The story of the China Inland Mission

Prefatory Note

nr^WELVE months ago, when the first volume of -*- this book made its appearance, it was intended that the second should quickly follow. Serious illness and slow convalescence, by which I was for a long time disabled, have prevented this. And sincere thanks are due to many who have patiently waited throughout the year until the work could be completed. Now, upon the eve of my return to China, it is sent forth with the prayerful and earnest hope that God, Who from the lips of babes can perfect praise, will use it to His own glory.

The story of such a Mission — as of every movement that is of Him — is a story without an end. So much has been omitted from this book, in order to bring it within necessary limitations, that to those who read between the lines it will seem sadly incomplete. In regretting many an omission, they have the author's fullest sympathy.

When a large number of facts and dates are dealt with, it is difficult to attain perfect accurary. Cor-

PREFATORY NOTE.

rections and suggestions will be thankfully welcomed and much appreciated.

One pleasant duty remains in connection with the loved task now laid down. No small part of the blessing that has come to me personally through this book has been due to the generous sympathy and invaluable aid of many a fellow-worker. Amongst these, none has been more helpful thari my own beloved sister — the Editor of Regions Beyond — who has given weeks of ungrudging toil to this volume, and whose able and practised pen has not a little brightened and enriched its pages.

Knowing all, the Master says — " Inasmuch as y« have done it unto one of the least of these . ye have done it unto Me."

CONTENTS OF VOLUME II.

Chap. I-age

I. Twenty Years Ago 3

II. Early Days in Cheh-kiang .... 15

III. The Chicago of China ; or, Founding the

Western Branch of the C. I. M. . . . 37

IV. Stories from Shao-hing 47

V. A Confucianist City : its Customs and Converts 60

VI. " The Lame take the Prey " . . . -75

VII. Pioneers in Gan-'hwuy and Kiang-si . . .90

VIII. Facts about Funds 97

IX. The Lowest Ebb, and the Turn of the Tide . 109

Part II. Inland China And The Cheeoo Contention

X. Inland" China closed, and yet the Eighteen

given 125

XI. The Gates of the West, and the Workers

who might not enter ... 136

XII. The Chefoo Convention, 1876 . . 149

Part III. >oh, Rock, Rock, Hast Thou Opened?" Chap

PAGE

XIII. "SouthoftheRiver,"and"SouthoftheLake" 159 Mr. Henry Taylor's itinerations in Ho-nan, and Mr. Judd's first visit to Hu-nan, 1875 and 1876.

XIV. A Two Months' Trip to Shen-si . . .17+ Journey of Messrs. Bailer and King. September and October, 1876.

XV. C. I. M. Pioneers in Shan-si . . . .180 First journey of Messrs. James and Turner, October, 1876, to January, 1877.

XVI. To THE Far North- West and Back. . .186 Messrs. King and Budd, Easton and Parker, in Shen-si and Kan-suh, October, 1876, to April, 1877.

XVII. How Kwei-chau and Kwang-si were first

Pioneering journey of Messrs. Judd and Broumton to Kwei-chau. Reinforcements — Messrs. George Clarke, Edward Fishe, and Landale, January to September, 1877.

XVIII. Mr. McCarthy's Walk across China . . 206 January to August, 1877.

XIX. Through the Famine in Shan-si . . . 225 Relief work 1877-1879.

XX. Among Eternal Snows 240

Mr. James Cameron's journey through Eastern Thibet. August, 1877, to January, 1878.

XXI. Thirty Thousand Miles in Safety . . . 265 Widespread evangelisation that followed the Chefoo Convention. i876-l878.'

CONTENTS. ix

Part IV. Woman's Work For Woman

CHAP. PAGE

XXII. China's Homes and China's Women . 277

XXIII. Then and Now; A Retrospect and Survey 291

XXIV. The First Women who went West, 1878 . 299

IXXV. A Five Years' Story, 1878-1883 . . .311

XXVI. Present-Day Pictures ; and Facts for the

Thoughtful 354

Part V. Recent Developments

XXVII. The Story of the Seventy, 188 i -1884 XXVIII. Dr. Schofield and Medical Missions XXIX. The Cambridge Band and Shan-si. XXX. The Coming of the Hundred, 1887 XXXI. Our Last Six Years XXXII. " Much more than This "

■ 395 • 417 . 438

■ 465 . 484 . 502

LIST OF IL]:.USTRATION.S.

PAGE

Scene' in a busy Street . . 20

Rest Pavilion on a Hill . . 34

Photograph of Mr. and Mrs, Judd . 44

Buddhist Devotees . ' . , . . 54

Gospel Tract, with. Large Character for Happiness . . 70

A Chinese Junk, full Sail .... ... 84

French Settlement, Shang-hai . 100

Photograph of Miss Blatchley ' .113'

Cover of Occasional Papevs . . ," .124

His Excellency Li Hung-Ch'ang . ,. .150

The City of Yoh-chau . . . . 172

Scene- on the Upper Han ■ . . ' • '77

Bridge over a Chinese Streanr .' ' . ■ I82

A River Scene in China . . . 154

Scene on the Yang-tsi . . 210

A Village in Si-ch'uen . . . 212

Mr. James Cameron, in travelling Dress . 244

A Si-chu'en Junk ... . . 320

One of the Yang-tsi Gorges . , 323

Temple at Ta-li Fu . . . 337

The Mission House at Ta-li Fu . . . 343

Station, Ho-k'eo, Kiang-si . 377

Chinese Dinner, in the Mission House at Yuh-Shan . 383

The Bluff, near Chefoo . . . . . 300

A Village in Siian-si ... . . . 425

The Cambridge Band ... . . 440

LIST OF MAPS AND DIAGRAMS.

PAGE

A Country Road in China . ... 459

The China Council of the C. 1. W . . 473

Portraits of the Hundred . 482

LIST OF MAPS AND DIAGRAMS.

Map of China, Showing the Nine Unevangelised Provinces in

Black .....

Sketch-map of Gan-hwuy and Kiakg-si . 91

Sketch-map of Burmah .... . . 127

Black Map Showing Itinerations of C. I. M. Missionaries . . 266

Sketch-map Showing the Kwang-sin River . . , 364

Diagram of the Eleven Inland Provinces . 404

Sketch-map of Shan-si .... . 456

Black Map Showing principal Stations of all Protestent Missions

Diagram of the Population of China . . 508

Large Folding Map of China . . At the end

PJiOGRESS AND THE REGIONS BEYOND.

VOL. n.

" Take your Bible, and carefully count, not the chapters or verses, but the letters from the beginning of Genesis to the ' Amen ' of the Revelation ; and when you have accomplished the task, go over it again and again and again — ten times, tvsfenty times, forty times — nay, you must read the very letters of your Bible eighty times over before you have reached the requisite sum. It would take something like the letters of eighty Bibles to represent the men, women, and children of that old and wondrous Empire of China. Fourteen hundred of them have sunk into Christless graves during the last hour; thirty-three thousand will pass to-day for ever beyond your reach. Dispatch your missionary to-morrow, and one million and a quarter of immortal souls, for whom Christ died, will have passed to their final account before he can reach their shores. Whether such facts touch us or not, I think they ought to move our hearts. It is enough to make an angel weep." — Rev. Silvester Whitehead.

Chapter I. Twenty Years Ago

WE stand upon the threshold of 1873 — a second stage of our journey lying before us. Seven years have elapsed since the good ship Lainmennuir launched the first party of the newly formed Inland Mission upon its untried way. Theirs was a venture of faith, but, as we have seen, faith that was justified and rewarded. And now that pioneer band has grown into a company of more than thirty men and women settled in no fewer than sixteen Chinese cities, of which twelve before their coming had been utterly unreached by the Gospel.

They are richer in experience, these workers, than they were ; richer in knowledge of GOD, in patience, and in hope. Their tears have fallen over distant graves, and their hearts have, been disciplined by many a difficulty and sorrow. But it has been theirs, too, to rejoice over blessing given, and an entrance won for Christ into many darkened lives.

After an absence from China of just a yeai-, Mr. and Mrs. Hudson Taylor are once again upon their outward way. The Council recently formed at home

THE CHINA INLAND MISSION.

is thus left in full charge of its new responsibilities, evidently no sinecure ; for all the funds Mr. Taylor was able to hand over to them upon his departure amounted to the modest sum of ;£^2i 2s. 8d.

And now, while the outgoing party are steadily traversing tropical seas to the land of their longing, let us imagine ourselves raised to some lofty eminence, far in the heart of China, from which we may take a bird's-eye view of the position of that great country and people in relation to the important questions with which we shall have to deal in following out the story of -the next twenty years.

Twelve years have already elapsed since the Treaty of Fekin, closing a disastrous campaign, forced China into regular diplomatic relations with the outside world.* Before that time foreigners were only allowed a footing at the five ports opened in 1842, and China still held aloof from the great family of nations. But when, in i860, the Treaty of Pekin • stipulated for the residence of European and American ambassadors at her Imperial court on terms of fullest equality, the dawn of a new era had begun.

From that time this million-peopled Empire was destined to be drawn into ever closer contact with professedly Christian powers. How important for her, and for them, the far-reaching consequences, for good or ill ! These we do not purpose to trace.

TWENTY YEARS AGO.

Indeed, it still remains a problem what the future is to be of China's intercourse with other lands. Given a fair chance, freed from the opium-curse and enlightened by the Gospel, what is there to which her intelligent, hardworking, skilful peoples might not attain ? But, for the present, facts of the past are our province, not future possibilities.

On the threshold of 1873 twelve years of this new relationship were already gone. What had been their story, politically, and from a missionary point of view?

When the allied forces retired from Pekin after the campaign of i860, leaving China with her military routed, her defences taken, her resources crippled, and the pride and flower of her army lying dead in heaps around her abandoned forts ; with the Emperor, Hien-fung, a fugitive from the capital, and his magnificent summer palace a pile of blackened ruins, the outlook was dark indeed for the bewildered statesman who had to assume the reins of government.

Hien-fung, a weak and unfortunate monarch, could do nothing to meet the emergency. He never returned to the capital ; and within a year he died, leaving his distracted country to his little six-yearold son, and the regency of his brother Prince Kung, and the Dowager Empresses. His reign had been a failure. Lacking the strength and decision of his father, Tao-kwang, he had succeeded to the throne in turbulent times. Never had the Empire needed a

THE CHINA INLAND MISSION.

firm hand more. Rarely had the reins been held so slackly. But in Prince Kung, now thirty years of age, the people found a ruler as marked for force of character and ability as his Imperial brother had been for incapacity.

" Appearing when the capital was surrendered to the allies, he bore the brunt of that unpleasant task, signing the treaties, and undertook almost alone the management of affairs with foreigners, while the Government was recovering from its paralysis of defeat." *

By a shrewd coup d'etat he succeeded in extinguishing a powerful conspiracy of the ministerial war-party, and enthroning the young prince " Happy Omen." And four years later, in 1865, his steady rule, with the help of the " Ever Victorious Force," under the noble leadership of Lieutenant-Colonel Gordon, had quelled the T'ai-p'ing rebellion. Such ability was the supreme need of China at that hour. With it she quickly recovered balance, and was able to cope successfully with the wide-spread Mohammedan rebellion in the west, thus ending, in 1873, the internal upheavals of the country.

The remarkable vitality and resources of the nation were never more noticeable than in this serious crisis. " To the ordinary outlays of the Empire," writes Dr. Wells Williams, " were superadded the immense burdens of a foreign invasion just concluded,

* The Middle Kingdom, Dr. Wells Williams, vol. ii., p. 691.

TWENTY YEARS AGO.

and a terrible struggle with domestic enemies ; yet neither the Regent nor his colleagues appear during this period of stress to have lost a particle of their confidence in the loyalty of the people. Through loss or gain, failure of material or resource, treachery in palace or camp, abuseor assistance from foreigners, this faith in one another failed not. The face of China in 1865 was perhaps as wretched as that of Central Europe after the peace of Westphalia ; indeed, a more general desolation could hardly be imagined. Nevertheless the rapidity with which its inhabitants not only resumed their occupations as best they could, but rebuilt dwellings and re-organised trade, startled even their habitual disparagers into praise, and testified to the marvellous recuperative powers of this much-despised civilisation."

In February 1873 the young Emperor Tung-ch'f came of age, and assumed the government ; and the spring of that year saw " the last struggle of Chinese seclusion to resist the incoming wave of western power." This battle was fought out in the social sphere. March, April, May, and June at Pekin were filled with a weary series of ministerial and Imperial conferences, correspondences, and delays, a propos of the time immemorial Koh-t'eo to the Emperor. Chinese ceremonial requires that the latter, as the representative of Divine power, be honoured with the same prostration as that paid to the gods. Ceremonies performed in his presence are not mere etiquette, to be altered according to circumstances, but partake

THE CHINA INLAND MISSION.

of a religious character ; and to omit the supreme obeisance of the Koh-feo, the climax of laudation and worship, — kneeling and knocking the head three times on the ground, and rising and kneeling again to repeat the action thrice over, is equivalent in Chinese thought to the rejection of the joint authority of the Emperor and of Heaven. Of course no European minister would condescend to the Koh-feo, and no European minister, consequently, had ever been received by Chinese royalty. The accession audience question was worn threadbare as the months went by, the Imperial ministers putting off the, inevitable with endless arguments and excuses, the foreign embassies urging and demanding a proper settlement at the earliest possible date. Prince Kung and his colleagues took a month to discuss the dilemma among themselves. Signs of yielding were apparent, and issued in an April Legation-interview. The old ground was gone over, further notes and protocols were exchanged in May, and at last, on June 29th, the embarrassments found their finale when the Emperor received the Japanese ambassador by himself, and immediately afterwards the five ministers of Russia, the United States, Great Britain, France, and Holland, accompanied only by the German Secretary, who acted as interpreter.

The scene was deeply significant.

"Against what tremendous odds of superstition and national prejudice the officials were pitted in this curious contest, those who have never lived in

TWENTY YEARS AGO.

the Empire can hardly appreciate."* But new influences were at work, rapidly breaking down the old ideas and safeguards, and that June day, when the boy-monarch — only sixteen at his marriage, and seventeen at his accession f — acknowledged the equality and independence of foreign nations, probably as great an advance had been made in the opening of China as this century has seen.

Such, in brief, were the main political events of the twelve years under review. From a missionary standpoint this period had been fully as critical and important.

At the time of the Treaty of Pekin missionary efforts, although fruitful and increasing, were still rigidly confined to the five centres in which foreigners were allowed to reside. But, in i860, not only were seven other cities constituted free ports, along the coast and up the Yang-tsi, the capital itself was also rendered accessible to the representatives of other lands. Twenty Protestant Societies, with a staff of about one hundred missionaries, including ladies, were then in the field, and all these new centres were speedily occupied. But the China Inland Mission was as yet unborn.

Twelve years later, at the time of the commencement of this volume, twenty-eight societies were repre-

* The Middle Kingdom, vol. ii., p. 715.

t Two years later Tung-chi died heirless, and his cousin, the present Emperor Kwang-su, then a child of four, succeeded under the same regency.

lo THE CHINA INLAND MISSION.

sented in China, occupying no less than thirty stations, with a staff of about two hundred and forty workers, including the C. I. M. Several mission presses were at work, widely scattering Christian literature ; eight thousand native converts were already gathered in the little churches ; mission hospitals and schools were busy at the open ports ; and a Mandarin version of the Bible, the sixth translation made within the century, was nearing completion. These years had witnessed great advance.

But still, far, far beyond the reach of all existing agencies, lay the vast interior, in hopeless heathen darkness — eleven great inland provinces, almost untouched by the Gospel. Several noble pioneering journeys had been made by missionaries of various societies, an outline of whose itinerations is subjoined,* but in nine, at any rate, of those vast provinces, no one had ever attempted to settle among the people or commence permanent work.

The China Inland Mission, founded in 1865, was now seven years old. The story of its inauguration

* The most remarkable of these journeys were, as follows : —

1864. — Dr. Williamson, to Eastern Mongolia. 1865. — Mr. Bagley, "to remote provinces." 1866. — Dr. Williamson and Mr. Lees to Shen-si, through Shan-si, returning via Ho-nan.

1867.— Mr. Johnson of B.S. to Ho-nan. 1868.— Mr. Wylie, and Dr. John, L.M.S., to Si-ch'uen. 1868. — Mr. Oxenhara, from Pekin to Hankow, through Ho-nan. 1870-72. — Mr. MoUman of B.S. in Shan -si.

TWENTY YEARS AGO.

and development up to this point, has been fully told in our first volume, and need only be alluded to here. After a brief absence in England Mr. and Mrs. Hudson Taylor were again upon their way to China, hoping to spend Christmas at Hang-chau. Early in December 1872 they reached their destination, and made their way once more to the old home on the Sin-k'ai Lung. Many changes had taken place since that very time six years before, when the first party of the Inland Mission arrived, homeless, in that great city, to find out the place the LORD had provided for them. Now the beloved Director and his wife were greeted by familiar faces, in scenes endeared to them by many memories, and were received at once into the midst of the well-loved little church that had been gathered by God's blessing on their labours.

" It has been very pleasant," wrote Mr. Hudson Taylor, " to meet the native Christians here again. Tsiu Sien-seng is in Hang-chau just now, helping in the boys' school. We were talking the other day of the time when we first met in Ningpo, more than fifteen years ago, before Mr. Jones and myself had been cheered by our first baptism ; and recalling the way by which the Lord has led us ever since, causing times of discouragement and adversity, to be followed by further developments of His gracious purposes, as winter is followed by spring. Together we remembered the gratitude with which we met, at the end of 1858, a little church of six native Christians beside ourselves ; four of whom are still serving the Lord, while one has fallen asleep in Jesus, and one, alas ! has gone back into the world. And looking round upon the stations and out-stations now

THE CHINA INLAND MISSION.

scattered over four provinces, and the helpers and native Christians engaged in this service, we were cheered and encouraged to hope still in God, and look for greater things than these. . . .

"The work here and in the out-stations is quietly but steadily progressing, and some of the helpers are manifestly ■ growing in grace and efficiency. . . . The assistants from Hang-chau are so widely spread — some of them being three or four hundred miles apart — that it has become needful to adopt the plan of preparing a monthly news-letter, in the Romanised Ningpo dialect, giving accounts of the work, extracts from the correspondence of the native brethren, etc., in order that all may be informed of the proceedings of the church. A copy of this news-letter is sent to each station, and thus the brethren share each other's joys and trials, and the interests of each become the interest of all. Extracts are read also at meetings held in the various places, leading to more intelligent and sustained mutual prayer."

Prayer ? Yes, for prayer was needed !

What was a total staff of two or three hundred workers of all societies among two to three hundred million heathen souls? Foreign arms and treaties had forced open the gates of the Empire of the East, and at a few scattered coast-towns and half-a-dozen points slightly inland, a handful of men and women were heralding the news of the redemption of the world, around them teeming thousands of densely ignorant and superstitious idolaters, thronging the crowded cities and thickly populated land. And beyond them? Beyond them lay in blank and absolute darkness the millions of the vast interior

MAP SHOWING THE NINE UNEVANGELISED PROVINCES IN BLACK.

among whom not a single Protestant worker had ever Hvcd and laboured to spread the Glad Tidings.

Oh, the unentered fields — the vast, unevangelised provinces of Inland China !

Oh, the cold hearts of Christendom, content to

H THE CHINA INLAND MISSION.

celebrate their Christmas, and leave these innumerable souls in misery and sin !

On their knees, while half across the world the merry bells of Christmas rang out the Old Year and ushered in the New, should not that little band of workers in the Sin-k'ai Lung cry out to GOD for these ?

Chapter II. Early Days In Cheh-kiang

HALFWAY down the long coast-line of China, bathed for over four thousand miles by the broad Pacific, lies the lovely province of Cheh- KIANG, birthplace and cradle of the China Inland Mission. Smallest among all the provinces of the, empire, Cheh-KIANG is at the same time one of the most important. Populous, fertile, and healthy, rich in produce and manufactures, the energy and industry of its inhabitants are justly famed. Larger than the whole of Ireland, or Scotland and Wales put together, its great cities, densely peopled plains, and endless waterways teem with human life, and have long offered a wide field to missions. Here in the city of Ningpo, twelve miles from the sea, the first station of the Inland Mission was planted ; and here, at Hang-chau, in the winter of 1866, the Lammermuir party found a home.

Politically, Cheh-KIANG is divided into eleven departments, each with its own capital ; and these are subdivided into seventy-four counties, represented by as many district cities, and scores of lesser towns.

Before the commencement of the Inland Mission members of other Societies had long been labouring in Ningpo, and recently a footing had been gained in Hang-chau also, but the remainder of the province was unoccupied. Nine of the capital cities, and over seventy others — with populations varying from five to fifty thousand — were still without any missionary, not to mention all the rural districts that surrounded them.

Imagine Scotland and Wales, side by side, peopled with considerably more than double their present inhabitants, plunged into the depths of heathen darkness, with just one mission station for each, and, beyond that, no other light-centre among all their teeming millions !

Surrounded on all hands by conditions such as these, it was not long before the little band of workers in the Inland Mission began to think of extension. Ningpo and Hang-chau soon became a basis for wider operations, and in 1866-67 five of the remaining cities were added to the sphere of the Mission.

Before passing on to the larger developments of succeeding years, our attention is claimed by these first stations. Fung-hwa, Shao-hing, T'ai-chau, and Wun-chau are names that mean little outside China, but to us of the Inland Mission how much ! Pioneering effort, amid dense heathen darkness, here and there a spark of light kindled amid the gloom, then long and patient toil crowned at last by rising day, as hearts were one by one "illuminated."* In thought we see those simple men and women, hundreds of them, once " having no hope, and without GOD, in the world," but now rejoicing in the Light of Life. Is it not worth while pausing to ask how rose on them the Sun of Righteousness ?

Day Dawn in T'ai-chau.

Southward from Ningpo stretches a rugged coast-line, broken by multitudinous creeks, bays, rocky headlands, and lovely islands. Inland the country is equally mountainous and beautiful ; and a journey of about a hundred miles brings the traveller to the city of T'ai-chau, capital of a prefecture containing more than a million inhabitants.

In the summer of 1867 this prosperous and beautiful city was first visited with the Gospel by Messrs. Meadows and Jackson. They were followed by Mr. and Mrs. Rudland, who found there, in 1870, a promising little native church of six or seven members, besides several genuine inquirers. One of the native assistants, Tsiang Ah-liang, became specially helpful to them in the work, having the preaching of the Gospel deeply at heart.

His past had been a dark one. A wild and reckless life, bad enough when wholly heathen, had been sdll further vidated when, on board a French man-of-war, he added to his own evil ways a knowledge of the wickedness of foreigners, and learned to blaspheme God in the language spoken around him. Want of work led him to apply to Mrs. Hudson Taylor at Hang-chau for a situation, and he was engaged to do washing.

The foreigners amongst whom he now found himself

* Heb. X. 32.

VOL. II. 2 were strangely different from any he had met before, and for a while Ah-liang was sorely puzzled. They wore Chinese garments, ate with chop-sticks, and lived on Chinese food. Moreover, they had a curiously persistent way of talking to every one about certain unheard-of religious beliefs, that seemed to afford them much satisfaction and peace of mind. One of the household, for example, a tall Scotchman, having discovered that Ah-liang could read the Romanised colloquial, would frequently spend hours beside him at the washing-tub or ironing-table reading aloud the foreign sacred books, trying to make -himself understood in the language still so strange to his unaccustomed lips, and getting the busy washerman to correct his many blunders. So persistent was he in these efforts that Ah-liang, who had been inclined to laugh at it all as a good joke, began seriously to ask himself —

" Is there not something real in convictions that impel a man like this Duncan to such earnest efforts on our behalf? One can plainly see that his only object in learning Chinese is to preach these strange doctrines."

The man was impressed ; but not converted.

Amongst the large family at Sin-k'ai Lung was a Swiss lady who, at times, was not a little startled to hear a voice swearing roundly in her own tongue. Ah-liang thought that no one understood his vehement speech ; but it was his turn to be surprised when one day, having discovered the offender. Miss Desgraz reproved him for the use of expressions that could not be allowed in the Mission home.

" There must be foreigners and foreigners ! " was his mental comment. "These people are certainly different from any I have met before ! "

By degrees, as the Spirit of God wrought in his soul, Ah-liang began to listen more attentively at morning and evening prayers and in the various meetings. A change became noticeable in his life and character. And at last the

EARLY DAYS IN CHEH-KIANG.

once swearing washerman confessed himself a follower of Christ. He was baptised, and a consistent walk during the remaining years of his life testified to the reality of his change of heart.

Very soon after his own conversion Ah-liang began to long for the salvation of his younger brother, and persuaded him to come up to Hang-chau on the plea of obtaining employment in the Mission press. The young man left the old home in the country with the strongest protestations to his family and friends that he would never do as his brother had done — cast off the worship of his ancestors, and the gods of his native land. But ere long the Spirit of the one true God took possession of his heart also, and Liang-iong became lost to the circle of his indignant clan, but was found in the fold of the Good Shepherd. Both brothers proved earnest Christians ; and the younger was the first evangelist sent out by the Hang-chau native missionary society. To this day he labours faithfully in connection with the Inland Mission ; but Ah-liang sleeps in Jesus, having finished his course with joy.