While here in Sorai we had a new and rather unpleasant experience with the working of the Korean _kang_, which we thought we knew well. In the midst of winter the wind suddenly turned in the wrong direction for our fires. The fire being built at one side of the house and the chimney opening at the other, we made the very chilling discovery, that when the wind blows into the smoke vent a fire cannot be coaxed to light. Our room was bitterly cold, and it is surprising how a floor, which can become intolerably hot, can also under the proper circumstances become so cold and damp. I was obliged to wrap my rheumatic frame in furs and rugs, while they brought in a great bowl or wharrow full of glowing charcoal fire, with which I was comparatively unacquainted. However, that night the room began dancing about in the giddiest kind of way, all grew dark--and my husband spent several hours with me in the cold night air outside our room, in the effort to ward off successive fainting attacks. When our child, too, complained of headache and giddiness, we no longer questioned the cause, and henceforth preferred pure cold air to carbon dioxide. It was interesting in the cold, sleety, snowy weather to see how the Christians managed to attend church, even from long distances. The women would fold up their clean skirts and put them with their shoes and stockings on their heads, roll up their pajies or divided skirts quite high out of the reach of wet, and with a thin cotton apron, or no outer wrap at all over their heads and shoulders, trudge miles through snow and mud, facing a cutting wind. Quite a number of people were examined for baptism while we were there. One old woman, whose case seemed rather doubtful on account of her ignorance, was asked what was her dearest wish. “That I may be with Jesus always” was the reply. “And how do you know you will always be with him?” “Because I am holding close to him now, and will hold close all the way.” She had at least learned that Jesus supplies the soul’s whole need, that to be in his felt presence is heaven, and that to hold and be held by him is the only way to reach and be kept there. Surely she had the end and aim of all theology in a nutshell. [Illustration: SCHOOL BOYS. [Illustration: GIRLS SEWING AND WRITING WITH NATIVE TEACHER. PAGE 191] I will copy a few notes from my diary on the testimony given by some of the people who applied for baptism at this time.