our Orphanage and Training School, and he built and endowed the schools in Khera Bajhera, (the village where he was so long sheltered,) so that his liberality to our mission work, up to the present, cannot be much less than $15,000, and yet this liberal gentleman was a member of another Church—the Church of England; but he is the type of a large and an increasing class of Christian Englishmen in India who prize our work, and are glad to aid it.
Apropos of leaving the country, while in Meerut I received a letter from Brother Wentworth, in China, inviting me to join them in Foochow. He says: “If British predominance is not soon established, get leave of the Board and come on here, where there is as great need of laborers as in India.”
Well, that was all very good; but, on reading further in the Doctor's letter, I was highly amused to find the guarantee of additional security which I was to enjoy by following the course suggested. My good brother added: “Last spring we were fearing the rebels might drive us from this station, and are not now without apprehensions that the war between Canton and England may become a general one, and result in the temporary expulsion of all foreigners from the empire. In case of any sudden outbreak we are in an unfortunate situation for escape, being ten or twelve miles from the foreign shipping, and no vessel of war near. A sudden and decisive outbreak might cost us our lives at any moment.” This for me would have been “out of the frying-pan into the fire” with a vengeance. Indeed, I thought my circumstances were every way preferable to his, so far as British predominance and personal security were concerned, and concluded that I might well return the compliment, and invite my good-natured brother, if driven from his post, to come and join me.
However, it is our privilege to live by faith, and as the Doctor observes, to “feel secure in the protection of Him who guides revolutions among the nations as he does tempests in the sky.”
I did not proceed to Calcutta, because, from the center which I then occupied, I was soon satisfied that the country was fast quieting down, and that my brethren would be able immediately to join
