SKETCH IV
Opening a New Station
Part I. THE MISSIONARY'S HOME
Wee Nell's eyes had closed at last, and the tired mother rising from the child's bedside crossed the cement floor to the adjoining room, where a boy of six was busily engaged drawing on a blackboard to the evident delight of his little sister.
"My boy," said his mother, "baby has just gone to sleep and must not be disturbed. These constant crowds of women keep her from proper rest, so run out with your little sister to the back compound and play."
As the children disappeared, the mother prepared to cut out some little garments, but scarcely had she taken scissors in hand when suddenly she laid them down again, and stood listening. In the distance could be heard the noisy shouts of a band of cotton gleaners. "Would they come in?" she asked herself. Then, as they could be heard sweeping through the front gateway, she pushed her work to one side exclaiming aloud, "Oh, dear, dear, how can I ever get the children's clothes made! If only a rainy day would come I might get something made."
"Patience, patience," her husband's voice came through the study door. "These crowds will not last indefinitely, so do your best to reach them while you may." Before he had finished speaking his wife's voice could be heard greeting the crowd in the courtyard.
"Please sit down here in the shade and rest, do sit down, see, here are benches and mats," she urged as they crowded about her, a wild unruly mob.
"We have come to see," cried a dozen voices at once.
"I know you have," she replied, trying to speak so as not to waken the baby and yet be heard above the din of voices. "I really cannot let you inside unless you first sit down and listen to what I have to say." Then as they still hesitated she continued, "If you will sit down and listen, I will promise to let you inside and show you everything." This promise had the desired effect – down they sat on mats, some on benches, – a few timid ones kept close to the gate so as to be ready to flee at the first approach of danger! As the mother tried to tell them why she had come – of a Saviour from sin – of a hope after death, some listened intently and seemed to get a gleam of light, but for the most part the crowd was restless and keen only to get inside the house about which they had heard so many strange stories. At last baby Nell wakened, and making the fact known by lusty cries, gave the women the opportunity they desired.
As the mother ran to her little one the crowd of forty or fifty women and children pressed in after her. With the baby in her arms the mother faithfully kept her promise. Nothing escaped their curious eyes – beds were turned back, drawers opened, sewing machine examined, and organ played before they appeared satisfied. Whereupon they rushed off as quickly as they had come, saying to one another, "The foreign devil woman does not seem as bad as people say she is." Others said, "But who knows, you can never judge by appearances!" Half an hour later the husband returned from the man's preaching to find his wife in tears.
"Why, what's wrong?" he asked.
"Oh, everything," his wife replied between her sobs. "I just can't bear it. You don't know how they despise me and what terrible things they are saying. Besides when I came back to my work I found they had carried off my last pair of scissors and part of the material I was making a dress of. That is not all. The cook has just been in to say that several teaspoons are missing."
"Tut, tut," replied her husband, man-like. "That's nothing. Why they are only things anyway!"
A few days later came the missionary's turn to need sympathy. He came in from the front looking pale and apparently quite worn out.
"I tell you what, wife," he said, "I cannot stand this strain much longer without help! If I only had a good preacher to put in charge of the preaching hall, I could get along; but with lime to weigh, bricks to count, wood and timber to measure, and all the Mission accounts to keep, besides the oversight of all these workmen, and the preaching to these crowds of men that are coming daily, well – I just must get help."
He went into his study, but returned a moment later with an open Bible in his hand. Pointing to these words, "My God shall supply all your need," he said, "Wife, do we really believe this? If we do, then let us join in asking God to meet this pressing need of ours for an evangelist."
"But how is it possible," returned his wife. "We have not got even one convert yet, and have promised the other stations not to ask help of them as they are undermanned?"
"True, but God is able to fulfil His own promises."
As the husband prayed, the wife thought, "but, oh, how can help come. It is as if we were praying for rain from a clear sky."
Two days later the answer did come, – not, indeed, as they expected, but above all they could have thought. The story of this must be left for our next sketch.
Part II. AS RAIN FROM A CLEAR SKY
"Call upon me in the day of trouble and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me."
A poor broken opium slave lay on a kang or brick bed with only a thin straw mat between his emaciated form and the cold bricks. His livid color, with the peculiar dark shade of the moderate opium user, his sunken cheeks and labored breathing, all betokened the man had reached the stage when only a miracle could save him. Beside him stood a missionary, who was saying earnestly as he laid his hand kindly on the man's shoulder:
"Wang Pu Lin, I tell you God can save you."
"No, no, Pastor," the man replied sadly, "It's no use. I've tried and failed too often. I believe all you preach, but what is the use of believing when this opium binds me as with iron chains? Even Pastor Hsi's Refuge failed to cure me. No no, don't waste your time on me. I'm beyond hope." And the man turned again to his opium.
But the missionary was not the kind to be so easily rebuffed. The next day found Wang Pu Lin and the missionary on the Mission court en route for the station of Chu Wang.
For ten awful days Wang Pu Lin's body, mind and soul hung in the balance. The missionaries united in doing all that was possible to relieve the man's agonies. It was on the tenth night the crisis came. Many times later Wang Pu Lin told how that night he went out when in bitter agony into the darkness. To his distorted brain there appeared to him a horrible being urging him to jump the wall and get relief once more in opium. As he stood wavering a voice seemed to call to him, "Wang Fu Lin, Wang Fu Lin, beware! Yield now and you are lost." As he heard this voice he made one desperate effort, crying aloud, "Oh, God, help me. I will die rather than yield." Staggering back to his brick bed he threw himself upon it and slept till morning. He wakened, as the future proved, a new and victorious man.
***
Three years passed. The missionary at the new station is facing the crisis described in our last sketch. Help must come in the shape of an evangelist, or he would break down. The spiritual wireless is set in motion. The cry for aid is heard. And help is sent truly as rain from a clear sky.
During the three years since his deliverance from the opium, Wang Fu Lin and his family had had a bitter struggle for existence. As a Christian he could no longer make a living by street story telling and the keeping of low opium dives, and every effort to get honest employment had failed. At last he determined to seek a position in the city of Changte, to reach which he must needs pass by the Mission where the missionary was then facing his crisis.
Wang Fu Lin called on the missionary as he was passing. But no one could have looked less like an answer to their prayers. Still fearfully emaciated, racked with a cough which ere long would end his life, dressed in almost beggar rags, the poor fellow presented a pitiable spectacle. But "the Lord seeth not as man seeth."
After consulting together the missionary and his wife determined to try him for a few days – for he could at least testify to the power of God to change and keep the lowest opium slave. Within an hour or two of his entering the Mission gate, apparently a beggar, Wang Fu Lin was cleansed and clothed in a Chinese outfit of the missionary's, and was seated in the men's chapel preaching to a crowded audience.
From that very first day of his ministry, there was no doubt of his being a messenger sent by God. He had in a wonderful degree the power and unction of the Holy Spirit. He had natural gifts as a speaker, and these had been developed during the many years of street story telling. Now all was consecrated to the one object – the winning of souls to Christ. He seemed to be conscious that his time was short, and always spoke as "a dying man to dying men." From the very first men were won to Christ; the first being a native doctor of some note, the second a wealthy land owner.
For three years during those early days of stress and strain, he was spared to help in laying the foundations of the Changte Church. Then God took him. Though more than twenty years have passed since his death, he is still remembered and spoken of as the Spirit-filled preacher.
Part III. SOWING BEFORE THE STORM
The five years between 1895 and 1900 were years fraught with much danger and many difficulties to the missionaries at the new station at Changte. The anti-foreign, anti-missionary attitude of the people was hard to live down. It became quite a common thing for the missionary to be called hastily to the front to quiet a threatening crowd.
On one occasion the Mission premises were practically surrounded by an unruly mob and for many hours the missionaries were in imminent peril. One thing helped greatly in living this danger period down safely. The missionaries of whom I have already written had moved from the poor, unhealthy Chinese house with the cement floor into a semi-foreign house, the first of the kind to be built in that region. As this house was being built they feared it might prove a barrier between themselves and the Chinese, and perhaps hinder the progress of the work which had begun to be very encouraging, so they prayed that God would make their new home a blessing and a means of reaching the people still more, and like so many of our prayers they came to see the answer lay largely with themselves – so they determined to allow all who wished, to see through their home. Many thousands took advantage of this permission. The high water mark in numbers was reached when eighteen hundred and thirty-five men passed through the missionary's home in one day. Many hundreds of women were received that same day by the wife and her colleague in the work. On ordinary occasions the missionary had his wife play the organ for the bands of men he led through, but on this particular occasion she was too much engaged with the women to do so. The missionary therefore was forced to be his own organist. Though he did not know one note from another, he could at least pull out all the stops, lay his hands on as many notes as possible, and pump the bellows vigorously. The result called forth from admiring crowds the gratifying remark, "Why he plays better than his wife!" The Gospel was faithfully proclaimed to all who came. The missionaries soon began to see good fruit from this plan of reaching the people.
During the second year at Changte hundreds of students had come to the city for the tri-annual government examinations. Many of these visited and showed plainly their anti-foreign attitude – sometimes causing quite serious trouble.
Before the next examinations came round, three years later, the missionary was well prepared for them. At first they came as before full of self-satisfied convictions that they were quite superior representatives of the most superior race. Curiosity alone led them to the foreigner's home. But no sooner would they catch sight of the large astronomical charts on the missionary's study wall than their attitude invariably changed. The missionary knew well the importance of reserving his ammunition till the right moment! The proudest of those scholars in face of those charts became like children.
As the man of God led them (at their own request) step by step on into the wonders of creation of which they knew nothing – often would come the cry, "Teacher stop, have pity on us – you make us feel like the man in the well who thought he saw the whole heavens!"
The change that came over hundreds of these students was truly remarkable. Just one instance of the fruit of this work. The missionary was touring far west of Changte and stayed with his party at a certain inn. The inn-keeper when asked for his bill as the party was leaving replied – "Honorable teacher, I could not accept anything from you. My son was at the recent examinations at Changte and has told me of his visit to your home and what you are doing for our people!"
One day early in 19 – three of the missionary's children were gathered in front of a curious looking chart tacked on the wall of the study. It was a rough map of the Changte field, and over parts of the chart were red dots. The eldest child was counting those red spots and had reached to forty-nine when his father entered.
"Oh, father," cried the boy, "just look, there are almost fifty red places."
"Yes," said his father, "And do you know dear children that every red mark means a place where one or more Christians are, and where the light of the Gospel that can save men has entered?"
"Oh, won't it be lovely, father, when the whole map is red?" said a sweet fair-haired little girl as she threw her arras about her father's neck.
Oh kind Heavenly Father, who withheld from Thy children's human sight what Thou knewest was so soon to come upon them!
A few short weeks after the above scene the spirit of the little fair-haired child had returned to the God who gave it, the missionaries even fleeing before their would-be murderers – the Chinese Christians scattered. Many throughout China, both missionaries and Chinese Christians were witnessing a good confession even to cruel death for Christ's sake.
So the blood of the martyrs became in China, as in the early times, the seed of the Christian Church in China.
SKETCH V
Testing God
A TRUE INCIDENT
"Faith steps out on the seeming void and finds the Rock beneath."
Few in the home-land have any just conception of what it means for a missionary's wife with little children to engage in aggressive evangelistic effort for the reaching of her heathen sisters. The following sketch which is true in every detail may serve to illustrate what a missionary mother must face when engaging in such work.
***
"I simply cannot, dare not, go," the wife was saying as her husband stood before her with a Chinese letter in his hand. "The letter states plainly that an epidemic of smallpox has broken out in the very place we planned to go to. If it were not for baby I would gladly go; but supposing he should later take the smallpox and die?" and her voice ended with a sudden break. "But," replied her husband, "I am perfectly sure that if we definitely trust Him for the child God will not let him come to harm. The Christians are all expecting us, and would it be right to show the white feather at the first appearance of danger? How can we tell the Chinese to trust God if we do not?"
For an hour or more the mother went through a bitter struggle between her fears for her child and an impelling sense of duty towards her heathen sisters. At last she determined to go, but with fear and trembling lest the child should get the smallpox.
The following evening after bumping (the only word to express the movement) for eight hours in a springless cart over hills and stony roads, the missionaries reached the village of Hopei. Some distance outside the village a few Christians were awaiting their arrival and escorted them through the darkness to the Inn – each one anxious to help in getting their guests settled. One carried the roll of bedding – two others the food box, still another sought to get possession of the baby, but the mother feared to part with him. Everything was piled in a promiscuous heap on the large brick platform which took up about half of the room which they were told was to be their living-room and women's preaching place as well. The room was certainly not inviting; the roof was broken in (ceiling there was none), the walls were black with the soot and dirt of generations, and hard uneven lumpy earth did for floors. Furniture, there was none – not even a table or chair.
The mother's first question was "where can I keep the baby?" For answer she was led to an opening in the wall beyond which was a mud hole just large enough to spread their bedding, but at the further end were several great rat holes! A sudden desperate fear for her child took possession of the mother, but pride kept her from letting her husband know her fears.
Early the following morning the women and children from the surrounding country began crowding in. By nine o'clock the room was packed to suffocation with a great crowd outside trying to get in. All were clamoring to see and feel the foreign woman and her child. These women knew absolutely nothing of the Gospel, and as the missionary mother looked into their rough, ignorant, sensual faces and thought how she had even risked the life of her precious child to come to them, a great yearning came into her heart to be used of God to bring light to their dark minds. For many hours a day she and her faithful Bible woman preached to the ever changing crowd. Sometimes they were both in despair at the crush and confusion. Constantly could be seen children marked with smallpox carried in their mother's arms. At times the atmosphere was so over-powering the mother could only cry to God to keep her from fainting.
Though early in May the weather was very warm, and the husband continually had the easier time for he had both light and air preaching as he did in the open court.
All through the week the baby had stood the confinement and conditions wonderfully. When not asleep he would delight and win the women by his happy ways. But Saturday morning found him ill and feverish, lying listless in his mother's arms. The mother was for at once rushing home with him, but her husband gently rebuked her lack of faith, and reminded her of their promise to hold a communion service at a distant village on the morrow.
Before day-break the next morning, Sunday, all the missionary's party was astir, and as the dawn was breaking they filed out of the yard through the quiet deserted streets into the country, following a winding mountain path. When at last the summit of quite a high hill was reached, the missionary sent the rest of the party on ahead, while he and his wife sat down with their sleeping child. For a long time neither could break the silence, their hearts were too full. Never will either forget the peace and beauty of that hour. It was all intensified by the contrast with what they had left behind. The mother could only think with horror of the darkness and dirt, sin and suffering, turmoil and unspeakable degradation in which they had lived for those six days. But now it seemed as if they were in heaven itself. Oh, the beauty of that scene! To the east the sun was just appearing in all its height of glory. To the north, south, and west, rose mountains and hills still in shadow, except for the tipping of the coming sun whose herald of glory lit up the eastern sky and plain which stretched out before them as far as the eye could reach.
It seemed there on that hill-top alone with God so easy to trust for the little one who was still feverish and ill. But all too soon, as it seemed, they had to leave that quiet spot and go down into the valley – to the noise and confusion of the village where their Sabbath ministry lay. The following morning early they once more turned their faces homeward, and as the mother saw the bright, happy smile on her child's face, the fever gone, she pressed him to her with joy and thankfulness, and there arose in her heart a cry for forgiveness that she had been so faithless and unbelieving.
This cruel self, oh how it strives
And works within my breast,
How many subtle forms it takes
***
As if it were not safe to rest
And venture all on Thee."
As years passed the mother's faith did grow, but it was on God's faithfulness until she learnt it was safe to venture allon Him.
Dear fellow-mother in the homeland, as you realize from these lines something of what it costs a mother in China to step out from her home to save her Chinese sisters, ask yourself "Could I do it?" Oh, my sisters, criticize less and pray more for the missionary mothers of China.