Tek-chham, a walled city of over forty thousand inhabitants, was the next place to be attacked by this little army of the King's soldiers. The first visit of the missionary caused a riot, but before long Tek-chham had a chapel with some of the rioters for its best members, and a once proud graduate and worshiper of Confucius installed in it as its pastor.
Ten miles from Tek-chham stood a little village called Geh-bai. The missionary-soldiers visited it, and to their delight found a church building ready for them. It was quite a wonderful place, capable of holding fully a thousand people without much crowding. Its roof was the boughs of the great banyan tree; its one pillar the trunk, and its walls the branches that bent down to enter the ground and take root. It made a delightful shelter from the broiling sun. And here Kai Bok-su preached. But a banyan does not give perfect shelter in all kinds of weather, so when a number of people had declared themselves followers of the Lord Jesus, a large house was rented and fitted up as a chapel, with another native pastor over it.
Away over at Kelung a church was founded through a man who had carried the gospel home from one of the missionary's sermons. Here and there the hepaticas were springing up. From all sides came invitations to preach the great news of the true God, and the young missionary gave himself scarcely time to eat or sleep. He worked like a giant himself, and he inspired the same spirit in the students that accompanied him. He was like a Napoleon among his soldiers. Wherever he went they would go, even though it would surely mean abuse and might mean death. And, wherever they went, they brought such a wonderful, glad change to people's hearts that they were like slave-liberators setting captives free.
The most lawless and dangerous region in all north Formosa was that surrounding the small town of Sa-kak-eng. In the mountains near by lived a band of robbers who kept the people in a constant state of dread by their terrible deeds of plunder and murder. Sometimes the frightened townspeople would help the highwaymen just to gain their good-will, and such treatment only made them bolder. Bands of them would even come down into the town and march through the streets, frightening every one into flight. They would shout and sing, and their favorite song was one that showed how little they cared for the laws of the land.
You trust the mandarins, We trust the mountains.
So the song went, and when the missionary heard it first he could not help confessing that after all it was a sorry job trusting the mandarins for protection.
The first time he visited the place with A Hoa they were stoned and driven out. But the missionaries came back, and at last were allowed to preach. And then converts came and a church was established. The robber bands received no more assistance from the people, and were soon scattered by the officers of the law. And Sa-kak-eng was in peace because the missionary had come.
But there was one place Mackay had so far scarcely dared to enter. Even the robber-infested Sa-kak-eng would yield, but Bang-kah defied all efforts. To the missionary it was the Gibraltar of heathen Formosa, and he longed to storm it. North, south, east, and west of this great wicked city churches had been planted, some only within a few miles of its walls. But Bang-kah still stood frowning and unyielding. It had always been very bitter against outsiders of all kinds. No foreign merchant was allowed to do business in Bang-kah, so no wonder the foreign missionary was driven out.
Mackay had dared to enter the place, being of the sort that would dare anything. It was soon after he had settled in Formosa and A Hoa had accompanied him. The result had been a riot. The streets had immediately filled with a yelling, cursing mob that pelted the two missionaries with stones and rotten eggs and filth, and drove them from the city.
But "Mackay never knew when he was beaten," as a fellow worker of his once said, and though he was taking desperate chances, he went once more inside the walls of Bangkah. This time he barely escaped with his life, and the city authorities forbade every one, on pain of death, to lease or sell property to him or in any way accommodate the barbarian missionary.