“With good courage and I believe without a trembling hand, I sat down to this, my first operation not only in the Kingdom of Siam, but the first operation I think I ever undertook. It was a simple one, and oh, I cannot but catch such a glimpse of my Father’s loving-kindness in thus gently leading his poor ignorant by such simpler cases into the confidence in myself necessary to do the more serious cases which will doubtless fall to my lot.... Believing that without His blessing the simplest operation would fail and with it the most doubtful one might prosper, I lifted up my heart a moment to Him in whose name I had ventured to come among this people to try to do them good.” While attending him, a boat came up with two women, one a loathsome object full of sores and scabs—face, hands and limbs—the scars of former ulcers. A Chinaman with a scrofulous neck—a lad with gastric derangement—a boy whose leg was transfixed with a sharp piece of bamboo—so moves the procession. As he returns late for dinner he observes: “This morning was fully occupied till dinner at 2 p. m., trying to do the works of mercy—how could I send any away empty! And oh, how happy I should have been in such Christ-like works had I but knowledge of the diseases, and judgment and skill. As it is now, the deciding what is to be done with each case is an act of the mind positively painful, because I am constantly fearing that I may not follow the best possible plan.” On another day thus reads the entry: “On going down to the floating house at 9 a. m., found several new patients. A Chinaman of fifty, with caries of the lower jaw, skin of cheek adhering, pus has discharged from a large cavity within the mouth. Another Chinaman with syphilitic destruction of the bones of the nose—a hole left in the flattened face where pus was discharging.... He seemed to be in great torment—eaten of worms literally. Now a mother brings a naked child of five, having large ulcers and a lump on the thigh, the sequel of the smallpox had two or three months ago. A Chinaman brings the child of a friend; poor lad, the smallpox had destroyed one eye and blinded the other—so no hope, no remedy.” BUSY DAYS AND A BURDENED HEART The hours at the hospital were daily from early morning, frequently from six or seven o’clock, till noon. During the latter part of the afternoon he answered calls in various parts of the city. By these calls he came into the homes of the people and became better acquainted with them than he could have done under ordinary circumstances. He gives what he calls a fair specimen of the missionary physician’s life in Siam when his hands are full: