r is an attractive place of worship
seating easily 250, and is used on week days for the Central School,
which is, doubtless, the largest Chinese week-day school in our
country. Rev. Jee Gam, with his large family, has several rooms as a
sort of parsonage. Other Christian families occupy apartments.
Homeless young men rent some of our best rooms, and use them for
social purposes and as a retreat from the wickedness of almost every
other gathering place in Chinatown. Most of these young men were
Christians when they came to occupy these rooms. One among those who
were not Christians has already turned to Christ, the first fruits in
this our new garden of the Lord. We owe $13,250 on this building, of
which $2,000 ought to be paid at once.

[Illustration: NEW MISSION HOUSE.]

III. OUR WORK FOR MOTHERS AND CHILDREN is to be distinguished from the
Rescue work among the female slaves bought and sold for the worst of
purposes, who constitute a large majority of all the Chinese women in
California. This latter work our Presbyterian and Methodist Missions
have been doing for many years at large expense and with good results.
They were prepared to take care of all who would come to them, and we
did not enter into that field, for we never have used missionary money
for the purpose of competition with other denominations, and we never
will. The mothers living in wedlock and their children constitute our
field, and wherever we have missions this is carried on with more or
less activity according to the number of families and the welcomes
extended. In Los Angeles, Marysville, San Francisco and Watsonville,
there are visitors giving to this undertaking so much of their time as
to make it necessary to assist in their support. I doubt if any human
beings anywhere on earth have more hindrances to overcome, more lions
to face, more superstitions to be laid aside in coming to Christ, than
have the Chinese women. The tyranny of heathen husbands, the scorn of
neighbors, the vague dread of untold calamities which the ghosts of
the dead will inflict upon them if not duly worshipped, the stories
told them of children kidnapped, eyes put out, hurtful spells thrown
upon people by foreign devils; all these and other obstacles must be
met and overcome. But Christian kindness will overcome everything if
persistently shown, and I believe the time is coming when the harvest
among these Chinese mothers will exceed, in proportion to the numbers
within