ngpo, who had gone to America with them a few years before. King Eng's
parents did not oppose her going, but neither did they encourage it. They
told her fully of the loneliness she would experience in a foreign country;
the dangers and unpleasantness of the long ocean voyage she would have to
take; and the unparalleled situation in which she would find herself on her
return ten years later, unmarried at twenty-eight. But with a quiet faith
and purpose, and a courage nothing short of heroic, King Eng answered, "If
the Lord opens the way and the cablegram says 'Come,' I shall surely go;
but if otherwise I shall do as best I can and labour at home."

Years afterward, when two other girls from the Foochow Boarding School
were leaving China for a period of study in America, a farewell meeting was
held for them in the school, at which Dr. Hue told how she had reached her
decision to go. She said: "I was the first Fuhkien province girl to go to
America.... My father told me, 'I cannot decide for you; you must pray to
God. If you are to go, God will show you.' Then I felt God's word come to
me, 'Fear not, for I will go with you wherever you go.' At that time the
school girls were seldom with the missionary ladies and I could not speak
any English, therefore I did not know any American politeness; and all my
clothes and other daily-need-things were not proper to use in the western
country. Although everything could not be according to my will, I trusted
God with all my life, so nothing could change my heart."

In the spring of 1884, in charge of some missionaries going home on
furlough, Hue King Eng left China for America. The journey was a long and
rough one, and a steamer near theirs was wrecked. One of the missionaries,
wondering how her faith was standing the test of these new and terrifying
experiences, asked if she wanted to go back home. But she answered, "No, I
do not think of going home at all." She felt that it was right for her to
go to America, and although when she met her friends at the journey's end
she confessed that sea-sickness and home-sickness had brought the tears
many a night, she never faltered in her decision.

Upon landing in New York she went at once to Mrs. Keen in Philadelphia, and
there met Dr. and Mrs. Sites, of Foochow, whom she had known from
childhood, and who were then in Philadelphia attending the General
Conference of the Methodist Church. She spent the summer with them,
learning to read, wri