A Farewell to the Missionaries

That evening there was a farewell for several workers who had stopped briefly in Europe and were now about to leave for Africa—Elders C. L. Boyd and D. A. Robinson.^{*As it happened, Elder Robinson's stay in Africa was rather brief. He returned the next year to Britain, where he labored until 1895. Then he sailed for India. In the year 1900 he died of smallpox. Elder Boyd served in Africa only until 1891, when he returned to America to take the presidency of the Tennessee River Conference. He remained in that State until his death in 1898.} It was most likely on this occasion that Mrs. White passed on to the two men the letter on the conduct of the work in mission lands that she had written at the Moss camp meeting, because she mentions that there was “some plain talk about how the work should be commenced and carried forward in their new field” (Manuscript 36, 1887).EGWE 310.2

The next day, at the docks, there was another touching farewell scene: “We could not refrain our tears as we parted with them, not knowing that we should ever meet them again in this life, and not knowing to what they would be subjected in becoming established in their far-off new field of labor. I returned from the boat with many sad impressions.”—Ibid.EGWE 310.3