by his antics, so that the father exclaimed to the mother, "Just see that boy perform!" and the gloom and ill temper passed away. Perhaps there are some even in Christian lands who could be profited by the lesson taught in their writings : "Whatsoever your age and dignity, to your parents be their simple-hearted boy, and don't forget to go and cheer them up in their feeble old age, adapt yourself to entertain them."

No. 2. Not so innocent is the scene embroidered from the throat to the right shoulder. It teaches idolatry; a man kneeling before a small table with uplifted hands, though concealed by the long Chinese sleeves (sleeves too short to conceal the hands would not be considered nice in China). On the table are two wooden images and two lighted candles. The story is this:

At

In the Han dynasty, one by the name of Ting-Lan had lost his parents so early that he never had helped serve them, nor had he given them reverence. As he grew up, he thought much about all his parents had done for him in giving him life. He dreamed one night that two people entered his room and said, "We are your parents; look at us." He looked eagerly at their faces; and on awaking, drew their profiles as he remembered them in his dream; had images made of them, and served them as if they were alive. His wife was not so reverential and became tired of caring for them. One day in his absence, she pricked them with her needle. Blood came out. night when the husband returned he saw a tear in the eye of his father's image. After inquiring and learning what his wife had done, he put her away. In this way little children are taught two lies as truth; namely, that this actually took place in the "Han dynasty," and that "blood came from the wooden image" (exact translation). They are also taught that the God-ordained relation between husband and wife, which should be lifelong, may be broken for so slight a thing as not worshiping the images of a father and mother who died so long before that the son had no remembrance of their faces. Poor, blinded China! How much suffering this one error, so universally taught, brings to little girls, brides and young mothers!

No. 3. The next seems even more horrible, for it teaches to ignorant Chinese, even while too young to have opinions already formed, that murder, the killing of one's own little boy, is not only justifiable, but, under certain conditions, even commendable. The little red dress shows a father digging a grave for his little boy. The story is as follows: In the Han dynasty was a very poor man named Kioh-Kii. He had a son three years of age, and an aged mother. There was not sufficient food for all the family; and what the child ate diminished his grandmother's food; so he decided to bury his son. His wife did not dare to utter one word of remonstrance. As he dug up three feet of earth he suddenly saw gold coins, more than one and one-half bushels. On the gold pieces were written these words, "Heaven gave this gold to Kioh-Kii, because he is a filial son. The rulers must not take, and the people must not want."

No. 4. This is embroidered near the last, and shows a funny, round-faced boy in a big canopy-top bed. Above his head and scattered at regular intervals over his body are the tiniest black crosses, made to represent mosquitoes. It represents a boy who was so dutiful to his parents, that before they retired for the night he would disrobe and go to their bed, letting all the hungry mosquitoes take their fill, not brushing one away. Then when the mosquitoes were satiated, his father and mother could rest in peace.

No. 5. At the back of the little red dress a gorgeous scene is embroidered, quite suggestive to those who know the Chinese and are aware how things disappear up their capacious sleeves. Before an official in richest, flowered brocade is a boy standing with lifted hands, bowing his farewell, but as his clasped hands were lifted and lowered to show great respect, two oranges had fallen from the boy's sleeves.

The story states that the official angrily rebuked the boy for stealing his oranges, but when the boy explained that his mother had been wanting oranges very much, and he had taken these two for his mother, the man's heart was so touched by the boy's filial devotion that, instead of punishing him, he gave him more. The child was only

five years old in our way of reckoning, and little children are encouraged in stealing by such stories.

No. 6. This scene represents a young man kneeling under the trees, while just before him are bamboo sprouts perhaps a foot in height. The story is about a young man whose sick mother greatly desired the tender bamboo shoots, which are truly a delicacy when they first sprout up out of the earth, something like our asparagus. The son, though

it was winter, went out under the bamboo trees, and prostrating himself, wept for sorrow for his mother. When he arose he saw just where his tears had fallen that bamboo sprouts had suddenly sprung up. Thus heaven had compassion on him and gave this filial son what he so greatly desired for his mother. In their blindness their worship of heaven and earth is the highest the Chinese ever get.

Whatever the Chinese are, they are not atheistic. "Heaven knows, though men do not know," is a common saying. They believe in heaven answering prayer, as you will see by many of the scenes embroidered on this dress, and when they become Christians they expect God to quickly answer prayers. Nothing is so trivial or so difficult that they may not bring it to God in prayer, when once they have obtained a saving faith in Christ; and their belief is so simple and trusting, God does not disappoint them. Because of this I have great hopes for China, when once she has become awakened to the folly of worshiping gods that are nothing. My greatest desire is that enough missionaries of the right sort will come to China while yet their belief in the supernatural is strong, that they may be turned to God from idols, rather than from idols to unbelief and atheism, as would be the natural result of western education spreading throughout China. or if the evangelizing of China is done by those who

have less faith in the true God than the Chinese now have in their false gods.

China's prospects were never brighter than now, and the gospel will have a wonderful opportunity in the near future. Her people are friendly to the missionaries, and all conditions afford unexcelled opportunities to those who will work patiently in faith for the upbuilding of God's kingdom and coming.

"I may not reach the heights I seek,
My untried strength may fail me;
Or, halfway up the mountain peak,
Fierce tempests may assail me,
But though that place I never gain,
Herein lies life's comfort for my pain-
I will be worthy of it.

-Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

CHAPTER XXV.

TOILING ON-1901.

"Traveler, faint not on the road,
Droop not in the parching sun;
Onward, onward with thy load,
Till the night be won.

Swerve not, though thy weary feet

Fain the narrow path would leave;
From the burden and the heat,

Thou shalt rest at eve."

At the opening of the year 1901, Miss Leffingwell was still at Shanghai, but was expecting soon to go to some interior station to begin again regular missionary work. She had learned that she was not to go home now, and also that she was not to return to Yun-nan. This last fact seems to have been more of a disappointment to her than the first, and she says about it in one of her letters: "I was deeply moved this morning when I received the letter stating that I was not to return to Yunnan Fu, so much so that I miscalculated my strength and went into public prayers when I should have gone to my room." She had given five years of hard work to the natives of Yun-nan, and she had come to love them dearly. It is one of the hardest fields in China. The people as a whole seem quite indifferent and frequently unfriendly