Gleanings from Chinese folklore

by Nellie Naomi Russell

In the autumn of the year 1879, Nellie, although so young, taught a country school, boarding around from house to house, as was the custom at that time. The sum advanced to her was returned from her first earnings with the scrupulous integrity which, throughout her life, marked all her business dealings. She won the admiration of the school district by her industry and capacity for work and service both in school and out.

At the close of the session she went to North Bennington, Vermont, where she spent two years in the family of Mrs. Coolidge’s sister, Mrs. H. W. Spafford.

All this time her great desire had been to prepare herself for missionary service. In order that she might get the education requisite for it she toiled and saved until she was able to enter Northfield Seminary, which had just been founded by Mr. D. L. Moody. After the first year she was given a scholarship. With this as a help she was able to meet all other [[18]]expenses by what she earned during vacations. All she had received from the scholarship she later returned to the institution she had learned to love. At Northfield she spent four years in study and congenial work. During the last two years she roomed with Lila Peabody, now Mrs. Edward F. Cragin of Brooklyn, New York, with whom she formed a friendship, one of the most intimate and strongest of her life. It is to this friendship that we are indebted for the few details of the years between her entrance into the seminary and going to China. She was an eager, enthusiastic student and was recognized at once by her companions as a leader, was made president of her class, and of the first missionary society formed among the pupils of the Northfield Seminary.

Mrs. Cragin says of her, “She was of a deeply spiritual nature.” I remember her telling me that from her early childhood she loved no stories so well as those of foreign missionaries, and that she hoped, even when a little girl, that some day she might become one.

One June morning, just before graduation, Mr. Moody took us for an early drive. He told us of a plan he had for us to go together to Chicago, to be pastor’s assistants and Sunday-school workers in Mr. Moody’s, the Chicago Avenue Church. The Rev. Charles F. Goss [[19]]was the pastor at that time. It seemed a large undertaking for two inexperienced young women to go from the little village of Northfield to the great city of Chicago, and to engage in such a work. But Mr. Moody felt confident of the results and assured us that we could do it, and so we made the venture.

Our experiences the first winter were strangely new and varied. We worked under Dr. Goss’s directions, calling upon church members and others who we thought might be influenced to attend the services. We also visited the sick and helped such as were in need in the neighbourhood.

Our Sunday-school work was among the very poor, and in localities where we went with not a little trepidation. Our custom was to select a street and to call from house to house, from family to family. We asked the children of those visited to come to the Sunday-school, and gave them cards telling them when and where to go. In many cases the parents could not understand English, but, as the children practically lived on the streets and so picked up its language, they understood us when we asked them to come and to bring others with them. In this way we gathered the children into Sunday-school, the boys into Miss Russell’s class and the girls into mine. Miss Russell [[20]]soon had a class of one hundred and fifty or more boys. In connection with this there were organized evening classes. The help of young men, who taught the boys carpentry and other kinds of manual work, was secured, and they were encouraged to seek other vocations than those of newspaper venders and boot-blacks. Some showed unusual talent, but had no opportunity for study or advancement. Miss Russell wrote to Mr. Moody with regard to them and asked if an arrangement could be made by which the most promising could be admitted to Mt. Hermon. He gladly entered into the plan and carried out her wishes. A number of these boys thus entered Mt. Hermon school and afterward took college courses. They were accompanied all the way upward by the sympathy, advice, and assistance of Miss Russell. She kept in touch with many of them all her life, corresponding with them after going to China, and hunting them up during her furloughs in this country.

Miss Russell’s great characteristics were, I think, the giving of herself unsparingly for others, and doing this with sympathy, tenderness, and love. One incident, among many which I recall, strikingly illustrates this. During the anarchist riots in Chicago, when even men did not dare go into the disturbed neighbourhood, [[21]]Miss Russell went without fear, and without protection, to the anarchist headquarters to comfort the little old mother of one of the condemned men.

After five years of earnest, successful work in Chicago, Miss Russell, well fitted by such training, felt that the time had come for her to go to the distant field, which she always had kept in view. The way was opened for her to enter the work in China under the Woman’s Board of the Interior in connection with the American Board of Foreign Missions. She accepted the opportunity as the fruition of the hope and desire of childhood, girlhood, and young womanhood, and in twenty-one years of devoted service made “good proof of her ministry.”

The record of the rare life of Miss Russell is in the hearts of many to whom she was very dear. It is suggestive of some of her loveliest qualities that it has been difficult to secure anything beyond the bare historical facts with regard to her early years.