India, March 6 -- One fine evening in August 1879 in Pennington, New Jersey, a young William Wynn Bruere and his friend, Stevens, were passing a church where Bishop Thoburn of the Methodist Church was holding services. It was raining and they had no umbrella, so to get out of the rain, and with a sense of great curiosity, the two young men entered the church to see what was going on. When they came out two hours later, both decided to go as missionaries to India. Bruere was twenty-two years old then.

His first five years in India were in Bombay, where he and Stevens shared a room. In 1885, he was asked to receive a young lady named Carrie Palmer at Bombay Harbour. Carrie was a new missionary recruit.

She was born in Boston in 1860 and r...