ILL you please tell us to-day, father, something about the religion of the Chinese? I know they worship idols, but how do they believe in them?" Sybil asked, as soon as their "Peep-show," as the children continued to call their father's stories, began the next afternoon. During the morning she had sat and read to her mother, who still felt the motion of the vessel very much, and had therefore to lie down part of the day.
"I will try to do so," was the answer; "but I think what you hear may puzzle you a good deal, for they have very strange creeds."
"Did grandfather make many converts?"
"Very few indeed; but then he was one of our very first missionaries to Peking, so was most thankful for the very little which he was enabled to do.
A CITIZEN OF TIENT-SIN.
"I remember two men for whose conversion from Buddhism he often gave thanks. One was a citizen of Tientsin, where we landed on our way to the capital.
"This good fellow, who was then a very questionable character, was smoking his pipe in a most indifferent manner, when my father, through his teacher, first addressed him. Missionaries in China, you know, have teachers of the dialects."
"Shall you have one?"