seem very earnest.'

The beneficial result of the home visit of 1889 was very evident at this
time. It had arrested the 'running down,' from which he had severely
suffered. It had enabled him to renew old friendships, and to form new
ones. His wholehearted devotion to the difficult work of his life and
the wonderful intensity and depth of his faith had touched the hearts of
many faithful men and women at home, who gladly responded to his
oft-repeated request, 'Pray for me and for the conversion of the Chinese
and the Mongols.' He renewed his interest in the broad current of the
world's life. We have seen how some years previously he gave up all
reading but the Bible. Now, while he studied the Bible with all his old
eagerness, he had various newspapers sent to him, he rejoiced in the
receipt of books sent by friends--especially those bearing upon the
culture of the soul--and he kept his eye upon the religious and social
movements of the day.

The selections from his correspondence which follow illustrate these
changes in him. He modified his mode of life in Mongolia. Having given
up vegetarianism on his homeward voyage he did not resume it upon his
re-entrance on Mongol life. He remained a total abstainer, and his
hatred of opium, whisky, and tobacco continued as strong as ever,
although he did not now make abstinence from the two latter a test of
Church membership. He reserved more of the Sunday as a day of rest,
taking only the religious services with the Christians and inquirers,
and not, as formerly, setting up his tent on the street. The old
careworn look disappeared, his form regained much of its former life and
spring, and his face filled out, his smile resumed the brightness of
old, and the voice came back to a good deal of its early clearness. All
these evidences of a change for the better served to augur many years of
happy work. In a letter to a friend he playfully alludes to the twenty
or thirty years of labour yet remaining, and he often--half in jest and
half in earnest--asserted that life in the interior was so healthy that
he should probably outlive his fellow-workers at Tientsin and Peking.

By the mail that conveyed the letter quoted on page 263 he also wrote to
an Edinburgh friend:--

'Do you know Adolphe Monod's _Farewell_? It was sent to me lately
by Rev. C. New, of Hastings, an old Cheshunt fellow-student. I have
enjoyed it all, but most, I think, chapter xii., "Of Things not