The London Missionary Society were preparing to establish a mission in the idolatrous city of Surat, but the East India Company would not allow Christian missionaries to sail in their ships.  The Society thankfully availed themselves of the privilege of sending Mr. Loveless and Dr. Taylor in the American ship Alleghany.  They arrived in Madras, June, 1805.

During the voyage an attachment was formed between Mr. Loveless and Miss Farquharson which death only could sever, and introduced her to scenes of usefulness for more than thirty years, for which she was eminently qualified by early training.  As soon as Mrs. Graham heard how her friend was going to be employed, she wrote to her as follows: 

“MY DEAR SALLY—­Many tears have I shed over your letter.  What a changing lot has been that of my family!  The Lord’s providences to me and mine have not been of the ordinary kind, and you, as one in it, seem to be a partaker with us.  Surely, of all others, we have most reason to say, We are strangers and pilgrims on the earth.  Oh that we may drink into the true spirit of that phrase, and enjoy the genuine, firm faith of an everlasting habitation, of living at home with God.

“My dear Sally, take the comfort of this, that it is the Lord who hath led you all the way by which you have gone.  Of all persons whom I know, you were, from your temper and disposition, the least likely to travel, still less to continue a traveller.  No ordinary means would have led you to leave your friends and religious privileges.  And many a pang it has cost me, on reflection, to think how positive I was that you should take the voyage.  But it was of the Lord.  The physicians urged it as the only chance you had for life, and they had reason; for of all those who were attacked in the same manner, there is not one alive, within my knowledge, at this day.

“The Lord, by wonderful means, called you from your native land, and led you to the very spot where you met Mr. Loveless.  The same God, being also his God, led him, by means perhaps equally unforeseen and uncommon, to the same spot, united your hearts to each other, and made you one in his hand, and I trust to his glory.  You ask my blessing:  I have carried both of you to my God and Saviour, and have prayed, and continue to pray, that the Lord will bless you individually and unitedly, give you much sweet communion with himself, and much social enjoyment with him and with one another.  May he bless Mr. Loveless as a missionary, and give him the spirit of his office, and much fruit among the heathen, as seals to his ministry; and may you be a helper with him, and both be blessed and made a blessing.

“I feel my loss.  You were a comfort and a help to us all, especially to me:  but I do not mourn; I heartily acquiesce.  This is not only agreeable to me, as it is one of God’s wise arrangements to you and us all, but I think it will be more to your comfort.  Religion and conjugal love will sweeten almost any lot.  It is the Lord’s appointment and his richest earthly blessing.