sleeve and looked at it much as some boys do at their watch at home and then put it back as if it was a treasure too precious to be eaten. I wish you could have seen them eat at the table. Both chop-sticks skilfully held in the right hand and used much like an elongated thumb and forefinger, so firmly are they able to grasp food with them. Of course there were two tables, each in a separate room, as men and women must not eat together; but I had some of the little boys at the women's table. After dinner we had worship in another

room.

"The children greatly enjoyed this feast of mine and all passed off pleasantly. I tried to teach them the hymn: 'While shepherds watched their flocks by night.' Not one of them, however, seemed to have any idea of a tune."

This year closed peacefully and quietly with her, and she wrote about it as follows: "I am well and strong. I feel I am in a home of my loving Father's own choice, and that He is quite able to take care of me. There have been rumors of threatened danger, but now the eighth Chinese month is past, and all is peaceful. A few days ago this verse was given me with much force: 'I shall not die, but live, and declare the work of the Lord' (Psalms 118:17)."

CHAPTER XV.

CHINESE CHRISTIANS-INCIDENTS.

Grace was in her steps, heaven in her eye,
In every gesture, dignity and love.

-Milton.

So dear to heaven is saintly chastity,
That when a soul is found sincerely so,
A hundred liveried angels lacky her.

As pure in thought as angels are.

-Milton.

-Rogers.

Of manners gentle, of affection mild;
In wit a woman, simplicity a child.

-Pope.

Miss Leffingwell found many most interesting cases among the great number of people who came within the range of her labors. Some of these will be of interest to the reader, not only as showing native customs and habits, but also as showing Miss Leffingwell's deep devotion to her calling.

WHIPPED FOR JESUS' SAKE.

"During one of the three great feasts of the Chinese year, a little Chinese boy regularly attended morning prayers, and also the Sunday services. We became quite fond of the smiling face. Mr.

James' little boy would say, 'My little friend has come,' and so we all learned to call him 'Hughie's little friend.'

"When school was resumed we missed him, but one Sunday morning he came. The next day in the Chinese day-school the teacher called him out and sternly said, 'I heard you went to the foreigners' yesterday.' 'Yes, teacher,' said the boy. 'And that you helped worship the foreigners' God?' 'I did,' was the reply. 'How do you worship the foreigners' God?' demanded the teacher. 'We pray to the Lord Jesus,' replied the little child.

""Come out here by the tablet of Confucius and show us how you did it,' was the teacher's command; and there before the whole heathen school the little fellow knelt and prayed to the one true God. But it did not end there; after he had finished, the master gave him sixty blows with a bamboo rod. The next Sunday, however, the little fellow came again, looking as bright as ever.

"The Chinese Christians tell us that if the teacher knows that the boy's parents are willing to have him come to the mission services, he will not beat him again. Once since then the teacher said to him, 'Why will you go to those foreigners? They are neither men nor devils.' Pray especially for this little boy, that God's will may be done concerning him."

A CHINESE BRIDE.

"During my stay in this piace my heart was glad· dened by the presence at our mission of a sweet

faced, young Chinese girl whom we all believed to be a true Christian. Her name was Fu-tsie and she had learned to sing, in Chinese of course, some of our English hymns and tunes, of which she seemed very fond. She was engaged, however, to be mar ried and must soon leave us.

"In China little girls are betrothed very young. They have nothing to do with choosing their future husbands, and frequently are engaged to persons they never see till they are married. All the ar rangements from the first talk about the engage ment to the conclusion of the marriage ceremony, are entirely under the control of the parents, and the future bride is not even consulted.

"The marriage ceremonies are always associated with idolatrous customs, so that all these things make it very testing and hard for a Christian girl when she is married. The engagement of a girl is moreover regarded as so strongly binding that there is no escape from it on her part.

"I was told by the missionaries that a young girl who had been educated and converted in the mission school had been engaged to a worthless wreck of a man, even from a Chinese point of view. The superintendent of the mission urged the Chinese authorities not to compel the girl to marry him. He did this, not on the ground that he was not a Christian, but that he was a worthless character and utterly unable to support a wife. He was told by the officials that the Emperor himself dared not annul the contract, and that if she did not want to marry this man, she could throw herself in the well or take poison.

"In Fu-tsie's case, however, her future husband was a reputable man, but she was much concerned for fear she should be obliged to take part in some idolatrous ceremony. 'What shall I do when we come to this or that heathen rite,' she would ask the missionaries. 'I do not think my mother ought to make me prostrate myself before the ancestral tablets,' was one of the last things she said before she was borne away from the mission to the wedding in the sedan chair.

“It is very hard for a foreigner to understand the vast importance of these customs to the Chinese who have practiced them for thousands of years; and the perplexity that confronts the missionary in giving advice to native Christians under such circumstances is very great.

"The day following the wedding at her hus band's home, the ceremonial feast was held at the home of her parents, and the missionaries were invited. The mat on which the husband and wife were to stand during the ceremony that we would call the reception was spread before the ancestral tablet. As they took their place on it the bride looked very sad, as if just ready to cry. The names of all invited guests were read whether they were present or not, and as they were called, those who were present came forward and deposited their gifts.

"The costume of the bride would seem striking to us. The skirt was silk, made with silken panels of various colors, and embroidered with butterflies, from each of which were suspended three delicate silver chains with very small bells attached to the