Some months later I passed through a time of great trial and sorrow; the death of a beloved child, the sending home of three others, and the most trying time in China through which our beloved Mission has ever passed, bringing innumerable difficulties and perplexities; but it was also a time of deepened spiritual joy and rest, and of experience that my SAVIOUR was sufficient for every emergency. In Tientsin the Sisters of Mercy, the French Priests, and Consul had been massacred, and in all our inland stations there was excitement and peril. Almost daily I had letters from some group of workers asking for guidance, and wondering whether to stay or leave the station, as work for the time being was impossible. I knew not what to advise, but in each case, like Hezekiah, I spread the letters before the LORD, and trusted Him to teach me how to reply to them. There was no conscious revelation, but in every instance I was guided to reply in the way that led to the best results, and I sent each letter off in the joyful peace of knowing that I had asked and He had granted the wisdom that is profitable to direct. Just at this crisis my dear first wife had an attack of cholera, from which she rallied with difficulty; a little one was born and only lived a fortnight, a wet nurse not being procurable in that time of excitement. But again the Living Water proved sufficient for her and for me. The very evening after the funeral of the babe, my precious wife had an attack of syncope, from which she did not fully recover, and early the next morning she too was taken. Then I understood why the LORD had made this passage so real to me. An illness of some weeks followed, and oh I how lonesome at times were the weary hours when confined to my bed; how I missed my dear wife, and the little pattering footsteps of the children far away in England. Perhaps twenty times in a day, as I felt the heart-thirst coming back again, I cried to the LORD, "You promised me that I should never thirst", and at once the LORD came and more than satisfied my sorrowing heart, so that I often wondered whether it were possible that my loved one who had been taken could be enjoying a fuller revelation of His presence than I in the loneliness of my chamber. He had literally fulfilled the prayer--
"LORD JESUS, make Thyself to me A living, bright reality; More present to faith's vision keen Than any earthly object seen; More dear, more intimately nigh Than e'en the sweetest human tie."