Ewing adds it makes a good sized report. Dr. Lowry's injuries (when attacked by the mob en route from the railroad station, with Bishop Joyce and his daughters) were slight, and he suffered only a day or two interruption of his work.

The city is quite excited over financial affairs, several native banks being shut, and one or two looted by mobs. The Methodist Episcopal people lost in the bank failure near them. The bank near us still holds out and claims there is no danger.

Headland is translating in rhyme all the baby ditties he can get hold of, illustrating them, and will make a book. He can repeat his jingles by the yard. On New Year's Day we are going to go down to Tung-chow on our wheels, and still make the rounds on the same day.

Wednesday, 21st.-I preach daily in the front chapel; good audiences now; read with the teacher, old Chang of Cho Chou, a little in the forenoon; have translated or adapted one chapter from Gladden's "Ruling Ideas," and will send it to the Wan Kuo Kung Pao-The Globe Magazine.

Our church contributions have been gathered for the year, and we find that they are nearly double what they were last year. Pastor Jen and Deacon Wan are in the country, at the expense of the native church, as a committee of visitation. It is cold weather for them, but Jen is enthusiastic over the plan, and it seems to be working well. That is the bright side to our work, the way the native brethren are taking up the responsibilities of church work. It bodes well for the future.

TO HIS SON :

We have been having some splendid meetings, and our little chapel has been crowded day after day. About thirty people taken on probation. I thought of our dear Emily February 27th, as that was the day she left us mourning. I sleep in the same room, and saw her dear face and Mama's anxious face and trust that God will spare us any more such experiences in this line.

During the earlier part of the year, on May 23, 1898, the native pastor, Jen Chao Hai, was ordained as pastor of the North Church. Secretary Judson Smith, of the deputation to China, was present and gave an address. The new pastor commanded the respect of the Chinese

members and proved himself wise and aggressive in directing the affairs of the church. Following the lead of the Shantung station, in the spring also, a conference of the churches of the Peking station had been organized. The second meeting of this conference is referred to in the above letters of Dr. Ament. The organization was completed, by including all the deacons of the churches and a delegate for each thirty members, besides the pastors, helpers and Bible women.

Towards the end of the year a long desired location for the new South Church was secured, adjoining the former premises and to the right of the premises now opened for the Woman's Hospital and other work. Plans for the new building were drawn up, though the work was delayed through insufficient funds in hand. The report for the station at the annual meeting showed a membership of seven hundred and eleven in the ten out-stations reported, the number of chapels or preaching places being seventeen. As an indication of the growth of the station it is to be noted that the Bridgman School had in. creased its membership to the number of sixty-six, with an average attendance of sixty. part of the Sunday audience.

These were a regular

Annual Mission Meeting, Tung-chow, June 1, 1899.

MY DEAR MARY:

Your Grand Rapids letter came with the last mail. How you are working for the new church (at Peking). You inspire me with courage. You did grandly at Grand Rapids, and having two hundred dollars makes a big start for the five hundred seats needed. Doubtless you know by this time that five hundred will be all the chairs needed according to our present plan. Our third church outside the East Gate (Chi Hua Men) is materializing. They are putting up a new building for school and chapel purposes. We help with material from the temple and the church-members have given

one hundred and twenty tiao. So Kao will do the rest and the work will go on cheerfully. They also propose to pay part of the salary of a teacher, if we will put one there. The third church is in sight, you see. Peking makes a fine showing at mission meeting in all the elements of progress. Nan Meng, Shun Yi, and Cho Chou all promised to try and do something on salary of helpers stationed there. Do not have any anxiety about us out here. The Lord's work is going on

and will in spite of devils and men.

Meetings with the helpers are all through, ending with reports of the three who went to the Shanghai Students' Convention. They made a fine report and seemed immensely pleased with their trip. We had nine men at the meetings and I think carried the regard of all, and showed that they were making progress. I am more and more proud of my company in this mission. I do not know where you could gather a more delightful company of people. The weather is charming; occasional rains temper the sky. The willow trees are quite large and the campus a mass of green.

heroic, because they are not born to
be cowards, but with the birthright of
an invincible courage and determina-
tion. Men and women are still called
to come up to the help of the Master,
to share His burden for the world,
-H. Kingman.

XI

REFORM, PROGRESS AND OMENS OF EVIL

DEAR DR. SMITH:

Peking, June 13, 1899

History is forming here at a rate unknown in many countries. People complain of the Chinese inertia, but to my observation the Chinese are doing more thinking to the day than they are given credit for. While visiting a yamen to-day at the request of the London Mission, their senior missionary being absent, the official, after a moment of thoughtful silence, said to me, "We Chinese do excite the contempt of foreigners. We are truly contemptible in many ways." There had been nothing said to draw out this remark. It was evidently in his mind. That was a terrible confession for a military mandarin to make to a stranger from a foreign land. They are thinking, and thinking deeply, only the political conditions are such that we do not get the results of their cogitations.

You

The leading anti-foreign leader in North China is Kang Yi who has recently been sent by the Empress to inspect fortifications and military resources up and down the Yang Tzu. will hardly believe that this hide-bound old conservative so hates foreigners that he refuses to go where they are at Shanghai and other places and thinks that the earthworks and old fortifications of centuries ago are sufficient for protection at the present time.

The Emperor at the present time though kept in nominal confinement is allowed a large amount of liberty and doubtless is as happy as he knows how to be. The other day he was selecting an adopted son from among the children of the hereditary iron-capped princes who constitute the aristocracy of Peking. It is possible that the Empress is looking up a

puppet to place on the throne, as it is said the Emperor desires to retire to his ancestral home in Manchuria. There can be little hope of his doing that, as that region is practically Russian territory. The Emperor has been subjected to no cruel treatment so far as we can learn and the Empress Dowager is far too shrewd a manager to put him out of the way when she knows foreign sentiment is as strong as it is in his favor. The whole reactionary feeling in Peking is based upon the conception that the throne of the Manchus is in danger and can be secured only by holding all foreigners at a distance and pitting one nation against another.

The problem before them now is how to retain progressive ideas, hold foreign methods, religions, and people aloof, and adjust China to new conditions without disturbing existing institutions. If their fears can be allayed as to the integrity of the empire, we shall see that the adjustment will go on more rapidly than in the past. You speak about the reform movement and deplore its sudden collapse. That Kang Yu Wei, the leader, was an unfit man for the great confidence the Emperor placed in him, there is little doubt. He was a thorough Confucianist and under his rule Christianity would not have the toleration that it has now. The Emperor seems to have been the most honorable man of the lot, as without doubt most of the others were actuated by mercenary motives and had no moral force which would have sustained them in prosperity. To impose Western ideas and customs on the Chinese at the point of the bayonet as the Germans are doing in Shantung will only lead to bad feeling and may set back the wheels of progress of all concerned. When Americans begin to see, as a few do, how intimately our interests are wrapped up with those of China and how this land is the natural outlet for our surplus products, then the study of Chinese affairs will really begin, and we shall have a sympathetic as well as material interest in the genuine reform of this nation. The coming political movement is the alliance of England, Japan and the United States along lines which will strengthen our position in the East, preserve the autonomy of Korea, help the internal development of Japan, sustain China as an independent nation, and stop this grabbing for territory which is a disgrace to the nations, and open up this whole region so rich in resources to the markets of the world. These three nations hold the key of the situation if they are willing to use it.