河北省正定教區舊貌和一些資料4-6

BSERVAT I ONS IN THE ORIENT city about a mile distant. But, after all, what is a trip to China without at least a few of the ancient inconveniences which give a man an opportunity to draw the longbow whenhetellshis unsuspecting friends at home of his travels? Off I journeyed, then, behind a little donkey whose driver, a young well-built Chinaman, let us down gently into the holes by the simple pressure of his hand on the donkey's back. We reached the city wall in twenty minutes but had to follow it another half-mile before we arrived at the gate; and as we entered I woke to a realization that Chengtingfu is really a thousand years old. There were Chinese innumerable, with noise and mud enough to satisfy them all. We fell into a line of carts, wheeled around the enclosure that looked now like a dungeon with its massive high walls, and passed through a flooded area to the inner gate.Then we bumped along the main street — an unpaved alley about fourteen feet wide — until we could go no further, when I crawled out and we walked away from the squalid houses into open fields that revealed the size of Chengtingfu, with its eight miles of surrounding wall. Two wee Chinese children whom we passed were frightened to a cry as soon as I tried to get their little faces through my kodak lens, and as I finished the attempt the Bishop pointed to a corner of the city wall with the announce- ment that we were in sight of the Cathedral. Two towers were there, massive although not beautiful, yet crowning with dignity the large well-proportioned church for which they stood as sentinels. We were soon on a footpath, and after crossing a few ditches arrived at the wall of the Mission compound. Some children saluted the Bishop gleefully as we came to the gate and he responded cordially, to the evident delight of the little ones. The Cathedral will accommodate more than a thousand persons, and is the work of a Lazarist Brother. It is solid, simply fur- nished, and, as usual, in the north at this season, cold — but the faith of good priests, of holy virgins, of redeemed orphans, and of a simple people keeps it warm enough to satisfy those who worship within its gray walls.