thousand to the innumerable
merits I have already hoarded in Heaven.

Upon a pretty wooded hill near the centre of the city is the Confucian
Temple, and on the lower slope of the hill, in an admirable position,
are the quarters of the China Inland Mission, conducted by Mr. and Mrs.
X., assisted by Mr. Graham, who at the time of my visit was absent in
Tali, and by two exceedingly nice young girls, one of whom comes from
Melbourne. The single ladies live in quarters of their own on the edge
of a swamp, and suffer inevitably from malarial fever. Mr. X. "finds the
people very hard to reach," he told me, and his success has only been
relatively cheering. After labouring here nearly six years--the mission
was first opened in 1882--he has no male converts, though there are two
promising nibblers, who are waiting for the first vacancy to become
adherents. There _was_ a convert, baptised before Mr. X. came here, a
poor manure-coolie, who was employed by the mission as an evangelist in
a small way; but "Satan tempted him, he fell from grace, and had to be
expelled for stealing the children's buttons." It was a sad trial to the
mission. The men refuse to be saved, recalcitrant sinners! but the women
happily are more tractable. Mr. X. has up to date (May, 1894), baptised
his children's nurse girl, the "native helper" of the single ladies, and
his wife's cook. Mr. X. works hard, far too hard. He is of the type that
never can be successful in China. He was converted when nearing middle
age, is narrow and uncompromising in his views, and is as stern as a
Cameronian. It is a farce sending such men to China. At his services
there is never any lack of listeners, who marvel greatly at the new
method of speaking Chinese which this enterprising emissary--in London
he was in the oil trade--is endeavouring to introduce into the province.
Of "tones" instead of the five used by the Chinese, he does not
recognise more than two, and these he uses indifferently. He hopes,
however, to be understood by loud speaking, and he bellows at the placid
coolies like a bull of Bashan.

I paid an early visit to my countrymen at the _Yesu-tang_ (Jesus Hall),
the mission home, as I thought that my medical knowledge might be of
some service. I wished to learn a little about their work, but to my
great sorrow I was no sooner seated than they began plying me with
questions about the welfare of my soul. I am a "poor lost sinner," they
told me. They flung texts at