Chapter III: OUR WORK FOR MOTHERS AND CHILDREN is to be distinguished from the

Rescue work among the female slaves bought and sold for the worst of purposes, who constitute a large majority of all the Chinese women in California. This latter work our Presbyterian and Methodist Missions have been doing for many years at large expense and with good results. They were prepared to take care of all who would come to them, and we did not enter into that field, for we never have used missionary money for the purpose of competition with other denominations, and we never will. The mothers living in wedlock and their children constitute our field, and wherever we have missions this is carried on with more or less activity according to the number of families and the welcomes extended. In Los Angeles, Marysville, San Francisco and Watsonville, there are visitors giving to this undertaking so much of their time as to make it necessary to assist in their support. I doubt if any human beings anywhere on earth have more hindrances to overcome, more lions to face, more superstitions to be laid aside in coming to Christ, than have the Chinese women. The tyranny of heathen husbands, the scorn of neighbors, the vague dread of untold calamities which the ghosts of the dead will inflict upon them if not duly worshipped, the stories told them of children kidnapped, eyes put out, hurtful spells thrown upon people by foreign devils; all these and other obstacles must be met and overcome. But Christian kindness will overcome everything if persistently shown, and I believe the time is coming when the harvest among these Chinese mothers will exceed, in proportion to the numbers within reach of us, any reaped elsewhere. I would like to go into the details of this comparatively new work but my limits forbid it.