MISS RUSSELL’S FUNERAL SERVICE
Mrs. Mary P. Ament, who has been closely associated with Miss Russell during the past year, sends the following account of the last loving services rendered to our beloved missionary:
Many friends had roamed the hills and meadows, bringing a variety of flowers—wild pinks, fine everlastings peculiar to Pei Tai Ho, also a feathery foliage, and had massed them on piano and organ before the pulpit with beautiful effect.
Intimate friends went slowly down from the service to Ivy Lodge, the Stanleys’ pleasant home, where Miss Russell had been spending the vacation days and where she died. As we entered the room and saw our friend of many years, she seemed asleep, yet in repose one felt the power of her personality, her high purpose, her dignity. The casket was covered with heavy pongee and lined with cream-white crêpe. She wore a white embroidered dress, and about her lay sprays of cypress vine. Her beautiful silvery hair made her look so queenly!
The long journey to Peking accomplished, [[42]]a large number of friends, foreign and Chinese, awaited us, and next morning followed the flower-laden bier to the cemetery.
There, as one listened to the discriminating words of Pastor Li in his address, and Pastor Wang in his prayer, it brought keen satisfaction to think that the fragrance, the real essence of such a life, was perceived by those for whose welfare she had laboured. Rev. Mr. Stelle, speaking in Chinese, emphasized our opportunity to show our respect for her by seeking the things which she valued. In English, he told us of the comfort sought by the dear friend in the Twenty-third Psalm, which she asked to have read to her the day before she left us. He read the Psalm and offered a prayer in English.
At early dawn the messenger came and, taking her by the hand, ascended the heavenly heights. “And there shall be no night there, and they need no candle, neither light of the sun, for the Lord God giveth them light, and they shall reign for ever and ever.”
These words are full of comfort, but as yet we feel the need of her ministry so keenly that only the knowledge that the same God who strengthened her is with us still enables us to move forward and conserve what we may of her lifework. [[43]]
With severe limitations of health she yet wrought with delicate touch and a beautiful fabric was merging from beneath her hands.
I must allude briefly to the beauty of the day, with its clear shining after rain, the deep sorrow of the devoted friends who followed the bier on foot over miles of roadless distance from Ch’ienmen to the cemetery, that quiet, ivy-walled inclosure in which stands the chapel where the service was held—a tender, impressive service.
We had thought that few American or English friends could be present at this time of year, when the foreign residents are away from the city, but we were mistaken. Two secretaries of Legation, physicians of the Union Medical College, fellow-workers, and old-time friends were there; native pastors, Bible women, and church friends, servants and guards of honour sent by the military governor of the city and by the chief of the civil administration. The chapel had as many people standing as there were sitting. The casket with its covering of beautiful vines and white flowers, roses, day lilies, tuberoses, spirea, stood in front of the altar and was carried by the friends to the grave, where loving hands had arranged the beautiful wild date branches and vines as a lining. There, a short service with Pastor Jen and [[44]]Teacher Ch’uan taking part, and a prayer and a hymn.
The mound as we left it was beautiful with the sides covered with the green vines and date branches, and on top the lovely floral pieces and coloured flowers, two great wreaths of the long palm leaves and roses, and at the head a floral cross. There in the quiet and peace among the trees we left it. Some of the Chinese are already saying, “When a stone is erected, let it have one Chinese word upon it, just her name, then we can find her grave and every spring at the ‘Ch’ing Ming’—feast of all souls—we will go out and honour her memory.”
There is a hush upon us all. God has come very near and taken our Great Missionary from us. We shall not look upon her like again. [[45]]
GLEANINGS
FROM CHINESE FOLKLORE
BY
NELLIE N. RUSSELL
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