Away over on the east of the island ran a range of beautiful mountains. And between these mountains and the sea stretched a low rice plain. Here lived many Pe-po-hoan,—"Barbarians of the plain." Mackay had never visited this place, for the Kap-tsu-lan plain, as it was called, was very hard to reach on account of the mountains; but this only made the dauntless missionary all the more anxious to visit it.
So one day he suggested to his students, as they studied in his house on the bluff, that they make a journey to tell the people of Kap-tsu-lan the story of Jesus. Of course, the young fellows were delighted. To go off with Kai Bok-su was merely transferring their school from his house to the big beautiful outdoors. For he always taught them by the way, and besides they were all eager to go with him and help spread the good news that had made such a difference in their lives. So when Kai Bok-su piled his books upon a shelf and said, "Let us go to Kaptsu-lan," the young fellows ran and made their preparations joyfully. A Hoa was in Tamsui at the time, and Mackay suggested that he come too, for a trip without A Hoa was robbed of half its enjoyment.
Mackay had just recovered from one of those violent attacks of malaria from which he suffered so often now, and he was still looking pale and weak. So Sun-a, a bright young student-lad, came to the study door with the suggestion, "Let us take Lu-a for Kai Bok-su to ride."
There was a laugh from the other students and an indulgent smile from Kai Bok-su himself. Lu-a was a small, rather stubborn-looking donkey with meek eyes and a little rat tail. He was a present to the missionary from the English commissioner of customs at Tamsui, when that gentleman was leaving the island. Donkeys were commonly used on the mainland of China, and though an animal was scarcely ever ridden in Formosa, horses being almost unknown, the commissioner did not see why his Canadian friend, who was an introducer of so many new things, should not introduce donkey-riding. So he sent him Lu-a as a farewell present and leaving this token of his good-will departed for home.
Up to this time Lu-a had served only as a pet and a joke among the students, and high times they had with him in the grassy field behind the missionary's house when lessons were over. In great glee they brought him round to the door now, "all saddled and bridled" and ready for the trip. The missionary mounted, and Lu-a trotted meekly along the road that wound down the bluff toward Kelung. The students followed in high spirits. The sight of their teacher astride the donkey was such a novel one to them, and Lu-a was such a joke at any time, that they were filled with merriment. All went well until they left the road and turned into a path that led across the buffalo common. At the end of it they came to a ravine about fifteen feet deep. Over this stretched a plank bridge not more than three feet wide. Here Lu-a came to a sudden stop. He had no mind to risk his small but precious body on that shaky structure. His rider bade him "go on," but the command only made Lu-a put back his ears, plant his fore feet well forward and stand stock still. In fact he looked much more settled and immovable than the bridge over which he was being urged. The students gathered round him and petted and coaxed. They called him "Good Lu-a" and "Honorable Lu-a" and every other flattering title calculated to move his donkeyship, but Lu-a flattened his ears back so he could not hear and would not move. So Mackay dismounted and tried the plan of pulling him forward by the bridle while some of the boys pushed him from behind. Lu-a resented this treatment, especially that from the rear, and up went his heels, scattering students in every direction; and to discomfit the enemy in front he opened his mouth and gave forth such loud resonant brays that the ravine fairly rang with his music.
A balking donkey is rather amusing to boys of any country, but to these Formosan lads who had had no experience with one the sound of Lu-a's harsh voice and the sight of his flying heels brought convulsions of merriment. "He's pounding rice! He's pounding rice!" shouted the wag of the party, and his companions flung themselves upon the grass and rolled about laughing themselves sick.
With his followers rendered helpless and his steed continuing stubborn, Mackay saw the struggle was useless. He could not compete alone with Lu-a's firmness, so he gave orders that the obstinate little obstructer of their journey be trotted back to his pasture.
"And to think that any one of us might have carried the little rascal over!" he cried as he watched the donkey meekly depart. His students looked at the little beast with something like respect. Lu-a had beaten the dauntless Kai Bok-su who had never before been beaten by anything. He was indeed a marvelous donkey!
So the journey to the Kap-tsu-lan plain was made on foot. It was a very wearisome one and often dangerous. The mountain paths were steep and difficult and the travelers knew that often the head-hunters lurked near. But the way was wonderfully beautiful nevertheless. Standing on a mountain height one morning and looking away down over wooded hills and valleys and the lake-like terraces of the rice-fields, Mackay repeated to his students a line of the old hymn:
Every prospect pleases and only man is vile.
Around them the stately tree-fern lifted its lovely fronds and the orchids dotted the green earth like a flock of gorgeous butterflies just settled. Tropical birds of brilliant plumage flashed among the trees. Beside them a great tree raised itself, fairly covered with morning-glories, and over at their right a mountainside gleamed like snow in the sunlight, clothed from top to bottom with white lilies.
But the way had its dangers as well as its beauties. They were passing the mouth of a ravine when they were stopped by yells and screams of terror coming from farther up the mountainside. In a few minutes a Chinaman darted out of the woods toward them. His face was distorted with terror and he could scarcely get breath to tell his horrible story. He and his four companions had been chipping the camphor trees up in the woods; suddenly the armed savages had leaped out upon them and he alone of the five had escaped.
At last they left the dangerous mountain and came down into the Kap-tsu-lan plain. On every side was rice-field after rice-field, with the water pouring from one terrace to another. The plain was low and damp and the paths and roads lay deep in mud. They had a long toilsome walk between the ricefields until they came to the first village of these barbarians of the plain. It was very much like a Chinese village,—dirty, noisy, and swarming with wild-looking children and wolfish dogs.
The visitors were received with the utmost disdain. The Chinese students were of course well known, for these aborigines had long ago adopted their customs and language. But the Chinese visitors were in company with the foreigners, and all foreigners were outcaste in this eastern plain. The men shouted the familiar "foreign devil" and walked contemptuously away. The dirty women and children fled into their grass huts and set the dogs upon the strangers. They tried by all sorts of kindnesses to gain a hearing, but all to no effect. So they gave it up, and plodded through the mud and water a mile farther on to the next village. But village number two received them in exactly the same way. Only rough words and the barks of cruel dogs met them. The next village was no better, the fourth a little worse. And so on they went up and down the Kap-tsu-lan plain, sleeping at night in some poor empty hut or in the shadow of a rice strawstack, eating their meals of cold rice and buffalo-meat by the wayside, and being driven from village to village, and receiving never a word of welcome.
And all through those wearisome days the young men looked at their leader in vain for any smallest sign of discouragement or inclination to retreat. There was no slightest look of dismay on the face of Kai Bok-su, for how was it possible for a man who did not know when he was beaten to feel discouraged? So still undaunted in the face of defeat, he led them here and there over the plain, hoping that some one would surely relent and give them a hearing.
One night, footsore and worn out, they slept on the damp mud floor of a miserable hut where the rain dripped in upon their faces. In the morning prospects looked rather discouraging to the younger members of the party. They were wet and cold and weary, and there seemed no use in going again and again to a village only to be turned away. But Kai Bok-su's mouth was as firm as ever, and his dark eyes flashed resolutely, as once more he gave the order to march. It was a lovely morning, the sun was rising gloriously out of the sea and the heavy mists were melting from above the little rice-fields. Here and there fairy lakes gleamed out from the rosy haze that rolled back toward the mountains. They walked along the shore in the pink dawn-light and marched up toward a fishing village. They had visited it before and had been driven away, but Kai Bok-su was determined to try again. They were surprised as they came nearer to see three men come out to meet them with a friendly expression on their faces.
The foremost was an old man who had been nicknamed "Black-face," because of his dark skin. The second was a middleaged man, and the third was a young fellow about the age of the students. They saluted the travelers pleasantly, and the old man addressed the missionary.
"You have been going through and through our plain and no one has received you," he said politely. "Come to our village, and we will now be ready to listen to you."
The door of Kap-tsu-lan had opened at last! The missionary's eyes gleamed with joy and gratitude as he accepted the invitation. The delegation led the visitors straight to the house of the headman. For the Pepo-hoan governed their communities in the Chinese style and had a headman for each village. The missionary party sat down in front of the hut on some large flat stones and talked over the matter with the chief and other important men. And while they talked "Black-face" slipped away. He returned in a few moments with a breakfast of rice and fish for the visitors.
The result of the conference was that the villagers decided to give the barbarian a chance. All he wanted it seemed was to tell of this new Jehovah-religion which he believed, and surely there could be no great harm in listening to him talk.
In the evening the headman with the help of some friends set to work to construct a meeting-house. A tent was erected, made from boat sails. Several flat stones laid at one end and a plank placed upon them made a pulpit. And that was the first church on the Kap-tsu-lan plain! There was a "church bell" too, to call the people to worship. In the village were some huge marine shells with the ends broken off. In the old days these were used by the chiefs as trumpets by which they called their men together whenever they were starting out on the war-path. But now the trumpet-shell was used to call the people to follow the King. Just at dark a man took one, and walking up and down the straggling village street blew loudly—the first "church bell" in east Formosa.
The loud roar brought the villagers flocking down to the tent-church by the shore. For the most part they brought their pews with them. They came hurrying out of their huts carrying benches, and arranging them in rows they seated themselves to listen.
Mackay and the students sang and the people listened eagerly. The Pe-po-hoan by nature were more musical than the Chinese, and the singing delighted them. Then the missionary arose and addressed them. He told clearly and simply why he had come and preached to them of the true God. Afterward the congregation was allowed to ask questions, and they learned much of this God and of his love in his Son Jesus Christ.
The wonder of the great news shone in the eyes upturned to the preacher. In the gloom of the half-lighted tent their dark faces took on a new expression of half-wondering hope. Could it be possible that this was true? Their poor, benighted minds had always been held in terror of their gods and of the evil spirits that forever haunted their footsteps. Could it be possible that God was a great Father who loved his children? They asked so many eager questions, and the story of Jesus Christ had to be told over and over so many times, that before this first church service ended a gray gleam of dawn was spreading out over the Pacific.
It was only the next day that these newly-awakened people decided that they must have a church building. And they went to work to get one in a way that might have shamed a congregation of people in a Christian land. This new wonderful hope that had been raised in their hearts by the knowledge that God loved them set them to work with glad energy. Kai Bok-su and his men still preached and prayed and sang and taught in the crazy old wind-flapped tent by the seashore, and the people listened eagerly, and then, when services were over, every one,—preacher, assistants, and congregation,—set bravely to work to build a church. Brave they certainly had to be, for at the very beginning they had to risk their lives for their chapel. A party sailed down the coast and entered savage territory for the poles to construct the building. They were attacked and one or two were badly wounded, though they managed to escape. But they were quite ready to go back and fight again had it been necessary. Then they made the bricks for the walls. Rice chaff mixed with clay were the materials, and the Kap-tsu-lan plain had an abundance of both. The roof was made of grass, the floor of hard dried earth, and a platform of the same at one end served as a pulpit.
When the little chapel was finished, every evening the big shell rang out its summons through the village; and out from every house came the people and swarmed into the chapel to hear Kai Bok-su explain more of the wonders of God and his Son Jesus Christ.
Mackay's home during this period was a musty little room in a damp mud-walled hut; and here every day he received donations of idols, ancestral tablets, and all sorts of things belonging to idol-worship. He was requested to burn them, and often in the mornings he dried his damp clothes and moldy boots at a fire made from heathen idols.
For eight weeks the missionary party remained in this place, preaching, teaching, and working among the people. It was a mystery to the students how their teacher found time for the great amount of Bible study and prayer which he managed to get. He surely worked as never man worked before. Late at night, long after every one else was in bed, he would be bending over his Bible, beside his peanut-oil lamp, and early in the morning before the stars had disappeared he was up and at work again. Four hours' sleep was all his restless, active mind could endure, and with that he could do work that would have killed any ordinary man.
One evening some new faces looked up at him from his congregation in the little brick church. When the last hymn was sung the missionary stepped down from his pulpit and spoke to the strangers. They explained that they were from the next village. They had heard rumors of this new doctrine, and had been sent to find out more about it. They had been charmed with the singing, for that evening over two hundred voices had joined in a ringing praise to the new Jehovah-God. They wanted to hear more, they said, and they wanted to know what it was all about. Would Kai Bok-su and his students deign to visit their village too?
Would he? Why that was just what he was longing to do. He had been driven out of that village by dogs only a few weeks before, but a little thing like that did not matter to a man like Mackay. This village lay but a short distance away, being connected with their own by a path winding here and there between the rice-fields. Early the next evening Mackay formed a procession. He placed himself at its head, with A Hoa at his side. The students came next, and then the converts in a double row. And thus they marched slowly along the pathway singing as they went. It was a stirring sight. On either side the waving fields of rice, behind them the gleam of the blue ocean, before them the great towering mountains clothed in green. Above them shone the clear dazzling sky of a tropical evening. And on wound the long procession of Christians in a heathen land, and from them arose the glorious words:
O thou, my soul, bless God the Lord, And all that in me is Be stirred up his holy name To magnify and bless.
And the heathen in the rice-fields stopped to gaze at the strange sight, and the mountains gave back the echo of that Name which is above every name.
And so, marching to their song, the procession came to the village. Everybody in the place had come out to meet them at the first sound of the singing. And now they stood staring, the men in a group by themselves, the women and children in the background, the dogs snarling on the outskirts of the crowd.
The congregation was there ready, and without waiting to find a place of meeting, right out under the clear evening skies, the young missionary told once more the great story of God and his love as shown through Jesus Christ. The message took the village by storm. It was like water to thirsty souls. The next day five hundred of them brought their idols to the missionary to be burned.
And now Mackay went up and down the Kap-tsu-lan plain from village to village as he had done before, but this time it was a triumphal march. And everywhere he went throngs threw away their idols and declared themselves followers of the true God.
He was overcome with joy. It was so glorious he wished he could stay there the rest of his life and lead these willing people to a higher life. But Tamsui was waiting; Sin-tiam, Bang-kah, Kelung, Go-ko-khi, they must all be visited; and finally he tore himself away, leaving some of his students to care for these people of Kap-tsu-lan.
But he came back many times, until at last nineteen chapels dotted the plain, and in them nineteen native preachers told the story of Jesus and his love. Sometimes, in later years, when Mackay was with them, tears would roll down the people's faces as they recalled how badly they had used him on his first visit.
It was while on his third visit here that he had a narrow escape from the head-hunters. He was staying at a village called "South Wind Harbor," which was near the border of savage territory. Mackay often walked on the shore in the evening just before the meeting, always with a book in his hand. One night he was strolling along in deep meditation when he noticed some extremely large turtle tracks in the sand. He followed them, for he liked to watch the big clumsy creatures. These green turtles were from four to five feet in length. They would come waddling up from the sea, scratch a hole in the sand with their flippers, lay their eggs, cover them carefully, and with head erect and neck out-thrust waddle back. Mackay was intensely interested in all the animal life of the island and made a study of it whenever he had a chance. He knew the savages killed and ate these turtles, but he supposed he was as yet too near the village to be molested by them. So he followed the tracks and was nearing the edge of the forest, when he heard a shout behind him. As he turned, one of his village friends came running out of his hut waving to him frantically to come back. Thinking some one must be ill, Mackay hurried toward the man, to find that it was he himself who was in danger. The man explained breathlessly that it was the habit of the wily savages to make marks in the sand resembling turtle tracks to lure people into the forest. If Kai Bok-su had entered the woods, his head would certainly have been lost.
It was always hard to say farewell to Kaptsu-lan, the people were so warm-hearted, so kind, and so anxious for him to stay. One morning just before leaving after his third visit, Mackay had an experience that brought him the greatest joy.
He had stayed all night at the little fishing village where the first chapel had been built. As usual he was up with the dawn, and after his breakfast of cold boiled rice and pork he walked down to the shore for a farewell look at the village. As he passed along the little crooked street he could see old women sitting on the mud floors of their huts, by the open door, weaving. They were all poor, wrinkled, toothless old folk with faces seamed by years of hard heathen experience. But in their eyes shone a new light, the reflection of the glory that they had seen when the missionary showed them Jesus their Savior. And as they threw their thread their quavering voices crooned the sweet words:
There is a happy land Far, far away.
And their old weary faces were lighted up with a hope and happiness that had never been there in youth.
Kai Bok-su smiled as he passed their doors and his eyes were misty with tender tears.
Just before him, playing on the sand with "jacks" or tops, just as he had played not so very long ago away back in Canada, were the village boys. And as they played they too were singing, their little piping voices, sweet as birds, thrilling the morning air. And the words they sang were:
Jesus loves me, this I know, For the Bible tells me so.
They nodded and smiled to Kai Bok-su as he passed. He went down to the shore where the wide Pacific flung long rollers away up the hard-packed sand. The fishermen were going out to sea in the rosy morning light, and as they stood up in their fishing-smacks, and swept their long oars through the surf, they kept time to the motion with singing. And their strong, brave voices rang out above the roar of the breakers:
I'm not ashamed to own my Lord, Or to defend his cause.
And standing there on the sunlit shore the young missionary raised his face to the gleaming blue heavens with an emotion of unutterable joy and thanksgiving. And in that moment he knew what was that glory for which he had so vaguely longed in childish years. It was the glory of work accomplished for his Master's sake, and he was realizing it to the full.
Some of Mackay's happiest days were spent with his students. He was such a wonder of a man for work himself that he inspired every one else to do his best, so the young men made rapid strides with their lessons. No matter how busy he was, and he was surely one of the busiest men that ever lived, he somehow found time for them.
Sometimes in his house, sometimes on the road, by the seashore, under a banyan tree, here and there and everywhere, the missionary and his pupils held their classes. If he went on a journey, they accompanied him and studied by the way. And it was a familiar sight on north Formosan roads or field paths to see Mackay, always with his book in one hand and his big ebony stick under his arm, walking along surrounded by a group of young men.
Sometimes there were as many as twenty in the student-band, but somewhere in the country a new church would open, and the brightest of the class would be called away to be its minister. But just as often a young Christian would come to the missionary and ask if he too might not be trained to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Whether at home or abroad, pupils and teacher had to resort to all sorts of means to get away for an uninterrupted hour together. For Kai Bok-su was always in demand to visit the sick or sad or troubled.
There was a little kitchen separate from the house on the bluff, and over this Mackay with his students built a second story. And here they would often slip away for a little quiet time together. One night, about eleven o'clock, Mackay was here alone poring over his books. The young men had gone home to bed except two or three who were in the kitchen below. Some papers had been dropped over a pipe-hole in the floor of the room where Mackay was studying, and for some time he had been disturbed by a rustling among them. At last without looking up, he called to his boys below: "I think there are rats up here among my papers!"
Koa Kau, one of the younger of the students, ran lightly up the stairs to give battle to the intruders. What was his horror when he saw fully three feet of a monster serpent sticking up through the pipe-hole and waving its horrible head in the air just a little distance from Kai Bok-su's chair.
The boy gave a shout, darted down the stair, and with a sharp stick, pinned the body of the snake to the wall below. The creature became terribly violent, but Koa Kau held on valiantly and Mackay seized an old Chinese spear that happened to be in the room above and pierced the serpent through the head. They pulled its dead body down into the kitchen below and spread it out. It measured nine feet. The students would not rest until it was buried, and the remembrance of the horrible creature's visit for some time spoiled the charm of the little upper room.
The rocks at Kelung harbor were another favorite spot for this little traveling university to hold its classes. Sometimes they would take their dinner and row out in a little sampan to the rocks outside the harbor and there, undisturbed, they would study the whole day long.
They always began the day's work with a prayer and a hymn of praise, and no matter what subjects they might study, most of the time was spent on the greatest of books. After a hard morning's work each one would gather sticks, make a fire, and they would have their dinner of vegetables, rice, and pork or buffalo-meat. Then there were oysters, taken fresh off the rocks, to add to their bill of fare.
At five in the afternoon, when the strain of study was beginning to tell, they would vary the program. One or two of the boys would take a plunge into the sea and bring up a subject for study,—a shell, some living coral, sea-weed, sea-urchins, or some such treasure. They would examine it, and Kai Bok-su, always delighted when on a scientific subject, would give them a lesson in natural history. And he saw with joy how the wonders of the sea and land opened these young men's minds to understand what a great and wonderful God was theirs, who had made "the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all that in them is."
When they visited a chapel in the country, they had a daily program which they tried hard to follow. They studied until four o'clock every afternoon and all were trained in speaking and preaching. After four they made visits together to Christians or heathen, speaking always a word for their Master. Every evening a public service was held at which Mackay preached. These sermons were an important part of the young men's training, for he always treated the gospel in a new way. A Hoa, who was Mackay's companion for the greater part of sixteen years, stated that he had never heard Kai Bok-su preach the same sermon twice.
On the whole the students liked their college best when it was moving. For on the road, while their principal gave much time to the Bible and how to present the gospel, he would enliven their walks by conversing about everything by the way and making it full of interest. The structure of a wayside flower, the geological formation of an overhanging rock, the composition of the soil of the tea plantations, the stars that shone in the sky when night came down upon them;—all these made the traveling college a delight.
Although his days were crammed with work, Mackay found time to make friends among the European population of the island. They all liked and admired him, and many of them tried to help the man who was giving his life and strength so completely to others. They were familiar with his quick, alert figure passing through the streets of Tamsui, with his inevitable book and his big ebony cane. And they would smile and say, "There goes Mackay; he's the busiest man in China." (*)
* See CHAPTER XIII, Formosa becomes Japanese territory.
The British consul in the old Dutch fort and the English commissioner of customs proved true and loyal friends. The representatives of foreign business firms, too, were always ready to lend him a helping hand where possible. His most useful friends were the foreign medical men. They helped him very much. They not only did all they could for his own recovery when malaria attacked him, but they helped also to cure his patients. Traveling scientists always gave him a visit to get his help and advice. He had friends that were shipcaptains, officers, engineers, merchants, and British consuls. Everybody knew the wonderful Kai Bok-su. "Whirlwind Mackay," some of them called him, and they knew and admired him with the true admiration that only a brave man can inspire.
The friends to whom he turned for help of the best kind were the English Presbyterians in south Formosa. They, more than any others, knew his trials and difficulties. They alone could enter with true sympathy into all his triumphs. At one time Dr. Campbell, one of the south Formosan missionaries, paid him a visit. He proved a delightful companion, and together the two made a tour of the mission stations. Dr. Campbell preached wherever they went and was a great inspiration to the people, as well as to the students and to the missionary himself.
One evening, when they were in Kelung, Mackay, with his insatiable desire to use every moment, suggested that they spend ten days without speaking English, so that they might improve their Chinese. Dr. Campbell agreed, and they started their "Chinese only." Next morning from the first early call of "Liong tsong khi lai," "All, all, up come," not one word of their native tongue did they speak. They had a long tramp that morning and there was much to talk about and the conversation was all in Chinese, according to the bargain. Dr. Campbell was ahead, and after an hour's talk he suddenly turned upon his companion: "Mackay!" he exclaimed, "this jabbering in Chinese is ridiculous, and two Scotchmen should have more sense; let us return to our mother tongue." Which advice Mackay gladly followed.
His next visitor was the Rev. Mr. Ritchie from south Formosa, one of the friends who had first introduced him to his work. Every day of his visit was a joy. With nine of Mackay's students, the two missionaries set out on a trip through the north Formosa mission that lasted many weeks.
But the more pleasant and helpful such companionship was the more alone Mackay felt when it was over. His task was becoming too much for one man. He was wanted on the northern coast, at the southern boundary of his mission field, and away on the Kap-tsu-lan plain all at once. He was crowded day and night with work. What with preaching, dentistry, attending the sick, training his students, and encouraging the new churches, he had enough on his hands for a dozen missionaries.
But now at last the Church at home, in far-away Canada, bestirred herself to help him. They had been hearing something of the wonderful mission in Formosa, but they had heard only hints of it, for Mackay would not confess how he was toiling day and night and how the work had grown until he was not able to overtake it alone. But the Church understood something of his need, and they now sent him the best present they could possibly give,—an assistant. Just three years after Mackay had landed in Formosa, the Rev. J. B. Fraser, M. D., and his wife and little ones arrived. He was a young man, too, vigorous and ready for work. Besides being an ordained minister, he was a physician as well, just exactly what the north Formosan mission needed.
Along with the missionary, the Church had sent funds for a house for him and also one for Mackay. So the poor old Chinese house on the bluff was replaced by a modern, comfortable dwelling, and by its side another was built for the new missionary and his family. One room of Mackay's house was used as a study for his students.
After the houses were built and the new doctor was able to use the language, he began to fill a long-felt want. Mackay had always done a little medical work, and the foreign doctor of Tamsui had been most kind in giving his aid, but a doctor of his own, a missionary doctor, was exactly what Kai Bok-su wanted. Soon the sick began to hear of the wonders the missionary doctor could perform, and they flocked to him to be cured.
It must not be supposed that there were not already doctors in north Formosa. There were many in Tamsui alone, and very indignant they were at this new barbarian's success. But the native doctors were about the worst trouble that the people had to bear. Their medical knowledge, like their religion, was a mixture of ignorance and superstition, and some of their practises would have been inexcusable except for the fact that they themselves knew no better. There were two classes of medical men; those who treated internal diseases and those who professed to cure external maladies. It was hard to judge which class did the more mischief, but perhaps the "inside doctors" killed more of their patients. Dog's flesh was prescribed as a cure for dyspepsia, a chip taken from a coffin and boiled and the water drunk was a remedy for catarrh, and an apology made to the moon was a specific for wind-roughened skin. For the dreaded malaria, the scourge of Formosa, the young Canadian doctor found many and amazing remedies prescribed, some worse than the disease itself. The native doctors believed malaria to be caused by two devils in a patient, one causing the chills, the other the fever. One of the commonest remedies, and one that was quite as sensible as any of the rest, was to tie seven hairs plucked from a black dog around the sick one's wrist.
But when the barbarian doctor opened his dispensary in Tamsui, a new era dawned for the poor sick folk of north Formosa. The work went on wonderfully well and Mackay found so much more time to travel in the country that the gospel spread rapidly.
But just when prospects were looking so fair and every one was happy and hopeful, a sad event darkened the bright outlook of the two missionaries. The young doctor had cured scores of cases, and had brought health and happiness to many homes, but he was powerless to keep death from his own door.
And one day, a sad day for the mission of north Formosa, the mother was called from husband and little ones to her home and her reward in heaven.
So the home on the bluff, the beautiful Christian home, which was a pattern for all the Chinese, was broken up. The young doctor was compelled to leave his patients, and taking his motherless children he returned with them to Canada.
The church at home sent out another helper. The Rev. Kenneth Junor arrived one year later, and once more the work received a fresh impetus. And then, just about two years after Mr. Junor's arrival, Kai Bok-su found an assistant of his own right in Formosa, and one who was destined to become a wonderful help to him. And so one bright day, there was a wedding in the chapel of the old Dutch fort, where the British consul married George Leslie Mackay to a Formosan lady. Tui Chhang Mai, her name had been. She was of a beautiful Christian character and for a long time she had been a great help in the church. But as Mrs. Mackay she proved a marvelous assistance to her husband.
It had long been a great grief to the missionary that, while the men would come in crowds to his meetings, the poor women had to be left at home. Sometimes in a congregation of two hundred there would be only two or three women. Chinese custom made it impossible for a man missionary to preach to the women. Only a few of the older ones came out. So the mothers of the little children did not hear about Jesus and so could not teach their little ones about him.
But now everything was changed for them. They had a lady-missionary, and one of their own people too. The Mackays went on a wedding-trip through the country. Kai Bok-su walked, as usual, and his wife rode in a sedan-chair. The wedding-trip was really a missionary tour; for they visited all the chapels, and the women came to the meetings in crowds, because they wanted to hear and see the lady who had married Kai Bok-su. Often, after the regular meetings when the men had gone away, the women would crowd in and gather round Mrs. Mackay and she would tell them the story of Jesus and his love.
It was a wonderful wedding-journey and it brought a double blessing wherever the two went. Their experiences were not all pleasant. One day they traveled over a sand plain so hot that Mackay's feet were blistered. Another time they were drenched with rain. One afternoon there came up a terrific wind storm. It blew Mrs. Mackay's sedan-chair over and sent her and the carriers flying into the mud by the roadside. At another place they all barely escaped drowning when crossing a stream. But the brave young pair went through it all dauntlessly. The wife had caught something of her husband's great spirit of sacrifice, and he was always the man on fire, utterly forgetful of self.
For two years they worked happily together and at last a great day came to Kai Bok-su. He had been nearly eight years in Formosa. It was time he came home, the Church in Canada said, for a little rest and to tell the people at home something of his great work.
And so he and his Formosan wife said good-by, amid tears and regrets on all sides, and leaving Mr. Junor in charge with A Hoa to help, they set sail for Canada. It was just a little over seven years since he had settled in that little hut by the river, despised and hated by every one about him; and now he left behind him twenty chapels, each with a native preacher over it, and hundreds of warm friends scattered over all north Formosa.
He was not quite the same Mackay who had stood on the deck of the America seven years before. His eyes were as bright and daring as ever and his alert figure as full of energy, but his face showed that his life had been a hard one. And no wonder, for he had endured every kind of hardship and privation in those seven years. He had been mobbed times without number. He had faced death often, and day and night since his first year on the island his footsteps had been dogged by the torturing malaria.
But he was still the great, brave Mackay and his home-coming was like the return of a hero from battle. He went through Canada preaching in the churches, and his words were like a call to arms. He swept over the country like one of his own Formosan winds, carrying all before him. Wherever he preached hearts were touched by his thrilling tales, and purses opened to help in his work. Queen's University made him a Doctor of Divinity; Mrs. Mackay, a lady of Detroit, gave him money enough to build a hospital; and his home county, Oxford, presented him with $6,215 with which to build a college.
He visited his old home and had many long talks of his childhood days with his loved ones. And he was reminded of the big stone in the pasture-field which he was so determined to break. And he thanked his heavenly Father for allowing him to break the great rock of heathenism in north Formosa.
He returned to his mission work more on fire than ever. If he had been received with acclaim in his native land, his Formosan friends' welcome was not less warm. Crowds of converts, all his students who were not too far inland, and among them, Mr. Junor, his face all smiles, were thronging the dock, many of them weeping for joy. It was as if a long-absent father had come back to his children.
The work went forward now by leaps and bounds. Mackay's first thought, after a hurried visit to the chapels and their congregations, was to see that the hospital and college were built.
All day long the sound of the builders could be heard up on the bluff near the missionaries' houses, and in a wonderfully short time there arose two beautiful, stately buildings. Mackay hospital they called one, not for Kai Bok-su—he did not like things named for him—but in memory of the husband of the kind lady who had furnished the money for it. The school for training young men in the ministry was called Oxford College, in honor of the county whose people had made it possible.
Oxford College stood just overlooking the Tamsui river, two hundred feet above its waters. The building was 116 feet long and 67 feet wide, and was built of small red bricks brought from across the Formosa Channel. A wide, airy hall ran down the middle of the building, and was used as a lecture-room. On either side were rooms capable of accommodating fifty students and apartments for two teachers and their families. There were, besides, two smaller lecture-rooms, a museum filled with treasures collected from all over Formosa by Dr. Mackay and his students, a library, a bathroom, and a kitchen.
The grounds about the college and hospital were very beautiful. Nature had given one of the finest situations to be found about Tamsui, and Kai Bok-su did the rest. The climate helped him, for it was no great task to have a luxurious garden in north Formosa. So, in a few years there were magnificent trees and hedges, and always glorious flower beds abloom all the time around the missionary premises.
But all this was not accomplished without great toil, and Kai Bok-su appeared never to rest in those building days. It seemed impossible that one man should work so hard, he was in Tamsui superintending the hospital building to-day, and away off miles in the country preaching to-morrow. He never seemed to get time to eat, and he certainly slept less than his allotted four hours.
A great disappointment was pending, however, and one he saw coming nearer every day. The trying Formosan climate was proving too much for his young assistant, and one sad day he stood on the dock and saw Mr. Junor, pale and weak and broken in health, sail away back to Canada.
But there was always a brave soldier waiting to step into the breach, and the next year Kai Bok-su had the joy of welcoming two new helpers, when the Rev. Mr. Jamieson and his wife came out from Canada and settled in the empty house on the bluff. Yes, and in time there came to his own house other helpers—very little and helpless at first they were—but they soon made the house ring with happy noise and filled the hearts of their parents with joy.
There were two ladies now to lead in the work for girls and women. Their sisters in Canada came to their help too. The young men had a school in Formosa, and why should there not be a school for women and girls? they asked. And so the Women's Foreign Missionary Society of Canada sent to Dr. Mackay money to build one. It took only two months to erect it. It stood just a few rods from Oxford College, and was a fine, airy building. Here a native preacher and his wife took up their abode and with the help of Mrs. Mackay and two other native Christian women they strove to teach the girls of north Formosa how to make beautiful Christian homes.
And now to the two missionaries every prospect seemed bright. The college, the girls' school, the hospital, were all in splendid working order. Mr. and Mrs. Jamieson were giving their best assistance. A Hoa and the other native pastors were working faithfully. God's blessing seemed to be showering down upon the work and on every side were signs of growth. And then, right from this shining sky, there fell a storm of such fierceness that it threatened to wipe out completely the whole north Formosan mission.