1830.
Letter from B. J. Bettelheim.
17
what like their own superstitious veneration for books or even their torn leaves; but this I could not help, for though the synagogue of Sa- tan has taken some of the best usages of the church of God, and intro- duced them into false systeins to baffle us by the similarity, this must not make us give up our own institutions. It sufficed for me that I carried my point; let them think me wrong, or like themselves in the motives, I cared but little; my object was to bring them into con- tact with the pages of the life-giving word, and get their eyes when I could not secure their ears. The fact that I soon saw the books used and torn, and had occasionally to change them, and sometimes even surprised the todzies while, to my delight, they were engaged over them, or the maps made for their inspection, proves that the effort was not in vain in the Lord. To this end I also stuck up sheets contain- ing the Decalogue on different walls in the house, as the general cus- tom here is, and pasted large oblong slips of red paper on my door-posts, inscribed with Christian motives. I drew several general and special maps, and easily multiplied copies by means of the manifold writer ; these, lettered with Chinese characters, were given to the todzies, and I am persuaded reached government likewise.
The mere knowledge of the shape of the earth goes far to upset their whole cosmogony, and a glance at the two hemispheres, in which I colored all the English possessions one bright imperial yellow, in order to give these islanders some notion of an empire to which the appellation of tien hiá T the world, more justly applies than to China. At the same time, I raised my heart in gratitude to God, that she has done so much for Christian influence in this globe. Paganism, though numerically the greatest, and perhaps also covering the most ground, is geographically less advantageously situated than Christen- dom; parts of it are included in Christian influence, or inert in them- selves, and it is without mutual relations between its component parts. Heathen Lewchew understands well what is meant by such ideas being pressed on them, and I hope they will not be entirely lost.
To the rolls of tracts with I colported through the streets, I added a good bagful of cakes, easily baked in an oven constructed with my own hands (these people can not construct an arch of bricks), and those who refused a tract, were frequently less rigorous towards my cakes, and perhaps were attracted a little by the gorgeous flowery chintz bag which held them. Even after my hawking stratagems had been out- manœuvred by the vigilance of the enemy who countermined all my efforts, and nobody cared either for my tracts, or my bag, or my cakes, a few naked, sunbrowned little ones still remained my customers; and
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