Delivered From Raging Heathen by W. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 16, 1913

Delivered From Raging Heathen

By W. A. S.

In olden time it was said of believers in dire trouble, “They cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses.” Ps. 107: 6. Many a time since has the same arm of the living God been stretched forth to rescue and deliver in time of special danger, when all human help was in vain.

In the days of the terrible Boxer uprising in China, in the year 1900, a missionary family was fleeing from the interior province of Shansi, southward to Hankow, a thousand miles of peril on every side. The story of “God’s delivering power” is told by Mr. A. E. Glover in the book “A Thousand Miles of Miracle in China.” But a few paragraphs can be quoted here. The little party—Mr. and Mrs. Glover, two children, a Chinese man, and a Bible woman—had spent weary days on the road, and been robbed and stoned. Now they were prisoners in a village inn, their escort refusing to attend them farther, and the villagers filling the street and crying for the blood of the “foreign devils” whom they held responsible for the drought and famine. The missionaries prayed for grace to meet death. But, just then—the door was pushed open, and a soldier in full uniform entered, and quietly hung his coat and cudgel on the latchet. His handsome face and commanding manner were something out of the common, and could not fail to arrest attention. But this was not enough to account for the effect his sudden appearance produced upon all. I can not describe it. It was simply startling. He was only a non-commissioned officer sent on special service to Li-ch’eng; and he was merely putting up at the inn for the night in the ordinary course of his journey—that was all. No, not all. Our eyes were opened to see in him none other than God’s deliverer. Even as he entered the door, he stood before us as the very angel of God. I might almost say “a light shined in the prison, there was something so supernatural about his presence. It was the most remarkable experience of its kind that I ever had, or my wife either; for we were both conscious of it at the same time. Not only so, but his coming produced a corresponding fear in the hearts of our enemies.

The rabble thought he must have been sent by the authorities as an official protector. The visitor was kindly disposed, and agreed to act the part that the people’s fears had assigned him, and to lead them out of the village next morning. That evening the missionaries had worship, and sang and prayed in the hearing of the angry crowd in the street. Mr. Glover continues:—

“Whoso offereth the sacrifice of thanksgiving glorifieth me; and prepareth a way, that I may show him the salvation of God.” The second miracle of that memorable day followed almost immediately upon the conclusion of our worship. We had pleaded with our God to have mercy upon the people, not only in their deep spiritual need, but also in their temporal distress. And we asked very definitely, in the hearing of all, that, for the glory of his great name, he would be pleased to send the rain in abundance that night, that they might know that he was the merciful God, and that we his servants were not the cause of the drought. Scarcely had we laid ourselves down on the kang, ere his voice answered from heaven in a thunder crash that shook the prison, and the rain fell in a deluge that ceased not all the night through. When morning broke, it was clear shining after rain; and the song of the Lord was in our mouths. The gate of our prison-inn opened to us, as it were, of its own accord. Our heaven-sent soldier rode beside us and never left us all the way. No one molested us as we passed out into the road and along the highway to Shae Hsien. Indeed, we scarcely saw a soul, for at daybreak all hands had hurried to the fields to take early advantage of the long-looked-for opportunity for putting in the seed.

Later, while temporary refuge had been found at a mission station, still held by a lady missionary, they were assured by the mandarin of the town of his protection. But one day at private prayer Mr. Glover had Joshua 8: 5 impressed upon his mind: “We will flee before them.” He shrank from that word “flee,” which seemed to stand out before all others with a voice of command. Could they take to the road again? But at family worship the place for reading included 2 Sam. 15: 14: “Arise, and let us flee; for we shall not else escape.” And it came again like a peremptory command to hasten.

Following the conviction, they began to prepare for the journey. While engaged in packing up, word came that the mandarin had been ordered to withdraw all protection; and so they fled at midnight, and escaped the slaughter that had been decreed for the day following.

On another occasion, ready to drop with fatigue, they were being driven by

a mob to a temple area where they were sure to meet death. Mr. Glover says:—

We were being swept on toward the temple; and as we neared it, for the second time that dreadful day the ominous boom of the processional gong broke on our ear. At a word from Sheng-min [a Chinese Christian] we stopped and faced round.

“Don’t go on,” he whispered. “They mean to stone you to death there. Turn quickly.”

As we did so, the mob hustled us severely, and with hoots and yells urged us to keep the direction they indicated.

It was at this most critical juncture that we experienced a really marvelous instance of God’s direct interference. Sheng-min had read the peril of the moment. Knowing that we could go neither backward nor forward, he again whispered:—

“Down the steep—quick! Follow the track!”

Instantly we obeyed the direction. A thin “goat” trail was just visible among the rocks and shrubs of the declivity; and in single file we threaded our way—down, down, until at a bend in the track we were hidden from sight. Quickening our pace, we hurried on with a strength divinely renewed. In that hour we proved what it was, in the extremity of physical weakness, to “run, and not be weary,” to “walk, and not faint.”

The moment we disappeared over the side, the mob simultaneously stopped dead at the spot, as if arrested by a sudden and irresistible power. The loud yells and cries of a moment ago were stilled to silence—absolute, awful silence. So startling was it that I dared to turn and take one look. I could scarcely believe my eyes. The mob lined the ridge in hundreds, motionless as if spellbound, helplessly watching us—poor, miserable us, whom they triumphantly believed they had so completely in their power—slip away from under their very hand. Not a single soul of them attempted to follow. Sheng-min alone was behind, bringing up the rear. . . . On we sped with wondering hearts, in the consciousness that God had, for the third time at least that day, wrought for us a great deliverance.

Space requires closing these testimonies here. All the long way of that flight from Shansi, fanatical people were planning death for the fugitives; but day by day the blows aimed were warded off, and every time when it seemed that the end had come some delivering providence was sure to be revealed. No wonder that those who passed through these experiences of protection amid raging fury came to cling to God’s promises as to a material staff of power and strength—something so real and present as to be almost handled with the hands. Again and again on the thousand miles of flight they heard the voice of God saying in his word: “Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.”

W. A. S.