Page:Village life in Korea (1911).djvu/262

224 to his new guest. It was the first time Mr. Chyeng had ever heard of the Jesus doctrine. The landlord offered him a New Testament and asked him to read it. This he promptly refused to do on the ground that it was printed in the native script instead of in the Chinese character which a high-class gentleman like himself was supposed to read. This vanity was soon satisfied by his being furnished with a copy of the Chinese Bible. Having nothing else to do, he set to reading it to see what it was like. The result was indeed wonderful. The word found its way to his heart, and he was soon sitting humbly at the feet of any one who could tell him more of the wonderful story and the Saviour which it revealed.

He was not long in finding our missionaries and asking them to teach him the doctrine. This they were only too glad to do. It so happened that one of the new missionaries was at that time in need of a language teacher, so Mr. Chyeng, being a scholar, was given this position. Mr. Chyeng soon proved to be not only a teacher of his pupil, but he became a most devoted follower of his teacher and the Jesus doctrine which he professed. I now recall a statement made by the missionary whose teacher he was when he had been with him several months. Somebody asked him how he liked his new teacher. Laughingly he replied that he had found but one fault with him, and that was he spent too much time in prayer. At any time during their study hours, if the conversation stopped for a few minutes, he would prostrate himself on the floor and begin to pray. The missionary by the above