and grown daughters and little girl,
with father and grown son, all sleep on a little brick platform,
hardly big enough for me--one man. She and the grown daughter
support the family by needlework--making horsehair women's head
fittings, which the father sells, when he has nothing more to do.

'The son is epileptic and can earn nothing, and is, in addition, a
great eater. He is a good man and a Christian. As we entered, the
son and daughter went out. The mother and little daughter were
baptized. The father did not wish his big daughter baptized. When
she is married she will get a heathen mother-in-law, who will go
for her and make her worship idols. So said the father. In a few
days the father came back, saying that out of fear of the coming
mother-in-law he had not had his daughter baptized, but that his
daughter had pressed him so hard that she was as formidable as the
mother-in-law. The daughter says she'll stick to her God and let
them stick to theirs, and so she was baptized. She has a hot time
before her. Chinese mothers-in-law are no joke. Pray for the lassie
that:--(_a_) she may be steadfast; (_b_) she may be wise; (_c_) she
may be gentle in her resistance; (_d_) enabled by God to endure;
and that the mother-in-law may be restrained. God can do all
things.

'Here, in Ta Ss[)u] Kou, two of the Christians have wives very
much opposed to Christianity, and give their husbands hot times.
Remember the husbands, please, and all such in their shoes, in
prayer, and may the darkened women themselves be enlightened. You
have no notion how deeply sunk in superstition the women are. Still
another Christian has a wife whom he has to allow to worship a
weasel, because the woman shows symptoms of being possessed by the
beast if she does not worship it!

'The other day a woman came to my stand in the market-place, saying
that "Mr. Yellow" troubled her. "Mr. Yellow" turned out to be the
weasel, and she firmly believed her sickness was due to the beast.

'We are badly in want of a lady medical man in this district. Don't
you know of one who would do? Are there none of you who could study
medicine and go out as doctors to some of the many needy places?
Much was hoped for this district from the late Mrs. Smith, but God
took her. Any one who comes here s