p. 7 | A Changed Life by J. J. Westrup

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 4, 1909

A Changed Life

By J. J. Westrup

A NATIVE doctor accepted Christ as his Saviour about two years ago. We have watched him, and prayed for him daily, as we know it means a great sacrifice for him. He lives at the Shang-tsai out-station. When I visited them recently, he said:—

“When I used to sell my medicine at an enormous price, and played cards, drank, and smoked opium, and could make from one hundred fifty dollars to three hundred fifty dollars a year, they said I was a good man, a fine fellow, and I had many friends; but now when I have quit these habits, and by making my living in an honest way earn only from thirty-five to forty dollars gold a year, they call me a bad man, and all my worldly friends have forsaken me. I had to discharge my cook, and my wife does the cooking now; but I am not afraid to work, I am not lazy.”

And surely he is not. Only coolies are supposed to roll wheelbarrows and do hard work, and if any one else does it, he is regarded as a coolie. But this man, although educated and a doctor, wheels his books himself on a barrow to places where he wants to go to sell them—he is one of our book sellers. Some time ago he sold out. Then he took his barrow, and came all the way to this station, got his box of books, and wheeled them back to Shang-tsai, a distance of seventy-three miles in all. And such trips he makes often. On evenings and rainy days he makes shoes to sell, to earn a living.

J. J. WESTRUP.

Hsia Iao, Honan.