He saw large tracts still covered with the flood water and a still larger area now dry, but which has become dry too late to allow of the winter wheat being sown or an early harvest reaped.
The distress has been toa considerable extent met by Government relief and the efforts of ye benevolent societies, so that there is no. immediate pressure of want, but still there are many months yet till an autumn harvest can be reaped and the dread of famine removed. In all the region your correspondent visited he found the belief in idols and the practices of] idolatry greatly shaken and great readiness d even eagerness to learn about the way" as the Chinese express it, meaning of course the truths of Christianity. Strange as it may appear it was in a district which had not suffered by the floods and Whose inhabitants were in easy cir-circumstances compared with their more unfortunate neighbours that the eagerness and readiness to hear and learn was most manifest. In this comparatively well-to-do district hundreds were found who had been for months "learning the doctrine" with all the enthusiasm of new converts. This movement extends over a considerable area and is still spreading. It is almost entirely the result of native effort.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.