“Be easy,” he replied; “I will ask to receive your blows for you.” He did request this, and actually did receive them.
Here the missionary is everything to the poor Christians, physician to the body as well as the soul; and every day he passes hours in listening to their disputes, and acting as peacemaker.
The rule here is, that if a man cannot pay a debt, he and his family become the slaves of the creditor. “You are my slave,” said a person to a young girl whom he met.
“How so? I do not know you.”
“Your father owed me money, and never paid me.”
“I never knew my father; he died before I was born.”
“Will you go to law?”
“Yes.”
The man then consulted some mandarin, gave him a present, promised him others, won his cause, and the unfortunate girl, having no means to do the same, became a slave. It is the story of Appius and Virginia reproduced in the East. Corruption and barbarity are general in Cambodia.