A Journey to Foochow

While the main party was en route to Shanghai, Mrs. Emaroy J. Smith and her son Mr. Kenneth Smith were in the important city of Foochow, China. The fascinating story of this trip, from the pen of Mrs. Smith, follows:

Now comes the part of our journey that we dislike most embarking in the small vessel Hæan of the China Merchant Line en route to Foochow. We are glad to find aboard Miss Helen Crane, our former fellow-passenger of the Tenyo, who sat next us at table during our voyage across the Pacific. Miss Crane, accompanied by Miss Wells of Shanghai, is going to Foochow to open work for the Y. W. C. A., in response to the awakening caused by the Mott meetings, during which six hundred young women had signed cards expressing their desire to study the Bible and inquire into Christianity. How fortunate they are to have Miss Crane - bright, attractive, versatile, a graduate of Bryn Mawr - respond to that call for service! Could her life be better invested than answering this call from the Orient where she will seek to establish Christian ideals for the girls of China?

English missionaries were driven out of Foochow forty years ago. Less than twenty years ago eleven missionaries laid down their lives as martyrs; now there are 12,000 students in modem colleges.

Miss Crane and Miss Wells, with two young Germans in Chinese mail service, made up our first-class passenger list. We were told there were 150 second-class passengers below us, but only knew this from the fumes of opium that escaped from below. The weather was unfavorable. We were shut in by a dense fog that the captain said was worse than anything he had known for fifteen years on the China coast. Without wireless telegraphy or the modem equipment of the larger vessels to aid us in an emergency, we were relieved when the fog lifted and we were able to make the mouth of the River Min going in with the tide. A party of friends, among whom were Mr. and Mrs. George Hubbard, missionaries of the American Board, Miss Martha Wiley, and Miss Deahl, came out in a launch to meet us.

We were surrounded as soon as our vessel anchored with numberless sampans propelled with long oars by Chinese women. There was great confusion, all of them shouting and struggling for first place next our vessel, in order to secure cargo or passengers. We stepped in one at the risk of our lives. A slender, sinewy Chinese woman, dressed in blue, her black hair coiled in the neck and adorned by a bright flower, stood erect in bow of boat and pushed us away, with her long pole, from the other boats knocking our sides. She then began to use the pole in the water, her strong body swaying back and forth in graceful motion. Her movements reminded us for a moment of the Venetian gondolier, but there the likeness ended. Our boat-woman’s mother was pushing paddle in stem of boat, with grandchildren scrambling about her. On these boats children are born, live, and
die, sometimes four generations living together.

What is this large, stately looking vessel coming alongside us, with large sails wide-spread? On its bow are painted in colors two big eyes. This we are told is a “Ningpo Junk.” Our boat-woman now works swiftly, taking a long pole on the end of which is a hook; she fastens it securely to the side of this passing ship, and thus we are towed to the landing at Foochow City.

Here excitement reigns supreme. There is much shouting and confusion. One wonders how they are to be extricated from it all. We pass from our sampan to another craft and still another before the wharf can be reached. Miss Wiley alights to find coolies and sedan chairs. She shouts loudly in Chinese to keep the party together, and finally we make our way up South Street. We can never forget that memorable ride of nearly four miles in our sedan chairs.

Now we are seeing China. Shanghai was not China. Here is the narrow street, irregularly paved with stones, swarming and seething with Chinese of all classes. Here is the field woman, her hair decorated with silver pins, and large silver rings in her ears. From the ends of a pole carried over her shoulder are suspended heavy buckets. As she passes, you are aware of unpleasant odors and wish you had brought your smelling salts. You discover she is the sewerage channel for conducting refuse from city to field.

Old Chinese women with bound feet are sitting in the doorways; dirty, half-clad children play in the streets. A stream of sedan chairs shouldered by coolies is constantly passing. Sometimes the occupant of these chairs is a Chinese lady belonging to the official class, sometimes a merchant, or it may be a European. The coolies constantly shift the heavy poles from one shoulder to the other. We notice there are deep furrows in their shoulders. There are also deep lines upon their faces that indicate the hard physical toil they are daily subjected to. Their muscles rise in great ridges on limbs and arms, suggesting the strain to which they have been put. As they travel over the rough stone pavement, they shout as they pass to open up the congested street. We pass the fish-market, the open shop where Chinese artisans are working on silver and hammered brass, lacquer, and embroidery.

We were not sorry to arrive at the American Board Compound - we enter a court leading to the house of our lady missionaries. It is bright with flowers, and presents an inviting and attractive picture, in strong contrast to the noise and the motley throng we leave in the busy street. Here we were made most comfortable and very hospitably entertained during our sojourn in Foochow.

PASTOR HSU CAIK HANG, FOOCHOW

GIRLS AT MR. CHANG’S PARTY, SHANGHAI

UNDER A CHINESE ARBOR, FOOCHOW

CHRISTIAN HERALD ORPHANAGE, FOOCHOW

One day we visited the Christian Herald Orphanage, where we took pictures of the boys working in the garden. The young man who has charge of the garden gave me the following list of vegetables that the boys raised: watercress, red spinach, green peas, long bean, snake gourd, sword bean, com, eggplant, calabash, onion, leeks, pumpkin. Pastor Hang, of Foochow, is at the left of picture, and the boy, holding bouquet of flowers that were later presented to us, we were told, had already shown a very marked tendency for raising flowers and vegetables.

A special program was prepared for us here, the children speaking pieces and singing songs. We were asked to take seats on the platform and to make a speech. We gave them some words of greeting from children of the United States, and told them how American children loved to sing the same songs, study the same Bible, and to work and play as they do.

The day that stands out above all others as affording the purest, richest enjoyment while in Foochow, was the day spent at Sharp Peake. Mr. and Mrs. George Hubbard, Mr. Miner, head of the Methodist Boys’ Academy, Miss Wiley, and Miss Deahl, Kenneth, and myself, with Mr. Ding, an earnest young Chinese, who has charge of industrial work in Foochow, make up our party.

Early in the morning we go aboard our steam launch, which we have chartered for the day, and sail up the beautiful Min River. We pass mountainous islands. From the shore rise towering terraced cliffs, which have been compared to those of the Rhine. The Min compares not only with the picturesque beauty of the Rhine, but has as well the charm gathered from the past of its own traditions. There stands a tower erected by a wife to welcome back her husband from a long voyage, but, when he saw the strange mark, he concluded he had mistaken the estuary, and sailed away never to return. We pass the old arsenal, partly destroyed by the French fleet.

We land at a small fishing village on the shores of Sharp Peake Island. Our coolie carries on his shoulder the huge lunch baskets generously provided by our kind and thoughtful Mrs. Hubbard, who has been unfailing in her attention since our arrival. The people of the village gather curiously about us as we land, but most of them, especially the women and children, ran frightened away when the kodak was pointed toward them, so there was left in our picture only the members of our party, our coolie carrying the lunch baskets, and a few boatmen.

We climb up the hill, the sides of which are planted with young pine trees and terraced with growing crops. Some one has been working here to beautify this hill. On reaching the top we view a group of workmen, starving Manchu soldiers and boys sent up from the city by Miss Emily Hartwell. Now that the Manchu dynasty has been overthrown, their stipend has been withdrawn by the government. Thousands of these men, who have no trades and no means of earning a living, are facing starvation.

BOYS OF INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL, BEACON HILL FARM, FOOCHOW

STARVING MANCHU SOLDIERS AT THE SAME FARM

We find a substantial cottage at the top of the hill. At the entrance is gathered a group of fine Chinese boys, who have led their goats up for our inspection. Miss Hartwell has discovered that Sharp Peake lends itself well to goat raising, that the goats will not only browse over the hills, taking care of themselves, but furnish milk as well. Another boy has brought his ducklings. Boys in China love pets as well as American boys. They love to tend and feed and watch them grow. We are now carried in sedan chairs up Beacon Hill. Here a wonderful view is obtained of both sea and river. We look across the valley - one hill is occupied by a telegraph station, one by Anglican, one by Methodist, and one by Congregational sanitariums. These are resorts where the tired, worn, or sick missionaries may come from the city into this fresh mountain and sea air to recuperate from their arduous labors.

At the top of Beacon Hill are the remains of an ancient landmark, an old stone structure, upon which the beacon fires were lighted, now superseded by the telegraph. At the time of our visit the workmen had been borrowing stone from this structure to work into the foundation of the new Morrison cottage. When our lady missionary discovered this, she was greatly disturbed that one of those historic stones should be displaced. She immediately informed the man in charge that no pay would be forthcoming until all the stones had been carefully replaced. From Beacon Hill we travelled in our chairs up and down the mountainsides to the American Board Sanitarium. This is arranged to afford living accommodations for several families during the summer. It was vacant now and we took possession of one apartment, where we spread the table with the appetizing contents of our bounteous baskets.

One evening we went to the new Manchu Church in the Tartar quarter. We found it filled with men, women, and children expectantly awaiting our arrival. There were special decorations with the word “Welcome” over the platform. Some young men sang the hymn “Blessed be His Name” - having committed it in English for this occasion. The primary children sang several songs accompanied on the organ by their teacher. The young Chinese pastor spoke some ardent words of greeting and welcome, to which we responded. It was a beautiful sight to see the eager, attentive faces of the audience. We were told the people were flocking here since the old restrictions have been removed which segregated them. They were formerly allowed no association with Chinese or foreigners. After the meeting the young men had provided cakes and sweetmeats for us, which were arranged on a small table decorated with candlesticks, flowers, etc.

We visited the East Gate Industrial School, where we found Mr. Ding Bing Yeng in charge. We went into a small room adjoining his office, where on a bed in the comer lay the old woman who had picked him up as a waif and adopted him when a lad. She was a pitiful looking object, with sightless eyes, and lay here day after day praying to die. We were told that often at night Mr. Ding was kept awake by the upbraiding of this sick, repulsive looking old lady. She often complained of his abusing her, but he ministered to her tenderly and patiently, expressing a very beautiful Christian spirit.

We saw the women, men, and boys busily working at their looms weaving cloth, braid, rugs, etc. Here were rescued girls who had been sold as slaves by husbands and fathers. One young girl sat spinning with a baby in her lap. Her husband had sold her to the Hunan soldiers. She had cut off her hair, believing they would not want her if she was thus disfigured.

In the afternoon we went to the Hartwell Memorial Church, where there were gathered about 350 Bible women and day school pupils. There was an address by the pastor; the children sang songs; two earnest talks were given by Chinese women, to which I was invited to respond. After the meeting we went in to see the girls’ day school and partake of refreshments that had been provided.

A dinner was given in our honor that evening. Mr. Beard, president of Foochow College, with some of his teachers and students, was present. This was a real Chinese feast. The dishes consisted of a great variety of courses, among which were clams, mussels, snails, shark’s fins (a rare and expensive delicacy), pigeons’ eggs, meat dumplings, stewed biba, orange soup, the latter served last, and many other delectable dishes too numerous to mention.

Having long known of Dr. Kinnear’s work, we were glad of the opportunity of visiting his new hospital. We saw him treating the eyes of a procession of poor Chinese men. One man lay on a cot with bandaged eyes, having just gone through an operation for the removal of cataracts, a practical demonstration of the restoration of sight to the blind. We saw a young man with a shoulder cut open, the doctor having just removed a dead bone. It was hard to believe this fine building could have been built for $8,000.

One day we were entertained by Mrs. Sites for tiffin, Mr. Sites showing us through the fine buildings of the Methodist College. An English lady, Miss Crump, was also a guest, and later showed us her lace industry, a very unique work she has developed, teaching many of the wives of coolies lacework, and at the same time to read and study the Bible. She has in connection with this a room fitted up as a chapel where religious services are held every Sunday morning.

We enjoyed a call upon Miss Garretson, principal of the Girls’ School at Ponasang. This school has a fine, intelligent body of students. We were shown through the girls’ dormitories, and then taken to the roof of the building, where a far-reaching view is obtained of the surrounding landscape. One observes how the high places about the city have been occupied by Christian work. We look in one direction and see the Methodist School building rising from Nantai Island; in the opposite direction rises Foochow College, marked by the White Pagoda. We know that from these colleges will come forth men and women who will be the future leaders of China. They will receive in these Christian institutions of learning ideals and visions which will help them to uplift the oppressed of their own people.

(Taken from Frank L. Brown’s Sunday School Tour of the Orient, published in 1914, written by Mrs. Emaroy J. Smith.)

Does China need Nurses?

Two letter lie on the desk. One is from a nurses’ training school connected with a beautiful up-to-date hospital in America. “Will you accept the position of superintendent in our hospital?”

The other is from a missionary secretary. “We are needing a nurse for our oldest hospital in China. The hospital is closed because the doctor is ill in America and will not be allowed to return this year unless someone is found to accompany her back to China. Will you consider going for us?”

On the one hand there is the life in a well furnished hospital, congenial work, friends near, an honored profession, under the stars and stripes—and yet? On the other hand, a foreign land, an unknown tongue, strange people, untried climate, opposition of friends, the end of a career—and yet?

And a voice said, “Whom shall I send and who will go for us?” Will it be easier to answer the first or the second call? Where is the need greater? The twilight deepens. The tenderest voice the world has ever heard breaks the stillness, “Will you go for me? I need you there. I will teach you to love them because they are mine, and I will go with you all the way.” Peace and content come with the decision. In the morning two letters are mailed. Another superintendent is found for the hospital in America and a few months later the oldest hospital for women in China is reopened.

“China is not ready for and does not need nurses,” was one of the greetings. Never mind about China. She does not always know what she needs. God needed one nurse and perhaps more. Later on in the year he also wanted one more doctor; for February 14 brought a beautiful valentine to this oldest hospital in the shape of a very much alive little doctor lady whom the Chinese people soon named the “Good Doctor.”

All diseases known to mankind crowded into the clinics. Houses with dark, unlovely rooms where the lives of thousands of mothers and helpless babies go out every year; trips out into districts where western medicine had never been before; visits to the leper colony, whose hopeless sisters are waiting release in death; dirt, disease, ignorance and age-long superstition, —all these things make one think that China might use a few nurses if she had them.

No national word for nurse, no textbooks, “work fit only for coolies”—these were a few of the difficulties encountered at the beginning.

Trips were made to other parts of China. Letters, arguments, articles and books were written and translated. Conventions were held. To-day there is a fine nurses’ association of China, with its constitution equal to any in the world, a course of study for Chinese nurses, a nurses’ department in the Medical Journal of Shanghai, a national word for nurse and nurses’ schools starting all over China. Calls for nurses are coming from public institutions, the church and the family. All these things prove that China is ready for nurses and now she realizes her need. This was not accomplished in a day. There were hours of teaching, encouraging and explaining. Tears and prayers often mingled before the novices understood. But at last came the realization that this is the kind of work meant when it is said of the Master, “He came not to be ministered unto but to minister and to give his life.”

FIRST GRADUATING CLASS, WITH DR. LYON IN CENTER, DR. HATFIELD AT RIGHT, MISS SIMPSON AT LEFT

Another scene. Four sweet girl graduates, all dressed in white, step forward to receive their diplomas and school pins. Bishop Bashford has just finished his address, and Mrs. Bashford her charge to the class, as she brings the greetings of a hundred thousand mothers of America to the first nurses to graduate from our oldest hospital in China. No, the oldest hospital is gone, but in its place is being raised the Magaw Love Hospital. “I am come that ye might have life and that ye might have it more abundantly,” is the motto given for the school by Mrs. Bashford. May the graduates of the school ever be worthy to follow in the footsteps of that queen of all nurses, Florence Nightingale, for whom the training school is named.

In these years the hospital family has grown to fifteen girls and if you were to talk with the thousands to whom they ministered last year, the answer would be, “God bless our nurses. Their hearts are warm and their hands tender, like ‘Doctor Jesus’ and they have made us understand his love as no one else ever has before.”
Another letter lies on the desk. “My heart is almost breaking for joy to-day. The first class has just been graduated—my jewels for the King. I would rather have had these five years in China than the highest position that America could offer. Perhaps my life is, as you say, buried, but if so, I find it is in a rich mine and my heart’s wish is that every nurse in America might know the joy of investing a score of years here. I am satisfied with the returns.”

(Written by Miss Cora E. Simpson and first published in Woman's Missionary Friend, December, 1913.)

Larger Strategy

“We are the music makers,

And we are the dreamers of dreams,

Wandering by lone sea-breakers,

And sitting by desolate streams;—

World-losers and world-forsakers,

On whom the pale moon gleams:

Yet we are the movers and shakers

Of the world forever, it seems.”

— O’SHAUGHNESSY

The missionaries at Foochow had been studying the map. They had also been reading the newspapers, such as there were,—and newspapers published in China, in English, of course, were infinitely better, even then, than books on China for putting one in touch with the situation.

The books on China of that day were still mostly fairy tales. Maps were not greatly improved over those in which “Chinese Tartary” used to be shown as bordered by a fringe of griffins and dragons.

East and West were still East and West. The Mandarin at Bonnieburn getting his first lesson about the terrestrial globe on the missionary’s teacup, was hardly more in need of light than missionary secretaries in New York, when the question was the location of a new mission in China.

But the secretaries were men of loyalty and faith. When our Foochow Mission, like many other mission in that time of opportunity, urged an advance, our secretaries set about finding the means to make it.

The opportunity had come with the opening of Peking and the Yangtze Valley in consequence of the Arrow War in 1858 and the treaties of 1860. Mr. Sites had been sent out in view of this very opportunity. But the American war for the Union had intervened and neither men nor money could be had for new work. The year after the war ended, two new men were appointed to our mission.

They were the last to come out by sailing vessel, around the Cape. By the same token they were the last, perhaps, to be received with that lavish joy which marks the child’s anticipation of successive Christmases at an age when Christmases are few and far between. Letters sent home, at the time, record in naïve detail every incident and aspect of the new arrivals.

“We were engaged in the services of our quarterly meeting,”—so runs one letter,—“and had just enjoyed an excellent love-feast; four Chinese had been admitted to baptism and to the fellowship of the Christian Church; a missionary had preached and the members of the church were engaged in joyfully celebrating the Lord’s Supper, when our beloved Brother Sites entered the church and passed up the aisle, followed by a strange gentleman. All eyes were fastened on the stranger and at the first interlude in the services we had the delightful privilege of welcoming our long-expected, long-prayed-for Brother Hart.

“Brother Wheeler’s arrival was also attended with the most propitious circumstances. The members of the Mission had met at the usual time and place, for their monthly business session, and had deliberated in love and harmony concerning the interests of our work, had been unanimous in every decision made and had closed the meeting feeling ‘How good and how pleasant a thing it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.’ Just as we separated, Brother Wheeler and his family entered our Mission compound, and with gratitude we welcomed them to their new home in this Eastern land. The Chinese Christians gave him a joyful greeting, and he was deeply moved as he listened that evening to our Chinese brethren heartily singing the good old tunes of his native land.”

Mr. Sites strongly favored the policy of sending only men with some experience in a mission field to open new work. It was understood that these two men, after a sufficient period of apprenticeship at Foochow, should be sent to begin the new missions. Accordingly, Hart was appointed to Central China in 1867 and Wheeler to Peking in 1869.

No spies returning from Canaan ever brought back bigger bunches of promise than our emissary to Central China after his first prospecting tour in the Yangtze Valley. He had gone up the coast to Shanghai, about four hundred and fifty miles, thence up the great river, passing the cities of Chinkiang, Wuhu, Nanking and Kiukiang, all of which cities we now occupy. He was full of enthusiasm as he pictured to us the great valley of the Yangtze, with its fertile plains, and described the immense commercial importance of the Grand Canal,—something we knew of only from the studies of our school days.

He had selected as a starting point for the work the busy port of Kiukiang, on the southernmost bend of the Yangtze near Poyang Lake. He and Mr. Sites, with the zest of a new adventure, began at once estimating the miles southward from Poyang Lake to the borders of Fuhkien, and planning for the time when a Methodist chapel should be planted in every important city, one every twenty miles, until Foochow and Kiukiang should clasp hands in a union love-feast, perchance in our new-found outpost, the City of Lingering Peace.

A barrier of unpromising highlands between the upper Min and the Yangtze basin has delayed the realization of that particular dream. But larger things than were then dreamed have come to pass. When the Methodist Church in China met in quadrennial conference at Foochow last year, there came to the mother mission representatives of five prosperous missions, embracing a church membership of some forty thousand. These delegates came from Peking and a dozen other cities of North China, scattered along hundreds of miles of railway in two provinces; from the whole basin of the Yangtze, between Kiukiang and Shanghai; from Hinghua on the south, where the work which was being pioneered in 1867 had long since expanded into a Conference of its own; and last but perhaps most flourishing field of all, from the Empire Province of West China beyond the Yangtze gorges, fifteen hundred miles from the sea.

A Drowsy Village of the Hinghwa Region

Expansion in China was only an incident in world movements of which China was already a storm centre. Great things were doing in those days in the binding together of East and West. The Atlantic cable; the Suez canal; the Union Pacific railway; restoration and transformation in Japan; the Burlingame mission, which was the first real effort to make China acquainted with the West at home,—these were only a few of the signs of the times. For us at Foochow perhaps the most interesting item of all was the beginning of the Pacific Mail steamship service in 1867.

To get our mail in six weeks was too good to be true! “How wonderful”—writes the missionary to a college friend—“to think of this great steamship, a vast floating palace, crossing the wide Pacific Ocean! Home is one-half nearer than it was a year ago. Can you believe that London and Paris are getting their latest news from us by way of Japan, San Francisco and New York? ‘Fact is stranger than fiction.’ And why may we not hope to see along with these wondrous inventions and scientific achievements a corresponding increase of Christian effort to carry the gospel of peace to all the nations of the earth? Not in the slow and indifferent manner of the past, but with a zeal and energy corresponding to the spirit of the times in all material progress. Look no more toward the ‘Far East’ over seas and oceans, beyond kingdoms and empires, and fancy China to be a remote, strange, unwieldy, unapproachable nation. Life your eyes and look directly into the face of this new, mighty, next-door neighbor, with but a single ocean intervening! I pray that the Church may now arise in the strength of our God and do valiantly in the redemption of China. Why has God allowed Protestant Christian nations to open up in this day the golden treasures of California and Australia? Why, but that these nations may be His messengers of mercy to heathen lands; accomplishing the Saviour’s petition, ‘Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.’”

Now if extension was good in China, why should it not extend also to Japan? Might not a Christianized Japan even prove the salvation of China? Japan had now been linked up by steam with both America and China. It was time for American Methodism to be co-operating with other Christian agencies already engaged in the evangelization of the Island Empire.

So reasoned the little band of missionaries at Foochow. In 1871 they wrote home thus:—

“The present breaking up of their ancient social and political systems, with the eager desire of the Japanese to adopt the civilization of Christian nations, indicates that now is the golden opportunity for the Church to sow ‘the seed of the kingdom’ in the minds of the people. At the same time it admonishes us that failure on our part, at this favorable juncture, will greatly increase the difficulty of evangelizing Japan, and prove a serious hindrance to the progress of Christ’s kingdom in the earth.”

The three secretaries promptly replied, indorsing the project.

“It is a matter of first importance,” wrote Durbin and Harris.

“It is our guilt that we undertake nothing,” wrote Terry. And they undertook Japan.

Maclay, who had made the address on the night when Nathan Sites heard his “call,” was now sent from Foochow to open our work in Japan. He afterward became the founder also of our mission in Korea. Thus he ranks with William Butler as a pioneer of three mission fields of Methodism.

In less than the span of a generation of the Methodist Church of Japan, uniting three great Methodist communions, has become an independent organization, with a native Bishop. To-day, in the light of recent history in Eastern Asia, a history of war, of diplomacy, of student migration and of dazzling changes in ancient customs, we can begin to see how Japan is involved in China’s destiny. To those who foresaw the issue in all its larger outlines forty years ago, shall we not accord the meed of vision and of statesmanship?

(Taken from Sarah Moore Sites’ book An Epic to the East, on the life of her husband Nathan Sites. The Book was published in 1912.)

A Monument in a Graveyard

LAYING THE CORNERSTONE OF THE NEW HOSPITAL

At the Executive in St. Louis, someone said to a group of missionaries, “While you are writing to your many friends, please do not forget to write to the Friend; and if there comes to you any special happening of joy, let your friends share it with you through the Friend.” So to-day I want to tell you about the happiest thing that has happened this year in the “Happy Valley.”

When I first arrived in Shanghai and was waiting for a steamer south, I was entertained in the lovely home of Dr. and Mrs. Lacy. One day Mrs. Lacy asked, “What would you most like to see to-day?” and I told her that one of my greatest desires was to see a Chinese graveyard. She laughed merrily, and replied, “You won’t have to do that to-day, for you are to live in a graveyard.”

When we arrived in Foochow I found that this was so. As soon as one steps outside the compound, graves by the thousand are seen everywhere. My first picnic in China was in a graveyard, and many a service have I since held on the graves.

Last year a dear woman in Baltimore Branch instructed the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society to build her a monument; and our dear secretary mothers, who always know just what is best, wisely decided that the proper place to build a monument is in a graveyard.

During the summer we have been kept busy preparing the piles of sand, brick, cement, and earth for our monument, and laying the foundations. Last week we decided to share our good time with our friends, and invited them in to help lay the cornerstone. The American consul and a large number of the state officials were present, besides Bishop Bashford, Mrs. Bashford, the Foochow Annual and Women’s Conferences, and many other guests.

It will be a year or more before the monument is complete. We have named it the Magaw Memorial Hospital; in Chinese it will be called the Magaw Love Hospital.

In the Annual Report of the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society, we find this statement: “1875—The first hospital for women in China—Foochow.” Dr. Trask was the founder and builder. The records of those early days read like fairy tales. It was a “red letter day” when that first hospital was dedicated, and through the years its wide-open doors have given a welcome to the tens of thousands of suffering ones who have sought entrance there. How many sad hearts have been healed by the Great Physician, only eternity will tell.

Is it not most fitting that in this, the first year of China’s freedom, should be built the new Love Hospital, given by a western woman to these suffering eastern sisters? If you had been with us that glad day, had seen the happy company and tasted the tea and cakes passed about by the student nurses who were dressed in pretty white suits with blue streamers, had heard the addresses and realized how much our people love this monument and all that it stands for; and then if you could look into the future, down through the beautiful years to come, and know what such a monument will mean to this city, you would say with us: “Truly the building of that monument in the graveyard in the ‘Happy Valley’ is one of the happiest things that has occurred this year.” The happiest day of all will be when it is complete, and we open wide the doors to receive the people who are daily coming to us. Come and help us celebrate our opening day, if you like fire-crackers and a good time!

(Letter written by Miss Cora E. Simpson in 1911, first published in Woman’s Missionary Friend, March 1913.)

Pagoda Bells

PEACE STREET HOSPITAL AND THE WHITE PAGODA

Peace Street Hospital for Women and Children is near the White Pagoda, which looks down on us like a giant sentinel. This pagoda is said to be over 900 years old, has seven stories and is over 300 feet high. For many years it had been in a dilapidated condition, the plaster on the outside crumbling, the idols much defaced, and the stairs inside all broken, so there was no safe to ascend, to get the fine view.

A few years ago some zealous Buddhist priests collected money to repair it. Among other repairs, the bells on the corners of the turrets, absent for many years, were replaced. When the wind blows hard these bells all join in their voices in a melodious chime. In the fierce gusts of a typhoon they have a thrill, weird sound. Sometimes a breeze strikes only one side of the pagoda, and the bells tinkle softly, making a very sweet chime.

Oh, Christian churches! Where are your heralds to proclaim on the mountain tops of China that Christ is “The Way, the Truth, and the Life”? Where are your messengers to go through these villages and hamlets and tell of Him who said, “I am the Light of the world,” “He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness”?

Sometimes when we listen to the pagoda bells they seem to us like voices bringing messages from far away. One day the voice sounded like a familiar anthem and it ran thus, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth glad tidings, that publisheth peace, that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation.” “How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except they be sent?” And the sweet chime added, “And how shall they send except we hear?”

And so, dear friends, we send out this record of two years’ work for women and children, that you may know a little of what we are doing, and so be stimulated in your work and prayers for this dark land of China.
Graduation of Medical Class

One of the important events of 1899 was the graduation of our class of four medical students, after six years of training.

One of the graduates remained in the Hospital as assistant. Two are engaged in private practice in the villages where they live with their husbands. One has charge of the dispensary in Ing Hok. All four are making good use of their medical knowledge and bid fair to be increasingly useful.

We have a new class of four students. These, with the assistant, the hospital evangelist and hospital nurse, make a good native working force for the medical work.

FOUR NEW STUDENTS, FOOCHOW HOSPITAL

Incredulous Patients

The physicians’ joy when able to give relief and cure their patients is as great on mission fields as in the home lands. We often think of what John Brown, a famous Scotch physician, said in a popular lecture: “When you are better don’t forget to tell your doctor so. It is the mantle that he wraps about him, to comfort himself withal.” But we here often have the sorrow of having to say, “It is too late, we cannot heal you.” The Chinese are so unwilling to believe this, it makes it harder still. A woman came one day who was blind in one eye and the other inflamed. She was much excited and very eager to know if we could heal her. We said, “It is a great pity; you have waited too long before coming and the blind eye cannot be healed, but you can come into the Hospital and we will heal the other eye.” In a loud voice she said, “They told me you were very skillful and could heal blind eyes.” We explained to her that some blind eyes could be healed, but hers was not the kind that could be healed. She turned to another patient and said, “They told me she could heal blind eyes,” in a tone that said very plainly, “She could if she would.” People here believe quite generally that we save our best sill for a few of our favorites.

An Interesting Little Patient

Early one beautiful June morning, men came bringing into the Hospital court a little crib covered with green mosquito netting, and looking very neat and attractive. Everything about it showed that it belonged to a well-to-do family. The occupant was a feeble child very sick with pneumonia, and they had brought it through the street in this way that it might come as comfortably as possible. The uncle of the child came with it. He said his sister had come from a long distance that she might bring the child to the Hospital to be healed. Soon the grandmother and an older sister of the baby came to take care of it. The sister was a very pleasant little lady, and it was very interesting to see how tenderly she cared for the little one. The mother was in delicate health, but she spent a part of each day at the Hospital, going to her brother’s at night.

Different members of the family came from time to time, and one day the little child’s uncle came into the ward bringing his feeble old mother on his back and laid her on the bed. She said she wanted to come once and see their baby in the foreign Hospital. She rode in her sedan chair to the Hospital door, but was not strong enough to walk up the steps on the little feet.

Every day they would bring something new, hoping to add to the comfort of the little sufferer, as the weather was very warm. So eagerly did they co-operate with us in our fight with disease, that it was quite an inspiration.

We had the satisfaction of seeing the child relieved of the acute disease from which it was suffering, but the chronic disease with which it had struggled from birth proved a more formidable foe.

They remained in the Hospital until we had to leave for the mountain. They seemed very grateful for what we were able to do for them and listened attentively to the gospel teaching.

One day a patient from the country was brought in on a litter. Several members of the family came with her. They were all very much excited, and tried to explain to us how very ill she was; that only cold medicine agreed with her; that if she ate hot medicine it made her much worse. Would the doctor teacher be very careful to give her cold medicine; if she should eat hot medicine they feared she could not get well. We assured them they need have no fear, for Western medicine was not divided into hot and cold, and we would be very careful to give just the right medicine that her disease required. They all looked very incredulous and anxious as we proceeded to examine the patient.

During the years 1899 and 1900, of which this report is a record, the obstetrical work has been much the same as in former years. With a few exceptions we have been called only to cases requiring surgical interference. One of these exceptions was in an officer’s family. They called us in time, and the labor proved a natural one. Afterwards they called us several times for slight ailments of the little one, which were promptly relieved.

This family showed their gratitude by the presentation of a tablet. It was a case where kind Nature did the work, and the physician got the praise.

GROUP OF HOSPITAL PATIENTS, FOOCHOW

Dispensary Work

As year after year passes the work in the dispensary is much the same, and yet no two days are quite alike. Cases of indigestion, chronic bronchitis, rheumatism, stiff limbs, skin diseases, ulcers, wounds and bruises, and inflamed eyes are varied with something peculiar for nearly each day. One day it is a woman with a needle in her finger. The patient is not more glad than the doctor when the mischief-making bit of steel is removed.

Another day it is a man who claims he has a needle in his throat. But examination reveals only the fact that some kind neighbor, in trying to relieve, had torn the throat with his nail, and given rise to much suffering. We give him some bread to eat and find that he can swallow all right. He is sent away with a vial of sweet oil to soothe his sorrows.

Another day a father brought his daughter, fourteen years old, with her bound feet gangrenous and ready to drop off. “Could we heal them?” “No, but she can be relieved of her suffering by having the feet amputated.”

But we cannot persuade them to leave her at the Hospital. They think a girl with no feet is not a very good result of Western healing. They said as their final decision, “If you can restore the feet we will bring her to the Hospital.”

A Specimen Opium Case

One evening messengers came for us to go to a young woman who had taken a suicidal dose of opium. We called chair-bearers and made hasty preparation, and were soon on our way. We found a room full of excited people,—bound-footed women, large-footed women, men and children,—all trying to arouse the patient from her deep sleep. “Save her, save her! Use some good medicine and save her!” was repeated over and over again as we entered the room. This was varied by an occasional: “Do we need to be afraid? Can she live?” After the first excitement was over they were all attention to help us and bring what we needed. A tiny tablet of apomorphia and plenty of hot water soon did the work of washing out the stomach. But it was very difficult to keep the patient from sleeping. The limbs refused to do their duty, and they were obliged to lift her bodily back and forth across the room. Never did little feet look more helpless than hers, dangling about as her frantic rescuers tried to make her walk. After hypodermics of strychnia she began to gain strength, and the family were delighted when they found she was using her feet again. Soon she was able to walk with very little assistance, but it required constant exertion to keep her from sleeping. We stayed with her until midnight, when it seemed safe to leave her. We heard the next morning that she was doing well, and seemed as glad as were her friends that her foolish anger had not resulted fatally. We were not able to learn the cause of this strange freak. The Chinese sometimes swallow opium when they suddenly become angry from some trifling cause.

A Complimentary Tablet

Complimentary tablets are brought through the streets in a gaily decorated red sedan chair, accompanied with a little band of musicians, and fire-crackers are brought to be exploded upon arrival at the Hospital, and again when the tablet is fastened upon the wall.

When one of these came one day we asked them to wait until we could take a photograph. The boy standing at the left, holding a basket, is a little cake and cracker merchant, who did a big trade and nearly emptied his basket while they were waiting for the photographer.

The chief musician, who played the big brass horn, does not appear in the picture, as he refused to be photographed.

The Chinese characters on the tablet are “Sìng miêu mŏk mìng,” meaning, “Wisdom that cannot be expressed.” The small characters on the right read, “Presented to the lady doctor Hó, from Great America.” On the left is the name of the donor.

BRINGING A TABLET TO THE HOSPITAL

The Hospital Assistant

When the Boxer trouble came in 1900, all the patients left the Hospital. Mrs. Ling, the Hospital assistant, was much alarmed at first, and thought she must leave, and go to her home in the country for safety. We told her we should be glad if she could stay, but wanted her to feel free to do as she thought best, as we could not tell whether or not there was real danger. She decided to remain, and we were very glad that our dispensary was open all through the vacation, as it was the only mission hospital that was not closed.

Mrs. Ling has been very happy working in the Hospital since she graduated. She has proved herself efficient in many ways in relieving me of care in the general oversight of the Hospital. She has had the care of the operating room, preparing for operations, sterilizing dressings, etc. In the more important daily surgical dressings she has been my right-hand woman.

The study of medicine is so absorbing and so fascinating, that if we are not very vigilant we shall find our students falling back in spiritual things. In our medical schools we need to nurture carefully the spiritual life begun in the literary schools, that we may help to attain unto their best in spiritual growth these young people who have devoted their lives to the responsible work of physicians.

After we had been engaged in medical missionary work for a few years, we decided that the most efficient way for a missionary physician to do evangelistic work was to work with and through their medical students; that most of the time we could spend in strictly spiritual teaching should be devoted to them.

Our medical students are a chosen few, selected from the graduates of our mission schools. But we all know how much these students, who are the choicest results of missionary schools, need help. How far short most of them come of knowing how to enter in to their rich inheritance as “heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ,” of being fellow-workers together with God! If we can strengthen and stimulate them to become zealous, earnest, consecrated workers, we shall do much to increase the efficiency of the medical missionary work as an evangelistic agency. If these medical students can get a hunger for spiritual growth and a love for soul-saving, if they can learn to depend on the teaching of the Holy Spirit and live the overcoming, victorious life, they will be an ever-increasing power on the evangelist side of our work.

The Message of the Pagoda Bells

One stormy night in winter the bells on the pagoda rang out suddenly and sharply. This time the message was for the sons and daughters over the sea, in the home-land. It said: “Awake thou that sleepeth! The day fleeth away and the night cometh. What thou doeth, do quickly! The Destroyer is doing a deadly work, and is blasting the fruit of this great land of China!”

The fierceness of the storm passed, but the sweet chime kept on, and it sang the Saviour’s words, “Other sheep I have which are not of this fold. Go out to the heathen, and gather them in, that there may be one fold and one shepherd.”

And when winter had passed, and the summer breezes played with the little bronze tongues of these same bells, they seemed to be singing: “Tell it out among the heathen, this glorious message of salvation. Tell the poor people who know no consolation in times of distress and sorrow except to pray to gods of wood and stone, tell them that the Lord is good. Tell the heathen mother, in her stony grief over her dead child, that ‘Like as a Father pitieth his children so the Lord pitieth.’ Oh, tell them ere it is too late!”

And one beautiful starlit night the message of the soft bell chimes was: “They that turn many to righteousness shall shine as the stars forever and ever.” “He that winneth souls is wise.”

Sweet pagoda bells! May your messages not go unheeded!

(By Kate Cecilia Woodhull, a medical missionary connected with the ABCFM, first published in Life and Light for Woman, 1902.)

Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church

Stephen Livingstone Baldwin (1835—1902)

China was designated as a mission field by the General Missionary Committee in May, 1846. The first missionaries sent out were Judson Dwight Collins and Moses C. White, who sailed from Boston April 15, 1847, and reached Foochow September 6. They were followed by Rev. Henry Hickok and Rev. Robert S. Maclay, who arrived April 15, 1848. In 1851 Rev. I. W. Wiley, afterward Bishop, with his wife, the Rev. James Colder and wife and Miss M. Seely were added to the mission. Dr. Erastus Wentworth and Rev. Otis Gibson and their wives arrived in 1855, and Dr. S. L. Baldwin and wife, with the Misses Beulah and Sarah H. Woolston and Miss Phebe E. Potter, in 1859, since which time numbers of missionaries have been added, a few have died, and some have from time to time retired from the work. Much attention has been given to the evangelistic work, and no mission in China has been more successful in winning converts and organizing them into churches than the mission at Foochow. The first converts were received in 1857. In 1862 the number of members was 87.

The mission sent out in 1867 the first missionaries to Central China, Rev. V. C. Hart and Rev. E. S. Todd, who began work at Kiukiang, which work has now grown into the large and successful Central China Mission. In 1869 it also sent Rev. L. N. Wheeler and Rev. H. H. Lowry to Peking, who laid the foundations of the work of the North China Mission.

The Foochow Conference was organized by Bishop Wiley December 6, 1867, by which time the number of members and probationers had reached 2,011. The native preachers who were appointed presiding elders on the organization of this Conference, namely, Hu Po Mi, Hu Yong Mi, Sia Sek Ong, Yek Ing Kwang, and Li Yu Mi, had been raised up in the mission; all having been converted as adults except Yek Ing Kwang, who was converted while a student in the boys’ boarding school. The mission has continued to grow and prosper up to this date.

In 1896 the work in the Hing Hua prefecture and surrounding regions had grown to such an extent that a Mission Conference was organized and is making very rapid progress towards self-support. The North China Mission was organized as a Conference in 1894.

The West China Mission in Sz-Chuen province was ordered by the General Missionary Committee in November, 1880, and Dr. L. N. Wheeler, formerly of the Foochow and North China Missions, with his family, and Rev. Spencer Lewis and wife, sailed from San Francisco September 6, 1881, and arrived at Chung King December 3. The mission, although broken up by riot in 1885 and suffering much tribulation at various times since that date, has been successful and is now well established.

The Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society has done most valuable work in China, and its pioneers, the Misses Woolston, Dr. Sigourney Trask, Miss Clara Cushman, Miss Gertrude Howe, Miss Lucy H. Hoag, M.D., and their successors, are held in grateful remembrance. The following table, compiled from the latest reports at hand, will show the present statistics of the missions in China in some important particulars:

	Members.	Probationers.	Totals.	Benevolent Contuibutions.	Self-support.
Foochow	4,349	4,301	8,650	$777	$3,488
Hinghua	2,338	2,949	5,287	1,885	4,156
Central China	1,531	2,478	4,009	141	5,453
North China	3,738	2,904	6,642	529	3,563
West China	219	118	337	31	172
Total	12,175	12,750	24,925	$3,363	$17,832

The mission to Japan was inaugurated in 1872; Dr. R. S. Maclay, who had been superintendent of the Foochow Mission for a quarter of a century, being appointed to open the work there. He arrived with his family in Yokohama June II, 1873. Rev. J. C. Davison, Rev. Julius Soper and Rev. M. C. Harris were appointed at the outset. The Rev. I. H. Correll, who was originally appointed to Foochow but detained at Yokohama on account of the serious illness of his wife during the voyage, was also transferred to the Japan mission. The formal organization of the mission took place August 8, 1873, in Yokohama, under the presidency of Bishop Harris. It was decided to occupy at once stations in different portions of the empire, Hakodate being chosen for the North, Yokohama and Tokyo for the Center, and Nagasaki for the South. Other missionaries have been added, the evangelistic and educational work has been carried on with much energy, and although the work has been subject to many vicissitudes it has made noticeable progress. The Japan Conference was organized by Bishop Wiley at Yokohama August 15, 1884, the number of members at that time being 907 and probationers 241. In 1898 the South Japan Conference was organized, at which time there were in the whole empire over 5,000 communicants connected with the Church. The Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society has nobly sustained its work in the empire since its first missionary, Miss Dora E. Schoonmaker, was sent out, in 1874. The names of such ladies as Miss Elizabeth Russell, Miss M. A. Spencer, Miss Minnie S. Hampton, and many others, are well known in the Christian world and are a sufficient guarantee for faithful and successful work.

Korea, so long known as “the hermit nation,” had been open to foreign commerce and settlement but a short time when this Society entered upon work in that land. Dr. R. S. Maclay had pioneered the work by visiting the country and making a report on it to the Board at home. Dr. W. B. Scranton and Rev. H. G. Appenzeller were appointed to open the mission and the work was begun, in 1885, at Seoul, the capital. In after years stations were opened at Chemulpo, Pyeng Yang and Wonsan, and the work has been increasing in interest and importance. Mrs. M. F. Scranton, the mother of Dr. W. B. Scranton, was the pioneer of the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society, and has been aided by a noble band of sisters who have since gone to the field. More than two thousand communicants are now connected with the mission and the opportunities for successful work seem to be among the best in the whole foreign field.

(Taken from S. L. Baldwin’s Foreign Missions of the Protestant Churches, published in 1900.)

Jubilee Letter from C. C. Baldwin

Dr. & Mrs. Baldwin, Missionaries in Foochow, 1847—1895

Dear Brother Hartwell:

… Among my first, and perhaps best thoughts, comes that of God’s most wonderful providence over our Mission. It would be easy to write a chapter showing their number and directness, though in early years the work seemed so slow, still there were never wanting abundant proofs of the Divine oversight and guidance. We were never at a standstill and never once beat a retreat. It was soon apparent, however, that we must encounter a legion of difficulties in order to secure a minimum of advance or even to hold our own. Of course, you now know all about it. To mention one of such obstacles, take the amazing duplicity of the people, their tergiversations, in which, like to fox they doubled again and again on their track, to throw off the scent of too keen pursuit. The other day I was looking over an old journal, dating from November 3rd, 1847, when we first left our home for the East. We arrived May 7th, 1848, and were soon at work on the language. The journal says about two weeks after that date that I wished to get a Chinese inkstand, and my teacher brought one, for which he asked four dollars. He finally accepted two, when I told him that he might take it back. He probably got a bargain at that. I have reason to think that this old journal could tell worse tales than this, if called upon to yield up its secrets. This single one may suffice as an index to a host of others which would show how the very life has been worried out of us by such woeful experiences.

…

Another thought is about our getting the language. A hard job as you all very well know. We had with us at the head of Dong-ciu our good friends of the Methodist Episcopal Mission, Dr. and Mrs. White, Messrs. Collins and Maclay and Mr. and Mrs. Hickok, and there was soon an effort to settle on an English orthography. This, as finally agreed upon, has continued essentially the same to the present time, the principal changes being in the initials and simpler forms of the diacritical points. The subject is alluded to here simply to introduce the thought, the inestimable value of these systems in learning a hard language. These helps to the mastery of such an uncouth tongue (delightful though when you once get hold of it) deserve at least a half hour’s notice and thought during the Jubilee meeting. It is also a matter of devout gratitude to God that during this half century our own and the other missions have carried on the work so persistently. So far as I recollect there was never a hint of giving up in any department. There have been delays and changes, but always with a view of renewed efforts and better hopes under better methods. I think that no figures can do justice to the amount of actual work done with its far-reaching influence in city, town and village throughout the Fookien Province. God has led us on to victory, and we feel sure that the truth of Christ is fixed in its seat of power never to be overthrown…

The increasing wisdom and skill in dealing with questions about churches, chapels, schools; about pastors, evangelists, teachers, colporteurs; about inquirers, backsliders, wine drinkers and opium smokers, and in a word, all those experiences relating to a growing and multiform work, - all these give abundant reasons to thank God for the gracious help which has brought our Mission thus far in safety. If I were only with you on this joyous occasion, and called on to make an address, I would perhaps refer to Zech. iv. 10 and xiv. 6, 7. I would say that the prophetic sentences refer to the advance of the Christian church and its grand millennial triumphs. Then I would read the verses as they stand, “For who has despised the day of small things? And it shall come to pass in that day that the light shall not be clear nor dark; but it shall be one day which shall be known to the Lord, not day nor night, but it shall come to pass that at even time it shall be light.” And then I should venture to apply this to our own Foochow work, merely borrowing the sentences for accommodation sake, using preterite and present tenses in place of future, and read thus: Who now despises the day of small things? It came to pass in that earlier day that the light was neither clear nor dark, but there is one day to the Lord, not day nor night, and now it comes to pass that at even time it is light. Does this seem fanciful? By no means. All prophecy, sooner or later, is to become actual history in the little spot called Foochow, as well as throughout the whole world. We believe that the Spirit of God is working mightily to this end, changing the future to preterite and present. Prophecy is being now fulfilled, and poor heathen Foochow is becoming a part of our Lord’s glorious inheritance…

How gladly would I be with you. If you could only find enough to pay my steamer fare one way, and telegraph one word, “come”!!

Yours sincerely,
C. C. Baldwin

(Jubilee letter from Caleb Cook Baldwin to Charles Hartwell and was read in the ABCFM Jubilee Meeting in Foochow, January 2nd, 1897.)

Historical Sketch of ABCFM in Foochow

ABCFM Foochow Mission. The picture was taken on Mr. Hartwell’s seventieth birthday, December 19th, 1895. Beginning on the left in the rear are Mrs. Peet, Mr. Beard, Mrs. Kinnear, Mrs. Beard, Dr. Kinnear, Mr. Peet, Mrs. Gardner, Dr. Nieberg-Goddard, Mr. Gardner. In the middle row are Miss Woodhull, Dr. Whitney, Mrs. Walker, Mr. and Mrs. Hartwell, Mr. Walker, Mrs. Whitney, Dr. Woodhull. In front are Miss Chittenden, Mr. Goddard, Mrs. Hubbard, Miss Newton and Dr. Bliss.

Former Missionaries

Names	Date of Arrival	Date of Departure
Rev. Stephen Johnson	1847	1852
Mrs. Caroline (Selmer) Johnson	1849	1852
Rev. Lyman B. Peet	1847	1871
Mrs. Rebecca C. Peet	1847	*1856
Rev. Seneca Cummings	1848	1855
Mrs. Abbie M. Cummings	1848	1855
Rev. Caleb C. Baldwin	1848	1895
Mrs. Harriet F. Baldwin	1848	1895
Rev. William L. Richards	1848	*1850
Rev. Justus Doolittle	1850	1864
Mrs. Sophia A. Doolittle	1850	*1856
Mrs. Lucy E. Doolittle	1859	1864
Mrs. Lucy E. Hartwell	1853	*1883
Rev. Simeon F. Woodin	1860	1895
Mrs. Sarah L. Woodin	1860	1895
Miss Jane S. Peet	1867	1868
Miss Adelia M. Payson	1869	1879
Dauphin W. Osgood, M.D.	1870	*1880
Mrs. Helen M. Osgood	1870	1881
Mrs. E. A. (Claghorn) Walker	1872	*1896
Rev. Josiah B. Blakely	1874	1880
Mrs. Isabella Blakely	1874	1880
Miss Alice B. Harris	1882	1884
Miss Emily Susan Hartwell	1884	1887
Mrs. H. Jennie Kinnear	1889	*1892

* Died on the field.

Members of the Mission (as of 1897).

Address—Foochow, China

Names	Date of Arrival	Stations
Rev. Charles Hartwell	1853	City
Mrs. H. L. (Peet) Hartwell	1859	〃
Rev. Joseph E. Walker	1872	Absent in America
Henry T. Whitney, M.D.	1877	Pagoda Anchorage
Mrs. Lurie A. Whitney	1877	〃〃
Miss Ella J. Newton	1878	Po-na-sang
Miss Elsie M. Garretson	1884	Absent in America
Rev. Geo. H. Hubbard	1884	Pagoda Anchorage
Mrs. Ellen L. Hubbard	1884	〃〃
Kate C. Woodhull, M.D.	1884	Absent in America
Miss Hannah C. Woodhull	1884	〃〃〃
Miss Caroline (Koener) Peet	1888	City
Rev. Lyman P. Peet	1888	〃
Rev. G. Milton Gardner	1889	Shao-wu
Mrs. Mary D. Gardner	1889	〃
Hardman N. Kinnear, M.D.	1889	Absent in America
Edward L. Bliss, M.D.	1892	Shao-wu
Mrs. Ellen J. Kinnear	1893	Absent in America
Miss Caroline E. Chittenden	1893	City
Mrs. F. E. (Nieberg) Goddard, M.D.	1893	〃
Rev. Dwight Goddard	1894	〃
Rev. Williard L. Beard	1894	Po-na-sang
Mrs. Ellen L. K. Beard	1894	〃
Miss Emily S. Hartwell	1896	City

Historical Sketch

The Foochow Mission was commenced by the Rev. Stephen Johnson and Rev. and Mrs. L. B. Peet. They had labored previously in Siam, the former twelve and the latter persons six years among the Chinese who had immigrated thither from the region of Amoy and who spoke the Amoy language. Mr. Johnson landed at Foochow on 2nd January, 1847, and Mr. and Mrs. Peet on 7th September of the same year. They were able at once to begin the distribution of books and tracts in the book language prepared by others and themselves, but were obliged to learn a new spoken language—one not previously learned by Protestant missionaries—before they were able to preach.

Foochow was one of the five ports first opened by treaty to commerce and the residence of missionaries. They found it an important field. Although at first by treaty rights their labors were restricted to a circuit with a radius of about thirty miles, within such a limit they found a population probably of three million people. The place also was comparatively salubrious and noted for its fine scenery. Mr. Mott, at the time of the Y. M. C. A. Convention, held here last October, told the present writer that in his travels around the world, in his estimation, he had seen no city more beautifully situated than Foochow, excepting Stockholm. The people, however, though comparatively literary, were found to be found, high spirited and disinclined to receive instruction from foreigners.

The way in which the Mission has been reinforced by foreign laborers, can be learned from the list of members and dates of their arrivals already given, but a few words may be of additional interest. In 1848 the Mission was strongly reinforced by the arrival of five persons from America. In 1849 a Swedish lady, who had taught at Ningpo, joined the Mission as Mrs. Johnson. In 1850 two more workers came from the United States, and in 1853 two others. But the depleting of the missionary force had already begun. In 1851 the Rev. William L. Richards, a son of Rev. William Richards of the Hawaiian Islands, died at sea on his way to America. Near the end of 1852, on account of his failing health, Mr. and Mrs. Johnson left for U. S., and in 1856 Mrs. Doolittle and Mrs. Peet died at Foochow, and the Rev. Seneca Cummings died in America. While therefore in 1850 for a few months there were eleven members of the Mission, men and women, on the ground, in 1858 there were only three were only three persons in the field, and the number for both the Foochow and Shao-wu fields never again rose to eleven until the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Blakely in 1874. Since then the number of workers has increased, but it has often been and is now quite inadequate to meet the demands of the work. Some of the forty-eight persons who have been connected with the Mission during the past fifty years, for various reasons, have filled but short terms of service, but others have been permitted to labor many years in the field, and the average term of service has been quite good. In this Jubilee year of the Mission there have been fifteen men and women at Foochow city, Foochow suburbs and Pagoda Anchorage stations, and three at Shao-wu.

At first all the missionaries lived on the island in the river between the bridges, and the Chinese would have been glad to restrict their residence to that locality. But in 1849 Mr. Cummings succeeded in renting premises on the south bank of the river, where he built a house. In 1850 Mr. Richards, after a great deal of trouble, rented premises at Po-na-sang, in the large suburb north of the river, and a little over a mile from the city gate. There two houses were erected, one of which is still occupied as a missionary residence. After the opening of the port to the tea trade, from 1853 and onwards, the Mission houses on the island and the one on the south side of the river were sold to foreign merchants, and more suitable locations were sought elsewhere. In 1861 land was secured inside the city proper, on which two houses were built. In 1876 premises were first secured for a mission residence at Shao-wu, two hundred and fifty miles up the river. Previous to this, for two years or more, chapels had been rented at two other places connected with this station and occupied by the native helpers from Foochow. In 1890 a house was purchased at Pagoda Anchorage, which was first occupied as a mission residence by Mr. Hubbard in 1891. The Chang-loh district, with its three to five hundred thousand people, is adjacent to and connected with this station. Work was begun at Chang-loh city by the Mission in 1862. This district and the Yung-fuh district have, by agreement with the other missions, been left for our Mission to evangelize. Work was begun by Mr. Woodin in the latter district or county in 1865, and Mr. Goddard is hoping to occupy it as a resident station soon.

The first baptism connected with the mission occurred in 1856, when Mr. Doolittle baptized the Chinese teacher employed in his boarding-school. In 1857 six more were baptized—the wife of the teacher just mentioned, four pupils and a second teacher in the school. Of these the first church was formed at the suburbs station. Since then there has been a gradual but steady growth in the native membership. In 1866 twelve members were received to the church, and the whole number reported was sixty-four. In 1876 fifteen were added by baptism, and the whole number of members reported was one hundred and seventy-one. In 1886 thirty-four were added to the churches, and the total of members was three hundred and thirty-four. In 1896 the number of members received has been five hundred and thirty-eight, and the total membership is fourteen hundred and forty. In 1866 the Mission reported five native preachers and four other helpers. At present there are three native pastors wholly supported by their churches, thirty-three unordained preachers, twenty-eight theological students, ten Christian medical students, eighty-seven Christian teachers in boarding and day-schools and thirty-three colporteurs, Bible women booksellers and other helpers.

Medical work for the Mission was begun by Dr. D. W. Osgood, who arrived at Foochow in January, 1870. Although sent out especially to aid in opening work in the interior, after visiting Yen-ping, Shao-wu and Kien-ning prefectural cities and other cities of less importance, without finding a good opening at the time, he located at Foochow, and succeeded in opening the Po-na-sang hospital at the suburbs station. Dr. H. T. Whitney arrived in 1877, and opened medical work at Shao-wu. He has since engaged in this work at Foochow suburbs and at Pagoda Anchorage. Dr. Kate C. Woodhull arrived in 1884, and opened our medical work for women and children in Foochow city. These physicians have been succeeded and aided in their work respectively by Dr. H. N. Kinnear in the suburbs, Dr. E. L. Bliss at Shao-wu and Dr. Nieberg-Goddard in Foochow city.

Education has received a good share of attention by the Mission from the beginning. Messres. Johnson, Peet, Baldwin, Cummings and Doolittle, and Mrs. Cummings and Mrs. Doolittle opened day-schools as soon as they were able to accomplish it, to which they gave most careful supervision. In 1854 Mr. Doolittle opened a boarding-school for boys, and Mrs. Doolittle took three girls as boarding pupils under her special care. Subsequently there were breaks in continuity in the boarding-schools. The boys’ boarding-school was started again inside the city by Mr. Woodin, and subsequently it was in charge of Messrs. Baldwin and Hartwell till 1889. In 1890 Mr. Peet took charge of it, and in 1891 introduced an English department, since which time it has grown to be the present Banyan City Institute with its one hundred and forty students. The Girls’ Boarding-school, started again by Mrs. Baldwin, was afterwards in charge of Miss Payson till early in 1879. Since then, under the charge of Misses Newton and Garretson, it has developed into a school of ninety pupils. The day-schools have been fostered by nearly all the members of the Mission, but more especially by Mrs. Baldwin and Miss Chittenden. As to Biblical and theological training of native helper our first preachers came largely from the Boys’ Boarding-school, where they had been thoroughly instructed in Biblical knowledge. These and others were also instructed in special classes, taught by Messrs. Baldwin, Woodin, Hubbard and Hartwell. In 1896 Mr. Beard secured premises for enlargement in this branch of the work, and is laboring to promote it. A boarding-school for educating women was begun at the suburbs station in 1885 by Mrs. H. L. Peet. They next year it was removed to the city, and has been for the most part in charge of Miss H. C. Woodhull. Since her return to U.S. on furlough it has been in charge of Mrs. Dr. Nieberg-Goddard. Station calluses for women have been held at the suburbs station in charge of Mrs. Woodin, Miss Newton, Mrs. Kinnear and Mrs. Beard. Kindergarten methods have been introduced somewhat at the city and suburbs stations.

At the Shao-wu station, in the Shao-wu language, the educational work has not advanced so far as at Foochow. But preachers and theological students have been instructed in classes by Messrs. Walker and Gardner; a few boarding pupils have been taught; women have received instruction from the missionary ladies; medical students have been taught by Drs. Whitney and Bliss; and Christian day-schools have been opened at a number of places.

In literary work most of the members of the mission have taken a part. Messrs. L. P. Peet, Baldwin, Doolittle, Woodin and Hartwell shared in the early tentative translations of portions of the New Testament or of the Old. Messrs. Baldwin and Hartwell were on the committee for a common version of the New Testament, and Messrs. Baldwin and Woodin were on that for the Old Testament. Dr. Baldwin also did a large share in the final revision of the whole Bible. Mr. Walker has prepared portious of the New Testament in the Shao-wu Colloquial, which have been published.

Dr. Baldwin did a large share in the preparation of the “Alphabetic Dictionary in the Foochow Dialect,” and Mrs. Baldwin and he prepared the “Manual of the Foochow Dialect.”

Members of the Mission have prepared books and tracts in the Book Language, in the Foochow Colloquial and in the Mandarin and Shao-wu Colloquial. Dr. and Mrs. Baldwin, Miss Newton, Mr. Walker and Mr. Hartwell have prepared hymns in the languages used by the Mission. Miss Payson aided in starting the Child’s Paper in the Foochow Colloquial in connection with ladies of the Methodist Mission, and Miss Newton, Mrs. Hubbard and others have shared in conducting it. Mr. and Mrs. Hubbard and Mr. and Mrs. L. P. Peet have started the Banyan City News in the Romanized Colloquial, and the same persons, for about ten years, have conducted the Romanized Press, and have published Scriptures, books and tracts in this form for use in schools for women and children.

At present all departments of the work are prospering, and although the Mission is straitened in the lack of workers and of funds, the outlook during all the fifty years has never been brighter than it is now.

Chas. Hartwell

(Published in 1897. Charles Hartwell was the senior missionary of the American Board in China.)

Persecutions

FAMILY OF HÜ YONG MI (許揚美)

From Ching Sing Tong, at Ta Ting, I was appointed to a new chapel on East Street, in the city. The missionary in charge was Rev. Mr. Martin, who lived on Black Rock Hill. He was very zealous and a faithful, loving pastor. A few months after my appointment the dedication of the chapel occurred. Members came from far and near. I had to provide for the hospitable entertainment of the guests. The chapel was close to the street; therefore great numbers of passers-by liked to approach and gaze within. Their voices were raised in such tumult that it was impossible to preach. Since the uproar could not be checked, it became necessary to close the chapel doors. The crowds were invited to withdraw; but they raised a louder clamor, using insulting language, and beating the doors. We therefore summoned the ward constable to restrain them.

When service was over, and the doors opened, the crowd rushed in, performing grotesquely in various ways, to insult me. I was very weary; for with all the work of the two days past, I had eaten nothing. The mob still filled the chapel till the middle of the afternoon, refusing to leave.

There was then no help for it, I thought, but to make appeal to the officers through Rev. Mr. Martin. This I did. The officers sent eight policemen who arrested ten or more, and took them to the yamum. They were judged as they deserved; but as it was their first offense they were merely condemned to bring to the chapel some firecrackers and large candles, and to make confession of their fault. The policeman brought the candles, the prisoners having escaped from them on the way. The candles were set up to illumine the chapel. Suddenly there was a pounding at the door, and several literati entered and destroyed the candles. It was already dark. Word came to me that a mob was destroying the chapel of the English Church Mission on South Street. It was told me that thence the mob was to separate in three companies, one to go to Black Rock Hill and destroy Mr. Martin’s house, one to go to the Hill of the Nim Genü and lay waste the premises of the American Board Mission, and another to come to the chapel at East Street. They did not carry out their intention at the American Board Mission, being resisted by the neighbors, who feared injury to their own property.

The house of Rev. Mr. Martin was tom down. Rev. S. L. Baldwin and wife, who had been at the church, and were stopping at Mr. Martin’s, having another meeting to attend, fortunately had left before the mob came. Mr. Martin and family escaped into the adjoining temple through a passage made for them in the wall by a Tauist priest. The mob at East Street began the attack by throwing broken tiles, crockery, and stones upon the roof. Then they struck the front door with a stone pillar, borne on men’s shoulders and broke the door. With an ax they split open the back door. There were in the house with me my wife, two of our children, my sister, and her three children, eight in all. The children were awakened from sleep and frightened by the noise. When the doors were broken open, the mob rushed in and began destroying furniture. They broke into our private rooms.

I then thought I must take away my family to a place of safety. I took my son John in my arms, my wife and sister each led one of the children, and I directed them all to follow me closely. In the dark court, where chairs and tables were upset and piled together in confusion, I stumbled and fell. Having the child in my arms I could not immediately recover myself. When I did, I called to the others, but no answer was returned. I alone was left, with John in my arms. I went on, and near South Street met my brother, Hieng Mi, just coming to tell me of the destruction of Rev. Mr. Martin’s house. He took the child from me, and then, for the first time, I noticed that he was unconscious, and had sustained an injury to his head. At once I went back to seek the rest of my family.

When about to enter the chapel I was rudely thrown back by the crowd, just making exit with great uproar. “My family are captive in their midst,” I thought. In my distress I cried with a loud voice, and insanely tried to force through the throng. I was carried on by it, and soon from one house on the street I heard weeping, and recognized the voices of my family. I made my way thither, and, entering, found my wife, sister, and the two children, whom they had led. The other two children were lost.

I had heard in the street voices crying, “Children trodden to death, children trodden to death!” and now feared they might be ours. Essaying to comfort the women, but very sorrowful myself, I hastened again into the street, and shouted the names of the children. One man told me that he had heard of two children being in a certain place, and indicated the way. I asked him to go with me, and we found the children. I rewarded the kind stranger with ten dollars.

My brother had carried little John to my sister’s house at the foot of Black Rock Hill, and I went there to see him at a little past midnight. I found him still unconscious, in delirium crying, “Break, break!”

Early the next morning I took a sedan to escort home my family. On East Street, near the chapel, my chair was surrounded by a riotous mob, who declared I should not escape them. I did, however, and got my family safe to Ching Sing Tong. Thanks be to God who enabled me to escape as from a pack of wolves!

At that time I heard that the mob planned to attack and destroy all the chapels, and commit other acts of violence. Thanks to Rev. Mr. Gibson, who, for the Lord’s sake, took much trouble in my behalf, fulfilling the words, “Mourn with those who mourn.” Energetically he prosecuted righteous measures with wisdom given of God.

The English and American consuls together presented to the governor accounts of the riot, and asked that the offenders might be dealt with according to law. The governor, whose surname was Sū, was an excellent man, possessing knowledge and virtue. He acknowledged that the people were very rebellious; and ordered the arrest of ten or more. Then the whole city was stirred. The people were in a panic. Shops were all closed. The streets were thronged with vagabonds. If a shop-door opened, stones were flung within. Great numbers, not of the rabble only, but respectable shopmen too, flocked to the prefect’s, and all day beat the drum at the gate, demanding the release of the prisoners. They were consequently all released. No punishment had been inflicted upon them; but their arrest had demonstrated to the people that the officers were just, and did not wish evil to foreigners, contrary to the ignorant supposition before entertained.

From this time the people were more civil and respectful to foreigners. No such general disturbance was ever again excited in the city of Foochow, hostile to the promulgation of the gospel. Through these troublous times my soul experienced comfort and strength from the Lord.

Through the conduct of a certain class of my associates, the devil devised more trouble for me, for which my wisdom was insufficient. Therefore, after the affair was past, its recollection often brought repentance, as billows will rise on a calm sea.

Subsequently, certain ones of the gentility came privately to comfort me, and offered to compensate me for losses sustained by the mob. I resolutely declined their offers of money. These people were already acquainted with my family and its history, and knew what kind of doctrine we taught. How had it come to pass that they were thus informed?

Strange! Supreme Omniscience had beforehand prepared for me many witnesses against this time, of which I then became aware. One of our former Church members, surnamed Chai, was a descendant of a Kwok sü. He had frequently brought his literary friends to the chapel to converse with me. They had thus clearly learned how correct our service in the worship of God. They, too, had often felt themselves strongly influenced to forsake their own gods and to become Christians.

The member Chai had been expelled from the Church for keeping more than one wife. Sorrowfully we exhorted him, but the matter involved too great difficulty for him, and he asked that his name be removed from the Church record. He had learned that the Church was pure, and such testimony he bore of it to his literary friends, who, during the time of uproar, went to him to make inquiries about the Christians. His testimony was firmly credited, which to themselves brought self-reproach.

Further, during the many years at Ching Sing Tong, I had known many people, and been known of more, who became witnesses for me. Months afterward, as I sat quiet at home, neighbors led men into my presence to confess their wrong. Wonderful, beyond man’s thought, the Lord’s wisdom and power! After the riot the officials appropriated twelve hundred dollars for remuneration. This money Rev. Mr. Martin gave into my charge to distribute according to each man’s report of his losses. By this means my knowledge of the affair increased very much. The silver was as a microscope upon the circumstances of the case, and the dispositions of men. Ah! I was sad. My heart earnestly wished to sink the money into deep waters or give it wings to flyaway.

My own share I requested the mission to retain, but Mr. Martin said: “This is your own; we will not take it.” I was willing to lose everything, glad to suffer ill for Jesus’ sake, let but the peace of Christ remain with me. I did not wish money to screen me from fellowship in Christ’s sufferings, to confuse my love for Christ. My experiences at this time led me to analyze character, and I found the principles of men to be as salt that had lost its savor.

I knew that wealth devoured peace of mind like a serpent. Therefore I besought the Lord: “What thou grantest let it not be wealth!” The mission planned to build a new chapel. The neighbors gave no trouble about the building, although the new structure was far better and higher than the old.

Mr. Martin, during the hot weather, came into the city to superintend the work. He took sick, and within twenty-four hours he and his son died. Although the Heavenly Father gave him everlasting rest, that could not prevent us from mourning unspeakably.

Suddenly I was taken ill, and was about to die. Thanks to Dr. Maclay for calling Dr. Stuart to see me. Rev. S. L. Baldwin and the Misses Woolston took much care of me. I was debtor for much love expended.

My health restored, I went to Ning Taik, Lo-ngwong, and Lieng Kong preaching. At Lo-ngwong, God gave me the respect of the villagers. One neighbor woman was said to be possessed of the fox demon for a long time. She wished to be free but dared not release herself. She came and invited my wife to go and pray for her, that she might cast away her idols. My wife went, and the woman experienced peace. The daughter of one of the neighbors was taken suddenly ill. She said: “The demon tells me, ‘I have been cast out by the Christians, and have no place to dwell. I happen to meet you; therefore I now come to you.’”

Previous to this time, when I was at Kang Chiá with Cheng Mi, I met a woman upwards of ten years possessed of a demon, also said to be the fox demon. Her husband told me that she was commonly very well; but when the demon came, she was seized with great fear and became insensible. Sometimes she would lie ten days or more without eating. She seemed to have no intelligence concerning what was spoken to her. When words were uttered by her, they were words of the demon’s, not her own; they were of secret, abstruse meaning, or prophetic. When she ate, she ate voraciously. Occasionally she committed self-injuries and mutilations. One day her husband invited a few of us to go to his house to pray. We first talked to him of the doctrine of faith, and told him that if he had faith, it would be enough for us to pray where we were. The demon would at once flee from his house. He replied, “I believe.” We prayed for him. When he returned home he found his wife already risen from her
bed, well.

At Tiong Loh I heard that Dr. Gibson and family were about to return to the United States. Our whole household returned to Foochow to bid him farewell. How could I know that from that time to the present I should not again see his face? Truly this caused our hearts perpetually to mourn.

On the same Sabbath there was quarterly-meeting at the A-to chapel. My heart was sorrowful. The love and glory of Christ did not spontaneously shine therein. I felt covered with uncleanness. I was glad to listen to the sermon; but when the communion service began, I felt that I ought to run away, that I dared not partake of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. Yet if I went away I knew not what men would conjecture, and if I might not dishonor Christ. I was greatly troubled. It seemed equally difficult to go forward or to retire. What should I do?

Then Dr. Maclay began reading the service. My heart palpitated, and only by holding myself by force I sat still. Suddenly I heard read the words, “If any man sin, he has an advocate with the Father” – words most exceeding sweet. In my soul the language was as if addressed to me, a sinner, alone: “See the print of the nails; see the pierced side, the flowing blood. This for thee. Go forward! Why are you sad? Go forward! Come to the Father! I will be your Mediator.”

The name Jesus was melody. My soul leaped to enter his precious side and be cleansed. “There is a fountain filled with blood.” Within the precious side I experienced peace and joy. This joy and peace seemed all to belong to myself alone. I felt the print of the nails, the fountain in the side; and how inestimably precious it was I could perceive. I also knew that nothing under heaven could remedy my heart’s illness and sorrow, only Jesus, from whose precious side flowed water and blood. He had healed me perfectly, and comforted me.

That day my soul first perceived the deep meaning in the sacrament. Naturally in my heart arose deeper friendship with the Lord Jesus. Blessedness! Where was its fountainhead? I had found it. It was in my Lord’s precious side. Great efficacy there! My one Savior! Through hearing of the ears my soul had seen, had come close to Jesus, was conscious of being washed clean, and had received great peace. True is this word: “All sinners under heaven; you need have no sorrow. Only come and trust Jesus, you all will be perfectly well.”

When I went again to Tiong Loh, I learned that the three missions had distributed among them the mission stations. The English Church Mission had taken Lieng Kong aud Lo-ngwong; the Methodist Episcopal Mission had Ming Chiang and Hok Chiang; the American Board Mission had Tiong Loh and Ing Hok. In Foochow, Ku-cheng, and Ping Nang, the work was to be general.

Up to this time the Methodist Episcopal Mission had been first in every district that the missionaries visited.

I returned home, and located again at Ching Sing Tong. There the opportunity to preach was good, but results were small. The converts were mainly the very poor or the solitary. For the Lord’s sake we cared for these. In the sixth month (July, 1864) my eldest daughter Hiong Kwang – about three years old – took suddenly ill, and died within twenty-four hours. This was a great sorrow. I could not understand why it should be. On the eighth day of the twelfth month, in the fourth year of Tung Te (January, 1865), another daughter, King Eng, was born. We received comfort. People said, “This one will stay with you long.” The sound of the name is the same as that of words meaning long-continuing. The signification of the name is Precious Peace.

When King Eng was about two years old she was very ill a long time. One day I asked Rev. S. L. Baldwin to invite Dr. Stewart to call and see her. Dr. Stewart promised on the next day, at twelve noon, to be at his hospital to see patients. Therefore my wife and I, with our two children, went in chairs to see him. Arrived at the hospital, we were told that Dr. Stewart had gone to Pagoda Anchorage, twelve miles distant. We waited until nearly dark, but he did not return. I perceived that the child was unconscious, not recognizing anybody all day. All said that she was dying. My whole heart was very sorrowful. No help!

Quickly we hastened to Ching Sing Tong, lest she should die on the street. I first ran up-stairs and agonized in prayer. I received answer from the Heavenly Father. “Go down and see, the child lives!” I hastily lighted a candle, and ran down stairs. The mother was holding the child close in her arms and weeping. She said to me, “She is dead.”

I looked at the child’s face and called “King Eng.” She opened her eyes and said, “E-wá” (mamma). We quickly gave her drink and observed a little perspiration.

From that moment she seemed well. She smiled, and spoke, and was well. This manifested the hand of God alone. Not by medicine was she cured. Praise to the Heavenly Father without end!

My younger brother, Hieng Mi, having attended examination on Sunday, his license to preach was withdrawn from him by the Quarterly Conference. He had formerly been very happy. Seeing him daily spending his time vainly, I feared that he would fall into temptation. I assisted him, and advised him to open a rice-shop, and commissioned him to have care of our mother, younger brother, and sister.

My brother Sing Mi was then in the United States. I was liable to be removed to a distant station, when it would be a comfort to know that those at home were provided for. I could not know that my brother would cultivate a taste for gambling. One day his gun exploded and destroyed two fingers. He was dangerously ill, near to death. Many thanks were due to Dr. S. L. Baldwin, who took great care of him, and invited Dr. Stewart to attend him. This accident cost me considerable money. The rice-shop failed to repay the capital expended. My brother asked me again to aid him. He wished to join a circle of twenty, each of whom was to contribute a sum for the use of one temporarily – all to have the benefit of it, each in turn. We formed the circle of twenty, several preachers joining it.

After about a year I was appointed to Ming Chiang. With the money that had been given me after the riot, I had bought a house, and this I had long desired to sell that I might bestow the proceeds in charity. The Church was not willing to receive the property. No opportunity had offered for sale.

As I was leaving for Ming Chiang I placed the matter in the hands of my brother. But the Lord was unwilling to receive the money. After a few years I understood why the Lord’s treasury could not receive it, nor the treasury of his Church. Therefore the money went to my relatives. They understood it was for the poor. They reckoned themselves poor, and appropriated it. They afterward were very poor for many years, and had great deprivations. Many demands were laid upon me – more, sometimes, than I felt I could endure. Even dear friends became enemies. I felt that it was better to die than to live. But Jehovah remained, my Heavenly Father, God, and Savior; him alone had I to love, to trust. I took the parables to heart. They comforted me as a sympathetic friend.

Although all my goods had been dispersed afterward, in an unexpected moment, from God’s hand, I received a gift of money. Great peace; unceasing thanks! All things in turn come, and all are naturally profitable to me.

One year, Bishop Thomson, at Ching Sing Tong, at the end of a discourse said: “Use that which will help you to walk heaven’s way the fastest; that is, tears and kneelings.” These words affected me greatly, and remained a constant reminder.

When the Conference appointed me to Ming Chiang and Lik Tu, my heart had additional grief. I feared that the missionaries had rejected me. I had learned that on this district were many literary men, hard-hearted, who constantly insulted the preachers and annoyed the Churches, stealing books and burning them. Therefore no preacher wished to go there. Now, I thought, I am sent here because the missionaries feel it inconvenient to expel me and wish me to resign. These doubts arose on account of my sorrowful frame of mind, fighting with sin. However, I thought, all things are in God’s hand to rule and determine. Dare to doubt? No. I must put away every imagination of my own. Preachers, whether in sorrow or joy, must finish their course. Therefore I, in depressing circumstances, must trust the Lord the more, and hope for the manifestation of his power.

I went to Lik Tu and rented a house. Having arranged to have it immediately repaired, I returned to Foochow. It was about the beginning of the eleventh month. My wife’s state of health compelled me to delay moving. Another preacher was appointed to Ching Sing Tong, which would compel us to move at once. It was impossible, so I remained. On the twenty-second day of the eleventh month, in the sixth year of Tung Te (December, 1866), a daughter was born to us – Ngük Eng.

(Tenth chapter of Hü Yong Mi’s biography The Way of Faith, published in 1896. Hü Yong Mi was one of the seven native Methodist ministers in Fuzhou.)