THERE ARE FEW MEN who "buy up opportunities" (Eph. 5: Literal Translation) like Mr. G., and few men who are so diligent and tactful in tract distribution. I had tried for years to get access to the large Shanghai Boys' School with tracts, but always without success. Now Mr. G. found a real welcome there. This was largely through the good testimony left behind by two Christian boys who had passed through the school, and it may be a great encouragement to any young readers who are seeking to live for Christ in your school or university. I think it was about the same time Mr. G. met a very disreputable looking British soldier who had deserted some days before, and now was about at the end of his tether. Mr. G. brought him home, cleaned him up and fed him. He then got a taxi and took him right out to the barracks, personally saw his commanding officer, and pleaded for mercy for his new friend. This began to open the door for work amongst the soldiers, and it was not long before Mr. G. had the entry of every British barracks in Shanghai. He nearly drove us to desperation to provide him with sufficient English Gospel tracts, and in sufficient variety, to keep him going week after week in the various barracks. This drove us to begin the weekly Gospel sheet known as "The Trumpeter".
Mr. G. had once worked in the Navy Yards in England. Indeed he had given up a good job there and a pension and a dear little home and a lovely garden, to come out into the work of the Lord. This previous training stood him in good stead with the service men, and he seemed to know just how to take them. Perhaps even more the secret was that he loved them, and how he loved to spend and be spent for them. Each week he would go through every barrack and leave a copy of "The Trumpeter" on every bed. Many a talk he had with the men, and always left a warm invitation to the English Gospel meeting, and to supper at our house afterward.
Often our little hall would be filled, and sometimes we would have twenty or more boys and men from the Seaforth Highlanders, East Surrey's, or Army Service Corps out for supper. Mr. G. would go down to the barracks and hunt them out and bring them up to the meeting in taxis. It was quite a job for my wife to provide enough food for all, for she did all the cooking herself, but she never lacked. She used to keep large fruit jars filled with stewed fruit of one kind and another. The pleasure of the men to get into a real home, with the children there, and a table-cloth on the table and real home cooking, was more than a recompense for the labor. I wish you could have seen them eat, especially the Seaforth Highlander "boys". It was in strawberry season they excelled. We had great Chinese bowls filled with stewed strawberries (for one can eat nothing raw in China), and as quickly as one great bowl was emptied, another two-quart-jar of berries was poured into it again. I have often had the pleasure of giving four or five large helpings to some of those boys on a Sunday evening. And then in the winter we would have a good grate fire, or probably two, for we had a huge living room with two fireplaces in it, just what we needed for all these men; and they would sit around the fire, with my wife at the piano, and sing. Each would have his own favorite hymn, and those particular hymns to this day still conjure up in our minds some special face and voice that had grown very dear to us.
I must not pass over the kindness of the Drum-Major of the Seaforth Highlanders. He was in charge of "the boys", who were mostly in the band, and he always did his utmost to get them out to the meetings; nor may I forget the kindness of the Chaplain of that same regiment, for he also did all in his power to help in our work amongst the men. One New Year's he asked us if we could take all the boys out to our house to stay over the holidays, as there are some wild scenes in the barracks at that time of year. There were, I think, eleven "boys", that is those under seventeen and a half. A corporal was to come with them and keep them in order. We of course, gladly agreed to take them; and put glass windows in an open upstairs verandah, for we had nowhere else to put them. We cleared out a room for dressing, and got twelve beds ready; we put up a stove and had everything quite cozy for them. They arrived in due course, but within ten minutes the corporal disappeared and was not seen again. I do not know what we would have done without dear Sgt. M. of the Royal Army Service Corps, who had found the Lord some months before and was always a very great help in the work; and Ginger McK. of the Seaforths. They were also spending the holidays with us, and when our boys disappeared, they hunted the city till they found them and brought them home again. I had better not try to describe their labors, but we simply could not have managed without them. My wife still thinks those were the wildest days she ever spent in her life.
Another to whom we owed an unspeakable debt was Captain R. of the East Surrey Regiment. It was through his help and kindness and courage that the door into that regiment was kept open. Capt. R. (afterward Major R.) was a true English gentleman, and an earnest, consistent Christian. His older brother was at that time the only British doctor in missionary work in Burma. He was laboring with The Bible Churchman's Missionary Society, a dear, devoted servant of God.
Mr. and Mrs. G. left Shanghai to go on furlough, and he asked me to continue the work amongst the soldiers. Some had been brought to the Lord, and they helped. How thankful we were later, when these very men were amongst the first to try and stem the tide of the Japanese in Singapore and Malaya, that the Lord had given us this open door amongst them. I wonder how many we will meet above? Major R., promoted to Lieut.-Col., was in command for the British of more than one Japanese Internment Camp, and bore a noble testimony. He laid down his life in one of these camps. The Japanese Commandant remarked of him, that in happier times, he would have been proud to have called him his friend.
The first of that group of Christian soldiers to leave us was Malcolm R. He came from the Island of Orkney, and was a piper in the Seaforths. Most of the men in the Seaforth Highlanders came from the Highlands of Scotland, and found Shanghai a dreary place. They were homesick for their rocks and crags and woods. The East Surrey Regiment, on the other hand, who mostly came from London, felt quite at home. Malcolm had found the Lord at the meetings, and it had been lovely to see him grow in the things of God. He was very tall and well built, and gentle as a little child. We all just loved him. He used to tell us of his home and his mother, and how he longed to see her. His leave was long overdue, but at last was granted. The night before he sailed he brought his pipes out and played them for us at the house, and gave the children a lesson. He promised to send us one of his mother's own cheeses as soon as he got home. Alas, war broke out while he was on the ocean, and we had a note saying his home leave had been cut to a few days; he had tried to send the cheese, but no food was allowed out of England. He was just leaving for France, and I suppose he was amongst that heroic little group who held the gates of Calais and Dunkirk. We look to meet him again "in that day".
While Mr. G. was laboring amongst the English-speaking men and boys of Shanghai, our brother, Mr. C., was equally diligent amongst his own people. It was against the law to preach on the streets, but Mr. C. provided himself with a megaphone, and used to walk the streets shouting verses of Scripture, giving out tracts, having conversations, and getting into homes. He had Chinese Gospel meetings in the room, as well as a Chinese Sunday School, and I need hardly say had it well filled. The war had been going on for almost two years, and refugees had poured into Shanghai. Great mat-shed camps had been built holding thousands of these poor destitute victims. Mr. C. diligently visited these and preached the Gospel to them. Dear Mr. F. and Mr. T., who have been such a comfort to us through all these dark years, were the fruit of that time of labor. They were old friends, and it was a great joy when they accepted the Lord, and took their places at the Lord's Table.
Although many refugees flocked to Shanghai, far more turned westwards, and fled before the approaching Japanese armies to "Free China". In this way the province of Yunnan in the far south-west, and Kweichow and Szechuen further to the north, had a vast influx of Chinese from every part of the "occupied area". The peculiar opportunities thus presented in the west of China stirred Mr. C.'s heart, and after much prayer and waiting upon the Lord, he felt definitely that the Lord was calling him to that work. The difficulty was that his mother's body was awaiting burial. On account of the Japanese occupation of the city of Shanghai, no bodies were allowed to be taken outside the city for burial, and the dead were kept in great warehouses, piled high with coffins. Mr. C. could not bear to go away and leave his mother's body unburied. I had known her, and a dear old saint she was, so I could enter keenly into our brother's exercises. The Scripture, "let the dead bury their dead, but go thou and preach the kingdom of God", decided Mr. C., and he left Shanghai for the far west with his dear wife and a lovely boy and girl. He left us with the warmest love and fellowship of his brethren, and his mother's body still unburied.
Mr. C. took with him a large stock of books, tracts, posters and such like Christian literature, intending to offer them for sale in the west, where it was now impossible to send by mail. Mr. and Mrs. Collier happened to be in Hongkong as Mr. C. and his family passed through, and they had a most happy time together. Mr. C. went by railway from Indo-China to Kunming, the capital of Yunnan. He settled here and found plenty of opportunity for the Gospel, as well as plenty of danger from air raids. His little son showed me bits of a shell that narrowly escaped killing the whole family.
But the war-clouds were ever growing darker at Shanghai, and it was only too evident we might easily lose everything there. Singapore seemed the best place for a further stand, and I talked it over with Major R. He strongly advised opening there. I wrote a friend, a Christian officer in the Navy, and he gave the same advice, but added, "Do it now." So it came about that without either funds or workers to take over, we packed case after case with literature to send to Singapore. Mr. Collier was still in Hongkong, so I cabled him to see if he would go down and get us started. He kindly agreed, and I sent our chief helper, Mr. H., to help in the work. The Lord prospered their labors, and provided them with a suitable little shop, with a nice flat above at C Short St. After the work was running, Mr. Collier and Mr. H. returned, and Miss Hayman and Miss Hayhoe kindly took it over, and carried on most efficiently.
In order to get the cases packed for Singapore, we had taken on an extra man for a few weeks. We had not intended to keep him, but he made himself so valuable that we could not part with him, and it was not long before we put him in charge of the Avenue Road shop. He was a Christian; brought up in an orphanage at Chinkiang, and later had passed through a missionary college in Kiukiang. He spoke English quite well, and proved himself to be one on whom we could depend. He was married and had several children, most of whom were still in the orphanage at Chinkiang, but later joined their parents in Shanghai.
In the meanwhile difficulties were increasing in Shanghai. The stress due to the vast numbers of refugees had forced rents to almost incredible figures, and the opportunity to make money caused our landlord at Jessfield Road to seize a large portion of our property there. He took our meeting room, a lot of our storage and printing shop and all our type room, without reducing our rent or giving any compensation. He did this with only a month's notice, putting us in an almost impossible situation, and I realized the next step would be to turn us out entirely. The landlord of the house where we had lived for a good many years, was a good Christian friend, a sea captain. He said to me: "Why don't you build yourselves a godown on my property?" (A "godown" is the word commonly used in the east for a "warehouse"). It was a great venture, but in a remarkable way the Lord provided the funds, and we started on the building. Then the Japanese interfered and held up the work for six months.
When at last we got the needed Japanese permit for the warehouse building, I had to leave the next day on a long trip to west China, but our sons took charge, doing much of it with their own hands. It was completed none too soon, as before even the roof was finished, our landlord at Jessfield Road turned us out of the entire property, and we had nowhere to go. When I got back from my trip a few months later, everything was complete and in order.
All this time Miss Dear, whom I have hardly mentioned, had been quietly bearing the burden of the regular Book Room work. She alone, with a little Chinese help, took entire charge of the shop at Yuen Ming Yuen Road. She kept all the accounts, she handled all the correspondence except personal letters, though my wife for years had taken care of all the letter filing. No words can tell what her many years of quiet, efficient, unselfish labor in the Book Room has meant to that work; and she has been a daughter to us in our own home. What an unspeakable joy and comfort she has been to my wife; always ready to help in anything that was to be done; always cheerful and contented; one of God's best gifts to us, and to His work in the Book Room. May God be with and bless her dear ones "for the loan which is lent to the Lord.”