offered her. It had not been easy for this young girl, only eighteen years
old, to decide to leave her home and her country and take the long journey
to a foreign land, whose language she could not speak, and whose customs
were utterly strange to her, to remain there long enough to receive the
college and medical education which would enable her to do the work planned
for her on her return to China. So far as she knew she was the only Chinese
young woman who had ever left China to seek an education in another
country; and indeed she was the second, the only one who had preceded her
being Dr. You Mé King, the adopted daughter of Dr. and Mrs. McCartee, of
Ningpo, who had gone to America with them a few years before. King Eng's
parents did not oppose her going, but neither did they encourage it. They
told her fully of the loneliness she would experience in a foreign country;
the dangers and unpleasantness of the long ocean voyage she would have to
take; and the unparalleled situation in which she would find herself on her
return ten years later, unmarried at twenty-eight. But with a quiet faith
and purpose, and a courage nothing short of heroic, King Eng answered, "If
the Lord opens the way and the cablegram says 'Come,' I shall surely go;
but if otherwise I shall do as best I can and labour at home."

Years afterward, when two other girls from the Foochow Boarding School
were leaving China for a period of study in America, a farewell meeting was
held for them in the school, at which Dr. Hü told how she had reached her
decision to go. She said: "I was the first Fuhkien province girl to go to
America.... My father told me, 'I cannot decide for you; you must pray to
God. If you are to go, God will show you.' Then I felt God's word come to
me, 'Fear not, for I will go with you wherever you go.' At that time the
school girls were seldom with the missionary ladies and I could not speak
any English, therefore I did not know any American politeness; and all my
clothes and other daily-need-things were not proper to use in the western
country. Although everything could not be according to my will, I trusted