“(Signed) DR. W. A. P. MARTIN.”]

[Page 177] On August 14 Gen. Gaseles and his contingent entered the British Legation.  The Court, conscious of guilt, fled to the northwest, leaving the city once more at the mercy of the hated foreigner; and so the curtain falls on the closing scene.

What feats of heroism were performed in the course of those eventful weeks; how delicate women rose to the height of the occasion in patient endurance and helpful charity; how international jealousies were merged in the one feeling of devotion to the common good—­all this and more I should like to relate for the honour of human nature.

How an unseen power appeared to hold our enemies in check and to sustain the courage of the besieged, I would also like to place on record, to the glory of the Most High; but space fails for dealing with anything but general principles.[1]

[Footnote 1:  See the author’s “The Siege in Peking,” New York:  Fleming H. Revell Company.]

On the day following our rescue, at a thanksgiving meeting, which was largely attended, Dr. Arthur [Page 178] Smith pointed out ten instances—­most of us agreed that he might have made the number ten times ten—­in which the providence of God had intervened on our behalf.

It was a role of an ancient critic that a god should not be brought on the stage unless the occasion were such as to require the presence of a more than human power. Nec deus intersit nisi dignus vindice nodus. How many such occasions we have had to notice in the course of this narrative!  What a theodicaea we have in the result of all this tribulation!  We see at last, a government convinced of the folly of a policy which brought on such a succession of disastrous wars.  We see missionaries and native Christians fairly well protected throughout the whole extent of the Empire.  We see, moreover, a national movement in the direction of educational reform, which, along with the Gospel of Christ, promises to impart new life to that ancient people.

The following incident may serve to show the state of uncertainty in which we lived during the interregnum preceding the return of the Court.

While waiting for an opportunity to get my “train (the university) on the track,” I spent the summer of 1901 at Pearl Grotto, my usual retreat, on the top of a hill over a thousand feet high, overlooking the capital.  “The Boxers are coming!” cried my writer and servants one evening about twilight.  “Haste—­hide in the rocks—­they will soon be on us!” “I shall not hide,” I replied; and seizing my rifle I rested it on a wall which commanded the approach.  They soon became visible at the distance of a hundred yards, [Page 179] waving flambeaux, and yelling like a troop of devils.  Happily I reserved my fire for closer range; for leaving the path at that point they betook themselves to the top of another hill where they waved their torches and shouted like madmen.  We were safe for the night; and in the morning I reported the occurrence to Mr. O’Conor, the British charge d’affaires, who was at a large temple at the foot of the hills.  “They were not Boxers,” he remarked, “but a party we sent out to look for a lost student.”