ONE day last winter, I ventured into a temple compound. As I was hesitating what to do, a woman, poor, emaciated, and clothed in rags, came out of a little, dark room of a house near. I spoke to her, and handed her a tract, and she passed on. But I could not get her out of my mind; and a few days later, I called upon her.
I found that she was a widow, and that her only means of support was sewing. I called frequently, and tried to interest her in Bible study; but she would not lay aside her work long enough to give attention to what I was saying. All that she could earn, except the very poorest living, went to the Buddhist priests at the temple, for prayers and offerings.
One day when I went to call upon her, she was not to be found. I inquired, but no one would tell me where she had gone. Mrs. Kuniya and I had become very much interested in this devout heathen woman, and we made her case the subject of special prayer, asking the Lord to send her to us if we could do her good, as we could not find her.
At last, one day she came to our house, and then she began to attend the Bible readings in the kigisho (preaching place), and she did not miss a meeting until she fully accepted Christianity. The Lord had impressed her that here was something which would satisfy her heart as it had never been satisfied through her offerings to the priests. I called upon her a short time ago, and found the god shelf and all the idols gone from her house. Her rags have given place to decent dress, and she is both clothed and in her right mind and happy in the Lord. She no longer gives her money to the idle, dissolute priests, but has already begun to pay tithes to the Lord, and is earning enough to be comfortable, and is happy to have a part in the grand work of the gospel.
A CONGREGATION OF KOREAN BELIEVERS AT TAE MAE DONG
