Directory_and_Chronicle_1850 — Page 85

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Letter from B. J. Bettelheim.

FER.

would produce either books or maps when I asked for them a second time. I likewise regularly visited the public office at Tumai (the village in which the French missionaries resided) for nearly a year, meeting there very many children. I continued my visits to this place for a long time, even after I had found none there beside the two guards. The kung-kwán at Napa, being near at hand, has still my attention, though less regularly; I usually find there the same company, and they have heard enough to know better. My time is certainly better spent among the peasants and workmen, than among the class of literati, who are all fed on the sweat and labor of the en- slaved common people-a class, whose members, unlike their fellows in China, are here never allowed to raise themselves to stations of

power. Among the poor, especially in very filthy neighborhoods, where, according to Confucian etiquette, I am sure even their cynic Liú-hiá Hou

might have hesitated to venture,* I have somewhat more freedom, provided it be not at, or near the harbor, where I have always met with the most determined opposition. Need I say to him who knows that God has chosen the poor, the weak, yea, even the fool- ish and base things of the word, that missionary visits to the most de graded class of fellow-men are the most sought after and welcome, inasmuch as they have the mercy of the Scriptures plainly on their side. And though I would despair to bring any aid merely human to bear such a destitute, brutalized mass as our poor are, I can not for a moment doubt divine things must have their promised effect on them. If the dry bones of Ezekiel's valley began to live, and the stones by Jordan's shores are said to quicken into children of Abraham, the hand of God is surely not too short to reach and remedy Lewchewan abjects. Yet even among these outcasts of humanity the unseen ene- my

of the soul has his usual stronghold, and the general rule of espion- age, though occasionally slackened, is still so visibly interfering, that I have little to boast, and much to be humbled for, even among the humble.

upon

* Liú-hiá Hwui was one of the seventy-two worthies, who were disciples and many of them cotemporaries of Confucius. His family name was Chen, and his name Hwoh ; he received the title of Liu-hiá, or Under the Willow, from the place where he ruled. He belonged to the same country and age as Confucius, and enjoyed the confidence of his sovereign. He was very strict in his obser- vance of the forms of etiquette, and is chiefly known for his not noticing a young girl of eight or ten years of age, who was once seated in his lap by a relative. He is also styled Chi-ching the Just, from his regard to equity and veracity.