I went. And what I saw made me sorry that Great Britain and America, to say nothing of Scandinavia, should be deprived of the services of these men and women who are giving so much to an alien people. Of course I know that many missionaries have the “call,” a “vocation” I suppose the Catholics would call it.
“It is a fine work,” said I, usually the unadmiring, “to teach these women, but I do not like coming in contact with them, however much I appreciate their virtues.”
And the missionary girl looked at me pityingly.
“Do you think,” said she, “we could come all this way to teach Chinese women reading, writing and arithmetic?”
It seems to me a great thing to do; if it be only to teach them to wash, it is a great thing; but I who merely pitied would never have stayed there to better the condition of those unhappy women. To her and her comrades had come that mysterious call that comes to all peoples through all the ages, the Crying in the Wilderness, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord. Make His paths straight,” and she thought more, far more, of it than I did of the undoubtedly good work I saw she was doing, saw as I never should have seen had I not gone in the ways untrodden by the tourist, or indeed by any white man.
There are missionaries and missionaries, of course; there are even backsliders who, having learned the difficult tongue under the ægis of the missions, have taken up curio-buying or any other of the mercantile careers that loom so temptingly before the man who knows China; but in all classes of society there are backsliders, the great majority must not be judged by them. Neither must their narrowness be laid too mueh to heart when judging the missionary as a whole. Possibly only a fanatic can carry through whole-heartedly the work of a missionary at a remote station in China, and most fanatics are narrow. There are, too, the men and women who make it a business and a livelihood, who reckon they have house and income and position and servants in return for their services to the heathen, but they too are faithful and carry out their contracts. Having once seen the misery and poverty in which the great majority of Chinese dwell, I can say honestly that I think every mission station that I have seen is a centre from which radiates at least a hope of better things. They raise the standard of living, and though I care not what god a man worships, and cannot understand how any man can be brought to care, it is good that to these people sitting in darkness someone should point out that behind the world lies a great Force, God, Love, call it what you will, that is working for good. That the more educated Chinese has worked out a faith for himself, just as many in the West have done, I grant you, but still the majority of the people that I have seen sit in darkness and want help. From the missions they get it. Taken by and large, the Chinaman is a utilitarian person, and if the missions had not been helpful they would long ago have gone. And for the missionaries themselves—I speak of those in the outstations—not one, it seems to me, not one would stay among the Chinese unless he were sure that his God had sent him, for the life is hard, even for the rich missions there are many deprivations, and if therefore, being but human, they sometimes depict their God as merciful and loving in a way that seems small and petty, much must be forgiven them. They are doing their best.
There is another side to it too for the West. These missionaries are conquering China by the system of peaceful penetration. They are persecuted, they suffer, are murdered often, but that does not drive them away. They come back again and again, and wherever the missionary succeeds in planting his foot the hatred to foreigners and things foreign, strong among the conservative Chinese, is weakened and finally broken down. China is a rich country, she is invaluable to the nations of the earth for purposes of trade, and though the missionary in many ways, if he were asked, would oppose the coming of the white man, he certainly is the pioneer.
China is trying to reform herself, but the process is slow, and it seems to me in Shansi and in the parts of Chihli that I know it would be a long, long while before the good percolated to the proletariat, the Babylonish slaves, if it were not for the missionaries; and particularly do I admire the medical missionaries, for China is one huge sore.
That is the word the woman doctor at Pao Ting Fu applied to it, and, attending her clinic of a morning, I was inclined to agree with her. Life is hard for everybody among the poor in China, but especially does it press upon the women. They came there into the clean sun-lit room and the reek of them went up to heaven—bald-headed, toothless old crones in wadded coats out of which all semblance of colour had long since passed, young girls and little children clad in the oldest of garments. There were so many with ingrowing eyelashes that the doctor had one particular day upon which she operated for this painful disfigurement, and she showed me how, by making a little nick—I'm afraid I can't use proper surgical terms—in the upper eyelid, she turned back the eyelashes and made them grow in the direction they are intended to grow, and saved the unfortunates' eyes. Why eyelashes should grow in in China I don't know. Perhaps it is my ignorance, but I have never heard of their behaving in such an unnatural fashion in any other part of the world, while in Pao Ting Fu this ailment seemed to be as common as influenza in London. Then there would be women with their mouths closed by sores, often so badly they could only live by suction, and more than once a new mouth had to be cut; there were cancerous growths—the woman depicted in the picture had waited twenty years before she could arrange to come under one hundred miles to the doctor—there were sores on the head, sores all over the body, all, I suppose, including the ingrowing eyelashes, caused by malnutrition, swollen glands, abscesses offensive and purulent, in fact in that clinic were collected such an array of human woes, ghastly, horrible, as well might make one wonder if the force behind all life could possibly be anything but devilish and cruel. Wherein could the good be found? Where?
And yet there was good. Among these women moved the nurses. They were comely girls in blue coats and trousers, with their abundant black hair smoothly drawn back, neat white stockings and the daintiest of little shoes. Their delicate artistic hands used sponge and basin very capably, they were the greatest contrast to their patients, and yet they were truly Chinese, had sprung from the people to whom they now ministered, and one of them, though it was hardly observable, had an artificial foot. So had she suffered from foot-binding that her own had had to be amputated.