JUST fifty years ago, Chang-chih-pen was born in the village of Sang-o, twelve miles to the west of the city of Ta-ning, in the province of Shan-si, North China. His father was a small farmer, and he sold also a little merchandise in the village, which, in those days, was in a more flourishing condition than it is at present.
Chang’s father and mother had several children, who died young, and this led them to set apart their boy, Chang-chih-pen, for a Buddhist priest. Soon after his birth, they took him to the temple, where they formally dedicated him to the service of the gods. The child was taken back to his home, where he grew up with the other children of the village, till he was ten years old, the age at which he was to be devoted to the temple. He was then given over to the charge of an old priest, of whom he still speaks highly, but, though he was treated kindly by his guardian, he much desired to return to his home. His parents, however, dared not encourage him, fearing that if they allowed their boy to leave the temple, he might sicken and die, as had done his brothers and sisters.
The novices were placed under the care of a teacher; they were taught to read and write, and were educated for their future life. After spending some eight years in the temple, the boy’s parents, who were growing old, and had no other children to provide and care for them, thought they might be able to redeem their son; so they proceeded to the temple, and by casting lots, sought to know the mind of the gods. But the lot was against them, and they returned to their home with heavy hearts. I not long after this, a party of theatricals came to Sang-o, and according to the custom, put up in the temple. This was an evil day for Chang, for they brought with them the opium, now so commonly smoked everywhere in China, and through them he learned opium-smoking, and continued to do so till his conversion, four or five years ago.
The old priest, who used to teach Chang, and the other boys of the temple, told them, that not one of the three religions of China―Confucianism, Buddhism, or Tauism, was the true religion; but that another religion was to come to China which would save men. Whether the old man had any light from God, as to this truth, it is impossible to say; but his teaching made a very great impression on the youthful Chang, who would frequently wonder what this religion could be, that saved men! For our reader must know, that the three religions of China do not any of them profess to save.
Chang became a man of great influence in his district. When thirty years of age he was appointed to oversee all the district―about fifty men in all. Any charges of crime brought against these men were judged by him, and he also punished them. This was an unsought position of authority, and, at first, Chang wisely refused the honor; but the civil magistrate of the country would receive no refusal, and, on a certain day, sent his official sedan chair to convey the chosen man to his presence. When Chang arrived he found a large assembly waiting to welcome him. The mandarin made a brief speech, and formally appointed Chang to his new office.
The two following days were spent by Chang in feasting. A feast was prepared in a temple opposite the city, where the civil magistrate resided, and two hundred invited guests were entertained. Like honors were shown to him when he returned to Sang-o.
It must be understood that, according to Chinese custom, the whole expense of these banquets falls upon the person honored, which somewhat takes the gilt off.
Chang bore a good name, and people came from far and near to worship the idols in his temple, and to be cured by him of various diseases. During his stay in the temple where he was originally taken, he had learned something of Chinese medicine, but got better results by the employment of incantations. He believes now, that at the time Satan gave him power to work miracles in healing.
A common method of deception is as follows: The sick person, or someone on his behalf; goes to the priest, and states his case. Incense is offered before a certain idol, supposed to possess the power of healing diseases. Prostrations are made before the idol, whilst candles are burning on either side of a jar of incense on the altar, and the answer is sought in the following manner.
Meanwhile, the priest, with rosary on his hand, sits at a table close by with a number of little pieces of paper rolled up carefully, upon which are written various prescriptions. Each paper is numbered. In a bamboo vase are a number of small rods, just long enough to project an inch or two above the top of the vase. Each stick is also numbered.
The devotee, having already consulted the idol, comes to the table, shakes the wooden vase vigorously, generally with both hands, and draws out at random one of the rods, and hands it to the priest, who examines the number written on the stick, and finds the corresponding number among his prescription papers. This is considered by the priest and people alike to be the reply of the idol, and whether the medicine thus ordered be a drastic purge or an opiate it matters not. The medicine is purchased, and the unfortunate patient swallows it.
Of course, an offering in money is made to the idol before operations are commenced. This, doubtless from the priest’s point of view, is of great importance.
While still a heathen, but a searcher after what he knew not, Chang had a revelation, or a vision, and he thus describes it. At the time he was very ill, and thought he must die, and he began to wonder how he could ever get to heaven. Then he heard a voice, which said that the true light would come from the West to lighten men, and that when it came they would be able to walk the right road.
Two months after this, he was looking over some old religious books in another temple, when his eye caught the title of one he had never seen before; it was called a book of the “Happy Sound,” or “Good News,” written by a man called “Mark.” Chang thought to himself, can this be what I have really been seeking for all these years? Is there light and guidance for me in this “Happy Sound?” Is the happiness I have sought to be found in this book? And he read its story, telling of Jesus the Son of God, with intense interest.
Before the discovery of the Gospel by Mark, God had in various ways been preparing the way for the entrance of His own word into Chang’s heart. Shortly before he found it, his faith in his idols had been shaken. During the famine, he had noticed that, not only were the common people carried off by starvation, but, that the priests also died the same death, and he reasoned that if the idols could not save their priests, they must be of little power.
It was at this time, also, that his father and mother died, leaving the little farm without an occupant. Chang was convinced that the idols could neither help him through the famine, nor satisfy his craving for soul-happiness, and he resolved forthwith to forsake the temple, and return to the home of his father. Here he began to live a new life, by looking to the true God to bless him. He was very ignorant of God, but still he had learned from the Gospel of Mark of the living, of the true God.
One day when in Ta-ning, in the third moon of the fifth year of the Emperor Kuang-hsü, he heard that a foreigner was passing through the city, and was anxious to see him and to obtain more information about the new religion of the West. But Chang was doing some work for a friend at the time, who would not hear of his leaving it, and thus he missed the pleasure of seeing the foreigner. However, he sent his servant to try and get a book from him, and the servant returned with a copy of the Gospel according to Matthew, bearing upon it the Ping-yang Fu stamp. Chang took the book back to his native village, and there he and his friend Chu, a schoolmaster, who had himself some time before become possessed of a Gospel by Mark, studied together the book.
In the course of the next two years his friend Chu had occasion to visit the city of Ping-yang Fu, and there he found a missionary, who explained to him the contents of the books he had been studying. Chu at once received the gospel of our salvation, and returned to Sang-o to communicate to Chang the further light he had obtained. They commenced the worship of the true God in their village, and soon others were added to their number.
At this time Chang, the ex-priest of Buddha, was still an opium-smoker, but was anxious to give up the habit. As he was smoking as much as a third of an ounce of crude opium per day, considerable fears were entertained by his friends when he resolved to discontinue the drug at once, which he determined to do at any cost. In a day or two he grew very ill, could neither eat nor sleep, and thought he was going to die. “But,” said he, “better die than go back to the opium.”
His friend Chu, the schoolmaster, was deeply concerned for Chang, and continued much in prayer that the Lord would give deliverance, and, above all, enable him to close his ears to the entreaties of the rest of his friends, who implored him to go back to the pipe, and not suffer himself to die in so foolish a fashion.
For seven weary days and nights Chang endured those intense cravings and pains, which can be known only by those who thus attempt to cure themselves of the habit at once. During those seven days Chang could neither eat nor sleep, but still his trust was in God.
At last the answer came. The pains left, and the cravings ceased. Since that time he has often been tempted by his old friends to smoke opium, but he has always emphatically refused, and his prayer that the desire for the pipe should be kept from him has been abundantly answered up till now.
In the spring of 1885, Chu and Chang were baptized, along with others, in Ping-yang Fu―a city four- or five-days’ journey from their native village of Sang-o. When they returned home, they found that in their absence the enemy had been roused, and persecution had broken out. Some of their followers had been set upon, and one of them, a farmer named Feng, narrowly escaped being beaten by the angry villagers. Hearing of this, Chang went out to comfort his neighbor. This greatly displeased the persecuting villagers, and the house was again surrounded, and loud threats were made to pull down the house if the doors were not opened.
Towards the early morning most of the people retired, and our friends were able to make their escape.
The villagers now trumped up a false charge against the farmer Feng, and laid it before the magistrate, who sent men to apprehend him. Chang was returning from a neighboring village, when he met the officers on their way to take his friend a prisoner. He ascertained their business, and let them pass without showing concern; but hired a boy, who was working in a field hard by, to run with all speed into the village, and warn the farmer. This was successfully done, and the officers had to return to the magistrate with the report that the man had escaped.
The officers were sent back to apprehend the boy, but were intercepted by Chang, who confessed that he had employed the boy, and gave up himself to them, as being alone responsible for the escape of the wrongly accused man.
Chang returned to Ta-ning under the custody of the officers, and was taken to the magistrate, and claimed his right to lay the whole matter before his excellency, the ruler of the province. At this the magistrate was very angry, and, to get out of his difficulty, said, “I don’t want to see this man; let him go, but bring the farmer.”
When the literati of the city found that Chang, the ex-priest, had been discharged, they were enraged, and sent a deputation to the magistrate, protesting that if Chang were let off in this manner the whole of the district west of the city would follow him in his new religion. At this, the magistrate got alarmed, and straightway ordered Chang to be brought before him again. A false charge was now brought against him, which could not be proved, but the magistrate gave orders for him to be beaten with three hundred stripes.
Chang refused to submit to this punishment, and demanded to know wherein he had offended, which so increased the anger of the magistrate, that he not only repeated the order, but stood by to see that the whole of the stripes were duly administered, and afterward committed Chang to prison. Whilst being led away he fainted, and many thought he had died.
One of his relatives said, “Take my advice, have nothing more to do with the foreign doctrine, for you see what you get by it!” But Chang’s reply was, that he must obey God rather than men, and his firmness was such that no one dared advise him to forsake Christ again.
After being shut up in a filthy room for thirty-nine days, a punishment greater than the beating, Feng-wu-tai, the farmer, who had made his escape, obtained the assistance of the missionary at Ping-yang, and matters having been again put before the magistrate, an order was given for Chang’s liberty.
Both Chang and Chu, the schoolmaster, have lived down much of the persecution of their neighbors, and are being used of God in bringing souls into the kingdom, and there is a church of forty members in their district.
It is very gratifying to know that many of those who applied to the priest of Sang-O in his unregenerate days, have since learned from him to put their trust in the Great Physician. Of the fifty priests over whom Chang presided, all have deserted the ranks of the priesthood, except two.
When Mr. Key, the missionary, now living in the neighborhood, first visited the city of Ta-ning, he was taken to a temple just outside the city; and upon entering the priest’s room, he was astonished to find the walls ornamented with large gospel tracts and text cards. He learned that when people came to worship the idols, the priest, Chang, preached the gospel to them.
It is through much tribulation, that these men enter the kingdom. Chu, the schoolmaster, has twice been beaten, and this last year he was not allowed to go in for his literary examination, which, to a Confucian scholar, is the utmost disgrace. P.