Another case was that of a man and his wife, well educated and of fine appearance. He had invested all his money in a business that did not pay. They sold their little property for almost nothing and then their clothes. He could get no kind of employment, and at last they were so reduced that the wife had to conceal herself in the hut where they stayed, for want of clothes, and their almost starving heathen neighbors gave them a few handfuls of rice to eat. An empty pocket and a naked back are about the worst certificates a man can show to get employment or position of any kind. Nobody wants such a recommendation, not even a Christian. Accursed is poverty, for in proportion to his descent in destitution, a man is less liable to receive anything. The rich, who need nothing, have money thrown into their laps and positions thrust upon them, but the greater a person’s necessities, the less he gets. This is a strange contradictory world, yet this is also nature’s law. The more you enrich a field the more it gives you in return, the more I improve my bungalows, the higher rents I can get, but what is the use of talking; the poor cannot grow fat on illustrations and arguments. If the poor whites have such a struggle for life what must be the condition of the destitute Eurasians who from their emaciated looks have not even rice to eat? Some months passed and again I became restless. I thought that in the economic arrangement of nature in which everything has its function and uses I also must have my place and work; that I, not less than an active mosquito or a creeping snail, could not have been forgotten in the universal plan. I knew I must first fit myself for a position. As I had tried to learn the mercantile business, so I thought of engineering. This was no sooner considered than settled. Even if I did not find employment by it I would have the discipline and knowledge of the science, so would lose nothing and be a gainer by it. I entered an engineering college and passed several successful and happy years without anything really worth mentioning occurring except several incidents that were of great importance to me.