A CHINESE FEMALE EVANGELIST.
By Mrs. Howard Taylor
[Mrs. Howard Taylor, in Regions Beyond.] I REMEMBER a very degraded woman in a city in the heart of China. One day there were a dozen women around me, and sitting right at my feet a woman I had never seen before, poor and degraded. I could see at a glance she had lived a very sad life. Her hands were hard with toil, and she seemed stupid. We were talking about the power of Jesus Christ and how He even cast out evil spirits, and delivered people who were tormented with devils. She had never heard of Christ before, never heard His name, and stopped me several times, asking, "Is it true?" I assured her over and over again that it was certainly true. Towards the end she said one thing more, "Does Jesus Christ do things now—to-day?" What would you have said? There is nothing so powerful as a present experience of the power of Jesus Christ, enabling one to assure those who never heard of Him before that these things are true. I must not tell you all about it. She went away and gave her heart to Jesus Christ that night, and He wrought in her a most wonderful transformation. She came a few days afterwards and said, "I know now that what you told me the other day is true." "How do you know?" "He has done it for me." "Are you going to another city where they have never heard of Jesus?" "Yes." "Are you going soon?" "Yes, soon." "Have you a servant to go with you?" "No." She said, "I am going with you, and I will do your washing and make shoes. I love you and I love your Jesus." The end of it was she came. She was truly converted, but very rough. I felt, however, there was a soul filled with love to Jesus, and I spent a great deal of time in teaching and praying for that woman. I taught her all I could of the life of Christ, and the way to put the Gospel. There came a day when there was a great fair, and hundreds of women crowded to see us. While I was speaking to them, I lost my voice and could not go on talking. The room was full, and this woman was sitting near me. She had been a Christian two or three months, and, turning to her, I said, "You see I can not speak any more; will you try, and just tell the women the rest." She said, "I can not preach; don't ask me to do such a thing." "Well," I said, "if you don't, they will have to go without hearing and perhaps never come again. The Holy Spirit can help you and make you tell them far better than I can. Won't you ask Him?" She bent her head in prayer for a moment, and I sat praying for her with intense earnestness, feeling that it was and might prove such for many souls. Presently she raised her head, looked around, and I saw what had happened. Never shall I forget the light which shone upon her face, and she began to try to tell the certainty of those things that she herself had known about Jesus. She forgot me, the time, everything, and just poured out her heart before these women. If ever I saw anybody filled with the Spirit of God, it was that woman, that day. She went on for an hour or two without a pause, and nobody moved. Many of them were in tears; many of them had never heard of Jesus. They had never heard a missionary until two weeks before. A woman sitting in the room gave her heart to God, and still lives a consistent Christian life. Best of all, the preacher was saved from herself and filled with the Spirit, and became from that time such a teacher of the Gospel that I never thought of speaking when she was there. Men have often said, when she had preached half the day: "We don't want to go home; we never heard anything like this before. You go to bed, and let this woman stay and talk; she can talk all night." I have wakened in the middle of the night, and heard that woman, in the dark, still telling of Jesus to those who were so eager to hear. Sometimes they would ask her questions, and even go to sleep and wake up and ask more questions, and early in the morning would be listening still. The power of the Spirit in the life of that woman was simply wonderful. It left nothing to be desired—nothing. One could not wish for anything more reasonable, logical, clear, persuasive, tender, full of love and of the power of the Spirit than that dear woman's message to others.