Four Years in Upper Burma by W.R. Winston — Read

One peculiar and sadly interesting feature of mission work in a new country is the duty of seeking the lost. Whenever a new country is opened, it not only offers a sphere for steady young men seeking one, but it always attracts also many adventurers, wanderers and prodigals from the more settled communities, and they come in considerable numbers. The annexation of Upper Burma was a case of this kind, and the hope of employment brought over persons, some of whom were to be found serving in positions very different from what they or their friends ever expected them to occupy. I remember one day, whilst visiting Kyaukse on mission business, meeting casually a man of this kind. I heard there was an Englishman lying ill in a certain rest-house. I found the man all alone and very ill, suffering apparently from cholera, which was then very prevalent. He was quite deserted and destitute, unable to attend to himself, and in a very neglected condition. The building was the usual Burmese _zayat_, built of teak, without any furniture whatever, nothing but the man's mattress and pillow spread on the floor. I sent for the Government apothecary, and in the meantime got him some chicken broth made, for he had no food, sponged him, and made him as comfortable as I could.

He told me something of his history. He was an Englishman, and had been brought up respectably, and was a near relation of a minister of the Gospel in England. He was a ne'er-do-weel, and had been in many employments in different parts of the world; at one time at sea in a whaling ship, and at that time driving a locomotive engine, with ballast trains, on the new Mandalay railway, then under construction. His failing, and the cause of all his misery and degradation, was drink. The apothecary gave him medicine, and he recovered, and seemed very grateful to me for the attentions I had shown him. He admitted his faults very candidly, and we had, before I left the next day, a long and serious talk, with prayer. I saw him once afterwards at our service on a Sunday evening in Mandalay, and he seemed altogether brighter and better. Shortly afterwards he left the neighbourhood, stating he wished to break off from his bad companions and start life anew, and I saw him no more.