Despite everything, the demonstrations of the people still continued.  On March 7th the people of the villages of Po Paik and Kan, twenty miles north of Pyeng-yang, came out practically en masse to shout for independence.  Next day four soldiers and one Korean policeman arrived, asking for the pastor of the church.  They could not find him, so they seized the school-teacher, slashed his head and body with their swords and thrust a sword twice into his legs.  An elder of the church stepped up to protest against such treatment, whereupon a Japanese soldier ran a sword through his side.  As the soldiers left some young men threw stones at them.  The soldiers replied with rifle fire, wounding four men.

Soldiers and police came again and again to find the pastor and church officers who had gone into hiding.  On April 4th they seized the women and demanded where their husbands were, beating them with clubs and guns, the wife of one elder being beaten till great red bruises showed all over her body.

The police evidently made up their minds that the Christians were responsible for the demonstration, and they determined to rid the place of them.  The services of some liquor sellers were enlisted to induce people to tear down the belfry of the church.  On April 18th a Japanese came and addressed the crowd through an interpreter.

He told them that the Christians had been deceived by the “foreign devils,” who were an ignorant, low-down lot of people, and that they should be driven out and go and live with the Americans who had corrupted them.  There was nothing in the Bible about independence and “Mansei.”  Three thousand cavalry and three thousand infantry were coming to destroy all the Christians, and if they did not drive them out but continued to live with them, they would be shot and killed.

A number of half drunken men got together to drive out the Christians.  This was done.  A report was taken to the gendarmes that the Christians had been driven away, whereupon the villagers were praised.  In other parts, near by, the same chief of gendarmes was ordering the families of Christians out of their homes, arresting the men and leaving the women and children to seek refuge where they might.

Word came to some other villages in the Pyeng-yang area that the police would visit them on April 27th, to inspect the house-cleaning.  The Christians received warning that they must look out for a hard time.  Everything was very carefully cleaned, ready for the inspection.  The leader of the church sent word to all the people to gather for early worship, so as to be through before the police should come.  But the police were there before them, a Japanese in charge, two Korean policemen, two secretaries and two dog killers.

The two leaders of the church were called up by the Japanese, who stepped down and ran his fingers along the floor.  “Look at this dust,” he said.  Ordering the two men to sit down on the floor, he beat them with a flail, over the shoulders.