IMPERIUM IN IMPERIO.
The story which I have to tell this month may startle our readers east of the Rockies, though the hard fact underlying it has long been known to us on this Pacific slope, and especially in San Francisco.
On Sunday, June 5th, among seven Chinese who were baptised and received to Bethany church, was one young woman about fifteen years of age. She was the second female Chinese received to our fellowship, for out of more than 120 of that nation whom I have baptised, all but two have been males.
This young woman is remarkably beautiful in person, pleasing in her ways, and interesting in character. Her father is in China. Her mother, quite in accordance, perhaps, with the moralities of Chinese heathenism, had taken to herself another husband for the time being, and had gone to Arizona to ply her trade, the nature of which I do not certainly know, and therefore will not suggest. To raise funds she had pawned this girl for $250, but had paid $100 on her debt. A very estimable Chinaman, not a professed Christian, but one of whom we have hoped much, knowing the parties and hearing that little Ah Yung was being harshly treated, advanced the balance of the debt and took possession of the child. He placed her in the family of our helper, Jee Gam. Thus she became known to the lady teachers in our Central Mission, one of whom went up-stairs each evening to the apartments occupied by Jee Gam’s family, to give her a lesson, and also (as always) to speak to her of Christ.
At first indifferent and even hostile, she softened at length, and began to wish that she might become a Christian. With this softening of the heart towards Christ, there rose, of course, an abhorrence and dread of the destiny which, according to heathen customs, awaited her. She did not, however, at first open her heart fully to her teacher, but said that she would like to earn some money, and to work for wages in some American family. A place was found for her which, as being a little remote from the city, was likely to be a safe refuge. But when the time for her removal came, unexpected obstacles were interposed. Jee Gam, while quite willing to have her go, felt that it would be neither honorable nor safe for him to deliver her to any one except the man who entrusted her to him; and this one shrunk from the responsibility of letting her go where it might be difficult for her mother to resume possession of her. Meanwhile the case became more urgent because of a report that her mother would soon be in San Francisco, for, with her arrival, all possibility of legal protection for the child would be gone. Miss Jessie S. Worley, the principal of our Central School, suddenly cut the knot by causing herself, with no one’s consent except that of the child, to be appointed her legal guardian, and she holds her under such protection now.
The day after Ah Yung’s baptism, I think it was, the mother appeared. Entreaties proving vain, she sought by other methods to bring her daughter under her own control, or else to get from some one the coin she was supposed to be worth; for such a girl, just budding into womanhood, in our Chinese matrimonial market, is said to be worth from $500 to $1,500. Last Saturday the Chinaman who had befriended Ah Yung appeared at my study. It was with great difficulty that he could maintain his self-control, though he is a man of strong and steady nerves. His lips quivered as he talked, and his athletic frame often trembled. The mother had appealed to the Six Companies, and his life was at stake. Since then, as I have been informed, a meeting of the representatives of the Six Companies has been held, and our friend was summoned to appear before them. He was given till to-day (June 17th) to restore the girl to her mother—an act entirely beyond his power. Meanwhile, the High-Binders were already on his track, and he scarcely feels safe even in Oakland and in his own employer’s house. He will probably be obliged to flee, perhaps to some point far East, for he will not be able, even if disposed, to surrender the dear child to the fate to which, in her mother’s hands, she would be doomed.
This has brought closer home to me than ever before the fact of an imperium in imperio in our Chinese communities. It stirs one’s blood to think that this young man can make no effective appeal to our Government against this secret tyranny. It may very likely be that if he should be murdered, his murderer, if convicted, would be hung; but this is at best a cold and shadowy comfort in the present emergency.
“A good argument, this,” some one avers, “for hustling the whole brood out of the land!” But in so doing we should not help ourselves at all, and we should hustle them back into deeper darkness and severer cruelty. A good argument, rather, as it seems to me, for pouring in with intenser zeal and more practical endeavor, the life-giving, freedom-giving light of Christ.
W. C. POND.