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156 and had stopped in a small village to preach to some people in front of an inn. While there I saw a boy a short distance away with a baby strapped on his back. As the face of the child was one solid coat of scabs, it occurred to me at once that this was smallpox, and so I inquired what sort of sickness the child had. I did not understand the answer, as they gave me a name for the disease I had not before heard (I have since learned that it is the honorable term); but when I inquired if it were not smallpox, using the common term, the answer was "Yes." It is needless to say that I concluded that my duty was farther down the road, and I moved accordingly without much delay. Only a day or two following this experience, while standing in the street of a village telling the story of Jesus, I noticed a boy standing just in front of me with a fully developed case of the honorable disease. Again I broke up the meeting without a formal dismissal and moved on up the road. However, I have learned to trust the Lord and the big scar on my left arm, and am not so much afraid of the great spirit as I was at that time.

There is a very strange superstition connected with this disease that causes people not to bury a child when it dies of smallpox until the other children in the family have recovered from the disease, in case there be others to have it. They say the spirit will be insulted by digging the grave, and will cause other children of the family to have a severe case, scratching their faces and thus leaving them badly disfigured for life. Hence the body of the dead child is wrapped in