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Title: Notable Women Of Modern China
Author: Margaret E. Burton
Release Date: December 28, 2004 [EBook #14492]
Language: English
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Notable Women of Modern China
BY MARGARET E. BURTON
_Notable Women of Modern China_
Illustrated, 12mo, cloth. Net $1.25
The author's earlier work on the general subject of Women's Education in
China, indicates her ability to treat with peculiar interest and
discernment the characters making up this volume of striking biographies.
If these women are types to be followed by a great company of like
aspirations the future of a nation is assured.
_The Education of Women in China_
Illustrated, 12mo, cloth. Net $1.25
"Thrilling is a strong word, but not too strong to be used in connection
with _The Education of Women in China_. To many it will prove a revealing
book and doubtless to all, even those well-informed upon the present
condition of women. Miss Burton's book will interest all the reading
public."--CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE.
[Illustration:
Dr. Hü King Eng at the Time of Her Graduation from the Medical College]
Notable Women of Modern China
By
MARGARET E. BURTON
AUTHOR OF
"THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN IN CHINA"
NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO
Fleming H. Revell Company
LONDON AND EDINBURGH
Copyright, 1912, by
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
New York: 158 Fifth Avenue
Chicago: 125 N. Wabash Ave.
Toronto: 25 Richmond St., W.
London: 21 Paternoster Square
Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street
TO MY FRIEND
GRACE COPPOCK
WHO TAUGHT ME TO KNOW AND LOVE
THE WOMEN OF CHINA
Preface
During a stay of some months in China in the year of 1909, I had an
opportunity to see something of the educational work for women, and to meet
several of the educated women of that interesting country. I was greatly
impressed, both by the excellent work done by the students in the schools,
and by the useful, efficient lives of those who had completed their course
of study. When I returned to America, and spoke of some of the things which
the educated women of China were doing, I found that many people were
greatly surprised to learn that Chinese women were capable of such
achievements. It occurred to me, therefore, that it might be worth while to
put the stories of a few of these women into a form which would make them
accessible to the public.
It will be noted that the majority of the women of whose work I have
written received a part of their education in America. My reason for
selecting these women is not because those whose training has been received
wholly in China are not doing equally good work, but because it is
difficult to gather definite information in regard to the women whose
lives have been spent entirely in their native country. The fact that most
of the biographies in this book are of women in professional life is due to
the same cause. The great aim of the girls' schools in China is, rightly,
to furnish such training as shall prepare their students to be worthy wives
and mothers, and the large majority of those who attend the schools find
their highest subsequent usefulness in the home. But in China, as in other
countries, the life of the woman in the home remains, for the most part,
unwritten.
I have therefore told the stories of the women concerning whose work I have
been able to obtain definite information, believing that they fairly
represent the educated women of China who, wherever their education has
been received, and in whatever sphere it is being used, are ably and
bravely playing an important part in the moulding of the great new China.
For much of the material for these sketches I am indebted to friends of the
women of whom I have written. To all such my hearty thanks are due. For
personal reminiscences, letters, and photographs, I am most grateful.
M. E. B.
Contents
DR. HÜ KING ENG
I. CHILDHOOD IN A CHRISTIAN HOME 15
II. EDUCATION IN CHINA AND AMERICA 23
III. BEGINNING MEDICAL WORK IN CHINA 39
IV. THE BELOVED PHYSICIAN 44
V. THE FAVOUR OF THE PEOPLE 58
MRS. AHOK
I. THE MISTRESS OF A HOME OF WEALTH 73
II. WORK AMONG THE WOMEN OF THE UPPER CLASSES 82
III. A JOURNEY TO ENGLAND 90
IV. PATIENT IN TRIBULATION 101
DR. IDA KAHN
I. CHILDHOOD IN THREE COUNTRIES 115
II. AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN 121
III. SEVEN YEARS IN KIUKIANG 126
IV. PIONEER WORK IN NANCHANG 140
DR. MARY STONE
I. WITH UNBOUND FEET 161
II. THE DANFORTH MEMORIAL HOSPITAL 169
III. WINNING FRIENDS IN AMERICA 183
IV. A VERSATILE WOMAN 190
YU KULIANG 221
ANNA STONE
I. EAGER FOR EDUCATION 233
II. AMONG HER OWN PEOPLE 244
III. THE POWER OF AN ENDLESS LIFE 254
Illustrations
Dr. Hü King Eng at the Time of Her Graduation
from the Medical College _Frontispiece_
Dr. Hü's Medical Students 41
Dr. Hü's Christmas Party 61
Mrs. Ahok and Her Two Granddaughters 73
Reception Rooms in Chinese Homes of Wealth 83
Dr. Ida Kahn 115
A Nurse in Dr. Kahn's Hospital 138
One of Dr. Kahn's Guests 141
A Village Crowd 141
Dr. Mary Stone 161
Elizabeth Skelton Danforth Memorial Hospital, Kiukiang, China 172
Dr. Stone, Dr. Kahn, and Five of the Hospital Nurses 174
General Ward of the Danforth Memorial Hospital 182
Nurses of the Danforth Memorial Hospital 192
Yu Kuliang 221
Anna Stone 233
The Anna Stone Memorial 257
* * * * *
DR. HÜ KING ENG
I. CHILDHOOD IN A CHRISTIAN HOME
II. EDUCATION IN CHINA AND AMERICA
III. BEGINNING MEDICAL WORK IN CHINA
IV. THE BELOVED PHYSICIAN
V. THE FAVOUR OF THE PEOPLE
* * * * *
DR. HÜ KING ENG
I
CHILDHOOD IN A CHRISTIAN HOME
Among the earliest converts to Christianity in South China was Hü Yong Mi,
the son of a military mandarin of Foochow. He had been a very devout
Buddhist, whose struggles after spiritual peace, and whose efforts to
obtain it through fasting, sacrifice, earnest study, and the most
scrupulous obedience to all the forms of Buddhist worship, remind one
strongly of the experiences of Saul of Tarsus. Like Saul too, Hü Yong Mi
was, before his conversion, a vigorous and sincere opponent of
Christianity. When his older brother became a Christian, Hü Yong Mi felt
that his casting away of idols and abolishing of ancestral worship were
crimes of such magnitude that the entire family "ought all with one heart
to beat the drum and drive him from the house." He tells of finding a copy
of the Bible in his father's bookcase one day, and how, in sudden rage, he
tore it to pieces and threw the fragments on the floor, and then, not
satisfied with destroying the book, wished that he had some sharp implement
with which to cut out "the hated name Ya-su, which stared from the
mutilated pages."
But when, through the efforts of the very brother whom he had persecuted,
he too came to recognize the truth of Christianity, he became as devoted
and tireless a worker for his Lord as was Paul the apostle, preaching in
season and out of season, first as a layman, afterwards as an ordained
minister of the Methodist Church. His work often led him to isolated and
difficult fields; he was "in journeyings often, in perils of rivers, in
perils of robbers, in perils from his countrymen, in perils in the city, in
perils in the wilderness." But, alike in toil and persecution, he remained
steadfast.
He was made a presiding elder at the time of the organization of the
Foochow Conference in 1877, and from that time until his death, in 1893, he
was, in the words of one of the missionaries of that district, "a pillar of
strength in the church in China, because of his piety and wisdom and his
literary ability, having, withal, an eloquent tongue which in the ardour of
pulpit oratory gave to his fine six-foot physique a princely bearing."
A striking testimony to the power and beauty of this Christian man's
character is a picture, painted by a Chinese artist, an old man over eighty
years of age. This man was not a Christian, but after hearing Mr. Hü's
preaching, and watching his consecrated life, he embodied in a painting his
conception of the power of the "Cross Doctrine" as he knew it through Hü
Yong Mi. The picture, which is five feet long and nearly three wide, and is
finely executed in water colours, was presented to Mr. Hü by the artist. At
first glance its central figure seems to be a tree, under which is a man
reading from a book. Lower down are some rocks. But looking again one sees
that the tree is a cross, and that in the rocks are plain semblances of
human faces, more or less perfect, all turned toward the cross. The thought
which the artist wished to express was that the "Cross Doctrine," as
preached and lived by such as Hü Yong Mi, would turn even rocks into human
beings.
The wife of Hü Yong Mi was brought up in a home of wealth and rank in
Foochow. Her aristocratic birth was manifested by the size of her tiny
embroidered shoe, which measured exactly three inches. When Hü Yong Mi was
asked by the missionaries to become a minister, he was somewhat dismayed to
learn that in the Methodist Church the minister's family must frequently
move from place to place. In his own words, "The Chinese greatly esteem the
place of their birth; if a man goes abroad it is considered a matter of
affliction; for a family to move is an almost unheard of calamity." He
replied, however, that although he had not known of the existence of the
custom, he was entirely willing, for Christ's sake, to undertake the work
of a minister in spite of it. The missionaries then asked if his wife would
be willing to go with him. He answered that he could not tell until he went
home and asked her. But when he had talked the matter over with her, this
dainty, high-class lady replied, "It matters not to what place; if you are
willing to go, I will go with you."
Within a few weeks they left Foochow to work among their first
parishioners, a people who might well have caused the hearts of the young
pastor and his wife to fail, for Hü Yong Mi says of them: "In front of
their houses I saw piles of refuse, and filthy ditches. Within, all was
very dirty--pigs, cattle, fowls, sheep, all together in the one house. Not
a chair was there to sit on. All went out to work in the fields. They had
no leisure to comb hair or wash faces.... None knew how to read the Chinese
characters. Some held their books upside down; some mistook a whole column
for one character." Mrs. Hü and the children were very ill with malarial
fever while in this place, but in spite of all their hardships, a good work
was done.
Mrs. Hü was as earnest a worker among the women as was her husband among
the men, telling the good news to those who had never heard it, and
strengthening her fellow-Christians. Many a programme of the Foochow
Women's Conference bears the name of Mrs. Hü Yong Mi, for she could give
addresses and read papers which were an inspiration to missionaries and
Chinese alike. Her friend, Mrs. Sites, has written especially of her
influence on the women whose lives she touched: "In the stations where the
Methodist itinerancy sent Rev. Hü Yong Mi, this Christian household was
something of a curiosity. The neighbouring women often called 'to see' in
companies of three to twenty or more, and Mr. Hü expected his wife and
children to preach the gospel to them just as faithfully as he did from the
pulpit. There are many hundreds of Chinese women to whom this lovely
Christian mother and little daughters gave the first knowledge of Christ
and heaven." The same friend says of this wife and mother, "In privations
oft, and in persecutions beyond the power of pen to narrate, she has
become a model woman among her people."
In 1865, not long after a period of severe persecution, and while their
hearts were saddened by the recent death of their little daughter, Hiong
Kwang, another baby girl was born to Mr. and Mrs. Hü, and named Precious
Peace, the Chinese for which is King Eng. Born of such parents, and growing
up in such an environment, it is perhaps not surprising that unselfishness,
steadfastness of purpose, and courage, both physical and moral, should be
among the most prominent characteristics of Hü King Eng. One of the
clearest memories of her childhood is of lying in bed night after night,
listening to the murmur of her father's voice as he talked to someone who
was interested in learning of the "Jesus way," and hearing the crash of
stones and brickbats, the hurling of which through the doors and windows
was too frequent an occurrence to interrupt these quiet talks.
Of course little King Eng's feet were bound, as were the feet of every
other little girl of good family. But the binding process had scarcely
begun when her father became convinced that this universal and ancient
custom was a wrong one. He accordingly made the brave decision,
unprecedented in that section of the country, that his daughters should
have natural feet, and the bandages were taken off. This proceeding was
viewed with great disapproval by his small daughter, for while it freed her
from physical pain, her unbound feet were the source of constant comment
and ridicule, far more galling to the sensitive child than the tight
bandages had been. Now, an ardent advocate of natural feet, she often tells
of her trials as a pioneer of the movement in Fuhkien province. "That I
have the distinction of being the first girl who did not have her feet
bound, is due to no effort of mine," she says, "for the neighbour women
used to say, 'Rather a nice girl, but those feet!' 'Rather a bright girl,
but those feet,' and 'Those feet,' 'Those feet' was all I heard, until I
was ashamed to be seen."
Finally her mother, who did not wholly share her husband's view of the
matter, took advantage of his absence from home, and replaced the bandages.
When she would ask, "Can you stand them a little tighter?" the little
devotee to the stern mandates of fashion and custom invariably replied,
"Yes, mother, a little tighter"; for was she not going to be a lady and not
hear "those feet," "those feet" any more! But when her father came home he
had a long and serious talk with his wife about foot-binding, and off came
the bandages again. Later the little girl went on a visit to a relative,
who was greatly horrified at her large feet, and took it upon herself to
bind them again, to the child's great delight. It was with an immense sense
of her importance that she came hobbling home, supported on each side. Her
mother was ill in bed at the time, but greatly to King Eng's
disappointment, instead of being pleased, she bade her take the bandages
off and burn them, and never replace them. To the child's plea that people
were all saying "those feet," "those feet," until she was ashamed to meet
any one, Mrs. Hü replied, "Tell them bound-footed girls never enter the
emperor's palace." "And that," says Dr. Hü, "put a quietus on 'those feet,'
and when I learned that all the world did not have bound feet I became more
reconciled."
II
EDUCATION IN CHINA AND AMERICA
When she was old enough, King Eng became a pupil in the Foochow Boarding
School for Girls, where she did good work as a student. No musical teaching
was given in the school at that time, but King Eng was so eager to learn to
play that the wife of one of the missionaries gave her lessons on her own
organ. Her ability to play may have been one of the causes which led to the
framing of a remarkable and eloquent appeal for the higher education of the
Chinese girls, which should include music and English, sent in 1883 by the
native pastors of Foochow and vicinity to the General Executive Committee
of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, under whose auspices this school was carried on.
To the same committee there came at the same time another remarkable
request, this one from Dr. Trask, then in charge of the Foochow Woman's
Hospital. After leaving boarding school King Eng had been a student in the
hospital, and Dr. Trask had become so much impressed with her adaptability
to medical work, and her sympathetic spirit toward the suffering, that she
longed to have her receive the advantages of a more thorough education than
could be given her in Foochow. She accordingly wrote to the Executive
Committee of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, speaking in the
highest terms of Hü King Eng's ability and character, and urging that
arrangements be made to bring her to America, to remain ten years if
necessary, "that she might go back qualified to lift the womanhood of China
to a higher plane, and able to superintend the medical work." She assured
the committee that they would find that the results would justify them in
doing this, and that none knew King Eng but to love her. Arrangements were
soon made, largely through Mrs. Keen, secretary of the Philadelphia branch
of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, and word was sent to Foochow
that Dr. Trask's request had been approved.
This word found Hü King Eng ready to accept the opportunity which it
offered her. It had not been easy for this young girl, only eighteen years
old, to decide to leave her home and her country and take the long journey
to a foreign land, whose language she could not speak, and whose customs
were utterly strange to her, to remain there long enough to receive the
college and medical education which would enable her to do the work planned
for her on her return to China. So far as she knew she was the only Chinese
young woman who had ever left China to seek an education in another
country; and indeed she was the second, the only one who had preceded her
being Dr. You Mé King, the adopted daughter of Dr. and Mrs. McCartee, of
Ningpo, who had gone to America with them a few years before. King Eng's
parents did not oppose her going, but neither did they encourage it. They
told her fully of the loneliness she would experience in a foreign country;
the dangers and unpleasantness of the long ocean voyage she would have to
take; and the unparalleled situation in which she would find herself on her
return ten years later, unmarried at twenty-eight. But with a quiet faith
and purpose, and a courage nothing short of heroic, King Eng answered, "If
the Lord opens the way and the cablegram says 'Come,' I shall surely go;
but if otherwise I shall do as best I can and labour at home."
Years afterward, when two other girls from the Foochow Boarding School
were leaving China for a period of study in America, a farewell meeting was
held for them in the school, at which Dr. Hü told how she had reached her
decision to go. She said: "I was the first Fuhkien province girl to go to
America.... My father told me, 'I cannot decide for you; you must pray to
God. If you are to go, God will show you.' Then I felt God's word come to
me, 'Fear not, for I will go with you wherever you go.' At that time the
school girls were seldom with the missionary ladies and I could not speak
any English, therefore I did not know any American politeness; and all my
clothes and other daily-need-things were not proper to use in the western
country. Although everything could not be according to my will, I trusted
God with all my life, so nothing could change my heart."
In the spring of 1884, in charge of some missionaries going home on
furlough, Hü King Eng left China for America. The journey was a long and
rough one, and a steamer near theirs was wrecked. One of the missionaries,
wondering how her faith was standing the test of these new and terrifying
experiences, asked if she wanted to go back home. But she answered, "No, I
do not think of going home at all." She felt that it was right for her to
go to America, and although when she met her friends at the journey's end
she confessed that sea-sickness and home-sickness had brought the tears
many a night, she never faltered in her decision.
Upon landing in New York she went at once to Mrs. Keen in Philadelphia, and
there met Dr. and Mrs. Sites, of Foochow, whom she had known from
childhood, and who were then in Philadelphia attending the General
Conference of the Methodist Church. She spent the summer with them,
learning to read, write, and speak English, and in the autumn went with
them to Delaware, Ohio, and entered Ohio Wesleyan University. Miss Martin,
who was then preceptress of Monnett Hall, recalls King Eng's efforts to
master English. "She was an apt pupil," she says, "yet she had many
struggles with the language." A friend in Cleveland, with whom she spent a
few weeks during her vacation, promised her that some day they would go
around the square to see the reservoir. King Eng seemed much interested in
this proposition and several times asked when they were to go. When they
finally went, her friend was somewhat surprised to see that King Eng
manifested very little interest in the reservoir; but when they reached
home again it was evident that she had been interested, not in the
reservoir, but in the proposed method of reaching it. "How can you go
'round' a 'square'?" she asked.
When she entered college she set herself the task of learning ten new words
a day; but Miss Martin says that she sometimes had to unlearn several of
them, owing to the fondness of her fellow students for slang. However, she
was persevering, and in time learned to use the language easily. One of the
teachers, who had returned a plate to her with an orange on it, still
treasures a half sheet of paper which appeared on a returned plate of hers,
on which King Eng had written:
"You taught me a lesson not long ago,
Which I have learned, as I'll try to show.
When you would return a plate to its owner,
Of something upon it you must be the donor.
One orange you put on that plate of mine,
Two oranges find on this plate of thine."
She was a great favourite with both faculty and students. One of her fellow
students shall tell of the impression she made: "Those who were at Monnett
Hall at any time from 1884 to 1887 will remember a dainty little foreign
lady, a sort of exotic blossom, whose silk-embroidered costumes,
constructed in Chinese fashion, made her an object of interest to every
girl in college. This was Dr. Hü King Eng, who came to prepare for her
life work. Gentle, modest, winning, her heart fixed on a goal far ahead,
she was an example to the earnest Christian girl and a rebuke to any who
had self-seeking aims."
Another, looking back to her college days, and to the college life of Hü
King Eng, "or, as she was familiarly and lovingly called, King Eng,"
writes, "She was so sweet and gracious, so simple in her faith and life, so
charitable, that you felt it everywhere. I shall never forget standing in
the hall one day with her and another girl, when a young man delivered some
books. I asked his name. The young lady gave it, a well known name, and
added that he had very little principle, or character. King Eng spoke up at
once, and calling the other girl by name said, 'Yes, but his parents are
fine people.'"
The King's Daughters' Society was organized during King Eng's stay at Ohio
Wesleyan, and ten groups, of ten girls each, were formed among the students
of Monnett Hall. King Eng, who was the leader of one of these groups,
proposed that each girl in it should earn enough money to buy one of the
King's Daughters' badges, and that they should be sent to some of the girls
in the Foochow school, that they too might organize a society. She was
eager that the girls should not only give the badges, but should earn them
by their own efforts, that they might thus show the Chinese girls that
American students did not consider any kind of work beneath them, but
counted it an honour to serve their Master in any way possible.
During the April of King Eng's first year at Ohio Wesleyan University,
special meetings were held in connection with the Day of Prayer for
Colleges, one of them a large chapel service at which the president of the
college and the preceptress spoke. The report of this meeting shows that
King Eng did not wait until her return to China to begin active efforts to
win others to the Christian life. "At the close of an address by Miss
Martin, the preceptress, there stepped forward upon the rostrum our little
Chinese student, Miss Hü King Eng, who, dressed in her full native costume,
stood gracefully before these six hundred young men and women while she
witnessed to the saving power of Christ.... The following evening, at our
earnest revival service in the chapel of the ladies' boarding hall, there
knelt the Chinese girl at the side of her American sister, helping her to
find the Saviour; and the smile of gladness on her countenance at the
closing of the meeting told the joy in her heart because her friend was
converted. The faith of many has been made stronger by hearing the
testimony of Miss Hü."
The statement of one of her fellow students is impressive: "She had a great
influence over the girls, and during our revival seasons she usually led
more to Christ than any other girl in the school. One mother, when she came
to visit the school after such a meeting during which her own daughter had
been converted, exclaimed, 'Little did I think when I was giving money for
the work in China, that a Chinese girl would come to this country and be
the means of leading my daughter to Christ.'"
Miss Martin tells of one student who had long resisted all appeals, but who
would listen to King Eng when she would not hear any one else; and who was
finally led by her to such a complete consecration that she afterward gave
her life to missionary service in Japan.
During her vacation periods King Eng often addressed missionary meetings
with marked success, winning such testimonies as these: "We are thanking
God for that grand missionary meeting. It would have done your heart good
to have heard the references to it in our Wednesday night prayer meeting,"
or, "One gentleman said to me, 'That was the best missionary meeting we
ever had in Third Avenue.'" It was probably while doing such work as this
that she had the experiences which led her to realize so keenly the
blessing of the unbound feet which had caused her so many tribulations as a
child, for she says that when she was running for trains in America she
always remembered "Those feet," "Those feet," and was glad that she had
them.
In the summer of 1886 she attended a meeting of the International
Missionary Union, and there met Mrs. Baldwin, who had known her as a child
in Foochow. Mrs. Baldwin wrote of the impression she made at this time:
"Our dear little Chinese girl, Hü King Eng, won all hearts, as usual, by
her sweet, gentle, trustful Christian character. To us who have known her
from her infancy up, the meeting was of peculiar pleasure; and as she
grasped my hand and in low, earnest, glad tones exclaimed in our Foochow
dialect, 'Teacheress, all the same as seeing my own house people,' I could
heartily respond, 'All the same.'"
At the same time she was making rapid progress in her studies. At the
annual meeting of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society in 1886, "the
marvellous progress of Hü King Eng was reported ... and tears of gladness
filled many eyes as her implicit faith, her sturdy industry, and her
untiring devotion were described."
She completed her course in Ohio Wesleyan University in four years, and in
the autumn of 1888 entered the Woman's Medical College of Philadelphia,
doing the regular class work, and making her home with her friend Mrs.
Keen. After two years of work there, she was very ill with a fever for many
weeks. When her strength began to come back, it was decided that she should
stop studying for a time and go to China for the following year, as she was
very eager to visit her home, especially as her father was ill. Her
lifelong friend, Miss Ruth Sites, was also returning to Foochow at that
time. So after securing a passport for Hü King Eng, in order that she might
be able to return to America, the two girls made the trip together,
spending Christmas in Yokohama, and enjoying a short visit to Tokio. The
steamer stopped for a day at Kobe, and there Miss Hü had the pleasure of
visiting Dr. You Mé King, then practising medicine under the Southern
Methodist Mission. Dr. You was the only Chinese woman who had ever left
China for study up to the time of her own going. They had a day at Nagasaki
also, where several college mates from Ohio Wesleyan were working; and two
days were spent in Shanghai, during which Miss Hü visited Dr. Reifsnyder's
splendid hospital. The trip from Shanghai to Foochow was the last part of
the long journey, and they were soon in the quiet waters of the Min River.
Miss Sites, writing back to America, said that she could never forget King
Eng's look as she exclaimed, "The last wave is past. Now we are almost
home." A brother and a brother-in-law came several miles down the river in
a launch to meet her, and sedan chairs were waiting at the landing to take
her to her home, where her parents were eagerly awaiting her. A reception
of welcome was given for her and Miss Sites a few days later, which was for
her father and mother one of the proudest occasions of their lives.
Some of the missionaries had wondered whether so many years of residence in
America would not have changed King Eng, and whether some of the luxuries
she had enjoyed there might not have become a necessity to her. With this
in mind many little comforts unusual in a Chinese home had been put into
her room. "But," one of them writes, "this was needless." King Eng was
unchanged and all the attention she had received in America had left her
unspoiled. This was doubtless largely due to the purity of her purpose in
going. In bidding good-bye, a few years later, to some girls who were going
to America for the first time, she said: "Some people do not want girls to
go to America to study because they think when the girls are educated they
will be proud. I think really we have nothing to be proud of. We Chinese
girls have such a good opportunity to go to another country to study, not
because God loves us better than any other persons, but because He loves
_all_ our people in China. Therefore He sends us to learn all the good
things first, so that we may help our people. The more favour we receive
the more debt we owe the Chinese women and girls. So wherever we go we must
think how to benefit our people, and not do as we please, and then how can
we be proud?"
The only cloud in this happy home-coming, after eight years of absence, was
the illness of her father, who was suffering from consumption. But even
this cloud was lightened by the help and cheer which King Eng was enabled
to bring to him. Miss Sites wrote: "It is an unspeakable comfort to him to
have King Eng with him, while she, with skill and wisdom learned in
Philadelphia, attends to all his wants as no other Chinese could." Soon
after King Eng's return her father was prostrated with a severe attack of
grippe, which in his already weakened state, made his condition almost
hopeless. Even the missionary doctor who attended him had no expectation
that he would recover. "But," reads a letter from Mrs. Sites, "through the
knowledge King Eng had acquired of caring for the sick, and her devotion to
her father, with work unfaltering, and prayer unceasing, he was brought
back to us."
For many years Rev. Hü Yong Mi had been planning to build a house, wherein
he and his family might live after he was too feeble to preach, and which
his family might have if he should be taken from them. At this time he had
laid by enough money to carry out his plan, but his weakness was such that
he could have done little, had it not been for the energy and vigour of his
wide-awake daughter. She helped make the plans for the house, and afterward
urged forward the building, so that a few months after her return the
family moved out of the parsonage into a comfortable little home, built in
Chinese style, but with glass windows and board floors.
In addition to the care of her father and the superintendence of the
building of the new house, King Eng was kept very busy in the hospital,
interpreting for the physicians in the daily clinics, and working among
the in-patients. This experience was invaluable to her at this time in
giving her a clearer knowledge of the especial preparation needed in her
future work. She saw and learned much of the prevalent diseases among the
women for whom she was preparing herself to work. She also taught a class
of young women medical students, which gave her valuable experience in that
line of work.
One of the missionaries has written of the impression she made during this
stay in Foochow: "She was kept very busy in the hospital and her home, but
she was always cheerful and helpful. Her Christian love and natural
kindness drew to her the hearts of hundreds of suffering native women, who
felt that there was sympathy for them in her every look and touch.
Moreover, the affectionate regard in which she had been held by her
missionary associates in Foochow has been vastly increased by her
unassuming manner, and the meek and quiet spirit in which she mingled with
us in work and prayer through the months."
The new home was beautifully situated, overlooking the river and receiving
constant south breezes, which made it cool and comfortable in summer. It
was hoped that in its quiet Mr. Hü might live for a number of years, and
it was therefore decided that King Eng should return to America, to
re-enter the Woman's Medical College of Philadelphia in the fall of 1892.
On the return trip she said to Mrs. Sites, who was with her, "I have
learned to trust God fully, else how could I be going away from my sick
father whose every move and cough I had learned to hear so quickly through
all the hours of the night, and still my heart be at rest?" Mrs. Sites
adds, "Personally, her companionship on the voyage was a continual joy to
me, notwithstanding my alarming and wearisome struggle while in Montreal to
get permission for her to re-enter this alarmingly exclusive country."
Hü King Eng re-entered the Medical College in the autumn of 1892,
graduating with honour the eighth of May, 1894. She spent the following
year in hospital work, being fortunate enough to be chosen as surgeon's
assistant in the Philadelphia Polyclinic, which gave her the privilege of
attending all the clinics and lectures there.
III
BEGINNING MEDICAL WORK IN CHINA
In 1895 Dr. Hü returned to Foochow. She at once began work in the Foochow
Hospital for women and children, being associated with Dr. Lyon, who wrote
at the end of the year's work: "Dr. Hü, by her faithfulness and skill, has
built up the dispensary until the number of the patients treated far
exceeds that of last year. She has also been a great inspiration to our
students, not only as teacher, but in right living and in Christian
principles." The following year Dr. Lyon returned to America on her
furlough, leaving the young physician in entire charge of the hospital
work, a responsibility which she discharged so effectively that at the
close of the year her co-labourers enthusiastically declared: "Sending Hü
King Eng to America for a medical education was providing for one of the
greatest blessings that ever came to Foochow. Skilled in her profession,
kind and patient, Christlike in spirit, one of their very own, her
influence cannot be measured."
At about this time Dr. Hü was honoured by being appointed by His
Excellency, Li Hung Chang, as one of the two delegates from China to the
Women's Congress held in London in 1898. But she was very seriously ill
with pneumonia that year, and for weeks it was feared that she could not
recover. A letter from Mrs. Lacy, then living in Foochow, reads: "Dr. Hü
King Eng has been lying at the gates of death for nearly three weeks. Dr.
Lyon said she was beyond all human aid. Most earnest and constant prayers
by the native Christians have been offered in her behalf. We are glad to
report a decided improvement in her condition although she is by no means
out of danger yet. Dr. Hü is a very valuable worker, not only a most
successful physician, but a very superior instructor in medicine, and is
very greatly beloved by both natives and foreigners, and it does not seem
as if she could be spared. We can but believe that God is going to honour
the faith of His children and raise her up to do yet greater service for
Him."
Gradually health and strength came back, and the next year it was reported
that Dr. Hü had sufficiently recovered her health to teach one class in the
Girls' Boarding School. A trip to the home of a married sister in Amoy,
which gave her a sea voyage, and change of air and scene, completed her
recovery and in 1899 she was strong enough to take charge of the Woolston
Memorial Hospital.
[Illustration: Dr. Hü's Medical Students]
The Foochow Hospital for women and children is situated on Nan Tai Island,
three miles from the walled city of Foochow. The physicians had long felt
the need of a similar work within the city walls, and a few years before
Dr. Hü's return from America, work had been undertaken in the city. A small
building was erected, in which forty in-patients could be accommodated.
This little building was named the Woolston Memorial Hospital, and nurses
from the Island hospital took turns in working in it, under the supervision
of one of the physicians. But until Dr. Hü took charge of the work, in
1899, there had been no resident physician.
Some years later, in telling of her appointment to this work, Dr. Hü said:
"It is very different from what I had heard of the city people being proud
and hard to manage. I am glad God created Lot. If he did not help any one
else he surely helped me. At the time I said nothing and went, simply
because I did not want to be like Lot. No one knows how I shrank when I was
asked to work in the city; for when I thought of the place, the pitiful
picture of the Island hospital students would come most conspicuously
before me. I can see them even now, wiping away the tears just as hard as
they could when their turn came to go into the city; while the other
students were like 'laughing Buddhas,' for their turn in the city hospital
had expired. I am glad I can speak for myself to-day that in my five years'
experience I have never had to shed a tear because the people were
obstinate."
Nevertheless the first few months were not altogether easy ones. Dr. Hü
herself tells the story of the beginnings of the work: "When I first took
up my work in the city here, during the first few months what did I meet?
People came and said that they wanted a foreign doctor. When our Bible
woman told them that I had just returned from a foreign country, and that I
knew foreign medicine, what was the immediate reply which I heard? 'No, I
don't want a Chinese student, but I want a foreign doctor.' It made my
Bible woman indignant, but by this time I usually stepped out and told them
just where to go to find the foreign doctors. It surprised my hospital
people that instead of feeling hurt I would do what I did."
It was only a few months, however, before the city people discovered that
this "Chinese student" was a most valuable member of the community. By
summer the work of the little hospital was so prosperous that Dr. Hü
decided to keep the dispensary open for three mornings a week, even after
the intense heat had necessitated the closing of the hospital proper. Some
of the patients signified their approval of this decision by renting rooms
in the neighbourhood, in order to be able to attend the dispensary on the
open days.
During this first year of work in the Woolston Hospital Dr. Hü had two
medical students in training, who also assisted her in the hospital work,
one of them her younger sister, Hü Seuk Eng. She speaks warmly of their
work among the patients, and of the patients' appreciation of what was done
for them. "Very frequently," she wrote at the close of the year, "I hear
the patients say, 'Truly my own parents, brothers, and sisters could never
be so good, so patient, and do so carefully for us; especially when we are
so filthy and foul in these sore places. Yes, this religion must be better
than ours.'"
Thus, although the work was begun in fear and trembling, and the young
physician had some obstacles to overcome, she treated 2,620 patients during
the first year, and was able to report a most encouraging outlook at its
close.
IV
THE BELOVED PHYSICIAN
As Dr. Hü's work grew it fell into four main divisions; the dispensary
work, the work among the hospital patients, visits to the homes of those
too ill to come to her, and the superintendence of the training of medical
students. The city hospital has been crowded almost from the very outset.
The situation was somewhat relieved in 1904, by the building of a house for
Dr. Hü on Black Rock Hill. This enabled her to move out of the hospital and
thus enlarged the space available for patients; but the additional space
was soon filled and the building was as crowded as before. Dr. Hü is
utilizing the building to the best possible advantage. One of her fellow
missionaries writes that every department is as well arranged as in any
hospital she has ever seen; every nook and corner is clean and tidy,
students are happy, helpful, and studious, and patients are cared for both
physically and spiritually.
The hospital records hold many a story of those who found both physical
and spiritual healing during their stay there. One day a woman over fifty,
whose husband and son had died while she was very young, came to the
hospital for treatment. When she was only twenty-two, crushed by her grief,
and feeling, as she said, that there was no more pleasure in this world for
her, she made a solemn vow before the idols that she would be a vegetarian
for the rest of her life, hoping in this way to obtain reward in the next
life. At the time she came to the hospital she had kept this vow sacredly
for nearly thirty years, being so scrupulous in her observance of it that
she even used her own cooking utensils in the hospital, lest some particle
of animal matter should have adhered to the others and thus contaminate her
food. She was so unostentatious about it, however, that Dr. Hü did not know
she was a vegetarian until she prescribed milk for her.
While in the hospital this woman was greatly surprised to hear, in morning
prayers every day, that which she could but admit was better than her old
belief. Day by day she compared the Christian teaching with her old
religion, until finally one morning, after she had been in the hospital
about a week, she went to Dr. Hü after the service, and said: "Doctor,
your religion is better than mine. I want to be a Christian, but very
unfortunately I have made a solemn vow to idols, and now, if I should
change my faith, these idols would punish me, my children, and children's
children." The doctor assured her that she need not be afraid, since the
idols to which she had made her vow were only wood and stone, powerless to
harm her. She went off comforted, and a few hours later she created
tremendous excitement through the hospital by preparing and eating the
first meal of meat she had had for almost thirty years. Some of the
patients were much frightened, for the vegetarian vow is considered a most
sacred one which, when broken, can never be made again, and they feared
that some dire calamity would overtake her. Nothing worse occurred,
however, than an attack of indigestion, the natural consequence of too free
indulgence in the flesh pots after so many years of abstinence; and the
dauntless old lady announced her intention of enjoying many a similar meal
in the days to come.
Her home was at some distance, and after she left the hospital nothing more
was seen of her until three years later, when she appeared one day,
bringing with her several patients for treatment. She had gained so much
flesh, and looked so well, that she had to tell the doctor who she was.
She said that after she went home, and her vegetarian friends saw the
dishes of meat on her table and realized that she had broken her sacred
vow, they were indignant and alarmed, and would have nothing to do with
her. But within the previous year some of them had gradually begun to come
to see her again. "I felt badly for their ignorance," she said, "but, oh, I
was very glad to have the opportunity to tell them of what you had told me
when I was converted."
At one time a former patient of the doctor's, who belonged to a prominent
family in the city, brought an old man of seventy-one for treatment. The
rule of the hospital is that only women and children shall be received as
in-patients, so the doctor directed him to go to Dr. Kinnear's hospital.
But the old man looked greatly disappointed and begged pitifully: "I am a
poor old man and my limb is very painful; _I-seng_ (doctor), do help me and
have mercy upon me. Do not look upon me as a man, but a child." The
doctor's tender heart finally prevailed and she made an exception of him.
When the old man was cured he came back to the hospital regularly, every
day, for the morning service. After listening attentively for a few weeks,
he said to the doctor, "_I-seng_, I truly know this is a good religion and
is just what I want, and I have decided to bow down to this very God."
His health did not improve as rapidly as the doctor thought it should; and
upon making careful inquiries she learned that it was because the small
amount of money which it was possible for him to earn, was not sufficient
to provide him with the nourishing food he needed. She at once gave him
some money, telling him to buy the sort of food which would build-up his
strength, and not to tell any one that he had been given this help. But
this was altogether too much to ask of the grateful old man, and "he went
out and began to publish it." The family who had sent him to the doctor
were much touched by this fresh evidence of her kindness, and thereafter
they sent their son with the old man to the morning services each day,
saying: "The Christian doctor is so good and kind. She has not only treated
this poor man free of charge but has helped him with money. Surely this
religion must be good."
Often patients come from far away villages to enter the hospital. One young
girl from a town many miles up the Min River, who became a happy, eager
Christian in the hospital, went home with the hope of coming back to study
in the Girls' Boarding School the next year. She was very eager to tell the
people of her village, in the meantime, of the glad truths she had learned.
"I will be the only Christian in the village," she said. "How I wish Dr. Hü
and Lau Sing-sang Moing (the Bible woman) would come and tell my people
about the new religion. I will tell them all I know, but I don't know very
much." One case is related of an old woman with double cataracts, whose son
brought her on a wheelbarrow a distance of several hundred miles to consult
Dr. Hü. The doctor performed a successful operation, restoring the woman's
sight, and thereby earning the title of "The Miracle Lady."
A large work is done every year in the dispensary, where Dr. Hü receives
patients each morning. This work has grown from 1,837 cases the first year
to 24,091 in 1910, and has made literally thousands of friends for the
doctor and her work. When she planned to erect the little building in which
she lives on Black Rock Hill many people told her that they were sure the
priests, especially those of the Black Rock Hill temple, would strongly
object to the erection of a mission building on that site, which was
considered a particularly sacred one. But Dr. Hü felt no anxiety in regard
to that, for the priests had been coming to the dispensary for treatment
for some months previous to the time of beginning the building. "Some have
come from Singapore monastery," she wrote, "others from Kushan, still
others from those in our own city. Thank God that their illnesses were
quickly healed."
She tells of one of the Singapore priests who was so grateful to be well
again that he came to the hospital one morning, dressed as for some
festival occasion, and bringing with him two boxes of cakes and two Chinese
scrolls, the Chinese characters of which he had himself written. These he
presented to Dr. Hü with his lowest bow, saying, "If I had not come to you
and taken your medicine I would have been dead, or at least I would not be
able to go back to Singapore." Many priests even came to the morning
services and listened attentively to what was said there.
A somewhat incidental but very useful work carried on largely in the
dispensary, by the Bible women, is a crusade against foot-binding. Dr. Hü's
useful life, and the important part her strong, natural feet play in it, is
a most effective object-lesson; and the annual reports usually record a
goodly number of those who have unbound their feet during the year.
The most difficult part of the work is that of visiting the sick in their
homes, both because of the great distances that have to be covered, and
because in many cases the doctor is not called except as a last resort. One
of Dr. Hü's reports reads: "I am very sorry that we do not yet have foreign
vehicles, railroads, or street cars. It takes much time to go from one
place to another. Fortunately my Chinese people live near together, with
their relatives, so when I am invited to go to see one case I often have to
prescribe for sixteen or twenty cases before my return." Often when the
doctor answers a call she finds that the patient has been ill for a long
time, while the relatives have been seeking to obtain help from the Chinese
doctor or from idols. She herself shall tell the story of an experience of
this kind:
"Last week I was called to see a woman very ill with cholera. Her
people had had all known doctors, both in and out of the city, and
had consulted with and begged many idols to heal her, but the woman
had grown worse and worse, until, when she was apparently hopeless,
having been unconscious for two days, one of the doctors suggested
to try me. I went at once, and found the room crowded with friends
and relatives. They could not tell me fast enough what a good and
filial woman she was, but that the idols had said certain spirits
wanted her, and no amount of offerings could buy her back again. I
told them that the woman was _very_ ill, and that I feared it was
too late for my medicine to help her. Many voices replied, 'We
know, we know, and if she dies we will not blame you.' With a
prayer, and three doses of medicine left for the woman to take, we
left them."
"That afternoon her husband came to report that she was better. I
went to see her and to my great surprise she _was_ better. While
there a famous idol arrived to drive out the evil spirit. I said,
'Do you want me, or do you want the idols? We cannot work
together.' They insisted that I continue to prepare my medicine and
said that the idol could wait. He did wait twenty minutes, and I
have been told since that no one ever dared to ask an idol to wait
before. Before leaving they promised me that the idol should not go
near, or do anything outrageous to the woman. This is now the tenth
day and the woman seems to have quite recovered."
"The woman's husband came yesterday and told me that not only he,
but many friends and relatives, were convinced that the idols were
false; for one idol would give one cause for the illness of his
wife, and another idol would give another cause; while once they
did not give the medicine sent by an idol and he (the medium) said
later, 'The medicine has done her good.' The husband said, 'We see
plainly that my wife was saved by your God, by you, and your
medicine.'"
While Dr. Hü has done a great deal of work for the poor, her practice is by
no means limited to that class, for she is often called to the homes of the
official and wealthy classes. One grateful husband, whose wife and baby Dr.
Hü had saved, told her that he would not only give money towards her new
hospital himself, but would also help her to obtain subscriptions from his
friends. "Chinese doctors have learned to use clinical thermometers," he
observed, "but the Chinese medicine does not seem to fit the foreign
thermometer, for the patients do not seem to get well as with the foreign
medicine."
The first student to receive a diploma from the Woolston Memorial Hospital
was Dr. Hü's sister, Hü Seuk Eng, who graduated in April, 1902. The
graduation exercises, held in the Sing Bo Ting Ancestral Hall, which was
willingly loaned for the occasion, created a keen interest, and numbers of
the city people gathered to witness proceedings so unusual. Many of them
said, "This is the first time a Christian service was ever held in a
temple." But what was even more wonderful to them was the revelation of
the possibilities of Chinese young womanhood which they received. Dr. Hü
wrote that after the exercises an official who lived near by announced: "I
will buy a girl seven or eight years old and I will have a tutor for her.
Then I will send her to the Girls' Boarding School to study, and then she
may go to Dr. Hü to study medicine. Then she will go to Sing Bo Ting
Ancestral Temple, too, to receive her diploma. Besides, we will all be
Christians." Others were heard to exclaim, "Who knew girls could do so much
good to the world--more than our boys!"
When the exercises were over, greatly to Seuk Eng's surprise, her sedan
chair was escorted all the way back to the hospital, to the accompaniment
of the popping of hundreds of fire-crackers, set off in her honour. A
Chinese feast was prepared for the guests in the hospital, after which
another unexpected explosion of congratulatory fire-crackers took place.
Thus ended in true Chinese fashion, amid noise and smoke, the first
graduation exercises of the Woolston Memorial Hospital.
They were by no means the last, however, for this department of work has
been steadily carried on ever since Dr. Hü took charge of the hospital. In
1904 she reported: "Our little medical school is getting on nicely. The
success of the school is mostly due to our good teacher and the students
themselves, who have a great desire to learn. They have had written
examinations this year; the highest general average was 98 and the lowest
85. Can any one dare to think, 'What is the use to teach these Chinese
people?'"
Dr. Hü wrote of the commencement exercises of the class graduating the
following year: "Quite a number of the gentry, and the teachers of the
government schools for young men, had asked to come to attend the
graduating exercises; and of course we were very much pleased to have them.
They did seem to enjoy it very much. Some of them have told my friends that
they were surprised and delighted to see that their countrywomen could be
so brave and do so well. They also wished that their students might have
come to see and to listen for themselves. One of the gentry decided that
day that his daughter should come to us to study medicine."
Up to this time no girl who did not have a diploma from a mission school
had been admitted to the medical course of the Woolston Hospital. But in
1906, yielding to the great desire of many other young women to take
medical training, Dr. Hü opened the course to any who could pass an
examination on certain subjects which she considered essential
prerequisites to a medical course. Four of the seven who presented
themselves for examination were passed; only one was a Christian girl, two
were daughters-in-law of officials, the other a daughter of one of the
gentry.
An extract from the examination paper of one of them shows the real
earnestness of purpose with which the work was undertaken. The first
question asked was, "Please give your reasons for coming to study
medicine?" "Alas, the women of my country are forgotten in the minds of the
intellectual world. How could they think of a subject as important as the
education of medicine! The result is that many lives are lost, simply on
account of no women physicians for women. Though mission hospitals for
women and children have been established for a number of years in the
Fuhkien province they are far less than we need. For this reason I have a
great desire for a medical education, hoping that I may be able to help,
and to save my fellow sisters from suffering. It is for this reason I dare
to apply for this instruction."
The graduates of the medical course are as yet not great in numbers, but
they are doing earnest, efficient work. Some of them have remained in the
hospital as assistants or matrons. Of a recent graduating class, one went
to the Methodist hospital in Ngu-cheng to assist Dr. Li Bi Cu, the
physician in charge; another went to a large village, to be the only
physician practising Western medicine; the third to Tientsin, as an
assistant in the Imperial Peiyang Woman's Medical College.
V
THE FAVOUR OF THE PEOPLE
As shown by the glimpses of Dr. Hü's work which have been given
evangelistic work is carried on in conjunction with the medical work.
Christian services are held each morning, and are attended by the
dispensary patients, those of the hospital patients who are able to be up,
the servants, and usually, also, by a number of visitors. The first year
after taking charge of the hospital Dr. Hü was able to report: "Not only
some of the in-patients, but also some of our morning dispensary patients,
were converted and joined the church on probation. We are rejoicing over
the fact that all the hospital servants, all my own servants, and also our
teacher, have given their hearts to Christ. They said before a chapel full
of patients in one of our morning services, that they would from that day
on try to be Christians and to live a good life. So far (six months) they
have proved themselves to be in earnest."
A few years later she writes: "In our morning prayers I have often looked
and seen a chapel full of people. I have carefully looked over the crowd
and I could easily recognize those who have just come to us, others who
have been here longer. You wonder how I know it? Well, their faces show.
Oftentimes our patients listen so attentively that they forget they are in
a crowd. Sometimes one, two, three, or even more, speak up with one voice,
'The Jesus doctrine is truly good. What the leader said is nothing but the
truth. Idols are false.'"
In addition to the morning services Christian work is constantly done by
the Bible women who work in connection with the hospital. They hold
meetings in the hospital wards, teach the hospital patients to read the
Bible, do personal work among those waiting their turn in the dispensary,
and visit in the homes. One of the missionaries who is a frequent visitor
to the hospital says: "No hour of the week brings more fully the joy of
service than the hour I spend in the City Hospital with the poor sick folk
there. They are always so glad to hear, and so responsive. No wonder the
Master loved to heal; and no wonder the Christian physician finds so many
open doors."
It is not to be wondered at that those who have been ministered to by this
tender, skilful Christian woman, and have watched her happy, busy life
poured out in the service of the suffering ones about her, have become
convinced that the beautiful doctrine which she teaches and lives is true.
Every year the hospital reports contain a record of those who have become
Christians during the year as a result of the medical work. Moreover, the
seeds sown in the early years of the hospital, some of which seemed to have
fallen on rocky ground, were not all in vain. Dr. Hü's sister, reporting
the work of 1908, writes: "After careful investigation we found that those
seeds were sown deep enough, and with such attention, that even though
seven, eight, or nine years have passed they are to-day still germinating,
growing, and bearing fruit. After hearing and accepting the gospel, their
lives are changed. They become brighter and more straightforward, and have
a love for other people."
Christmas is a great event in the Woolston Memorial Hospital, not only for
the patients and workers, but also for as many of the neighbours as can be
accommodated in the chapel. There is never any difficulty with regard to
unwilling guests; on the contrary, the neighbours invariably respond with
almost disconcerting enthusiasm. The first year that they were invited
to the Christmas exercises, red Chinese cards, reading "Admit one only,"
were distributed to one hundred and twenty families, one to each house, the
choice of the member who should use it being left to the family. Careful
explanations as to why all could not be invited were made; but in spite of
this, during the days preceding Christmas, the doctor was besieged by the
non-elect with requests for invitations.
[Illustration: Dr. Hü's Christmas Party]
The guests were invited for half-past seven Christmas evening, but the
great majority of them were on hand at four o'clock waiting for the doors
to be opened. When they were opened, and the guests began to pass in,
presenting their red tickets, a new predicament arose; for it was
discovered that many of these tickets were of their own manufacture, the
number of those which were passed in far exceeding the number of those
which had been given out. But when the doctor looked over the crowds, and
saw how eager they were to get in, and how good-natured they were, she had
not the heart to turn them away, so told the gatekeepers to let them in as
long as they could find a place in which to stand. And although the chapel
was crowded to its utmost seating and standing capacity, even the basement
and the yard outside being filled, Dr. Hü said that no better behaved or
more quiet crowd could have been desired. They listened attentively to the
exercises, which were fully two hours long, and at the close, group by
group, they all went up to thank the doctor for the pleasure she had
provided for them, and then quietly dispersed.
Tea, cakes, and oranges had been provided for the invited guests, but as
more than twice the number invited had arrived, it was found necessary to
omit that part of the entertainment. However, the doctor sent her servants
the following day to distribute the cakes and fruits among those for whom
they had been provided. That the guests had enjoyed themselves was evident
when the next Christmas drew near, for many either sent to Dr. Hü, or came
themselves, to remind her not to forget to invite them to the Christmas
entertainment. Nor did a single guest fail to appear on Christmas evening.
If a physician's chief reward is the gratitude and appreciation of those
among whom he works, Dr. Hü is indeed rewarded for her self-forgetful
service of those whom she lovingly terms "my Chinese." Appreciation of the
work she is doing is convincingly shown by the way in which the people
flock to her, and in their great eagerness to have the hospital kept open
the year around. This has proved to be impossible, although every summer
Dr. Hü has made an effort to continue the work, being willing to toil even
through the intense heat of July and August, and, since the students must
be given a vacation, with only half her usual corps of assistants. One
summer she wrote with gratitude that the thermometer in her bedroom
registered only 93° that day, after two weeks of 99° and even 100°, and
added, "It would do you good if you could see how grateful these people are
to see us keeping our hospital open; and we are very glad to be able to do
something for them in this very trying hot season."
But the intense heat of a South China summer and the things that it brings
with it, make it impossible to keep the work going continuously in the
present crowded quarters. Often it is the dreaded plague which necessitates
the closing of the hospital doors. One morning Dr. Hü heard that the
neighbour directly across the street from the hospital had been stricken
with this fatal disease. She closed the hospital at once, and put up a
notice telling the patients why it was necessary to close, and assuring
them that she would begin work again as soon as it was safe to do so. The
next morning the notice had disappeared, and another one which was put up
disappeared as promptly. An explanation of this was afforded Dr. Hü, by a
remark which she overheard: "How can we stand having this hospital closed?
We took the notice down in hope that the hospital would be opened." But
when the plague is prevalent, the closing of the hospital is the only safe
course to pursue; for one person, coming into the dispensary suffering from
this disease, may do more harm in a few minutes than could be undone in
many weeks.
A common and gracious way of expressing appreciation in China is the
presentation of an honorary tablet, to be set up in one's reception room,
on which is written an appreciation of the achievements of the recipient.
These are constantly bestowed upon Dr. Hü by those patients who are wealthy
enough to express their gratitude in this fashion.
A few years ago fire broke out in the middle of the night not far from the
hospital. It burned up to the west wall of the hospital and all along the
length of the wall, completely destroying all the houses in front of it.
Then it was that the Chinese gave expression in very concrete form to their
appreciation of their fellow-countrywoman, and the work which she was doing
in that hospital. Dr. Hü says that the building might have been reduced to
ashes in a moment had it not been for the faithful efforts of those who
"were more willing to have their faces scorched and burned than to leave
their work undone," and who laboured to such effect that nothing but the
roof was seriously damaged. After the danger was over the people poured in
to express their sympathy, and offer their congratulations that the damage
was no greater, some of them bringing pots of tea and dishes of food. "This
may not seem very wonderful to the people in a Christian country," says Dr.
Hü, "but if you knew how the people usually are treated at such times you
will agree with me when I say 'Wonderful.'" Fire is usually interpreted as
an expression of the displeasure of the gods, and it is considered discreet
not to interfere.
Appreciation of Dr. Hü's work is not limited to any one class of people.
One day when she was watching the laying of the foundation of her home on
Black Rock Hill, many of the people who lived near were gathered around,
and she thought it would be a good opportunity to see how they felt about
her coming there. So she asked an old "literary man" standing near her,
"Ibah, are you glad to see us building? We will soon be your neighbours."
Without any hesitation he replied, while the others signified hearty
approval of his remarks: "We are all delighted. It is a hospital, and very
different from building a church. _I-seng_ (doctor), you have made many
cures in our families. Of course you don't remember us, but even after the
transmigration to either dog or hog we will remember you. You may be sure
you are welcomed, only we are not good enough to be your neighbours." After
the doctor had left, her chair-bearers told her that the people really
meant what they said; for they had heard them say similar things when she
was not there. Dr. Hü added, "I do feel very sorry that these people are
still ignorant that a mission hospital is a part of the church, but they
will know some day."
Nor has appreciation of the work been limited to words. From the
magistrates down, the Chinese have readily subscribed gifts of money to the
hospital work. Even the Chinese physicians, who have found Dr. Hü's
scientific training so formidable a rival to their practice, have exhibited
a most friendly spirit. Dr. Hü says of them: "The Chinese doctors have
bravely brought their patients for us to heal. Some of them are well-known
doctors in the city here, so their coming to us helps our work a good
deal. These doctors are not at all conceited. They talk very openly and
frankly before everybody."
That Dr. Hü is genuinely loved by her patients, and not valued simply as
one from whom benefits are received, was evidenced during her mother's long
last illness. During the many months when her mother was so ill, the doctor
made the long trip of several miles, from her hospital to her home, almost
every night, returning each day for her morning clinics. This, and her care
of her mother, added to all her other work, made such heavy days that the
patients often said: "Dr. Hü must be very tired. We must save her from
working too hard."
This, however, is more easily said than done; for Dr. Hü's sympathetic
heart makes it very hard for her to spare herself as long as any one needs
her help. For nine years after taking charge of the Woolston Memorial
Hospital she worked almost unceasingly, with practically no vacations
except those caused by the necessity of closing the hospital in the summer,
and these she made as brief as possible. But during all this time the work
had been steadily increasing, until finally, in 1907, when the number who
thronged the hospital and dispensary was greater than ever before, the
doctor's health broke down under the strain, and, although with the
greatest reluctance, she was forced to stop work. Her fellow-missionaries
insisted that she leave the city during the terrific heat of summer, and go
to Sharp Peak for some rest. She had been there only two days when she was
taken dangerously ill, and for weeks and months the gravest anxiety was
felt concerning her. But she received the best of care and nursing, and
finally, in March of the following year, she began gradually to recover.
Some advised that the hospital be closed. But Dr. Hü's younger sister, Hü
Seuk Eng, who had received her medical training in the Woolston Memorial
Hospital under Dr. Hü King Eng, and had been associated with her sister in
the hospital work for some years, said that to close the hospital would be
a great shock to Dr. Hü, and a bitter disappointment to the people, and
that she would undertake to keep it open. "The load was indeed very heavy
and my heart was truly frightened," she admitted afterward. "Every day I
just repeated that comforting verse, 'He leadeth me,' and marched forward."
At first the people did not have the confidence in Hü Seuk Eng which they
had in Dr. Hü King Eng. Hü Seuk Eng tells of their great eagerness to see
her sister: "The faith of many of the patients has been so strong that they
thought their illness would at once be cured, or at least lessened, if they
could only touch Dr. Hü's garment or hear her voice, or merely look into
her face. During these months of sickness many people came wishing to see
'the great Dr. Hü.' They did not want to see me, whom they termed 'the
little Dr. Hü.' Some of the leading gentry pleaded with the hospital
servants to present their cards to Dr. Hü, and she would be sure to come
out to see their sick friends. For it is fully nine years since she was
appointed to take charge of this city work, and never once has she been so
ill. Indeed, it is the first time she has not been able to respond to
pressing calls for medical treatment. So often were heard the words, 'I
want the doctor whose hair is dressed on the top of her head and who has
graduated from an American college,' that my fellow workers advised the
same coiffure in order to avoid trouble; but I told them when the question
was asked again just to answer, 'This is Dr. Hü's younger sister, and she
will do the best she can.'"
As Dr. Hü grew stronger she was able to consult with her sister as to the
hospital work; the nurses and students gave the young physician
whole-hearted co-operation; and in time of need Dr. Kinnear, of the
American Board, whose hospital is not far away, was always ready to advise
and help. Thus the hospital work was successfully carried on under the
"Great Dr. Hü's sister, Dr. Hü No. 2," until Dr. Hü King Eng was again able
to take charge of it.
As busy as ever, Dr. Hü is back at her work with renewed strength. "I just
'look up and lend a hand,'" she says, in the words of the motto of The
King's Daughters' Society of her college. But hundreds and thousands of the
suffering ones of her country rise up to call her blessed for the loving,
skilful ministry of that hand which has been lent to their needs untiringly
for many years, and which they hope will be their strength and comfort for
years to come.
That her friends in America recognize the splendid service she is rendering
in China, is evidenced by the fact that at its last Commencement her Alma
Mater, Ohio Wesleyan University, conferred upon her the honorary degree of
Master of Science.
* * * * *
MRS. AHOK
I. THE MISTRESS OF A HOME OF WEALTH
II. WORK AMONG THE WOMEN OF THE UPPER CLASSES
III. A JOURNEY TO ENGLAND
IV. PATIENT IN TRIBULATION
* * * * *
[Illustration: Mrs. Ahok and Her Two Granddaughters]
MRS. AHOK
I
THE MISTRESS OF A HOME OF WEALTH
One of the most prominent men in Foochow during the latter half of the last
century was Mr. Ahok, a wealthy Chinese merchant. One who had known him for
years speaks of him as "a man of remarkable business integrity and
generosity of nature." He was very friendly to the Americans and English
living in Foochow, and Dr. Baldwin, of the Methodist Mission, was, during
all his stay in China, Mr. Ahok's most trusted friend and adviser. Mrs.
Baldwin gives a very attractive picture of this Chinese gentleman:
"When any great calamity through fire or flood came to the people,
he was quick to respond with the most liberal aid; and I have known
him in times of cholera or epidemic sickness to have thousands of
packages of medicine put up by our foreign physicians, for him to
give to the sick people. In all our acquaintance with him I never
knew him to turn a deaf ear to an appeal for help; in a
neighbouring city he supported alone a foundling asylum, in which
were one hundred little castaway girls to whom he supplied nurses,
clothing, etc., and he assured us that no one besides Mr. Baldwin
and myself knew of it. He had for some time been accustomed to come
to advise and consult Mr. Baldwin on various matters, and when
going away would give him a power of attorney to sign for the
firm."
When Mr. Ahok was married, he urged Dr. and Mrs. Baldwin to be present at
the ceremony, and gave them the privilege of bringing foreign friends with
them if they so desired. His wife was a member of a family of high rank,
the sister of a mandarin, and the possessor of an aristocratic little foot
two inches and a half long. Outside of those educated in the mission
schools, she was the first Chinese woman that Mrs. Baldwin had met who
could read and write. One day not long after the wedding, Dr. Baldwin met
Mr. Ahok, and disregarding the Chinese custom which makes it a breach of
etiquette to inquire after a man's wife, asked about Mrs. Ahok. Mr. Ahok at
once answered with evident pride, "She all the same one mandarin; she reads
books all the day." He was very proud of her unusual ability, and the
confidence and sympathy which soon existed between him and his wife was
much greater than is usual in a non-Christian home in China. Mrs. Ahok
shared her husband's warm feeling for his foreign friends. The words of
Mrs. Baldwin, who knew her intimately, characterize her well:
"She was, from my first meeting with her, ever a friend of me and
mine.... She was a woman of strong character, of fine personal
appearance, always attired in elegant dress, and so perfect in her
observance of the elaborate code of Chinese etiquette that it was
ever a marvel to me how she remembered the smallest details of the
exacting courtesy, never failing to meet the terse and telling
instruction of the standard book on etiquette for girls and women,
'As a guest demand nothing, as a hostess exhaust courtesy....' The
better I knew her the more I esteemed her."
Mr. Ahok had two beautiful homes in Foochow; one a very fine Chinese house,
the other an English residence, elegantly furnished with carpets, pictures,
piano, and all other foreign furnishings required for comfort and beauty.
In these two homes he and his wife entertained with great hospitality. Mrs.
Baldwin says that she has often seen almost the entire foreign community of
Foochow, officials, missionaries, and business people, entertained in the
Ahoks' home, sometimes in Chinese fashion, sometimes in foreign. It is, of
course, contrary to Chinese custom for the mistress of the home to appear
before gentlemen outside of her own family. Mrs. Ahok, however, knowing
that it was the custom in England and America for the hostess to dispense
hospitality to her guests, gradually accustomed herself to appearing as
hostess at all gatherings where there were foreign guests; first at small
dinners, and later in larger companies. One who was a frequent guest in the
home says, "It was a constant surprise to me to see this Chinese lady, so
accustomed to seclusion, ever so modestly self-possessed, and in courteous,
ladylike bearing, equal to every occasion."
But although ready to conform to foreign custom when entertaining foreign
guests in her home, it was several years before Mrs. Ahok was willing to
attend similar gatherings in other homes. She frequently called at the home
of her friend, Mrs. Baldwin, but never when there were strangers there. On
one occasion when Mrs. Baldwin was entertaining a few guests at dinner, she
invited Mr. Ahok to dine with them. He accepted readily, and Mrs. Baldwin
went on to say: "We very much desire that Mrs. Ahok should come with you.
We know your customs, but you have known us for a long time. Cannot Mrs.
Ahok make an exception and come on this occasion?" He seemed very much
troubled and replied: "I would very greatly like to have my wife come, and
she would enjoy doing so, and if there were no one here but Mr. Baldwin and
you she would come. But other men will be here, and if she came her chair
bearers would know it and her name be injured."
As has been seen, Mr. Ahok was always very friendly to the missionaries and
in sympathy with their work. The Anglo-Chinese College of the Methodist
Mission, for example, was made possible by his generous gift. But it was
some years before he became a Christian. When the step was finally taken,
however, he proved to be a most ardent worker, giving generously to the
work of several denominations in various parts of China, holding Christian
services in his home, and doing earnest personal work among those with whom
he came in contact in the transaction of his business, both in Foochow and
on his trips to other cities.
Mrs. Ahok was a very devout Buddhist and had no desire at all to learn of
Christianity. She was, however, eager to learn English, and consented to
learn it through the Bible, since Miss Foster, the English missionary who
had been asked to instruct her in English, would consent to give time from
her other work only on that condition. "I have often found her with the
house full of idols, incense being burned before them," reads a letter from
one of her friends. "Our hearts were often discouraged, fearing that this
Chinese lady would always love the idols." Even after her husband had
become a Christian Mrs. Ahok insisted that she would never forsake the
worship of her ancestors and follow the foreign religion. "But," said Mrs.
Baldwin, "I felt very sure that a woman of her mind and character would yet
follow her husband into the better life. Within a year after, she became a
most earnest, loving, working disciple of Christ, ready to deny herself and
bear her cross in many ways most trying to a Chinese lady."
Both Mrs. Ahok and her husband had intense opposition to meet, for it was
not to be expected that members of families of such high rank should
forsake the religion of their fathers without encountering bitter protest
from their kindred. The opposition of mother and mother-in-law, both of
whom lived in the home with them, was especially hard to bear. Mrs. Ahok's
mother was intensely hostile to Christianity, and did everything possible
to make things so unpleasant for her daughter that she would renounce her
new faith. Mr. Ahok's mother was no less opposed at first; but gradually
she became more willing to learn about Christianity, and for some time
alternated between her idol worship and the Sunday and mid-week services
and family prayers which Mr. Ahok held in his home. At length, after having
thus compared the two religions for some time, she announced: "You may take
my idol away. Hereafter your God shall be my God." From that time on she
was a radiant Christian, and it was not long until Mrs. Ahok's mother
followed her example.
At the time of the death of Mr. Ahok's mother, there occurred an
interesting example of the way in which a Chinese can become an earnest
Christian without becoming less Chinese thereby. In that part of China the
wealthy families, and many of those of the middle classes, begin on the
seventh day after a death a series of "meritorious" ceremonies for the
repose and general benefit of the soul of the departed. In one form or
another the ceremonies are repeated every seventh day thereafter until the
forty-ninth day. Buddhist or Taoist priests are hired to conduct the
ceremonies. Mr. Ahok, probably partly that he might not antagonize his
relatives and friends by a disregard of their funeral customs, partly
because of the opportunity for spreading the knowledge of Christianity
thus afforded, followed the custom of having such a gathering every seventh
day. But instead of non-Christian ceremonies being held, the truths of
Christianity were preached.
Mrs. Ahok proved to be as active a worker as was her husband. When she had
been a Christian only a very short time, the leader for the Friday night
meeting held in their home failed to arrive. Evidently her husband was away
on one of his business trips, for there was no one else there who could
take charge of the service. So Mrs. Ahok said, "I will lead it, though I am
not very well instructed in the doctrines of Christianity." In telling of
it afterward she said: "I read about the woman who lost the piece of money
and took a candle and searched for it; and about the sheep that was lost
and found; and then there was singing and prayer; and I spoke to them, and
I was able to speak a great deal for them to hear. God helped me and
blessed me greatly in the service."
Soon after she had become a Christian she wrote a letter to the Woman's
Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Church, to be read at their
annual meeting. In it she says: "The time for your meeting is so near that
thoughts of it are constantly in my heart.... We have meetings in our
_hong_ (store), and also meetings in our house every Friday evening. The
praise for leading us to know the doctrine, and open the meetings, is all
due to the sisters who have not minded that the road to China led them so
away from their own country, but have come to teach us of Christianity.
Although I do not presume to say that my heart has been deeply sown with
gospel seed, yet I know that it has been changed into a different heart....
Now I send you this letter of greeting, thanking you for your favours, and
praising you for your great virtues. May God bless your fervour and spread
abroad the doctrine of Christianity in my country. This is what I always
pray."
II
WORK AMONG THE WOMEN OF THE UPPER CLASSES
Interested in every form of Christian service, Mrs. Ahok was especially
eager to share the joy of her new-found faith with the women of her own
class, the wealthy aristocratic ladies whose secluded lives were so barren
and empty, and to whom it was so difficult for a missionary to obtain
access. She threw herself with whole-hearted eagerness into the work of the
Church of England Zenana Society, whose mission is to these very women, and
many are the testimonies to the inestimable value of the work which she
did. As one of the missionaries wrote: "She is of immense usefulness in
getting the houses open, as she knows the high-class families, and is
intensely earnest herself that her fellow-countrywomen should receive the
glad news too. Her knowledge of the endless Chinese etiquette and customs,
too, is of great service." How difficult it would have been to carry on
work of this kind successfully without the help of a Chinese lady of the
"four hundred," can be judged from the accounts of the work which the
missionaries wrote home from time to time.
[Illustration: Reception Rooms in Chinese Homes of Wealth]
"We have paid our first visit to some of the rich families in the
city. Mrs. Ahok sent a coolie on the day before to ask if they
could see us, and they having signified their willingness, we
agreed to meet Mrs. Ahok and go with her. We had some dinner at 12
o'clock, as the city is so far away it takes a great deal of time
to go, and then started in our sedan chairs to meet Mrs. Ahok. We
found her ready, waiting for us, dressed in a most lovely coral
pink jacket, beautifully embroidered, and with very pretty
ornaments in her hair...."
"After an hour and a half's ride through the narrow, crowded
streets of the suburbs we reached the city gates; then through more
streets even more thronged, till we reached the house. We were
carried through the large outer door, then through a small
courtyard, and our chairs put down in a row facing the partition
which shut off the next portion of the house. There we had to sit
some little time, as I fancy the ladies had not quite finished
dressing, but at last out came one of the heads of the family and
invited us in. We got out of our chairs and in turn made a sort of
low bow to the newcomer, shaking our own hands (Chinese fashion)
all the time. This over, she escorted us into an inner room....
There was a rug on the floor, a round table, some very high chairs
with straight backs, and some mirrors. We sat in state some few
minutes and then more ladies came in one after another, and each
one we had to salute in the same ceremonious way...."
"We had to drink tea when we first went in, and later quite a meal
was spread on the round table, cakes, fruits, and tea again. We sat
at the table with about three of the principal ladies, and the
others looked on. I was a good deal struck with the respectful way
the young women treat the older ones, always rising when they enter
the room, and remaining standing until they are seated.... We were
invited to go and inspect the house, and I was soon quite
bewildered at the number of courtyards with rooms all round, which
we were led through. I think I was never before in so large a house
in China, all one story, but it must cover a great deal of ground.
The number of people, too, seemed very great; wives, sons' wives,
brothers' wives, children in dozens and scores, servants and slave
girls to any number--altogether in that one establishment, one
hundred and twenty people."
"At last we finished our tour of inspection, and arrived again in
the inner court; but alas! more refreshments were waiting, a bowl
of soup for each of us, with some white stuff inside.... We got
through the greater part of the concoction, wiped our mouths with a
cloth wrung out in very hot water presented to us by a slave girl,
and began to take our leave, bowed to the ladies of the house,
begged them to be seated, informed them that we had given them
much trouble, but felt grateful for their kindness, and amid
repeated requests to 'walk slowly, slowly,' we reached our chairs,
alternately calling our thanks, and requests to them to be seated.
It is a great thing, going with Mrs. Ahok, for one has a good
opportunity of learning many little customs which please them
greatly."
"We then proceeded to another house, where we went through much the
same etiquette. We were received by a very pleasant old lady and
her daughter-in-law, a nice young woman with four dear little
children, three of them boys. The old lady is a widow; her husband
when living was a mandarin, and her eldest son is now at Peking,
preparing to be a mandarin also. We were obliged to drink tea
again, and after some time the old lady invited us into her own
bedroom, a very much cleaner room than one sees generally, with
white matting on the floor and some good furniture. She was very
proud of it, but according to Chinese fashion kept exclaiming that
it was such a dirty bad room, that she could hardly ask us into it,
but we must excuse it, as it was 'an old woman's room.' We had the
concertina brought in again and sang several hymns to which they
listened very quietly. One of us read a verse and explained it
before singing it, and Mrs. Ahok joined heartily, most bravely
acknowledging herself to be a Christian, and telling her friends
how happy she was. We then went through the house, and about the
middle of the establishment we came on a little enclosure where
trees were growing, and a pond of water with a rookery behind it
looked quite pretty.... When we left they begged us to come again,
and Mrs. Ahok is so pleased with the reception we received that she
is anxious, if possible, to arrange for us to go again next week."
Even more formidable than ceremonious social calls in wealthy Chinese
homes, is the thought of entertaining the aristocracy in one's own home.
"I want to tell you about our grand feast," one lady writes. "We
had been entertained at several houses, and wished to try to get on
more friendly terms with some of the rich city ladies. We feared
that they would never be willing to come so far, they so seldom
leave their houses for anything. However, through our unfailing
friend, Mrs. Ahok, we sent invitations asking them to come and dine
with us.... Sixteen ladies promised to come. The day before, we had
to remind them of the day and hour; but according to Chinese
etiquette we only sent our cards, and the messenger explained his
errand...."
"Well, at last the day arrived, and we were busy all the morning
making the house look as bright as we could, and getting chairs put
about in the verandas and passages. Mrs. Ahok came first, very
kindly, and advised us how best to set the tables, etc. She ordered
the feast for us, as the Chinese always do, from a shop. So much
is paid for a table and everything is provided. Mrs. Ahok lent us
all her own pretty things for the table, lovely little silver cups,
ornamented silver spoons, red china tea cups with silver stands,
and ivory chopsticks mounted with silver; so we were very grand. We
had two tables, ten at each. We were twenty in all, counting
ourselves."
"At last they began to arrive, and we were kept busy receiving, and
conducting them to their seats in the drawing-room. Tea had to be
offered at once, and that was hard to manage as none of our men
servants might come into the room; so Tuang had to do it all. I do
wish you could have peeped in and seen them all sitting about our
drawing-room. To us it was a sight that made our hearts dance for
joy--and it was a pretty sight too. Some dresses were quite lovely,
all the colours of the rainbow, and beautifully embroidered...."
"Next on the programme came what the Chinese call '_Tieng sieng_,'
fruit and cakes; and during the interval they wandered all over the
house examining everything, and we moved about, talking first to
one and then to another. Several little things much encouraged
us--their friendly, pleasant manner and evident pleasure, and the
earnest way in which they pressed us to go again to visit them. One
old lady, of a rich mandarin family, said to me in a confidential
way, behind her fan: 'Come and see me some day when you have plenty
of time, and tell me all about the doctrine, slowly, slowly. I
would like to understand about it.'"
"At last the feast was announced, and then came the critical
point--seating them at table. One table is supposed to be high, the
other low, in point of honour, and at each table the seats are all
in order (one, two, three, four, etc.), and it is a mortal offence
to give a low seat to one who should be placed high. Mrs. Ahok came
to our aid again and pointed out each lady according to her rank
and Miss ---- escorted her to her place. We ourselves had, of
course, to take the lowest places."
"Mrs. Ahok then asked a blessing and we began. The principal dish
is placed in the centre of the table and the hostess with her own
chopsticks helps the guests, all the time urging them to eat, and
apologizing for the food, saying she is sorry she has nothing fit
for them to eat. Mrs. Ahok did the chief part of these duties for
us, and we tried to watch her and do as she did. About two hours we
sat at the table, and at last, when we were nearly exhausted,
bowls of hot water were brought in, and a cloth wrung out was
handed to each person to wash her mouth and hands. The effect on
these powdered and painted faces was very funny, but Mrs. Ahok had
prepared us for this emergency also, and had sent over her own
dressing box--such a beautiful large one--fitted up with everything
they could need, powders, paints, and all complete. The ladies were
quite charmed and delighted to find such a thing in a foreign
house, and adjourned upstairs with great delight to beautify
themselves. We heard them telling each other that it was just as
if they had been at home...."
"At length they said they must go, and we had great leave-taking,
bowing and scraping, and thanks, and apologies for having troubled
us so much, and assurances on our part that it was all pleasure;
and finally off they went, and we sat down to cool ourselves, and
drink tea, and chat with Mrs. Ahok. She was very glad and thankful
that all went off so well, but quite tired after her exertions, and
sat holding her poor little bound feet in her hands, saying they
did ache so."
III
A JOURNEY TO ENGLAND
One day when Mrs. Ahok went to call on one of her English friends, Miss
Bradshaw, she was startled to find that the physician had ordered her to
leave for England on the next steamer, sailing three days later. "I wish
you could go with me, Mrs. Ahok," Miss Bradshaw said, when she had told her
of the physician's decision. This was a very remarkable suggestion to make
to this little Chinese woman, whose life had been such a secluded one that
a few years before she would not even accept an invitation to dinner with
the Baldwins, since there were to be foreign gentlemen present. Only a
short time before, when the Baldwins were returning to America and Mrs.
Ahok had gone with them, on her husband's launch, to the steamer anchorage,
twelve miles away, they had considered it a great honour, since this
Chinese friend had never been so far from home before. But Mrs. Ahok's
response was even more remarkable than Miss Bradshaw's proposition; for in
three days her little Chinese trunks packed and ticketed, "Dublin,
Ireland." Mr. Ahok had heartily consented to his wife's going; and she,
unwilling to have her sick friend take the long journey alone, and mindful
of the service she might perform for her people in England, by telling of
their need and pleading for workers, quickly decided to go.
A letter from a friend who was with her the day she sailed shows the spirit
with which she took this remarkable step: "I was impressed with two things;
her implicit confidence in her missionary friend, and her sweet, innocent
trust in the love and care of her Heavenly Father. She was leaving an
elegant home and a large household, and in giving last advice to servants
and children her voice was clear and joyous, but I noticed that she often
furtively wiped the tears off her cheeks. In her good-bye to her dearly
loved aged mother, whose grief was inconsolable, she said: 'Don't grieve,
don't worry, just pray and God will take care of me and I will come back.
Then we will sit here together and I will have so many things to tell you.'
Again and again she said to her children, 'Study your lessons diligently
and pray night and morning.'"
Mrs. Ahok sailed from Foochow the 26th of January, 1890. At Hong Kong she
was told, "There are a hundred miseries ahead of you," but she answered
unflinchingly, "If there were a thousand more I would go." From Singapore
she wrote to her husband:
"Yesterday we arrived here at twelve o'clock. Diong Chio (her
servant, who accompanied her) wishes very much to go back to
Foochow. But I think now I have come so far on the way, I wish very
much to obey God's will and go on to England.... Yesterday we drove
in a horse carriage to see Mrs. Cooke. We saw Mrs. Ting's relatives
in the school.... It is very hot here, like Foochow in the sixth
moon. I wish you very much to take care of yourself and take care
of the children, and do not let them play too much.... I send
_chang angs_ (greetings) to the Christian brothers and sisters, so
many I cannot name them all, but greet them all. Please sometimes
comfort my mother's heart and cheer her that she may be happy in
trusting in God all the time. Write to me in Chinese characters,
and I can then read it myself; or sometimes, if more convenient, in
English, and Miss Bradshaw will read it to me."
A letter from Penang, written two days later, reads:
"Leaving Singapore, a Chinese lady and gentleman came on board our
boat to come to their home here in Penang. I saw the lady was very
sad ... so I talked with them, and found they knew your friend in
Singapore. I spoke to them of God and the Christian doctrine, and
they were very glad to hear. When we arrived here they invited me
to their house to breakfast, which was quite a feast. Their house
is very beautiful, four stories high. They afterward took me to
call on some friends, and then brought me back to the boat on
time."
At Colombo she and Miss Bradshaw were met by Miss Bradshaw's sister and
brother-in-law, whose home was in that city. Mrs. Ahok wrote from there:
"We are staying two days and two nights, until our boat starts for
England.... In the evening when it was cool our friends took us to
drive, and to call on some Christian people. We saw carriages and
horses, so many, running _so_ fast; and the roads and streets are
_so_ wide many carriages can go together on them. We passed many
black people; nearly all the people are black. We saw many women
and girls with their ears full and covered with ear-rings, and some
in their noses too, and some _men_ also wear ear-rings. I see the
black people, I think how wonderful God's love must be, to give His
Son to die for _all the world_, these black people as well as for
us. The friends here said they were glad I was going to England to
tell the people there about the heathen. They promised all to pray
for me, and I want you also to pray that I may fulfil God's will,
and do much for God's kingdom in England, and then come back
quickly home."
"It is very hot here, but the evenings and early mornings are cool.
Every one goes out to work, or walk, or drive, from daybreak until
the sun is hot, and breakfast at ten o'clock. I want to know, when
you write, what Heli is doing; and now I am away from home you will
take great care of all the children. Please _chang ang_ all friends
and relatives, and Dr. and Mrs. Sites, and take great care of
yourself, that when I return I may find all well. Tell me how the
boys are, and don't allow Jimmy to climb the trees. Comfort my
mother and tell her all I have written."
Mrs. Ahok was the second Chinese lady of rank to visit England, the first
one being the wife of the Chinese ambassador. She was the first Christian
Chinese woman England had ever known, and everywhere excited much interest
and won warm friends. _The Christian_ of London gives an account of a
meeting held in the Parochial Hall at Clontarf near Dublin, at which the
chairman proposed the following resolution:
"This meeting having assembled to welcome Miss Bradshaw on her
return from China; and having learned the extraordinary friendship,
tenderness, and devotedness of her Chinese friend, the Honourable
Lady of Diong Ahok, mandarin of Foochow, who had at a few hours'
notice decided to break through national customs and leave her home
and family, rather than allow Miss Bradshaw to undertake the
journey alone; hereby records its unbounded admiration of such
Christian sympathy, and brave and generous conduct; and they trust
that her own and her husband's desire that her visit may excite
fresh Christian workers to go to China, may be abundantly
fulfilled."
The report of the meeting goes on to say:
"This resolution being carried, Miss Bradshaw intimated to Lady
Ahok the purport of what had taken place, and asked her to say a
few words of acknowledgment. Accordingly, with the greatest
simplicity and self-possession she said (each word of her sentences
being translated by Miss Bradshaw) that she was very glad to meet
them all, and was very thankful to have been brought to England;
that her faith in God had enabled her to come."
The Tenth Annual meeting of the Church of England Zenana Society was held
in Princes Hall, London, during Mrs. Ahok's visit to England, and she was
one of the principal speakers. In spite of heavy and incessant rain the
audience began to assemble before the doors were open. Numbers stood
throughout, and many more failed to gain admission. Standing quietly before
the large audience, Mrs. Ahok gave her message so effectively that when
she sat down, the chairman, Sir Charles N. Aitchison, exclaimed: "Did you
ever hear a more simple, more touching appeal under such circumstances? I
never did."
Stating the purpose of her visit to England Mrs. Ahok said:
"I have come from China--from Foochow--and come to England for what
business and what purpose? The road here was _very_ difficult,
sitting in a boat for so long! Very tiresome it was, to be on the
rough sea, with wind and waves for the first time! My servant Diong
Chio and I have come here. We are strangers! We raise our eyes and
look on people's faces, but we can see no one we know--no relative,
no one like ourselves--all truly strange! I left my little boy, my
husband, my mother--all this: for what purpose, do you think? It is
only entirely for the sake of Christ's Gospel that I have come."
"It is not for the sake of seeing a new place and new people, or
any beautiful thing; we have in China quite close to us new
places--beautiful places. I have never seen _them_ yet; so why
should I come so far to see other places? They may be very good to
see, but not for this could I leave my household and people. I
cannot speak your words, I do not know any one, and your food is
quite different from ours: nothing is at all the same as that to
which I am accustomed...."
"... It was God's Holy Spirit that led me to come. He wanted me to
do what? Not to amuse _myself_, but to ask and invite _you_ to come
to China to tell the doctrine of Christ. How could you know the
needs of China without hearing them? How could you hear unless I
came to tell you? Now you can know, for I say the harvest in China
is _very_ great, but the labourers are _so_ few. Now my great
desire is that the Gospel of Christ may be known on earth as it is
in heaven. It is not yet known in China, and because the great
houses have not yet heard the Gospel, all their money is spent on
the idols, sacrifices, and burning incense."
"In this country _some_ help to spread the Gospel, some go to other
countries to tell those who have never heard, but some (a great
many) are not helping in any way: though they have all heard
themselves, they are living here only to obey their own wills, for
their own pleasure in this world! How pitiable! We all know the
Gospel of Christ; let us then not follow the heathen (who have
never heard) in caring for the things of this world. The Bible
says, 'If a man receives all the riches of this world, and loses
his own soul' (and the souls of many others), 'what can it profit
him?'..."
"I am only here for a very little, then I must go back to Foochow,
where there are so many large houses full of ladies; the workers
are so very few now. At this time only one _ku-niong_ is there to
visit all the great city houses. She is not enough to visit so
many; and it is said that in these mandarin houses their ears have
never yet heard the doctrine.... Now I pray God to cause, whether
_ku-niongs_ (unmarried ladies) or _sing-sang-niongs_ (married
ladies), _quickly_ to go and enter these houses with the Gospel.
Now I ask you, raise up hot hearts in yourselves and quickly help
us."
"First. Will you come back to China with me?"
"Second. If _you_ cannot, will you cause others to come, by sending
them and doing what you can to help them to come?"
Mrs. Ahok had planned for a six months' visit in England, but word came
that her husband was ill, and she left in July, after a stay of a little
less than four months, during which she had addressed large audiences in
approximately one hundred meetings in England and Ireland. The impression
she had made there may be gathered from a paragraph which appeared in
_India's Women and China's Daughters_, after she had left:
"Those who saw Mrs. Ahok's earnest face, and listened to some of
the most simple and heart-stirring words ever heard on an English
platform, will recall the impression her plea for her countrywomen
then made.... If God should open the way for Mrs. Ahok again to
visit England, she will be welcomed as one who brought home the
reality of missions to many a conscience in England, and revived
the flagging spirits to zeal for the Lord of Hosts!"
Mrs. Ahok went home by way of Canada, accompanied by Miss Mead, one of the
new workers for whom she had been pleading. She did not realize how
seriously ill her husband was, for he had written cheerfully: "Tell Mrs.
Ahok that I have been a little ill for some weeks and that now I am staying
at the Ato house. I find it very restful staying quietly at the old
home.... Tell Mrs. Ahok, please, not to worry at all about me." On saying
good-bye to friends in England Mrs. Ahok told them that she hoped to come
again, and that the next time it would be with her husband. She was thus
spared the keen anxiety throughout the long journey which she must have
suffered, had she realized her husband's condition. She wrote back to Miss
Bradshaw from Montreal, telling of her safe arrival and expressing her
gratitude that although she and her maid had both suffered severely from
sea-sickness, they had been well taken care of by "a woman who was a
worshipper of God." At Vancouver she had to wait some days for her steamer,
and she wrote from there on July 26:
"All well, all peace. From the time I left England a month has
passed away. I keep thinking constantly of the meetings in England
which we had together. Now we are in this place waiting for the
ship and therefore we had this very good opportunity for work. I
have been invited by the minister of the church here to speak at
meetings. I have done so six times. Because this is a new place,
and there are men and women who do not at all believe the Gospel,
but who like to hear about Chinese ways and customs, therefore they
all greatly wish me to go to these meetings. I think this is also
God's leading for us, that we could not proceed on our journey, but
must spend this time here.... To-day is Saturday; this afternoon at
half-past three we are to have another meeting; to-morrow we go on
board ship to return to China.... When you have an opportunity,
give my greetings to all my Christian friends."
After Mrs. Ahok was back in China, she had a letter from the minister of
the Methodist church in Vancouver telling her that three new missionary
societies had been formed as a result of her few days' stay. He added,
"Your stay here has been an inspiration to us; the fortnight has been one
of blessing to us all."
IV
PATIENT IN TRIBULATION
The long anticipated home-coming was a very sad one. During the hot summer
months Mr. Ahok had grown steadily weaker, and he died almost three months
before his wife reached Foochow. It was a great comfort to those who had
been instrumental in arranging for Mrs. Ahok's trip to England to remember
how fully her husband had approved of the plan. Miss Bradshaw said: "I
shall never forget the bright way in which Mr. Ahok faced all the dangers
and difficulties of the journey on which he was sending Mrs. Ahok. As he
said good-bye at the anchorage, he said he did it gladly, for the sake of
getting more workers for China." Not even when sick and suffering did he
regret having let his wife go, although he missed her greatly. He wrote
Miss Bradshaw, during his illness, "I realize how great God's grace is, in
allowing Mrs. Ahok to visit England, and I am so thankful to all the
Christian friends who have helped her and been kind to her."
Mrs. Ahok's brother, her nephew, and Dr. Sites, who had long been a friend
of hers and of Mr. Ahok's, met her with a houseboat at the steamer
anchorage; and during the twelve-mile ride up the river, the sad news was
told. The shock almost stunned Mrs. Ahok at first, but with realization
came heart-rending grief. Miss Mead, the young missionary who had come from
England with her, wrote soon after their arrival: "Yesterday afternoon I
went with three of the ladies to see her. The expression on her face was
altered and according to Chinese custom she was very shabbily dressed. Her
jewels were taken off. She keeps saying, 'If I could only see him once more
and tell him all I have done in England!'"
Added to her grief for her husband, Mrs. Ahok had to bear the taunts and
reproaches of her non-Christian relatives, who told her that all this
trouble had come as a just punishment of the gods, because she had forsaken
the religion of her ancestors, and violated the customs of her country in
leaving it for so many months to visit a foreign land. Not only this, but
taking advantage of her refusal to perform certain rites of non-Christian
worship which are a part of the legal ceremony connected with the
inheritance of property, they seized Mr. Ahok's estate, and the dainty
little woman who had always been accustomed to every comfort, and even
luxury, was left with little but the house in which she lived. Moreover a
fresh sorrow followed close upon the first one, as her mother lived only a
short time after her return.
But in spite of these heavy burdens, the rare courage which had so often
been evidenced before, soon began to reassert itself. Miss Mead was soon
able to write: "Mrs. Ahok spoke a little at the Bible-women's meeting on
Tuesday, and for the first time came here afterward and had a cup of tea,
and saw my room. She is brighter, and I am glad to tell you that she was
able to say that the peace of God was still hers. Jimmy Ahok (her little
son) was present at Miss Davis' wedding." Nor was Mrs. Ahok too absorbed in
her grief to remember her friend in her happiness, for little Jimmy carried
with him a beautiful bunch of flowers for the bride.
As soon as the news of Mr. Ahok's death reached England, a letter of
sympathy signed by nearly five hundred of Mrs. Ahok's friends in England
was sent to her. Its closing paragraph must have brought her comfort in the
knowledge that her journey had not been made in vain:
"We bless God for your coming to England. We have learned to know
and love you. Your words are not forgotten. The seed God enabled
you to sow is already bearing some fruit, and will, we believe,
bring forth much more. One sister has gone with you; we send this
by the hands of three more. We know others who were led by your
words to offer themselves for Christ's work in China. Two of them
are now being trained for the mission field. This will cheer your
heart."
To this, Mrs. Ahok replied:
"I thank you all very much for your sympathy, and for sending such
good words to comfort me. I rejoiced greatly to hear your words.
When I was in England I was a great trouble to you, and I must
thank you for all your kindness to me then...."
"After leaving England I reached Foochow at the end of the seventh
moon, and then heard that my beloved husband had left this world
and been called home by God to His kingdom in heaven. At that time
I was very sad and distressed, and my distress was the greater
because I had no one to carry on our business. Being anxious about
money matters, therefore, these many days, I have failed to reply
to your letter and to send you my salutations, and thank you all
for your great love."
"Now because I cannot carry on trade myself, therefore I have
determined to close our business and pay all debts; and the British
consul has kindly acted for me in this matter. My hope is that God
will enable me to sell this house in which I am living, and then I
shall have a competency. It is because I fear that I shall not have
enough to feed, clothe, and educate my children that I wish to sell
this house. As soon as I have done this I think I shall be able,
with the missionary ladies, to visit the houses of the gentry, and
have worship with the Chinese ladies, and exhort them all to
embrace Christianity. Thus I shall be doing the Lord's work. I
trust you will all pray for me, and trust that in some future time
an opportunity may be given me of again visiting England and
America to work for the Lord. This is the true desire of my heart."
"At this time I seem to have no heart to write, but I send this
letter to you to express my thanks. Another day I may write again.
My two little children send their greeting, and I add my own. After
my return home an additional trouble came upon me because my mother
was called home to God. But so far as she is concerned death must
be reckoned happiness. She with my husband, earlier than myself,
are enjoying the eternal bliss of heaven. I will thank you to give
my salutations to all the sisters and ministers whom I know."
Mrs. Ahok soon began again the work among the upper class women which had
been her great joy, heartily co-operating with both American and English
missionaries in their efforts for these women. Miss Ruth Sites, of the
American Methodist Mission, was very eager to do something for the young
girls of this class, and Mrs. Ahok gladly lent her influence, with such
effect that Miss Sites was enabled to start a small school. Here a good
education was given to the daughters of the official class, and
Christianity was so taught and lived that by the end of the second year all
but two of the pupils were Christians. Miss Sites wrote also of the help
that Mrs. Ahok gave in taking her to call in the homes which it would
otherwise have been impossible for her to reach.
The Church of England Mission had for some years maintained a school for
the daughters of the Chinese Christians in Foochow; but a few years after
Mrs. Ahok's return from England they began to feel the urgent need of
another school, where girls from non-Christian families could be educated.
When Mrs. Ahok's advice was asked, she heartily approved of the plan and
advised that it be attempted, offering to rent her home to the Mission for
a school building, and promising also to help in the teaching. Moreover she
was invaluable in interesting her non-Christian friends in the school, and
it rapidly grew from four to forty-five, with such prospects of future
prosperity that the house next door to Mrs. Ahok's was also rented, and a
new dormitory and dining-room were built.
Girls brought up in non-Christian homes are of course very different from
the daughters of Christian parents, and Mrs. Ahok warned the missionaries
at the outset that they would be very difficult to manage, and herself drew
up the school rules. Her services were of the greatest value, both in this
school and in the School for High Class Girls established by the Church of
England Zenana Society a few years later, of which she was made the matron.
"She makes the girls love her, and her influence over them is good," wrote
one of the teachers. "A fortnight ago some money was stolen out of a
drawer. I was very sad about it, and the girls were urged to confess, but
until yesterday no one spoke. Yesterday Amy told Mrs. Ahok that she had
taken it and asked her to tell me." Again she wrote: "Mrs. Ahok makes a
very good matron of the school, and an excellent hostess to the many
visitors who come to see the school. Whenever an opening is given Mrs. Ahok
and I return the call, and usually get good opportunities of delivering the
message."
Testimony is also borne to Mrs. Ahok's effective work among the mothers of
the pupils of the school. One of her great joys is a weekly meeting in
that wing of the Church Missionary Society's hospital which was erected in
memory of her husband, and set aside for the use of women patients.
Throughout her life of whole-hearted service for the women and girls of her
country, Mrs. Ahok has been a most devoted mother to her adopted son,
Charlie, and her own child, who was always known as Jimmy. The latter
inherited his mother's quick mind, and made such a good record at the
college which his father's generous gift had founded many years before,
that after his graduation he was asked to return as one of the faculty. The
beauty of his life was the crowning tribute to his mother. At a meeting
held in Foochow, an American, who had recently come there as an insurance
agent, told how much impressed he had been by a young Chinese to whom he
had been talking, and added that if the Christian schools turned out young
men like that, he thought the work was indeed worth while. The young man
was Jimmy Ahok.
In the summer of 1904 the young man's wife was very ill, and through the
hot summer weeks he cared for her night and day with such devotion that his
own health gave out. It was some time before he would admit that he was
ill; but he was finally forced to succumb to a severe attack of pneumonia,
which ended his life within a very few days. His only anxiety seemed to be
that he had not done enough work for his non-Christian neighbours. "I have
not tried enough to influence the neighbours," he told his mother. "When I
get well I will have a service for them and teach them to worship God." His
death was a great blow to his mother, but her work has again been her
solace.
One of her friends wrote to England, at the time of her son's death, that
the thought that her friends in England would be praying for her was one of
the greatest sources of comfort to Mrs. Ahok. In the midst of her busy life
in China she has never forgotten England nor her friends there. Some years
after her return to China, she sent her greetings to her English friends by
one of the returning missionaries, and bade her ask them: "Have you done,
and are you doing, all you resolved to do for my sisters in China? So many
missionaries have been called home, there can be no lack of _knowledge_ now
as to the needs of the heathen. With so many to witness to them, how great
is the increase of _responsibility_ to Christians at home."
She wrote to the women of the Church of England Zenana Society: "You
rejoiced to help many ladies to come to Foochow to act as light-bearers
and induce those who were sitting in darkness to cast away the false and
embrace the true, and to put away all the wicked and evil customs. The work
which these ladies are doing is of great value and has helped many. They
have preached the gospel in all the region; they have tended the sick in
the Mission hospitals; they have opened schools for women and girls in
several places, and in my own house. In my own house there are now
thirty-nine scholars, some of whom have unbound their feet; and some have
been baptized. I myself every week teach in this school, and I also go to
the hospital and talk to the sick people. I trust that this seed so widely
sown will presently bear fruit, some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred
fold. You will remember that when I was in England I told you of the state
of things in China; and I hope you will not forget my words but will do
your utmost to help China, that God's promised reward may hereafter be
yours."
Mrs. Ahok is daily giving herself, in whole-hearted service, to her
countrywomen. A fellow-worker has recently written of her:
"She is winning her way into the hearts of the people in the Manchu
settlement. Always bright and cheerful, and ready to tell the
Story, she is welcomed wherever she goes. When I think of her past
life of ease as the daughter, and later the wife, of an official, I
marvel at her spirit of consecration. Quietly she goes from house
to house in search of those who are willing to listen. Miles she
has walked over the hot stone pavements. 'If my people will only
believe in Christ, I shall be well repaid,' she says."
A true Christian woman, whose courage has flinched at no sacrifice, who has
borne the loss of husband, mother, son, and property, and the reproaches of
non-Christian relatives, with a peace and a faith unshakeable and
convincing, Mrs. Ahok is accomplishing much by what she does, doubtless
even more by what she is.
* * * * *
DR. IDA KAHN
I. CHILDHOOD IN THREE COUNTRIES
II. AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
III. SEVEN YEARS IN KIUKIANG
IV. PIONEER WORK IN NANCHANG
* * * * *
[Illustration: Dr. Ida Kahn]
DR. IDA KAHN
I
CHILDHOOD IN THREE COUNTRIES
By the time little Ida Kahn first opened her eyes in Kiukiang, China,
little girls had become a drug on the market in her family. Her parents had
long been eager for a son, but each of the five babies who had come was a
daughter, and now this sixth one was a little girl, too. According to
Chinese custom, they called in the old blind fortune-teller to declare her
fate and give advice concerning her future. His verdict was discouraging
for he told them that she must be killed or given away to another family,
since as long as she remained in the home the long-desired son would never
come to them. The parents were not willing to end the little life, so they
determined to engage the baby to a little boy in a neighbouring family, and
give her to the family of her betrothed to bring up. But when they called
the fortune-teller again to ask his judgment on the proposed betrothal, he
declared that the little girl had been born under the dog star, the boy
under the cat star, and therefore the betrothal was not to be thought of.
The family's perplexity as to what to do with this superfluous little
daughter became known to the neighbours, and one of them, who was teaching
Chinese to Miss Howe and Miss Hoag of the Methodist Mission, told them
about it. That very afternoon they took their sedan chairs and went and got
the baby. Thus, when only two months old, Ida was adopted by Miss Howe,
whom she always calls "my mother," and of whom she says, "There is no one
like her in the world."
The same year that little Ida was born, Miss Howe and Miss Hoag had
succeeded in starting a school for girls in Kiukiang, the first girls'
school in that part of China. In this school, as soon as she was old
enough, Ida began to study. When she was nine years old Miss Howe went to
America and took the little girl with her. They were in San Francisco at
this time, and there Ida attended a mission school for the Chinese girls of
the city. As most of the other pupils belonged to Cantonese families, and
spoke a Chinese dialect very different from that of Kiukiang, she did not
learn very much at school; but her stay in America, at the age when it is
so easy for children to acquire languages, helped her very much in
learning English. On her way back to China Miss Howe stayed in Japan for
several months, and there again Ida attended school.
On returning to China, Miss Howe was asked to work in a newly opened
station of the Methodist Mission at Chung King, a city of western China,
located on the Yangtse River many miles above Kiukiang, and many days'
journey into the interior. During their stay there, Ida continued her
studies, tutored by Miss Howe and Miss Wheeler, of the same mission. The
stay in Chung King lasted only two years, for in 1886 the mission compound
was completely destroyed by a mob, and the missionaries had to flee for
their lives. For two weeks Ida, with some other Chinese girls, was in
hiding in the home of a friendly carpenter, while the missionaries were
hidden in the governor's yamen. At the end of that time they all succeeded
in making their escape from the city, and the little girl, who had already
had so many more experiences in her short life than the average Chinese
woman has in threescore years and ten, had the new adventure of a trip of
several days through the gorges of the Yangtse River. The river is always
dangerous at this point because of the swift rapids, but was so unusually
so at that season, when the summer floods were beginning, that only
extraordinary pressure would have induced any one to venture on it. The
trip to the coast was made in safety, however, and after another stay of a
few months in Japan, Miss Howe and her charge went back to Kiukiang, and
Ida again entered the school there.
Miss Howe was desirous that the people in America who were interested in
the Kiukiang school should be kept informed of its progress; but with her
many duties it was difficult for her to find time for frequent letters, so
she sometimes asked Ida to write for her. Extracts from one of these
letters, written when Ida was fifteen, and sent with no revision at all,
show something of this little Chinese girl's acquaintance with English:
"DEAR MRS. ----:"
"We have at present twenty-four scholars and four babies. We are
not many in numbers, but we hope that we may not prove the works of
missionaries in vain. The rules of this school are different from
others, since only girls of Christian families are allowed to
study. Girls of non-Christian families are allowed to study if they
are willing to pay their board. They also furnish their own
clothes. For these reasons our school contains girls from many
places since Christian girls are few.... In Kiukiang only one
Christian family have their girls at this school. The pastor of the
church over the river sends his eldest daughter. She has been my
companion from babyhood, and we were only separated when she went
to Chin Kiang and I to Chung King. She and her sisters never had
their feet bound. She is the first girl in Kiukiang who never bound
her feet. Her name is Mary Stone. She and I study together both in
English and Chinese."
"Her mother came a few weeks ago and stayed with us one week. One
day Mary and I went with her to visit the homes of missionaries;
when we came back Mrs. Stone suggested that we should go and see
her uncle. Mary and I hesitated a little; for we were not used to
visiting Chinese homes, especially after New Year when people are
very ceremonious. When we arrived at the home we found that they
had a New Year's party there, although it was the second month. The
reason was this; at the time of the New Year Chinese ladies do not
step outside their houses till they are invited to a party, and as
invitations do not come until nearly the end of the first month it
is common to continue to the second month."
"Mrs. Stone's friends were very glad to see her, for they had not
met for a long time. The party consisted of three elderly ladies,
besides the hostess, and three young girls besides the young
daughter of the house. They were dressed principally in bright
blue, green, and red, and were painted to the extreme. The young
girls hardly tasted their food, but looked us over from head to
foot, especially our feet. The room was hot, and presently one of
the girls tittered to another and said, 'Your face is streaked,'
meaning that some of her paint was off and showed dark lines;
whereupon all the girls declared that they were going to wash their
faces. After a while one of the girls came back and said, 'My face
is clean now, is it not?' Mrs. Stone told us that they saw we had
no paint on and were ashamed of theirs. The girls' only talk was
about their jewellry, clothes, and other gossip. Mary and I were
very much disappointed, for we hoped to learn some Chinese manners.
Mrs. Stone advised me not to wear spectacles, for I attracted many
remarks. I told her I was only too glad to draw attention from our
feet."
"We always remember the friends in America who for His sake sent
missionaries to help us. Yours affectionately,"
"IDA KAHN."
II
AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
When Miss Howe went to America on furlough in 1892, she took with her five
young Chinese people, three boys and two girls; the latter, Ida Kahn and
her friend, Mary Stone. Growing up in China, under singularly sheltered and
happy conditions, Ida had been greatly impressed with the misery of many of
her countrywomen, and early formed the purpose of becoming a physician and
giving her life to the alleviation of their sufferings. Mary Stone had the
same desire, and Miss Howe, coveting for them a more thorough medical
education than was then available in China, took them to Ann Arbor to enter
the medical school of the University of Michigan. Both girls passed the
entrance examinations successfully, even to the Latin requirements; in fact
their papers were among the best of all those handed in.
The four years in Ann Arbor were very busy ones. In addition to their
college work, they did their own housekeeping in a little suite of rooms
in the home of Mrs. Frost. She says that they excelled many American girls
at housekeeping, having regular days for house-cleaning, and always keeping
their reception room in good order to receive their girl friends, of whom
they had many. Occasionally they even entertained their friends at a little
Chinese feast. Mrs. Frost recalls that the only flaw in Ida's housekeeping
was that when the girls stopped in her room, as they often did for a little
visit on their way home from college, Ida would pick up a book or magazine
and become so absorbed in it that she would forget all about the domestic
duties awaiting her.
But in spite of college and housekeeping duties, they were not too busy to
take part in the Christian work of the church which they attended. Mrs.
Frost pays them the following tribute: "They were lovely Christian
characters, ready to respond and assist in any Christian work where their
services were solicited. While they were in Ann Arbor they assisted me in
my Sunday afternoon Mission Band work with the small children of our
church, singing, or offering prayer, or telling interesting stories to the
little ones. On different occasions they, with the Chinese boys that came
with Miss Howe at the same time, assisted me in the public entertainments
given to help swell the funds of the Mission Band and raise enough to
support an orphan, or for other missionary work. They were very efficient,
consecrated Christians, very lovable and loving, highly respected by every
one with whom they came in contact. I have very pleasant memories of our
little Chinese doctors, and they have a very warm place in my heart and
affections."
Both the girls won many friends among both students and faculty. Ida was
elected to the secretaryship of her class in her Junior year. Their record
for scholarship was so enviable that the assertion was often made, "They
must either be remarkably clever, or they must have applied themselves with
unusual devotion." They led their class in their Junior year, and in their
Senior year were surpassed by only one student. Dr. Breakey, specialist in
skin troubles, on whose staff they worked during their Senior year, speaks
warmly of their earnestness and devotion to their work. Another professor
said at the time of their graduation, "They will be a credit to the
University of Michigan. The society which provided for their course will
never regret having done so."
As their study at the University drew to a close, the young physicians
received many evidences of the appreciation that was felt for the work they
had done. Before commencement a reception was given them in the Methodist
church of Ann Arbor, at which each of them received a case of valuable
surgical instruments. Many other gifts were also showered upon them,--from
medical cases, cameras, clocks, and bedquilts, to books and dainty
handkerchiefs.
In order not to attract attention they had adopted American dress during
their stay in Ann Arbor; but their graduation dresses were sent from China,
made in Chinese style, of beautiful Chinese silk, with slippers of the same
material,--Ida's blue, Mary's delicate pink. Seven hundred and forty-five
students received their diplomas at that commencement, but to none was
accorded the universal and prolonged applause which broke forth as the two
young Chinese women stepped on the platform to take their diplomas from
President Angell's hands. Even the medical faculty applauded heartily, the
only time that the staff joined in the demonstrations of the audience. One
who was in the audience says, "Their bearing and dignity made us very proud
of them." President Angell was much interested in them and said to their
friends, "Their future career will be watched with every expectation of
eminent success."
The two months succeeding their graduation were spent in Chicago in
hospital work, and in the autumn they sailed for China. While they were in
America an old gentleman said to Ida, "I am glad you are going back to your
country as a physician. Your people need physicians more than they need
missionaries." The Chinese reverence for old age was too great to permit
Ida to contradict him, but turning to her friends she said quietly, "Time
is short--eternity is long." So it was not only as a physician, but as a
regularly appointed medical missionary that she returned to China.
III
SEVEN YEARS IN KIUKIANG
Quite a little anxiety was felt concerning the reception which the young
physicians would receive from the Chinese on their return to Kiukiang. A
foreign-trained Chinese woman physician had never been seen or heard of in
that section of China, and, scarcely, in all China, since Dr. Hü King Eng,
of Foochow, was the only other in the Empire at that time. The doctors' own
friends had long been asking when they were coming back, and when at last
the time arrived they had their plans all laid for welcoming them. The
missionaries had some doubts as to the propriety of a public ovation to two
young women, but the Chinese were so eager for it that they at last
consented, and from the moment the young doctors left the steamer until
they arrived at the gate of the mission compound, they were saluted with an
almost continuous fusillade of fire-crackers. Of course the noise attracted
curious crowds, and by the time they reached the Bund they were surrounded
by a host of their townspeople who were eager to get a glimpse of the
"women doctors." Some of them were heard to say, "Why, these girls are
receiving more honour than was shown to our commandant when he arrived!" As
the company slowly proceeded up the Bund, the missionaries were besieged
with eager questions: "Are they Chinese women?" "Is it true they have been
studying for four years in a foreign land?" "Can they heal the sick?" "Will
they live in Kiukiang?" When all these questions were answered in the
affirmative there was a vigorous nodding of heads, and "_Hao! Hao! Hao!_"
(Good, good!) was heard on every side. It seemed remarkable that in so
dense a crowd the universal expression of face and voice indicated only
favourable interest.
Shortly before the doctors arrived one of the missionaries wrote, "We are
expecting 'our doctors' back this fall, and after they have several months
of hospital practice in other mission hospitals in China, we hope to have a
place ready for them to begin work." The doctors had expected, too, a
little time for resting, and visiting with the friends whom they had not
seen for so many years. Moreover it was thought that some time would have
to elapse before they could gain the confidence of the people sufficiently
to begin practice. But on the third day after their arrival four patients
appeared and asked for treatment; on the following day the same four
returned and six newcomers arrived; and so it went on, until dispensary
quarters had to be hurriedly rented and regular work begun.
They had been back only about a month when they were sent for one evening
to visit a woman who was in a very serious condition. On arriving at the
house they found there the best known native doctor in the city, richly
dressed in satin and silk, and accompanied by four chair-bearers. He had
told the woman's family that he could do nothing for her, and after
welcoming the young women physicians very pleasantly, he took his leave,
advising the family to put the patient into their hands, saying, "They have
crossed mountains and seas to study about these matters." The family wanted
the doctors to guarantee that the woman would live, but they, of course,
refused to do this, and after some discussion turned to go. But at that the
older members of the family fell on their knees, and begged them to stay
and do just whatever they thought best. Their treatment was so successful
that three days later the grateful family invited them to a feast, after
which they were wound about with red scarfs by the old grandmother, and
presented with gifts. The entire family then escorted them home amid the
explosion of many fire-crackers.
The _China Medical Missionary Journal_ of December, 1896, in commenting
upon the work of these young women, says: "They have not, up to the present
time, had to endure the pain of losing a patient, although they have had
several very serious cases. When that does come, as of course it must,
there will doubtless be some reaction, and present faith may be changed to
distrust for a time. But the most hopeful had not dreamed of their
commencing work without some opposition, and that they actually sought,
before making any efforts to secure patients, has been a great surprise to
all. Their early success is doubtless due largely to the fact that they are
back among their own people as true Chinese, and while they have gained
much in culture and intellect, love and sympathy for their race have ever
been present; while the ruling motive in all their efforts has been how
best to prepare themselves to help their countrywomen. The native women do
not stand at a distance to admire them, but familiarly take their hands and
feel their clothing; and while acknowledging their superiority do not
hesitate to invite them as guests to their humble homes."
Nor was the reputation of the young physicians limited to Kiukiang. At
about the time of their return, the young emperor, Kwang-hsi, had issued
edicts to the viceroys of the various provinces, ordering them to search
out and send to Peking, young men versed in modern affairs, who could act
as advisers to him. Several of these young men held a meeting in Nanking
before proceeding to Peking. Two of them had heard of the young doctors
just returned from America, and, on their way to Nanking, stopped at
Kiukiang for the purpose of calling on them. The doctors, however, felt it
wise to adopt a conservative attitude in regard to receiving calls from
young men, lest their influence with the women with whom they were to work
should be weakened, did they violate Chinese custom in this matter. Miss
Howe therefore received the guests in their stead, answered their
questions, gave them such information as they desired, and presented them
with the diploma of one of the doctors. They displayed the diploma at the
meeting at Nanking, where it created much interest. The son of Governor
Tang of Hupeh, who was at the meeting, spoke for two hours on the
desirability of educating women, and suppressing the custom of
foot-binding. Then and there a society was organized in which these men
pledged themselves to marry their sons only to natural-footed women, and
their daughters only into families whose girls were allowed to grow up with
natural feet.
At about this time, also, Chang Chih Tung, one of the most eminent and
public spirited viceroys of his time, sent a representative to wait upon
Miss Howe, with the request that she and the young physicians accept
positions in a school which he wished to establish in Shanghai. His aim was
to develop a University for women which would train women teachers, and he
wished also to have a medical department in connection with it.
Foot-binding concubinage, and slavery were dealt with directly in the
prospectus; Sunday was to be observed as a holiday; and liberty of
conscience in the matter of religion was to be allowed. While no religious
books might be taught in the school, no objections were raised to religious
work being done privately. When this request was brought to the Women's
Conference of the Methodist Mission they passed a resolution expressing
their sympathy with the proposed plan, and advising the acceptance of the
positions by Miss Howe and one of the doctors, "if in the process of the
development of the plans they feel it best to do so." Although as the
plans developed Miss Howe and the doctors finally decided that they could
be more useful in Kiukiang, the offer shows the interest felt in the work
of the young physicians, even in the highest official circles.
At the close of the first year, Dr. Kahn reported:
"With the exception of a month spent at the Nanking Memorial
Hospital we have kept up our work steadily ever since our return to
Kiukiang. At present we have regular dispensary work, and our Bible
woman spends her time faithfully teaching the women. As she is
quite an elderly woman, has been very well trained and educated,
and above all is an earnest Christian, we are sure that her
influence will not be small on those with whom she is brought in
contact. Then again, she is a good chaperon to our girls who are
preparing to be nurses. There are three girls who have been in the
girls' school from five to six years, and now choose to take up
nursing as their life work. They assist in the dispensary, help
make up the drugs, attend to the hospital patients, and recite two
lessons to us every day. Later on we hope to have them assist in
our operations and go out with us when we need them."
"At present we have six patients in the hospital, and although the
number may seem small, yet our hospital has been opened scarcely
two months, and it is so tiny that it appears quite full. The
hospital is merely a Chinese dwelling, heightened and improved by
floors and windows."
"During the year two or three interesting trips have been made by
us into the country. The first one was made by Miss Stanton and
myself to the capital of the province, to attend the wife of an
official. We brought her home with us, and while here undergoing
treatment she studied the Bible every day and enjoyed it very much.
Later, when she returned home, she recovered completely, and now
two of her sons are in our mission school. Her husband gave one
hundred dollars for the dispensary and two merit boards or tablets
to us, and he said he would help us in raising money for the
hospital...."
"One thing which pleases us very much is that those whom we have
treated outside, when they get well almost invariably come and call
on us, and even go with us to church."
The following year she wrote:
"The time has come again for us to give our yearly report and we
are very glad to be able to say that the work has advanced in every
direction. The year has been a very unhealthy one and fevers have
simply flourished, so that our nurses have been kept very busy
caring for patients often in a critical condition. During the year
we were enabled to make four visits into the country. Miss Stanton
has been more free to do evangelistic work and take long trips than
previously, and it has been a privilege for one of us doctors to
accompany her on the journeys. By taking turns, one of us could
always attend to the regular work. People are awakening everywhere,
and crowds flock to us to hear the truth and receive medical
treatment. Sometimes we dispense medicine to one or two hundred
people a day. Our stock of medicine usually gives out, and many
people have had to be turned away for lack of drugs. Everywhere
they begged us to come and visit them again. At one place a party
of women came at night to the boat where Miss Stanton and I were
staying, inviting us to go ashore and organize a church. They told
us: 'Men can hear preaching sometimes on the street; but we women
never have an opportunity to hear anything except when you ladies
come to teach us.'"
During that year, the second of their practice, the young physicians were
able to report 90 patients treated in the hospital, 134 in homes, 3,973 in
the dispensary, and 1,249 during country trips, making a total of 5,446.
Their third year was also a very prosperous one, not only in their work
among the poor, but also in the number of calls which they received from
the class of people who were able to give them ample compensation for their
services. This money was always turned into the mission treasury by the
young physicians, who also, for four years, gave their services to the
Woman's Missionary Society without salary, in return for the four years of
training which they had received at Ann Arbor. An interesting glimpse of
the impression they made upon their fellow-workers is given by a letter
from one of the missionaries written at this time: "None who know our
beloved doctors, Mary Stone and Ida Kahn, can do otherwise than thank God
for raising up such efficient and faithful workers. It is difficult to
think of any desirable quality which these two ladies do not possess. To
this their growing work gives witness."
Dr. Kahn was honoured in the latter part of the year by being appointed as
the representative of the women of China to the World's Congress held in
London, June, 1899.
The hearts of the doctors were gladdened during this year by the prospect
of a hospital building in which to carry on their work. Early in 1900 Dr.
Kahn wrote happily to Dr. Danforth, whose gifts had made the building
possible:
"Work on the building is going on merrily, and the results are
pleasing so far.... As to our work at present, we can truly say
that never before has it seemed so encouraging. This being the
Chinese New Year month we have usually had scarcely any patients,
and at least for a number of days no patients at all; but this year
we had no day without patients, and often had thirty, forty, and
even over fifty patients a day, which is certainly unprecedented.
You cannot imagine how strong a prejudice the average Chinaman has
against doing work of any kind too soon after New Year's. Not only
is it the only holiday of any duration they have during the year,
but it is ill luck to work too early."
"While standing at the gate on the second day, watching the
patients straggling in, I saw one of them brought on a stretcher.
It was a pretty little girl who had been badly burned by the
upsetting of a foot stove under her wadded garments. As they came
up an old woman who carried one corner of the bamboo bed called
out, 'Doctor, have you opened your accounts yet?' meaning have you
begun work yet. I answered, 'Why, our accounts have never been
closed, so we did not need to reopen them!' 'Yes,' she said, 'I
know, and I wish you many congratulations for the New Year, and may
you have much custom during the year.' Think of what that implies!
Then she went on volubly describing what a time they had in getting
people to carry the bed, for no money could induce them to come,
and finally she and a few boy cousins had to bring her. A few days
ago her people came and fired lots of crackers, as well as hung up
long strips of red cloth outside our gate, in order to show people
that we have accomplished a cure for them and they wish to express
their gratitude in public."
A few months later the Elizabeth Skelton Danforth Memorial Hospital was
completed; but just as they were about to occupy the new building the Boxer
uprising assumed such serious proportions that all work had to be dropped,
and the women were forced to leave the city. The doctors accompanied the
other missionaries to Japan, and remained there for a few months; then came
back to China and spent a few weeks in Shanghai, until the country had
quieted down sufficiently to make it safe to return to the interior. The
weeks in Shanghai were not idle ones, for they found plenty of patients to
treat during their stay there.
There were many missionaries from various parts of China gathered in
Shanghai at this time, and the women improved the opportunity thus afforded
by the presence of so many workers for a conference on the various phases
of women's work. Dr. Kahn was asked to give an address on Girl Slavery at
this conference, and made a great impression by her powerful plea for the
abolition of this wicked practice. Her appeal had added force because she
was a Chinese woman herself, and this evil custom had come close to her
life. "She was my best friend in school," she said of one victim, "and her
mind was as beautiful as her person. We were baptized together and she
confessed to me that she would like to devote her life to Christian work,
adding so sadly that she must try first to help her opium-smoking father.
Where were gone her longings and aspirations when she was sold by him to be
the concubine of a man sixty years of age! Surely on this eve of China's
regeneration, we, the more favoured ones, must plead with all our might
that all these unnatural customs shall be swept away with the last relics
of our country's barbarism."
[Illustration: A Nurse in Dr. Kahn's Hospital]
The doctors were soon able to recommence work in Kiukiang, and with their
fine new hospital they worked under far more favourable conditions than
heretofore. A letter from Dr. Kahn tells of their enjoyment of the new
building: "It is now a pleasure to see the little crowds of women and
children sitting comfortably in the easy seats of the dispensary waiting
room, and to notice how they enjoy the talks of the Bible woman. In former
years they were always huddled together in a dark room, or else were
scattered here and there in our front yard, and the Bible woman had great
difficulty to get them to listen quietly. The new drug room is a
constant delight. The operating room, too, is our pride, because it is so
light. The confidence which people had in our work before last year's
troubles broke out, appears to revive again."
The following summer, Miss Robinson, of Chinkiang, visited the doctors in
their new quarters. A letter written from their home reads: "We find them
as skilful in housekeeping as in hospital-keeping, and excelling in the
happy art of making their guests at home. Such all-round women are a
priceless boon to their native sisters. I want to have our graduates attend
the coming annual meeting in Kiukiang, improving this opportunity of
bringing them in contact with the doctors, who have long since become the
ideals of our school girls.... Referring to the fear some native Christians
have shown of sending their girls to a school having manual labour in its
curriculum, Dr. Ida exclaimed hotly, 'This fear of work is the bane of
China.' Here are two doctors of exalted privileges, educated abroad,
honoured alike by native and foreigner, and yet putting their hand to
cooking and housework of every kind, as the need may be, without a thought
of being degraded thereby; a glorious object-lesson to accompany the
teachings of the mission schools."
IV
PIONEER WORK IN NANCHANG
In the first year of the young physicians' practice in China, a launch had
been sent to Kiukiang by one of the high officials of Nanchang, the capital
of Kiangsi province, with the request that one of the physicians should
return to Nanchang in it and treat his wife, who was very ill. Dr. Kahn
went, and brought the woman back to Kiukiang with her. After a few weeks
under the doctors' care she returned to Nanchang completely recovered, and
gave such glowing accounts of the benefit she had received that many of the
wealthy ladies of the city followed her example and went to the Kiukiang
hospital for treatment.
At that time no American missionary work was being done in Nanchang; but
the successful treatment of the wife of the official is said to have
"opened the gates to Protestant missionaries." The Methodist Mission soon
established a station there, and the work grew rapidly in spite of the fact
that Nanchang was not an altogether easy place in which to work. As it
was in the interior and off the highway of travel, little was known of
foreigners. Moreover, there was a rowdyish element of the population which
was very hostile to them and everything connected with them, as Dr. Kahn
had good cause to know. Soon after the work in Nanchang had been begun by
their mission, she and Miss Stanton made a trip there, the latter to do
evangelistic work, Dr. Kahn for medical work. Dr. Kahn shall tell the story
of their experiences:
[Illustration: A Village Crowd]
[Illustration: One of Dr. Kahn's Guests]
"One afternoon, Miss Stanton and myself went to call on some ladies
of the Plymouth Brethren Mission, the only other Christian mission
besides our own in the city. The day being warm Miss Stanton had
the rain cover of her sedan chair removed. Unfortunately it was a
hired chair and there were no side curtains, neither was there an
upper curtain in front. When we had gotten fairly started boys
began to follow us, and by the time we had reached our destination
quite a crowd was with us, and rushed into the compound ahead of
us. Once in, we planned to cover the chair; and also waited till
dark for our return, hoping that by that time the crowd would have
dispersed."
"However, when we got ready to start, there was a large crowd still
clustered around the court and door. They allowed Miss Stanton to
get into her chair first and start off, but when I followed, then
the fun began. The coolies would take a step or two, then the
chair would be pulled almost down. Yelling at them was of no avail.
Finally a stone was thrown and one of the windows broken, so I
thought it was time to walk. The crowd called out, 'A foreigner! a
foreigner!' I was almost ready to cry with vexation, and could not
help telling the people that they were cowards and barbarians. One
or two of the bystanders now began to take my part, and
administered a blow or two to those who seemed to be too
obstreperous, telling me at the same time not to be afraid. I
started to enter the largest residence near me, but the gatekeeper
slammed the door in my face so I went on ahead. One of my volunteer
helpers said, 'There is the residence of the official Yang, where
you can find shelter.' So he led me into a house where a couple of
women were sitting in the great room. Rather abruptly I told them
that I was pursued by a crowd, and asked if I could find shelter
there until I could send word to my people. My guides also
explained that the people took me to be a foreigner. To my surprise
the ladies welcomed me cordially, and ordered the doors to be shut
on the crowd. Now all my friends will be ashamed to know that I
could not repress my tears, but after a good cry I felt relieved.
The people in the house urged me not to be afraid. I told them I
was not afraid; I was disgusted that my people could be so mean. My
hostess related several instances where ladies coming home alone in
their chairs had been pulled about, and deplored the fact that
there were so many rowdies everywhere."
"Very soon the church members heard of my trouble and came to
escort me home. As we wended our way homeward fresh members joined
us till we formed quite a procession with lights flashing
everywhere. Indignation was felt by all, so some of the party went
back to demand the arrest of the ringleaders. How thankful I was to
get back safely to our mission compound. Miss Stanton's chair
coolies had assured her that I was following behind, and she
thought everything was secure. The church members were at prayer
meeting and did not notice my non-arrival. The delay I think must
have been providential, for had the members rushed there and found
a crowd, I fear more trouble must have resulted."
"Very soon the husband of a wealthy patient came and offered many
apologies for the bad conduct of the people. How do you suppose he
found out about the matter? He was returning home from a feast, and
seeing so many Methodist lanterns (please do not smile, for the
lanterns have 'Methodist Church' written on one side, and 'Gospel
Hall' on the other) asked what it meant, and learned of the
trouble.... Certainly the devious ways of my own countrymen never
struck me so forcibly before. How much we do need the truth to
shine in upon us and change us completely."
Yet it was to this city that the Christian physician's heart went out in
such compassion that, for its sake, she was not only willing, but glad to
leave her home in Kiukiang, the prosperous work which she had been doing in
fellowship with her lifelong friend, Dr. Stone, and the beautiful new
hospital to which she had long looked forward with so much eagerness.
"This old city of Nanchang with about three hundred thousand inhabitants,
and surrounded by a thickly settled country, has not a single educated
physician," one of her letters reads. "Do you know what that means? The
people realize their need and asked us to go and live among them. One of
the church members offered to give us, free of charge, a piece of land
situated in a fine part of the city, for either a hospital or a school lot.
The pastor said he could raise $1,000 among the people if we would only
begin medical work there. Do you think we ought to refuse that offer, which
is a wonderful one, because the church has only just been established
there? 'And when they came to Jesus they besought Him instantly, saying
that he was worthy for whom He should do this.'"
The people of Nanchang, both Christian and non-Christian, pleaded so
eagerly for medical work, and promised to do so much toward its support,
that the missionaries agreed with Dr. Kahn in feeling that a door to great
opportunity was open before her, which it would be a serious mistake not to
enter. Accordingly, early in 1903, she responded to what Dr. Stone termed
"the Macedonian call," and began work in Nanchang.
The Woman's Foreign Missionary Society did not feel able to assume any
responsibility for the financial support of the medical work in the new
field, beyond that of the doctor's salary. But Dr. Kahn firmly believed
that missionary work should be just as nearly self-supporting as possible;
and since many of the urgent invitations from Nanchang had come from homes
of wealth, she was very willing to attempt to carry on medical work there
on a self-supporting basis. In an article on the subject of self-supporting
medical missionary work, written for the _China Medical Missionary
Journal_, she gave some of her reasons for believing in self-support, and
her theories as to how it might be carried out.
"To the many of us, no doubt, the thought naturally arises that we
have enough problems to deal with in our work without having to
take up the irksome question of self-support. Yet at the present
time, when every strenuous effort is being made to evangelize the
world in this generation, any plan which can help forward such a
movement at once assumes an aspect of vital importance in our
eyes. Let it not be presumed that self-support is to be recommended
as possible to every medical missionary. On the contrary, I fear,
only by those fortunate enough to be located in large cities could
the effort be attempted with any hope of success. Yet in a measure
the question concerns every one of us, because in its different
phases self-support is sure to be pressed upon all of us with more
or less force. Personally, my work was undertaken in Nanchang
partly from faith in the principle, partly because there were no
funds available to institute medical work on any other basis. My
faith in the principle is founded upon the belief that anything of
value is more appreciated when something has been asked in exchange
for its worth, from those perfectly able to effect the exchange....
The ordinary people who seek help from the missionary will retain a
higher measure of self-respect, and also suspect less the motives
of the benefactor. The rich will appreciate more highly the
services received, besides having the added glow of satisfaction in
helping forward a worthy charity...."
"There should be no ironclad rules, however; each case must be
counted on its own merits. Generally speaking, it might be well for
the physician in charge to state plainly that the very poor are to
be treated free of charge and have medicines, and occasionally food
supplies, gratis. Those a little better off may help a little in
paying for the medicines. The next step above that is to pay
partly for the treatment as well; while the highest grade is to pay
in proportion to the amount of help received. All this means a good
deal of thought on the part of the physician and assistant, but
gradually it will become routine work and so demand less labour."
"Is self-supporting work a missionary work? Assuredly yes; for is
not the money thus gained used in giving relief to the poor?... And
if all money received goes again into the work, to increase its
efficiency, why may it not be counted missionary? Part of it is
given as thank-offering by those who are not Christian, and all is
given for value received from Christian effort. Our Lord healed
diseases without money and without price. If we ask, 'What would
Jesus do?' under our existing circumstances, the suggestion comes
to my mind that it would be something different in form, but not in
principle, from what He did in a different land, under far
different circumstances, nineteen hundred and more years ago.
Someone says we are to follow Jesus, not to copy Him; and the
principal thing, it seems to me, would be always to abide in the
Spirit of the Christ, by whatever method we feel constrained to
render our little service."
Although the new step was taken so bravely, it was not an easy one. Some
idea of the courage it required is shown by the doctor's report of her
first year in Nanchang; "The very thought of making a report causes many
poignant memories to rush upon us. With what hesitancy and timidity did we
begin our work in the new field! Knowing our own limitations, it was not
with a light heart that we began the new year. Yet," she was able to add,
"as we toiled on, we could but acknowledge that we were wonderfully led
along 'The Pathway of Faith.'"
Enough money was contributed by the Nanchang people to enable Dr. Kahn to
rent a house in the centre of the city, in which dispensary work could be
carried on, and in which she lived. They also supplied her with a small
stock of drugs with which to begin work, and she treated something over two
thousand patients during the first eight months. The number seemed small
after the work to which she had been accustomed in Kiukiang; but she was
becoming known in the city, and in addition to her patients several of the
women of the city had called on her in a purely social way, many of them
educated women of the official class. Dr. Kahn says of them:
"As the wives and daughters of expectant officials they are
representative of the better class of the whole country, for they
are assembled from every province. It is pleasing to note that
dignity and modesty are often combined with real accomplishment
among them. It is amongst these that there is a marked eagerness to
learn something better. They talk about their country incessantly,
and deplore with real sincerity her present condition, of which
many of them have a fairly good knowledge. To these we tell over
and over again that the only hope of China's regeneration is in her
becoming a Christian nation, and that only the love of Christ can
bring out the best qualities of any people...."
As to the financial side of the work, Dr. Kahn reported: "The outlook is
most promising. During the eight months I have received over $700 from the
work, and as much more has been subscribed."
During the succeeding two years the work developed steadily. The number of
patients treated at the close of 1905 was almost three times the number
reported in 1903, and Dr. Kahn wrote, "We have tried to check the number of
patients, simply because we did not feel financially able to treat so
many." The rent which she had been obliged to pay for her building in the
city had been a heavy burden financially. Great was her delight therefore
to be able to report, at the end of this year, a new $2,000 building for
dispensary purposes, the money for which had been secured partly from fees,
partly from subscriptions. "With the incubus of a heavy rent off our
shoulders we may be able to relieve more patients, as we would wish," she
wrote.
The dispensary building was not the sole cause for rejoicing that year; for
in addition to it a fine, centrally located piece of land, worth $3,600,
was given for a hospital site. "All the assistance received has been from
the gentry and not the officials, and therefore it really represents the
people and we feel much encouraged by the fact," reads Dr. Kahn's report.
The gentry wanted to make over the deeds of the property to the doctor.
This, however, she would not permit, but insisted that they be made in the
name of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Church,
assuring the donors that the work would then be on a permanent basis, as it
could not be if the deeds were made out in her name.
It would not have been just cause for discouragement had the work dropped
off the next year; for a dispute between some French Catholic priests and
the Nanchang magistrates led to such serious disturbances and bloodshed
that the missionaries were obliged to flee for their lives. Dr. Kahn
refused to leave her work until the last possible moment, and returned just
as soon as it was at all safe to do so. At the end of the year she was able
to report that although it had been necessary to close the dispensary for
three months, fully as many patients had been treated in the nine months as
in the twelve months of the year previous. Another gift had also been
received from the gentry, a piece of land near the hospital site, on which
a home for the physician was already in process of building.
During 1907 the work continued to grow steadily in scope and favour. Dr.
Kahn's annual report for that year shows something of its development: "My
practice has increased steadily among the foreigners and Chinese, until now
we have patients come to us from all the large interior cities, even to the
borders of Fuhkien. You would be surprised to know how many foreigners I
treat in this out-of-the-way place. During the year we have treated over
eight thousand patients. The evangelistic work among them has been better
undertaken than ever before, and I am sure we shall see results in the near
future. Several inquirers have been accepted, and seven women have been
taken in as probationers."
Although the demands of her work in Nanchang are constant and absorbing,
Dr. Kahn has never become provincial in her interest; while working with
whole-hearted devotion in her own corner, she still keeps the needs of the
entire field in mind. At the fifth triennial meeting of the Educational
Association of China, held in Shanghai in the spring of 1905, she gave an
address on "Medical Education," in which she said in part:
"Turn the mind for a moment to the contemplation of China's four
hundred millions, with the view of inaugurating effectual modern
medical practice in their midst. How many physicians are there to
minister to this vast mass of humanity? Barely two hundred! Such a
ratio makes the clientele of each physician about two million. What
would the English-speaking world think if there were only one
physician available for the cities of New York and Brooklyn! Yet
the people of these cities would not be so badly off, because of
the steam and electrical connections at their command."
"We as missionary physicians recognize our own inadequacy and the
imperative demand for native schools. How can we undertake to help
spread medical education in China with the limited means at our
command? Shall we simply take unto ourselves a few students as
assistants, and after training them for a few years turn them out
as doctors? By all means, no! Take us as we are generally situated,
one or two workers in charge of a large hospital or dispensary, is
not the stress of our professional work almost as much as we can
bear? Then there are the people to whom we ought to give the bread
of life as diligently as we minister to their bodily needs. Add to
this the urgent need of keeping up a little study. Where comes the
time and strength to teach the students as they should be taught?
Certainly to the average missionary such work as the turning out of
full-fledged doctors ought to be debarred. It seems to me that what
can and ought to be done is to single out promising students who
possess good Christian characters as well as physical and mental
abilities, and send them to large centres such as Peking, Canton,
Shanghai, and Hankow, where they might take a thorough course in
medicine and surgery. In these large cities the case is altered;
for hospitals and physicians are comparatively numerous, and much
could be done in a union effort. I am glad one or two such schools
have been inaugurated."
"As stiff a course as possible ought to be arranged and if it is
thought best the whole thing might be outlined by the China Medical
Missionary Association. For entrance requirements there should be
presented a solid amount of Chinese and English, with some Latin
and perhaps one other modern language. That may seem a great deal
to ask at present, but our higher schools of learning ought soon to
be able to supply such a demand, as well as the necessary training
in mathematics, physics, chemistry, etc. In other words the student
must be equipped in the very best manner for his lifework."
"During the present generation at least, if not longer, the women
of China will continue to seek medical advice from women
physicians, and to meet the demand we must confront and solve
another problem. Co-education is impracticable just at this
juncture. We must have either an annex to the men's college, or a
separate one entirely. Whichever plan is adopted it matters not,
barring the 'lest we forget' that it is just as important to
establish medical schools for women as for men."
"In the golden future when schools abound we shall have to think of
state examinations; but at that time we shall expect to be ready to
greet the blaze of day in this wonderful country of ours, when she
has wakened from the long sleep we often hear about, and taken her
place among the nations of the world, and God and man shall see
'that it is good.'"
At the close of 1907 Dr. Kahn had been back in China for twelve years,
years of arduous, almost unremitting labour; and her fellow missionaries
felt that before the work on the new hospital building began she ought to
have a vacation. Certainly she had earned it. Not only had she worked
faithfully for seven years in Kiukiang, but she had, within the five
succeeding years, established medical work in a large city, where she was
the first and only physician trained in Western sciences. Assisted only by
two nurses whom she herself had trained, she had kept her dispensary
running the year around, all day and every day. Moreover, she had kept the
work practically self-supporting, in spite of the fact that she had refused
to economize by using inferior medicines, or bottles of rough glass which
could not be thoroughly cleansed. She had insisted that her drugs be of the
purest, and dispensed in clean, carefully labelled bottles, and had often
furnished besides the food needed to build up strength. In addition to all
this, she so commended herself and her work to the people of the city that
in 1906 she was enabled to hand over to the Woman's Foreign Missionary
Society, a dispensary building and two fine building lots, to be used for a
hospital and physician's home.
She was finally persuaded to go to America for a period of change and rest.
"Rest" for Dr. Kahn evidently means a change of work; for she went at once
to Northwestern University to take the literary course which she felt would
fit her for broader usefulness among her countrywomen. Eager to get back to
China she did three years' work in two, studying in the summer quarter at
the University of Chicago, when Northwestern closed its doors for the
vacation. In addition to her University studies, she undertook, for the
sake of her loved country, a work which is peculiarly hard for her, and
almost every Sunday found her at some church, telling of the present
unprecedented opportunities in China.
The question may perhaps be raised as to whether days could be crowded so
full and yet work be done thoroughly. But Prof. J. Scott Clark of
Northwestern University said of her, at this time: "Dr. Kahn is one of the
most accurate and effective students in a class of eighty-four members,
most of them sophomores, although the class includes many seniors. The
subject is the study of the style and diction of prominent prose authors,
with some theme work. Last year Miss Kahn attained a very high rank in the
study of the principles of good English style during the first semester,
and in that of synonyms during the second semester. In the latter difficult
subject she ranked among the very best students in a class of over three
hundred members. She is very accurate, very earnest, and very quick to
catch an idea. In fact she is nothing less than an inspiration to her
classmates."
In the spring of 1910 Dr. Kahn was a delegate to the Conference of the
World's Young Women's Christian Association held in Berlin, and from there
went to London for six months of study in the School of Tropical Diseases.
She had planned to return to Northwestern University to complete the work
interrupted by her trip to Europe, and to receive her degree. Her work had
been of so unusually high a standard, however, that she was permitted to
finish her course by correspondence, and was granted her degree in January,
1911. She completed her course in the School of Tropical Diseases with high
honour, and in February, 1911, she reached Nanchang, where one of her
fellow-workers declares, "she is magnificent from the officials' houses to
the mud huts."
The new hospital was still in process of building, but the doctor began
work at once in her old dispensary, and the news of her return soon spread.
In a short time she was having an average of sixty patients a day, and
several operations were booked some time before the hospital could be
opened. It was ready for use in the autumn and in October Dr. Kahn wrote:
"The work has gone on well, and patients have come to us even from distant
cities clear on the other side of Poyang Lake. The new building is such a
comfort. It looks nice and is really so well adapted for the work. I would
be the happiest person possible if I did not have to worry about drug
bills, etc.... It is impossible to drag any more money out of the poor
people. Our rich patients are very small in number when compared with the
poor. Yesterday I had to refuse medicines to several people, though my
heart ached at having to do so. You see I had no idea that the work would
develop so fast, and things have risen in prices very much the last few
years."
At the time that this letter was written the Revolution was in progress,
and Nanchang, with all the rest of Central China, was in a turmoil. Because
of the disturbed conditions most of the missionaries left the city, but Dr.
Kahn refused to leave her work. With the help of her nurses she kept the
hospital open, giving a refuge to many sufferers from famine and flood, and
caring for the wounded soldiers. None of the forty beds was ever empty, and
many had to be turned away.
The close of the Revolution did not, however, bring a cessation of work for
the doctor. She already needs larger hospital accommodation, three times as
much as she now has, one of her friends writes. But Dr. Kahn delights in
all the opportunities for work that are crowding upon her; for she says,
"When I think what my life might have been, and what, through God's grace,
it is, I think there is nothing that God has given me that I would not
gladly use in His service."
* * * * *
DR. MARY STONE
I. WITH UNBOUND FEET
II. THE DANFORTH MEMORIAL HOSPITAL
III. WINNING FRIENDS IN AMERICA
IV. A VERSATILE WOMAN
* * * * *
[Illustration: [Handwritten] Yours in His service Mary Stone]
DR. MARY STONE
I
WITH UNBOUND FEET
On the "first day of the third moon" of the year 1873, a young Chinese
father knelt by the side of his wife and, with her, reverently consecrated
to the service of the Divine Father the little daughter who had that day
been given them. They named her "Maiyü,"--"Beautiful Gem"--and together
agreed that this perfect gift should never be marred by the binding of the
little feet. It was unheard of! Even the servant women of Kiukiang would
have been ashamed to venture outside the door with unbound feet, and the
very beggar women hobbled about on stumps of three and four inches in
length. No little girl who was not a slave had ever been known to grow up
with natural feet before, in all Central or West China. That the descendant
of one of the proudest and most aristocratic families of China, whose
genealogical records run back without a break for a period of two thousand
years, little Shih Maiyü, should be the first to thus violate the
century-old customs of her ancestors, was almost unbelievable.
Even the missionaries could not credit it, not even Miss Howe, whose
interest in the family was peculiarly keen, since Maiyü's mother was the
first fruits of her work for Chinese women, and had ever since been working
with her. To be sure Mrs. Shih had said to her, "If the Lord gives me a
little daughter I shall not bind her feet." But Miss Howe had made so many
efforts to induce the women and girls with whom she had worked to take off
the crippling bandages, without having been successful in a single
instance, that she did not build her hopes on this. One day, when calling
in the home and seeing little Maiyü, then five years old, playing about the
room, she remarked, "My dear Mrs. Shih, you will not make a good job of it
unless you begin at once to bind little Maiyü's feet." But Mrs. Shih never
faltered in the purpose which she and her husband had formed at the little
girl's birth, and promptly answered, "Did I not tell you I should not bind
her feet?"
The first years of Maiyü's life were unusually happy ones. Her father was a
pastor in the Methodist church, and had charge of the "Converting to
Holiness" chapel in Kiukiang; her mother was successfully conducting a day
school for girls. From her mother Maiyü received much of her earliest
instruction and before she was eight years old she had studied several of
the Chinese classics and memorized the Gospel of Matthew and the catechism
in Chinese so thoroughly that she has never forgotten them.
But as she approached the age when custom required that her feet should be
bound, the little girl discovered that the way of the pioneer is not an
easy one. The unbound feet were a constant source of comment and ridicule,
not only by older people, but by other children as well. She was stopped on
her way to school one day by an older girl, who taunted her with her "big
feet" and refused to let her pass unless she would kneel down and render
obeisance to her own bandaged stumps. The small descendant of the proud
house of Shih absolutely refused to submit to such humiliation; but it was
only after her mother's assistance had been invoked that she was allowed to
proceed on her way.
Relatives and friends protested vigorously against such apparent
indifference to their daughter's future on the part of her parents. "You
will never be able to get a mother-in-law for her," they declared. Mr. and
Mrs. Shih felt, no doubt, that this was true; for who could have then
prophesied that the time would so soon come in conservative old China when
young men would not only be willing to marry girls with natural feet, but
would decidedly prefer them! Maiyü's father and mother never reconsidered
their decision that their daughter should grow to womanhood with natural
feet; but they did try to devise some plan by which her life might be a
useful and happy one, even though she might never enjoy the blessing of a
mother-in-law. They were very much impressed with the service which Dr.
Kate Bushnell was rendering the suffering women and children of Kiukiang,
and when Maiyü was eight years old her father took her to Dr. Bushnell and
announced, "Here is my little girl. I want you to make a doctor of her."
This was almost as startling as the unbound feet! A Chinese woman physician
was unknown and undreamed of. But this young father's faith in the
possibilities of Chinese womanhood was not to be discouraged. The necessity
of general education, preliminary to medical training, was explained, and
Maiyü was put in charge of Miss Howe, then at the head of the Girls'
Boarding School of the Methodist Mission. In this school she spent most of
the next ten years of her life, studying in both Chinese and English, and
fitting herself under Miss Howe's direction for her medical course.
In 1892, Maiyü and her friend, Ida Kahn, accompanied Miss Howe to America,
there to receive the medical education for which they had long been
preparing. If America held much that was new and interesting to them, it
was no less true that they were something new and very interesting to
America. "What makes these girls look so different from the other Chinese
women who come here?" the Government official who examined their passports
asked Miss Howe. "All the difference between a heathen and a Christian,"
was her prompt response.
That there were Chinese girls who could successfully pass the entrance
examinations to the medical department of the University of Michigan, in
arithmetic, algebra, rhetoric, general and United States history, physics,
and Latin, was a revelation to the people of America, and their college
career was watched with the greatest interest.
While in Ann Arbor, Maiyü took pity on the professors who found it so
difficult to pronounce her Chinese name, and decided to use the English
translation of it, Mary Stone, during her stay in America. Accordingly one
morning when the professor started to call on her, she announced, "I have
decided to change my name, professor." The burst of laughter with which the
class greeted this simple statement was most bewildering to her; but after
she had seen the joke she often declared that she was "one of the products
of Christianity, an old maid," for, as she pointed out, an unmarried woman
is practically unknown among non-Christians.
During her medical course Mary became more strongly impressed than ever
before with the evils of foot-binding. Her mother's feet had, of course,
been bound in childhood, and although Mrs. Stone had never bound the feet
of any of her daughters, she had not unbandaged her own. For she said that
if she also had unbound feet people would say: "Oh, yes, she must be from
some out-of-the-way place where the women do not bind their feet, and so
she does not know how to bind the feet of her daughters. That accounts for
such gross neglect." On the other hand, she reasoned that if she herself
had the aristocratic "golden lily" feet, it would be evident that her
failure to bind her daughters' feet was due to principle. But while Mary
was pursuing her medical studies she became convinced that the time had
come when her mother ought to register a further protest against the
harmful custom, by unbandaging her own feet, and wrote urging her to do so.
Mrs. Stone readily agreed to this. Moreover, at the annual meeting of the
Central China Mission in 1894, when a large mass-meeting was held for the
discussion of foot-binding, she ascended the platform and in a clear voice,
which made every word distinctly heard to the remotest corner of the large
chapel hall, told why she had never before unbound her feet, and why she
was now about to do so. Her husband was so in sympathy with her decision
that later in the meeting he added a few words of approval of the course
she had taken. The last shoes worn before the unbinding, and the first
after it, were sent to Ann Arbor to the daughter who had so long been a
living exponent of the doctrine of natural feet.
After four years at the University of Michigan, during which she and her
friend, Dr. Ida Kahn, had won the respect and friendship of both faculty
and students by their thorough work, Dr. Stone went to Chicago for the
summer, in order to attend the clinical work in the hospitals there. It was
at this time that she met Dr. I. N. Danforth of that city, who was ever
afterward her staunch friend. He was about to leave for Europe, but found
time before his departure to introduce Dr. Stone to many of the Chicago
physicians and hospitals. He says: "She won the hearts of all with her
charming ways, and got everything she wanted. When I took her to clinics
she would often not be able to see at first, being such a little woman; but
the first thing I knew she would be right down by the operating table. The
doctors would always notice her, and seeing that she couldn't see would
open up and let her down to the front." After what Dr. Danforth considered
a thorough clinical training, including visits to practically all the good
hospitals in Chicago, Dr. Stone sailed for China with Dr. Kahn, reaching
there in the autumn of 1896.
II
THE DANFORTH MEMORIAL HOSPITAL
On their return to China, Dr. Stone and Dr. Kahn received a most
enthusiastic welcome from the Chinese. It had been expected that it would
be necessary for them to spend the first few months in overcoming
prejudices and gradually building up confidence. But on the contrary,
patients appeared the third day after their arrival, and kept coming in
increasing numbers, until in December it became necessary to rent
dispensary quarters and rebuild a Chinese house to serve as a hospital. Dr.
Stone reported in July, 1897, that since October of the preceding year, she
and Dr. Kahn had treated 2,352 dispensary patients, made 343 visits, and
had thirteen patients in their little hospital, besides spending a month in
Nanking visiting the hospitals there.
The following year the little hospital was presented with what was probably
its first, though by no means its last, "merit board." One of Dr. Stone's
letters gives an account of this event:
"Two days ago we had quite an occasion. A child had been sick for a
long time, and the best Chinese physicians pronounced him
incurable. Then it was that they gave us a chance. He is recovering
and the parents, wanting to show their gratitude, gave us a 'merit
board,' thinking in this way they would 'spread our fame.'
Accordingly a day was selected to present the board to us, and we
prepared tea and cakes for those who would come. On the day
appointed at 2 P.M., we heard a lot of fire-crackers, rockets, and
guns, and a band playing the flute and bugle at the same time. The
'merit board,' consisting of a black board with four big carved and
gilded characters in the centre, and with red cloth over it, was
carried into our guest hall by four men, and set on the centre
table. The characters complimented us by a comparison with two
noted women of ancient times, who were great scholars. I
acknowledged the honour with a low Chinese bow, and a tall, elderly
gentleman returned me a bow, without a word being spoken by either
of us. Then I withdrew, and he took tea with two of our gentlemen
teachers. The company stayed to see the board put up on our wall."
As the fame of the young physicians grew and their practice steadily
increased, they found themselves greatly hampered by lack of a proper
building in which to carry on their work. In 1898 Dr. Stone wrote back to
America: "Our tiny hospital is crammed full. An observer might think that
we carried home but a slight idea of hygiene. Our hospital measures on the
outside 28 by 21 at Chinese feet (our foot is one inch longer than yours)
and we have been compelled to crowd in twenty-one sleepers. The building
being so small and not protected from the heat of the sun by any trees or
awnings, by evenings it is fairly an oven, which is certainly not a very
desirable place for sick people. We are looking forward all the time for
signs or signals from the women of America to build our new hospital, but
not a letter comes to bring us this kind of message. Still we are thankful
for the hope of building some time."
This hope was realized almost at once, largely through the generosity of
the friend Dr. Stone had made in Chicago, Dr. I. N. Danforth, who felt that
no more fitting memorial could be erected to his wife than a hospital for
Chinese women and children. Dr. Stone and Dr. Kahn drew their own plans and
sent them to Chicago, where they were perfected in every detail by an
architect of that city, and sent back to Kiukiang with the necessary
specifications and instructions. These plans were carried out to the letter
and in 1900 an airy, grey brick building, finished with white granite and
limestone, plentifully supplied with comfortable verandas, and bearing over
its pillared entrance the name, "Elizabeth Skelton Danforth Memorial
Hospital," was ready for occupancy. But on the very day that the furniture
was moved in, the American consul advised all foreign women and children to
leave Kiukiang immediately. The other missionaries were so unwilling to
leave the young doctors to face the possible dangers from the Boxers alone,
that they finally prevailed upon them to go to Japan with them.
The hospital escaped any injury, however, and in her report for 1900, Dr.
Stone said: "Our new hospital is a comfort and constant inspiration to us
in our work. We were indeed grateful, after half a year's enforced exile,
to come home and find it intact and ready for use.... During six months
there have been 3,679 dispensary patients, 59 in-patients, and 414 visits."
[Illustration:
Elizabeth Skelton Danforth Memorial Hospital, Kiukiang, China]
The hospital was formally opened on the seventh of December, 1901, during
the annual meeting of the Central China Methodist Mission, held that year
at Kiukiang. The _North China Daily Herald_ gives the following account
of this interesting occasion:
THE OPENING OF A MODEL HOSPITAL IN KIUKIANG
"On Saturday afternoon the 7th instant, some foreign residents of
Kiukiang, the members of the Methodist Central China Mission, and
many native friends gathered together at the formal opening of the
Elizabeth Skelton Danforth Memorial Hospital, of which two ladies,
Drs. Stone and Kahn, are the physicians in charge. There were a
number of Chinese ladies, whose rich costumes showed the official
rank and wealth of husbands and fathers. The Chen-tai, prefect,
assistant prefect and magistrate added their official dignity to
the occasion. These were noticeably appreciative of the first hymn,
'God save the Emperor.'"
"Bishop Moore presided, formally opening the hospital; Mr.
Clennell, H.B.M., Consul for Kiukiang, gave a very good address, to
which Dr. Stuart, American Vice-consul of Nanking, made fitting
response. Then followed short, pithy speeches by Drs. Beebee and
Hart. The two heroines of the occasion kept modestly in the
background, refusing to be introduced, much to the disappointment
of the audience. The officials insisted that coming forward would
be in entire harmony with etiquette and propriety, but the Chinese
young ladies remained firm and were represented by their wise
teacher, Miss Howe, who has planned with them and for them since
their childhood. After refreshments guests were at liberty to
saunter across verandas and through the various wards, the room for
foreign patients, the convalescents' room, solarium, dark room,
offices, reception room, etc., of this admirably planned hospital.
The operating room with its skylight, its operating table of glass
and enamel; the adjoining sterilizing room, containing apparatus
for distilling, sterilizing, etc., are especially interesting to
Chinese visitors. The drug rooms are well stocked and furnished
with modern appliances, instruments, a fine microscope, battery,
etc., and there is the nucleus of an excellent library. Everywhere
one finds evidence of wise forethought and careful expenditure."
[Illustration: Dr. Stone, Dr. Kahn, and Five of the Hospital Nurses]
"The Chinese have a high regard for the skill and ability of these
gifted young physicians. One sees this appreciation, not only in
the commendatory tablets hanging in the entrance hall, but in their
equally gracious and more serviceable gifts, which together with
fees amounted this year to about $2,500. The doctors have had
within the last twelve months, 7,854 patients and have made 531
out-visits. Their services have been requested by different
official families of Kiukiang and Nan-chang, the capital of
Kiangsi. Patients come to them from different provinces. The young
physicians fearlessly make journeys far out in the surrounding
country, crossing the mountains perhaps, but always in perfect
safety, as they meet only with respect and courtesy. Sometimes
after a successful visit their chairs will be draped with a red
cloth and the physicians will be carried home in triumph through an
admiring crowd, and accompanied all the way by fire-crackers. They
hear only pleasant and complimentary remarks from passersby. 'We
are afraid of foreigners, but you can understand our nature'--so
the simple-minded country folk sometimes tell them."
Dr. Stone, describing the opening of the hospital to Dr. Danforth, wrote,
"The Chinese were very much impressed with your way of commemorating your
wife." Dr. Kahn added that one of the highest officials, who was being
shown through the building, signified his approval by emphatically
declaring, "It would make any one well merely to stay in such a pleasant
place."
As a matter of fact, work had been carried on in the new building for some
time before the formal opening. It had been ready for occupancy none too
soon, for in the summer of 1901, the Yangtse River overflowed its banks,
working great havoc among the crops and homes of the people living near it.
Dr. Stone wrote Dr. Danforth: "Tens of thousands have been rendered
homeless and destitute. Some of them are literally starved to death. The
sick and hungry flock to our gates, and for several months we have had over
a thousand visits each month to our dispensary." Some idea of the part
which the hospital played in relieving the sufferings of the flood refugees
is given by an article in _Woman's Work in the Far East_, written by Dr.
Stone at about this time:
"Perhaps friends would like to know how we dispensed the clothes
and quilts so kindly sent us. During the winter months very many
needy refugees came to our dispensary daily for treatment. Of
course we did not have enough clothes to distribute
indiscriminately, but only for those who were the most helpless and
miserable. We received them by hundreds, and not only had we to
give out medicine, but rice, as well as clothing."
"One morning when it was raining outside, an old woman came into
our dispensary all exhausted, carrying a child on her back, and
another buttoned in front within her clothes. The older one was a
boy three years old and the tiny baby in her bosom was only three
months old. They proved to be her grandchildren, and the old woman
said: 'Never in our lives have we gone out to beg before, and for
the last three days we have not had a morsel to eat. Before the
floods we were considered well-to-do people, and my son is forty
years old and a literary man; so he is too ashamed to beg, but
tries to help the family by gathering sticks for the fire. His
wife is sick in bed with typhoid fever and now the baby has no one
to nurse it, and the boy is sick, and I have to take care of them
all and beg for a living.' The woman had on only a lined garment,
so we gave her one of those wadded gowns that were sent us, and a
tin of milk for the baby, and also sent a little rice to make gruel
for the sick woman at home."
This was only one of many cases of need which the hospital sought to
alleviate. A few days after Christmas of this year Dr. Stone wrote to a
friend in America: "What a busy time we had getting ready to celebrate the
joyful event! We gave a good square meal to the refugees, and let them take
home what they could not finish here. It made me feel happy to see them so
pleased, and gave us an opportunity to tell them of the greatest Gift to
mankind. Although we were so rushed that we did not even sit together to
eat our regular meals, yet we felt it was the happiest Christmas we have
ever had."
In addition to the refugees larger numbers of regular patients than ever
before were coming to the doctors for treatment. The new hospital had
hardly been opened before Miss Howe wrote, "Patients who are able to bear
their own expenses are being sent away, because the present accommodations
are already overtaxed."
Just at this time, when the doctors' growing reputation, and the increased
facilities which the new buildings afforded, were greatly enlarging both
opportunity and responsibility, the question of Dr. Kahn's going to
Nanchang to open medical work there arose. It is not surprising that at
first Dr. Stone wondered how she could spare her friend and fellow-worker,
now that the work was greater than ever before, and every indication
pointed to large growth in the future. But when she became convinced that
the opportunity at Nanchang was too great to be neglected, and that only
Dr. Kahn could meet it, she bade her God-speed and cheerfully accepted the
added burden thus laid upon her.
Left alone with the entire work in Kiukiang, Dr. Stone's hands were full
indeed, as the answer which she gave to a request for a synopsis of her
day's work shows: "We breakfast at half-past seven and then I go to the
chapel in the hospital and conduct prayers for the inmates and patients
able to attend. After prayers I make a general inspection of the hospital,
and then I teach my class of nurses. I take young native girls in their
teens and give them a thorough course of training such as they would get
in America. I translate the English books into Chinese for them, and
sometimes put the Chinese books into English too. Then I go to the
dispensary and am busy there for hours.... In the afternoons I make calls,
generally on women of rank who need my assistance and have been unable to
get to the hospital. I return home only when here seems no further work for
me that day."
So far from decreasing in number after the medical force had been lessened
by half, the stream of patients became larger than ever. A few weeks after
Dr. Kahn had gone, Dr. Stone said, in a letter to Dr. Danforth: "For a long
time I have been wanting to write to you, but have been so pressed with
work that I had to let my correspondence suffer. Now I find that I must
write to you to let you know how crowded we are already, at this season
when we generally have a scarcity of patients, as it is Chinese New Year.
Now that our work is better known we seem to draw a better class of people.
I don't mean very rich people, but the well-to-do, thrifty class, who earn
their way by labour. Just now I have to accommodate seven private patients
who are paying their own way, with only two private rooms at my disposal.
So what do you think I do? I had to put one in our linen room, one in the
sewing room, one in a bathroom, and finally, as a last resort, we had to
put one in the nurses' dining-room.... We generally have to put patients on
the floor in summer, but I am afraid we will not have enough room to
accommodate more even on the floor."
Dr. Stone's dispensary patients soon averaged a thousand a month, and as
the people's confidence grew, her surgical work also became much heavier.
In 1906 she reported: "In looking over the record for the year we realize
that we have advanced decidedly in gaining confidence with the people.
_Tai-tais_ (ladies of rank) who formerly refused operations, returned to us
for help."
Often her work kept her busy far into the night and she not infrequently
fell asleep from sheer exhaustion as she was carried home, in her sedan
chair, from some difficult case in the country. Yet her work was well done.
The tribute of a fellow-missionary was well deserved: "Dr. Stone is a tower
of strength in herself and with her trained assistants carries the large
work here nobly. She has been eminently successful in surgical cases and is
having more and more to do in this line." Another, working in a different
station, wrote, "It was my happy fortune to be the guest of another ideal
Chinese woman, Dr. Mary Stone, at Kiukiang. I saw her in her model
hospital, where every little wheel of the complicated machinery was
adjusted to perfect nicety."
As the work grew, it became evident that larger accommodations would soon
be imperative, and Dr. Stone succeeded in securing some additional land.
The first addition was a lot which she had long desired to enclose within
the hospital grounds. For some time she was unable to do this because of a
road which ran between, but in 1905 the road was moved to the other side of
the lot, at her petition, and the land was included within the hospital
compound. "Most of the neighbours have been patients and are friendly," one
of her letters reports. "When the magistrate came to see about moving the
road to the other side of the lot only one man objected. He was soon
pacified by the magistrate's remark that 'the hospital here is for the
public good, and when it is in our power to do it a service, we should
gladly do it.'" Another piece of land was purchased during the same year,
by money raised entirely from the Chinese.
The next addition greatly delighted Dr. Stone's heart. Adjoining the
hospital was a temple known as "The White Horse Temple." This was so close
to the hospital that it made one of the wards on that side damp and dark,
and, moreover, the noisy crowds of people who thronged it, and the beating
of the temple gongs, made it a most undesirable neighbour for a hospital.
Immediately after the annual meeting at which Dr. Stone had been enabled to
report the purchase of the other lots, a cablegram came from America with
the good news that $1,000 had been secured for the purchase of the temple
and the lot on which it stood. Purchasing a temple is quite sure not to be
an easy task, but in spite of many hindrances Dr. Stone succeeded in
securing the lot and in making what she gleefully termed "a real Methodist
conversion" of the temple into an isolation ward.
In 1896 Dr. Stone had landed in China and with Dr. Kahn begun medical work
in a small, rented Chinese building. In 1906 she found herself in sole
charge of a large, finely equipped hospital for women and children, with a
practice which was increasing so rapidly as to make constant additions to
the hospital property necessary.
[Illustration: General Ward of the Danforth Memorial Hospital]
III
WINNING FRIENDS IN AMERICA
In 1907, after eleven years of almost unceasing labour, during four of
which she had carried the growing work at Kiukiang entirely alone, except
for the help of the nurses whom she herself had trained, Dr. Stone
reluctantly laid down her beloved work for a few months. During the winter
of 1906 she had a severe attack of illness which she herself diagnosed as
appendicitis, and for which she directed treatment which brought her
relief. But renewed attacks finally convinced her and her friends that she
must submit to an operation if her life was to be saved. It was decided
that she should go to an American hospital, for as a fellow physician
located at another station of the mission wrote, "We all have a very high
regard for her and her work, and wanted her to get the best that could be
had." Moreover, it was a good opportunity to get her "away from China for a
much-needed change and rest."
Accordingly Dr. Stone, accompanied by her friend, Miss Hughes of the
Kiukiang mission, sailed from Shanghai, February 9. President Roosevelt,
who was acquainted with her work and knew of her serious condition, had a
telegram sent to the Commissioner of Immigration at San Francisco, giving
instructions that the Chinese physician be admitted with no delay or nerve
strain. She was therefore passed at once, with all consideration and all
possible help.
From San Francisco Dr. Stone went straight to the Wesleyan Hospital in
Chicago, that she might be under Dr. Danforth's care. The operation was
entirely successful, and early in April, less than a month after reaching
America, she was sufficiently recovered to take the trip to Miss Hughes'
home in New Jersey, where she was to rest for a few weeks.
Complete rest, however, was an impossibility to Dr. Stone, even during her
convalescence, so long as there was any service she could render. Two weeks
after her arrival Miss Hughes wrote Dr. Danforth that "our little doctor"
was accompanying her to several of the meetings which she was addressing,
and was "making friends right and left for her work." Boxes of instruments,
pillows, and spreads for the hospital beds, a baby organ for the hospital,
the support of a nurse, and other useful things were being promised by
these new friends. "Her smiling face, with no word from her even, is a
wonderful revelation to people who judge the Chinese by the putty-faced
laundrymen, the only specimen of China they have ever seen," said Miss
Hughes. Dr. Stone spent the month of May in New York, attending lectures
and clinics in the hospitals there. As she was starting for Chicago at the
end of May, she wrote Dr. Danforth:
"Do you think I shall be able to see much clinic in two weeks? That
is the only time allotted me, and my only hope is that you will be
the 'master of the situation,' and help me to spend every minute to
the best advantage.... I have attended as much clinic as I possibly
could this month, but it is awfully hard to get around in New York.
Do you suppose I would be able to go directly to Wesley Hospital
Monday, and do you think Dr. J---- would have the time and the
interest to show me the inside methods of the hospital? He wrote me
a most kind letter and invited me to do so.... Two weeks will mean
a lot if I can be right in the inside track of things. I want some
time on the eye and ear work, besides a few clinics on dermatology.
I know two weeks will not be enough for the much I want to see and
know, but since it is the only time I am to have, I know you will
help me to make the most of it."
Thus did the indefatigable little doctor take the "much-needed rest" of
which her friends in China had written. That she did make the most of her
two weeks is testified to by Mrs. Danforth, who visited many of the
hospitals with her, and who says: "In visiting the hospitals she never
missed a thing. She saw everything--nothing escaped her notice, not even
the laundries. She was always keenly alert for every idea that would
improve her hospital."
On her way back to the East, Dr. Stone stopped at Ann Arbor, for she was
eager to revisit her "dear old campus," and the faculty under whom she had
taken her medical work. "We had a lovely time in Ann Arbor," she said in
writing to a friend. "Dr. Breakey, in whose home we stayed, arranged a
meeting, or reception, where I saw most of my old professors. Then in the
parsonage we met all the ladies of our church. Next day I had a meeting in
the church."
The next few months were filled with almost incessant labour, chiefly
speaking and making friends for her work. The cordial responses which she
met everywhere never became an old story to Dr. Stone and her letters are
full of enthusiastic accounts of them. "Here at Silver Bay, a society wants
to support a missionary and we hope to find the missionary to-night. The
first was yesterday's work and the second we hope to gain to-day." Again,
"Last night on the car we met a gentleman whom I know through my sister
Anna, and after a few minutes' talk he wants to give me his camera, 5x7,
for hospital work. Isn't that splendid?" Or, "This morning we went into a
flower-seed store and what do you suppose the proprietor did but to give us
the seeds, a big list of all kinds we wanted, and then offered to add a few
more varieties. We are having lots of fun here."
Dr. Stone met with no less enthusiasm in public meetings than in her
contact with individuals. One of her hostesses tells of her remarkable
success in arousing genuine interest in her work: "She spoke at churches
very often while she was with us, and not once did she fail to get what she
asked for. She did not ask for things in general but for definite
things,--pillows for the beds, lamps for the gateway, etc. She is
irresistible."
The same friend tells of the glee with which Dr. Stone, whose English is
perfect, delighted to learn modern slang phrases. After practising them in
the bosom of the family she would sometimes innocently introduce them into
her addresses, invariably bringing down the house thereby. At one meeting,
after telling a most remarkable story, she remarked, "You may think this is
a whopper, but it is true!"
Reports of the meetings at which she spoke contain such items as this: "The
pastor of St. James Church offered to duplicate all money given in the
collection when Miss Hughes and Dr. Stone spoke. Six hundred and eighty-two
dollars was the result. A gentleman present offered one hundred dollars for
a speech from Dr. Stone in his church. The speech was made and one hundred
and eighty-two dollars put in the treasury." Other items read: "At the
district meeting a new auxiliary came into being in ---- Church. No one
could resist Dr. Mary Stone's persuasive tones as she went up and down the
aisles asking, 'Won't you join?' She told the people how much she needed a
pump in Kiukiang and forthwith the pump materialized." The _New York
Herald_ gave a long and enthusiastic report of her work, ending with the
words: "'Am I not fortunate? And I am so grateful to be able to help a
little!' is the modest way she sums up a work of magnitude sufficient to
keep a corps of medical men busily employed."
Everywhere this little Chinese woman made friends. The words of one of her
hostesses are emphatic: "She was in our home for a month, and she is one of
the most attractive women of any race I have ever met. She is so charming
that she wins her way everywhere." "She is so gracious and cordial," said
another. "She came into our family just as a member of it. I was not very
well at the time and she gave me massage every night. Her whole life and
her whole interest is in doing for others. And the wonderful thing about
her is her ability to do so much." "No missionary that we have is more
greatly loved," is the verdict of another.
Dr. Stone greatly enjoyed her stay in America. "Dr. Danforth called my
appendix 'that blamed thing,'" she said. "I call it that blessed thing,
because it brought me to this country and people have been so kind to me."
But she was eager to return to Kiukiang, and early in September was on her
way back to China, rejoicing in renewed health and new friends for her
work, and in the many gifts which were going to make that work more
efficient.
IV
A VERSATILE WOMAN
Chief among the gifts which Dr. Stone received for her work while in
America, was the entire sum of money needed to build another wing to the
hospital. The need of this wing had been felt for years, for the hospital
had become crowded as soon as it was opened. Dr. Stone's ingenuity had been
taxed to the utmost to enlarge the capacity of the original buildings, by
putting patients into rooms designed for far different purposes, and even
partitioning off sections of the halls for them. Still many whom she longed
to take in had to be turned away. Many times it had seemed as if the
much-needed addition were almost a reality. But the money would not be
quite sufficient; or the contractors could not be secured; or prices of
building material would rise and the cost would prove to be double that
originally estimated; it seemed as if the wing were too elusive ever to
materialize. On her return to Kiukiang work on the new wing was commenced,
and it was finished the following autumn. This addition practically
doubled the hospital work, and Miss Hughes wrote that Dr. Stone was in "the
seventh or seventeenth heaven over it all."
At the same time that the new wing was being built, a little bungalow was
erected in the hills behind the city, where children with fevers could be
sent to escape the intense heat of the summer months in Kiukiang. "The
Rawling Bungalow is finished and the children are all up there for the
summer," Dr. Stone wrote in 1908. "I know you will be delighted at this
annex to the hospital. Of course it is only a bungalow ... but it is a
blessed relief to have this place to which to send the sick little ones and
those who otherwise would be left to suffer here all summer."
As soon as the masons had finished their work on the new wing of the
hospital they began on another new building just beside it; a home for the
doctor and Miss Hughes, also a gift from friends in America. That, too, was
completed by the end of 1908, and during Chinese New Year, a time when the
hospital work was less pressing, Dr. Stone and Miss Hughes took a trip to
Shanghai to buy furniture for it. It is easy for one who saw the doctor
then to imagine the keenness with which she noticed every detail in the
American hospitals, for while visiting in the homes of friends in Shanghai
nothing escaped her quick eye. Miss Hughes' attention was constantly called
to things that pleased the doctor's taste by her often reiterated, "Look
here! We must have this in our home." "Miss Hughes and I shall try to make
our home so homey," she wrote to a friend, "and we shall open it for
everybody, the everyday, common folks as well as the _Tai-tais_."
The next addition to the hospital property was a home for the nurses, money
for which had been pledged during Dr. Stone's stay in America. As soon as
the funds were sent out building was commenced, and in March, 1909, the
nurses moved into their new home. The accommodations of the hospital were
thus enlarged still further, and moreover the nurses had a far more restful
environment in which to spend the hours when they were off duty.
[Illustration: Nurses of the Danforth Memorial Hospital]
One who met Dr. Stone in America spoke of the great impression made upon
her by the doctor's ability to do many things. The demands upon the
physician in entire charge of the large Danforth Memorial Hospital are
indeed many and varied, but Dr. Stone has proved equal to them all.
She is a good general practitioner. Probably the best proof of this is
the number of patients who throng the hospital gates. In 1908 she reported,
"Last month we saw over 1,700 people in the hospital and dispensary, and in
April we saw over 1,800." A year later she wrote, "Taking the statistics
for last month I found we treated 2,743 in the month of April." Her
successful treatment of the most difficult diseases is all the more
remarkable to one who knows the tendency of many Chinese not to consult a
physician until the patient is at the point of death. Their utter lack of
knowledge of the simplest rules for the care of the sick, and the dreadful
surroundings in which so many of them live, produce, in those who are
brought to the doctor after long weeks of suffering, conditions which are
almost too terrible to describe.
The words of a fellow-missionary throw light on the difficult character of
Dr. Stone's work:
"Talk of missionary work! People at home don't know the meaning of
the word! Here is this plucky little woman in the midst of this
awful heat--I dare not go outside of a shaded room until after the
sun is down at night--treating anywhere from twenty to fifty
patients in the dispensary every day, and her charity ward filled
with the most trying, difficult, repulsive cases of suffering
humanity. Missionary work? Why you don't even _find_ such cases as
she has every day, in the hospitals of America. How the people live
as long as they do--how these poor little suffering children
survive until they get to the state they are in when brought to the
hospital, is more than I can understand."
Dr. Edward C. Perkins, who visited Dr. Stone for several days, lays similar
emphasis on the serious condition in which the doctor finds those who apply
to her for treatment. "The cases which came to the dispensary were sorely
in need of help. This was, I think, the invariable rule. Such cases they
were as do not often come to the observance of physicians in this country,
and some familiarity with the dispensaries of four of the large hospitals
in New York City, has almost failed to show such need as the little doctor
sees continually."
No physician in China can be a specialist. One of Dr. Stone's letters shows
the variety of diseases which she is called upon to treat. "Women come to
us almost dead; paralyzed, blind, and helpless.... We have in the isolation
wards, measles; and in the contagious rooms, locked up, leprosy; an insane
woman locked up in her room; typhoid, tuberculosis, paralyzed women and
children, ulcer cases such as you would never dream of, surgical cases of
all kinds, and internal cases too numerous to mention."
A letter from a Kiukiang missionary tells of one woman who came to the
hospital with "not a square inch of good flesh on her entire body." Fingers
and toes were so diseased as to be dropping off, and the poor woman's
suffering was unspeakable. Dr. Stone put her in isolation, and taking every
precaution with gloves and antiseptics, herself washed and dressed the
repulsive sores, in spite of the sufferer's protests, "Oh, doctor, don't
touch me. I am too filthy for your pure hands to touch." This she did every
day, until, her sores completely healed, the woman was discharged from the
hospital a few weeks later.
Hon. Charles M. Dow of Jamestown, N.Y., who was taking a trip around the
world, met Bishop Lewis on a Yangtse-kiang steamer, and was invited by him
to stop off at Kiukiang to make the acquaintance of a remarkable surgeon of
that city. Great was Mr. Dow's astonishment when the surgeon appeared and
proved to be "a small and very attractive native Chinese woman."
Dr. Stone is so small that she has to stand on a stool to reach her
operating table; but Dr. Danforth's testimony is that she is performing the
largest operations known to surgery, and that no Chicago surgeon is doing
work superior to hers. Moreover she has no fellow physicians to assist her
in her surgical work. The most delicate operations, for which an American
surgeon would call in the assistance of brother physicians, internes, and
the most expert of graduate nurses, are performed by Dr. Stone entirely
unaided except for the faithful nurses whom she has herself trained. Only
at rare intervals does she receive a visit from a fellow physician such as
Dr. Perkins of New York, who, in an interesting account of his stay at
Kiukiang, tells of performing his first major operation "in her operating
room and under her direction."
At first the people were afraid to submit to operations, but the doctor's
marked success with those who permitted her to operate soon overcame their
fear. The results of her skilful use of the knife have been most marvellous
to them. That a young woman of over twenty, who could not be betrothed
because of a hare lip reaching into the nose, with a projection of the
maxillary bone between the clefts, could be successfully operated on and
transformed into a marriageable maiden, seemed nothing short of miraculous.
Nor was it less wonderful to them that an old woman could, by an operation,
be relieved of an abdominal tumor from which she had suffered for sixteen
years, and which, when removed, weighed fifty-two pounds. "The people
appreciate surgery more and more," reads one of Dr. Stone's recent letters.
"A lot of the tuberculosis patients who have seen the quick results from
operations want me to operate on their lungs."
Another large department of Dr. Stone's work has been the training of her
nurses. This has been an absolute necessity, for, as Dr. Stone said: "When
I found I had to run a hospital with accommodations for 100 beds, and an
out-patient department with sometimes 120 patients a day, I at once found I
had to multiply myself by training workers. These workers I selected from
various Christian schools with good recommendations as to qualifications. I
do not dare to take into training any one who has failed as a teacher or in
any line of work, because nursing is an art still in its embryo. To succeed
in this profession one must not only know how to read and write, but also
know arithmetic and some English."
The course of study which Dr. Stone gives her nurses is about the same as
that prescribed by the regular training schools, or hospitals, in America.
To do this she has had to translate several English text-books into
Chinese for the use of her students. The reliable and efficient nurses who
have completed the course and are now her trusted assistants in all her
work, have amply repaid her for all the time and labour she has expended
upon this part of her work.
In an article on "Hospital Economics" she speaks of the efficient service
of these nurses:
"I am blessed with five consecrated young women," she says, "who
have completed a course of nursing and studies with me, and I have
divided the work into different departments, holding them
responsible for the work and for the younger nurses under them. For
instance, one of the graduates is the matron, who looks after all
the housekeeping and the accounts, watching for the best market
time for buying each article in connection with the diet, the best
foodstuff for the money expended, and looks after each and all of
the servants so that they do their work properly. Another graduate
nurse looks after the dispensary, the filling of prescriptions, the
weighing and compounding of medicines, and superintends the sale of
drugs in that department. Another one has charge of all in-patients
upstairs, and another downstairs, including private cases, with
junior nurses under her. These look after the special diet, and the
carrying out of orders in all the wards and the charting of
records. (This is done in English.) Still another nurse has charge
of the operating room, with all of the sterilization necessary for
all major and minor operations, the distillation of water, and the
responsibility of going out to cases with the doctor. In this way
it is arranged that in case of all operations the one doctor has
her assistants in the operating room, and yet does not interfere
with the regular working of the hospital."
"Dr. Stone is multiplying herself many-fold by her splendid training of
nurses in the Kiukiang hospital," is the verdict of Mrs. Bashford, wife of
the Methodist Missionary Bishop of China. She has watched Dr. Stone's work
with keen and intelligent interest, and her opinion seems to be justified
by the results. When after weeks of unusual strain Dr. Stone was persuaded
to take a short vacation in the mountains back of Kiukiang, her corps of
fourteen nurses, five of them graduates, kept up the work of the hospital,
and treated about eighty patients a day in the dispensary. Twice, in answer
to telegrams, Dr. Stone returned to Kiukiang, only to find each time that
everything had been done to her entire satisfaction. "Were it not for the
efficient help I have from my nurses, I should not be able to manage this
work at all," she says.
Doubtless one great reason for Dr. Stone's success in raising up efficient
workers is her confidence in them, and her sympathetic attitude toward
them. "I believe many a valued worker is lost to her profession through
lack of sympathy and encouragement when needed," she once said. "Surely the
Lord values the workers as well as His work, and we who want our work to
prosper cannot afford to ignore the interests of those upon whom we depend
so largely for success."
The nurses in turn have a pride in the hospital as great as the doctor's
own, and are as devoted to it. "The nurses are fine in standing up for our
standard of cleanliness," Dr. Stone wrote to a fellow-physician. "For
instance, when this patient came (a very poor woman) the nurses got hold of
her, bathed her, and put her in our clean, white clothes and tucked her
away in one of these clean white beds in no time.... She begged to keep the
bandages on her bound feet. 'No,' the nurses said, 'such dirty bandages in
our clean bed! No!'"
Writing to Dr. Danforth of her first graduating class, Dr. Stone said: "You
may ask if they are going to run away and earn large sums for themselves.
No, they are going to stay and help me in the hospital work, or earn money
for the hospital. You see, I assign each one to a department of work, and
she is the head-nurse of that department. Then by turn I send them out to
do private nursing, and the sums they earn are turned into the hospital for
caring for the poor who cannot help themselves. Mrs. Wong is nursing Mrs.
B---- of our own mission at Nanking, and when she comes back Miss Chang
will be sent to Wuhu to nurse a lady of another mission. Dr. Barrie, of
Kuling, has written to me to engage several for the new hospital at Kuling
for foreigners during this summer season. I told him I could accommodate
him because I have three other classes in training.... The spirit has been
most beautiful among the nurses. Many of them take their afternoon 'off
duty' to do evangelistic work in the homes of patients."
The well-trained corps of nurses is one of the most convincing testimonies
to that of which the whole hospital is a proof--the administrative ability
of the physician in charge. No detail of a well-managed hospital, from the
record files and wheel stretchers to the hand-power washing machine, is
neglected. Nevertheless the hospital is conducted with true economy. Dr.
Stone defines economy as "the art which avoids all waste and extravagance
and applies money to the best advantage. It is not economy to buy cheap
furniture that has to be replaced all the time. It is poor economy to buy
cheap food and let patients suffer for lack of nourishment.... It is poor
economy to use cheap drugs and drug your patient's life out. It is poor
economy to use wooden beds and have to patronize Standard Oil to keep them
clean. It is also poor economy not to use sheets and thin quilts, instead
of the heavy comfortables the Chinese have, just in order to save the heavy
washing and disinfection. It is poor economy to have cheap servants who can
do nothing. With trained workers to look after instruments, instead of
having to depend on servants, I find instruments last longer." As a result,
the universal testimony of those who visit the hospital is, "Dr. Stone has
one of the finest hospitals we have ever seen."
From the outset the doctor's ideal has been to make the medical work as
largely self-supporting as possible. Of course many of those most in need
of medical aid could pay nothing for it, nor for their medicines, nor even,
if they were in-patients, for their food. Others, however, could pay
something, and still others were able to pay in full. Soon after work in
the Danforth Hospital was begun, Dr. Stone wrote: "Our ordinary charge for
food is sixty cash a day or two dollars per month. For private rooms they
pay ten to twenty dollars, according to the kind of room they have.
Occasionally we meet some generous Chinese who give freely and thus help a
great deal our poor patients, some of whom cannot even pay for their rice.
For instance, one man has paid three hundred dollars this year for his
wife, who is still here for treatment, and will probably give more when she
is through. Another man has given one hundred and forty dollars for his
wife's treatment. Last quarter we received over four hundred dollars, and
this quarter over five hundred dollars here. We are getting to have more of
the well-to-do patients."
A letter written in 1905 tells of ways in which the Chinese assist the
hospital financially: "It has been my privilege to minister unto many of
this poor class of people with the fees I receive from the rich. So often I
find in the morning I earn a good fee, and in the evening I spend it on a
very poor case. Lately I have been sending a subscription book around. I
first sent it to the highest official here, and it was immediately returned
with fifty dollars. It encouraged me very much, for I know the work is
approved of by the officials and the common people, and they are both
helping all they can." Once she reported that at a time when the financial
outlook was unusually discouraging, an unknown non-Christian Chinese sent a
messenger several hundred _li_ with a gift of money to relieve the
situation.
Patients who cannot afford to pay anything, but who can use their hands,
are given sewing to do, and in this way make some contribution toward the
expenses of the work. The nurses, too, who have received training from the
hospital, either give their services or the money which they receive from
private cases. Thus, in various ways, many of the running expenses are met
on the field, but as so much work is done for the poor, the physician's
salary and the larger part of the equipment have come from friends in
America.
Even in the interior of China, and in the midst of the most active of
lives, Dr. Stone has never ceased to be a student. Early in her work she
wrote to a friend in America who was also a physician, "We feel that in
order to keep up in our profession we need occasionally some of the latest
works, especially since medical science is one of the most progressive of
all." Subsequent letters are full of commissions such as, "I need an
English and Latin dictionary very much in the work. Will you buy one--a
good one--for me?" "Will you kindly buy Hyde's work on 'Venereal Diseases,'
not on Skin, for I have that." Or "I should like very much to have a work
on Hygiene. You know the Chinese have such primitive ideas on that subject,
and if I can get a good standard book I can pick out and translate for the
benefit of the people. Then if there is still anything left, I would like a
small book on bandaging and massage, for I want to train new nurses.
Occasionally, when you see something new and well-tested, such as articles
you think will help my work, especially anything on tuberculosis, cholera,
hydrophobia, etc., etc., just remember the back number in China, won't
you?"
With keen recognition of the inestimable value which her scientific study
and training have been to her in her work, Dr. Stone has never failed to
remember the great Source of motive and power, and has ever been eager to
share with her patients the joy and peace of the Christian religion. Every
morning she conducts a service in the hospital chapel for the employees of
the hospital, and such of the patients as are able to attend. At the same
time the nurses are holding a similar service in the ward upstairs. While
the dispensary patients are waiting their turn in the examining room, one
or more Bible women utilize the time by telling them the truths of
Christianity. Dr. Stone's own mother has done such work for years, morning
after morning, among her daughter's dispensary patients.
One of the other missionaries at Kiukiang tells of going through the
hospital one evening, as the nurses were getting the patients settled for
the night. She noticed a low murmur which she did not at first understand,
until she saw that at every bed someone was in prayer. Here a mother was
kneeling by the side of her little suffering son; there another mother of
high rank was praying that the life of the baby by whose crib she knelt
might be spared to her. In one corner a woman had crept out of bed and was
kneeling with her face to the floor; in other places those who were too
sick to leave their beds were softly praying in them.
The nurses are all Christian women, able to minister to the spiritual as
well as the physical. Dr. Perkins says of them: "The nurses, too, are
strongly evangelistic in their thought and effort, and even to one who
could not understand the language, the atmosphere of Christian harmony and
the remarkable lack of friction in a place so busy and so constantly full
of problems, was very noticeable."
One night Dr. Stone went into the room of a patient who had been greatly
dreading a serious operation which she was to undergo the next day, to be
greeted with a radiant face and the words, "Oh, doctor, I'm not afraid now
of the operation. I've been talking to your God." Earlier in the evening
one of the youngest of the nurses had found her crying bitterly and the old
woman had told her: "I'm so afraid of the operation. You see the other
woman you told me of was a Christian and of course your God helped her.
I've never worshipped your God. I never knew of Him before and He may not
help me." "Why, you needn't cry over that!" the little nurse assured her.
"Our God doesn't blame you when no one had told you about Him. Now that you
know, if you love Him and pray to Him, He will help you." Then she knelt
down beside her and taught her how to pray to Him. After the operation was
over and the patient, fully recovered, was going back to her village, she
said to the doctor, "I am the first one in our village to hear of Jesus.
Won't you come _soon_ to my people and tell them."
Dr. Stone's letters and reports are full of accounts of the way in which,
from the beginning, the work of the hospital has brought the knowledge of
the Great Physician to those whose bodies had been so tenderly cared for by
His followers that their hearts were very open. Whole families, sometimes
almost entire communities, have become Christian as a result of the medical
work. An interesting instance of the way in which the hospital's influence
is spread by its patients is the case of a little girl, eight years old,
who unbound her feet while in the hospital, and became so ardent an
advocate of natural feet that after she had returned to the village in
which she lived, she and her father succeeded in persuading three hundred
families to pledge that their daughters should have natural feet.
It is quite impossible to separate Dr. Stone's definitely religious work
from her medical work; for while Sunday afternoons and the chapel hour in
the morning are set aside by her for purely evangelistic work, her
Christian faith permeates all that she does. In the first years of her
practice she did some itinerating work, but now that the work is so large
and she is the only physician in charge, she has had to give that up. The
nurses, however, still carry it on. "You see, while I am practically tied
to the place," writes the doctor, "it gives so much happiness to be able
to send out workers like these and to spread our influence. As the nurses
say, they will be able to send a lot of patients back to the hospital. You
see the more work we have the merrier we are."
Every time an evangelistic worker goes out on the district, one of the
nurses accompanies her, and with ointments, simple medicines, bandages,
vaccine, etc., treats several hundred patients in the country beyond the
reach of physicians. At one time in the bitter cold weather of winter a
message came from a distant village where smallpox was raging, asking that
a nurse be sent to treat the sick people and vaccinate those who had not
yet taken the disease. One woman in that village had once been at the
hospital, and it was through her that the call came. One of the nurses at
once volunteered to go, and with a Bible woman and a reliable man-servant
she took the trip down the river, in a little sampan, to the smitten
village. During four days she treated over one hundred patients not only in
the village, but also in the region round about; for she and the Bible
woman walked thirty _li_ every day to sufferers in the country. While the
nurse worked, the Bible woman preached, and in this way hundreds of people
heard of Christianity for the first time. As Dr. Stone says, "The cry now
is not for open doors, for we have free entrance into the homes of the rich
and poor. What we need now is an efficient force of trained evangelistic
workers to ... follow up the seed thus sown broadcast on such receptive
soil." This need the Training School for Bible Women is helping to meet.
Mrs. Stephen Baldwin writing to Dr. Danforth said, "The Lord honoured your
investment by placing in it one of the most wonderful doctors in all this
world." But Dr. Stone is not only a physician, but an all-round woman. "She
is equal to any sudden call to speak," said one who heard her often when
she was in America. A report of the Missionary Conference at Kuling, China,
states that "Dr. Stone's paper on 'Hospital Economics' was the finest
feature of an attractive conference." At the request of this conference she
prepared a leaflet on the diet suited to Chinese schoolgirls, and a few
years ago wrote a very useful book on the subject: "Until the Doctor
Comes."
"I observed her in her home," writes a missionary who stopped at Kiukiang
for a few days _en route_ to Peking, "a housewifely woman, thoughtful of
every detail that might ensure a guest's comfort. In a single month
recently she treated 1,995 women and children, yet she is not too busy to
be a gracious hostess. Chinese ladies delight to visit her, and such is the
influence of this modest woman that the Hsien's wife has unbound her feet."
It may well be questioned, great as are Dr. Stone's achievements, which is
of more value, the actual work she is doing, or the inspiration which her
efficient, self-sacrificing Christian life is bringing to the awakened
womanhood of the new China. The words of Miss Howe regarding Dr. Stone and
Dr. Kahn indicate their influence: "They seem to be an inspiration to the
girls and women of all classes. When our schoolgirls learn of anything 'the
doctors' did when they were pupils, they seem to think they have found
solid ground on which to set their feet." A letter from another
fellow-worker stated that Dr. Stone was to give the address at the
graduation exercises of the class of 1909 of the Nanking Normal School for
Women at which the viceroy and "other notables of China" were to be
present. Dr. Stone was greatly touched when the daughter-in-law of a
viceroy once said to her that she would gladly give up all her servants,
her beautiful clothes, her jewels, even her position, if she could lead a
useful life like hers, instead of making one of the many puppets in the
long court ceremonies, with nothing to think of except her appearance, and
nothing to do but kill time.
It is a great joy to the doctor to have a part in bringing about a
realization of the achievements of which Chinese women are capable, and she
has been willing to make any sacrifice necessary to do this. Soon after Dr.
Kahn's transfer to Nanchang had left her with almost double work, Dr.
Danforth wrote that he had found a nurse in one of the Chicago hospitals
who was willing to go to China, and asked Dr. Stone what she would think of
having her come to the Danforth Hospital. Dr. Stone replied that while she
would take her if Dr. Danforth wished, she would really rather not, on the
whole. Personally, she said, she would have been very glad to have her
come, but she was eager that her work should accomplish two things which it
could accomplish only if it were purely Chinese: first, that it should
convince the Chinese women themselves that they are able to do things of
which they have never dreamed; and, second, that it should show the people
of other nations that the only reason why Chinese women have for centuries
lived such narrow lives is that they have not had opportunity to develop
their native powers. She feared that if an American nurse came to the
hospital it would look as if the purely Chinese work had failed, and that
it had been necessary to call in help from America.
Accordingly, although Dr. Stone has sometimes been forced to admit that her
work has been so heavy as to tax both heart and strength to the utmost, she
has carried it all these years with no help, except from the nurses she has
trained. She has counted no task too hard, no labour too constant, if she
may thereby benefit her countrywomen physically, intellectually, or
spiritually. "She does not spare herself," one of her friends writes, "she
seems unable to do so, and is too tender-hearted to turn the suffering away
for her own need."
The past year has brought peculiar burdens to the doctor. She carried on
her regular hospital work as usual, until the disturbances caused by the
Revolution came so near that all the women and children in the schools and
hospital were ordered into the foreign concession. This order came at
night, and by two o'clock the next morning not a patient was left in the
hospital.
Dr. Stone turned over the hospital to the revolutionary leaders, and each
day she and her trained nurses cared for the injured soldiers sheltered in
it. The leaders of the Revolution urged her to wear the white badge which
was their emblem, but she told them that while her sympathies were with
them, as a Red Cross physician she must remain neutral, that she might be
able to render assistance to the wounded on both sides. Her explanation was
courteously accepted, and an armed guard was furnished to escort her to and
from the hospital each morning and evening.
When the Manchu governor of Nanchang was captured he was taken to Kiukiang,
where, in chagrin at his imprisonment, he attempted suicide. Deserted by
his servants and soldiers, he would have died alone and uncared for had it
not been for Dr. Stone, for no one else dared to go near him. Dr. Stone and
two of her nurses cared for him until the death which they could not
prevent, but which they made far easier than it would otherwise have been.
It was this same governor who, but a few months before, had refused Dr.
Stone the rights of Chinese citizenship because, in purchasing land for a
men's hospital at Kiukiang, she was buying property for foreigners.
When the leaders of the revolutionary party learned that their prisoner
had committed suicide they were greatly disturbed. None of them dared to
carry the news to General Ma, lest, in accordance with an old Oriental
custom, he should punish the bearer of ill tidings. In their perplexity
they went to Dr. Stone and asked her to take the news to the general.
Accordingly the little doctor, accompanied only by one of her nurses, went
to the general's headquarters to break the news to him. It is significant,
not only of the universal respect accorded the doctor, but also of the new
position accorded woman in China, that these women, who ventured unattended
into a soldiers' camp, were received with every courtesy. General Ma asked
the doctor many questions about her work, and at the close of their
interview exclaimed, "When things are settled once more, I intend to find
support for such a work; the Chinese ought to help it."
Because of the disturbances caused by the Revolution, many students in the
Kiukiang schools returned to their homes. The family of one young woman
insisted that she make use of this enforced vacation to become married to
the young Chinese to whom she had long been engaged. The marriage was
unwelcome to her, for she was a Christian and the man was not, but as she
was the only Christian in her family she received no sympathy from them,
and the wedding was set for Christmas day. The parents, however, yielded to
their daughter's earnest desire for a Christian ceremony, and her brother
was dispatched to Kiukiang to seek Dr. Stone, who had been eminently
successful in all kinds of operations and might surely be relied upon to
tie a satisfactory marriage knot. Dr. Stone accordingly left all her
Christmas engagements, and accompanied by a Chinese pastor and one of her
nurses, set out, through a heavy snow storm, for the girl's home. When the
wedding guests were all assembled, Dr. Stone said that she would like to
say a few words before the ceremony took place, and for an hour and a half
she told her hearers of the Christian good tidings. The result was that
when the wedding was over the mother and father of the bride brought their
idols to her, and allowed their daughter to apply the match to them, for
both had determined to become Christians. The father said that he wished
other people to hear the good things Dr. Stone had told them, and would
give the land for a Christian school. The bridegroom volunteered to do the
carpenter work which would be necessary before a school could be opened,
and now the young wife is teaching a group of children who have entered
this new Christian school, and in the new home husband and wife daily unite
in morning prayers.
After the Revolution was practically over, but conditions were still so
unsettled as to make it unwise to reopen the hospital, Dr. Stone and
several of her nurses made a trip to a number of towns in the region around
Kiukiang. In a recent letter Dr. Stone tells of being given a piece of land
by the influential people in one of these towns, with the earnest entreaty
that she leave a nurse there to carry on a permanent medical work. She
could make them no definite promise, but is hoping that friends in America
will make it financially possible to support a nurse and dispensary where
they are so greatly needed.
Truly the Chinese women are blessed in having so perfect an embodiment of
the ideal woman of the great new China in this unassuming physician, whom a
friend who has known her from babyhood declares to have the most perfect
Christian character of any one she knows. After his visit in Kiukiang, Dr.
Perkins exclaimed: "Such a wonderful woman as Dr. Mary Stone is! I do not
know of any good quality she does not possess"; and one who has had an
intimate acquaintance with the college women of America says: "What a
marvel Dr. Stone is! To me she is unexcelled in charm, in singleness of
purpose, and all-round efficiency, by any other woman I have ever known."
* * * * *
YU KULIANG
* * * * *
[Illustration: Yu Kuliang]
YU KULIANG
The same year that little Mary Stone first saw the light, on almost the
same day, in another part of the same city, another little girl was born, a
member of the same proud old family whose line runs back so many years into
Chinese antiquity. Unlike Mary Stone, she was not born into a Christian
home, but it was a home where the parents truly loved each other, and one
in which she might have spent a very happy childhood, had not the young
father died while she was still a baby.
The mother, broken-hearted over her husband's death, decided to become a
Taoist nun and devote the remainder of her life to the search for truth.
With her baby she shut herself up in a little hut outside of the city,
seeing no one, and giving her whole time to the care of the child and her
efforts to find truth. The members of her family, which is one of the
wealthiest and most aristocratic in Kiukiang, were greatly pleased with
what they considered an eminently virtuous resolve for a young widow to
make, and applied to the Emperor for his approval of the course she had
decided to follow. This being heartily given, they built a very comfortable
home for her on the outskirts of Kiukiang. The building was christened
Purity Hall, and over its gateway were placed large placards announcing the
imperial sanction of the life which the young widow had chosen for herself
and her child.
Here the little girl grew to womanhood, knowing no companionship except
that of her mother and her teachers. Her mother employed the best possible
Chinese teachers for her, and she early learned to read the books of the
three religions of China, that she might join her mother in her pursuit of
truth. She seldom left the house, and no one but her teachers ever entered
it, but day after day she pored over the books on Taoism, Buddhism, and
Confucianism until she had read them all. She, too, became a Taoist nun,
but continued in the worship and study of Buddhism and Confucianism also,
determined to find the _true_ religion.
She even surpassed her mother in the ardour of her search for truth, for
she spent twelve entire years, in periods of three years each, in one room
of the house, living in the most absolute seclusion, not seeing her
mother, speaking to no one, and hearing no voice, for three years at a
time. After such a vigil she came out into the rest of the house for a
year, then went back for another three years of solitude. In one corner of
this room were the shrine and the altar before which Yu Kuliang knelt hour
after hour during the years of her long vigil, and the idols, large and
small, of wood and stone, which were her only companions. She always kept
three sticks of incense burning before the shrine, one for each religion,
that she might be sure not to make a mistake. In the ardour of her devotion
she even made offerings of pieces of her own flesh to the idols. Her whole
body, even her face, was covered with the ugly round scars caused by this
self-mutilation.
When Yu Kuliang was a woman of thirty-two she learned that the Stones were
her cousins, and of her own accord went to call on them. Thereafter the
doors of "Purity Hall," so long fast closed to all, were thrown open to the
Stone family. Yu Kuliang and her cousin Dr. Mary Stone, born at almost the
same time, living, and having always lived, lives as totally different as
two lives could be, became fast friends. To Dr. Stone, Yu Kuliang frankly
confessed that an entire life spent in seeking truth had not brought her
success. She was very willing to listen to all that Dr. Stone had to tell
her of the truth which she had found, and finally even succeeded in
summoning up sufficient courage to attend the Sunday morning church
service. Her years of seclusion had made her so timid, and so afraid of
mingling among people, however, that the first time she came to the church
she disguised herself in the garb of a Chinese man. Dr. Stone gave her a
Bible and she began the study of it at once, with the same earnestness and
determination to find truth that she had shown in her study of the books of
the Chinese religion.
After she had once gained courage to attend the church service she came
frequently, no longer in man's clothes, nor in the coarse, grey cotton
costume of the Taoist nun, which she discarded soon after knowing Dr.
Stone, but in the ordinary dress of the Chinese woman. She became a
frequent visitor to the hospital, too, where she loved to follow Dr. Stone
from ward to ward, or to sit beside her in the dispensary as she cared for
the suffering women and children who flocked there daily.
Finally Dr. Stone invited her to come to her for a week's visit, hardly
daring to hope that she would do so; for she had never, since entering
"Purity Hall" as a baby, spent a night outside of it. But she consented,
and gladly drank in all that Dr. Stone and the doctor's mother told her of
the truth which she had so long sought. One day soon after she had gone
home, when Dr. Stone was calling on her and her mother, the mother drew Dr.
Stone aside and said, "Since my daughter came back from your house she
hasn't been upstairs to see the idols once." After years of ceaseless
devotion to them, Yu Kuliang had forsaken her idols, and was turning toward
the living God. Soon afterward, when it was necessary for Dr. Stone to go
to America for an operation, and for Miss Hughes, who was in charge of the
Bible Woman's Training School, to accompany her, Yu Kuliang came and asked
that she might enter the school when Miss Hughes returned from America. But
when Dr. Stone and Miss Hughes returned to China, they found Yu Kuliang
suffering from tuberculosis. The long years of self-inflicted imprisonment
had left her with no vitality to resist, and the disease was making rapid
progress.
Soon after the doctor's return, Yu Kuliang's mother went away for a visit
of some days. One afternoon during her absence, when Dr. Stone and Miss
Hughes were calling on Yu Kuliang, she told them that she was studying the
Bible, and trying to pray, and added: "I never go near the idols any more.
They are all upstairs in my old cell." Dr. Stone at once said: "If you no
longer believe in the idols, get rid of them. Give them to us." Yu Kuliang
assented immediately, saying, "Take them if you want to," and went upstairs
with Dr. Stone to get them. They brought down a Buddha and a goddess of
mercy, which, after a few moments of further talk and prayer, Dr. Stone and
Miss Hughes took away with them, Yu Kuliang watching them without a murmur.
The next day Dr. Stone and her mother went to see Yu Kuliang again, and
with her consent and approval chopped to pieces a huge wooden idol, which
was too large to carry away. When they were wondering what they should do
with the stump of the body, Yu Kuliang exclaimed, "Throw the horrid thing
into the ditch!" Thus passed out of her life the idols to which she had
prayed for hours at a time, before which she had burned numberless sticks
of incense, beside which she had lived and slept, and which she had made
her most constant companions all the years of her life. The old temple
bell, which had for years been used to call the gods from sleep, was given
to Dr. Stone on the same day.
But when Yu Kuliang's mother returned she was furiously angry--not at the
daughter to whom she was devoted, but at those who had turned her away from
her idols. Dr. Stone took the old woman's hands in hers and pleaded with
her: "You know your daughter does not believe in idols, you know the misery
of her life, you know how she longs for peace; and as long as you harbour
the idols in your home, Jesus cannot come into her heart and dwell there."
The old woman at once broke out, in the tones of one taking the part of an
injured friend, "But if your God is such a mighty one, and has the tens of
thousands of followers you tell us He has, why should He be jealous of our
poor little idols and those who worship them?"
Dr. Stone did not interrupt the tirade which was now poured forth, but
picked up a piece of wood and a pebble from the floor, and when the old
woman waited for her to answer, quietly replied to the pebble and bit of
wood in her hand. Finally the woman said, "Why don't you answer me? You
have come to see me, and perhaps I have been rude, but you are my relative
and I want to be friends with you." Still Dr. Stone did not answer, but
went on talking to the stone and wood, until the old woman lost patience
and exclaimed, "What nonsense is this!"
Then Dr. Stone put her arm around her and answered, "If you think it is
nonsense for me to talk to the stone and wood in your house, instead of
giving you attention, how do you think the Heavenly Father feels,--the one
who created you, the one who is your Father--when you satisfy yourself with
images of wood and stone instead of giving that love and devotion to Him?"
Before Dr. Stone left the young women knelt in prayer, but the mother would
not join them.
Later, with her mother's consent, Yu Kuliang went to the hospital, and
there spent four of the ten last days of her life, in the companionship of
her cousin. Dr. Stone gave her every minute that could be spared from her
hospital duties, telling her of the glad new life which she was soon to
enter, and praying with her. Many times Yu Kuliang tried to leave the bed
to kneel with Dr. Stone, but the doctor explained to her that her prayers
were just as acceptable where she was, and that she was too weak to kneel.
"Those four days in the hospital with cousin were the happiest in my life,"
she told her mother when she returned to her home.
When she knew that she could not get well she insisted, weak as she was,
upon being dressed and having her photograph taken, for all the photographs
which she had had before were in the dress of the Taoist nun, and she
wanted to have one taken after she had become a Christian.
Just before her death she said to her mother, "Mother, there is nothing in
this life of ours, nothing! We were all wrong. I'm so glad it is over and
now I am not at all afraid, for I am going to that beautiful place." And
then, her lifelong quest at length crowned with success, she went to behold
the face of Him who is the Truth.
* * * * *
ANNA STONE
I. EAGER FOR EDUCATION
II. AMONG HER OWN PEOPLE
III. THE POWER OF AN ENDLESS LIFE
* * * * *
[Illustration: Anna Stone]
ANNA STONE
I
EAGER FOR EDUCATION
"God knew where to send girls; He knew who would be good to them," Mrs.
Stone assured the neighbours who had come to condole with her on the birth
of a second daughter, and to remind her that "ten queenly daughters are not
worth as much as one son with a limp." Years before, when the baby's
father, one of the literati, had lost all his property in the Tai Ping
Rebellion, he had adopted the profession of teaching Chinese to the
missionaries, as the only dignified means by which one of his rank and
learning could earn a living. While he taught them Chinese characters, they
taught him about Christianity, and it was not long before he was in charge
of a Christian chapel in Kiukiang. So when this little daughter was born,
she was given the good old Bible name of Anna, and great plans were laid
for her future. While she was still a tiny baby her mother carried her to
the missionary in charge of the girls' boarding school, one of those to
whom her father had taught the Chinese language years before, and said to
her, "As soon as this baby is old enough, I want you to take her and train
her for Christian work."
If she was to fulfil her mother's ambition for her Anna must of course
receive an education, although a girl who could read or write even the
simplest sentence was then almost unknown in China. But Mrs. Stone knew
well that the more education Anna had, the more efficient a worker she
would be. She herself had never been taught at all, and after she had
become a Christian and was eager to tell other women of the good news which
she had learned, she had found herself sadly hampered because she could not
read the Bible. It was not so difficult when her husband was at home to
read it for her; but while he was away on his preaching tours, she had lost
many opportunities of teaching Christianity to the women who came to see
her, because of her inability to read the Book which told of the great new
truth she had learned. So, busy as she was with her babies and her
household cares, she determined to learn to read, and asked her husband to
teach her.
Pastor Stone, however, had still something to learn. He did not believe
that it was possible for the feminine mind, especially that of a woman
grown, to learn the difficult Chinese characters; and he told his wife
that, in his opinion, it was not worth while for her to attempt it. If
Mother Stone was discouraged she did not show it. Every night after the
rest of the family were asleep she set a candle beside her bed and studied
characters diligently. Whenever Pastor Stone woke up for a moment, or
turned over in bed, he would receive a gentle nudge and Mother Stone would
delightedly exclaim, "Oh, father, won't you please tell me what this
character is?" He soon decided to teach her in orthodox fashion, and she
proved to be such an apt pupil that it was not long before she was in
charge of a little day school for girls.
Anna received much of her early education from her mother, and for a time
she and her older sister Mary went to school with their brother. Girls at
school were decidedly a novelty, and the visiting mandarin opened his eyes
in amazement. "Can _girls_ learn anything?" he demanded of the teacher, who
was forced to admit that they learned as fast as the boys, and sometimes a
little faster. When a little older, Anna became a member of the Kiukiang
Boarding School for girls, where she proved to be a diligent and quick
pupil. During this time her sister Mary went to America to take her medical
course, and down in her heart Anna cherished a secret hope that when she
had completed her high school work she, too, might go to that wonderful
Christian country from which her missionary teachers had come and in which
her sister was receiving the training which would fit her for such large
service among her countrywomen. She said very little about this hope to any
one, but she and her friend I-lien Tang, who was also eager to go to
America, determined to pray about it, and to study so faithfully that if
the way should ever open for them to go, they would be ready. Accordingly
they completed the high school course in Chinese, and studied English and
Latin in addition.
In 1898 Bishop Joyce, of the Methodist Church, and his wife took a trip to
the Orient to visit the mission stations. While in Kiukiang they became so
much interested in the two girls, Anna Stone and I-lien Tang, that they
offered to take them back to America with them. The autumn of 1898
therefore found Anna in America, the country of her dreams, and a student
in Hamline University. She entered into her college work with much
enthusiasm and made excellent progress in it. She was not strong, however,
and was so far from well at the end of the year that it seemed best for her
to relinquish her plan of following in her sister's footsteps by taking a
medical course. She therefore planned to fit herself for some other form of
service which would involve less physical strain, and left Hamline, after
having been there only one year. But she left behind her many warm friends
among the students, some of whom had become Christians as a result of the
consistent and beautiful Christian life of this young Chinese girl.
The next autumn Anna entered Folts Mission Institute, where arrangements
were made for her to take the two years' Bible course in three years, in
the hope that she might thus regain her health. Her teachers testify that
she was a brilliant student, and that her English was so perfect that one
who heard her, without seeing her, would never have known that she was a
foreigner. When one of them once asked her how it was that she had such a
correct pronunciation, she said that when she was in Kiukiang Boarding
School she used to watch the lips of the missionaries when they were
speaking English, in order to see just how the words were formed.
Her use of words, too, was almost as accurate as her enunciation of them,
although occasionally the intricacies of the English language proved
somewhat mystifying. For example, when she was at her doctor's office one
day he asked if he had given her any medicine when she was there before.
"No, doctor, you gave me a proscription," she answered. The doctor's smile
showed her that she had made a mistake, and as soon as they were outside
she asked the teacher who was with her what she ought to have said.
"_Pre_scription, _pre_scription," she repeated. "I must remember that. What
was it we had in church last Sunday? Was that a prescription or a
proscription?"
"That was a subscription," the teacher told her.
"Oh, yes, a subscription. But what did you call the writing on the stones
in the graveyard? Was that a prescription or a subscription?"
"That was an inscription," was the answer, and perhaps it is small wonder
that Anna exclaimed in despair, "Oh, this terrible English! Can I ever get
it!"
On the whole, however, she was very much at home with the English language.
One morning as she was going down to breakfast some one asked, "How is our
little China girl this morning?" "Neither cracked nor broken!" was her
instant response.
During all her stay in America she was in great demand as a speaker, and
did as much of this work as her health permitted, always giving her message
in English, and everywhere winning friends for herself and her loved
people. "Those who have watched her as she held the attention of large
audiences with the simple story of her own people, will not soon forget the
modest, unassuming girl who touched their lives for a brief hour," says one
who heard her often.
When she entered Folts Institute it was thought that it would be a good
thing for her to take vocal lessons to strengthen her throat and lungs.
This training was given simply for the sake of her health, and with no
expectation that she would ever sing in public, but it soon became evident
that she had musical ability of no small degree. Her voice was very sweet,
and had such a power to capture the hearts of her hearers that she was
given the title of the "Sweet Singer," and was in great demand for meetings
large and small. The whole energy of her life was so given to her Master
that this newly discovered gift was at once consecrated wholly to His
service. "You may think me narrow," she said earnestly, when her teacher
proposed that she should study some nature songs, "but I feel that I must
be the girl of one song." And into the one song, the Christian hymn, she
put her whole soul, as any who heard her sing, "I love to tell the story,"
"Faith of our fathers," or the one that she perhaps sang most often, "Saved
by Grace," will testify.
"I can hear her still as she sang 'Saved by Grace' to the large audience of
the General Executive in 1902," wrote one, several years later. "She put
such fulness of meaning and power into this simple song. It was a part of
her own experience." Another said, "I heard her sing 'I love to tell the
story' to an audience of over five hundred college girls at the student
conference of the Young Women's Christian Association at Silver Bay, and
the effect was wonderful."
It had been the thought of the principal of Folts Institute that the cost
of Anna's musical education should be defrayed by gifts from friends who
were interested in her and her work. But after one spring vacation, when
Anna had been addressing several meetings and had been given quite a little
money, she went to the principal's office and turned over the entire amount
which she had received. "But this is twice as much as your lessons for the
year will cost, Anna," the principal told her, and started to hand back
half of it. But Anna would not take it, and insisted that it be used to pay
for the piano lessons of another Chinese student at the Institute. "I don't
want ---- to get into debt," she said.
While studying at Folts Institute Anna's first great sorrow came to her in
the death of her father. They had always been comrades, and she had often
accompanied him on his preaching tours into the country. It was on one of
these tours, made during the time of the Boxer uprising, that Pastor Stone
received the injuries at the hands of a mob which were probably the cause
of his death. The news was a great blow to Anna, but she bore it quietly
and bravely, and when a few days later it was her turn to lead the
students' prayer meeting, she chose "Heaven" for her topic. "Before I came
to your country, I used to think it was heaven," she said; "but now I am so
glad it isn't, for then they might try to keep father out, and now I know
he is inside."
She completed her course at Folts Institute in 1902, and as she seemed in
good health, entered Central Wesleyan College for further training. But her
zeal for her work always led her to overestimate her own strength, and her
patience in suffering and desire not to cause any one any trouble, made it
hard for others to know the true state of her health. One of her teachers
at Folts says that Anna would often be ill for days before any one would
have any knowledge of it, so uncomplaining was she. This teacher tells how
at one time, when Anna finally had to give up, the tears rolled down the
cheeks of the girl who bore pain so bravely that it was unsuspected even by
those who were watching her carefully, at the thought that the friend to
whom she gave both the century-old reverence of the Chinese for a teacher
and the warm love of her grateful heart, should have to minister to her
needs. It was found, after she had been at the Central Wesleyan College for
a few months, that courageous as she was, her strength was not sufficient
to enable her to go on with her studies.
She spent the rest of the year in Minneapolis in the home of her good
friends, Bishop and Mrs. Joyce. She was never content to be idle, and after
a few months of rest she gave several addresses in the churches of
Minnesota and North Dakota, awakening interest in the cause she represented
wherever she went. She so won the hearts of the young people that when she
went back to China it was as the representative of the young women who
formed the Standard Bearer Society of the Minneapolis branch of the Woman's
Foreign Missionary Society.
In the summer of 1903 a specialist pronounced her to be suffering from
tuberculosis, and the next winter was spent in southern California in the
hope that in that favourable climate she might be cured. Even here her
eagerness to serve her people led her to do as much speaking as her
physician would permit. But she was anxious to get to the work for which
these years of preparation had been spent, and with hopeful and eager
expectation she sailed for China on the S.S. _Siberia_, June 11, 1904.
II
AMONG HER OWN PEOPLE
On her return to her own country, Anna began her work with great
enthusiasm. The spirit with which she entered into it is shown in her
report of the first year's work: "After six years of special preparation,
for which I feel greatly indebted to my Master, it is a happy privilege to
do what may be in my power to show Him my gratitude. The blessings I
received from the hands of those who gave cheerfully for His sake, I will
endeavour to pass on to others. During those years of absorption in study
there were times when I was anxious for others to share with me the joy
which comes from the Christian faith, but the real opportunity did not
appear until last July when I returned to my home land. With gladness and
thanksgiving I entered into the work already well and carefully organized
by my senior missionaries."
The evangelistic work for women, of which she was put in charge, offered a
large and varied field for service. "The success which my sister has had
in her profession gives me easy access to many classes of our people," she
reported soon after her return. Among the hospital and dispensary patients
she found one of her greatest opportunities. She was not only able to reach
those who came for treatment, but through them she had access to their
homes, and spent a large part of her time in visiting among them and in
entertaining guests in her own home. "Many know of the hospital and of the
lady physician, and come to see the work, and daily we cordially welcome
such guests into our home," a letter reads. "There are times when I walk
with my sister on the street, and the ladies call the doctor in. Thus I
gain access to friendly homes."
She was untiring in her efforts to fit herself to make use of every
opportunity which presented itself, never regarding her preparation for
service as completed, but always eager to learn any new thing which would
help her. A letter written soon after beginning her work tells of one of
the means by which she sought to increase her usefulness: "I think it is
imperative for me to study something more of the Chinese classics. The
little knowledge I have, God has helped me to use for His glory, and a
knowledge of the classical sayings will enable me at least to approach the
educated classes on a common ground, and to induce them to see that which
they know not, from that which they do know."
During her first year of work she had four Bible women associated with her
who went out with her daily, conducting meetings for women in the two
chapels which were under her direction, visiting in the homes, or talking
to patients in the dispensary waiting room. One of her early letters reads:
"I felt that these Bible women needed special hours for prayer and Bible
study, in order to give out the Bread of Life to others. So arrangements
were made to have at least two hours of study every Monday morning, and we
have prayer together before planning to carry out the Lord's will in the
week's work."
In addition to this work she was given oversight of the two day schools for
girls in Kiukiang. Of them she reported: "The teachers are trying to do
their best, but many times I have wished that we could secure better
educated women and have our day school standard advanced. The girls who can
afford to go to school don't care to study the old Chinese books which
these women are prepared to teach, so the better classes are not being
touched by the Christian teachers. Those who have nothing special for the
girls to do let them go to while away the time; then when tea picking time
comes they leave the school. All can see that such work cannot be of any
great value."
Conditions of this sort were discouraging indeed, but she met the situation
with characteristic courage, and added to her other duties the task of
teaching a little music and English in these schools. The introduction of
these subjects proved to be very successful in reviving the pupils'
flagging interest. "The girls are more interested just now," a letter says,
"because they have once a week a lesson in singing; formerly it was given
on Saturday in our home, but experience soon taught me that this was an
impossibility on account of the continuous callers and disturbances. I go
now to each school once a week and teach them there. They also have a
lesson in English during the week. It seems so strange to me that all
people, old and young, male and female, are seeking a knowledge of
English."
She was quick to see, however, that the only permanently successful
solution of the day school problem was in well-trained teachers. Her great
desire was for "the day when day school teachers should be better qualified
for their work, that they might draw pupils to school by their own
knowledge." In the meantime she did all she could to add to the efficiency
of the teachers she had. One of her letters tells of her efforts to help
one of her discouraged assistants: "One of the teachers is very anxious and
feels that she cannot teach the school. She spoke to me several times of
her inability to keep the pupils' attention because of her own lack of
knowledge. As we have no trained teachers to take her place I cannot spare
her. Though she has not a good head she has a good Christian heart, so for
the good of the school I have to keep her and give her a few lessons each
week. It is doing her good and helping her to teach better."
Again she reported the following year, "A special effort was made to throw
away the old, parrot-like way of learning. As the teachers needed
instruction as well as the pupils, sometimes, the text-books were taken
away. The teachers were required to tell a story every day; and with the
story a verse of the Scriptures, meant for a peg on which to hang the tale,
was committed to memory by the girls. The teacher would write six easy
characters each afternoon on the blackboard for the girls to copy before
going home. Thus the girls learned how to listen, to memorize, and to
write. Since the number of girls increases perceptibly when we have a
little English I use it as a bait. By Miss Merrill's consent, help was
secured from the boarding-school in teaching half an hour of English every
day in the two city schools."
In December of 1904, at the annual meeting of the Central China Methodist
Mission, Miss Stone was given the entire charge of the Bible Women's
Training School. A letter to a friend shows the keen delight with which she
entered upon this new work: "I am enjoying the work very much," she wrote.
"It seems so strange to me that these women are like my old friends. They
are free and at home with me, and I can say already that I love them.... I
wish you could be here just to look at them and see how willing they are to
be taught." It was her desire to live in the school that she might share
the life of the women outside of class hours, but after a few days' trial
this proved too wearing, and the doctor insisted upon her giving it up,
greatly to her own disappointment and that of the women.
She was very eager that these women, all of whom were from families of
small means, and were supported by scholarships while at the school, should
do something towards meeting at least a part of their expenses. A few
months after she had taken charge of the work she joyfully wrote Mrs.
Joyce:
"An industrial department is actually started, and we have found it
helpful to a great many. We are not attempting fancy things, but we
strive to make useful articles and things that we use ourselves, or
for sale. So far we have made only babies' shoes, which we sold to
foreigners living at Kuling, and some hemstitched handkerchiefs,
and some plain knitting. Each one of them is given fifty cash a
month for spending money, and it will leave a good balance for the
school. They work from three to five P.M., so their studies are not
neglected thereby. This work means also a livelihood to a poor old
lady.... She was in the hospital for over three years, living on
the charity money the doctor earned. I felt that she could be more
useful and happy by teaching sewing, since she is a beautiful
needle worker, so the school boards her and gets her teaching for
the women. I have been quite happy in this work, because I feel the
women are learning self-respect and to look upon manual labour as
something honourable. I have a chance to tell them about the
American ideas, how American people despise begging but would work
with pride in any position, for an honest living."
In the growth of the women she found her greatest joy. "The women are
learning," she said in the same letter, "and I feel that God is making
them zealous for the souls of others. I watch anxiously for improvements in
their characters and two or three of them give me secret pleasure by their
signs of unselfishness and spiritual growth."
Another letter to Mrs. Joyce tells of the way in which the members of the
Training School were given practical work in connection with their studies:
"Every day I call upon the farther advanced pupils to work. Two go out with
the girls to teach in the two day schools of the city, the other two take
charge of the industrial work. So every afternoon they have two hours of
work to do. On Sunday I send them to the two chapels in the morning and I
go with the first two one week and with the other two the next week. On
every Tuesday I send out all women except three, at three o'clock, to
invite our neighbours to our class-meeting. The three who stay at home are
to entertain those who come. Every Tuesday we get from twenty to forty
outsiders to listen to the gospel. Yesterday afternoon several pupils told
the guests how they learned to know the loving Father." One of her former
teachers at Folts Institute, who visited her at this time, wrote that she
knew not which to admire more, "the whole-souled devotion of the teacher,
or that of the women students."
Miss Stone's health did not permit her to do as much itinerant work as she
desired, but in the summer of 1905, during the vacation of the Bible
Women's Training School, she made a trip of some weeks, visiting every
station in the district. Itinerating in China is a process worthy of its
name, as all bedding, food, and housekeeping materials must be carried
along. But Anna was feeling well, and the very day after the work of the
Training School closed she and her mother set out. At every city she
reported that they "had a very good opportunity to work among the women,"
or that "many women showed a great interest in listening." Her father had
been the first Christian preacher at one place which they visited, and had
worked there for many years; another city was that in which the Stone's old
family homestead was located, so she and her mother were sure of a welcome.
"We had hardly any time to ourselves," she wrote. "So many people came to
see us, and mistook me for my sister. Mother welcomed all callers and
talked with them most of the time. Among these there were people from the
opposite village who came over to destroy our house in 1900. I think they
are quite ashamed of the act now."
Busy as she was, meeting and talking to the people who everywhere came to
greet her and her mother, Anna's mind was not so wholly occupied with the
present that she was oblivious to the future. On her return she made
several valuable suggestions for the development of the work in the various
places, such as that the chapel in one city be moved to a more central
location, that a vacant piece of property belonging to the mission would be
an excellent site for a day school for girls, etc. "There ought to be a
school in Whang Mai as a centre for women to work in," her report reads.
"There are many women in that city who are friendly to the church.... When
my parents were there there were quite a few women as members of the
church, but now they don't come to church, because there is no woman to
talk to them." She summed up the impressions of her trip in the words, "The
trip opened my eyes to the fact that the harvest is 'truly plenteous' and
the labourers are sadly few." At the same time her faith added, "But I am
so glad to know that my Master is before us who are few in number."
III
THE POWER OF AN ENDLESS LIFE
It is not surprising that with all her interests Anna Stone longed to live
and make use of the unusual opportunities which she had received. "If God
is willing I hope to work many years yet for Him," she wrote Mrs. Joyce
after she had been back in China a few months; and at the end of her second
year's work she said: "There are many things for which I am very thankful
in the past year, but perhaps the greatest was the joy in knowing that my
Heavenly Father has really allowed me a share of work.... I don't remember
that there were many days of work neglected because of ill health."
It was indeed remarkable that she was able to do as much as she did. One
who saw her in her work writes of the untiring enthusiasm and activity with
which she gave herself to it: "Her work was her very life. She talked to me
of her plans for the woman's school, and of her great desire to see a
revival here in the schools. I am sure you know of her work last summer
when the missionaries were all away--how, feeling that it was a mistake
that the native Christians should be without the helps of divine worship
and the weekly prayer meeting, she, with her sister's help, opened the
church and held services all through the hot summer, _doing the preaching
herself_ and thus holding the people together. I never met any one at home
or here whose whole soul was more on fire with a burning desire to win
souls than was Anna Stone's, and I have met a large number of prominent
workers in my work at home. She undoubtedly realized that her time was very
short and she must work all the time while she had strength. Her work was
not only in the school ... but she was at work in the day schools and
boarding schools, in the church, in the league, in the visitation, in the
hospital--everywhere where her life was able to touch others; and one felt
the influence of the Holy Spirit whenever in merest conversation with the
girl. That happy smile and merry laugh that so won the hearts of the people
at home were bestowed upon every one here, and I do not wonder she was able
to reach hearts where others failed."
Her enthusiasm for her work doubtless made it hard not only for her to
measure her own strength, but also for others to estimate it. But toward
the close of the summer of 1905 it became evident to all, even to herself,
that she had been overtaxing herself and must lighten her work. "Sister
makes me take beef juice, milk, and bread and butter," she said in a letter
to Mrs. Joyce. "Everybody tells me I am thin, but I am doing my best to get
fat. Every afternoon I devote all the time to get well. I sleep after
dinner, then go out riding for fresh air, so you see your little girl does
live high and extravagantly."
During this summer she received news of the serious illness of her friend
and foster-father, Bishop Joyce. This was a great source of anxiety and
sorrow to her. "How I wish I had means to go right to his dear presence to
tell him how I revere and love him for what he has done for me, and for
what he is to the world," she wrote his wife. "I envy I-lien's privilege of
being there. It must be a great comfort to be able to put one's heart-full
of love and sympathy into little services that he may need at this time."
The death of this true friend was a great grief to her, both on her own
account and because of the sorrow it brought to the family which she so
loved. "I loved Bishop as I did my own father," she said in a letter to
Mrs. Joyce. "Now I rejoice for both of them because they have heard the
Master's 'Well done, good and faithful servant.'" Then she added, "I will
ask him to ask the Master to let me work a little longer on earth. Of
course if he sees the reason why I shouldn't he will not do it."
[Illustration: The Anna Stone Memorial]
For a time it seemed as if her desire were to be granted, for when autumn
came she was able to open the Women's School at the usual time, and to
teach in it each morning. By keeping the afternoons free for rest she
gained so much that she could write: "I feel very grateful for my health. I
am up every day for my work. It is a busy life, but a very happy one." Dr.
Stone had decided in the autumn that unless Anna gained a great deal within
the next few weeks she would send her to the mountains for the winter, in
the hope that the dry air would help her. But, as she said, "Anna hates to
hear us talk about it because she does not want to leave her pet work." And
Anna soon seemed so much stronger that the doctor did not insist on her
going.
Anna wrote happily of the Christmas exercises in the school. "The women for
the first time attempted to have a public programme for the happy season.
They had a dialogue, three new songs, and acted out shepherds in the night
watch and Herod in his trouble. Then they had a tree on which were little
fancy trinkets which the women made for their friends. They had a joyous
time because they worked for it." She carried the work until the Chinese
New Year vacation, which began about the middle of January, and then
dismissed the school for the vacation period, full of hopes and plans for
the new term, for which she felt that the month's rest would prepare her.
Special services were held in the church during the New Year vacation and
Anna saved her strength that she might sing at the evening meetings. She
herself led the closing service. One who was there says, "The native church
will not quickly forget her clear and beautiful testimonies."
But her strength was not equal even to these tasks. Early in February she
had a severe hemorrhage from her lungs, from which it seemed as if she
could not rally. She felt this herself and said to Dr. Stone, with a brave
smile, "Sister, I am going. This is in answer to prayer, for I do not want
to linger on and endanger all of your lives." This attack was followed by
pleurisy, and for ten days of severe suffering her life hung by a very
slender thread. A fellow-worker wrote at this time: "She is bright and
happy, although fully expecting to go. She has been so enthusiastic in her
work, and always so cheerful, that she has often gone beyond her strength.
I think that she has been failing more than we who daily watch her have
realized. We feel that we cannot let her go, but it is not for us to say.
Since she would rather go to God than stay and not be able to carry on her
work, we can only pray 'The will of God be done.'"
Once more, however, she showed the elasticity which had made it so hard for
her friends to realize the true state of her health, and for a few weeks
seemed to improve. As life returned she began to hope that she might again
be able to take up her work, and for a time the eagerness to work was so
strong that she dreaded the thought of death. As the days passed and
strength did not come, she was troubled to understand why, when the need
was so great and the workers so few, she who so longed to work, should not
be permitted to do so. She said to Dr. Stone one day: "Sister, I have just
prepared myself to work, so much has been spent on me that I want to live
at least fifteen years to pass on some of my blessings to others. I am so
young, and our home life has been just beautiful. I am not anxious to give
it up so soon. I have great hopes of the Training School. I love the
women. I want to take a whole class through a course of training and then
leave them with my work. I want to see them well established in their work,
and a new school building put up well worthy of the name. Above all I want
to see our native church thoroughly roused by the Holy Spirit, and a
self-supporting church started."
One of the missionaries wrote afterward: "I wish you might have known what
a comfort Dr. Stone was to her through all those dark hours, carrying her
own burden constantly in her heart and yet bravely helping Anna to bear
hers. And Anna on her side was just as brave, for she suffered intense pain
through her illness, but constantly fought down every expression of it."
Anna's lifelong love for the will of God was so strong that she could not
fail to love it to the end, and the struggle was soon succeeded by complete
victory and peace. Her sister wrote Mrs. Joyce after she had gone: "She did
not know why, when so much had been done for her and she was so willing to
do any service unto the Lord, she should not be spared, and given a healthy
body for the work that seemed to be so much in need of workers. But she
said she was willing to go if it was the Lord's will, and she wanted people
to know that she loved to obey God mare than she desired her own life....
She said she was perfectly willing to go, only she had wanted to work a
little longer."
Her brief struggle passed, her thought was all for others. She often spoke
of the women for whom she had been working, and begged her sister to look
after them and keep them from going back to the old ways; and in delirium
she pleaded with one and another of them. She sent messages of love to
those who were not with her, some of them being on the other side of the
ocean, and sought to lighten the grief of those around her who so longed to
keep her with them. "Do not grieve for me," she comforted her sister.
"Think of me as you used to think of me when I was in America, only I shall
be in a more beautiful place." Three days before her death she gave
explicit directions about her funeral, wishing that everything in the
Chinese funeral rites which savoured at all of non-Christian religions
might be eliminated, that in her death, as in her life, she might witness
clearly and unmistakably to her loyalty to Christ.
When the last call finally came, on the sixteenth of March, it found her
ready and glad to respond. She told her sister that she had heard the
beautiful music and seen the great light and wanted to go. "That evening,"
reads a letter from one of her co-workers, "we missionaries all gathered in
the reception hall of their little house, together with her relatives and
more intimate friends. It was one of the most touching scenes I have ever
witnessed, for we were all drawn together by the bond of grief over the
loss of one we loved."
Although, in accordance with Anna's wishes, her funeral was conducted with
the utmost simplicity, the funeral procession caused universal comment. One
of the missionaries describes the scene: "As the procession of almost forty
chairs passed down the street all stopped to watch it pass, and despite the
unrest due to the recent riots at Nanchang, we heard nothing but kindly
remarks. The fact that foreigners were following one of their own people to
the grave, paying the Chinese girl the honour they would have shown to a
great man among themselves, seemed to impress the Chinese in a peculiar
way."
Another writes: "During the day the neighbours, Christian and non-Christian
alike, came to pay their respects.... A very large company of people
attended the funeral, including a number of missionaries of other
denominations. There was a procession of forty sedan chairs to the
Christian cemetery, which is about two miles beyond the East Gate. For the
half mile from the home to the city gate both sides of the street were
lined with people, who stood quietly and respectfully while we passed. The
absence of the numerous heathen symbols, and of any cover for the casket
save the floral tributes, was observed; and the fact that even the
foreigners had their chairs draped with white, 'just like us Chinese,' was
also noted. An English gentleman from the foreign concession, who was to
pay a call on the captain of one of the war vessels the next morning, said,
'I shall tell him that I have witnessed a procession to-day which will do
more to bring peace and harmony between the Chinese and foreigners than all
the war vessels will do.'"
Measured by years, Anna Stone's life was short. Measured by the time which
she was enabled to give to her work after her return to China, her service
was brief. Almost all her life had been given to preparation for service,
and it may seem as if she had hardly begun her life work when she was
bidden to lay it down for the richer service of another life. But if to be
is more than to do, and if Anna Stone's life be measured by what it was,
rather than by achievements which could be recorded, we must count her
years of service to have been many. Through all the years of preparation
for her work she was, in fact, serving in the truest sense, through what
she was. Bishop Joyce often said that her presence in the home was a
benediction. One who had close contact with her work pays the following
tribute:
"Hers was a rare character. So simple, unaffected, and tender and
yet withal so strong. Like the blameless knight of old, 'her
strength was as the strength of ten because her heart was pure.'
Gifted with a winsome personality, and a voice of great sweetness,
she literally sang her way into the hearts of all who heard her,
while the illumination of her life 'hid with Christ in God'
particularly impressed those who saw in her a product of the
missionary enterprise of our church. All who came within the
influence of her radiant presence were the better for it."
Her life was an inspiration to people in Christian America. She once said
while here: "Since coming to America the greatest wonder to me has been how
any one can live in this country and yet not be a Christian. If I had not
given myself to God it would be the first thing I would do. But thank God
He has _me_ off His mind. I am His child and I will love and serve Him all
my days." One woman who heard her sing asked, "Why do you let her go back?
We need her right here to help us. I never felt so near Christ as when I
heard this Chinese girl sing, 'And I shall see Him face to face,' for the
light of her vision shone from her eyes. I knew that she saw what she was
singing about." Another wrote, when the news of her death came, "Of Anna
Stone it can truthfully be said, 'None knew her but to love her.'...
Wherever she mingled with people she drew them not only to herself, but to
Christ. Eternity alone will reveal the many souls won to a Christian life
through her influence."
At the annual meeting of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, held a few
months after Anna Stone's death, the following resolution was unanimously
adopted: "Resolved: That in memory of our dear Chinese girl, Anna Stone, we
recall to your thought these words, applied to her by one who knew her
well:
'And half we deemed she needed not
The changing of her sphere
To give to heaven a shining one
Who walked an angel here.'"
Her life was a blessing to people in her own great country. Her sister
wrote: "I am so thankful that she returned and spent about two years
working for our own people. When I saw how much she was loved by the women
and girls here I knew her short time with us had not been spent in vain." A
letter from another Kiukiang worker says: "We felt when Miss Stone was
taken from the Women's School that indeed its light and glory had departed.
Her influence and life among the women will never be forgotten. Her
gentleness, sweetness of spirit, and unselfishness, won a place in our
hearts, and made us feel that we had caught a glimpse of the Master. Among
her fellow-workers and her own people, she was universally beloved."
Miss Hughes, who was later appointed to take up the work which Anna had
laid down, wrote in a letter to Mrs. Joyce: "I don't think any one will
ever be able to tell you what a vacancy there is in Kiukiang since that
little girl was taken from us. I was not in China any length of time before
I, personally, realized something of the influence of her life. Her spirit
of beautiful, consecrated young womanhood that so impressed every one at
home seemed intensified when I saw her in the fall upon my arrival." Miss
Hughes went on to tell of an incident which revealed what was doubtless one
of the great sources of the power of the life that was so short in years.
She says:
"I think nothing that I have heard of Anna Stone's life speaks more
clearly of the depth of real self-abnegation,--perfect obliteration
of self, in fact--and the secret of her power in winning souls
where others failed to win, than this story I am now to tell you.
Several years ago, before Anna returned home from America, an old
woman about sixty-four years of age, was engaged to do sewing for
Dr. Stone from time to time. The woman was a widow with one son,
who was an opium fiend in every sense of the word. He was unable to
work, and deprived his mother of all the comforts, and often of the
necessities of life, that he might buy opium."
"One day the old woman was taken ill, and while ill, her son
carried off the only clothes the old mother had (she slept with her
clothes spread on top of the bed-clothes as you know is the custom
in China), and sold them for the miserable drug. The mother
appealed to Dr. Stone, who took her, in her helpless, sick
condition, into the hospital. As she grew well, she stayed on,
doing such sewing as she could for her board, and in the hospital
she heard for the first time of the 'Jesus doctrine.' Her hungry
heart opened to the truth and she wanted to learn to read the
Bible."
"One day, however, she came to the doctor and asked her if she
thought if they prayed to God, He would save her son from his
dreadful life. The doctor talked with her and found that the old
woman was full of faith that it could be done. So they prayed about
it, and a little while after, Dr. Stone gave the old woman money to
take her son to the hospital for men in the city here and have the
habit broken off. But the mother, instead of giving the man into
the care of the authorities, and paying for his treatment herself,
gave the money to the man, and he used it all in opium, being in a
worse condition than ever."
"Some time later, due to the lack of funds, the hospital had to be
closed for some time, but when it was reopened, the old mother
pleaded that the son should be taken on as a coolie to work for his
keep, and thus be out of temptation's way. He had been supplied
again with money and put into the hospital, from which he came out
apparently cured, but fell again. The plan for him to come to the
hospital seemed to the doctor a rather dangerous one, for the man
was a positive good-for-nothing. But in the meantime Anna had
returned from America, and was, with her sister, willing to try
him; for it seemed his last chance, and the mother had begged so
hard for him. So he came to the hospital--a poor wretch, indeed,
weak as a little child from the awful life he had lived."
"All opium was out of his reach here, and in a few days the absence
of it showed by dreadful swelling of the limbs. He could not carry
the smallest weight without great exertion, and the case seemed
almost hopeless. But he gradually was broken from the use of the
drug and was able to work about the place. Anna was using a sedan
chair for her itinerating work, but she was so light that the
coolies jolted her a great deal and hurt her; so she got her
'ricksha, and chose this poor wretch of a fellow, as her personal
body-servant. When she went out on her evangelistic work, she had
her mother with her, as you know, and this coolie went along
drawing the 'ricksha. He became very devoted to her, and very
carefully cared for her. When she had her meals with her mother,
she had this coolie eat with her, lest he go off and get hold of
opium. He is a very weak, easily led fellow, as you will have
judged, and Anna felt his one safety was in keeping with them all
the time. Little by little, the fellow straightened up and became
stronger and able to do a respectable amount of work."
"Meantime Anna was teaching him, as she had opportunity, about
Christ. Finally last New Year's Eve, at the watch-night service led
by Anna herself, among those who openly took their stand for
Christ, was this poor fellow. As far as we know he has led a
straight life ever since. He is still working about the hospital
and there is no sign of the old dissipation. When Anna left us a
few weeks ago, the man's grief was great, and it was this old
'body-guard' who sat up all night the one night after the coffin
was sealed and remained in the house. The old mother at
sixty-seven years of age has learned to read the Bible and is a
very earnest Christian."
"I wish I could tell you how it impressed me as Dr. Stone told of
the efforts of Anna to win that poor wretch of a fellow to Christ.
There wasn't a thing attractive about him, in fact, just the
opposite; but she saw that there was a soul there to save, and with
no apparent thought of herself, no shrinking from a man of his
type, she, with the true spirit of the Lord she so closely
followed, bent every effort to save him from the thing that had
cursed his own and his mother's life. I think I have never heard
anything more beautiful than this story of Anna, who with all the
delicacy of her nature, her pure, sweet womanhood, her love of the
refined that always marked her, and her keen sensitiveness to the
niceties of life, laid all, as a sacrifice to her Lord, in the
background, and had at the same board with herself and her mother,
that miserable man, thus helping him to fight the enemy of his soul
and body."
Her Master's work was indeed everything, and self was nothing to Anna
Stone. She once said in a letter to Mrs. Joyce, "It has been a grief to my
heart not to have seen more people who have means to support themselves
come out to work for China. I am hoping to find some means by which to
support myself without getting pay from the society, to let others know
that I am not working for money, but for the love of God which is in my
heart."
The influence of this young Chinese girl is but another witness to "the
power of an endless life." She lives to-day in those whom she has inspired,
and who seek to be as true as she.
* * * * *
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