''FOR PRIVATt CIRCULATION, 
 
 ASIA 
 
 MEMORIALS 
 
 OF 
 
 REV. CARSTAIRS DOUGLAS, 
 
 M.A., LL.D, 
 
 MISSIONARY OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF ENGLAND 
 
 AT AMOY, CHINA. 
 LIBRARY 
 
 ANNEX 
 
 2 
 
 18 7 7 
 
 ^ n 6 u : 
 
 WATERLOW AND SONS LIMITED, PRINTKKS, 
 LONDON WALL. 
 
CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 THE 
 
 CHARLES WILLIAM WASON 
 
 COLLECTION ON CHINA 
 
 AND THE CHINESE 
 
Cornell University Library 
 
 BV 3425.A6D73 
 
 3 1924 023 084 662 
 
MEMORIALS 
 
 OF 
 
 REV. CARSTAIRS DOUGLAS, 
 
 M.A., LL.D., 
 
 MISSIONARY OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF ENGLAND 
 AT AMOY, CHINA. 
 
 18 7 7 
 
 '^ onhan : 
 
 WATERLOW AND SONS LIMITED, PRINTERS, 
 LONDON WALL. 
 
The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023084662 
 
THE ABOVE PHOTOGRAPH IS COPIED FROM ONE TAKEN WHEN HE 
 WAS ABOUT 42 YEARS OF AGE, 
 
MEMORIALS OF REV. CARSTAIR8 DOUGLAS. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Portrait taken during his last visit to Britain . . . . Frontispiece. 
 
 1. Notes of his Life, Eddcation and Training, Objects, Habits, 
 
 and Work, by one of his Brothers . . . . . . . . . . 5 
 
 2. Extracts from his Letters .. .. .. .. .. .. 19 
 
 3. Extracts from his Preface to his Dictionary of the Amoy 
 
 Language 45 
 
 4. Extract from Dictionary of Amoy Language 47 
 
 5. His Closing Days, by Rev. Wm. McGregor, Amoy . . . . 49 
 
 6. His Missionary Career, by Eev. W. S. Swanson, Amoy . . 56 
 
 7. Extract from Letter of Rev. Dr. Talmage, of the American 
 
 Dutch Reformed Church Mission, Amoy . . . . . . . . 70 
 
 8. Extracts from Letters of Rev. H. L. Mackenzie, Swatow . . 73 
 
 9. Missions in China of Presbyterian Church of England ; 
 
 Staff, Stations, and I-ondon Office-Bearers . . • • 74 
 
 10. Statistics of whole Protestant Missions in China, and of the 
 
 Shanghai Missionary Conference 75 
 
 A 2 
 
MEMORIALS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 REV. CARSTAIRS DOUGLAS, 
 
 M.A., LL.D. 
 
 BY JOHN M. DOUGLAS, 
 
 OF LONDON AND UPPER NORWOOD, ONE OF HIS BROTHERS. 
 
 Carstairs Douglas was born at Kilbarchan Manse, Ren- 
 frewshire, upon the 27th December, 1830, the youngest of 
 a large family ; another son being the Rev. George C. M. 
 Douglas, D.D., Principal of the Free Church (Divinity) 
 College, Glasgow, and all the other survivors being workers 
 in the Church. Their father, the Rev. Robert Douglas, who 
 passed a long and useful life as minister of that parish, was 
 a man of learning as multifarious and extensive as his 
 library, which not only filled two rooms appropriated to it, 
 but overflowed the whole house. His thoughtful conversa- 
 tion constantly and pleasantly distilled his knowledge into 
 the minds of those around him, especially the young, to 
 whom he loved to expound his curiously varied knowledge 
 and ripe conclusions in quaint, interesting, and brief remarks 
 which were never forgotten. He educated his sons at home 
 during their younger years, and in this he was efficiently 
 aided by his good and wise wife. She was descended from 
 a long line of ministers, and made full and profitable use of 
 
6 LIFE : MOTHER ; UNIVERSITY. 
 
 the library which surrounded her. Left a widow in 1847, 
 she joyfully encouraged Carstairs in giving himself to 
 China, and watched his every movement there. Her house 
 was his home in all his holidays as a student, and his 
 furloughs as a missionary. She greatly contributed to form 
 his active, accurate, decided habits. And he tenderly 
 returned her love and care. During all his wanderings he 
 never once missed writing to her by the homeward mail. 
 She died about ten days after he last set out for China. 
 
 He played as a child and learned as a boy amid the 
 paternal wilderness of literature, from which he extracted 
 much enjoyment and varied knowledge, being a great reader 
 and digester of books, virithout being a bookworm. When 
 old enough he went to the University of Glasgow, as his 
 five brothers had previously done. There he studied from 
 October, 1845, till April, 1851, and at the end of each of 
 these six yearly sessions he received prizes. Several of 
 these were first prizes, some in classes, and some in special 
 competitions. These distinctions were earned in every 
 department of study, but chiefly in the later years, in 
 logic, 'mathematics, and natural philosophy, ending in the 
 degree of M.A., taken with honours. His University long 
 afterwards recognised his learning by bestowing on him the 
 degree of LL.D. 1 
 
 While a student at Glasgow he was much under the 
 ministry of the late Rev. William Arnot, whose great ac- 
 quirements, genial kindness, and manly practical wisdom, 
 had singular influence among young men ; and he benefited 
 much by a weekly Greek Testament class, which Mr. 
 Arnot taught. 
 
 During these years in Glasgow he was fortunate in enjoy- 
 ing the close friendship of various young men who have 
 since been eminent, and it was his habit to learn something 
 
life: PHONOGRAPHY; TEMPERANCE. 7 
 
 from everybody. Two of these (fellow-students of an older 
 brother), who are now Professor Sir William Thomson and 
 Professor James Thomson, with their able father, at that 
 time the Professor of Mathematics, all of them in the Glas- 
 gow University, were among the early disciples of phono- 
 graphy, then newly invented. Carstairs caught their en- 
 thusiasm for it, and cultivated it to the last, holding it in 
 high esteem, not only in its short-hand form, which has 
 almost superseded every other, but in its general principles 
 and as an instrument of learning. He found it to be of re- 
 markable use for catching and recording the Chinese sounds, 
 which vary in singular ways, and which need to be much 
 more accurately discriminated than in western languages, 
 where a word can generally be understood, and bears the 
 same meaning, though pronounced in every variety of tone ; 
 whereas the same Chinese word is made to express several 
 entirely distinct meanings, according to the tone employed 
 in pronouncing it. 
 
 He studied Divinity at the Free Church College, Edin- 
 burgh, for the required course of four years (sessions 185 1-5), 
 where, besides paying close attention to the ordinary studies 
 he devoted much time and thought to three special subjects. 
 The first was temperance (that is, total abstinence from in- 
 toxicating liquors, unless medicinally), the principles of 
 which he studied closely, and perseveringly carried out ever 
 after, with full conviction of great personal comfort and ad- 
 vantage. And he laboured hard to disseminate them among 
 his fellow-students, organizing a strong society among them 
 and another in the University, which were of great use. He 
 kept up his temperance reading to the end of his life, sup- 
 plying himself with new publications of mark on its various 
 aspects, and he did what he could for the cause, publicly 
 and privately, in Europe and in China. Probably the last 
 
8 LIFE: elocution; public speaking. 
 
 temperance meeting he - addressed was at Shanghai, when 
 he advocated the cause with great earnestness, during the 
 general conference of missionaries there just two months 
 before his death. The second subject was elocution, in which 
 he took regular lessons for years, and carefully put them in 
 practice, making his reading and speaking singularly clear 
 and effective, though quiet. The third subject vizs public 
 speaking, for which he became a member of the Speculative 
 Society, an Edinburgh debating club, celebrated for gener- 
 ations as a training school for speakers, many historic names 
 being on its rolls. It then was — and probably still is — 
 occasionally attended by some of the leading counsel of the 
 day, and even sometimes by judges of the Supreme Court, 
 which keeps up the tone of the society. Most of the mem- 
 bers were young counsel. He carefully prepared for its 
 frequent meetings, and constantly took part in the debates, 
 gaining thereby readiness, accuracy, and clearness in ex- 
 tempore statement. All these acquirements were so tho- 
 roughly made his own that they seemed to be natural to 
 him, whereas they were really the results of skilful and per- 
 severing cultivation. 
 
 While in Edinburgh he took part in a great many meet- 
 ings, both evangelistic and temperance, and taught in 
 Sunday Schools for the roughest class of boys. He did 
 this not only for the sake of the good to be done by them, 
 but with a direct view to the great good to be got by him- 
 self from them, judging that to win and keep the attention 
 of miscellaneous meetings, (where the audience were not 
 restrained by the conventionalities and solemnity of a 
 church), and of street Arabs, was a sure training for success 
 with congregations at home or with heathens abroad. The 
 temperance meetings he very specially valued in this point 
 of view, and used to describe the advantage of seeing 
 
LIFE : CHARACTER WHILE STUDENT, 9 
 
 Other speakers better received than himself, and of thus 
 learning his defects and getting over them. There he 
 learned to use that pellucid arrangement of simple and 
 generally Saxon words which the common people under- 
 stand, and which every audience loves, because the meaning 
 of the speaker is fully apprehended without effort. For 
 few things had he a greater contempt than the use of 
 scholastic words in preaching, however useful they are in 
 study. 
 
 He was a member during his later sessions at Glasgow 
 of the Free Church Students' Missionary Society, and in 
 Edinburgh of the similar society connected with his college. 
 In these he took a very deep interest, and they doubtless 
 cherished and intensified the missionary or aggressive spirit 
 which was to rule his after life. The students' Saturday 
 prayer meetings, suggested by Dr. Duncan, the well-known 
 missionary to the Jews and Professor of Hebrew, were 
 greatly enjoyed by him. " Even then," writes his fellow 
 student and friend, the Rev. D. Maccoll, now of Kensington, 
 for many years one of the most laborious and successful of 
 home missionaries, "the devotional element was a very 
 marked feature in his character. With all his boyish love 
 of harmless mirth there was a deep under-current of de- 
 votion that never got long out of sight. This ceaseless 
 happy godliness was doubtless at the root of a rare and 
 beautiful characteristic, his shrinking, with what seemed a 
 physical sensitiveness, from any gossip, and his almost girlish 
 modesty and purity of mind." 
 
 During his vacations he spent a good deal of time abroad 
 and elsewhere from home, partly as a tutor in families, 
 always widening his knowledge, and cultivating personal 
 tact and address, on which he set great value, as instruments 
 of usefulness too often wanting. 
 
10 HEBREW, GREEK, ETC.; ORDINATION; CHINA. 
 
 He was a good linguist in classics, modern languages, 
 and Hebrew. His father's linguistic acquirements, and 
 special love for developing the relations and connections of 
 languages with each other, prepared him for excellence in 
 these things, and doubtless helped him subsequently to 
 achieve his great eminence as a scholar in the languages of 
 China. Amid all his labours he never allowed his earlier 
 knowledge to be lost, and habitually read his Greek Testa- 
 ment an(;l Hebrew Bible. Both were used by him, accord- 
 ing to his custom, during the first hour or two of his rapidly 
 fatal illness. 
 
 He was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Glasgow, 
 on the 7th February, 1855, and was ordained in that city 
 a fortnight later, in St. Matthew's Free Church, by his 
 friend Mr. Arnot, two or three months having been abated 
 from his last session to allow of his sailing for China in 
 March, 1855, with the Rev. W. C. Burns. 
 
 When young he learned a little music, and while a student 
 in Edinburgh he, with some fellow-students, attended a class 
 for singing church music, which was then beginning to attract 
 more attention than formerly ; and, under the skilful direc- 
 tion of Mr. Hately and others, he learned not only to sing 
 with correctness, but to understand the principles of the best 
 congregational psalmody. He took with him to China a 
 good concertina, selecting it as a portable instrument, on 
 which he played well. And while in China he caused end- 
 less supplies of sacred music books and hymn-books to be 
 sent him, in every good edition he could hear of, and also 
 procured an American organ, in which he delighted. The 
 Chinese service of song was the object of these studies, which 
 he had much at heart. He took part in composing a 
 Chinese hymn-book, which is popular among the converts, 
 and was the joint work of several missions. And he got up 
 
LIFE : MUSIC FOR CHINESE ; HYMNS ; METHOD. 11 
 
 a sol-fa music-book for it, adapting good tunes to the native 
 voice, which does not easily sound semi-tones. From this 
 book, when time allowed him, he taught not only the stu- 
 dents in the Training Institutions, but the children in the 
 juvenile schools, with much success, and with enjoyment to 
 himself as well as to the receivers of a musical education 
 so novel, and so much in advance of their national music. 
 He thought the choice of good hymns and music, and the 
 good singing of them, was most important, not only for at- 
 tracting and instructing men, but for glorifying God ; and 
 though such music, like life, must sometimes be sad, he 
 thought it should mainly be cheerful, vigorous, stirring, and 
 even joyful, as a Christian's life should be. His own feelings 
 were kept under great control, but they came out strongly 
 when singing by himself, as he might often be heard to do, 
 from the endless stores in his memory. The Book of Praise, 
 so carefully compiled by Sir Roundell Palmer (Lord Sel- 
 borne), was his special favourite. 
 
 He was able to accomplish all these things and many 
 others, by habits of incessant activity and self-discipline. 
 He used up every fragment of time, enjoying life amazingly, 
 with a keen zest for society, in which his genial cheerfulness 
 made him always welcome to old and young ; and he had 
 a strong appreciation of the beautiful in nature and art. 
 But he allowed nothing to turn him aside from whatever 
 tasks he allotted himself for the day, all of which were 
 minutely pre-arranged in his mind, just as his routes were in 
 the maps which he accumulated wherever he went, and 
 which he mastered like a Prussian staff-officer. (One of 
 his last letters, received some weeks after his death, asks 
 for two good, modern maps of the seats of war in Bulgaria 
 and Armenia, to be sent him at once.) During his last 
 furlough he was busy on his dictionary, the huge manuscript 
 
12 LIFE : CHINESE DICTIONARY ; ACCURACY, 
 
 folios of which accompanied him on each of his many jour- 
 neys to visit the churches and plead the cause of China 
 from Cornwall to Caithness. No week-day passed without 
 work upon it. When with his relations he gave eight hours 
 daily to it, whatever else might be in hand. And when the 
 last sheet had passed through the printing press he at once 
 bade farewell to those he loved at home, and started for his 
 beloved China. 
 
 This dictionary he began for his own instruction in the 
 Amoy language, utilizing the materials collected by his 
 predecessors, and gradually forming the resolution to pro- 
 duce a nearly perfect work. To this he devoted constant 
 attention at every spare moment for many years, which 
 resulted in a royal octavo of 612 pages, published in 1873 
 by Triibner & Co., of London, entitled, " Chinese-English 
 Dictionary of the Vernacular or Spoken Language of 
 Amoy." 
 
 For his own account of the language and of the undertak- 
 ing I refer to an extract annexed from his preface to the 
 dictionary, and to an extract from the dictionary itself, taken 
 at random, giving the needful information about a single 
 monosyllable, which shews the curiously complex nature of 
 the language, and the character of the work. There are 
 very many such monosyllables, many of which received 
 and needed much longer explanations. 
 
 An experienced missionary writes, " His accuracy in 
 almost every department of knowledge was very remark- 
 able. He seemed to have made himself master of every 
 subject that he had studied, and one felt that any informa- 
 tion obtained from him could be most thoroughly relied 
 upon. This was specially so in all Chinese subjects. His 
 knowledge of the language was not merely popular, but 
 profound and critical. He seemed to be able to trace the 
 
LIFE : HEALTH ; LONG WALKS IN CHINA. 13 
 
 words away back through the intricacies and windings of 
 their past history, and catch their original meanings with a 
 power only obtainable by hard and thorough study. And 
 yet he was exceedingly modest, and willing to receive hints 
 and suggestions from his juniors." Others write in the 
 same strain. But he was somewhat impatient and peremp- 
 tory with people who expressed opinions on matters in 
 regard to which they had not informed themselves. 
 
 Amid all his mental activity he was studiously careful of 
 bodily health. He loved exercise, especially walking, 
 rowing, and swimming, and never omitted to secure a large 
 daily share of it. His walks were remarkable for their 
 length and quickness. Always pale in colour and some- 
 what spare in form, his activity and vitality were unfailing, 
 and his health, like his good temper, was absolutely un- 
 broken from childhood till he went to China. It remained 
 generally good till within about two years of his short fatal 
 illness, except what he suffered from those diseases of 
 climate which assail most Europeans under the sun of 
 South China, and which, with his incessant labours, had 
 undoubtedly weakened his constitution, especially during 
 the last two or three years, and prepared him to succumb 
 more readily to the final attack. In China, as elsewhere, 
 he kept up his habits of exercise and temperance, and 
 many were his long marches over its hills and valleys ; 
 often twenty miles, and more, by moonlight.* 
 
 * The following extract from one of his letters, dated Amoy, 
 22 December, 1869, gives an example of these. " I am quite up to my 
 usual strength, I just got back last night from my first two-week 
 country visit of the winter, having been away thirteen days at 
 Anhai, Kwan-Kio, and Chin-chew ; I visited also a new place, where 
 a station is growing up, called Siong-si, at the mouth of the Chin-chew 
 river. My long walks on this journey have been as follows : Friday 
 20 miles, Saturday 20 miles, Wednesday 27 miles, Thursday 17 miles, 
 Friday g miles, Saturday 37 miles, Tuesday 20 miles. The 37 
 
14 • LIFE : VALUE FOR DISCIPLINE AND TRAINING. 
 
 A brother missionary writes, " He was famous for the 
 long journeys he used to perform on foot in his missionary 
 tours. * * * * He had a very intimate acquaintance 
 with all the best walks among the rugged Amoy hills, and 
 it was a special delight to him, when he could get any of the 
 younger missionaries to join him, to ramble over them, and 
 through their quiet valleys." 
 
 Another writes, " One of the most delightful features in 
 his missionary character was his exceeding helpfulness 
 towards younger labourers. He had ever a cheery and 
 encouraging word for them, delighted to furnish them with 
 books, to explain difficulties and answer questions, and 
 would rouse them up to physical exercise when they were 
 inclined to over study. Above all, his own example was a 
 daily stimulus to diligence, perseverance, method, and con- 
 centration in the work of a missionary." 
 
 Others have written of his life-work as a missionary 
 preacher of the gospel. But this notice is designed to 
 shew what manner of man he was, and how he became, or 
 rather made himself, what he was, so fitted to be specially 
 useful, by special preparation and preservation of every 
 faculty of body and mind. If he excelled, it was greatly 
 through this completeness. And any young man who has 
 energy and perseverance to use the same means may attain 
 to many of the same excellences. It is remembered of 
 him that when a student he used to hold up the ex- 
 ample of the careful Jesuit training, and the consequent 
 
 miles of Saturday were in two halves, with seven hours quiet sitting in 
 the Chapel between, and included of course about five hours of moon- 
 light walk, distributed between the morning and evening ; and yet I was 
 quite able for the whole of a heavy Sabbath's work at Anhai, after 
 getting a night's rest. Surely, that does not look like the itinerary of 
 an invaUd 1 I hope to have a good deal of such work in the winter, 
 and so to get fully set up for the summer." 
 
LIFE: HIS PRESBYTERIANISM STRONG BUT LIBERAL. 15 
 
 Jesuit success, and to maintain that our good cause much 
 better deserves such training, and, however good in 
 itself, cannot expect to succeed by means of agents who 
 are merely taught intellectually, but are not trained for 
 their special work. 
 
 He always had a high appreciation of the wisdom and 
 liberality, kindness and skill, with which the mission in 
 China of the Presbyterian Church of England is managed 
 by the gentlemen who take special charge of its affairs, 
 and who devote to its service so much of their precious 
 time and great experience in business. 
 
 He was a Presbyterian minister, always ready to uphold 
 Presbyterianism as the best combination of freedom and 
 order, besides being most ancient and Scriptural ; and 
 nothing delighted him more than to explain to occasional 
 objectors of other denominations, who had never looked 
 outside of their own Church, that their systems were local 
 and single-tongued, while his was naturally polyglot, and 
 indigenous throughout the Protestant world. But no one 
 was less bigoted or less ecclesiastic ; none was more ready 
 in co-operation and fellowship with other Christians of all 
 Churches — English, American, and foreign — undeterred by 
 differences of form, provided they held the Head. 
 
 At Amoy, from about the year 1844, public worship 
 in English for the benefit of the resident English-speaking 
 community has been regularly kept up every Sunday 
 morning, the missionaries in turn conducting the service. 
 It so happened that none of the missionaries at Amoy were 
 Episcopalians, but a good many of the residents were ; 
 and in order that the worship might be more agreeable 
 to them, there has for a number of years been also an 
 evening service, at which the English Church Service is 
 used. Some of the missionaries do not take part in this. 
 
16 A PRESIDENT OF CHINESE MISSIONARY CONFERENCE. 
 
 but though no lover of episcopacy or of the liturgy, Dr, 
 Douglas heartily joined in the work, and thought it was 
 both useful and right to do so, if he could thus commend 
 Christ to those who preferred to worship with that form. 
 No doubt some stricter Presbyterians, as well as some high 
 Anglicans, will equally condemn the practice as highly 
 improper, — but will do so for opposite and mutually destruc- 
 tive reasons. 
 
 In the same spirit he always found it easy to co-operate 
 with good men of all d-enominations — and they found it 
 easy to work with him — as was well shown at the great 
 Conference of all the Protestant Missions in China, held at 
 Shanghai in May, 1877, which he and others had long been 
 labouring to bring together. There were then in China 307 
 missionaries, from about 30 British, Irish, Continental, Ameri- 
 can, and Canadian churches or societies, 21 of which, employ- 
 ing about 285 missionaries, were represented at the Con- 
 ference, where above 100 deputies assembled, and unani- 
 mously elected two presidents, one an American, Dr. 
 Nelson, and one European, Dr. Douglas. This was about 
 two months before his death. Such a testimony to his 
 value, given unanimously by the best qualified and most 
 unbiassed judges, is much prized by his relatives. A list 
 of missions is annexed, with their numerical strength and 
 the dates of their entering on Chinese work. Some of 
 them began in the Chinese Colonies, long before any access 
 was allowed to China itself. (See particulars p 75-6). 
 
 The iniquities, oppressions, cruelties, and wrongs of 
 Chinese rule grieved him to the heart, inflicted and initiated 
 and maintained as these are, not only by the State and the 
 great officers, but by every official, down to the pettiest 
 policeman or soldier, because violence, falsehood, and wrong 
 produce direct profit to all and each in turn ; whereas, if the 
 
CHINESE OPPRESSION AND PEOPLE ; OPIUM ; COOLIES. 17 
 
 right were to rule, they would be told, as John the Baptist 
 told the soldiers, " Do violence to no man, neither accuse any 
 falsely, and be content with your wages" — a text of which 
 he often said mere European life could not show the mean- 
 ing, but which every Chinese understood. He lived so much 
 among the Chinese that he constantly saw these things in 
 their sad, though often grotesque, detail. And he grieved 
 to mark the progressive decay of a once great people, dying 
 of the corruption that pervades, or rather constitutes, its 
 political and social life. But withal he trusted that Christ's 
 righteousness would exalt the Chinese nation, great not only 
 in number, but in physical and intellectual qualities, to its 
 proper high place among the nations of the earth.* 
 
 The Opium trade he abhorred, and the wicked kidnap- 
 ping of coolies for Cuba, the Guano Islands, &c. Mis- 
 sionaries see these evils close at hand, and know their 
 horrors as we, far away, can never know them. Sad that 
 they should be carried on by men bearing the Christian 
 name ! 
 
 All his work, from an early age to the end, was vivified 
 by a strong and steady faith, which gave present substance 
 and constant power to the things not seen as yet, and diffused 
 itself as a joyous life through his whole existence. He 
 heartily adopted the common sense argument of Paul, that 
 
 * The Christian converts frequently suffer much from the local 
 authorities and their minions, to whom any pretext for plunder is too 
 often welcome. The converts are also on many occasions grossly 
 persecuted and openly plundered by their neighbours, without redress. 
 Yet the gospel teaching and worship has been, and is, first set up, 
 at almost every new station of this mission by the Chinese converts 
 themselves, as volunteer and unpaid workers, and of their own accord. 
 The building up of the congregations is, to a considerable extent, 
 effected in the same way. They call in the missionaries to show 
 them the way of God more perfectly, and superintend them ; and their 
 numbers grow wonderfully, though every worldly consideration is 
 against joining them. Their courageous, patient perseverance and 
 devotedness give promise of a great future. 
 
 B 
 
18 DEATH : WORKED OUT ; SELF-SACRIFICE. 
 
 without a sure faith their missionary life would have been 
 folly ; but, knowing Him whom they believed, it was the 
 highest wisdom and the greatest happiness. " China for 
 Christ !" his favourite phrase, was always at his heart. 
 
 He died at AmOy on 26th July, 1 877, of cholera, after 
 twelve hours' illness, in the same room where he had for 
 many years spent most of his home life, writing, studying, 
 and sleeping there. His funeral next day, in the cemetery on 
 Kolongsoo, was attended by the whole community. 
 
 Since the above was written, two photographs have arrived, 
 representing him, with others, in groups of the Shanghai 
 Missionary Conference, and giving us the last look of him 
 on earth. They represent him as greatly worn and aged, so 
 sadly changed since he left us four years and a half ago, 
 that we must always grieve over his refusal to take the rest 
 he needed. Evidently he has sacrificed himself to the 
 strong feeling which he often expressed to us, that wJiat 
 was to be done for China should be done quickly. And who 
 shall say that he was wrong ? 
 
 A selection of his private letters from China to his mother 
 and other relations are annexed, illustrating his work, ways, 
 and feelings. Some of the most interesting are about sailors, 
 whom he loved to care for, whether Scotch, English, or 
 foreign,not in a distant or official fashion, but with a warmth 
 of personal effort that gained their hearts. 
 
 See his account of Amoy language (p: 45^, and specimen 
 of his dictionary (p. 47). 
 
 I, Threadneedle Street, London, 
 iSth February, 1878. 
 
19 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM HIS LETTERS. 
 
 Extracts from Letters of Dr. Douglas to his relatives, 
 given as fair specimens of his occupations and modes 
 of life — so different from those in Britain, and of the 
 spirit and ways in which he sought " to do good and 
 to communicate." 
 
 "Edinburgh, ith April, 1854. 
 " My Dear Mother, 
 
 " I am sorry to learn that you are still feeble. You must not 
 allow yourself to feel anxious about me.* I am delighted to see 
 thus the warmth of your affection, and of Campbell's ; but you 
 must not allow it to injure your health; mere words or even 
 willing acquiescence are of no avail : if such anxiety ruin your 
 health my determination must be shaken. May the God of peace 
 give you calmness and composure of mind !" 
 
 "T.\th April. 
 * * * * " Your phrase of ' lending me to the 
 Lord,' reminds me of Mr. Laird's lecture on Sabbath which was 
 on that passage. Such lending always receives an abundant re- 
 ward in some form, often far better even here than heart can wish." 
 
 "In Straits of Sunda, 6th yime, 1855. 
 
 "It is now near 11 p.m. and we are quite clear of the narrow part 
 of the Strait. It was strange in passing it to hear again the sound 
 of the sea breaking on the shore, mingled with the loud cries of 
 
 * He had a fortnight before, with her approval and that of his other rela- 
 tives, resolved to go as a missionary to China. 
 
 B 2 
 
20 HIS LETTERS : SHIPBOARD LABOURS ; FOREIGNERS. 
 
 land birds, while the air was loaded with a rich perfume from the 
 trees on the 'shore, about a mile and a half off; it reminded me 
 
 of the well-known lines on Ceylon In the end of last 
 
 week I finished my first reading of the New Testament in Chinese. 
 I have also got through a good many other books. 
 
 " Norman Macleod was quite right that as the voyage drew near 
 its close we would wish it longer. 
 
 " I find it is so ; yet I am of course longing to set to work in 
 China, and to hear from and about you all at Hong Kong. 
 
 " Our meetings have gradually increased ; first came an evening 
 sermon in the forecastle on the Sabbath evenings ; then the same 
 once a week ; and then also a class four times a week for improv- 
 ing the reading of some who read very ill, our text book being 
 the Bible ; two Germans and a Dane attend it also. All the meet- 
 ings are well attended, and we seem to find some acceptance 
 among the men. God grant it may turn to their souls' good ! 
 
 " Now, it would be quite vain in me to enumerate all my dear 
 relations to whom my love is herewith sent. You know the names 
 I would'put down. See that ye all give thanks for God's goodness 
 to me as yet, and seek still more blessings for the future ; and that 
 ye yourselves inay grow in grace, and in the knowledge of Christ, 
 and m£ly abound in His service. Rejoice in the Lord always — ■ 
 again I say, rejoice. 
 
 Your loving son, 
 
 C. D. 
 
 "Amoy, ist October, 1855. 
 * * * * " Since last writing I have seen sixteen 
 persons baptised by the American and London Missionaries, one 
 being a child, and of the rest more than the half females. 
 
 " I now have gone several times to hear public worship in 
 Chinese and am able to understand a little ; though still but little." 
 
 " Ith November, 1855. 
 " I have begun a phonetic class," 
 
TYPHOON : TERRIBLE ELECTRIC INJURY. 21 
 
 "Amoy, 25M yuly, 1856. 
 " My Dear Brother, 
 
 " You remember how in my last letter I told about a very vio- 
 lent though brief typhoon, which blew before daylight on the 
 morning of June i6th. During its time of fury I was lying very 
 comfortably at anchor in a bend of the South River, just below 
 Pechuia, comfortably, because the good vessel ' Gospel Boat ' kept 
 a good hold with her anchor, though the violence of wind and 
 rain sent abundance of water through the sides of my little cabin. 
 As the stormy wind rushed madly by, and the rain fell in torrents, 
 my heart was lifted up to Him who ruleth the raging of the sea, 
 in supplication for those near to my heart, whether in my native 
 or my adopted country, or on the mighty ocean which joins us ; 
 and among others, my thoughts were set especially on the poor 
 crew of the ' Challenger,' among whom I had found so much 
 pleasant labour a year previous, when the outward voyage was 
 dramng towards its close, so that I wished the passage to be 
 longer for their sakes. 
 
 " Just at the time that, kept awake by the storm, I was thus 
 employed, a terrible scene was enacted at another part of the 
 coast, for, as I afterwards learned from the men, it was in that 
 same storm the Ben Avon was wrecked between Memoy and 
 Chin-chew. 
 
 " On the day before {i.e. Sabbath) that noble vessel, a first-class 
 Aberdeen clipper, was ploughing her way up the Formosa Channel, 
 not far from the Chinese coast, when suddenly she entered an 
 electric cloud, giving forth thunder and lightning so tremendous 
 as none on board had ever witnessed before ; the ship was struck 
 by one of the terrible bolts, which blazed at the yardarms, and ran 
 down the masts, flashed back and forwards through the ship, and 
 stunned some of the men ; but withal, to the wonder of everyone, 
 no man was injured, nothing set on fire, no leak sprung, and to all 
 appearance no injury done at all. But an injury strange and terrible, 
 though all unseen, had been sustained ; all the compasses without 
 exception had been simultaneously deranged, the line of magnetisa- 
 tion having been changed to a new direction. Hearing this, it sug- 
 
22 HIS LETTERS: LIGHTNING-SHOCK; WRECK. 
 
 gested to my mind a striking analogy with my text, ' Holding faith 
 and a good conscience, which some having put away concerning 
 faith have made shipwreck.' Just as this derangement of the com- 
 pass (in the absence of sun observations) in the cloudy weather, 
 was the proximate cause of that good ship's sad end, so the faith is 
 soon lost if the conscience becomes permanently deflected, though 
 but a point or two from the celestial pole-star. And that fatal 
 unseen derangement is 'often caused by the influence of some 
 sudden temptation-shock, which leaves no apparent injury behind. 
 Oh, how needful to correct the compass by good observation of 
 the Sun of Righteousness ! But to return to the Ben Avon ; that 
 strange lightning-shock seems to have thrown a remarkable feeling 
 of gloom over the crew. Even during the whole of the voyage 
 they had often had curious presentiments and forebodings ; but 
 now the feeling was general that something was near at hand ; and 
 near it was, for on that cloudy night as the vessel was tearing along 
 about fourteen knots an hour, and as all thought in mid-channel, 
 there was a feeling as if the keel had grazed the bottom . It was 
 thought to be a. mistake, just the stroke of some mighty wave, 
 but there it is again more plainly than before ; it cannot be mis- 
 taken, and now the dash of the breakers is heard in the distance, 
 and the dim outline of the shore looms threateningly through 
 the darkness. At once the command is given to put about ship, 
 but it is now too late — that crash has come, and almost in a moment, 
 such was the fury of the storm. Altnost sooner than it can be 
 described, the timbers part, the lofty masts fall, the whole wreck 
 is already breaking up. While some are crying out in terror, and 
 others making themselves fast to some part of the vessel, ' don't 
 make a noise,' says the captain, whose wife had already perished, 
 ' be quiet there, we shall all be still immediately.' 
 
 " Indeed so it seemed to all, that there was no hope of safety 
 from any source ; the boats were swamped from the first, and 
 nothing but death apparent ; but contrary to all expectation, part 
 of the wreck having broken off, the remainder was lifted from the 
 rocks by the same destroying waves that had broken it, and in only 
 about half-an-hour from the time she struck, the fragment of the 
 wreck with the survivors (five had perished) was resting safely on 
 the strand. The Chinese treated them as ill as possible, short of 
 
SAILORS' SUFFERINGS : THE PRODIGAL SON. 23 
 
 personal violence. All the remains of the wreck, and all that had 
 been washed ashore, were plundered, and they were stripped of 
 almost all their clothes, even to the pieces of cloth wrapped round 
 their wounds and bruises. Scarcely could they get the most 
 miserable shelter or food, only they found the women and children 
 more compassionate, for these brought them rice and sweet 
 potatoes, and shewed sympathy in their misfortunes, and had pity 
 upon them. At last, after about a week of sore hardship, they got 
 a lorcha (boat), and arrived at Amoy. For some days I was not 
 aware of the circumstances and learned it only on the last day of 
 June, when I came back from another visit to Pechuia. By a 
 curious coincidence, I had taken with me that Sabbath to Pechuia 
 the number of Drummond's 'Messenger'whicli containedmy article, 
 and thus had just been earnestly lectured and exhorted by no less 
 an individual than myself to ' pity the perishing sailors' — as usual, 
 the reading of the article had warmed my heart towards the 
 wanderers of the sea. That day I learned about the men by seeing 
 a circular, asking subscriptions for them in money and clothes ; in 
 both which ways I was delighted to join in aiding them; but I 
 wished to see whether anything could be done towards supplying 
 more deeply seated wants. That evening and next morning, a 
 variety of pressing Chinese work prevented me from calling on 
 the seamen, but on the Tuesday afternoon I went to the shop of 
 a comprador where most of them were staying : I was afraid they 
 might not be willing to converse, but I was most agreeably dis- 
 appointed. Some, alas ! there were who would not listen, but 
 they were few : most of them were rather eager to get tracts and 
 Bibles, and were quite open to conversation, which began by my 
 telling them that I was on the water in the same typhoon, and 
 thus we got fairly on to spiritual concerns. There were several 
 boys who were very attentive. One of them took the Testament, 
 when I gave it to him, and turned over the leaves till he found the 
 parable of the Prodigal Son — and there he read in silence, till the 
 tears trickled down his checks — I could not think of disturbing 
 him ; so I turned to others. There were two young men sitting 
 together, with wounded feet, so that they had not been able to get 
 out to worship on the Sabbath (for I should have said that while 
 I was at Pechuia, some seven or eight of them had come to the 
 
24 HIS LETTERS ; VISITS THE SAILORS : OLD SWEDE. 
 
 Sabbath meeting) — the one from Aberdeen, the other from 
 Macclesfield ) their thoughtful serious look caught my eyes at once. 
 To the latter I gave Ryle's ' Young Men Exhorted,' and when, 
 after talking to some others, I turned to him again, he said 
 with a significant movement of his head, ' Oh, sir, what a fine 
 sermon that is of Ryle's, and I like it all the more because it is by 
 a namesake of my own 1 ' That afternoon and evening I spent 
 as much time with them as I could spare ; for it was announced 
 that they were to leave next day at noon, shortly before which 
 I looked in as they were packing up, and took leave of 
 them. 
 
 " On the Wednesday evening I was dining at the Consulate, 
 and was astonished to find at the gateway several of my Ben Avon 
 people. Only the captain (whom I never saw) and the boys had 
 been able to get away by that day's opportunity. Well, that 
 evening I felt very uncomfortable at dinner ; everything seemed 
 to go on uncomfortably, for my mind was down at the gateway 
 with the seamen, though my body was tied (by the rules of polite- 
 ness) to the Vice-Consul and his guests. But next morning, as 
 soon as Chinese worship with my school was over, I sallied forth 
 with some more books and tracts, and spent two most pleasant 
 hours conversing with them in the rooms that had been assigned 
 to them, and also in walking about' or sitting under the shade of 
 the trees in the cool gardens of the Consulate. There was one 
 old man, a Swede, who knew but little English ; however he and I 
 got on very well with German. I was told that after I had brought 
 the Bibles on a former day, the Swede was in tears because he 
 could get none in his language; a German Testament which I took 
 him filled the blank a little ; but, oh ! his delight when he got a 
 Swedish translation of James' -Anxious Enquirer,' which I 
 discovered at Mr. Talmage's house. He was at it all the day, 
 till he finished it ; but I suppose he was not done with it then. 
 
 " On the Thursday evenings, you know, we have always a prayer- 
 meeting, /. e., literally a grayer-meeting; just scripture reading, 
 praise, and prayer, three times repeated. It is held in Mr. Doty's 
 house, which is next door to mine. One or two of the lads who 
 seemed most interested I told about this meeting, and just when 
 I was leaving, one of the other men came up to me, and said that 
 
HIS LETTERS: SAILORS AT PRAYER MEETING. 25 
 
 they had all been talking about it, and that as there were many 
 who would wish to come, they asked me to send some one to 
 guide them. I sent Beng-hong at the proper time, and twelve of 
 them came over ; it was, to my feeling, the best prayer meeting we 
 had held since my arrival in Amoy. 
 
 " After it was over, while my servants were lighting their torches 
 to guide them back to the Consulate, I saw two limping very 
 much with their sore feet, and these were just the two who had so 
 caught my attention at first. Glad was I of the opportunity of 
 getting them with me a little, so I asked them to stay with me 
 that evening ; and at my desire the two continued with me the 
 other five days that they were in Amoy. 
 
 " Two other evenings I talked some time with the men at the 
 Consulate ; on the latter evening the mate asked the solution of 
 some scripture difficulties ; he said he had been formerly a free- 
 thinker, but for some time had begun again to feel the power of 
 Christianity ; and the way he asked his questions quite confirmed 
 his account, for evidently his desire was not to perplex me, but 
 really to obtain light on the points, and to have the difficulties 
 cleared — I endeavoured to give what aid I could. By the way, 
 one of the crew told me a little trait about him, — that on the 
 terrible morning when they had been washed ashore, and were 
 anxiously awaiting the dawn of day to find out where they were 
 (the first impression being that it must be the coast of Formosa or 
 one of the Pescadores), he encouraged them by saying that he 
 was sure they would find either British or American Missionaries 
 in the neighbourhood. 
 
 " Well, after our conversation was over, when I went out, he 
 took up my lamp, motioning to the rest to stay where they were ; 
 and leading me alone outside the gate of the Consulate, he 
 grasped my hand with a tight, tight hold, and burst into a flood 
 of tears. I had not been saying anything specially addressed to 
 the feelings, and did not then suppose that we should not meet 
 again, having tried briefly to direct his soul towards the Saviour, 
 whom he promised to seek and cleave to. I took from his hands 
 my little lamp and threaded my way homewards through the 
 silent streets. 
 
 " That evening was the Sabbath. In the forenoon almost the 
 
26 HIS- letters: the sabbath j nursing sailors. 
 
 whole of them had come to our usual meeting. I think we 
 counted seventeen of the crew present. It was my turn to preach, 
 and the text was, ' Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the 
 dead, and Christ shall give thee life.' Monday evening again was 
 our usual evening for the Missionary Prayer Meeting, and about 
 a dozen again came over, in addition to my two guests. 
 
 " The said two guests, during the time that they stayed with me, 
 were a great source of pleasure to me. The Scotch lad I was 
 glad to have an opportunity of serving, as his sore foot, wounded 
 by one of the spars, needed almost hourly attention ; he took 
 pleasure in good books and behaved very well,, and there was 
 sdmething in his countenance that did me good ; but I never 
 could get much into his mind ; a good deal of the northern 
 dotirness, I imagine. 
 
 "But the other, Edward Ryle, quite took my heart; an 
 English lad, from the manufacturing districts, he had some of the 
 peculiarities of that district in grammar and pronunciation, but 
 just enough to give an individuality to him, which fixes him the 
 deeper in my mind ; with rather a vigorous mind he was trying 
 liard to improve his education, all with a fine warm heart, and a 
 beautiful transparency of character that you could quite see through 
 and through ; looking in at his bright eyes and out at the back of 
 his head, the heart being taken in the way. (I know that line does 
 not suit the laws of optics, but that's no matter.) He had been 
 kept from the grosser sins common to seamen, as could be seen 
 (in addition to his own saying) by the frank and open way (joined 
 with an ardent self-condemnation), in which he incidentally men- 
 tioned other faults into which he had fallen. He and I got 
 wonderfully intimate, and he gave me long yarns of his personal 
 history. Just that last Monday evening after meeting he had 
 given me a grand account of how, several years ago, he had run 
 away from a coaster in which he was very ill treated ; it was at 
 Cork ; how he felt as his money dwindled away on his homeward 
 road, and how he got a lodging on promise of a remittance from 
 home, on which occasion, said he, with a most significant lower- 
 ing of his voice and movement of his head, ' I told a great 
 thumper,' and then on his way, having reached Liverpool, he saw 
 an old woman at the station sobbing, because she had not money 
 
HIS LETTERS : THE SAILORS STRONG DRINK. 27 
 
 to pay her fare, so he paid it for her, and then found that he had 
 just exactly enough to carry him home. Well, we sat up that 
 night till past one in the morning, I need not tell you how we 
 talked of the good word and the Saviour, and the dangers of the 
 world, and the blessed salvation. So next morning a letter came 
 from the Consulate, that passages were taken in a lorcha for all 
 except those who had got work in the vessels then in harbour ; 
 he was of course wearying to get to work again, but said to me, 
 ' This is too soon !' I gave to both of them your address, and 
 those of our mother, brothers, and sister. 
 
 " Alas, there are not many seamen in whom one's heart can 
 thus rest with pleasure ; several of the crew, saved from that 
 terrible danger, continued quite hardened and unimpressed 
 throughout ; and some, of whom we hoped better things, suc- 
 cumbed to their dread enemy — strong drink. Oh, when shall it 
 be that Christians awake to see (through the flimsy veil of 
 'innocent enjoyment,' 'Christian liberty,' 'moderate use,' &c.) 
 the real grim terrible features of that destroyer. Some of the 
 poor men called on me just before embarking, others I saw in the 
 lorcha immediately before going off. I took my two lads into my 
 bedroom and knelt down with them in prayer, and when we rose 
 the drops were trickling down Ryle's eyes, who said, ' I feel it more 
 than leaving home.' Having seen them on board and come back 
 to my house, it seemed to me quite lonely, and the unaccustomed 
 tears came over my cheeks too ; I watched the lorcha with my 
 telescope as she tacked seawards through the outer harbour, and 
 as long as the forms of the people could be distinguished, each 
 time the side of the vessel came round, there was Ryle sitting in 
 the same place where we had last shaken hands." 
 
 "Afternoon, yufy zgt/t. 
 
 "There has come upon me like a thunder-clap the intelligence 
 that the lorcha has been wrecked near Swatow, and three of 
 the men drowned. The survivors of this second catastrophe 
 were plundered of all that they had received here — books, clothes, 
 and all ; we are trying to send them a few a second time. 
 
28 HIS LETTERS : CHINESE WRECKERS. 
 
 " I hope the survivors may have met with Mr. Burns, and 
 that the Supreme Ruler of Providence and Grace may bless to 
 their souls this tremendous succession of calamities; yet not 
 calamities if such be their issue. But that word 'survivors;' 
 it involves as its correlate, ' the dead ; ' and what an awful signi- 
 ficance is thus given to the brief sketch' of my intercourse with 
 them. Dear brothers, let us live ourselves, and hold converse 
 with others, just as those who are about to die and to stand 
 before the judgment-seat." 
 
 "Amoy, 22nd August, 1856. 
 
 " Information has come to me that Ryle had got safe ashore 
 from the second wreck, but was murdered by Chinese wreckers. 
 
 " There are some singular memories come up about the poor 
 fellow. Out of several books that we were giving to the sailors 
 I asked him to choose one for me to put his name on. He chose 
 Hewitson's ' Memoirs,' whose days were cut short so early. He 
 was also greatly taken *with the ' Way Home.' And one day we 
 had read together the passage about the sudden end of the home- 
 ward journey. Of course I could not give him that book, but a 
 number of the ' Christian Treasury' had just come, containing a 
 long extract from it, and that was one of the last things I gave him 
 before taking our long farewell. 
 
 "I have been solacing myself with the trust that he also has 
 gone ' home,' the passage being indeed a little rougher than our's, 
 but the way being much shorter, while we are still left among 
 the waves of that stormy world of dead and dying men, strangely 
 called the 'land of the living.' Now, while we are here, 'now 
 for a swifter race and a busier life.' I have myself been stirred 
 up in soul not a little. I hope this will fit me for doing some 
 good yet to seamen, though my Chinese duties are leaving each 
 month a smaller and smaller corner for that work, but it has 
 already had a good influence on me in the direction of my 
 Chinese work, I feel that the dust of my dear lad is now no small 
 tie to this poor heathen land, and I think I can hear in my ears 
 the sound of his blood crying from the earth, not as of old for 
 
HIS HOUSE AT AMOY. 29 
 
 vengeance, but urging me, and you, and all the followers of Jesus, 
 to make haste and send the light of the glorious Gospel to this 
 great empire, assured that it is sufficient, and it alone, by the 
 power of God, to change the bloody wreckers, and the degraded 
 idolaters, into the true worshippers of the living God. And now 
 I am able to look back on a few days we spent together with a 
 singular pleasure, though mingled with the sorrow of separation. 
 I feel somewhat like those who entertained angels unawares, and 
 I seem far too unworthy to have had any hand in preparing that 
 young man for his sudden call ; it seems to me that the Lord had 
 been working on the poor stranger's heart long before he and I 
 came into contact ; at the first word I thought I recognised a 
 brother, and though I can now see him no more till ' the sea shall 
 give up the dead that are in it,' till the family shall meet around 
 their Father's throne, he has left, I think, a sweet memory and a 
 blessing behind him. , 
 
 " I have let my heart flow out on these and the former pages. 
 Care must be taken that it goes no further than the manuscript.* 
 
 " Since all that I meet 
 
 Must work for my good, 
 The bitter is sweet, 
 The medicine is food. 
 
 " Though painful at present, 
 'Twill cease before long, 
 And then, oh how pleasant 
 The conqueror's song ! 
 
 " C. D." 
 
 " Amoy, %th April, 1857. 
 
 " The only thing you specially ask about is my house. Now 
 first, I don't call it my house, but Mr. Johnstone's, for I always 
 hope that he will yet come back to occupy it. It consists of three 
 stories. The lowest has a large open space at the entrance where 
 the sedan chairs lie, and in the corner is a place walled ofif for 
 
 * There is nma no reason for obeying the above injunction to keep these 
 letters private. 
 
30 HIS LETTERS : HIS HOUSE ; CHINESE LIBERALITY. 
 
 cooking. At the foot of the stair is a room partitioned off for the 
 servants, and the remaining half, next the sea and looking out 
 upon it, is the school-room, where the Chinese lads and young 
 men study together. 
 
 The second story is divided in two by the staircase. On the 
 one side, towards the street, is a large room where the students 
 stay, and where also I keep our Chinese Bibles, tracts, &c., and 
 hold my English class. On the side towards the sea are Sande- 
 man's sitting-room and bedroom, with a great number of John- 
 stone's books, &c. Just at the sea is a covered verandah, 8 or lo 
 feet wide, at the end of which we have lately cut off a bath-room 
 for Sandeman. 
 
 " The upper story is my residence ; it is only on the side of the 
 staircase towards the sea, there being only two stories at the other 
 side ; at the stair-head my bath-room is partitioned off, and the 
 rest is one very large room, with three windows on each of two 
 opposite sides, and two towards the sea, where there is a very 
 narrow covered verandah, and a nice open one, which communi- 
 cates with Mr. Lea's, and makes a delightfully cool walk when 
 the sun is not shining. Inside, about a third part is partitioned 
 off by wooden screens to form my bedroom. All the windows 
 have Venetian blinds outside, like the French plan. My dear friend 
 Van Soest has sailed for Singapore ; one remark of his will give 
 you a look into my appearance and manner. 
 
 " He said that while he was beginning to be under serious im- 
 pressions, one thing that greatly encouraged him to go for\vard 
 was my cheerful and un-morose manner, so you get a glimpse, 
 through my dear Dutchman's eyes, at my daily look. We gave 
 him letters to Mr. Fraser at Singapore, and also sent down to Mr. 
 Fraser one of the Pechuia Christians, to endeavour to do some- 
 thing among his countrymen in that great port. The vessel carried 
 a number of Chinese emigrants to Singapore ; several of them 
 seemed very much interested even before starting ; among them 
 the Chinese supercargo showed his interest by returning the pas- 
 sage money of the colporteur, saying, 'he is a preacher, I will 
 take no money for his passage.' " 
 
THE YOUNG GERMAN ; Mr. SANDEMAN'S DEATH. 31 
 
 " Amoy, ^th August, 1858. 
 
 * * * * "The sad cause of my want of leisure, 
 namely, the departure of our beloved brother David Sandeman. 
 It was just this day week that in the afternoon, in my room, an 
 impression came on me that I ought to make preparations for 
 our usual Thursday evening prayer-meeting, so I sat down, after 
 seeking guidance from God, to choose chapters and hymns, when 
 a note came from Sandeman, saying that it was his turn, but that 
 he felt slightly unwell, and being uncertain whether he could come 
 down, asked me to take the meeting for him. I wrote saying that 
 his request was answered before it reached me. I was glad to 
 have the choice of the chapters and hymns, for I expected that 
 evening to tea and meeting a young German, the mate of the 
 vessel in which I came down from Ning-po. His soul seemed to 
 have been somewhat touched during the voyage, and I was in 
 great hope that God was leading him towards Himself, a sweet 
 hope which subsequent conversations with him seemed to support. 
 For what I have had time to tell you about him, give thanks to 
 God, and mate supplications that his soul may be able steadfastly 
 to lean on Jesus. 
 
 " Well, with the case of the young German on my mind, I chose 
 to read Psalm cvii., Luke xv. and Psalm ciii., and we sang the 
 hymns, 'Awake, my soul, to joyful lays;' 'From every stormy 
 wind that blows,' and ' There is a fountain filled with blood.' 
 How singularly suitable now seem the last lines of that one — and 
 also these : — 
 
 " Soon shall I pass the gloomy vale, 
 Soon all my mortal powers must fail ; 
 Oil, may my last expiring breath 
 His lovingkindness sing in death. 
 
 " Then let me mount and soar away. 
 To the bright world of endless day, 
 And sing with rapture and surprise 
 His lovingkindness in the skies ! 
 
 " On Friday morning I heard it said that he was better, indeed 
 well again. He was at the time staying at the other end of the 
 
32 HIS LETTERS : BAY-PAY ; SANDEMAN'S DEATH. 
 
 town ; thus I did not see him, for I had to start early that morn- 
 ing for Pechuia. ^j,^.^ 
 
 " On Saturday I went up by-trsttH to Bay-pay, and in the evening 
 took a little walk on the swelling hills of that sweet valley. I 
 was meditating on the vast fields opening around us, and thinking 
 how Sandeman, Smith, and Grant, and others expected to follow, 
 should divide the land to occupy Chang-chau and Chin-chau, and 
 Formosa. But when darkness, closing over the mountains, called 
 me back to the chapel, I found a letter from Amoy calling me 
 back as soon as possible, as Sandeman's life was despaired of. 
 That evening it was too late to move. Next morning no chair 
 could be found, and I have learned not to risk myself under the 
 blaze of a midsummer sun. We held the Communion in the fore- 
 noon, with very solemn feelings, my text being, ' With desire I 
 have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer,' &c. 
 
 " It was impossible for me to get down to Pechuia till after 
 dark, and when I reached Amoy on Monday morning, the dust had 
 been returned to the dust by the side of Mrs. Dot/s remains. 
 
 " I had felt from the first glance at the letter on Saturday night 
 that all hope for this world was over ; but my feelings did not find 
 full vent till I landed at the familiar jetty, and running upstairs 
 clasped in my arms dear brother Smith, all the dearer now, when 
 one of our number has taken his journey ' over the river.' Indeed 
 it seems strangely like a journey. Only three days away in the 
 hills of the mainland, and coming back, no weakness, or illness, 
 or sick-bed seen by me ; no death, not even the burial witnessed 
 by me ; but only another mound of fresh earth shown to me by 
 the side of the stone that covers the remains of Mrs. Doty, and 
 her last little babe. 
 
 " In his rooms, his books and papers are just lying about as they 
 used to be ; but he comes not back to us. We shall make ready to 
 go to be with him, or meet him coming with the Lord himself, 
 when all tears shall be wiped off for ever. Let us all, all of us 
 make sure of that meeting." 
 
CHANGCHAU : CHINESE HOSPITALITY ; CROPS. 33 
 
 " Amoy, i-jth December, 1858. 
 " Dearest Mother, 
 
 " Again one more greeting in this eventful year. My next 
 birthday, ten days hence, I hope to hold, God willing, in the city 
 of Changchau, for which I start to-morrow, taking the stations on 
 my way. A shopkeeper in the eastern suburb of that great city 
 has asked me to stay at his house as long as we please ; it is not 
 suitable for a chapel, but for thus making a commencement it is 
 a matter of great thankfulness that God has thus opened our way. 
 Last week I spent five days there with Mr. Burns, and he still is 
 there. I cannot tell you how grieved I am that no one else is 
 coming out to help us." 
 
 " Chiohbey, Tth February, 1859. 
 
 " Mr. Lea and I have just been spending a whole week at 
 Changchau, and having excellent opportunities, I hope soon to 
 visit our other Foo city, Chin-chew, as Lea and Burns seem to 
 turn specially to Changchau ; but perhaps I may not be able 
 to reach it." 
 
 " Pechuia, 10th February, 1859. 
 
 " I was walking this afternoon through fields of peas in full 
 blossom, with ripe pods hanging on the stalks; though these look 
 curious, supported mainly on tall reeds, because of the scarcity of 
 fuel making sticks too dear. Fields of wheat and barley also in 
 full ear, almost ripe, contrast strangely with the recollections of 
 February weather at home, You know that on most of the level 
 land here is raised the wonderful quantity of three grain crops each 
 year, two being rice, and one wheat or barley." 
 
 Amoy, 2,rd August, 1859. 
 
 " Now for myself ; that is, about God's work. I have got a new 
 Ayrshire friend here in a sailor boy, son of the letter-carrier at 
 
 . I became acquainted with him in a curious way. You 
 
 remember the poor Renfrew sailor, Tom , whom we shipped 
 
 to the Cape of Good Hope ; well, this Ardrossan youth, by name 
 C 
 
34 HIS LETTERS : SAILOR BOYS HELPING EACH OTHER. 
 
 Sandy , had been a school companion of poor Tom, and 
 
 he,' coming out in a vessel from Sunderland to Amoy, was driven 
 in to Cape Town by a terrific storm, The " Stormy Spirit of the 
 Cape " had been sent forth (among many other purposes to us un- 
 known), that these schoolfellows should meet in Table Bay, and 
 by Sandy, Tom sent me a letter ; he must have had it written and 
 lying by for an opportunity, for it was written in Dutch; when he 
 got it written he could get no English writer as amanuensis, and 
 not himself being good at the pen, he got a Dutchman to write. 
 I made out the most of it, and dear brother De Grijs helped me 
 through the rest. It expressed his thankfulness for receiving at 
 the Cape (in consequence of my writing) a letter from his father ; 
 in it, however, he had learned of his mother's death, and of some 
 other relatives. No more did he tell me, except that he desired to 
 be remembered in prayer. This is supplemented by Sandy's 
 account; he tells me that the poor lad was in deepest grief, feeling 
 that his ungratefulness may have broken his mother's heart, and 
 hastened her death, and he seemed determined to get home by 
 the earliest possible opportunity. Also he took no grog or any- 
 thing of the sort. Then he had given glowing accounts of your 
 little brother* to Sandy. Sandy gave him all the tracts and books 
 he had, as also did a nice little lad from Exeter, by name 
 Benjamin. So when Sandy came to Amoy, we made up a friend- 
 ship at once. Perhaps some Christian friend at may cheer 
 
 the heart of the worthy letter-carrier by these good news of his 
 son, who is more like Ryk than Tom. He has brought a follow- 
 ing of half a dozen or more of his shipmates regularly to every 
 meeting, twice each Sabbath, and all the week-day evening 
 meetings with perfect regularity ; and I got him hberty to spend 
 two evenings with me, the latter time bringing Ben also." 
 
 " Chiohbey, 25/^ December, i860. 
 
 " I am here waiting for the tide on my way down from Chang- 
 chau city. I have been there eleven days, staying on shore, 
 outside the walls, at the house of the old gentleman about whom 
 
 * Chinese phrase for one's self. 
 
HOSPITALITY FROM HEATHENS; VISITS BRITAIN. 35 
 
 I have written so often. It is a singular thing how well we are 
 received at that house ; you must not suppose that it is visiting, 
 like at home ; they give us one room for worship in the day, and 
 my assistant's use at night, and another room for myself; but we 
 prepare our own meals and supply our own lighjt ; still it is a 
 singular providence that we have such an opportunity, for the 
 good man of the house does not seem to have received the word 
 into his heart, though he receives the preachers into his house ! 
 He and one of his sons smoke opium, and that son and two 
 nephews practice gambling by quail fighting in another part of the 
 premises ; while only one nephew (who, however, seems to be 
 like an adopted son), seems to have some decided impression on 
 his heart. The walks about the city are very beautiful ; you have 
 often read of the Changchau plain, but it is beyond description. 
 You know the delight I take in fine scenery, but we still miss the 
 spires of village churches, and see instead the temples of 
 delusion." 
 
 "Red Sea, near Mount Sinai, 
 
 "5/^ August, 1862. 
 " Dear C, 
 
 " Here I am in the steamer ' Nubia,' we expect to be at Suez 
 to-morrow evening, and to arrive at Southampton about 20th 
 current. 
 
 " I am visiting Britain because Burns and Swanson agree with 
 the Committee in the opinion that I can do more good by visit- 
 ing the churches at home for a few months, and endeavouring to 
 get some more missionaries, than by what I could do in the same 
 time in China. Bums takes my place at Amoy in my absence.'' 
 
 " Gospel Boat, from Pechuia to Amoy, 
 
 "2nd May, 1864. 
 " Dearest MotheRj 
 
 " By last mail I had letteK; in Which you acknowledged my 
 first note from Amoy : so ■ now the echo is complete. Wliat a 
 strange thought it now seems to me that I have been ' home,' as 
 C 2 
 
36 CHINESE VOLUNTEER EVAN'GELIZING ; DRINK ; OPIUM. 
 
 we call it, and now out again among the heathens as before. 
 Sometimes I can hardly realise that I have ever been away at 
 all. But it was sweet to see you all once more in the lands of the 
 gospel light, and if in anything I was the means of refreshing 
 your spirits, to God be all the praise. 
 
 " And now let us be hard at work for our Master, for we know 
 not how soon He may end our toils ; that end of toils seems often 
 to me to be sweeter and nearer than it used to look, and I 
 almost envy those who (like John Mackay,* of whom you wrote, 
 and Mrs. Thomas, about whom I told you) have finished this 
 course with joy." 
 
 "Amoy, 22nd Sept., 1864. 
 
 " Just to-day we have had a visit of two men from a group of 
 villages in the hill country between Liong-bun-si and Khi-boey ; 
 from that group, about twenty persons go regularly to worship at 
 Liong-bun-si, though the distance is about ten miles ; they earnestly 
 ask us to let them have regular supply : we know not what this 
 may lead to. 
 
 " Last Sabbath I preached on board one of the ships in har- 
 bour, an attendance of about thirty. There has been no sermon 
 in harbour for about a year. 
 
 " A few days ago, a captain of a German vessel died of delirium 
 tremens ; another has the same disease ; and a third also, who has 
 had the command of his ship taken from him for the cause of the 
 drink." 
 
 "Amov, 2(ith January, 1865. 
 
 * * * * " One fact about opium is enough, viz.: — 
 the Emigration Agents who hire Chinese coolies for Demarara 
 and the British West Indies, absolutely refuse to take any man 
 who smokes opium ; and they cannot be supposed to be too much 
 under Missionary influence.'' 
 
 • A very able and accomplished temperance friend of ours from Inverness, 
 cut off in early manhood. 
 
FORMOSA ; LUTHERANS ; Mr. BURNS' DEATH, 37 
 
 "Takao (Formosa), 15M July, 1865. 
 
 " Dearest Mother, 
 
 " Again we have to date from Takao ; the opposition to us and 
 our work became so strong at Tai-wan-foo, that we had no re- 
 source but to come back here. The future is very uncertain. If 
 nothing better can be done, Dr. Maxwell would work here in the 
 hope of having the way opened to Tai-wan-foo at a future time; 
 but it is quite possible that he may get to the city soon again. 
 It is very singulai- that in this case, the chief objections made 
 were to the medical part of the work ; all sorts of inconceivable 
 stories being circulated as to what the doctor was doing. 
 
 "P.S. 2\st. — I preached yesterday, both in English and 
 Chinese. The English was on board a German vessel : the cap- 
 tain (having been brought up a high Lutheran), apologised that 
 he could not get a crucifix and two large candles." 
 
 " Newchwang, 2i>th May, 1868. 
 " Dear Mother, 
 
 " You will have heard long before this letter arrives that our 
 dear friend Mr. Burns was taken away early in April. It is well, 
 however, that I have made this visit, for several reasons. I feel 
 it a comfort to think that we made the attempt to see him again, 
 though fruitlessly. I hope also, that I may be of some use in the 
 way of trying to make arrangements for carrying on the work 
 which he has begun. Of course permission cannot attempt it. 
 
 * * * * " There are some half dozen candidates 
 for baptism, and it seems sad that such a commencement should 
 not be followed up. The climate here is delightful. For at this 
 date, while our friends at Amoy are all in white clothes, and 
 broiling in the sun, we are wearing tweed suits, just as we would 
 at home. They use blankets at night, even in the middle of sum- 
 mer ; ague is unknown, and the residents have a good healthy 
 colour — with such exceptions as you would have in the same 
 number of people at home." 
 
38 HIS LETTERS: DICTIONARY; OPIUM; SCENERY. 
 
 "Amoy, 2()thyune, 1870. 
 
 " I am still keeping in wonderful health for having been out six 
 and a half years of my second week of years, and about to leave 
 (d.v.) in little more than half a year. 
 
 " Meantime you must excuse me writing more than the briefest 
 lines, as I am literally straining every nerve to get my colloquial 
 dictionary in proper shape to be copied out and printed while at 
 home. I hope to be with you at Ayr for whole months at a time, 
 busily copying out the book for the press ; but I must have the 
 scroll finished before I leave Amoy, as every phrase must be 
 checked by at least two teachers. 
 
 " I am glad to see that the Opium question has been again 
 ventilated in Parliament : in due time good men will see their 
 duty and be enabled to do it. It is a pity that some too extreme 
 men hurt the cause, just as in the Temperance cause. It is hard 
 to say what is best to be done, but it seems clear that the Govern- 
 ment should have no official connection with the trade, except 
 perhaps by levying a very heavy duty, which would tend to limit 
 , the amount produced." 
 
 "Amoy, 24//% September, 1873; 
 
 * * * * "I have just returned from a visit to 
 Liong-khey, one of the most southerly of our stations. It is also 
 the most beautiful of all the places we visit. I do not mean that 
 there is any special beauty in the chapel or the village where it 
 stands ; but the situation is most lovely, on a long, gently swelling 
 ridge, not high enough to be called a hill, which runs along about 
 the middle of a rich plain or broad valley. The beauty of this 
 valley has evidently struck the Chinese themselves, for they call it 
 Kim-tien, that is, 'The Fields of Flowered Silk.' 
 
 " The mountains which enclose the valley have a wonderful 
 variety of outline, and are green to their summits, covered with 
 rank grass and shrubs. 
 
 * * " The great drawback is the very poor accommo- 
 dation we have, which in summer is very hot ; but, happily, I 
 carried a tremendous north wind with me, and it kindly cooled 
 
JOURNEYS : HEAT ; RAIN ; WADING RIVERS. 39 
 
 down the Liong-khey chapel and its prophet's chamber to a com- 
 fortable temperature. We had the Communion there for the first 
 time. * * My friend the north wind had brought a, 
 companion, in the shape of heavy rain. The congregation arrived 
 dry, but got well drenched on the A\'ay home ; and all Sabbath 
 night it poured. On my way out on Monday I had to wade many 
 streams ; indeed, much of the road was under water, and one of 
 the rivers which I waded was up to my breast. But I enjoyed it 
 greatly, for the coolness of the rain and the wading just brouglit 
 it to a delightful temperature ; and being in constant motion I 
 could not get any harm. When I reached the boat at Kwan-jim 
 I was still quite fresh, after 6J hours' continuous walking, with 
 very brief occasional halts. It was, however, pleasant to get 
 thoroughly dry clothing.'' 
 
 " TiN-HAi Chapel, \Zih April, 1874. 
 
 * * * * " The successive days of this month 
 have touchingly recalled to my mind the ever-memorable days of 
 the same month last year, the few final parting days at Ayr, the 
 Monday morning, the hurried days in London, the voyage from 
 Southampton, the letters with notes of what was passing at the 
 Terrace.* 
 
 "And now has come round again the day when our dear mother 
 was taken from among us. Of course all day this has guided my 
 thoughts, especially as I had the quiet time of the sail from Amoy 
 to Tan-bi, and the walk from that little harbour to this strange, 
 old ruined city, along the wild sea-shore, with plenty of big waves 
 dashing on the bold headlands and rugged rocks. 
 
 "And now we have had our evening worship with the 
 converts, and it is half-past ten, just about the hour correspond- 
 ing to 2.30, when her spirit was set free to be present with the 
 Lord. I have just been reading over your successive letters, 
 which reached me at Hampstead, Suez, and Singapore ; and 
 
 those of same dates from , a blessed mingling of sorrow 
 
 and comfort.'' 
 
 * Barns' Terrace, Ayr, where his mother lived, and where she died a few 
 days after he sailed. 
 
40 CHIN-CHEW CHAPEL OPPRESSION ; BAPTISMS. 
 
 '■' bth March, 1875. 
 
 * * * * " We have a painful affair at Chin- 
 chew. A house had been bought for a new chapel; but the 
 literati got the Mandarins to arrest the seller and two middle- 
 men, and they have now been ten days in prison, harshly treated. 
 They are all heathens ; but all the more we are grieved that they 
 should thus suffer. I have been labouring hard to relieve them, 
 but as yet ^^successfully." 
 
 Note, — This Chin-chew affair has ever since been a source of 
 great disquietude, and he was occupied about it on the last evening 
 of his life. Mandarins temporize upon system, most perseveringly. 
 
 "Amoy, 2nd August, 1876. 
 
 * * * * " Since last writing, I have made a 
 visit of eleven days to An-hai and Chin-chew. It was about the 
 usual time to visit these stations, in our regular circuit of over 
 twenty stations ; and the Consul considered that some good might 
 be done in our long outstanding Chin-chew case, if I should spend 
 some days there, and have some consultation with the Mandarins. 
 
 " It was on the Wednesday that I wrote you. Early on Thurs- 
 day I set sail in the Gospel boat for An-hai, and having a good 
 wind, we reached the mouth of the An-hai inlet early in the after- 
 noon. The boat had to go back to Amoy to take Gordon to one 
 of our Southern Stations before Sabbath. So at Tang-chioh, five 
 miles below An-hai, I took a small boat, and let the Gospel boat 
 return. That night I spent at An-hai chapel, and on Friday I 
 went on by chair to Chin-chew. 
 
 " We have a good attendance every day at evening worship, as 
 a good many members and inquirers live in the city : evening 
 worship is made like a short Bible-class or prayer-meeting. On 
 Saturday forenoon I preached a good while in the street, under 
 the shade of wide eaves, along with one of the preachers. Satur- 
 day afternoon the Mandarin invited me to his office, and we had 
 a long talk over the chapel question ; but he had to consult a 
 colleague, and said he would let me know in a few days. 
 
 " On Sabbath I baptised twelve children ; so you see we have a 
 grod many Christian families in and around the city. 
 
FEVER ; CHIN-CHEW MANDARINS ; COMMUNIO.s^ 41 
 
 "Monday was a day of heavy rain ; but in the afternoon there 
 was some fair weather, when we again got some good street 
 preaching. 
 
 " Tuesday morning I awoke with a- troublesome diarrhoea. I 
 can't tell how I got it ; and about midday I had a slight aguish 
 chill, followed by a sharp attack of fever. My pulse ran up to 
 140. But, by God's blessing, on the usual remedies, I got a good 
 perspiration in the afternoon, and my pulse began to abate, though 
 I had a terrible headache and much fever till near midnight. In 
 the latter part of the night I got some sleep. 
 
 " Wednesday the fever was almost gone, as also the other com- 
 plaint ; but they left me very weak. 
 
 " On Thursday I had an invitation from the two Mandarins to 
 take dinner and talk over our business ; but I had to decline, as I 
 could not venture out. 
 
 " On Friday I sent word that I was so much better that I could 
 come, if they had anything to say. So I had again an invitation 
 to dine with the two Mandarins. When I went to the office, I 
 told them that I was not yet strong enough to take a ceremonious 
 dinner ; but I had a long conversation with them, and they pro- 
 mised fair. But it remains to be seen what they will really do. 
 
 " On Saturday I got back by chair to An-hai, without being 
 over-tired. There Mr. Macgregor met me ivith the Gospel boat. 
 
 " On Sabbath we baptised three men and had the Communion. 
 Got back here comfortably on Monday, and I am rapidly getting 
 up my strength." 
 
 Note. — His strength never came fully back. 
 
 "Gospel Boat, at the Confluence 
 
 "or South and West Rivers, 
 
 " 2()th November, 1876. 
 " I have just had your letter, and at once answer it, — an unusual 
 course with me, as letters generally reach me at Amoy amid a 
 crowd of varied business, and have to be laid aside for some spare 
 hour or half-hour. But this letter reached me, or rather I reached 
 it, at Pechuia, and here we lie idle at the confluence, waitingfor 
 the tide. 
 
42 VOLUNTEER PREACHERS ; GARRET ; NIGHT JOURNEY. 
 
 " Last Friday, I set off to spend two Sabbaths and the inter- 
 vening week at some of our more distant southern stations ; a plan 
 I much like when I can get away long enough from Amoy. So I 
 had spent Sabbath at Long-bridge (Tung-kio). On Monday, 
 as no preacher was at hand, two of the members volunteered to 
 spend the day with me, preaching among the villages. 
 
 " On Tuesday, I went from Long-bridge to Dragon River 
 (Liong-khey), by a romantic pass, and on the way did a good 
 deal of preaching, with the help of rny servant and the baggage- 
 bearer (one of Monday's volunteers). At Dragon River, in the 
 afternoon, one of our colporteurs and one of our students met me 
 by appointment ; we did some preaching in a village that afternoon, 
 and had laid our plans for a thorough week of evangelisation in the 
 surrounding country up to Sabbath first. When at tea-time (last 
 night), as I was at my little table, in a very queer little garret 
 (called euphemistically our room), in came a letter from Amoy, 
 saying that some matters about that interminable Chin-chew 
 case needed immediate attention. So all my plans were scattered 
 to the winds. 
 
 "Up at 2.30 this morning; dressed, breakfasted, had worship 
 with the brethren, and set off at 4.15, with a great pair of burning 
 pine-roots, hung from a pole, as a light for the road and a scare 
 for tigers. The moon had just set, and the dew was very hea\y. 
 Day broke about six, and the beacon-bearers returned. On we 
 walked by the side of the Dragon River, along a lovely glen, till it 
 spread out near Kwan-jim into a plain. Got an early dinner, and 
 hired a small boat to Pechuia ; there found the mission boat waiting 
 with your letter ; set off at once ; but here we wait for the tide." 
 
 "P.S. Amoy, ■^oth November. — Sailed down in a fine full-moon 
 morning, and was in my room (which my servant had all ready for 
 me), soon after dawn ; long before any of my neighbours were 
 stirring." 
 
 " P.S. Pechuia, ist December. — Here I am back again on my 
 way to the Khi-boey communion, after a busy day yesterday at 
 Amoy on our Chin-chew business, which makes little or no 
 progi"ess." 
 
 "P.P.S. Amoy, s^k December. — Got back here last night, all 
 well, though having had rainy weather all the time. The Sabbath 
 
HEALTH; ORDINATION OF NATIVE PASTOR. 43 
 
 Was spent at Khi-boey, which is now shewing some slight signs oT 
 improvement. I baptised three new members belonging to the 
 Khi-boey congregation, and four from the Tung-kio congregation, 
 which meets along with the other on communion Sabbaths. We 
 also re-admitted to communion two members who had been long 
 under suspension." 
 
 " Ainoy, Friday, ind February, 1877. 
 
 " Tuesday evening I returned from a visit of sixteen days to 
 Chin-chew, all except two days being spent in the city. 
 
 "Mr. Phillips (now interpreter, formerly Acting-Consul), was 
 there part of the time ; and a compromise was made in our chapel 
 case which we hope may be adhered to. 
 
 "Though a heavy loss, it would give peace and quiet. The 
 chief item is a perpetual lease of the present premises, with some 
 addition. I am all the better of the time so spent.'' 
 
 Note.— The next letter, 19th March, for the first time alludes 
 to failing strength. He says he has not been altogether well 
 since end of last summer ; held on expecting the cold weather to 
 set him up ; but " was startled to find that the cold, instead of 
 bracing me as usual, made me still weaker," so that he had put 
 himself in the doctor's hands, and was improving ; looked forward 
 to the Conference at Shanghai as likely quite to restore him. " I 
 have not been actually disabled from work, even for a day." 
 
 " Amoy, 2<~jth April, 1877. 
 
 I have now my portmanteaus packed, ready to start to-morrow 
 for Shanghai. Being on the Committee of Arrangements, I have 
 to be in Shanghai a week before the actual meeting of the Con- 
 ference. So it may be two or three weeks before I write again. 
 
 " Last week we had a peculiarly interesting meeting of the Amoy 
 Presbytery. The great event was the decision of the Presbytery 
 to ordain a pastor at Pechuia. 
 
 " The pastor-elect i? a well-tried man, who has been for many 
 years at the head of our Training Institution. The great difficulty 
 
44 HIS LETTERS : CHINESE PRESBYTERY MEETING. 
 
 was to get him to accept the call, as he is really very humble 
 minded, and felt deeply the importance of the work. 
 
 " We had three days long meetings, as we are both Presbytery 
 and Supreme Court ; and half the time was very bad weather. 
 But I stood it quite well. So I think my health may be said to 
 be now fully reestablished, after such a trial. 
 
 " There was a fine spirit in all the meetings. Barclay, who is 
 ihere on his way to the Conference, made a good speech (of course 
 n Chinese), on the state of the work in Formosa." 
 
45 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM PREFACE BY 
 
 REV. DR. DOUGLAS 
 
 TO HIS DICTIONARY OF THE AMOY LANGUAGE, 
 
 " The vernacular or spoken language of Amoy, which this dictionary 
 attempts to make more accessible than formerly, has been also termed 
 by some ' The Amoy Dialect ' or ' The Amoy Colloquial ' ; and it 
 partially coincides with the so-called 'Hok-kien Dialect,' illustrated 
 by the Rev. Dr. Medhurst in his quarto dictionary, under that title. 
 But such words as ' dialect ' or ' colloquial ' give an erroneous con- 
 ception of its nature. It is not a mere colloquial dialect or patois ; it 
 is spoken by the highest ranks, just as by the common people, by 
 the most learned, just as by the ignorant ; learned men, indeed, add 
 a few polite or pedantic phrases, but these are mere excrescences 
 and even they are pronounced according to the Amoy sounds), while 
 the main body and staple of the spoken language of the most refined 
 and learned classes is the same as that of coolies, labourers, and 
 boatmen. 
 
 " Nor does the term ' dialect ' convey anything like a correct idea of 
 its distinctive character ; it is no mere dialectic variety of some other 
 language ; it is a distinct language, one of the many and widely 
 differing languages which divide among them the soil of China. 
 
 " The so-called 'written language ' of Chinais indeed uniform through- 
 out the whole country ; but it is rather a notation than a language ; for 
 this universal written language is pronounced differently when read 
 aloud in the different parts of China, so that while, as written, it is 
 one, as soon as it is pronounced, it splits into seve?-al languages. And 
 still further, this written language, as it is read aloud from books, is 
 not spoken in any place whatever under any form of pronunciation. 
 The most learned men never employ it as a means of ordinary oral 
 communication even among themselves. It is in fact a dead lan- 
 guage, related to the various spoken languages of China somewhat as 
 Latin is to the languages of South-western Europe. 
 
 " A very considerable number of the spoken languages of China have 
 been already, more or less studied by European and American 
 residents in the countr)', such as the Mandarin, the Hakka, the ver- 
 
46 HIS ACCOUNT OF AMOY LANGUAGE. 
 
 naculars of Canton and Amoy, and several others. These are not 
 dialects of one language ; they are cognate languages, bearing to each 
 other a relation similar to that which subsists between the Arabic, the 
 Hebrew, the Syriac, the Ethiopic, and the other members of the 
 Semitic family ; or again, between English, German, Dutch, Danish, 
 Swedish, &c. 
 
 " There is another serious objection to the use of the term ' dialect,' 
 as applied to these languages, namely, that within each of them there 
 exist real dialects. For instance, the Mandarin, the greatest of all, 
 contains within itself at least three very marked 'dialects/ the 
 Northern, spoken at Pekin ; the Southern, spoken at Nanking and 
 Soo-chow ; and the Western, spoken in the provinces of Sze-chuen, 
 Hoo-peh, &c. 
 
 " In like manner the language, which for want of a better name we 
 may call the ' Amoy vernacular or spoken language,' contains within 
 itself several real dialects, especially those of Chang-chew, Ching- 
 chew, Tung-an, and of Amoy itself. 
 
 " The language of Amoy, including these subordinate dialects, is be- 
 lieved to be spoken by about eight or ten millions. This is the first 
 dictionary of the spoken language." 
 
 ■" While I greatly regret that the Chinese character does not appear 
 in the book, I am in one sense glad that it is absent. For it may serve 
 to make manifest the fact that the vernacular of Amoy is an indepen- 
 dent language, which is able to stand alone without the help of the 
 written character. And I should hope that many people may thus 
 be encouraged to study this language who would have been repelled by 
 the sight of the complicated and fantastic characters. Of course every 
 missionary, and every one who would be counted a scholar, must 
 study the written character too, for the vernacular or colloquial cannot 
 for a very long tjme to come possess any literature worthy of the 
 name." 
 
 -■i! ***** * 
 
 " To some it seems also a great want that there is no English-Chinese 
 part. But that must really be a separate work. The whole style and 
 character of Chinese thought and expression is so different from the 
 nearest English equivalents, that the work of reversing a dictionary, 
 which at first sight seems very easy, would really be enormous, 
 falling not very far short of the original composition." 
 
 (A short sipecimen of the Dictionary is inserted on next leaf.) 
 
EXTRACT FEOM 
 
 CHINESE -ENGLISH DICTIONAEY, 
 
 OF THE 
 
 VERNACULAR or SPOKEN LANGUAGE OF AMOY, 
 
 BY THE LATE 
 
 Rev. CARSTAIRS DOUGLAS, m.a., ll.d. 
 
 In the Dictionary a number of new letters are introduced, and special marks and 
 accents are applied to ordinary letters, with a view to represent fully and correctly 
 the numerous Chinese sounds, to which our ordinary alphabet is quite inadequate. 
 Some of these signs occur in this extract, but it is impossible to give the explanations 
 of them, as some pages of introduction are occupied in expounding the sounds and signs. 
 
 tbiflU [E. to carry on a pole; to raise 
 up gently, as with a pin; to stir up or 
 loosen, as with the point of a stick; to 
 sew or embroider; to stir up or instigate; 
 to select; a spoon; = col. thio, thio, thiS,u]. 
 
 thiau-hu, a carrier of baggage or 
 burdens, kien-thiau p6e-hu, to carry 
 loads on shoulder and back, as ped- 
 lars, &c. 
 
 tliiau-sodn, to choose out carefully 
 (v. so4n). toa-thiau, the great choos- 
 ing of gi'aduates for various offices (esp. 
 of Kujin graduates), once in twelve years, 
 by the emperor. 
 
 thiau-lang, airy, as a room; having 
 plenty of space between, as houses, trees, 
 &c. ; elegant and gi-aceful, as limbs, or as 
 walking (v. lang). 
 
 thiau-kiong (C), = A. thng-sl, a 
 small spoon for soup. 
 
 thlRU [R. chhiau; C. thiau; to excel; 
 to raise]. tMau-tng, to call a very 
 young and talented scholar near his own 
 seat, as the examiner sometimes does. 
 
 thiau-th.oat (iv), = chhiau-thoat, 
 easy -minded; not anxious about danger 
 or troubles. 
 
 tllltlU [R. weak, young, and tender; 
 light and frivolous]. kheng-tMau, 
 light and frivolous in manner, esp. as 
 young man; apt to be rather neglectful 
 and too easy-minded about matters in- 
 trusted to him; opposed to "ha-tiong." 
 kheng-klieiig tMau-thiau, id. 
 
 thiilU [E. tiau, restless; perverse; 
 outrageous]. thiau -Ian, to cause 
 trouble and annoyance intentionally in 
 many ways (v. kn). thiau-ban, = 
 tiau-biln, obstinately troublesome and 
 disobedient, e.g. very lazy about doing 
 what is ordered, or constantly putting off 
 the payment of what is due. 
 
 thiau [R. tiau, a branch; a thin 
 strip ; anything long and slender, = col. 
 liilu]. chit -be kng-thiau-thiau, 
 extremely poor; having on no clothes at 
 all. 
 
 tlliAu — thiau-d, a pimple on 
 the face. 
 
 thiau (R. id.) th.iau-a-hi, a sort 
 of mud-fish, thiau-hi, id. 
 
 hoe-th.iau, a longer sort of mud-fish. 
 
 si-kha-thiau (F.), a sort of large 
 lizard which lives in hedges. 
 
 tllisiu [E. thiau, to carry on a pole; 
 to select, &c. ; = col. thio, thid; sometimes 
 in C. also read "thiau"], to choose, as 
 persons; also said of things, kfe-thiau, 
 choice already made; having been selected. 
 thid,u iti-teng, to select some men as 
 soldiers elect (out of a number of candi- 
 dates) ready to fill up any vacancies that 
 may occur, thidu haa-lim, to choose 
 a Tsin-sze graduate and make him a 
 Hanlin. 
 
 thidu (Cn. ). scat- thiau, vile 
 jesting at each other (cf A. soat-chhiiu). 
 
48 
 
 tlli^U (R. id.), to leap; to jump; to 
 overleap; to pass over, td-thi^u, to 
 rebound, tio-tlii&u, to leap about. 
 thiau-bii, to dance and gesticulate. 
 th.iau-kh.a-koe, to hop. thi^u-tsdu, 
 to jump, as frog, &c. ; to give a leap in 
 order to escape, as man. 
 
 tliiau-thah., very playful and rest- 
 less, as child, thi^u-tliat, id. thi^u- 
 iAk (C), lively and in good health and 
 spirits, as child, oih thiau-tliiau, 
 active, as fish, kia'^-le' thi^u-thi^u, 
 to walk (naturally) with a very springy 
 elastic step, thiau-kiii, restless imp ! 
 said to a troublesome child; a trouble- 
 some unruly boy, thiau - han, a 
 troublesome unruly boy, fond of trifling 
 and noisy play, th.iau-h.an (T.), id. 
 gfiet-tsii thiau-h4,ii, a wild, idle, ill- 
 behaved boy. 
 
 thiau-tang, to have the afflatus for 
 giving an oracle, thiau-kau, a set 
 of three dice, used in gambling (v. 
 kau). 
 
 chhiik - chhiik - thiau, to jump 
 and frisk about incessantly, phiak- 
 phiak-thiau, to jump about frantical- 
 ly, as sorcerer, phut-phut-thiau, 
 to jump about, as in delight; to jump 
 about, as a ilea. p6k-p6k-thiau, to 
 jump about, as a flea, phok-phok- 
 thiau, to palpitate, as with fear; to 
 dance with rage; to dance with delight 
 or desire, as child; to leap, as a flea. 
 khi kau-phok-phok-thiau, dancing 
 with rage. 
 
 thiavi-iah, to pass over one leaf of a 
 book, as in reading, &c. thiau-khdm, 
 to pass by a shop, as in distributing 
 thing's, thiau-keng', to pass one house 
 in a row, e.g. one house left unburned in 
 a fire, thiau-chiu", to pass one chapter 
 without reading it; (&c.) thiau-kip 
 seng, to be promoted two or more grades 
 of rank at once. 
 
 tlliilU [E. thtr, to pass through; 
 thorough; to communicate, as a road; = 
 col. than], a plank or flat stone used as a 
 
 bridge or gangway; stepping-stones in a 
 stream, thi^u-pang, a plank used as 
 a bridge or gangway (-I-). ii-thiau, 
 there is such a bridge of plank or single 
 stone, &c. 
 
 phah-thiau, to lay a gangway or 
 plank, &Q., so used; to make a scatFold- 
 ing, as for building or repairing a house. 
 tah. thi^u-pang, to make such a scaf- 
 folding. 
 
 thiaU (Cn. ). kher-thiau, a plant 
 like a dock with red flowers. 
 
 thiaU (E. tsu), a pillar; a column; 
 a post; a division of a clan, smaller than 
 "phii" or "p3,ng." 
 
 si-thiau, a man's horoscope (lit. four 
 columns), consisting of four pairs of 
 characters; said even though written in 
 one column. i--e si-thiau ho, his 
 horoscope is good, poeh-ji pai si- 
 thiau, to arrange the eight words of the 
 horoscope in four columns. 
 
 to-thiau, the branch of a family 
 become extinct, b^ng-pang lAm- 
 thiau, a weak branch of a powerful 
 family. 
 
 thiau-poa", a large square slab of 
 stone sunk in the ground, as foundation 
 for pillar, thiau - e chioh, stone 
 pedestal of a pillar, thiau-tsu, the 
 round part of the stone pedestal of a 
 pillar, thiau-peng, a pilaster; a half 
 pillar, thiap- thiau, an additional 
 pillar or pilaster set close to a wall as an 
 additional support, esp. to receive the 
 boards of a partition, er-thiau, the 
 fixed post of a well-sweep, chhu-thiau, 
 the pillar of a house, am-thiau, pillar 
 of a temple, leng-thiau, pillars hav- 
 ing dragons carved on them, chha- 
 thiau, a wooden pillar, chioh-thiau, 
 a stone pillar. 
 
 thih-teng teng-toa-thiau, the 
 aSair is settled finally and conclusively. 
 nA" thi"-thiau, said of a very tall 
 strong man. boe-tsun-i", boe-tsiin- 
 thiau, said of person or materials not 
 suitable for our purpose (v. tsun). 
 
 There are sinrjle nionosyllahles !ii the Dictionunj, with much more space devoted to 
 them than in the above ca.te. The page of the Dictionary is much larger than this. It 
 was printed hy Messrs. W. 0. Blackie <£■ Co., of Qlasgoio, employing a large number 
 of special types designed by the Anthor to express the oariovs Chinese sounds and 
 tones. They furnish this Specimen. 
 
49 
 
 HIS CLOSING DAYS. 
 
 A Letter from the Rev. "Wia. McGREGOR, Amoy, one of 
 the Missionaries of the Presbyterian Church of Kngland. 
 
 Amoy, 31^^ J^^fy, 1877. 
 
 For nearly a year Dr. Douglas had not been robust. Last 
 spring he was at one time very much reduced in strength, 
 and what he needed was to return home and have an entire 
 cessation from work of every kind. He would not, how- 
 ever, even take a change to Japan. He had to attend the 
 Missionary Conference at Shanghai in May, and this he 
 thought would be a sufficient change. In one conversation 
 I had with him he indicated that he would be prepared to 
 come home in 1878. Before he went to Shanghai he was 
 considerably stronger, and, although he had a great deal of 
 work at the Conference there, it was work of a different 
 kind, so that his health then was very good. 
 
 Before he left, both Mr. Gordon and myself had pressed 
 him to go on from Shanghai to Japan. He was inclined to 
 go to North China, but what he needed was a withdrawal 
 from all Chinese associations and Chinese study, and we 
 urged Japan. He promised to go if he should feel himself 
 still weakly at the close of the Conference ; but as at its 
 close he felt himself much better, he came right back to 
 Amoy, arriving here on the 13th of June. He was certainly 
 
50 LABOURS OF HIS LAST WEEKS. 
 
 much benefited by his visit to Shanghai, and although there 
 was a sad want of the vigour and elasticity of old times, 
 yet, during these last six weeks he was with us, he was, I 
 think, as well as I have known him during these past three 
 years. He was also in excellent spirits. Although the 
 Chin-chew case and some other matters continued to trouble 
 him, still there was very much in connection with the work 
 of the mission to cheer him. A native minister, of tried 
 and sterling character, had just been harmoniously settled 
 at Pechuia.. Thian-khe, another admirable man, had been 
 appointed his successor as students' tutor ; and only a week 
 before his death, we decided on adding six young men of 
 much promise to the number of our students. A gospel 
 boat, for evangelistic purposes on the Chin-chew river (long 
 a fondly cherished scheme of his), had just been built, and 
 on every side openings for the gospel were presenting 
 themselves. All this cheered him very much, and I believe 
 the last few weeks of his life were very happy weeks. He 
 was, as you are aware, staying in Mr. Swanson's house, and 
 had for some months had Mr. and Mrs. Sadler, of the 
 London Mission, staying with him, as they, on their return 
 to China, had no house accommodation of their own. 
 Mr. and Mrs. Gordon lived just next door, and, of course, 
 saw him often ; while, however often Mrs. M'Gregor or 
 myself had seen him during the day, we could count almost 
 with certainty on his looking in sometime in the cool of the 
 evening, cheery and happy. Still he continued to work too 
 hard. When not engaged in active mission work he was 
 hard at work in his study almost the whole day. The 
 second Sabbath before his death he spent at Aw-paw, one 
 of our newly-opened stations to the south-west. Then, 
 after spending most of the week hard at work in Amoy, he 
 was next Sabbath at Leong-bun-see. Both these places 
 
HIS CLOSING DAYS ; CHOLERA. 51 
 
 involved journeys trying in hot weather. He came back 
 from Leong-bun-see on Monday in high spirits, because he 
 had found the congregation there in a cheering condition, 
 and giving evidence of spiritual life. He could not rest 
 until he came up in the evening to tell us about it, and 
 brought Mr. Gordon with him, that we might talk over some 
 matters connected with the mission work, which required 
 to be immediately decided. On Tuesday and Wednesday 
 he was equally well and cheerful. On Wednesday afternoon 
 he made a number of calls among the foreign community 
 in Kolongsoo, but took a sedan-chair, as the heat was 
 rather great. At eight o'clock that evening he met with us 
 at the usual weekly prayer meeting, held in the (English) 
 chapel in Kolongsoo. After the prayer meeting he walked 
 to his own house along with Mrs. M'Gregor and myself, 
 talking about matters connected with the Chin-chew chapel. 
 We then went all into Mr. Gordon's house, and sat talking 
 some time, separating before ten o'clock. He was then 
 quite well. Next morning, about half-past five, his Chinese 
 boy, as usual, took a cup of tea to his bed-room for him. 
 He found him still lying down, and he told him that he had 
 had an attack of diarrhoea at four o'clock, but that it was a 
 mere trifle. I ought to mention that cholera has been very 
 prevalent among the Chinese in Amoy for more than a 
 month. Two Europeans have died, one from a gun-boat 
 and one from a sailing vessel in the harbour ; and one 
 European resident was seized, and recovered. The mor- 
 tality among the Chinese was a good deal on Dr. Douglas's 
 mind, as was shown by his conversation. 
 
 About half-past six he had a second attack of diarrhoea, 
 
 and then, apprehending danger, he called Mr. Sadler to give 
 
 him medicine. Mr. Sadler at once administered thirty drops 
 
 of chlorodyne in a wine-glass full of brandy — that being the 
 
 D 
 
u3 GREEK TESTAMENT ; HEBREW BIBLE ; CHOLERA. 
 
 treatment medically recommended in the first stages of 
 cholera. He then lay down again in his bed, and asked 
 Mr. Sadler to hand him his Greek Testament — he had pre- 
 viously been reading in his Hebrew Bible. He also gave 
 Mr. Sadler a note which he had himself written to Dr. Man- 
 son, our medical adviser. After sending off this note Mr. 
 Sadler sat with him a few minutes, and then, leaving a small 
 bell by his bedside, went down-stairs. In a very short time 
 the bell rang, and, when Mr. Sadler went up-stairs,he found 
 Dr. Douglas's boy arranging his bed and rubbing his legs. 
 Cholera-cramps had set in, and he afterwards told Dr. 
 Manson that he knew it was cholera when the cramps began. 
 Mr. Sadler at once administered a second dose of brandy 
 and chlorodyne, and the Chinese boy ran in for Mr. Gordon, 
 who, in a few minutes, was in the room. His limbs now 
 required' incessant friction, and, from this time to well 
 through the afternoon, there were generally four persons 
 rubbing them. Dr. Manson arrived (about 7.30), and, on 
 seeing Dr. Douglas, at once sent off a messenger for his 
 younger brother, who shares with him the medical practice 
 of Amoy. When I reached the house, a few minutes past 
 eight, I found both doctors there. They had injected mor- 
 phia below the skin, but it did not seem to do any good. 
 The illness was cholera of the most virulent type, and Dr. 
 Douglas was already in a state of collapse ; his pulse 
 almost gone, and his stomach incapable of assimilating 
 anything. 
 
 About this time Dr. Talmage came in, then Mrs. 
 M'Gregor, and to each of them he expressed himself to the 
 effect that he was feeling better. No doubt he was suffer- 
 ing less pain. All the missionaries were in Amoy and able 
 to see him. 
 
 From about eleven o'clock he began to sink very rapidly. 
 
HIS CLOSING HOURS ; DEATH. 53 
 
 He gradually ceased to make any remark. During the 
 afternoon he continued very low, circulation in the limbs 
 being to a slight extent kept up by friction. I do not think 
 he suffered very much pain, but kept restlessly tossing from 
 side to side. The two doctors were most attentive ; one or 
 other of them was in the room the whole day. 
 
 After five a change came over him. He tossed about 
 less, and towards half-past five a peculiar quivering indi- 
 cated that he was labouring for breath. He then turned 
 himself on his back, stretched himself out nearly straight, 
 and at twenty minutes to six, quietly breathed his last. So 
 giveth He his beloved sleep. 
 
 During the few hours he was ill, Dr. Douglas spoke little 
 Almost from the first he was so prostrated that to speak 
 was trying to him. This being apparent to all, we felt that 
 it would have been cruel to press conversation upon him ; 
 and, in regard to the one great matter of his trust in the 
 Saviour and acceptance with God, we were able to rejoice 
 that all this had been settled long ago, and that we needed 
 no death-bed testimony. Yet we were not left without such 
 testimony. When his medical adviser told him that the 
 result of his illness was very doubtful, and that if he Lad 
 anything to arrange he had better do it, apparently fearing 
 he might alarm him too much, he added, " but you must 
 not excite yourself, you know ; you are a philosopher." Dr. 
 Douglas here at once checked him, and said, "I'm a 
 Christian;" then, pausing for breath, added, " that's better.'' 
 Mrs. M'Gregor, standing by his bedside, quoted the pro- 
 mise : " Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He shall 
 sustain thee." He replied at once, with great emphasis, 
 " He does sustain," and then, after a slight pause, " perfect 
 peace." Mrs. Gordon was not allowed by Dr. Manson to 
 enter the room, but she sent through her husband the text : 
 D2 • 
 
54 HIS LAST WORDS ; FUNERAL ; LABOURS. 
 
 " Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed 
 on Thee." Dr. Douglas said, " On Sabbath forenoon my 
 text was to have been — ' The gift of God is eternal life, 
 through Jesus Christ our Lord.' " Evidently he meant by 
 this answer to indicate where his trust was placed, and 
 whence the peace he enjoyed, came. The senior native 
 minister connected with the American mission called about 
 some matter, and, finding Dr. Douglas ill, came into the 
 room to see him. He stood some time by the bedside ; but 
 our dear friend's thoughts were occupied, and his eyes ap- 
 parently dim, so that he did not readily observe who was 
 by his bedside. Dr. Talmage then said, " Here is Yap- 
 sian-si come to see you." Dr. Douglas, slightly raising him- 
 self, and holding out his hand, said in Chinese, "Ah, Yap- 
 
 sian-si, be always ready for the Lord's will .... 
 
 staying here we may benefit the Church .... to be with 
 the Lord is far better." 
 
 Some six hours after this he went to be with the Lord, 
 and next morning we committed his dust to kindred dust, 
 near where Sandeman lies, in the little graveyard in Kolong- 
 soo, to sleep till that day when all that are in their graves 
 shall hear the voice of the Son of Man, and shall come forth. 
 
 Only those who knew Dr. Douglas well can understand 
 how entirely he devoted himself to that work, to which in 
 the bloom of his youth he gave himself — the work of 
 his Master, in China. With regard to it, he might 
 emphatically have said, "This one thing I do." His 
 studies, his work of every kind, even his hours of relaxa- 
 tion, were directed to the one end of building up the Church 
 of Christ in this land. To this his conversation ever turned ; 
 on this his thoughts ever ran ; and ran, not in the shape of 
 vague day-dreams, but in the way of planning and arrang- 
 ing some practical work, or of preparing for such work. 
 
EXCESSIVE UNRESTING LABOURS ; COURAGE. 55 
 
 The amount of work he could get through was almost in- 
 credible : and no doubt the secret of it was that he never 
 rested. He did the work of one man in active evangelistic 
 labour, and another man's work in his study and with the 
 mission students — all directed to the one end : the bringing 
 of China to the feet of Christ. To tJiis his whole time and 
 strength were given. For this he lived, and for this he 
 died : for (humanly speaking) there can be no doubt that 
 it was incessant toil which made him old before his time, and 
 laid his constitution open to the attack of the fell disease 
 that took him from us. But he had counted the cost, and 
 was prepared to abide the result. I know that he had often 
 before his mind the prospect of illness, and perhaps sudden 
 death, at some one of our inland stations. But such 
 thoughts never kept him from visiting them, even when 
 in much bodily weakness, and at times when the weather 
 was very trying. 
 
 When laid on his death-bed all he said went to show that 
 death had lost its terrors. He had no fear of death in the 
 sense in which that expression is generally used ; and, if 
 his mind was at all troubled, I doubt not it was at the pros- 
 pect of leaving the work he loved, while there was so much 
 work to be done. The Lord saw that his work was ended, 
 but it must have been difficult for him to realise this, as it 
 is for us still. Of our own loss and our own feelings I can- 
 not speak. We have felt stunned, and the whole com- 
 munity has been impressed. 
 
 This blow to the work of Christ here is such as to fill us 
 with dismay. Surely the Lord is laying His chastening 
 hand heavily upon us. We seem never to have prized suffi- 
 ciently our dear brother while he was with us. " Return, 
 we beseech Thee, O God of hosts ; look down from heaven 
 and behold, and visit this Thy vine." 
 
56 
 
 HIS MISSIONARY CAREER. 
 
 By Rev. W. S. S"WANSON, Amoy, one of the Missionaries 
 of the Presbyterian Church of England. 
 
 In the death of Dr. Douglas missionary work in China has 
 lost one of its ablest and most zealous agents. He was the 
 senior member of the Foreign Mission Staff of the Presby- 
 terian Church of England, and that Church over its length 
 and breadth is deeply mourning his sudden removal. His 
 distinguished worth and zeal were known, however, over a 
 much wider circle, for every missionary in China feels that 
 his death is a serious loss to the great cause of work for 
 Christ in that Empire. He went to this work furnished for 
 it in no ordinary degree by scholarly training, and with a 
 mind of great power and capacity. He had set a high ideal 
 before him, and to the end he maintained this ideal. From 
 the very beginning of his course as a missionary, he took a 
 high place. With rare ability, and with singular perseverance 
 and conscientiousness, he carried on his work. And he has 
 left behind him in China a name that can never be forgotten, 
 and a mark in the history of Christian work there that can 
 never be obliterated. 
 
 For some years before he went to China, increased atten- 
 tion began to be directed to that country by Christian 
 Churches in Great Britain and America. The Presbyterian 
 
MISSION COMMENCED; REV. W. C. BURNS 57 
 
 Church of England was then beginning to show renewed 
 vigour and strength ; and, hke every Hving church, felt that 
 work in the foreign field was a necessity of life and existence. 
 In the providence of God, China was the field chosen ; and 
 the Rev. W. C. Burns was their first missionary. The 
 remarkable blessing that had attended Mr. Burns' labours 
 in this country naturally drew the attention of thousands to 
 the place he had chosen as the scene of his work. This, 
 especially, made Chinese missions a burning question in the 
 congregations and theological halls of the Presbyterian 
 Churches in Scotland and England. Mr. Burns left in 1847, 
 and was followed in 1853 by the Rev. J. Johnston, now 
 minister of Free St. James's Church, Glasgow. Mr. Burns 
 spent some years about Hong-Kong and Canton, and then 
 went up to Amoy. Here his work was in alliance with the 
 agents of the Reformed Dutch Church of the United States, 
 and of the London Missionary Society. There was no dis- 
 tinctive setting up of stations under his own superintend- 
 ence. In 1854 there was a remarkable work of grace at 
 Pechuia, in which Mr. Burns was the great agent. Shortly 
 thereafter, Mr. Burns left for home, where he remained for 
 a short time, and where he, by his addresses and appeals, 
 deepened and increased the interest in Chinese missions. 
 An association had already been formed in Scotland, as an 
 auxiliary to the English Presbyterian Church in this work, 
 and Dr. Douglas was the first missionary sent out by this 
 association. 
 
 He went to China in 1855, immediately after being 
 ordained to the work by the Free Church Presbytery of 
 Glasgow. He went out with Mr. Burns, who was then 
 returning after his short furlough. On arriving at Shanghai 
 they parted company, and Dr. Douglas went on alone to 
 Amoy. 
 
58 AMOY AND ITS PEOPLE: MISSION FIELD, 
 
 He soon found that the field of labour to which he had 
 come was one of the most important and hopeful in all 
 China. Amoy, a large town on an island of the same 
 name, has the best harbour in all South China, and is the 
 centre of a very extensive and flourishing trade. It is the 
 principal port of the Province of Fuh-Kien ; and this 
 province has been the main centre of the emigrating 
 power of China. At a very early period Amoy had com- 
 mercial intercourse with the islands of the Malay Archi- 
 pelago, and with places still farther west. The Chinese 
 who have gone in thousands to that Archipelago have gone 
 principally from Fuh-Kien. The magnificent island of 
 Formosa has been colonized by emigrants from Amoy ; 
 and, considering their means and appliances, they have 
 wonderfully developed its resources. The spirit of push 
 and of enterprise, and the power of colonization, have ever 
 been and still are outstanding characteristics of the men of 
 Fuh-Kien. They may be equalled in these, but certainly 
 not excelled by the Cantonese. The Amoy men, however, 
 are more outspoken and open than the Cantonese, who are 
 known all over China for their treachery and cunning. 
 
 The missionary who works from Amoy as a centre, is 
 then acting upon the most enterprising, industrious, and 
 liberal-minded portion of the Chinese population. He finds, 
 too, wonderful facilities of access to the entire field covered 
 by the Amoy dialect, which commands the country from 
 Chau-An (near Swatow), on the south, to more than loo 
 miles to the north of Amoy, and from the sea-board to 
 lOO miles inland, besides most of the great island of Formosa. 
 No missionary could desire a better field or a more inte- 
 resting people. And Dr. Douglas was not slow to recognise 
 these advantages. China as a whole had his warmest sym- 
 pathies and his earnest efforts ; but still his love to Amoy 
 
"REFORMED DUTCH CHURCH" AND "LONDON" MISSIONS. 59 
 
 his own field and the fruitful centre from which has sprung 
 all the work of the English Presbyterian Church, was 
 absorbing. Anything that touched Amoy and the work 
 there seemed to touch the " apple of his eye." 
 
 He hoped to find Mr. Johnston in Amoy on his own 
 arrival there. But, to his and the Church's deep regret, 
 Mr. Johnston had been forced by dangerous illness to leave 
 China and return home. Single-handed, then, so far as 
 brethren of his own church were concerned, he began his 
 work ; and this was sufficiently discouraging. He would 
 have felt it more but that Mr. Johnston, although judiciously 
 and successfully beginning the work of distinctive stations 
 for his own mission, laboured in essential union with the 
 brethren of the Reformed Dutch Church of America, and 
 in warmest sympathy with those of the London Missionary 
 Society, both of which had for some time before established 
 the missions at Amoy which they still so efficiently main- 
 tain there. These brethren did all they could to assist and 
 encourage Dr. Douglas, and he was ever ready to acknow- 
 ledge what they had done. 
 
 The first work was to acquire the language. To this 
 work he set himself with the most conscientious zeal and 
 thoroughness. To speak some words intelligibly in Chinese 
 and to express some Christian truths in that language, is 
 not all that a missionary has to do. He has to carry on 
 new and strange work amongst a very acute and clever 
 people, who are quick to discover the flaws in any man's 
 furnishing, and ready, while he may not know it, to ridicule 
 him, and bring his message into disrepute. Besides, he is 
 dealing with a subject entirely new to them, and has, of 
 necessity, to introduce its very terminology to the minds of 
 his hearers, and the earlier missionaries have to create that 
 terminology, which certainly are duties of the most delicate 
 
60 STUDY OF LANGUAGE : DICTIONARY. 
 
 kind, and not to be entered upon rashly and without suffi- 
 cient preparation. He spared no pains in inculcating this 
 upon those who succeeded him, and who were joined with 
 him in the work ; and his own example enforced every 
 advice that he gave. He brought to the study a powerful 
 scholarly mind trained to systematic ways of doing work, 
 and a minuteness of research rarely equalled, and never, I 
 think, surpassed. The study of this language, at any time 
 difficult, was at that early date especially so. There were 
 then few aids, and each had to choose his own methods. 
 There was one vocabulary in manuscript, prepared by Mr. 
 Lloyd, an American Missionary, which was wonderfully 
 accurate and full, when the time of its preparation and the 
 materials then at hand are considered ; but still the study 
 was most difficult, and involved such patient long-continued 
 drudgery as called for the greatest perseverance of the 
 student. Dr. Douglas looked upon this drudgery as his 
 work for the Master at the time ; and we who followed him 
 can remember how faithfully he used at our times of dis- 
 couragement' to put our work in this light. The result of 
 all was that he became one of the first Chinese scholars of 
 the day, and in this respect his death is an immense loss. 
 His scholarship shewed itself not only in his extensive 
 knowledge of the language of Amoy, but he was equally 
 distinguished for his intimate acquaintance with the literary 
 style. In that district of China these differ so much that 
 they seem two distinct languages. 
 
 He soon saw that there was clamant need of a thoroughly 
 well-prepared dictionary of the Amoy colloquial, and he 
 began to collect materials for a work of this kind. Wher- 
 ever he went, his note-book and pencil were in hand, and 
 he was busy in the work of collection, and also in the re- 
 vision and verification of the stores already amassed. His 
 
CHINESE DICTIONARY AND SCHOLARSHIP. 61 
 
 brethren of his own and the other missions at Amoy knew 
 this, and at their unanimous request he prepared these 
 materials for publication. The result was, that in 1873 the 
 dictionary was published, and we can say no more of it 
 here than that it is universally acknowledged by the most 
 competent judges to be a work of most wonderful com- 
 pleteness, of scholarly research and accuracy, and a 
 notable evidence of remarkable ability and talent. On its 
 appearance, the University of Glasgow, oi which he had 
 been a distinguished ahuumis, honoured itself by conferring 
 upon him the well-earned degree of LL.D. 
 
 Dr. Douglas was equally distinguished for his intimate 
 acquaintance with the literary style, and his extensive 
 reading in Chinese literature. It was this that gave him. 
 the place he had amongst Chinese scholars. He was 
 among them in the very foremost rank. Even amongst 
 literary Chinese he was reckoned a great scholar. I have 
 frequently seen the amazement with which native literary 
 men were struck when they saw how thoroughly he knew 
 their language, and how marvellously well acquainted he 
 was with their literature. How a foreigner could ever have 
 got such knowledge was to them a mystery, and they re- 
 garded him on this account with a kind of reverential de- 
 ference they would accord to few others. In these respects, 
 his example is invaluable for those who succeed him. No 
 one was ever better fitted to train and lead younger men in 
 this most important matter. We miight think that at times 
 he carried his notions into too great minuteness of detail ; 
 yet we could not but feel that he advised no line for others 
 which he did not take for himself, and that as regarded our 
 full fitting and furnishing for the work, his way was very 
 generally the right way. 
 
 Dr. Douglas was certainly a student. He loved know- 
 
62 MISSIONARY NEVER LOST IN SCHOLAR. 
 
 ledge for its own sake, and he had great aptitude for its 
 acquisition. But while all this is true of him, it is equally 
 true that he was no mere bookworm, and that so far as he 
 was concerned, at no time was the missionary lost in the 
 scholar. He never lost sight of the great end of his being 
 in China, for this was the central and outstanding character- 
 istic of his whole life, to which everything else was subor- 
 dinated. To increase his efificiency he made himself 
 thoroughly acquainted with the conditions and circum- 
 stances of the people whom he so ardently desired to benefit. 
 He knew that there were many things operating against 
 him, and none of these must be overlooked. They were 
 factors in the case, and ignorance or depreciation of them 
 would be detrimental. He endeavoured to get into sympathy 
 with the people, and to gain such an acquaintance with 
 them, and their modes of thinking and feeling and acting, 
 as would make this sympathy possible. Still there must be 
 no doubt as to the end he had in view, and the means to be 
 used must always make that end clear. He eminently suc- 
 ceeded in making the Chinese feel that his only motive for 
 being among them was to benefit them by being instru- 
 mental in leading them to Him who came to seek and to 
 save the lost. And what is more difficult than all, he had, 
 in the process of getting to know them, necessarily through 
 a multitude of details of a very unpleasing kind, to maintain 
 the tone of a Christian man and the character of a Christian 
 missionary. No one who knew him and the history of his 
 missionary life will hesitate to testify how nobly he was 
 enabled to keep up this tone, and to maintain this character 
 unstained and unsullied. The Chinese respected him from 
 the very beginning, for they never could mistake what he 
 was. And he had an intense regard for them. Indeed, if 
 one were to criticise at all, it would be to say that he was 
 
PREACHING ; TRAINING OF PREACHERS. 63 
 
 sometimes less suspicious of them than perhaps he should 
 have been. The transparency of his own character, the 
 purity of his motives, and the atmosphere of honest purpose 
 in which he lived, were the main causes of this. 
 
 To recount his missionary labours and to sum up their 
 results, so far as these can yet be gathered, is impossible for 
 me now and here to do ; but some outstanding facts regard- 
 ing both must be mentioned, which will go far to show what 
 type of missionary he was. He saw clearly that what he 
 had to do was so to work as, by God's blessing, to be instru- 
 mental in setting up a native Church so organized as to be 
 self-supporting and self-propagating. He felt that he was 
 not sent to Anglicize but to Christianize the Chinese, and 
 everything must be so ordered as not to hinder but to fur- 
 ther this great end. And the longer he lived, the more 
 cautious was he of importing methods of work useful in the 
 West, but unsuitable to the peculiar conditions of China. 
 Two things were demanded of him, and to these two he set 
 himself: the earnest, faithful, and loving preaching of the 
 Gospel ; and the organizing of the Church so that from it 
 might go forth natives properly qualified and trained to 
 carry the message to their fellow-countrymen. He might 
 have been tempted to other more agreeable and congenial 
 lines of work, but he held on his way because he felt it was 
 his duty and wisdom so to do. He was doubtless led to 
 these views from intercourse with the missionaries of other 
 churches already in the field. Nine years before Mr. Burns 
 arrived in Amoy, missionaries from the Reformed Dutch 
 Church of America and from the London Missionary 
 Society had been labouring there ; and the principles and 
 practice of the work carried on by them were those already 
 stated. Mr. Johnston followed in the same path ; and Dr. 
 Douglas, the longer he lived in China, and the deeper in- 
 
64 .UNIO^" OF MISSIONS; DAXOKR; GREAT SUCCESS. 
 
 sight he got into Chinese life and thought, was the more 
 convinced of the wisdom of the plans adopted by the men 
 who had preceded him. The missionaries from America 
 were Presbyterians like ourselves ; and neither he nor any 
 of us ever dreamt of setting up two Presbyterian Churches 
 in that part of China : and so our mission work and theirs 
 became so united that the Chinese saw we were members of 
 one Church. This union has been most cordially maintained ; 
 and so, to-day, we are ecclesiastically one. The Chinese 
 there see only one Presbyterian" Church : and well would it 
 be if it were the same all the world over. 
 
 This did not prevent the English Presbyterian Mission- 
 aries from choosing one section of the field for themselves, 
 and working it as thoroughly as they could. Pechuia, the 
 scene of that work of grace under Mr. Burns already men- 
 tioned, was taken up as a special station of the English 
 Presbyterian Mission by Mr. Johnston, in 1854. It lay about 
 twenty miles south-west of Amoy, and was their only station 
 when Dr. Douglas arrived in Amoy. From that point the 
 work extended south and west. In i860 he commenced 
 work to the north of Amoy ; first at Anhai, a town about fifty 
 miles off, where, in that year, he nearly lost his life by the 
 violence of an enraged mob who set upon him. But he 
 prudently and quietly held on his way ; and he lived to see 
 a large and flourishing congregation in that town, and to see 
 also the work spreading out from it to the district around. 
 At present the stations of the Mission are twenty-five in 
 number, cover a line of more than two hundred miles in 
 length, and extend inland from Amoy more than seventy 
 miles.* 
 
 * This does not include the eighteen stations whose headquarters 
 are at Swatow, nor the twenty-six in Formosa, all carried on by the 
 Presbyterian Church of England. 
 
PREACHING TOURS ; CHURCH ORGANIZATION. 65 
 
 Over all this region Dr. Douglas's voice has been heard 
 and the Chinese all knew him. He never rested in his 
 evangelistic labours ; and his mode of work was to sally out 
 from some station already planted, accompanied by one or 
 two native preachers, and to evangelize over all the surround- 
 ing district. His powers of endui-ance were most remark- 
 able, and the Chinese used to say that while he could wear 
 them all out it was impossible to wear him out. But we felt 
 he was wearing himself out, and we tried to remonstrate, 
 but remonstrances were too often in vain. It seemed to be 
 a necessity of the man's nature to fill up every spare 
 moment with method and precision. 
 
 He was equally zealous in church organization as in 
 church extension, for he felt that the one was as important 
 as the other. As soon as congregations were sufficiently 
 strong, they were organized. They had free election of 
 their own office-bearers, and the Presbyterian polity was 
 found to be peculiarly acceptable to the Chinese. Representa- 
 tion by election, and the relations of judicial bodies were 
 not new ideas to them. Their own social and political 
 systems are to some extent upon the same principles. In 
 due time, a presbytery was formed, in which our Amei'ican 
 brethren and we had seats, but the natives formed the great 
 majority of its members. I can never forget the enthusiasm 
 with which he entered on all presbytery business, and the 
 glow of fervour that possessed him at all its meetings. His 
 name was sure to be on all important committees, and most 
 faithfully did he discharge such duties. 
 
 From the very outset he perceived the great importance 
 of training up a native ministry and of educating native 
 agents to carry on the work. When alone and single- 
 handed in his own Mission, he did what he could in this 
 department, and he never ceased his care about it until he 
 
66 TRAINING OF CHINESE PREACHERS. 
 
 saw a thoroughly equipped institution established in full 
 working order. Latterly he was surrounded by a band of 
 natives who had been trained in it, and who were actively 
 engaged in preaching the Gospel to their fellow-countrymen. 
 He did not fall into the mistake of thinking that any man 
 could preach ; he knew that the more thoroughly men were 
 prepared for their work, the better the work would be done. 
 Nothing was allowed to come between him and his work 
 with the students. His brother missionaries and he divided 
 it among them, and, on their return from country work, 
 their days in Amoy were devoted to this native college. He 
 never seemed more in his element than when surrounded by 
 these young men. Our habit has been to encourage them 
 to state openly to us any difficulties they have, and freely 
 to question us on things about which they doubt, or wish 
 fuller information. This is always done at the end of the 
 teaching hour. I think I see him now, all eager and en- 
 thusiastic, hearing and answering the fire of questions from 
 these students. It was no easy task to answer some of 
 them on the spur of the moment. But he never discouraged 
 them, invariably dealt fairly and openly with them, and 
 never failed to put them on the lines where solution would 
 be found. They are all mourning him to-day, and mourn- 
 ing deeply and bitterly, for his death makes a blank to them 
 that can hardly be filled. 
 
 There is one other phase of his character as a missionary 
 that must not be omitted here. I can hardly put in words 
 what he was to the brethren of his own Mission. He had 
 to stand for years alone, and was more than once dis- 
 appointed in his hopes of getting helpers to remain with 
 him : but he bravely held on. And when the mission staff 
 did grow around him, he never ceased to take the deepest 
 interest in everything that concerned them. He was the 
 
CORDIAL WORKING WITH COLLEAGUES ; FORMOSA. 67 
 
 senior member of the staff, but he never saved himself a 
 single detail of work. He took his own share, at least, of 
 everything with all of us. He was far removed from any- 
 thing like selfishness in such matters ; and his high sense 
 of duty to the Master and to us kept him from picking and 
 choosing what might be most congenial to himself Down 
 to th-e very last, the very drudgery of the work (so to speak) 
 had as much of his attention as it had of those of us who 
 were younger and less experienced than he. We would 
 have willingly spared him this, but the loyal brotherliness 
 that was in him refused all such distinction. It is impossible 
 for men engaged in such work to sink their individuality ; 
 and it can only be by loyal self-denial and deference to the 
 opinions of others that they can work lovingly together. 
 The rule on which he acted was to accept, unhesitatingly, 
 what seemed best to the greater number, and to carry this 
 out in action as cheerfully and pleasantly as he could. The 
 consequence was that a most remarkable amount of har- 
 mony characterised the mission staff. And this had much 
 to do with the solid success that has marked the Amoy 
 work. Where internal dissensions exist in a mission, and 
 where individual preferences as to modes and fields of work 
 are carried out, irrespective of the claims of the work as a 
 whole, and with little regard to the opinions and feelings of 
 brethren, there must be loss of moral force and consequent 
 weakness. We can testify that Dr. Douglas never mani- 
 fested such a spirit ; and now that he is gone, we feel that 
 it is of the last importance to follow the example of loyal 
 brotherliness he always showed us. 
 
 His missionary work was not confined to his own im- 
 mediate district, for, in i860, he passed over to Formosa, 
 and remained a few weeks in the northern part of that 
 island. The result of this visit was, on his part, a deep in- 
 E 
 
68 EUROPEAN RESIDENTS : MISSIONARY CONFERENCE. 
 
 terest in that island, and an earnest and unremitting 
 advocacy of its claims as a field for work. During a short 
 stay at home, in 1 862, he succeeded in getting the Church 
 to take it up, and on his return, in 1 863, he was accom- 
 panied by Dr. Maxwell, the first missionary to Formosa. As 
 soon as Dr. Maxwell was ready for work. Dr. Douglas went 
 over with him, shared the early difficulties and dangers of 
 the work, and aided in setting the mission a-going. Accord- 
 ing to the best of testimony, the first converts in that 
 island received the Gospel from his lips. 
 
 Dr. Douglas was also highly respected amongst his owil 
 countrymen who were engaged in China in commercial 
 pursuits. He did everything he could to further theif 
 highest interests, and ever had a deep and loving regard to 
 the young merl employed in the commercial houses at 
 Amoy. He knew the" temptations that surrounded them 
 on every sidey and he did all he could in the way of lovingly 
 and tenderly warning and leading them. 
 
 He died a comparatively young man, for he was only in 
 his 47th year when he was cut down by cholera. But his 
 work was finished ; and in looking back upon it we can see 
 a wonderful roundness and completeness about it. It is 
 remarkable ' that among the last things he did was 
 attending the Missionary Conference that met at Shanghai, 
 in May last. There were more thail 100 delegates present, 
 gathered from all China, and representing very fully thfe 
 various churches and societies having agents there. An 
 American and a British president were appointed, and this 
 high honour was unanimously conferred on Dr. Douglas by 
 the British delegates. This shows the estimate they had 
 formed of him, and they are the most competent judges. 
 There seems to be a most peculiar fitness in this, forming, 
 as it were, the closing scene of his public work, 
 
SPIRITUAL CHARACTER ; DEATH. 69 
 
 He spent twenty-two years of his life in this work, and 
 he did in these years what few could have done. Now 
 that he has gone, we think of his work and his walk as a 
 most precious legacy to the church that sent him, and to 
 the brethren who had the privilege of working with him. 
 Were he here to speak, he would tell of all God had 
 done by him, to the glory of that grace that made him 
 what he was ; and we, too, cannot cease to praise God for 
 giving us such a gift, and for leaving with us so many per- 
 manent proofs of our departed brother's usefulness and of the 
 grace that was in him. He was not demonstrative in the 
 expression of the deeper spiritual feelings of his heart. But 
 we knew how near he lived to the Master, and how deeply 
 he had learned of Him. The steady, onward walk along 
 the unromantic dusty path of duty is the noblest testimony 
 to the wonder-working power of God's own Spirit, and this 
 testimony he has left behind for all who follow him. 
 
 He has gone, and his memory increases the amount of 
 our Church's treasures — for few Churches can point to three 
 such lives as those of Burns, Sandeman, and Douglas. But 
 are not the Church's responsibilities increased to an equal 
 amount? Let their memories be lovingly cherished in the 
 way of an increased devotion to the work for which they 
 lived, and in which they died. 
 
 I part now from a brother dearly beloved, with whom, for 
 seventeen years it was my privilege to be most closely 
 united, and I do so with a bitter heart. I shall not see his 
 like again — but the remembrance of what he was and of 
 what he is can never cease to be to me unspeakably sweet 
 and precious. 
 
70 
 
 EXTRACT FROM LETTER OF 
 REV. DR. TALMAGE, 
 
 Of the American Dutch Reformed Church Mission, Amoy. 
 
 Extract from Letter from Rev. J. V. N. Talmage, 
 D.D., of the American Dutch Reformed Church Mission, 
 Amoy, published in the " Christian Intelhgencer " 
 (American), of nth October, 1877. 
 
 (Dr. Talmage is one of the older Missionaries, and was 
 intimately associated with Dr. Douglas in Mission work.) 
 
 " I suppose almost all who take an interest in missions in our 
 Church are well acquainted with the name of Dr. Douglas, and 
 would be glad to get some more particulars concerning the cha- 
 racter of the man. By over-work he had worn himself out, and 
 made himself an old man while he was yet comparatively young 
 in years. He came to China quite young, and at the time of his 
 death was only about forty-six years of age, and yet men who had 
 recently become acquainted with him thought him over sixty. Is 
 any one inclined to blame him too much for this, as though he 
 wore himself out and sacrificed his life before the time ? If so, he 
 did it in a good cause and for a good Master. And besides this, 
 he did more work during the twenty-two years of his missionary 
 life than the most of men accomplish in twice that time. And 
 then he reminds us of One who, when only a little over thirty 
 years of age, from similar causes, seems to have acquired the ap- 
 pearance of being nearly fifty (John viii. 57). 
 
LEARNING; LABOURS; USEFULNESS. 71 
 
 " Recently, especially during the last year, it was manifest, at 
 least to others, that his physical strength was fast giving way. Yet 
 he could not be prevailed on to leave his field for a season for 
 temporary rest, or even to lessen the amount 'of his work. 
 
 " I never knew a more incessant worker. Consequently he was 
 a man of most extensive general information. I think I have 
 never met with his equal in this respect. He was also acquainted 
 with several modern European languages, and was a thorough 
 student of the original languages of the Holy Scriptures, as wit- 
 ness the fact of his study of the Hebrew Bible even after his last 
 sickness had commenced. As regards the Chines^ language, he 
 was already taking his place among the first Sinologues in this 
 land. We are indebted more to him, perhaps, than to any other one 
 man, for the success of the recent Missionary General Conference. 
 As a member of the Committee of Arrangements he laboured in- 
 defatigably by writing letters and in other ways to make it a 
 success, and, though comparatively so young, he well deserved 
 the honour bestowed on him in making him one of the presi- 
 dents - of that body. ' Know ye not that there is a prince and a 
 great man fallen this day in Israel ?' " 
 
72 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS 
 OF REV. H, L. MACKENZIE, SWATOW, 
 
 One of the Missionaries of the Presbyterian Church of England. 
 
 Extracts from two Letters, dated August, 1877, by 
 Rev. H. L. Mackenzie, Swatow, to friends connected 
 with the Mission; 
 
 " Few beyond those intimately acquainted -with Douglas knew 
 how very hard he worked, and how wisely, and to what good effect 
 his work was directed. For more than twenty-two. years his 
 labours have been unceasing, and the great day of the Lord's 
 coming will alone declare how this beloved man, so ' steadfast, 
 immoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord,' did not 
 labour in vain. In the Church of Christ gathered from among 
 the heathen in the Amoy region, much sweet and precious fruit 
 has been brought forth, manifest to all, through his and his fellow- 
 labourers' work. And, I think, there is not one of these fellow- 
 labourers but will be ready to say, to the .praise of God's grace in 
 this brother, that he was indeed facile princeps and primics inter 
 pares in all their work. 
 
 " Most useful, most stimulating to his brethren have been these 
 twenty-two years of hard, unremitting toil ; of rare unreserved 
 devotion to the cause of God in China. His record is on high, 
 but his feUow-labourers abroad, and the Church at home that sent 
 him forth, do well to cherish his fragrant memory with loving 
 admiration, and with thanks and praise to God for the grace so 
 abundantly bestowed on him. Of his abundant labours as an 
 Evangelist, of his loving and wise care for the Churches which he 
 
China for christ! work and prayer. 73 
 
 was so largely instrumental in planting, of literary labours, both 
 as a lexicogi-apher and in the revision of the Chinese versiori of 
 the Scriptures, you are aware. And you know, too, how, while at 
 home on furlough, he toiled, and thought, and wrote on behalf- of 
 China. In fact he was a wonder to many of us, though he himself 
 all the while, quietly, unobtrusively, and as if it were a matter of 
 course, wrought on, ' China for Christ ! ' being still his goal. For 
 this he lived ; for this, it may be truly said, he died." 
 
 "I remember a little incident that for seventeen years has 
 isxercised a helpful influence on me. When travelling with him 
 to or from one of the Amoy stations, in i860, I noticed him look- 
 ing at some writing on his fan. I asked him what it was, and 
 was told that it was the names of four men at Anhai, the first four 
 converts of that whole north-eastern region, where there are now 
 flourishing stations. From his manner and way of speaking of 
 these four I was quite sure at the time, and have often with 
 advantage to myself remembered since, that he had written them 
 on his fan that he might be constantly reminded of them and 
 might pray for them. I mention this as one of many such 
 indications, showing how his whole heart was given to the salva- 
 tion of this people, and the establishment of Christ's kingdom 
 among them. 
 
 " I feel bereaved and very sad, but he rests from his labours ; 
 he is with the Lord, and on his account I must give thanks and 
 t)raise. I like to think of him resting." 
 
74 
 
 STATISTICS OF THE CHINA MISSIONS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 SUBMITTED TO THK SYNOD, 1877. 
 
 European Missionaries — 12 Ordained Ministers, and 3 Medical 
 Missionaries. 
 
 Native Evangelists— 21 at Amoy, 6 at Swatow, and 22 at 
 Formosa. 
 
 Students — 11 at Amoy, 7 at Swatow, and 9 at Formosa. 
 
 STATIONS. 
 
 District of Amoy. 
 
 Eight Stations organised as Churches — viz., E-mung-kang, Pechuia, 
 Bay-pay, Khi-boey, Liong-bun-si, Anhai, Kiolai, and Chin- 
 chew. 
 
 Sixteen Stations not yet organised as Churches — Yu-boey-kio, 
 Peh-chioh, Koanjim, Koankio, Awsai, Liongkay, Kiong-nia, 
 Siong-see, Tinhai, Phukiong, Tung-kio, Ta-ying, Kang-khau, 
 Go-che, Pan-to, and Aw-po. 
 
 District of Swatow. 
 
 Swatow, Ch'ao-chow-foo,Toa-sua-thau,Yamtsau, Phu-sua, Ungkung, 
 Chiah-na, Tat-hau-pow, Ch'ao-yang, Kieh-yang, Sin-hii, Miow, 
 Ho-po, Ngou-hun-tang Ho-tshan, and Kway-tham. Six of 
 these are organised Congregations. 
 
 Island of Formosa. 
 
 Taiwanfoo (Chief City), Bak-sa, Kam-a-na, Kong-a-na, Poah-bay, 
 Hoan-a-chan, Pe-taou (District City), Takao, Tang-kang, Tek- 
 a-kha, Lam-gan, Taw-kun-eng, Akao, Alikang, lam-paw, 
 Ka-la-paw, Kio-a-laou, Kagi (District City), Peh-tsui-khay, 
 Thau-sia, Ka-poa-soa, Toa-sia, Lai-sia, Aw-gu-lan, Toa-lam, 
 and Gu-khun-soa. 
 
 Hugh M. Matheson, Lombard Street, London, Convener. 
 
 Rev. W. Ballantyne, London, Secretary. 
 
 James E. Matheson, Lombard Street, London, ) „ 
 
 John Bell, 2, East India Avenue, London, / ^-^'(^"'^ers. 
 
75 
 
 APPROXIMATE STATISTICS 
 
 OF 
 
 PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN CHINA, 
 
 AND OF 
 
 EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN MISSIONARIES. 
 
 (Those marked * were not represented at the Conference, owing to distance or 
 
 other causes.) 
 
 I.— ENGLISH, SCOTCH, IRISH AND CANADIAN CHURCHES 
 AND SOCIETIES. 
 
 BEGAN CHINESE NUMBER OF 
 
 MISSIONS. MISSIONARIES. 
 
 ^1807 London Missionary Society 23 
 
 /i844 Church Missionary Society < ... 20 
 
 ^45 Baptist Missionary Society 2* 
 
 7847 Presbyterian Church of England 15 
 
 ^847 British and Foreign Bible Society 2 
 
 *853 Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society ... 23 
 
 i860 Methodist New Connexion Missionary Society 3* 
 
 1862 Society for Propagation of the Gospel ... 2 
 
 1863 United Presbyterian Church of Scotland ... 6 
 1S63 National Bible Society of Scotland i* 
 
 1864 United Methodist Free Church Missionary 
 
 Society ... , 2 
 
 1866 China Inland Mission 42 
 
 1869 Irish Presbyterian Church 2* 
 
 1872 Canada Presbyterian Church 2* 
 
 Society for Promotion of Female Education 
 
 in the East 2* 
 
 Unconnected 3 
 
 ISO 
 
 II.— GERMAN SOCIETIES. 
 
 BEGAN CHINESE NUMBER OF 
 
 MISSIONS. MISSIONARIES. 
 
 1832 Rhenish Missionary Society 6* 
 
 1847 Basel Missionary Society 11 
 
 17 
 
76 APPROXIMATE STATISTICS OF PROTESTANT MISSIONS 
 
 III.— AMERICAN SOCIETIES. 
 
 NUMBER OF 
 MISSIONARIES. 
 
 BEGAN CHINESE 
 MISSIONS. 
 
 1830 American Board of Commissioners for Foreign 
 
 Missions (Congregational) 28 
 
 1834 Baptist Missionary Union 9 
 
 1835 Protestant Episcopal Board of Missions ... 10 
 1838 Presbyterian Church (North) 4° 
 
 1846 Southern Baptist ^Mission 10 
 
 1847 Methodist Episcopal Board of Missions ... 24 
 1850 Reformed Church Missions (called Dutch Reformed) 4 
 1854 Southern Methodist Episcopal Board of 
 
 Missions 3 
 
 i860 United Presbyterian Church i* 
 
 1864 Southern Presbyterian Church 9 
 
 1869 Woman's Union Missionary Society 2* 
 
 American Bible Society i 
 
 HI 
 
 SUMMARY. 
 
 Churches, Missionary Societies, or Classes... 30 
 Missionaries (not including their wives, but in- 
 cluding unmarried lady Missionaries) 308 
 
 Besides the above there are a large number of Chinese Preachers 
 and Evangelists, and of Chinese under instruction and training. 
 
 Some of the earlier dates here given apply to work among the 
 Chinese colonists, before China itself was opened to foreigners. 
 
c 
 
 AR STAI 
 
 ^sp 
 
 OUGLAS, 
 
 MISSIONARY TO CHINA