man put us at three hundred and fifty if paid at once. We have paid it, and the place cost us sixteen hundred taels. Our plans will be here in January, then we can order the chairs.

December 6th.-You know the memorial school is now at the Sixth Street North Chapel, and not at our premises at Fifth Street. It seemed best to transfer until we could find a satisfactory teacher who could reside at the school. The rooms there are rented and bring in a little revenue for the school.

We had a good meeting last evening. Dr. Reid spoke of the toleration of the government and the divisions of Christians as though we were all wrong and our troubles were well brought on. We did not accept his ideas, for I recall how a few years ago he said his first work would be to get the government to be tolerant. I mentioned the fact to him after meeting and he smiled at his own inconsistency. The good news

of our church at Owosso cheers me.

Love from one to all.

December 13th.-Mr. Richard writes that he approves of my plan for a coalition of two or three of the numerous church papers in China and let one man do what two or three are doing, and have one respectable paper on which we can all unite. Then no one will be specially burdened and there will be a paper which will be an honor to the Church and of general in

terest.

Miss Russell has just returned from Shun Yi, and is in a glow of enthusiasm and good spirits. She was a little blue on going away over several lapses among the church-members of late, but now she sees that we are not going entirely to pieces. I took five men on probation last Sunday and did not know till afterwards that one of them was a keeper of an opium den. He told it of himself and I trust he will have the courage to abandon the business. I am much pleased with the man, as he is clean looking and intelligent. No man has ever taken in more truth and committed it to memory in the same time than this man.

A nice talk this evening with Kuo Feng Kuan, who teaches the boys' school. He and Miss Sheffield are getting up a program for Christmas which will be unique. It is fine to find a Chinaman who has some ideas of his own. I am beginning to feel that our hope of permanent success must lie in the coming generation and the best work is that done with the young.

Good-bye, old sweetheart. May roses spring up in your path.

W. S. A.

Peking, December 20th. Since writing you last I have taken a short trip to Cho Chou and Liang Hsiang. Helper Tang wrote that there were several people desiring baptism, and also that Chang Hsiu was to be married, and wanted me to perform the ceremony. As Ewing has returned from Pao Ting Fu with Marion in better health, I rushed down. I had a very pleasant time, barring getting sick with coal gas, so that I was hardly able to stand up on Sunday and preach. Three persons were baptized and we had a fine congregation. If some of those Cho Chou brethren do not get into heaven and wear a crown, I do not think there is any hope for the rest of us. On Monday, the Changs sent a cart for me, and I attended their swell wedding, talked with the visitors some time and had an opportunity to meet men who would not otherwise be in my line.

Mrs. Liu is the Bible woman at the North Church and seems happy in her work. Christmas is near at hand and the deacons are hard at work getting things ready for the children. We also have a tea meeting and the spirit of Christmas is growing in our midst.

Love to all.

Peking, Dec. 25, 1899.

A Merry Christmas to you. I hope you are having as sweet a time as we are. I am just out of services which began at 9 A. M. Deacons Wan, Wen and Kuo, also Mr. Ewing, made interesting remarks and the schoolboys and girls sang sweetly. Our boys have nearly worked their throats out in practicing, so that they are really not in good condition for the day. Their enthusiasm is remarkable. Still, yesterday they made themselves disagreeable as they thought they were not going to get things good enough to eat to-day. We are to have great exercises at one o'clock when the little folks come to the front. Mrs. Ewing is a charming worker and is most successful with the outside school.

The North Church have their celebration to-morrow, and I hear they have made elaborate preparations and will have a good time.

Whole-hearted striving and wrestling with difficulty; laying hold with firm grip and resolution, and toiling to-day, to-morrow and the next, until the task is done-this is the greed of forward, ever forward, and the bigger the work, the greater the joy in doing it. -H. M. Stanley.

XII

RUMBLINGS OF THE BOXER EARTHQUAKE

T

HE opening of the "Keng Tze Nien" of the Chinese Cycle was ominous in the extreme. For more than a year the Ta Tao Society had been nesting in the most uneasy corners of Shantung, somewhat in the east, and more especially in the southwest, in connection with disturbances in the northern counties of Honan. The whole countryside was in a state of alarm. There was an active irruption in a region southwest of Lin Ching, arising from the absorption of a village temple in the rebuilding of a Catholic church. So great was the violence on both sides, that the provincial government sent out several battalions of soldiers to force the situation. From that time forward there was a steady rise of feeling against Christians of all sorts, and the training of bandits in hundreds of village camps. In June, 1899, the London Mission at Hsiao Chang was in great peril. In August the German minister was hurried away from the seaside retreat, Pei Tai Ho, to attend the hurry calls of the German Bishop AnFrom the 12th of September onward the American Board station at P'ang Chuang, Shantung, found itself in the midst of tumult, a storm centre until the final catastrophes in June. The looting of the Protestant Christian villages began September 13th, continuing through the

ser.

66

year with increasing virulence. The first known use of the now well-known name Boxers" was in a telegram from P'ang Chuang on the 18th of September to Mr. Aiken at Tientsin : "Secure immediate protection from the attacks of the Boxer fanatics." The governor of Shantung felt constrained to send a considerable force to Ping Yuan City to watch the threatened movement of a great band of banditti that had destroyed one Protestant centre. A battle occurred on the 15th of October which stayed the Boxers for a week or two. When it became known that Yü Hsien was in full sympathy with the anti-foreign sentiment, and perhaps the authorities at Peking, the attempt to stay its progress came to an end. The movement then gathered impetus by passing into the province of Chihli. Early in December the excitement had reached to the Roman Catholic region of Hsien Hsien. The London Mission station at Hsiao Chang was fully protected by troops fresh from Tientsin, but the outlying villages, even those of the American Board Mission, were assaulted and the members dispersed. The missionaries were incessant in their communication with the legation and consular authorities at Peking and Tientsin. Owing to this, the governor of Shantung was replaced by the vigorous and vigilant Yuan Shih Kai. He had sent a large body of his well-drilled cavalry and other troops to secure the way for him. It was not till nearly the end of December that the seals of office were transferred to him. He was thus in no way responsible for the murder of Mr. Brooks of the Anglican Mission December 30th. The chief culprit in the murder of this lovely young missionary was Meng Kuang Yen. He was from the region west of P'ang Chuang and on the 5th of December tried, unsuccessfully, to induce one of the Christians in that region to lead him to P'ang Chuang that he might go to the mission quietly and destroy the missionaries. He

was told that the station was too well guarded and that it was futile. Hence he hastened southward and meeting Mr. Brooks wreaked his hostility on him. Yuan Shih Kai, while greatly handicapped, receiving private messages not to pay attention to the official orders to preserve quiet and order, exercised a fair restraint upon the people. In an interview with the missionaries at Chi Nan Fu in February it was intimated to him that Tung Fu Hsiang, the ruffian leader of the Mohammedan braves, was the idol of the popular heart, and not himself. He felt it at the time, but was helpless until his opportunity came. No other missionary lost his life during the subsequent months. But the welter of destruction swirled on to its climax.

MY DEAR MARY:

Peking, Jan. 9, 1900.

On Sunday evening three letters from you came to Peking. It was a great grist and I did not sleep till midnight. First there was mother's sickness to think of. Of course I learned that she was better before I was through. I send you the letter from Mr. Ackerman showing how one church is praying for me. I am glad to know this fact, and am sending them a warm letter. Week of prayer meetings is progressing a little better than usual. We also have a daily evening meeting in our chapel. Our foreign meetings are not very lively and could be improved. I took part in the meeting and told how I was moved by the sympathy of the Portland pastor and suggested that we might help each other more and might have broader sympathies. I had a present of a fine pair of scrolls given by Wang Yuan Ch'i, the man who has been in Germany and whom I helped in his extremity. His wife is trying to leave off opium and then they may come to church. The Boxer troubles continue in Shantung, and our mission is in a state of confusion never before known. A good many chapels have been looted, both Protestant and Catholic.

Your loving husband,

W. S. A.