It was a high day in Hong-Kong. In the early forenoon services had been held and the age-old song had been sung.
"Glory to God in the highest,
And on earth peace, good will toward men."
At high noon in the Union Church, where men of many creeds worshipped in harmony, Dr. Donald Sinclair and Miss Jessie MacAllister were married with simple, yet solemn, rites. The ceremony passed without unusual incident, save that Constance Beauchamp just missed kissing the groom before he had time to kiss the bride. And when they turned to pass out of the church Sergeant Gorman, in a stage whisper, said to McLeod:
"Be all the saints above, McLeod, if the angels in glory look anny purtier than thim two, glory's no place for you an' me."
In the afternoon the Allister Thanksgiving Hospital was formally opened by the governor of the colony, and in the name of Him who came to heal men's diseases it was dedicated to the work of healing the diseases of men.
When the notables had dispersed to talk of the merchant prince's munificent gift, when the guard of honour had marched back to the barracks, and the music of the bands had died away, a few who had special interest in the work, or had come from far to be present on that day, still strolled through the long, cool corridors, the well-furnished wards, and the high, centre-lighted operating-room. Consul Beauchamp and his family and Dr. MacKay had come from Formosa to be present. They stood with the donor, his wife, and son.
"This must be a great satisfaction to you, Mr. MacAllister," the consul said.
"Yes, Mr. Beauchamp. I never before knew as I know now that the pleasure of wealth is not in making or keeping money, but in giving it away. What do you think, Dr. MacKay?"
"I was not thinking of that. I was thinking of my little hospital with its poor equipment and its need of a doctor to take charge. I am not covetous. But I cannot help thinking that this hospital and the doctor who is at the head of it might have been in North Formosa, where it is needed even more than in Hong-Kong. But there was no vision, and my people must suffer."
And when that hospital became not only a centre of healing but developed a medical college in connection with it, when the doctor at the head of it grew to be such an authority on tropical diseases that he was called to England to be dean of a great school of tropical medicine, when he received honours from medical colleges and societies the world over and a knighthood at the hands of his sovereign, those who knew him often thought of the day when he was refused appointment as a medical missionary in the little North Formosa Mission. And they wondered.