In the early fall a new member of the mission appeared in our family, making life richer, in a measure absurdly disproportionate to his dimensions and weight. Some months after this, sickness, growing more and more threatening and intractable, followed, until the doctors’ verdict was that a return to America was the only condition, and (that a doubtful one) on which life could be saved. The kindness and goodness of the whole community shown to me were beyond expression. Here in the East, where the ordinary conveniences of large cities are not to be had for money, where we are very dependent on each other’s kind offices, mutual love and service draw and bind us very closely together.
I was nursed, and friends and neighbors helped my husband pack away our goods, for a year’s absence means that everything must be nailed or locked or sealed up from mildew, moth, rust, rats and robbers. Furniture must be compactly stowed away so that the house may be occupied by other homeless missionaries waiting for an appropriation for a house. They sewed for baby and me, and spared neither pains nor trouble to help us. Two of the ladies, Mrs. Bunker and Miss Rothweiler, went with us to Chemulpo, a journey which I made, carried by six coolies to ensure steadiness, on a long steamer chair, stopping over night, half way, at a primitive Japanese hotel.
I can never tell with what regret, shame and pain I left Korea. I had looked forward with pleasure to a return after a long period of years, when the work had been well begun and the appointed time had come, when something had been accomplished, but to go now, a failure, to leave my work scarcely begun, perhaps never to return, was bitter. But more bitter still was the thought that I was dragging my husband, in the freshness of his health and vigor, back from a life of usefulness, where workers were pitiably few and calls for help from all sides were many and loud. Christian tracts and hymn books were needed, the Bible, as yet not translated, the dictionary not half finished, schools to be established, a fast growing band of Christians to be nourished and taught, and when I thought of it all, it looked dark.
But God brought a blessing out of it, as he always does from every seeming misfortune, for through that return to America several missionaries were obtained, a new mission established and greater interest in Korea aroused in the minds of American, Canadian and English Christians.
“Man’s weakness waiting upon God its end can never miss,
For man on earth no work can do more angel-like than this.
He always wins who sides with God—to him no chance is lost;
God’s will is sweetest to him when it triumphs at his cost.
Ill that he blesses is our good, and unblest good is ill,
And all is right that seems most wrong, if it be His sweet will.”
On our return to Korea most of the summer was spent at Chemulpo, as our baby was very sick. We stopped in a so-called “hotel,” kept by Chinamen. The long hot nights were rendered almost intolerable by the noise and odors of such a place. From early in the evening till past midnight we were tortured by the high falsetto singing of the actors in a Chinese theatre across the street. The sailors returning to the gunboats in the bay kept the dogs in fits of frenzied barking, which would have effectually murdered sleep had it ever ventured near. By the time the dogs had begun to regain their composure, the Japanese venders of vegetables, fish, etc., with a devotion to business which under any circumstances ought to have won high praise, began with loud strident voices to call their wares under my window until it was time to rise and face a new day.
All day I brooded over my starving little son with an aching heart, looking out across the long reaches of dreary mud flats to the sea, watching for the steamer that was bringing the only food that he could digest, and prayed it might not come too late. Day by day the little life trembled in the balance, but at last the ship came in, and never was argosy from the Indies laden with gems and treasures untold half so welcome. Never could ship come to me with half so precious a cargo as that which brought my baby strength and life.
In the meanwhile Mr. Underwood toiled in the city, overseeing the repairs on our house, for we must be builders, contractors, carpenters, gardeners and jack of all trades, and throughout the summer working unremittingly on a hymn book which the little church now greatly needed.
The “term question” is a vexed problem which as yet has failed to find a solution that secures the assent of all missionaries. This question relates to the proper word to be used for God. China, Japan and Korea alike use the Chinese characters and have words which mean “gods,” or things worshiped, but they do not have either a definite article or capitals, such as those by which in English we can change “gods” into “the God” or “God.” They also have names (quite a different matter) signifying the chief god of heaven (Sangchai or Hannanim), the god of earth (Tangnim) and others.
Some missionaries hold that by using this name of the chief god of heaven and explaining it by instructing the people in the character and attributes of him whom they ignorantly worship, they will more easily understand and more readily accept our teaching. Many also believe that the name really refers to the great God of heaven, although of course it is impossible to claim that it refers to the one only God, since all the heathen who worship this one also worship countless other smaller deities.