Yang
thankful and happy. These restaurant people had a few days before
been visited by the Bible Society's agent, and had derived much
Christian benefit from his Chinese assistant.

'Our interview with the restaurant men was on Monday. In Ch'ao Yang
next Sunday, just six days after being, so to speak, on the mount
of transfiguration with these Chinamen, on dismissing the few
hangers-on that remained at the close of the afternoon preaching,
and stepping down from the little vantage-ground from which I had
been speaking, one of the audience said he would go home with me to
my inn, as he had come with a letter to me from Ta Cheng Tz[)u]
from the Bible agent. I went to the inn, read the letter, and found
that he and his Chinese helper had differed, and he had come to Ta
Cheng Tz[)u] seeking me. He needed and asked my help, so next day I
started for Ta Cheng Tz[)u], and on arriving there found that the
little place was full of the news of the quarrel between the
Christian foreigner and the Christian native. That was bad, but,
worse still, on going to the restaurant I found the earnestness of
the inquirers gone, and one of them said openly, "If this is the
sort of fruit that Christianity bears, what better is it than any
other religion?"

'In a later visit paid in May they seemed colder still, and the
place where I had hoped to gather fruit seemed barren and hopeless.

'In August we again visited Ta Cheng Tz[)u]. I was blue. The fever
of July, the defection of the Mongol donkey man, who failed to come
for us, the diarrh[oe]a, which on the journey changed to dysentery,
being baffled in attempting to find suitable quarters in Ta Cheng
Tz[)u], and the chilled hearts of the restaurant men, made our
entrance not cheerful. On the way my assistant and I had talked
over matters, and resolved by prayer and endeavour to see what
could be done for the restaurant men. Just ten days after our
arrival the eldest brother called on me in my inn and said,
"To-night I dismiss my gods, henceforth I am a Christian. I am
ready to be baptized any day you may be pleased to name."

'I cannot say what a relief these words brought me. There still
remained anxieties in his case, but in a day or two things came out
all right, and day by day in public in the restaurant he m