Gallant Kai Bok-su! As he rests up there on his wind-swept height, there are hearts in the valleys and on the plains of his beloved Formosa and in his far-off native land that are aching for him. And sometimes to these last comes the question "Was it well?" Was it well that he should wear out that splendid life in such desperate toil among heathen that hated and reviled him? And from every part of north Formosa, sounding on the wind, comes many an answer.
Up from the damp rice-fields, where the farmer goes to and fro in the gray dawn, arises a song:
I'm not ashamed to own my Lord, Or to defend his cause.
Far away on the mountainside, the once savage mother draws her little one to her and teaches him, not the old lesson of bloodshed, but the older one of love and kindness, and together they croon:
Jesus loves me, this I know, For the Bible tells me so.
And up from scores of chapels dotting the land, comes the sound of the old, old story of Jesus and his love, preached by native Formosans, and from the thousand tongues of their congregations soars upward the Psalm:
All people that on earth do dwell, Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice!
These all unite in one great harmony, replying, "It is well!"
But is it well with the work? What of his Beautiful Island, now that Kai Bok-su has left for a greater work in a more beautiful land? Yes, it is well also with Formosa. The work goes on.
There are two thousand, one hundred members now in the four organized congregations, and over fifty mission stations and outstations. But better still there are in addition twenty-two hundred who have forsaken their idols and are being trained to become church-members. The Formosa Church out of its poverty gives liberally too. In 1911 they contributed more than thirty-five hundred dollars to Christian work. "Every year," writes Mr. Jack, "a special collection is taken by the Church for the work among the Ami—the aborigines of the Ki-lai plain." This is the foreign mission of the north Formosa Church.