Kiukiang, Oct. 22d, 1873.

Dear Sister:

After I had been absent from home five months without hearing a word from my friends, I was very much gratified the other morning when Bro. Hart opened the door and uttered those magical words, "Letter from home!" I was busy reading, but the interest in the subject was gone in a moment; it was before breakfast, but I would have been provoked beyond endurance if the servant had called me just then. Your letter contained a great deal of interesting information, but it was too short, considering the long distance it had to come. I received it just eight weeks after it was mailed at Nairn. The other letters of Kinnison and Whitmore also came. I would not have missed that of Kinnison's for a great deal.

I am all alone now in the Mission Building, Bro. Hart being on the way to Japan. I have a new servant boy, and he is quite faithful and industrious. My meals are generally well gotten up, and my health and appetite are all I could wish. It costs me about $30 per month to live, but my salary is over $50. The fruit here is very limited in kind and generally inferior in quality. There are no apples, and I long to get some of those russets and Rome beauties that lie in the orchard at home. I have not seen an apple for months and months. But there are two kinds of fruit here which throw those in America into the shade. They are chestnuts and persimmons. The chestnuts are of wonderful size, and the persimmons twice as large as yours, and seven times as luscious being entirely free from any bitter taste. Our butter, milk, etc., all come from England or the United States. The only kind of milk we get is condensed milk, a coagulated, creamy substance, put up in little cans, worth $2.00 a half dozen.

You desired me to write a piece for the S. School at Blue Run, and I enclose a letter of eight or ten pages. I will not extend this letter by going over the matters I have written in the other. The mail closes at noon to-day (I did not know it until an hour ago), and I must hasten. It will be a long time before I see you again -- I suppose at least nine or ten years; and how many changes may take place in that time! Yet I never feel troubled about hearing from some of my friends, for I am satisfied that whether they live or die, all will be well. I wish it were true of all those to whom I am bound by the ties of nature and friendship. When I think of the painful trials through which you passed during the first part of your religious experience, until at last you could rejoice in the consciousness of God's love, and how you have gradually become rooted and grounded in the Christian life, my eyes fill with tears and my heart with gratitude. I believe you are a true Christian, and that your experience has been of such a nature as to firmly establish you in the faith. And so long as you remain so, you cannot be otherwise than a very great blessing to the world.

I expect another letter from home by the coming mail, which is to be here in 3 days. The American mail always goes out 2 or 3 days before we get ours from home.

Your aff. brother

A. Stritmatter

I enclose some specimens of Chinese characters. The 214 radicals are the roots from which all the other characters are derived. I have learned them all and as many others besides. Show them to the S. School. A.S.