Directory_and_Chronicle_1850 — Page 40

1830.

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Letter from B. J. Bettelheim.

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ART. II. Letter from B. J. Bettelheim, M. D., giving an account of his residence and missionary labors in Lewchew during the last three years.

[We have only a few words to add in explanation of this letter from Doctor Bettelheim, for we think it will best speak for itself. In Vol. XVI, page 55, a reference is made to him, since which time we have received nothing from him that we felt at liberty to publish, though we have had the pleasure of reading the journals sent by him to his Society in London. The wish to learn something authentic from the Doctor himself, led us to address him u note to this effect in February last by the Preble, which visited Napa on her way to Nagasaki, as stated on page 351 of the last volume, and he has prompt- ly met the request. In printing it, we have made a few verbal alterations, which we are sure the author would willingly accede to were he here to be inquired of. We commend the Letter to our readers, and shall be most hap- py to forward anything which may be sent to us for the writer. The letter is addressed to Rev. P. Parker, M.D. and dated Napa, Sept. 1849.—Ed. Ch. Rep.]

MY DEAR SIR :

THOUGH I address this letter to you as one of the chief authorities, on whose suggestion, approval, and promised countenance, our Committee as well as myself entered upon this mission, still what I say to you I say to all our missionary brethren in China, even those whose acquain- tance I was unable to make during my short stay there, persuaded that they are all anxiously looking upon this station as the first pioneering trial on terra Japonica—quite a terra incognita—and surrounded with difficulties not common to other enterprises of this nature.

I thought our Committee would endeavor to keep our friends in China as clearly informed on this mission as our home friends, whose assisting hand can not so soon reach us; but having understood from Mr. Williams' kind note, that some communication respecting our state here might be acceptable to you all, I now endeavor to trace back in my memory some of the leading events that may most interest you, beginning from our landing till this, the fourth year of our so- journ in Lewchew; praying it may please God so to guide my inex perienced pen, as to make this retrospect of our mission instrumental in rousing the interest, and enlisting the sympathy of all who read it.

There is one fact, or rather opinion, likely to be current in China concerning this country, which I conceive does our mission much prejudice, namely, that Lewchew being a Chinese dependency, it runs against the faith of our treaty to intrude upon this locality. Now I beg you to discountenance such a notion among the friends of the mission, for 1 have strong reason to consider this false rumor one of the grounds on which we are left unaided in our heavy struggles; otherwise, it can

"L. XIX. NO. 1.

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