I left the execution ground as I
left the prison - with the prayer, which has gained a new significance,
"For all prisoners and captives we beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord;"
but though our hands are nationally clean now as regards the
administration of justice and the treatment of criminals, we need not
hold them up in holy horror as if the Chinese were guilty above all
other men, for the framers of the Litany were familiar with dungeons
perhaps worse than the prison of the Naam-Hoi magistrate, and with
forms of torture which spared not even women, and the judges' and
jailers' palms were intimate with the gold of accused persons. It is
simply that heathenism in Canton is practising at this day what
Christianity in Europe looked upon with indifference for centuries.
I. L. B.
LETTER V
Portuguese Missionaries - A Chinese Hospital - Chinese
Anaesthetics - Surgery and Medicine - Ventilation and Cleanliness - A
Chinese "Afternoon Tea" - A New Inspiration
HONG KONG, January 10.
The year seems already getting old and frowzy. Under these blue skies,
and with all the doors and windows open, I should think it midsummer if
I did not look at the calendar. Oh, how I like blue, sunny skies,
instead of gray and grim ones, and blazing colors instead of the dismal
grays and browns of our nondescript winters!
I left Canton by the Kin-Kiang on Monday, with two thousand Chinese
passengers and two Portuguese missionary priests, the latter wearing
Chinese costume, and so completely got up as Chinamen that had they not
spoken Portuguese their features would not have been sufficient to
undeceive me.
