had finished, the disease of sin in many a heart was cured by the remedy
of the gospel.

And so the autumn passed away happily and busily, and Mackay entered his
first Formosan winter. And such a winter! The young man who had felt the
clear, bright cold of a Canadian January needed all his fine courage to
bear up under its dreariness. It started about Christmas time. Just when
his own people far away in Canada were gathering about the blazing fire
or jingling over the crisp snow in sleighs and cutters, the great winter
rains commenced. Christmas day--his first Christmas in a land that did
not know its beautiful meaning--was one long dreary downpour. It rained
steadily all Christmas week. It poured on Newyear's day and for a week
after. It came down in torrents all January. February set in and still
it rained and rained, with only a short interval each afternoon. Day and
night, week in, week out, it poured, until Mackay forgot what sunlight
looked like, his house grew damp, his clothes moldy. A stream broke
out up in the hill behind and one morning he awoke to find a cascade
tumbling into his kitchen, and rushing across the floor out into the
river beyond. And still it poured and the wind blew and everything was
damp and cold and dreary.

He caught an occasional glimpse of snow, only a very far-off view, for
it lay away up on the top of a mountain, but it made his heart long for
just one breath of good dry Canadian air, just one whiff of the keen,
cutting frost.

But Kai Bok-su was not the sort to spend these dismal days repining.
Indeed he had no time, even had he been so inclined. His work filled
up every minute of every rainy day and hours of the drenched night. If
there was no sunshine outside there was plenty in his brave heart, and A
Hoa's whole nature radiated brightness.

And there were many reasons for being happy after all. On the second
Sabbath of February, 1873, just one year after his arrival in Tamsui,
the missionary announced, at the close of one of his Sabbath services,
that he would receive a number into the Christian church. There was
instantly a commotion among the heathen who were in the house, and yells
and jeers from those crowding about the door outside.

"We'll stop him," they shouted. "Let us beat the converts," was another
cry.

But Mackay went quietly on with the beautiful ceremony in spite of the
disturbance. Five young men, with A Hoa at their head, came and were
baptized into the na