Every-Day Life in Korea A Collection of By Rev. Daniel L. Gifford Eight Years a Missionary in Korea PREFACE The author has had in mind a number of classes of readers in the preparation of this book; among others, business men, fond of facts in a compact form, ladies in the missionary societies, ever alert to add to their fund of missionary information, and another class still, found in the young people's societies, who enjoy information presented in a pictorial or narrative form. We all are fond of hearing of things that have a human interest; and we like to know how other people live their lives and do their work in the world, especially if their experiences and environments are quite different from our own. The pages that follow may be characterized, in the main, as a series of pictures of life in Korea-life in the olden time, as history has presented it; modern, every-day life, as the Westerner living among an Oriental people sees it; life as it is affected by the work of the Christian missionary; and, finally, the life of the missionary himself. The author acknowledges his indebtedness for much of suggestion and material to the writings of others who have dealt with things Korean-"Corea, the Hermit Nation," by Rev. W. E. Griffis, D.D.; "Korea from its Capital," by Rev. George W. Gilmore; "Korea and her Neighbors," by Mrs. Isabella Bird Bishop; the "Encyclopedia of Missions;" the "Seoul Independent;" the "Korean Repository." In one respect, however, this book will be observed to differ from all the other volumes upon Korea that have preceded it, and that is in the proportion of its pages devoted to a presentation of the missionary work of the land. Here it will be found that the work has been traced historically from its beginnings, its many-sided development fully portrayed, with a chapter at the close on that glorious, evangelistic, forward movement now in progress in the country, the spread of which continually reminds the workers on the field that in a very peculiar manner they are "laborers together with God." DANIEL L. GIFFORD. MENDOTA, ILL., Nov., 1897. |