y he sprang to his feet
shouting, "Buffaloes in the rice-fields! Buffaloes in the rice-fields!"
and away he went with a good fraction of the congregation helter-skelter
at his heels.

The missionary spoke again upon the necessity of quiet, and his hearers
nodded agreeably and murmured, "Yes, yes, we must be quiet."

They were very good for the next few minutes and the minister had
reached a very important point in his address, when there was a great
disturbance at the door. An old woman came hobbling up on her small feet
and poking her head in at the church door screamed, "My pig has gone!
Pig has gone!" and away went another portion of the congregation to help
find the truant porker.

But, in spite of many interruptions, the congregation at Go-ko-khi
learned much of the beautiful truth of their new religion. Their
indulgent pastor never blamed his restless hearers, but before the
church was two months old he had trained them so well that there was
not a more orderly and attentive congregation even in his own Christian
Canada than that which gathered in the first chapel in north Formosa.

But the day came at last when he had to leave them, and the question was
who should be left over them. The answer seemed very plain,--A Hoa.
The first convert placed as pastor over the first church! It was
very fitting. Some months before, down in Tamsui, when A Hoa had been
baptized and had taken his first communion, he had vowed to give his
life more fully to his Master's service. So here was his field of labor,
and here he began his work. He was so utterly sincere and lovable, so
bright and jovial, so firm of purpose and yet so kindly, that he was
soon beloved by all the Christians and respected by the heathen. And one
of his greatest helpers was widow Thah-so, who had been instrumental in
bringing the missionary with his glad tidings to her village.

Mackay missed A Hoa sorely at first, but he had his other students about
him, and often when bent upon a long journey would send for his first
convert, and together they would travel here and there over the island,
making new recruits everywhere for the army of their great Captain.

The little church at Go-ko-khi was but the first of many. Like the
hepaticas that used to peep forth in the missionary's home woods,
telling that spring had arrived, here and there they came up, showing
that the long cruel winter of heathenism in north Formosa was drawing to
an end.

Away up the Tam