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[Letter from Young John Allen to Dr. McFerrin, July 19, 1866]

Shanghai China July 19 1866

My dear Dr. McFerrin

“The China Mission still lives,” said the College of venerable Bishops in their recent address to the Genl. Conference, “and we recommend it to your fostering care.”

Those thrilling words have reached us freighted with precious promise, and in the absence of [added] pending information as to the sequel, we cherish them as “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

The wonderful vitality of the China Mission has been no less gratifying to us, and I hope to you, than it has been [added] surprising to many of our [gap 1 word ] [deleted] doubting [added] friends; and I hope the brief exhibit I am now about to make will not prove her unworthy to still live, nor less deserving of your fostering care.

She [deleted] It [added] has been isolated long and separated from you,I’d [unclear] read “it” for “she” [deleted]

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yet withered not; been tempted, [deleted] suffered temptation [added] yet maintained her integrity; distressed, yet despaired not; embarrassed but your Missionaries served tables to minister to her nececissities and she was relieved; destitute, and they made [gap 1 word ] [deleted] her friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, and wrought with their own hands that she might not be changeable to the beloved, yet more distressed, Mother Church, and at the beginning of the year (1866) eighteen hundred and sixty six, she [deleted] it still survived to the delight of her friends and surprise of all, with her status unimpaired, her missionaries all well; her native church though small, yet vigorous; her operations enlarged, her property intact and her treasury though unreplenished for more than four years, liable for less than a thousand taels. Is there not in all this reason for profoundest gratitude to God, whose providence hath cherished the orphanage of your infant Mission? and is there not in you, sir, and in the whole church, a heart to embrace it once more? Or, shall an enterprise so important and so tenacious of life while left to itself, near [deleted] and which has [added] outlived its separation and every adversity, to perish at last, if perish it must, in the hands of its friends? God forbid.