A Fall Itinerary.

Time - September 25th to October 6th, 1922.

Place - Several wheres in the Yenping Conference.

Persons - Mr. & Mrs. Karl W. Scheufler. Our latest arrived evangelistic missionary colleagues.

Mr. Frank M. Toothaker.

Carrier coolies, boatmen, a cook, preacher, members, bandits as needed.

It is always with a sense of adventure which has been heightened during the feverish packing of the frying pans and Carnation milk, the folding cots and oilskinned bedding rolls, that one launches out on an itinerary. It may be for but a few days, or for weeks on end, but who knows what experiences lie in wait along the road?

Monday morning, after the frantic hurry of getting everything in order for the trip, the boat pulled up its poles and swung off for the up river country. The following morning while yet most of the city slept, Scheufler and I took to the road; straw sandal shod, camera laden pith helmeted. For 10 li our way lay along the river overlooking rafts of lumber at their moorings, early fishermen plying their paddles from light and flimsy bamboo rafts and throwing their nets from time to time, long stretches of racing white water connecting patches of placid green. Then began the climb of the famous Pass of the 3800 steps. In reality there are 4200. It's up, and up, until one stands in the shadow of the eight giant cryptomeria trees that guard the pass. On the road we met the young pastor of our church in Hsia Yang, the river village where we expected to pick up our boat again. Here and there along the way he pointed out bits of interesting scenery or regaled us with tales of the superstitions he has been fighting this past year. Two of these helped us to understand more fully that we battle against no mean enemy when we set forth on the Great Commission. Here are the two.

"Too sien sen. (that's merely my name and title) did you ever see the hill which grows a sort of a cup, a crucible like thing they like to use for melting down silver. They all say the hill gives birth to, - just grows these cups".

I confessed I had not heard, nor seen, and that I doubted the whole story. Thus does a Westerner often lose a good tale and perhaps a bit of insight into the common people's dimple heart.

Presently, however, we rounded a commonplace looking mound of earth lying in and below a pine forest.

"Here's the place. Look there, and you see a broken cup", from the pastor, "There is a good one Do you want it?"

I did. Scheufler gathered two, dull yellow, rough, without handles, all very crude of design and workmanship.

2.

It is a whole hill of buried pottery,
the majority of it but broken shards.
Somewhere back in the years that are
before the memory of the oldest in-
habitant, and which even legend has
not brought down today a family of
potters and clay burners lived on
that hill. How has their work been
thus entombed, forgotten, and now
made the object of deep superstition?

I told the pastor of the buried cities of Troy, and of
the ruins of Babylonia and Assyria, suggesting that he tell the
people to leave off their superstitious talk about the mound.
All he replied was, "I have told them. I have argued long and
know not how to cast down their belief."

"There is no way, expect to give them a new faith - in
Jesus", returned the missionary. And to this incalculably
difficult task we must bring up all of the resources of men and
the infinitely loving power of God.

Just before entering Hsia Yang
village the pastor called us to see
the Bridge of the Turning Back of
the Dragon. There it stands, span-
ning no stream and connecting no
roads; a complete bridge, surround-
ed vegetable gardens! And why?

"Once many years ago there lived
a necromancer who could divine the ways
of the evil spirits and of the Dragon.
Misfortune had so often befallen the
village that the worthy teller of public
and private fortunes was consulted.
Sagely he replied, with his mind fixed
steadfastly on the village pocketbook, "You must build a bridge
across those fields. After that manner alone will you be successful
in turning back the dragon".

Blessed in the eyes of the people is he who repairs the
bridge. How shall we destory, not its structure, for it is as
beautiful as it is useless, but the idea for which it stands?

Up the river, Past an island temple (which is
never flooded, because, they say, a mighty idol sits there in
commanding peace. A night with tent pitched on a sand beach, and
a swim in darkly rushing waters. A day on the road with lunch by a
creek, Libby's beans, Godlen State butter and Australian jam
joining up with bread, water and native plantains to put new fire
under our boilders. Down long wooded canyons, skirting brush covered
hills. There, what's that? We discover the kiln which is burning
brick and tile for our church at Hsieh K'eng. Will we come in and
see,- and drink tea? We decline the latter but inspect the former.
They have to be. Uniformly good brick in China are a matter of good
clay, a wise headed burner, and a generous portion of good luck.
We inspected it all, from the clay pit where the water buffalo
resignedly mixes the mud with his miry plodding to the kiln partly full
of the latest burn, and pronounced our, "Not very good, but can do".