One of the most important pieces of work done by foreigners is the C.M.S.[16] Medical Mission, and they are building a fine new hospital besides having a beautiful native house in the city. Dr. Bradley told us of the successful work done in curing opium smokers, who wished to break themselves of the habit. A wealthy young official had presented complimentary tablets in gratitude for his cure. The work was rather in abeyance pending the completion of the hospital.
There is also a fine, well-managed French hospital for Europeans, but it is not in the railway suburb, as it was built a great many years ago, before the railway was built, in the days when the French were first getting a footing in the province.
But the most interesting thing to us of all the things we saw was the Chinese Home Mission—a Society formed in 1919, by which the Chinese take up the evangelization of China as their own special duty. This is as it should be. The time has come when the burden of responsibility should begin to be taken up by the Chinese Christians, because it is of paramount importance that Christian mission work should cease to be looked on as a foreign institution. The Chinese Church of the future is beginning to take shape, and must grow in accordance with national needs. It is to be the outcome of the honest hard spiritual work of many sections of the Christian Church, but the copy of none. It is of happy augury that in this particular section seven members of the party represented the Presbyterians, Methodists, and American Board; while twelve different societies are represented on their advisory board. They have not so far formulated any creed, but have gone out rather as pioneers to learn the needs of the people and the way in which they can best work. They will then report to those who sent them. Not only are Christians of all churches supporting the movement financially, but also non-Christians show a great interest in it. The chief of the Governor’s staff in Yünnan wrote most cordially, welcoming their coming and promising to help them in any way he could. The missionaries have all done the same, and they are now working most happily alongside one another. We went to call on the two ladies of the C.H.M. settled in the city, the others of the party being unfortunately some distance away in robber-ridden areas of the country. Miss Li Ching Chien and Miss Chen Yu Ling have a girls’ school in a charming old temple building, and we found about thirty girls there, some having a lesson in the classics, others doing needlework. They are drawn from the exclusive upper-class families, whose doors are rigorously closed against the foreigner. They are glad to have their daughters instructed in Western knowledge, even if it does include Christian doctrine. The teachers told them in the opening ceremony that the main object of the school was to promote Christianity. They did not speak much English, but we took our interpreter, who was pleased to find he knew one of them in Peking, when she was working in the North China Union College for Women. They told us how they now visit in more than a hundred houses, owing to their school work, and are allowed to talk freely of the message, which is their chief aim. On Sundays they hold a service in their house and a Chinese pastor preaches: to this service men come as well as women and girls.
Meanwhile the men of the Chinese Home Mission have been visiting different parts of the province, Pastor Ding Li-mei going as far as Tengyueh, on the western border of Yünnan. He not only made a careful survey of the various districts, but also preached wherever he went. He is a man of high repute, one of the most successful and widely known evangelists in the East of China. His wife had taken up kindergarten work in the capital, as that has been her special line. Another of the party, Mr. Sang, went to visit a large tin-mining district in the south, and made a survey of Ku Chin, a prosperous city. The people of the district are greatly addicted to opium-smoking, which is on the increase. The Southern Government, which is supreme in Yünnan, openly encourages opium-smoking. There is no missionary work going on in this part of the province at present; in fact, there are not a dozen mission centres in the whole of this huge province, 146,680 square miles, with an estimated population of twelve millions. No wonder that the Chinese Home Mission felt that this was the place where they were most needed; hence their decision to start work in Yünnan, hoping to extend their work to other provinces. Another of the party, Mr. Li, visited the northern part of the province, crossing the border into Szechuen. At one place he found a group of Christians, who begged him to become their pastor.
The work of the C.H.M. is gradually getting organized and has promise of a fine future; its inception was mainly due to women, and they seem destined to play an important part in it. Chinese women have initiative and great staying power. One of its chief promoters was Dr. Mary Stone,[17] an able Chinese doctor, whose reputation is known throughout the empire. In her interesting book, Notable Women of Modern China, Miss M. E. Burton gives a graphic sketch of Dr. Stone’s life, from the time when her father brought her as a child of eight to an American lady doctor, saying, “Here is my little girl. I want you to make a doctor of her.” She grew up to be one of the people who tackle hard jobs of every kind and who inspire others, as in the case of the Chinese Home Mission. And the success of the Mission can only be secured if others take their share in it, for “they also serve who only stand and wait.” A charming instance of this came to my notice at Amoy. A friend took me to visit an old pastor and his wife who had just celebrated their combined birthday of a hundred and fifty. They said to me, “We are too old and infirm to carry on our work, so now we have set ourselves to pray for the Mission, and every day ten of us meet together for the purpose, and we give what little we can.” I told them I was going to see the ladies at Yünnan, and they were pleased at the thought of sending a message direct. Miss Li and Miss Chen were no less pleased to receive it.
The Pilgrim Way, Yünnanfu Lake.
In Cloudland.