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Show - 23 - Liu Che Lin, the versatile and indefatigable worker at Loa Ch'eng Che eager to perceive and to seize every least opportunity and every slenderest chance to make ready the Way of the Lord, has made the church the one popular center of the town. A group of leading citizens recently hung a large banner in recognition of the service rendered by the church. Chi Ts'un, too, has made solid progress throughout the year. One always knows that in this church, tho the number may not be large, there will always be at every pastoral visit some one ready to be received into church fellowship. The warmhearted leaders at Wu Tu and Ta Ch'eng Yuan are rallying their towns and bringing in a goodly number of inquirers. Probably the largest audience which gathers at the preaching place is the one at T'ien T'un Chen, which frequently passes the hundred mark. The splendid progress of the preceding year at Tung Chia Chwang has continued. The problem of reaching the family, always in China a difficult one, has here made itself felt in the opposition offered members in several families, when the former desired to enter the Christian life. In this respect in China the whole structure of society is a hindrance to the Progress of Christianity. The family is the unit and not the individual. To think and act as an independent individual is contrary to the current of Chinese social life. It destroys the family harmony and breaks its adhesion. Busy Mr. Wang at P'ei Hwei Chen with his weekly circuit of six preaching points beside the central church, has still given some time to wider -work, being a member of the Educational Board of the station. Because of the ravages of flood, destroying nearly all the crops neither P'ei Hwei nor Shang Ta have been able to carry forward their church building plans projected last year. The San Ch'wan field is a stony district but the workers are winning friends as the doubling of the school attendance would indicate. Mr. Lu should have a good man to assist him at that important point, a man of friendly spirit and marked spiritual power. Indeed the supreme need of all our work is for more spiritual power-a spiritual power which communicates to leaders and laymen that certain contagious enthusiasm for Christ, which makes a definite and impressive, tho often unconscious, appeal to the soul of the unbeliever. The Chinese have a pregnant saying, "The Way does not propagate men, but men propagate the Way." The Hsia Ch'u Church is making a strong impress upon that large town, and with enlarged quarters we shall look for better things the coming year than have been possible heretofore. Liu Lin Chen is still crippled by its cramped quarters, the church being merely a dark cave dug out of the side of a bluff. A larger amount of time was given to this church and the field connected with it the past year to any other. The possibilities of the field are tremendous, but little effective work can be done until we have a place in which to work other than a hole in the ground. The impression one brings back with him from the touch of the field as a whole is that there is a distinct advance in the feelings of the population towards Christianity. Scores of new acquanintances are formed on every trip, many of them men in prominent position, and all alike cordial and warm-hearted in their appreciation. Of many it may be said they are 'not far from the |