Page:The Chinese Empire. A General & Missionary Survey.djvu/444

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366
THE CHINESE EMPIRE

and Swedish, and a Vocabulary of 3000 Mongolian words with English and Chinese equivalents, prepared by Mr. Roberts, were destroyed.

In 1901 Mr. Larson and Mr. Roberts were again in Kalgan, rebuilding their homes, and preparing for work for the natives on both sides of the Great Wall. Mr. and Mrs. Friedstrom came from America, and spent a happy year in the same city, the latter studying the Mongolian language, and her husband arranging for the reopening of Mr. Stenberg's station at Patzupulung. Thither they both went in the autumn of 1903. Mr. Larson pitched his tents at Tabol, 85 miles from Kalgan, on the Urga road, and made many long journeys in Mongolia in the service of the British and Foreign Bible Society.

Boyinto of Hara Oso, when invited to escape from the Boxers with the missionaries, refused to do so, saying, "Then what would become of my family?" Let us honour him for this brave word and act. He survived that crisis, but was thought to have begun smoking opium, and has passed away to his award before the righteous Judge. It is not necessary to conceal the fact that some of the missionaries do not take as favourable a view of his life as that given here.

Mr. and Mrs. Sprague and Mr. and Mrs. Larson are still in Kalgan, labouring for both Mongols and Chinese. Mr. and Mrs. Magnusson and other missionaries have gone to help Mr. Friedstrom, so that now their number is eight, the same as before the massacres of 1900. They all deserve our utmost sympathy and prayers.

From the above is seen the importance of Kalgan as a place from which to enter and evangelise Mongolia. The missionaries, seeking to save China's multitudes, never have forgotten the less civilised tribes of the north. The city is hallowed by the footsteps of Gilmour and Stenberg. The Pass, opened through the mountains by the Lord himself, enables the heralds of salvation to cross a very rough border and ascend the great plateau. The Mongols are hospitable to new-comers, if not to new ideas. Their men