NOTES ON FRIENDS AND RELATIVES OF TAIPING LEADERS 125
for the Rev. John Chalmers of the London Missionary Society, but soon he began to be used extensively in the various activities of the mission, preaching in their Lower Bazaar Chapel, visiting prisoners in the Gaol, serving as an evangelist to the sick in the dispensary recently opened by Dr. Julius Hirschberg on Queen's Road West. Legge characterized him as “a man who has won my affection and esteem as few of his countrymen have done", and he impressed Dr. Wong Foon, who had recently returned from Medical School at Edinburgh and was associated with Dr. Hirschberg in the dispensary, as “a man of great intelligence and considerable fluency of speech."5
In 1858, with the blessings of the Mission, Hung Jen-kan with a companion made another effort to reach Nanking, but this time travelling up through Canton and Kwangsi. In a letter dated 5 June 1858, the Rev. John Chalmers remarks on his and Jen-kan's hopes:
"He has had a desire for a long time to reach his friends at Nanking and endeavour to impart to them the superior knowledge he has acquired, and I doubt not the fact that the present government is so hardly pressed from without had induced him to adventure upon the long and dangerous journey across the country from Canton in hopes that the Nanking party may be persuaded to seek an alliance with foreigners before it is too late. Of course his religious zeal is associated with patriotic feelings. We have always thought that if he could get among the Taiping people he might be the means of correcting many of their errors with regard to Christianity and to foreigners, from whom they have received it."6
The London Missionary Society at Hong Kong financed the trip and agreed to grant a monthly allowance of seven dollars to his family for ten months or until Jen-kan himself was able to provide for them.
In the course of his journey Jen-kan wrote five letters to the society at Hong Kong, but only three were received. One written from Hupei states that:
Unexpectantly on 16th October, I was seized and searched by Imperialist guards. They only found some medical books and money. On the 19th I made my escape to Yaou Chow and on the 14th of November eight officers who wished to leave the Imperial service took me to Lung Ping in the province of Hoo