The Black-Bearded Barbarian : The Life of George Leslie Mackay of Formosa
John Stuart Mill · en
He returned to his mission work more on fire than ever. If he had been
received with acclaim in his native land, his Formosan friends' welcome
was not less warm. Crowds of converts, all his students who were not
too far inland, and among them, Mr. Junor, his face all smiles, were
thronging the dock, many of them weeping for joy. It was as if a
long-absent father had come back to his children.
The work went forward now by leaps and bounds. Mackay's first thought,
after a hurried visit to the chapels and their congregations, was to see
that the hospital and college were built.
All day long the sound of the builders could be heard up on the bluff
near the missionaries' houses, and in a wonderfully short time there
arose two beautiful, stately buildings. Mackay hospital they called one,
not for Kai Bok-su--he did not like things named for him--but in memory
of the husband of the kind lady who had furnished the money for it. The
school for training young men in the ministry was called Oxford College,
in honor of the county whose people had made it possible.
Oxford College stood just overlooking the Tamsui river, two hundred feet
above its waters. The building was 116 feet long and 67 feet wide, and
was built of small red bricks brought from across the Formosa Channel.
A wide, airy hall ran down the middle of the building, and was used as
a lecture-room. On either side were rooms capable of accommodating fifty
students and apartments for two teachers and their families. There
were, besides, two smaller lecture-rooms, a museum filled with treasures
collected from all over Formosa by Dr. Mackay and his students, a
library, a bathroom, and a kitchen.
The grounds about the college and hospital were very beautiful. Nature
had given one of the finest situations to be found about Tamsui, and Kai
Bok-su did the rest. The climate helped him, for it was no great task to
have a luxurious garden in north Formosa. So, in a few years there were
magnificent trees and hedges, and always glorious flower beds abloom all
the time around the missionary premises.
But all this was not accomplished without great toil, and Kai Bok-su
appeared never to rest in those building days. It seemed impossible
that one man should work so hard, he was in Tamsui superintending the
hospital building to-day, and away off miles in the country preaching
to-morrow. He never seemed to get time to eat, and he certainly slept
less than his allotted four hours.
A great disappointment was pending, however, and one he saw coming
nearer every day. The trying Formosan climate was proving too much for
his young assistant, and one sad day he stood on the dock and saw Mr.
Junor, pale and weak and broken in health, sail away back to Canada.