Sowing the Seeds

His spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry. Therefore disputed he in the synagogue… and in the market daily with them that met with him. Then certain philosophers… encountered him. And some said, What will this babbler say? Other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods; because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection. - Acts xvii. 16-18.

In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand: for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good. - Eccl. xi. 6.

Sowing the seed by the day-light fair,

Sowing the seed by the noon-tide glare;

Sowing the seed by the fading light,

Sowing the seed in the solemn night:

O what shall the harvest be?

What shall the harvest be?

In May, 1850, the Revs. W. Welton and R. D. Jackson arrived at Fuh-Chow as missionaries of the Church Missionary Society. The American missionaries, who had preceded them by four years, were not allowed to live inside the walls, but only at the suburb of Nantai. Through the intervention of the British Consul, however, part of a temple, on the Wu-shih-shan Hill, within the city walls, was assigned to the new-comers as a residence. This concession, which was obtained with difficulty, would probably have been soon lost but for the personal popularity quickly acquired by Mr. Welton, who having been a medical man of some experience, opened a dispensary, to which Chinese of all classes thronged. The literati, who had several clubs on the hill, where they met for discussion or worship, and in which students up from the country for their examination could reside for a term, took umbrage at the proximity of the missionaries, and having failed to prevent their occupation of the temple, resolved to turn them out. A series of petty annoyances began: the tiles of the roof were forcibly removed one night, and the garden door carried away; efforts were made to rouse the passions of the populace; and at last the priest of the temple, who was the lessee, brought to the Consul the quarter’s rent which had been paid in advance, and begged him to get rid of the obnoxious tenants. Nothing came of this, and though the excitement continued, some successful cures performed by Mr. Welton won the hearts of the people. But ultimately, to save the local officials who had ratified the agreement from the displeasure of the supreme authorities at Peking, to whom the literati appealed, the missionaries consented to remove to another temple, equally well situated, but not objected to by the literary class.

This difficulty, however, was but the first of many similar ones in the history of the Fuh-Kien Mission.

The ninth day of the ninth moon is a great festival, the principal amusement of which is the flying of kites, made in the shape of birds and insects, on that very Black-Stone Hill on which the temple was situated. During this festival, in the following year, 1851 (when it fell on November 1st), the crowd of holiday-makers attacked the premises, destroyed the furniture, and carried off all they could lay hands upon. Mr. Welton took refuge in the interior of the temple, and was kindly protected by the priest. A few months later, when he hired a Chinese house with a view of fitting it up as a school, the workmen employed in repairing and adapting it were so violently threatened by the literati that they had to desist; two literary men engaged to organise the school were seized by the authorities (acting, it was believed, under instructions from Peking, where reactionary counsels then prevailed), flogged, and cast into prison; and Mr. Welton was obliged to abandon his plan. A piece of land, however, was at length secured, upon which mission-houses and other buildings were erected; and for twenty-seven years there premises were occupied without molestation. How they had then to be abandoned will appear hereafter.

The spirit of the missionaries, like that of St. Paul at Athens, was from the first deeply stirred by the sight of a whole city “given to idolatry,” “full of idols.” Heathen processions and superstitious observances met their eyes on every side as they walked the streets. Mr. Jackson wrote (July, 1850): -

At this particular time of the year we can hardly stir out but we meet idolatrous processions. The gods are presented by immense pasteboard heads and bodies, with wooden arms, which are moved by strings. They are supported by men, who are covered with the long drapery flowing from the idols’ necks; opposite to the man’s face a hole is cut for the purpose of enabling him to see and breathe. It is enough to excite the smile of ridicule to notice the swaggering gait some of the men assume when they see the foreigner coming. Sometimes, as they can only see straight before him, in moving to one side of the way the idol’s head gets a blow, and on one occasion his crown got knocked off. The people are “mad upon their idols.”

Little missionary work could be done by men who as yet knew not the language; but Mr. Weltons’s dispensary, besides exerting a powerful influence in giving them favour in the sight of the people, was made a means of disseminating Gospel truth, a Chinese tract, directing the reader to the “True Physician,” being given to every patient; and as for three or four years from 2,000 to 3,000 cases were treated annually, the way of life must have been made known very widely by this instrumentality. From 1852 to 1855 Mr. Welton laboured alone, Mr. Jackson having been removed elsewhere; and his perseverance soon enabled him to converse with the people. Among the villagers of the surrounding country, the frequenters of the plays performed in the temples by strolling actors, the students who flocked to Fuh-Chow for the literary examinations, the sick for whom his visits as a doctor were requested, the lepers in he village allotted for their separate residence, the Tartar soldiers in their distinct quarter of the city, and many other classes, we find him mingling freely, with the message of salvation ever on his lips. Everywhere “the common people heard him gladly”; he travelled from place to place without molestation; and even the extreme shyness at first manifested by the women gradually wore off. Natives were also employed to sell or distribute Chinese Testaments; but being of course heathen, they proved untrustworthy. In 1854 Mr. Welton succeeded in starting a school, which was soon well attended. Among those who sought his medical aid were the victims of opium, both the smokers and the friends of those who took it to destroy themselves: -

Aug. 7, 1850. - I have had applications from all classes of Chinese to cure them of opium smoking. They have generally, the better class especially, a great abhorrence of it, and pray for medicine to cure them of the habit. Their abhorrence extends to opium dealers; and the missionary who boldly opposes and decries the practice has a greater hold on the affections of the people. I always insist on the opium pipe being given up before I give medicine, as a test of sincerity. I have about fourteen pipes in my possession. Two persons earnestly besought me afterwards to restore them their pipes, which I resolutely refused. One man brought two persons with him, and tried to coerce me into it, but he did not succeed. I called to-day to see a married woman who had taken opium with a view to destroy herself. This is the common means of suicide among the Chinese. I am generally called to the opium suicides early in the morning, at daybreak, for the opium is taken at night, and the friends do not know it until the following morning, when some hours have elapsed, and all hope of recovery is past.

This form of suicide is still common, and the missionaries have been frequently sent for, as Mr. Welton describes.

In June, 1855, after three years of patient sowing of the good seed alone, Mr. Welton was cheered by the arrival of two fellow-labourers, the Revs. F. M‘Caw and M. Fearnley; but in the following year his own health broke down, and he returned home to die. He entered into rest March, 1857, leaving a touching testimony to his love for the great cause in the shape of a legacy to the Society of £1,500. Meanwhile the young missionaries were hard at work upon the language; and one of Mr. Fearnley’s letters vividly paints the difficulties of the task: -

Learning the language with my teacher, word by word and sound by sound, and bringing every word into immediate use, in communication with my servants on domestic matters, or with the workers in wood and stone outside. Sounds have been my principal attention hitherto, practicing incessantly the vowel sounds and tones, so utterly unlike anything the English ear and tongue have been accustomed to in their native land. The organs of speech have to be called off from many of their old actions, and forced violently into perpetually new motions and combinations. Latterly I have looked a little to the character, and I have felt quite refreshed by this partial relief of my overtasked ears and tongue, and employment of my yet unlaboured eyes.

In less than eighteen months after their arrival, however, they were able to begin preaching in public, and before this they were actively engaged in going from place to place conversing with the people. We append an extract or two from their journals, as illustrations of the first attempts to set the message of salvation before the people of Fuh-Chow. Mr. Fearnley writes: -

Dec. 16, 1856. - Returned down the South Street towards my residence. As I had come up it, I had thought, “Well, this is too noisy and too crowded; one could not preach here; it would be a very good place, an admirable place, for a chapel; but one could not preach here in the open street; the press is too great, and the cries and noises too many.” These had been my thoughts on going up the street; but as I returned down it, a man, leaning over the counter of a wine shop, seeing my blue bag, said, “Have you books?” and, on my answering in the affirmative, rejoined, “Give me a volume.” By this time Iwas advanced close to his counter, and said to him, “But why do you want a volume? Do you know what doctrine it teaches?” “Yes, the doctrines of Jesus,” said he. “Well,” I said, “I will enunciate to you some of the doctrines of Jesus if you are willing to hear.” And, without giving him the book immediately, I began to tell him and his fellow-shopman and some bystanders outside, a few of the great and glorious truths which, rightly received, are able to make men wise unto salvation. Soon I heard a feeble voice close at my left hand, inquiring, in apparently earnest tones, whether Jesus was still alive; and, turning, found they proceeded from a very old and emaciated-looking man, who, by his pitiable poor and age-weary look, might reasonably put himself forward as one interested in a doctrine which spoke of a place where are the riches of everlasting pleasures, and where age and decay are unknown. Of course this question gave me an admirable starting point; and I declared to them, in no diffident terms I imagine, the eternal majesty of Him “who liveth and was dead, and, behold, He is alive for evermore.”

After taking some time at this spot, and gradually turning away from the shop to address more audibly the now greatly-increased crowd, I acceded to the proposition of a barber, who was plying his trade at my left hand, and whose business was somewhat incommoded by the numbers of my auditory, and mounted a low stone breastwork which he pointed out to me on the opposite side of the road. Hither came all my previous audience, and more added themselves besides, for their standing-place was larger. And here, in the main street of Fuh-Chow, for as long a time as my voice would hold out in that open and noisy place, did I continue to address them, stimulated every now and then by some question put to me by one among the listeners, and unfolding to them,  as well as my yet narrow vocabulary would permit, the fearful truths of judgment and eternity; and inviting them, while yet it was to-day, while yet the grave had not shut its mouth upon them, to seek the Saviour Christ Jesus. I gave only one book to a well-dressed literary-looking man at this place, besides the one, i.e., that I left in the shop where I began my discourse, for the crowd was so dense, and it was utterly beyond my power to put the books into the hands of those to whom I wished them to come, viz., the more educated-looking among them. It was very pleasing, however, to see how perfectly free they were from any inclination to violence. In the very midst of the uproar, when a hundred hands were uplifted, and a hundred voices were shouting for a volume, and man and boy were pressing forward, and almost tumbling one over the other, in their eagerness to get the first chance of the coveted treasure, immediately I said, quietly but firmly, that I would give no book more at that place, and proceeded to step down from my eminence among the people, they at once made way; not a hand was raised to take a volume from my bag. With the exception of a few who accompanied me along the street, talking quietly and courteously to me, they dispersed, and the stream of noise and talk and traffic resumed its usual current through the ever-busy South Street.

Turning out of the South Street, when a little beyond the Confucian temple, I walked leisurely on homeward, somewhat wearied and lowered in voice-power by my late exertion. But meeting several people with books in their hands, which I conjectured to have been given to them by my colleague, Mr. M‘Caw, and which, on examination, I found to be really so - meeting these, I could not forbear taking a volume from the hand of a young man who held it, and questioning him as to the doctrine it taught. This soon brought a crowd about me, and the conversation and address from me which ensued was to me the most pleasing I had been engaged in that day. The first person that markedly engaged my attention was a tall, handsome-looking, well-dressed young man, who undertook, it would appear, to roast me a little for the amusement of the bystanders. “And this Jesus,” he began, “if a man believes in Him he’ll go to heaven, will he?” “Yes, if he truly believes in Him, and so hates sin, which Jesus’ soul hateth, trusting to His merits only, he will go to heaven.” “Oh!” and a scornful smile played over his features the while, and I could see his side-look of ridicule to those beside him - “Oh! and what must we do if we believe in Jesus? what must we do? What must our course of conduct be?” There, I fancy, he considered that he had puzzled me, for his laugh was peculiarly joyous, and his side-wink to the bystanders exceedingly triumphant. But I told him that I would answer him very quickly if he would listen. “First,” I said, “let the heart within think good thoughts. Jesus knows the thoughts, and all those who profess faith in Him must purify their thoughts. Secondly, let the mouth speak good and holy words - no falsehood, no wicked, no reviling words. (Here the Chinese offend grievously.) Thirdly, let he hand occupy itself in good deeds, not in stealing, not in fighting, not in injuring men.” As I gave him these three divisions of the conduct to be observed by those who wished to believe in Jesus, his face became more serious. My positions were founded on principles which he himself and his countrymen could deny to be good. He turned his head and looked behind him when I uttered the first as if he were looking for somebody coming up in that direction; but really, if my thoughts misled me not, in a certain measure of disappointment that my answer gave him so little handle for ridicule. I called to him to listen to me again when he turned his head away, and gave him my second branch of Christian duty, and afterwards my third.

Another man, apparently a tradesman, brought an argument against both the power and benevolence of Jesus, and his scornfully and mockingly. Being of humble grade, his thoughts occupied with things material, he said, “I think that Jesus should make rice cheaper, that the people, now but scantily fed, might eat.” “Why,” I said, “if men were dealt with according to their deserts, it would be still dearer even than now.”

Thus is it then, in the back-room away from the street, on the front shop threshold, in the open glare and toil and bustle of the main street, in the by-lane, in the little bay by the street side, where a wall perhaps recedes and gives standing room, in each and every place, by God’s mercy, we are permitted and privileged to preach the everlasting Gospel.

Dec. 17. - It was curious to observe how much interest already had been excited in this part of the city. “Books, books,” was the cry everywhere; and I could hear one little boy repeating to a man with whom he was walking some of my remarks respecting the sin of using bad language in the streets. Many shouted, as I thought in ridicule, “Jesus,” “Jesus,” “Jesus is very high.” And, in addition to our common name of “foreign child,” I heard one person calling after me, “Jesus’ foreign child.” So that that wondrous name has already begun its progress here; now in shame and contumely, but to end, we hope, in the mouths of many at least in glory and reverence.

Dec. 20. - To-day again went down into the streets to repeat my small attempt at preaching. Once, during the morning, before I went down, the thought came before me so vividly of my exceeding inaptitude for such a work, my yet lamentably scanty stock of words, my still scantier power of idiomatic construction and sentences, my far from perfect utterance of the tones - joined with all which, too, I reflected on the exceeding dissimilarity of the modes of thought of the people of this land and of my own land - and the result of the whole on my mind was, “Oh, how can I go? How can I possibly stand there by a wall-side with a hundred staring Chinamen about me, and exhibit to them all my imperfections, and lay before them my uncouth modes of thought? How can I do this?” But yet, with all these thoughts, I did not for a moment say, “Shall I stay? Shall I omit to go?”

The next paragraph is from Mr. M‘Caw’s journal. He refers to what the missionaries have ever found the chief hindrance to their work, the opium traffic. Such scenes as he describes are still frequent, and sadly militate against the missionaries’ success. It may be stated here that in the Great South Street, not far from the printer’s mentioned by Mr. M‘Caw, there is now a chapel belonging to the Society.

Oct. 16. - Preached at the printer’s door, corner of Great South Street. When I had spoken some time, a smart-looking man asked me if I had any opium. “No,” I said, “I don’t use it, nor do the true worshippers of Jesus use it either.” “What countryman are you?” was his next question. “Englishman,” I answered. “And you do not smoke opium? Do not your countrymen bring it here?” He then turned to the crowd, with an air of triumph, raising his hand and shaking it aloft, soon enlisting all the audience on his side; and to make the scene more ludicrous - to say nothing worth of it - in the midst of all the confusion an old woman, apparently above sixty, came forward, and clenching her hand, shook it up at my face in desperate rage. I remained quiet for some time, until the noise abated; then I addressed them on the subject, and told them that I came here to teach them a religion which condemned all such evil drugs and practices.

Neither of the two brethren found any lack of willing hearers; but neither was spared to the Mission long enough to have the joy of seeing any of these hearers turning from idols to serve the living God. Mr. M‘Caw’s career in particular, though giving great promise of future usefulness, was a brief one indeed. His wife had been taken from him within a few months of her landing in China, and after two years’ faithful labour he too died of fever in August, 1857. Another two years saw the Mission deprived also of Mr. Fearnley, who was obliged by his wife’s illness to leave; and though in the meanwhile the Rev. G. Smith had arrived at Fuh-Chow, this again left the work to a single labourer unfamiliar with the language.

Long, however, before Mr. Smith could speak with any comfort or readiness, he was going in and out among the people, setting before them with a stammering tongue, but with the loving heart of a true missionary, the claims and the invitations of the Gospel. We have just seen the ordinary incidents of such work, and need not repeat them. But one passage in Mr. Smith’s journal is worth noticing, as it introduces us to a department of evangelistic work in Fuh-Chow, which must have severely tried both his patience and his moral courage.

In China, the honour attached to the attainment of literary degrees is extraordinary, and success in the examinations is an indispensable qualification, not only for official employment, but for social position. There are four of these degrees. The first, to attain which the candidate must pass three examinations, is called Siu-Tsai, or “Budding Talent.” It raises the possessor of it above the common people, and exempts him from corporal punishment, but it does not qualify him for Government employ. The second degree, called Ku-Jin, or “Promoted Man,” qualifies for the lower offices. The examination for it is held every three years, in all the eighteen provincial capitals; and there are generally from five to ten thousand candidates at each capital. The third, called Tsin-Sz, or “Advanced Scholar,” is the entrance to higher official life, and the examination, also triennial, is held only at Peking. The forth degree of Han-Lin, or, as it may be called, “Academician,” is only attained by the few who aspire to the highest posts, and is conferred with much ceremony at the imperial palace. The triennial examination for the second degree was held at Fuh-Chow in 1859, and the city was crowded with candidates from every part of the province of Fuh-Kien; and Mr. Smith resolved, if he could not speak intelligibly to these students, that he would at least distribute copies of the Scriptures at the door of the examination hall: -

Aug. 15. - This year the examinations for the Ku-Jin, or second literary degree, take place in this city. Consequently the place is crowded with reading men from every part of this large province, and it forms an admirable opportunity for spreading far and wide a knowledge of the truth. To-day we went down with a large number of copies of the Scriptures, to take advantage of the opportunity thus presented. After waiting about two hours, during which we engaged in conversation with the people standing about the place, and beating of a drum, a loud report produced by a kind of cracker, and the commencement of some very unharmonious music, announced the speedy exit of some of the anxious candidates, to each of whom we proffered a volume out of our treasures, and only in two instances were they declined. Some, getting one volume, came to us to complete the set. Besides ourselves, two American brethren were engaged in the same good work. Nor was Satan altogether idle; he had a servant there distributing short tracts concerning Kwang-Ing, the goddess of mercy, according to the Chinese. Another was endeavouring to procure merit by distributing perfumes to the scholars, including ourselves in his favours. Others were equally busy, perhaps even more perseveringly so, in selling tea and refreshments to the weary candidates.

Aug. 17. - Again distributing Scriptures to the literary men. It may be that many will not be read, many not even taken home; but if only one or two should be instrumental in turning an idolater from the error of his way, all our expenditure and fatigue will be more, far more, than repaid.

Aug. 19. - At the examination hall again with copies of the precious Word. Whilst waiting, we got into conversation with a literary man from Iong-Ping, a city about 110 miles further up the river. He had received books both from us and the American missionaries on a former day, and commenced his conversation by remarking on their contents. Thus one instance came to our knowledge in which our books had received some attention. Perhaps this man, on his return, may read the strange books to others, and thus the seed of life be introduced into his far distant city.

Aug. 21. – Again at our post, though a wearisome work, and one from which no immediate result is to be anticipated. Yet we feel it our duty and our privilege to sow the seed, leaving it perchance to others to reap the harvest. On this occasion many of the candidates under examination belonged to the city. This drew a large crowd of their friends to the place, which rendered our work much more difficult. This time, too, it was quite dark before the doors were opened, which added to our task, by making it more difficult for the candidates to see the offered books, and for us to distinguish them from the crowd; and at last, fatigued and exhausted, we had to wend our way home without quite emptying our baskets.

The following additional entry in his journal takes us behind the scenes with regard to these examinations: -

Aug. 26. - At the beginning of this month my teacher complained of weakness from the excessive heat, and expressed his inability to come for the whole day, proposing to come but half the day and receive but half pay. Knowing the Chinese greediness for money, and feeling the effects of the heat myself, I supposed him to be sincere, and consented to his proposal. After a few days his eyes became very bad, and he was unable to come at all. This, too, is a very common ailment among the Chinese, and did not excite my suspicion. But at the end of the month I was surprised by an unblushing confession, entirely unasked for, that he had got permission to stay away in order to write minute copies of the Chinese classics for the use of men going into the examinations, for them to secrete in their clothes, and this had made his eyes bad. This man has been with missionaries now about eight years, and is in the habit of explaining the Scriptures to our people. We have every reason to fear that his heart is thoroughly seared against the truth, yet are obliged to retain him in order to get a knowledge of the language. This is not the least of a missionary’s trials.

Ten years had now elapsed. Diligently and prayerfully had the sowers scattered the good seed over the Happy City and the surrounding valley. But while year after year the fertile and well-watered plain yielded its earthly produce to the labours of the agriculturist - while the rice and the tobacco and the sugar-cane flourished, and crop after crop was gathered in - while the countless chests piled up on the wharves for export showed that the tea plantations, too, in the uplands failed not amply to reward the cultivators - the spiritual husbandman waited, and waited, and looked in vain for any sign that the seed of the kingdom had even taken root, much less was springing up. The people were hearers, indeed, and willing hearers, but they were wayside hearers. The Gospel grain fell upon hearts not only naturally hard, but trodden over by the petrifying tramp of superstition, and ignorance, and vice.

But how was it that the earth yielded its increase in regular and unchanging order? Was it not because He whose power alone gives “rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness,” had given His Divine decree that “while the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease”? And if the same God has also promised to the spiritual sower that “in due season he shall reap, if he faint not,” would not the very fact that the one promise was fulfilled before the eyes of the missionaries year by year be assurance to them that, in the Lord’s time, the other must needs be fulfilled also?

And so it was. Though sickness or death had removed Welton, and M‘Caw, and Fearnly, and the wives of the two latter, the new-comer, Mr. Smith, “fainted not,” and “in due season,” as we shall see, he did reap.

’Mid the tread of many feet,

’Mid the hurry and the throng,

In the burden and the heat,

Have the working hours seemed long?

Softly the shadow falls,

And the pilgrim’s race is run;

While through celestial halls

Resounds the glad “Well done!”

Well worth the daily cross;

Well worth the earnest toil;

Well worth reproach and loss,

The fight on stranger soil!

Let us lift our hearts and pray,

And take our journey on;

Work while ’tis called to-day

With the thought of that “Well done!”

> Author of Copsley Annals.

Fret not for sheaves; a holy patience keep;

Look for the early and the latter rain,

For all that faith hath scattered love shall reap.

Gladness is sown: they Lord may let thee weep,

But not one prayer of thine shall be in vain.

> Anna Shipton.

(Second chapter of The Story of Fuh-Kien Mission of the Church Missionary Society by Eugene Stock, published in 1890.)

The City of Fuh-Chow

Say unto Tyrus, O thou that art situate at the entry of the sea, which art a merchant of the people for many isles, Thus saith the Lord God; O Tyrus, thou hast said, I am of perfect beauty... Behold, therefore, I will bring strangers upon thee, ... and they shal draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom. - Esk. xxvii. 3, xxviii. 7.

The sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. - Eph. vi. 17.

I cling to yon crowded city,
Though I shrink from its woe and sin.
> Bonar.

If we sail up the south-eastern coast of China, from Hong-Kong, we come about four hundred miles further to the mouth of a large river named the Min, which with its tributaries, waters nearly the whole of the great province of Fuh-Kien, comprising a territory nearly as large as England without Wales, with a population of probably twenty millions. Let us in imagination ascend this noble stream.

As we approach the mouth, steering cautiously through a somewhat intricate channel between picturesque little islands, lofty granite mountains rise before us, and between their almost perpendicular precipices we enter the narrow channel of the Min. Further on, where the gorge widens a little, Chinese villages nestle at the foot of the cliffs, or crown the lower spurs of the mountains, each with its watch-tower rising conspicuous above the low houses; and here and there a hill-torrent leaps from the precipice into the valley below. Signs of Chinese industry meet the eye on all sides, every terrace or ledge of rock being assiduously cultivated. After threading another narrow passage, with columns of rocks on either side piled up to a height of a thousand feet, we emerge into a fertile valley eight or ten miles broad, in the midst of which, ten miles further up the river, stands Fuh-Chow, the capital of the province. As we approach the city, the loftiest peak in the surrounding mountain chain rises on our right. It is called Kushan, or the Drum mountain, and its summit, which is 3,900 feet high, is occasionally, in the depth of winter, white with snow for a few hours. In a hollow at the foot of the peak, and about 2,000 feet above the plain, is a famous Buddhist monastery, a favourite retreat for the foreign residents in Fuh-Chow in the hot season; and within its hospitable walls our missionaries have frequently been thankful to take refuge from the almost intolerable atmosphere of the city.

The thickening forest of masts, both of Chinese and of smaller foreign vessels, and the numerous boat-building yards lining the river bank, warn us that we are nearing the capital; and presently a rough but massive bridge, built of enormous blocks of granite, and no less than a third of a mile in length, stretches across the stream. This the Wan-show-Keaou, or bridge of ten thousand ages. On our left, as we approach it, is the populous suburb of Nantai, where, on a rising ground, stand the houses of the European merchants. The city lies away to the right, approached from the bridge by a narrow winding street nearly three miles long. Let us land at the bridge and traverse this pattern of a Chinese street, with our eyes wide open while our guide explains to us the many curious sights that are to be seen.

What a busy and confused scene! How quickly the thronging crowds move to and fro! Yet there are few accidents, and little or no wrangling. We have been told that the people of Fuh-Kien are more turbulent and independent than most Chinamen; and we were prepared, on the other hand, for a certain amount of order from a people so tenacious of forms and ceremonies; but here we find apparent disorder and yet no disturbance - a crowd of avaricious tradesmen pushing their business with the utmost consideration for those around them. The road is very badly paved, and we are thankful that we have to step into the deep holes and over the dirty heaps in the dry season. In wet weather we should prefer to occupy the sedan chairs in which wealthy citizens are borne on the shoulders of their servants.

Let us enter one of the houses. At first sight they seem to be built with their backs to the front, but we find that we are really looking at the front, and that the door is the only opening to the low one-story shed in which these wonderful people crowd, more like hens in a fowl-house than like human beings. The doors, which are sometimes oval of leaf-shaped, are placed so as not to be opposite to each other, in order to inconvenience the evil spirits which this clever people dread so much. The shop front is open with a double counter, so that the proprietor may serve in the street as well as in his shop. The foundations are of stone, the frame-work of wood, and the walls of lath and plaster, though sometimes of mud; the roof alone shows by its shape the tented origin of the building. Each tradesman erects a tablet to one of the gods that preside over mercantile transactions, before which he burns incense sticks twice a day. As we return to the street we inquire the name of the tradesman who has so politely shown us his premises, and our guide points to a sign of some seven feet in height, containing his name, and a motto, “Mutual Advantage.” Next door we see an enterprising firm trading under the title, “Rising Goodness,” and so on all up the street.

As we approach the city gates, it seems as if some calamity within the walls had compelled the whole population to migrate into the suburbs, and to do their business in the open air, for here we see not only travelling fruiterers, pastrymen, cooks, and vendors of gimcracks, but blacksmiths, tinkers, and shoe-makers too. We are not surprised to see a bookseller’s stall, but we are not prepared for a migratory banker or chemist and druggist, who, one would suppose, must necessarily settle in a fixed place, that we may know where to find them. We are considerably amused by the sight of a placid Chinaman having his head shaved in a quite nook of this fancy fair. We are not surprised to learn that a wise and paternal government compels them to submit to this trying operation, and that those who rebel against the Tartars, who have ruled for more than two centuries, let their hair grow, and cut off their queues. It is very easily seen that nothing but duty would cause them to put up with such a continual affliction. As we proceed, we miss the rows of gas lamps to which we have been accustomed, but if only we could be here at the time of the “Feast of Lanterns,” we should find much more to admire in the effect produced by the lighting up of a vast number of paper lanterns, of all sizes and shapes and covered with all sorts of devices.

And now we meet with several tradesmen whose business we cannot comprehend - chiromancers, fortune-tellers, and choosers of lucky days. The dentist hangs round his neck a ghastly string of grinders and fangs as evidences of his skill; but what testimonials shall we require before we do business with the gentleman “who chooses lucky days”? And yet he does a good business, for no Chinaman can be married, or buried, or take any important step, except on a lucky day. The Chinaman, with all his shrewdness and ability, is as much a slave to his superstitions as the most degraded negro.

But what is this procession of gaily dressed folk coming down the street with gongs beating and fireworks cracking? The white dresses notwithstanding, there is a sad look about the people forming the procession. It is a funeral party. This is their lucky day for carrying the dead parent to his last home. All the rites have been performed, and the widow and children are sadly wending their way to a small knoll in the country, there to lay their loved one down in the hope that if they continue to pay the required subscription, the departed one will wander about in the world of spirits, clothed and fed and supplied with ready money. That is all.

The Buddhist or Taouist priest tells them nothing of a Day of Judgment, nothing of a Heaven; without hope himself, he gives them none. These busy thronging multitudes literally have no religion that will influence their lives in the present, or give them hope for the future. They have no God; they are given up to selfishness; they carry on their trade without any day of rest; they are told that their profits will be larger if they burn incense before certain idols, and that their luck will be better if once a year they observe certain ceremonies which bear a semblance to idolatrous worship, and so they do as they are advised. Their God is Self, and the only objects of worship they at all care about are their ancestors.

They may call themselves Buddhists, and summon the Buddhist priest to conduct every domestic religious ceremony; or they may profess Taouism, and pay some homage to its multitude of divinities; or if they belong to the literary classes, they will hold both Buddhists and Taouists in contempt, and hold proudly to the moral maxims of Confucius; but whichever of the three national religions may claim them as adherents, their real faith, such as it is, is in the ancestral worship which prevailed in China long before Confucius taught the five cardinal virtues, or Taouist austerities and magical ceremonies were thought of, or Buddhism covered the land with temples and pagodas, convents and monasteries, priests and nuns. Go into any house we may choose, everywhere we shall find the ancestral tablets - pieces of board twelve inches long and three broad, each with the name, rank, and date of birth and death of the person it commemorates. Is it a rich man’s house? There is a hall set apart for the tables. Is it the hovel of the poor? They adorn a special shelf in the single room. Before these ancestral tablets are prayers and incense offered, especially on the 1st and 15th of the month. It is the worship of the dead.

Before we reach the gate of the city we are to witness another procession peculiar to China. A number of porters carrying various articles of dress and household furniture are parading the street, ostentatiously displaying a bride’s contribution to the furniture of her future home. We do not see the bride herself in her gay marriage chair on her way from her old home to her new one, but we know that she is entirely giving up her own family and joining that of her husband. She will live with their parents, for it is a common thing to find three generations living together in tolerable peace and harmony.

As we enter the southern gate we notice a curious sight - a basket carrier collecting something which he evidently values very highly, and which we are surprised to learn are only scraps of waste paper with the Chinese character written on them. They have been taught by Confucius to venerate the written character, and therefore they collect the paper in this way to be afterwards carefully burned.

We partake a slight refreshment at one of the curious bamboo stalls, which does duty as a cookshop, and provides warm and tasty rice puddings and hot tea at all hours of the day, and then, passing on through the city, we catch sight of a European face in a room used as a temporary chapel by the side of this teeming highway. And now for the first time do we thoroughly appreciate the difficulties of a missionary to the Chinese. There stands the missionary, in a conspicuous garb, speaking with difficulty, in a language he has been learning for several years, to a people who are worldly above all others, thoroughly conceited, believing in their own wisdom, and filled with contempt for the poor “foreign devil,” as he is frequently called; taught from their earliest childhood to venerate all that he condemns, and to despise all that he teaches to be good and right, while the slightest disposition to heed the things that be of God is the signal for persecution from every relative and friend he has. How can we expect him to hear and embrace the saving truths of the Gospel? Yet in spite of all this, we see here, supporting the words of the foreigner, a Native catechist and a Native pastor, whose sincerity none can doubt, to whose honesty the suspicious and distrustful Chinese are themselves ready to bear witness. The sight lends vigour to our steps, and we continue our journey to the Mission premises with a lighter heart and with renewed hope.

Presently we arrive at the highest bit of ground in the city, called the Wu-shih-shan, or Black-Stone Hill, and on this, amid pleasure-grounds and temples, we should have found, until lately, the Church Missionary Society’s Mission buildings. Why we shall not see them there now will appear further on.

From the summit we survey the whole town; and the surrounding plain, to the foot of the mountains, and extending north and south twenty miles, is spread before us like a map. It is a fine sight. The city indeed, though it is frequently spoken of by the Chinese as the “Banyan City,” owing to the many trees of that name to be found growing in the town, is not very picturesque. It appears “like a solid mass of murky roofs,” the streets being too narrow for us to distinguish them from the elevation on which we stand. Here and there lofty ornamented poles or walls of a bright red colour rise above the houses, and mark the temples and the Mandarin dwellings. But beyond the walls, which are seven miles in circumference, and broad plain, encircled by the mountains, intersected by canals, studded with rural villages, temples, and fish-ponds, and richly cultivated, affords a beautiful prospect. Facing the north-west, where the Min emerges from the mountain range, we are looking in the direction whence come the two great staples of Fuh-Chow commerce, timber and tea. The famous black tea district of Bohea (so called from a mountainous chain of that name) lies beyond those hills; and wood of many and varied kinds - comphor-wood especially - abounds up the course of the river. Mr. Wolfe thus refers to this view, and the thoughts suggested by it, in a letter written in 1863, soon after his arrival at Fuh-Chow: -

Hill rising behind hill, in beautiful order, form the extensive plain into a natural and most magnificent amphitheatre. Looking down upon the city, with its 600,000 inhabitants inside the walls, fills the mind of the spectator with thoughts and feelings which can be realised only by himself. The whole city is seen from our door,* so that we can never go out or come in without being reminded of the vastness of our work, and our own want of strength to accomplish it. The entire beautiful valley of the Min lies spread before our eyes; the river itself, flowing noiselessly along, having its surface enlivened with crowds of boats - the various plots of ground formed by canals which pass through the vale - the crops of rice and wheat waving in the sun - the clumps of trees and hamlets scattered irregularly over the plain, with a grave or a mausoleum occasionally attracting the attention, and reminding one the death is the same everywhere.
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* In the engraving, the hill in the left foreground is Wu-shih-shan, or Black-Stone Hill. About the left centre of the picture, on this hill, will be observed a white wall; behind it a house with a slightly gabled roof looking as pagoda. This wall surrounds what used to be the C.M.S. Mission compound; and the house was the original mission-house, afterwards burnt down, but replaced by a new one built by the late Rev. J. E. Mahood. To the right, but lower down, and almost exactly in the centre of the picture, is another English-looking house, which was used as a girls’ school, and as the residence of the Native Pastor, the Rev. Wong Kiu-taik. Between the two houses, and a little behind, is a large Taouist temple. Another hill, crowded with buildings, will be seen in the background, with a famous pagoda half-way up it. Just beneath this pagoda, between the two hills, a building stands up from the mass of houses: this is the city gate, the lower ground to the right being the suburbs.

If the sight of a single city overwhelms the missionary with the vastness of his work, as well it may, what must be his feelings as he thinks of the great province of which it is the capital, with its twenty millions of souls - not to speak of all China, with its four hundred million - spread out beyond! Fuh-Chow means “the happy city”, and Fuh-Kien “happily established”; and certainly, with their diversified scenery, their rich produce, and their industrious people, the city and the province only need the Gospel - the Fuh-yin or “happy message” - with its blessed provision of grace and pardon, life and peace, to make them indeed abodes of true happiness. How the Fuh-yin was carried to Fuh-Chow, and from city to city over the mountains and valleys of Fuh-Kien, will be told in subsequent chapters.

Were ye not fain to doubt how Faith could dwell

Amid that dreary glare, in this world’s citadel?

But ...

... be ye sure that Love can bless

E’en in this crowded loneliness,

Where ever-moving myriads seem to say,

Go - thou art nought to us, nor we to thee - way!

> Keble.

Come, O Thou all-victorious Lord,

Thy power to us make know;

Strike with the hammer of Thy word,

And break these hearts of stone.

> C. Wesley.

(First chapter of The Story of Fuh-Kien Mission of the Church Missionary Society, by Eugene Stock; Third edition published in 1890.)

The Anglo-Chinese College at Foochow

On the 21st of January the college closed for the Chinese New Year holidays. These are the great holidays of the year to the school boys of China. Except on a few feast days the native schools are open all the rest of the year. They have no longer summer vacation, such as we have, neither have they any Sunday. All days are alike to them; Sunday has no sacredness and the summer’s heat no terrors. All the more eagerly therefore do Chinese school boys look for the New Year holidays. In this school there is of necessity a long vacation of two months or more in the summer, as the foreign teachers could not possibly continue their work. The Chinese teachers, however, must be on hand if required to teach any scholars who wish to continue their studies.

This long holiday time does in no wise lessen the joy of our students when New Year comes, they must have their holidays then with the rest.

The closing exercises were extremely simple, no long commencement orations, no fine singing, and immense assemblage of gentlemen and ladies to applaud their favorites. We trust these will come in time when the school becomes popular, and the ladies and gentlemen of China take an interest in it.

There were public examinations, the reading of essays, and some interesting gymnastic exercises. The trustees of the college, and others who were present, declared themselves pleased with what they heard and saw, and expressed their satisfaction at the progress the pupils had made. This was all the more gratifying to the teachers as their work had been done under great difficulties.

As a short statement of the work done may be interesting, I give a list of the studies of each class. The boys were arranged in four classes. The fourth had reading, writing, dictation and elementary arithmetic; the third, reading, grammar, arithmetic and geography; the second, reading and grammar, arithmetic, algebra through simple equations, and geography with map-drawing; and the first finished Loomis’ Treatise on Algebra, studied four books of Loomis’ Geometry, and parts of Swinton’s Universal History and read selections from Addison.

Five days every week were given to this work. Saturday morning was spent in writing compositions, reading before the school and practicing simple gymnastic exercises. A little time each day was given to systematic physical exercises. In addition, all the students studied the Chinese classics, to teach which two competent native scholars were employed.

Next school year, which begins on the 19th of February, the fist class will take up plain trigonometry, and Dr. Rennie, one of the foreign physicians, has kindly offered to spend two or three hours a week in teaching physiology. I hope after the summer vacation to begin elementary physics or chemistry with this class. It depends somewhat on whether some generous friend of education will give us the necessary apparatus.

Our numbers were not up to those of some previous years. We have much to contend with: ignorance and prejudice on the part of the people, and the influence of the “almighty dollar.” America is sometimes spoken of as being the favorite land of this bad but mighty divinity, but one must come to China if he would see people fall on all fours and worship him. Not many of the people indeed are the recipients of his favor, and it is perhaps on this very account that they worship him so earnestly. In education, as in everything else, it is difficult to interest the average Chinaman, unless you can show him that in a year or two his exertions will begin to enrich him.

The Chinaman is not a man of high or distant ideals. He lives in the present, pursues what experience has shown him to be profitable, and can with difficulty be persuaded that Western knowledge is worth the trouble of acquiring it. He must see that it pays before he will have any thing to do with it. That it does pay we hope the course of events will soon show him.

The government school, situated about ten miles from here, is crowded with students, but it holds out attractions to which we can make no pretension. The students there are well paid, and if they distinguish themselves as scholars and go through the course, they are sure of lucrative positions in the service of the government. Of course we no not claim, we do not even pretend to compete such a school. We have a higher aim, however; we propose giving a much better education, and if we have the means we can do it.

If it should occur to any that the Anglo-Chinese College and its work are foreign to the purposes for which missionaries are sent here, and that we are doing nothing directly to Christianize the people, I would say that we are educating, and educating is part of the work of the church in our day. We are not living in the times of the apostles; we have more to give than they had, and for that very reason we must give it.

Many of our students are regular attendants at the Sunday-school, and the two most interesting and most interested classes there are composed of the students of the first and second classes in the college. They are fortunate in having as their teachers, Sunday after Sunday, Miss Jewell and Miss Fisher, the two young ladies in charge of the Girls’ Boarding School of the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society.

Some of the older students are earnest, practical Christians. A few weeks ago I called some of them together, and we organized a Branch of the Young Men’s Christian Association. The little society now numbers twelve members, of whom nine are students in the college, the other three being foreigners, the Rev. J. H. Worley of this mission, Dr. H. T. Whitney of the American Board and myself. Mr. Worley is the General Secretary. This is the first Young Men’s Christian Association ever organized in China, and we hope that the Inter national Committee, when we communicate with them, will recognize us. Already some of the members have done good work. When revival services were held in the church some weeks ago they went out on the streets and brought to the church many a man who probably had never heard the Gospel preached before.

Thus our college is a Christian school. We are not a propaganda and do nothing to force the students to become Christians. They are entirely free to accept or reject. We are Christians nevertheless, and the education we give had better be given in Christian schools than in those in which Christianity is rejected. It will be given, and the only question is, where and by whom?

Our work would be better and more thoroughly done if we had better means of doing it. The term closed with not a dollar in the treasury, and the Trustees were compelled to borrow $800 to carry on the work for another year. We need more for other purposes. Our most pressing wants are a suitable dormitory, and suitable apparatus for the teaching of science. If we had $2,500 we could erect a large Chinese building on the college grounds and purchase such apparatus as we are most in need of.

I would that I could lay this matter properly before some of the many members of our church to whom God has given means abundant to aid in carrying on this work. I am convinced they could find no object more worthy of their giving. There are some young men here of such high character and promise that many who now take but little interest in our work, would, if they but know them, give unstintedly to assist in education them. The College is here and it has accomplished something. The great object now should be to keep it open till by its work the people are persuaded of its usefulness. But give us the means of working, and, to borrow the pregnant words which I once heard Bishop Fowler use in addressing the theological students at Drew, we shall be able to “bring things to pass.”

Since writing the above the new school term has begun, and I am happy to be able to add that so many new students have entered that our roll is much larger than it was last year.

Foochow, China, Feb. 26, 1886.

(Published in The Gospel of All Lands by Methodist Episcopal Church Missionary Society in 1886, written by Rev. George Blood Smyth who was the then ACC principal.)

Foo-chow

VIEW OF FOO-CHOW. - FROM A RECENT PHOTOGRAPH.

The city of Foo-chow, around which so much interest has lately gathered, on account of the operations of the French navy in its vicinity, is the capital of the Province of Fo-kien, which comprises a territory as large as Ireland, and nearly three times as populous. The city takes rank in the first class of Chinese cities, and has a population of about 600,000. Its situation is exceedingly beautiful, occupying the northern part of a vast amphitheatre, nearly twenty miles in diameter, formed by the mountain ranges which circle about it. The surface of the plain is dotted with beautiful knolls, and here and there a high hill rises, sometimes terraced from base to summit, and covered with growing vegetation, and sometimes presenting an almost perpendicular side of rugged granite. The River Min winds its course through the valley. Groves of orange, lungan, and other fruit trees, add variety and beauty to the plain. Both inside and outside the city walls the giant banyan-tree is frequently met, stretching out its long, horizontal branches, with grateful shelter from the hot rays of the sun. Often its branches are covered with graceful ferns. Here and there a beautiful camphor-tree stands in solitary grandeur, with its straight and symmetrical trunk rising for twenty-five or thirty feet without a branch, and all its deep, rich, dark-green foliage at the top. Hundreds of acres are covered with the green, waving rice crop. No fences mar the beauty of the scenery, the fields of different owners being separated only by little ridges of earth eighteen or twenty inches high, which are hidden from view as the crop attains its growth; so that as the observer, standing on a mountain-side, looks off over the plain, it seems like a vast carpet of richest green. Amid such surroundings as these the walls of the city rise, thirty feet high and twelve feet thick, constructed of brick, resting on a solid granite foundation. The wall is six and one-quarter miles in circuit, and from it many fine views of the city and surrounding country may be obtained. Native poets have not been insensible to the beauty of the situation, and one of them, indulging in a little poetic license, exclaimed:

“Ten thousand miles around Foo-chow,

Spread out the terraced hills.”

FOO-CHOW. - ISLAND JOSS-HOUSE.

FOO-CHOW. - GUARD-HOUSE NEAR THE GATE OF THE CITY.

The most prominent landmarks within the city are the White and Black Pagodas, and the North Watch-tower. The Pagodas are nine-storied towers, erected 900 years ago. They are not, as many suppose, temples for idolatrous worship; though a few idols may be found in the lowest story, just as they may in almost every public building and every private house. The Pagodas were erected to preserve the city from the evil influences of atmospheric currents, which, according to the theory of the Chinese, may be deflected by these high structures, and great calamities thus be warded off from the city. The North Watch-tower is a two-storied building, erected on top of the wall, at the summit of a high hill, which position makes it a prominent object. From its shape, and its location on this summit, it has been called by foreigners “Noah’s Ark.”

VIEW FROM PRINCESS’S GRAVE. - FROM A PHOTOGRAPH.

The city, of course, abounds in temples, many of which are elaborate and costly. One of the most celebrated is that erected in honor of the great Chinese sage, Confucius. It contains handsomely-cut pillars of dark granite, of great size and strength. The chief object of attention in the main room of the temple is the tablet of Confucius, which is of wood, six feet high and one foot wide, painted red and partially gilded. The inscription on it, in large tilt characters, is: “The Most Ancient Holy Teacher, Confucius.” Before this tablet, on stated occasions, the chief mandarins of the province bow down, in reverence for the great philosopher; and on his birthday numerous offerings are made, a prominent feature of which is an ox roasted whole. After the spirit of the ancient sage has satiated itself on the essence of the offerings presented, the worshipers and their attendants fall to and devour the substance with such gusto as to give assurance that the viands have not lost any appetizing quality by reason of the sage’s previous feast upon the essence thereof.

There are also large temples devoted to the worship of the gods of Buddhism and Taoism, and to various national and local deities of greater or less renown.

There are many yamens (or public offices). Chief among them are those of the Viceroy, the Tartar-general, the Governor, the Treasurer, the Provincial Judge, and the Rice and Salt Commissioners. The examination Hall, or Provincial College, is also a building of note. It is surrounded by a high wall, and consists of long rows of low compartments, provided for the students who come up to the provincial examinations. An avenue twelve feet wide runs through the centre, on each side of which the rows of cells branch off. Each cell is about two and one-half feet deep, four feet wide, and eight feet high. Ten thousand students are thus accommodated, who must remain for ten days (with two recesses of half a day each, however), and write essays upon themes given out to them by the examiners, to test their knowledge of the Chinese classics. Only 300 out of the 10,000 can receive the coveted degree.

It is difficult to describe the general appearance of such a city as Foo-chow. As you stand on Blackstone Hill, and look out over the city below you, the first impression is that of a sea of tiles, as all the roofs are covered with gray tiles. Then the beautiful foliage of the banyans, the lichis, and the bamboos, attracts attention and charms the eye. The tall red poles, indicating official residences and temple grounds, are numerous. The Pagodas come in for their share of admiration. The river, with its thousands of curious boats, with sails of bamboo, or of cotton cloth, and great awkward junks with their big eyes, present an animated scene. The nearer mountains, in their quiet beauty, and the more distant ranges, towering up in grandeur, complete a picture seldom rivaled, and not easily excelled.

FOO-CHOW. - THE OLD FORT AT MINGAN PASS, SILENCED BY THE FRENCH.

The city is in southeastern China, in latitude 26° 5′ north, and longitude 119° 20′ east. As it is approached from the sea, Sharp Peak Island, with its beautiful hills, crowned with the sanitariums of the three Protestant missions at Foo-chow, is observed to the south of the entrance of the Min. Streaming slowly in, we seem confronted with great hills, and are wondering where there can be any passage through, when suddenly a little opening appears, and on we go through the narrow channel, between the precipitous sides of the Kinpai Pass. Here the Chinese forts, well built, and armed with Krupp guns, until the recent attack, guarded the entrance. Close down by the shore were batteries which, if effectively manned, ought to have made considerable havoc before they were captured. Now, on either side of us, are high hills, beautifully terraced. On the narrow plain at the base of one of these is the thriving market-town of Kwan-tau, with its native custom-house, and its noisy, bustling crowd of excited buyers and sellers. Little villages of one-storied wooden houses, with their tiled roofs, nestle along the mountain-sides. Now and then little mountain streams and sparkling cascades pour their waters into the river. As the steamer winds its way cautiously among the junks and sampans, we notice on the south bank a huge rock, resembling a man’s leg, and terminating in a well-formed foot, with heel and toe clearly discernible. Soon another narrow pass, called the Mingan Pass, appears, with a picturesque island in the centre, surmounted by fortifications. On the right was a pretty and prosperous village, which it is to be feared is now a scene of desolation.

PAGODA ISLAND. - FROM A RECENT PHOTOGRAPH.

Proceeding on our way, passing a few more villages and some fertile rice plains, we soon come out into a broad bay, twenty miles from the mouth of the river, whose ample waters afford a fine harbor for the ships and steamers engaged in foreign trade. This is now well-known Pagoda Anchorage, so called from a Pagoda on a large island situated on the north side of the river at this point. On this island were two ship-chandleries, or general stores, one owned by an American, and the other by a British, firm. A British Vice-consulate was also located here.

FOO-CHOW. - THE ARSENAL BEFORE THE FRENCH ATTACK. - FROM A PHOTOGRAPH.

At the upper end of this bay, on the mainland, was located the Arsenal. This was an immense manufacturing establishment of gunboats and transports, where, under direction of French and English instructors, native had learned to construct a gunboat from the engine down to a second-hand on a chronometer. It had numerous workshops, in which about 1,800 workmen were constantly employed. There were also schools of theoretical and practical navigation, designing, naval construction, engineering and chronometer-making. Many intelligent young Chinamen had been instructed in these various branches. On the grounds were large and commodious residences for the foreign instructors and the native officials connected with the establishment. About $70,000 monthly was paid by the Government in keeping it up. French shot and shell soon laid it all in ashes.

Just opposite the Arsenal is the east end of an island, fourteen miles long, which here separates the river into two branches, which reunite at the upper end of the island, as only vessels of very light draft can ascend the river any further. We are obliged to leave our steamer at the Anchorage, and stepping into a handsome steam-launch belonging to one of the foreign firms, we pursue our way ten miles further up the river to the foreign settlement on the large island just mentioned. On our right looms up Koo-shan, or Drum Mountain, whose summit is 3,000 feet above the level of the sea. Away off to the left, on the mainland south of the large island, is a precipitous cliff, where, high up in air, is an anvil-shaped projection. Foreigners have called it “Lovers’ Leap.” It looks like the veritable “jumping-off place.” Soon the buildings of the foreign settlement come in sight, most of them lying on the north side of a sightly hill. The handsome brick structure of Jardine, Matheson & Co., the oldest and best-known American firm in China, are among the most noticeable. In a fine position on the crest of the hill are the buildings of the British Consulate, and the residences, schools and church of the American Methodist Episcopal Mission, adjoining which is the British church, built of granite with facings of dark granite or porphyry. The hillsides for miles adjoining the foreign settlement are covered with Chinese graves.

Now we have reached the foreign settlement, but we are still three miles away from the city. We must turn our faces northward, and the first thing to be encountered is the River Min. We at once cross from the large island to the small island in the river over a granite bridge, and are soon in the midst of a dense population, for this island, scarcely large than Governor’s Island in New York Harbor, has a population of several thousand. On leaving this, we enter upon a granite bridge, with forty solid buttresses placed at irregular distances, and connected by stones three feet square, and varying in length from twenty-five to forty-five feet. On these, as sleepers, are laid the stones which constitute the platform of the bridge. It has granite railings, mortised into granite posts. For nearly a thousand years has this bridge resounded to the steady tramp of the multitudes, crossing and recrossing; and it seems ready for another thousand years of service. So dense is the throng, that we sometimes find it difficult to keep our footing. Here is a peddler of wonderful salve cutting his own flesh, to show the marvelous curative properties of his salve. Here is a dentist, with a string of hundreds of teeth, the evidences of his skill. He pulls no teeth with cruel forceps, however, but puts a corroding powder about the tooth, which loosens it from the gum, until it can be taken out with the fingers. Here, too, are men with eyes and noses eaten away by disease, piteous applicants for charity. But the bridge is passed, and we plunge into the main street leading to the city. It is only about ten feet wide. There are no wagons or carriages. All the carrying of persons or goods is done by men. The coolies carrying the sedan-chairs, and moving at a rapid pace, call out to the burden-bearers, who are in the way, according to the burdens carried, either “Slop-buckets, out of the way!” or, “Turnips to one side!” or, “Opium, give us the road!”

Generally the crowd is good-natured, but once in a while there will occur a brisk fisticuff battle between coolies who have come into collision. On either side the street are stores and shops, some common enough, and others handsome and elegant. Swinging signs in front bear such high-sounding firm titles as, “Perpetual Longevity,” “Myriad Profits,” “Flourishing Prosperity.” Here is the “Eternal Happiness Oil-stone,” and there is the “Celestial Fragrance Drug-store.” Here are showy drygoods-stores, in which you may find rich silks and satins. Now, hold your nose as you pass the fish-market, for the odor is rather strong for unpracticed olfactories. Here are the carp, and mackerel, and suckers, and soles, and cuttle-fish, and eels, and catfish, and crabs, and lobsters, and clams, and muscles, and sturgeons, and sharks, and sea-blubber, and almost everything that sea or river or pond can produce. Now we come to the “Tea Pavilion,” an open, breezy saloon, where tea is furnished in delicate little cups, and rice and cakes and other delicacies may be obtained. But who are those men in cages, just at the entrance? The cages are high and narrow, just wide enough to hold a man. Their chins rest on the edge of a board at the top, and only the toes of their feet can touch the bottom. They are under sentence of death by starvation, and are purposely put where men are eating and drinking all the time, to aggravate their punishment. What is the crime that is met with such awful penalty? They have been found guilty of kidnapping girls from their parents for a life of shame. It seems a terrible punishment; but if all kidnapping were thus punished, perhaps no parents’ hearts would mourn, as do some in our land, besides Charlie Ross.

But we pass on, and soon find, by the sound of merry hammers upon the tin and copper and brass, that we are among the kettle-makers, for all the avocations are carried on in the front shops, and we see them all in active operation as we go along. Soon the broad arch of the South Gate is before us, the massive doors are open, and we are in the city. Our watches tell us that nearly an hour of fairly brisk walking has been required to bring us from the foreign settlement.

As early as the latter part of the seventeenth century, the East India Company made an effort to establish trade with Foo-chow, but it proved unsuccessful. The treaties of 1842, following the opium war with Great Britain, named Foo-chow as one of the five ports to be opened to foreign trade; but there was great local opposition to the admission of foreign commerce, and so many difficulties had to be encountered, that foreign trade can scarcely be said to have fairly commenced until 1853 – the American firm of Russell & Co. being among the first to secure a permanent lodging there. From that time onward, for seven or eight years, every Summer witnessed the arrival of a splendid fleet of the swiftest American and English clipper-ships, which bore away their cargoes of fragrant tea, on which great profits were frequently made. But now all this has changed. The beautiful, clean and tidy clippers have given way to smoky steamers. The American flag began to disappear during the time of the Civil War, and is seen only occasionally on some bark or schooner at the Anchorage. The American firms have gradually withdrawn from the port until only one – that of Russell & Co. – remains. Business is precarious, and fortunes are not so easily made. Yet Foo-chow still holds a leading position among the great tea-ports of China, exporting annually about fifty million pounds, valued at somewhere near twenty millions of dollars, and importing about 560,000 pounds of opium, valued at about twenty-three millions of dollars. This gives some idea of the fearful ravages of the opium trade among the people. Twenty-five years ago only the wealthier classes indulged in the habit. Now men of all classes – officials, merchants, mechanics, farmers, soldiers, boatmen and coolies – are smoking opium. The victims of the habit soon begin to show its effects in their sallow faces, unsteady gait, and general weakness. Many are hurried to the grave by it. Patrimonies are squandered, ancestral lands go to waste, houses are ruined, furniture parted with, and even wife and children sold away, until the poor slave of opium is left penniless. Cases are frequently occurring in which suicide, sometimes from a purposed overdose of the drug, ends a life which it has rendered wretched and despairing.

These two items of trade overshadow everything else. There is considerable importation of cotton goods and of lead, which is mostly beaten into sheet-lead for the teaboxes; and large exports of sugar and of timber, of oranges and of olives, are made from Foo-chow to the more northern ports. As is true of all the other ports of China, the great bulk of foreign trade is in the hands of the English, whose interests are nearly five times as large as those of any other nation. Indeed, taking in her colonies, England has a considerably larger share both of imports and exports than all other countries put together.

It may be of interest to name here some of the peculiar customs of the people. Much has been said of the custom of bunding the feet of Chinese women. It prevails among some classes in all parts of the Empire, but it is, at Foo-chow, carried to an extent scarcely to be met with elsewhere. While at some ports all the women have bound feet, and the binding is more in appearance than reality, allowing them to walk about readily on feet not badly compressed, at Foo-chow the binding is a very real and serious matter. There is a respectable laboring class of women with feet of natural size; but the “real ladies” of Foo-chow wear shoes that are only from two and one-half inches to three inches in length on the sole. To make this possible, girls of five or six years of age have their feet bound with tight bandages of cotton cloth – all the toes except the great-toe being turned under the foot. This bandaging is kept up, in spite of the great pain occasioned by it, for several years, until the foot is crushed and distorted, and withers and shrivels up until it can be incased in a delicately-embroidered shoe with a two-and-a-half-inch sole. Of course the ladies who have this high mark of fashion are not able to walk, in the proper sense of the word. They go hobbling about, sometimes with a cane, sometimes resting a hand upon the shoulder of a child or a servant. But this class have little use for walking, as they spend most of their time in the inner apartments of the house, secluded from all observation, and with no companions but the other female members of the household, and when they go to visit other ladies, they are carried in close-covered sedan-chairs, to screen them from observation.

In time of a lunar eclipse, the people turn out with gongs, drums, old tin pans, and anything else that will make a noise, and beat away with great vigor. If the eclipse is total, as the darkness increases, the pounding becomes more vehement and excited; and when the whole surface is obscured, the din is perfectly terrific. Men shout, “Drum away! Pound away! The dragon has the moon all inside his mouth now. If we don’t make him give it up, it will be gone for ever!” Then, as more and more of the moon’s surface comes out clear, they encourage each other to keep on until the dreaded dragon is compelled to yield it up entirely. When finally the moon sails off fair and clear through the heavens, they go off home with gongs and drums under their arms, in the happy consciousness of duty discharged, and congratulating one another that the moon is saved for future usefulness.

Nearly two thirds of the way up to the summit of Koo-shan, the high mountain near Foo-chow, is located this celebrated Buddhist monastery. It is reached by a gradual ascent over solid granite steps, circling up the mountain-side, with rest-houses here and there, in which the coolies put down their sedan-chairs and refresh themselves with a pipe of tobacco while they rest. Half way up is a tea-house, where cups of the fragrant beverage are always in readiness for the travelers, and the attendant priests are always ready to receive large fees for dispensing the same. The views from some points of this road back over the plain below, and out beyond the hills at the mouth of the river to the open ocean, are exceedingly beautiful. The near approach to the monastery is amid most charming scenery. The broad and ample stone pavement winds in a graceful curve around a spur on the mountain-side. On each side are immense camphor-trees, tall and beautiful pines and graceful bamboos, whose delicate leaves gently rustle in the lightest breezes. The sweet tones of the ancient bell, constantly tolling, sound out more and more distinctly; and soon the numerous buildings of the monastery are in sight, their tiled roofs gray with age, nestling in a sequestered nook, surrounded by camphor-trees.

The first temple was built here in the year 899, and others have been added at various times. Three immense images of Buddha, each represented as sitting on a lotus-leaf, occupy the rear end of the main temple, while on each side are images of nine of his ancient disciples. In the large area in front of the Buddhas are kneeling-stools, upon which, twice a day, the eighty priests of the monastery kneel as they commence the recital of the ritual service before the gods. Afterward they march in single file around every row of their stools, chanting as they go, two priests taking the lead, one of them jingling a small bell, and then pounding upon a queer-shaped hollow piece of wood.

In their other temples are images of Kwan-yin, the Goddess of Mercy, and of various deified Emperors and other divinities – Chinese additions to Buddhism. In the main temple, incense is kept burning night and day before the great Buddhas, and it is a strange thought that, for a thousand years, the fire of the incense has not gone out at these altars of Buddha.

Weird legends connected with the places are numerous. It is said that a king of Foo-chow was once on his way up the mountain-side, attended by some of his soldiers. A very holy priest was sitting with his legs crossed, in devout meditation, directly in the king’s path. A soldier commanded him to get out of the way; but he remained imperturbably in his place. At a second, and more vehement command, he got out of the way, but in such a manner as to astonish the whole company. He rose directly up into the air for a considerable distance. The king begged him to descend, and promised to give him whatever he might ask. The modest priest responded with a simple request for as much ground as he could cover with his robe. This was readily granted, and the priest began to spread out his robe, when, lo! It expanded as he spread, until it covered the whole mountain-side, and the fields below clear to the river. Thus it was that Koo-shan became consecrated ground.

In a shady dell, not far from the monastery, is a trickling rill, with high sides of precipitous rock. The appearance of the bed of the rill impresses one with the idea that it must some time have been a stream of considerable size. The legend is that a devout priest was once seated in meditation near the stream, and being disturbed by the noise of its waters, called out, “Hak!” (Stop!) Immediately the rush of waters ceased, and ever since the stream has been only an insignificant rill.

Another legend tells how a pious priest died, and after his death his hair continued to grow. Barber after barber was summoned to shave it, but could not succeed. At last a sister of his, living many miles away, heard of the trouble, and made a pilgrimage to Koo-shan. When she arrived the dead man opened his eyes. She announced her purpose of shaving his head, which she did with entire success. She promised to return periodically and perform this kind office, which promise she faithfully kept until she was sixty years old, when she asked him what he would to do when she died. The old man made no answer, but wept; and from that period his hair ceased to grow.

These are only specimens of scores of quaint legends with which the priests entertain visitors to this sacred spot.

On one side of the monastery is the inclosure for the sacred animals – cows and pigs, deer, goats, chickens, ducks, geese – that have been presented to the monastery, and are fed and protected until they die a natural death – the Buddhists believing that there is great merit in preserving animal life.

In front of the fish-pond, which for 750 years has received many varieties of fish, and where they are allowed to live out their natural lives. It is one of the amusements of visitors at the monastery to throw crackers into this pond, and witness the struggles of the fish, as they come to the surface and chase the floating crackers all around the pond, in their eagerness to get possession of them.

The Roman Catholics publicly began their work in Foo-chow over 200 years ago. They suffered very greatly in the persecution which prevailed about the middle of the last century; and during the present century their efforts seem to have been mostly directed Foo-chow about 3,000 converts, mostly among the boat population; and in the whole Province of Fo-kien about 30,000.

Protestant Missions entered upon the work in Foo-chow in 1846, when the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions opened a mission there; and were followed the next year by the American Methodist Episcopal Church, and in 1850 by the English Church Missionary Society.

The work was very slow at first, as many prejudices had to be overcome, many suspicions as to the real object of the missionaries to be obviated, and much preliminary work in the study of the language, the preparation of books, and the instruction of the people, was to be accomplished. Nearly ten years elapsed before a single convert was received, since which time considerable progress has been made. The American Methodist Episcopal Church now has an organized Conference in the field, with five foreign missionaries and twenty-two ordained native ministers constituting its membership. Besides these, there are forty-five unordained traveling ministers, and forty local preachers. The number of full members is about 1,700 of probationers about 900, and of baptized children about 600 – making a Christian community of about 3,200 souls connected with this mission. The English Church Mission has nearly the same number, and the American Board Mission several hundreds, so that the three missions now aggregate a Protestant community of about 7,000 souls.

The native Christians are subjected to many persecutions by their heathen neighbors. Ancestral lands are often left to descendants, with provision for annual ceremonies of an idolatrous nature, to be performed in turn by the heirs. When the Christians refuse to perform such ceremonies they are often obliged to relinquish their share in the inheritance. Sometimes the dwellings of the Christians are destroyed, and their farming implements carried away by their heathen neighbors. Occasionally a Christian has to render his life a forfeit in fidelity to his religion. Yet, in general there is toleration for Christianity, and in many places a feeling of even decided friendliness toward the Christians.

Of late years, one of the most important developments of the mission work has been that of the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society. The work of lady physicians in treating native women, in hospital and dispensary, and at their homes, not only medically, but surgically, and in cases requiring very skillful and delicate operations, is coming to be very greatly appreciated by the natives, and opens doors for the missionary work which would otherwise long have remained closed. The work of Christian ladies in the schools, and in training native women to act as “Bible women,” or “evangelists,” in taking the gospel from house to house, has also been of inestimable advantage to the progress of the missions.

The societies support many day-schools, and a few large boarding-schools for boys and girls. The Methodist Mission has a printing-office, which prints several millions of pages of Scriptures and tracts every year. Bishop Wiley is now on his way to China, and expects to visit Foo-chow, and to open the Conference Session there on the 19th of November.

It may be well, in closing this article, to correct a few of the mistakes into which the newspapers have fallen in their notices of recent events. We have frequently seen the heading, “Bombardment of Foo-chow.” It will be readily seen, by the readers of this article, that Foo-chow has not been bombarded at all; and that no French shot or shell have fallen within several miles of the city – the Arsenal, which was the chief point of attack, being located ten miles below the city, and no vessels, except of very light drought, being able to proceed further; and the forts subsequently attacked being between the Arsenal and the mouth of the river, and, of course, still further away from the city of Foo-chow. To speak of the bombardment of Foo-chow is like calling the bombardment of Fort Wadsworth, on Staten Island, the bombardment of New York.

One dispatch spoke of the “foreign settlement” as being looted by a Chinese rabble after the French attack; but the foreign settlement is ten miles up the river from the scene of disturbance, and the buildings looted must have been the few buildings occupied by foreigners at Pagoda Anchorage, in the neighborhood of the Arsenal.

The Tribune informed us that the Island of Hainan belongs to the Province of Fo-kien, and is governed by the Viceroy of Kwangtung and Fo-kien. The island belongs to the Province of Kwangtung, off the coast of which it lies, and which province is not associated with Fo-kien in a viceroyalty.

A Chinese doctor is represented as saying that most of the streets of Foo-chow are as clean as Broadway. That is a statement that must be taken with very many grains of allowance. Some of its streets are respectably clean, as compared with other Chinese cities; but no one who has ever walked through them would think of soberly comparing them with Broadway for cleanliness. So, too, the statement that the British Consul lives in a Buddhist temple is very misleading. He lives in a handsome consular residence in the foreign settlement, built by the British Government. He has, however, a building on Blackstone Hill, in the city, which was once a temple, but is now used as a place of recreation by the consul and attachés of the consulate, who occasionally spend a few days there.

Foo-chow is an interesting city, as to its situation, its surroundings, its people and their avocations, and its important connection with the past history and future prospects of the great Empire of which it forms a part. Long may it be preserved from the ravages of war, and allowed to work out in quiet and peaceful industry an honorable history among the great cities of the world!

FOOCHOW. - UPPER BRIDGE AND FOREIGN SETTLEMENT.

(First published in Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly, vol. xviii. - July to December, 1884, written by Rev. Stephen Livingstone Baldwin.)

福建美以美會年會單

本年會自十一月十五日起至念一日止定集福州南台天安堂諸傳道宜先期齊集庶無參差之誤。

茲將逐日所行事宜謹列于左佈告全會知之。

十五日拜三夜七點鐘曾大闢說經。

十六日拜四上午九點鐘懷監督立福州美以美年會議後為年會議事。下午二點半論拜日齋事武林吉主理，請許承美論真實之拜日齋係何如，若此之拜日齋何以能立。後請諸傳道論拜日齋之規矩宜如何並拜日齋之教讀宜用合法俾所教之人能受感化。每人只可十分鐘。是夜七點薛承恩說經論聖神。

十七日拜五上午九點為年會議事。十點半為追念故長老林振珍謝世之禮拜。下午二點半論安息日事李承恩主理。請諸傳道論盡人宜守禮拜日並宜用何法可令各處之會友盡能恪守。每人只可十分鐘。是夜七點論自備資脯之教會保靈主理。請諸傳道講論。每人只可十分鐘。

十八日拜六上午九點為年議會議事。十點半禮接各會到本年會之使者。是夜七點作獻身為活祭之禮拜武林吉主理。

十九日禮拜上午九點和愛席葉英官主理。十點半許揚美說經後，懷監督按立執事。下午二點半聖餐，懷監督並許播美主理。是夜七點謝錫恩說經後，懷監督按立長老。

二十日上午九點為年會議事。下午二點半論禁戒鴉片事李有美主理。請諸傳道論鴉片之害並有何法能除此害及當立禁戒鴉片會否。每人只可十分鐘。是夜起點李承恩說經論聖經。

念一日拜二上午九點為救主聖誕之禮拜保靈說經後作辭別之禮拜並宣讀派司單事畢。

(Foochow Conference of Methodist Episcopal Church, 1877.)

Ordination of Native Methodist Ministers at Foochow, China

The week ending with Monday, the 22nd of November, was one of great and unusual interest to the friends of missions generally, and to the Methodist Episcopal mission particularly. The special occasion was the General Annual Meeting of the native helpers of that mission at Foochow, their examination, and the ordination of seven of their number to the office or order of deacons, and of four of the seven to the office or order of elders in the Methodist Church by Bishop Kingsley.

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were devoted to the examination of the native helpers on certain portions of the sacred Scriptures, and on the Discipline and regulations of the Methodist Church, and on sermons prepared by some of the helpers. The portions of the Bible and of the Discipline on which they were examined had been given out at the General Meeting held last year in October, as subjects of special study during the present year. Four sessions were held each of these three days. The helpers passed the ordeal very creditably. The missionaries and the most intelligent of the native preachers acted as examiners.

Friday and the forenoon of Saturday were occupied in the examination of the old helpers in regard to their personal character, and the examination of the new candidates for the position of student, or assistant helpers, and in the prosecution of such other business as was intimately connected with the work of the past, or the work of the following year. These sessions were presided over by Bishop Kingsley, assisted by the members of the mission, who translated for him. It was concluded to retain all of the old helpers and student helpers except four or five, some of whom offered their resignation, and a large class of new student helpers were received.

As has been the practice for several years, the evenings of Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, from 7 until after 9 o’clock, were devoted to the consideration of the important subjects, Spreading of the Gospel, the Bible Cause, and the Opium Question, respectively. These meetings were presided over by native Christians, who conducted themselves in a very creditable manner, introducing the subjects by appropriate remarks, after having engaged in singing, reading the Scriptures, and in prayer. They called upon the speakers in the order which had been fixed upon, the programme having been printed, with names of speakers and subjects to be discussed. Only three brief speeches were made by the missionaries during these three evening. While all the addresses made by the Chinese preachers were good, most of them were remarkably excellent and practical, and would have done credit to young men of American or English birth and education, as regards arrangement, thought, and manner. A synopsis of these addresses would make this article too lengthy.

The closing speech on the opium topic, delivered late Saturday evening by Hu Sing Mi – one of the seven subsequently ordained, who spent two or three years in New York city, and was a member of the Methodist Church on Twenty-Seventh-street – was remarkable for its humor and feeling, and for its arguments, facts, and illustrations. In the judgment of some, if not all of the foreigners who listened to it, it was the most elaborate and the most eloquent address they had ever heard from a Chinaman on that or any secular subject.

During the evening devoted to the subject of “Spreading the Gospel,” a list of the contributions made for that object by the native Christians connected with the Methodist missions during the past year was read, whereby it appeared that 311,742 cash – a little short of $300 – had been thus contributed. This fact is of a very encouraging nature. It is believed, however, that during the coming year the contributions for the spreading of the Gospel made by the native Churches will be very much larger. The native preachers, and assistant or student helpers, who are to labor in the district of Hing-Hua, between this and Amoy, it is understood have pledged themselves to raise $200 during the coming year; and those laboring in the district of Foo-Ching, this side of Hing-Hua, are pledged to collect $100 from their field.

After much thought, consultation, and prayer, it was decided by the Bishop and the mission to ordain as deacons certain seven of the “licensed” native preachers, and as elders certain four of that number. These men have been employed in preaching the Gospel from four or five years to over ten years each. In the love-feast, held on Sabbath morning, November 21st, these brethren had an opportunity of briefly expressing their feelings in view of their proposed ordination. They all seemed deeply impressed with the importance, solemnity, and responsibility of position in the Church they are to hold – the first ordained deacons of the Methodist Episcopal Church in China.

At the close of an impressive sermon on the character and conduct which it was binding on them to sustain and exhibit, delivered soon after the termination of the love-feast by one of the missionaries, Bishop Kingsley proceeded to ordain the seven to be “deacons in the Church of God.” The scene was solemn and impressive. It will not soon be forgotten by the crowded house which witnessed it.

In the evening of the Sabbath, four of the seven deacons were solemnly consecrated and ordained to the eldership by the Bishop – the Methodist missionaries and two American Presbyterian ministers who were present, joining with the Bishop in the imposition of hands on the heads of those who were thus set apart to the service of God in the holy ministry. The ordaining was followed by the administration of the Lord’s Supper, at which the foreign Christians, American and English, partook, as did a large number of Chinese Christians – estimated to over one hundred. The newly ordained deacons and elders assisted in the administration of the Supper on this interesting and memorable occasion.

The body of native preachers and student helpers met on Monday morning and received their appointments for the coming year.

The men who were ordained deacons or elders range from thirty to forty-six years of age. Three of them are brothers – on of them being the person who spent two or three years in study in New York. One is a graduate of the Mission Boarding-School, of which he was a member when Rev. Otis Gibson, now missionary to the Chinese in California, had charge of it. Another was a hard-working blacksmith when converted. He subsequently labored at the anvil, and at the same time, with unwearied application, studied the sacred Scriptures, which he placed near by, talking incessantly with his customers about the glorious Gospel. He soon developed such singular zeal and rare ability in public speaking that he was employed as native helper. The remaining two, one a literary man by profession, and the other, formerly a merchant and opium-seller, as well as opium-smoker, have already given good proof of their call to the ministry by their devoted labors and their abundant success in interesting their countrymen in the Gospel, and in leading them into the Church. The latter one, the oldest of the seven, is often referred to among foreign missionaries as brother Binkley’s man, from the circumstance that Rev. Mr. Binkley, who was obliged to return to the United States six or seven years since, was instrumental in his conversion.

These seven are in charge of Churches at very important centers. Mr. Binkley’s man is stationed at the principal city in Hing Hua prefecture – the literary man at the principal city in the district of Foo ’Ching, forty and seventy miles to the south-east of Foo Chow. The youngest and the second of the three brothers, in the corresponding cities of ’Ku-’tien and Ming-’Ching districts, one hundred miles and forty miles to the north-west and west of Foo Chow respectively. The eldest brother is in charge of the Church near which the Methodist missionaries live, and in which the annual meetings are held. The graduate of the Mission Boarding-School is in charge of the Church on East-street in the city of Foo Chow, and the zealous and eloquent blacksmith – learned in the Scriptures – is in charge of the Church located a mile from the south gate of the city in the great southern suburb.

The missionary work at this place and the surrounding country, under the auspices of the Methodist mission, is constantly increasing in interest and importance. It is making, month by month, greater and greater demands on the strength of its members, who number three ministers, all told. And yet one of them is under the grave necessity of leaving with his family for the United States next Spring. There will then remain two men. The three are already overburdened with their cares, responsibilities, and labors. “The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth laborers into his harvest.” Who will come without delay and enter upon this great harvest-field and aid in gathering the sheaves into the garner of the Lord?

This sketch would be incomplete if a reference should not be made to the presents given Bishop Kingsley, on the Wednesday evening after the ordination services, at the usual time of holding the missionary weekly prayer-meeting. Five of the ordained men, the other two being away, without notice or warning walked into the room where the meeting was to be held, each conveying a valuable present, consisting of Japan or Foo Chow made lacquered boxes, of superior workmanship, and a beautiful fan, which some one subsequently suggested was intended for Mrs. Kingsley. On this their names had been neatly inscribed. Without a word they placed these things on the center-table, while they remained standing near it. The senior missionary addressed the Bishop, who arose, while the esteem in which he was held by them and the fraternal salutations and farewells of the ordained were presented to him. He replied in a brief speech, which was duly translated to them, in which he thanked them for the beautiful tokens given him, which he said he should value highly, and show his friends in America. He expressed his great pleasure in having met them, and his satisfaction in their character as Christian ministers.

Soon after this a member of the mission approached him with a heavy volume containing fifty or sixty large and superior photographic views of Foo Chow and the adjacent scenery, which he presented the Bishop in the name of the Methodist missionaries. He read a short and well-worded address to the Bishop, which expressed their gratitude for his services in his official capacity, and their sense of the profit they and their families had derived from his counsel and example during his brief sojourn with them, and their best wishes for his happiness and usefulness during the remaining portion of his trip around the world, as well as during his life, assuring him they would be glad to welcome him again at Foo Chow. The Bishop, who evidently was taken by surprise, remarked that he could not be expected to make a lengthy and appropriate reply to this address, and that he must be allowed to imitate the example of President Grant on similar occasions, and say simply with all his heart, “I thank you.” He subsequently examined with pleasure the valuable present of photographic scenes, as will his many friends in the United States, who many have the opportunity of looking it over.

Singing the hymn in Chinese and English, “Forever with the Lord,” a prayer in English by the Bishop, and a prayer in Chinese by one of the native ministers, constituted the prayer-meeting for that evening.

(This article was extracted from the Ladies’ Repository of 1870, possibly written by Justus Doolittle.)