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given a monthly allowance, he was pressed to contribute it to his family. Eventually the father failed in business and for a time was in prison in Canton,
Dr. Legge says: "The whole family came to A-cheong pressing him to apply to me for some money to get the father out of difficulty. At the same time the California gold prospect opened up. Friends advised him to leave the profitless Bible study and go to California. Several people offered his father a discharge from prison and capital to set himself up in business again if A-cheong would take a cargo of goods to California as supercargo and act as interpreter."
Poor O Soey-cheong was not only subject to family pressure over the imprisonment of his father but also about his marriage. At the end of 1851, he was obliged to fulfil the terms of a betrothal agreement which had been entered into before his baptism.
He agreed, but stipulated that now being a Christian, he must refuse to observe any traditional Chinese rites connected with marriage that might have a religious association.
Several of his relatives tried to carry him off by force to the ancestral temple for the proper observances. He escaped, however, and hid in a nearby woods for several hours until his would-be abductors abandoned their plan.
Having married, O Soey-cheong found his expenses greater than when single. He presented this financial problem to Dr. Legge, but the school had no extra funds at hand to increase his allowance. He then asked if he could study medicine at Canton under Dr. Benjamin Hobson. This would provide him with $20 a month. After several months of study and work at the hospital, he found he wasn't suited to medicine and asked to return to Hong Kong to take up his theological studies again. It was so agreed.
By 1856 he left Hongkong and joined some of his former classmates in Australia. One of them wrote to Dr. Legge telling him that O Soey-cheong was in Bendigo where he was working as an interpreter.
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178
CARL SMITH
given a monthly allowance, he was pressed to contribute it to his family. Eventually the father failed in business and for a time was in prison in Canton,
Dr. Legge says: "The whole family came to A-cheong pressing him to apply to me for some money to get the father out of difficul- ty. At the same time the California gold prospect opened up. Friends advised him to leave the profitless Bible study and go to California. Several people offered his father a discharge from pris- on and capital to set himself up in business again if A-cheong would take a cargo of goods to California as supercargo and act as interpreter."
Poor O Soey-cheong was not only subject to family pressure over the imprisonment of his father but also about his marriage. At the end of 1851, he was obliged to fulfil the terms of a betrothal agreement which had been entered into before his baptism.
He agreed, but stipulated that now being a Christian, he must refuse to observe any traditional Chinese rites connected with marriage that might have a religious association.
Several of his relatives tried to carry him off by force to the ancestral temple for the proper observances. He escaped, howev- er, and hid in a nearby woods for several hours until his would-be abductors abandoned their plan.
Having married, O Soey-cheong found his expenses greater than when single. He presented this financial problem to Dr. Legge, but the school had no extra funds at hand to increase his allowance. He then asked if he could study medicine at Canton under Dr. Benjamin Hobson. This would provide him with $20 a month. After several months of study and work at the hospital, he found he wasn't suited to medicine and asked to return to Hong- kong to take up his theoligical studies again. It was so agreed.
By 1856 he left Hongkong and joined some of his former class- mates in Australia. One of them wrote to Dr. Legge telling him that O Soey-cheong was in Bendigo where he was working as an interpreter.
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