The Beaver herald. [volume] (Beaver, O.T. [Okla.]) 1895-1923, 1922-06-08
LETTERS OF A MssrosAY
stella Tremaine, Language School,
Nanking, China.


I walked around the great Nam
king City wall yesterday in eight
hours and twenty minutes. ! came
back with two blsters in my left
foot. but | feel absolutely no other
effects OF the trip. / am not stiff
or tired one bit and the blisters
were not bad enough to keep me
from walking to church this morn
ing. This wall is the greatest city
wall in the world and is twenty
three miles long, it varies in height
from forty to sixty feet and in thick
! ness from fifteen to fifty feet. The
wall stands now just as II did six
hundred years ago, two hundred
years before Columbus discovered
America. There are fifteen gates
but two of them have been closed.
Streams of traffic pour all day thru
| the other thirteen except the rail-
road gate, where nothing but trains
are allowed to pass. Outside of each
gate there are two or four extra
1 little walls so to get in from the
outside one has TO pass thru three
or five gates. The winds of hun
dreds of years have blown consider
able soil onto the top of the wall
and in most places there is good
growth of grass. We saw several
| little black goats eating the dry
! grass on the top of the wall, their
owners had built up rock fences to
/ keep them from straying off around
the wall We met a boy driving
( herd of forty-seyen sheep. He
asked, Foreign. teacher, what time
, is it," / told him, very proud that
, / could use his language.
We saw three large flocks of
ducks of at least a thousand each.
Two of these flocks were in fatten-
was in a canal and a boy was in
little boat behind driving them up
the canal He had a long bamboo
pole with which he scared them
from side to side to keep them from
landing. l tell you there was a
great quacking. Nanking is a great
duck-eating city.
From the wall we see the ma
jestic Yang Use sweeping down the
broad fertile valley, the purple
mountains in the distance, the canal
where the white winged jinks floats
along carrying heavy cargo, the
quaint houses and the graceful
feathery bamboo groves. This is a
surprisingly beautiful place where
every prospect pleases and only man
is vile"
One evening just before sunset a
party of us visited high hill in the
northwest part of the city. 1t
seemed that the presence of God was
revealed and we all felt awed by
the beautiful scene. / said How
can these people live narrow, dirty.
sorbid. susperstitious lives when the
very glory of creation is spread out
before them?" An old missionary
said, "It is a mystery" We went
down to a tempe on the hillside
where we heard the thud of drums
and clang Of gongs. On a platform
were four gilded idols covered with
dust. In front of them sticks OF in
cense and a few candles were burn
ing, priest stood before one Of the
idols chanting in a loud. harsh
voice, words that neither we or he
knew the meaning of. chill OF
horror swept over me, that in my
presence, an ambassador of the Liv-
ing God, such a thing could take
place. l wanted to drag him out
on the hill and tell him to worship
, the God who made all things.
, Work and pray with all your soul
, for righteousness to come to China.