Under the mizzen mast: A voyage round the world

by Nehemiah Adams

SHANGHAI.

I spent four or five days at Shanghai, on another excursion from Hong Kong. This I described in a letter to Bishop Eastburn, as several things which I saw there in connection with Episcopal friends made it agreeable to acquaint him with them. The letter was kindly published in “The Christian Witness” of this city, and copied by “the Boston Transcript.” I take this opportunity to insert the most of that letter, from one of the papers above mentioned.

Hong Kong, China, October 10, 1870.

My dear Bishop Eastburn,—I shall not soon forget that the first letter which met my eye on reaching San Francisco, after a voyage of one hundred and eleven days, was in your handwriting. I have since then been so pleasantly reminded of you through a good man’s influence here in China that I must tell you of it. Being on a visit to Shanghai, I was invited to attend worship in a Chinese chapel five miles from the city. We went through the fields in chairs borne by coolies, till we came to the village where trade was plying all its arts, and handicraft its implements, unconscious of the Sabbath. A small church-bell notified us that we were near the chapel; and soon we emerged from heathenish sounds and sights into a christian temple, neat and orderly in all its appointments. There were about one hundred and fifty Chinese assembled for worship, which was conducted by a very good looking Chinaman, tall, and of pleasing address. Though ignorant of every word he said, my attention was riveted by his agreeable action and manner, eminently becoming a preacher of the gospel and withal eloquent, if his whole appearance and the attention of the people were true indications. I could see that the services were liturgical from the responses, and from the Chinese books used by the people, the little girls around me keeping my attention directed to the place in the service; though very little good did this do me, except that it helped me to keep my book right side up. The service ended with singing, “There is a happy land,” the tune so familiarly known in our Sabbath schools. The preacher came to speak with me before service, with his welcome in very good English; and after service he came again and gave me much information. He has been rector there sixteen years, the chapel being built and he being sustained there by the munificence, said he, “of a Mr. William Appleton, of Boston.” This made my heart leap for joy, to come so far into heathenism and find myself in a christian temple erected and maintained by a fellow-citizen of Boston. Mr. Appleton I did not know personally, though I once received a very kind note from him with a pamphlet. But I had long cherished a sincere love for him from many impressions of his truly estimable character. I was led to think, What a memorial of christian zeal has he built in this distant land! What pleasure it must afford his happy spirit in heaven to look down on this place of christian worship in the depths of heathenism! What a noble use of wealth, blessing a multitude of people who but for him might have been left in heathenish ignorance! I told the preacher that I should report his chapel and his labors to christian friends at home, and I mentioned your name in speaking of those who would be glad to hear of him. He desired me to give his respects to you; so it is my pleasure to send you the respectful and christian salutation of the Reverend Wong Kwong Chi, of one of the villages of Shanghai.

As we came out of the chapel, our ears were saluted with some musical instruments from a house where people were making a tumult over a dead person. Little knew they of that “happy land, far, far away:” which the people of Appleton Chapel had just been celebrating. I felt a desire to tell good men in Boston that there yet remaineth much land to be possessed here by christian philanthropists; that they can readily find villages of sixty thousand waiting each for its chapel, to say nothing of cities with millions in them, where it would be easy to begin a work for the ransomed spirits of good men and women to review with pleasure in heaven. Truly enviable is that rich christian who can employ wealth to do good for him when he is with Christ. The Appleton Chapel at Shanghai seemed to me a cup of cold water, the donor of which is not losing his reward.

From the steamboat-landing at Shanghai, looking across the river, you see a comely church of fair proportions, surrounded in part with banyan and bamboo trees, affording it a perpetually verdant appearance. It is a stone chapel for seamen, built through the efforts of A. A. Hayes, Jr., of the firm of Olyphant & Co., and son of Dr. A. A. Hayes, of Boston. It is under the care of the Rev. Mr. Syle, Presbyterian, a devoted and most useful man. A large churchyard has there received the remains of seamen of all nations. It is within the same enclosure with the church, ornamented with plants and trees, and is nearly filled with the dead. It has been opened fourteen years, and there are fourteen hundred interments. The graves are in close and even rows for economy of rooms, so that this large collection of the dead looks like a buried battalion who have lain down by platoons. The orderly disposal of them has a saddening influence. I never before felt that there is a natural appropriateness in having a burial-place, as Job says of the land of the departed, “a land without any order.” We feel that promptitude and exactness are out of place at a funeral; but slowness and delay are congenial. Surely, these ranks of the dead will not rise by roll-call, though they lay down in such good order. They made me think of some lines of an uncle of Sir Walter Scott, a sea-captain, on a sunken man-of-war, all her crew on board:—

‘In death’s dark road at anchor fast they stay,

Till Heaven’s loud signal shall in thunder roar;

Then, starting up, all hands shall quick obey;

Sheet home the topsail, and with speed unmoor.’[7]