What Christianity Is Doing for the Village. 235
to-day, aside from Christian literature there are but few books within reach of the common village people.
Love and Courtship. — These terms are here used in the highest and best sense, and are intended to cover all the social relations of young people of both sexes which lead up to marriage, which is always the foundation of the true home. In our village life there are no social meetings of any sort that bring the young people together. As has been said in another chapter, the wife is selected by the relatives of the husband without his having anything to do with the matter. Of course under these circumstances there can be no courtship, and in most cases little or no love. If a Korean man loved his wife, he would be ashamed to acknowledge it.
But things are changing, even in Korea, and Christianity is by no means the least of the forces now liberating her from her own dark past and leading her into a brighter and better day.
It has been my privilege to see wonderful changes in Korea since coming here in 1899. At that time Christians were counted by tens and hundreds; now they are numbered by thousands and hundreds of thousands. At that time our mission was in its infancy, having three men and three women (not counting wives) on the field. We had about twenty-five groups of believers, all told numbering between three and four hundred. Our last annual report shows that we have 306 societies or organized Churches, not counting many groups that meet regularly for worship. In these societies there are 6,017 full members, with
