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MALAY DISLIKE OF PRINTING

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had haunted her. 'Poor Elizabeth!' she said, 'I dread to see her again, and she will feel it almost as much as I do, for she loved him as her own.'

On June 10 Mr. McDougall writes from Sarawak. Thanking the committee for their kind and sympathising letters, he returns with vigour to his work. He speaks of the printing of the Catechism which he had translated into Malay, and of his intention to have it lithographed, and gives a curious reason for the use of lithography. The Malays have a great prejudice against printing in the Arabic character, and they will often read a written or lithographed book when they would refuse to look at a printed one. The reason is that several attempts have been made by the Dutch and Dissenting missionaries, both American and English, in the Straits, to circulate printed tracts of a violent controversial character among them, which have had the effect of arousing their suspicions, and making them think all printed matter the production of these persons, whose want of judgment and ill-sustained proselytising efforts have certainly made the work more difficult for those that come after.' He mentions the somewhat slow progress of the church in building, which, however, he still hoped to have ready for consecration if the Bishop of Calcutta came to the Straits in the autumn; and that he had written to the Principal of Bishop's College, Calcutta, sending him a copy of the Rajah's letter respecting additional missionaries. And in his next letter he says: 'I find that there is a great religious revival among the Mohammedans here. The growth of our Church has, I think, aroused them; and a new importation of Hadgis from Arabia has, during my absence, stirred up their zeal for Islam not a little. This was to be expected, and does not discourage me. I only fear their setting to work vigorously among the Dyaks and thus forestalling us.'

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And on October 23 he writes to the Rev. C. D. Brereton : Every day the calls upon us become more urgent, and before

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your letter arrived it became absolutely necessary to do what you suggest, namely, to establish an hospital and enlarge our school, with the view (as you say) of its one day becoming a college.

'The circumstances were as follows. The Dyak-Chinese race of Penangkat, having sided with the Dutch in the war with the Dyak-Chinese of Montrado, were driven out of their country by the latter, and 5,000 of them left to come here by sea and others by land, to settle in Sarawak and become the Rajah's subjects. As they arrived with their wives and children, we did what we could to relieve their wants, by giving them rice and finding them shelter; but they brought such numbers of sick and wounded with them-whom from a superstition of theirs they will not suffer to remain under the same roof with them, but throw them out to die in the road-that it became necessary for me to get a native house built, which I use as a temporary hospital for the worst cases. The Government gives a supply of rice, and I allow each patient a few pice a day out of our offertory fund, which, however, will not meet the demand very long. I at first only admitted fifteen inpatients, though I had treble this number of applicants; but since then I have been obliged to reduce the in-patients to ten, as from their being too crowded hospital gangrene attacked them. I still continue the dispensary for the Malays and out-patients, which I attend at midday, the hospital in the morning. The result of the hospital has been that these Chinese have acquired sufficient confidence in me to give me their children to bring up as Christians. I could have had almost any number, but, considering our limited means, I have chosen only thirteen of the youngest and most promising, thus raising our home school to twenty, which is as many as we can manage. It was sadly against my will to refuse any, but I have promised, as soon as I can get a Chinese assistant, to open a day school for the elder boys, and it will, I think, be a large one, for they seem all anxious to learn. I have written

CHINESE CHILDREN

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to my friend Mr. Moule, chaplain at Singapore, to send me a Christian Chinese assistant. We have had our new children in the home nearly a month-nine boys, and four girls, and most interesting clever little creatures they are. They seem to have the aptness and order of the Chinese, combined with the simplicity and confiding nature of the Dyak, and in personal appearance both races have been the gainers. They have the large eye and amiable expression of the Dyak, combined with the powerful build and good stature of the Chinaman. I have thought it best to allow the children to continue their native dress and all Chinese customs that are not incompatible with Christianity, as by so doing they will hereafter prove the more useful and influential as missionaries among their countrymen. The average age of the children is about seven. I defer their baptism until Christmas, wishing it to be done in the church publicly, and also because I hope soon to have over the Chinese assistant, who will be able in some measure to prepare the elder ones-especially two boys and one girl who are ten years of age—for the reception of that Holy Sacrament.' In a postscript to the same letter dated two days later he adds, that the Rajah had arrived and approved of what he had done as far as regarded the hospital and the Chinese children; also that he had received a letter from Mr. Moule, saying that he had found the Christian Chinaman that he had written for, and who shortly afterwards joined him.

In a letter of February following, when suffering from an attack of fever, he speaks of the baptism of the children, and that the 'elder ones repeated and affirmed the Creed in Chinese before all the congregation.' 'I was determined to perform the duty on Sunday, for I was so anxious to baptise them myself, lest I might never be able to do so; but I did myself no good thereby.'

In the last chapter we spoke of this mission as the first

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medical mission of the Church of England, and from this time we do not hear of any objection being made at home to his doctoring. All through the history, while in Borneo, he will be found uniting the practice of medicine with his clerical office, but anxious that the one should not interfere with the other. He never failed, moreover, to seek to keep up his technical knowledge, and when he visited Singapore attended constantly at the hospital, as he did in London in 1854, when he wrote to Mr. Horsburg, his then locum tenens at Sarawak, 'I am now attending hospital practice and medical lectures to rub up and learn all the new improvements in the healing art.' He certainly earned the gratitude of his patients, but he was a volunteer in attending them, inasmuch as he did not practise for gain. It appears that, as for many years there was no other medical man in the settlement, he undertook work and responsibility which did not officially belong to him, but which it would have been inhumanity to refuse. This may be pointed out more at length hereafter; it is sufficient to say here that his inclination agreed with his duty and opportunity. He had much delight in his practice. It would be useless, especially for a layman, to attempt to narrate his experiences, but sometimes a case occurs in which, as he tells the story, the unity of his work as healer of soul and body comes out very clearly; thus in the following year he writes to the Society: 'I have just had a visit of gratitude from a poor Malay woman, who the last time that I saw her had to be led about by the hand, for she had been blind of cataracts in both eyes for many years. I lately operated upon her, first on one eye then on the other. The result is that she is perfectly restored to sight, and came up to me just now by herself, as I lay sick on the sofa, looking so happy and grateful for the recovery of her sight. She is the first person whom I have been able to persuade to submit to this operation. The Malays bear pain very well, and will submit to most things, but they have a great dread of a knife in the eye, which they think must necessarily destroy so

LOVE FOR SURGERY

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tender an organ. The present case has amazed them not a little, and I trust that they will learn thereby to give glory to God, who enables us thus to benefit their bodies, that we may gain their hearts and win their souls for Him, who lived and died that the blind might see, the lame might walk, and the captives of error be set free to follow "the Light of the World."'

Even since the Bishop's death an anecdote showing his love for surgery has been told the author. His friend the narrator, at the time of the Bishop's visit to Calcutta for consecration, was the principal hospital surgeon there, and met him shortly after the ceremony, as he was driving to the hospital to perform a very severe and dangerous operation. I stopped the car'I riage,' he said, ' and told the Bishop my errand. "Oh" he exclaimed, "let me go with you." "By all means," I answered, "jump into the carriage ;" and he did so, and in twenty minutes he was standing with his coat off, and his arms up to the elbows in blood, and the operation had been most successfully performed.' And he added, " and he was the best assistant that I ever had in my life."'

Occupied with his church, his hospital, and occasional expeditions on mission business, McDougall had no inducement to indulge his grief for the loss of his children. To his wife it was different. She was the only lady in Sarawak, and she had more than once spoken of it as a place where I am so lonely.' Their circle was narrowing on all sides. Willie Brereton and Harrington Parr had received appointments at Labuan, ‘and they had lived so long as inmates with us,' she writes, 'that I had felt almost as if they were my eldest sons; and the Rajah is away and must be a good deal at Labuan for some time to come.' There was not a creature at Sarawak that she could make a friend of except her husband and her old servant Elizabeth. Above all, she had lost her companion in her boy, and what remained of pain for that loss seemed to fall upon her. Speaking of the receipt of a box of presents from England, which had left

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