OUR friend Dr. Parrott, who is working in China, sends us a letter, in which he speaks of the work of God. He enclosed a photograph of native
Christians and friends at a “feast” in his garden, and we have made a reproduction of it. Our Chinese brethren and friends seem to be enjoying their friendly gathering quite as much as we in England enjoy similar occasions.
The letter also speaks of two old friends, whose conversions to. God were recorded in FAITHFUL WORDS by Dr. Parrott some twelve years ago.
It is ever encouraging to see good work, and one great test whether work is good, is its stability. In the winter of 1883-1884 there were great floods in the eastern part of North China, owing to the bursting of the banks of the Yellow River, and hundreds of thousands of poor people were flooded out of house and home. Numbers died from sickness and starvation. “Thirty thousand of these poor creatures,” said Mr. Parrott, “came down to the city of Yang-Chou, where I was then living, and after a short time smallpox began to rage amongst them, and many were carried off.
“Two native brethren and myself were able to go amongst them occasionally, and to preach to them. A few, days after our first visit to them, a man named Sang, which means ‘mulberry tree,’ came to my house and knocked at the gate for admission. ‘My son is sick,’ said he, ‘and I am afraid he will die. Hearing that you can heal diseases, I have brought him to see you.”
Dr. Parrott was not at that time a medical man, and he told Mr. Sang he was unable to do much for the boy, but said, “My God is a living God, and One who hears prayer. Leave the child to be nursed by me.”
This his son, a lad of about thirteen years of age, did not at all approve of; and in the end the father accepted the invitation to stay with his son, and a bed was rigged up for him in the dining room.
“Mr. Sang presented himself regularly at our public preaching every afternoon, and soon manifested an interest in the Gospel. A day or two after his arrival, we had our usual native prayer meeting, into which, to our surprise, came Mr. Sang. He had never been present before where Christians prayed, and was astonished to see men kneeling down and speaking to a God they could not see. I could but observe him looking round the little room, and mark his astonished look. There were no idols, nor lighted tapers, nor was any incense burning―things inseparably associated with his heathen worship. It was to him a novel procedure, but he evidently had some sort of faith in its efficacy. So, watching for an opportunity, at a slight pause in our meeting, lo! Sang, the heathen, began to pray. He commenced thus:
“‘I don’t know who You are!’―for he knew not our God’s name—and he proceeded to tell God that, though he did not know who He was, he understood from others that He was a God who heard prayer, and he would therefore venture to ask that his boy might be healed; and, said he, ‘If You will heal my boy, then, when I return to my home, I and my family will no longer worship the goddess of mercy, but will worship You instead.’
“Sang suddenly stopped, and, after a pause, we all said Amen! believing the man had prayed from his heart.
“He came regularly to our meetings for prayer, and a fortnight later prayed again, but this time in a very different manner. He commenced by thanking God for having sent His Son, Jesus Christ, into the world to die for his sins. He also thanked God for the improvement in his child’s health, and finished by declaring that if men refused to believe His Word and accept His Christ, they deserved to be lost. Another silence told us when to say ‘Amen.’
“In the course of two or three months Mr. Sang returned to his native village a changed man, joyfully expecting, like many another young convert, that he should be able to persuade large numbers of his neighbors to cast away their false gods, and join him in the service of the true and living God. He carried back with him two small boxes of scriptures and tracts, to sell during his proposed missionary tours in the numerous villages surrounding his own. These were heavy, and occupied one side of his barrow, during his return journey, whilst his wife and a baby occupied the other. His boy, who was sound and well, walked with him, and thus they travelled back.
“Mr. Sang is a farmer, and spends all the time he can in evangelizing his neighborhood. The Lord Jesus Christ has become to him a living reality, and he greatly desires that his friends and neighbors should likewise find rest and joy in his Saviour. He gets his fields cultivated as early as possible, and then, instead of idling away the winter months, as he did in former days, he spends his time in preaching the Gospel, and putting into circulation the books and tracts with which Christian friends in England have enabled me to supply him.”
Such was the story of Mr. Mulberry tree, and it is delightful to read twelve years afterwards that he was indeed a tree of the Lord’s own planting. Dr. Parrott writes thus of him today: “A missionary who has been living near this native brother, passed through here recently. He said Mr. Sang is the brightest and most zealous Christian he has ever met in China, and that he was very much used of the Lord. He told the missionary of his conversion under our roof, some twelve or thirteen years ago. Mr. Sang lives some one thousand (English) miles from here, or I would go and see him and those he led to Christ.”
Our readers will rejoice in this testimony. We must defer until another issue the story of the other man referred to. We are always begging, it will, perhaps, he said; but it is “always good to be zealously affected in a good thing”; and we shall be most thankful to convey help to our dear friend in his work. He is specially anxious to translate some English papers for the Christian reader into Chinese, so that our Chinese brethren in Christ may have a few crumbs of the bounties we enjoy in dear old England.