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+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75460 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+“They’re a Multitoode” and other stories
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: “I wish you would tell me the story of Yin-dee.”]
+
+
+
+
+                          “They’re a Multitoode”
+                            and Other Stories
+
+                               COMPILED BY
+                              THE SECRETARY
+                          OF THE YOUNG PEOPLE’S
+                             FORWARD MOVEMENT
+                               FOR MISSIONS
+
+                              [Illustration]
+
+                                 TORONTO:
+              The Missionary Society of the Methodist Church
+             The Young People’s Forward Movement for Missions
+                       F. C. STEPHENSON, Secretary
+
+
+
+
+“They’re a Multitoode”
+
+“We ain’t expected to do only our part.”
+
+
+Christopher Morton, Jr., was looking through the morning mail in the
+office when there came a knock at the door. He glanced at the clock and
+frowned. It was too early for visitors by five minutes, and this vigilant
+young man of business was very careful of his minutes.
+
+While he hesitated, the door opened without ceremony and admitted a
+gaunt, unfashionable figure, hollow-chested and sallow-faced.
+
+“Hello, Christy, old chap!” cried the intruder, stretching out a hearty
+hand and feeling apparently no doubt of a welcome. “How are you?”
+
+For an instant the other looked at him vaguely, the crease still showing
+in his forehead. Then his eyes lit.
+
+“Why, Jim Perry, is it you!” he shouted, getting around the table with a
+bound.
+
+“Part of me,” said Jim, sinking into a chair. He panted a little, but he
+smiled yet.
+
+Christy looked him over discontentedly.
+
+“What have you been doing to yourself?” he asked.
+
+“Caught a fever,” explained Jim, with a nod. “The missionaries sent me
+home. I might better have stuck it out there, but I had no breath to
+argue with them, so they packed me off. I am to go back in September.”
+
+“I have always believed in foreign missions,” said Christy, “but when
+they took you out of the country I found it hard to keep my faith. And
+now—” he stopped abruptly.
+
+“It was a mighty good day for me when I went,” said Jim Perry. “I have
+got a good deal out of living these past three years.”
+
+There was no mistaking the ring in his voice.
+
+“You have snug quarters here,” said Perry. “They tell me that you are a
+prosperous man of affairs.”
+
+“I am getting on,” said Christy, modestly, “I have some turn, I think,
+for making money.”
+
+“We out in China,” said Jim, with a chuckle, “haven’t any; it is the last
+thing we can do. Our strong point is spending. We claim that nobody on
+earth can surpass us in that. We will invest for you if you like. By the
+way—” He plunged his hand into his pocket and brought out a flat strip of
+cardboard which he proceeded to fit together into a money box.
+
+“There!” he said, setting it up gravely on the corner of the mantelpiece.
+“You will kindly contribute.”
+
+“What is it?” asked Christy, regarding the small object distrustfully,
+very much as if it were a dynamite bomb.
+
+“We are trying,” explained Jim, “to raise a special Christmas offering
+for missions. Along with the rest of her Christmas giving, the church is
+asked to give to those who have never learned what Christmas is.”
+
+There was a slight pause.
+
+“Could anything,” Jim asked, “be more acceptable to Him in whose name our
+festival is kept?”
+
+“The original meaning of Christmas has been overlaid in a good many
+minds,” commented Christy, briefly.
+
+“To their loss,” said Jim, “and to the bitter loss of many besides.”
+
+He rose from his seat and began to pace back and forth over Christy’s
+thick carpet. But he was weak; he soon came back to his old place.
+
+“I have walked,” he said musingly, “the swarming streets of heathen
+cities, I have gone into heathen homes, I have stood face to face with
+weary, heavy-laden, heathen souls, and I have been taught what Darkness
+is. But then, thank God, I have time and again seen the Star of Bethlehem
+break in the black sky and stand still over some place where the Christ
+was born, and I know, yes, I know, the brightness of its rising!”
+
+There was another silence.
+
+Again Jim was the first to speak. “No doubt,” he said, “you give a number
+of Christmas presents.”
+
+“I don’t think of them in September,” said Christy.
+
+“That is fortunate,” responded Jim, tranquilly. “It will give you more
+leisure to think of this betimes.”
+
+He looked at his watch and said that he must go.
+
+They walked together to the corner where he took the car, and then
+Christy hurried back to his work.
+
+“That man will never go to China next September,” he muttered to himself,
+as he rang up the elevator. “It will be another Celestial Kingdom for
+which he will start, unless the signs are wrong.”
+
+For the rest of the morning, Mr. Morton was not so undivided in his
+attention to business as was customary with him. Many times his mind
+wandered to the face that was like, and so unlike, the face of his old
+college mate. It was aged. It was lined. It was tired.
+
+“But you could trust it,” Christy concluded, “to the uttermost.”
+
+“Jim Perry,” he said, facing at last the crucial idea which he had sought
+to evade, “has got much out of life. What am I getting?”
+
+The roar of the city came in at the open windows. Christy did not hear.
+
+“If I should die to-night—that is too trite a supposition. If I should
+have softening of the brain to-night, or advancing paralysis, what
+satisfaction would there be to which I could hold fast, as I sat with my
+face to the wall while life passed me by?”
+
+The breeze fluttered the papers on his desk.
+
+“If my plans stopped now, nothing would be left from the failure. They
+need the future in order to amount to anything. If Jim Perry never gets
+back to China, why”—he leaned his head on his hand and thought came
+slowly—“he has lived for an object and attained it as he went along.”
+
+Christy was still thinking of the look in Jim’s eyes and the sound of his
+voice when footfalls along the corridor foretold an interruption.
+
+Several men followed on the heels of one another. When they were all
+gone, Christy’s mind had largely recovered its ordinary temper.
+
+“Jim Perry is an awfully decent chap; it was upsetting to see him looking
+so done. If he had stayed in this country, three-quarters of a lifetime
+of work would probably be before him. One can’t help remembering it.
+But—I can accept the logic of missions.”
+
+He took the little cardboard box from the drawer into which he had thrust
+it and read every Scripture verse on all its sides.
+
+“Yes, the arguments are strong. I don’t pretend to gainsay foreign
+missions. But yet it can’t be denied that thousands of the holiest of
+saints have lived their lives out within the limits of Christendom and
+found more than their hands could do with their might. However, that sort
+of incompatibility between the two sides of a truth is the commonest
+thing in the world. It does not shake the claim of the missionaries.”
+
+“I wonder,” he meditated, “how much genuine missionary spirit there is in
+the church of to-day. I don’t mean among the specialists, the experts,
+like Jim (and me)”—Christy had the grace to laugh a little—“but in the
+rank and file.”
+
+He lifted the contribution box and regarded it with a new expression.
+By-and-bye he smiled broadly.
+
+“It will be an interesting experiment,” said Christy. “Let us try it.”
+
+He put the box up again on the mantelpiece, where Jim had first set it,
+clearing a space about it that it might stand unshadowed in a small rim
+of black marble.
+
+Another hour of the afternoon passed as many other hours had done.
+Christy had returned to his habit of absorption in what was in hand.
+
+An old woman, rich and “crotchety,” had been talking business with him
+for the last fifteen minutes.
+
+“The old dame is as keen as a weasel,” thought Christy, as he listened
+with bowed head, deferentially. “Not many men could fool her on a deal.
+She is honest herself, and she doesn’t mean to be cheated. The most of
+her time is given to padlocking and double-barring her money chest.”
+
+Finally she came to a pause. She pointed across the room.
+
+“You have something new there. What is it?”
+
+“A collection box,” answered Christy, accepting his cue, promptly.
+“A college classmate of mine, a missionary to China, left it. The
+missionaries are calling for a special offering at Christmas.”
+
+The old lady heard him out patiently. When he had finished, she began to
+speak of further precautions and provisos that had occurred to her as to
+her affairs. Then she arose stiffly to go.
+
+At the mantelpiece she stopped, took a bill from her full purse and
+slipped it into the narrow opening of the missionary box. She had given
+the first contribution to Jim’s heathen.
+
+“Of her abundance,” quoth Christy, as he shut the door behind her.
+
+Miss Craig, his stenographer, was moving at the other end of the office.
+She shut up her typewriter; it was the hour for her to leave.
+
+A little time before Christy had felt a sensation in regard to Miss
+Craig. He did not often do this, which was one of his chief virtues.
+
+But, just now, in the midst of his discourse on foreign missions, he had
+been arrested for an instant by meeting the straight, intent gaze of the
+young woman who always, unless directly addressed, kept her discreet eyes
+upon her work.
+
+Miss Craig put on her hat and gathered up her handkerchief and purse.
+
+“May I trouble you to post these, Miss Craig?” said Christy, giving her a
+handful of letters. “Thank you. Good afternoon.”
+
+She laid the letters down on the mantelpiece while she opened her purse,
+which was shapely but thin. Out of it she took a dollar bill, leaving
+some silver, and put it in the money box.
+
+Christy had started up to expostulate. He sat down to recover.
+
+“She was as calm and matter-of-course about it,” he gasped, “as if it
+were only natural for poor working girls to help evangelize China out of
+their slim wages.”
+
+During the next two or three days much notice was taken of the missionary
+box.
+
+The notice was diverse in kind. The curiosity of some was quickly
+satisfied. Some stared politely. Others openly scoffed.
+
+One fashionable club man put in a penny.
+
+“To see how it feels,” he said.
+
+“The shock can’t be very great,” observed Christy, “even to so new a
+subject as yourself.”
+
+“But you know,” said the club man with a grin, “it comes on top of
+finding you running the machine. My nerves are all gone.”
+
+A clergyman who coughed gave liberally.
+
+“If I could have guessed that he was coming,” said Christy, with
+chagrin, “I would have covered the thing up. Some men can no more pass a
+collection basket than a drunkard can a corner saloon. But they are few.”
+
+A hard-headed merchant furtively dropped in a gold piece.
+
+“I got it in change,” he apologized, when he met Christy’s gaze. “It is
+as well to make some special use of it before I pay it out for a quarter.”
+
+A circuit judge lifted the box in his hand and read the verses as Christy
+had done. When he set it down again he stood before it in silence while
+Christy looked up, wondering, and did not disturb him.
+
+At last the judge aroused himself. He made a large donation.
+
+“My daughter was interested in all these things,” he said. Christy
+remembered then the young girl who had died the year before.
+
+In one way and another, Jim Perry’s missionary box grew heavy. Then it
+was full.
+
+Christy took it apart, put the money in a pigeon-hole in his desk and set
+it back into place. He did not allow himself to comment.
+
+[Illustration: “Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall
+be to all people.”]
+
+On the same afternoon, Chippy Black, the errand boy, was waiting in the
+office for a note. Chippy was a new boy; Christy did not feel sure of
+him. Lifting his head now to give directions, Chippy was caught in the
+act of “hefting” the missionary box.
+
+“Ah,” said Christy to himself, with vexed enlightenment. Hunting office
+boys was a bore.
+
+“Why, this is empty!” said Chippy, facing round on him and holding out
+the box. “Did you send it off?”
+
+“No,” answered Christy, uncertainly. “It was full. I took the money out.”
+
+“I see,” said Chippy. There was relief in his voice and in the clever,
+dark, little face.
+
+He plunged his hand into his jacket and brought out a small newspaper
+parcel tied with twine.
+
+“I promised Lin to bring it to you,” he said. “It would have been too bad
+if I’d been too late.”
+
+“What is it?” asked Christy, receiving the packet with no show of
+distrust in its dinginess. And he was fastidious. “Who is Lin?”
+
+“It’s money. She’s my sister,” answered Chippy. “She wants it to go with
+the rest.”
+
+Christy pushed a chair towards him. “Sit down,” he said. “Tell me all
+about it. Take your time.”
+
+Chippy crossed his knickerbockered legs, and by tilting forward a little
+managed to keep one toe on the carpet.
+
+“There’s two of us boys home,” he began. “And there’s Lin. My brother Bob
+and me are like lots of other fellows. But Lin is extry. I’d call her
+quite extry myself. She’s like—well, she’s like Lin. That’s all I can
+say.”
+
+“I have seen one or two such persons,” said Christy.
+
+“One Sunday night one of those foreign preachers was talking about the
+heathen. If it hadn’t been for Lin,” said Chippy, “we’d have forgotten
+all about them inside of a week. But Lin was bound that something had
+got to be done. ‘There’s so many of them, Lin,’ says Miss Loretta Pease.
+(Miss Loretta lives on the next floor to us; she’s educated.) ‘They’re
+a multitoode,’ she says. ‘You can’t never reach ’em.’ ‘Not all of them
+at once,’ says Lin to her. ‘Not just us alone by ourselves. We ain’t
+expected to do only our part.’”
+
+“Miss Lin is sagacious,” said Christy.
+
+“‘It isn’t any more than right for us to do our part,’ she told Miss
+Loretta. ‘And for one I won’t back out of it,’ Nor, you may be sure, she
+wouldn’t. Lin is the sort that wouldn’t.”
+
+“An uncommonly good sort,” said Christy.
+
+“You are like that, too, ain’t you!” said Chippy, looking over at him
+kindly.
+
+“Miss Loretta came round all right after Lin had worked over her a while.
+She ain’t obstinate. She’s genteel. So Lin fixed it up that we was all to
+chip in together and make up a purse for the heathen. So we did it. And
+there it is.”
+
+He nodded proudly toward the newspaper parcel.
+
+“You must have worked hard,” said Christy.
+
+“It’s savings, mostly. I mean our part of it is, Lin’s and my brother’s
+and mine. Lin got off the neighbors, too, you know; it’s all there
+together.”
+
+“You saved yours?” questioned Christy.
+
+“Yes, sir. Lin is grand on saving. She scatters it. She don’t bunch it
+all on one thing till it appears as nothing else but just that was worth
+eating. First it’s sugar, and then it’s sausage, and then it’s something
+different again. And sometimes it ain’t anything at all. You don’t hardly
+miss it that way.”
+
+Chippy slipped still farther forward on his seat and felt for his cap. He
+glanced at Christy’s unfolded note.
+
+Christy got out an envelope and dipped his pen in the ink. Then he let it
+rest over the edge of the desk, where it dried.
+
+He picked up the roll of money.
+
+“You must have been collecting this for some time.”
+
+“All summer,” said Chippy. “There’s a good deal of it. Lin and Miss
+Loretta had just begun to talk about where they would carry it when you
+first began to take up money here. I told them about it and I told them
+that, so long as this was where I worked, I thought you’d ought to get
+it. So after a bit they decided on that.”
+
+Chippy plainly felt that the bestowal of Lin’s patronage was no light
+thing.
+
+Christy agreed with him.
+
+“I’m very much obliged to you,” he said heartily. “This will help me
+along splendidly. Let’s put it in at once.”
+
+He pulled at the twine string, which was tied in a very secure knot, and
+laid open the hoard.
+
+It was made up of all the original pennies and nickels; there was also
+one dime among them. The sum total was $2.11.
+
+Christy handed Chippy a nickel and held one himself. He brought the
+missionary box.
+
+“Now, drop yours in,” he directed. “Then I will drop mine. We’ll take
+turn about.”
+
+Chippy was eager. His interest grew with every rattling coin until the
+last was safely inside. Then he straightened himself with a long breath.
+
+“Lin said she was going to do it, and she’s done it,” he said.
+
+“And she doesn’t know how much she has done,” said Christy, soberly.
+
+“That’s so,” answered Chippy, with quick perception. “That’s the best of
+it, I suppose. The best of everything, Lin says, is what the Lord can
+make out of it. Anything will go twice as far with Him, she says. You
+talk a great deal like her.”
+
+Christy lifted the box.
+
+“It’s about full,” he said. “It’s just about ready to empty again. But
+there is a little space yet. We will leave it. I shall be glad to see
+what gift will be put in on top of this.”
+
+The weeks passed. Several times over the missionary box was emptied into
+the pigeon-hole. On a foggy December afternoon a Mr. Richards was alone
+with Christy in the office. He had brought the young man a windfall of
+$1,000.
+
+“It is by happy strokes like these,” said Mr. Richards, “that a man grows
+rich.”
+
+Many such strokes of various kinds had come in the way of Mr. Richards
+during a long life.
+
+“I have built up my own fortunes,” he continued, “from the stub. From
+what I see of you, Mr. Morton, I predict you success.”
+
+He regarded Christy with a glint of favor in his iron-gray face as he
+added in climax, “You are very much like I was at your age. You are like
+myself.”
+
+Christy was rather silent. When he was left alone he thought of Jim
+Perry. He often thought of Jim now. His late visitor and his classmate
+stood side by side before his mind.
+
+“There is wealth and wealth,” he mused. “Mr. Richards has one kind, Jim
+has another. I am not so awfully pleased,” he thought resentfully, “with
+my likeness to Richards. I don’t fancy being a cash register. All the
+man’s fortunes are in money.”
+
+Christy looked down at the cheque in his hands; he looked at Jim’s box.
+
+“I said the real Christmas was forgotten. I said that all the missionary
+spirit of the present resided in the missionaries and me. I doubt whether
+Mr. Richards at my age was such a fool. Poor Richards! He is old. I shall
+have a good part of my life yet, I trust.”
+
+He wrote on the back of the cheque and folded it small.
+
+“Richards, and Jim, and Lin, and the others have spoiled my taste a
+little for happy strokes, however innocently come by. The mission shall
+enjoy this one.”
+
+He pushed the cheque through the slit in the money box, which was getting
+frayed and worn.
+
+Christy met Mr. Richards on the street soon afterwards.
+
+“I hope,” said Mr. Richards, “that you have found a good investment for
+your money.”
+
+“I have,” said Christy.
+
+“Is it reasonably sure?”
+
+“Perfectly.”
+
+“Nothing in this world can be perfectly sure, Mr. Morton.”
+
+“But there is another world,” said Christy.
+
+“It may be,” he said.
+
+As the man of millions passed on, Christy heard a faint sigh. Three days
+later the office door burst open and in walked Jim Perry, broad and brown.
+
+Christy stared at him speechlessly.
+
+“I’m well again,” announced Jim, superfluously.
+
+Christy shook him by the hand, clapped him on the shoulder and thumped
+him on the chest.
+
+“Providence knows how to give to missions!” he said.
+
+Jim turned to the mantelpiece and shook his money box. It was empty. He
+was openly disappointed.
+
+“You lazy beggar,” he cried. “Are you leaving all the giving to
+Providence?”
+
+“I am not a lazy beggar,” said Christy. “I am a very industrious one.
+Look at this.”
+
+He put the contents of the pigeon-hole in front of Jim and watched him
+fall upon them, and enjoyed tremendously his blank delight.
+
+“Why,” stammered Jim, “what does it mean? Is it all for us?”
+
+“It means,” said Christy, “that a week from to-day will be
+Christmas.”—_Y. P. M. M._
+
+
+
+
+The Penny Ye Meant to Gi’e
+
+
+    There’s a funny old tale of a stingy man,
+      Who was none too good, though he might have been worse;
+    Who went to church on a Sunday night,
+      And carried along his well-filled purse.
+
+    When the sexton came with his begging plate,
+      The church was but dim with the candles’ light;
+    The stingy man fumbled all through his purse,
+      And chose a coin by touch, and not sight.
+
+    It’s an odd thing now that guineas be
+      So like unto pennies in shape and size,
+    “I’ll give a penny,” the stingy man said;
+      “The poor must not gifts of pennies despise.”
+
+    The penny fell down with a clatter and ring;
+      And back in his seat leaned the stingy man,
+    “The world is so full of the poor,” he thought,
+      “I can’t help them all—I give what I can.”
+
+    Ha, ha! How the sexton smiled to be sure,
+      To see the gold guinea fall into his plate;
+    Ha, ha! How the stingy man’s heart was wrung,
+      Perceiving his blunder, but just too late!
+
+    “No matter,” he said, “in the Lord’s account
+      That guinea of gold is set down to me,
+    They lend to Him who give to the poor;
+      It will not so bad an investment be.”
+
+    “Na, na, mon,” the chuckling sexton cried out;
+      “The Lord is no cheated—He kens thee well;
+    He knew it was only by accident
+      That out of thy fingers the guinea fell.
+
+    “He keeps an account, no doubt, for the puir;
+      But in that account He’ll set down to thee
+    Na mair o’ that golden guinea, my mon,
+      Than the one bare penny ye meant to gi’e!”
+
+    There’s a comfort, too, in the little tale—
+      A serious side as well as a joke;
+    A comfort for all the generous poor
+      In the honest words the sexton spoke.
+
+    A comfort to think that the good Lord knows
+      How generous we really desire to be,
+    And will give us credit in His account
+      For all the pennies we long to “gi’e.”
+
+
+
+
+Rue’s Heathen
+
+
+The long line of blue check aprons followed the other line of small blue
+jackets through the wide hall, up the bare, polished stairs, and into
+the clean, airy chapel. Then, at a signal, every apron and jacket was
+still. Little Rue’s apron had been about midway in the procession, and
+so she found a seat near the middle of the chapel, where, swinging the
+small feet that could not quite touch the floor, she looked listlessly
+out through the window opposite, over a beautiful view of grove and
+meadow, and then up at the white ceiling, where a great fly buzzed at his
+pleasure, without having to walk in line.
+
+On the platform a man in fine broadcloth and gold spectacles was
+beginning to talk; but Rue only listened dreamily.
+
+“My dear children, I am delighted to visit this grand institution—to
+see so many of you in this beautiful home, so well cared for, so well
+instructed, and so happy.”
+
+Rue wondered why all the men who talked there said that. She wondered if
+he really would like to eat and sleep and walk in a row and always wear a
+blue check apron. Then she forgot all about him, in watching the sunlight
+play on the small head immediately in front of her. What a brilliant red
+head it was! And then a bright thought occurred to Rue. A few of those
+hairs, twisted together, would make a beautiful chain for the neck of her
+china doll, her one treasure; and, of course, Mary Jane Sullivan would
+never miss them, if she only pulled out one here and there.
+
+Forward crept Rue’s eager little fingers; but they were too nervous
+in their haste to be sure that they held but a single coarse hair
+before they twitched, and the result was a sudden explosive “Ow!” from
+Mary Jane, the turning of a battery of eyes in that direction, and
+an immediate investigation by the authorities into the cause of the
+disturbance. Poor little Rue was marched off in disgrace; but, as she
+reached the door, she heard the speaker say:—
+
+“I am sorry this has happened; sorry that any one should miss what I am
+going to say; for I hoped to interest all these dear children in the work
+of sending the gospel to the heathen.”
+
+It was kind of him to call them _all_ dear children after that dreadful
+event, Rue reflected, as, with burning cheeks and tearful eyes, she
+stood, with a number of other little culprits, in one of the wide halls,
+for even punishment was in rows at the Home. Shifting her weight from one
+restless foot to the other, yet trying to stand sufficiently upright to
+answer the requirements of the penance, Rue did sincerely wish that she
+had been a good girl and remained quietly in the chapel, partly because
+of the humiliation that had befallen her, but also because she wanted to
+hear what he had to say on the particular subject he had named.
+
+“Why didn’t he begin with that, and then I’d have listened!” she thought,
+rather resentfully. For back among Rue’s shadowy memories of the past,
+of love, and mother, and a home that was not _the_ Home, was a dim
+recollection of some curious articles which her baby hands had only been
+allowed to touch carefully, because they were mementoes of an uncle who
+had died far away on a mission field. “So it would have been most like
+hearing about my relations; only I haven’t got any,” mused Rue. “Oh,
+dear! I wish I’d stayed good and hadn’t pulled Mary Jane’s hair. I didn’t
+mean to, anyway.”
+
+She tried to find out about it afterwards by inquiring of one of the
+other girls.
+
+“Oh! he wanted the children to try and save up something, so they could
+help send Bibles to the heathen. Guess, if he lived here long, he’d find
+we hadn’t anything to save,” was the hurried reply.
+
+Bibles! That was where Rue was rich. She actually had two that had been
+brought from that faintly remembered home.
+
+“I don’t suppose I’ll read one of ’em to pieces; not if I used it till
+I’m a big woman,” she said to herself. “I might give the other one. I
+ought to help, ’count of being a relation, somehow, and I want to be
+good. I just do.”
+
+Later in the day she ventured another inquiry:
+
+“How will he get those to the heathen?”
+
+“I don’t know. Why, yes, he’ll send ’em through the post-office, of
+course. What do you care so much about it for?”
+
+That was what Rue did not mean to tell. She chose her prettiest
+Bible, spent the play-hours of two days in writing an epistle on the
+fly-leaves, and tied it up in a piece of brown paper. Her knowledge of
+the post-office and its requirements was exceedingly limited, but she
+supposed it would be necessary to put something on the outside of the
+packet, to tell for whom it was intended. She wanted it to go where
+it was needed most, and of course the post-office people would know
+where that was, she reflected; so she carefully printed, in very uneven
+letters, “For the greatest heathen,” and then laid the precious package
+away to await a future opportunity. She would trust her secret to no one,
+lest some unforeseen interference might result, and she cautiously sought
+information.
+
+“How do you do when you put anything into the post-office?” she demanded
+of Mary Jane Sullivan.
+
+“Why, you just put ’em in. You go in the door, and there’s an open place
+where you drop ’em right down,” exclaimed Mary Jane, lucidly.
+
+How good Rue was for days after that. How she washed dishes in
+the kitchen, under the care of Miss Dorothy, and made beds in the
+dormitories, under the supervision of Mrs. Mehitable, and so at last
+earned the privilege of being the one sent to town on some trifling
+errand for the matron.
+
+Thus it happened that one bright morning the clerks in the post-office
+were surprised by a little packet tossed in upon the floor, and a glimpse
+of a blue check apron vanishing hurriedly through the door. Unstamped,
+and with its odd address, it created a ripple of amusement.
+
+“‘For the greatest heathen.’ That must be you, Captain,” declared one;
+and the postmaster laughingly took charge of it, and then forgot it
+until, at home that evening, he found it in his pocket.
+
+[Illustration: Rue writing the letter to “The Greatest Heathen.”]
+
+“What is it?” asked his wife, presently, as she saw him silent and
+absorbed, and, looking over his shoulder, she read the little letter with
+him. Original in spelling and peculiar in chirography it certainly was,
+but they slowly deciphered it:
+
+    “I haven’t any money to give ’cause I’m one of the little girls
+    at the Home. Some of them have relations to send them things
+    sometimes; but I haven’t. I have two Bibles; but I wouldn’t
+    give this to any one but the heathen ’cause my own mamma gave
+    it to me. It’s nice to have a mamma to cuddle you up and love
+    you just by your own self, and tuck you into bed at night, and
+    not have to be in a row all the time. It makes a lump all swell
+    up in my throat when I think of it, and my eyes get so hot and
+    wet I can hardly see. I wish God did have homes enough, so He
+    could give every little boy and girl a real one, and we needn’t
+    be all crowded up in one big place, that’s just called so.
+    Sometimes, when I see all the houses it ’most seems as if there
+    must be enough to go ’round; but I suppose there isn’t. I guess
+    it’ll be the real kind we’ll have up in heaven, and I want to
+    go there; and that’s why I send you this Bible, so you can
+    learn about it. You must read it and be good. Oh, dear! it’s
+    dreadfully hard to be good when you haven’t any mamma. I hope
+    you’ve got one, if she is a heathen, for I’m most sure that’s
+    better than no kind. Good-bye.
+
+                                                      “Rue Lindsay.”
+
+“Poor little thing!” exclaimed the lady, half laughing, but with a sudden
+moisture in her brown eyes.
+
+Captain Grey looked around the beautiful room.
+
+“I’m inclined to believe that letter was properly directed, and has
+reached its rightful destination,” he said, thoughtfully. “Think of it,
+Mary—all these cosy, pretty rooms, and no one to occupy them but you and
+me, while there are so many little home-sick souls in the world! You have
+spoken of it before; but I was too selfishly contented to care about it.
+If I’m not ‘the greatest heathen’ I have certainly been far enough from
+the sort of Christianity this book requires.”
+
+“Well?” questioned Mrs. Grey, with shining eyes, waiting for the
+conclusion of the matter.
+
+“Shall I go to-morrow and bring this little midget home with me—for a
+visit, say—and see what will come of it?”
+
+It did not occur to little Rue that the stranger she met in the hall the
+next day, and who had a long interview with the matron, could be of any
+possible interest to her small self, until she was summoned down stairs
+to see him.
+
+“Would you like to go home with this gentleman, for a visit of a week or
+two, Rue? He has come to ask you,” said the matron.
+
+“Me?” questioned Rue, oblivious of grammar lessons, and with a dozen
+exclamation points in her voice. There was no danger of her declining.
+The prospect of a visit anywhere was delightful, and the possibility
+of such a thing almost as wonderful as a fairy tale. So it was a very
+bright little face that Captain Grey found beside him in the carriage,
+and Rue looked up at him shyly through her rings of sunny hair, to ask,
+as the only imaginable solution of the happy problem: “Are you one of my
+relations?”
+
+“Yes, but I didn’t remember it until last night,” he answered gravely.
+
+The weeks that followed were brimful of joy to Rue, and she won her way
+straight into the home and the hearts that had opened to receive her.
+
+“And so you think I may tell the matron that you do not care to go back,
+but are willing to stay here?” questioned the Captain, when the allotted
+time had expired.
+
+“I guess,” replied Rue, looking down at her dainty dress, and suddenly
+flinging her arms around Mrs. Grey’s neck, “that you didn’t ever live
+there, and eat soup, and wear check aprons, and have nobody like this to
+love, ’r else you’d know.”
+
+But she has not learned yet that it was her own missionary effort that
+brought so great reward.
+
+
+
+
+How Yin-Dee Changed Her Name
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+“LEAD ALONG A BROTHER.”
+
+The first thing I know about myself is that I was born; and that I had a
+father and mother, too, just as you have. I thought I had better tell you
+this, as I have often heard ignorant country people ask the missionary if
+in his country children are born the same as in China, just as they will
+ask him if there are a sun and moon, rivers and hills, there as here.
+My grandfather used to say that foreigners belonged to a country where
+people had holes in their chests and were carried about on a long pole by
+two men. But he had never seen any foreigners at all.
+
+Of course when I was born nobody wanted me. Whoever wants girls? I was
+the first child; so my parents were bitterly disappointed. Well, I
+couldn’t help it; and I have often thought how hard it was that I should
+be badly treated, as if it were my fault. My father said bitter things to
+mother, so she called me “Yin-dee,” which means, “Lead along a brother.”
+After a time they got more used to me, and were not more unkind than
+most parents. Sometimes when I was extra good mother would take me in
+her arms and call me her “precious,” for, as the proverb says, “All have
+the parent heart.” Now, if I had been a boy how different it would have
+been—there would have been no end of rejoicing and feasting! My mother’s
+parents would have supplied me with a cradle and lots of pretty clothes.
+When a month old there would have been another feast, and the barber
+would have come to shave my head and mix the hair with rice and give it
+to the dog to eat, to make _me_ brave. I should always have had my own
+way and have been petted by all. When a year old, they would have called
+my relations together and spread before me a lot of things, to see what
+my future was to be. There would be books and pens, scissors and scales,
+a rule, and some money; and they would have waited to see which was the
+thing I grabbed. If it had been books how it would have pleased them,
+for it would have meant that I was to be a scholar; if scissors, then a
+tailor; and so on. Now, I wonder which I should have chosen? Not books,
+I’m afraid; for I don’t like learning—do you?
+
+Well, as I wasn’t a boy, I had none of this, so had to be content. As
+smallpox was very bad, I had a label on my back to say I had already had
+it (though I hadn’t), but that was to deceive the goddesses. Then, to
+make quite sure, I had a cloth monkey strung round my neck, which made a
+nice plaything. I am afraid I wasn’t always good at night—I am sure you
+all are!—but cried, for I didn’t have enough to eat most of the time; so
+father got the teacher next door to write a verse and paste it on the
+wall outside. This is how it goes:
+
+    Tien hwang, hwang, dee hwang, hwang,
+      Ngo jah yo go yea coo long,
+    Go wong jwin dz nien san bien,
+      Ee jo shway dao da tien liang.
+
+In English it is—
+
+    Ye gods in the heavens, ye powers on the earth,
+    My baby began from the hour of her birth
+      With horrible screams to rend the night!
+    O passing stranger, these my rhymes
+    Read, I pray you, through three times,
+      And then she will sleep till broad daylight.
+
+But I’m afraid there were not many who read them three times, for it
+didn’t make much difference. Still, it was the correct thing to do, so
+mother felt satisfied.
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+ORPHANED THROUGH OPIUM.
+
+According to our Chinese books, when a son is born he sleeps on a bed,
+he is clothed in robes, he plays with gems, his cry is princely loud;
+as an emperor, he is clothed in purple, and he is the king of the home.
+But when a daughter is born she sleeps on the ground, she is clothed in
+a wrapper, she plays with a tile; she cannot be either good or evil, and
+has only to prepare wine and food without giving any cause of grief to
+her parents. So, being a girl, I learned to play with broken tiles, and
+found them as good as gems. When I was about three years old, something
+dreadful happened. Another baby was born—and it was a girl. I didn’t
+mind at all, as I wanted someone to play with, and a girl is as good
+as a boy—better, _I_ think. But our proverb says, “Eighteen beautiful
+daughters are not equal to one son, even though he be lame.” My father
+was dreadfully angry, and beat mother; so she was miserable, and cried
+a good deal. After a few days I missed my baby sister, and when I asked
+where she was, someone laughed, and pointed to a pond, near by. I didn’t
+know then what he meant; but sister never came back, so I had to play
+alone.
+
+About this time I was betrothed. Practically all girls are, in China, and
+at a very early age. My father said girls were a useless expense, so he
+wanted to get me off his hands as soon as possible. So a lucky day was
+chosen, and two middlemen engaged, who came and compared the day and the
+hour of my birth with that of the lad they suggested. Then followed a
+feast, when the agreement was made and my future fixed.
+
+The home of my future husband was some little way off, and his father
+was a broken-down scholar, who kept a small school, and was a slave to
+opium. The lad was his youngest son. The mother bore a bad reputation for
+quarrelling and scolding, so you may imagine I didn’t look forward with
+much pleasure to entering my new home, and hoped the day was far off. But
+it came sooner than I expected.
+
+When I was about seven years old, I began to notice that father was away
+a great deal at night, and that we didn’t get much to eat. The furniture
+slowly disappeared, and our clothes were poor and scanty. My mother
+seemed anxious, and cried much. I found out the meaning of it one day
+when I caught sight of father slinking into a dirty hovel near by, which
+I knew to be an opium den. Alas, he had become a victim to the “foreign
+smoke”! Day by day the craving grew upon him, and every scrap of money
+he could get went in opium, and mother had to support herself and me by
+making shoes and washing clothes. Father ate but little, and gave mother
+so little money that we were nearly starved. In the morning, before the
+craving came on again, he was very miserable and bad-tempered. He cursed
+himself and the English who, he said, had brought this evil on China; yet
+he couldn’t break away from the habit, and things grew worse and worse.
+
+Very soon we had to move into a smaller house, and had hardly any
+possessions. Mother did the best she could, but no money was safe from
+father; and one day she said she could bear it no longer, and went out
+with a wild look on her face. She soon returned with some black stuff
+that looked like paint, and went into the bedroom crying. After a while
+she was quiet, and I thought she was sleeping, so I went away to play.
+
+It was some time before I returned, but mother was still sleeping. She
+looked so strange that I ran next door to ask them to come. They came;
+and at once there was a great hubbub, and somebody ran for father, but
+he was smoking opium and wouldn’t come. Then I knew that the black stuff
+mother had bought was opium, and that she had swallowed it to end her
+troubles.
+
+Her relatives came and made a great row. They abused father, and he
+abused them; and they demanded a lot of money, now mother was dead,
+though they never tried to help her when she was alive. Father didn’t
+seem to care much, as opium eats all the spirit and manhood out of its
+victims. He hadn’t any money, so thought the best thing was to send me
+at once to my future husband’s home, and so obtain the amount they had
+practically bought me for. With this he was enabled to satisfy mother’s
+relatives, and I soon found myself transferred to my new home. I never
+saw my father again. The cruel opium had made me worse than an orphan.
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+LITTLE GOLDEN LILIES.
+
+When I was about four my feet were bound. You must know that in China the
+smaller the feet the more a woman is admired. For over a thousand years
+the custom has been observed, and only a few give it up, even though, as
+the common saying has it, “For every pair of small feet there has been
+shed a bucket of tears.” So as my mother wished me to have “little golden
+lilies,” as they were called, she commenced to bind my feet early.
+
+The calendar was consulted for a lucky day (it would never do to commence
+anything on an unlucky day), and mother brought some strips of calico a
+few inches wide and several yards long. With these she tightly bound my
+feet, making them narrow and pointed.
+
+At first I went nearly crazy with crying. No one took any notice of it,
+and mother tried to console me by saying that no one would marry a woman
+with large feet. She told me that when she was married hers were only two
+and a half inches long. Day by day the binding was done until I wished I
+could die and be rid of the pain. Gradually it became less as the feet
+ceased to grow, and I was able to hobble about the house.
+
+But with it all I was much more fortunate than little “Pearl,” my friend
+next door. They left the binding of her feet until she was nearly eight,
+and then bound them very tightly. She was only scolded and beaten when
+she cried, and the pain was so great she nearly died; and when one of
+her feet got very bad they called in the native doctor. He said it was
+a demon in her left leg, so they heated needles and poked them in her
+legs to let the evil spirit out. But she didn’t get better, so they took
+her to a charm priest some miles away. They couldn’t afford a chair, so
+little Pearl was forced to walk part of the way. The priest wrote some
+characters on paper, put them in water, and Pearl drank it. Then they
+paid a good sum of money and returned.
+
+The long walk was too much for Pearl, and she had a long illness, and is
+now lame. They say it was because she, in her previous life, was a bad
+man—so she was born again as a woman, and has had all this pain.
+
+I have heard that in the mission-schools of the foreigners the girls all
+have large feet; but I am sure they must look very coarse—and whoever
+will marry them? Still, I daresay it’s nice to be able to run about
+without falling. I remember once mother slipped on the ladder going into
+the loft, and fell, hurting her back; but she didn’t blame her feet.
+“Little golden lilies make an insecure footing,” says the proverb.
+
+I was about eight when I was taken to my new home, and the following
+years were so full of sorrow that I hardly dare tell you about them. I
+was just a little slave-girl, nothing more. There are many thousands in
+the same plight in China. I was the property of my mother-in-law, and
+she was a bad-tempered and cruel woman. She seemed to take a delight
+in beating me, and was always thinking of some new way to make my life
+miserable; while from morning to night I had to work far beyond my power.
+The opium-eating father used to grab all the money he could, so the rice
+often barely went round, and I was continually being half-starved—only
+having gruel, and but little of that. All the menial work of the house
+fell to my lot, and, as I was at the beck and call of all, I was at it
+from morning to night.
+
+The brothers, too, expected me to wait on them, and struck me if I didn’t
+obey their wishes. My mother-in-law’s cruel tongue and crueller hand
+drove me on all day, and late at night I was glad to rest my weary bones
+on the straw bed in the loft.
+
+Things went from bad to worse. Not only was the father given to opium,
+but the mother and sons were all bad—continually drinking, card-playing,
+and quarrelling, till the house bore a bad name all round. Surrounding
+the house were several fields. Once there had been a large farm, but one
+by one the fields were sold for opium, until only a few were left. These
+were tilled by the sons and so brought in a little money.
+
+[Illustration: The women and girls work all day transplanting rice.]
+
+The thing we depended on most was cotton, and I had to take my share in
+cultivating it. The fields had to be constantly weeded, and that was done
+by the women and girls. As with our bound feet it is difficult to stand,
+we used to take small stools into the fields and sit with our hoe in our
+hands busily digging out the weeds. Then came cotton-picking—back-aching
+work, with the sun fiercely shining overhead, and plenty of angry words
+when the amount picked wasn’t as much as my mother-in-law thought it
+ought to be.
+
+In the autumn and winter I learned to wind the cotton, and then to work
+at the loom, weaving the coarse white cloth of which our garments were
+made. This, with making shoes and cooking rice, was my chief work; and
+though I suffered much I dared not complain—for I was like the dumb man
+eating wormwood, unable to utter my misery.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+A VILLAGE SCHOOL.
+
+I should like to tell you something about the school my father-in-law
+kept. It was held in a little dark room at the back of the house, and
+there were a dozen or so boys of about six to twelve, who came daily,
+as soon as it was light, and studied till dusk. They brought their own
+desks and stools, paid for their own ink and pens and books, and gave a
+little to the teacher, either in money or farm produce. They were mostly
+farmers’ boys, and in the busy season often had to help at home; so their
+education proceeded slowly.
+
+Their chief work was to learn by heart long strings of words, of the
+meaning of which they knew nothing. They began with the three-character
+classic, and went on to the works of Confucius and Mencius. But what they
+learnt was of little good; for they repeated the sentences like so many
+parrots, and with just as much understanding of the meaning.
+
+Then there was writing—following a copy set by the teacher, with a
+brush pen and ink rubbed on a stone slab. That was all. No geography,
+or arithmetic, or history; it was dull indeed. Then, too, there was no
+discipline to speak of; for the teacher was often under the influence of
+opium, so the boys did as they liked.
+
+The biggest boy in the school was called “Seven Pounds,” because he
+weighed that when he was born. He was a bad boy and a regular bully,
+lording it over the small ones and helping himself to their pens and
+paper. No one dared to reprove him, least of all the teacher, for he was
+the son of the village pawnbroker, the most wealthy and powerful man in
+the neighborhood. Large numbers of Chinese regularly pawn their summer
+clothes in the winter, and their winter clothes when the warmer weather
+returns; so the pawnbrokers make a good harvest, and are usually very
+wealthy and powerful. So, you see, it didn’t pay to quarrel with Seven
+Pounds, and he knew this well enough.
+
+Now, although my father-in-law was reckoned a scholar, he was, like all
+in the house, very superstitious. In the large room, which was dirty and
+dusty in the extreme, the place of honour was given to the God of Riches.
+There he sat in fat dignity, presiding over the house, though we never
+saw any of his riches. In fact, since the coming of wealthy foreigners
+into the country, it is often said that the god has moved to foreign
+parts, and is now bestowing his riches on the Western nations. Certainly
+I never saw the use of him, for our circumstances got worse and worse.
+
+Then on the outside door we had pasted a pair of door gods. These
+pictures represent famous warriors who now are regarded as gods, and they
+have to protect the house from calamities. Certainly they are ugly enough
+for anything; but I have never known them ward off robbers. But perhaps
+it is only the spirits that are afraid of them; men aren’t, I am sure. To
+frighten off the spirits we had a looking-glass hung over the front door,
+so that when the spirits came round and were about to enter, they should
+see their ugly faces and retire in a fright.
+
+The calendar was invariably consulted for lucky days on which to begin
+everything; and when there was an eclipse we joined our neighbors with
+gongs and drums to prevent the heavenly dog swallowing the sun. Every
+spring there were the sacrifices at the ancestral graves, and much cash
+paper was burnt lest the spirits of our ancestors should not have enough
+to pay current expenses. Sacrifices were offered to them, and it was a
+general holiday. Any paper on which there was any writing or printing was
+carefully burnt. By this act merit was stored up.
+
+On All Souls’ Day my mother would burn incense and cash paper for the
+release of those wandering spirits who had no descendants to do it for
+them. Near by was a Buddhist temple, where a few lazy priests idled away
+the day in opium-smoking and gambling, bearing out the common saying,
+“Nine priests, ten rogues.” My brothers-in-law often went there to try
+to find out whether any proposed undertaking was going to turn out
+successfully. So by all these things you will see there was plenty of
+religion in our house, though but little goodness.
+
+New Year, which is the great Chinese festival, brought only added sorrows
+to me; for the time was given up to gambling, and I was busier than
+ever attending to the wants of the gamblers, and only received blows
+in return. Only at the new year itself was there a little rest from
+abuse, for at that time it is unlucky to use bad words. To name the evil
+spirits is to cause them to appear. I have heard missionaries say that
+they feel free to go where they like then without fear of abuse, for no
+one calls them “foreign devil” then, even though they make up for it
+later on.
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+GODS MANY AND LORDS MANY.
+
+Over our stove was a paper figure of the kitchen god. He presides all
+the year round over the cooking arrangements, and listens carefully to
+all that is said. A few days before the close of the year he goes up to
+heaven to report all he has heard to the gemmy emperor, his master. He
+must have had a lot to tell about our house; so my mother-in-law took the
+precaution to daub his lips with sticky treacle so that he could not open
+his mouth and tell of her doings. Most of our neighbors did this, too; so
+I suppose they didn’t feel any too comfortable about his report of them.
+At the new year he came down again—at least we put up a new one in the
+place of the one we had burned, which, I suppose, comes to the same thing.
+
+The goddess of smallpox was much dreaded in our district. She usually got
+to work at the beginning of the summer, and unless big gifts were given
+to her, she revenged herself by killing large numbers of little children
+as well as grown-ups. I remember well how she came one summer. One by
+one of the children fell ill of “heavenly flowers,” as the disease was
+called, and the temple was thronged with worshippers, while every house
+had its image of Niang-niang, to which incense was burned to ward off her
+anger. As nothing availed, a great procession was arranged for, in which
+many children took part. They were gaily dressed and carried aloft on the
+shoulders of men to call forth the pity of the cruel goddess.
+
+Then we had a great theatrical performance which Niang-niang watched from
+her shrine opposite the stage. It lasted for over a week, and crowds came
+from far and near. The only result I know of was that the disease was
+carried into a number of villages near and many more died. The expenses
+were paid by the people round, and during the performances the gambling
+and opium dens reaped a rich harvest. I was too busy to care for any of
+these things, and so miserable that I prayed Niang-niang to come and end
+my weary life by sending me the “heavenly flowers.”
+
+But a worse calamity than the smallpox was to come upon us. All the year
+but little rain had fallen, and the fields were parched and dry. It was
+the time for planting out the rice. This rice is our staple food, and if
+anything happens to the rice harvest we are in the greatest difficulty.
+The rice is sown on flooded fields, and when planted out has to be well
+watered for a month or more, or the plants will dry up.
+
+In spite of all the prayers at the temples, the processions, and the
+crackers, the rain refused to fall, and ruin stared us in the face. The
+following winter was dry and cold, and prices went up so that the poor
+began to be in great want. Still it was hoped the spring rains would put
+things right again. The farmers sowed what little grain they had left;
+but the heat set in earlier than usual, and the fierce sun scorched up
+all, and men prayed in vain for the rains that never came. In their
+place came famine, gaunt and relentless.
+
+Our family was one of the very first to suffer. Gradually clothes and
+goods were sold, for my father-in-law’s opium craving had to be satisfied
+somehow, and with it all my miseries increased. Yet I dare not run away,
+for that meant certain death. In the wake of the famine came fever.
+Weak with constant opium-smoking, my father-in-law was an early victim,
+and we buried him hastily outside the village. The two eldest sons left
+secretly, and bitterly my mother-in-law cursed them for leaving her thus
+in her distress.
+
+There should have been some help obtainable from the Benevolent Halls;
+but though many subscriptions had been given in the good years, the money
+could not be accounted for now that it was wanted, and the man in charge
+committed suicide when faced by the angry people. The wealthy hid their
+money lest it should be stolen by the bands of fearless robbers who
+prowled everywhere. Our home was now sold, and as we soon used up the
+money, there was nothing for it but to join the crowds of starving people
+going into the cities to seek for help.
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+IN THE GRIP OF FAMINE.
+
+On the way to the town, in the blazing heat, and living mostly on roots
+dug from the wayside, the youngest son, my prospective husband, died
+of exhaustion. I don’t think any of us minded, as we were too far gone
+ourselves. I only remember feeling some relief that now I need never be
+married into that family. How we reached the town I don’t know; but we
+got there at last, and for a few days lived on a little rice doled out
+from a temple near the river. The stores of grain supposed to be reserved
+in every town against famine were found to be bad from neglect, and it
+was only with difficulty a riot was prevented. The official dared not
+show his face, as there were rumors that he had been pocketing some of
+the relief money given by the Government.
+
+On the third day we were all of us too weak to fight our way through the
+crowd to where rice was being distributed. Near by was a shop where a
+kind of coarse wheat bread was sold. My mother-in-law eyed it hungrily.
+There were few about, so she went up to the man and whispered to him. He
+looked across to me, and then I saw him give her a lump of bread, which
+she clutched eagerly and disappeared down a back street. I never saw her
+again. She had sold me to the baker for a piece of bread!
+
+I was at the time too starved and ill to be frightened, and the man
+appeared to be kind and good, and told me not to be afraid. He brought
+me to his wife, a pleasant woman with a kind face, who gave me a little
+food, and after a while I slept. Then began a new life for me. At first
+I was terribly afraid lest my old enemy should come back and try to get
+me away. My new-found friends I soon began to like. The man was a small
+trader, who had done well in previous years, and though, like all the
+others, they were hard pressed by the famine, they had money enough to
+tide them over the worst. They had no children, so the man bought me as a
+servant for his wife, and I found in her a good mistress.
+
+Meanwhile the distress grew. Many of the officials were so corrupt as
+to try to make money out of the calamities of the people. Transit by
+water was very slow, so it was long before relief came. At last we heard
+that kindly foreigners were bringing up some boat-loads of flour for the
+destitute people. It was when these boats arrived that I saw a foreigner
+for the first time in my life. There were two of them who attended to
+the transport of the rice from the boats to a temple. A strong force of
+soldiers prevented the rush of the hungry crowd, and the foreigners used
+to steal out late at night and early in the morning giving tickets to the
+destitute and taking care that they were not imposed upon by those whose
+need was not so great.
+
+[Illustration: Making idols in China.
+
+“The idols in the temple could not help.”]
+
+They told from time to time a strange story of a new religion of love,
+and of Someone called the Lord Jesus, who had sent them in to save the
+starving. They were very kind, and gave the people work, widening and
+draining the road. My new father was greatly impressed by all this, and I
+overheard him say that such a doctrine as this was worth listening to.
+
+It was at that time that my new-found friends determined to leave
+that part and retire to their home far away in the country. A long
+boat journey brought us at last to a small farm, lying at the foot
+of a steep hill, crowned, as is usual, by a temple. Here in this new
+home I began a new life. My friends were very religious, and belonged
+to the vegetarians. Nearly all the best and most spiritual people in
+China belong to this sect. They are earnest worshippers of idols, and
+give large sums of money to priests, and in their life are careful and
+self-denying. One of their chief reasons for becoming vegetarians was
+that they had no son. This they regarded as the sure sign of the wrath
+of the gods. To appease them they had made many pilgrimages to famous
+shrines, but without finding peace.
+
+When New Year came, there was a celebrated and much-attended festival on
+the Fairy Hill, near our home. From far and near crowds came to worship
+in the temple of the goddess, bestower of sons and healer of smallpox.
+Beggars, in all stages of filthiness, lined the roads reaping a rich
+harvest from the worshippers, eager to accumulate merit by acts of
+charity. My father joined the procession that started one day from our
+village. Fasting and in silence they wended their way across the fields,
+each man with a stick of burning incense in his hand, and preceded by
+banners and an idol in a shrine. Arrived at the temple the noise was
+deafening. Drums and gongs clashed, innumerable crackers spluttered,
+and the air was heavy with the smoke of incense. My father knelt before
+the grim idol. The priest shook together a lot of bamboo slips, from
+which my father took one, and the priest handed to him the corresponding
+response of the idol. Anxiously he stepped outside and read. Would it be
+favorable? Would the angry gods regard his prayer at last? He read the
+printed slip, and a look of intense disappointment passed over his face,
+for he read thus:
+
+    From sickness no release;
+      In lawsuits no success;
+    Your children hard to rear;
+      From false charges no redress;
+    The lost will not be found,
+      Nor flocks nor herds increase;
+    From marriage no good luck,
+      And from labor no release.
+
+Such was the result of many prayers and much fasting. Truly the gods keep
+their wrath for ever.
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+I RECEIVE A NEW NAME.
+
+Sadly my father wended his way down the mountain. All was hopeless.
+Heaven had forgotten to smile upon him. Then he noticed ahead of him
+a small crowd surrounding a foreigner. He was a missionary from the
+neighboring town, and was busy selling books and preaching to the
+worshippers of the goddess. Father stepped up, partly out of curiosity
+and partly remembering the good deeds of the foreigners in the famine
+district.
+
+The crowd were inclined for some fun at the stranger’s expense; but
+he answered with such good humor and politeness as to win their good
+opinions. Then he commenced to preach. He did not abuse the idols—there
+might have been trouble had he done so—but he told of a True Spirit who
+was loving and good. Father listened. Who could that Spirit be, so full
+of love? Not the god of thunder whom everybody feared, for he struck men
+dead in his wrath. Not the fierce god of war, or the pitiless Niang-niang
+rejoicing in the sufferings of the smallpox victims.
+
+As the missionary spoke his face glowed. He told of Jesus, who went
+about doing good and at last died for men. There were no Chinese gods
+who would do that, father thought. They would take your money, but
+die for you?—well, that was nonsense. Eagerly he listened to the
+wonderful story. The stranger noticed him. At the close of his address
+he approached father. “Your name, honorable sir?” he asked. “My unworthy
+name is Lee,” was the response. Quietly and earnestly the stranger looked
+into father’s face. “Sir,” he said, “I noticed you listening intently
+just now; may I respectfully ask you, Is there peace in your heart? Do
+you yet know the grace of God in forgiving sin?” Forgiving sin—that was
+what my new parents had sought for so long; and the missionary’s words
+went home. My father made a confused answer, but bought a book the
+stranger recommended him, and hurried home lest it should be known that
+he had talked with the foreigner, and was in danger of eating the foreign
+doctrine.
+
+That meeting was the turning-point in my father’s life. The book he had
+bought pointed out a new and living way of obtaining release from sin.
+Many visits were paid to the chapel; and once the missionary came to our
+village and stayed at our house. Little by little my father’s prejudices
+were overcome, and the new doctrine entered his heart. At first mother
+was bitterly opposed to it. To draw her away from her gods and win her to
+this persecuted faith was no easy task; but gradually the light dawned
+for her, too.
+
+The neighbors got to hear of the visits to the chapel, and much petty
+annoyance was the result; but father’s patience and sincerity disarmed
+suspicion, and his happiness was so manifest as to be a constant witness
+to the truth. They were happy days for me, and my new life was such a
+change from the old that it all seemed a dream. One day the missionary
+heard my story. “You have come out of much tribulation,” he said. Then
+turning to father, he remarked, “Why not give her a new name?” “Yes,”
+said father, “we will not call her Yin-dee any more, but Ping-an—Rest and
+Peace—for that is what I have now found in Christ.” So that is how my
+name was changed.
+
+Then it was suggested that I ought not to grow up ignorant, but should
+learn to read and write; for in the Christian religion there is no
+difference made between girls and boys—all are alike precious to Jesus.
+The missionary told us that at Han-yang there was a school for girls,
+where many were living and being taught useful things, and, best of all,
+were taught the story of Christ. How excited I was at the prospect of
+going, though not a little afraid of so strange a place!
+
+At last the longed-for day came and I found myself with my father landing
+at Han-yang. At first I was bewildered by the busy crowds and clung to
+father’s gown as I walked along. How I trembled with excitement as we
+reached the school, and I think father felt as nervous as I did. But we
+were inside the gates at last. In a large yard we saw a group of girls
+playing. I gave a gasp of surprise. How could they run so? Then I saw
+that their feet were unbound, and the small, pointed shoes had given
+place to comfortable ones, which didn’t cause them to hobble along. I
+smiled a welcome at them, and wondered how long it would be before I
+could run as they did.
+
+We were shown in and introduced to the matron, a Chinese lady, who made
+us feel quite at home, and after a chat two foreign ladies came in. At
+first I could only stare, and I nearly forgot my manners; but I found
+that though they were dressed strangely they spoke my language; so my
+fear left me and I was soon enrolled as a scholar in the David Hill
+Girls’ School, and proud I was of the fact, too. Truly my new name suited
+me—I had found rest and peace.
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE GIRLS’ SCHOOL.
+
+So began my school-life. There is not time to tell you all about it
+now. There were about seventy of us there, from five to seventeen years
+old. Some of them had been slave girls, and could tell a story to match
+mine. Twice a day we gathered for meals, and we learnt to clean out our
+rooms, mend and wash our clothes, and make our own shoes, so as to be
+useful when we returned home. Then there was study and drill, and all of
+it was so interesting—not a bit like the dry way they teach in Chinese
+schools. Yet, best of all, were the Sunday services in the chapel and
+the class-meeting and Bible-study in the week. My feet were gradually
+loosened, and as they grew again I learned to skip and run with the other
+girls; and when I went home it was wonderful the impression made on the
+people in our out-of-the-way village.
+
+Several years have gone by since I went to school and entered upon that
+new life. Now I am learning to teach others; for teachers are badly
+needed in our schools and women teachers are difficult to get. To-day I
+have been thinking over my life. Like a dreadful dream there rises before
+me the picture of Yin-dee, the neglected little slave of a cruel woman. I
+see myself hobbling over the ground picking cotton, or in the evil home
+making tea for opium-smokers and gamblers. I almost expect to hear the
+harsh tones of my mother-in-law calling me to do some menial duty.
+
+Then I remember the famine and its horrors. I can scarcely believe that
+it is all a thing of the past, and I have become Ping-an, the child of
+rest and peace. And what has done it all? Just this—the love of Jesus. It
+was Jesus who sent the missionary with the message of love and pardon,
+and it is Jesus who now fills my heart with joy. Yet I cannot forget that
+there are many—oh, so many!—of my sisters in China in the same sad plight
+as I was. I wonder how long it will be before the message will come to
+them? How long before they will enter the land of rest and peace?
+
+In the city of Pekin there hangs a great bell, and there is a legend
+connected with it on which I love to ponder. Twice had the labor of
+years been lost at the time of casting. The third time, just as the
+molten metal was to be poured into the mould, the lovely daughter of
+the maker, knowing that by no other means could a perfect bell be cast,
+flung herself into the cauldron and gave her life to save her father from
+disappointment and shame.
+
+China now is waiting to be moulded. Old things are passing. It is a new
+China we are beholding. Many ways have been tried for her regeneration.
+The cold morality of Confucius is powerless. Buddhist monks and Taoist
+priests have come in vain. Only by the cleansing Gospel of Christ can
+China be purified and made a vessel meet for the Master’s use. Ages ago
+this girl sacrificed herself that the bell might be perfect. What we
+women and girls of China need is that more missionary teachers should
+come to us, bringing the love of the Lord on their lips and in their
+lives—then will China be saved and won for Christ. It is worth it a
+thousand times. Will some of you come? Will more of you give? Will all of
+you pray? There is something each can do, if you will only try. Out of
+death springs life, and out of your sacrifice for Christ shall spring a
+new China, free from the sins which have bound her in the past.
+
+
+
+
+David Livingstone
+
+BY A FELLOW-TOWNSMAN.
+
+
+At Blantyre, Scotland, on the 19th March, 1813, a child was born to Neil
+and Agnes Livingstone. We never know when is happening an epoch-making
+event. Every new soul ushered into the world is a shut casket of
+possibilities. The boy born in the humble home consisting of a “but and
+a ben,” was destined to become one of the greatest missionaries; and
+the most conspicuous and intrepid explorer the world has ever seen; to
+achieve for himself a deathless fame, a name of imperishable memory, and
+to leave to mankind a heritage of truth and influence. His cradle was in
+the peasant’s cottage, but his grave is in Westminster Abbey. I have many
+times visited the house where he was born, and the mill where he worked,
+and oftentimes I have read the inscription that is over his grave. I
+esteem it a great privilege to have lived for years near the birthplace
+of the great and good David Livingstone. His home was one of those which
+are the glory of Scotland, the abode of the godly and intelligent working
+class. His mother was a sweet, gentle woman, and his father was a good
+man.
+
+When ten years of age he went to work. His working hours were from six
+a.m. to eight p.m. His first week’s wages, sixty cents, he gave with
+pride to his mother. He saved a few pence and purchased a “Rudiments of
+Latin,” over which he pored when the day’s work was done. His thirst for
+knowledge was intense. At the age of sixteen he had read many of the
+classical authors and knew Horace and Virgil well.
+
+[Illustration: DAVID LIVINGSTONE (1813-1873)
+
+The Great Missionary Explorer.
+
+Went to Africa 1840. Died in Africa 1873.
+
+How David Livingstone gave.—
+
+“I will place no value upon anything I have or may possess except in
+relation to the Kingdom of Christ.”]
+
+It was about his twentieth year that the great spiritual change took
+place, which was to determine Livingstone’s future life. At that time he
+definitely received Christ as his personal Saviour, and there can be no
+doubt that his heart was thoroughly penetrated by the new life that then
+flowed into it. Religion became the everyday business of his life and
+his daily prayer was that he might resemble Christ, a petition fulfilled
+in no ordinary degree. A desire was born within him to preach Christ in
+China, and that he might be fitted for that work he entered as a medical
+student in the University of Glasgow, and in due time was graduated in
+medicine. He received not a cent of aid from anyone. What a struggle
+he had! What economy he had to practice! Frequently his meal consisted
+entirely of oatmeal porridge.
+
+He was accepted by the London Missionary Society and sent out in
+1840—not to China—but to Africa. To God and to Africa he gave his
+manhood’s prime. No grander work was ever done than that accomplished
+by David Livingstone. In him life’s fire glowed. With magnanimous and
+self-sacrificing devotion, with undaunted courage, in the midst of
+manifold sufferings, through days of hunger and weariness, and nights
+of dreadful loneliness, he worked for Africa’s salvation. He loved the
+natives, and they loved the man who was ever kind and good. He worked
+amongst them with a vision ever before him of the men and women, whom
+they, by God’s grace, might become, and that vision shaped and controlled
+and sustained him in all his efforts. With the vision of the latter
+day before him he addressed himself nobly and well to the work of the
+present. God alone knows what Africa owes to Livingstone.
+
+This full and overflowing life closed to earth’s activities in May, 1873.
+His spirit marches on. Such men never die. His spirit has entered into
+the great stream of the ever-swelling life of mankind, and continues, and
+will continue, to act there with its whole force for evermore. He lives
+in minds made better by his noble example. He lives in the Livingstonia
+Mission, that great beacon light; he lives in great numbers of the
+regenerated natives of Africa; he lives in all who are constrained to
+work for Christ in that dark land.
+
+I pray our Epworth Leaguers to read the story of his life, that they
+may know what one consecrated man did in a lifetime, that they may have
+a revelation of the possibilities in man, that they may be inspired to
+emulate him in his noble simplicity, high resolve, invincible courage,
+exalted self-sacrifice; that they may be possessed with the overmastering
+purpose which guided and drove him on. Read his life and be inspired
+with the thought that life is a high and noble calling. Reading of his
+toils and struggles and victories, pray God for grace to “follow in his
+train.” His motto was: “Fear God, and work hard.” Make it your motto. The
+greatest of all tragedies is to live and die without a thing done by the
+sweat of the soul.
+
+                                                            —_Loch Ranza_.
+
+
+
+
+Christmas in Our Boys’ School, Junghsien, West China
+
+BY EDWARD WILSON WALLACE, B.A., B.D.
+
+
+If you were a Chinese, and every day ate two meals of rice and some
+vegetables, with meat only twice a month, if as often; if you worked from
+daylight to dark seven days in the week, and had no summer vacation or
+Christmas holidays; if you had no books to read except possibly (if you
+were lucky) one or two greasy and tattered volumes of ancient philosophy,
+not one word of which you understood; in other words, if you were an
+average Chinese boy or girl, don’t you think that you would look forward
+even more eagerly than you did this year to Christmas? I think you would.
+At any rate the boys and girls connected with the church in Junghsien
+were expecting a great treat, and we were planning to give them all that
+they expected, and more.
+
+Then suddenly, unexpectedly, a terrible thing happened that put an end
+to all these hopes and plans. Can you guess what it was? It was not a
+fire, or an earthquake, or a riot on the mission. But one morning there
+came word that the Emperor of China and his step-mother had suddenly
+died, and that everyone must go into mourning. And that was the end of
+the two Christmas concerts, the Christmas tree, and the feast. For the
+rules for mourning for a dead Emperor in China are quite strict. No one
+could marry for a month—that rule did not affect us, for the only wedding
+arranged for by anyone connected with the church, that of Mr. McAmmond’s
+teacher, took place a few days before. No one was to be allowed to have
+his head shaved for a hundred days. Every Chinese boy and man allows just
+enough hair to grow on the top of his head to form his “pig-tail”; all
+the rest of his head is shaved clean. But imagine what a messy effect it
+is to have the head covered with a couple of months’ growth around the
+long cue, as there is now. It is the Chinese way of going into black;
+for, of course, every man’s hair is as black as pitch. Another rule was
+that no one could wear satin clothes for a hundred days, and the little
+red knobs on the top of the caps had to be changed to blue, which is the
+second degree mourning color in China, white being the first. So far the
+rules did not interfere with our Christmas entertainment. But now we come
+to the fatal order, “There must be no music and no celebrations for a
+month.” Alas! for our Chinese boys and girls. Christmas fell within the
+month.
+
+It is true that we might have got around the trouble by claiming that
+ours was a foreign church, and so did not fall within the common rules.
+This, I believe, was done in other places. But our church here is a
+large one, and we are constantly trying to make the members understand
+that it is a Chinese church, not a foreign one, and we decided that this
+was a splendid opportunity to impress on the people the fact that when
+a man joins the Christian Church he does not in any way become less of
+a Chinese, and that our Church believes in honoring the rulers of the
+country. As soon as it was finally decided that we should follow the
+regulations the members agreed that we had done the correct thing.
+
+In one way it was rather fortunate for the boys in the school that we had
+no entertainment to prepare for. Just at Christmas last year came the
+examinations, and some of the boys were working very hard to prepare for
+the entrance examination. So it gave them a better chance to study. And
+during Christmas week they had four examinations.
+
+We did not intend, however, that Christmas should pass without something
+to make the boys remember the day and what it means. If they could not
+have a Christmas tree, I determined to give them the next best thing—in
+fact, when I was a boy a year or two ago, I thought it was away ahead of
+a mere tree—that is hanging up the stockings. The boys had never even
+heard of such a custom, so it was great fun for them. One morning in
+school, after prayers, I solemnly asked the boarders, “How many of you
+have two pairs of socks?” There was blank amazement. Why did I wish to
+know that? I only smiled, as I began with the boy in the front, little
+“Georgie Bond.” “Have you two pairs of socks?” “Yes, but the extra pair
+have holes.” Then to the next boy, “Have you a second pair?” “I have
+three pair, but they all have holes, some of them as big as this,” and he
+made a circle with his thumb and finger. “Have them mended,” I replied,
+and passed on down the line. I found that all the nine boys had extra
+pairs and all of them, as is the case with the stockings of every decent
+fellow I ever knew, had holes. I maintain that in China, as at home, it
+is a sign that a boy is a real boy when he wears holes in his stockings.
+So I advised them to have one pair mended and washed before Christmas
+Eve, and bring it to me. And then—well, we should see what we should see.
+
+[Illustration: The boys of the Junghsien School who had a good time at
+Christmas.]
+
+Great was the excitement among the boys, and not a sock was missing when
+the great night arrived. I did not let the boys hang up their own socks,
+but packed them all off to the school study-room upstairs, while one of
+the teachers and I pinned the socks up in a row in the class-room under
+the blackboard. You know we have no fires in the schools here, and so
+there are no chimneys. All the same Santa Claus found a way, for next
+morning—but wait a bit.
+
+When I got down to the school on Christmas morning at half-past seven
+I found the boys already at breakfast. They were casting anxious eyes
+in the direction of the room with the closed door, and like other boys
+I have known they did not take long to eat their Christmas-morning
+breakfast. When they were all ready they filed into the room. I am not
+going to tell you how those stockings were filled. You may decide for
+yourselves how, and by whom it was done. I don’t think the boys stopped
+to think anything about “how.” They were too much interested in the
+sight of twelve white Chinese socks in a row, all bulging out in a knobby
+fashion, with things sticking out of them, and a flat, red parcel behind
+every sock. On the blackboard was written in Chinese, “Jesus’ Holy
+Birthday.” After they had looked for a minute I suggested that they take
+down their socks and see what was in them. Then for the first time in
+their lives they had the joy of exploring the mysteries of a Christmas
+stocking. Their presents were not very much, you would say, perhaps. Each
+boy found a story-book and a photograph of the school, and then down in
+the sock were nuts and candies, and right in the toe an orange. The two
+teachers each got a New Testament with the Chinese and English on the
+same page.
+
+They did not say much, and I wondered if they were disappointed, until
+one of the teachers, Mr. Jang, came up to me with tears in his eyes,
+saying, “You say we must not thank you, so I think we ought to thank God.
+Can’t we do it just now?” It touched me deeply. “Yes,” I said, and we all
+went up to the study-room and, standing there about the long table, one
+after another of the boys made a short, simple prayer of thanks to God,
+not only for the gifts of the morning, but especially for the greatest
+Gift of all, Jesus Christ.
+
+At nine o’clock we had our regular morning prayers, and then I gave to
+the day-boys their presents, a New Testament and a bag of nuts and candy
+to each one. We had a nice little service in the church for all the
+church people, but our real Christmas service was held the next Sunday.
+On that day we had a special musical service, led by the boys, who had
+been practising for months under Mr. and Mrs. McAmmond. It would have
+done you good to hear them open the service with “Come, Thou Almighty
+King,” with Georgie Bond singing one verse as a solo. The anthem was
+“Hark, the Herald Angels Sing,” and our Chinese angels sang splendidly.
+
+On Christmas morning the church members gave away free rice to five
+hundred poor people. So that altogether the boys, even if their Christmas
+was quieter than usual, have had something to remind them of the joy of
+this beautiful season.
+
+
+
+
+God Wants Them All
+
+
+    God wants the boys—the merry, merry boys,
+        The noisy boys, the funny boys,
+        The thoughtless boys;
+    God wants the boys with all their joys,
+        That He as gold may make them pure,
+        And teach them trials to endure.
+            His heroes brave
+              He’ll have them be,
+            Fighting for truth
+              And purity.
+                God wants the boys.
+
+    God wants the girls, the happy-hearted girls,
+        The loving girls, the best of girls,
+        The worst of girls;
+    God wants to make the girls His pearls,
+        And so reflect His holy face,
+        And bring to mind His wondrous grace,
+            That beautiful
+              The world may be,
+            And filled with love
+              And purity.
+                God wants the girls.
+
+
+
+
+Li Liang Chen
+
+_Student, Soldier, Trader, Evangelist._
+
+REV. J. L. STEWART, B.A., B.D.
+
+
+It was on the street of the Temple of the Four Sages, in the capital
+city, Chengtu, Szechuan. There, to-day, its low, grey gable abutting the
+entrance gates, stands also the Worship Hall to the Western God, who
+is surely becoming Father of the East and of all. Within the temple,
+only the smoke of a few incense sticks mingled with the tobacco and
+opium fumes curled upward through cobwebs and tiles to the heavens. In
+the Worship Hall, three score and more of China’s youth, black-haired,
+bright-eyed, brilliant-minded hopes of her future greatness, were
+gathered. But half the hall was theirs. Up the centre ran a wooden wall
+past which presumably not even a wandering glance might go. That part
+beyond was sacred to the women and school girls. As not even these latter
+were present to embarrass the situation, native eloquence found full
+fling.
+
+It was the weekly meeting of the Epworth League of the College boys.
+Moreover, it was missionary night, and members were all attention. The
+leader was in fine form. With flushed cheek and fervid voice he called
+his hearers to see visions.
+
+“Jesus came to found a kingdom among men. All within the four seas are
+brethren. The kingdom must then include all under heaven. Jesus founded
+it first among His fellows, the Jews. These carried the message to Greeks
+and Romans. These bore it to barbarians in Europe and Britain. These have
+wafted it round the world, and to our land of the Middle Kingdom. And we?
+We must bear the glad tidings on to Thibet, to the tribesmen and to the
+aborigines....”
+
+Just then there was a commotion in the rear of the church. Someone was
+trying to make himself heard. At this persistent interruption all turned.
+A ripple of indignation quickly changed to interest as they saw the new
+speaker, a big, broad-faced, burly fellow, whose countenance beamed forth
+a happy combination of courage and child-like simplicity.
+
+“Your younger brother begs his elders’ pardon,” he ventured, “but here in
+the seat just in front of mine are two of these strangers from the tribes
+country. Why wait indefinitely some future date? They may leave before
+our leader is through. Why not begin here and now?”
+
+A voice of assent and approval ran around the room. For ten minutes the
+speaker, bending forward, chatted pleasantly with the wanderers from
+the great ranges to the west, well diggers, it seemed, seeking work
+on the plain, welcomed them to the meeting and told them simply and
+sympathetically of the Saviour of all and His message of love to men.
+Then the meeting went on as before.
+
+A simple enough little incident, surely, but it is an index to the
+speaker, sincere, sympathetic, fearless, practical. It was Li Liang Chen,
+that is, Li of Perfect Virtue, as his parents had named him in hope. To
+attain the Chinese goal of greatness by becoming an official was likewise
+a longing, and to that end he was sent early to school. There, year by
+year, through youth and young manhood, he had repeated his history,
+rhymed his poetry, patiently traced the puzzling characters and later
+written countless stereotyped essays under a still famous teacher of the
+district. More than once he had gone up with the picked men of his county
+to try for the coveted degree, that opening door to official life. Alas!
+how few could hope for success; oft-times scarce two in a hundred. His
+heart was, moreover, ever too great for his head, so those with more
+self-abstraction or secret alliances with the examiners, won the day.
+
+In military matters, literary attainments played a lesser part, the
+physical was the all-important, so thither his ambitions turned. Here,
+though some surpassed him in lifting the two and three hundred weight
+stone, success came surprisingly. He soon bent a strong bow and sent his
+arrow clean and quivering to the heart of the target. In feats with fists
+his stature, strength and courage placed him among the envied few, while
+in swinging great swords he was scarce surpassed.
+
+China, however, cares not for war. In the long life of no other nation
+has history written so large, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall
+inherit the earth.” Her list of honor runs, scholar, farmer, mechanic,
+merchant. The scholar sways by thought, so is first. The farmer and
+mechanic each produces, so come next. The merchant does neither, but
+distributes, so is fourth. The soldier is not even mentioned, for he
+exists but to destroy. Such being the sentiment, in times of peace but
+few are maintained or indeed needed to follow the profession of arms
+among these most easily ruled of the millions of earth. Li, like the many
+of his fellows, must have other means of support.
+
+His father was a merchant in the market village of the Chao family, near
+Jenshow. By dint of industry and economy, he had also added a small farm
+to his possession. Li was placed in the shop. Affability won friends,
+time and tact got him trade, while his fearlessness gradually carried
+him far afield. Back from the borders of the aborigines he brought white
+wax and ponies; from the province of Uin Lan he led pack mules laden
+with tea. In Kweichow, south and east, he sought silks and horses. From
+the far-flung tribes to north and west he bought musk and medicines,
+and from the Thibetans wools and hides. Soon agencies were established,
+compass-like, all about his centre, and Li, the trader, was known to big
+firms in scores of cities, towns, and in the great capital.
+
+But travels had touched more than trade. In larger centres he had seen
+the much-talked-of foreigner, with his ever-present hospitals, schools,
+and churches, and had heard him discussed from province to province in
+countless inns and teashops. Once, only once, he had paused one day in
+his busy life to listen to a street preacher. He carried away little of
+what was said. How could such things concern him and his sole search for
+goods and gold? Thus ten years fled by. He lost much, but made more, and
+at length decided to settle in his native village, among his own, the
+better to be a filial son to his now aging father.
+
+About that time mission problems assumed a new phase. After the dramatic
+events culminating in the Boxer cataclysm in 1900, the missionary found
+himself received in a new light. Previously permitted, as a matter of
+indifference, or in many places despised, insulted, persecuted, he
+now found himself pushed into unsought prominence. Foreign troops had
+defeated the forces of the Son of Heaven. Foreign officials had but to
+say the word, and China bowed to obey. Were not the missionaries friends
+of these consuls, indeed might they not themselves be officials or
+paid to act as such? In fact, one nation, France, openly allowed their
+“fathers” official status. The bishop ranked with a viceroy, the humblest
+priest with the local magistrate.
+
+The fruit of it all came fast. People flocked to the churches, not to
+be bettered by Christian teaching, but to gain power with which to
+threaten and coerce their enemies. This, it is not unfair to say, was
+particularly true among Roman Catholic native priests and their converts,
+where the worst characters of the community carried the day with high
+hand. It was at least true of the Jenshow district, where, abetted by
+the church, “converts” coerced, blackmailed, robbed, assaulted their
+helpless neighbors. Should reprisals arise they were at once labelled
+“persecutions,” appeal was made to the priests, then to the bishop,
+and thus to the chief officials of the province, or locally to the
+magistrates. The honest, hard-working citizen’s lot seemed hopeless and
+helpless.
+
+Then the knowledge slowly gained ground that there were two parties among
+these foreigners. Protestants, it was said, had equal power, but did not
+countenance such coercion. Why not invite these into the county, and join
+their organization? The plan was plausible and prevailed. Representative
+men went to the capital to invite the Protestant missionaries. After a
+time they came, received everywhere with honor and acclaim. Villages,
+a score and more, organized and sent representatives to support the
+movement. A central organization sprang up and a big building was secured.
+
+Among the many villages that thus sent representatives was that of the
+Chao family. Who should be sent but Li, the scholar, soldier, merchant,
+man of affairs. He went to Jenshow, listened, gave hearty support, bought
+books said to be necessary and went his way. He was more interested now,
+however, and read his books carefully. Though his motives could scarce be
+called Christian, he was being led and to lead in a way that he knew not.
+
+Some months later, a convention for leaders was summoned in the
+provincial capital. Li was ready and receptive. He returned to his native
+village, moved as not before to pilot his people. Many became converts,
+not of convenience, but of conviction, among these his former teacher and
+his own family and friends.
+
+Another year, and again a conference of those most worthy was called. Li
+came gladly. This time his home-going meant the giving over of business
+interests to others while he went forth in his own village, county town,
+and all the surrounding district, this time persuading men to make the
+greatest of all investments, those eternal investments in the Kingdom
+of God. Henceforth for him he felt his life’s chief business lay in the
+extension of the reign of righteousness, peace and joy throughout his
+native land.
+
+Two years have passed since then, but he is still as of old—fervent,
+fearless, faithful. A year’s study at college in Chengtu has given him
+greater grip and wider vision. To-day he is again out in the work he
+loves, the scholar seeing even more clearly the signs of his times, the
+soldier going courageously forward in the great commission, the trader
+offering in all market-places treasure that death cannot corrupt, the
+evangelist heralding the glad tidings of great joy to a great people.
+
+Of such stuff are China’s first apostles in the far west. Of such appeal
+is the message of the Son of Man to draw alien races unto Himself. To
+this end let us have firmer faith in all.
+
+
+
+
+Bo and Nare, or Found Out
+
+
+“Rub-a-dub-dub! rub-a-dub-dub!”
+
+Little Bo heard the music, and ran after it. He had been fishing in a
+pool with a bent pin for a hook. “It is lots more fun to run after the
+band than to fish with a pin and not catch anything,” thought Bo. So he
+gave the line to his little sister Nare. Nare wanted to fish before, but
+Bo had said, “Girls don’t know anything ’bout fishing.”
+
+Bo lived in a far country where even fathers don’t love little girls.
+Bo did not share his playthings with his sister, as you have done. He
+made her wait on him. He didn’t know any better. That was the way Bo’s
+father treated his mother. Bo was not white, as are the boys and girls
+who read this. He was brown as a berry. So was his little sister Nare.
+So were all the people Bo and Nare knew, except two ladies. These white
+missionary ladies were Bo’s teachers. They told him about Jesus. But Bo’s
+father taught him to worship idols. Bo sometimes wondered which was the
+true God. But at this particular minute he only thought about the music,
+and ran after it. He saw a great crowd and a priest in the midst beating
+a drum. He heard the priest cry in a loud voice, “Let every one keep
+silence.” Then the priest looked fiercely at the small boys. Bo began to
+tremble, and wish he were back fishing. “On this day week,” again shouted
+the priest, “at noon a god will arise from the ground in the field near
+our temple.” A second time the drum sounded, and the priest moved on to
+convey the news to other villages.
+
+Everybody began to talk excitedly. “A god rise from the ground!” said
+they; “can it be possible?”
+
+Bo was delighted. “Now I’ll find out,” thought he, “if men make our gods
+out of wood and stone, as the missionaries say. I’ll go and see for
+myself.”
+
+That week seemed the longest Bo had ever spent. But the great day came at
+length, and Bo was very happy. Nare was not. Nare wanted to go too. She
+begged Bo to take her, but Bo answered, “You are only a girl; it doesn’t
+make any difference what you think. By-and-bye I’ll be a man; so I ought
+to know what is right.” Bo thought it manly to speak so rudely. Why,
+even mothers are treated very badly by boys in countries where Jesus’
+teachings are not known.
+
+So Bo started off alone. He found the largest crowd he had ever seen in
+the great field near the temple. In the centre was a vacant space, where
+only priests stood. Bo made straight for that spot. But a priest took him
+roughly by the shoulder, and said, “The new god will kill any one who
+comes inside this circle.” Bo ran back and hid behind a tall man, who
+didn’t look afraid.
+
+It was a silent crowd. Most of the people seemed awe-struck. Every one
+was eagerly looking toward the vacant space where the god would rise. At
+noon more priests in long white robes came out of the temple. They began
+to mutter and wave their hands. The tall man next to Bo said, “Something
+black is coming out of the ground!” Bo stood on tip-toe and strained his
+eyes to see.
+
+The something grew larger and larger. Every eye was fixed upon the spot.
+Could it be the top of a head? Yes, for the brow, eyes, nose, and mouth
+slowly appeared. All this time the priests never once went near. The
+big black idol seemed to rise of itself. The crowd, almost wild with
+excitement, cried out, “A miracle! a miracle!”
+
+Bo thought the priests looked much pleased when the people shouted, “’Tis
+a miracle!” Soon the priests went into the temple. They didn’t think any
+one would dare go inside the circle.
+
+Now it happened that the tall man who stood next to Bo no longer believed
+that idols were gods. “The priests are trying to cheat us,” thought he.
+“A rival temple is the favorite, where most money is given. The priests
+of this temple are poor. They have made up this miracle in order to draw
+more offerings here.” So this wise man said to a friend near, “Let us
+make this god grow faster.” The other agreed. They went boldly forward
+and took hold of the idol.
+
+Bo heard people say, “They will surely fall down dead.”
+
+But no; the god came up quickly—head, hands, body—all complete. Still the
+two brave men stood unharmed and actually laughing. They cried out, “The
+priests have fooled us; come and see for yourselves!”
+
+Then, pell-mell, pushing and tumbling over each other, all rushed to the
+spot. What do you think they saw? A great pit full of soaked peas. The
+priests knew that peas grow larger when left in water; so they filled the
+pit with peas, poured on water, placed the idol on top, and covered it
+lightly with soil. By-and-bye, when the peas had begun to swell, the idol
+was pushed through the ground.
+
+The people were very angry. They nearly killed the priests, whom they
+found feasting in the temple.
+
+After one long look backward, Bo trudged home in disgust. He could never
+again believe in their priests. That evening Bo told Nare his decision:
+“We’ll not be afraid of make-believe gods any more. We must pray to the
+great Father who lives up in the sky.”—_Selected._
+
+
+
+
+Results of a One-Cent Investment in One of Our Country Sunday Schools
+
+
+At a Sunday School missionary meeting, the Superintendent received a
+number of letters from the scholars, giving an account of how they had
+traded with a cent which had been given them a year ago. It is needless
+to say that this was by no means the least attractive part of the
+programme. The following are some of the letters as received, in which we
+have made no corrections:—
+
+“I bought a cent’s worth of radish seed and sowed them in a plot of
+ground which my Mother gave me. I tended to them with care and sold them
+at 5 cts. a dozen. I sold 12 dozen and made 60 cts.”
+
+“Two years ago I took a cent to see how much I could make for missions.
+One year ago I took another cent. I spent them both and gained nothing
+with them. You can’t speculate much with a cent. A lady wanted me to do
+some work for her and said she would pay me, so I got $1.15 for last
+year, but didn’t get it in time for the meeting, and this year I have
+added 35 cts. more. Total amount, $1.50.”
+
+“Bot lead pencils at wholesale and sold them out retail, with the
+proceeds bot some sugar and made taffy and sold it for missionaries,
+making in all, 58 cts.”
+
+“I have twenty-five cents to give you for the missionaries. I sold some
+cucumbers to a lady for five cents, and the rest Ma gave me for doing
+errands.”
+
+“I earned this money buying and selling rhubarb, 20 cts.”
+
+“I bought one egg, raised a Pullet and sold one dozen for 20 cts., one
+dozen eggs for 15 cents, then sold the hen for 20 cts. Total amount made,
+55 cts.”
+
+“I ernt this fifteen cents by buying and selling eggs.”
+
+“I bought a patch of potatoes for one cent and tended to them and sold
+them for 10 cts., making a profit of 9 cts.”
+
+“I have just 51 cts. I went errands and washed dishes and did other
+little things for it.”
+
+“I bought beans and planted them and sold them for 3 cts.”
+
+“I bought with my cent some radish seed, and Mr. Wilson gave me a plot to
+sow it in. I watered and weeded them and sold them at 5 cts. a bunch, and
+made $1.”
+
+“I blacked the boots for a month and earned 15 cts. I will try to do
+better next time.”
+
+“My cent I invested in potatoes. I planted and tended them and arranged
+with a gentleman to take the potatoes at 40 cts. per bag. I am glad to
+hand in my $1 as the result.”
+
+“I am a very little boy, but I ain’t too small to work. Last year you
+did not give me a copper to work with, but I thought I would try and do
+something for poor little boys and girls away off in heathen lands, so
+last summer I picked dandelions, tied them in bunches, and sold them
+around the town, total amount, 5 cts.”
+
+“Total proceeds, $12.12.”
+
+“I first bought a can with my cent, and picked berries and sold them.
+Received twenty cents.”
+
+“I bought a row of carrots of my Father for a cent, and had five pails,
+and sold them at 10c. per pail, which is fifty cents.”
+
+“I bought a cents worth of knitting cotton and knit a pair of garters and
+sold them for Ten cents. (10c.)”
+
+“We Bought 2 cents worth of Eggs and Sett them, got 2 chickens, and sold
+them for 20 cents.”
+
+“Bought one ct’s worth of Bootblacking, blackned boots for five cts.
+bought five ct’s worth, blackned boots for five cts. a week, got one
+dollar.”—_Missionary Outlook._
+
+
+
+
+The Schoolmaster’s Lesson
+
+
+The schoolmaster, with the savings of two laborious years, had treated
+himself to a fine large microscope. This instrument, in its mahogany
+case, occupied a place of honor on a side table. It was a world of
+wonder, a more than Aladdin’s lamp to the children, who looked with joy
+to the occasions when the schoolmaster revealed to their wondering gaze
+its enchantments. Whenever the schoolmaster took a little key from his
+vest pocket and approached the sacred altar, where reposed the marvel,
+the children stowed their books under the blue desks, and fairly held
+their breath with expectation. Any one of them might have the honor of
+being summoned as officiating acolyte of the occasion.
+
+On this afternoon the schoolmaster had a bowl of water and some small
+green weeds from the nearest pond. He put some of the green plant in a
+large, clear glass. As it floated, the children coming near to look, one
+by one saw that the plant seemed supplied with minute green sacs filled
+with air.
+
+“Now, take your seats,” said the master. “This is called a bladder-plant,
+from these wee, green bladders, whereby it floats. Listen, and Nathan
+will tell you what he sees. Nathan, come forward.”
+
+Nathan came gladly.
+
+“Now, tell us what you see in the water, Nathan.”
+
+“I see little live things; some have little shells on them like mussels,
+only they look about as big as tiny pin-heads. Some have little whirling
+wheels on their heads. A good many are like very, very wee caterpillars.”
+
+“Those last are the water-bears,” said the schoolmaster. “Now look at the
+bladder-plant.”
+
+“The bladders,” said Nathan, “are little bags. Their mouths are open.
+They are set round with hairs. Some of the bags look full of something,
+and dark. Some of them seem to have some live thing kicking in them. Some
+are empty, and as you look in at the door it is like a little clear green
+room. Oh! I see a water-bear swimming up to one! He looks in. He seems
+to think it is pretty. I guess he wants to know where there is something
+kicking. He looks in there. Now he goes to an empty one. Now he swims by.
+No, he changes his mind. He thinks he will go in. He pokes in his head.
+The little hairs at the door bend inward: they let him go in easy. He is
+in! Oh! now he is trying to come out!”
+
+Great excitement in the listening school—eyes wide open, heads bent
+forward.
+
+“Can he get out?” cried someone.
+
+“No! no! he can’t,” exclaimed Nathan, all eager. “The hairs bend in, and
+let him in, but he cannot get by them to go out! They won’t bend out. Oh,
+he can’t get out.”
+
+The schoolmaster now took one of the dark, full sacs, cut it open with a
+very fine, sharp instrument, and put it under the glass.
+
+“Now what, Nathan?”
+
+“Oh, that bag is full of dead things, of what you might call the bones
+of these bits of creatures, the shells off one of those tiny things like
+mussels. They are things that have gone in and have got all melted up.”
+
+“Here is another,” said the schoolmaster, putting a lighter green sac in
+place, also cut open. “What now?”
+
+“That is the very sac the water-bear looked into to see something
+kicking. The kicking thing was another water-bear. Now it is dead. The
+one that went in just now is kicking, too.”
+
+The schoolmaster took that sac also, opened it, and released the
+struggling water-bear.
+
+“What now, Nathan?”
+
+“He is out, but he doesn’t feel good. He doesn’t swim round as he did
+before he went in. I think he is going to die, schoolmaster. Oh, here is
+another bear just going into a sac. Let him out quick, won’t you?”
+
+The schoolmaster opened the sac and the freed little animal swam off.
+
+“He got out, right off, and nothing but him,” said Nathan. “Schoolmaster,
+isn’t it queer that when they look in and see the dead ones, and the
+bones and skins, or see other ones caught and kicking, and can’t get out,
+that they don’t learn better than to go in themselves? I should think
+they’d have sense to keep out!”
+
+“People do not have sense to keep out when the circumstances are just
+about the same. Now, all of you children, listen. You know that Nathan
+has told you of these little, gay palace-rooms, where the doors open in
+and not out, and the things which swim by seem curious to know what is
+inside. Some of these gay places hold struggling captives; others are
+full of the relics of the dead. Now, that is a little parable to you.
+Let the little green sacs stand for places where strong drink is sold.
+Those who enter such places form the drinking habit, and then they cannot
+get free from it. Persons, yet free, look into these dens for drinking.
+They see in them people all ragged, dirty, poor, unhappy, bloated, crazy,
+sick, wrecked and ruined victims of the habit. They see yet others who
+mourn that they are enslaved, who have a sense of shame and danger, and
+struggle to get rid of the appetite that makes prisoners of them, and
+will destroy them. In this little plant, when the little animals get into
+the sacs, the plant melts up their bodies and seems to suck up their
+juice and feed on it until nothing is left but the fine bony parts. So
+the unhappy person who goes into a grog shop finds that the dealer feeds
+on him until his health and happiness, and money and respectability are
+all gone, and perhaps nothing is left of him but the poor body that is
+ready for the Potter’s field. Is it not strange that when we see how many
+persons are utterly ruined by drink, any will venture into places where
+drink is sold, and will even begin to taste the fatal liquor? Whenever
+you see a place for selling whiskey, I want you to think of the little
+water-bears and other water creatures which enter the snares of the
+bladder-plant.”—_Selected._
+
+
+
+
+Liu Tsi Chuin
+
+_Rioter and Evangelist._
+
+REV. J. L. STEWART, M.A., B.D.
+
+
+“Ninety-five” is a date of dates among the pioneer workers in West China.
+All winter rumors of the doings of foreigners had been floating about
+the city of Chengtu, old stories of suspicion and superstition scarce
+heard to-day: “Foreigners ate children.” “Doctors pulverized eyes for
+medicines, hence their wonderful cures.” “Bodies were buried beneath the
+church floors.” “Foreigners having, many of them, blue eyes, could see
+into soil and discover hidden treasure as the dark-eyed people of China
+might see stones on the bottom of streams.” “Foreigners were there to
+seek treasure or territory.” Even high officials, ’tis said, fed the
+flame with the hope that it would soon become so hot the “foreign devils”
+would flee.
+
+There were, however, few open acts of hostility during these days. Then
+suddenly, like a bolt from the blue, it came. It was the fifth of the
+fifth month feast. According to time-honored custom, the crowds assembled
+on the great east parade ground, scarce a stone’s throw from the Mission
+compound, for the throwing of plums. Vendors, their big baskets well
+filled with the fruit still green, had booths, or pushed through the
+people everywhere. Everyone bought, sowed his plums broadcast in the air,
+then scrambled with the rest, for, aside from the sport, the plums so
+obtained were said to ward off sickness, demons, disaster, and brought
+good luck for the year to come. As the day grew, masses of roughs and
+toughs, many from the yamen, some say, mingled with the thoughtless, and
+jammed and jostled together till the air was filled with the hum and hue
+of voices, and hearts and heads were half-hysterical for mischief and
+riot.
+
+Already as evening came, the crowd had overflowed past the gateway of the
+mission premises.
+
+“Here’s where the foreign devils live,” said one.
+
+“Let’s hurl a stone at the gate,” said another.
+
+“Who dares?”
+
+Soon one stone by stealth, then a volley, rattled against the big black
+doors. The gateman’s rebuke only made the ringleaders more bold. They
+fell back when the foreigner appeared; but were at his heels, a howling
+mob, when the gates again closed behind him. The rabble rushed to the
+point, restraint was thrown to the winds. A riot was on in earnest.
+
+Into the blackness of the night, two men, strangers, homeless in a
+strange, inhospitable land, fled with their heroic wives and hushed
+little ones. Then and for hours afterwards, as hiding from street to
+street they sought their way to our W.M.S. home, they heard afar the
+frenzied shouting, and saw the flames pierce high into the darkness
+as church, and hospital, and homes, and goods, and gifts, and many a
+treasured heirloom from half round the world became fuel for the fires.
+Next day saw the mob’s return to its work of destruction till every
+building of every mission in the city, Protestant and Catholic alike,
+was in ruins, and the foreigners, irrespective of sex or creed, huddled
+together in a few low outer rooms of one of the official yamens.
+
+Such was Liu Tsi Chuin’s first introduction to the foreigner, for he was
+in the thick of the fray on the first night, and followed on next day as
+one by one the missionary families fled, and the buildings were looted
+and burned. It was a full decade before he came in touch with them again
+and then—how changed the circumstances!
+
+Liu Tsi Chuin was of good family. His name, Tsi Chuin, “Be princely,”
+would give a hint, at least, of his parents’ goodness of heart. His
+father was the trusted treasurer of a district magistrate not far from
+Chengtu. Alas, when Liu was but a child of three the father died. Shortly
+after, his little sister also died, and Liu and the little widowed mother
+were left alone. His father, however, had been a man of thrift, so that
+even after the exorbitant funeral ceremonies were over, enough was left
+to buy a neat little home on the Great Well Corner in the provincial
+capital, and even some over to be invested for interest. Little Liu was
+sent to school. He had friends of his father in official circles. That
+would mean influence in the days to come, and that position, promotion,
+power, so hope was high in the little household.
+
+At the age of thirteen a change came in Liu’s life. A relative, of whom
+there are ever plenty in Chinese families, had persuaded the little widow
+that mints of money might be made by embarking in business. After much
+persuasion, she yielded. Was not the interest small? And would not her
+boy need more as he grew older? And was she not ambitious for him? The
+sums loaned were called in, and the little home mortgaged.
+
+Soon a great double shop displayed a new and euphonious name. Big
+lanterns swung below the eaves. Long boards with letters of gold told
+of the virtues of the place, while within hams swung from the ceilings,
+various confections covered the counters and long strings of tobacco
+lined the shop front close by the street. For five years business went
+on briskly. By degrees, however, other relatives and friends attached
+themselves till “the money failed to fill the mouths,” and, in brief,
+business failed and had to be abandoned. Another venture was made in the
+then flourishing opium trade, but their capital was limited and larger
+firms outsold them.
+
+Liu was now a youth of twenty. With the little capital left he tried
+running a sox shop. Alas, in his last venture he had lost more than
+money. He had lost manhood as well. His countrymen have a proverb, “You
+can’t work in a dye shop and keep your clothes unstained.” Liu had
+himself fallen a victim to the opium he sold to others.
+
+[Illustration: The evangelist and his family.]
+
+The record of his ruin is the old story of China’s sorrow after that.
+Sucking his pipe, sleeping, sliding about stealthily from spot to spot,
+seeking relief from the fiend which haunted him by day and by night,
+he had little time for business, his thoughts were busy with baubles,
+trade fell off, goods disappeared, his last cash left him, and despair
+and destruction followed fast. It was during those days that he found
+himself one of the throng of thoughtless and rowdies, assembled for plum
+throwing. The sacking of the missions was but a new excitement with a
+possible gain to all, and what could it matter anyhow to frighten away a
+few foreigners whom nobody wanted? But that story we have told.
+
+Liu had married meantime. A little daughter had come to his home. Then
+later his wife died. He left the city and sought employment with his
+father’s former official friend. The latter gave him a small position
+as messenger. But official life is precarious. His benefactor lost his
+position, and Liu was once more down and out. He wandered back to the
+capital and to his child.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+No one visits Chengtu who does not find his way some time or many times,
+if he has the opportunity, to the Great East Street at night. By day it
+is filled with busy buyers at the great silk, tea and porcelain shops,
+but by night it is more animated still. When the great shops close their
+shutters at sundown, the curbstones are immediately pre-empted by swarms
+of junk dealers, curio sellers, vendors of fans, needles, chopsticks,
+pictures, rare old bronzes, ink slabs and vases. Here, too, are
+diviners, fortune-tellers and fakirs. It is the bazaar of the capital,
+once seen not to be forgotten, with its twinkling candles stretching
+far away, its lines of squatting vendors, its hum of busy voices, its
+clattering, chattering, crowding thousands who throng the thoroughfare.
+There with his little store of stuff about him, Liu might be found each
+night. The day he spent picking up a few curios from house to house, when
+not too busy with his pipe.
+
+One day he rambled again along the street where in former days he, with
+the rabble, had wrought such ruin to the cause of missions. The church, a
+new and larger one since those days, stood open. Numbers of people were
+crowding in, so he, with an uncle and two friends, sons of his former
+official patron, joined the stream. They listened half curiously, half
+carelessly, to the prayers and singing, all so strange to them. Something
+in the sermon, however, brought Liu to attention. The speaker said that
+this God of love could so fill and thrill a man with His Spirit that even
+the passion for opium could no longer hold him. Could it be possible?
+
+Liu was no willing victim to the habit. He had tried all kinds of pills
+and strange concoctions guaranteed to cure, or recommended by friends.
+He had fought by his own will power till that became so weak he scarce
+struggled longer. But here was a new thought from the truth-telling
+foreigner, and a new hope. Perhaps this foreign God could help. So at
+invitation he, with his companions, waited for the after meeting, where
+all are welcomed who have questions or seek further light.
+
+He became even more interested and came again and again, bringing his
+friends with him. Then the ancestral tablet fell down in the official
+home one night. The two sons took it as a sign that their ancestors were
+angry with their worship of the foreign God, so they came no more. A
+month later a storm burst over the city. The thunder, a somewhat rare
+thing on the Chengtu plain, so frightened the uncle that he, too, never
+returned to the church.
+
+But Liu was not to be balked in his search. He met others among the
+members who had been helped by the foreign pastors and doctors, and he
+was determined to be free. The rest of the story is readily told. It
+is the story of an ever-increasing number of New China’s sons. Foreign
+medicine, earnest counsel from his pastor, daily reading of the Word
+which is Spirit and which is Life, prayer and service and the inflooding
+of the Spirit of God brought a new power and peace to a life which for
+long had struggled and suffered, and been all but slain through sin.
+
+With health and hope and freedom came also a great longing that others
+might know the glad Gospel message. He took to selling books up and down
+the very streets where men knew him best. As he went he told his story
+in shops, at corners and in the homes of friends. Seeing his sincerity
+and ability, our mission soon sent him farther afield, till he traversed
+much of the northern district. Then he served for a time faithfully and
+effectively in Kiating and Chin Ien. He has now been a year at college
+as a probationer. His little daughter is a promising pupil in our girls’
+school. He himself married recently a beautiful young woman, rescued and
+reared by our Chengtu orphanage, and they to-day are together laboring
+earnestly for the coming of His Kingdom. Thus Liu Tsi Chuin is realizing
+in a way his father never dreamed the hope of the “Princely man,” for the
+greater Father had need of him.
+
+
+
+
+Where Do You Live?
+
+
+    I knew a man, and his name was Horner,
+    Who used to live on Grumble Corner—
+    Grumble Corner, in Crosspatch Town;
+    And he never was seen without a frown;
+    He grumbled at this, he grumbled at that;
+    He growled at the dog, he growled at the cat;
+    He grumbled at morning, he grumbled at night,
+    And to grumble and growl were his chief delight.
+
+    He grumbled so much at his wife that she
+    Began to grumble as well as he;
+    And all the children, wherever they went,
+    Reflected their parents’ discontent.
+    If the sky was dark and betokened rain,
+    Then Mr. Horner was sure to complain;
+    And, if there was never a cloud about,
+    He’d grumble because of a threatened drought.
+
+    His meals were never to suit his taste;
+    He grumbled at having to eat in haste;
+    The bread was poor, or the meat was tough,
+    Or else he hadn’t had half enough.
+    No matter how hard his wife might try
+    To please her husband, with scornful eye
+    He’d look around, and then, with a scowl
+    At something or other, begin to growl.
+
+    One day, as I loitered along the street,
+    My old acquaintance I chanced to meet,
+    Whose face was without the look of care
+    And the ugly frown that it used to wear.
+    “I may be mistaken, perhaps,” I said,
+    As, after saluting, I turned my head;
+    “But it is, and it isn’t, the Mr. Horner,
+    Who lived for so long on Grumble Corner.”
+
+    I met him next day, and I met him again,
+    In melting weather and pouring rain,
+    When stocks were up, and when stocks were down;
+    But a smile somehow had replaced the frown.
+    It puzzled me much; and so one day
+    I seized his hand in a friendly way,
+    And said: “Mr. Horner, I’d like to know
+    What can have happened to change you so!”
+
+    He laughed a laugh that was good to hear,
+    For it told of a conscience calm and clear,
+    And he said, with none of the old-time drawl,
+    “Why, I’ve changed my residence, that is all!”
+    “Changed your residence?” “Yes,” said Horner,
+    “It wasn’t healthy on Grumble Corner,
+    And so I moved—’twas a change complete—
+    And you’ll find me now on Thanksgiving Street!”
+
+    Now, every day, as I move along
+    The streets so filled with the busy throng,
+    I watch each face, and can always tell
+    Where men and women and children dwell;
+    And many a discontented mourner
+    Is spending his days on Grumble Corner,
+    Sour and sad, whom I long to entreat
+    To take a house on Thanksgiving Street.
+
+                                                    —_Josephine Pollard._
+
+
+
+
+A Bible for a Pistol
+
+A True Story
+
+
+“See, mother, see what I have brought you!” exclaimed a young Brazilian,
+holding up to view a well-bound, gilt-edged book. “Antonio Marques told
+me that the priest ordered him to burn it, but he did not like to destroy
+so good a book, and was afraid to displease the priest by keeping it, so
+I offered to trade my old double-barreled pistol for it. I thought you
+might like to have the book, for they say it is all about religion, and
+you are so religious. It might be of some use when you go to repeat your
+prayers for people who are dying.”
+
+The mother took the book from her son’s hands, and slowly reading the
+title, “A Santa Biblia,” said: “Ah! this is good; this is the ‘Rule of
+Life,’ I am glad to have it.” Then beginning at the first of Genesis, she
+glanced over several chapters until she reached the tenth. “Yes, you are
+right, my son; here is just the kind of prayer I want. Here is a long
+list of names, and as they are all in the Bible, they must all be of
+saints, and some of them will surely help the poor creatures.”
+
+The youth frequently found his mother with the book before her when he
+came in from his work, and had he taken the trouble to look over her
+shoulder he would have found her always reading the tenth chapter of
+Genesis.
+
+The woman, who had the fame of knowing by heart a great many prayers, was
+often sent for to go even long distances to repeat them for the hope and
+comfort of the dying; and she was faithfully trying to master the long
+names, so as to say them off glibly to serve as a prayer.
+
+One day, as they sat taking their noon-day coffee, a messenger came
+from a neighboring plantation, begging her to go at once to see a young
+girl who was very ill. With book in hand, she set out, and arriving at
+the house a sad, though to her not unusual, sight met her eyes. A girl
+of about fifteen lay upon the bed, her beautiful black eyes looking
+strangely bright in contrast with the pale features. The parents and
+sisters, instead of caring for her, were wringing their hands and wildly
+crying out, “She is dying! She is dying!” The sick girl feebly stretched
+out a wasted hand, gasping: “They say that I am dying; teach me quickly
+how to die; tell me, what must I do?” The old woman gently took her hand
+and in a soothing voice said: “Don’t be nervous, dear; if you will repeat
+after me the Pater Noster, the Ave Maria, the prayer to St. Joseph and
+the rest, and then a new prayer that I have learned from this good book,
+you need not be afraid.”
+
+A sight never to be forgotten by one who knows that there is but the one
+“name under heaven, given among men whereby we must be saved,” was this
+death-bed scene. The old woman, in clear tones, rapidly repeated among
+other things, “Shem, Ham, Japheth, Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan,” and so
+on through the long list. The dying girl vainly tried to follow her as
+her voice grew fainter and fainter, for she was, with all her failing
+strength, clinging to this false hope as she passed out into eternity.
+
+Some years later, the young man who had gotten the Bible in such a
+curious way, married and left the old house to live at the wife’s
+homestead. One evening, as the old father sat in his usual place reading,
+the husband said: “Anninha, what is that book your father is always
+reading?”
+
+“That,” she replied, “is the Bible. He often tells me about what he
+reads, and it is very interesting. I wish I could read it for myself; but
+it is a French book, and I can read only Portuguese.”
+
+“If it is called the ‘Holy Bible,’” said he, “then my mother has it in
+Portuguese, for I gave it to her long ago. I never read it myself, but
+she used to learn things out of it for prayers. They never sounded very
+interesting to me.”
+
+“Could you get it for me, Jose?” she asked.
+
+“Yes; I will go over and ask mother for it to-morrow,” promised he.
+
+When the wife got the Bible, she carried it to her father, who was much
+pleased to find this favorite book in his native tongue, and, opening it
+at the New Testament, he began to read aloud. The young couple listened
+and soon grew so interested that they begged him to go on, till they kept
+him reading late into the night. Deeply touched by the “old, old story
+of Jesus and His love,” they began to read for themselves. Soon they
+learned that pardon and peace had already been purchased for them, and
+that what God required of them was not penances and a bondage to fear
+through life, and masses and the agonies of purgatory after death, but
+child-like faith and loving obedience—that godliness which gives promise
+of the life that now is, and that which is to come.
+
+The son’s first wish was to have his mother learn the good news, so he
+carried back the Bible, saying: “Why, mother, you never got the best out
+of this book! You only looked for something to die by, and it is full of
+good words to live by as well. Let me read you some.”
+
+“No, my son,” responded she, “I got what I wanted out of the book, and
+that is enough for me. I do not care to look for more.”
+
+“But, mother,” pleaded he, “you would be so much happier if you knew the
+true way to live and to die.”
+
+“Hush, Jose,” said the mother, indignantly. “Do you dare to hint that I,
+who have taught so many how to die, do not know how myself? Let me alone,
+and do not trouble me any more about the book.”
+
+The man went back to his wife troubled and disappointed. The more they
+studied the book, however, the better they understood that it was God’s
+Spirit who had opened their eyes, and to Him they must look to perform
+the same miracle upon their mother, that blind one leading the blind, and
+for this they are still daily watching and praying.—_Selected._
+
+
+
+
+The Giving Alphabet
+
+
+All things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee.—1 Chron.
+xxix. 14.
+
+Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in
+mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of Hosts, if I will
+not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that
+there shall not be room enough to receive it.—Mal. iii. 10.
+
+Charge them that are rich in this world ... that they do good, that they
+be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate.—1
+Tim. vi. 17, 18.
+
+Do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of
+faith.—Gal. vi. 10.
+
+Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give, not
+grudgingly or of necessity.—2 Cor. ix. 7.
+
+Freely ye have received, freely give.—Matt. x. 8.
+
+God loveth a cheerful giver.—2 Cor. ix. 7.
+
+Honor the Lord with thy substance and with the first fruits of all thine
+increase.—Prov. iii. 12.
+
+If there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man
+hath, and not according to that he hath not.—2 Cor. viii. 12.
+
+Jesus said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.—Acts xx. 35.
+
+Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he
+receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free.—Eph. vi. 8.
+
+Lay not up for yourselves treasure upon earth, where moth and rust doth
+corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal; but lay up for
+yourselves treasure in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt,
+and where thieves do not break through nor steal.—Matt. vi. 19, 20.
+
+My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in
+deed and in truth.—1 John iii. 18.
+
+Now concerning the collection for the saints ... upon the first day of
+the week let every one of you lay by him in store as God hath prospered
+him.—1 Cor. xvi. 1, 2.
+
+Of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto
+thee.—Gen. xxviii. 22.
+
+Provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the
+heavens which faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth
+corrupteth.—Luke xii. 33.
+
+Quench not the Spirit.—1 Thess. v. 19.
+
+Render unto God the things that are God’s.—Matt. xxii. 21.
+
+See that ye abound in this grace also.—2 Cor. viii. 7.
+
+The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of Hosts.—Hag.
+ii. 8.
+
+Unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required.—Luke xii.
+48.
+
+Vow and pay unto the Lord your God.—Ps. lxxvi. 11.
+
+Whoso hath this world’s goods, and seeth his brother have need, and
+shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of
+God in him?—1 John iii. 17.
+
+’Xcept your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the
+Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of
+heaven.—Matt. v. 20.
+
+Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich,
+yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be
+rich.—2 Cor. viii. 9.
+
+Zealous of good works.—Titus ii. 15.
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75460 ***
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+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75460 ***</div>
+
+<h1>“They’re a Multitoode” and other stories</h1>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp53" id="illus1" style="max-width: 26.5625em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus1.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p>“I wish you would tell me the story of Yin-dee.”</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_1"></a>[1]</span></p>
+
+<p class="titlepage larger">“They’re a Multitoode”<br>
+<span class="u">and Other Stories</span></p>
+
+<p class="titlepage"><span class="smaller">COMPILED BY</span><br>
+THE SECRETARY<br>
+<span class="smaller">OF THE YOUNG PEOPLE’S<br>
+FORWARD MOVEMENT<br>
+FOR MISSIONS</span></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter titlepage illowp75" id="deco" style="max-width: 1.875em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/deco.jpg" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+<p class="titlepage">TORONTO:<br>
+The Missionary Society of the Methodist Church<br>
+The Young People’s Forward Movement for Missions<br>
+F. C. STEPHENSON, Secretary</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="Theyre_a_Multitoode">“They’re a Multitoode”</h2>
+
+<p class="center">“We ain’t expected to do only our part.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>Christopher Morton, Jr., was looking through the
+morning mail in the office when there came a knock at
+the door. He glanced at the clock and frowned. It
+was too early for visitors by five minutes, and this
+vigilant young man of business was very careful of
+his minutes.</p>
+
+<p>While he hesitated, the door opened without ceremony
+and admitted a gaunt, unfashionable figure,
+hollow-chested and sallow-faced.</p>
+
+<p>“Hello, Christy, old chap!” cried the intruder,
+stretching out a hearty hand and feeling apparently
+no doubt of a welcome. “How are you?”</p>
+
+<p>For an instant the other looked at him vaguely, the
+crease still showing in his forehead. Then his eyes
+lit.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, Jim Perry, is it you!” he shouted, getting
+around the table with a bound.</p>
+
+<p>“Part of me,” said Jim, sinking into a chair. He
+panted a little, but he smiled yet.</p>
+
+<p>Christy looked him over discontentedly.</p>
+
+<p>“What have you been doing to yourself?” he asked.</p>
+
+<p>“Caught a fever,” explained Jim, with a nod. “The
+missionaries sent me home. I might better have stuck
+it out there, but I had no breath to argue with them,
+so they packed me off. I am to go back in September.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_2"></a>[2]</span></p>
+
+<p>“I have always believed in foreign missions,” said
+Christy, “but when they took you out of the country
+I found it hard to keep my faith. And now—” he
+stopped abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>“It was a mighty good day for me when I went,”
+said Jim Perry. “I have got a good deal out of living
+these past three years.”</p>
+
+<p>There was no mistaking the ring in his voice.</p>
+
+<p>“You have snug quarters here,” said Perry. “They
+tell me that you are a prosperous man of affairs.”</p>
+
+<p>“I am getting on,” said Christy, modestly, “I have
+some turn, I think, for making money.”</p>
+
+<p>“We out in China,” said Jim, with a chuckle,
+“haven’t any; it is the last thing we can do. Our
+strong point is spending. We claim that nobody on
+earth can surpass us in that. We will invest for you
+if you like. By the way—” He plunged his hand into
+his pocket and brought out a flat strip of cardboard
+which he proceeded to fit together into a money box.</p>
+
+<p>“There!” he said, setting it up gravely on the corner
+of the mantelpiece. “You will kindly contribute.”</p>
+
+<p>“What is it?” asked Christy, regarding the small
+object distrustfully, very much as if it were a dynamite
+bomb.</p>
+
+<p>“We are trying,” explained Jim, “to raise a special
+Christmas offering for missions. Along with the rest
+of her Christmas giving, the church is asked to give to
+those who have never learned what Christmas is.”</p>
+
+<p>There was a slight pause.</p>
+
+<p>“Could anything,” Jim asked, “be more acceptable
+to Him in whose name our festival is kept?”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_3"></a>[3]</span></p>
+
+<p>“The original meaning of Christmas has been overlaid
+in a good many minds,” commented Christy,
+briefly.</p>
+
+<p>“To their loss,” said Jim, “and to the bitter loss
+of many besides.”</p>
+
+<p>He rose from his seat and began to pace back and
+forth over Christy’s thick carpet. But he was
+weak; he soon came back to his old place.</p>
+
+<p>“I have walked,” he said musingly, “the swarming
+streets of heathen cities, I have gone into heathen
+homes, I have stood face to face with weary, heavy-laden,
+heathen souls, and I have been taught what
+Darkness is. But then, thank God, I have time and
+again seen the Star of Bethlehem break in the black
+sky and stand still over some place where the Christ
+was born, and I know, yes, I know, the brightness of
+its rising!”</p>
+
+<p>There was another silence.</p>
+
+<p>Again Jim was the first to speak. “No doubt,” he
+said, “you give a number of Christmas presents.”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t think of them in September,” said Christy.</p>
+
+<p>“That is fortunate,” responded Jim, tranquilly. “It
+will give you more leisure to think of this betimes.”</p>
+
+<p>He looked at his watch and said that he must go.</p>
+
+<p>They walked together to the corner where he took
+the car, and then Christy hurried back to his work.</p>
+
+<p>“That man will never go to China next September,”
+he muttered to himself, as he rang up the elevator.
+“It will be another Celestial Kingdom for which he
+will start, unless the signs are wrong.”</p>
+
+<p>For the rest of the morning, Mr. Morton was not so<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_4"></a>[4]</span>
+undivided in his attention to business as was customary
+with him. Many times his mind wandered to the
+face that was like, and so unlike, the face of his old
+college mate. It was aged. It was lined. It was tired.</p>
+
+<p>“But you could trust it,” Christy concluded, “to
+the uttermost.”</p>
+
+<p>“Jim Perry,” he said, facing at last the crucial idea
+which he had sought to evade, “has got much out of
+life. What am I getting?”</p>
+
+<p>The roar of the city came in at the open windows.
+Christy did not hear.</p>
+
+<p>“If I should die to-night—that is too trite a supposition.
+If I should have softening of the brain to-night,
+or advancing paralysis, what satisfaction would
+there be to which I could hold fast, as I sat with my
+face to the wall while life passed me by?”</p>
+
+<p>The breeze fluttered the papers on his desk.</p>
+
+<p>“If my plans stopped now, nothing would be left
+from the failure. They need the future in order to
+amount to anything. If Jim Perry never gets back
+to China, why”—he leaned his head on his hand and
+thought came slowly—“he has lived for an object and
+attained it as he went along.”</p>
+
+<p>Christy was still thinking of the look in Jim’s eyes
+and the sound of his voice when footfalls along the
+corridor foretold an interruption.</p>
+
+<p>Several men followed on the heels of one another.
+When they were all gone, Christy’s mind had largely
+recovered its ordinary temper.</p>
+
+<p>“Jim Perry is an awfully decent chap; it was upsetting
+to see him looking so done. If he had stayed<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_5"></a>[5]</span>
+in this country, three-quarters of a lifetime of work
+would probably be before him. One can’t help remembering
+it. But—I can accept the logic of missions.”</p>
+
+<p>He took the little cardboard box from the drawer
+into which he had thrust it and read every Scripture
+verse on all its sides.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, the arguments are strong. I don’t pretend to
+gainsay foreign missions. But yet it can’t be denied
+that thousands of the holiest of saints have lived their
+lives out within the limits of Christendom and found
+more than their hands could do with their might.
+However, that sort of incompatibility between the two
+sides of a truth is the commonest thing in the world.
+It does not shake the claim of the missionaries.”</p>
+
+<p>“I wonder,” he meditated, “how much genuine
+missionary spirit there is in the church of to-day. I
+don’t mean among the specialists, the experts, like
+Jim (and me)”—Christy had the grace to laugh a little—“but
+in the rank and file.”</p>
+
+<p>He lifted the contribution box and regarded it with
+a new expression. By-and-bye he smiled broadly.</p>
+
+<p>“It will be an interesting experiment,” said Christy.
+“Let us try it.”</p>
+
+<p>He put the box up again on the mantelpiece, where
+Jim had first set it, clearing a space about it that it
+might stand unshadowed in a small rim of black
+marble.</p>
+
+<p>Another hour of the afternoon passed as many other
+hours had done. Christy had returned to his habit of
+absorption in what was in hand.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_6"></a>[6]</span></p>
+
+<p>An old woman, rich and “crotchety,” had been talking
+business with him for the last fifteen minutes.</p>
+
+<p>“The old dame is as keen as a weasel,” thought
+Christy, as he listened with bowed head, deferentially.
+“Not many men could fool her on a deal. She is
+honest herself, and she doesn’t mean to be cheated.
+The most of her time is given to padlocking and
+double-barring her money chest.”</p>
+
+<p>Finally she came to a pause. She pointed across the
+room.</p>
+
+<p>“You have something new there. What is it?”</p>
+
+<p>“A collection box,” answered Christy, accepting his
+cue, promptly. “A college classmate of mine, a missionary
+to China, left it. The missionaries are calling
+for a special offering at Christmas.”</p>
+
+<p>The old lady heard him out patiently. When he had
+finished, she began to speak of further precautions and
+provisos that had occurred to her as to her affairs.
+Then she arose stiffly to go.</p>
+
+<p>At the mantelpiece she stopped, took a bill from her
+full purse and slipped it into the narrow opening of
+the missionary box. She had given the first contribution
+to Jim’s heathen.</p>
+
+<p>“Of her abundance,” quoth Christy, as he shut the
+door behind her.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Craig, his stenographer, was moving at the
+other end of the office. She shut up her typewriter;
+it was the hour for her to leave.</p>
+
+<p>A little time before Christy had felt a sensation in
+regard to Miss Craig. He did not often do this, which
+was one of his chief virtues.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_7"></a>[7]</span></p>
+
+<p>But, just now, in the midst of his discourse on
+foreign missions, he had been arrested for an instant
+by meeting the straight, intent gaze of the young
+woman who always, unless directly addressed, kept
+her discreet eyes upon her work.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Craig put on her hat and gathered up her
+handkerchief and purse.</p>
+
+<p>“May I trouble you to post these, Miss Craig?”
+said Christy, giving her a handful of letters. “Thank
+you. Good afternoon.”</p>
+
+<p>She laid the letters down on the mantelpiece while
+she opened her purse, which was shapely but thin.
+Out of it she took a dollar bill, leaving some silver,
+and put it in the money box.</p>
+
+<p>Christy had started up to expostulate. He sat down
+to recover.</p>
+
+<p>“She was as calm and matter-of-course about it,”
+he gasped, “as if it were only natural for poor working
+girls to help evangelize China out of their slim
+wages.”</p>
+
+<p>During the next two or three days much notice was
+taken of the missionary box.</p>
+
+<p>The notice was diverse in kind. The curiosity of
+some was quickly satisfied. Some stared politely.
+Others openly scoffed.</p>
+
+<p>One fashionable club man put in a penny.</p>
+
+<p>“To see how it feels,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>“The shock can’t be very great,” observed Christy,
+“even to so new a subject as yourself.”</p>
+
+<p>“But you know,” said the club man with a grin,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_8"></a>[8]</span>
+“it comes on top of finding you running the machine.
+My nerves are all gone.”</p>
+
+<p>A clergyman who coughed gave liberally.</p>
+
+<p>“If I could have guessed that he was coming,”
+said Christy, with chagrin, “I would have covered the
+thing up. Some men can no more pass a collection
+basket than a drunkard can a corner saloon. But they
+are few.”</p>
+
+<p>A hard-headed merchant furtively dropped in a gold
+piece.</p>
+
+<p>“I got it in change,” he apologized, when he met
+Christy’s gaze. “It is as well to make some special
+use of it before I pay it out for a quarter.”</p>
+
+<p>A circuit judge lifted the box in his hand and read
+the verses as Christy had done. When he set it down
+again he stood before it in silence while Christy looked
+up, wondering, and did not disturb him.</p>
+
+<p>At last the judge aroused himself. He made a large
+donation.</p>
+
+<p>“My daughter was interested in all these things,”
+he said. Christy remembered then the young girl who
+had died the year before.</p>
+
+<p>In one way and another, Jim Perry’s missionary
+box grew heavy. Then it was full.</p>
+
+<p>Christy took it apart, put the money in a pigeon-hole
+in his desk and set it back into place. He did not allow
+himself to comment.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp53" id="illus2" style="max-width: 26.5625em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus2.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p>“Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall
+be to all people.”</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>On the same afternoon, Chippy Black, the errand
+boy, was waiting in the office for a note. Chippy was
+a new boy; Christy did not feel sure of him. Lifting<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_9"></a>[9]</span>
+his head now to give directions, Chippy was caught in
+the act of “hefting” the missionary box.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah,” said Christy to himself, with vexed enlightenment.
+Hunting office boys was a bore.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, this is empty!” said Chippy, facing round on
+him and holding out the box. “Did you send it off?”</p>
+
+<p>“No,” answered Christy, uncertainly. “It was full.
+I took the money out.”</p>
+
+<p>“I see,” said Chippy. There was relief in his voice
+and in the clever, dark, little face.</p>
+
+<p>He plunged his hand into his jacket and brought out
+a small newspaper parcel tied with twine.</p>
+
+<p>“I promised Lin to bring it to you,” he said. “It
+would have been too bad if I’d been too late.”</p>
+
+<p>“What is it?” asked Christy, receiving the packet
+with no show of distrust in its dinginess. And he was
+fastidious. “Who is Lin?”</p>
+
+<p>“It’s money. She’s my sister,” answered Chippy.
+“She wants it to go with the rest.”</p>
+
+<p>Christy pushed a chair towards him. “Sit down,”
+he said. “Tell me all about it. Take your time.”</p>
+
+<p>Chippy crossed his knickerbockered legs, and by
+tilting forward a little managed to keep one toe on
+the carpet.</p>
+
+<p>“There’s two of us boys home,” he began. “And
+there’s Lin. My brother Bob and me are like lots
+of other fellows. But Lin is extry. I’d call her quite
+extry myself. She’s like—well, she’s like Lin. That’s
+all I can say.”</p>
+
+<p>“I have seen one or two such persons,” said Christy.</p>
+
+<p>“One Sunday night one of those foreign preachers<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_10"></a>[10]</span>
+was talking about the heathen. If it hadn’t been for
+Lin,” said Chippy, “we’d have forgotten all about
+them inside of a week. But Lin was bound that something
+had got to be done. ‘There’s so many of them,
+Lin,’ says Miss Loretta Pease. (Miss Loretta lives
+on the next floor to us; she’s educated.) ‘They’re a
+multitoode,’ she says. ‘You can’t never reach ’em.’
+‘Not all of them at once,’ says Lin to her. ‘Not just
+us alone by ourselves. We ain’t expected to do only
+our part.’”</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Lin is sagacious,” said Christy.</p>
+
+<p>“‘It isn’t any more than right for us to do our
+part,’ she told Miss Loretta. ‘And for one I won’t
+back out of it,’ Nor, you may be sure, she wouldn’t.
+Lin is the sort that wouldn’t.”</p>
+
+<p>“An uncommonly good sort,” said Christy.</p>
+
+<p>“You are like that, too, ain’t you!” said Chippy,
+looking over at him kindly.</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Loretta came round all right after Lin had
+worked over her a while. She ain’t obstinate. She’s
+genteel. So Lin fixed it up that we was all to chip
+in together and make up a purse for the heathen. So
+we did it. And there it is.”</p>
+
+<p>He nodded proudly toward the newspaper parcel.</p>
+
+<p>“You must have worked hard,” said Christy.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s savings, mostly. I mean our part of it is, Lin’s
+and my brother’s and mine. Lin got off the neighbors,
+too, you know; it’s all there together.”</p>
+
+<p>“You saved yours?” questioned Christy.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir. Lin is grand on saving. She scatters it.
+She don’t bunch it all on one thing till it appears as<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_11"></a>[11]</span>
+nothing else but just that was worth eating. First
+it’s sugar, and then it’s sausage, and then it’s something
+different again. And sometimes it ain’t anything
+at all. You don’t hardly miss it that way.”</p>
+
+<p>Chippy slipped still farther forward on his seat and
+felt for his cap. He glanced at Christy’s unfolded
+note.</p>
+
+<p>Christy got out an envelope and dipped his pen in
+the ink. Then he let it rest over the edge of the desk,
+where it dried.</p>
+
+<p>He picked up the roll of money.</p>
+
+<p>“You must have been collecting this for some time.”</p>
+
+<p>“All summer,” said Chippy. “There’s a good deal
+of it. Lin and Miss Loretta had just begun to talk
+about where they would carry it when you first began
+to take up money here. I told them about it and I told
+them that, so long as this was where I worked, I
+thought you’d ought to get it. So after a bit they
+decided on that.”</p>
+
+<p>Chippy plainly felt that the bestowal of Lin’s patronage
+was no light thing.</p>
+
+<p>Christy agreed with him.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m very much obliged to you,” he said heartily.
+“This will help me along splendidly. Let’s put it in at
+once.”</p>
+
+<p>He pulled at the twine string, which was tied in a
+very secure knot, and laid open the hoard.</p>
+
+<p>It was made up of all the original pennies and
+nickels; there was also one dime among them. The
+sum total was $2.11.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_12"></a>[12]</span></p>
+
+<p>Christy handed Chippy a nickel and held one himself.
+He brought the missionary box.</p>
+
+<p>“Now, drop yours in,” he directed. “Then I will
+drop mine. We’ll take turn about.”</p>
+
+<p>Chippy was eager. His interest grew with every
+rattling coin until the last was safely inside. Then he
+straightened himself with a long breath.</p>
+
+<p>“Lin said she was going to do it, and she’s done it,”
+he said.</p>
+
+<p>“And she doesn’t know how much she has done,”
+said Christy, soberly.</p>
+
+<p>“That’s so,” answered Chippy, with quick perception.
+“That’s the best of it, I suppose. The best of
+everything, Lin says, is what the Lord can make out
+of it. Anything will go twice as far with Him, she
+says. You talk a great deal like her.”</p>
+
+<p>Christy lifted the box.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s about full,” he said. “It’s just about ready to
+empty again. But there is a little space yet. We will
+leave it. I shall be glad to see what gift will be put
+in on top of this.”</p>
+
+<p>The weeks passed. Several times over the missionary
+box was emptied into the pigeon-hole. On a
+foggy December afternoon a Mr. Richards was alone
+with Christy in the office. He had brought the young
+man a windfall of $1,000.</p>
+
+<p>“It is by happy strokes like these,” said Mr.
+Richards, “that a man grows rich.”</p>
+
+<p>Many such strokes of various kinds had come in the
+way of Mr. Richards during a long life.</p>
+
+<p>“I have built up my own fortunes,” he continued,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_13"></a>[13]</span>
+“from the stub. From what I see of you, Mr. Morton,
+I predict you success.”</p>
+
+<p>He regarded Christy with a glint of favor in his iron-gray
+face as he added in climax, “You are very much
+like I was at your age. You are like myself.”</p>
+
+<p>Christy was rather silent. When he was left alone
+he thought of Jim Perry. He often thought of Jim
+now. His late visitor and his classmate stood side by
+side before his mind.</p>
+
+<p>“There is wealth and wealth,” he mused. “Mr.
+Richards has one kind, Jim has another. I am not so
+awfully pleased,” he thought resentfully, “with my
+likeness to Richards. I don’t fancy being a cash
+register. All the man’s fortunes are in money.”</p>
+
+<p>Christy looked down at the cheque in his hands;
+he looked at Jim’s box.</p>
+
+<p>“I said the real Christmas was forgotten. I said
+that all the missionary spirit of the present resided in
+the missionaries and me. I doubt whether Mr.
+Richards at my age was such a fool. Poor Richards!
+He is old. I shall have a good part of my life yet, I
+trust.”</p>
+
+<p>He wrote on the back of the cheque and folded it
+small.</p>
+
+<p>“Richards, and Jim, and Lin, and the others have
+spoiled my taste a little for happy strokes, however
+innocently come by. The mission shall enjoy this
+one.”</p>
+
+<p>He pushed the cheque through the slit in the money
+box, which was getting frayed and worn.</p>
+
+<p>Christy met Mr. Richards on the street soon afterwards.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_14"></a>[14]</span></p>
+
+<p>“I hope,” said Mr. Richards, “that you have found
+a good investment for your money.”</p>
+
+<p>“I have,” said Christy.</p>
+
+<p>“Is it reasonably sure?”</p>
+
+<p>“Perfectly.”</p>
+
+<p>“Nothing in this world can be perfectly sure, Mr.
+Morton.”</p>
+
+<p>“But there is another world,” said Christy.</p>
+
+<p>“It may be,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>As the man of millions passed on, Christy heard a
+faint sigh. Three days later the office door burst open
+and in walked Jim Perry, broad and brown.</p>
+
+<p>Christy stared at him speechlessly.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m well again,” announced Jim, superfluously.</p>
+
+<p>Christy shook him by the hand, clapped him on the
+shoulder and thumped him on the chest.</p>
+
+<p>“Providence knows how to give to missions!” he
+said.</p>
+
+<p>Jim turned to the mantelpiece and shook his money
+box. It was empty. He was openly disappointed.</p>
+
+<p>“You lazy beggar,” he cried. “Are you leaving all
+the giving to Providence?”</p>
+
+<p>“I am not a lazy beggar,” said Christy. “I am a
+very industrious one. Look at this.”</p>
+
+<p>He put the contents of the pigeon-hole in front of
+Jim and watched him fall upon them, and enjoyed
+tremendously his blank delight.</p>
+
+<p>“Why,” stammered Jim, “what does it mean? Is
+it all for us?”</p>
+
+<p>“It means,” said Christy, “that a week from to-day
+will be Christmas.”—<i>Y. P. M. M.</i></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_15"></a>[15]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="The_Penny_Ye_Meant_to_Gie">The Penny Ye Meant to Gi’e</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">There’s a funny old tale of a stingy man,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Who was none too good, though he might have been worse;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Who went to church on a Sunday night,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">And carried along his well-filled purse.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">When the sexton came with his begging plate,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">The church was but dim with the candles’ light;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The stingy man fumbled all through his purse,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">And chose a coin by touch, and not sight.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">It’s an odd thing now that guineas be</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">So like unto pennies in shape and size,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">“I’ll give a penny,” the stingy man said;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">“The poor must not gifts of pennies despise.”</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The penny fell down with a clatter and ring;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">And back in his seat leaned the stingy man,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">“The world is so full of the poor,” he thought,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">“I can’t help them all—I give what I can.”</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Ha, ha! How the sexton smiled to be sure,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">To see the gold guinea fall into his plate;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Ha, ha! How the stingy man’s heart was wrung,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Perceiving his blunder, but just too late!</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_16"></a>[16]</span>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">“No matter,” he said, “in the Lord’s account</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">That guinea of gold is set down to me,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">They lend to Him who give to the poor;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">It will not so bad an investment be.”</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">“Na, na, mon,” the chuckling sexton cried out;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">“The Lord is no cheated—He kens thee well;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">He knew it was only by accident</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">That out of thy fingers the guinea fell.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">“He keeps an account, no doubt, for the puir;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">But in that account He’ll set down to thee</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Na mair o’ that golden guinea, my mon,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Than the one bare penny ye meant to gi’e!”</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">There’s a comfort, too, in the little tale—</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">A serious side as well as a joke;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">A comfort for all the generous poor</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">In the honest words the sexton spoke.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">A comfort to think that the good Lord knows</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">How generous we really desire to be,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And will give us credit in His account</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">For all the pennies we long to “gi’e.”</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_17"></a>[17]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="Rues_Heathen">Rue’s Heathen</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>The long line of blue check aprons followed the
+other line of small blue jackets through the wide hall,
+up the bare, polished stairs, and into the clean, airy
+chapel. Then, at a signal, every apron and jacket was
+still. Little Rue’s apron had been about midway in the
+procession, and so she found a seat near the middle of
+the chapel, where, swinging the small feet that could
+not quite touch the floor, she looked listlessly out
+through the window opposite, over a beautiful view
+of grove and meadow, and then up at the white ceiling,
+where a great fly buzzed at his pleasure, without
+having to walk in line.</p>
+
+<p>On the platform a man in fine broadcloth and gold
+spectacles was beginning to talk; but Rue only listened
+dreamily.</p>
+
+<p>“My dear children, I am delighted to visit this
+grand institution—to see so many of you in this beautiful
+home, so well cared for, so well instructed, and
+so happy.”</p>
+
+<p>Rue wondered why all the men who talked there said
+that. She wondered if he really would like to eat and
+sleep and walk in a row and always wear a blue check
+apron. Then she forgot all about him, in watching
+the sunlight play on the small head immediately in
+front of her. What a brilliant red head it was! And
+then a bright thought occurred to Rue. A few of those<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_18"></a>[18]</span>
+hairs, twisted together, would make a beautiful chain
+for the neck of her china doll, her one treasure; and,
+of course, Mary Jane Sullivan would never miss them,
+if she only pulled out one here and there.</p>
+
+<p>Forward crept Rue’s eager little fingers; but they
+were too nervous in their haste to be sure that they
+held but a single coarse hair before they twitched, and
+the result was a sudden explosive “Ow!” from Mary
+Jane, the turning of a battery of eyes in that direction,
+and an immediate investigation by the authorities into
+the cause of the disturbance. Poor little Rue was
+marched off in disgrace; but, as she reached the door,
+she heard the speaker say:—</p>
+
+<p>“I am sorry this has happened; sorry that any one
+should miss what I am going to say; for I hoped to
+interest all these dear children in the work of sending
+the gospel to the heathen.”</p>
+
+<p>It was kind of him to call them <i>all</i> dear children
+after that dreadful event, Rue reflected, as, with burning
+cheeks and tearful eyes, she stood, with a number
+of other little culprits, in one of the wide halls, for
+even punishment was in rows at the Home. Shifting
+her weight from one restless foot to the other, yet
+trying to stand sufficiently upright to answer the requirements
+of the penance, Rue did sincerely wish that
+she had been a good girl and remained quietly in the
+chapel, partly because of the humiliation that had befallen
+her, but also because she wanted to hear what
+he had to say on the particular subject he had named.</p>
+
+<p>“Why didn’t he begin with that, and then I’d have
+listened!” she thought, rather resentfully. For back<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_19"></a>[19]</span>
+among Rue’s shadowy memories of the past, of love,
+and mother, and a home that was not <i>the</i> Home, was
+a dim recollection of some curious articles which her
+baby hands had only been allowed to touch carefully,
+because they were mementoes of an uncle who had
+died far away on a mission field. “So it would have
+been most like hearing about my relations; only I
+haven’t got any,” mused Rue. “Oh, dear! I wish I’d
+stayed good and hadn’t pulled Mary Jane’s hair. I
+didn’t mean to, anyway.”</p>
+
+<p>She tried to find out about it afterwards by inquiring
+of one of the other girls.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! he wanted the children to try and save up
+something, so they could help send Bibles to the
+heathen. Guess, if he lived here long, he’d find we
+hadn’t anything to save,” was the hurried reply.</p>
+
+<p>Bibles! That was where Rue was rich. She actually
+had two that had been brought from that faintly remembered
+home.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t suppose I’ll read one of ’em to pieces; not if
+I used it till I’m a big woman,” she said to herself. “I
+might give the other one. I ought to help, ’count of
+being a relation, somehow, and I want to be good. I
+just do.”</p>
+
+<p>Later in the day she ventured another inquiry:</p>
+
+<p>“How will he get those to the heathen?”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know. Why, yes, he’ll send ’em through
+the post-office, of course. What do you care so much
+about it for?”</p>
+
+<p>That was what Rue did not mean to tell. She chose
+her prettiest Bible, spent the play-hours of two days<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_20"></a>[20]</span>
+in writing an epistle on the fly-leaves, and tied it up
+in a piece of brown paper. Her knowledge of the post-office
+and its requirements was exceedingly limited,
+but she supposed it would be necessary to put something
+on the outside of the packet, to tell for whom it
+was intended. She wanted it to go where it was
+needed most, and of course the post-office people would
+know where that was, she reflected; so she carefully
+printed, in very uneven letters, “For the greatest
+heathen,” and then laid the precious package away to
+await a future opportunity. She would trust her
+secret to no one, lest some unforeseen interference
+might result, and she cautiously sought information.</p>
+
+<p>“How do you do when you put anything into the
+post-office?” she demanded of Mary Jane Sullivan.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, you just put ’em in. You go in the door,
+and there’s an open place where you drop ’em right
+down,” exclaimed Mary Jane, lucidly.</p>
+
+<p>How good Rue was for days after that. How she
+washed dishes in the kitchen, under the care of Miss
+Dorothy, and made beds in the dormitories, under the
+supervision of Mrs. Mehitable, and so at last earned
+the privilege of being the one sent to town on some
+trifling errand for the matron.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it happened that one bright morning the clerks
+in the post-office were surprised by a little packet tossed
+in upon the floor, and a glimpse of a blue check apron
+vanishing hurriedly through the door. Unstamped,
+and with its odd address, it created a ripple of amusement.</p>
+
+<p>“‘For the greatest heathen.’ That must be you,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_21"></a>[21]</span>
+Captain,” declared one; and the postmaster laughingly
+took charge of it, and then forgot it until, at home that
+evening, he found it in his pocket.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="illus3" style="max-width: 37.5em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus3.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p>Rue writing the letter to “The Greatest Heathen.”</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>“What is it?” asked his wife, presently, as she saw
+him silent and absorbed, and, looking over his shoulder,
+she read the little letter with him. Original in spelling
+and peculiar in chirography it certainly was, but they
+slowly deciphered it:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p>“I haven’t any money to give ’cause I’m one of the
+little girls at the Home. Some of them have relations
+to send them things sometimes; but I haven’t. I have
+two Bibles; but I wouldn’t give this to any one but the
+heathen ’cause my own mamma gave it to me. It’s
+nice to have a mamma to cuddle you up and love you
+just by your own self, and tuck you into bed at night,
+and not have to be in a row all the time. It makes a
+lump all swell up in my throat when I think of it, and
+my eyes get so hot and wet I can hardly see. I wish
+God did have homes enough, so He could give every
+little boy and girl a real one, and we needn’t be all
+crowded up in one big place, that’s just called so.
+Sometimes, when I see all the houses it ’most seems
+as if there must be enough to go ’round; but I suppose
+there isn’t. I guess it’ll be the real kind we’ll have up
+in heaven, and I want to go there; and that’s why I
+send you this Bible, so you can learn about it. You
+must read it and be good. Oh, dear! it’s dreadfully
+hard to be good when you haven’t any mamma. I hope
+you’ve got one, if she is a heathen, for I’m most sure
+that’s better than no kind. Good-bye.</p>
+
+<p class="right">“Rue Lindsay.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_22"></a>[22]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Poor little thing!” exclaimed the lady, half laughing,
+but with a sudden moisture in her brown eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Grey looked around the beautiful room.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m inclined to believe that letter was properly
+directed, and has reached its rightful destination,” he
+said, thoughtfully. “Think of it, Mary—all these
+cosy, pretty rooms, and no one to occupy them but you
+and me, while there are so many little home-sick
+souls in the world! You have spoken of it before; but
+I was too selfishly contented to care about it. If I’m
+not ‘the greatest heathen’ I have certainly been far
+enough from the sort of Christianity this book requires.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well?” questioned Mrs. Grey, with shining eyes,
+waiting for the conclusion of the matter.</p>
+
+<p>“Shall I go to-morrow and bring this little midget
+home with me—for a visit, say—and see what will
+come of it?”</p>
+
+<p>It did not occur to little Rue that the stranger she
+met in the hall the next day, and who had a long interview
+with the matron, could be of any possible interest
+to her small self, until she was summoned down stairs
+to see him.</p>
+
+<p>“Would you like to go home with this gentleman,
+for a visit of a week or two, Rue? He has come to
+ask you,” said the matron.</p>
+
+<p>“Me?” questioned Rue, oblivious of grammar lessons,
+and with a dozen exclamation points in her voice.
+There was no danger of her declining. The prospect
+of a visit anywhere was delightful, and the possibility
+of such a thing almost as wonderful as a fairy tale. So<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_23"></a>[23]</span>
+it was a very bright little face that Captain Grey found
+beside him in the carriage, and Rue looked up at him
+shyly through her rings of sunny hair, to ask, as the
+only imaginable solution of the happy problem: “Are
+you one of my relations?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, but I didn’t remember it until last night,” he
+answered gravely.</p>
+
+<p>The weeks that followed were brimful of joy to Rue,
+and she won her way straight into the home and the
+hearts that had opened to receive her.</p>
+
+<p>“And so you think I may tell the matron that you
+do not care to go back, but are willing to stay here?”
+questioned the Captain, when the allotted time had expired.</p>
+
+<p>“I guess,” replied Rue, looking down at her dainty
+dress, and suddenly flinging her arms around Mrs.
+Grey’s neck, “that you didn’t ever live there, and eat
+soup, and wear check aprons, and have nobody like
+this to love, ’r else you’d know.”</p>
+
+<p>But she has not learned yet that it was her own missionary
+effort that brought so great reward.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_24"></a>[24]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="How_Yin-Dee_Changed_Her_Name">How Yin-Dee Changed Her Name</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">“Lead Along a Brother.”</span></p>
+
+<p>The first thing I know about myself is that I was
+born; and that I had a father and mother, too, just
+as you have. I thought I had better tell you this, as
+I have often heard ignorant country people ask the
+missionary if in his country children are born the same
+as in China, just as they will ask him if there are a sun
+and moon, rivers and hills, there as here. My grandfather
+used to say that foreigners belonged to a
+country where people had holes in their chests and
+were carried about on a long pole by two men. But
+he had never seen any foreigners at all.</p>
+
+<p>Of course when I was born nobody wanted me.
+Whoever wants girls? I was the first child; so my
+parents were bitterly disappointed. Well, I couldn’t
+help it; and I have often thought how hard it was that
+I should be badly treated, as if it were my fault. My
+father said bitter things to mother, so she called me
+“Yin-dee,” which means, “Lead along a brother.”
+After a time they got more used to me, and were not<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_25"></a>[25]</span>
+more unkind than most parents. Sometimes when I
+was extra good mother would take me in her arms and
+call me her “precious,” for, as the proverb says, “All
+have the parent heart.” Now, if I had been a boy how
+different it would have been—there would have been
+no end of rejoicing and feasting! My mother’s
+parents would have supplied me with a cradle and lots
+of pretty clothes. When a month old there would
+have been another feast, and the barber would have
+come to shave my head and mix the hair with rice and
+give it to the dog to eat, to make <i>me</i> brave. I should
+always have had my own way and have been petted
+by all. When a year old, they would have called my
+relations together and spread before me a lot of things,
+to see what my future was to be. There would be
+books and pens, scissors and scales, a rule, and some
+money; and they would have waited to see which was
+the thing I grabbed. If it had been books how it would
+have pleased them, for it would have meant that I was
+to be a scholar; if scissors, then a tailor; and so on.
+Now, I wonder which I should have chosen? Not
+books, I’m afraid; for I don’t like learning—do you?</p>
+
+<p>Well, as I wasn’t a boy, I had none of this, so had
+to be content. As smallpox was very bad, I had a
+label on my back to say I had already had it (though
+I hadn’t), but that was to deceive the goddesses. Then,
+to make quite sure, I had a cloth monkey strung round
+my neck, which made a nice plaything. I am afraid I
+wasn’t always good at night—I am sure you all are!—but
+cried, for I didn’t have enough to eat most of the
+time; so father got the teacher next door to write a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_26"></a>[26]</span>
+verse and paste it on the wall outside. This is how it
+goes:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Tien hwang, hwang, dee hwang, hwang,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Ngo jah yo go yea coo long,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Go wong jwin dz nien san bien,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Ee jo shway dao da tien liang.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">In English it is—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Ye gods in the heavens, ye powers on the earth,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">My baby began from the hour of her birth</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">With horrible screams to rend the night!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">O passing stranger, these my rhymes</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Read, I pray you, through three times,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">And then she will sleep till broad daylight.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">But I’m afraid there were not many who read them
+three times, for it didn’t make much difference. Still,
+it was the correct thing to do, so mother felt satisfied.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_27"></a>[27]</span></p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Orphaned Through Opium.</span></p>
+
+<p>According to our Chinese books, when a son is born
+he sleeps on a bed, he is clothed in robes, he plays
+with gems, his cry is princely loud; as an emperor,
+he is clothed in purple, and he is the king of the home.
+But when a daughter is born she sleeps on the ground,
+she is clothed in a wrapper, she plays with a tile;
+she cannot be either good or evil, and has only to prepare
+wine and food without giving any cause of grief
+to her parents. So, being a girl, I learned to play
+with broken tiles, and found them as good as gems.
+When I was about three years old, something dreadful
+happened. Another baby was born—and it was a girl.
+I didn’t mind at all, as I wanted someone to play with,
+and a girl is as good as a boy—better, <i>I</i> think. But
+our proverb says, “Eighteen beautiful daughters are
+not equal to one son, even though he be lame.” My
+father was dreadfully angry, and beat mother; so she
+was miserable, and cried a good deal. After a few
+days I missed my baby sister, and when I asked where
+she was, someone laughed, and pointed to a pond, near
+by. I didn’t know then what he meant; but sister
+never came back, so I had to play alone.</p>
+
+<p>About this time I was betrothed. Practically all
+girls are, in China, and at a very early age. My father
+said girls were a useless expense, so he wanted to get
+me off his hands as soon as possible. So a lucky day<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_28"></a>[28]</span>
+was chosen, and two middlemen engaged, who came
+and compared the day and the hour of my birth with
+that of the lad they suggested. Then followed a feast,
+when the agreement was made and my future fixed.</p>
+
+<p>The home of my future husband was some little way
+off, and his father was a broken-down scholar, who
+kept a small school, and was a slave to opium. The
+lad was his youngest son. The mother bore a bad
+reputation for quarrelling and scolding, so you may
+imagine I didn’t look forward with much pleasure to
+entering my new home, and hoped the day was far
+off. But it came sooner than I expected.</p>
+
+<p>When I was about seven years old, I began to notice
+that father was away a great deal at night, and that we
+didn’t get much to eat. The furniture slowly disappeared,
+and our clothes were poor and scanty. My
+mother seemed anxious, and cried much. I found out
+the meaning of it one day when I caught sight of father
+slinking into a dirty hovel near by, which I knew to be
+an opium den. Alas, he had become a victim to the
+“foreign smoke”! Day by day the craving grew upon
+him, and every scrap of money he could get went in
+opium, and mother had to support herself and me by
+making shoes and washing clothes. Father ate but
+little, and gave mother so little money that we were
+nearly starved. In the morning, before the craving
+came on again, he was very miserable and bad-tempered.
+He cursed himself and the English who,
+he said, had brought this evil on China; yet he couldn’t
+break away from the habit, and things grew worse and
+worse.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_29"></a>[29]</span></p>
+
+<p>Very soon we had to move into a smaller house,
+and had hardly any possessions. Mother did the best
+she could, but no money was safe from father; and
+one day she said she could bear it no longer, and
+went out with a wild look on her face. She soon
+returned with some black stuff that looked like paint,
+and went into the bedroom crying. After a while she
+was quiet, and I thought she was sleeping, so I went
+away to play.</p>
+
+<p>It was some time before I returned, but mother was
+still sleeping. She looked so strange that I ran next
+door to ask them to come. They came; and at once
+there was a great hubbub, and somebody ran for
+father, but he was smoking opium and wouldn’t come.
+Then I knew that the black stuff mother had bought
+was opium, and that she had swallowed it to end her
+troubles.</p>
+
+<p>Her relatives came and made a great row. They
+abused father, and he abused them; and they
+demanded a lot of money, now mother was dead,
+though they never tried to help her when she was alive.
+Father didn’t seem to care much, as opium eats all the
+spirit and manhood out of its victims. He hadn’t any
+money, so thought the best thing was to send me at
+once to my future husband’s home, and so obtain the
+amount they had practically bought me for. With
+this he was enabled to satisfy mother’s relatives, and
+I soon found myself transferred to my new home. I
+never saw my father again. The cruel opium had
+made me worse than an orphan.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_30"></a>[30]</span></p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Little Golden Lilies.</span></p>
+
+<p>When I was about four my feet were bound. You
+must know that in China the smaller the feet the more
+a woman is admired. For over a thousand years the
+custom has been observed, and only a few give it up,
+even though, as the common saying has it, “For every
+pair of small feet there has been shed a bucket of
+tears.” So as my mother wished me to have “little
+golden lilies,” as they were called, she commenced to
+bind my feet early.</p>
+
+<p>The calendar was consulted for a lucky day (it
+would never do to commence anything on an unlucky
+day), and mother brought some strips of calico a few
+inches wide and several yards long. With these she
+tightly bound my feet, making them narrow and
+pointed.</p>
+
+<p>At first I went nearly crazy with crying. No one
+took any notice of it, and mother tried to console me
+by saying that no one would marry a woman with
+large feet. She told me that when she was married
+hers were only two and a half inches long. Day by
+day the binding was done until I wished I could die
+and be rid of the pain. Gradually it became less as
+the feet ceased to grow, and I was able to hobble about
+the house.</p>
+
+<p>But with it all I was much more fortunate than little
+“Pearl,” my friend next door. They left the binding<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_31"></a>[31]</span>
+of her feet until she was nearly eight, and then bound
+them very tightly. She was only scolded and beaten
+when she cried, and the pain was so great she nearly
+died; and when one of her feet got very bad they called
+in the native doctor. He said it was a demon in her
+left leg, so they heated needles and poked them in her
+legs to let the evil spirit out. But she didn’t get better,
+so they took her to a charm priest some miles away.
+They couldn’t afford a chair, so little Pearl was forced
+to walk part of the way. The priest wrote some
+characters on paper, put them in water, and Pearl
+drank it. Then they paid a good sum of money and
+returned.</p>
+
+<p>The long walk was too much for Pearl, and she had
+a long illness, and is now lame. They say it was
+because she, in her previous life, was a bad man—so
+she was born again as a woman, and has had all this
+pain.</p>
+
+<p>I have heard that in the mission-schools of the
+foreigners the girls all have large feet; but I am sure
+they must look very coarse—and whoever will marry
+them? Still, I daresay it’s nice to be able to run about
+without falling. I remember once mother slipped on
+the ladder going into the loft, and fell, hurting her
+back; but she didn’t blame her feet. “Little golden
+lilies make an insecure footing,” says the proverb.</p>
+
+<p>I was about eight when I was taken to my new home,
+and the following years were so full of sorrow that
+I hardly dare tell you about them. I was just a little
+slave-girl, nothing more. There are many thousands
+in the same plight in China. I was the property of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_32"></a>[32]</span>
+my mother-in-law, and she was a bad-tempered and
+cruel woman. She seemed to take a delight in beating
+me, and was always thinking of some new way to
+make my life miserable; while from morning to night
+I had to work far beyond my power. The opium-eating
+father used to grab all the money he could, so
+the rice often barely went round, and I was continually
+being half-starved—only having gruel, and
+but little of that. All the menial work of the house
+fell to my lot, and, as I was at the beck and call of all,
+I was at it from morning to night.</p>
+
+<p>The brothers, too, expected me to wait on them, and
+struck me if I didn’t obey their wishes. My mother-in-law’s
+cruel tongue and crueller hand drove me on
+all day, and late at night I was glad to rest my weary
+bones on the straw bed in the loft.</p>
+
+<p>Things went from bad to worse. Not only was the
+father given to opium, but the mother and sons were
+all bad—continually drinking, card-playing, and
+quarrelling, till the house bore a bad name all round.
+Surrounding the house were several fields. Once
+there had been a large farm, but one by one the fields
+were sold for opium, until only a few were left. These
+were tilled by the sons and so brought in a little money.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="illus4" style="max-width: 43.75em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus4.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p>The women and girls work all day transplanting rice.</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>The thing we depended on most was cotton, and I
+had to take my share in cultivating it. The fields
+had to be constantly weeded, and that was done by the
+women and girls. As with our bound feet it is difficult
+to stand, we used to take small stools into the
+fields and sit with our hoe in our hands busily digging
+out the weeds. Then came cotton-picking—back-aching<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_33"></a>[33]</span>
+work, with the sun fiercely shining overhead,
+and plenty of angry words when the amount picked
+wasn’t as much as my mother-in-law thought it ought
+to be.</p>
+
+<p>In the autumn and winter I learned to wind the
+cotton, and then to work at the loom, weaving the
+coarse white cloth of which our garments were made.
+This, with making shoes and cooking rice, was my
+chief work; and though I suffered much I dared not
+complain—for I was like the dumb man eating wormwood,
+unable to utter my misery.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_34"></a>[34]</span></p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER IV.</h3>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">A Village School.</span></p>
+
+<p>I should like to tell you something about the school
+my father-in-law kept. It was held in a little dark
+room at the back of the house, and there were a dozen
+or so boys of about six to twelve, who came daily,
+as soon as it was light, and studied till dusk. They
+brought their own desks and stools, paid for their own
+ink and pens and books, and gave a little to the teacher,
+either in money or farm produce. They were mostly
+farmers’ boys, and in the busy season often had to
+help at home; so their education proceeded slowly.</p>
+
+<p>Their chief work was to learn by heart long strings
+of words, of the meaning of which they knew nothing.
+They began with the three-character classic, and went
+on to the works of Confucius and Mencius. But what
+they learnt was of little good; for they repeated the
+sentences like so many parrots, and with just as much
+understanding of the meaning.</p>
+
+<p>Then there was writing—following a copy set by the
+teacher, with a brush pen and ink rubbed on a stone
+slab. That was all. No geography, or arithmetic, or
+history; it was dull indeed. Then, too, there was no
+discipline to speak of; for the teacher was often under
+the influence of opium, so the boys did as they liked.</p>
+
+<p>The biggest boy in the school was called “Seven
+Pounds,” because he weighed that when he was born.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_35"></a>[35]</span>
+He was a bad boy and a regular bully, lording it over
+the small ones and helping himself to their pens and
+paper. No one dared to reprove him, least of all the
+teacher, for he was the son of the village pawnbroker,
+the most wealthy and powerful man in the neighborhood.
+Large numbers of Chinese regularly pawn their
+summer clothes in the winter, and their winter clothes
+when the warmer weather returns; so the pawnbrokers
+make a good harvest, and are usually very wealthy
+and powerful. So, you see, it didn’t pay to quarrel
+with Seven Pounds, and he knew this well enough.</p>
+
+<p>Now, although my father-in-law was reckoned a
+scholar, he was, like all in the house, very superstitious.
+In the large room, which was dirty and dusty in the
+extreme, the place of honour was given to the God of
+Riches. There he sat in fat dignity, presiding over
+the house, though we never saw any of his riches. In
+fact, since the coming of wealthy foreigners into the
+country, it is often said that the god has moved to
+foreign parts, and is now bestowing his riches on the
+Western nations. Certainly I never saw the use of
+him, for our circumstances got worse and worse.</p>
+
+<p>Then on the outside door we had pasted a pair of
+door gods. These pictures represent famous warriors
+who now are regarded as gods, and they have to protect
+the house from calamities. Certainly they are
+ugly enough for anything; but I have never known
+them ward off robbers. But perhaps it is only the
+spirits that are afraid of them; men aren’t, I am sure.
+To frighten off the spirits we had a looking-glass hung
+over the front door, so that when the spirits came<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_36"></a>[36]</span>
+round and were about to enter, they should see their
+ugly faces and retire in a fright.</p>
+
+<p>The calendar was invariably consulted for lucky
+days on which to begin everything; and when there
+was an eclipse we joined our neighbors with gongs
+and drums to prevent the heavenly dog swallowing the
+sun. Every spring there were the sacrifices at the
+ancestral graves, and much cash paper was burnt lest
+the spirits of our ancestors should not have enough
+to pay current expenses. Sacrifices were offered to
+them, and it was a general holiday. Any paper on
+which there was any writing or printing was carefully
+burnt. By this act merit was stored up.</p>
+
+<p>On All Souls’ Day my mother would burn incense
+and cash paper for the release of those wandering
+spirits who had no descendants to do it for them. Near
+by was a Buddhist temple, where a few lazy priests
+idled away the day in opium-smoking and gambling,
+bearing out the common saying, “Nine priests, ten
+rogues.” My brothers-in-law often went there to try
+to find out whether any proposed undertaking was
+going to turn out successfully. So by all these things
+you will see there was plenty of religion in our house,
+though but little goodness.</p>
+
+<p>New Year, which is the great Chinese festival,
+brought only added sorrows to me; for the time was
+given up to gambling, and I was busier than ever
+attending to the wants of the gamblers, and only
+received blows in return. Only at the new year itself
+was there a little rest from abuse, for at that time it
+is unlucky to use bad words. To name the evil spirits<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_37"></a>[37]</span>
+is to cause them to appear. I have heard missionaries
+say that they feel free to go where they like then without
+fear of abuse, for no one calls them “foreign
+devil” then, even though they make up for it later on.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_38"></a>[38]</span></p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER V.</h3>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Gods Many and Lords Many.</span></p>
+
+<p>Over our stove was a paper figure of the kitchen
+god. He presides all the year round over the cooking
+arrangements, and listens carefully to all that is said.
+A few days before the close of the year he goes up to
+heaven to report all he has heard to the gemmy emperor,
+his master. He must have had a lot to tell about
+our house; so my mother-in-law took the precaution to
+daub his lips with sticky treacle so that he could not
+open his mouth and tell of her doings. Most of our
+neighbors did this, too; so I suppose they didn’t feel
+any too comfortable about his report of them. At the
+new year he came down again—at least we put up a
+new one in the place of the one we had burned, which,
+I suppose, comes to the same thing.</p>
+
+<p>The goddess of smallpox was much dreaded in our
+district. She usually got to work at the beginning of
+the summer, and unless big gifts were given to her,
+she revenged herself by killing large numbers of little
+children as well as grown-ups. I remember well how
+she came one summer. One by one of the children fell
+ill of “heavenly flowers,” as the disease was called,
+and the temple was thronged with worshippers, while
+every house had its image of Niang-niang, to which
+incense was burned to ward off her anger. As nothing
+availed, a great procession was arranged for, in which<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_39"></a>[39]</span>
+many children took part. They were gaily dressed and
+carried aloft on the shoulders of men to call forth the
+pity of the cruel goddess.</p>
+
+<p>Then we had a great theatrical performance which
+Niang-niang watched from her shrine opposite the
+stage. It lasted for over a week, and crowds came
+from far and near. The only result I know of was
+that the disease was carried into a number of villages
+near and many more died. The expenses were paid
+by the people round, and during the performances the
+gambling and opium dens reaped a rich harvest. I
+was too busy to care for any of these things, and so
+miserable that I prayed Niang-niang to come and end
+my weary life by sending me the “heavenly flowers.”</p>
+
+<p>But a worse calamity than the smallpox was to come
+upon us. All the year but little rain had fallen, and
+the fields were parched and dry. It was the time for
+planting out the rice. This rice is our staple food, and
+if anything happens to the rice harvest we are in the
+greatest difficulty. The rice is sown on flooded fields,
+and when planted out has to be well watered for a
+month or more, or the plants will dry up.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of all the prayers at the temples, the processions,
+and the crackers, the rain refused to fall, and
+ruin stared us in the face. The following winter was
+dry and cold, and prices went up so that the poor
+began to be in great want. Still it was hoped the
+spring rains would put things right again. The
+farmers sowed what little grain they had left; but
+the heat set in earlier than usual, and the fierce sun
+scorched up all, and men prayed in vain for the rains<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_40"></a>[40]</span>
+that never came. In their place came famine, gaunt
+and relentless.</p>
+
+<p>Our family was one of the very first to suffer.
+Gradually clothes and goods were sold, for my father-in-law’s
+opium craving had to be satisfied somehow,
+and with it all my miseries increased. Yet I dare not
+run away, for that meant certain death. In the wake
+of the famine came fever. Weak with constant opium-smoking,
+my father-in-law was an early victim, and
+we buried him hastily outside the village. The two
+eldest sons left secretly, and bitterly my mother-in-law
+cursed them for leaving her thus in her distress.</p>
+
+<p>There should have been some help obtainable from
+the Benevolent Halls; but though many subscriptions
+had been given in the good years, the money could
+not be accounted for now that it was wanted, and the
+man in charge committed suicide when faced by the
+angry people. The wealthy hid their money lest it
+should be stolen by the bands of fearless robbers who
+prowled everywhere. Our home was now sold, and as
+we soon used up the money, there was nothing for it
+but to join the crowds of starving people going into
+the cities to seek for help.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_41"></a>[41]</span></p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER VI.</h3>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">In the Grip of Famine.</span></p>
+
+<p>On the way to the town, in the blazing heat, and
+living mostly on roots dug from the wayside, the
+youngest son, my prospective husband, died of exhaustion.
+I don’t think any of us minded, as we were
+too far gone ourselves. I only remember feeling some
+relief that now I need never be married into that
+family. How we reached the town I don’t know; but
+we got there at last, and for a few days lived on a little
+rice doled out from a temple near the river. The
+stores of grain supposed to be reserved in every town
+against famine were found to be bad from neglect,
+and it was only with difficulty a riot was prevented.
+The official dared not show his face, as there were
+rumors that he had been pocketing some of the relief
+money given by the Government.</p>
+
+<p>On the third day we were all of us too weak to fight
+our way through the crowd to where rice was being
+distributed. Near by was a shop where a kind of
+coarse wheat bread was sold. My mother-in-law eyed
+it hungrily. There were few about, so she went up
+to the man and whispered to him. He looked across
+to me, and then I saw him give her a lump of bread,
+which she clutched eagerly and disappeared down a
+back street. I never saw her again. She had sold me
+to the baker for a piece of bread!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_42"></a>[42]</span></p>
+
+<p>I was at the time too starved and ill to be frightened,
+and the man appeared to be kind and good, and told
+me not to be afraid. He brought me to his wife, a
+pleasant woman with a kind face, who gave me a little
+food, and after a while I slept. Then began a new
+life for me. At first I was terribly afraid lest my old
+enemy should come back and try to get me away. My
+new-found friends I soon began to like. The man was
+a small trader, who had done well in previous years,
+and though, like all the others, they were hard pressed
+by the famine, they had money enough to tide them
+over the worst. They had no children, so the man
+bought me as a servant for his wife, and I found in
+her a good mistress.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the distress grew. Many of the officials
+were so corrupt as to try to make money out of the
+calamities of the people. Transit by water was very
+slow, so it was long before relief came. At last we
+heard that kindly foreigners were bringing up some
+boat-loads of flour for the destitute people. It was
+when these boats arrived that I saw a foreigner for
+the first time in my life. There were two of them who
+attended to the transport of the rice from the boats to
+a temple. A strong force of soldiers prevented the
+rush of the hungry crowd, and the foreigners used to
+steal out late at night and early in the morning giving
+tickets to the destitute and taking care that they were
+not imposed upon by those whose need was not so
+great.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp53" id="illus5" style="max-width: 26.5625em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus5.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p>Making idols in China.</p>
+
+<p>“The idols in the temple could not help.”</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>They told from time to time a strange story of a
+new religion of love, and of Someone called the Lord<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_43"></a>[43]</span>
+Jesus, who had sent them in to save the starving. They
+were very kind, and gave the people work, widening
+and draining the road. My new father was greatly
+impressed by all this, and I overheard him say that
+such a doctrine as this was worth listening to.</p>
+
+<p>It was at that time that my new-found friends
+determined to leave that part and retire to their home
+far away in the country. A long boat journey brought
+us at last to a small farm, lying at the foot of a steep
+hill, crowned, as is usual, by a temple. Here in this
+new home I began a new life. My friends were very
+religious, and belonged to the vegetarians. Nearly all
+the best and most spiritual people in China belong to
+this sect. They are earnest worshippers of idols, and
+give large sums of money to priests, and in their life
+are careful and self-denying. One of their chief
+reasons for becoming vegetarians was that they had no
+son. This they regarded as the sure sign of the wrath
+of the gods. To appease them they had made many
+pilgrimages to famous shrines, but without finding
+peace.</p>
+
+<p>When New Year came, there was a celebrated and
+much-attended festival on the Fairy Hill, near our
+home. From far and near crowds came to worship in
+the temple of the goddess, bestower of sons and healer
+of smallpox. Beggars, in all stages of filthiness, lined
+the roads reaping a rich harvest from the worshippers,
+eager to accumulate merit by acts of charity. My
+father joined the procession that started one day from
+our village. Fasting and in silence they wended their
+way across the fields, each man with a stick of burning<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_44"></a>[44]</span>
+incense in his hand, and preceded by banners and an
+idol in a shrine. Arrived at the temple the noise was
+deafening. Drums and gongs clashed, innumerable
+crackers spluttered, and the air was heavy with the
+smoke of incense. My father knelt before the grim
+idol. The priest shook together a lot of bamboo slips,
+from which my father took one, and the priest handed
+to him the corresponding response of the idol.
+Anxiously he stepped outside and read. Would it
+be favorable? Would the angry gods regard his
+prayer at last? He read the printed slip, and a look
+of intense disappointment passed over his face, for
+he read thus:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">From sickness no release;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">In lawsuits no success;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Your children hard to rear;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">From false charges no redress;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The lost will not be found,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Nor flocks nor herds increase;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">From marriage no good luck,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">And from labor no release.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Such was the result of many prayers and much
+fasting. Truly the gods keep their wrath for ever.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_45"></a>[45]</span></p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER VII.</h3>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">I Receive a New Name.</span></p>
+
+<p>Sadly my father wended his way down the mountain.
+All was hopeless. Heaven had forgotten to
+smile upon him. Then he noticed ahead of him a small
+crowd surrounding a foreigner. He was a missionary
+from the neighboring town, and was busy selling books
+and preaching to the worshippers of the goddess.
+Father stepped up, partly out of curiosity and partly
+remembering the good deeds of the foreigners in
+the famine district.</p>
+
+<p>The crowd were inclined for some fun at the
+stranger’s expense; but he answered with such good
+humor and politeness as to win their good opinions.
+Then he commenced to preach. He did not abuse the
+idols—there might have been trouble had he done
+so—but he told of a True Spirit who was loving and
+good. Father listened. Who could that Spirit be, so
+full of love? Not the god of thunder whom everybody
+feared, for he struck men dead in his wrath.
+Not the fierce god of war, or the pitiless Niang-niang
+rejoicing in the sufferings of the smallpox victims.</p>
+
+<p>As the missionary spoke his face glowed. He told
+of Jesus, who went about doing good and at last died
+for men. There were no Chinese gods who would do
+that, father thought. They would take your money,
+but die for you?—well, that was nonsense. Eagerly<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_46"></a>[46]</span>
+he listened to the wonderful story. The stranger
+noticed him. At the close of his address he approached
+father. “Your name, honorable sir?” he asked.
+“My unworthy name is Lee,” was the response.
+Quietly and earnestly the stranger looked into father’s
+face. “Sir,” he said, “I noticed you listening intently
+just now; may I respectfully ask you, Is there peace in
+your heart? Do you yet know the grace of God in
+forgiving sin?” Forgiving sin—that was what my new
+parents had sought for so long; and the missionary’s
+words went home. My father made a confused
+answer, but bought a book the stranger recommended
+him, and hurried home lest it should be known that he
+had talked with the foreigner, and was in danger of
+eating the foreign doctrine.</p>
+
+<p>That meeting was the turning-point in my father’s
+life. The book he had bought pointed out a new
+and living way of obtaining release from sin. Many
+visits were paid to the chapel; and once the missionary
+came to our village and stayed at our house. Little
+by little my father’s prejudices were overcome, and the
+new doctrine entered his heart. At first mother was
+bitterly opposed to it. To draw her away from her
+gods and win her to this persecuted faith was no easy
+task; but gradually the light dawned for her, too.</p>
+
+<p>The neighbors got to hear of the visits to the chapel,
+and much petty annoyance was the result; but father’s
+patience and sincerity disarmed suspicion, and his
+happiness was so manifest as to be a constant witness
+to the truth. They were happy days for me, and my
+new life was such a change from the old that it all<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_47"></a>[47]</span>
+seemed a dream. One day the missionary heard my
+story. “You have come out of much tribulation,”
+he said. Then turning to father, he remarked, “Why
+not give her a new name?” “Yes,” said father, “we
+will not call her Yin-dee any more, but Ping-an—Rest
+and Peace—for that is what I have now found in
+Christ.” So that is how my name was changed.</p>
+
+<p>Then it was suggested that I ought not to grow up
+ignorant, but should learn to read and write; for in
+the Christian religion there is no difference made
+between girls and boys—all are alike precious to Jesus.
+The missionary told us that at Han-yang there was a
+school for girls, where many were living and being
+taught useful things, and, best of all, were taught the
+story of Christ. How excited I was at the prospect
+of going, though not a little afraid of so strange a
+place!</p>
+
+<p>At last the longed-for day came and I found myself
+with my father landing at Han-yang. At first I was
+bewildered by the busy crowds and clung to father’s
+gown as I walked along. How I trembled with excitement
+as we reached the school, and I think father felt
+as nervous as I did. But we were inside the gates at
+last. In a large yard we saw a group of girls playing.
+I gave a gasp of surprise. How could they run so?
+Then I saw that their feet were unbound, and the
+small, pointed shoes had given place to comfortable
+ones, which didn’t cause them to hobble along. I
+smiled a welcome at them, and wondered how long it
+would be before I could run as they did.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_48"></a>[48]</span></p>
+
+<p>We were shown in and introduced to the matron, a
+Chinese lady, who made us feel quite at home, and
+after a chat two foreign ladies came in. At first I
+could only stare, and I nearly forgot my manners;
+but I found that though they were dressed strangely
+they spoke my language; so my fear left me and I
+was soon enrolled as a scholar in the David Hill Girls’
+School, and proud I was of the fact, too. Truly my
+new name suited me—I had found rest and peace.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_49"></a>[49]</span></p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER VIII.</h3>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">The Girls’ School.</span></p>
+
+<p>So began my school-life. There is not time to tell
+you all about it now. There were about seventy of
+us there, from five to seventeen years old. Some of
+them had been slave girls, and could tell a story to
+match mine. Twice a day we gathered for meals, and
+we learnt to clean out our rooms, mend and wash our
+clothes, and make our own shoes, so as to be useful
+when we returned home. Then there was study and
+drill, and all of it was so interesting—not a bit like
+the dry way they teach in Chinese schools. Yet, best
+of all, were the Sunday services in the chapel and the
+class-meeting and Bible-study in the week. My feet
+were gradually loosened, and as they grew again I
+learned to skip and run with the other girls; and when
+I went home it was wonderful the impression made on
+the people in our out-of-the-way village.</p>
+
+<p>Several years have gone by since I went to school
+and entered upon that new life. Now I am learning
+to teach others; for teachers are badly needed in our
+schools and women teachers are difficult to get. To-day
+I have been thinking over my life. Like a dreadful
+dream there rises before me the picture of Yin-dee,
+the neglected little slave of a cruel woman. I see
+myself hobbling over the ground picking cotton, or in
+the evil home making tea for opium-smokers and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_50"></a>[50]</span>
+gamblers. I almost expect to hear the harsh tones of
+my mother-in-law calling me to do some menial duty.</p>
+
+<p>Then I remember the famine and its horrors. I can
+scarcely believe that it is all a thing of the past, and
+I have become Ping-an, the child of rest and peace.
+And what has done it all? Just this—the love of
+Jesus. It was Jesus who sent the missionary with the
+message of love and pardon, and it is Jesus who now
+fills my heart with joy. Yet I cannot forget that there
+are many—oh, so many!—of my sisters in China in
+the same sad plight as I was. I wonder how long it
+will be before the message will come to them? How
+long before they will enter the land of rest and peace?</p>
+
+<p>In the city of Pekin there hangs a great bell, and
+there is a legend connected with it on which I love to
+ponder. Twice had the labor of years been lost at the
+time of casting. The third time, just as the molten
+metal was to be poured into the mould, the lovely
+daughter of the maker, knowing that by no other
+means could a perfect bell be cast, flung herself into
+the cauldron and gave her life to save her father from
+disappointment and shame.</p>
+
+<p>China now is waiting to be moulded. Old things
+are passing. It is a new China we are beholding.
+Many ways have been tried for her regeneration. The
+cold morality of Confucius is powerless. Buddhist
+monks and Taoist priests have come in vain. Only
+by the cleansing Gospel of Christ can China be purified
+and made a vessel meet for the Master’s use. Ages
+ago this girl sacrificed herself that the bell might be
+perfect. What we women and girls of China need is<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_51"></a>[51]</span>
+that more missionary teachers should come to us,
+bringing the love of the Lord on their lips and in
+their lives—then will China be saved and won for
+Christ. It is worth it a thousand times. Will some of
+you come? Will more of you give? Will all of you
+pray? There is something each can do, if you will
+only try. Out of death springs life, and out of your
+sacrifice for Christ shall spring a new China, free from
+the sins which have bound her in the past.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_52"></a>[52]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="David_Livingstone">David Livingstone</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By a Fellow-Townsman.</span></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>At Blantyre, Scotland, on the 19th March, 1813, a
+child was born to Neil and Agnes Livingstone. We
+never know when is happening an epoch-making event.
+Every new soul ushered into the world is a shut casket
+of possibilities. The boy born in the humble home consisting
+of a “but and a ben,” was destined to become
+one of the greatest missionaries; and the most conspicuous
+and intrepid explorer the world has ever seen;
+to achieve for himself a deathless fame, a name of
+imperishable memory, and to leave to mankind a heritage
+of truth and influence. His cradle was in the
+peasant’s cottage, but his grave is in Westminster
+Abbey. I have many times visited the house where
+he was born, and the mill where he worked, and oftentimes
+I have read the inscription that is over his grave.
+I esteem it a great privilege to have lived for years near
+the birthplace of the great and good David Livingstone.
+His home was one of those which are the glory of
+Scotland, the abode of the godly and intelligent working
+class. His mother was a sweet, gentle woman,
+and his father was a good man.</p>
+
+<p>When ten years of age he went to work. His working
+hours were from six a.m. to eight p.m. His first<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_53"></a>[53]</span>
+week’s wages, sixty cents, he gave with pride to his
+mother. He saved a few pence and purchased a “Rudiments
+of Latin,” over which he pored when the day’s
+work was done. His thirst for knowledge was intense.
+At the age of sixteen he had read many of the classical
+authors and knew Horace and Virgil well.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp63" id="illus6" style="max-width: 26.5625em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus6.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p>DAVID LIVINGSTONE<br>(1813-1873)</p>
+  <p>The Great Missionary Explorer.<br>Went to Africa 1840. Died in Africa 1873.</p>
+  <p>How David Livingstone gave.—</p>
+  <p>“I will place no value upon anything I have or may possess
+  except in relation to the Kingdom of Christ.”</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>It was about his twentieth year that the great spiritual
+change took place, which was to determine Livingstone’s
+future life. At that time he definitely received
+Christ as his personal Saviour, and there can be no
+doubt that his heart was thoroughly penetrated by the
+new life that then flowed into it. Religion became the
+everyday business of his life and his daily prayer was
+that he might resemble Christ, a petition fulfilled in no
+ordinary degree. A desire was born within him to
+preach Christ in China, and that he might be fitted for
+that work he entered as a medical student in the University
+of Glasgow, and in due time was graduated in
+medicine. He received not a cent of aid from anyone.
+What a struggle he had! What economy he had to
+practice! Frequently his meal consisted entirely of
+oatmeal porridge.</p>
+
+<p>He was accepted by the London Missionary Society
+and sent out in 1840—not to China—but to Africa.
+To God and to Africa he gave his manhood’s prime.
+No grander work was ever done than that accomplished
+by David Livingstone. In him life’s fire glowed.
+With magnanimous and self-sacrificing devotion,
+with undaunted courage, in the midst of manifold
+sufferings, through days of hunger and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_54"></a>[54]</span>
+weariness, and nights of dreadful loneliness, he
+worked for Africa’s salvation. He loved the
+natives, and they loved the man who was ever kind and
+good. He worked amongst them with a vision ever
+before him of the men and women, whom they, by
+God’s grace, might become, and that vision shaped and
+controlled and sustained him in all his efforts. With
+the vision of the latter day before him he addressed
+himself nobly and well to the work of the present.
+God alone knows what Africa owes to Livingstone.</p>
+
+<p>This full and overflowing life closed to earth’s activities
+in May, 1873. His spirit marches on. Such men
+never die. His spirit has entered into the great stream
+of the ever-swelling life of mankind, and continues,
+and will continue, to act there with its whole force
+for evermore. He lives in minds made better by his
+noble example. He lives in the Livingstonia Mission,
+that great beacon light; he lives in great numbers of
+the regenerated natives of Africa; he lives in all who
+are constrained to work for Christ in that dark land.</p>
+
+<p>I pray our Epworth Leaguers to read the story of his
+life, that they may know what one consecrated man did
+in a lifetime, that they may have a revelation of the
+possibilities in man, that they may be inspired to emulate
+him in his noble simplicity, high resolve, invincible
+courage, exalted self-sacrifice; that they may be possessed
+with the overmastering purpose which guided
+and drove him on. Read his life and be inspired with
+the thought that life is a high and noble calling. Reading
+of his toils and struggles and victories, pray God<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_55"></a>[55]</span>
+for grace to “follow in his train.” His motto was:
+“Fear God, and work hard.” Make it your motto.
+The greatest of all tragedies is to live and die without
+a thing done by the sweat of the soul.</p>
+
+<p class="right">—<i>Loch Ranza</i>.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_56"></a>[56]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="Christmas_in_Our_Boys_School_Junghsien_West_China">Christmas in Our Boys’ School, Junghsien, West China</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By Edward Wilson Wallace, B.A., B.D.</span></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>If you were a Chinese, and every day ate two meals
+of rice and some vegetables, with meat only twice a
+month, if as often; if you worked from daylight to
+dark seven days in the week, and had no summer
+vacation or Christmas holidays; if you had no books
+to read except possibly (if you were lucky) one or
+two greasy and tattered volumes of ancient philosophy,
+not one word of which you understood; in other words,
+if you were an average Chinese boy or girl, don’t you
+think that you would look forward even more eagerly
+than you did this year to Christmas? I think you
+would. At any rate the boys and girls connected with
+the church in Junghsien were expecting a great treat,
+and we were planning to give them all that they expected,
+and more.</p>
+
+<p>Then suddenly, unexpectedly, a terrible thing happened
+that put an end to all these hopes and plans.
+Can you guess what it was? It was not a fire, or an
+earthquake, or a riot on the mission. But one morning
+there came word that the Emperor of China and his<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_57"></a>[57]</span>
+step-mother had suddenly died, and that everyone must
+go into mourning. And that was the end of the two
+Christmas concerts, the Christmas tree, and the feast.
+For the rules for mourning for a dead Emperor in
+China are quite strict. No one could marry for a
+month—that rule did not affect us, for the only wedding
+arranged for by anyone connected with the
+church, that of Mr. McAmmond’s teacher, took place
+a few days before. No one was to be allowed to have
+his head shaved for a hundred days. Every Chinese
+boy and man allows just enough hair to grow on the
+top of his head to form his “pig-tail”; all the rest of
+his head is shaved clean. But imagine what a messy
+effect it is to have the head covered with a couple of
+months’ growth around the long cue, as there is now.
+It is the Chinese way of going into black; for, of
+course, every man’s hair is as black as pitch. Another
+rule was that no one could wear satin clothes for a
+hundred days, and the little red knobs on the top of
+the caps had to be changed to blue, which is the second
+degree mourning color in China, white being the first.
+So far the rules did not interfere with our Christmas
+entertainment. But now we come to the fatal order,
+“There must be no music and no celebrations for a
+month.” Alas! for our Chinese boys and girls.
+Christmas fell within the month.</p>
+
+<p>It is true that we might have got around the trouble
+by claiming that ours was a foreign church, and so did
+not fall within the common rules. This, I believe, was
+done in other places. But our church here is a large
+one, and we are constantly trying to make the members<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_58"></a>[58]</span>
+understand that it is a Chinese church, not a foreign
+one, and we decided that this was a splendid opportunity
+to impress on the people the fact that when a
+man joins the Christian Church he does not in any
+way become less of a Chinese, and that our Church
+believes in honoring the rulers of the country. As soon
+as it was finally decided that we should follow the
+regulations the members agreed that we had done the
+correct thing.</p>
+
+<p>In one way it was rather fortunate for the boys in
+the school that we had no entertainment to prepare for.
+Just at Christmas last year came the examinations, and
+some of the boys were working very hard to prepare
+for the entrance examination. So it gave them a better
+chance to study. And during Christmas week they
+had four examinations.</p>
+
+<p>We did not intend, however, that Christmas should
+pass without something to make the boys remember the
+day and what it means. If they could not have a
+Christmas tree, I determined to give them the next best
+thing—in fact, when I was a boy a year or two ago, I
+thought it was away ahead of a mere tree—that is
+hanging up the stockings. The boys had never even
+heard of such a custom, so it was great fun for them.
+One morning in school, after prayers, I solemnly asked
+the boarders, “How many of you have two pairs of
+socks?” There was blank amazement. Why did I
+wish to know that? I only smiled, as I began with the
+boy in the front, little “Georgie Bond.” “Have you
+two pairs of socks?” “Yes, but the extra pair have
+holes.” Then to the next boy, “Have you a second<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_59"></a>[59]</span>
+pair?” “I have three pair, but they all have holes,
+some of them as big as this,” and he made a circle with
+his thumb and finger. “Have them mended,” I replied,
+and passed on down the line. I found that all the nine
+boys had extra pairs and all of them, as is the case
+with the stockings of every decent fellow I ever knew,
+had holes. I maintain that in China, as at home, it is
+a sign that a boy is a real boy when he wears holes in
+his stockings. So I advised them to have one pair
+mended and washed before Christmas Eve, and bring
+it to me. And then—well, we should see what we
+should see.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp50" id="illus7" style="max-width: 29.6875em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus7.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p>The boys of the Junghsien School who had a good
+time at Christmas.</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>Great was the excitement among the boys, and not
+a sock was missing when the great night arrived. I
+did not let the boys hang up their own socks, but
+packed them all off to the school study-room upstairs,
+while one of the teachers and I pinned the socks up
+in a row in the class-room under the blackboard. You
+know we have no fires in the schools here, and so
+there are no chimneys. All the same Santa Claus
+found a way, for next morning—but wait a bit.</p>
+
+<p>When I got down to the school on Christmas morning
+at half-past seven I found the boys already at
+breakfast. They were casting anxious eyes in the
+direction of the room with the closed door, and like
+other boys I have known they did not take long to
+eat their Christmas-morning breakfast. When they
+were all ready they filed into the room. I am not
+going to tell you how those stockings were filled. You
+may decide for yourselves how, and by whom it was
+done. I don’t think the boys stopped to think anything<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_60"></a>[60]</span>
+about “how.” They were too much interested in the
+sight of twelve white Chinese socks in a row, all bulging
+out in a knobby fashion, with things sticking out
+of them, and a flat, red parcel behind every sock. On
+the blackboard was written in Chinese, “Jesus’ Holy
+Birthday.” After they had looked for a minute I
+suggested that they take down their socks and see
+what was in them. Then for the first time in their lives
+they had the joy of exploring the mysteries of a Christmas
+stocking. Their presents were not very much, you
+would say, perhaps. Each boy found a story-book and
+a photograph of the school, and then down in the sock
+were nuts and candies, and right in the toe an orange.
+The two teachers each got a New Testament with the
+Chinese and English on the same page.</p>
+
+<p>They did not say much, and I wondered if they were
+disappointed, until one of the teachers, Mr. Jang, came
+up to me with tears in his eyes, saying, “You say we
+must not thank you, so I think we ought to thank God.
+Can’t we do it just now?” It touched me deeply.
+“Yes,” I said, and we all went up to the study-room
+and, standing there about the long table, one after
+another of the boys made a short, simple prayer of
+thanks to God, not only for the gifts of the morning,
+but especially for the greatest Gift of all, Jesus Christ.</p>
+
+<p>At nine o’clock we had our regular morning prayers,
+and then I gave to the day-boys their presents, a New
+Testament and a bag of nuts and candy to each one.
+We had a nice little service in the church for all the
+church people, but our real Christmas service was held
+the next Sunday. On that day we had a special musical<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_61"></a>[61]</span>
+service, led by the boys, who had been practising for
+months under Mr. and Mrs. McAmmond. It would
+have done you good to hear them open the service with
+“Come, Thou Almighty King,” with Georgie Bond
+singing one verse as a solo. The anthem was “Hark,
+the Herald Angels Sing,” and our Chinese angels sang
+splendidly.</p>
+
+<p>On Christmas morning the church members gave
+away free rice to five hundred poor people. So that
+altogether the boys, even if their Christmas was quieter
+than usual, have had something to remind them of the
+joy of this beautiful season.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_62"></a>[62]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="God_Wants_Them_All">God Wants Them All</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">God wants the boys—the merry, merry boys,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">The noisy boys, the funny boys,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">The thoughtless boys;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">God wants the boys with all their joys,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">That He as gold may make them pure,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">And teach them trials to endure.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">His heroes brave</div>
+    <div class="verse indent10">He’ll have them be,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">Fighting for truth</div>
+    <div class="verse indent10">And purity.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent12">God wants the boys.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">God wants the girls, the happy-hearted girls,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">The loving girls, the best of girls,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">The worst of girls;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">God wants to make the girls His pearls,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">And so reflect His holy face,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">And bring to mind His wondrous grace,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">That beautiful</div>
+    <div class="verse indent10">The world may be,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">And filled with love</div>
+    <div class="verse indent10">And purity.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent12">God wants the girls.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_63"></a>[63]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="Li_Liang_Chen">Li Liang Chen<br>
+<span class="smaller"><i>Student, Soldier, Trader, Evangelist.</i></span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Rev. J. L. Stewart, B.A., B.D.</span></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>It was on the street of the Temple of the Four Sages,
+in the capital city, Chengtu, Szechuan. There, to-day,
+its low, grey gable abutting the entrance gates, stands
+also the Worship Hall to the Western God, who is
+surely becoming Father of the East and of all. Within
+the temple, only the smoke of a few incense sticks
+mingled with the tobacco and opium fumes curled upward
+through cobwebs and tiles to the heavens. In
+the Worship Hall, three score and more of China’s
+youth, black-haired, bright-eyed, brilliant-minded hopes
+of her future greatness, were gathered. But half the
+hall was theirs. Up the centre ran a wooden wall past
+which presumably not even a wandering glance might
+go. That part beyond was sacred to the women and
+school girls. As not even these latter were present to
+embarrass the situation, native eloquence found full
+fling.</p>
+
+<p>It was the weekly meeting of the Epworth League of
+the College boys. Moreover, it was missionary night,
+and members were all attention. The leader was in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_64"></a>[64]</span>
+fine form. With flushed cheek and fervid voice he
+called his hearers to see visions.</p>
+
+<p>“Jesus came to found a kingdom among men. All
+within the four seas are brethren. The kingdom must
+then include all under heaven. Jesus founded it first
+among His fellows, the Jews. These carried the message
+to Greeks and Romans. These bore it to barbarians
+in Europe and Britain. These have wafted it
+round the world, and to our land of the Middle Kingdom.
+And we? We must bear the glad tidings on to
+Thibet, to the tribesmen and to the aborigines....”</p>
+
+<p>Just then there was a commotion in the rear of the
+church. Someone was trying to make himself heard.
+At this persistent interruption all turned. A ripple
+of indignation quickly changed to interest as they saw
+the new speaker, a big, broad-faced, burly fellow, whose
+countenance beamed forth a happy combination of
+courage and child-like simplicity.</p>
+
+<p>“Your younger brother begs his elders’ pardon,” he
+ventured, “but here in the seat just in front of mine
+are two of these strangers from the tribes country.
+Why wait indefinitely some future date? They may
+leave before our leader is through. Why not begin
+here and now?”</p>
+
+<p>A voice of assent and approval ran around the room.
+For ten minutes the speaker, bending forward, chatted
+pleasantly with the wanderers from the great ranges to
+the west, well diggers, it seemed, seeking work on the
+plain, welcomed them to the meeting and told them
+simply and sympathetically of the Saviour of all and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_65"></a>[65]</span>
+His message of love to men. Then the meeting went
+on as before.</p>
+
+<p>A simple enough little incident, surely, but it is an
+index to the speaker, sincere, sympathetic, fearless,
+practical. It was Li Liang Chen, that is, Li of Perfect
+Virtue, as his parents had named him in hope. To attain
+the Chinese goal of greatness by becoming an official
+was likewise a longing, and to that end he was sent
+early to school. There, year by year, through youth
+and young manhood, he had repeated his history,
+rhymed his poetry, patiently traced the puzzling characters
+and later written countless stereotyped essays
+under a still famous teacher of the district. More than
+once he had gone up with the picked men of his
+county to try for the coveted degree, that opening door
+to official life. Alas! how few could hope for success;
+oft-times scarce two in a hundred. His heart was,
+moreover, ever too great for his head, so those with
+more self-abstraction or secret alliances with the examiners,
+won the day.</p>
+
+<p>In military matters, literary attainments played a
+lesser part, the physical was the all-important, so thither
+his ambitions turned. Here, though some surpassed
+him in lifting the two and three hundred weight stone,
+success came surprisingly. He soon bent a strong
+bow and sent his arrow clean and quivering to the
+heart of the target. In feats with fists his stature,
+strength and courage placed him among the envied few,
+while in swinging great swords he was scarce surpassed.</p>
+
+<p>China, however, cares not for war. In the long life of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_66"></a>[66]</span>
+no other nation has history written so large, “Blessed
+are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” Her
+list of honor runs, scholar, farmer, mechanic, merchant.
+The scholar sways by thought, so is first. The
+farmer and mechanic each produces, so come next.
+The merchant does neither, but distributes, so is fourth.
+The soldier is not even mentioned, for he exists but
+to destroy. Such being the sentiment, in times of peace
+but few are maintained or indeed needed to follow the
+profession of arms among these most easily ruled of
+the millions of earth. Li, like the many of his fellows,
+must have other means of support.</p>
+
+<p>His father was a merchant in the market village of
+the Chao family, near Jenshow. By dint of industry
+and economy, he had also added a small farm to his
+possession. Li was placed in the shop. Affability
+won friends, time and tact got him trade, while his
+fearlessness gradually carried him far afield. Back
+from the borders of the aborigines he brought white
+wax and ponies; from the province of Uin Lan he led
+pack mules laden with tea. In Kweichow, south and
+east, he sought silks and horses. From the far-flung
+tribes to north and west he bought musk and medicines,
+and from the Thibetans wools and hides. Soon
+agencies were established, compass-like, all about his
+centre, and Li, the trader, was known to big firms in
+scores of cities, towns, and in the great capital.</p>
+
+<p>But travels had touched more than trade. In larger
+centres he had seen the much-talked-of foreigner, with
+his ever-present hospitals, schools, and churches, and
+had heard him discussed from province to province in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_67"></a>[67]</span>
+countless inns and teashops. Once, only once, he had
+paused one day in his busy life to listen to a street
+preacher. He carried away little of what was said.
+How could such things concern him and his sole
+search for goods and gold? Thus ten years fled by.
+He lost much, but made more, and at length decided
+to settle in his native village, among his own, the better
+to be a filial son to his now aging father.</p>
+
+<p>About that time mission problems assumed a new
+phase. After the dramatic events culminating in the
+Boxer cataclysm in 1900, the missionary found himself
+received in a new light. Previously permitted, as
+a matter of indifference, or in many places despised,
+insulted, persecuted, he now found himself pushed into
+unsought prominence. Foreign troops had defeated
+the forces of the Son of Heaven. Foreign officials
+had but to say the word, and China bowed to obey.
+Were not the missionaries friends of these consuls,
+indeed might they not themselves be officials or paid
+to act as such? In fact, one nation, France, openly
+allowed their “fathers” official status. The bishop
+ranked with a viceroy, the humblest priest with the
+local magistrate.</p>
+
+<p>The fruit of it all came fast. People flocked to the
+churches, not to be bettered by Christian teaching, but
+to gain power with which to threaten and coerce their
+enemies. This, it is not unfair to say, was particularly
+true among Roman Catholic native priests and their
+converts, where the worst characters of the community
+carried the day with high hand. It was at least true
+of the Jenshow district, where, abetted by the church,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_68"></a>[68]</span>
+“converts” coerced, blackmailed, robbed, assaulted
+their helpless neighbors. Should reprisals arise they
+were at once labelled “persecutions,” appeal was made
+to the priests, then to the bishop, and thus to the chief
+officials of the province, or locally to the magistrates.
+The honest, hard-working citizen’s lot seemed hopeless
+and helpless.</p>
+
+<p>Then the knowledge slowly gained ground that there
+were two parties among these foreigners. Protestants,
+it was said, had equal power, but did not countenance
+such coercion. Why not invite these into the county,
+and join their organization? The plan was plausible
+and prevailed. Representative men went to the capital
+to invite the Protestant missionaries. After a time
+they came, received everywhere with honor and acclaim.
+Villages, a score and more, organized and sent
+representatives to support the movement. A central
+organization sprang up and a big building was secured.</p>
+
+<p>Among the many villages that thus sent representatives
+was that of the Chao family. Who should be
+sent but Li, the scholar, soldier, merchant, man of
+affairs. He went to Jenshow, listened, gave hearty support,
+bought books said to be necessary and went his
+way. He was more interested now, however, and read
+his books carefully. Though his motives could scarce
+be called Christian, he was being led and to lead in a
+way that he knew not.</p>
+
+<p>Some months later, a convention for leaders was
+summoned in the provincial capital. Li was ready and
+receptive. He returned to his native village, moved<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_69"></a>[69]</span>
+as not before to pilot his people. Many became converts,
+not of convenience, but of conviction, among
+these his former teacher and his own family and
+friends.</p>
+
+<p>Another year, and again a conference of those most
+worthy was called. Li came gladly. This time his
+home-going meant the giving over of business interests
+to others while he went forth in his own village,
+county town, and all the surrounding district, this time
+persuading men to make the greatest of all investments,
+those eternal investments in the Kingdom of
+God. Henceforth for him he felt his life’s chief business
+lay in the extension of the reign of righteousness,
+peace and joy throughout his native land.</p>
+
+<p>Two years have passed since then, but he is still as
+of old—fervent, fearless, faithful. A year’s study at
+college in Chengtu has given him greater grip and
+wider vision. To-day he is again out in the work he
+loves, the scholar seeing even more clearly the signs of
+his times, the soldier going courageously forward in the
+great commission, the trader offering in all market-places
+treasure that death cannot corrupt, the evangelist
+heralding the glad tidings of great joy to a great
+people.</p>
+
+<p>Of such stuff are China’s first apostles in the far
+west. Of such appeal is the message of the Son of
+Man to draw alien races unto Himself. To this end
+let us have firmer faith in all.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_70"></a>[70]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="Bo_and_Nare_or_Found_Out">Bo and Nare, or Found Out</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>“Rub-a-dub-dub! rub-a-dub-dub!”</p>
+
+<p>Little Bo heard the music, and ran after it. He had
+been fishing in a pool with a bent pin for a hook. “It
+is lots more fun to run after the band than to fish with
+a pin and not catch anything,” thought Bo. So he
+gave the line to his little sister Nare. Nare wanted to
+fish before, but Bo had said, “Girls don’t know anything
+’bout fishing.”</p>
+
+<p>Bo lived in a far country where even fathers don’t
+love little girls. Bo did not share his playthings with
+his sister, as you have done. He made her wait on
+him. He didn’t know any better. That was the way
+Bo’s father treated his mother. Bo was not white,
+as are the boys and girls who read this. He was
+brown as a berry. So was his little sister Nare. So
+were all the people Bo and Nare knew, except two
+ladies. These white missionary ladies were Bo’s
+teachers. They told him about Jesus. But Bo’s
+father taught him to worship idols. Bo sometimes
+wondered which was the true God. But at this
+particular minute he only thought about the music,
+and ran after it. He saw a great crowd and a priest
+in the midst beating a drum. He heard the priest cry
+in a loud voice, “Let every one keep silence.” Then
+the priest looked fiercely at the small boys. Bo began<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_71"></a>[71]</span>
+to tremble, and wish he were back fishing. “On this
+day week,” again shouted the priest, “at noon a god
+will arise from the ground in the field near our temple.”
+A second time the drum sounded, and the
+priest moved on to convey the news to other villages.</p>
+
+<p>Everybody began to talk excitedly. “A god rise
+from the ground!” said they; “can it be possible?”</p>
+
+<p>Bo was delighted. “Now I’ll find out,” thought he,
+“if men make our gods out of wood and stone, as the
+missionaries say. I’ll go and see for myself.”</p>
+
+<p>That week seemed the longest Bo had ever spent.
+But the great day came at length, and Bo was very
+happy. Nare was not. Nare wanted to go too. She
+begged Bo to take her, but Bo answered, “You are
+only a girl; it doesn’t make any difference what you
+think. By-and-bye I’ll be a man; so I ought to know
+what is right.” Bo thought it manly to speak so
+rudely. Why, even mothers are treated very badly
+by boys in countries where Jesus’ teachings are not
+known.</p>
+
+<p>So Bo started off alone. He found the largest
+crowd he had ever seen in the great field near the temple.
+In the centre was a vacant space, where only
+priests stood. Bo made straight for that spot. But
+a priest took him roughly by the shoulder, and said,
+“The new god will kill any one who comes inside this
+circle.” Bo ran back and hid behind a tall man, who
+didn’t look afraid.</p>
+
+<p>It was a silent crowd. Most of the people seemed
+awe-struck. Every one was eagerly looking toward
+the vacant space where the god would rise. At noon<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_72"></a>[72]</span>
+more priests in long white robes came out of the
+temple. They began to mutter and wave their hands.
+The tall man next to Bo said, “Something black is
+coming out of the ground!” Bo stood on tip-toe and
+strained his eyes to see.</p>
+
+<p>The something grew larger and larger. Every eye
+was fixed upon the spot. Could it be the top of a
+head? Yes, for the brow, eyes, nose, and mouth
+slowly appeared. All this time the priests never once
+went near. The big black idol seemed to rise of itself.
+The crowd, almost wild with excitement, cried out,
+“A miracle! a miracle!”</p>
+
+<p>Bo thought the priests looked much pleased when
+the people shouted, “’Tis a miracle!” Soon the priests
+went into the temple. They didn’t think any one would
+dare go inside the circle.</p>
+
+<p>Now it happened that the tall man who stood next
+to Bo no longer believed that idols were gods. “The
+priests are trying to cheat us,” thought he. “A rival
+temple is the favorite, where most money is given.
+The priests of this temple are poor. They have made
+up this miracle in order to draw more offerings here.”
+So this wise man said to a friend near, “Let us make
+this god grow faster.” The other agreed. They went
+boldly forward and took hold of the idol.</p>
+
+<p>Bo heard people say, “They will surely fall down
+dead.”</p>
+
+<p>But no; the god came up quickly—head, hands,
+body—all complete. Still the two brave men stood
+unharmed and actually laughing. They cried out, “The
+priests have fooled us; come and see for yourselves!”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_73"></a>[73]</span></p>
+
+<p>Then, pell-mell, pushing and tumbling over each
+other, all rushed to the spot. What do you think they
+saw? A great pit full of soaked peas. The priests
+knew that peas grow larger when left in water; so
+they filled the pit with peas, poured on water, placed
+the idol on top, and covered it lightly with soil. By-and-bye,
+when the peas had begun to swell, the idol
+was pushed through the ground.</p>
+
+<p>The people were very angry. They nearly killed
+the priests, whom they found feasting in the temple.</p>
+
+<p>After one long look backward, Bo trudged home in
+disgust. He could never again believe in their priests.
+That evening Bo told Nare his decision: “We’ll not
+be afraid of make-believe gods any more. We must
+pray to the great Father who lives up in the sky.”—<i>Selected.</i></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_74"></a>[74]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="Results_of_a_One-Cent_Investment">Results of a One-Cent Investment in One of Our Country Sunday Schools</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>At a Sunday School missionary meeting, the Superintendent
+received a number of letters from the
+scholars, giving an account of how they had traded
+with a cent which had been given them a year ago. It
+is needless to say that this was by no means the least
+attractive part of the programme. The following are
+some of the letters as received, in which we have made
+no corrections:—</p>
+
+<p>“I bought a cent’s worth of radish seed and sowed
+them in a plot of ground which my Mother gave me.
+I tended to them with care and sold them at 5 cts. a
+dozen. I sold 12 dozen and made 60 cts.”</p>
+
+<p>“Two years ago I took a cent to see how much I
+could make for missions. One year ago I took another
+cent. I spent them both and gained nothing with them.
+You can’t speculate much with a cent. A lady wanted
+me to do some work for her and said she would pay
+me, so I got $1.15 for last year, but didn’t get it in time
+for the meeting, and this year I have added 35 cts.
+more. Total amount, $1.50.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_75"></a>[75]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Bot lead pencils at wholesale and sold them out
+retail, with the proceeds bot some sugar and made
+taffy and sold it for missionaries, making in all, 58
+cts.”</p>
+
+<p>“I have twenty-five cents to give you for the missionaries.
+I sold some cucumbers to a lady for five
+cents, and the rest Ma gave me for doing errands.”</p>
+
+<p>“I earned this money buying and selling rhubarb,
+20 cts.”</p>
+
+<p>“I bought one egg, raised a Pullet and sold one
+dozen for 20 cts., one dozen eggs for 15 cents, then
+sold the hen for 20 cts. Total amount made, 55 cts.”</p>
+
+<p>“I ernt this fifteen cents by buying and selling
+eggs.”</p>
+
+<p>“I bought a patch of potatoes for one cent and
+tended to them and sold them for 10 cts., making a
+profit of 9 cts.”</p>
+
+<p>“I have just 51 cts. I went errands and washed
+dishes and did other little things for it.”</p>
+
+<p>“I bought beans and planted them and sold them
+for 3 cts.”</p>
+
+<p>“I bought with my cent some radish seed, and Mr.
+Wilson gave me a plot to sow it in. I watered and
+weeded them and sold them at 5 cts. a bunch, and
+made $1.”</p>
+
+<p>“I blacked the boots for a month and earned 15 cts.
+I will try to do better next time.”</p>
+
+<p>“My cent I invested in potatoes. I planted and
+tended them and arranged with a gentleman to take
+the potatoes at 40 cts. per bag. I am glad to hand in
+my $1 as the result.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_76"></a>[76]</span></p>
+
+<p>“I am a very little boy, but I ain’t too small to work.
+Last year you did not give me a copper to work with,
+but I thought I would try and do something for poor
+little boys and girls away off in heathen lands, so last
+summer I picked dandelions, tied them in bunches,
+and sold them around the town, total amount, 5 cts.”</p>
+
+<p>“Total proceeds, $12.12.”</p>
+
+<p>“I first bought a can with my cent, and picked
+berries and sold them. Received twenty cents.”</p>
+
+<p>“I bought a row of carrots of my Father for a cent,
+and had five pails, and sold them at 10c. per pail,
+which is fifty cents.”</p>
+
+<p>“I bought a cents worth of knitting cotton and knit
+a pair of garters and sold them for Ten cents. (10c.)”</p>
+
+<p>“We Bought 2 cents worth of Eggs and Sett them,
+got 2 chickens, and sold them for 20 cents.”</p>
+
+<p>“Bought one ct’s worth of Bootblacking, blackned
+boots for five cts. bought five ct’s worth, blackned
+boots for five cts. a week, got one dollar.”—<i>Missionary
+Outlook.</i></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_77"></a>[77]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="The_Schoolmasters_Lesson">The Schoolmaster’s Lesson</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>The schoolmaster, with the savings of two laborious
+years, had treated himself to a fine large microscope.
+This instrument, in its mahogany case, occupied a
+place of honor on a side table. It was a world of
+wonder, a more than Aladdin’s lamp to the children,
+who looked with joy to the occasions when the schoolmaster
+revealed to their wondering gaze its enchantments.
+Whenever the schoolmaster took a little key
+from his vest pocket and approached the sacred altar,
+where reposed the marvel, the children stowed their
+books under the blue desks, and fairly held their
+breath with expectation. Any one of them might have
+the honor of being summoned as officiating acolyte of
+the occasion.</p>
+
+<p>On this afternoon the schoolmaster had a bowl of
+water and some small green weeds from the nearest
+pond. He put some of the green plant in a large, clear
+glass. As it floated, the children coming near to look,
+one by one saw that the plant seemed supplied with
+minute green sacs filled with air.</p>
+
+<p>“Now, take your seats,” said the master. “This
+is called a bladder-plant, from these wee, green bladders,
+whereby it floats. Listen, and Nathan will tell
+you what he sees. Nathan, come forward.”</p>
+
+<p>Nathan came gladly.</p>
+
+<p>“Now, tell us what you see in the water, Nathan.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_78"></a>[78]</span></p>
+
+<p>“I see little live things; some have little shells on
+them like mussels, only they look about as big as
+tiny pin-heads. Some have little whirling wheels on
+their heads. A good many are like very, very wee
+caterpillars.”</p>
+
+<p>“Those last are the water-bears,” said the schoolmaster.
+“Now look at the bladder-plant.”</p>
+
+<p>“The bladders,” said Nathan, “are little bags.
+Their mouths are open. They are set round with
+hairs. Some of the bags look full of something, and
+dark. Some of them seem to have some live thing
+kicking in them. Some are empty, and as you look in
+at the door it is like a little clear green room. Oh!
+I see a water-bear swimming up to one! He looks
+in. He seems to think it is pretty. I guess he wants to
+know where there is something kicking. He looks in
+there. Now he goes to an empty one. Now he swims
+by. No, he changes his mind. He thinks he will go
+in. He pokes in his head. The little hairs at the
+door bend inward: they let him go in easy. He is in!
+Oh! now he is trying to come out!”</p>
+
+<p>Great excitement in the listening school—eyes wide
+open, heads bent forward.</p>
+
+<p>“Can he get out?” cried someone.</p>
+
+<p>“No! no! he can’t,” exclaimed Nathan, all eager.
+“The hairs bend in, and let him in, but he cannot get
+by them to go out! They won’t bend out. Oh, he
+can’t get out.”</p>
+
+<p>The schoolmaster now took one of the dark, full
+sacs, cut it open with a very fine, sharp instrument,
+and put it under the glass.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_79"></a>[79]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Now what, Nathan?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, that bag is full of dead things, of what you
+might call the bones of these bits of creatures, the
+shells off one of those tiny things like mussels. They
+are things that have gone in and have got all melted
+up.”</p>
+
+<p>“Here is another,” said the schoolmaster, putting
+a lighter green sac in place, also cut open. “What
+now?”</p>
+
+<p>“That is the very sac the water-bear looked into to
+see something kicking. The kicking thing was another
+water-bear. Now it is dead. The one that went in
+just now is kicking, too.”</p>
+
+<p>The schoolmaster took that sac also, opened it, and
+released the struggling water-bear.</p>
+
+<p>“What now, Nathan?”</p>
+
+<p>“He is out, but he doesn’t feel good. He doesn’t
+swim round as he did before he went in. I think he
+is going to die, schoolmaster. Oh, here is another bear
+just going into a sac. Let him out quick, won’t you?”</p>
+
+<p>The schoolmaster opened the sac and the freed little
+animal swam off.</p>
+
+<p>“He got out, right off, and nothing but him,” said
+Nathan. “Schoolmaster, isn’t it queer that when they
+look in and see the dead ones, and the bones and skins,
+or see other ones caught and kicking, and can’t get
+out, that they don’t learn better than to go in themselves?
+I should think they’d have sense to keep out!”</p>
+
+<p>“People do not have sense to keep out when the circumstances
+are just about the same. Now, all of you
+children, listen. You know that Nathan has told you<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_80"></a>[80]</span>
+of these little, gay palace-rooms, where the doors open
+in and not out, and the things which swim by seem
+curious to know what is inside. Some of these gay
+places hold struggling captives; others are full of the
+relics of the dead. Now, that is a little parable to
+you. Let the little green sacs stand for places where
+strong drink is sold. Those who enter such places
+form the drinking habit, and then they cannot get free
+from it. Persons, yet free, look into these dens for
+drinking. They see in them people all ragged, dirty,
+poor, unhappy, bloated, crazy, sick, wrecked and ruined
+victims of the habit. They see yet others who mourn
+that they are enslaved, who have a sense of shame and
+danger, and struggle to get rid of the appetite that
+makes prisoners of them, and will destroy them. In
+this little plant, when the little animals get into the
+sacs, the plant melts up their bodies and seems to suck
+up their juice and feed on it until nothing is left but
+the fine bony parts. So the unhappy person who goes
+into a grog shop finds that the dealer feeds on him
+until his health and happiness, and money and respectability
+are all gone, and perhaps nothing is left of him
+but the poor body that is ready for the Potter’s field.
+Is it not strange that when we see how many persons
+are utterly ruined by drink, any will venture into places
+where drink is sold, and will even begin to taste the
+fatal liquor? Whenever you see a place for selling
+whiskey, I want you to think of the little water-bears
+and other water creatures which enter the snares of
+the bladder-plant.”—<i>Selected.</i></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_81"></a>[81]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="Liu_Tsi_Chuin">Liu Tsi Chuin<br>
+<span class="smaller"><i>Rioter and Evangelist.</i></span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Rev. J. L. Stewart, M.A., B.D.</span></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>“Ninety-five” is a date of dates among the pioneer
+workers in West China. All winter rumors of the
+doings of foreigners had been floating about the city
+of Chengtu, old stories of suspicion and superstition
+scarce heard to-day: “Foreigners ate children.”
+“Doctors pulverized eyes for medicines, hence their
+wonderful cures.” “Bodies were buried beneath the
+church floors.” “Foreigners having, many of them,
+blue eyes, could see into soil and discover hidden
+treasure as the dark-eyed people of China might see
+stones on the bottom of streams.” “Foreigners were
+there to seek treasure or territory.” Even high
+officials, ’tis said, fed the flame with the hope that it
+would soon become so hot the “foreign devils” would
+flee.</p>
+
+<p>There were, however, few open acts of hostility during
+these days. Then suddenly, like a bolt from the
+blue, it came. It was the fifth of the fifth month feast.
+According to time-honored custom, the crowds assembled
+on the great east parade ground, scarce a stone’s
+throw from the Mission compound, for the throwing<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_82"></a>[82]</span>
+of plums. Vendors, their big baskets well filled with
+the fruit still green, had booths, or pushed through the
+people everywhere. Everyone bought, sowed his
+plums broadcast in the air, then scrambled with the
+rest, for, aside from the sport, the plums so obtained
+were said to ward off sickness, demons, disaster, and
+brought good luck for the year to come. As the day
+grew, masses of roughs and toughs, many from the
+yamen, some say, mingled with the thoughtless, and
+jammed and jostled together till the air was filled with
+the hum and hue of voices, and hearts and heads were
+half-hysterical for mischief and riot.</p>
+
+<p>Already as evening came, the crowd had overflowed
+past the gateway of the mission premises.</p>
+
+<p>“Here’s where the foreign devils live,” said one.</p>
+
+<p>“Let’s hurl a stone at the gate,” said another.</p>
+
+<p>“Who dares?”</p>
+
+<p>Soon one stone by stealth, then a volley, rattled
+against the big black doors. The gateman’s rebuke
+only made the ringleaders more bold. They fell back
+when the foreigner appeared; but were at his heels, a
+howling mob, when the gates again closed behind him.
+The rabble rushed to the point, restraint was thrown to
+the winds. A riot was on in earnest.</p>
+
+<p>Into the blackness of the night, two men, strangers,
+homeless in a strange, inhospitable land, fled with their
+heroic wives and hushed little ones. Then and for
+hours afterwards, as hiding from street to street they
+sought their way to our W.M.S. home, they heard afar
+the frenzied shouting, and saw the flames pierce high
+into the darkness as church, and hospital, and homes,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_83"></a>[83]</span>
+and goods, and gifts, and many a treasured heirloom
+from half round the world became fuel for the fires.
+Next day saw the mob’s return to its work of destruction
+till every building of every mission in the city,
+Protestant and Catholic alike, was in ruins, and the
+foreigners, irrespective of sex or creed, huddled
+together in a few low outer rooms of one of the official
+yamens.</p>
+
+<p>Such was Liu Tsi Chuin’s first introduction to the
+foreigner, for he was in the thick of the fray on the
+first night, and followed on next day as one by one the
+missionary families fled, and the buildings were looted
+and burned. It was a full decade before he came in
+touch with them again and then—how changed the
+circumstances!</p>
+
+<p>Liu Tsi Chuin was of good family. His name, Tsi
+Chuin, “Be princely,” would give a hint, at least, of
+his parents’ goodness of heart. His father was the
+trusted treasurer of a district magistrate not far from
+Chengtu. Alas, when Liu was but a child of three the
+father died. Shortly after, his little sister also died,
+and Liu and the little widowed mother were left alone.
+His father, however, had been a man of thrift, so that
+even after the exorbitant funeral ceremonies were
+over, enough was left to buy a neat little home on the
+Great Well Corner in the provincial capital, and even
+some over to be invested for interest. Little Liu was
+sent to school. He had friends of his father in official
+circles. That would mean influence in the days to
+come, and that position, promotion, power, so hope was
+high in the little household.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_84"></a>[84]</span></p>
+
+<p>At the age of thirteen a change came in Liu’s life. A
+relative, of whom there are ever plenty in Chinese
+families, had persuaded the little widow that mints of
+money might be made by embarking in business. After
+much persuasion, she yielded. Was not the interest
+small? And would not her boy need more as he grew
+older? And was she not ambitious for him? The
+sums loaned were called in, and the little home mortgaged.</p>
+
+<p>Soon a great double shop displayed a new and
+euphonious name. Big lanterns swung below the eaves.
+Long boards with letters of gold told of the virtues of
+the place, while within hams swung from the ceilings,
+various confections covered the counters and long
+strings of tobacco lined the shop front close by the
+street. For five years business went on briskly. By
+degrees, however, other relatives and friends attached
+themselves till “the money failed to fill the mouths,”
+and, in brief, business failed and had to be abandoned.
+Another venture was made in the then flourishing
+opium trade, but their capital was limited and larger
+firms outsold them.</p>
+
+<p>Liu was now a youth of twenty. With the little
+capital left he tried running a sox shop. Alas, in his
+last venture he had lost more than money. He had lost
+manhood as well. His countrymen have a proverb,
+“You can’t work in a dye shop and keep your clothes
+unstained.” Liu had himself fallen a victim to the
+opium he sold to others.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="illus8" style="max-width: 37.5em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus8.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p>The evangelist and his family.</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>The record of his ruin is the old story of China’s
+sorrow after that. Sucking his pipe, sleeping, sliding<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_85"></a>[85]</span>
+about stealthily from spot to spot, seeking relief from
+the fiend which haunted him by day and by night, he
+had little time for business, his thoughts were busy
+with baubles, trade fell off, goods disappeared, his last
+cash left him, and despair and destruction followed
+fast. It was during those days that he found himself
+one of the throng of thoughtless and rowdies, assembled
+for plum throwing. The sacking of the missions
+was but a new excitement with a possible gain to all,
+and what could it matter anyhow to frighten away a
+few foreigners whom nobody wanted? But that story
+we have told.</p>
+
+<p>Liu had married meantime. A little daughter had
+come to his home. Then later his wife died. He left
+the city and sought employment with his father’s
+former official friend. The latter gave him a small
+position as messenger. But official life is precarious.
+His benefactor lost his position, and Liu was once
+more down and out. He wandered back to the capital
+and to his child.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>No one visits Chengtu who does not find his way
+some time or many times, if he has the opportunity,
+to the Great East Street at night. By day it is filled
+with busy buyers at the great silk, tea and porcelain
+shops, but by night it is more animated still. When the
+great shops close their shutters at sundown, the curbstones
+are immediately pre-empted by swarms of junk
+dealers, curio sellers, vendors of fans, needles, chopsticks,
+pictures, rare old bronzes, ink slabs and vases.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_86"></a>[86]</span>
+Here, too, are diviners, fortune-tellers and fakirs. It is
+the bazaar of the capital, once seen not to be forgotten,
+with its twinkling candles stretching far away, its lines
+of squatting vendors, its hum of busy voices, its clattering,
+chattering, crowding thousands who throng the
+thoroughfare. There with his little store of stuff about
+him, Liu might be found each night. The day he
+spent picking up a few curios from house to house,
+when not too busy with his pipe.</p>
+
+<p>One day he rambled again along the street where in
+former days he, with the rabble, had wrought such ruin
+to the cause of missions. The church, a new and larger
+one since those days, stood open. Numbers of people
+were crowding in, so he, with an uncle and two friends,
+sons of his former official patron, joined the stream.
+They listened half curiously, half carelessly, to the
+prayers and singing, all so strange to them. Something
+in the sermon, however, brought Liu to attention. The
+speaker said that this God of love could so fill and
+thrill a man with His Spirit that even the passion for
+opium could no longer hold him. Could it be possible?</p>
+
+<p>Liu was no willing victim to the habit. He had tried
+all kinds of pills and strange concoctions guaranteed to
+cure, or recommended by friends. He had fought by
+his own will power till that became so weak he scarce
+struggled longer. But here was a new thought from
+the truth-telling foreigner, and a new hope. Perhaps
+this foreign God could help. So at invitation he, with
+his companions, waited for the after meeting, where
+all are welcomed who have questions or seek further
+light.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_87"></a>[87]</span></p>
+
+<p>He became even more interested and came again and
+again, bringing his friends with him. Then the
+ancestral tablet fell down in the official home one night.
+The two sons took it as a sign that their ancestors were
+angry with their worship of the foreign God, so they
+came no more. A month later a storm burst over the
+city. The thunder, a somewhat rare thing on the
+Chengtu plain, so frightened the uncle that he, too,
+never returned to the church.</p>
+
+<p>But Liu was not to be balked in his search. He met
+others among the members who had been helped by the
+foreign pastors and doctors, and he was determined
+to be free. The rest of the story is readily told. It
+is the story of an ever-increasing number of New
+China’s sons. Foreign medicine, earnest counsel from
+his pastor, daily reading of the Word which is Spirit
+and which is Life, prayer and service and the inflooding
+of the Spirit of God brought a new power and
+peace to a life which for long had struggled and
+suffered, and been all but slain through sin.</p>
+
+<p>With health and hope and freedom came also a great
+longing that others might know the glad Gospel message.
+He took to selling books up and down the very
+streets where men knew him best. As he went he told
+his story in shops, at corners and in the homes of
+friends. Seeing his sincerity and ability, our mission
+soon sent him farther afield, till he traversed much of
+the northern district. Then he served for a time faithfully
+and effectively in Kiating and Chin Ien. He has
+now been a year at college as a probationer. His little
+daughter is a promising pupil in our girls’ school. He<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_88"></a>[88]</span>
+himself married recently a beautiful young woman,
+rescued and reared by our Chengtu orphanage, and
+they to-day are together laboring earnestly for the
+coming of His Kingdom. Thus Liu Tsi Chuin is
+realizing in a way his father never dreamed the hope
+of the “Princely man,” for the greater Father had
+need of him.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_89"></a>[89]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="Where_Do_You_Live">Where Do You Live?</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">I knew a man, and his name was Horner,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Who used to live on Grumble Corner—</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Grumble Corner, in Crosspatch Town;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And he never was seen without a frown;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">He grumbled at this, he grumbled at that;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">He growled at the dog, he growled at the cat;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">He grumbled at morning, he grumbled at night,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And to grumble and growl were his chief delight.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">He grumbled so much at his wife that she</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Began to grumble as well as he;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And all the children, wherever they went,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Reflected their parents’ discontent.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">If the sky was dark and betokened rain,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Then Mr. Horner was sure to complain;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And, if there was never a cloud about,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">He’d grumble because of a threatened drought.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">His meals were never to suit his taste;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">He grumbled at having to eat in haste;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The bread was poor, or the meat was tough,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Or else he hadn’t had half enough.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_90"></a>[90]</span>
+    <div class="verse indent0">No matter how hard his wife might try</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">To please her husband, with scornful eye</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">He’d look around, and then, with a scowl</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">At something or other, begin to growl.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">One day, as I loitered along the street,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">My old acquaintance I chanced to meet,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Whose face was without the look of care</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And the ugly frown that it used to wear.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">“I may be mistaken, perhaps,” I said,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">As, after saluting, I turned my head;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">“But it is, and it isn’t, the Mr. Horner,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Who lived for so long on Grumble Corner.”</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">I met him next day, and I met him again,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">In melting weather and pouring rain,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">When stocks were up, and when stocks were down;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">But a smile somehow had replaced the frown.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">It puzzled me much; and so one day</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">I seized his hand in a friendly way,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And said: “Mr. Horner, I’d like to know</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">What can have happened to change you so!”</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">He laughed a laugh that was good to hear,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">For it told of a conscience calm and clear,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And he said, with none of the old-time drawl,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">“Why, I’ve changed my residence, that is all!”</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">“Changed your residence?” “Yes,” said Horner,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">“It wasn’t healthy on Grumble Corner,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And so I moved—’twas a change complete—</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And you’ll find me now on Thanksgiving Street!”</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_91"></a>[91]</span>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Now, every day, as I move along</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The streets so filled with the busy throng,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">I watch each face, and can always tell</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Where men and women and children dwell;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And many a discontented mourner</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Is spending his days on Grumble Corner,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Sour and sad, whom I long to entreat</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">To take a house on Thanksgiving Street.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">—<i>Josephine Pollard.</i></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_92"></a>[92]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="A_Bible_for_a_Pistol">A Bible for a Pistol</h2>
+
+<p class="center">A True Story</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>“See, mother, see what I have brought you!” exclaimed
+a young Brazilian, holding up to view a well-bound,
+gilt-edged book. “Antonio Marques told me
+that the priest ordered him to burn it, but he did
+not like to destroy so good a book, and was afraid to
+displease the priest by keeping it, so I offered to trade
+my old double-barreled pistol for it. I thought you
+might like to have the book, for they say it is all about
+religion, and you are so religious. It might be of
+some use when you go to repeat your prayers for
+people who are dying.”</p>
+
+<p>The mother took the book from her son’s hands,
+and slowly reading the title, “A Santa Biblia,” said:
+“Ah! this is good; this is the ‘Rule of Life,’ I am glad
+to have it.” Then beginning at the first of Genesis,
+she glanced over several chapters until she reached the
+tenth. “Yes, you are right, my son; here is just the
+kind of prayer I want. Here is a long list of names,
+and as they are all in the Bible, they must all be of
+saints, and some of them will surely help the poor
+creatures.”</p>
+
+<p>The youth frequently found his mother with the
+book before her when he came in from his work, and
+had he taken the trouble to look over her shoulder he<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_93"></a>[93]</span>
+would have found her always reading the tenth chapter
+of Genesis.</p>
+
+<p>The woman, who had the fame of knowing by heart
+a great many prayers, was often sent for to go even
+long distances to repeat them for the hope and comfort
+of the dying; and she was faithfully trying to master
+the long names, so as to say them off glibly to serve
+as a prayer.</p>
+
+<p>One day, as they sat taking their noon-day coffee, a
+messenger came from a neighboring plantation,
+begging her to go at once to see a young girl who was
+very ill. With book in hand, she set out, and arriving
+at the house a sad, though to her not unusual, sight
+met her eyes. A girl of about fifteen lay upon the bed,
+her beautiful black eyes looking strangely bright in
+contrast with the pale features. The parents and
+sisters, instead of caring for her, were wringing their
+hands and wildly crying out, “She is dying! She is
+dying!” The sick girl feebly stretched out a wasted
+hand, gasping: “They say that I am dying; teach me
+quickly how to die; tell me, what must I do?” The
+old woman gently took her hand and in a soothing
+voice said: “Don’t be nervous, dear; if you will repeat
+after me the Pater Noster, the Ave Maria, the prayer
+to St. Joseph and the rest, and then a new prayer that
+I have learned from this good book, you need not be
+afraid.”</p>
+
+<p>A sight never to be forgotten by one who knows that
+there is but the one “name under heaven, given among
+men whereby we must be saved,” was this death-bed
+scene. The old woman, in clear tones, rapidly repeated<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_94"></a>[94]</span>
+among other things, “Shem, Ham, Japheth, Gomer,
+Magog, Madai, Javan,” and so on through the long
+list. The dying girl vainly tried to follow her as her
+voice grew fainter and fainter, for she was, with all
+her failing strength, clinging to this false hope as she
+passed out into eternity.</p>
+
+<p>Some years later, the young man who had gotten the
+Bible in such a curious way, married and left the old
+house to live at the wife’s homestead. One evening,
+as the old father sat in his usual place reading, the
+husband said: “Anninha, what is that book your father
+is always reading?”</p>
+
+<p>“That,” she replied, “is the Bible. He often tells
+me about what he reads, and it is very interesting.
+I wish I could read it for myself; but it is a French
+book, and I can read only Portuguese.”</p>
+
+<p>“If it is called the ‘Holy Bible,’” said he, “then
+my mother has it in Portuguese, for I gave it to her
+long ago. I never read it myself, but she used to learn
+things out of it for prayers. They never sounded very
+interesting to me.”</p>
+
+<p>“Could you get it for me, Jose?” she asked.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes; I will go over and ask mother for it to-morrow,”
+promised he.</p>
+
+<p>When the wife got the Bible, she carried it to her
+father, who was much pleased to find this favorite
+book in his native tongue, and, opening it at the New
+Testament, he began to read aloud. The young couple
+listened and soon grew so interested that they begged
+him to go on, till they kept him reading late into the
+night. Deeply touched by the “old, old story of Jesus<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_95"></a>[95]</span>
+and His love,” they began to read for themselves.
+Soon they learned that pardon and peace had already
+been purchased for them, and that what God required
+of them was not penances and a bondage to fear
+through life, and masses and the agonies of purgatory
+after death, but child-like faith and loving obedience—that
+godliness which gives promise of the life that
+now is, and that which is to come.</p>
+
+<p>The son’s first wish was to have his mother learn
+the good news, so he carried back the Bible, saying:
+“Why, mother, you never got the best out of this
+book! You only looked for something to die by, and it
+is full of good words to live by as well. Let me read
+you some.”</p>
+
+<p>“No, my son,” responded she, “I got what I wanted
+out of the book, and that is enough for me. I do not
+care to look for more.”</p>
+
+<p>“But, mother,” pleaded he, “you would be so much
+happier if you knew the true way to live and to die.”</p>
+
+<p>“Hush, Jose,” said the mother, indignantly. “Do
+you dare to hint that I, who have taught so many how
+to die, do not know how myself? Let me alone, and
+do not trouble me any more about the book.”</p>
+
+<p>The man went back to his wife troubled and disappointed.
+The more they studied the book, however,
+the better they understood that it was God’s Spirit who
+had opened their eyes, and to Him they must look to
+perform the same miracle upon their mother, that
+blind one leading the blind, and for this they are still
+daily watching and praying.—<i>Selected.</i></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_96"></a>[96]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="The_Giving_Alphabet">The Giving Alphabet</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="hanging">
+
+<p>All things come of thee, and of thine own have we
+given thee.—1 Chron. xxix. 14.</p>
+
+<p>Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there
+may be meat in mine house, and prove me now
+herewith, saith the Lord of Hosts, if I will not
+open you the windows of heaven, and pour you
+out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough
+to receive it.—Mal. iii. 10.</p>
+
+<p>Charge them that are rich in this world ... that they
+do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to
+distribute, willing to communicate.—1 Tim. vi.
+17, 18.</p>
+
+<p>Do good unto all men, especially unto them who are
+of the household of faith.—Gal. vi. 10.</p>
+
+<p>Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so
+let him give, not grudgingly or of necessity.—2
+Cor. ix. 7.</p>
+
+<p>Freely ye have received, freely give.—Matt. x. 8.</p>
+
+<p>God loveth a cheerful giver.—2 Cor. ix. 7.</p>
+
+<p>Honor the Lord with thy substance and with the first
+fruits of all thine increase.—Prov. iii. 12.</p>
+
+<p>If there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according
+to that a man hath, and not according to that he
+hath not.—2 Cor. viii. 12.</p>
+
+<p>Jesus said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.—Acts
+xx. 35.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_97"></a>[97]</span></p>
+
+<p>Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth,
+the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he
+be bond or free.—Eph. vi. 8.</p>
+
+<p>Lay not up for yourselves treasure upon earth, where
+moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves
+break through and steal; but lay up for yourselves
+treasure in heaven, where neither moth nor
+rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break
+through nor steal.—Matt. vi. 19, 20.</p>
+
+<p>My little children, let us not love in word, neither in
+tongue, but in deed and in truth.—1 John iii. 18.</p>
+
+<p>Now concerning the collection for the saints ... upon
+the first day of the week let every one of you lay
+by him in store as God hath prospered him.—1
+Cor. xvi. 1, 2.</p>
+
+<p>Of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the
+tenth unto thee.—Gen. xxviii. 22.</p>
+
+<p>Provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure
+in the heavens which faileth not, where no thief
+approacheth, neither moth corrupteth.—Luke xii.
+33.</p>
+
+<p>Quench not the Spirit.—1 Thess. v. 19.</p>
+
+<p>Render unto God the things that are God’s.—Matt.
+xxii. 21.</p>
+
+<p>See that ye abound in this grace also.—2 Cor. viii. 7.</p>
+
+<p>The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the Lord
+of Hosts.—Hag. ii. 8.</p>
+
+<p>Unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much
+required.—Luke xii. 48.</p>
+
+<p>Vow and pay unto the Lord your God.—Ps. lxxvi. 11.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_98"></a>[98]</span></p>
+
+<p>Whoso hath this world’s goods, and seeth his brother
+have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion
+from him, how dwelleth the love of God
+in him?—1 John iii. 17.</p>
+
+<p>’Xcept your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness
+of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no
+case enter into the kingdom of heaven.—Matt. v.
+20.</p>
+
+<p>Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that
+though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became
+poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.—2
+Cor. viii. 9.</p>
+
+<p>Zealous of good works.—Titus ii. 15.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75460 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
+
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+
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+
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #75460 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75460)