These are some instances of missionaries whom we met in China who have voluntarily exiled themselves to remote places where they expect to spend their entire lives surrounded by an indifferent if not hostile population.  Can anyone possibly believe that they have chosen this life because it is easier or more luxurious than that at home?

Some of the men whom we met had left lucrative business positions to take up medical or evangelistic work in China where their compensation is pitifully small—­not one-third of the salary they were commanding at home.

We did not meet any missionaries who were engaging in trade with the natives even though in some places there were excellent business opportunities.

Consider the doctors as examples of the civilizing influences which missionaries bring with them.  We saw them in various parts of China doing a magnificent work.  Dr. Bradley has established a great leper hospital at Paik-hoi where these human outcasts are receiving the latest and most scientific treatment and beginning to look at life with a new hope.  In Yen-ping, at the time of the rebellion, we saw Dr. Trimble working hour after hour over wounded and broken men without a thought of rest.  In Yuen-nan Fu, Dr. Thompson’s hospital was filled with patients suffering from almost every known disease.  In Ta-li Fu we saw Mr. Hanna and his wife dispensing medicines and treating the minor ills of patients waiting by the dozen, the fees received being not enough to pay for the cost of the medicines.  Why is it that every traveling foreigner in the interior of China is supposed to be able to cure diseases?  Certainly an important reason is because of the work done by the medical missionaries who have penetrated to the farthest corners of the most remote provinces.

Aside from their medical work, missionaries are in many instances the real pioneers of western civilization.  They bring to the people new standards of living, both morally and physically.  They open schools and emancipate the Chinese children in mind and body.  They fight the barbarous customs of foot binding and the killing and selling of girl babies.  Until recent years it was not unusual to meet the village “baby peddler” with from two to six tiny infants peddling his “goods” from village to village.  Not many years ago such a man appeared before the mission compound at Ngu-cheng (Fukien) with four babies in his basket.  Three of these had expired from exposure and the kerosene oil which had been poured down their throats to stupefy them and drown their cries.  The fourth was purchased by the wife of the native preacher for ten cents in order to save its life.  This child was reared and has since graduated from the mission schools with credit.  In Foochow a stone tablet bearing the following inscription stands beside a stagnant pool:  “Hereafter the throwing of babies into this pool will be punished by law.”  This was a result of the work of the missionaries.