when we first met the hundred men from the Chowping district, who had come for six weeks' instruction. We were not prepared for the manliness of which they bore the stamp, nor for the independence which seemed to mark their acceptance of the Gospel.

If the work in Shantung were all that had been accomplished, we would be constrained to feel that God had rewarded our labour and gifts and prayers exceedingly abundantly above all that we had asked or thought. But we have to notice the work that has been done in the second province in which Mr. Richard did so much, both in the way of famine relief and missionary labour.

THE WORK IN SHANSI.

In many important points the Mission in Shansi finds its conditions different from those of Shantung. It is one of the westernmost provinces, with Shensi and Mongolia for its western boundaries. Whereas a great part of Shantung is a plain a few feet above the sea level, a great part of Shansi consists of the plain of Tai Yuen, a level stretch 2,800 feet above it. Its population is less stalwart than that of Shantung, and more commercial. It supplies China with its bankers and its ablest men of commerce. It is distinguished also by a discreditable eminence in the use of opium, dividing with Shensi the shame of being the worst portion of China for opium smoking.

Our Mission commenced in 1877, when Mr. Richard, Mr. Hill, Mr. Turner, and some others addressed themselves to deal with the great famine to which we have previously referred. As already noted no worker escaped the pestilence which accompanied the famine.

Happily our brethren survived their fevers and all the other perils attendant on their awful task, and had the satisfaction of having saved many thousands of lives through the relief they administered, and opened many thousands of hearts to a new sense of gratitude to the foreigner. In these circumstances it might have been expected that spiritual results of similar magnitude and value to those found in Shantung would also have been realised in Shansi. But while it is ours to sow beside all waters, it is still true that "we know not which shall prosper this or that." Certain it is that while our Mission and the American Presbyterian Mission and the American Board have all found fruit in abundance rewarding their labour in Shantung, in Shansi both our workers and those of the other Society which labours there have still to say, "Who hath believed our report?" There is result. The Inland Mission has a flourishing work in one portion of

the province, Ping Yang, a district where a large amount of relief work was done, and we see the beginning of what we trust will be a great work in part of our own field. It is yet true that we have here a soil which, as yet, has given no such results as have gladdened the hearts of workers in the provinces of Shantung, Fuh Kien, or Quangtung.

THE OPIUM CURSE.

Part of the difference in productiveness is probably due to the depraving influence of the use of opium. And when it is remembered that the use of opium is so extensive that it is the general (though we hope exaggerated) opinion that seven men out of every ten and six women out of every ten in the cities smoke opium, and one-third of all the men and women in country districts, it will be understood at once that an immense addition to the usual obstacles and difficulties exists here. It is hardly by accident that Shantung being one of the provinces most free from the opium vice should also be one of the most receptive of Gospel testimony, and Shansi being one of the worst for that vice should be one of the least receptive. For while opium smoking has defenders among Europeans who do not practise it, we met with no Chinaman who did not look upon its use as a grave calamity.

Most thoughtful Christians will see in the wide extent of a vice introduced into China by Englishmen and fostered by our country, in those dark ages of legislation from which we have so recently emerged, a reason, not for abandoning a field, but for increasing our efforts to introduce the antidote where we have inflicted the bane. And faith in the omnipotence of the Gospel is slow to accept any failure as final. In addition to the hindrance due to opium, we have to remember that our staff has been smaller that there have been more changes in it; and that other causes we need not name have tended to retard the progress of the Gospel.

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These preliminary remarks are introductory to the statement that after thirteen years of work our total membership in this province numbers only about thirty.

It is only fair to remember that, were it not for the largeness of the results seen in Shantung, this number would not strike us as so small as it does.

Our keenest disappointment is in the work in Tai Yuen Foo itself. This great city of one hundred thousand inhabitants has proved as unproductive as Tsi-nan-foo has been to the American Presbyterians. The conditions of life in the great cities (almost all engaged in shop

keeping, living away from their wives and families) and the consequent immorality, tend to lower the tone of life and thought. Accordingly, we lament, and the Inland Mission lament with us, the very slow and small results that have been gathered here by the two Missions, which have worked side by side since the famine. We have six members; they have about double that number.

Still, testimony has been borne which has reached multitudes of those who visit the city for trading purposes, and to large numbers within the city itself. There is a good impression made, which means much in China. There are thousands of students coming up annually and triennially to the great examinations; it is a good centre from which to work the villages round. Shansi people go, as shop-keepers and bankers, to all parts of the Empire; and to leave the centre of any district unoccupied is to expose the work all through it to constant interruption and persecution. Our brethren, therefore, do not yet know that they are beaten, they believe themselves sure of great and satisfying success, and they look forward to seeing the work crowned throughout Shansi with great success.

SURROUNDING DISTRICT.

There is certainly great promise of success in some of the work outside Tai Yuen. Fifty miles to the north is a city, named Hsin Chao (pronounced Shin Jo), in the centre of a populous district, and with a population of its own of 15,000. Here work was commenced by visits of Mr. Richard's evangelists, Mr. Turner taking charge of the station in 1885, and for two or three years Mr. Dixon has worked there.

In Shiao Tien Tzu (pronounced Shoudienza), eleven miles from Tai Yuen to the south, a place of six or eight thousand people, good work has been carried on, and a good beginning made, by Mr. Sowerby and Mr. Morgan. And at the end of the great Mountain Pass which leads from the Great Plain to this Plain of Tai Yuen, stands Shi Tieh (pronounced Shittia), a town of five thousand people, thirty miles south of the capital, and about 3,600 feet above the level of the sea, where Mr. Morgan has commenced work, and where he intends to reside.

The work in Hsin Chao is the oldest of the three, and promises well. Though only nine or ten have been baptized, we had on the Sunday we were there a gathering of about a hundred to worship; at an outlying station we had a gathering of about forty. Mr. Dixon is a man of exceptional energy; he has good abilities in medicine,