July 24th, 1919.—Almost a year has passed since the above letter was written. Several thousands of General Feng's soldiers are now baptized and the splendid work continues. But as I write, civil war, which has been simmering for years, has now broken out in dead earnest, General Feng and his men are in the midst of the conflict and all are looking to him and his friend Wu-pei-fu to save the situation in this crisis.
SKETCH VII
A Chinese Nobleman
A Chinese Nobleman
As I review the life of the man of whom I am to write, two incidents of over thirty years ago come to mind. On our way to China one of our fellow-passengers was a man who had been in business twenty odd years in China. He declared there were no real Christians in China, that they were all "rice" Christians—followers of the foreigner for what they could get and so on. Practically all the passengers, except the missionaries heartily agreed with these statements. Later we heard the same thing repeated on the coast steamer. Shortly after reaching our destination a well-known resident of China, who had occupied for twenty-five years a responsible position in the "Customs" made such positive statements along the same line that the writer began to wonder if these things could be true. Six weeks later this accuser, and as I know now to be, cruel slanderer of the Christians had gone to meet his Judge—dying suddenly in his chair as the result of a vicious debauch!
It is now the writer's privilege to give testimonies after thirty years standing, to the genuineness of the Chinese Christian—here is one of them.
Twenty miles northeast of the Mission Station of Changteho lived a well-to-do banker and landowner named Chen-Lao-Jung. He was a man of most masterful personality. His old mother, to whom he was greatly devoted, had long been afflicted by attacks of what the Chinese called demon possession—which from all accounts exactly resembled those recorded in the Bible. Every heathen means had been used for her relief. Witch doctors, necromancers, Buddhist priests, and others had used their arts upon her (some of these being very cruel), but the poor woman was "nothing better, but rather grew worse."
One day a Christian called when the woman was in a serious and violent condition. Mr. Chen asked Mr. Hsu, the Christian, to pray to his God for his mother, but the Christian replied, "I would gladly do so, but it is useless for me to pray to my God, who is the only true God, when you recognize so many other gods that are false. These household gods must first be destroyed: then I can pray." (Oh, that our home Christians would realize this too, then would they know the power of prayer).
After some demur Mr. Chen decided that he had tried these gods and they had failed him, now he would burn them rather than lose this opportunity of having his mother healed by the Christian God!
In face of the bitterest opposition from his family and neighbors he publicly burnt all the household gods. Then he and Mr. Hsu followed by all the family and a crowd of curious neighbors went into the mother's room where she lay foaming on the bed. Mr. Hsu first sang the hymn "Jesus loves me"—then prayed, then sang again.