Sketches from Formosa.

WORK OF THE EARLY DUTCH MISSION 34!
in the Island of his adoption for four years, being of
great service to the congregations there, because of his
exceptional skill in the language of the native tribes.
When this service had been rendered, he again filled the
ministerial office at Batavia, and on February 5th finally
returned to the Fatherland. Even so late as January 2nd,
1662, he gave proof of his linguistic skill and deep interest
in the Mission cause, by issuing at Camp Vere his
Formulary of Christianity, a laborious and careful work
of about three hundred pages with the Dutch and Formosan
printed in parallel columns.
On April I5th, 1652, the Rev. Gulielmus Brakel received
appointment, and on July 3rd
it was intended further to
strengthen the Church in Formosa by calling the
Rev. Gulielmus Pantherus, who, however, refused to go.
On March yth, 1653, the affairs of this still prosperous
Church were fully discussed in Batavia, and upon the
Kirk-session urging the members of Council to send many
more labourers into the quickly ripening harvest,
instructions were issued that the newly-appointed
Governor, Mr. Caesar, should at once proceed to make
investigation and report.
On 26th July, 1651, the Rev. Joannes Lutgens was
appointed, and afterwards laboured on the Pescadores,
where he died and was buried ; leaving four helpless
children and his wife, who became Matron of the Christian
Orphanage in Formosa. Valentyn gives few particulars
regarding the nine ministers appointed to Formosa
during the four following years, the last named on his
list being the Rev. Gulielmus Vinderus, who was called
to labour there on May 2ist, 1657.
Indeed, for a considerable time previous to this, events
had been taking place in China which were destined now
to bring rapidly about not only the cessation of all
missionary work on the Island, but the overthrow of the