The natives seemed to be less positively unfriendly than those of many other parts of China are even to this day; yet it was only with protracted and perplexing difficulties that houses in which to live could be obtained. Not long after this was accomplished, Mrs. Danforth sickened and died, and was laid in the first Christian grave at Tengchow. Then came a “rebel,” or rather a robber invasion, that carried desolation and death far and wide in that part of Shantung, and up to the very walls of Tengchow, and left the city and country in a deplorable condition of poverty and wretchedness. Two of the Baptist missionaries went out to parley with these marauders, and were cut to pieces. Next ensued a period during which rumors were rife among the people that the missionaries, by putting medicine in the wells, and by other means, practiced witchcraft; and this kept away many who otherwise might have ventured to hear the gospel, and came near to producing serious danger. After this followed a severe epidemic of cholera, filling the houses and the streets with funerals and with mourning. For a while the missionaries escaped, and did what they could for the Chinese patients; but they were soon themselves attacked; and then they had to give their time and strength to ministering to their own sick, and to burying their own dead. Mr. Gayley first, and then his child, died, and a child of one of the Baptist missionaries. Others were stricken but recovered. The epidemic lasted longest among the Chinese, and this afforded the missionaries opportunity to save many lives by prompt application of remedies; and so tended greatly to remove prejudice and to open the way for the gospel. Ten persons were admitted to membership in the church, the first fruits of the harvest which has ever since been gathering. But a sad depletion of the laborers soon afterward followed. Mrs. Gayley was compelled to take her remaining child, and go home; Mr. Danforth’s health became such that he also had to leave; the health of Mrs. Nevius, which had been poor for a long time, had become worse and, the physician having ordered her away, she and her husband went south. This left Rev. Mr. Mills and his wife as the only representatives of the Presbyterian Board, until the Mateers and Corbetts arrived, about three years after the beginning of the station by Danforth and Gayley.