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Show THE STORY OF LINTSING Our close association with the Board of the Interior, brought us into touch with Miss Mary Porter, the first single lady to be sent out by that Board; when she returned for her first furlough our women made her reception a great event, did she not belong to them also ? It is our joy to honor her today, not merely as a delegate from our sister Board, but as a member of our own. She has seen her school, the Bridgman School to which w^e sent our early contributions, grow to be the Yenching College of North China. The fascinating letters of Mrs. Emma Dickinson Smith were brought to our meetings by her mother, and were the source of much joy; and finally there came a day when the "real live missionary" was present herself with a wonderful story of her life in Tientsin and Shantung. There had been long years of study when the language seemed like a mountain at which they were pricking with a cambric needle; but enthusiastic study had brought its reward, and they were able to talk, only to find no one wished to listen. Then away on the horizon, 200 miles south of Tientsin, a spot of bright blue appeared and God was leading them in a remarkable way to a great work. There was a famine, the crops failed and thousands were dying of starvation. England and other countries sent large sums of money which the missionaries were to distribute. It was the hardest kind of work in the broiling August sun, in wretched hovels amid the sick and djdng, but they aided the rescue of 17,000 people, and did what a thousand years of preaching could not have done in gaining access to the hearts of the Chinese. Dr. Arthur H. Smith, who was one of the relief party, contracted fever him^self and hovered for weeks between life and death. A little later this family and Dr. Porter's went to live in that region, and the small village of Pang Chuang open to them became the center of a great work, vast in its outreach. Dr. and Mrs. Peck and Miss I\Iary Porter joined them, and schools, and dispensary, a hospital and chapel were crowded with work. Sixty miles south of Pang Chuang lies the important city of Lintsing on the Grand Canal, the mart for thousands of villages, all [ 77 ] |