It was a role of an ancient critic that a god should not be brought on the stage unless the occasion were such as to require the presence of a more than human power. _Nec deus intersit nisi dignus vindice nodus._ How many such occasions we have had to notice in the course of this narrative! What a theodicæa we have in the result of all this tribulation! We see at last, a government convinced of the folly of a policy which brought on such a succession of disastrous wars. We see missionaries and native Christians fairly well protected throughout the whole extent of the Empire. We see, moreover, a national movement in the direction of educational reform, which, along with the Gospel of Christ, promises to impart new life to that ancient people. The following incident may serve to show the state of uncertainty in which we lived during the interregnum preceding the return of the Court. While waiting for an opportunity to get my "train (the university) on the track," I spent the summer of 1901 at Pearl Grotto, my usual retreat, on the top of a hill over a thousand feet high, overlooking the capital. "The Boxers are coming!" cried my writer and servants one evening about twilight. "Haste--hide in the rocks--they will soon be on us!" "I shall not hide," I replied; and seizing my rifle I rested it on a wall which commanded the approach. They soon became visible at the distance of a hundred yards, [Page 179] waving flambeaux, and yelling like a troop of devils. Happily I reserved my fire for closer range; for leaving the path at that point they betook themselves to the top of another hill where they waved their torches and shouted like madmen. We were safe for the night; and in the morning I reported the occurrence to Mr. O'Conor, the British chargé d'affaires, who was at a large temple at the foot of the hills. "They were not Boxers," he remarked, "but a party we sent out _to look for a lost student_." POSTSCRIPT It is the fashion to speak slightingly of the Boxer troubles, and to blink the fact that the movement which led to the second capture of Peking and the flight of the Court was a serious war. The southern viceroys had undertaken to maintain order in the south. Operations were therefore localised somewhat, as they were in the Russo-Japanese War. It is even said that the combined forces were under the impression that they were coming to the rescue of a helpless government which was doing all in its power to protect foreigners. Whether this was the effect of diplomatic dust thrown in their eyes or not, _it was a fiction_.