doors fast closed against the ordinary missionary have been gladly opened to the healer-preacher. Twice had the Church Missionary Society tried to enter Kashmir; and twice had they failed. Then Elmslie was sent as a Medical Missionary. His splendid services as a surgeon gradually broke down prejudices and now for many years there has been a most successful missionary station in that province.

A few years ago Dr. MacKinnon was trying to secure ground for a hospital in Damascus. The fanatical Moslem population of the city opposed his claims. Just at this time" a judge in one of the law courts of Damascus came in hot haste to the house of Dr. MacKinnon and besought him to rush off at once to the abode of the Chief Cadi. 'What is wrong?' said the English hakim. 'Have pity and come at once!' was the eager response; ' The Cadi's little boy, so dearly loved, is very, very ill.' The doctor went and was promptly shown in. The inmates were in great alarm; dread and disquietude were everywhere apparent. Ushered into the sick chamber, the English hakim saw a child of three years, livid and well nigh pulseless. A glance at the child, a glance around and the diagnosis is made-opium poisoning. Then and there began a struggle with death. For full two hours he fought and wrought, stimulating the dying boy and keeping up constant artificial respiration. A hard and anxious fight it was, but in the end death was routed. Slowly the flickering signs of life grew stronger and steadier, until at last anxiety began to lose itself in gratitude and in praise. to God. With words of heartfelt thanks the powerful Cadi embraced the foreigner, declaring that through life he is his debtor." The result of all this was that the Cadi, who was chief presiding officer of the court, began to display a new interest in the pending lawsuit, and did his best to push the case rapidly through and see that justice was done to the missionary. The tide of feeling among the people quite turned in favor of the doctor, and they paid him the unusual compliment of rising from their seats the next time he entered the law court.

Dr. Nevius says that he was at one time trying to establish a station in an interior city of China and was find

ing great difficulty because of the prejudice and superstition of the people. One day when speaking to a crowd a soldier forced his way up and addressed him very respectfully, showing a deep scar on his cheek. He said that he had been severely wounded in battle and that in the hospital in Shanghai Dr. Lockhart had dressed and healed his wounds. Incidents like that do more to disarm suspicion of the motives of missionary work than any other thing.

At the risk of repeating an old story we quote the incident of Kenneth Mackenzie's pioneering work in one of the large Chinese cities.* "Tien-tsin furnishes a romance in the history of medical missions. When Dr. J. Kenneth Mackenzie reached this city in March, 1879, everything looked dark for the medical mission. While at prayer with the native converts, a member of the English Legation learned that the wife of the Viceroy was seriously ill, the doctors having wholly despaired of her case. The Englishman entering an earnest plea for the foreign doctors, the Viceroy committed his wife's case to the care of Dr. Mackenzie, who was speedily summoned to the vice-regal palace, and in a few weeks Lady Li was quite well. Her treatment was followed by successful surgical operations in the presence of the Viceroy. The court was stirred and great public interest excited. The Viceroy agreed to pay the current expenses of both a hospital and dispensary when erected. In a short time a building was completed with wards for sixty patients, the Chinese themselves contributing the sum of $10,000."

"If you will try and realize the conditions of an Eastern city," writes the Doctor, "you will quickly understand that when a great potentate takes you by the hand the land is all before you. So we found that in our daily visits to our noble patient our steps were thronged with eager suppliants, who, hearing that the Viceroy's wife was undergoing medical treatment, sought for relief from the same source. You know how a story often grows as it spreads, and so this case of cure was being magnified into a miracle of healing. A Chinese official residence is

* Encyclopedia of Missions. 1891. Vol. II., p. 52.

Biography J. K. Mackenzie, p. 180.

composed of numerous quadrangles, one behind the other, with buildings and gateways surrounding each. To reach the family apartments we had to pass through these numerous courts and here we were beset with patients from the crowds assembled outside the gates, and the friends of soldiers, doorkeepers, secretaries and attendants who had succeeded in gaining an entrance. The poor also besieged us as we entered and left the yamen. It was truly a strange gathering we found daily collected round the outer gates-the halt, the blind and the deaf were all there waiting to be healed; indeed, the whole city seemed to be moved. High officials sought introductions to us through the Viceroy himself."

During Lady Li's illness, Miss L. H. Howard, M. D., an American missionary, was installed in a suite of rooms in the official residence adjoining her ladyship's apartments. It is inconceivable that any other form of missionary agency could have produced such an impression in so short a time as to make these procedures possible.

The Hon. John W. Foster, ex-Secretary of State, says: "A special feature in the mission work of the world, to which great enlargement has been given in late years, is the Medical Missionary. We found that in China, where the science of surgery is almost unknown, they were proving a most helpful adjunct of the work, a door of access to the people not otherwise reached, a ready means of overcoming prejudice and opposition. I am pleased to bear hearty testimony to the scientific attainments and the Christian zeal of the male and female workers in this department and to commend the field as one which can never be overcrowded by the Church at home."

Several years ago, Dr. Valentine settled down at work as a medical missionary in an Indian city. God laid His strong hand upon him in a serious illness-a hand which has so often been laid upon His servants to lead them forth into a larger life and fuller, more influential service. Valentine had been recommended to go to the great snowy Himalayas for change and rest. Mountains, especially snow-clad ones, are Nature's rejuvenators, even in expectation and in memory. On his way he passed through Jeypore and paid a formal call on the Maharajah. “The

Maharajah told him that his wife, the Maharanee, was very ill, and that the native physicians had given her up. Dr. Valentine said that he would be glad to see her and do what he could for her. The way was opened up. The Maharajah was pleased and arranged, difficult as it is to gain access to the women there, that Dr. Valentine should visit the Ranee. The result was that through God's blessing upon Dr. Valentine's treatment the Maharanee was restored to health. The Maharajah said, 'What can I do for you?' He replied, Let me preach the Gospel here.' The Maharajah said, *If you will stay here and be my private physician, I shall be glad.' Dr. Valentine rejoined, But I am a missionary of the Gospel.' (No missionary had previously been allowed to settle in Jeypore, that great stronghold of idolatry, perhaps one of the greatest strongholds in Northern India.) The Maharajah asked, ' But you will be my private physician, will you not?' He replied, 'Yes, but only upon one condition, that you will allow me to preach the Gospel from one end of the province to the other without let or hindrance.' The Maharajah agreed and Dr. Valentine remained at Jeypore for fourteen years."

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The Medical Missionary has often been able to penetrate out-of-the-way places, places where religious opposition has been most severe and race barriers most formidable, districts where the severity of the climate has made it unsafe for any but the medical missionary to enter. With his healing mission as his defense, and the Word of God as his weapon, the medical missionary has been able to safely traverse tracts of country never before trod by Christian feet. In districts once visited his return is eagerly looked for. And in the train of his pioneering labors other forms of mission work beside his own have been duly inaugurated. For his sake other

missionaries are not only tolerated, but frequently welcomed. The physician's presence has not only saved the precious lives of other missionaries, but has often made the continuance of a station possible, when, otherwise, abandonment would have been inevitable. It is, moreover, a fact that not only have individuals been approached, homes entered, stations occupied and districts

prepared by the medical missionary which apparently could not have been effected by any other class of workers, but whole countries have been opened up to the Gospel by the elemental labors of missionary physicians."*

It has been said that " China was opened to the Gospel at the point of the lancet " by Dr. Peter Parker. Dr. Allen, an American medical missionary, was the first Protestant foreigner to reside permanently in Korea. He was ultimately put in charge of a hospital built for him by the King of Korea, and later he was one of a Korean Embassy to the United States Government at Washington.

Formosa was opened up largely by the work of medical missionaries. Dr. G. L. Mackay, of the Canadian Presbyterian Mission, was the pioneer missionary to North Formosa, and the first to build a hospital there. At the outset he had almost to compel his patients to come to him. During fourteen years of service he extracted 21,000 teeth in his hospital and on tours, and by this simple operation he has won his way to the hearts of thousands of people.

Siam is another illustration of a country opened up to mission work largely through the influence of the missionary physicians, Drs. Gützlaff, Bradley and House being the pioneers. In Japan, during the inception of missionary work, fields outside of the open ports were opened and held by the establishment of dispensaries by medical missionaries. At the centres where medical work was carried on, it broke down the prejudices and opposition of religious teaching and opened the way for general evangelical work.

Similarly in the Turkish Empire, Persia, Arabia, and throughout the length and breadth of the great Dark Continent of Africa have medical missionaries been used of God in preparing the way for the coming of His Kingdom. There are certain fields of missionary endeavor where Medical Missions appear destined to exert a peculiarly powerful influence. This would seem to be especially true in Muhammedan countries. The comparative neglect of the strongholds of Islam has been one of the darkest shadows resting upon missionary polity. The

*The Medical Mission. W. J. Wanless. Chap. VI., p. 47.