And then they turned toward the heathen temple and delivered it
over to Kai Bok-su for a chapel in which he and his students
might preach the gospel.
And so the temple was lighted up for a new kind of worship. It
had been used for worship many, many times before, but oh, how
different it was this time! Instead of coming in fear of demons,
dread of their gods' anger, and determination to cheat them if
possible, these poor folk crowded into the new-old temple with
light, happy hearts, as children coming to their Father. And was
not God their Father, only they had not known him before?
The heathen temple was dedicated to the worship of the true God
by singing the old but always new, one hundredth Psalm. The
Lam-si-hoan were not very good singers. They had not much idea of
tune. They had less idea of just when to start, and there was
very little to be said about the harmony of those hundreds of
voices. But in spite of it all, Kai Bok-su had to confess that
never in the music of his homeland or in the more finished
harmonies of Europe, had he heard anything so grandly uplifting
as when those newly-freed people stood up in their idol temple
and with heart and soul and voice unitedly poured forth in
thunderous volume of praise the great command:
All people that on earth do dwell,
Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice.
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