Progress of the Work in Fu-chau, China
By W. C. HANKINS
About two years ago Pastor N. P. Keh went to Fu-chau, the capital of Fukien Province, to learn the language preparatory to beginning work in that large city. After he had learned the language, he was joined by another of our Amoy evangelists, Keh Hok-siu. These men have the same Chinese surname, but are not near relatives. They work together well, being quite different in temperament and manner of working, so that one supplies what the other lacks. From the very first, the work has prospered, and a solid foundation has been laid for a permanent work. A good class of people have become interested in and embraced present truth, among whom are ministers, teachers, carpenters, tailors, merchants, farmers, etc., so that they have organized a church with a charter membership of over fifty, most of whom are heads of families. The first day of April, 1915, I left Amoy to spend a few days with the Fu-chau church. I had been there once before since my return from the homeland, but could not stay long enough to really see what was being done. This time, however, I stayed about ten days, and had a chance to see something of the work. When the church learned that I should be with them for several days, they immediately asked that daily services be13held, so we arranged a program to suit their convenience, and held four services a day while there, three preaching services and one prayer service. Pastor Keh is carrying on a school in the same compound where they have their chapel. This school has eighty pupils, who pay their own board, and a yearly tuition of about ten dollars, which goes a long way toward paying the salary of the teachers. It was arranged for the pupils to attend these meetings each day, and it would have done you good to see the orderly way they filed in and out before and after every service, and the reverent way those boys, most of them from heathen homes, rose to their feet as the ministers ascended the platform, and then kneeled with the ministers in prayer. The whole congregation always did this, and it seemed to me a very fitting way in which to begin the service. Although the meeting was not previously announced, it being impossible for us to tell beforehand just when we could go to Fu-chau, yet we had a good average attendance. The afternoon service was always the best attended, there being generally from one hundred to one hundred and forty or fifty present, while at the morning and evening meetings there was generally an attendance of about one hundred and thirty. On the last Friday afternoon of the meeting, quite a number of us walked three miles to the river, where fifteen believers were baptized. Among these was the young man who teaches English in our school. He is a graduate of the Y. M. C. A. school in Fu-chau, and is a very bright young man. He had been thinking seriously about the truth for some time, and was led to take a firm stand as the result of the meetings. I learned that two thirds of those baptized that day had never belonged to any other religious organization. When we returned to the chapel after the baptism, we met a young man who had just come in from a village about seven miles away. He wanted to be baptized, but had come too late, and had to wait until next time. This young man has a school of forty pupils, which he has been carrying forward as a private enterprise. There are two teachers in the school, both of whom believe this truth. They said the school needed another teacher, whose salary would be a little less than five dollars gold a month. They proposed to hand the school over to us if we would pay for the third teacher, the two original teachers to remain self-supporting as before. They also represented that there were about twenty in that vicinity already keeping the Sabbath, meeting in the school building each week for worship. They suggested that they would raise half the money necessary to build a chapel if the mission would raise the other half; but I had to tell them that I could not promise to do that without authority from the home board, although the amount necessary would be only two hundred and fifty or three hundred dollars. We promised them, however, that Elder Keh and some of the other workers would go down to see them at once, and do what they could to develop the interest and establish a permanent work. Lack of time and space prevents my telling all the interesting details of the open door that is before us in the Fu-chau district. The year began with a baptized church membership of fifty-eight, which has increased to seventy-three, and our workers hope by God's help to at least double the membership during the year. Now, dear friends, I have a very earnest request to make of you who read this article. I believe that the Word of God teaches very definitely that God hears and answers earnest, definite, and above all, united prayer. So I wish to ask you to cut out this request and pin it up in your bedroom or some other place where you will be sure to see it every day, and then daily ask God to especially bless our work and workers here in Fukien Province, that we may be filled with his Spirit, and that our aim of a doubled membership may be more than realized. Will you do it? Then do it now. Do your part faithfully, and God will surely give a great harvest of souls, not only here but in other parts of China as well, and your own souls will be watered by the outpouring of the latter rain.