Page:The Chinese Empire. A General & Missionary Survey.djvu/443

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THE CHINESE EMPIRE
365

and others, to study the Mongolian language, and it seemed as if Mr. Gilmour's prayers were being answered, and the day of Mongolia's redemption was drawing nigh.

The only dictionary of Mongolian words that could be obtained was Schmidt's, which gave the meanings in German and Russian. With a great amount of labour, Mr. and Mrs. Larson translated the whole book into English and Swedish, so as to make it more helpful to the missionaries.

Then came the terrible Boxer Uprising. Mr. Stenberg had obtained a good mission station in Southern Mongolia at Patzupulung, fourteen days' journey west of Kalgan. A Mongol woman named Halahan, who was brought there in a wretched filthy condition, so sick that her life was despaired of, had been nursed and loved back to life and health by the missionary sisters, and had been taught the love of God. There were then at that place the Misses Anderson, Miss Hannah Lund, Mr. Stenberg, and one or two other missionary gentlemen. Halahan was urged by the missionaries to leave them and escape, but would not do so, and with them won a martyr's crown. Messrs. Friedstrom and Suber, who had spent the winter among the Northern Mongols at Uliassutai, went southward across the desert of Gobi to the place where their friends had suffered; there Mr. Suber was put to death, and Mr. Friedstrom barely escaped, and, after extreme peril and suffering, reached Urga and Siberia. Mr. and Mrs. Larson and their two children, with a large company of Swedish and American missionaries, also fled to the north, and, in the kind providence of God, reached Urga and Kiachta. Mr. Larson was the captain of the caravan, and his ability to speak the Mongolian language, and to arrange all matters of business, together with his courage and his known skill with his rifle, were a means of salvation to all his comrades. The story of this, journey is given in detail in A Flight for Life and An Inside View of Mongolia, published by the Pilgrim Press, Boston, Mass., U.S.A.

In the Uprising, the Mongolian Dictionary in English