| OCR Text |
Show eral meeting at Pang Chuang, in order to get the necessary traveling expenses, he told a lie. The women were furious. To mark her displeasure, his mother, after one meeting, actually locked him out, leaving him to pace the yard most of the night. He tried to support himself but nothing succeeded. He was constantly cheated. At last, he tried, by turning a small heavy mill, to do the work of a donkey. Eound and round the dreary little circle he went, hour after hour, grinding wheat, It was impossible, maddening. He had led a dainty luxurious life without exercise. He had sapped his vitality with sin. Such flabby muscles as his might have belonged to an infant. He seemed to be turning that cruel mill with his bare nerves, and they shouted and shrieked all night after it. After a month he gave up the bitter struggle to earn honest rice. "This is my hour," said the watchful arch fiend, and set him the easy task of peddling opium from door to door. His peace fled. 'His blessing was vanishing. Then his good angel brought about such acute distress in his eyes, that it drove him back to Pang Chuang. He had to begin again, but this time he remained until the good seed was firmly rooted, and he had publicly confessed Christ. Then one of the missionaries said, "Why not send him to the School for the Blind at Peking ?'r Making this suggestion at his home, brought a fresh cyclone. His mother asked to throw an only son into such a den of lions ! '' Why,'' said the neighbors, "at that school they first feed the pupils well to fatten them. Then they kill them and try out their fat to make the wonderful medicine." But once more the good angel triumphed and Mr. Tong went. 9 |
