The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's

Easily led, he loves the glories of this present world and is fearful lest, by too great zeal, the rulers of Vanity Fair may regard him as a stranger and outcast. And yet, in his high moments, he finds himself longing for the things that abide, and his affections and desires are for the time being upon these, but as a morning cloud they pass. In other lands, where the line of demarcation is less clear, he might be considered a good Churchman, but neutral tints are rare here, and a man must clearly show on which side he stands or he will get the benefit of neither.

He is ever faithfully served by his dependant and sycophant, Mr. Diao, who is a weak, physically decadent man who can neither offend by word nor deed the man from whom he has had so much. His manner is too servile to allow one to place much confidence in him, but he is a believer, and proves by many actions that he is truly following Christ. If only he could get free from the net of the rich man, and yet – what Church has not such members!

Mr. Tu, weak, good, always trusting the Heavenly Father to supply his needs, temporal and spiritual, and ever ready to bear witness that He has done so, in spite of the fact that life's outlook is always grey! Very poor, he was the leader in his village by virtue of his sincerity. Is some aggressive movement proposed? "The time has not yet come," is his ever-ready answer. Do the crops seem to fail for lack of rain, and the farmers, anxious and worried, speak of the famine confronting them, and him? "Fear not, the Lord will provide," he will say, and though he may have to eat the coarsest flour, and little of that sometimes, he never doubts, and never rejoices!!

On the occasion of the marriage of his son, even a short time before the bride arrived, nothing was ready – he had so little – and all he said was: "We must wait and see how the Heavenly Father will provide." When the moment came every one was ready to help him, and he would be a discontent indeed who was dissatisfied with the result. Mr. Tu was full of praise to God for His goodness, and will quote the incident to those who may have doubts.

I have reflected much upon Mr. Tu and his ways, and I am reminded of the ravens, "who sow not nor gather into barns," and our Heavenly Father cares for them; and I come to the conclusion that to us is granted on rare occasions the privilege of being the medium by which our Father will prove His care to the weak, yet trustful souls. Good, faithful old Tu, he could teach many of us of the active, energetic temperament a lesson; for he will tell you, and truly, that he has no strength, yet he has never asked from man, and he has perfect confidence that the Good Shepherd will lead him safe to the journey's end.

WORK DEVELOPMENT

"No Church is fulfilling its responsibilities to God, or preparing itself for its best and most effective work, which does not regard itself in some respects as a great Training School for Christian workers." – Rev. A. Swift.

"And He gave —Some indeed to be apostles,And some prophets,And some evangelists,And some shepherds and teachers, —With a view to the fitting of the saintsFor the work of ministering,For an upbuilding of the body of the Christ."The Letter of Paul to the Ephesians.

CHAPTER VIII

WORK DEVELOPMENT

Relating how we sought to encompass the Work, and the Work encompassed us

THE events of 1900 resulted in an extraordinary quickening of interest amongst those who had a contact of some kind with Christianity. We very soon found ourselves quite overwhelmed by the many openings and opportunities which presented themselves on all sides. Hitherto untouched villages begged for a visit, idols were destroyed by those into whose homes we had never penetrated, leaders in the Church were begging us to devise some means by which the women might be taught, fathers were prepared for any sacrifice so that their daughters might be received as scholars.

For some time, at vast expenditure of strength, we attempted by travelling in different directions to spend, at any rate, one or two days in the various centres we were begged to visit. Each month we became more strongly impressed with the fact that the work of evangelisation was being carried on with tremendous aggressive force, not by us, but by the native Church, we being unable to even follow up the openings made by them.

Such a mass movement afforded an unparalleled opportunity, provided sufficient teaching were given to establish and build up in the faith those who believed; but if left to itself, this large numerical increase might prove a serious menace to the spiritual life of the Church. We had to seriously consider our ways. Should we contribute our small part to the widespread preaching of the Gospel and visiting of those who had already heard through the Chinese evangelising agencies, or should we leave to the Chinese Church the responsibility of propagating itself, reserving ourselves to "preparing saints for the work of ministering"?

Chinese Christians going from place to place spread the Good Tidings more effectually than we could hope to do, and where such conditions exist, it is surely an indication that the people of the land should hear the Gospel first from the lips of their own countrymen. Moreover, the Government was seriously considering the establishment of girls' schools, and we had to decide as to whether the work amongst the young should be an unimportant branch of our scheme of missionary activities, or whether our schools should be established with the object of becoming training-centres for Christian helpers.

We were faced with this fact: unless we trained some Christian teachers, the education of the young would be in the hands of heathen; no small matter when the exalted position of the teacher in China is borne in mind; and the, if possible, more urgent fact, that unless we seriously prepared some Chinese missionaries we should go from year to year, decade to decade, with no trained Chinese staff. The material was there, and the Chinese Church was supplying young men and women, earnest devoted servants of Jesus Christ, who, given the training and granted the blessing of God, could do a work which it would be impossible for the most earnest Westerner to accomplish. Chinese of the Chinese, with neither linguistic nor climatic difficulties, understanding the minds of the most subtle of people, they enter their work with a flying leap which we may envy, but cannot attain. The Holy Spirit will deal with them as He does with us, and recognising them as fellow-workers together with God, we shall cease to hinder them by perpetual criticism and doubt. Faults they will have, as we, and while of a different order, who shall say that these failings make them in God's sight more unfit for the work of preaching the Gospel than ours have made us?

We therefore accepted the form of ministry which pressed with strongest necessity on us, and from the free and irresponsible life of the itinerant missionary, accepted the calling of teachers, and allowed ourselves to be tied to the numberless claims and responsibilities of institutional life. In addition to the girls' school, a plan was formed whereby we agreed to accept married women for terms of varying length – twenty to thirty days – as far as possible classifying them according to ability and previous knowledge. The teaching was graded from the first elements of Christian doctrine to fairly advanced New Testament classes. From amongst the first groups of women who came to us, it was evident that some were capable of receiving a far more advanced training, and the zeal they exhibited in teaching the little they knew on their return home, promised future usefulness. Two small rooms in our own living-court supplied the only accommodation for these station classes, and as each group scattered it was almost immediately replaced by other eager inquirers.

A small inner court containing two good rooms was set apart for the use of the girls' school. Every term brought an increase in the numbers, and it was soon evident that more suitable accommodation was essential if we were to meet the growing need. Though we knew it not, the necessary provision was already made. We sat together one evening in a shady spot adjoining our premises, sharing our home letters; we opened one to find it contained a cheque from a friend who could know nothing of our need, marked: "For use in any necessary buildings." The very spot on which we sat, later on proved to be the site of the John Holt Skinner Memorial Court in the new school buildings. By the next term Chinese rooms, providing for the accommodation of sixty, were erected; the old school-court was given over to women's station classes, and we saw scope for the realisation of our wildest dreams. The work amongst the men was increasing in a similar proportion. Mr. Wang, who was in charge when we arrived at Hwochow, was now appointed Deacon of the Church, and afterwards Elder. We soon recognised in him a man of no ordinary influence. Like Barnabas, he was "a good man filled with the Holy Spirit," and like him might well be called the "Son of Consolation."

The large numbers who were baptized upon profession of faith each year entailed many responsibilities – new families to be visited, more visitors to be received, marriages and funerals to be attended. Cases of persecution, real or supposed, called for many hours of patient listening, and, withal, the constant stream of city women who desired to inspect all that was going on, parents to see children in the school, friends and relatives of opium patients, who lost no chance of visiting the member of the family under treatment, changed the once quiet house into a beehive of activity.

In many Shansi houses there is a large, well-built room, open to north and south, which is set apart for the observance of the prescribed family rites connected with ancestral worship. Here are the wooden ancestral tablets, image of the soul and tangible symbol, erected to the memory of the deceased, affording thereby a fixed object for filial piety. This room on our compound was dedicated as a church for public worship; enlarged once, and again the second time, it still proved too small for our growing congregation.

The strain attendant on such a rapid development was severe, but each year found us supplied with increasingly able help from our Chinese co-workers. We found ourselves driven to the practical testing of the principle: "When the pressure of the work is too heavy, then extend the work," and we found it to be sound and workable. Each term some extra responsibility was thrown off on to the shoulders of willing helpers, that we ourselves might be free to undertake fresh enterprises.

MRS. HSI'S SECOND GIFT

"It is Jesus who has introduced into virtue a passion before which vice is not condemned but consumed as by fire." – Rev. Carnegie Simpson.

"Round the cape of a sudden came the sea,And the sun looked over the mountain's rim:And straight was a path of gold for him,And the need of a world of men for me."Robert Browning.

CHAPTER IX

MRS. HSI'S SECOND GIFT

Being an Account of her Life from Widowhood

ONE direct result of the lack of foreign workers was the appointment of Mrs. Hsi to the oversight of the women's work in Chaocheng. During her husband's lifetime she had been eager to learn all she could, and had with difficulty mastered some of the Chinese characters. She often expressed to him her desire to learn more, but he told her to remember that the need for her to attend to the domestic side of the large establishment at the Middle Eden was essential, and her life until his death was largely a busy domestic one.

Not entirely, however, was this the case. When it became necessary to open a Refuge for Women in the city of Hungtung, it was to his wife that the Pastor looked for help, and she, there and in other places, did a truly Christlike work. It was in the city of Hsugo that she accomplished her most difficult task. It seemed as if the devil had a special power there, and Pastor Hsi was almost in despair. Man after man, amongst them some of his most trusted helpers, fell into sin, or were overcome by difficulties in that place.

How to hold it at all was a problem. He solved it by sending his wife, and alone she went to live six days' journey from the place where he was, and for the first time the work in Hsugo was successful.

Almost immediately after her return home, Pastor Hsi developed the illness from which he never recovered. He was at work on some Refuge accounts when he felt unwell, and his spirit became conscious that the messenger had come with a command "that he must prepare for a change of life, for his Master was not willing that he should be so far from Him any longer."

For nearly six months he lingered still, making preparations for the journey ahead; he gave directions for the temporary closing of the Refuges, recognising, doubtless, that the time while he was still on earth, but unable to exercise control, might be an even more perilous period than that which would follow his death. Mrs. Hsi herself fell ill, and so seriously that her life was at one time despaired of. She was barely able to stand the fatigue of the public funeral to which hundreds gathered, yielding to their grief and sobbing as children who had lost a parent. She herself was bowed with sorrow, for they had been truly one in God's service, but strength was sent to her through a dream in which she saw her husband, in glory beyond her imagining, and with him the boy who had been their only son and had died in childhood. When she desired to join them he rebuked her, saying: "Nay, but you must return"; and obedient, she turned her back on the heavenly glory and faced "the need of a world" of sin.

Mrs. Hsi was now to realise to the full the unfortunate position of a childless widow. According to the custom of the country, the nearest male relative on her husband's side should have been her protector, but this duty devolved on a nephew who was an opium smoker, gambler, and unregenerate heathen, and what should have been protection took the form of persecution.

Elder Sï, her brother-in-law, took over the control of the opium refuges and the preparation of the medicine used. Days of prayer and fasting always preceded the compounding of the drugs which were prepared in Pastor Hsi's own home, and sent out in the form of pills. It was in connection with the medicine that Mrs. Hsi's first difficulties occurred. Large quantities of the various ingredients were stored at Middle Eden, and the said nephew claimed possession of this stock, declaring his intention of defending his rights by stabbing any one who dared to touch it.

The time came when the drugs were required, and arrangements were quietly made for the removal of the material to the home of Elder Sï. Before touching the goods, Mrs. Hsi called the young man to her, and addressing him by name told him to fetch his knife, as she intended to carry out her husband's wishes and supply the Refuges with the necessary medicine without delay. Abashed, and half-ashamed by her self-confidence and dignity, he muttered excuses and left her presence with an apology.

Nevertheless, it required all her wits and most of her time to prevent this ne'er-do-weel from robbing her of all she possessed. Opium he would eat, his gambling habits were strong, and how could she prevent him from stealing that which, as one of the family, he could partially claim as his own? The problem weighed upon her mind and she decided that division of the land, each taking half the produce of the farm, was the only solution. Even so she was not safe; there is a Chinese proverb which says: "It is hard to deal with a thief who is one of the family," and she proved it to be true. If she left home for a few days she would return to find her door broken open, her clothes stolen, and her grain visibly less. Although the Chinese law would offer her redress, she, by reason of Christian principle and the example of her husband, never appealed for help to an earthly tribunal, but daily prayed: "Lord, have mercy on him, and change his heart."

In the early days of her faith, Mrs. Hsi had earnestly desired to unbind her feet as witness that she was a Christian, but her husband, fearful lest any should be misled to regard Christianity as conformity to foreign customs rather than to a change of heart, was strongly opposed to her doing so. He strictly forbade the binding of children's feet, but saw no need for outward change of shoe in the foot already disfigured. During his lifetime she yielded to his wish, but after his death refused to let her mature judgment be held in abeyance by the dead hand of the past, and did that which she felt was a testimony to many of her weaker sisters. She unbound her feet and adopted a normal shoe and sock, and many who had made her supposed attitude on the question an excuse, now followed her example.

In order to give the Gospel to Hwochow Mrs. Hsi had parted with the most valuable of her worldly goods, and when the call came for the second great renunciation in response to the need for a woman worker in Chaocheng, she was ready to move into that city, knowing as she did so, that by leaving the family home she would finally close the way of return. She well knew that no seal on the door would prevent her nephew from stealing her goods, and her worst fears were realised when, a few years later, on the occasion of the erection of a memorial stone to Pastor Hsi, she revisited what had once been Middle Eden. All was gone, and she was thankful to hurry away and leave the scene that could only cause her pain.

On entering her new sphere of work, the missionaries at Hwochow assured her that all the love and sympathy which she had promised Mr. Taylor years before should be given to the first ladies who came to that city, was now to be bestowed on her. The loyal affection of the Chinese Church was hers, for she is regarded by them with an admiration and reverence which they consider the right of so worthy a woman. She knew that she could count upon a welcome, but it was a costly step.

City and village visiting, weekly classes for inquirers, and a Women's Opium Refuge occupy Mrs. Hsi's time in Chaocheng. A sentence easy to write, but only He to Whom the offering is made can know the cost at which ladies, with the refinements of their class, give themselves to the Christlike work of rescuing the opium sots who find their way to the Refuge. Women of the lowest moral type at times appear, dirty, coarse, and repulsive, and yet gladly and graciously they are received. The lady in charge will sleep with them in order to comfort and pray with them during the night watches, and no service is too menial for these saintly women to render. The impression made is never forgotten by those to whom they minister; and even if they return again to the ways of sin, the vision of that gentle lady with her kind heart will remain, a reflection, faint it may be, yet a reflection of the love of God, ever ready to welcome the wanderer from the far country.

THE STORY OF AN OPIUM SMOKER

"I know that, because of this money-grasping, trade-compelling feature of England's dealings with my country, millions of wretched people of China have been made more miserable; stalwart men and women have been made paupers, vagrants, and the lowest of criminals; and hundreds of thousands of the weaker ones of my race – mainly among the women – have been sent to suicide graves. All this because gold and territory are greater in the eyes of the British Government, than the rights and bodies of a weak people." – H. E. Li Hung-Chang.

"O my brothers and all my friends,If you would hearken to good advice,Avoid the poppy juice for ever and aye,As it is a plague most noxious and vile!It will eat out your minds,It will rot away your vitals,It will shrivel up your bowels,It will make you walk as a leper,It will cast you into prison,It will send you to your death!"H. E. Li Hung-Chang.

CHAPTER X

THE STORY OF AN OPIUM SMOKER

THE first man to enter the Opium Refuge in Hwochow, as patient, was named Fan of the village of Southern Springs. He came from a once wealthy clan, now reduced through opium smoking to comparative poverty. He had not yet reached the stage of positive want, but that condition is never far from the habitual heavy smoker, and should he continue a few years longer, beggary will be the ultimate fate of his wife and family.

The temptation was at his very door, for all the best-watered land surrounding Southern Springs was given up to poppy cultivation. During the time when the plant was in flower, the village nestled amidst some hundreds of acres of exquisite iridescent bloom. The beauty was shortlived, even as the seeming prosperity of the grower, and but a few days later Southern Springs stood amidst bare brown fields of dry poppy heads, scarred by the cutter's knife, exuding in thick drops the poisonous juices – a striking picture in the eyes of all men of the fate awaiting the smoker, who, lulled by the insidious charm of the fascinating drug, would finally be the only one unable to see himself a hopeless, helpless, degraded wreck.

At the close of three weeks' treatment in the Refuge, Fan returned home a new creature, restored in body and mind, and with a heart renewed in hope. In his own immediate family were several members, victims as himself of the deadly drug, and amongst these was his nephew, adopted into the family on the footing of a son since death had robbed him of the last boy who might pay the filial sacrifice of tears and lamentations at his tomb. Moreover, his wife's keen intelligence and strong will were gradually being subjugated by a growing apathy, result of her secret habit. On these two Fan urged a plea to give the Refuge a trial, and his nephew, impressed by the evident good result in his uncle's case and the assurance that the treatment had induced very slight suffering, pronounced himself willing to try the experiment; his wife, on the other hand, repudiated with scorn any such suggestion. Another few weeks saw the young man return to Southern Springs loud in praise of all he had seen and heard in Hwochow. He recounted all his experiences, every detail of the treatment, the number of pills swallowed, and the care with which the strength of the pills was graded from the powerful "Pill of life" to the lesser "Pill of strength" and the final "Pill of restoration."

He also knew by heart a number of verses from the New Testament, and could sing hymns written by Pastor Hsi on the subjects of salvation and the sin of opium smoking, several of which numbered twelve verses in length.

All this caused much stir in the village, and became the general subject of conversation when the men were home from the fields, during the twilight hour devoted to social intercourse. He was referred to as a competent authority on all matters relating to the ways and habits of those "foreign devils" who went to and fro between the various stations which they had opened, and even penetrated into the villages amongst the homes of any who were rash enough to risk having them under their roof.

Both uncle and nephew had secretly entirely changed their opinion concerning the foreigner and the Christian doctrine which he inculcated. Fear had given place to confidence, and one or other would frequently walk the four miles to Hwochow on a week day, or better still on Sunday, to sit an hour with the Refuge-keeper, whom it was hard indeed not to trust, and who always had some good matter to unfold and kind, earnest words with which to help a man in the hour when his old vice threatened to ensnare his soul afresh. Little sympathy was to be gained at home. Mrs. Fan still took opium, endangering her husband's and nephew's principles as they returned, weary from work, to a room reeking with the odour so attractive to them.

She was a woman of no ordinary character, exceptionally intelligent, strong-minded and wilful, capable in every duty which falls to the woman's share in the home; by nature hard working and ambitious, in physique of a pronounced Jewish type. Not easily led, and impossible to drive, she flew into such a passion when her husband ventured to tell her that two lady missionaries had arrived, and were prepared to receive women as patients in the Hwochow Refuge, and gave such rein to her tongue that he, poor man, was thankful to escape beyond earshot of her loud recriminations and curses.