Directory_and_Chronicle_1850 — Page 81

53

Letter from B. J. Bettelheim.

FEB.

so is my strength now. I mean strength of purpose in the Lord to persevere in the aggressive system. Just in proportion to the little ground which has been gained, do I feel my zeal awakened to new efforts for continuing the attack, only praying for grace that this zeal inay not degenerate into obstinacy, become the tool of wounded pride, nor use unlawful weapons. When I feel sure against such drawbacks of the natural old man, then am I strong when I am weak. It is in the spirit of this discipline that I waged, and do wage, the warfare of faith in Lewchew. It is like an onset of cavalry upon a strong square

of infantry, but it has its blessed trophies, and its sustaining encourage- ments also. I can exclaim, "By thee have I run through a troop, and by my God have I leaped over a wall; thou hast also given me the shield of thy salvation, and thy gentleness has made me great."

How I felt the first time I found myself within a Lewchewan house can be better imagined than described; but as I had counted the cost beforehand, and was prepared even for a "Get thee behind me! Get thee hence!" or something still more forcible than words, nothing new could well befall me. I was little moved with the cries of the women, or frightened at the screams of the children, but seated myself in the first room I could get access to. You will perhaps ask in surprise, at the outset, how I could gain access into houses, whose doors a well trained body of spies would certainly take the precaution to have shut? The answer is simple. I did not enter by the door, at least in most cases, for I could not, but found my way in through the deep gaps in dilapidated back walls. I might say, I have done some service to the masons in this way, and perhaps to the owners too, for by and by the former got more work, and the latter got their walls repaired; this whole practice of getting in through such an open- ing at the back, at first considered here no more irregular than it would be in villages at home to get over a fence or a hedge, came by and by into disuse, to the great annoyance of the children and youth who are capital jumpers, and feel as much at home on the top of the roofs as a cat does. At present the spies alone are entitled to this privilege; they appear and disappear like ghosts on the stage, the magic consisting in the easy removal of the straw sandals, and the adaptation of their exercised naked feet to all the inequalities, that this rocky coral shore affords. One would often be tempted to think they can pass through walls, so sudden is their disappearance and reäppearance. More than once, when congratulating myself on a short interval of the free use of my limbs, have I been undeceived by perceiv ing the spies on the roofs looking down upon me. The masons have