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Show 52 NORTH CHINA MISSION years was sold to a disfigured tailor forty years old, as his bride. Her soul cried out against it, but she had to submit and her days dragged on as her mother's before her had dragged. One day she flung herself into the well, but was rescued. At another she tried poison, but it was not enough to kill her Then her husband hired some one to watch her, but she took her belt aud tried to strangle herself. Finally she ran off with a young cousin, who had brought some joy into her life, but they were found, aud rather than be taken back, they both cut their throats, and not dead but in a serious state, were brought to the hospital. It is likely that she will live. But for what? How can we work effectively with the women of China until the social system can be changed ? How can we change the social system unless we Christianize China's womanhood? In TIENTSIN, the missionaries return each fall to a compound that has been under water most of the summer, and to FT nons houses with water still standing in the cellars. One child was in the hospital for some time with fever contracted in the summer: the women's court wdiere she lived had had several inches of water standing in it. TUNGCHOW suffers from the unruly North River aud another stream. For years the government has made no serious attempt to solve the problem of curbing them, and they regularly overflow their banks. Flood and famine have become chronic iu the section of the field nearest the sea. Two of the chapels are so low that it is a rare summer when the rising waters of the rainy season do not enter. Sometimes preacher and chapel-keeper have to beat a hurried retreat with their families. PAOTINGFU aud PEKING can tell the same story, and SH ANSI has suffered heavily the past three years. In FENCHOW, 200 square miles of plain were flooded, aud great mountain districts suffered heavily from washouts. Everywhere brick houses and mud walls were collapsing, and refugees were transporting their goods to safety in boats furnished by the magistrate. The repeated overflow of the silted river beds has killed all crops on much land for three successive years. What can be done about it? What will America do about it? |
