A great sob broke from one of the women who commenced passionately weeping. As soon as she could speak, she told me, her voice broken with violent emotion, that she had been a sorceress, and in a moment of frenzy had dashed her only child, a baby, to the floor and killed it. She, a mother, had killed her child, and could she ever be happy again, could God forgive such as she, could she ever be permitted to see her murdered child again? She feared she was too wicked. All of us wept with her, and she was told of the great mercy and pardoning love of God, and found peace in Christ.
Mr. Underwood also visited Sam Oui, the village which had learned of Christ through the example of Haing Ju, and baptized a handful of Christians there, enrolling a number of catechumens. When people do not seem quite ripe for baptism, yet have put away idolatry, keeping the Sabbath, putting away concubines, and living a life of apparent conformity with the ten commandments, they are enrolled in this class of catechumens. While I was engaged during the morning with the women, the “amah” was charged to take care of our little boy, but when the service was over, as he was nowhere to be seen, we started out to find him. As we walked down the lane we saw coming toward us a row of some seven or eight boys of his age (the dirtiest in the town, I am sure), he in the center, an arm around one on either side, all chatting and laughing together in the merriest mood possible. How could we help laughing, how help being half pleased, even while horrified at what such contact might portend, how many varieties of microbes, not to mention other things.
From Haing Ju we took a Korean junk down the river to Pai Chun. We went on board at night, and as it was bitterly cold, we were told we must go down under the deck, as there was absolutely no sheltered place above where we could sleep. The hole to which we were relegated was not attractive. There were odors of fish ages old, the space was not high enough even to sit upright in, and barely wide enough for Mr. Underwood, our child, our “amah” and myself to lie packed side by side (no turning or moving about) in the stern.
A lantern glimmered at the other end, it looked very far. There was water there, and perhaps rats, and certainly great water beetles and cockroaches, and sometimes, hours and hours after we had been packed in that gruesome place, a boatman came and crawled over us, and dipped out buckets of water. Men were tramping back and forth over our heads all night. I felt sure that some of them would come through, and there seemed to be enough racket to indicate a storm at sea, a collision or a fire—at times I was almost convinced it was all three. If it had been, we certainly could never have made our escape from the trap in which we were wedged like sardines. However, as we were merely sailing down a broad, but not very deep river, and could easily have neared the shore before sinking in most circumstances, things were not so bad as they seemed, and next morning when we emerged into the bright sunlight what had been a night fraught with awful probabilities was now simply an amusing episode.
All day Sunday we sat on the deck in the sun, singing and enjoying the brilliant atmosphere. From Pai Chun we proceeded on foot or in chairs to Hai Ju, and thence to Sorai, where a theological leader’s class was waiting for Mr. Underwood. Everywhere the warm-hearted welcome which awaited us was a delightful surprise to me. People, even women and children, came out miles to meet us, and followed us in crowds when we left, as if they could not bear to let us go.
There were only a few beginnings of work in Hai Ju at that time. It is the capital of the province and rather a demoralized town, even in a heathen country, full of hangers-on of government officials, people accustomed to getting a living out of the people through fraud, bribery, oppression, “squeezing” and all sorts of political dirty work and corruption; evil men and still more evil women spreading the cancerous disease through the little town, until every one appears to be steeped in “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,” and worshipers of the god of this world.
KOREAN WOMEN AT WORK. [PAGE 191]
As a special day had been set for the beginning of the class in Sorai, and people were coming from all directions to meet us there, we hastened on to be in time. Walking along the main road thither, Mr. Underwood overtook a young farmer, with whom he opened conversation in a friendly way, and asked if he had heard of the Jesus religion. “Yayso Kyo?” “Oh, yes,” was the reply, “I have heard much of it, many people in this province do that doctrine, it is very good.” “Do you believe also?” said my husband. “Oh, no, I cannot be a believer,” replied the man. “These Christians spend their time and money doing good to others, I must do for myself, I cannot afford to practise this doctrine.” This was unintentional witness borne to the fair fruit of Christianity in the man’s believing friends and neighbors. A little further on, as my chair was set down to rest the coolies, an old woman ran out of a neighboring shanty to kugung the foreigner. I told her who I was and why I had come, and asked if she knew of this doctrine. “Oh, yes, it was good, very good.” “Then why do you not believe?” “Oh, I sell liquor, that is my business. I cannot do that and be a Christian.” Another involuntary testimony to the lives of the Christians of Whang Hai, and to the sincerity of those who had been taught that the way must be made straight and clean for the coming of the Lord.
When we arrived at Sorai I found the Christian women all gathered to meet me in the house of one whom I had known before in Seoul. They offered refreshments of their best, persimmons, pears, chestnuts and eggs, and expressed their pleasure over our coming in the most cordial and heart-warming way. Most of them I had never seen before, but we seemed to love each other at first sight, for the bond in Christ is a very strong one.