A SEW rotxcanr.
_Last Sunday in the Cathedral we hoard about St. Polyearp, whose bright example ited so many a Christian on his way to martyrdom. May not the memory of Bishop Hamer remain through the turies another example of Christian fertile? This man, Bishop of Wes! era Morgolia, in what we call Shan-! si, but north of ths Great Wall, was tuitil this summer the one survivor of the! four priests who originated the Belgian Mission here in the Far East. His two! brothers are in the magistracy in Holland. He came out nearly thirty-five yea: from Nemeguen, a young priest; and Jato and early he has laboured since that time to win souls to Christ.
After the issue of the Imperial Decree ordering the extermination of the foreigners, he was seized while celebrating mass, bound, and marched through the city to be mocked by all that saw him. But as ho walked, he seemed not to notice this, and was absorbed in counting his beads and lifting his soul in prayer. The people round could not see his soul, and it was beyond their power to hurt that, but they saw his hands telling the beads. Those they accordingly cut off.
Three days later, with his bishop's vestments torn off, they wrapped cotton round him, poured petroleum upon it, and set this alight. The fire burnt. He had many days before been prepared for death, sending cast all his missionaries, saying, "You are young, and the hope of the Mission. But I am too old for travelling, and I mus€ remain with my people." A Chinese deacon therefore alone remained with the bishop. He too of course was killed. Five thousand Chinese Christians were also killed, and every church and building belonging to Bishop Hamer's diocese has been destroyed.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.