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THE BITTER FRUIT OF MISSIONARY CHARITY
Ng Mun-sow, one of the three students baptised in Scotland, was the closest to Dr. James Legge. As a boy he had been received as a foster son in the Legge family.
The missionaries of that day had a way of picking up homeless or orphan children and providing them with a home and education. There were numerous instances of this kind of benevolence.
The effect on the child was not always beneficial. It took him out of his natural element and placed him in a foreign language group, taught him manners and customs different from his countrymen and sometimes gave him an inflated sense of his own importance. The initial act of compassion and kindness could not clearly anticipate the effect it might produce.
Dr. Legge reports how he first met Ng Mun-sow at Malacca. “I was visiting one day some districts in the neighbourhood, rather thickly occupied by Chinese farmers, and distributed tracts along with several members of the native church. As we passed a herd of buffaloes, the Evangelist Agong, pointing to the boy who was in charge of them, said: “There is an object for the benevolence of the mission. His father and mother are dead and none of his people will do much for him. Why should you not take him with you to the college, and educate him as your own son, to be a preacher of the Word?"
"The boy was called, and at once signified his willingness to follow us. A few words of explanation served to satisfy the farmer with whom he was residing. A-sow went with us.”
Dr. Legge became very fond of him. He was clever. He had an outgoing personality. He made friends easily, perhaps a little too easily.
When the Legge family moved from Malacca to Hongkong in 1843, Ng Mun-sow was with them. He was in the first class of the reorganised Anglo-Chinese College. He had ability and made good progress. Dr. Legge's expectation regarding his future was greatly