MEDICAL MISSIONARY WORK IN CHINA.
By C. M. Snow
Not long ago a paper fell into my hands giving an account of woman's everyday life in China. It was written by a lady—a real heaven-spirited missionary—who had spent many years in this busy, crowded, needy land; and from beginning to end it seemed one almost despairing cry of, "How can we get to the people?" There were three principal obstacles to gaining an audience among these benighted sufferers of her own sex,—tyranny of opinion, the pinch of poverty, and the multiplication155of manual labor. The first antagonizes female education. Why should woman learn? Will it bring her more to eat, or to wear, increase her dowry, or give her a rich mother-in-law? To the Chinese the question is so evidently in the negative that it needs no argument, and the poor girl's prospect for an education is slim indeed. There is scarce a day when the pinch of poverty does not leave its sting upon the ordinary household in China; and therefore the child is mustered in at an early age to help fight the battle of life. One of their proverbs reads, "Even a child may not eat ten idle years of food." So the missionaries find it hard to get even the children to teach, and the wife and mother answers your question oftentimes without raising the head, lest night should come and find her stint undone. The multiplication of manual labor, as seen in China, is very poorly appreciated by those who are so familiar with the ingenious mechanical conveniences of more enlightened lands. The American housewife, if she essays to make her husband a coat, finds the material all ready manufactured; and she has but to cut it according to pattern, and run it through her sewing machine, and it is ready for him to wear. The Chinese woman treads the tiresome journey of twelve days from the beginning to the completion of even a simpler garment for her "outside," as the head of the Chinese household is called. The American is quite likely to say, "How marvelously slow!" But should the American woman attempt to keep pace with her in the tiresome race from start to finish, she would find herself considerably outdistanced by her less favored sister; as the Chinese woman has to take the material from the pod in which it grows, and first make the cloth before she can cut and fit. All her work is characterized by this same inconvenience. With all the clothing and even the shoes to make for her family, she finds but little time to listen and none to study. There is another hindrance to missionary enterprises. It is the social customs of the people. The mother cannot spare the time for the daughter to learn to read. "The father does not see its use." He is persuaded with difficulty; the older brother objects to her "running after foreigners." He is difficult to entreat. The paternal grandfather and grandmother are nearly certain to interfere, and must not be offended. Nor is this all, for the uncles and aunts must also be heard in the matter; and happy indeed might the child consider itself if it succeeded in running this intricate gauntlet without receiving some blow fatal to its prospects. Thus it seems that all these things are banded together for the purpose of shutting out the light of the gospel of Christ. But that light is bound to shine, even in China; and if one way is barred up, another will be opened. The daughters cannot be spared from home, the mother has no time to devote to learning—barely time to do the work which must be done from day to day; and the learning of, or even listening to, something so foreign to their previous mode of life seems but another burden on their already overcrowded hands. The missionary must come to them as a burden lifter in order to do most successful work; and while no true missionary would go into the field with any other object in view, yet the people cannot see at first approach how their burdens can be lightened by something that takes up the time they should give to work. A few incidents from the work of Miss Dr. Swinney (Seventh-day Baptist Medical Missionary at Shanghai) among the Chinese, seem to throw much light upon this difficult question. She says: "We find it is the medical missionary work that opens the door in China. The people are willing and anxious to hear our words, as soon as they realize we have been the means of healing their bodies. They are glad then to have us come to them and talk with them." This self-sacrificing woman has labored there for ten years in this line of work, visiting homes in both city and country, dispensing medicines, and working in the hospitals. One evening as she was sitting in her home after a hard day's work, a courier from the highest official in the arsenal rushed up, asking her to come at once to his master's house. She went, and found the wife of the official dangerously ill; but upon her entering the chamber, the sufferer was greatly alarmed. She had never seen a foreigner before, and her fright was so great that the missionary considered it unsafe to remain, both on the sufferer's account and on her own; for if she died, the people would say the foreign doctor had killed her. But the official bowed down, and struck his head on the floor, begging her not to leave. The lady supposed the foreigners carried knives, and this was the cause of her alarm. Dr. Swinney finally gained her confidence, and treated her several hours, leaving her about midnight in a much improved condition. She recovered, and has been a firm friend of Dr. Swinney's ever since. This incident spread rapidly, and she was soon called to the homes of many of the highest officials, where she lost no opportunity of teaching the people the gospel of Christ. In her work she frequently visited the villages about Shanghai, and concerning one of her visits to Tsa-tsoo, a walled city, she says:— "In one of my visits to this city, caring for the sick, and dispensing medicine, the people turned out in such large numbers to receive medical attention that when it was time to leave the place, I found the streets so filled with people that it was impossible to pass. All were eager to get to me, and all were striving for the first place. I worked as fast and as faithfully as I could, but what could one do among such an overwhelming number of sick? At four o'clock I told my companion we must leave, as there was danger of trouble among the people, each one desiring to be treated and none willing to be left out. The people in their eagerness were really driving me out of the place. The crowds surging in the street made it impossible for us to cross the bridge, so we had to engage a boat in order to cross the river. "When they saw that we were leaving them, they became nearly frantic. They would hold out their hands to me, imploring aid, and crying, 'You saw me before, why will you not see me now?' Often in the night will that picture come to me of the imploring multitudes, begging, entreating me for that help which their own numbers made it impossible for me to give them." Dr. Swinney tells of many other incidents equally interesting. In one of her medical missionary tours a young lady whom she had benefited, and to whom she had spoken the good news of salvation, refused to leave her until she had committed to memory some of the passages which carried the glad tidings. In a few minutes she had committed nearly a page, showing how great was her eagerness to learn. At another time a middle-aged, matronly lady came and stood by the door where she was treating the sick, and watched the process for several hours. At noon she went to the assistant, begging her to induce Dr. Swinney to visit another place, and assuring her that she would have plenty of work among the sick and suffering, and an opportunity to talk with them. Thus the medical work proved an effective door-opener for future work, and won the hearts of the people. This burden-lifting missionary was privileged to enter the homes of the highest and the lowest, ministering to the spiritual as well as to the physical needs of the people. The Master healed all who came to him, and then taught them the way of salvation. The servant must follow in his footsteps, teach as he taught, minister as he ministered, and heal by the same power that he invoked, always bathing the lips of the sufferer at the well of salvation. The work of the true medical missionary is nearer akin to the work of Christ than that performed for fallen man in any other way. Let none think the time wasted that is spent in a preparation for this kind of work. The world should be filled with just such missionaries, and may God's spirit attend all who are fitting themselves to follow the Master in this work for suffering humanity.