that no wonder they cried,

"Illha Formosa! Illha Formosa!"

"Beautiful Isle! Beautiful Isle." Since that day the "Beautiful
Isle," perhaps the most charming in all the world, has been
called Formosa.

And, somehow, Mackay longed to see this Beautiful Isle before he
decided where he was going to preach the gospel. And so when the
kind friends at Swatow said, "Stay and work with us," he always
answered, "I must first see Formosa."

So, one day, he sailed away from the mainland toward the
Beautiful Isle. He landed at Takow in the south of the island,
just about Christmas-time. But Formosa was green, the weather was
hot, and he could scarcely believe that, at home in Oxford
county, Ontario, they were flying over the snow to the music of
sleigh-bells. On New Year's day he met a missionary of this south
Formosa field, named Dr. Ritchie. He belonged to the Presbyterian
Church of England, which had a fine mission there. For nearly a
month Mackay visited with him and studied the language.

And while he visited and worked there the missionaries told him
of the northern part of the island. No person was there to tell
all those crowded cities of Jesus Christ and His love. It would
be lonely for him there, it would be terribly hard work, but it
would be a grand thing to lay the foundations, to be the first to
tell those people the "good news," the young missionary thought.
And, one day, he looked up from the Chinese book he was studying