before. This will be all the more certain if the small line of railway between Bhamo and Tengyueh, already referred to, is really completed.
It is an interesting fact, which should be had in grateful remembrance, that the opening of the whole of Western China—Yunnan included—to Gospel work, was accomplished, under God, in consequence of the murder of a Christian Civil Officer of the British Government. In the last letter written by him to his family at home, Mr. Margary spoke of his own trust in God and in Christ his Saviour, and of his desire that prayer should be offered by his Christian friends in England that his journey on Government matters to Burmah should tend in some way to the opening up of those wide provinces, through which he was passing, to the preaching of the Gospel.[1]
It will be remembered that Mr. Margary travelled safely through to Burmah, and joined the expedition that was then awaiting his arrival to escort it into China. Among the Ka-ch'in Hills the party were attacked, and, it was said, by wild hill tribesmen. Mr. Margary going forward to find out the cause of trouble was, when alone, murdered at Manwyne. By the Chefoo Convention, which followed, the Chinese Government agreed, among other things, to the issue of an Imperial proclamation, to be circulated all over the eighteen provinces, making it widely known that foreigners had the right to travel everywhere in China.
Members of the China Inland Mission, who had been specially preparing for widespread evangelisation, had thus a very favourable opportunity given them to initiate those itinerations that have resulted in the opening up of permanent work in all these western provinces.
In the year 1877 the writer of this paper started on a journey from Shanghai to Bhamo, the latter place being reached without difficulty of any kind. The journey was made in company of a Christian Chinese friend and a
- ↑ The writer of this paper has had this statement from Mr. Margary's own mother. Mr. Margary's prayers, though not answered as he may have expected, have been most certainly granted.
