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and lost there were lost to the world
 

      Thorley Prescott basked in the sunshine of Jean’s sympathy... Even the difficulty with Mr. Freyer grew to seem a thing of no importance. If the little man wanted to spend the winter puttering around on the mountain, why not let him? After all, it would be a saving of labor for the Black Saib. Prescott knew that if he were left alone with his workmen, he would have have to think out ways of teaching them to become so different that the differences would go back with them in the end to their old homes. The part that surprised him was to find that there were already many ways which he would like to explain to them, if he could do so without danger of being overheard by any one who called himself an orthodox missionary...

Rachel Capen Schauffler, The Goodly Fellowship (1912) : 150
link   (Harvard scan, via google)
link  (U California copy, one of several via hathitrust)

epigram not from novel, but from profile in source no. 1 below.
 

1. profile in The Book News Monthly 30:12 (August 1912) : 871-72 : link —

   The Goodly Fellowship is a story of Persia. “It has been my determination,” Miss Schauffler says, “that the public should be informed of the kind of missionary work which has been done of late years, like that of my brother-in-law, Mr. Labaree. It was he whose life brought to me the independent knowledge of the spirit of real missionaries. I had, of course, seen in the lives of many missionaries things which seemed to me senseless and out of accord with present-day conditions, and I had come to the conclusion that missions were all foolishness and that lives that have been spent on foreign soil and lost there were lost to the world.” Undoubtedly the fate of Mr. Labaree was accountable for this frame of mind, but he was also the reason for her change of viewpoint. For Miss Schauffler continues, “No, it was my brother Ben who through his quiet simplicity and his love for Persia revealed to me my error. When I asked Ben the last time I ever talked with him why he did not stay in America he said, ‘Ray, I shall never feel right until I get back to my work in my home.’ On March 9, 1904, that man was killed by a Persian sayib.”

2. summary and review by Isa Carrington Cabell, in The Bellman (Minneapolis; July 27, 1912) : 117 : link

   Persia and the West
         A writer of real promise, happy in her choice of a sub ject with which she is entirely familiar, but one new to a large majority of readers, is Rachel Capen Schauffler, the author of a novel of missionary life in Persia called “The Goodly Fellowship.” The heroine, Jean Stuart, beautiful, rich, worldly, involved in a half way engagement with one of her own kind, a New York society man, has that within her which demands a breathing space ere she consent to the marriage, which is too much a matter of propinquity to excite or interest her. She is travelling in the East, gets separated from her own party, and is about to be carried off to his mountain lair by her dragoman, a Persian sheik, when she is rescued by a young missionary who has been sent from the station to find her and bring her back with him from the wilderness into safe quarters .
         The story opens with this dramatic and thrilling incident and is told with real fire and spirit, bringing us into the very atmosphere of the Orient, to the sight of the high, serene mountains, the dusty earth , the sweep of the caravans and the rush of the mounted horsemen. With Jean, Thornley Prescott, more soldier than priest, climbs the heights, makes the long march, suffers perils by day and by night to escape the hideous enemy who has vowed to recapture her. The two, lady and missionary, grow to know a good deal about each other on the hard journey to the station and form the Goodly Fellow ship which is to mean much to both.
         The author gives a detailed account of the life of the exiles, their dreadful separation from the outer world, their poverty, their fanaticism, their devotion. The story takes us into the very heart of missionary life, and we see it as we have never seen it before. To Jean the whole business seems futile and quixotic. She perceives the jealousies that divide councils, she hears discussed the burning question, “Is not all work among these heathen wasted that is not the work of saving souls?” She learns the story of Prescott’s choice of a profession, of this man who burned for action, for being in the thick of the world's fight, who was not pious or contemplative, and yet who passed his days translating reports and helping on a little missionary paper.
         And then the great tragedy occurred which was to end all disagreements. The sheik, who had vowed vengeance on the missionaries because they had balked him of his prey, treacherously killed the sweetest, noblest spirit of them all. The sacrifice is made with the most uncomplaining cheerfulness, with a secret, inner joy in surrender to a higher will that opens the girl’s eyes. She understands Thornley Prescott’s sacrifice of ambition and desires, the women’s sacrifice of comforts and friendships, the men’s sacrifice of natural tastes, the love of books, of companionship by choice and not by circumstances. All that is human and small takes its proper place. She must live here , distant from all she ever cared for, ever valued, because nothing else is worth while.
         There is of course a love story, and Miss Schauffler has contrasted her young people in approved fashion. But their misunderstandings and coming together are not the important things. We have given space to another matter — the motive of the missionary and its compelling power — because, almost unconsciously to herself, the author has done this great service to a doubting generation. Other people have painted pictures of Persia, but no other writer of our latter time has made us believe that, having heard the voice, we must follow, no matter to what hardships it may call us.
    

   

3. Rachel Capen Schauffler (1876-1967)

   Vassar Class of 1897; born in Brunn Austria; graduate Central High School, Cleveland, 1893; Teacher in Miss Frazer’s School for Girls, Lakewood, New Jersey, 1903-1905. Head of English Department Lakewood School for Girls, 1910-1912. Teacher and welfare worker, New Jersey Eastern State Hospital for Insane, Trenton, 1912-1913.
   source : prabook : link

   short bio (and portrait) in Appendix A, “Family Profiles” in First Over the Front : Lt. William G. Schauffler, Jr., Pilot, 1st Aero Squadron, Commander, 90th Aero Squadron, Commander, 3rd Corps Observation Group, [in] U.S. Air Service, American Expeditional Force, World War One : 1917-1918; His letters edited by Stanley Walsh (Author House, 2011) : 242-243 : link

4. Rachel Capen Schauffler’s father, Henry Albert Schauffler (1837-1905) was a missionary in Turkey and Bohemia, later founding the Slavic Bible Readers’ Home (School), that would become the Schauffler College of Religious and Social Work (1886-1957)...
   case.edu : link

   Dan Beining, “Two students delve into [the Schauffler College] archives,” in Defiance College Treasure (Winter 2007) : link   (pdf)

5. brother-in-law Benjamin Woods Labaree (1865-1904)

   on his death, and missionary work
   link   (Log College Press)
   link   (Log College Press, blog entry)
    

16 August 2023