As he looked on, J.W. could understand something which had been a closed book to him before.  No one could stand by and see this abjectness of need, this helplessness, this pathetic faith which was almost fatalistic in the foreign doctor’s miraculous powers—­it recalled that beseeching cry in the New Testament story, “Lord, if thou wilt thou canst”—­without being deeply, poignantly glad that there were such men as Joe Carbrook.  It was all very well to talk at long range about letting China and other places wait.  But on the spot nobody could talk that way.

The visit might have lasted two weeks, instead of two days, and then the Carbrooks would have hung on and besought him to stay a little longer.  Torture would not have drawn any admission from them, but back of all the joy in the work was a something that left them without words as J.W. and his little group from Foochow set out for the next stopping place.  Just before the last silent hand-grips, J.W. told his friends about Jeannette and himself, and promised Joe a wedding present.  “You see,” he said, “I never sent you one when you were married, and I’d like to send you a double one now, for yourselves and for us.  You send me word what it is you most need for the hospital, an X-ray outfit, or a sterilizer, or a thingamajig for making cultures, microscope included, and Jeannette and I will see that you get it.  I’m a tither, you know, and my salary’s been raised, and I want to do something to show what a fool I was before I knew what sort of a business you were really in out here.  So don’t be modest; you can’t hurt my feelings!”

Back at Foochow in the course of the slow days which Chinese travel gives to those who go aside from the beaten path, Professor Bellew welcomed J.W. with eager warmth.  “You’re back just in time, if you can stay a few days; the celebration of the fortieth anniversary of the college begins to-morrow.”

J.W. had at least a week’s business with the Cummings agents.  He had found some conditions on his inland journey which called for much discussion.  So he had time for sharing in a good deal of the celebration.  It was something to marvel at, that a Christian college had been at work in this great city for forty years.

The president of the college and his wife started the proceedings with a formal reception, at which a Chinese orchestra furnished music outside the house, and Western musicians rendered more familiar selections in the parlors.  Alumni flocked to the reception, men of every variety of occupation, but all one in their devotion to their Alma Mater.  The next afternoon was given over to athletics, and the evening to a lecture, quite in the American fashion.