le department in the Mission.

As a preacher to the Chinese he was unrivaled. The people hung on his lips
and never seemed to lose a word. He was in this respect a model to every
one of us younger men.

The ideal of the church in China which he had set before him, the goal he
desired to reach, was a native, self-governing, self-supporting, and
self-propagating church. This is now axiomatic.

It was not so in those early days. The men in Amoy then were men for whom
we have to thank God--men ahead of their time, with generous and
far-reaching ideas; not working only for their own present, but laying the
foundation for a great future. Side by side with him were the brethren of
the English Presbyterian Mission, with whom he had the fullest sympathy,
and they had the fullest sympathy with him. It is difficult to say who
were foremost in pressing the idea of an organized native church. All were
equally convinced and strove together for the one great end. After many
years of waiting the church grew. Congregations were formed and organized
with their own elders and deacons, and in this he took the first steps. He
was a born organizer. And then came the next great step, the creation of a
Presbytery and the ordination in an orderly manner of native pastors. Some
congregations were ready to call and support such pastors, and the men were
there, for the careful training of native agents had always been a marked
feature of the Amoy Mission. But how was it to be done? Common sense led
to only one conclusion. This church must not be an exotic; it must be
native, independent of the home churches. And there must be kept in view
what was a fact already--the union between the Missions of the "Reformed
Church" and of the "English Presbyterian Church." It must be done, and done
in this way, and so it was done.

The Presbytery was created with no native pastor in the first instance, but
with native elders and the missionaries of both Missions. Then came a
struggle that would have tried the stoutest hearts.

The "Reformed Church" in America declined to recognize this newly-created
Presbytery. Dr. Talmage went home and fought the battle and won the day.

To its great honor be it said, the General Synod of the "Reformed Church"
rescinded its resolution of the previous year, and allowed their honored
brethren, the missionaries, to take their own way. So convinced were the
missionaries of the wisdom, yea, the necessity, of the course they had