A young Chinaman is being examined with reference to baptism, and is asked why he decided to turn from the worship of idols.  “God is true” is the reply, a very simple reason,—­a trite one possibly; but there was something in the tone and emphasis of it which thrilled me.  I saw the emptyness of heathen worship at a point from which I had never looked at it before.  A God that is true, that can be absolutely trusted!  Where will you find one in any heathen Pantheon?  Conceive now a thoughtful, honest man passing from the timorous worship of such gods to the rest and comfort and courage which come from knowing and trusting Him who is true, and you will begin to realize what that simple answer meant.

“What are your people making such a noise for?” was asked of a Chinese brother at Ventura, during the Chinese New Year’s Festival.  “To scare away the evil spirits,” was the reply.  “And why don’t you scare them away?” was the next question, for all was quiet at our little mission house, “Evil spirits stay away when Holy Spirit comes,” was the reply.  I am not confident that I recall the exact words, but I have certainly given the idea, and it meant emancipation for the man that uttered it, an entrance into the liberty wherewith Christ makes us free.

“When I get discouraged, as I often do,” writes a teacher, “I think of the five who are studying the Testament, and of a remark one of them made to me, ‘I love Jesus more all the time when I read about him.’” This brother took his religion with him to China, and brought it back unharmed.

One of the brethren worked in a hotel where to specially toilsome service was added a treatment far from kind.  He said to his teacher that he remembered how much Jesus had to bear and so he “had patient.”  The wages received he spoke of as the “hardest money” he had earned since coming to California, and so he took part of it to buy a nice Bible.  An American said scoffingly to him:  “Are you one of the Christian Chinamen?” “Yes,” he replied.  “I love Jesus; I am not ashamed that I love Jesus.”

One of our Santa Barbara brethren rents quite a tract of land, much of which he devotes to the culture of small fruits.  On a visit to his place a year or two ago, friends saw strawberry plants heavily laden with luscious looking fruit so arranged in front of our brother’s door as to spell out this sentence, “God loves the earth.”

“It seems,” said Jee Gam once, “as though I could recall his very words, and hear the tones of his voice as he prayed for the conversion of his countrymen.”  It was the closing prayer of a gospel service among the Chinese in Oakland.  The brother who offered it was a Chinese merchant of that city.  Two days afterwards he was shot in his own store by a Chinaman because he refused to submit to blackmail.  A policeman hastened to the spot and saw him die, and testified in court that his last words were those of prayer to our true God; this testimony, though given probably by an ungodly man, being such as to draw tears from many who listened.  Yet some say there are no real Christian Chinamen; that you can’t convert a Chinaman; that they are throughout a race of hypocrites.