rule that, for a year or two after coming to China, the recruits need not belong permanently to the mission ; but, if they find that they are not suited for the work, can return to England. The wisdom of this rule any one can readily understand, who has seen what work in the interior of China really means, and how different it is from any conception of it which can be formed in England. It must be a stern, true heart indeed which can stand the dreary years spent almost—sometimes quite—alone in a remote Chinese town, far away from all the glamour and catching enthusiasm of a missionary meeting at home, and surrounded by cold-blooded, unemotional Chinamen who by instinct hate you. No comfort about you, nothing but what you have within you to keep up your enthusiasm ; but, on the contrary, everything to quench it. To keep up your work under these circumstances, you must have an inexhaustible fund of zeal within you. And it is because the directors of the mission recognize that many who come out raw from England cannot have such a vast reserve of zeal, that they have wisely given every one the chance of returning. Another good principle, as I learnt from Mr. Clarke, was laid down by Mr. Hudson Taylor, the founder and director of the mission—not to appeal to the British minister or consul for assistance, except when it was absolutely necessary.
Mr. Clarke had travelled for sixteen thousand miles in China during his long sojourn as a missionary in that country, and had resided in nearly every part of it. During the Franco-Chinese war he was in Yunan, and he gave me some amusing details of the way in which troops were raised there. When the nation is at war, one would naturally suppose the standing army would be used first. But the Chinese in this, as in most other things, do precisely the opposite to every one else. The regulars said, " We must not go away from our town to fight. Our business is to defend the town. If any one attacks that, we will keep it to the last, but we must not leave it." So when
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