They

People met together in crowds, those that could not read eager to hear the wonderful story of the Gospel. They gave up their idol worship and began to pray and worship the God of the Bible, according to the light which they derived from the Malay Testament. abandoned all practices which seemed to them inconsistent with the teaching of the Testament. Hundreds banded together to read the books and worship according to this new revelation, so strangely brought to their knowledge.

A Chinese theatrical performer wandered in among this people and became so much interested in what he saw and heard that he begged the Malay congregation to take him in as one of their society. They told him that if he wanted to worship as they did he must abandon his theatrical trade This, he said, he could not do as that was his only means of living. But soon this Chinese theatrical performer returned and said he would give up his profession-he would give up everythingto become a follower of Jesus, that he might worship and live in accordance with this new religion.

After a time news of this wonderful movement reached Batavia, and careful investigation showed that about seven hundred men, women, and children had abandoned their idols and were united in a society of their own to worship God according to the light they had obtained from the New Testament alone without any living teacher. Rev. Mr. Du Puy said these facts had then (1853) but recently come to the knowledge of Europeans, but that he was satisfied that it might be

safely said that at least 300 or 4co had been truly converted, and had become real Christians by the influence of these Malay Testaments distributed by the picus watchmaker and his daughter, long after the missionaries who translated and printed the New Testament in the Malay language, had gone to other fields of labor. I have always understood that Rev. Dr. Medhurst, of the London Missionary Society, who resided at Batavia, and who published a Chinese dictionary at Batavia, in 1842 and 43, was one of the translators of this Malay New Testament.

While I was at Foochow, China, about 1850, as nearly as I can remember, a well-dressed Chinaman entered my house with his son, a boy of ten or twelve years of age, saying that he came some three days' journey from the interior of the country-that he wanted some old books. I offered him portions of the New Testament in Chinese. That was not what he wanted, he had seen copies of that. He wanted the OLD BOOKS. I gave him some portions (I don't remember how complete) of the Old Testament. I should think I gave him the Pentateuch, and Joshua, and Judges, in Chinese. "That is it," said he; "that is what I wanted." He gave these books to his son as a peculiar treasure, and with profound thanks took his departure. I never saw or heard from this man again, but it is one of the pleasant memories, very numerous, of my labors in the China Mission of the Methodist Episcopal Church. I never had a lingering doubt of the certain fruit that the written word will bring forth.-Bible Society Record.

A Trip in Formosa With Rev. G. L. Mackay, D.D., of the Canadian Presbyterian China Mission.

BY C. A. COLMAN.

When we left Tamsui, on the Lord's Day, Feb. 27, 1887, our party consisted of Dr. Mackay, pastor Giám Ahoá, a courier who was to cook for us, and myself; also a number of students, who, however, accompanied us only so far as Bangkah. Bangkah is about ten miles by the river from Tamsui, and it took two hours to get there in a steam-launch.

There are four steam-launches which carry passengers between Tamsui and Bangkah, and they are owned and run wholly by Chinese. Fare for Chinese, five cents, foreigners ten.

Two or three miles below Bangkah the Doctor pointed out to me a chapel in a village, we could just catch a sight of it through the bamboos,-which the villagers prepared to defend, during the chapel-destroy ing mania when the French were about, from a mob who were coming from another place. They planted their guns in two commanding positions, and as the invaders must needs cross a river the slaughter would have been great had they attempted to do so; as it was they thought better of it and retired. Prudence is more largely developed than valor in most Chinamen.

As we passed Toá-tiu-tián, one mile below Bangkah, where all the foreign merchants live, we saw the spire of the most beautiful Chinese chapel I have seen in China. It is fully seventy feet high with an arrow for a weather-vane.

Bangkah is the largest city in North Formosa, and has a population of 50,000. General Yu, the highest mandarin in the island, is building a new city about a mile from the old one; as yet there is only the wall and gates, with mandarins' offices and residences (yamens), and a few shops built; the remainder and greater part, is in paddy (rice) fields.

He is also building a good road from Bangkah to Kelung, a distance of twenty miles, and has already got jinrichshas and coolies to pull them, froin Shanghai.

Dr. Mackay tells me, that during the French troubles the people of Bangkah threatened to kill the General; they said he was a traitor because he retired from Kelung when the French bombarded it. He is now head over the whole island, and though hated, is also feared. He gets money for his improvements from mandarins and rich men who in former years oppressed the people. This is his method of punishing them instead of having them beheaded.

The chapel in Bangkah, as in Toá-tiu-tián, is a stone building with a spire about (60) sixty feet high; it is capable of seating three hundred people comfortably. Behind the chapel, at each side, are small buildings for the use of the preacher and his family, with an upper room for the missionary when he comes. On one of the stories of the spire is a representation of the "burning bush" with the Chinese characters above it

meaning, "Eush burning but not consumed;" the people quickly saw the application; higher up is painted the "Union Jack."

This is the fourth chape! Dr. Mackay has had in Bangkah. The mob tore the others down, but he has told thousands of them that if they puil this one down he will put up an iron one. When it was building the people made no objection to either chapel or spire, only asking, "How high will it be?"

Some of the adversaries now say, "We ought not to have pulled down the others, then he would not have built this which is more beautiful and stronger than the others; he only builds stronger and better every time."

There are others who say the spire has helped the (fung-shui) luck of the place, because two Chinese students obtained degrees last year, a thing which had not happened for several years before. The men who got the degrees live not far from the chapel in a direct line. from its front. The people of Toá-tiu-tián and of Bangkah both claim to have the finest chapel.

We had service at two o'clock in the afternoon of the Lord's day; there were about one hundred persons present, and Dr. Mackay took for his subject the story of Dorcas, Acts 9: 36, using a picture representing a woman bringing a naked child to Dorcas, and a beggar sitting at their feet, to impress the truth. These pictures are drawn and painted by one of Dr. Mackay's Chinese students, and he uses them and the blackboard very much in his preaching and teaching, just as we teach in Sunday school at home. The preacher at Bangkah once saved Dr. Mackay from drowning. They were near their journey's end one day, when the Doctor told this man to go on to the chapel and get things ready while he took a bath in the river. As soon as the man was gone Dr. Mackay jumped into the water and immediately lost all power to help himself and would certainly have been drowned, had not this man, who had stopped a few paces off, plunged into the water and taken him out.

During the evening of the Lord's day Dr. Mackay was called to go and see an elder who was not expected to live and wanted to see him; he went over and did not get back till two o'clock next morning; at parting the sick man gave his hand a great squeeze; they did not expect to see each other in the flesh again. On our return we heard he had died two days after Dr. Mackay visited him This man was formerly a bitter enemy to the truth, and did all in his power to set the people against the message of the Lord and the messenger; he was a traveling vaccinator and so had plenty of opportunities, as he went from place to place, to slander Dr. Mackay, and he used them to the utmost of his ability; but the Lord had mercy on him and the slanderer became a faithful witness.

On our way up to Bangkah, Dr. Mackay told of an old couple who were drowned by the mob in Sin-tiám during the French troubles; they were taken and

ducked in the river, and on refusing to worship idols they were grossly and indecently insulted and then drowned. Formosa has its martyrs too, yet there are people who say, "There are no truly Christian Chinese." Well, I don't know what any one could ask as proof that a man was a true Christian, other than the proofs that hundreds of Chinese have already given.

I

On Monday morning we started for Kelung in chairs, three men to carry each chair. In about an hour and a half we came to the chapel at Sekkhan; we stopped a few minutes and Dr. Mackay pulled out some teeth.

This chapel has also a spire, and is a stone building facing the Chinese street, with the back to the river; the buildings at the back are occupied by the preacher and his family, and the back is built to look like the front of a house from the river.

At noon we halted at Tsui-tang-tsay. The chapel here is a Chinese house fixed over.

On reaching the chapel at Kelung, which is also a stone building, we took a boat and went over to Palm Island, where the mission has a house; the French

occupied it when they took Kelung. Going over, Dr. Mackay pointed out to me the site of a fort built by the Spanish more than two hundred years ago, 1626 A.D, and a little farther on the site of the Chinese fort destroyed by the French. By the side of the mission's house on Palm Island is the site of a Dutch fort built about 1630 A.D. It is now a vegetable garden.

Next day we went on over rough mountain paths, through the rain, and halted for the night at the Chinese town of Tug-siang-khue, where a stone chapel is going up, and no one in Canada or outside of North Formosa knows anything about it. Dr. Mackay's plan has been to do a thing, then report as done, and not talk about going to do it; for something might happen to hinder what he was going to do, but what is done is done.

The following day we went on to Sin-Sian, and Dr. Mackay and Ahoá spent the afternoon examining thirtytwo candidates for baptism; ten or twelve others were away in their boats to Kelung. In the evening about two hundred and fifty persons assembled for worship,

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