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Show Autumn Gleanings from Tehchow, After a strenuous day at the hospitals, while the soft dusk is falling, I love to walk to supper up on the high dlike which encloses our entire compound, or if time permits, take a, short horseback ride out into the country. Just now, as far as eye can see, are fields, ready, or nearly sol, for harvesting. The kaffir corn is being cut, sweet potatoes gathered, each field a hive of industry. Toward night children, and old women busily glean the stalks that have been; left behind by the reapers. Each bundle spells fuel to cook the evening meal, and every member of the household, large- and small, must take a share in the gathering of this precious material. Small wonder that when on furlo in America, it fairly hurt to see leaves by the roadside;, or on: spacious lawns, gathered into piles, and burned, when here, sheer poverty necessitates the scraping together of every tiniest twig, leaf, or root-! ! Not, infrequently a bright moonlight night will entice some young and ambitious fuel-gatherer to embrace this silver opportunity to add to his store, less hampered by competition. Drought in the spring and early summer withered part of the crops, but that which survived benefitted by the late July and August rains, and so, in comparison with recent years, there is a fair harvest. Amid so much that makes us. sad at heart over the present condition of old China, we rejoice in this prospect for our Shantung poor. On the tenth of the tenth month, China celebrates her "double ten" anniversary as a Republic. In view of so much local and general disturbance, due to banditry, and all its underlying causes, our Christian Church felt it wouldi be mockery to indulge in purely secular patriotic celebration of the date. The day, therefore, will be given up to prayer for the country's deliverance from its bondage of graft, lawlessness, and ignorance; to special massmeetings at the church and in the outlying villages in the interest of reform; to pageants, and processions of church school students etc., in the effort to bring conviction, to the hearts of our Tehchow people that China cannot be saved from present conditions by hit-or-miss patriotism, however enthusiastic. The power of God, alone, expressed! in the clean upright lives of her common people, can bring order out of her present chaos. More and more does it become apparent that China's so called upper class, the royalty, sci to speak, can be little counted on for helrj at the present stage. She must look to her educated youth, and her business men to redeem the situation. At the hospitals we try to do our bit toward this end by endeavoring so to train our doctors and nurses that they shall not alctae be efficient along professional lines, but be at the same time strong Christian men and women, potential powers for good in the communities they shall serve. Our Chinese church stands much in need! of such helpers adi these, especially here in, an inland station, where educated men and women are yet so, largely in the minority. More strong Christian business mem in; our Tehchow church would be a tremendous asset in our efforts' to stamp out vice in the city, and set on foot measures; for reform, sanitation, and uplift.. Last spring we opened a branch dispensary in the heart of the business district, our aim being, not only to treat physically those who should come, but, by this means, make better known the things for which we stand, in the eyes; of these very merchants whom we wish to win. They have shown their appreciation of our friendliness, and of professional courtesies, and gradually we, pray for it to lead to their open recognition of the church, and cooperation in its movements. The hospital work has gone on this, year in fairly even tenor, with no especial exigencies of famine or flood! The number of patients in the wards varies, greatly with the seasons. In China, patients come to the hospital when it is convenient to do so, and not always when they should ! ! The harvest season, planting time, or at. the Mew Year holidays, for instance, sees' our wards running light. After the cotton, peanuts, potatoes, and grain are; all safely garnered, then, and not until then, will the farmer attend to mere physical ailments. Ala®, his wife must often wait even longer than this, for needed attention. Too often do we ask a little woman, "Why did you not come several months (or perhaps years) earlier? We fear you may have come too late." The reply will be, "He did not con- |