Korea by RILEY RUSSELL

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 7, 1912

Korea

By RILEY RUSSELL

RILEY RUSSELL

I AM now at old Wi-ju, on the banks of the Yalu River, the boundary between Korea and Manchuria. Four students are with us selling papers, and we are holding meetings at night.

There has been the most determined opposition here that we have ever met in Korea. This is a walled city of twenty thousand inhabitants. One denomination, claiming to have two thousand believers, has taught the natives that we do not believe in Christ, and that they should not even talk to us or look at our literature.

But the loud cry of the third angel's message can not be hushed by mortal man. Our audience, although small at first and ever changing, has steadily increased. One evening about seventy-five persons came out to listen. A few have signified their intention of uniting with the remnant people.

I have spent four Sabbaths at home since Aug. 10, 1911. Mrs. Russell and two Korean nurses care for the dispensary. We treated about six thousand cases during 1911.

The weather is quite cold up here,—about like that of Michigan. Since we do not see a stove from the time we leave home until we get back, we have to depend largely upon clothing to keep warm. At night there is a fire under the floor, which gets very hot.

Our Christmas dinner consisted of a bowl of rice, two eggs, and what food we had been able to bring with us. We get canned fruit from Montgomery Ward and Company, but it is heavy to

carry, and also expensive. Rice becomes quite monotonous in a week or two, so now I have a little alcohol-stove, and do some cooking. One great trouble is to keep our baggage down to carrying weight, for most of the time we are far from the railroad, often a hundred miles.

At one place where I was giving a Bible study, there were several in the little room, when all at once the lamp flickered, burned low, and suddenly went out for want of oxygen. This often happens here; for the only way to keep warm in the winter is to keep the one door shut tight.

It gives us courage to know that we are remembered at the throne of grace.