Sketches from Formosa.

THE JAPANESE AS COLONIZERS 319
children at the Government Schools. I commended
their own view of the position, their appreciation of the
substantial advantages provided for them in those
schools, and their fear lest too high a price were paid for
those advantages by moral injury being done to their
children in the way they had pointed out. I also reminded
them that the teachers of those schools in Po-li-sia
of whom three were members of our Church in full
communion had confessedly no sympathy with the
evils complained of ; and that,
if the Christians there
only did their duty with faithfulness, there was good
hope that a better state of things might soon prevail.
could be entered
Thus, it was felt that no radical change
upon at once, although every one agreed
with several
suggestions that were made. For instance, an Aw-gu-lan
Church elder was in favour of the Christian teachers in
Japanese employ meeting for an hour every Saturday
afternoon with as many senior Church pupils as possible
for prayer and the discussion of matters relating to their
work. Another brother said that while the Authorities
could not be asked to keep the Christian pupils in classes
by themselves, the parents themselves should try and
prevent evil companionship by having some guardian
to accompany their children to and from school, or by
making sure that the Christian children should keep as
much as they could by themselves out of school hours.
I dare say that some people may regard these details as
being of very local interest, if not even trivial, but they
show something at least of what goes on when colonizing
takes place, and when Christianity first begins to reveal
itself as " the expulsive power of a new affection."
After coming out from Po-li-sia, our visitation of the
churches led us in nearly every direction over the western
side of the Prefecture. It was while thus engaged that
my attention was repeatedly called to companies of