taught, and had shielded her from persecution."
"She and her husband were reading the Bible together, and they were considering seriously the question of being baptized and becoming Christians., when her husband died, and this Hindoo lady left a widow"
"Now I will read Mrs. Murray Mitchell's words: 'We were visited once or twice, and then were forbidden the house. And what a change! Her beautiful hair had been shaved off, her jewels taken away, and her clothes changed for a coarse white sheet with a black border...'"
"'which was wrapped about her person. She must now sleep on a mat on the floor; no longer on a bed. She must have only one scanty meal in the day, and that must be eaten alone'"
"'She must fast twice in the month for twenty-four hours at a time; she must do the most menial work of the zemana, and be the drudge of the house. Her beloved books were burned. In a word, she was subjected to the privations and horrors of a Hindoo widow's life'"
"'The result need not be wondered at. Her reason gave way, and a deep cloud of melancholy settled on her mind. This is no extreme or unusual case. It is Hindoo law, as well as practice, that widows should be treated thus."
"In all heathen houses where Brahminical influence is paramount, these things are now done. Our ladies propose to tell these seventy-five millions of Brahmin women of a religion which says: 'Honor widows that are widows indeed'"
"'Pure religion and undefiled before God the Father is this,to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world,'- a religion which, emancipating all women, has a special and tender sympathy for the desolate condition of the widow'
"Now listen to a word from the Hindoo sacred books, which some unbelievers today profess to admire so much: 'The supreme duty of the wife is to obey her husband..."
"'Let the wife who wishes to perform sacred ablution wash the feet of her lord and master, for the husband is to the wife greater than Thumra or Vishnu. Her husband is her god, and her teacher, and her religion'"
"You can read page after page of this stuff if you want to. I quote a little extract to show the spirit that is in heathenism toward women."
"What a strong motive we have here presented to us to sympathize with those Christian women whoa re carrying the Gospel into the zemana, and who propose to carry to the women of India the religion that declares woman to be man's equal and helpmate..."
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