it
is growing, the more am I impressed with the fact that they were wonderful
men, just the men for the time, place, and circumstances, and therefore
evidently God's gift.

"Dr. Abeel was the pioneer of the Amoy Mission. During the greater part of
the years of his manhood, he struggled with disease, and his whole life on
earth was comparatively short, yet the Lord enabled him to accomplish more
work than most men accomplish during a much longer life. His last field of
labor was Amoy, entering it in January, 1842, when the port had just been
thrown open and while the British army was still there, and leaving it in
January, 1845. In that short time, notwithstanding interruptions from
sickness and of voyages in search of health, or rather to stave off death
till others were ready to take his place, he laid a good foundation, doing
a work that told and was lasting. I met him only once. It was at his
father's house in New Brunswick, after his work at Amoy-after all his
public work was done and he was only waiting to be summoned home. When I
afterwards went to Amoy, I found his name very fragrant, not only among
Europeans and Americans, but also among the Chinese. He had baptized none,
but a goodly number of those afterwards baptized had received their first
impressions concerning Christianity and their first instructions therein
from him."

"Messrs. Doty and Pohlman with their families came from Borneo to Amoy,
arriving in June, 1844, about six months before Dr. Abeel was compelled to
leave. We have heard of places so healthy, that it is said there was
difficulty to find material wherewith to start cemeteries. Amoy, rather
Kolongsu, where all the Europeans then resided, in those days was not such
a place. It is said that of all the foreign residents only one escaped the
prevailing fever. The mortality was very great. In a year and a half from
the time of their arrival at Amoy, Mr. Doty was on his way to the United
States with two of his own and two of Mr. Pohlman's little ones. The other
members of their families--the mothers and the children, all that was
mortal of them--were Iying in the Mission cemetery on Kolongsu; and to
'hold the fort,' so far as our Mission was concerned, Pohlman was left
alone, and well he held it. He had a new dialect to acquire, yet when
health allowed, he daily visited his little mission chapel, and twice on
the Sabbath, to preach the Gospel of Christ. He was a man of work, of
great activity. Wh