t book in the market of its kind.
The "New York Herald" in writing of it said: "There has been little
given to the public which throws more timely and intelligent light
upon the question of coolie emigration than the book written by Col.
Russell H. Conwell, of Boston."

These travels were replete with thrilling adventures and strange
coincidents. When he left Somerville after his brief visit, for his
trip through the Western States, China and Japan, a broken-hearted
mother in Charlestown, Mass., asked him to find her wandering boy,
whom she believed to be "somewhere in China." A big request, but
Colonel Conwell, busy as he was, did not forget it. Searching for him
in such places as he believed the boy would most likely frequent,
Colonel Conwell accidentally entered, one night in Hong Kong, a den of
gamblers. Writing of the event, he says:

"At one table sat an American, about twenty-five years old, playing
with an old man. They had been betting and drinking. While the
gray-haired man was shuffling the cards for a 'new deal' the young
man, in a swaggering, careless way, sang, to a very pathetic tune, a
verse of Phoebe Carey's beautiful hymn,

'One sweetly solemn thought
Comes to me o'er and o'er:
I'm nearer home to-day
Than e'er I've been before.'

Hearing the singing several gamblers looked up in surprise. The old
man who was dealing the cards grew melancholy, stopped for a moment,
gazed steadfastly at his partner in the game, and dashed the pack upon
the floor under the table. Then said he, 'Where did you learn that
tune?' The young man pretended that he did not know he had been
singing. 'Well, no matter,' said the old man, I've played my last
game, and that's the end of it. The cards may lie there till doomsday,
and I will never pick them up,' The old man having won money from
the other--about one hundred dollars--took it out of his pocket, and
handing it to him said: 'Here, Harry, is your money; take it and
do good with it; I shall with mine.' As the traveler followed them
downstairs, he saw them conversing by the doorway, and overheard
enough to know that the older man was saying something about the song
which the young man had sung. It had, perhaps, been learned at a
mother's knee, or in a Sunday-school, and may have been (indeed it
was), the means of saving these gamblers, and of aiding others through
their influence toward that nobler life which alone is worth the
living."

The old man had co