James Gilmour of Mongolia Part 12

'He is a leading spirit, though a poor scholar, and was the deacon or head of the branch of the sect in Ta Cheng Tz[)u], called Tsai li ti. There are some twelve or sixteen members. Most of them joined the sect through his endeavours, and he is eager to rear up Christianity in the same way. You will partly understand now how anxious I am about him. If he goes on all right, we may soon have a little company of believers there. If he falls away--well, all things work together for my good.

'One thing that moved these restaurant men towards Christianity was an incident which happened in their establishment last winter. A half-drunk Chinaman reviled me badly one evening at dinner. He laid to my charge many bad and grievous things. Though they were utterly false as regards me, they might be quite true of some other foreigner whom he may have met. It was useless to reason with a drunken man over a case of mistaken ident.i.ty, so I said nothing, ate my dinner, paid my bill, and went to my inn. The restaurant men were very wroth with the man, they told me afterwards, and felt like "going for" him themselves, and never forgot what they were pleased to call my patience. In G.o.d's providence this little incident seems to have been an important factor in impressing them with favourable ideas of Christianity.

'Another thing which seems to have impressed them was their seeing me this August, day by day at my post in my tent, carrying on the work, when they knew I was ill, and, according to their ideas, should have been in bed. I was not really so ill as all that, but that was their idea. I would be very glad to have another reviling and another attack of dysentery if the same results would follow.

'The profession of the other adherent at Ta Cheng Tz[)u], and the moving of the hearts, seemingly at least, of other two men who live at a distance, and had to leave for home suddenly before receiving full instruction, but of whom I try to have hope, have all moved my heart and seem answers to a great longing I had been crying to G.o.d about, namely, that He would give me power to move these heathen. Oh that He would do it!

'I have felt it my duty to become a vegetarian on trial. I don't know whether I can carry it out. The Chinese look up so much to this supposed asceticism that I am eager to acquire the influence a successful vegetarianism would give me, and I am trying it in true Chinese style, which forbids eggs, leeks and carrots, &c. As far as I have gone all is well. I am a little afraid that the great appet.i.te it gives may drive me to eat till I become fat. We'll see.

'The mothers bringing their babies moves me much. It reminds me of scenes in Peking when another and more skilful hand ministered to their diseases; then the picture of the family surroundings fills itself up, and I have to seek a place where to weep.

'Altogether it is a sowing in tears. The district is not an easy one, the life which the work entails is a hard one. There is no hards.h.i.+p or self-denial I am not ready to "go in for," but I want you to understand me and let me have your sympathy.'

This long extract, not too long we venture to think, as enabling us to see into the heart of the man, raises several points of great moment.

Nothing could ill.u.s.trate better his eagerness to get into close touch and perfect sympathy with the people. He had long before adopted the native dress of an ordinary shopkeeper or respectable workman. He now adapted himself, as far as possible, to the native food. He lived on such as the poor eat. Often he would take his bowl of porridge, native fas.h.i.+on, in the street, sitting down upon a low stool by the boiler of the itinerant restaurant keeper. The vegetarianism referred to was, as he indicates, very thoroughgoing and in accord with Chinese ideas.

The great poverty of the people also pressed upon his attention the enormous waste induced by whisky drinking, and by the smoking of tobacco and opium. The sect Tsai li ti referred to was a small organisation among the Chinese for endeavouring to secure entire abstinence from all three. It did not seem tolerable to him that the level of Christian morality and practice with regard to these things should be lower than that of the heathen. Famine often visited those parts, and he came to hold the view that men could hardly pray, 'Give us this day our daily bread,' with any hope of a favourable answer, or even reasonably expect G.o.d's blessing upon their tillage of the soil, while they continued to use a large part of the grain produced in the manufacture of strong drink, and while they continued to set apart large districts for the cultivation of tobacco and opium. Hence, at first, he made entire abstinence from all three an indispensable requisite for admission into the Christian Church.

It was hardly to be expected, perhaps, that his colleagues in the North China Mission would be able to see eye to eye with him on these points.

With regard to opium the opinion as to abstinence is unanimous. With regard to the other two, the prevailing opinion was that, however desirable entire abstinence may be, it is not authoritatively commanded, and ought not to be made an indispensable qualification for baptism.

It seemed to some of them that there was danger of the heathen confusing Christianity with their own Tsai li ti. In reply to such a suggestion Gilmour wrote: 'My hearers not know the difference between Tsai li ti and Christianity! Thanks be to G.o.d, this whole town and neighbourhood has rung with the truths of Christianity. Children, men, shop-boys, and, of all people in the world, a lad gathering grain stumps in the fields a long way off--it has been my lot to hear them repeat sayings of mine, when they saw me, and did not think I could hear them.'

Into this controversy as a mere discussion we have no desire to enter.

But to enable the reader to know Mr. Gilmour exactly as he was it deserves more than a pa.s.sing reference. The following may be taken as an example of many letters that pa.s.sed on this subject.

'I start perhaps on Tuesday. Pardon me for expressing myself on one matter--the Chinese teetotal business. You and some of my colleagues seem to me as if I could not move you on this question.

It is a great grief to me. I think you are not right in your ideas about this. I suppose you can beat me in argument. I am still more than ever convinced that teetotalism is _right_ and _needful_ for the success of native Christian life in China. We have some painful instances here of that among the natives--specially two--one of the two hailing from Tientsin.

'I don't know your Tientsin Church history, but if it is anything like ours here you would find men standing nowhere almost as to Christian character, who but for drink and its concomitants might, humanly speaking, have shone. And yet these are men to get whom out of sin Christ died--brethren, for whom Christ died.

'Pardon me again when I take a short cut to what I want to say: "_I believe were Christ here now as a missionary amongst us He would be an enthusiastic teetotaller and a non-smoker._"

'Tobacco is comparatively a harmless matter, but it is not so unimportant as it seems to us foreigners. Whisky should go, and I feel that the Chinese would be quite ready, if led, to turn both whisky and tobacco out together. They are born brothers in China, _useless_, and _acknowledged_ to be such; harmful as far as they are anything, and comparatively expensive.

'I would like to see you start in your church an anti-tobacco and whisky society; voluntary, of course, in a church established as yours on the old lines. Though I stand alone, I believe the flowing tide is with me.

'Wis.h.i.+ng you many souls in 1887, and eager that no minor difference of opinion should hinder our prayers.

'Yours I-hardly-know-how-to-say-what, 'JAMES GILMOUR.'

In the _Chinese Recorder_, for which he had been in the habit of writing for many years, he published a paper in which he set forth with great clearness and fulness his views on this important matter. It deserves a place in the story of his life because in it he has sketched, as no one else could, himself, and some of his later methods of evangelistic address.

'In December, 1885, in a district of North China new to me, I found myself preaching to a small crowd of Chinese and Mongols in a small market town. I was in a lane leading on to the main street. At my back was a mud wall, in front and at both sides was the audience, within hearing was the main street, above, a bright sun made the place warm and cheerful. After listening a while the audience wanted to know how good seasons could be secured. To the truths I had been preaching they had listened with respect and fair attention, but at the first opportunity for speaking they wanted to know how to get a good harvest.

'At first I paid little attention to this question, but after a little while it was asked again, and that by several men in succession, and I soon found that the people of the place had little room for anything else in their thoughts. There was good reason for it too. Their last harvest had been a poor one.

Three-tenths was about the yield. They too with their three-tenths were comparatively well off. Some distance from them the yield had not been more than two-tenths, and a little beyond that again, there were fields which had been sown, but never reaped. There had been nothing to reap. Nothing had grown. I pa.s.sed some of these fields afterwards and saw them. Was it wonderful then that the main thought in their minds should be the harvest failure, and that they should be mainly anxious to know how to secure a good season next year? Looking at my audience I saw that nine-tenths of them were poorly clad. Nearly one-half of them were quite insufficiently clothed, and many were in garments suited to summer weather only. I was in a sheepskin coat and felt shoes, and even thus was not too warm, and could not help thinking how cold they must be, in their torn clothes and ordinary shoes. In addition to this they seemed hungry. I dare say perhaps one-half of them were in actual suffering from deficiency of food.

'Taking these things into consideration, I did not regard their great and often-repeated question, "How about the harvest?" as impertinent, and set myself to answer it. When the question was again asked I replied by asking another, namely, "_Do you think you deserve good harvests?_" This question usually made them stare and ask, "Why should not we deserve good harvests?" and I would reply, "In the first place, because of that _tobacco pipe in your mouth_."

A laugh of incredulity would usually pa.s.s round the audience, but when done laughing, and asked to consider the folly of spending money buying a pipe and tobacco when the smoker was s.h.i.+vering in his rags, and hungry, and especially when asked what was the good of smoking, they laughed no more. When pressed to say where the tobacco came from, they would admit that the cultivation of tobacco took up no small proportion of their better-cla.s.s land, and when pressed to say how much land was given up to tobacco cultivation, they would admit, what did not seem to have occurred to them before, that the amount of land given up to tobacco cultivation was very large. How large it was I had no conception till the following summer, when, walking round the suburbs, I would look over the low mud walls of their gardens, and be amazed at the expanse of land covered with the great, broad green leaf of the flouris.h.i.+ng tobacco plant.

'Putting these things before my audience, they would admit that the cultivation of tobacco was a misuse of a large portion of their better land, that in cultivating and using tobacco they were doing what was wrong, and hindering heaven from feeding them. Heaven had given them good land and good rains for the purpose of growing food. The growth of tobacco was defeating heaven's purpose, and as long as they did so, what face had they to ask for good seasons? To take good land and plant it with tobacco, with what face could they ask heaven to send rain, seeing that if rain came, what grew would not be grain but tobacco, a thing which they themselves to a man admitted was no use at all? And so my audience would admit that as preliminary to getting or even expecting a good harvest was the discontinuance of the use and growth of tobacco.

'In the course of a year and a half of outdoor preaching in streets and at fairs, and private conversation with individuals, I never met an audience that defended tobacco as useful, and do not think I met more than three individuals who had anything to say in its defence. Almost everyone, smokers included, admitted its uselessness. Many do not seem to have thought the cultivation and use of it any harm, or having any bearing on the question of food supply and good harvests; they usually regarded it as simply a piece of extravagance on their own part, which had no bearing on anything or anybody beyond themselves. But when pointed out to them they readily admit that tobacco cultivation lessens the production of grain, and as readily admit that the wrongdoing in this misuse of land is likely to further harm the harvest by offending heaven into being unwilling to send rain. I myself never used to look on smoking as any great evil, till led into this district, and thus forced to study the subject. In England I had never seen tobacco grown. A smoker there spends a few coppers, and smokes; what harm does he do? Does not he increase trade and help the revenue? His smoking seems to harm no one but himself. Such were my thoughts.

But in this district I see the cultivation of tobacco limiting the supply of grain, thus raising the price of food, and consequently making men go hungry. In addition I see men, women, and sometimes children, in rags and hungry even, with pipes and tobacco, and when they complain of heaven not supplying them with enough food to eat, it would be less than honest not to point out to them that the fault lies not with heaven, but with themselves, and that part at least of the scarcity of grain they experience is due to the cultivation and use of tobacco, which throughout that whole region is very excessive.

'I have dwelt thus at length on the tobacco question, not because it is the most important of the three things here spoken of, but because many good brethren have not been able to see with me on this point. They feel, as I used to do before I went to that region, that tobacco smoking is a small affair, not worth raising into prominence or the region of conscience or Christian duty at all. These brethren have not _seen_ how things work. I feel sure that almost any missionary placed as I was would have done exactly what I have done, taken a stand against this excessive growth and more excessive use of tobacco, for, not content with what they grow, they actually import quant.i.ties of it. Tobacco is not the greatest cause of poverty and hunger in the district, but it is a much greater factor in poverty than would at first be supposed. But for its use in that district a large number of men, women, and children, who are deficiently clothed and fed, would be warm and sleek. Christ taught men to pray, "Give us this day our daily bread." It must be wrong to make hundreds of men, women, and children go half clad and half fed, simply that eighty or ninety per cent. of the adults of that district may indulge in tobacco, a thing, according to their own admission, utterly without use, and for the continuance of which they can give no reason, further than that they have acquired the habit and find it difficult to give it up.

'A more serious question, however, is the whisky. In going into that region I was amazed at the quant.i.ty of whisky used. I used to lodge in an inn and take my meals in an eating-house. There, twice a day, I had an opportunity of studying the drinking habits of the country. Almost every man who entered the eating-house first called for a whisky warmer. Supplied with that, he would go out and buy his whisky, coming back he would set it in the charcoal fire to warm, and then slowly drink it from the tiny wine cups common in China, inviting me to join him, and wondering at a man who could evidently afford it, not treating himself to two ounces of whisky, and wondering still more when he learned that I did not use tobacco. It would be an exaggeration, but not a great exaggeration, to say that every man who entered the eating-house began his meal by drinking whisky. In replying to the question put by my street audiences as to how they were to get good harvests, I would ask them, after finis.h.i.+ng the tobacco question, "How about your whisky drinking?" Frequently they would antic.i.p.ate me in this, and say, "If tobacco is wrong, how about whisky?" To convince them of the wrong of whisky was never difficult. To ask good harvests from heaven, then take grain given by heaven for food, and turn it into whisky, they did not need me to tell them this was wrong. And there in that district it is a very crying wrong. The quant.i.ty used is immense. Not only does it seem so to me, but natives from other parts of China are struck by the excessive use of it.

'The first time I travelled in the district, I was struck by the manner in which they described the size and amount of trade of towns about which I made inquiries. Such and such a place had or had not a distillery and p.a.w.nshop. Such and such a town had so many distilleries, and so many p.a.w.nshops. One travelling about the country soon notes that nearly every imposing trading establishment with grand premises seen from afar is either a distillery or a p.a.w.nshop, or both combined. The bank notes current among the people are issued, at but a small percentage, by distilleries and p.a.w.nshops. The first crop to ripen in the district is barley, and that, the natives will tell you, all goes to the distillery. On the road you will meet large carts drawn by six or seven mules. The load is grain, and of these carts a large number are owned by distilleries, and go round the country collecting grain, from which to brew whisky. One of the first things to be heard in the morning after daylight, in a quiet market town, is a peculiar beating of a wooden drum. Ask what it means, and you will be told it is such and such a distillery calling its hands to breakfast. Ask how many hands they have, and you may find that one establishment has some sixty or seventy men who eat their food! The whisky trade is simply enormous. It is out of all proportion to every other trade. The women as a rule do not drink, the men do all the drinking--the males I should say, for not a few boys acquire the habit of taking whisky to their meals long before they can be called men. A very few men do not use whisky at all. The poorer agricultural labourers drink it only when they can get it, and just as much or as little as they can get. Many men take regularly two ounces--Chinese ounces--to each meal. Many take more. Many well-to-do people drink half a catty per day. Others drink a whole catty.[7] Some drink a catty and a half a day. A small proportion of the male population find drinking a greater necessity than eating. These are usually elderly men, but as I write I can think of two men, both young, and both Mongols, one a priest, the other a layman, who have arrived at this advanced stage of whisky drinking.

[7] A Chinese weight equal to one pound and a third.

'This excessive use of whisky has impoverished many families, and has demoralised many men. It has caused many quarrels, and given rise to many lawsuits. The evil caused by whisky is apparent to all, but custom requires that friends should be honoured by being offered whisky, business should be transacted over whisky, and the general saying is that without whisky nothing can be done. A farmer, for example, adding a few rooms to his buildings must supply his masons and joiners with whisky. Thus in universal use, the quant.i.ty consumed is immense. The quant.i.ty of grain used in the distilleries is almost beyond computation, and I don't remember ever meeting a Chinaman who did not admit that to distil whisky was to do evil. They ask me how to get good harvests. I tell them; "Give up abusing the grain you have got, before you ask for more.

If heaven sees you taking a large part of your superior land for raising the useless tobacco, and taking a very large proportion of the grain sent you as food, and using it not to eat, nor to feed animals, but distilling it into the hurtful whisky, do you think heaven, seeing all this waste going on, is likely to hear your pet.i.tions and increase the supply of what you now waste so large a proportion? If you bought food for your child, and he ate only half and threw the other half to the pig, would you be likely to buy him more just then, even though he might say he was hungry?" This reasoning seems quite satisfactory and convincing to them, and never fails to secure their expressed a.s.sent.

'As to opium I never find it necessary to say much. All admit it to be only and wholly bad. Yet the quant.i.ty grown in the district is immense. In the early spring the very first movement of cultivation is the irrigation and working of the opium land, and at the season nearly all the best land blazes with bloom of the poppy. It is a sight to see the country people going to the markets with the "_milk_" in bowls and basins, and the buyers and sellers of it riding along, each with a weighing-balance stuck in his belt.

Government restriction there is none, the duty imposed is not very heavy, and public opinion raises no voice against it. It was originally grown, say the natives, so as to keep money from going out of the district in buying imported opium, but the more it was grown the more it was used, and now the quant.i.ty raised and smoked is immense. There is a small proportion of farmers who have good land, suitable for growing opium, but who do not grow it. But these men are few, and as a general rule the very best pieces of land are set apart for the cultivation of opium. The common conscience of the people tells them this is a wrong thing. When therefore they ask how to get a good harvest, they themselves acknowledge that the reply is just, which says, "First leave off the waste of heaven's grace involved in the growth and manufacture of opium, whisky, and tobacco, and then, and not till then, will it be reasonable for you to ask heaven for more bountiful harvests."

'In connection with all this, there is another fact that must not be forgotten. Drinkers of whisky, and smokers, especially of opium, the better the year is, the more they indulge. In a poor year they use less whisky and opium; the better the year, and the cheaper tobacco, whisky, and opium are, the more they use, so that in place of making a proper return to heaven for a good year, they only take the opportunity afforded them of running deeper into waste and wrong-doing. Is this the way to get better harvests? Considering the excessive growth and consumption of tobacco and opium, and the excessive manufacture and use of whisky, what could any honest, straightforward man say to the people, when they earnestly asked how they were to get good harvests, but "_Repent, and cease this great waste_"? And thus from no deliberate plan of mine, but from the plain leading of circ.u.mstances, it came to pa.s.s that I felt compelled to call upon the inhabitants of the district to lay aside the use of not only opium but also of whisky and tobacco, as one of the first steps toward wors.h.i.+pping the true G.o.d. Many friends have demurred to my making teetotalism an essential of Christianity, and many more have still more strongly demurred to my taking such a p.r.o.nounced stand against the use of tobacco. The position of my friends is exactly the position I held myself before going into that region, but after going to that region and seeing just how things were, no other course seemed open to me, but to demand in all who wanted to do right the abandonment of the whole three; and I am convinced that almost any other missionary placed in the same circ.u.mstances would have taken the same stand.

'This position too commends itself to the native mind, and the native mind, quite apart from me, and before my going into the district, had already risen up in protest against these abuses, and, in some parts of the country there, the Tsai li ti sect boasts not a few members. The main practical doctrine of this sect is, _Yen chiu pu tung_--abstinence from tobacco, whisky, and opium. The very existence of this sect, and its flouris.h.i.+ng condition there, is a plain indication of what serious-minded natives felt about the excessive use of these three things. Friends say that I am putting this self-righteousness in place of faith in Christ and the practice of higher duties. I do nothing of the sort. Beginning with the Chinaman where I find him, and answering the questions which he insists on asking first, I appeal to him to give up what he admits to be wrongdoing, sin (_tsao nieh_), as the first step in ceasing to do evil learning to do well, and coming into right relations.h.i.+p with G.o.d through Christ. Some friends are much alarmed lest this should lead to self-righteousness. There is no danger of that. The danger lies all the other way. To leave Christians drinking whisky and smoking tobacco in that region, would be to preach forgiveness of sin through Christ to men who were still going on in the practice of what their conscience told them was sin, and all must admit that this would never do. The condition of things in that region is such that I have no hesitation in saying that a man, to be honest in obeying G.o.d by refraining from what is wrong, must throw up his connexion with these three things, tobacco, whisky, opium.

'In _that region_. It will be noticed that I have carefully confined my remarks to the state of things in _that region_. _That region_ is peculiar in producing within its own bounds almost all that is necessary for life and luxury even. It is peculiar too in having just exactly as many inhabitants as it can support, no more, no less. When the population increases too much it overflows into Manchuria. When the population is less than the full complement, it is instantly replenished by fresh arrivals from the South. The production of tobacco, whisky, and opium, not only reduces a large proportion of the inhabitants from comfort to misery, but also reduces sensibly the number of inhabitants. But for these three things many more men could find a living within the bounds of the district Is not that little district an epitome of the world? Is what is true of that district not true of the whole world? Opium is a bad thing anywhere and everywhere. About that there need be no debate. Whisky and tobacco reduce the comforts and the number of the population there--is their effect not the same on the world in general? Is it not true that but for tobacco and whisky there would be food and clothes for a much larger population? And if so, do not tobacco and whisky take the bread out of men's mouths and the clothes off their backs? And if so, has not every smoker and drinker a part in this sin? Christians pray, "_Give us this day our daily bread._" Does not consistency require them to desist from defeating this prayer by smoking and drinking, and thus reducing the amount of the total production of the necessaries of life?

'Tobacco seems harmless. It is less harmful than opium and whisky by a long way. But its production sensibly reduces the supply of grain and cotton, and thus hinders the feeding of the hungry and the clothing the naked. Good earnest Christian men smoke and drink.

Evangelists and pastors owned of G.o.d in the salvation of souls smoke and see no harm in it. The reason is they have never seen how the thing works, and don't know the harm it does. I feel sure that if they could see with their own eyes men, women, and children, hungry and in rags, when but for tobacco and whisky they might be well fed and well clothed, these same good brethren, whose example is quoted against my position, would be the first and most earnest to say, "I will neither smoke tobacco nor drink whisky while the world stands."'

At a later date, not from any change in his views, but in deference to the views of others, with whom he was always anxious to work in harmony, he modified his plans so far as not to make the use of whisky and tobacco absolute bars to admission into the Christian Church.

His brethren also were opposed to the ascetic mode of life he adopted, and the extreme of hards.h.i.+p which he so often and so willingly encountered in his work. But he himself often said, and there are many references in his diary to the same effect, that the kind of life he was living in the interior was quite as healthy, and quite as conducive to longevity, as the ordinary and certainly much more comfortable life of a missionary at Peking. While it may be true that the exposure and sufferings of twenty years had so weakened him as to leave him powerless when seized by the last illness, yet the labours of twenty such years spent in the service of G.o.d and the service of man are surely the seeds from which there shall yet spring a rich harvest to the glory of G.o.d and to the blessing of the dark and degraded Mongols and Chinese.

By the close of 1886 three main centres of work had been selected in the new district--Ta Cheng Tz[)u], Ta Ss[)u] Kou, and Ch'ao Yang--all three being towns of some importance. Mr. Gilmour used to spend a month or so in each town, visiting also the neighbourhood, especially those places where fairs were held, and where consequently the people came together in large numbers. He had a tent which he used to put up in a main thoroughfare, and there he stood from early morn until night healing the sick, selling Christian books, talking with inquirers, preaching at every opportunity the full and free Gospel of salvation. His constant and consistent life of Christlike self-denial in the effort to bless them told even more upon the beholders than all these other things combined. His correspondence is full of sharp and clear pictures of his daily toil, and of his spiritual experiences.

'_Ch'ao Yang, May 14, 1886._--The people are very poor here. Last year the crops were not good. When the leaves come out on the trees, the poor people break off branches and eat the seeds of the elm-trees. I saw one woman up a high tree, taking down the seeds.

She took off half the door, laid it up against the tree, went on the cross-bars like a ladder, and so got up. She threw down the little branches and twigs, and her three children below gathered them up. The elm seeds are just ripe now. They are the size of large fish-scales; when the wind blows they come down like snow.

'I met three lamas going to a far-off place to wors.h.i.+p. Every two or three steps they lay down flat on the ground, then got up other two or three steps, then prostrated themselves again. They did not know about Jesus saving people, and thought they would save themselves in that way. Poor people! yet they don't like to hear about Jesus saving people. They want the credit of thus saving themselves.

'_September 3._--At Ta Cheng Tz[)u] we had seven days and seven nights' rain. It was a great flood. The river rose and washed away about a hundred acres of land and forty or fifty houses. For two days the river floated down house-roof timbers, beams, &c. One poor man pulled down his house to save his timbers, and the house fell on him and killed him. It was pitiful to see the river was.h.i.+ng away good land, two square yards falling into the roaring flood at a time. The Chinamen did nothing: only stood and looked at it. Lots of walls and many houses fell down. One house in the court next our own fell down one morning after the rain was all over. The people had just time to jump out at the window. No one was hurt. Our room did not leak much, but the outside of the wall towards the street fell down. The inside of the wall still stood, so our room was whole. Chinese walls are all built in two skins. The one may fall and the other stand.

'_October 25._--G.o.d has given the hunger and thirst for souls: will He leave me unsatisfied? No, verily. I am reading at night, before going to bed, the Psalms in a small-print copy of the Revised Bible, holding it at arm's length almost, close up to a Chinese candle, to suit my eyes; for I cannot see small print well now, and I find much strength and courage in the old warrior's words.

Verily, the Psalms are inspired. No doubt about that. None that wait on Him will be put to shame. He is here with me.

'_November 17._--We start about the fifth watch (6 A.M.), get to the fair early, spend the day on the street; it is late before we get quiet, and I fear it is now well on towards the third watch. I am in first-cla.s.s health, though my feet and socks are in a decidedly bad way. The country is not at all safe, but we have as yet been preserved. Some days ago, two men who slept on the same kang with us, and started a little earlier than we did, were robbed. We overtook the travellers arranging themselves after the interview. I was annoyed at not getting away as soon as they left.

G.o.d so arranged it, you see.