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.)