Sketches from Formosa.

l8 SKETCHES FROM FORMOSA
Our Taiwan-fu chapel is a comparatively small oblong
building in one of the busiest thoroughfares of the city.
The people enter it by a wide door next the street, which
is always kept open during the hours of public worship.
On such occasions, the first or outer compartment contains
a crowd of Chinamen who stand and listen to what is
being said, or stupidly stare and wonder at worshippers
singing and praying into vacancy. Those mere outsiders
have been attracted by the sound of the preacher's voice.
They keep coming and going during the entire service ;
so that beggars, priests, shopkeepers, coolies, and all sorts
of people may be found there at times, jostling one another,
and eagerly desirous to see and hear something about
this New Doctrine. A low wooden barrier separates the
outer from the inner compartment of the chapel, which
latter is larger, seated with forms, and reserved for the
accommodation of male members and candidates for
baptism. At its further end, a number of chairs are
placed with tables for sacramental purposes ; and on
either side there are high frames covered with blue cloth
to screen off the third or innermost compartment, in
which our female fellow- worshippers are accommodated.
The small open pulpit is placed in the middle of the passage
a few feet within line of the two screens, and is the spot
from which my beloved colleagues have often been
enabled to speak in the power and demonstration of the
Spirit.
The missionaries' dwelling-house, hospital, and students'
rooms form a collection of one-storied Chinese buildings,
which also lie within the city walls, about ten minutes'
walk from the chapel in a north-easterly direction. They
are mortgaged from one of the leading families of the
place, and immediately adjoin a wide space of ground,
where the banyan spreads out its massive branches, and
where the betel-nut palm and the orange tree may be