CHAPTER VIII—TWO CHARITIES
The manufacturing of the blind—“Before born”—The Rev. Hill Murray—“The Message”—Geography—Marriage—A brave little explorer—Massacre of the blind—Deposits of one tael—A missionary career—The charitable Chinese—A Buddhist orphanage—Invitation to a funeral—An intellectual abbot—The youngest orphan—Pity and mercy.
The blind musician I had seen playing to the village folk with the setting sun, that he could not see, on his face, remained in my mind. Why especially, I do not know, for it is a common enough sight in China. Terrible as is the affliction, the Chinese, by their insanitary habits, more or less manufacture their blind. The cult of the bath is not theirs yet, they live, apparently happily, amongst filthy surroundings, they neglect the eyes of the new-born child, they suffer from smallpox, and ophthalmia, and the barber with his infected razor shaves, not only close round the outside, but with the laudable intention of making all clean and neat, as far down as he can get round the delicate inside of the eyelid. The result one may see any day in the streets of Peking, or any Chinese town. A beggar in China is always a horrible-looking object. He belongs to a guild. His intention is to attract pity, and it would seem to him going the wrong way about it, to begin by being neat and clean. Besides, though many people in China are neat, I suspect very few of them are what we arrogant Westerners would describe as clean, and among a dirty people, the blind beggar stands out, pre-eminent, as the filthiest creature I have ever seen. On the roadside, again and again in a country place where many people are passing, I have seen a half-naked man, who looked as if he had never since his birth even looked at water, clad, or rather half-clad, in filthy rags with raw red sores where his eyes should have been. He was so horrible, so ghastly a specimen of humanity that he seemed almost beyond pity. And yet a blind person always receives a certain amount of respect and consideration from the Chinese, even from the poorest Chinese. Never in his hearing would the roughest rickshaw coolie call him “Hsia Tze” that is “Blind man.” That would be discourteous. Though he be only a beggar, forlorn, hungry, unkempt, he is still addressed by all passers as “Hsien Sheng,” “Before Born,” a title of respect that is given to teachers, doctors, and men of superior rank and age.
Hard though, in spite of the respect that is paid them, must be the lot of those who are handicapped by the loss of sight. It is hard in any land, but in China, where even among those in full possession of their senses, there are hundreds of thousands just on the verge of starvation, the touch needed to send a man over the brink is very, very slight indeed. Not even the close family ties of the Chinese can help them much, for where the strongest suffer, the weak must go to the wall. And there are very few crafts open to the blind man. He may be a storyteller, or a fortune-teller, or a musician, I cannot imagine what he would do if his talents did not run in those lines, and even then he is dependent upon the doles of a people who have very, very little to give away, and naturally guard that little carefully. Once blind there is nothing more to be done. The beautiful blue sky of China, the golden sunshine have gone, and in its place there is the darkness, warm sometimes, bitter cold sometimes, the enveloping darkness that means for so many helplessness and starvation, often at the very best semi-starvation, borne with the uncomplaining stoicism of the Chinese.
Now once upon a time a man stood upon the Beggars' Bridge in Peking, outside the walls of the Tartar City, selling Bibles, and noticed as everyone must do, the number of blind who passed by. Was there none to pity, asked the Rev. Hill Murray, none among all those who had devoted their lives to bringing the Gospel to the heathen to help?
“What?” said some. “When you know that already the Chinese declare we missionaries take the children for the sake of making medicine of their eyes, will you give colour to the accusation by setting up a mission to the blind?” And then, when he still persisted, “They need us, they need us,” they said: “Since you are so keen, why don't you do it yourself?”
To him it was “The Message.” Why should he not do it himself? And there and then he set to work. It was years ago. What the cost, what the struggle, I do not know. I only know that one sunny April day wandering round Peking in a hu t'ung in the east of the Tartar City I came upon the house, or rather, for it is all done Chinese fashion, the nest of little houses with their courtyards and little gardens, that is the Mission to the Blind.