I shall never forget the thrill of joy that filled our hearts on the Sunday morning that he arrived at the station, and told us the Good News.” The writer is a missionary in China.
“But what does he refer to?” you say.
Well, some seven months before, a foreigner, entered a large town some hundreds of miles away, and began to preach the Glad Tidings of salvation, through Christ alone, and to sell books in the streets. He stayed three days, and passed on.
Among his hearers was one who had long sought for peace and satisfaction in the three religions of China—Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism (what a lot of-isms the devil has invented to keep us away from God). Of course, his search was in vain, for only in God, as revealed in Jesus can anyone find soul-rest.
Now, for the first time, he heard the Gospel, and it sank into his heart. He purchased a New Testament, and found, in the Christ it tells of, all his heart and conscience needed.
Resigning his position in the army, he sought the nearest mission station, a hundred miles away, and before long his heart burned with deep longing to carry to friends and relatives the tidings that had so filled him with joy, so that his Saviour might become theirs also.
Of course, when he arrived, and spoke boldly of the glorious power of the Gospel to give salvation from opium-smoking and all other sins, he raised a great commotion and met with much opposition: but God blessed the Word spoken, and some six or seven families “turned to God from (their) idols.”
It was this dear man’s visit which the missionary speaks of as causing his heart to thrill with joy; when, after a week’s journeying, he arrived at the mission house, and told how God had met his own need and used him to others.
But the converts, who were ever increasing, were poor farmers. What would their landlord—a proud Confucianist scholar, who was even then preparing—for higher examinations with the view of becoming a mandarin—what would he say?
Hearing of their giving up their idols, he sent a messenger to them from his far-off residence, saying he was coming to collect his rents, and that all who would not return to the religion of their fathers he would drive them out—never should a Christian live on any land of his.
The messenger came and delivered his message.
“O,” said the converts. “O, he does not know what he is talking-about! We can never give up the Gospel, and now we are praying for him. But what about yourself? This good news if for you as much as for us.”
Well, they prayed for this messenger, who was a member of the landlord’s household, and before a week passed, he too was a believer. Soon Mr. Ts’u came.
“Has any recanted?” he asked his messenger.
“No, not one.”
Mr. T’su cursed them bitterly, and vowed he would make short work of their faith.
“Perhaps, sir, you had better wait till you hear the Gospel yourself,” said the messenger.
“What! have you also swallowed the foreign devil’s pill?”
Arrived at the village, he sought to instruct his ignorant tenants, as he thought them, before resorting to extreme measures.
“It is all very well, great teacher,” said one of them, “to talk to us in this way. Confucius was a good man, but where is the power to practice what he teaches? Confucius can teach, but he cannot save.”
This was an unanswerable argument. Before long Mr. T’su, who came to drive out his Christian tenants, was praying and reading the Word of God with them—a simple-hearted believer.
Along with twenty-one others, he was baptized in the very place where he had vowed to stamp out the “Jesus doctrine,” as the opposers of the Gospel in China call it; and (I expect) he still lives, telling the story of the love of Christ, in season and out of season, to rich and poor alike, with much blessing from God on his testimony.
He has learned that Jesus not only teaches, but SAVES. Reader, have you?
ML 09/17/1939