This man comes ten miles to church in all weather. Even when twenty miles away at work, he would come in late Saturday night to be at church, stay all day, without his food, and go back at night over a high mountain pass. He was one of two rebels, who came to the leader and said they wanted to be followers of Christ and be baptized. The leader said that if they were sincere Christians they must make restitution by giving themselves up to justice. One of the two then went to the Romanists, and is now one of the most notorious of the gang of robbers and desperados under the lead of Father Wilhelm. The other, this applicant, gave himself up, was thrown into jail and condemned to death. While in jail he astounded the jailers and prisoners by continually singing hymns of joy and praise. The prisoners declared he was mad, as no one could sing like that in such a case. While he was in jail the king escaped to the Russian legation, all prisoners were set free and he was released. He has been a happy, consistent Christian ever since.
Another is a young man of nineteen, has only lately begun to trust in Christ. His father is a believer, his mother and wife are not. Baptism, he says, is a sign of faith in Christ. He thinks it would never do not to be baptized, but insists he is saved now. Says he knows and feels it in his heart. He has destroyed all idols, and keeps the Sabbath. He goes over the mountain three miles to church and allows no laborers to work for him on Sunday, though he is obliged to pay them for the day’s work as though they had. He comes at his own expense to attend the class.
The above are given merely as a few specimens of the kind of questions and replies commonly heard at these examinations. Only those whose changed lives were witnessed to by leading Christians who know them were baptized. After a delightful stay with these simple-hearted Christians, where the world and all its evils seemed far removed, and God very near, we were obliged at the close of the class to start back to the capital. Our three temporarily hired coolies had forsaken us, disliking to wait so long (about three weeks) without work, and it was an impossibility to replace them in that neighborhood, where nobody ever rides in a chair.
So we had to hire an ox-cart or talgoogy, the most primitive of all possible wheeled conveyances, and in it, with our loads tucked in with all our mattresses, quilts, rugs and pillows, was placed our little treasure, our only child, with the woman servant.
With great difficulty a man was found who consented to help my own servant carry my chair. But soon an unlooked-for difficulty arose. I found the ox-cart had gone by a different road from that on which I had come in my chair, for the former could not cross the narrow bridges (mere footpaths for one) over the rivers, but must take the fords, far too long a distance for the chair coolies. Nor could the cart take the narrow paths over precipitous passes, which the chair must follow to shorten the road for the carriers. I was assured that all would be well, the helpers and Christians were with the child, and was forced to submit to what could not now be helped. Mr. Underwood, after seeing me well started, paced at a flying rate across to the other road to see that all was well with the boy, and then back again to the wife.
At about five o’clock we reached a place where the two roads meet, but no signs of the talgoogy. It was fast growing dark, a mountain pass lay yet before us, the road was wild and lonely, we wished our little one was with us. At length we went on to the village just beyond the pass and waited. Time passed, but no tidings of the cart and its precious contents. Darkness fell, the cold was bitter. Koreans were sent out with lanterns to light the way for the belated, or render any needed help. Still no word. At length Mr. Underwood himself, unable to wait longer, went out to look for the party. And now with them both in the lonely mountain, and night upon us, I had double need to trust in God. One always knows that all will be well, will be for the best, but as one cannot see whether that best means God’s rod or his staff, the heart will flutter in dread of the pain. Just to wait without fear upon him, takes a calm, strong soul, and a full measure of grace.
At last, thank God, they both came back quite unharmed, only hungry and cold, but the thought of tigers, leopards and robbers, that might have met them, only made me realize more fully the mercy which brought them safe to my arms.
That night we slept in a small Korean inn quite like all the rest, only a little smaller and dirtier than most, with domestic animals and fowls of all sorts quartered round us, the paper door of our room only separating between them and us. Suddenly, about two or three in the morning, we were startled out of our sleep by the most terrific roaring, and the sounds of a general panic in the inn; the excited shouts of men, women shrieking, and such a chorus of barking, yelping, cackling, squealing as cannot be described. But the awful roaring, and a stamping and hustling distinguishable above all, made it seem probable that one or more wild animals of some sort had invaded the hostel. Mr. Underwood hastily extinguished our light, which shining through our door, might attract notice, and went out to discover the cause of the uproar. He soon came back, saying that a couple of oxen, usually so meek and tractable, had been fighting, had pulled themselves loose from their stalls, and had now escaped, one chasing the other out of the inn. They are enormous creatures, at times like this as dangerous as any wild beast, and it was remarkable that no one in the inn was seriously hurt, as they could hardly have escaped being, had the oxen remained fighting in the cramped confines of that little place.
KOREAN STREET. [PAGE 18]