Over all other objects of worship, they believe, is the great Heavens, the personification of the visible heavens, who, as nearly as I can discover, is identical with the Baal referred to in the Old Testament; but everywhere their faith waxes more and more feeble in these old worn-out superstitions. In many cases only respect for ancient customs and public opinion keeps them even in appearance to the outward forms of worship. They are as sheep without a shepherd, lost in the wilderness, “faint and hungry, and ready to die,” and so when the gospel comes, it finds many weary souls, ready to take Christ’s yoke upon them and find his rest. And yet how hopeless looked the task we had before us in those days, a little company of scarce a dozen people, including our Methodist brethren, many of us able to stammer only a few words of the language as yet, attempting to introduce Christianity into a nation of fourteen or more millions of people, in the place of their long established religions; and beginning with a few poor farmers and old women. But the elements of success, the certainty of victory, lay in the divine nature of the religion, and in the Almighty God who sent us with it. This knowledge inspired us and this alone. A few days after my arrival in Seoul a messenger came from the queen, to bid me welcome, and inquire if I had had a pleasant journey, and shortly after Mrs. Heron asked some of the queen’s attendants to meet me at luncheon. These women are not, as in other courts, ladies of high rank, for such could never, under Korean customs, endure the publicity of the palace, but are taken as children and young girls from the middle and lower classes, and entirely separated from all others, to the service of their majesties. They usually hold no rank, and are treated with respect, only on account of their relations to the royal family. They wear on all state occasions immense quantities of false hair, which gives them a peculiarly grotesque appearance; are much powdered and perfumed, with pencilled and shaven eyebrows; wear long flowing silken robes, gilded ornaments in their hair and at their waists; and present the sad spectacle of women whose very decorations seem only to add to and emphasize their painful uncomeliness. [Illustration: MAIN ENTRANCE TO PALACE. PAGE 20]