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Just because Ng Mun-sow was implicated in dubious activities in Hongkong it does not warrant our accusing him of profiting by corruption that might have been operative in the Customs Service, but it does suggest the possibility. At any rate he remained with the service until his death in 1881.
In 1850 he had married Oi-lin, the eldest daughter of Ho A-sun, also known as Ho Ye-tong. He had been a printer at the Malacca press and accompanied the mission to Hongkong in 1843. He was a devout and earnest Christian, an original member of the London Missionary Society's Chinese congregation in Hongkong.
The waywardness of his son-in-law grieved him. Just as Dr. Legge had hoped A-sow had turned over a new leaf after the episode of the bills of exchange, so in 1859 his father-in-law had expressed a similar hope. At a prayer meeting, he arose and with tears in his eyes spoke in a voice trembling with emotion. “You know my son-in-law, A-sow. Formerly he was one of us, but we had to expel him from the church. Of the life which he has been living for several years I need not now speak. He has been very bad, and he was as hardened as he was dissipated, and repulsed me when I tried to advise him. Lately he was taken ill, and thinking his heart might be softened, I ventured to speak to him about his soul. He heard me quietly, and today he rose and came to this place of worship.
"It is the first time he has been in God's house for years. Far as he was gone astray, and deeply as he was sinned, perhaps God will have mercy upon him yet. I feel it is in my heart to ask you all to pray with me that he may be brought back to the fold.”
Dr. Legge remarked: “May it be done for the backslider as we asked.”
Unfortunately, for all the interest and concern of those who had known A-sow as a boy and young man and had such high expectations for him, there is little evidence that his resolve to change his ways was permanent.
One wonders what A-sow's life may have been like had...