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Count the Cost and Weigh the Reward

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 14, 1911

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 88, No. 37.

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Count the Cost and Weigh the Reward

By Myrtle B. Cottrell

MYRTLE B. COTTRELL
“To be forewarned is to be forearmed,” runs an old proverb, which is well worth heeding before making a change that will affect the whole of one’s after-life. It, therefore, seems that a few side-lights on missionary life in China might prove of benefit to those who are contemplating making this their chosen field of labor.
Do not come to China unless you are willing to be separated for months at a time from all American Seventh-day Adventists except your immediate family who come with you; and, if the needs of the work demand it, even from them.
Do not come to China unless you are willing to go without mail from home for weeks, though you may receive home mail weekly.
Do not come to China unless you are willing to pass through riots and pestilences for “His sake.”
Do not come to China unless you are willing to live amid unpleasant surroundings without giving up to homesickness.
Do not come to China unless you are ready to have your patience tried in many new and unthought-of ways. The following are a few instances:—
The construction of a cottage, chapel, or schoolhouse may fall to you. You should therefore be prepared, after having spent days with your Chinese contractor, planning most minutely every little detail until he says he understands thoroughly and agrees by written contract to all provisions, to see him use a slipshod native method. When you call his attention to his promise, he may say, “O, I can not do that way;” “I never agreed to that.” You turn to your written agreement for proof, only to find that the Chinese phraseology is such that it admits of either mode of construction. There will doubtless be not a few misunderstandings between you and your contractor. As Mr. A. H. Smith, in “Chinese Characteristics,” says: “All Chinese are gifted with an instinct for taking advantage of misunderstandings. They find them as a January north wind finds a crack in the door; as the water finds a leak in the ship, instantly and without apparent effort.”
Although you may carefully teach your cook that the dish-towel is to be used only for the one purpose of drying the dishes, you may find him using it as a hand-towel, or a general cleaning cloth. In their own homes, the class of people who act as servants rarely have more than one cleaning cloth, which of course must be used for all general cleaning purposes. So it is not easy for them to see the necessity of having separate cloths for lamps, dishes, stoves, floors, etc.
You must be prepared to see your cooking dishes rusty, because the Chinese never dry their own. You may think that you have thoroughly impressed your cook that your graniteware and ironware must not be treated that way, only to find the same thing repeated again and again.
You must be prepared for all kinds of accidents to your food and your belongings.
You must be willing to wait patiently for the Chinese to take their own time for doing things, no matter how urgent the immediate performance of a given task may seem to you. Other people of longer experience than you have learned that the East can not be hurried.
You should not feel annoyed if, while walking along the street, a dirty beggar jostles carelessly against you, and then meets your inquiring gaze with a vacant stare instead of a “beg pardon.”
When guests walk unexpectedly into your home, you should be prepared to meet them with a smile of welcome, no matter how busy you may be. It is not Chinese custom to knock at a door before entering, though a high-class guest will send in his card and await your invitation.
If your patience is, or by divine help becomes, sufficient to meet these and many other annoyances, you will make a good worker, and, because greatly beloved by this people, will exert a strong influence over them.
You may ask, “Will it pay to give one’s life to uplift such a people as this?” “Can the gospel principles ever penetrate through the thick crust of custom and tradition to work like leaven in transforming the heart and soul?” We unhesitatingly answer, “God’s two-edged sword is able; even as the lives of scores of our Chinese brethren and sisters daily testify.”
Therefore, come, having your heart so filled with the grace of God that you will daily exemplify the “high calling” of your profession; and be assured that for you will be in waiting a crown of life, which will be forever resplendent with stars.
Chang-sha, Hunan.