IT came at last―the call, ‘Come over and help us’―from that group of Lisu far to the southeast of Tengyueh, whom Fraser had met five years previously and left in the care of Moh Ting-chang. Often had Fraser thought of them and prayed that the seed sown might take root in their hearts, but little or nothing had come through, to encourage such hopes. It was Christmastide again. The year had been marked for Fraser by greater liberty in his own spiritual life, in the midst of labors more abundant in all his districts, especially among the Kachin.
To this wild and lovable people his heart was drawn increasingly, difficult though it was to gain a footing among them. More numerous than the Lisu, especially in Fraser’s southern field, they were also more primitive―dirty and degraded outwardly―and more aggressive. Living in larger communities, they were armed with old-fashioned guns, as well as daggers and swords, and made their own gunpowder. Repeatedly Fraser was fired upon, in passing through their villages, though when he showed no fear, opposition usually gave place to friendliness. Robbed on journeys by Kachin highwaymen, he was even chased by one of them, ferociously drunk, with a drawn sword, from which only fleetness of foot saved him. Yet there was a frankness and warmth of heart about them that made the missionary covet Kachin converts for his Lord. That the attraction was mutual, in some cases at any rate, would appear from the fact that all Fraser’s dexterity was needed to escape the matrimonial intentions of one chieftain who was bent upon making him his son-in-law!
But though drawn more into touch with the Kachin at this time, most of the year was spent in caring for the Lisu Christians in his widely scattered villages. Many were standing firm in the faith, though others caused grief by turning back to demon worship. At Mottled Hill for example, Fraser was met by a double sorrow. The leader of the church there was a young Lisu of great promise. Fraser loved him, and looked forward to his development as a much needed fellow worker. During his absence Burma for translation work with Ba Thaw, however, the young man died in an epidemic of influenza, and that was not the worst of it. For a heathen wizard in the district turned the occasion to his own advantage.
He gave out [Fraser wrote] that he had seen the soul of this young man all by itself―i.e. neither in heaven nor in the place of their departed ancestors―holding a hymn book that I had given him and weeping. Hence Christians do not go to heaven, but it is all a hoax―Q.E.D.
The orphaned child of this same man was taken ill not long after the father’s death, and they said that the spirit of the father had come back to ‘bite’ (attack) his own child. Do not imagine that the converts hear these things with a superior smile as we might. No, they take them very seriously.
Many of the converts turned back [he added in another letter], and even those who did not, have more uneasy misgivings on the subject than they acknowledge, to me at any rate.
Sympathy with their point of view did not keep Fraser from feeling keenly their defection. After some weeks in his northern district, he was constrained to write to us Prayer Circle a letter which reveals a conflict and victory that all true missionaries will understand. It reveals also the upholding that came to him through the prayer support of these faithful friends in the homeland.
Broadly speaking God seems to have restrained the hand of the Evil One; and my colleague, Mr. Flagg, thinks it a miracle that after only two or three days’ teaching, in some cases, so many of the converts have stood firm, against all the temptations they have had to face.
I cannot insist too strongly on my own helplessness among these people apart from the grace of God. Although I have been now ten years in China and have had considerable experience with both Chinese and Lisu, I find myself able to do little or nothing apart from God’s going before me d working among them. Without this I feel like a man who has his boat grounded in shallow water. Pull or push as he may, he will not be able to make his boat move more than a few inches. But let the tide come in and lift his boat off the bottom―then he will be able to move it as far as he pleases, quite easily and without friction. It is indeed necessary for me to go around among our Lisu, preaching, teaching, exhorting, rebuking, but the amount of progress made thereby depends almost entirely on the state of the Spiritual Tide in the village―a condition which you can control upon your knees as well as I. Sometimes I feel that a village is ‘grounded’ ―I do not mean in the sense of ‘rooted and grounded’ but in the sense of a boat grounded at low water! In such a case one can no more get the people together― i.e. to hold together and strengthen each other―than one could roll dry sand into a ball. They will be cold and unresponsive, and weeks or even months of teaching will not do much for them. Their ‘prayers’ are not answered as when the power of the Holy Spirit is with them. I repeat: one feels powerless to help in such cases, except to do all that is possible and then commit them to God.
Or to change the figure, the preaching of the Word of God in these Lisu villages is rather like vaccination. You insert the serum and the people are duly inoculated. But the result is different with different people and villages. In some the ‘vaccination’ is successful: the people go ahead in numbers and grow in faith. In other cases the ‘vaccination’ does not take! and the people revert to heathenism or to indifference. Does this apply to us also, on our plane and in our sphere? Have not we been inoculated by God’s all-sufficient grace through the risen Christ (Rom. 6:5-54) against sin—that deadly smallpox of the soul? And what has been the result? Has it taken―in your life? in mine?
‘It is easier to get Israel out of Egypt than to get Egypt out of Israel,’ Fraser went on in this connection: yet he could not but touch upon the brighter side which meant so much to him. For, as in the Interpreter’s house, though the enemy may pour water upon the fire to extinguish it, there is One Unseen Who continually supplies the oil of His grace to trusting hearts.
I do not want you to think I am discouraged about my Lisu work [he continued]―far from it! I want you to know the truth, that is all. Much of what I say would probably apply to many places in the mission-field from which come rosy and optimistic accounts of the work―quite rightly, for it has that side! So has mine! and I am full of hope and am really sanguine about it. I have quite a number of List’ who are honest and faithful as far as they go, and some who are especially warmhearted and earnest. They are hospitable people, generous, and comparatively guileless, Moreover, it is only right that I should say that we missionaries make our mistakes at times. We are not always wise in what we say and do. Also I am quite aware that whatever difficulties we may meet in our Lisu work, there are difficulties in all Christian service. I rather suspect you have them also at home.... It was Dr. Dale, I think, who said that we may change our difficulties in Christian work but we can never escape them. I, for one, thank God with all my heart that I am just where I am and in the work I am now in.
Some of the Lisu converts―chiefly the younger people―are just splendid. They are the ‘heres and theres’ ―the ones and twos―who will always give us most joy in our work for the Lord anywhere. A boy of eighteen who was with me for over a month last winter was of this kind—always bright and helpful. He would pray aloud every evening before going to bed and was so fond of hymns that a missionary passing through our station at that time called him ‘the singing boy’. He is a hard worker and a splendid reader and writer. Two other young men from his village accompanied me for a fortnight some time ago, carrying my loads and helping me in every way. When they went back home they refused to take a single farthing in return for their work. One man in my southern district stood firm in his village when all the rest turned back. I visited his village, in the first instance, only because of his pressing invitation. Everyone there would testify to his being a total abstainer and keeping his family also from drinking liquor. No better testimony could be given of him than that he brings up his family to be of the same spirit as he. He could have given his eldest daughter―a bright, warmhearted girl—in marriage to a fairly well-to-do family, but rather than give her to heathen people he got a much poorer young man, but a Christian, for her. It is a joy to meet that family; they all have that charm which comes from whole heartedness and absolute sincerity.
One interlude came in this year of pastoral visitation, when news reached Fraser that the beloved Pastor Ting (well known as ‘the Moody of China’) was in Yunnan with the first party of the Chinese Home Missionary Society, and that he desired to see something of the tribal situation in the west. This was an opportunity not to be missed, for Pastor Ting was a man of prayer, as well as one of the most spiritual leaders of the Church in China.
Ting Li-mei’s arrival at Tengyueh, that summer, was well timed, as far as the beauty of the scenery was concerned, though the frequent rains brought him in for a taste of discomforts to which his missionary companion was more seasoned. But Fraser found him ready to face every hardship, and the Chinese Christian who had come with him from Kunming was a Great-heart of the most practical kind. Fraser’s description of him will call to mind not a few others to whom their missionary friends have equal cause to be grateful.
Pih is simply splendid... not much of a preacher, but a quiet, unassuming man of moderate education, willing to do just anything. Always there, when there is any drudgery or hard work to be tackled, he seems to find a way out of every difficulty, making things easier for everybody. You don’t notice him much, but―like the boy’s definition of salt as ‘the thing that makes the porridge taste nasty when there isn’t any’ ―he is the kind of man who makes things difficult for you, when you haven’t got him!
Those were memorable months to Fraser as well as to his companion as they travelled together first through the Lisu country, and afterwards visiting several of the stations in western Yunnan, to hold conferences for the Chinese Christians. Ting’s appreciation of the beauty of Fraser’s mountains was no little joy to the latter, though their point of view somewhat differed as to the homes and habits of the people. Ting Li-inei had never seen such poverty and squalor, and would have fared badly as regards food, but that Fraser had brought stores with him such as he never carried for himself. But the joy of finding little Christian communities in those remote mountain hamlets more than made up for all that was involved in reaching them.
One night they were overtaken by darkness before they could reach their destination on the way to Turtle Village. ‘Dog-tired’, as Fraser put it, they were stumbling along ‘the dark and ghostly pathway’ through the woods, when they heard sounds of singing, and recognized a sweet, familiar hymn. A little further on they came to a house Fraser had never seen, and found it to be the new chapel at Water Bowl in which the Christians were gathered for evening worship, praying and singing in the dark because they could not afford oil for their tiny lamps, except on special occasions.
A Sunday spent at Turtle Village gave opportunity for Pastor Ting to speak (by interpretation) to the Christians, of whom there were over a hundred. That his heart was drawn to them was manifest, but he did ask Fraser whether he might venture to exhort them to a little more cleanliness in their persons and habits. This was done as tactfully as Fraser could wish, and to his personal enjoyment!
On the fellowship of those days we must not dwell, save to give one picture of what it meant to the often-lonely missionary to have a companion so human as well as spiritual in his outlook. After leaving Turtle Village, he took Ting and Pih up a neighboring mountain from which a wonderful view could be obtained.
The frontier of Burma was only a few miles away [he wrote] and we could see right down to the Irrawaddy Valley and Myitkyina plain. Ting had never travelled far outside his own country. But he is one of those people I try to emulate who find something interesting, something to be pleased about, just everywhere. If it is not the scenery, it is the costume of the people; if not that, it is some new plant or tree or animal never seen before, or some interesting local custom or legend.
Up on the top of this range, he hit on a very peculiar tree― the most peculiar he or I had ever seen. It actually had six deferent varieties of leaf! One, and perhaps two, were parasitic growths, but not the others as far as we could see. It was fine to see the almost childish delight with which he gathered a specimen of each kind of leaf, and put them with some berries he was already saving. So pleased was he with the new things and scenes, that he suggested that we might have prayer together and thank God for it all. So, there and then, we three had a little prayer meeting, sitting on a big rock on that great, high, cold mountain overlooking Burma.
Indeed, it was in connection with his prayer life that ring Li-mei’s company was most helpful. Very familiar became the sight of the little book drawn from his pocket at any leisure moment, to remind him of all those for whom he had undertaken to pray daily.
I was sorry to see him go [Fraser wrote after the parting]. He is a faithful intercessor. Every day, on his horse, you will see him reading by the hour from his leather-bound pocketbook, in which he had a long list of names of Chinese and foreign friends. He remembers them all before God in silent prayer.
It was at Tali that Pastor Ting left Fraser’s escort, after three months of fruitful labor together; and there Fraser welcomed the coming of one who was to mean even more as a fellow worker and friend. The real crises of life often come without observation; and that meeting between the pioneer missionary among the Lisu of western Yunnan and the new arrival who was to be in so real a sense their apostle was unmarked by anything of special significance. Fraser only saw a young recruit of whom he wrote: ‘I got to like Cooke immensely.... You can love him as a younger brother.’ And Allyn Cooke recalled his impressions, long years after, in conversation with the writer:
Fraser seemed young and strong physically. He was very sociable, for an Englishman (Cooke was from the United States). He spoke Chinese fluently, just like the people, though when occasion required he would use scholarly language. In his travelling outfit―homemade and kept for the road―he was sometimes taken for a coolie or even ‘a foreign beggar’! But he always had the dress of a teacher with him, and at his destination would soon appear, to the surprise of strangers, as ‘a perfect gentleman’.
And what a fellow traveler he was! Well do I remember his thoughtfulness and unselfish care of others. He was never in a hurry, and would stop and talk with people on the road, always ready to do a good turn. He was kind to the animals, the coolies, the innkeepers. And he was so practical! The packsaddle was too heavy; he designed another. The new chum was unused to riding on the top of the load; Fraser insisted on his using the only foreign saddle. It was always the same―he was used to local conditions, he would explain, and did not mind them.
When we reached Tengyueh, I came to know snore of his spiritual life and was much impressed by his talks from the Word. He took me to some of his prayer resorts outside the city, and I found that he fasted often, in a quiet way, before preaching. The influence of his life only deepened as time went on. Indeed, everything that I have as a missionary, I owe to Fraser.
The two had hardly reached Tengyueh before a call came from some Kachin Christians who were badly needing help. They were connected, not with Fraser, but with the American missionaries over at Namhkam in Burma; but as the latter could not speak Chinese, they had taken the long journey to find Fraser and bring him to the scene of trouble. The call appealed to him, backed as it was by urgent letters from the missionary friends he valued. For months he had been praying for some way of access to the Kachin of his own district, some definite opening among these people so much upon his heart. Could this be the beginning of the answer?
It was a stormy time that awaited Fraser with the returning messengers. The opposition of the Kachin chieftains was formidable, and some of the Christians had barricaded themselves in their houses to fight for their homes and lives. Blood had been drawn on both sides, and it was some time before Fraser could bring about a truce, so that matters could be discussed more calmly. Finally, however, prayer and patience prevailed, and he was able to negotiate a hopeful peace.
Meanwhile he had been seeking to draw out the sympathies of the Christian community and their pastor for the thousands of wild, unreached Kachin, up in his own district. He could not, himself, speak the Atsi language (a form of Kachin), but they could. Would it not be possible to send some of their number as missionaries, now that this trouble was over, to the Atsi villages of Pangwa, halfway to Tengyueh, where hundreds of Kachin were settled. A rumor had reached him that some among them wanted to hear the Gospel—but how could they, without a preacher?
The suggestion went home and, not long after Fraser had left, the Christians of the Longch’uen Valley set apart two of their number to go and test possibilities at Pangwa. They were good men, kindly and prayerful, and God used them.
Fraser, meanwhile, was on a four months’ tour of his district in other directions, leading up to the Christian festival at Turtle Village. What a wonderful time it was―the first big rally of rejoicing Christians among the mountain people! Hundreds came in from north, south and west, from the wide field watered so faithfully by Fraser’s prayers and tears. They brought their own provisions, enough for several days, and offerings as well to present to the Lord. It was a Harvest Festival and big Camp Meeting all in one, with singing and rejoicing that could be heard afar. And the biggest joy, to Fraser at any rate, was the arrival of the new contingent from Pangwa―twenty or more Atsi young people, waking up to the meaning of their newfound salvation. There they were, with the Kachin teachers from Longchuen―dirty and shabby enough, with rough unkempt hair and the timid alertness of wild creatures, yet with an eager wistfulness to enter into all that was going on and to belong to the people of the true God.
And there, in the midst of that memorable gathering came the call that was to open to Fraser new and wider fields of usefulness. How little he had expected it just then, or could realize all it was to mean! It was only a postcard from Moh Ting-chang, the pastry cook of Hsiangta; but the wayworn missive carried a message that went straight to Fraser’s heart. It came from the Lisu of that district who had not been ready, five years before, to turn from demon worship to the living saviors. But they had remembered Fraser’s promise. The spiritual tide was rising, and over the mountains, four days’ journey they now sent the plea:
‘Come back again and help us—we want to become Christians.’
And strange to say, Fraser could not go.