Page:Enterprise and Adventure.djvu/148

128 for the remainder of his days. Indeed, he would have been well contented if he had experienced no greater trouble than resulted from a total privation of the refinements in which a cultivated mind finds pleasure. Unfortunately, while he was at Sivang, the governor of the country, alarmed by the excesses of the Chinese sectaries and secret societies which have since become so dangerous to the Chinese rule, ordered a severe inquiry to be made into the habits of persons suspected of professing Christianity, imagining, probably with justice, that there was some connection between that religion and the societies. The poor bishop was in consequence exposed to many dangers, but was preserved by the kindness of some mandarins, whose friendship had been gained by his pious life and simple manners. Escaped from the dangers of persecution, he now began his perilous journey to Corea; but he was destined never to reach the land which was the final object of his wanderings. He had scarcely reached the frontiers when the hunger and fatigue which he had so often encountered finally overcame him. News of his death was brought to the little Christian settlement at Sivang, who piously preserved and sent to Europe the bishop's interesting journals of his wanderings to that spot.