Dear Friends:  I am glad to see you all here this evening; and that you have an interest in the Chinese work.  I will tell you a few words about myself, what experience I had in my native land.  I left California to go to China, July 15, 1887, and after thirty-one days, reached my home.  I found a piece of red paper on the wall above my cooking place, with the name of the stove-god written on it.  We call it “Doy Shin;” “Doy” means “Stove,” “Shin” means “god.”  Every family worships the stove-god at the cooking place.  The first of every month they burn some punk, and twice every month make a fresh cup of tea, which is left standing on the stove.  I found that several thousands of punk had been burned during my absence, and the ends of the sticks were left in the bowls.  I felt very sorry for it; so I tore up the paper and break the punk-sticks in pieces and burn them up.  My wife felt very indignant, and was afraid the stove-god might be angry and make me sick, and punish me.  I say:  “Nothing to be afraid of.  But I am only afraid that the true God in heaven will punish me if I do not tear up the paper and burn up the punk-sticks.”  I say:  “I must entirely abandon this superstition and must give this testimony for Christ.  For he is the only God that can preserve my life, and the only one that can take it away.”

In the mean time, a Chinese preacher who was supported by the Methodist Mission was very sick.  His children were very small and his wife cannot walk.  There was nobody to go after a doctor for him.  So he sent for me to call doctor and get medicine.  He and myself were the only Christians inside the walls of the city.  Outside in the villages were a few Christians, but fifteen or twenty miles away.  My wife advised me not to go to his house lest I get sick also, for my health was not very good.  I say to her, that only he and I are Christians in this place.  I have to go to his house.  I rather die than not go.  In about twenty days he die.  We sent for the Christian friends, from different parts—­some thirty to fifty miles away—­some nearer.  So we bury him the Christian way.  The men carry the coffin.  They charge four dollars to bury him, because he is Christian.  The others they charge only two dollars.  We also hire music for the funeral—­different from the heathen funeral.  Several hundred people were standing on the way, watching us pass by.  Some say:  “How funny the burying of the Yason dog,”—­i.e., the Jesus boy.

After the funeral I was very sick, and my whole body trembling with cold.  Many blankets put upon me, but cannot make me warm.  My wife begin to cry.  My cousins and all said it was because I went to the dead man’s house and catch the sickness.  Some of them said it was because I tore up the paper and burned the punk-sticks of the stove-god.  But my wife, sitting on the bed-side crying, suggested the medicine which I brought from California; the name—­sulphate of quinine.  So she ask me to take that; but I say:  I never have been this way before, and never use that medicine for this kind of sickness.  But she ask me to try; so I take a very little with a little water.  Not more than three minutes my whole body stop shaking, and I felt a great relief.  I thank God for his help, and soon I got all well.