"I greatly enjoyed meeting the native Christians. One girl who sat near me in meeting offered me the use of her hymn-book, opened at the proper place, at the announcement of each hymn. She did this with a kindliness of manner and expression not to be exceeded by any in the home land, and after service she also kindly invited me into one of the rooms to talk with the women.

"Whatever renouncing the world may mean to others, to these dear women the principal item of renunciation was the unbinding of their feet; and they desired me to know that they had really unbound theirs. This act would shut them out for life from fashionable society. Poor China! All the women I have seen so far, with one or two exceptions, have been thus crippled in their feet; and they have no Jesus to help them in their troubles."

The party arrived safely at Yun-nan Fu about January 16th, 1897. The journey from Chang Tung seems to have been very pleasant and without special incident. Miss Leffingwell now entered upon her regular mission work at the capitol city of this great province, where she is to remain till finally driven out by the Boxer riots about three years later.

She still is praising the Lord for His goodness to her, and does not forget her favorite expression, "The Lord supplies all my needs according to His riches in glory."

CHAPTER XII.

FIRST YEAR IN YUN-NAN.

PLACES OF BLESSINGS.

"When thou passeth through the waters, I will be with thee."

Not in the fertile land of Goshen,
Dwelling by the cooling stream;
Peaceful, by the flocks abiding,

Was that wondrous pillar seen;
Fiery pillar, light midst darkness,
Cloudy pillar, showed by day;
Constant proof that God was with them,
Leading, guiding, all the way.

Not on couch of luxury slumbering,
Sheltered in a house of love,

Was the ladder seen extending

From the earth to heaven above.
When the Lord said, "I am with thee,
Others in thee shall be blest,

I will keep thee, never leave thee."
Gate of heaven! truest rest.

Not in land of corn and plenty,

Was the manna sent from heaven;

Not mid springs of living waters,

Was that strange rock smitten, riven.
Angels' food each morning gathered,
By a Father's hand supplied;

O thou Rock, thou matchless symbol
Of a Savior crucified.

Tiring journey, deprivations,
Lonely, stony pillow's rest,

Garden where the Lord sweat blood drops,
God is with thee, this is best.

If obedient in faith's pathway,

Journeying where earth's fountains fail,
All resourceful, He discloseth

Hidden springs within the vail.

-Clara A. Leffingwell.

Kuang Feng, China, April, 1903.

At the beginning of 1897, after her long journey of over two thousand miles inland from Shanghai, Miss Leffingwell is now at Yun-nan Fu, the capital city of Yun-nan province. This city is beautifully situated on Lake Tien-hai, and has for a long time been noted for its manufactories, especially of silk. It has an estimated population of fifty thousand people, but probably there are many more than this number of inhabitants, as Chinese streets and alleys swarm with human activity, from the tottling chil dren at their play to the old men and women with their too heavy burdens.

It strikes a foreigner as very strange, indeed almost beyond belief, when it is stated by Miss Leffingwell that their nearest post-office was about three hundred miles away (a journey of thirteen days for a "runner"), and that all mail to and from that city must be carried that distance by pri vate carriers. Such conditions are rapidly disappearing now in China, and she is awakening from her long sleep, eager to seize and utilize some of the many Western ideas that have become so common with us.

Miss Leffingwell entered upon her work here

with such a spirit of devotion and abandonment that she could not fail of success. This spirit is shown in a very beautiful light by what she wrote the day before she arrived at Yun-nan Fu: "Tomorrow I expect to reach the station to which I

am appointed, perhaps to remain till Jesus calls me to come up higher. I know but little of the conditions existing there and nothing of the place. I do not know what my room will be like, nor how it will be furnished. It may be bare and I may not be able to furnish it, but I will put up this text, 'Surely the Lord is in this place;' and He is all sufficient, all satisfying. I will remember that this text was first uttered by one who had no roof to cover him but the starry dome of heaven, whose

bed was the earth and whose pillow was a stone, in a strange land and alone."

In her letters to her friends, she is frequently telling what excellent health she has in China, and she writes them especially about her voice which had failed her in America. "They tell me here that my voice is very strong. I can not realize how weak my voice was before I came, and I can not imagine it failing me here. I write this because some of my friends in America thought I did not look strong. The race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong.' The battle is the Lord's."

On August 30th of this year (1897), she passed one of the mile-stones to which all missionaries look forward with anxiety, and one which is gladly left behind. She successfully completed her first examination in the Chinese language. This truly was to her a cause of rejoicing, as well as a great encouragement. She had an unutterable longing to be telling the story of the Cross to the Chinese in their own language. The following extract expresses something of this desire: "God saves me to the uttermost and my heart is on fire for Him. If I was at home I would be working many times. harder than I am here; but, of course, I must learn these thousands of Chinese characters in which the Bible is written, and then I expect to be preaching the gospel many times a day; as one can gather a crowd so easily here."

She made her native teacher a special subject of prayer; and as a natural result she talked to him about his soul and about salvation at suitable times.