MR. C. KEPT WRITING begging for more stock, which we just could not send him. There was now only one route open to Inland China, and that was through Rangoon, Burma, up the railway to Lashio, and then over the famous Burma Road to Kunming. The railway over which Mr. C. had traveled, had long since been seized by the Japanese. We must use the Burma Road or not go at all, and probably now or never. The Chinese workers in the Book Room, who all took a keen interest in the work, thought we ought to send the supplies asked for; and one or two volunteered to make the trip. Going over the Burma Road at that time, while it was constantly being bombed, was not very healthy; and also the difficulties of passing through Burma were very great, and besides we had no money. However, we had so often seen the difficulties melt away as we reached them, that once more we started packing cases, this time for Kunming. The work amongst the soldiers had just come to an end, as they had been moved to Singapore, or Penang, and with the good helpers we had, it seemed best that I should be the one to go. We had about two tons of literature for Mr. C., besides some to drop off at Singapore. I got the last berth on a little British-India ship bound for Calcutta via Rangoon. Almost the last remnants of the British forces in Shanghai were on board, nearly all old friends, and we had some very happy evenings together with a dear old saint returning to India for one more visit to her old field of labor.
We had a couple of days in Singapore, and at last reached Rangoon, the capital and main city of Burma, situated at the mouth of the Irawadi, that great river which flows south throughout the greater part of the country, and is somewhat to Burma as the Nile to Egypt. Perhaps a few words as to Burma might help to give our readers a better understanding and sympathy with that great land. Its southern borders are on the Indian Ocean, its northern borders are amidst the wild mountains of south-western China. From the plains along its great river, the country stretches away into the vast hills of east and west Burma, largely covered even to this day by untold stretches of jungle. To the hills and valleys and jungles of this land, and of that portion of China to the north of it, the aboriginal tribes people of not only this country, but of other countries, gradually retreated; and here in these wild fastnesses, such as the valley of the Selwyn, and other great rivers, these people finally found a refuge to which their enemies were either unable or unwilling to follow them. And so we find in Burma today representatives of multitudes of peoples, nations and languages. As nearly as I can recall, the official census of the year in which I passed through Burma showed more than one hundred and thirty different languages, as native to Burma, besides those that had come in from outside lands, such as Chinese, English and the languages of India. And in south-western China other tribes may be found, speaking still other languages. The difficulties for the work of the Gospel in these parts can hardly be described; and yet it is amongst just these tribes people, in China at least, that the Gospel has won such glorious victories in recent years. We need to remember that our God is the GOD of Impossibilities: with HIM "all things are possible.”
My books and I landed at Rangoon. I took up lodgings at the Missionary Home, a comfortable house in beautiful grounds, conducted by a large mission in this country. And then started the labor of getting the books through customs. It required three solid weeks of hard work to release those few cases to pass through Burma to the borders of China. An American missionary doctor was trying at the same time to get some medicine and medical supplies through customs, also for use in China. When I returned to Rangoon some six weeks later, he was rejoicing that at last this feat had been accomplished, and he was free to get on with his journey. Much grace is needed, and more patience than most of us possess, for such seasons.
And yet I do thank God for those three weeks in Rangoon. It was just at the Centennial of the Burmese Bible, translated a hundred years before by that noble soldier of Jesus Christ, Dr. Adoniram Judson. A great celebration was held in Rangoon, and missionaries from various parts of the country came to take part. This gave me a view of missionary work in that land that I might not otherwise have seen. And what a view it was! For nearly twenty years we had been seeking in China to earnestly contend for the faith, in the face of the insolence of infidelity and "modernism"; but never had I seen this work of the devil come out so boldly and so plainly, as it boasted itself in Burma. It surely was "another gospel" and richly merited the double curse of the first chapter of Galatians. One of the leading missionaries remarked during those three weeks: "All this translating the Bible for the heathen is a great mistake; far better translate—'s books!" (naming a well-known modernist). The family in the room next to me in the "Home" were giving up work in one of the neediest parts of Burma, and at a time when they could not be replaced, because not only had they lost all faith in the Scriptures, but even doubts had come in as to whether there was a God; and as they put it to me, they felt it better to leave before they passed on their doubts to the native Christians. I confess I was more drawn to that family for their honesty than to most I met in Burma; would that all such would follow their example, and go home instead of spreading doubts, where strong confidence is needed.
I left Rangoon sick at heart at what I had seen, and yet more deeply thankful than I can express for the privilege that had been granted us in China, to have had some share in contending for the faith in that land. I had the privilege of traveling with Mr. and Mrs. A. B. C. and a new worker, who also were on their way to China. The train left Rangoon in the afternoon, reaching Mandalay the following morning. Changing trains there, Lashio was reached in the evening. I stopped at Maymayo, the lovely spot in the hills where missionaries and others went to escape the heat of the plains. I was seeking Dr. R., the older brother of Major R., who had been so kind to us in Shanghai. Dr. R. had charge of a hospital on the railway line north of Mandalay, with a company of earnest and devoted Christian men and women who are true to the Word of God, and who have done a remarkable work for the Lord in that part of Burma known as "The Triangle", but perhaps better known since the war, as "The Ledo Road.”
Dr. R. and his lovely little family were having a few days of well-earned rest in Maymayo, so it was my privilege to meet them there. I will never forget a delightful evening when he and his dear wife and I sat round the open fire, and talked of the needs and the opportunities in Burma; and we ended that evening by prayer together, and a sentence in the dear Doctor's prayer still rings in my heart, "Help us, Lord to use the weapon that the enemy has forged to turn the war against himself." The weapon referred to was the fact that amongst the multitude of Buddhist monasteries in that land (and it is full of them), most boys are taught to read, so the illiteracy in Burma is not as great as in most heathen countries. Through the Japanese attack on Shanghai eight years before, Burma and its needs had been greatly pressed on my heart; indeed, had there been the faith, it might be that the Book Room would already have found an entry into that country. You can guess, perhaps, how Dr. R.'s prayer touched both my heart and conscience, and how I longed with the help of God, to have a share in providing Gospel literature for the millions waiting for it in Burma.
But my duty at the moment was to take such literature to west China. How it was to be done, the Lord alone knew. I think I mentioned we had no money for the venture when we started, and indeed it was only step by step as the funds were needed along the way that the Lord provided them, or opened the door in some other way, as now He did in Lashio.
I think I may not pass that town by, without a few words of description as to how I found it in the autumn of 1940, just a year before the Japanese attack. Lashio was the end of the railway, and the beginning of the "Burma Road". It was to Burma what the "end of steel" used to be in the pioneering days of Canada. The shops seemed to breathe the same atmosphere as the stores in the north of Canada, where we used to buy our outfits for some long canoe trip into the wilds beyond.
Lashio itself was in three distinct parts, the three points of a triangle, each separated from the other by two or three miles. The first point was the railway station and all that centered around it; second, the business center with the Bazaar, and the Market, a wonderful place where an untold variety of races met to do business; Chinese, Indian, Burmese, Karen, Shan, and on and on the names might be mentioned of tribe after tribe, each recognized (to the initiated) by the style of ornaments they wore. There was a keenness and earnestness about everybody, utterly lacking in Rangoon, where no office would open before ten in the morning, and there might be three public holidays in a week, when they would not open at all. The third point of the triangle was old Lashio, an old Chinese settlement, where almost all were Chinese, with a market and shops of their own.
I will not easily forget the night I arrived in Lashio. It was pitch dark, and I an utter stranger. I had hoped that Mr. C. would meet me, but he was in hospital, though I did not know it then. As I stepped off the train a tall young fellow, who looked as if he might come from the American continent stepped on. I guessed who he was, as I had been trying to take a little care of his young wife, who had arrived in Rangoon by plane from China, while I was there. After a few words together a fine looking Burmese gentleman of about my own age, stepped up to me with a lantern, and in excellent English asked "if it was Mr. Willis?" This was the Headmaster of the large Government Boys' School in Lashio. He kindly took me home with him, gave me a most delicious supper of chicken, and provided a place for me to sleep. May that dear man receive rich reward for the boundless hospitality that he has so liberally showered on the Lord's people passing through Lashio.
I may not stop to tell of all the kindness I received on every hand in Lashio, but I must mention one or two who proved themselves very real friends. One was a young Civil Engineer in Government employ, a Karen Christian, who had been struck with the contrast between the ways of the early church, and the methods he saw employed about him now. It was my privilege to stay with this dear Christian on my return visit to Lashio. Another who proved a friend in need was also a Karen Christian. (Perhaps I should have explained that the Karens are one of the largest tribes of Burma, and the tribe that more largely than any other, has turned to the Lord. This may be because of an old tradition amongst them that once they had a Book from Heaven, but on account of their sins they lost it. The day, however, would come when their little white brother would bring it again to them; and then they must be sure to receive it. The story of the first Karen Christian is fascinating. He was a murderer of the deepest dye, one guilty of almost every sin, but washed and cleansed, he was used of God to lead hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of his fellows to the Savior he had found). Our new Karen friend had three trucks operating on the Burma Road; and just at the time when it seemed impossible to get a truck anywhere, this dear man volunteered to take up my books, and Mr. C.'s baggage and supplies, as far as the city of Paoshan, about half-way to Kunming, the city where Mr. C. was living. The pamphlet, "Wrecks on the Burma Road", gives a further account of this journey.
Kunming at that time was receiving so much attention from the Japanese planes that we decided to leave about half the stock at Paoshan, which we thought would be a safer place than Kunming. As it turned out later the whole city of Paoshan was laid flat by Japanese planes, the house destroyed in which our stock was stored, but much of it, in spite of all, was saved. The stock in Kunming was never hurt by raids, though fire from one of them came so close that some of the literature was scorched. There were also some other merciful preservations.
I stayed in Paoshan as short a time as possible, and pushed on to Kunming to see dear Mr. C., and leave him the literature I had taken up. I may not dwell on that week with our beloved brother. As always at such a time, the days seemed to pass all too quickly, and it was time for me to start back on that long journey, and fill a promise I had made of a visit in Singapore; otherwise I might have gone by air, much more cheaply and quickly, direct to Hongkong. Mr. C. accompanied me to Paoshan, where he picked up further supplies of stock, and once again turned his face northwards, while I continued my journey back to Lashio. The call of Burma had been very loud through these weeks, and as I passed through Lashio again, I saw the official in charge of land, and he most kindly agreed to lease me a site for a house for storage, from which a truck might operate either north to China, or south over the excellent roads of Burma. My wife and I hoped to move there ourselves. But God had other purposes and in a little over a year from that time, poor Lashio became one of the world's battlefields.
I had a day in Penang on the way south, and visited my old friends of the Seaforth Highlanders, who were now stationed there. Thence I went by train to Singapore, a long interesting journey, through Malaya, one of the hardest and neediest countries in the world. I asked how many Malayan Christians there might be. One earnest laborer in those harvest fields replied he thought there might be four; another replied that he did not think there were more than three. Does not this rise up as a challenge to some Christian living at home in comfort? "If I have eaten my morsel alone...," said Job, but how often have we rejoiced "alone" in our well spread tables, spiritually and literally, without a thought of those who are perishing of hunger?
I had two weeks in Singapore with Miss Hayman and Miss Hayhoe and two of the Chinese children from Yeung Kong. It was my privilege to stay with Mr. W., our helper in the Book Room at that time. He was shortly to be married, and had prepared a cozy little flat for his bride. Here we lived together. The vast, vast fields of the islands of the South Seas, those great islands like Borneo, Java and Sumatra, or the Celebes; and those vast numbers of small islands; many of them, oh, so many of them, utterly without the Gospel, rose up before me, and I thought, what a center Singapore might become in this greatest of all wars; the Lord of Life and Light, against the powers of death and darkness. It was a joy to see how the work was developing, and to hear of the open doors the ladies were finding all about them. I had a happy time with my East Surrey friends who were in this city, and some delightful visits with Sgt. M., who was also located here.