of Formosa.

A Hoa needed all his kind new friend's help in the first days
after his conversion. For family, relatives, and friends turned
upon him with the bitterest hatred for taking up the barbarian's
religion. So, driven from his friends, he came to live in the
little hut by the river with Mackay. While at home these two
read, sang, and studied together all the day long. It would have
been hard for an observer to guess who was teacher and who pupil.
For at one time A Hoa was receiving Bible instruction and the
next time Mackay was being drilled in the Chinese of the educated
classes. Each teacher was as eager to instruct as each pupil was
eager to learn.

The Bible was, of course, the chief textbook, but they studied
other things, astronomy, geology, history, and similar subjects.
One day the Canadian took out a map of the world, and the Chinese
gazed with amazement at the sight of the many large countries
outside China. A Hoa had been private secretary to a mandarin,
and had traveled much in China, and once spent six months in
Peking. His idea had been that China was everything, that all
countries outside it were but insignificant barbarian places. His
geography lessons were like revelations.

His progress was simply astonishing, as was also Mackay's. The
two seemed possessed with the spirit of hard work. But a
superstitious old man who lived near believed they were possessed
with a demon. He often listened to the two singing, drilling, and
repeating words as they marched up and down, either in the house
or in front of it, and he became alarmed. He was a kindly old