From Hankow. He spent yesterday at the Union Church where he preached on "Mine eyes have seen thy salvation". Spiritual matters are discussed. He had tiffin at Dr Dannoch's with Eleanor and Reginald Close, who H B R had shown around Hankow and Hanyang on Saturday and the 'lads' have shown around Wuchang today. Close seems to be in 'good form' and he liked Shanghai apparently.
[James] Webster officiated at the 4.30 service yesterday. They had a party of eleven to eat the second half of Shih Lao Pai's turkey, the first half having been eaten on Friday night. There are four people and Dr McClelland in this house to start with - McClelland came down here for the week with Miss Brown, who sailed for England last night. H B R, [Dr John W.] Pell and Miss Spillman saw her off after which they all returned, sang hymns and then five or six of the men stayed on until midnight. The final event of the evening was Pell's tale of the Hanchuan robbery.
This afternoon a party went to see Charlie Chaplin in City Lights. It was great fun but also very serious in a way.
H B R had intended to go off for three days to Tayeh tonight, but decided last night that he could not leave the accounts for a week, so he has made other arrangements.
The Gedyes [family of Alfred John Gedye] and Hadwens [family of Arthur Preston Hadwen] will soon be here, while the Grattons [family of James Maxwell Gratton] and Miss Sanderson start for England a fortnight tonight. After that comes [James] Heady and then the old missionaries will be returning after furlough. As far as H B R can tell, he will be spending a considerable part of March in the North. The Synod meeting is in April followed by the Nanking M.E.M. Quadrennial Conference. By the end of the month he would probably have left the district.
He thinks that there must be one or two mails around which have been delayed by the holiday season. They seem to be getting two mails a fortnight instead of one a week.
'I wonder how goes the missionary income. Pretty hard going, I guess. England is so apparently prosperous that I hope K. K. Hsiao will not miss the point of strenuous effort required each year'.
He wondering also how the Haddon Committee has gone [investigating into the circumstances of George Haddon's resignation from the China work]. Once a resignation has been offered and accepted, nowhere outside China or Ireland would it be appropriate to reopen the matter. There cannot be many people who know Haddon well enough to handle him. [James] Heady has certainly learned a valuable lesson about the possible instability of colleagues and every lesson learned is a valuable one.
[William H.] Pillow's death is a considerable loss to Hunan District, although it did look like his return [to China] was open to doubt. [John Howard] Stanfield has been ill but presumably no news is good news.