The clergymen, or missionaries, were among his first acquaintances from over the seas.
A mischievous consular clerk, he says, who seemed to have a grievance, used to sing:—
“They came in shoals,
To save the souls,
Of Hop, Lee, Sing, and Wu.
They gathered gear,
Both far and near,
As you or I would do.”
These “solemn men,” as Oseba called them, apologising for the digression, came first of their countrymen, not for “filthy lucre,” but to “save all the sons of Confucius and to take them to Heaven, where, together, they could sing and associate forever, and forever, and forever.” “This,” said Oseba, “seemed kind of them,” but he soon learned that the nations who sent these agents to prepare the social situation for “the sweet by-and-bye,” were “not at home,” to Hop, Lee, Sing, or Wu, during their brief stay on the surface of Oliffa.
“We love you,” said the genteel agents of a hundred disputing creeds, “go with us to a land that is better than day.”
“Velly well,” says Hop, Lee, Sing, and Wu, “we likely go ’Melica.”
“Nay, nay!” says the good shepherd, “afterwhile, in the sweet by-and-bye. ’Tis of a better world we speak—patience, meekness, and love.”
“Why,” asked the poetess Vauline, “are the other Outeroos not ‘at home’ to the Chinese while they are quite alive?”
With a smile, Oseba said, “The Chinese, my children, are very industrious and frugal.”