Lhave just returned from a long twelve weeks' tour into the heart of this Fukien province and find progress on every hand. We have been urgently asked to open chape's in many places, in some of which we tried to find an entrance ten years ago, but were driven out. Thiy year we have opened in four new country towns in the 'Tinychow prefecture, and' in three cases the people are paying the rent and current expenses as well as the salary of the preacher. This too before we have as yet a single baptised convert. How long this eagerness to welcome us will Inst who can tell? But meanwhile we are viad to do what we can to preach the Gospel and live on terms of friendship with all who ate willing to be our friends, on the strict un derstanding, however, that they do not expect us to help them with their Luv cases or to meddle with their worldly concerns. Our aims are spiritual and not materia, and we have consented to send preschors to these places with this proviso.
Cholera and Plague are terribly bad in the country districts near Amoy and the coast line, So far neither have entered the more distant inland centres, but every day brings us news of fresh victims in places within 80 to 100 miles of the coast both north and south of us, though it is less in Amoy itself. May these twin scourges soon case their ravages
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.