THE BEGINNING OF HARVEST—ONG LUNE.
REV. WM. C. POND, SAN FRANCISCO.
Our Lord has begun—sooner than we desired and very suddenly to us—to gather from our harvest field His wheat into His garner. The first-fruits went home on Sunday, Aug. 3d, at our Bethany church. I was in the act of baptizing and welcoming to Christian fellowship on earth four of our more recently converted Chinese brethren, when our brother Ong Lune was welcomed to the fellowship above. He was a young man of 21 years, had been a Christian, as we hoped, for nearly three years, and a church member since December, 1877. His sickness was brief, and he was supposed to be recovering till about twenty-four hours before his death. He had greatly desired to become strong enough to be present at our August communion, but, instead, he ate bread in the kingdom of God.
Modest and unassuming, but intelligent, earnest and thoroughly consecrated to Christ, his absence from our mission work makes a void not easily filled. A great majority of American Christians might well have sat at the feet of this young Chinaman and learned how to be co-workers with the Saviour. Approaching his countrymen with a smile, seizing every opportunity to “speak a word in season,” he sought to bring them to our schools, and then to lead them to his Saviour. A house-servant, with little time that he could call his own, he will wear no starless crown. I know not how many times the question, “Who told you to come to school?” has been answered by the utterance of his name. The last service he was able to render was—in spite of pain and weariness from the disease which afterwards proved fatal—to act as my interpreter in the examination of three candidates for baptism, one of them, possibly, his own child in the Gospel.
His teacher—Miss Florence N. Wooley—quotes him as saying that what he wanted was “to bring more and more scholars, and watch them, and when they know about Jesus, must make them to be our brethren and try to keep them from temptation; and I wish to do the best I can, but am afraid of temptation myself.” She adds: “He succeeded in this; and the secret of his success, as told me by one of the scholars, was this: ‘He talked so nice to the boys, and never got cross nor angry; and so they all minded what he told them.’ He had entered into the spirit of the word, ‘Go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in.’ As soon as he came into school he was wont to speak of some one who had promised him to come that night. If this promise was not fulfilled, he went after the person again and again and brought him in. He was getting on well in his studies, especially in his study of the Bible. The last verses he recited were Acts vii. 54, 55, now happily fulfilled in his own experience.”
THE STORY OF LEE FOUN, BY LEE HAIM.
[Lee Haim, one of our helpers, had given me this account, and I requested him to write it for the Missionary. I give it as he wrote it, word for word, correcting only a few expressions to make the sense clear.—W. C. P.]
“I am going to tell you something of our Christian brethren when they go back to China. Last year one of our Christian Association went by the steamship with his own brother, and when they both reached their old home, his elder brother said to his wife: ‘Well, to-morrow I will go tell my mother that my younger brother, Lee Foun, believes in Jesus, and was a member of the American Association while he staid in California. He does not want to worship our gods which sit in the temple, nor worship our ancestors; neither to keep the traditions which our fathers have handed down from generation to generation. If I go and tell these things to my mother she will give him a good whipping.’
“So his elder brother agreed to tell his mother in the morning; and when the morning came he brought the whole affair before her. She was exceedingly grieved when she heard it, and she went and told some of her son’s uncles. Then Lee Foun’s uncles said to her: ‘Never mind that now; your son now come back is like a stranger; you need not to say any thing to him now; but wait for two days, until the first day of June is come; then you may call him up and offer some tea, and burn the incense in the morning, and see if he do it or not.’ This custom was known to Lee Foun, for our Chinese generally keep it twice each month—the first day of the month and the fifteenth. It is considered a very important custom, as much so as to serve their parents in their lifetime. It is like the Jews keeping the Passover every year, or as we keep the Supper of the Lord.
“So his mother said nothing to him till the first day of June; then she tried to wake him up to burn the incense and offer the tea to his great-grandfather; but Lee Foun did not get up as early that morning as usual; and when the time of offering tea and burning the incense had passed, then he got up. And when he met his mother she burst into tears. He asked her presently, ‘What is the matter, mother?’ and his mother gave no answer. Then he asked her the same thing. His mother said to him: ‘My son, you ought to have got up early this morning and offered some tea and burned the incense before your ancestor; but you got up so late, and did not do it, that makes me feel bad.’ Then Lee Foun said to his mother: ‘If we go and offer tea and burn the incense before these stones, wood, clay and paper, do you think they know it? I don’t believe that, for they, having eyes, cannot see; having ears, cannot hear; having noses, cannot smell; mouth, cannot speak; hands, cannot handle; feet they have, but cannot walk; and bodies have they, but cannot move. All these things are nothing but wood, stone, clay and paper. What good have they done for men? Moreover, those who serve images, or serve the dead instead of the living, sin against the living and true God; for every thing is made by His own hands. And He has commanded us not to worship images, neither to serve the dead; but only to worship the true and living God, and to honor father and mother while they are living. But those who take offerings of paper to be burned up, and represent money, are foolish, and deceive themselves; for the paper is nothing but paper, and cannot represent money.’ Then his mother laughed when she heard that, and Lee Foun’s brother was angry at him, because his mother was pleased with his younger brother, Lee Foun. He felt as Joseph’s brethren felt toward Joseph when they saw Jacob, their father, love him. Do you think they could injure Joseph, and that Lee Foun’s brother can injure Lee Foun? No. Why not? Because God is with them. As Paul said: ‘If God be for us, who can be against us?’ Oh, how glorious and powerful God is!
“After a while some of the Chinese missionaries heard that a certain Christian brother had come back, so they went and inquired for Lee Foun, and they entered into his village, to visit him; and when he saw the missionaries, then he wept, because of the persecution by his own brother, and because of the ignorance of his relatives about God. Lee Foun’s mother was glad to receive them, and invited them to come again to the feast of Lee Foun’s marriage. After this the marriage of Lee Foun was at hand; so the Chinese missionaries went to his village again to show him how the Christian ceremony should be performed. So Lee Foun did as Christians do. He did not bow his head before the idols, nor before his ancestors, and neither did he keep the traditions of men, but the commands of God.
“Not only he did so, but Chan Wen, Lee Sam, and also many of our brethren, act in accordance with Christianity when they go back to China. I believe you have no doubt of that; for if we are true Christians here in California, we will be true Christians in China and elsewhere. We will stand up for Jesus and suffer for Him, and take up His cross in public.
“Dear friends, we entreat that you will mention our names to the Lord when you pray, that we may have a faithful heart in our Lord Jesus; that we may be strong in Him; and ask Him to open the great door to us, that the nation of heathen Chinese soon may become a Christian nation, and they may understand the word of God and know Christ is the Creator and Saviour of the world, and all the creatures should be bowed down before Him.”