“CALIFORNIA CHINESE MISSION.”
Auxiliary to the American Missionary Association.
President: Rev. J. K. McLean, D. D. Vice-Presidents: Rev. A. L. Stone, D. D., Robert B. Forman, Rev. T. K. Noble, Hon F. F. Low, Rev. I. E. Dwinell, D. D., Hon. Samuel Cross, Rev. S. H. Willey, D. D., Jacob S. Taber.
Directors: Rev. George Mooar, D. D., Hon. E. D. Sawyer, Rev. E. P. Baker, James M. Haven, Esq., Rev. Joseph Rowell, Rev. John Kimball, A. L. Van Blarcon, Esq., George Harris, Esq., and the Secretary ex officio.
Secretary: Rev. W. C. Pond. Treasurer: E. Palache, Esq.
“STEADFAST, IMMOVABLE.”
BY REV. WM. C. POND.
It was in the last week in July that one of our Chinese brethren at Marysville, a lad of only 13 years—Ng Gan Don by name—called on one of his cousins to inquire whether money which he had deposited with this cousin to be sent to his father in China, had yet gone forward. The cousin declined to satisfy him upon this point, but wished himself to be satisfied upon another. So, taking Gan Don with yet another cousin into an inner apartment, they inquired into his religious views and practices. They had been specially commissioned, so they said, by Gan Don’s mother, to see to it that what he might hear and see in the land of the Golden Mountains should work no detriment to the religious ideas she had instilled in his mind. Gan Don acknowledged that he had exchanged those views and practices for some which he saw to be wiser and more true; that he no longer worshipped idols or ancestors, but that he believed in Jesus and was going to worship Him. They argued with him, but found him more than a match for them on that arena; and so, being two against one, and that one but a boy, they were easily emboldened to see what virtue there might be in blows. The blows fell fast and hard, and the poor lad’s head on which they fell was suffering sorely, but he maintained his integrity, and told them that he would never worship idols, even if they should undertake to kill him. At length he was released, and went, battered and bleeding, to the mission house. Our brethren, thinking that a little insight into Christian laws might do these persecutors good, entered a complaint against them, and they were fined $30 each.