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Show BEGINNING OF WORK AT THE NEW COMPOUND IN all of our plans for work in this station, we have always included a hospital as one of the "to-be's". That it would be a thing of the future we took for granted, and we were constantly reminding each other that we must be patient. But our prayers were answered even sooner than we dared to hope. We were surprised one day to receive a letter from a friend who had followed our movements here in China with interest, though we had done little more than send him our general letters. He has an invalid wife, and the thought of the unrelieved suffering here took such a hold on him that he felt that he must help. He had not the means himself to build a hospital, but he is a man with a fertile brain, and he took that out of which money is made, Time, and put it to good use. He has a nursery and by writing to friends in the same line, he worked up a considerable interest. His proposition was that they should first build a dispensary, the next year a ward or two, and so on, year by year, adding wards or instruments or drugs as they were needed. He offered to sell whatever his friends were willing to contribute toward the hoped-for hospital, and gathered together a stock of shrubs and trees. These he sold, and the proceeds, together with his own personal gifts and those he solicited from other friends amounting in all to one thousand dollars, he sent to us, and this has gone into the plant which you see in the picture. The remembrance of the timeliness of this gift is one that will always stay with us. It came just when we had bought this new compound, making it possible to plan as well as hope for the hospital. It put actual cash into our hands just when we could buy to the best advantage. Four rooms for women patients, one for children-a memorial to James H. McCann, Jr., whose little grave is beside the east wall of our new compound-two for men, an operating and dispensing room, places for the Bible woman and teachers and gateman to live, an office and a waiting room, make up the plant with which we thought that we would have to be contented for several years. Patients began to come as soon as it was opened, in fact some had been waiting for it to open, and it has been used almost to its full capacity during these three months. To spread one's fame, is the special way in which a Chinese delights to show his gratitude for a favor received. "If you will only cure me, I will tell about your skill everywhere I go," is the wail of the poor incurable as he bumps his head on the floor. "I will certainly spread your fame in my native village when I return home," says the joyful woman as she feels the new strength and vigor coming back to her after an operation. We had just begun to realize that grateful patients leaving our gates meant an increasing number who would be coming to us, and Page nine |