The loud roar brought the villagers flocking down to the tent-church
by the shore. For the most part they brought their pews with them. They
came hurrying out of their huts carrying benches, and arranging them in
rows they seated themselves to listen.

Mackay and the students sang and the people listened eagerly. The
Pe-po-hoan by nature were more musical than the Chinese, and the singing
delighted them. Then the missionary arose and addressed them. He told
clearly and simply why he had come and preached to them of the true
God. Afterward the congregation was allowed to ask questions, and they
learned much of this God and of his love in his Son Jesus Christ.

The wonder of the great news shone in the eyes upturned to the preacher.
In the gloom of the half-lighted tent their dark faces took on a new
expression of half-wondering hope. Could it be possible that this was
true? Their poor, benighted minds had always been held in terror of
their gods and of the evil spirits that forever haunted their footsteps.
Could it be possible that God was a great Father who loved his children?
They asked so many eager questions, and the story of Jesus Christ had
to be told over and over so many times, that before this first church
service ended a gray gleam of dawn was spreading out over the Pacific.

It was only the next day that these newly-awakened people decided that
they must have a church building. And they went to work to get one in a
way that might have shamed a congregation of people in a Christian land.
This new wonderful hope that had been raised in their hearts by the
knowledge that God loved them set them to work with glad energy. Kai
Bok-su and his men still preached and prayed and sang and taught in the
crazy old wind-flapped tent by the seashore, and the people listened
eagerly, and then, when services were over, every one,--preacher,
assistants, and congregation,--set bravely to work to build a church.
Brave they certainly had to be, for at the very beginning they had to
risk their lives for their chapel. A party sailed down the coast and
entered savage territory for the poles to construct the building. They
were attacked and one or two were badly wounded, though they managed to
escape. But they were quite ready to go back and fight again had it been
necessary. Then they made the bricks for the walls. Rice chaff mixed
with clay were the materials, and the Kap-tsu-lan plain had an abundance
of both. The roof was mad