THERE were seventy-six believers in attendance at our general meeting recently held in Hankow. They all plan and look forward to these meetings just as we do to general meetings at home. Some of these people begin several months ahead to plan for their board during the meeting, by giving a few coppers every week to our evangelist, who keeps the money for them, so they might be sure to have the right amount at the right time. As for their traveling expenses, they walk, some a distance of four hundred li [a li is a third of a mile] each way. This they did in order that they might be able to testify to what the Lord had done for them, and also that they might gain a spiritual blessing. Indeed, these seasons are times of great refreshing to us all. The brethren get right with brethren; sins are confessed; heathen are converted; and many times scoffers are turned to praisers.
At this meeting twenty-one were baptized. We have now a membership of sixty at this place.
Sang Ta Ta, baptized at the age of eighty-one.
Our first evangelistic tent in China.
Before separating, we enjoyed a blessed season about the Lord’s table in a communion service. Heart seemed to meet heart. As confessions were made, these seventy souls, most of whom had sometime bowed down to wood and stone and naturally would be hard to make of one purpose and one heart, united as one, and God’s quiet Spirit rested on all. As we sang to close our meeting, all hearts, now filled with the love of Jesus and for one another, seemed to echo the words of the song:—
“Blest be the tie that binds
Our hearts in Christian love;
The fellowship of kindred minds
Is like to that above.”
