December 17, a bitterly cold and windy day, Brother Chang, our colporteur, and I embarked on the small steam-launch for Hengchow. The passengers were packed in so closely that only our feet got chilled. However, we were glad to debark at Siangtan, and meet with the company of Sabbath-keepers there, with whom we stayed two days. Being providentially delayed, we met a Buddhist priest who had become somewhat interested in the gospel. He had recently abandoned opium smoking, but was still extremely weak from its pernicious effects. He readily consented to go down to Chang-sha for treatment, and while there he received a few weeks' instruction in righteousness. He has since left to arrange his affairs prior to leaving the priesthood.
Having secured passage on a small sailboat, Brethren Chang and Li and the writer embarked at Siangtan for Hengchow. At times it was so cold we were almost chilled to the bone. We could not stand up inside the boat, therefore I was very glad to wrap up in a fur coat, thick cotton quilt, and a heavy woolen blanket. Yet our hearts burned within us, and the brethren just reveled with delight, as we together studied the lines of prophecy pointing to our Lord's near return. Their prayers were as the voices of heavenly visitants as they cried to the Lord to make us all a blessing at Hengchow. Truly, “the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance.”
Long before we arrived at our destination, evidences were given of the Lord's presence and blessing with us. Boats ordinarily do not stop at Chuchow, but our boatmen became suddenly interested in a huge log of wood in the river bed, which they tried to secure. This enabled us to go ashore and meet two friends and encourage them to be faithful. Then the captain had business at Shihwan, giving us an opportunity to give a Bible reading to one who had previously been reading our literature.
REPAIRING A CHINESE HOUSE
At Hengshan, our surly and swearing captain consented to our going ashore, where we gave another Bible reading on the faith once delivered to the saints. After prayer together, these people besought me to go over the Scriptures again as they jotted down the texts to study for themselves. They were loath to let us depart, but were cheered by the promise of a visit on our return journey. Thus meeting with so many interested hearers encouraged us greatly, and led us to expect great things from God at Hengchow.
The morning we arrived off Hengchow, the sun shone out warm and bright. We were fortunate in securing a fair-sized room containing three beds, consisting of planks on stools, in an old ancestral hall now used as an inn. We decided to bunk together. Shortly after, Brother Chang went out with his papers, and Brother Li and I called on his friends to acquaint them of our arrival.
Erelong they began coming in, until our little room was packed. Every available article, except the table, was needed for seats. That first meeting, which was typical of those that followed, lasted about four hours, and then they were quite ready to ply many questions. As these were special and not public meetings altogether, and owing to our limited space and inconvenient location, numbers were never very large, but they listened with unabated eagerness to the advent message.
Meetings were held twice daily, morning and evening. These were interspersed with gospel talks with visitors at the inn. The cold winds, sleet, rain, and the streets thick with mud, causing them to be splashed above their knees as they trudged along, seemed no deterrent to their keen desire to miss nothing of the truth for this time. The eldest attendant, a man of fifty winters, left his store and tramped about six miles daily. The youngest lad, about nineteen, went his rounds delivering milk, and then came to morning meeting. At night he would come, lantern in hand, to the Bible studies. Preachers, colporteurs, hospital assistants, teachers, and church-members from the three Protestant missions at Hengchow gathered with the heathen to hear the good news of the soon coming of our blessed Lord and Master.
One, a former preacher, had left his mission, and had become greatly discouraged, but Brother Li met him on his former visit to Hengchow, and bade him be of good courage until he heard these stirring truths of Christ's advent. Now, as he drank at the fountain of living waters, and saw how the great chain of prophecies pointed most unmistakably to the end of the world in this generation,9and the consequent need of preparation of heart and life to meet the judgment, his old-time energy revived within him. But as during the preaching of the advent truths in 1844, so now, “the presence of holy angels was felt in these assemblies, and many were added to the believers.” Men sought their homes with praises upon their lips, and grace renewed in their hearts. Mothers, wives, and daughters became greatly interested. When one brother told his aged mother, nearly seventy years old, concerning the things he had seen and heard at the meetings, she sent him to her foreign pastor, to tell him she could not now consent to be sprinkled. She must await the arrival of a Seventh-day Adventist minister so she could receive true baptism, like that of Jesus.
While we were visiting with the wife and the daughter of another man who had testified to his faith by closing his store the first Sabbath after our arrival, they said, with great emotion, that they would rather go out together and beg from door to door than that father should go back on God's commandments. The following Sabbath his store was crowded and the street blocked by the people who came to hear the preaching of the words of life in Christ only.
While Brother Li remained with me during the long morning Bible readings, Brother Chang was out selling his papers from door to door. The Lord so greatly blessed his labors that local church booksellers were surprised beyond measure when they were given infallible proofs of his sales.
Upon the receipt of important letters, I had to return to Chang-sha for a season, but we hope to follow up the advantage God has given the proclamation of present truth at Hengchow. Our greatest hope is that some of these men will see their way clear to take definite Bible studies with us, and become proficient workers in the regions beyond. At present we have but one Chinese evangelist, one Chinese colporteur, with a very scant supply of literature, and one foreign evangelist, for a population at least half that of the Japanese empire. Hence it is easy to see that God must work, and, praise his name! he is working. Sometimes we feel we are doing next to nothing, but let us encourage ourselves that God is preparing a world to receive the warning of the advent message. Friends, pray for needy China in general, and for Hunan in particular.
