"MacKay, you're a marvel."
"Do not praise me. You have not looked at the wounded yet. They are suffering. You must remember that I am not a qualified medical doctor. I am a preacher of the gospel. I know little of medicine, and almost nothing of surgery."
"The more wonder that you have accomplished so much!"
"It is my work. My Master not only healed the souls of men, but relieved the suffering of their bodies. To the best of my ability I try to do the same."
"You're right. That's what we're here for—to make life better for as many as we can. There are a lot here who need our help. Let us get busy."
They stepped again into the main building and stood in the narrow passage between the rows of bare trestle boards which served as beds. Wounded men were lying there as close together as was possible and yet leave room for a doctor to step in beside them. There was a hum of conversation, but very little moaning, and rarely a cry of pain. The Chinese, so noisy in their times of sorrow or of joy, so clamorous in their excitement, are strangely silent in pain and bear suffering stoically.
Dr. MacKay lifted his voice so that all could hear, speaking in Chinese.
"Friends," he said, "the physician of whom I told you has come. Listen to him. Submit to his treatment. Do what he tells you. He will heal you. He will give you your lives again."
At the sound of his voice all other voices were hushed. Thin brown forms turned painfully on the bare boards; rows of black heads were raised from the hard bolsters; black eyes looked out of bronze or ghastly yellow faces at the fair giant who towered above the black-bearded missionary; from lip to lip the word passed down the lines:
"I-seng lâi![#] I-seng lâi!" (The doctor is come. Literally, the life-healer is come.)