s they marched slowly along the pathway singing as they went. It
was a stirring sight. On either side the waving fields of rice, behind
them the gleam of the blue ocean, before them the great towering
mountains clothed in green. Above them shone the clear dazzling sky of
a tropical evening. And on wound the long procession of Christians in a
heathen land, and from them arose the glorious words:

O thou, my soul, bless God the Lord, And all that in me is Be stirred up
his holy name To magnify and bless.

And the heathen in the rice-fields stopped to gaze at the strange sight,
and the mountains gave back the echo of that Name which is above every
name.

And so, marching to their song, the procession came to the village.
Everybody in the place had come out to meet them at the first sound
of the singing. And now they stood staring, the men in a group by
themselves, the women and children in the background, the dogs snarling
on the outskirts of the crowd.

The congregation was there ready, and without waiting to find a place of
meeting, right out under the clear evening skies, the young missionary
told once more the great story of God and his love as shown through
Jesus Christ. The message took the village by storm. It was like water
to thirsty souls. The next day five hundred of them brought their idols
to the missionary to be burned.

And now Mackay went up and down the Kap-tsu-lan plain from village to
village as he had done before, but this time it was a triumphal march.
And everywhere he went throngs threw away their idols and declared
themselves followers of the true God.

He was overcome with joy. It was so glorious he wished he could stay
there the rest of his life and lead these willing people to a higher
life. But Tamsui was waiting; Sin-tiam, Bang-kah, Kelung, Go-ko-khi,
they must all be visited; and finally he tore himself away, leaving some
of his students to care for these people of Kap-tsu-lan.

But he came back many times, until at last nineteen chapels dotted the
plain, and in them nineteen native preachers told the story of Jesus and
his love. Sometimes, in later years, when Mackay was with them, tears
would roll down the people's faces as they recalled how badly they had
used him on his first visit.

It was while on his third visit here that he had a narrow escape
from the head-hunters. He was staying at a village called "South Wind
Harbor," which was near the border of savage territory. Mackay of