I have learned with deep interest that beginning on November 7th next there will be celebrated at Bombay the centenary of the establishment of the first American mission in India.
I feel that I should not let the occasion pass without a word of recognition of the great educational, christianizing and civilizing benefits which have accrued in that part of the world through the devotion of these self–sacrificing and self–forgetting men and women who, for the sake of a righteous cause and the good of humanity, exiled themselves from home and friends and country.
I should be very glad if the gentlemen who will represent your Board at the coming celebration could find occasion to make known my entire sympathy with the great work which the Christian missionaries have done and are still doing for the advancement of the welfare of the people of India.