AH FAY | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 11, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 37.

AH FAY.

(Condensed from “The Lady of the Lily Feet.”)

Fay was only a laundry boy. He had been something better. He had for one whole year worked as janitor in the mission in Chinatown. He was pretty small to be a janitor, for he was only twelve years old; but he could sweep, and clean windows, and scrub as well as anybody. But his great joy was his Sabbath usefulness. On that day, in his youthful imagination, he was the great factotum of the place. For it was Fay who stood at the door and gravely shook hands with every one that came in, and who ushered all to their places. It was Fay who looked out for strangers, who reserved the best seats for them, who hung up their hats, who found the hymns for them and pointed out the end at which to begin.

Certainly he was a model for sextons and janitors. But he not only attended to the mechanical part of his duties well, he was also the best exponent of the mission’s work that any visitor ever saw, for Fay was a convert from heathenism of whom any church might have been proud.

But Ah Fay did not come to this state of perfection without difficulty. Indeed, no! At the outset, when the missionaries offered him the position of janitor, his uncles objected. Now Fay was only a little Chinese waif whose father was dead and whose mother did not count in the reckoning of the Chinese mind masculine, and Ah Fay was, therefore, an orphan under control of his two uncles. They brought him to America at the age of nine, and he spent two precious years at the public schools. Then he went to work in a restaurant where the pay was fairly large, and the duties were larger. Being only eleven years old, Ah Fay could not endure it, and his health began to fail, and his cheeks to sink in ominously. Then his uncles took him out, and waited for him to get well.

Meanwhile, the missionaries offered him a situation, being strongly attracted by the personality of this black-eyed Confucian. Fay wanted to go, but his uncles forbade him, and told him several facts, attested by all the well-informed Chinamen of the colony, viz:—

“That association with the foreign people produced a peculiar madness on the part of the Chinese. That such Chinese invariably forsook the old customs of their ancestors, the true sons of heaven, and forgot their land, the empire of the sun, and the most favored of the nations of the earth. Moreover, these ignorant foreigners, as all Chinamen of learning knew, gave the Draught of Folly, a cup of foreign medicine which caused every Chinese immediately to believe all that the foreigner told him, so that he became his captive forever.”

It was to save their son and nephew from such an abominable fate that they refused to permit him to enter the foreign employ.

To which Ah Fay replied that the work was very respectable, being connected with a school; that the duties were light; that he was a true son of Confucius, and could not be influenced by the foreigners’ ignorant ideas of religion; that he would never drink any foreign medicine. Thereupon Ah Fay broke the lock of custom and went to the mission.

He stayed a year, and alas for his Confucianism. It faded out like a mist before the shining sun. He drank in foreign ideas with an avidity which astonished the foreigners. He became a devout Christian, and his black eyes shone like great stars as he told of his beloved “Jesus religion.” Then came the change. His uncles would endure it no more, and Ah Fay was dragged off to their laundry. The missionaries came to see him, and begged him to return, but with a grave, patient smile, he said:—

“Me workee laundly littee while,” and remained under the jurisdiction of his uncles.

Now the brightness left his eyes, and the happy, boyish light-heartedness slowly died out. He sometimes talked with his uncles, long, quiet, earnest talks they were, on his part, but angry and excited on theirs. An old Irish woman, who kept a fish market next door, one day saw them strike him with a hot iron, and she gave him some ointment to put on the burn; but he offered no resistance to the violence, and by and by he talked to them again. She often wondered what he found to talk about in that quiet way so long at a time, and why it made his uncles so angry; but he never told her, and not a word of Chinese did she understand.

The blows with the flat-irons were not the only violence that Ah Fay had suffered at the hands of his uncles. When the laundry was closed late at night, and on the particular fast days, the two men stood in the back room and bowed down to their wooden god; and when Ah Fay would not worship with them, they dragged him and knocked him down, so that he fell before the idol, and lay there for a time unconscious. When he would not place the incense, nor drink the wine, nor offer prayer before the house gods, nor bend in the worship of his ancestors, they beat him, and one day they cut him with their knives. But he did not die, at least not then.

After this he was violently ill. The old Irish woman came in one day, and told him to get the doctor; but his uncles despised the American medicine and would have none of it. They brought him herbs from Chinatown and made a tea, but he was too sick to drink it. Then his mind began to wander, and their fear of evil spirits returned. Without more ado they took his case in hand. Wong Yo set off fire-crackers in the front and rear of the house to frighten away any demons that might be lurking around, and Hop Hoy burned incense and said prayers to ward off the anger of the gods. When night came, and Ah Fay’s ravings had not yet ceased, they shut the doors, and stretched him on the ironing table, and tried to find the hole where the demons got in him. Finding none, they determined to make one for them to get out. With a sharp knife they made an incision in his side, and ran in a hollow bamboo stick as an outlet for the tormenting spirits. Poor Ah Fay tossed and groaned under his persecutors’ hands, and then lay in a stupor until morning.

But with morning his reason slowly returned. Summoning all his strength, while his uncles slept, he dragged himself to the door. With almost superhuman effort he boarded a passing street car, and sank into a corner, where he quietly fainted away.

In the other end of the car a missionary sat, and he looked up just in time to see Ah Fay’s head fall over, and his eyes shut in that deadly faint. With a bound he was by his side, trying vainly to restore him. After a time Ah Fay opened his eyes and recognized his old friend.

“Me jus’ go home mission to die,” he said.

Up the stairs they bore him, and laid him on his own white bed in the familiar room. They did all that human power, and love, and tenderness could do to bring back the ebbing strength, but it was too late. Day by day he slowly but surely failed.

“Me no want go laundry,” he said. “But Holy Spirit say go. Many times me pray Jesus, God make me good missionary go back China countlee, but Holy Spirit all time say, ‘Go laundlee, tell the uncles.’ Me no want go, but must go. So me go tell uncles. Me talk, talk, talk evly day. Me too muchee talk, then they hittee me so bad. Me no care, talk jus’ same. Now me come back mission littee while. No get well any more. Go home Jesus’ house much better. Me so glad.”

They buried him among the Christian dead, and upon the white stone was written:—

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

Three years later the mission sent out two notable converts as missionaries to China. They had been redeemed from the deepest heathenism; and as examples of men to whom much had been forgiven, they also loved and suffered much for Him they served. Their names were Wong Yo and Hop Hoy, and for many years their labors were known throughout the Christian world. But to them there is no memory so sacred as that of a green grave and a simple, white headstone in a far-away land, commemorating the sacrifice of the faithful Christian boy, Ah Fay.—The Helping Hand.