“What are these?”
“These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the Throne of God.”
THE long-wished-for day dawned at length, and on the morning of Friday, August 3,—just at the moment when things showed at their worst and hopes were down to zero—the welcome news came in that the road was clear of troops, and we were to be sent on forthwith. Oh, the joy of it! For this was the ninth day of our own, and the fourth of the Lu-ch’eng-P’ing-iao party’s detention here; and anything was preferable, if the will of God were so, to a continuance of conditions which were consciously sapping the springs of life.
It was, however, something more than a surprise—it was a disappointment creating the keenest distress—to find that nothing easier than barrows had been provided for our transit. It would appear that the good Lao-ie’s intention had been to give chairs for the stronger and bamboo stretchers for the weaker amongst us. But his benevolence had been frustrated by the passage of the Wu-ch’ang troops through the city, the officers having commandeered every chair and lounge, and requisitioned every professional bearer. Stretchers could be easily knocked up, but bearers not so easily. Hence it came to pass that two and no more could be placed at our disposal, and accordingly the available two were allotted to Mrs. Cooper and Mrs. Saunders. For the rest of the party, whatever the degree of prostration or pain, nothing remained but the horror of jolt and screech, joined to the hardness of a knife board.
Thankful as we were to be once more on the move and working steadily towards the goal, the memory of the Lord’s great goodness in having provided such a place of repair as the yamen temple we were just leaving, was very sensibly upon us. The kindness, too, of the Lao-ie and others on the place made us feel the going forth again to the dread uncertainties of the road more than we otherwise should have done; and it was not therefore with wholly unmixed feelings that we bade farewell to place and people It was here at Sin-yang Cheo that I felt it desirable to part with those singular tokens of God’s mercy to me—the beggar’s coat of rags, and P’ao-rï’s trousers. Being now decently habited, there was no further call to keep the garments for necessary use; and associated as they were with events too painful for the mind to dwell upon, I could not bear the sight of them. I have often regretted since that I found no way to retain them as memorials of that most marvelous time; but in any case it was out of the question, as they were hopelessly riddled with vermin, and fit only for the fire. So wrapping them reverently together, I left them in the black cellar hole attached to our own quarters, not less thankful to my God for the original permission to have them than for the present permission to have done with them.
How strange it seemed, after nine days’ seclusion, to pass out again to the bustle of the great yamen square! Here were the stretchers at the door, on bamboo frames that looked the essence of comfort with their yielding flexibility and awning overhead; and here, too, were the barrows—some six of them—cruelly naked, and only with the usual shoddy apology for p’eng. Beyond what we were able to do for ourselves, no effort was made to lighten the discomfort of the ride before us. No clean straw was obtainable, and that that had been in use during the period of detention was not fit to be carried out. Nevertheless, being put to the shift, it had to be done; and out of the legs of a discarded pair of trousers the Misses Gates and Huston succeeded in producing a highly original but eminently serviceable bolster. Of the two wadded quilts that had been given us, as already stated, I reserved one for my wife and children, wrapping it fourfold beneath them. This was all we could manage; for with the large addition to our party the little bundle of children’s clothing, that had served for cushion heretofore, had disappeared before more urgent needs. All was soon in readiness for the road. The stretchers with their invalid freight, swinging easily from the shoulders of their stalwart bearers, passed on before; to be followed in due succession by the long file of screeching wheels and dislocating boards, an armed escort of some dozen soldiers attending.
The record of that day’s journey runs on all fours with what has already been given of similar experiences, and needs not to be repeated. It was just the old conditions over again—broiling heat, broken p’eng, sorry food and surly barrowmen, with the same accompaniments as before of jolt and bang, aching limbs and anxious looking lest evil should break out in open violence. In the present circumstances, however, as compared with the former, there was an advance upon the suffering entailed by such a mode of travel; for dysentery was upon us all—myself and children as well as my wife, whose condition was now the more enfeebled by its long and unabated continuance. The excruciating pain of the thud, thud, where the barrow dropped one ruthlessly the other side of a deep rut, or ran relentlessly over a series of stone paving blocks, was too dreadful for words. My short experience of it (two days) was long enough to make me marvel how my wife had strength to endure it, under dysenteric weakness, day after day for several weeks, and without a murmur. Once only, as I sat beside her, on the last day of such agony, did I hear a deep groan escape the compressed lips, when we crashed over the more than ordinarily cruel way at the entrance to the city of Ying-shan.
Unable to cover the distance between the two cities in one day, we were compelled to take the risk of spending the night on the road, and at sunset were halted at a village called T’an-kin-he. Half the party, including ourselves, were driven into a large barrow shed: the rest, including the Saunders family, were taken to an inn higher up the street.
In the mercy of God, our arrival seemed to excite nothing beyond the ordinary curiosity. Crowds as usual hung about us; but no word indicative of active hostile feeling came from them. Covered by the escort, we were allowed to make our dispositions for the night in peace; and spreading the quilt where a convenient space admitted between the barrows, we lay down to rest.
We had not yet succeeded in getting to sleep when, about ten o’clock, the startling news was brought down from the inn that Jessie was dead! Prostrate as we knew her to have been, even to the extent of having to share her mother’s stretcher, there was nothing to call for immediate apprehension, so that the tidings came with something of a shock. The more so, that it was the first appearance of death in our midst, and solemnly suggestive, where most were sick, that it would not be the last. Moreover, there could not but arise a nameless dread in connection with such an event occurring on the road, where it might easily work on the superstitious fears of the people to our cost. The occasion, therefore, was one that called for special grace, wisdom, and prayer, for the bereaved parents first, and for the entire party.
As soon as the news was brought, I went out to look for. the inn. The night was still and the street quite quiet. An unwonted hush seemed to be on the place; and where I had thought to find much people and excitement, there was only the silent street before me. No need to ask which was the inn: I knew it by the sight that shortly met my eyes. There in the roadway opposite the door, whither (according to the superstitious custom of the people) the landlord had had the dying child carried out, lay darling little Jessie on a rush mat. The moon fell upon her upturned face, revealing its lovely features in all the calm of placid sleep, amid a tangled wealth of golden ringlets. With one arm out, she looked as though she had just thrown herself down in utter weariness, and was now at rest in a most sweet and tranquil slumber. Beautiful indeed it was to see; but oh, the pathos of it! Set in an aureole of golden hair, the pale sweet face of the child-martyr looked, in the moon’s soft light, as the face of an angel; for the scarce cold clay, though wearing still the impress of her stern discipline of sorrow, was luminously fair, as if reflecting the very radiance of the glory into which her spirit had even now entered. Beside her, supported by Miss Gates, sat the stricken mother, in calm resignation to the will of Him who was calling her for His Name’s sake to part with her eldest, as but a little while since He had asked her youngest.
It was not for me to intrude upon the sacredness of such grief, and with but one word of Christian sympathy, I withdrew. The arrangements for the funeral were, in the mercy of God, made quickly and without any such contretemps as the state of the times led one to fear. The officer in command of the escort gave most valuable assistance, and the parents had the comfort of feeling that, in spite of the urgency of the hour and the peculiarity of circumstance, everything was done decently and in order. The little grave was dug on a hill outside the village gate, and at sunrise, coffined in a box, sweet Jessie was laid to rest by her sorrowing father in the land of her short life’s affliction, “until the Day break and the shadows flee away.”
In spite of the precautions taken by the Mandarin at Sin-yang Cheo, we were not, after all, to escape the dreaded peril of encountering soldiers on the march. The news that we were likely to fall in with them ere we could reach our destination was disquieting to a degree, and led us to unite in special prayer for protection and deliverance. Our only chance of escaping them lay in the possibility of reaching Ying-shan Hsien before they did; and our escort accordingly called an early start.
The experience of that day was not an enviable one. Under the burning heat, from the power of which the flimsy p’eng but ill sufficed to shield us, we were hurried over all sorts and conditions of roads, without regard to the effect upon ourselves. It was almost as much as one’s life was worth to crave a short halt from our merciless drivers, and we could only pray for grace to possess our souls in patience. The intervals at which we were rested were longer than heretofore; but of course there was a reason for it, to the urgency of which we were fully alive—so much so indeed, that we feared to stop as much as we dreaded to go on.
As the morning advanced it became certain that we could not evade a collision with the Wu-ch’ang soldiery. According to report, the vanguard of five battalions had already passed through Ying-shan, and must by this time be in our near neighborhood; so, as we had to dismount for a hilly steep, Messrs. Saunders, Cooper and I found a convenient opportunity for committing our respective parties into the hand of God, praying as we walked.
Towards noon we were halted at a wayside booth for the mid-day “ta-chien,” and while we were discussing the meager bowl of “wet rice,” the soldiers came. Banners, flags, rifles, spears, tridents and half-moon prongs, preceded by a long string of barrows laden with arms, ammunition and accoutrements, told of their approach, and a few minutes later we were in their midst. It was a strange experience, and another notable instance of the intervention of God on our behalf. When they found who we were, a great commotion ensued, and the determination to put us to death was freely expressed. “The Imperial Army and the Loyal Boxers were one” (they said) “and under the same orders from the Throne to exterminate the foreign devils. They were on their way now to drive them into the Yellow Sea; but there was no need to wait till they got to the Capital before tasting foreign blood—they could begin here.”
As the men poured in the excitement grew, until it seemed likely to overpass the bounds of discipline. Our escort stood loyally by us; and doubtless the officers recognized that, being under official surveillance, we should be dealt with in due course according to the terms of the Edict of extermination, in which case their interference would be undesirable. Anyhow, they did their utmost to avert bloodshed. No sooner had the men swallowed their bowl of “hsi-fan” than they were formed up and marched off, with a smartness that surprised me amid what seemed to be only babel and chaos. Even so, however, they were with the greatest difficulty restrained from falling on us. One company all but mutinied, in their rage against us; and how we escaped death is known only to God, our Shield and our Deliverer. Miss Huston was roughly handled, while Miss Gates beside her was dragged from her seat by the hair. Our barrow, too, was surrounded, and a spear leveled at little Hope. I believe that, under God, a catastrophe then was only averted by the staunch attitude of a young soldier of the escort, whose calm and ready answers to the fierce suspicious questionings of his interrogators certainly turned them aside.
The most painful experience in this way was that of the two invalids, Mrs. E. J. Cooper and Mrs. Saunders. Owing to the fact that their stretchers were borne of four, it was impossible for us to keep up with them; for the bearers refused to adapt their pace to ours. Thus it happened that they were far ahead and alone when the soldier-crisis came. Not only so, but as soon as the column was sighted, the bearers set their burden down, and bolted.
The ladies were soon discovered to be “foreign devils,” and as such adjudged to death. As they lay in all the prostration of sickness, with closed eyes, fearing to look upon the cruel faces about them, they were prodded with the butt end of musket and spear, when they heard the men say, “They are not worth the killing; for they will be dead of their sickness in an hour or two;” and so found themselves presently alone and alive.
The rest of the journey to Ying-shan was marked for me by two distressful features—the cruelty of the barrowmen, and the terror that now settled upon our darling Hope.
The road became so shocking that at a certain halting place I sought the help of the escort in negotiating a chair for my wife, which I had noticed in the street on entering. The bargain was satisfactorily arranged; but when the time came to go on, the chair was not forthcoming. One by one, I watched the barrows move off, and the escort with them, until our barrow alone remained. I waited, but no chair came. I became uneasy; and the old nameless fears, springing from an acute sense of isolation, returned in force upon me. Still there was no sign of the chair, though emphatic assurances were given us continually that it “would be here directly.” At last, the vision of further detachments of the Wu-ch’ang battalions swarming in upon us and cutting off our escape led us to abandon the thought of the chair and finish as we had begun.
Our decision was met with abusive remonstrance from the barrowmen, and a deliberate refusal to take us on. It was clear they were partial, for sufficient reasons of their own, to the chair scheme; and nothing I could say would induce them to budge. At my wits’ end, I could only cry to God; for the rage of these men was promoting an ugly feeling against us in the place, and every moment was of consequence. The quiet determination not to quit our seats on the barrow told at last; and with the warning that we should have cause to rue our choice, they caught on to the handles and ran us passionately out.
Truly that last barrow ride was a fitting climax to the nineteen days we had endured of such like travel. A paved way of unusual length, formed of huge, roughhewn slabs of stone, with here and there a steep ascent up which we had to toil on foot under the searching sun blaze, was found to be our portion this time; and the malice of our drivers had full scope for play. Instead of running the barrow into the smooth of the well-worn wheel track at the side, they deliberately took us over the raw blocks, that the thud and crash of our painful progress might be its own justification of the truth of their warning. My wife bore it with a heroism that never uttered groan or murmur. It was only when the barrow halted, or when we dismounted to walk the hills, that the real effect upon her was apparent. Bent double with weakness and pain, her limbs refused to support her weight; and I had almost to lift her along, as she fell forward in her staggering gait.
As for little Hope, her nerve power seemed to be quite gone. She sobbed continuously now, and whenever the barrow stopped, even for a momentary halt, her terror knew no bounds. Piteously and imploringly she clung to me with the cry, “Go on, go on! they are coming to kill us!” and any attempt to reassure her was only met by a fresh paroxysm of screaming, stamping fright.
Thus we came at length to Ying-shan, whether for good or evil we could not tell. The anguish of that last barrow ride over the paving blocks before the gate and the cobbles on the street was “the last straw” in the long series of such journeys, and suited to the inner suffering that all came back as the city crowds swarmed once more about us. I remember distinctly the feeling of nervous strain, well-nigh insupportable, over the growth of the silent multitude that pressed right on to us; when, as we turned up the narrow street that led to the yamen, a gentleman made his way through, and placed himself beside us with the greeting, “Ping’-an!” In a moment the dreadful tension relaxed and my heart was at rest; for I recognized in the Christian salutation of “Peace!” the Spirit of the God of peace; and I knew that we were in friendly hands.
A few minutes more, and we were at the yamen gates. There, for the first time in all our experience, and naturally to our amazement, was the Mandarin himself, with other lesser officials, ready to receive us, and—still more amazing—to welcome me, as I alighted, with a cordial English handshake! With a few kindly words of pity and reassurance, he led us to the ante-room of his own private apartments, where a lounge and several easy chairs of foreign make were placed at our disposal. The gentleman whose salutation had so revived my spirit reappeared, and entered into close conversation with his Excellency—a further confirmation that things were working for our good. Light refreshments in the shape of tea and foreign biscuits were brought in, and a bottle of wine opened for my dear wife, who had swooned away from the effects of the barrow ride. Eventually, special quarters were assigned us in a small orphanage lower down the street, where we were sheltered from the curious behind a heavy gate, securely barred.
Here for six days of unspeakable weariness we endured a further detention by reason of the passage of more troops, and with it a repetition (if in somewhat milder form) of the painful conditions under which we suffered at Sin-yang Cheo. The gate admitted to a repository stored with official chairs, opening on to a small courtyard, at the farther end of which was a wing of the orphanage. In the repository lay Mrs. Saunders, Mrs. Cooper and ourselves; the two small rooms on the far side of the courtyard being occupied by the rest of the party.
It was here that we saw exemplified from day to day the living power of the Word and Spirit of Christ to change and beautify a heathen soul. The gentleman referred to above, who gave me the first gleam of comfort in the salutation of “Peace,” proved to be the evangelist in charge of the London Missionary Society’s work in Ying-shan; and a nobler instance of lowly, self-sacrificing service, after the mind and pattern of Christ, than Lo Sion-song’s ministry to us from the first hour of arrival, I have never witnessed. Having brought us to the privacy of our quarters, he “laid aside his garments,” and, to the entire neglect of his own wants, ministered to our necessities. No task was too menial for him, none too disagreeable. Patiently and tenderly, in the sympathy and compassion of his Lord, he went from one to the other, making himself least of all and servant of all, unweariedly from early morning till late at night. His record is on high and, as I rejoice to know, his reward also; for the debt under which his so great love laid us could be fully recompensed of God alone.
How to drag through the weary hours in these most dreary quarters we scarcely knew. Each day, the prospect was held out of getting away on the morrow; and when the morrow came, it was still, “Tomorrow.” The terrible straits to which we were reduced by the nature of the prevailing sickness intensified the desire to be gone; while the consciousness of ever increasing weakness robbed one of the power to bear up against the strain of hope deferred, until it seemed only too probable that even now the greater part would not reach Hankow alive. Mr. Jennings was seized with dysentery, and in Mrs. Saunders’ case the malady had reached so acute a stage that she called me for special prayer, as in a dying condition. My dear wife also appeared to be sinking.
On the afternoon of the third day (August 6), Mrs. E. J. Cooper was called to exchange the martyr’s cross for the victor’s crown. In the same beautiful patience that had signalized the whole period of her sufferings, she lay with nothing specially to indicate that the end was at hand. When her husband had prayed with her as usual in the morning, she had remarked, “I think I shall not die; for my life is yet strong in me,” and so lay quietly as before, until about two o’clock she became faint, entreating for “Air, air!” We carried her below the steps to the vestibule, open to the sky, where she continued awhile in quiet consciousness, her husband beside her. Shortly afterward, as we were standing together in silent prayer, she uttered with a clear strong emphasis the words, “Rest, rest, rest!” and with one gentle sigh was gone. It was deeply affecting to hear from the lips of my weeping brother, as he closed the eyes of his beloved dead, the chastened utterance, “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: blessed be the Name of the Lord;” and as we knelt on that most hallowed spot, I learned how possible it is “in all these things” to be “more than conquerors through Him that loved us.”
Mr. Cooper’s own words, in a letter written to his mother from Hankow, August 18, form a striking testimony to the same effect “You will have learned by cable that dear Maggie has fallen asleep in Jesus. I may as well tell you the worst first. She died at Ying-shan, about 100 miles from Hankow, on August 6, after a month’s pain and suffering for Christ.
“Billow after billow has gone over me. Home gone. not one memento of dear Maggie even, penniless, wife and child gone to glory, Edith lying very sick with diarrhea, and your son weak and exhausted to a degree, though otherwise well. I have been at the point of death more than once on the road. In one village, after a heavy stoning with brickbats, they put ropes under me and dragged me along the ground, that I might not die in the village itself.
“And now you know the worst, mother, I want to tell you that the cross of Christ, that exceeding glory of the Father’s love, has brought continual comfort to my heart, so that not one murmur has broken the peace within.
“If God spared not His own Son, all is love; but now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face.” Although wounded and suffering, Magee said to me, “If the Lord spares us, I should like to go back to Lu-ch’eng, if possible.” Devoted soul! Denied by her Master of doing the work so near to her heart, she never turned in purpose and desire to win some of the Chinese for Christ. The Lord has accepted her desire and honored her in her death for Him.
Thus Mrs. Cooper passed to her eternal rest and reward. The body was placed in a Chinese coffin the same evening, and remained with us till our departure three days later, the Mandarin having courteously arranged for its removal to Hankow for interment.
On the morning of August 10, we took a thankful farewell of our most sad abode—albeit light had arisen to us in the darkness, carrying our thought beyond the light affliction to the far more exceeding weight of glory. Chairs now took the place of barrows, and for the first time we were shown mercy in respect of the mode of travel. Lo Sien-seng accompanied us, in the resolve not to leave us until he had fulfilled his ministry in bringing us to Hankow itself.
We halted for the night at the city of Teh-ngan Fu. As the brown battlements came in sight, the vision of mob and prison rose instinctively before me, and it was no small relief to find that our course deflected to a hill outside the walls, crowned by the Examination Hall. Here we were lodged and tended, to our comfort, by a native doctor of the Wesleyan Mission.
Thence the following morning (August 11) we pursued our way to Yün-meng Hsien. The eager freshness of the early morning air, the singular beauty of the scene bathed in the glory of dawn, and the joyous sense of freedom after the long fortnight of distressful detention, revived my spirit greatly. The dysentery, too, was stayed, and strength began in measure to return.
Yün-meng was reached about three in the afternoon. Our coming had been anticipated and three rooms allotted us in the Examination Hall, whither we were carried direct without touching the yamen. No provision was made for our comfort other than that afforded by a few boards to lie on.
The excitement aroused by our arrival was as great as at any previous time in our experience, and the manifestation of it little short of alarming. Ever increasing crowds swarmed up to the gate beyond which we lay, and were forced back by the yamen guard amid deafening noise. So persistent, however, were they in the resolve to get to us that the soldiers closed the gate; whereupon it was stormed by the mob and carried, in spite of barricades.
Such was the scene—all tumult, uproar and con fusion—from which another of the martyrs of Jesus passed to heaven’s perfect peace. While waiting on my wife, Miss Huston came across to me from the room opposite and said, “Oh, Mr. Glover, will you pray for me? I feel so strangely ill.” I took her back and besought the Lord to strengthen her to the journey’s end, for His own glory—Miss Gates uniting with me in the prayer. An hour or so later, she called to me again to re-bandage the huge gaping wound in her left arm, when she appeared distraught and somewhat excited in manner. Comfortable words, however, from the Word of God’s grace revived and soothed her troubled spirit; and I returned without apprehension to my sick family. Towards evening, I was summoned once more, and for the last time, by Mr. Saunders in the words, “Miss Huston is dying; will you come?” Our sister was lying on the bare board of a trestle bed, with closed eyes and evidently unconscious, breathing stertorously. Seeing that the end could not be delayed, we commended her spirit into the hand of the Lord Jesus; and about the time of the going down of the sun, without word or struggle she finished her course. The prayer she had asked was answered in a fuller, deeper sense than we had prayed it. “For His own glory” He had “strengthened her,” not in the outward but in the inner man; and “to the journey’s end,” not of an earthly goal but of a heavenly.
Here again, as at Ying-shan, the kindness of the Mandarin made matters easy. When the event became known, the curious crowd withdrew, and the last sad dispositions were made without distraction. The request that the remains might accompany us to Hankow was readily complied with; and by dawn of the following day all was in readiness for the road.
Sunday, August 12, will forever be a memorable day to me, as introducing the last stage of the strangest and weariest of overland journeys I am perhaps ever likely to know. The goal truly was well within sight now; but one hardly dared to believe it, so chronic had the disposition become to discredit the hope that had so often been mocked. Besides, reduced as most of us were by the long stress of conflict, should we last out the three hundred and odd “li” that yet remained? Reports varied as to the distance yet to be covered. We were led to conjecture that some four days at least still remained to us; and how to endure we knew not.
More than once that day I thought my dear wife was dying. Owing to the fact that her bearers traveled faster than mine, I was unable to be with her, except when a longer halt admitted of my coming up with her chair. On one of these occasions, I was startled to find her sitting back in her seat, to all appearance dead. The shock was so great that I, found Mr. Saunders and said, “I do believe my wife is dead. Please come at once.” We moistened her lips with a little wine given by the Mandarin, at which she revived, in the mercy of God, and opened the half-closed eyes.
In sweltering heat we reached Hsiao-kan Haien, and amid thronging crowds were taken to a large temple and set down to await the Lao-ie’s pleasure. A couple of hours later, we were told to re-enter our chairs, for that we were to be taken to the premises of the London Missionary Society. The glad surprise of such tidings can scarcely be imagined; for we had no idea that the truths of Christianity were even known here, much less that the city was a center of aggressive Christian work. It seems that as soon as the news of our arrival reached them, the native Church members, on their own initiative (for all foreigners had left), went at once to the Lao-ie to beg leave to take us to the Mission quarters and care for us themselves.
Of the reception they accorded us I can never think without emotion. It was in very truth a foretaste of the love of heaven. From the oppressive noise and heat of excitable crowds, we found ourselves suddenly transplanted into a little paradise of peace and rest; for the sweetest garden, with shaded lawn and bright flowering beds, was there behind the buildings, where not a sound from the world without intruded to mar the sense of perfect quietude. Every attention was given to our wants. The sick and wounded were first carefully tended by the medical assistant in charge of the dispensary; after which we were introduced to what appeared in our eyes a veritable banquet. No such fare as was now set before us had passed our lips for many weeks. Fish, fowl, and potatoes were the staple delicacies, with preserved meat and fruit. But most acceptable of all was the milk supply. Several large biscuit tins had been converted into cans, and filled to the brim with a Nestle solution too delicious for words. I fear we must have appeared in the eyes of our benefactors much like Saul’s host when they “flew upon the spoil,” so ravenous were we in the presence of palatable food; but our rapacity seemed only to create the liveliest satisfaction, as the best evidence we could afford their benevolence of our grateful appreciation. Another sumptuous meal was provided ere we left that evening, the interval being spent in the luxury of the greensward couch, beneath the garden trees.
At nightfall, we bade farewell, in a quiet service of thanksgiving, to this Christlike band of native brethren, and were soon threading the tortuous lantern-lit streets to the riverside. To our intense relief, the remainder of the journey was to be by water; and how can I express the pure delight with which I exchanged eves the chair for the boat! I say “even”; for though the chair was bliss itself compared with cart or barrow, yet it was by no means bliss unalloyed per se: for the conveyances supplied to most of us were the rudest and commonest of their kind, my own being in so dilapidated a state that it afforded no shelter from the sun; and the narrow strip of wood misnamed “seat” having twice given way under me, the nicest (that is, painfullest) sitting was required to hold my ground at all. Up to the last we were to be kept in fear; for in the long interval before the boats cast off we were recognized, and a crowd of men and lads came down to the water’s edge in a spirit that was anything but friendly, some of them even wading in to insult us where we lay under the p’eng. Then, as the boatmen poled us out, the old dreadful yell went up of curses for the “iang kuei-tsï”; and running parallel with the boats, they pelted us till we were out of reach.
It was an altogether new and wonderful experience to feel that we were traveling, and yet with no conscious sense of it. With fervent gratitude to God we laid us down, but how to rest we found not. The heat under the low “p’eng,” as we tried to pack—five of us—into the well of the boat, was exhausting to a degree. So prostrate indeed was my wife, that I feared she could not last out the night. It was only by constant fanning, and feeding her every two or three hours with an egg beaten up with a little Chinese wine, that the vital spark was, under God, kept in.
So insufferable was the heat that about midnight I went outside for a reviving draft of air. How still it was! Not a sound save the gentle plash of the boatman’s oar, and the gurgle of the water as it parted at the prow. We had started, so far as I saw, three passenger boats in all; but now there was a fourth, silently gliding past in the moonlight with a solemn freight of holy dead; for two huge coffins were mounted on it, containing the bodies of our martyr sisters.
Thus we made our sorrowful way through the long weariness of the night and the burning heat of the next day, shadowed to the last by the presence of death. My dear wife herself lay as if dying, and our little son was prostrate with what proved to be the beginning of an all but fatal illness.
The sun was westering, when the boats drew toward the large “ma-t’eo” that was to prove the haven where we would be. I certainly was not prepared for the news that Hankow was before us, until we threaded the maze of river craft, and stayed. Could it be possible that the impossible was actually realized? Had God done the mighty work of bringing us up from the gates of death, and of turning our thousand miles of peril into His thousand miles of miracle? We had to confess it, for the fact was there; and with hearts bowed in adoration, we gave thanks to Him that liveth forever and ever, the only wise God, our Saviour.
One last test of suffering still awaited us. Owing to the dilatoriness of the Tao-t’ai, we were not taken off the boat till the next day; and what it meant to us, in our dire extremity, to have to pass another night of unrelieved misery, when life itself (for some of us at least) hung in the balance, I can never tell. How longingly we watched and watched for the chairs that never came!—until, in the recognition that our heavenly Father knew, we yielded our hearts to be kept in the patience of Christ, and wished for the day. But I never think of that last night without suffering; for I scarcely dared to hope that either my wife or little son would live to leave the boat.
The long, long darkness passed to the dawn when the shadow of death was to be turned into the morning; and in due course the chairs appeared. The emotions of that hour were too deep for tears. We stood to receive the dear friends who came to our succor as in a dream, scarcely knowing whether we were in the body or out of the body. Mr. Lewis Jones, of the China Inland Mission, accompanied by Dr. Gillison (London Missionary Society) and Dr. Hall; (Methodist Episcopal) rendered us the most loving and sympathetic service. Baskets full of foods, medicines and cordials were brought, and the sick immediately tended and prescribed for. In much trepidation by reason of his delinquency the Tao-t’ai himself came down to receive us, and to forward the business in hand, until the last chair had disappeared for the last ten of our long three thousand “li.”
It is not too much to say that something of a sensation was created in Hankow by the news that a party of Shansi refugees had arrived. The common belief, founded upon a reliable report, was that, while a certain number had succeeded in escaping out of the Province, yet none had lived to cross the Yellow River: all had been slaughtered at the fords. When the veteran missionary, Dr. Griffith John, saw us, he exclaimed, “Do my eyes deceive me? Am I looking upon men, or spirits? Truly I see you as the dead raised to life again; for we had long since abandoned all thought of ever seeing you alive.”
On reaching the Home of the China Inland Mission, I realized, to an extent I had not before, how severe had been the strain imposed by ten weeks of daily dying. The consciousness that we were really safe at last and among our own people brought an experience altogether unique. There was one definite moment when my heart was suddenly lightened of a mighty load, which rolled from off me as distinctly as if a literal weight had been loosed from my back. The strangeness of the feeling I can neither describe nor forget; but it was a revelation to myself of the burden under which my spirit had been bowed, and of the real heaviness of the yoke to which it had long become accustomed.
Together with this experience came another not less noteworthy. The atmosphere of peace and love into which we were now introduced, as compared with that of habitual riot and murderous hate, formed a contrast to which no words can give expression. It was the nearest thing to heaven I have ever known, in the comfortable sense of rest, of the environment of love, and of the wiping away of tears.
I do not at all know how to speak of the loving kindnesses and tender mercies with which God crowned us at the hands of the many dear friends who now ministered to our necessities. Every conceivable attention was shown us, not only by the missionary brotherhood, but by the European community generally. Our Consul, Mr. Fraser, and the acting American Consul, Mr. F. Brown (a dear personal friend of my own) were foremost in the practical expression of their sympathy; while from Dr. Griffith John, the patriarch of foreign Missions in Hankow, we received the tenderest welcome in the Lord.
The day following we took farewell of our beloved brother and benefactor, Lo Sien-seng, who, having discharged his gracious ministry to us, was now returning to the work at Ying-shan. A small subscription from amongst ourselves was handed him by Mr. Saunders, in token of our love, esteem and gratitude; and, commended to God and to the Word of His grace, he departed, in the same lowly, unassuming spirit, as counting his services not worthy even of mention.
The critical condition of the greater number of our party taxed the strength of the small medical and nursing staff to the utmost. Doctors Gillison and Hall worked strenuously in the great heat, never taking their clothes off for days together; while the nurses (the two Misses Fleming, and the two Misses Smith of Kuei-k’i, in Kiang-si Province) toiled unremittingly in day and night shifts, both in the children’s ward and with the adults. Miss Gates was the only one who, after a few days’ rest, was pronounced fit to go on to Shanghai; but no sooner had she started than she succumbed to a terrible reaction, and for several weeks was laid aside with critical nervous prostration.
On the afternoon of the day we arrived (August 14) the bodies of our sisters, Mrs. E. J. Cooper and Miss Huston, were laid to rest in the Cemetery, when the solemn service was most impressively conducted by Dr. Griffith John, in the presence of a large and representative following from the Settlement. Though scarcely able to walk, Mr. Cooper was strengthened to attend and to discharge, as chief mourner, the last offices of Christian faith and love. Yet even now his cup of sorrow was not full; for, a week later, he was to pass that way again, in the calling of his infant Brainerd to join the martyr host.
In the early morning hours of the fourth day after our arrival (August 18), my wife gave birth to a living child. So narrowly did she escape the sorrows of delivery under flight; and so graciously did the mercy of God provide that, instead of the hardship of a prison at such a time, she should enjoy the comforts of a home. The fact that the little one breathed was regarded by the doctors as no less a miracle than that the mother should have lived to bring her into the world. Doctors Gillison and Parry did not hesitate to pronounce it the most extraordinary case of physical endurance they had ever known or heard of, and affirmed that, antecedently, they could never have believed it possible that a woman with child could have survived such sufferings, and her offspring with her. Deeply sensible that it was “by the power of God” alone that either were “kept” to the end, we gave our little daughter to the Lord under the name of “Faith,” whereby to enshrine the memory of His great goodness, and to give Him the honor due to His Name.
With the burden of suffering now rolled off, but in extreme prostration, my dear wife gave herself up to the quiet content of the hour, thankfully resting in the careful love and tenderness with which God’s mercy had here surrounded her. Through the skill and extraordinary attention of Dr. Parry (SI-ch’uan Province) she slowly rallied, until the hope of ultimate recovery became well-nigh assured.
Meantime, Hedley was lying at the point of death with sun-fever. For several days his life was despaired of, and it seemed probable that his mother would never see him again. The trial to her of being shut off by necessity from ministering to him in his extremity was very keen; but it was borne with the same gentle fortitude that had characterized her all through, and the same submissive committal of her boy into the hand of God. When the crisis was over, and the dear child on the way to convalescence, it was seen that he was reduced to a mere skeleton. Little Hope, too, had passed through a critical illness. “Oh, shall I ever forget when we got here!” her mother wrote; “she had fever, and could do nothing but scream, frightened of everything.” But the love of God spared us the deep sorrow of losing either; and in their full recovery we could not but recognize another act of His wonder-working power.
With the rallying of my wife, the progress of my two elder children, and the satisfactory condition of the newborn infant, my heart was greatly comforted and lifted up. But about the sixth day, the babe turned from its food, and in spite of every attempt refused to be coaxed either to the bottle or the breast. For a while she lingered thus, and on August 28—ten days after birth—breathed out her little life into the hands of the Saviour for Whose sake it was laid down.
The funeral service was conducted the next day by Dr. Griffith John in the garden, under the open window of my dear wife’s room. She chose the hymn herself, beginning, “Hark, hark the song the ransomed sing,” with the refrain—a favorite theme of hers
Glory to Him Who loved us,
And washed us in His blood
Who cleansed our souls from guilt and sin
By that pure, living flood.
The tiny coffin was afterward carried to the river by two dear brethren of our Mission, Mr. Bruce (of Hunan) and Mr. Mil (of Shen-si), and we took it by boat to the Cemetery, where I left my darling baby sleeping beside the other martyrs of our band, “till He come.”
The spirit of my dear wife’s resignation to the will of God in the removal of a cherished hope was beautiful to witness. With her eyes ever Godward, she dwelt, not upon her own loss but upon her precious child’s gain; and though on my return I knew she had been weeping, yet her countenance was lighted with a heavenly smile as she said, “My sorrow in her loss is eclipsed by the joy that my lamb is beyond all suffering now in her Saviour’s bosom.” In a letter written a few days later, I find her expressing herself thus pathetically, with something of a prophetic reference to her own end: “To me, our little Faith’s entrance into life was wonderful. It seemed an earnest of my entrance in—as He had received her, so He would me; and I could only rejoice, and do still. She is in His arms, and her blessedness is so great, who could want her back Dear Mrs. Cooper and her little one of two years, dear Miss Huston, and little Faith, all lie here together till the resurrection morning.”
A fortnight later, her progress and that of the children was so far satisfactory that Dr. Parry saw no difficulty in our accompanying him to Shanghai, whither he had been called professionally. Accordingly, on Tuesday, September 11, we took farewell of the place that had been to us “none other than the house of God and the gate of heaven.” No tenderer memories could circle round any spot on earth for us than those that centered in Hankow; as my dear one afterward said to me, when recalling the blessings with which God blessed us there, “I can never think of it in any other light than that of home. For there He gave us our little Faith; and there, too, has He not given us ‘a possession of a burying place’?”
We traveled to Shanghai in the greatest comfort, a first class passage having been secured for us by the loving self-denial of two dear fellow-workers in Shansi, Mr. and Mrs. Dugald Lawson of Yü-wu, who (with others) were on the quay to greet us on our arrival the following Friday morning. A short drive brought us to the China Inland Mission Home, where a most affectionate welcome awaited us from Mr. and Mrs. Hoste, Mr. Stevenson, Bishop Cassels, Mr. Alexander Grant, Mr. Montagu Beauchamp, the Rev. F. A. Steven, and many other beloved and honored friends.
Shanghai at this time was full of missionaries of every denomination, gathered from every part of China, large numbers of whom, unknown to us in the flesh, took the opportunity of expressing a sympathy as generous as it was practical. Gifts of clothing and money came in freely, until our need was more than supplied. But above all, prayer was made by them without ceasing for our restoration. My dear wife’s case excited peculiar interest and called forth much intercession, special meetings being convened, as the graver symptoms developed, to plead with God in her behalf. For the first few days, her progress was well maintained, and she was allowed to see the children and a few of her more intimate friends. On September 19, however, a serious relapse took place. Peritonitis set in, and, on the 22nd, the conviction was borne in upon me while reading the evening portion in “Daily Light” that she would not be given back to me.
Through five more weeks of suffering, she continued to bear witness to the sufficient grace of God, in a most calm and gentle patience that spoke Christ to those about her. Two texts were ever before her eyes—one, on the wall, “Certainly I will be with thee;” the other, pinned to the screen beside her, “In Whom we have redemption, through His blood.” Upon these “true sayings of God” her soul was stayed, and by them strengthened to endure, in the weariness of utter weakness, the sharpness of protracted pain, or the onslaught of the more dreadful and more dreaded Tempter.
The living power of the Word of God over her, to revive, refresh and subdue, was remarkable. There was always an instantaneous response to it, as to the Voice of “Him that speaketh from heaven.” On one occasion of delirious distress, the single word, whispered in her ear, “They overcame by the blood of the Lamb,” recovered her to instant peace and joy. On another, when she was casting about for the reason why God withheld healing from her after so much importunate prayer, her soul found immediate rest and comfort in the answer, “It is written that the God of hope will ‘fill us with all joy and peace,’ not in understanding, but ‘in believing’” (Rom. 15:1313Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost. (Romans 15:13)).
As it had been a peculiar refreshment to her to receive the visits of her beloved sisters of “The Christians’ Mission,” Ningpo, so was it a peculiar trial when those visits were withdrawn. But the Divine wisdom and love were never questioned. Her faith only made it the occasion for a fresh subjecting of her own desires to the ruling of the Spirit, and her soul for a more realized hanging upon God. Tenderly her Shepherd fed her; for He was with her; His rod and His staff they comforted her. She spoke but little, lying for the most part in the silence of enduring weakness; but when she did, it was only to evidence the grace of God that was keeping her mind stayed on Him, and in glad submission to His will, whether for life or death. The hope that she would be raised up in answer to prayer, to testify to the delivering mercy of God, was strong in her; yet as the knowledge was borne in that it was by death rather than life that she was now to glorify Him, she yielded herself into His hand unreservedly, in the prayer, “Let Thy will, Father, be done perfectly in me, that Thy Name may be glorified.” From that time, she ceased to pray the definite request, as aforetime, that she might live and not die. “I have no prayer given me,” she would say, “except that all His will may be done in me.”
To the prayerful attention and assiduous devotion of her doctor (Dr. F. Judd) and also of her nurses (Mrs. F. A. Steven, Miss Batty, Miss Lucy C. Smith, and Miss Carmichael) the prolongation of her life was undoubtedly due. Their loving sympathy and tender solicitude touched her deeply, and frequently called forth the fervent gratitude of her heart in thanksgiving to God.
As she was able to bear it, I would read and pray with her, when her soul would magnify the Lord and her spirit rejoice in God her Saviour. Not infrequently she would offer prayer herself—prayer that brought one sensibly into the Holiest of all, and before the very Face of God. It was a source of distress to her when, through excessive weakness, the mind was no longer able to fix itself definitely upon the things of God, or the memory to retain the Word of God. Her rest in Christ was, however, deep and unbroken in spite of it. In her own words: “It is a trial deeper than I can express to find that I cannot remember any passages of Scripture, that I cannot think, that at times I cannot even pray. I only know this, that I have been redeemed with the precious blood of Christ—that is all.” To which I replied, “Yes, darling, that is all, and all is in that. It is everything, and it is enough. He needs no more, neither do you.” And the answering look of satisfaction testified that it was indeed enough.
The last day (October 24) was marked by much spiritual conflict. At intervals she would exclaim, “Is not the Lord of life standing in the midst?” “Help, help! O Lord, help me!” “Where is it written, ‘I will uphold thee with the right hand of My righteousness!’” “Pray, pray, pray” Then the words would come with earnest emphasis:
Peace, perfect peace, in this dark world of sin
The blood of Jesus whispers peace within.
and then, with a note of triumph, the hymn-refrain;
Glory, glory to the Lamb
Who was slain on Mount Calvary!
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Amen.
Towards evening, she drew me down to give me what were evidently meant to be her last messages; but I was only able to catch clearly so much as this: “I want all to know He has given me perfect peace, and has shown me how fully His grace is sufficient.”
For some time after that, she lay in apparent unconsciousness, when, as I repeated the hymn:
she suddenly took it up in a strong clear voice, at the words;
Leave, ah! leave me not alone,
Still support and comfort me.
At 10 p.m. I read the evening portion in “Daily Light” and prayed with her, as usual. She herself followed on in a most fervent and beautiful prayer; after which she begged me, with her customary thought. fullness, to retire to the rest so needful to me. There was nothing specially to arouse apprehension; and to spare her anxiety on my account, I consented.
About 3.45 a.m. (October 25) I was roused by Nurse Carmichael and told to come instantly. Dear Hadley beside me was already awake, and singing quietly to himself; and the burden of his song was this –
O that will be joyful,
When we meet to part no more.
My beloved was lying in apparent unconsciousness, her left hand under her cheek in the accustomed attitude of sleep, and evidently free from pain. Taking her right hand, I gently breathed a few comfortable scriptures into her ear; but she gave no sign that she had heard. So, seeing that the moments were but few now, I knelt to commend her spirit into the hand of the Lord Jesus; and as I ceased, with no other movement than of one deeper breath, at 4 a.m. she was “with Christ.”
The last verse she heard consciously and followed fervently in our reading six hours before, was this: “O God, Thou art my God; early will I seek Thee; my soul thirsteth for Thee, my flesh longeth for Thee in a dry and thirsty land where no water is.” And over all the unspeakable sorrow was the heavenly consolation that the deepest longings of her soul were satisfied now; for God Himself was with her, her God and had wiped away all tears from her eyes.
~~~
The next day, October 26, I laid her to rest in the Old Cemetery. The precious dust was committed to the grave by our dear friend Bishop Cassels, after a most solemn preliminary service in the Hall of the China Inland Mission, where he spoke to a large audience from the words, “Father, the hour is come.” Affectionate tributes were also paid to her memory by Mr. Dugald Lawson, who had been closely connected with us in our station work, and by Doctors Parry and Judd, to whose devoted services she owed so much. At the Cemetery itself was assembled the largest company (it was said) that had ever gathered there, the deep sympathy felt making itself apparent in the visible emotion of many. The sun went down as the coffin was lowered, and, amid the fast falling shadows, the hymn was raised—the very one with which she had been wont to sing her own children to sleep;Sun of my soul, Thou Saviour clear I It is not night if Thou be near.
The darkness that hung about the grave of my beloved Flora, as I left her sleeping there, was but the darkness of an hour; “for yet a little while—how little! how little!—and He that shall come will come, and will not tarry.” The knowledge of her present felicity “with Him,” “in Whose Presence is fullness of joy,” and the certainty of “that blessed hope” in the near future of together being “forever with the Lord,” brought the light of the resurrection glory of God in Christ into the place of the darkness of death, and turned my sorrow into joy, through Him that loved us.
My precious wife had not lived her short life of eight and twenty years in vain. Of none could it be said more truly than of her that she “overcame by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of her testimony, and she loved not her life unto the death.” Whether she lived, she lived unto the Lord; and whether she died, she died unto the Lord: and to her was given the signal honor of being counted worthy of a place among the martyrs of Jesus, as the last of the “noble army” of 1900 to pass from the cross to the crown.
“What shall we then say to these things?” Let the following words suffice for answer, from the last letter but one my wife was permitted to write: C.I.M., Hankow, Sept. 10, 1900. My OWN DARLING FATHER, MOTHER, AND SISTER, I feel today I can send you a little word. It seems difficult to write, not only because of bodily weakness, but also there is so much, and words can never express all that is in one’s heart. It is truly wonderful that we are here today, the living to praise God. I am sure your hearts with ours are bowed in deep praise and gratitude to God for His marvelous loving kindnesses to us so unworthy, in answer to the much prayer of His children. So few as yet have escaped from that dark, dark Province of Shansi]; and again and again the question comes to me, why are we here in safety and comfort, and many are still suffering and have died there! And then, too, darling parents, His wonderful love to us on the road, keeping us from being beaten or stoned, and we look at our loved friends from Lu-oh’eng and P’ing-iao beaten, stoned; and dear Miss Rice and Miss Huston more than this. I cannot write of it now, and it is better to dwell on the glory side. Their blessedness is great, “of whom the world was not worthy”; and I love to think of my sweet baby Faith with these His honored servants and dear Mrs. Cooper.... My heart is daily praising God for the blessed experience He has given us, “partakers of the sufferings of Christ”; destitute and forsaken—it seemed almost as if by God; and yet He proved to our fainting hearts that He was for us. Oh, it is all praise.... The suffering on the road is forgotten now. It seemed as if I must die. I think a few days more would have been enough... The Lord will guide about our homegoing, and prepare us and you for His will. We cannot say yet what the Mission will decide, and then my heart longs to return to Lu-an as soon as possible. Yet we will wait the Lord’s decision. Fondest love, my darling parents and Katie, from Your very loving FLORA.
What then did she say to these things?
“It is better to dwell on the glory side.”
“My heart is daily praising God for the blessed experience He has given us. Oh, it is all praise.”
“My heart longs to return to Lu-an as soon as possible.”
Who would not wish to possess the secret of the Lord as this devoted servant of Jesus Christ possessed it?
(1) the power that lifts the soul above all suffering and death to “the glory side,” “only seeing glory when face to face with death”; (2) the grace that gives, under peculiar trial, “the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness”; and (3) the love that is ready only and always “to bless them that curse us, to do good to them that hate us, and to pray for them which despitefully use us and persecute us,”—only and always to “spend and to be spent” for the Son of God, “Who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
Dear reader, suffer one word as I bid you farewell. Do you possess this secret? It may be yours even as it was hers; for “He died for all that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto Him which died for them and rose again.” Delivered by His death from my own self-life, I am set free to live “the life that is life indeed”; for then “Christ liveth in me,” and from my heart I rejoice to say, “Henceforth to me to live is Christ. And Thou art worthy; for Thou west slain and halt redeemed me to God by Thy blood.”