acing them. Work in the provincial
capital had been of so totally different an order, and life in a large
community of foreigners had limited their sphere to the oversight of a
small school for girls, and the instruction of women inquirers.

None had felt more strongly the seriousness of the step taken by Miss
Jacobsen, and they came to Hwochow with the determination that all
should early understand the impossibility of intercourse outside the
most rigid observance of etiquette, Chinese and Western. Feeling
strongly that such an attitude on their part would be the most helpful
factor in the gathering around them of better-class women, they
faithfully carried it into practice. Men who were connected with the
Church were received by them only under the most formal restrictions.
Finding it impossible to eat Chinese food, a simple, but foreign
_menage_, took the place of the hitherto free-and-easy conditions.

It was a severe test for Chinese and foreigners alike; desire for
renewal of the former conditions of intimacy met with no encouragement
from those who could not but constantly bear the past in mind, and who
felt that, for the highest interests of the work, a new relationship
must be established. This attitude was naturally regarded as aloofness,
and was galling to those whose love had been set on the young
missionaries fresh from Norway, with all the enthusiasm of youth, to
whom they themselves had taught the language and who belonged to them as
others could not.

Miss Clarke gave her time to the Girls' School, the pupils of which now
numbered nearly twenty, and those who followed her have reaped where she
sowed. Often sad and weary she plodded on, but God in His time gave the
increase. Miss Stevens, to the limit of her strength, and often beyond
it, faithfully worked in the city and villages, suffering much which to
her was intense hardship, and feeling keenly the isolation and lack of
confidence amongst the people who misunderstood the course of action
deliberately adopted. Thus, while bringing heartache to themselves,
these missionaries were enabled to make easy the way to all who followed
them.

The year 1900 dawned. In the month of June the ladies closed school and
gladly accepted an invitation from friends in their old station to
visit them. To Taiyueanfu they went, and after many anxious days spent
with the missionaries gathered there they, in obedience to the
Governor's command, helpless to disobey, even