There are about 75 Protestant and 34 Roman missionaries in Korea, mostly in Seoul. The language has the reputation of being very difficult, and few of this large number have acquired facility in the use of it. The idea of a nation destitute of a religion, and gladly accepting one brought by the foreigner, must be dropped. The religion the Korean would accept is one which would show him how to get money without working for it. The indifference is extreme, the religious faculty is absent, there are no religious ideas to appeal to, and the moral teachings of Confucius have little influence with any class. The Korean has got on so well without a religion, in his own opinion, that he does not want to be troubled with one, specially a religion of restraint and sacrifice which has no worldly good to offer. After nearly twelve years of work, the number of baptized native Protestant Christians in 1897 was 777.[10] The Roman Catholics claim 28,802, and that the average rate of increase is 1,000 a year.[11] Their priests live mostly in the wretched hovels of the people, amidst their foul surroundings, and share their unpalatable food and sordid lives. Doubtless, mission work in Korea will not differ greatly from such work elsewhere among the older civilizations. Barriers of indifference, superstition, and inertness exist, and whatever progress is made will probably be chiefly through medical missions, showing Christianity in action, and native agency, and through such schools as I have already alluded to, which leave every feature of Korean custom, dress, and manner of living untouched, while Christian instruction and training are the first objects, and where the gentle, loving, ennobling influence of the teacher is felt during every hour of the day. FOOTNOTES: [10] In 1897 the influence of Christianity was much stronger than in 1895, and the prospects of its spread much more encouraging. [11] For statistics of Missions in February, 1897, see Appendix. CHAPTER V THE SAILING OF THE SAMPAN At a point when the difficulties in the way of my projected journey had come to be regarded as insurmountable, owing to the impossibility of getting an interpreter, and I had begun to say “_if_ I go” instead of “_when_ I go,” Mr. Miller, a young missionary, offered his services, on condition that he might take his servant to supplement his imperfect knowledge of Korean. Bishop Corfe provided me with a Chinese servant, Wong, a fine, big, cheery fellow, with inexhaustible good-nature and contentment, never a cloud of annoyance on his face, always making the best of everything, ready to help every one, true, honest, plucky, passionately fond of flowers, faithful, manly, always well and hungry, and with a passable knowledge of English! He was a Chefoo _sampan_-man when Bishop Corfe picked him up, and nothing could make him into a regular servant, but he suited me admirably, and I was grieved indeed when I had to part with him.