More Workers for Honan by Mrs. J. N. Anderson

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Jun 12, 1907

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 33, No. 24.

More Workers for Honan.

By Mrs. J. N. Anderson

Our Own Work in China.

(Concluded.)

IN response to an appeal from Elder Pilquist for association and help, the board sent word that Dr. A. C. Selmon, of the American Medical College staff, would join him. The promise was more than abundantly fulfilled, when, in the succeeding autumn, October, 1903, Dr. and Mrs. Selmon, Drs. H. W. and Mrs. Miller, accompanied by Misses Ericksen and Simpson, trained nurses, responded to the call. So large a company has not been expected, and insufficient provision had been made for the new missionaries; but with courage equal to the emergency the new recruits set to work to repair another house for occupancy. In the early summer the company separated to form four stations, the Misses Ericksen and Simpson remaining at the old home in Sin Tsai-Hsien to carry on the work but fairly begun there.

In spite of the many difficulties by which they have been beset, and the restrictions placed upon them by Chinese social customs, their work has gone quietly forward. From their little dispensary, relief from suffering has flowed into many homes; and they have made a good beginning in school work for girls in addition to the regular work for women. Work for men is carried on thru an evangelist. It sometimes happens that a nurse is able to reach the people who are afraid to trust themselves to the doctor for fear of his surgeon's knife.

It was not an easy thing for men and women of only about eight months' experience in the Chinese language to undertake the remodeling of a Chinese family-compound of houses into a home. These structures are frequently built in a row of small houses around an open court. Sometimes, as in large wealthy families, they consist of a series of courts surrounded in the same way. They consist of brick walls, and roofs probably of thatched straw, with no floors, chimneys, or windows that a Westerner would recognize. The lessee gains possession of these empty shells in whatever state of preservation or decay they happen to be in, at a stipulated sum for a stipulated term of years, and then proceeds to reconstruct the interior into a dwelling. Other buildings for school, chapel, dispensary, or whatever lines of work are to be carried on must be made ready as required. It is under such difficulties and with such privileges that our Honan workers have established themselves in their new homes.

At Siang Cheng, the Doctors Selmon have a good dispensary work, which affords a considerable income with chapel and school work. The work has been prosecuted carefully with a constant desire that it may lay a sound foundation for the future building.

In March of 1905, Mrs. Dr. Miller died at the station in Shang Tsai Hsien, where she with her husband had labored so diligently for the preceding five months to convert a compound of six native houses, in a somewhat shambling and unsanitary condition, into a dwelling with rooms for helpers, chapels both for men and for the women, dispensary, and schoolroom. Since then another room has been repaired to accommodate the small hand press brought with them from America, and the publication of a monthly representative of the Gospel begun in the local Mandarin dialect.

In May of the present year, F. A. Allum and wife, of Australia, arrived in China to connect with the work at Shang Tsai, and thus Dr. Miller has been relieved from the solitary life he has been living for more than a year past.

Elder J. J. Westrup and wife arrived in China in September, 1905, and have been connected since that time with Elder Pilquist at his station in Lo Shan Hsien. Thus the total number of our missionaries in Honan province is eleven adults and three children.

Dr. H. W. and the Late Mrs. Miller, at the Shang Tsai Mission House, Honan.

Dr. Bertha L. Selmon and Members of the Girls' School, Honan,

God's Light in Advance of Missionaries.

Our work at Amoy in the Fukien province sprang up quite unexpectedly among the natives, and a number of persons were keeping the Sabbath of the Lord before any of them were known to the missionaries. In response to an appeal for workers, W. C. Hankins and wife came out to take charge of the work at that point. One year later, last March, Elder B. L. Anderson came to labor in the Fukien province. The assistance of those faithful few who were on the ground waiting for their coming has been invaluable to the new missionaries. The same God who planted this work in the province of Fukien has also watered it so that in the short space of two years a faithful company of believers are ready, waiting to be organized into a church. In those days when the first native in Fukien had taken an open and decided stand, fearlessly forsaking position, reputation, and all for what he knew to be the truth; and when those who at the first stood with him had turned back as unwilling to pay the full price of the sacrifice, he sent the words of Ps. 102: 7: "I watch, and am as

a sparrow alone upon the housetop." Faithful watcher! The God who sees in secret has rewarded him openly. He is no longer alone. The message to which he bore witness has run far out into the country where none had gone before, and in various places where, in former years, his fruitful labors as pastor had borne witness to a devoted life, little lights are shining—advance pickets of that Messenger of whom it is predicted, "The earth was lightened with His glory." Three out-stations with schools and chapels are conducted from the station at Amoy, and the calls continue to come from other untouched districts.

Literature Needed.

Among a people of literary attainments, like the Chinese, the printed page will continue to be as it has been, a large factor in the dissemination of Gospel light. No doubt the present great influence of Japan over the Chinese has been acquired largely thru the influence of the press. While the genius of Japan is western and modern, it is in no sense Christian, and a flood of infidel literature from that source is now flooding China. Acting on the principle that darkness is dispelled by light, and error is displaced by truth, there ought to be a counter-tide of evangelical and helpful literature set in motion. A large publishing work will be required to supply present truth literature for our work. In the meantime the workers are busy with language study as a most essential preparation to an intelligent oversight of any acceptable literary work. Some tracts of original matter, with several translations from the English, written in the universal book language of China, are in circulation.

China is awakening from the lethargic condition in which she has spent the past century, and we must rise to meet the higher demands in medical, educational, literary, and evangelical lines which this new era will make upon the missionary.

Mrs. J. N. ANDERSON. Canton, China.