[Illustration: INDEPENDENCE ARCH. PAGE 38] They found a little company of earnest simple-hearted believers, who had thrown away their idols, ceased their ancestor worship, and were in all things, as far as they knew, obeying the Lord. But “the washing rite,” as baptism was translated, puzzled them. “_He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved._” What then was this? They pondered and studied. God showed them it was in some way a sign of washing from sin, and when after long waiting, no teacher came, they agreed that each going to his own home should wash himself in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, praying for himself and his brethren, that if in anything they had sinned in this rite, God would forgive them. And so the missionaries found them, and though for the sake of due order they were baptized in the prescribed way, it was felt that in God’s sight it had already been done. When for the first time they all sat down to commemorate the Lord’s death in the service of bread and wine, there was not a dry eye in the room. Tears streamed from the face of Dr. Cho, and later one of his neighbors said, when speaking in an experience meeting, “Old Cho, known as ‘hard-hearted Cho,’ who as a boy never uttered a cry when his father flogged him, who never wept when he laid his aged mother in the grave, whose eyes never moistened when his beloved wife died, or when he buried his eldest son, on whose cheek man never saw a tear, Cho weeps. What miracle has brought tears to his eyes?” While Dr. Avison and Mr. Underwood were in Koksan, wondering and worshiping over the proofs of how God blesses his word, applied to simple hearts, startling things were taking place in Seoul. The king, who had now been four months helpless in the hands of his enemies, suddenly made good his escape to the Russian legation! The story, as we heard it from one near the king, was as follows: Wearied and sick at heart of affairs of state, his majesty retired to the women’s apartments, where he spent his entire time, escaping thus to some extent the detestable espionage of his enemies, who delegated two elderly women, one the wife of the Tai Won Kun, and another, whose duty it was to watch his majesty in turn, one by day, the other by night. Their vigilance was, however, in some way sufficiently eluded, so that a plan for the royal prisoner’s escape was arranged with two of the palace women, which was successfully carried out as follows: