China's 
 Crossroads 
 
 Elliott I, Osgood 
 
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 CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 THE 
 
 CHARLES WILLIAM WASON 
 
 COLLECTION ON CHINA 
 
 AND THE CHINESE 
 
DATE DUE 
 
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 PRINTED IN U.S.A. 
 
 Cornell University Library 
 DS 710.082 
 
 Chinas crossroads / 
 
 3 1924 023 123 130 
 
M Cornell University 
 M Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tlie Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023123130 
 
China's Crossroads 
 
 By 
 
 ELLIOT L OSGOOD 
 
 Medical Missionary in China 
 Author of "Breaking Down Chinese Walls" 
 
 Powell & White 
 Cincinnati, O. 
 
Copyright 1922 
 Powell B White 
 
 /7o 
 
 Printed in U. S. A. 
 
Introduction 
 
 DR. ELLIOTT L OSGOOD has been in 
 Central China for many years and few 
 missionaries have lived in more intimate 
 touch with the Chinese people than be has. For 
 more than fifteen years he has been a medical 
 missionary in connection with the hospital at 
 Chuchow, Anhwei Province, China, under the 
 Board of Disciples of Christ. Living in a dis- 
 trict with a population of a million people and 
 having the only hospital in that section of China, 
 his experience has been most varied and interest- 
 ing. Although a medical missionary, he has 
 also been an evangelist. His theory has been to 
 link up very closely the healing of the body with 
 the healing of the soul. From the beginning 
 Dr. Osgood has actively entered the social and 
 governmental life of his little city and has had a 
 remarkable part in the shaping of sentiment and 
 ideals for the young Chinese in his section. He 
 rendered incomparable aid to his city and his 
 people during the revolution and counter revolu- 
 tion in China, and by close touch with business 
 men and the officials of Chuchow he has been 
 able to guide the Chinese in many constructive 
 ways. The chapters of this book have grown out 
 of his rich experience in dealing with the people. 
 Few can interpret the real situation in China 
 
better than Dr. Osgood. He has lived so long 
 with the people that he, in a real sense, "thinks" 
 Chinese. The readers will be inspired and up- 
 lifted by his stories of the application of Chris- 
 tianity to real Chinese life. This volume, in a 
 way a sequel to his first volume "Breaking Down 
 Chinese Walls," should have a wide reading 
 among those who are interested in the welfare 
 of new-old China. 
 
 STEPHEN J. COREY. 
 
Contents 
 
 ■ PAGE 
 
 Introduction 3 
 
 Preface 9 
 
 I. Thinking in Chinese 13 
 
 II. Breaking Down Old Walls 25 
 
 III, The Transition Period in China 40 
 
 IV. The Passing of the Opium Curse 58 
 
 V. The Missionary and the Revolution 72 
 
 VI. The Days Following the Revolution 89 
 
 VII. The Republic's Political Deeds 106 
 
 VIII. The Doctor's Job 125 
 
 IX. Lifting Up Men Who Have Failed 140 
 
 X. The Missionary Doctor and the Chinese Woman 154 
 
 XI. Building a Railroad 169 
 
 XII. A Ranch 184 
 
 XIII. Medical Ministry to the Missionary 202 
 
 XIV. China's Call to America 216 
 
Illustrations 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Christian Hospital at Chuchow Frontispiece 
 
 Shi Kwei Biao 96 
 
 Beginning the Morning Clinic 128 
 
 Athletic Meet of a Chinese College 224 
 
Preface 
 
 THE eyes of a doctor see, more than any- 
 thing else, symptoms of disease in human 
 beings with whom he comes in contact. He 
 has studied his medical books and sick people 
 so long that he becomes accustomed to search- 
 ing for symptoms in every man he meets. He 
 likewise has learned to see the things which 
 cause disease. He has learned to look at a 
 building, or a school-book, or a suit of clothes, 
 or a street or alley, as a possible disease 
 spreader. He is forever on the still hunt to cure 
 disease and to eradicate things which cause it. 
 His very conversation, consciously or uncon- 
 sciously, dwells on healing, operations, pre- 
 ventative measures and germs. He longs to 
 create a physically human society. 
 
 The missionary doctor in China sees symp- 
 toms of disease on nearly every person he meets. 
 Trachoma,malaria, skin disease and social dis- 
 eases are working their ravages through every 
 grade of society; farmer, laborer, soldier, mer- 
 chant and scholar. Every disease found in 
 modern society is here, and in aggravated form. 
 Among these four hundred million people there 
 are not a thousand modern trained doctors. 
 
 The missionary doctor is a practical Chris- 
 tian worker. He knows that the religions which 
 
have held sway in China tend to bring weakness 
 to the body as well as to the soul. Fear of fate, 
 selfishness and sin, ignorance and parasitism, 
 are sapping the physical life of the people. Pre- 
 ventative medicine must find a way to clean these 
 things from Chinese society, just as it must find 
 means to clean the dirt from the streets and 
 homes. 
 
 In this book we might have devoted space 
 to educational, evangelistical and pastoral work. 
 We have not done so. Others know those sub- 
 jects far better, and we have been so long deal- 
 ing with disease and seeking measures to pre- 
 vent it, that we could not help but emphasize 
 this side of the new life which is springing up in 
 China. 
 
 The missionaries have been trying to save 
 China, physically, intellectually and spirtually. 
 Some emphasize one of these phases more than 
 others. Perhaps we have underscored the first. 
 They are all found in the human life and bound 
 together. We cannot keep them apart. The thing 
 which lifts up the spiritual life strengthens the 
 physical. We have not found a cure for every 
 ill, but we belive with all our hearts that the 
 acceptance of Jesus Christ as Savior must be the 
 foundation for the healing of the people and of 
 the nation. 
 
 For twenty years young China has seen in 
 America its ideal of a nation. She longs to here 
 build up another nation like unto her. Recently 
 many Chinese have begun dimly to realize that 
 
the foundation of America's greatness and power 
 is in her faith and trust in God. It is a day of 
 tremendous opportunity for America in China, 
 so we have been constrained to write these pages 
 that you in America may realize this and take up 
 the job which God is laying upon you. 
 
 E. I. 0. 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
THINKING IN CHINESE 
 
 A man thinks in a language. The language 
 in which he thinks is usually the same one in 
 which he makes known his thoughts to others. 
 His thinking is colored by the books he reads, 
 the community in which he lives and by the 
 familiar objects which he daily sees. He thinks 
 in terms of the community, the state or nation 
 in which he lives and works. If he makes a 
 tour of the globe, everything he sees is colored 
 by the sights with which his eyes have been 
 familiar since childhood. He is comparing every 
 new thing with similar conditions in his home 
 community or state. He is merely reasoning 
 from the known to the unknown. 
 
 When a man goes from the Occident to live 
 permanently in the Orient, he finds himself like 
 a young tree dug up from its familiar ground and 
 transplanted to another soil. For a time he 
 seems to cease growing. He is dazed, shocked, 
 withered. His whole system, physical, moral 
 and spiritual, is affected by the change. He 
 finds people talking in a language, living in con- 
 ditions and working in ways absolutely contrary 
 to his approved ideas of right living. He had 
 probably not heretofore conceived that men could 
 
 [13] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 live in such a manner. He cannot get their 
 point of view. His whole being is chafed by a 
 hundred things which are going on before him. 
 At first they pique his curiosity. Some of them 
 are tragic; but most of them affect his nerves. 
 
 "Do you know that cook of mine whom I am 
 trying to train put garlic in the pie today!" 
 cried one woman in despair. 
 
 "That flock of women walked right through 
 my house back to the room where I was lying 
 down," cried our ranchman in disgust. 
 
 "The guard on that train ran several rods 
 after me to give me an umbrella I had carelessly 
 left on the train," another said in amazement. 
 
 "I don't see why these people cannot do the 
 way I want them," irritably spoke another. 
 
 They cannot understand the ways of the 
 Chinese people. They forget that very few of 
 this nation are familiar with the ways of foreign 
 countries. The new arrival wonders at the 
 methods used by the older man. He finds him- 
 self criticising those who have been long in the 
 country. Why has the old missionary grown so 
 careless, so thoughtless, so forgetful of time, so 
 discourteous? The older missionary may not 
 be guilty of a single one of these things, but it all 
 seems so to the newcomer. He marvels that the 
 Chinese are not offended over the treatment they 
 are receiving. He would not treat them so. By 
 and by the established philosophies which he 
 had held so dear begin vanishing into thin 
 air. Things become unstable. His religious 
 
 [14] 
 
THINKING IN CHINESE 
 
 ideas are being broken down to their simplest 
 forms. His prayers become appeals. At times 
 an appalling feeling of helplessness grips him. 
 His prayers seem to rise no higher than the 
 ceiling. He has to grip his lifelong faith in God, 
 in man, as a drowning man grips a rope, which, 
 while saving him is dragging him through 
 whirling, terrible waters. 
 
 Slowly the new missionary finds himself. 
 There is something in the patient courtesy of the 
 Chinese teacher which compels his admiration. 
 That teacher daily sits opposite him at the study 
 table and initiates him into the mysteries of the 
 Chinese language. He has time to study him. 
 He finds some orphaned heart in the mission 
 school responding to the mother love in some 
 teacher. He catches the mission doctor late at 
 night coaxing life back into the body of some 
 poor neglected piece of humanity. He gathers 
 enough of the language to at least make him- 
 self understood by his teacher and thoughts at 
 length begin to form themselves into Chinese 
 setting, into Chinese words. The ground under 
 his feet assumes solidity. He begins to see rea- 
 son in the hitherto queer customs. Maybe the 
 Chinese view is not so illogical after all. The 
 homeland is less constant in his thoughts. The 
 new land is taking on points of attractive beauty. 
 Even the dirty-faced babies are beginning to fas- 
 cinate him. 
 
 His roots are slowly gripping the new soil. 
 The lure of the Orient is upon him. He finds 
 
 [16] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 himself thinking in the language of the Chinese. 
 He may not be able immediately, or in the end, to 
 put out of his own life the intense nervous activ- 
 ity which characterizes the American. He still 
 rushes along the street as though on an errand of 
 life or death, dodging around slow-going Chinese. 
 He may even be able to put more energy into the 
 servants and helpers who gather around him; 
 but it does not worry him so much because he 
 cannot hustle the entire Bast. They will hustle 
 some time, he thinks, and lets them take their 
 time. 
 
 Very likely in the beginning he had spoiled 
 one or two servants by giving them a larger wage 
 than his felloW' workers were paying. He then 
 had the chagrin of seeing those servants, like 
 spoiled children, puffed up with their own im- 
 portance and worthy of being dismissed. Now 
 he had sadly to begin training others. It is easy 
 for a servant to exaggerate his own usefulness 
 when he is promoted too rapidly. Missionaries 
 early learn this lesson and so give a wage but a 
 little larger than do their Chinese neighbors. A 
 common servant usually receives five dollars a 
 month from the missionary. A cook may be paid 
 nine or ten. A personal teacher receives fifteen. 
 Better educated men get from twenty to fifty 
 dollars a month. 
 
 These men pay per month from two and a 
 half to five dollars for their food. In their own 
 homes they live even cheaper. They figure that, 
 on an average, a person will eat a little more 
 
 [16] 
 
THINKING IN CHINESE 
 
 than one pound of rice a day. Vegetables and 
 meats are eaten as a relish, not as a major por- 
 tion in their meals. Rich people eat more meat 
 and less rice, but the poor man lives chiefly on 
 the common cereal. Farther north rice is re- 
 placed with corn and wheat. A small corn pud- 
 ding with fresh dates added to it is delicious on a 
 frosty morning. 
 
 Shoes may be bought in their shops but ordi- 
 narily the women of the household make them 
 for the family. Being made with cloth in form 
 similar to our slippers, the soles chiefly of 
 pasteboard and waste cloth, strongly quilted with 
 hempen twine, these home-made shoes cost but a 
 few dimes. The common people, when at work 
 or traveling across the country, buy a pair of 
 straw sandals for a few cents and carry their 
 shoes. For wet weather they may have a pair of 
 hobnailed leather boots. These are kept oiled 
 and last for years. In winter time they wear 
 heavier socks, line their shoes with cotton or 
 sheepskin with the wool still on the skin. 
 
 The poor man wears a cap or hat which can 
 be bought for twenty cents or less. His strong 
 bamboo and paper-made umbrella does not cost 
 over thirty or forty cents. He is careful of his 
 clothing and the outer garments may last for 
 years. His cotton garments are patched until it 
 is difficult to tell the original from that which is 
 added. Clothing is worn by the poor until it is 
 completely worn out. It may pass down to them 
 from the rich and the poor even pass a garment 
 
 [17] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 on to the beggar or poor relative. Then it 
 ceases to be a garment and becomes a bundle of 
 rags. Finally the rags are gathered up and used 
 to reinforce their pasteboard soles, to make 
 mops and dishcloths or to be woven into cloth 
 sandals or sold to the paper maker. 
 
 There are rich homes in China and there are 
 many beggar huts. The rich man's home may- 
 be elaborately furnished, yet the home of an 
 ordinary rich man in China might not be attrac- 
 tive to the average American who has not learn- 
 ed to "think Chinese." It has one redeeming 
 feature. There is usually plenty of fresh air cir- 
 culating through it for the doors are always open. 
 
 The poor man's home may have a table and 
 chairs. A few wooden benches will sometimes in- 
 crease the seating capacity. He usually has one 
 or two cooking pots. These fit over a brick stove 
 which may or may not have a smoke flue. The 
 stove is a simple, cheap structure which uses the 
 maximum of heat generated from the burning of 
 wild grass. One never sees bonfires in China. 
 Every possible part of the tree which can be used 
 for lumber is so used. The remainder, twigs, 
 branches and leaves are used for fuel. The poor 
 man will have sufficient rice bowls to allow one 
 for each member of the family. An extra one or 
 two hold the vegetables. He uses no tablecloth, 
 no napkins, no sheets, no pillow cases, no paja- 
 mas. In the winter his own clothing is used for 
 extra bedding. If he has two rooms in which to 
 live he is fortunate. Sometimes he constructs a 
 [18] 
 
THINKING IN CHINESE 
 
 cheap lean-to for a kitchen, otherwise his stove is 
 also in his main room. He probably has a box in 
 which he keeps special papers, but he needs no 
 strong box for he has no valuables. His bed may 
 be constructed out of bamboo or rough lumber, or 
 a door laid across a couple of benches serves the 
 same purpose. Sometimes he sleeps on the top of 
 his table. He may spread a bundle of straw in a 
 dry corner and curl up for the night. Such is a 
 poor man's home in town. 
 
 Every single member of such a family 
 works, — or is a parasite on some one else. They 
 know how to save, how to economize so that 
 nothing is lost. The children in the spring^ go 
 out and gather greens for vegetables. These cost 
 nothing but labor. Some of them travel about 
 the streets with a basket of peanuts, selling 
 them to passersby. They pick up cast-off sandals 
 and carry them home for fuel. In the autumn 
 any or all of them shoulder a carrying pole and 
 hie them to the hills to gather their winter's fuel. 
 At night they come staggering home under their 
 heavy loads. 
 
 Such people do not have books nor newspa- 
 pers. Few of them can read. They do not go to 
 the movies. When a performing monkey, or a 
 Punch and Judy show or a travelling circus 
 comes to town, the children are to be found in 
 the front row. But these are in the open air and 
 the showman cannot extract much money. 
 Temples get very little money from such people. 
 The tax collector, too, gives them a wide berth. 
 
 [19] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 Tlie landlord is careful that they pay down a 
 lump sum as a guarantee fund. When they can 
 find some little corner of public land, they may 
 give the constable a tip, and build their own 
 little hut or cottage. Mud walls and thatch roof 
 are cheap. Sometimes they find an abandoned 
 hut and move in without troubling the constable. 
 They do the repairing and act as though they had 
 always lived there. Rainy days may find them 
 short of grass fuel; then they eat the cold left- 
 overs and tighten their belts until the sun shines 
 again. They rarely call a doctor, for doctors cost 
 money. Some old woman may give them a pre- 
 scription, or they may buy a sticky plaster from 
 some street vender. These are warranted to cure 
 headache, toothache, boils, crick in the 
 back, rheumatism, abscesses and sores of all 
 kind. When one dies, a very cheap coffin is 
 bought or they may just roll up the body in mat- 
 ting and bury it on public land. 
 
 This is living the simple life with deadly 
 intensity. It is getting indeed very close to 
 nature. To the missionary doctor it seems more 
 like dying an unnatural death. The hopeless look 
 on more than half of the clinical faces in which 
 he daily glances makes him feel all too keenly 
 the life and death struggle being enacted before 
 his eyes. It is a movie with a hopeless ending. 
 "Doctor," they ask, "what must I avoid in my 
 eating?" And the doctor exclaims, "Eat every- 
 thing you can get; eat everything." 
 
 This is a description of more than two-thirds 
 [20] 
 
THINKING IN CHINESE 
 
 of all Chinese. With such a daily panorama mov- 
 ing before him, the missionary doctor learns to 
 think, to think intensely in Chinese. He, too, 
 learns to save, to economize. He is careful to see 
 that waste leaves and grass in his yard are placed 
 where poor people can get them. He allows them 
 to come in and gather greens. He allows them to 
 rake up his dead leaves. He puts the old cloth- 
 ing, the scraps of cloth, the old shoes, into the 
 hands of some capable Chinese woman and tells 
 her to give them where most needed. 
 
 Oft-times when we are cleaning the attic 
 and getting rid of the accumulations of years, we 
 chide ourselves for having laid away things 
 which have been injured by time. Why did we 
 not give them to some needy person instead of 
 littering up a garret? One time when we were 
 leaving for a vacation an old Christian woman 
 came hobbling in. She had no property and only 
 a distant relative on whom to depend. Her com- 
 forts were few, but she was not a beggar and she 
 always showed appreciation for anything done to 
 make her lot easier. She was a steady attendant 
 at the church services. 
 
 "Teacher," she said this time, "Have you an 
 old pair of leather shoes which you are going to 
 throw away?" We remembered an old pair of 
 men's shoes which we could no longer use and 
 turned them over. 
 
 "Oh, these are fine," she exclaimed. "They 
 have good soles. Now I can get to church even 
 when it is muddy." She will keep those old shoes 
 
 [21] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 oiled. She will stuff a little paper or cloth into 
 the toes and make them fit her smaller feet. 
 They will last her the rest of her days upon 
 earth. They will in fact be a choice possession — 
 and we were going to throw them away. 
 
 Is it any wonder that the missionary, after 
 living for some years among such people, will 
 learn to think in terms of the Chinese? Is it any 
 wonder that while on furlough in his homeland 
 he will look at things very differently from what 
 he did when he went out for the first time? How 
 to find solutions for these Oriental problems, how 
 to bring life instead of death to these people, how 
 to heal their sicknesses and to prevent more sick- 
 ness, how to bring prosperity to the many and 
 not just to the few, how to lift them up to a plane 
 where they will be able to think of other things 
 than just food and clothing and shelter, how to 
 apply Christianity socially and lift them to a 
 height where they can appreciate the spirit of 
 Christ; these are the great problems which take 
 possession of the soul of the missionary. 
 
 Furlough time comes around and we return 
 to the homeland. We look out of the car window 
 and see a pile of brush down by the side of the 
 stream ; or it may be a meadow with cocks of hay. 
 Our minds fly back to China and the pile of brush 
 and cock of hay become Chinese graves. Are they 
 not likewise scattered by the side of the streams 
 and over the fields? We see the end of a wooden 
 culvert sticking out by the road side. It is surely 
 some Chinese coffin from which the elements are 
 [22] 
 
THINKING IN CHINESE 
 
 removing the slight earth covering. We see 
 posted on some wall a red poster with a white 
 center or a white poster with a blue center. It 
 must be the entrance to some Chinese home in 
 which some leading member has died within the 
 year. One early morning on the train we heard 
 a little child prattling to its mother. Our sleepy 
 ears were suddenly arrested by a word from the 
 child which sounded for all the world like the 
 Chinese expression, "foreign devil." How many 
 times in the past years have we heard it from the 
 lips of Chinese children! 
 
 So a missionary on furlough finds himself 
 still thinking in Chinese, still seeing with Chi- 
 nese eyes, still hearing with Chinese ears. The 
 homeland seems to take on a value only in rela- 
 tion to the land of his adoption. He sees a group 
 of school children come out of their school and 
 march down the street, every child carrying an 
 American flag. A drum corps leads them. 
 These are perhaps the children of immigrant 
 parents who were attracted to America's free 
 soil. The children are drinking deep at the foun- 
 tain of American life. They are singing the 
 American national songs and hoisting the Amer- 
 ican flag over their school building. The mis- 
 sionary's mind again flies back to China and 
 again, in spirit, he is watching a line of Chinese 
 school children. They are all in white uniforms 
 and each one is carrying two flags, that of his 
 country with Its five strips and the other of our 
 own with its beloved stars and stripes. He sees 
 
 [23] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 them again as they marched that day into his 
 compound and the compounds of many other 
 American missionaries. He again hears them 
 singing in honor of the missionary and the 
 country which he represents. And the tears 
 come once more to his eyes, as they did that day 
 in 1912 when he saw the flag of his nation being 
 given a place of honor by a backward nation, a 
 nation which he has learned to love and for 
 whom he is devoting his life energies. 
 
 [24] 
 
II 
 
 BREAKING DOWN OLD WALLS 
 
 The difference between the China of twenty 
 years ago and the China of today is as great as 
 the chasm which divides hatred and friendship. 
 Only one who has lived through these years of 
 change in the Orient can fully realize what has 
 taken place. Even to veteran missionaries the 
 well nigh Impregnable walls of ignorance, pre- 
 judice and bigotry which the Chinese people 
 had raised up about their nation in the nine- 
 teenth century seem but a bad dream which 
 has passed. Yet it is now a matter of history 
 that Protestant missionary forces were batter- 
 ing against those walls for a hundred years be- 
 fore they fell. What men suffered in those years 
 only the old missionaries can tell. Nothing but 
 divinely inspired faith in ultimate success gave 
 them courage to fight the unequal battle which 
 they waged. Over and over again it was a case 
 of one man facing a million and two facing ten 
 million. But they kept on, and recruits con- 
 tinued to increase in numbers, in spite of the 
 unyielding attitude of the Chinese people. 
 
 "All things are possible to him that be- 
 lieveth," said the Master long ago. "God and 
 
 [25] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 we are bound to be in the majority," the old 
 missionaries said, encouraging one another. As 
 the missionaries of more recent years have 
 watched these old walls finally crumbling to 
 pieces, and then have listened to the tales the 
 old veterans at times would be led to tell, they 
 too have marveled at the steadfast faith with 
 which these old soldiers have held on to the 
 task. "Now on the Rock they stand who watch 
 God's eye, and hold His guiding Hand," said 
 Keble. 
 
 "The dawn is not far distant. 
 
 Nor is the night starless — 
 
 Love is eternal! 
 
 God is still God, and 
 
 His word shall not fail us." 
 
 Today the old enmity of the Chinese people 
 against foreigners and things foreign is gone. 
 Their blind faith in their own institutions and 
 their contempt for those of other countries have 
 disappeared. We can see that a new China is 
 being bom — born in pain and travail, to be sure, 
 but one which will take its place as a new nation 
 among the great family of nations. 
 
 It must not be forgotten that while through 
 the centuries there has been some connection 
 by caravan routes, and later water routes, be- 
 tween the Bast and the West, very little of the 
 West was brought to the East or of the East to 
 the West. China developed her own civilization, 
 a civilization that, until the last two centuries, 
 
 [26] 
 
BREAKING DOWN OLD WALLS 
 
 was in advance of the West. Traders of the 
 early centuries had no reason to complain of 
 the treatment they received from the Chinese. 
 They found the same culture and refinement, 
 the same courtesy towards guests from afar 
 which once more is manifesting itself. 
 
 The first knowledge of China which came 
 to the peoples of Western Asia and those around 
 the Mediterranean Sea, was brought in by 
 Persian stories and legends. The country was 
 called Thina or Sinim. It is probable that 
 Isaiah was referring to China when he used the 
 old term of Sinim. The Roman people knew the 
 land by the name of Seres, the land from which 
 came silks. But it was Marco Polo who, through 
 publishing the record of a score or more years 
 spent in the Orient, made the name of Cathay 
 familiar to the European world. 
 
 Marco Polo, with his father and uncle, who 
 accompanied him to China, received great 
 courtesy at the hands of the Chinese govern- 
 ment. He even held the office of prefect of 
 Yangchow for a few years. John de Corvino, a 
 Roman Catholic missionary, was given imperial 
 audience, allowed to build a church with steeple 
 and bells and to baptize converts in Peking itself. 
 Early Arab and Persian traders used and abused 
 these courtesies shown to foreign guests. They 
 brought products of the West and offered them 
 as presents to the emperors, claiming for them- 
 selves the powers of ambassadors from their 
 own countries. They received in return presents 
 
 [27] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 which often amounted to far more than the 
 value of the goods they had brought. An Oriental 
 monarch did not feel that he had maintained 
 his dignity and prestige unless his gifts were 
 greater than those he received from other coun- 
 tries. 
 
 After the compass had been invented and 
 perfected, ocean traders discovered the route by 
 way of the Cape of Good Hope and quickly pushed 
 on to the Orient. Marco Polo's stories of the 
 gold and silver, the silks and porcelains of 
 Cathay lured them on to gain the riches of that 
 far away land for themselves. But their evil 
 treatment of the Chinese quickly compelled the 
 government to assume an entirely different atti- 
 tude towards them from that which it formerly 
 held towards those who had come by land. 
 
 Sir John Davis once wrote, "The early con- 
 duct of the Portuguese was not calculated to 
 impress the Chinese with any favorable idea of 
 Europeans; and when, in the course of time, 
 they came to be competitors with the Dutch and 
 English, the contest of mercantile avarice tended 
 to place them all in a still worse point of view. 
 To this day the character of the Europeans is 
 represented as that of a race of men intent alone 
 on the gains of commercial traffic, and regardless 
 altogether of the means of attainment." Li 
 Hung-chang once said that it was almost im- 
 possible to hope for a mutual understanding on 
 the question of relationship with the European 
 nations; that they (Europeans) viewed all ques- 
 
 [28] 
 
BREAKING DOWN OLD WALLS 
 
 tions from the commercial standpoint while the 
 Chinese considered them from the moral side. 
 Colonel Yule, in summing up the early knowl- 
 edge other nations had of the Chinese, said, 
 "The people (Chinese) are civilized men, mild, 
 just and frugal in temper, eschewing collision 
 with their neighbors and even shy of inter- 
 course; but not averse to dispose of their prod- 
 ucts of which raw silk is the staple." 
 
 Portuguese traders sailed their vessels to 
 China and in 1516 formed a settlement at Ningpo 
 for trade. In 1545, because they raided neigh- 
 boring villages and seized women and girls, the 
 people in revenge slew 12,000 Christians, in- 
 cluding 800 Portuguese, and destroyed sixty-five 
 vessels. The traders were driven from the coun- 
 try. 
 
 About the same time the Spanish conquered 
 the Philippines and opened Manila as a trading 
 center with China. Chinese merchants flocked 
 to the islands in large numbers, threatening to 
 acquire a large share of the profits in trade. 
 The Spaniards expeditiously instituted a mas- 
 sacre, killing as many as 20,000 at one time. 
 This resulted in the withdrawal of all recognition 
 of the Spanish interests by the Chinese govern- 
 ment and the loss of all privileges in China which 
 they had gained. 
 
 The Dutch showed the same evil spirit which 
 possessed the Portuguese and Spaniards. They 
 seized harbors on the Pescadore Islands and 
 erected forts, compelling the Chinese to labor 
 
 [29] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 for them as serfs or slaves. The Chinese officials 
 finally succeeded in persuading them to move 
 their headquarters to Formosa. Protestant mis- 
 sionaries from Holland gained from their gov- 
 ernment the privilege of following their country- 
 men to Formosa and evangelizing the people. 
 Soon, however, Japan began driving missionaries 
 out of her borders, and the traders, lest their con- 
 nections with Japan also be lost, suppressed all 
 missionary activities on the Island. The rela- 
 tions of the Dutch with the Chinese continued 
 to be a history of rapine and aggression. When 
 their government sent an embassy to Peking, 
 the repute of their countrymen was such that 
 the embassy was humiliated and compelled to 
 kotow to the emperor. 
 
 In speaking of the relations of the British 
 with the Chinese, S. Wells Williams once wrote, 
 "his intercourse has not been such as was calcu- 
 lated to impress the Chinese with a just idea of 
 the character of the British nation as a leading 
 Christian people, for the East India Company, 
 which had the monopoly of the trade between 
 the two countries for nearly two centuries, sys- 
 tematically opposed every effort to diffuse Chris- 
 tian doctrine and general knowledge among the 
 Chinese down to the end of their control in 1834," 
 
 Thus we see that along the coast, traders 
 from European nations were destroying the 
 Chinese at will, ravaging the women, forcing 
 trade, and in every way showing themselves, in 
 comparsion to the natives, barbarians in very 
 
 [30] 
 
BREAKING DOWN OLD WALLS 
 
 truth. When these governments sent embassies 
 to Peking, these embassies were led to appear 
 before the Emperor in ceremonial forms de- 
 manded of tributary nations. They received, of 
 course, little satisfaction. The trade with the 
 Orient had become a profitable business and 
 European nations had granted certain rights to 
 individuals and companies. They in turn were 
 expected to defend the individuals and companies 
 in this trade. A clash of arms was inevitable. 
 Since the European nations were superior on 
 the battlefield, China was defeated and humili- 
 ated by those she deemed inferior. 
 
 Victories on the battlefield opened the way 
 to demanding privileges. China was compelled 
 to open certain cities to foreign trade. Conces- 
 sions in or near these cities were taken and the 
 beginning of foreign cities took shape. Today 
 we have islands, stretches of land along the coast 
 and whole cities which are held, controlled and 
 policed by foreign nations. China has had, in 
 consequence, to sign all manner of disgraceful 
 and humiliating treaties. 
 
 The review of such history is not pleasant, 
 but it is necessary if one is to understand the 
 conditions under which foreigners are in China 
 today and the obligations which they have com- 
 pelled China to shoulder in her relations with 
 them. It was no wonder that China did not 
 learn to love the foreigners. It mattered not 
 who the "barbarian" might be. She was suspic- 
 
 [31] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 ious Of them all. All alike were "foreign devils" 
 to her people. 
 
 Into such a turmoil, a hundred years ago, 
 came organized missionary forces. Their rep- 
 resentatives were also foreigners and the Chinese 
 showed the same resentment towards them. Th« 
 Roman Catholics, once in favor with the Chinese 
 government, were now under the ban. Every 
 man, woman and child from over the seas was 
 a "foreign devil" to the common people. Every 
 missionary at some time has felt the sting of 
 that title. 
 
 This hostility came as a shock. Then the 
 missionary learned to laugh it away. But it 
 often grew wearisome, especially when little 
 children lisped the word they heard on the lips 
 of their elders. To have a little child point to 
 one and call out in the very face of the mis- 
 sionary "the foreign devil has come," cut to the 
 heart like a knife. 
 
 At first the missionaries were allowed to 
 live and work nowhere but in the treaty ports. 
 The attitude of some of the traders and ship 
 officers often made life for the Christian worker 
 very unpleasant. Some companies showed a 
 finer spirit, however, and aided them in the 
 work. In one of the later treaties forced on 
 China a clause was quietly inserted which gave 
 missionaries the privilege to travel in the in- 
 terior, buy property and establish residence 
 there. Rights granted in such a way did not 
 serve to attract the Chinese, but if China was to 
 
 [32] 
 
BREAKING DOWN OLD WALLS 
 
 be evangelized at all, it was only through such 
 doors that the way was open. 
 
 A missionary living in the interior was not 
 accompanied by soldiers for protection. When 
 magistrates or people found it to their immediate 
 profit to stir up a riot against the foreigner, no 
 force of arms was at hand to prevent them. 
 The government might have to pay for it after- 
 wards, but that did not immediately trouble 
 them. Thus, during the last half of the nine- 
 teenth century, we have a long history of riots 
 which brought suffering to the missionaries and, 
 at times, to business men, travelers and consuls. 
 All sorts of ridiculous stories were circulated 
 amongst the common people concerning these 
 "red haired people." All foreigners were sup- 
 posed to be spies from their governments. They 
 could see precious stones three feet below the 
 surface of the ground. Their doctors used the 
 eyes and hearts of little children for medicine. 
 With what else, pray, could such wonderful 
 cures be performed? People were warned not 
 to go to these doctors, and hospitals and schools 
 became favorite gathering places for incensed 
 mobs. 
 
 One of the most noted of these riots occurred 
 in 1891. It was stirred up by the Hunanese 
 gentry who made use of a faulty pronunciation, 
 by the Christian workers, of the Chinese char- 
 acter which stands for Lord. The difference be- 
 tween this character and the one for pig is but 
 a slight change in accent. The written char- 
 
 [83] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 acters are entirely different. Tones liave always 
 been a great stumbling block for many mission- 
 aries, and the mistake was vital here. The 
 Hunanese seized upon this slip of the tongue and 
 drew caricatures representing Christians as 
 gathered about a cross upon which was crucified 
 a pig. Other caricatures showed how mothers 
 were rendered unable to bear living children be- 
 cause of a poisonous miasma emanating from 
 the foreigner who had forced his presence into 
 their midst. They drew pictures of their ancient 
 sages coming down in spirit to drive out the 
 pestilential foreigner from the midst of their 
 beloved land. Prosperity and peace could not be 
 restored until this had been accomplished. 
 
 Millions of Chinese accepted these stories as 
 true. Up and down the Yangtse valley riots 
 spread in which much property was destroyed 
 and many lives endangered. The people suffered 
 for it, as a matter of course, but that only em- 
 bittered them the more. The Roman Catholics 
 demanded large indemnities. Foreign govern- 
 ments brought pressure to bear upon the govern- 
 ment in Peking and the people had to pay the 
 bills. They were made more cautious in attack- 
 ing the foreigner but they did not learn to love 
 him more. Nor were they any more attracted to 
 the message he tried to give them. 
 
 It has taken years of patient suffering, de- 
 termined endurance and loving ministry in ob- 
 scure places and to obscure people to overcome 
 such bitter antagonism. All sorts of indignities 
 
 [34] 
 
BREAKING DOWN OLD WALLS 
 
 have been hurled at the missionary, mud, stone 
 and bricks being the easiest to bear. Magistrates 
 have refused to see them. Inns have refused to 
 house them. Cities have refused to rent or sell 
 to them, even for high prices. Yet they always 
 have pushed forward in the great game. They 
 have been willing to travel unprotected and 
 alone, with some Chinese helper, and face 
 this antagonism, in order that the people might 
 become used to their presence, perchance read 
 some of the literature they gave away, possibly 
 give them opportunity to show the love they felt 
 towards these who knew not Christ, and lead 
 them gradually to comprehend the benefi- 
 cent purposes in Christian missions. Nothing 
 but the desolation they saw on every hand, the 
 suffering of the sick and poverty stricken, the 
 heart hunger betrayed on their faces, and 
 the infinite need of Christ for China and China 
 for Christ, kept the missionaries to their task. 
 
 They never had any difficulty in getting a 
 crowd in market town or village. People wanted 
 to see what the much-talked-of foreigner looked 
 like. To them the foreigner was a sort of Punch 
 and Judy show. A foreigner with hair of any 
 color than black was a curiosity indeed. If he 
 dared to travel about in foreign clothes he was 
 a veritable sideshow. They crowded about to 
 feel, as well as to see. How could any man keep 
 warm with such thin garments? Why should a 
 man afllict his neck with a stiff collar? Why 
 didn't foreigners wear beautiful long queues? 
 
 [35] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 Why did he not shave his head, leaving only a 
 round block of hair in the center from which a 
 queue naturally grew? The heavy black beards 
 of some foreigners were terrifying, much like 
 the pictures of certain ancient gods. How in the 
 world were gold teeth grown? Was it true that 
 these people were one hundred years old when 
 they were born? All this is nonsense to us now 
 but it was terribly real then. 
 
 Nothing but a skillful acrobat or sleight- of- 
 hand performer could draw the crowd away from 
 a missionary. One worker did find his crowd 
 thus drawn from him. "If you want that sort 
 of an entertainment, I can give it to you myself," 
 he called out to the vanishing audience. "Do you 
 see what a fine set of teeth I have? Now I sweep 
 my hand across my mouth and they are gone." 
 They saw his teeth had disappeared. He swept 
 his hand across again and they saw them re- 
 appear. He had no further trouble in holding 
 his audience. His competitor afterwards came to 
 him and offered him all he could possibly get 
 together if the missionary would reveal how the 
 trick had been done. We must not blame the 
 missionaries for at times descending to such per- 
 formances. Their provocation was tremendous. 
 
 Unsanitary conditions take the lives of 
 millions of the Chinese children. It took a toll of 
 some of the little ones born in those missionary 
 homes. Pestilences which have constantly 
 stalked abroad in this land, have not always 
 passed those doors without entering. So unex- 
 
 [36] 
 
BREAKING DOWN OLD WALLS 
 
 pected diseases in mission homes have caused 
 lonely night vigils and days of anxious nursing. 
 Women have seen their husbands stricken down. 
 Men have laid away their wives in lonely graves. 
 Ofttimes when the husband has been out on 
 itinerating trips the mother has found herself 
 called upon to face the vigil alone. No telegraph 
 line was there to hurry her husband back to her 
 side. 
 
 There were times when the missionaries, 
 had they dared, would have dropped all and fled 
 from the task. The loneliness and the Isolation 
 seemed too great, the skies leaden to their 
 prayers. The pitiful conditions of the people 
 about them were often appalling and strained 
 their powers of endurance to the breaking. But 
 it was those pitiful sights which held them to 
 the task. How could they leave a people so 
 afflicted with sin and disease? 
 
 As the great problem gripped them they 
 went on in faith and lost all thought of swerving 
 from the superhuman task. Sickness might send 
 some back to the homeland. Furloughs helped 
 lighten the burden. Friends would ask the ever 
 reiterated questions, "Have you not done your 
 share? Why must you go back to such a task?" 
 Before the furlough was ended the pull would 
 come upon the heartstrings and the missionaries 
 would find themselves eagerly looking forward 
 to their return to the field. There was nothing 
 like it in the homeland. Why shouldn't they go 
 
 [37] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 back? There was a great game to win, a race 
 to be run and a victory for Christ to achieve. 
 
 Now the walls have fallen; the victory is 
 being won. A new China is being born. Blind, 
 ignorant prejudice is giving way. Great men in 
 China are taking lessons from the rest of the 
 world. Idols have been ignominiously dumped 
 out of some of the temples and trampled into 
 dust. Some of them have crept back — and more 
 of them will if the Christian world does not rise 
 quickly to meet the task. Temples have been 
 turned into modern schools. The education of 
 girls has begun. Although the old style Classic 
 school is still found everywhere, modern educa- 
 tion is what the government supports. Opium 
 has been cast out and, but for the quasi-protec- 
 tion of the military classes and the illicit trade 
 by the Japanese, would be dead. Railroads are 
 no longer held up by graves and temples. Flour 
 mills and cotton mills are spreading over the 
 land. Dragons no longer hold dominion over the 
 coal and iron in the hills. An absolute mon- 
 archy which for two hundred years had been 
 crushing a virile people has been overthrown. 
 We cannot yet say a republic has been born. 
 These are critical times but we believe a real 
 republic will be established in China. Doubtless 
 the recent few years of failure and misrule have 
 done more to open the eyes of the educated 
 Chinese to the weakness of their people, to the 
 social selfishness which enslaves them and to 
 their inability to achieve ends which other na- 
 
 [38] 
 
BREAKING DOWN OLD WALLS 
 
 tions are achieving, than all of their previous 
 contact with the Western world. The fact that 
 they are so keenly realizing this is, to our mind, 
 the hope of China. 
 
 [391 
 
Ill 
 
 THE TRANSITION PERIOD IN CHINA 
 
 The transition in China has been marked 
 by many difficulties, some of them of a political 
 nature, and these we will take up later. The last 
 great effort to cast off all foreigners and elimi- 
 nate all foreign ideas took place in the Boxer 
 calamity of 1900. Then one hundred and fifty 
 foreigners and thousands of Chinese Christians 
 laid down their lives in martyrdom. The entire 
 Peking Government, with the possible exception 
 of the Emperor, were partners in this crime 
 against humanity, which fortunately, failed of its 
 aim. 
 
 Today China aspires to be numbered 
 amongst the world's family of nations. In order 
 to preserve her own borders intact, her repre- 
 sentatives have gone to great trouble that 
 they might also be present at the League of 
 Nations compact. Forty and more years ago 
 her first students went abroad to study; but it is 
 within the last twenty years they have flocked 
 in great crowds to the universities of other 
 nations. Commercial Commissions have gone 
 especially to America and on to circuit the globe 
 that international relations in commerce might 
 
 [40] 
 
THE TRANSITION PERIOD IN CHINA 
 
 be built up. From among the nations America 
 has been sought as a friend, a helper and model. 
 
 The Chinese have always shown themselves 
 to be a teachable people, willing to absorb 
 knowledge, especially if the ideas gained were 
 of a moral nature. Although a peace loving 
 nation, they have suffered many wars and re- 
 bellions. Suffice to say, however, it has not been 
 the common people who have brought on the 
 wars. They have shown themselves long suffer- 
 ing, choosing to win victories by educational 
 and diplomatic methods, rather than by force of 
 arms. In such ways they have through the 
 centuries absorbed even their conquerors. Both 
 Mongolia and Manchuria have thus become a 
 part of the greater China. Should the Japanese 
 persist in their present course of conquering 
 this nation, it is sure that in time they also 
 would lose their identity, unless they should 
 systematically prohibit the Chinese from enter- 
 ing their Island borders. For a long time the 
 modern world looked upon China as a backward 
 and exclusive nation, a sleeping giant, slow to 
 change, slow to move. Gradually this opinion 
 has changed and now she is seen to be a giant 
 in weakness, paralyzed by selfishness. 
 
 It took a long time to persuade the Chinese 
 to allow the building of the first railroad within 
 China's borders. That was in 1876. The line 
 was only twelve miles long, reaching from 
 Shanghai to Woosung. The privilege was 
 granted, but when the officials saw the iron 
 
 [41] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 horse and train of cars, they became alarmed, 
 bought back the line, tore it up and shipped it to 
 Formosa lest the spirits of their ancestors be 
 aroused and calamity be brought upon the na- 
 tion. Upon the site of the station they built a 
 temple to the Queen of Heaven. 
 
 Today there are some six thousand miles 
 of railroad in China and much more would have 
 been constructed had not the European war cut 
 off the funds. These railroads are largely gov- 
 ernment owned, the capital being loaned by 
 foreign powers. One can now take the train at 
 Shanghai, on the Shanghai-Nanking line and in 
 seven hours be two hundred miles up the 
 Yangtse River. Steam ferries meet certain 
 trains and passengers are quickly transferred 
 across the river to Pukow where another line 
 runs seven hundred miles north to Tientsin. 
 Here one can go on to Manchuria and connect 
 with the Siberian line. Or, going the opposite 
 way, one soon finds himself within the old walls 
 of Peking itself. Prom here another line runs 
 south to Hankow, where lies the great Hanyang 
 Iron and Steel Works, which has been turning 
 out steel rails for the railroads in China and, 
 for a time, sent 70,000 tons of pig iron annually 
 to America. Since the Japanese have gained a 
 monopoly of these works, the product now prob- 
 ably gets no further than that country. But one 
 can proceed still farther down by railway into 
 the very heart of Hunan. Only a short distance 
 is yet to be completed and then one can go on 
 
 [42] 
 
THE TRANSITION PERIOD IN CHINA 
 
 clear to Canton on the south border of the na- 
 tion. Even during the World War American 
 engineers were surveying a course for the rail- 
 road which is eventually to strike the heart of 
 Szchuen, the western-most province of China. 
 
 Chinese graves know no such thing as close 
 communion. Families have their own private 
 burial plots and these are scattered everywhere 
 over the land. Lone grave mounds in the midst 
 of a small cultivated field are also conspicuous 
 for their numbers. These are stumbling blocks 
 to all railroad construction. A grave is sacred. 
 The Chinese believe the spirits of the dead re- 
 turn to the earth toi bless or curse. Hence there 
 is need to keep these spirits propitiated. To dis- 
 turb a grave might bring trouble. Since graves 
 are everywhere, it is impossible to run a rail- 
 road line through the country without striking 
 thousands of them. Today the government has 
 fixed prices for the removal of graves. The 
 money is paid to the relatives and they find 
 another spot in which the dead bones may rest. 
 
 One of the most noticeable things in China 
 Is the lack of trees. The nation lives by the 
 products of the land. Forests interfere with the 
 cultivation of the soil and so centuries ago the 
 land was denuded of its forests. The Chinese 
 have not realized that this condition is the 
 source of their many floods and droughts. Nor 
 has it seemed to enter their minds that trees 
 would have prevented the erosion of the soil. 
 In some respects the Chinese farmers can give 
 
 [43] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 points to farmers of other nations. For forty 
 centuries they have produced every kind of food 
 which the nation desired. 
 
 So sure have they been that the methods of 
 their ancestors in agriculture were the best that 
 for ages they have not changed their methods. 
 If they did, the powers of the wind and water 
 (fengshui) would bring disaster to the land. In 
 some places they have been averse to deepening 
 the channels of rivers lest they disturb these 
 spirits. Rivers have been left alone to silt up, 
 the farmers slowly increasing the dykes on 
 either side to hold the flood water. In such 
 places the bed of the river has been higher 
 than the surrounding fields. Mouths of rivers 
 have silted full and when floods come the water 
 merely finds an outlet over the cultivated fields 
 destro3n[ng not only the crops, but often many 
 homes. 
 
 Chang Chien, a man for a time Secretary of 
 Agriculture under the Republic, had great in- 
 fluence in his native district of Nantungchow, 
 Kiangsu Province. He was a pioneer leader in 
 getting the people to rid themselves of the age- 
 old superstitions. Among other reforms in his 
 district he has an agricultural college and an 
 experiment farm. He has imported samples of 
 wheat, rice and cotton from other countries. 
 The district is now the heaviest cotton producing 
 section of the country and has the flnest grade 
 of cotton. The wheat grown in the district is 
 ground in the modern flour mill he has erected. 
 
 [44] 
 
THE TRANSITION PERIOD IN CHINA 
 
 In the cotton mills the cotton is turned to thread 
 for the home looms which he has taken steps 
 to improve. 
 
 Forestry is being practised in many places 
 on the hitherto barren hills in many sections of 
 the country. Fruit trees are being planted. The 
 University of Nanking in its department of 
 forestry has taken pains to introduce useful 
 foreign trees as well as all native kinds. Tens 
 of thousands of these young trees are being 
 grown in the university grounds, and demands 
 for them come from all parts of China. 
 
 Thirty years from now the hills and barren 
 places will be covered with forests, doing their 
 work as conservators of moisture and preparing 
 soil for the valleys below. 
 
 Before it was possible to push railroad con- 
 struction, the government saw the value of tele- 
 graph lines. Wires now have formed a network 
 over the entire country, connecting all provincial 
 capitals and prominent cities, and being extended 
 far into Mongolia. Telephones are common in 
 all large cities. Field telephones followed both 
 armies during the Rebellion of 1913, and the 
 army is equipped with them at the present time. 
 Electric lights, both for municipalities and 
 private companies, are common. Flour mills 
 and cotton mills are rapidly increasing. Steam 
 launches have pushed their way up the small 
 rivers. Although few good roads are found out- 
 side of cities, whose streets have been rapidly 
 macadamized during these last few years, auto- 
 
 [45] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 mobiles are increasing in numbers. Not only 
 foreigners, but the Chinese themselves have used 
 them for travel across the plains of Mongolia. 
 Improvement of the country roads, which for ages 
 have known no repair, is bound to come. Now 
 jinrickshas are found wherever it is possible 
 to pull them. The people are demanding more 
 rapid transportation than the sedan chair, the 
 wheelbarrow and the sailboat. Even aeroplanes 
 have been used in some of the numerous rebel- 
 lions of the last few years. 
 
 Changes in educational methods have been 
 as radical as in these other fields. For thirteen 
 centuries China followed one system, without 
 change of textbook or method of teaching. The 
 children went to their schools at daylight and 
 remained there, with the exception of short in- 
 tervals for eating, until dark. School began late 
 in the first month and continued until the latter 
 part of the twelfth month. Through heat and 
 cold, rain and sunshine, the children were ex- 
 pected to be at their task of memorizing the 
 Classics. They learned to explain them, to write 
 essays and poems founded upon them. Their 
 ambition consisted in being able to pass gov- 
 ernment examinations, so that they might be- 
 come officials and thereby gain riches. If they 
 failed in this lofty ambition they might still be- 
 come teachers of schools and be exempted from 
 physical labor. When a boy began school he 
 put on a long gown, typifying the high calling 
 of a man with a degree, the end toward which 
 
 [46] 
 
THE TRANSITION PERIOD IN CHINA 
 
 he set his energies. In his home or elsewhere 
 he was not expected to do any manual work. 
 His less fortunate brothers and sisters could wait 
 upon him. His finger nails could grow long and 
 his shoulders could become stooped. 
 
 In 1907 an edict was issued by the Manchu 
 government abolishing this effete educational 
 method and establishing modern education in its 
 place. The new Chinese publishing houses 
 found a great task on their hands. They must 
 prepare a series of textbooks covering all grades 
 from primary to university. Not only must geog- 
 raphies, arithmetics, physiologies and books on 
 manual training, domestic science and ethics be 
 thus prepared for the pupils, but companion 
 books must be prepared for the teachers that 
 they might know how to use the textbooks. Very 
 few of the older teachers were able to adapt 
 themselves to the change. In back districts they 
 kept up the old style of memorizing the Classics. 
 Younger teachers hurried to Japan. Normal 
 schools were opened for others. Mission schools 
 were flooded with new pupils, all desiring to learn 
 the new studies and methods in the shortest 
 possible space of time. Graduates found ready 
 positions with large salaries. So great was the 
 demand that it became difficult to hold sufficient 
 teachers for our mission schools and salaries had 
 to be considerably increased to keep them with 
 us. 
 
 The new education brought in the closing 
 of schools on Sunday. In some places part of 
 
 [47] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 the day was utilized for the teaching of ethics. 
 English, the one foreign language sought for, 
 was introduced into the higher primary grades. 
 Music, once a lost art, came to the front. At 
 first the new teachers brought back many tunes 
 from Japan. Now they are writing their own. 
 Japan began manufacturing baby organs for 
 them. The Chinese now make most of their 
 own. Playgrounds became an essential part of 
 the school property and gymnastics a definite 
 part of the curriculum. Military drill is taught 
 in most schools and the old fashioned Chinese 
 gymnastics are being revived. Soccer football 
 is a common game. China, with her one hun- 
 dred millions of children of school age is such 
 a tremendous proposition that it has not yet 
 been possible to reach a tithe of them. Girls' 
 schools are found in all centers. In the primary 
 grade the two sexes are often taught together. 
 The revenues of the country have been so drained 
 for military purposes that children must still 
 pay a school fee. Hence to the children of the 
 poor, education is altogether denied. The 
 poverty-stricken who can not send their chil- 
 dren, though books and tuition are both free, 
 are so great in number that it will be a long 
 time before universal education can be given to 
 China's millions. 
 
 One had to live for but a short time In the 
 land in the days of the Manchu Dynasty to 
 realize how degenerate the government had be- 
 come. Officers were openly bought and sold. 
 
 [48] 
 
THE TRANSITION PERIOD IN CHINA 
 
 Minor offices were farmed out to the highest 
 bidder. If scholars were to pass the govern- 
 ment examinations it was necessary to come 
 with money to salve the palms of the examiners. 
 Mere learning took one but a little way along 
 the highway to public preferment. "If one has 
 money even though his cause be unrighteous he 
 need not fear to enter the doors of the yamen," 
 was a common saying among the people. Lest 
 the public might learn to object to such an in- 
 justice and oppression, the people were not 
 allowed to hold mass meetings of any kind. 
 Until the establishment of the new regime, 
 China had very few assembly halls, save the 
 Christian churches. 
 
 With the coming of the Republic an attempt 
 was made to establish fixed salaries for all 
 public office-holders. In order to overcome the 
 iniquitous "squeeze" system, officials were 
 directed to prepare annual budgets for their dis- 
 tricts. All monies collected, whether as taxes, 
 fines, rental of public properties, etc. must be 
 reported to the provincial capital. Yamen run- 
 ners were forbidden under pain of punishment 
 to force money from the common people. Since 
 so large a portion of China's population are 
 illiterate and poor, the privilege of the elective 
 franchise was granted only to those who pos- 
 sessed a certain degree of education or owned 
 a certain amount of property. 
 
 Those early days of the Republic were filled 
 with rosy hopes, but the people soon found that 
 
 [49] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 the firm establishment of a government by and 
 for the people demanded on their part unselfish 
 patriotism to a greater degree than some were 
 willing to give. From the day Yuan Shi-kai be- 
 gan the attempt to centralize power in one man's 
 hand, down to the present, rights have been 
 given, rights have been abused and rights have 
 been taken away. The rise of the power of the 
 military has plunged the country into civil 
 strife and confusion. Through all of these dis- 
 appointing troubles, the educated people have 
 kept their eyes fixed upon the final goal of a 
 real republic of, by and for the people. It is 
 possible that outside powers may have to step 
 in and direct for a time China's finances, but 
 knowledge has so increased in the land that the 
 battle for righteousness and justice to all men 
 is in the end bound to be victorious. 
 
 Perhaps the question of armies and navies 
 is not so popular as it was before the European 
 war. China, defeated by Japan, harassed by 
 other nations and troubled by brigands, was led 
 by Yuan Shi-kai, then a growing military officer, 
 to reform her army. Almost up to the day of 
 the Boxer trouble we can remember seeing regi- 
 ments in the old style dress with full moon- 
 shaped patch of bright cloth tacked on to their 
 coats before and aft. They carried their bird- 
 cages, their fans and umbrellas along with their 
 other accoutrements. Bows, arrows and spears 
 were still popular. 
 
 After the war with Japan, Yuan Shi-kai 
 
 [50] 
 
THE TRANSITION PERIOD IN CHINA 
 
 was given permission to equip and drill one 
 army division in modern style. This was about 
 1896. As with the training of the Japanese 
 army, so in China, German oflftcers and German 
 methods were employed. Gradually the old 
 style soldier disappeared. The army is now 
 largely equipped with small arms made in its 
 own arsenals. Most of the larger guns are still 
 bought abroad. Although China has sought to 
 follow up its armies with a proper commisariat, 
 during the lighting of recent years between the 
 North and South, the soldiers lived to a large 
 extent off the country through which German 
 troops passed, during the European war. The 
 Chinese army morals have degenerated since 
 North and South have been at war. Yet they loot 
 and ravage no worse than their European 
 models. They have little patriotism and little 
 loyalty save to the Commander-in-chief under 
 whom they serve. They look upon him as an 
 Oriental Prince who feeds them and to whom 
 they should be loyal. At the present time it is 
 the military party which threatens the very life 
 of China. It has been largely on its behalf that 
 so many secret loans have been made recently 
 by Japan to the Chinese government. 
 
 China is just awakening to the value of 
 sanitation. Peking formerly had the reputation 
 of being the foulest city on earth. Her streets, 
 before the Boxer year, were piled high with the 
 accumulated sweepings of generations. It was 
 said that the heavy Peking carts, while traversing 
 
 [51] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 these dumps in the streets were completely over- 
 turned, dumping their passengers into some 
 nearby cesspool and actually drowning them be- 
 fore they could be rescued. 
 
 When the Allied troops reached and took 
 possession of Peking in 1900 they found the city 
 streets thus turned into miniature mountains 
 and valleys and lakes. Prince and pauper were 
 set to work cleaning up the place. Since then 
 Peking has kept its city in a fairly clean condi- 
 tion. Now the automobile runs alongside the 
 jinricksha; the Peking cart, the wheelbarrow 
 and the camel meander smoothly along without 
 danger to each other. 
 
 What Peking was has been the condition 
 of practically every city in China. And what 
 Peking is, is the goal towards which many 
 prominent cities are now working. Streets 
 which were sewers and mudholes are being 
 macadamized or paved and daily cleaned. 
 Garbage is carried away and used on the land. 
 The people do not have the same sensitiveness 
 to odors as foreigners, so it is often possible to 
 meet a garbage carrier swinging his double load 
 on his carrying pole, treading his way through 
 the dense street crowds. Nevertheless China 
 shows a growing knowledge of the value of 
 cleanliness and is bound to place herself along- 
 side other nations in the progress of sanitation. 
 
 Tuberculosis is very noticeable among the 
 educated classes. The old Confucian scholar 
 thought it the proper and dignified thing to 
 
 [62] 
 
THE TRANSITION PERIOD IN CHINA 
 
 eschew exercise. He always walked slowly and 
 with shoulders stooped, and his lungs became 
 a paradise for germs. Expectorating is a popular 
 habit among the people. Children spit in imita- 
 tion of their elders, most of whom, when indoors, 
 do not take the trouble even to spit out of the 
 door. On the stone paved streets the sputum is 
 quickly changed to dry powder, and floats into 
 the air to be drawn into the lungs of any on the 
 crowded thoroughfare. So the disease is spread. 
 
 China's new schoolboys and girls now rush 
 at recess for the playground. The drill master 
 teaches them to stand straight and fill their 
 lungs. They know the value of developing 
 every part of their bodies. A missionary who 
 will deliver lectures on sanitation and hygiene 
 has no trouble to get into these schools. Prom 
 the schools the knowledge of how to care for 
 the body is passed to the homes where among 
 other things the children demonstrate to their 
 parents how flies deflle their food and bring 
 disease. 
 
 Smallpox, cholera and the plague have slain 
 countless numbers of the people. Local govern- 
 ments now co-operate with the mission hospitals, 
 not only in combating some immediate scourge, 
 but in encouraging vaccination among the 
 people by giving lectures and demonstrations. 
 One of the mission doctors in Hunan, seeing 
 cholera spreading through his city, sent sand- 
 wich men through the streets, telling the people 
 how to avoid the disease and to come at once to 
 
 [58] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 the mission hospital in case they were taken 
 down. He was able to save some hundreds of 
 cases who came in response to this advertising. 
 In our own city we called upon the city council 
 to furnish funds for virus and, in a short time, 
 vaccinated over nine hundred against smallpox 
 bringing to a swift end an epidemic of this 
 disease. In two large families, in each of which 
 we vaccinated more than thirty persons, one 
 case had already developed in each home, but 
 not another member took the disease. 
 
 The attitude of the people and government 
 towards Christianity has radically changed. 
 Since the Boxer year the number of Christians 
 has been trebled. At one time in recent years 
 over eight hundred of those in Peking holding 
 office under the government were members of 
 Christian churches. The commander-in-chief of 
 one of the numerous branches of the army is a 
 Christian. He always sought Christian pastors, 
 Chinese and foreign, to speak to his men. During 
 the last winter, while in Hunan, he sent for a 
 well-known Chinese evangelist to hold meetings 
 among his troops. Nearly a score of his officers, 
 two thousand of his men, and one magistrate 
 were baptized. He has had distributed large 
 numbers of Bibles among his troops. His army, 
 it is interesting to observe, has the reputation of 
 being the most orderly and upright force of all 
 the armed men in China. 
 
 One of the most remarkable edicts was 
 issued by the late President of the Republic, 
 
 [54] 
 
THE TRANSITION PERIOD IN CHINA 
 
 Yuan Shi-kai, April 18, 1913. It was as follows: 
 "Prayer is requested for the National Assembly 
 now in session; for the new government; for the 
 President who is elected; for the Constitution of 
 the Republic; that the Government may be re- 
 cognized by the Powers; that peace may reign 
 within the country; that strong and virtuous 
 men may be elected to office; that the Govern- 
 ment may be established upon a strong founda- 
 tion. Upon receipt of this you are requested to 
 notify all churches in your province that April 
 27th has been set aside as a day of prayer for 
 the nation. Let all take part." 
 
 In reading the above edict one does not 
 need to jump to the conclusion that Yuan Shi- 
 kai had come to have faith in Christ. Very few 
 of the missionary body so interpreted it. It 
 looked more as though he were trying to feel 
 the pulse of a popular movement. However, 
 such an edict caused governors, magistrates and 
 the leading men of the country to attend at least 
 one service in a Christian church. That made it 
 an unprecedented action and one of far-reaching 
 influence. Churches were no longer to be shun- 
 ned but patronized. Missionaries were to be 
 looked upon as friends useful to the country 
 and people. Since that time officers of the gov- 
 ernment have frequently entered the doors of 
 the churches. 
 
 On that April 27th, the magistrate of our 
 city came to our church and was given a seat 
 upon the platform. Other leading men were 
 
 [55] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 given special seats. It was impressive indeed to 
 see the Christian pastor conduct before those 
 men a Christian service. Perfect propriety and 
 reverence were observed. Before them he stood 
 and offered to the one true God the prayer of in- 
 tercession for the Chinese nation. Then, before 
 them and to the assembled audience, he spoke 
 with great earnestness of the need for leaders 
 and people alike to recognize God in the nation, 
 if they would become righteous and great. No 
 other meeting could have given those leaders a 
 better understanding of the purpose for which 
 we are striving to establish the Church of Christ 
 in China. 
 
 In spite of the large number of Scripture 
 portions which have been circulated throughout 
 China, the educated men have not found it con- 
 venient to acquaint themselves with the teach- 
 ings of the Bible. Their previous knowledge of 
 Christianity was based upon distorted reports 
 which anti-foreign propagandists circulated 
 through the country. It has therefore been im- 
 perative to press Bible study ahead of evange- 
 listic meetings. Instead of calling upon men to 
 confess their faith in Christ at such meetings, 
 it has been found wiser to enlist them in special 
 Bible classes for the definite study of the Scrip- 
 tures. Many of these men have accepted such 
 invitations and have regularly attended. Some 
 of them invariably reach the decision and openly 
 become followers of Christ. Instead of the few 
 poor ignorant men and women who formerly 
 
 [56] 
 
THE TRANSITION PERIOD IN CHINA 
 
 made up the bulk of our church membership, we 
 are finding an ever increasing number of the 
 educated awakened leaders of China attending 
 the services and gradually coming to faith in 
 Christ. 
 
 "The signs of the times, the lessons of the 
 past, the indications of the future, the call of 
 Providence and the voices which come to us 
 borne upon every breeze — all alike bid us lay 
 our plans upon a scale worthy of men who ex- 
 pect to conquer the world." 
 
 [67] 
 
IV 
 
 THE PASSING OF THE OPIUM CURSE 
 
 We have been noting changes which very 
 rapidly took place in the social, political and 
 moral life of the Chinese. One of the most re- 
 markable of these was the removal of the opium 
 traffic. On September 20, 1906, the Empress 
 Dowager issued the famous edict calling for the 
 entire suppression of the traffic in and smoking 
 of opium within the boundaries of the Empire. 
 This was to be carried out by 1916. Very few 
 foreigners had the optimism to believe that this 
 would actually be accomplished within the time 
 set, if at all. The government was receiving 
 large revenues from the Indian imports. Would 
 it be possible to run the government without 
 these revenues? The vice had become so 
 strongly entrenched among the people that it 
 looked like a superhuman task to stamp it out. 
 There were probably not less than 25,000,000 
 addicts to the drug; 22,000 tons of it being an- 
 nually consumed. The Province of Yunnan, in 
 Southwest China, had nearly one-third of its 
 arable ground planted to poppy. In Szchuen 
 and Kansu provinces the majority of the men 
 and many women were drug users. Around 
 
 [58] 
 
THE PASSING OF THE OPIUM CURSE 
 
 practically every city in the country the fields 
 in the springtime were gorgeous with the beauti- 
 ful poppy blossoms. As one Chinese said, "The 
 devil always clothes himself in fine garments." 
 
 The Philippine Commission gave this ex- 
 planation for the drug's hold upon the Chinese. 
 "What people on earth are so poorly provided 
 with food as the indigent Chinese, or so destitute 
 of amusement as all Chinese, rich and poor! — 
 Absolute dullness and dreariness seem to pre- 
 vail everywhere. As these two demons drive 
 the Caucasian to drink, so they drive the Chinese 
 to opium. If the Chinese seem to contract such 
 evil habits more easily than other nations, and 
 are more slaves of them, is not that due to the 
 dullness of the lives of the well-to-do and the 
 painful squalor of the indigent?" 
 
 Opium was first brought to China by the 
 East India Company. The first edict prohibiting 
 opium smoking was issued by the Emperor Yung 
 Cheng in 1729. At that time, however, very 
 little opium was thus used. It was in 1757 that 
 the monopoly of opium cultivation passed into 
 the hands of the East India Company and they 
 began promoting the sale of it in China. Im- 
 portation was forbidden by the Chinese imperial 
 authorities in 1796, but this only encouraged 
 smuggling. In 1839 one Chinese commissioner 
 seized over 20,000 chests of the drug; but such 
 seizures were like trying to sweep back the tide 
 of the sea. The government opposition brought 
 
 [59] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 on trouble with the British government which 
 felt compelled to defend the trade. The war 
 which followed was not directly aimed at com- 
 pelling the Chinese to import opium, yet the 
 treaty which ended it included and legalized 
 opium imports. In 1858 the traffic was definitely 
 legalized and a tariff fixed. High tariff had the 
 effect of stimulating the local growing of poppy 
 but the flavor of the Indian product was better 
 liked, so local growing did not hinder the im- 
 ports. The number of habituates steadily in- 
 creased. Six times as much was being produced 
 in China as was imported from India. 
 
 From the beginning missionaries opposed 
 the traffic. Opium addicts were never admitted 
 to church membership. Doctors found that 
 many diseases when attacking opium smokers 
 were hard to cure. Dysentery was almost in- 
 variably fatal. The use of the drug brought 
 most of the addicts to poverty until they were 
 using a minimun of food and a maximum of the 
 drug. The number of suicides using opium as a 
 means to end life was appalling. It was easy 
 to find it about the house or in a nearby shop. 
 When a woman felt that she had been wronged, 
 in her blind anger, she would obtain a sufficient 
 quantity of the drug and swallow it. In order to 
 bring remorse to those who had wronged her, 
 she would announce to her family what she had 
 done; or, if the offenders lived elsewhere, she 
 would hasten to their home that she might die 
 on their doorstep. The people believed that the 
 
 [60] 
 
THE PASSING OF THE OPIUM CURSE 
 
 spirit of such a suicide would return to torment 
 those who had wronged her. 
 
 When it became known that missionary 
 doctors were often able to revive such suicides 
 they were continually called on for help. There 
 was no hesitation about paying any reasonable 
 fee asked. Day after day these calls would come. 
 Often two calls would come at the same time, 
 then the doctor would be obliged to divide up 
 his assistants and work on both cases. Hours 
 of hard work would have to be spent before the 
 patient could be pronounced out of danger. 
 
 We remember working over one such case 
 while out on an itinerating trip. A fellow mis- 
 sionary doctor had passed that way the day be- 
 fore and had been halted to save a young woman 
 who had swallowed a quantity of the drug. A 
 stretcher was improvised and the party followed 
 him to the next town where he was to remain all 
 night. He had stayed up a good share of the 
 night directing the treatment of the case, but 
 knowing that we were following he pressed on, 
 advising them to call us in when we reached 
 their place. When we arrived they were still 
 trying to carry out the directions they had re- 
 ceived. The woman was more hopeful in appear- 
 ance, but if they had allowed her to drop off in 
 slumber, she would probably never have 
 awakened in this world. We also spent some 
 hours on the case and were able to give a favor- 
 able prognosis when we continued our journey. 
 
 The Anti-Opium Society was founded and 
 
 [61] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 fostered by the missionary body. It seemed a 
 hopeless job they were attempting. As far as 
 that was concerned, the problem of evangelizing 
 China was equally hopeless. But missionaries 
 are optimistic or they are not missionaries. No 
 task is too great to attempt so long as one be- 
 lieves God is on the side of right. The name of 
 the late Hampden DuBose will always be con- 
 nected with the Anti-Opium Society as its Presi- 
 dent and originator. Dr. W. H. Park was for 
 many years the secretary. He compiled a mass 
 of data from the medical men and others, show- 
 ing the effects of opium upon the human system. 
 Every possible bit of useful information bear- 
 ing upon the drug and its deadly effects was 
 given to the public and the government. British 
 missionaries sought to influence their home gov- 
 ernment and get them to stop the Indian im- 
 ports. But the British government was also 
 deriving large revenues from the traffic and was 
 quite unwilling to lose this Income. It was 
 finally obliged by public opinion to send an 
 opium commission to India to study the traffic 
 and the influence of the drug upon its users. 
 This commission brought back a report which 
 described the effects of the drug as similar to 
 "an after-dinner cigar or an afternoon cup of 
 tea." In face of such willful blindness the task 
 seemed more hopeless than ever. 
 
 In 1904 America began to grapple with the 
 problem as the use of the drug in the Philippines 
 had become widespread, especially among the 
 
 [62] 
 
THE PASSING OF THE OPIUM CURSE 
 
 Chinese living there. A commission was sent 
 from the United States to study the problem. 
 The report of this commission was largely based 
 upon the observations of Bishop Brent, Dr. H. C. 
 Stunts and Dr. Hamilton Mabie Wright. It 
 went far to change public opinion of the world 
 as regards the opium traffic both in China and 
 the Philippines. The China Anti-Opium Society 
 had translations of this report made and placed 
 in the hands of government officials in Peking. 
 The result was shown in the famous edict for 
 the entire suppression of the traffic in China, 
 issued in 1906. 
 
 Foreign countries laughed at the edict and 
 those directly interested in the traffic showed 
 no intention of co-operating with China or curb- 
 ing their businesses. A strong appeal to the 
 President of the United States from representa- 
 tive missionary associations and from com- 
 mercial institutions in the homeland to the 
 effect that the American government should 
 undertake to assist China in securing the gradual 
 abolition of the traffic which the edict proposed, 
 was effective. The Department of State ad- 
 dressed a circular letter to the Powers interested 
 suggesting the organization of an international 
 commission to investigate thoroughly the entire 
 opium traffic and its effect upon addicts. Thus 
 was formed the International Opium Commis- 
 sion which met in Shanghai in February, 1909. 
 Before adjourning, this Commission unani- 
 mously adopted nine fundamental conclusions, 
 
 [63] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 condemning the opium evil on both economic 
 and moral grounds. 
 
 England finally came to an agreement 
 whereby, if the Chinese government would, on 
 its part, gradually reduce the production and 
 use of opium. Great Britain would decrease the 
 annual import of the drug by one-tenth. As 
 rapidly as it was found that a province was clear 
 of the poppy England was to cease importing 
 opium into that province. China also asked that 
 in case she could shorten the period of years to 
 less than ten, England also agree to cease 
 the importation of opium accordingly. England 
 agreed and, to the surprise of all, China began, 4 
 not only to issue edicts, but to enforce them. 
 
 Opium smoking ofilcials were ordered to 
 break off the use of the drug within a short 
 period or lose their offices. Soldiers were sent 
 through the country and poppy fields were 
 pulled up by the roots. The farmers were 
 ordered to replant the fields in grain. Where 
 they persisted in replanting poppy they were 
 severely punished, in a few cases losing their 
 heads. Rapidly came in the word that this 
 province and that province was free of the 
 poppy. The British representatives were sent 
 to examine the provinces reported and found 
 them cleared. Quickly a large portion of the 
 country was free and the importation of opium 
 became illegal. By 1913 England was forced 
 thus to cease importing the drug into China. 
 The opium princes suddenly found their Hong- 
 
 [64] 
 
THE PASSING OF THE OPIUM CURSE 
 
 kong and Shanghai warehouses full of opium 
 and no sale for it. 
 
 Hongkong is entirely under British juris- 
 diction. The British government also has con- 
 trol of their concession in Shanghai. Therefore 
 the local government in these places is not re- 
 sponsible to the Chinese government and did 
 not follow the example in suppressing the use of 
 the drug. By the side of the foreign concessions 
 in Shanghai, is the old Chinese city. That por- 
 tion under foreign management refused to close 
 its opium dens, and the Shanghai Municipality 
 received a considerable revenue from these. The 
 jd^trfium users in the Chinese city had but to move 
 over the boundary line between the two cities 
 to obtain all the opium they desired. Smuggling 
 was easy and flourished. Chinese coming down 
 from the interior to trade, could easily wrap a 
 considerable amount of opium up with other 
 goods, or slip a fair sized ball of the drug into 
 their handbags. The Chinese government sta- 
 tioned police at the various railroad stations 
 in the interior and all baggage was carefully 
 examined. Opium, when found, was confiscated 
 and burned. Smugglers tried various devices 
 but soon found it a losing business. The opium 
 princes had not expected such stringent measures 
 and it began to dawn upon them that they were 
 not going to get rid of their supplies of opium 
 so easily as they had expected, if at all. 
 
 They began other measures. A Chinese 
 shop, in an interior city found selling opium, 
 
 [6B] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 was at once closed by police and the shopkeeper 
 was punished. The opium magnates sent their 
 agents to such men and arranged to take over 
 the shop under a foreign company sign. They 
 did this in the city of Hangchow and instigated 
 the Chinese again to sell opium. The police 
 promptly arrested and punished the offender, 
 closing his shop. The foreign managers sought 
 audience with the local officials, claiming that 
 these were interfering with foreign trade and 
 foreign shops. They claimed that such action 
 could only be taken through the British Con- 
 sulate. They demanded the release of the per- 
 sons arrested and the right to reopen the shop. 
 The local officials replied that if the British 
 Consul had any complaint to make about the 
 matter, it was the privilege of that Consul to 
 make it. Until he did they would continue to 
 manage the affairs of the city as they had been 
 doing. The foreign managers stormed and tried 
 every possible way to win their case but were 
 told to present it in due form to the Consul who 
 would bring it before the Chinese officials. The 
 Chinese knew the treaty rights and for once the 
 foreigner was beaten. 
 
 Chinese papers began to gather evidence 
 wherever they found the opium syndicate break- 
 ing treaty rights, and such evidence was pub- 
 lished in the papers. One such paper, published 
 in English by a Chinese editor, had among its 
 correspondents a few missionaries who continued 
 to follow up the work which the missionary 
 
 [66] 
 
THE PASSING OF THE OPIUM CURSE 
 
 body so long had fostered. Some of the articles 
 were not pleasing to those who were seeking to 
 evade law. The dealers squirmed under the fire 
 they brought upon themselves and sought to 
 have an injunction placed upon this paper, for- 
 bidding the publishing of such articles. An 
 American lawyer, practicing in the Shanghai 
 courts, defended the editor. Very pointed ques- 
 tions were asked of the opium promotors when 
 they appeared upon the witness stand and the 
 blackness of the traffic was soon exposed. British 
 papers followed their usual custom and printed 
 the stenographic reports of the law case. What 
 the opium promoters, had sought to suppress 
 in one paper now appeared in all the English 
 papers. The case was closed and the editor 
 acquitted when the American lawyer for the de- 
 fense had preached one of the greatest anti- 
 opium sermons ever delivered in China. 
 
 Following the meeting of the Commission 
 in Shanghai a still greater International Opium 
 Commission met at The Hague in 1911. Twelve 
 governments were represented. It was at this 
 meeting that one of the commissioners from 
 China voiced the sentiment of a large majority 
 of the influential men of his country in a speech 
 made at a reception given at the Hotel Cecil. 
 The speech was an appeal to the English people 
 and closed with the following words: "There- 
 fore, for the sake of your national righteousness, 
 for the sake of our fame, for the sake of hu- 
 manity at large, and the Chinese people in par- 
 
 [67] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 ticular, and for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ 
 in whose sight we are all God's children, and 
 who has taught us to love one another, we in- 
 voke your continued co-operation in this opium 
 question until the last shipment of Indian opium 
 has been landed in China, until the last opium 
 pipe has been burned, and until the last acre of 
 poppy shall have been uprooted and the opium 
 evil has disappeared, not only from China, but 
 throughout all the world." 
 
 In 1915 and 1916 when Yuan Shi-kai was 
 seeking to establish the monarchical form of 
 government once more in China and make him- 
 self its new emperor, a large portion of the 
 country rose up in opposition. Armies were 
 raised against him. He found himself with a 
 war upon his hands and much of the regular 
 government revenues cut off. Several times the 
 opium princes had tried to bribe the government 
 to relax Its opposition and allow them to dis- 
 pose of their supplies. They still had huge 
 quantities of it stored in their warehouses. In 
 all the world there was no such market as China 
 had been and they did not care to lose the mill- 
 ions invested in it. Yuan, short of funds, yielded 
 and granted the distribution in three coast prov- 
 inces until such time as the present stock was 
 exhausted. Yuan sent men to Hongkong to 
 oversee the distribution and to collect the tax. 
 His monarchical reign lasted but a short two 
 months. The ceremony of Inaugurating It never 
 took place. He had to acknowledge publicly 
 
 [68] 
 
THE PASSING OF THE OPIUM CURSE 
 
 his error, but the pressure of the opposition and 
 his own keen disappointment brought on his 
 death. The desire for a Republic now became 
 more firmly established in the hearts of the 
 people. His plans for the reintroduction of opium 
 were overthrown and his agents either lost their 
 lives or fled the country. 
 
 What to do with these huge supplies of 
 opium continued to be a problem. So long as 
 the drug was stored in Shanghai smuggling to 
 some extent was bound to continue. The opium 
 merchants had no other market. Time and 
 time again the Chinese Customs seized quantities 
 of the smuggled goods. It was invariably 
 burned. The government finally decided that 
 the easiest method of ridding the country of the 
 menace was to purchase the entire amount, now 
 valued at twenty-five millions of dollars, and 
 burn it. Officials were sent to take over the sup- 
 plies and carefully guard it for the burning. 
 Foreign consuls and others were invited to see 
 the work done. Special ovens were constructed 
 and days were expended in getting rid of the 
 drug. In spite of all this care later statements 
 appeared in the Shanghai papers to the effect 
 that very little of the real opium was destroyed. 
 Substitute balls were used and the real article 
 spirited away by conscienceless Chinese officials 
 to be later smuggled through the country. 
 
 At any rate the traffic has not been stopped. 
 Good evidence has been obtained that the Japan- 
 ese have brought up large quantities to Por- 
 
 [69] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 mosa and other Japanese territory. They now 
 have control of the port of Tsing-tao, formerly 
 controlled by the Germans, and have brought in 
 quantities both of opium and morphine. This 
 illicit traffic has been fostered by military 
 officials who have learned to use the drug. Their 
 soldiers and messengers escape the police with- 
 out being searched. Japanese traveling mer- 
 chants and those opening shops in Chinese cities 
 have also aided in keeping supplies for the ad- 
 dicts. Only international pressure can stop this 
 evil. So long as the Japanese control railroad 
 lines and send steamers up the rivers, the Chi- 
 nese are helpless. The entire Customs force at 
 Tsing-tao are Japanese. We cannot believe that 
 the other nations of the world will stand by and 
 see China once more enslaved by a drug which 
 so short a time ago she heroically abolished 
 from the land. 
 
 The story of this wonderful battle against 
 the opium curse has shown the moral fibre in 
 the Chinese people. The original suppression 
 hit a great number of the officials. It cut off a 
 tremendous slice of the nation's revenues. It 
 struck the poor farmer who grew the poppy. 
 During these last years, when the country has 
 been dominated by the military, a group of men 
 who have shown themselves lacking in patriot- 
 Ism, who have weakened the country and ravaged 
 the people for selfish ends, who for like selfish 
 ends have forced ruinous loans upon the gov- 
 ernment in order that they might grow rich, 
 
 [70] 
 
THE PASSING OF THE OPIVM CURSE 
 
 the common people have been completely dis- 
 couraged and helpless in promoting reform 
 measures. Yet it is very noticeable that opium 
 had no longer any attraction for them and very 
 few of those not in ofBcial or military life have 
 returned to the use of the drug. 
 
 L71] 
 
THE MISSIONARY AND THE REVOLUTION 
 
 There is no doubt that Christian propa- 
 ganda in China had much to do with bringing 
 about the Revolution of 1911. Christianity is 
 democratic in its teaching and spirit. As the 
 missionary preached of Christ, he preached of 
 the equality of men. "All ye are brethren," said 
 Christ. In building up the mission schools the 
 teacher made no distinction between the chil- 
 dren of the rich, of the educated and of the poor. 
 The doctor in his hospital sought to treat all 
 patients alike. He felt he was there to heal the 
 sick whether the patient be prince or pauper. If 
 any distinction was made it was favorable to the 
 lower classes rather than the higher. The 
 former class early sought the medicial ministry 
 which the missionary came to give. Dr. Macklin, 
 so loved by people far and wide in the lower 
 Yangtse Valley, gained that love through taking 
 In thousands of outcasts and refugees and heal- 
 ing their diseases free of charge. 
 
 The influences of the Kingdom of God reach 
 far beyond the doors of the church, even beyond 
 the personal touch of the missionary. Patients 
 told the story of their healing to their friends. 
 
 [72] 
 
THE MISSIONARY AND THE REVOLUTION 
 
 School children brought the Christian influences 
 into the home of their parents. Portions of the 
 Scriptures have gone far beyond the trails of 
 the missionaries. So when the Revolution 
 broke out it was found that this spirit of de- 
 mocracy manifested itself in far corners of the 
 country. There was not lacking evidence that 
 many of the young leaders in the new army 
 knew of God and how to reach Him. People 
 flocked to the Christian chapels rather than to 
 their temples for help. The Chri_stian doctors 
 were asked to organize Red Cross work and 
 money was not lacking them for support. 
 
 In other ways the influence of Christianity 
 was equally marked. In the wars of the past, 
 armies lived upon the land through which they 
 passed. They gave little, thought to paying for 
 the food they ate. They took what they liked 
 from the homes. The inhabitants were thank- 
 ful if their houses were left standing and they 
 themselves were spared. Conquerors weakened 
 their enemies by slaughtering the inhabitants 
 of their country. It was a matter of course to 
 burn a place after it had been looted. If they 
 spared a man it was to make him a slave. If 
 they saved a woman it was for immoral pur- 
 poses. This has been true all over the world 
 and not less so in the Orient. 
 
 The last great rebellion in China took place 
 only seventy years ago. It was a rebellion 
 against the corrupt Manchu Dynasty. A Chinese 
 
 [73] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 in the South who had come slightly in touch 
 with missionaries believed himself called of God 
 to rid the land of the Manchus and of idolatry. 
 He dreamed dreams and saw visions. The op- 
 pressed and restless in increasing numbers 
 flocked to his standard. At first worship to God 
 was daily conducted in his camps. In his pro- 
 gress northward towards the Yangtse River he 
 met with little opposition, and when real battles 
 raged his troops were invariably victorious. 
 Success inflated his judgment of himself and he 
 took the title of Brother of Christ and later 
 Brother of God. When his armies reached and 
 took Nanking he set himself up as the emperor 
 of a new dynasty with that city as his capital. 
 Prom then on his army became a lawless body, 
 robbing, burning and murdering at will. The 
 country, for many miles around Nanking, on 
 both sides of the Yangtse, was devastated and 
 left desolate. There was no thought of protect- 
 ing innocent people. The horrors of those days 
 have been passed on from father to son down 
 to the people of the present. Ignorant mothers 
 have frightened their children to stillness by 
 telling them that some of those evil leaders 
 would get them if they did not stop their noise 
 and go to sleep. 
 
 Not only in story but in ruins has the work 
 of the "long-haired rebels" been perpetuated. 
 The regions of eastern Anhwui, of which the city 
 of Chuchow is center, is one of the most thinly 
 populated districts in all eastern China. The 
 
 [74] 
 
THE MISSIONARY AND THE REVOLUTION 
 
 former inhabitants were driven out or killed. 
 After the rebellion had been put down, those 
 still living came back to reconstruct their homes 
 from the ruins. Today the population is not 
 more than fifty per cent of what it was before 
 the region was devastated. Of these not more 
 than twenty per cent are descendants from the 
 former inhabitants. The land has been slowly 
 repopulated by poor people who drifted in be- 
 cause they heard that there was much land there 
 with but few people to work it. 
 
 In the Revolution in 1911 and the Rebellion 
 of 1913, Nanking was again one of the storm 
 centers. The city had to withstand a siege each 
 time and each time the armies of conqueror and 
 conquered flowed over the country north of the 
 river, past the city of Chuchow which is only 
 thirty miles from the riverside. With numer- 
 less piles of ruined villages and farm homes 
 still to be seen all through this country and 
 with every person more or less familiar with 
 the stories of the ravages of the Taiping Re- 
 bellion, one has no trouble in imagining how the 
 approach of this new war struck terror to the 
 hearts, especially of the women and children. 
 
 At Hankow, where much of the hardest 
 fighting occurred, the Imperial troops at first 
 felt themselves free to loot and ravage as had 
 been done in all previous wars. It was just such 
 acts which precipitated the first battle there. 
 The Revolutionary troops were enraged at the 
 brutality and went into battle to stop it. They 
 
 [75] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 made it known in proclamation and in deed that 
 they were fighting to protect the innocent and 
 to build up a free nation. The Imperial troops 
 were much better organized and had the best 
 of most of the fighting. It was they who set fire 
 to and burned up the large part of the native 
 city at Hankow. Such outrages did more to turn 
 the country against the Manchus than even the 
 indignities suffered through the years. 
 
 Both sides issued proclamations command- 
 ing that protection be given all foreigners. Prob- 
 ably for the first time in their history, the war- 
 ring elements valued the influence of foreign 
 governments and sought their approval. In ad- 
 dition to this the Revolutionists gave out word 
 that punishment would be dealt out to those who 
 dealt unfairly with merchants and others from 
 whom they purchased supplies. Those who gave 
 way to slaughter of the innocent, robbery, burn- 
 ing and ravaging would be heavily punished. 
 
 Proclamations, however, could do little to 
 quiet the fears of the common people. When 
 their homes were in the path of armies, they 
 might at any time find a battle raging about 
 their doors. They knew war by the stories of 
 the past. When the waves of warring armies 
 began actually to sweep toward their villages 
 and cities, their terror was pitiful indeed. 
 Country people rushed into the cities, bring- 
 ing their salable goods, and seeking to turn 
 them into cash. Families moved into the city 
 to gain the protection of the ancient walls. City 
 
 [76] 
 
THE MISSIONARY AND THE REVOLUTION 
 
 people poured into the country districts, think- 
 ing they might thus escape the path of marching 
 armies. Grain, animals and fowl were sold for 
 a third of their value. In cities which contained 
 resident missionaries, who believed it their duty 
 to remain if possible, the sight of these for- 
 eigners going about their usual tasks calmed, 
 to some extent, the fears of the people. Nothing 
 frightened them more than to hear that the mis- 
 sionaries were leaving the place. 
 
 We do not know who were the initiators of 
 the Chinese Red Cross Society. Mission hos- 
 pitals, however, did not wait for those at a dis- 
 tance to start up a national organization. With- 
 out having time or opportunity to consult with 
 others, these hospitals hoisted the Red Cross 
 flag and began training men for relief corps. 
 Mission schools had to be closed for lack of 
 pupils; no aggressive work could be done in the 
 churches. So other missionaries threw in their 
 lot with the doctors in organizing for this emer- 
 gency. Old style Chinese doctors were absolutely 
 helpless before such a task. Only western 
 trained men knew how to care for the wounded. 
 The number of Chinese who had sufficient train- 
 ing for this kind of work was comparatively 
 small, so the missionary doctors found their 
 services much in demand. 
 
 When the plan and purpose of the Red Cross 
 movement were explained to the influential 
 Chinese whose homes were in the path of danger, 
 they immediately grasped the opportunity. They 
 
 [77] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 saw a possibility of saving tlieir homes as well 
 as the lives of wounded soldiers. They knew 
 that in other countries armies usually respected 
 the Red Cross flag. They heard that the lead- 
 ing Chinese generals had instructed their soldiers 
 to do likewise. They reasoned that where the 
 Red Cross flag flew the place ought to be fairly 
 safe, so they readily gave funds for the work. 
 They willingly filled such offices and did such 
 duty as lay in their power. Their sons could 
 help in first aid and their daughters could sew 
 and make bandages. Requests began to come 
 in for the privilege of storing boxes of valuable 
 things in the attics either of the foreign hospital 
 or houses. Almost without the knowledge of 
 the foreigners the deserted school rooms filled 
 up with women and children from country Chris- 
 tian homes. Relatives came in with them. 
 Local women began to feel that the foreign com- 
 pounds would be good places to which to flee 
 should special danger arise. 
 
 The Yangtse and Han Rivers separate the 
 three cities of Wuchang, Hankow and Hanyang. 
 Here are located a half dozen mission hospitals, 
 and many schools and churches. These hospitals 
 opened their doors for caring for the wounded. 
 Relief corps worked behind both sides and 
 gathered in all the wounded they could handle. 
 When the hospital buildings overflowed, churches 
 and schools were pressed into service. The for- 
 eign and Chinese Christian women led the work 
 of making bandages and dressings. There were 
 
 [78] 
 
THE MISSIONARY AND THE REVOLUTION 
 
 days when a thousand wounded and sick were 
 being cared for at one time by these inadequate 
 emergency forces. 
 
 Chang Hsun, an Imperial leader and a warm 
 supporter of the Manchus, suddenly moved his 
 forces across the river from Pukow to Nanking 
 and took the city out of the hands of the waver- 
 ing Tartar general and viceroy, refusing to 
 surrender the place without a struggle. Revolu- 
 tionary troops who had been recruited from 
 Kiangsu Province all the way down the coast 
 to Canton, gathered in force along the Shanghai- 
 Nanking Railroad, determined to drive all Im- 
 perial forces out of this part of the Yangtse 
 Valley. Back of them were mission hospitals 
 in Chinkiang, Soochow, and Shanghai. Relief 
 corps followed them, gathering up and taking 
 the wounded back to these hospitals by special 
 trains. 
 
 Nanking had but two available hospitals 
 and Chang Hsun's wounded, together with 
 wounded citizens, quickly filled these. His at- 
 tempt to hold the city was Or foolish one, for the 
 Revolutionists numbered many times his forces 
 and were well equipped with guns and ammuni- 
 tion. Here again the missionary stepped into 
 the emergency and determined to stop the use- 
 less slaughter if possible. Dr. Macklin, into 
 whose hospital were pouring most of the 
 wounded soldiers, had entre to Chang Hsun's 
 headquarters, so took it upon himself to urge 
 surrender of the city. At first the commander 
 
 [79] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 refused. There was his own honor, that of the 
 Manchu government and the lives of resident 
 Manchus to be considered. But Dr. Macklin with 
 Messrs. Brown, Garrett, and others, offered to 
 act as middlemen between the forces. 
 
 The missionaries were carrying other heavy 
 burdens besides caring for wounded soldiers. 
 Their schools and churches were full of refugees, 
 numbers of whom were being protected from 
 Chang Hsun himself. Even two or three years 
 before the Revoution numbers of young men had 
 begun to rid themselves of the hateful queues, a 
 long time badge of servitude to the Manchus. 
 Chang Hsun had risen from the position of a 
 cart driver to a general in the army wholly 
 through favor of the former Empress Dowager, 
 and he was most loyal to the Manchus. The 
 cutting off of queues by the younger generation 
 Chang Hsun took as a direct affront to the gov- 
 ernment. A number of such young men in 
 Nanking had been seized and beheaded; nothing 
 but the walls of mission compounds protected 
 many others. So the missionaries had double 
 reason for wishing the Imperial troops to 
 evacuate the city. 
 
 Finally the general made suggestions as 
 to what terms must be granted if he were to 
 leave the place. Immediately the missionaries 
 who were acting as middlemen found a way to 
 visit the camp of the Revolutionists and begin 
 negotiations. The safety of the common people 
 lay in the success of these men. It took more 
 
 [80] 
 
THE MISSIONARY AND THE REVOLUTION 
 
 than one such journey to complete the parley. 
 Finally the Revolutionists guaranteed safety to 
 all Manchus who might have to remain in the 
 city and also rearranged their troops so Chang 
 Hsun could escape with such troops as wished 
 to follow him. One regiment was left behind 
 and these, again under the leadership (and pro- 
 tection) of the missionaries, turned over the city 
 to the Revolutionists. Although the lives and 
 property of the Manchu residents had been 
 guaranteed, so little faith had they in any 
 soldiers that many of the women threw them- 
 selves into moats and wells rather than to trust 
 themselves to the hands of the Chinese, while 
 the men dynamited a portion of their residential 
 district. 
 
 Dr. Lucy Gaynor, for years in charge of the 
 Quaker Hospital for women, took it upon her- 
 self to investigate conditions of the Manchu 
 women left in the city. A large number of them 
 had been reduced to beggary. The Christian 
 churches following her suggestions, opened up 
 kitchens, found work for some and did every- 
 thing within their power to help these un- 
 fortunates. Typhus fever broke out among them 
 and Dr. Gaynor arranged isolation rooms and 
 went daily to minister to them. The disease 
 took hold upon her and she gave up her life, 
 but her death was not in vain. Neither was 
 the work of the other missionaries. It gained 
 for Christianity the gratitude of Chinese and 
 Manchus and drew many into the Church. 
 
 [81] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 Chang Hsun, with some six thousand of his 
 troops, fled across the river. The Tientsin- 
 Pukow Railroad had had many interruptions 
 during the seige of Nanking. Preparing for just 
 such an emergency, they had sent most of their 
 rolling stock up the line, so as to prevent its 
 being commandeered by either party. Chang 
 Hsun pushed his men forward to Chuchow where 
 he found enough cars to entrain half of his 
 troops. Hoping to persuade the foreign engi- , 
 neers to send up more cars, he held his men for 
 a day at the Chuchow station. 
 
 Chuchow had already had Its gates shut and 
 barred for two days. The Imperial troops did 
 not try to enter it as their objective was to put 
 a greater distance between themselves and any 
 Revolutionists who might pursue. They con- 
 tented themselves with taking such food as could 
 be found in homes and stores outside the city 
 walls, and then gathered about the railroad 
 station to await the coming of the expected 
 trains. Thus the men were limited to the sec- 
 tion around the south and east gates. 
 
 While they were thus gathering, a small 
 body of newly recruited Revolutionists from the 
 country west of the city, approached from that 
 side. The city elders had known of the gather- 
 ing of this force, but had sent urgent word for 
 them to remain out of the district, at least until 
 Chang Hsun's men had passed by. They came 
 on, however, to find the gates barred against 
 them also. As there was no defensive body in 
 
 [82] 
 
THE MISSIONARY AND THE REVOLUTION 
 
 the city, they found it an easy task to scale the 
 walls and open the West Gate and enter the city. 
 The Imperialists could have done the same had 
 they so desired, but they were soldiers of the old 
 type, perfectly willing to loot and ravage. With 
 a revolutionary force in the city they would 
 have had sufficient excuse for so doing and it was 
 indeed fortunate that they did not attempt to 
 enter the walls. 
 
 The commander of the Revolutionary 
 troops had hardly expected to come so suddenly 
 into such close quarters with Imperial troops. 
 His men had almost no modern equipment and 
 were but raw recruits. Since he was in the city, 
 he trusted, as the citizens did, that Chang Hsun 
 would give orders for his trains to start north. 
 As the afternoon of that day wore on and there 
 was no sign of starting trains, and more Im- 
 perial troops kept arriving, all the people within 
 the city, soldiers and citizens alike, began to fear 
 that Chang Hsun had changed his mind and 
 would demand entrance. 
 
 In desperation the Revolutionary leader 
 and city heads sent for the two missionaries who 
 were in the city. Would the foreigners be will- 
 ing to go over the wall and urge Chang Hsun 
 to start his troop trains northward? The people 
 in the city, especially the women, were in an 
 extreme stage of fear. With every rumor that 
 had gone afloat that day, numbers of them had 
 rushed each time to the hospital for safety. 
 The citizens' request was granted and the mis- 
 
 [83] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 sionaries went over the wall. Chang Hsun was 
 met, information as to extra cars was given him, 
 and, as dusk settled over the city, the trains 
 started for the north. That act broke down all 
 barriers which had existed between the Chinese 
 and foreigners. The foreigners have ever since 
 been recognized as citizens of the place and 
 called into co-operation in all new movements 
 originating in the municipality since that date. 
 Similar incidents took place in many cities in 
 China, placing missionaries in entirely new re- 
 lations with the Chinese. 
 
 One of the oldest evangelists in the Yangtse 
 Valley, an early convert under Dr. Macklin, had 
 been called to Ichang previous to the outbreak of 
 the Revolution, for special meetings. He was 
 caught in the net of the war at Hankow and re- 
 mained through much of the fighting there. He 
 saw the beginning of the Red Cross work, the 
 relief corps that went out behind the fighting 
 men and brought in the wounded, also gathering 
 in non-combatants and protecting them. Re- 
 turning home by way of Nanking, the evangelist 
 found a city filled with gratitude because of the 
 work missionaries had done in saving lives and 
 homes. He returned to his home in Chuchow 
 and was himself used in pacifying rival Revolu- 
 tionary leaders and in maintaining peace in the 
 city,, after the passing of Chang Hsun. Members 
 of the city council who came in requesting aid 
 in some task which was beyond their powers 
 and influence, stood up and bowed their heads 
 
 [84] 
 
THE MISSIONARY AND THE REVOLUTION 
 
 while this old soldier of the Cross prayed for 
 the leadership and counsel of God. Then they 
 saw htm go forth in company with the mission- 
 aries and perform deeds which they had been 
 unable to do and which the missionaries would 
 probably have been unable to perform without 
 his ready wit and wise tongue. No wonder these 
 city leaders afterwards said, "God and you saved 
 the city." 
 
 In their relationships to the Red Gross there 
 was a great difference between Christian and 
 non-Christian. Rich and educated men, men 
 who ordinarily had much influence, thought of 
 the organization only as a means for saving their 
 homes and property. Towns and villages wanted 
 to organize branches so they might float the flag 
 over their districts. Members prized Red Cross 
 badges, not as a sign of service, but as a pro- 
 tective charm. In their minds the saving of 
 others was secondary. 
 
 On the other hand, numbers of the Chris- 
 tians grasped the spirit of unselflsh service. 
 The wife of a country preacher heard of a young 
 man who, on his way home, had been waylaid 
 by robbers, bands of whom had sprung up in 
 great numbers in this disordered time. Passing 
 soldiers, finding him half dead were about to 
 put him out of his misery when this Christian 
 woman intervened. She found some carriers, 
 made a rude stretcher, and brought him twenty 
 miles to the nearest hospital. Her faith was re- 
 warded by his ultimate recovery to full health. 
 
 [86] 
 
CtllNA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 Retreating Imperial soldiers, discouraged 
 and scattered, often sold their arms and ammuni- 
 tion and, throwing off their uniforms, escaped 
 back to their own homes. These modern 
 weapons frequently fell into the hands of un- 
 scrupulous men who seized this time of disorder 
 to become robbers. Wounded country farmers, 
 whose homes had been attacked by such men, 
 were picked up by the country pastors or Chris- 
 tians and brought to the hospitals. Chinese 
 Christians through unsettled portions of the 
 country were most faithful to their posts and 
 won the hearts of the people by this work of 
 saying the wounded and distressed. No longer 
 were they held in derision by others of their 
 race, but were welcomed as messengers of love 
 and service. Patients thus brought to the hos- 
 pital made willing listeners to the Gospel, and 
 those able to read spent much time in studjdng 
 the Scriptures put into, their hands. 
 
 Some of the Revolutionary soldiers had been 
 educated in mission schools. During days of 
 fierce fighting they learned to pray very sincerely 
 for victory. This faith in God took hold upon 
 their comrades who, when sent to the hospital 
 for healing, listened eagerly to the preaching in 
 chapel or ward. It often took courage to confess 
 faith in Christ, but it was not an infrequent 
 thing to hear these soldiers make such public 
 confession. 
 
 The troops frequently were quartered in 
 schools and temples. But it was found that 
 
 [86] 
 
THE MISSIONARY AND THE REVOLUTION 
 
 much space was taken up in the temples by the 
 presence of idols. So, at Nanking, a special day 
 was set for pulling down the idols from their 
 thrones. Hundreds of these brick and dirt 
 figures were scattered about the adjoining fields, 
 giving them the appearance of a battle field 
 strewn with dismembered bodies. For those 
 Chinese who had substituted faith in the one 
 God for faith in idols it was a time of rejoicing; 
 for those who had no other belief than in figures 
 of wood and stone, it was a day of trembling. 
 Missionaries viewed the proceedings with 
 troubled hearts, for men and women, they knew, 
 must believe in something. Would these un- 
 taught, despairing masses be reached? Would 
 something worse than idols be their religion? 
 During the succeeding years, some temples have 
 been refilled with new idols; priests, however, 
 are fewer in number. 
 
 In our section people have idol processions 
 and hold special days for idol worship, but super- 
 stition still has a strong hold upon the masses. 
 We find that the name of God has been added to 
 the gods of whom they speak. Dimly farmers be- 
 gin to believe that God has something to do with 
 their crops. Few of them read. There is no in- 
 centive to attend meetings where they might 
 gather fresh information or knowledge. If ever 
 the masses are led to Christ, we must go to them 
 carrjdng the Word to their very homes. 
 
 The days immediately following such times 
 of excitement, uncertainty and fear brought both 
 
 [87] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 gladness and sadness to Christian workers. Idols 
 had proved their uselessness and more people 
 flocked to the churches. The missionary and 
 Christian stood in a new place among them. 
 Many expressions of gratitude were brought or 
 sent to them; some thirty missionaries, for ex- 
 ample, who were active in Red Cross work about 
 Nanking were decorated by the Revolutionary 
 general who took that city. Missionaries in 
 other cities where trouble came, were given 
 similar recognition. Stone tablets were placed 
 in hospitals, lacquered boards hung in chapels, 
 and beautiful scrolls on the walls of the mis- 
 sionary's own home. Those giving such recogni- 
 tion wished it understood that they were not only 
 thanking the missionaries themselves but de- 
 sired that their own children might not forget 
 the salvation which had come to their homes, 
 but might keep in grateful memory these guests 
 from over the seas who had so freely risked their 
 lives for the saving of the people. 
 
 [88] 
 
VI 
 
 THE DAYS FOLLOWING THE REVOLUTION 
 
 The days following the Revolution were like 
 an ever changing kaleidoscope. New and Young 
 China were in the ascendency and were ready to 
 set the pace for all others. The reforms and 
 changes they planned, tried, and discarded re- 
 minded one of the words at the end of an auc- 
 tioneer's advertisement: "Too numerous to men- 
 tion." Any description of these changes must be 
 colored by the conditions in the locality in which 
 the observer was stationed. Eastern and south- 
 ern China were probably more affected than 
 other parts. Interior places move more slowly. 
 The north, in fact, was still under the spell of the 
 old regime. 
 
 Daily an indefinite variety of new or resur- 
 rected clothing was seen on the streets. The 
 patterns were borrowed anywhere from the dis- 
 tant sages to the most extreme followers of 
 foreign styles. This new era was frequently 
 spoken of as the revival of the days of Han, the 
 dynasty which ruled China in the days of Christ. 
 The Chinese look back to that time as the golden 
 age of the Orient. Young men began to appear 
 on the streets In flowing garments and peculiar 
 
 [89] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 hats. The only thing they lacked was beards. 
 Foreign style clothing has been worn by young 
 men in Shanghai and other coast cities for some 
 years. Now "hand-me-downs" began to appear 
 even in the interior. Men attended functions in 
 clothing which, as far as fitting qualities were 
 concerned, might have graced an American 
 tramp. Collars with ready-tied neckties were 
 put around the neck without a foreign shirt for 
 attachment. Then the collars would appear to 
 have a desire to see the country from all angles 
 and would begin a trip around the neck, the 
 necktie going along. Wiser Chinese went to 
 foreign tailors and were properly fitted, and thus 
 escaped making themselves ridiculous. Others, 
 still wiser, continued to wear the conventional 
 Chinese garments. The Chinese skull cap for a 
 time disappeared, and foreign caps were much 
 in evidence. Pith and cork hats were donned 
 during the summer. Then the Chinese regained 
 their sanity and former styles came back and 
 have since held their ground. 
 
 Many of the men however were determined 
 to get rid of their queues. These were a badge of 
 submission forced upon the Chinese by the 
 Manchus when they conquered the country in 
 1644. We have noted in a previous chapter that, 
 even before the Revolution, some of the more 
 adventurous spirits among the young men had 
 cut off their queues. After the Revolution the 
 students and new soldiers led the way, not only 
 in cutting off their own queues, but those of any 
 
 [90] 
 
THE DAYS FOLLOWING THE REVOLUTION 
 
 common persons who came within reach of their 
 bayonets or the scissors which many of them 
 carried for the purpose. The gentry and official 
 class had to follow suit. Even Yuan Shi-kai, al- 
 though in the conservative stronghold of the 
 north, had to yield to this popular demand. Most 
 of the northern people held on to their queues 
 long after they disappeared from the South, and 
 today a majority of the common people still 
 braid their hair and let it hang down their backs. 
 People in the back country districts in the South 
 found that if they wished to preserve their 
 queues they must remain away from cities and 
 towns in which soldiers were quartered. Those 
 who had the temerity to journey as far into the 
 strongholds of Young China as Nanking were 
 sure to lose their queues before even getting 
 across the Yangtse River. Some tried curling 
 them under their caps and allowing the hair to 
 grow over the entire head. But the new soldiers 
 on the banks of the river found queue-cutting 
 a most inspiring sport, and very little long hair 
 escaped them. 
 
 The soldiers adopted hair-cutting as a part 
 of their work in the new China. We were at an 
 up-country railroad station one day when a train- 
 load of soldiers pulled in. Several country boys 
 were standing about the platform watching the 
 sights. Most of them still possessed their 
 queues. One young officer, not yet out of his 
 teens but puffed up with the importance of his 
 office, stepped down from the train platform and 
 
 [91] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 with a companion made a rush for the country 
 boys. The boys made a dash for the open coun- 
 try. Then the young officer pulled out a large 
 revolver and commanded the boys to return. 
 They saw some shears in the hands of the ac- 
 companying soldiers, and fearing the shears as 
 much as they did the revolver, were slow to 
 obey the command. It looked rather serious for 
 the country boys until, with an influential com- 
 panion, we had the boldness to walk up to the 
 soldiers and tell them to attend to their own 
 business and not interfere in local affairs. The 
 country boys were happy to escape from the 
 shears and doubtless were more careful after- 
 wards how they loitered around the station. The 
 young officer was not happy, for he had lost what 
 all Chinese — and people of most other nations 
 — love most dearly, namely face, or pride. 
 
 There was one division of the Chinese who 
 still held on to their queues. This was the divi- 
 sion under the command of Chang Hsun whom 
 we described in his attempt to hold Nanking for 
 the Manchus. He had not only retained the men 
 who had fled with him but had industriously re- 
 cruited many other long-haired young men. His 
 force was sufficiently large and the country still 
 so much in disorder that the government did not 
 attempt to consider him an outlaw. He had 
 grudgingly given his allegiance to the new order 
 of things, but later events proved that this was 
 merely to gain time and hold his own power. 
 The very fact that he only recruited men who 
 
 [92] 
 
THE DAYS FOLLOWING THE REVOLUTION 
 
 still wore queues showed his allegiance to the 
 old government. 
 
 He gathered his increasing army about him 
 in north Kiangsu and settled himself like an 
 Oriental prince in regal splendor. The govern- 
 ment had to furnish money to pay his soldiers. 
 Since they had no means of counting the number 
 of men he had, they had to take his word for it, 
 and in consequence, paid him wages for whole 
 regiments he did not have. Since he was de- 
 pendent upon the government for his arms and 
 ammunition they could control him there some- 
 what. Likewise they could demand his co-opera- 
 tion in any military activities needed. Since a 
 large proportion of the troops he recruited were 
 from a lawless part of the country where robbery 
 was a frequent cure for short crops, there was 
 more safety for the country when these soldiers 
 were under military control, than when they 
 were turned loose upon the countryside. 
 
 These were the troops who, in the Rebellion 
 of 1913, retook Nanking and for three days were 
 allowed to loot at pleasure. Unhappily, in their 
 mistreatment of the Nanking people, they were 
 so careless as to kill three Japanese who had 
 taken up residence and were doing business in 
 the city. With this act as an excuse, the Japanese 
 government brought pressure to bear and com- 
 pelled the Chinese government to remove Chang 
 Hsun and his forces to northern Kiangsu where 
 they had been living for the intervening two 
 years. It was then we were able to measure 
 
 [93] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 somewhat the amount of goods they had stolen 
 from the homes and stores of Nanking, for we 
 saw whole train-loads of all kinds of goods which 
 they openly took along with them. 
 
 Although Chang Hsun was not present in 
 the city in person during the looting, and entered 
 no house as a thief and robber, he did not leave 
 empty handed. In 1910 China had copied other 
 nations and held a fine Exposition in Nanking. 
 Very attractive buildings had been erected. Many 
 modern inventions, along with many of China's 
 ancient relics and more modern costly porce- 
 lains and silks, had been on exhibit. The whole 
 exhibit had been lighted with electricity, a special 
 plant being imported for the purpose. When 
 Chang Hsun returned to his old place in Hsu- 
 chow-fu, he had this entire electric light plant 
 taken back with him. It was set up in Hsu- 
 chow-fu and gave light, not only for the palatial 
 buildings he now erected, but was sufficient for 
 other places used by his officers. He had it run- 
 ning for a while, then, one night the wires be- 
 came accidently crossed, short circuiting the 
 current, and he saw his beautiful palace go up in 
 flames. He himself escaped. This incident is 
 somewhat aside from the subject of this chapter 
 but was one of the interesting happenings of the 
 early days of the Republic. 
 
 For some reason, although the country was 
 at peace and the new government was accepted 
 by citizens and military, every division leader 
 thought it necessary to recruit men. It certainly 
 
 [94] 
 
THE DAYS FOLLOWING THE REVOLUTION 
 
 was not done at the request of the government. 
 Probably since northern military leaders, who 
 had favored the Manchus, still held their com- 
 mands and were recruiting men, the southern 
 leaders felt it necessary to do the same. It was 
 exactly what had been taking place among the 
 nations in Europe for a much longer period. 
 
 Following Chang Hsun's flight in 1911, a 
 company of young soldiers who had been re- 
 cruited from students, were placed in our city 
 and remained with us for six months. Their 
 captain at that time was but twenty years of 
 age, but he showed wisdom in advance of many 
 of his own age. It was through his strong work 
 that our city suffered no ill during the coming 
 and going of so many soldiers on the railroad 
 line. Later he was given instructions to recruit 
 men. Eighty per cent of his men gained com- 
 missions and he was made a colonel. In all the 
 cities and large towns in this part of China the 
 same thing was being enacted. Drilling of the 
 new troops went on throughout the day. Buglers 
 disturbed our morning slumbers and sent us to 
 bed at night. New buglers had to be trained. 
 Their practicing was nerve racking to foreigners 
 who had no choice but to listen to it sixteen 
 hours a day. 
 
 These soldiers had no work but their drill. 
 Certain times each day they could leave their 
 camp and wander about at will. Some of them 
 made nuisances of themselves, and some officers 
 were lax. Others in command were strict and 
 
 [95] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 their men better behaved. Petty thieving was 
 common in some regiments, which likewise 
 enjoyed disturbing people who were going 
 about their ordinary business. This, however, 
 would not continue long before some offender 
 would be caught by his superiors and be made 
 to suffer for the sins of many of his fellow 
 soldiers. The usual punishment was to bamboo 
 the bare legs. Discharged in disgrace and left 
 in a pitiful condition, the suffering would be 
 brought to our hospital for treatment, his care 
 paid for by sympathetic comrades. 
 
 Groups of the soldiers could be seen at 
 nearly every service in our churches. Sometimes 
 they became annoying, as they knew nothing 
 about the proprieties of the place. Noisily they 
 stamped their way into the church, sat for a 
 while and then noisily left. Since the earlier of- 
 ficers welcomed the missionaries to their camps 
 and gladly gave them opportunities to speak to 
 the soldrers, it needed but a word to gain the co- 
 operation of these officers in teaching their men 
 to show decorum when attending services. In 
 such cases special classes were formed for those 
 who became fairly regular in attendance. Num- 
 bers of the soldiers actually became Christians 
 and, although they were later scattered far and 
 wide, reports continually reached us which 
 showed many of them were sincere in their pro- 
 fession of faith. 
 
 One serious difficulty loomed large in the 
 days of reconstruction. Robbery became wide- 
 
 [96] 
 
Shi Kwei Biao, 
 A Great Chinese Evangelist 
 
THE DAYS FOLLOWING THE REVOLUTION 
 
 spread. Disbanding or deserting soldiers often 
 got away with their rifles and ammunition and 
 turned robbers. Much of the Chinese army is 
 made up of restless irresponsible spirits who, 
 when not under authority, readily turn to spoil- 
 ing unprotected farms and villages. Through 
 eastern Anhwui there has for years existed a 
 secret organization, which, while professing to 
 have no other intention than that of mutual 
 helpfulness, in reality control the robbery and 
 thieving. Its leaders do not themselves go out 
 with these maraudering bands, but they seek to 
 protect and aid those who do the actual robbing 
 when they fall into trouble with the government. 
 These men became quite bold during the 
 days when there was laxness of law and order, 
 and began to terrorize larger towns. Later it 
 was found that policemen, soldiers and railroad 
 employees were numbered among their ranks. 
 In Chuchow they began entering shops on the 
 pretense of buying goods. They would inquire 
 the price of their purchase, pay a small sum and 
 tell the shopkeeper to charge the rest. Of course, 
 such methods were a flagrant form of daylight 
 robbery. The local magistrate, in desperation, 
 finally arrested one of the worst offenders. At 
 once the whole organization made it known that 
 the magistrate would suffer for the act. One 
 night the city gate was opened by a policeman 
 in league with the robbers and a large force of 
 them entered, looted the yamen and opened the 
 prisons. The magistrate escaped to the soldiers' 
 
 [97] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 barracks. There were but a handful of them to 
 face such a robber band, but they had been 
 through the war and boldly attacked the robbers. 
 These lost their nerve and fled, losing a number 
 of their men by the way. They seized an engine 
 and some cars and made off into the country, 
 burning a market town by the way. The magis- 
 trate, as soon as cut wires were mended, tele- 
 graphed for more soldiers, and when these came 
 he swept the city and country clean of every man 
 who was known to have been in any way con- 
 nected with the secret organization. For the 
 first time in many years country people breathed 
 easy and went to sleep in peace. 
 
 Educational changes began before the Revo- 
 lution. In 1905 the Throne sent forth an edict 
 which brought to an end the old educational 
 system and inaugurated modern methods. Mis- 
 sion schools had to a great extent been the fore- 
 runners of this change. Especially was this true 
 in regard to girls. As we have seen, the call for 
 modern education sent thousands of young men 
 hurrying to Japan to obtain a training for the 
 new kind of schools. A few young women from 
 rich or official homes were also sent. Some were 
 able to go even to America and Europe. The 
 government gave many grants to aid these in ob- 
 taining the necessary normal training. These 
 new schools had just begun when the Revolution 
 burst upon the country and closed all schools 
 in the regions affected. 
 
 Mission schools quickly regained their 
 
 [98] 
 
THE DAYS FOLLOWING THE REVOLUTION 
 
 students, for taxes must be gathered before gov- 
 ernment teachers could be paid. For several 
 years it was difficult to fill the public treasury so 
 the government schools waited, and the mission 
 schools found themselves swamped with pupils. 
 The Chinese had learned to trust the mission- 
 aries and no longer opposed Christian teaching 
 for their children. The publishing houses had an 
 equally heavy task on their hands, for the gov- 
 erment textbooks had all to be changed to con- 
 form with the new ideas formulated by the found- 
 ing of a republic. 
 
 The government school teachers made 
 heroic and patriotic efforts to reopen the schools 
 and meet the new demands. Night schools 
 sprang up. Free schools for poor children were 
 opened. Educational associations were formed. 
 Missionaries were invited as guests of honor to 
 their meetings and their counsel was eagerly 
 sought. They were asked to give aid in teaching 
 normal classes for the teachers. The older 
 teachers were ignorant of all such subjects as 
 arithmetic, geography, music and physiology, 
 and younger teachers had had little experience 
 in managing schools. Often there arose con- 
 flict between the two elements. Now the old 
 style teacher is rapidly disappearing. Even his 
 methods of teaching selections from the classics 
 are antiquated and the new men have shown 
 little patience with them. Since the government 
 has been handicapped with rebellions and other 
 quarrels, it has been constantly short of funds. 
 
 ^ [99] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 School funds were often used for other purposes, 
 especially to pay the soldiers. Hence there has 
 been a slow return in places to the old style 
 school and private schools, and the teaching of 
 the old classics in the old way is found in most 
 cities. The government, however, has shown no 
 intention of returning to this old style of educa- 
 tion. 
 
 The mission doctors had been much en- 
 couraged by the way in which their Red Cross 
 work had been supported. They had seized the 
 opportunity to give suggestions for cleaner 
 streets and homes. Greater efforts were made 
 to make the hospital and foreign compounds 
 models of sanitation. When now they offered to 
 give occasional lectures along these lines whole 
 schools would march to the lecture hall, which 
 usually was the church building, to listen. The 
 people began to talk about hygiene. Tuber- 
 culosis has always made great inroads on 
 Chinese health. The old teacher considered it 
 dignified to walk with stooped shoulders for it 
 showed him to be a scholar. But it also made 
 him a consumptive. Lectures on this subject 
 met with quick response. Physical training be- 
 gan to be demanded by the schools. Boys and 
 girls were, after long ages, given opportunity 
 still to be boys and girls although they were on 
 the road to education. Games, gymnastic ap- 
 paratus and physical drill became a regular part 
 of their education. 
 
 "The poor ye shall always have with you" 
 
 [100] 
 
THE DAYS FOLLOWING THE REVOLUTION 
 
 is literally true of old China. Flood, drought 
 and locusts have taken annual toll of crops. 
 Lack of shipping communications stopped all 
 plans to relieve any district affected. If famine 
 was too heavy upon the land the government 
 might remit the taxes for the year. In desperate 
 cases the government might issue an order for 
 opening soup kitchens. The kitchens were not 
 opened in the immediate famine region but in 
 such cities to which the famine sufferers drifted. 
 Famine was the common lot of multitudes living 
 in southern Shantung and northern Kiangsu. 
 Sufferers usually took the route of the Grand 
 Canal down to Chinkiang or came overland 
 through eastern Anhwui to Nanking. Our city 
 of Chuchow is on this latter route. Indeed this 
 region which had been depopulated by the Taip- 
 ing Rebellion has been largely repopulated by 
 such groups of famine sufferers. There are large 
 tracts of land here government owned or priv- 
 ately controlled, still uncultivated. 
 
 Following the Revolution, leaders in the 
 Chuchow Christian Church began pressure upon 
 the new and friendly officials to open up such 
 vacant land for the poor. A wide strip of land 
 circling the entire city and lying between the 
 moat and the city wall has long been a waste. 
 One official did undertake to encourage silk 
 culture and plant some mulberry trees. Within 
 a couple of years refugees had broken these 
 down and pulled up the very roots for fuel. The 
 local Chinese pastor seized upon the idea of 
 
 [101] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 organizing a small company and putting these 
 refugees to cultivating this waste piece. It was 
 a mark of the confidence now shown towards 
 the church that request for this land was im- 
 mediately granted, a nominal rental being 
 charged. Later the moat itself was stocked with 
 fish and now yields a handsome return each 
 year. 
 
 At the very time Chang Hsun with his 
 troops fled northward from the soldiers of the 
 Revolution a famine was desolating the land 
 through which he passed. The Revolutionary 
 soldiers who followed him up were halted by 
 an armistice and encamped in the famine 
 regions. They were fed by a well organized 
 commisariat but people around them were dying 
 of starvation, and appealed to the soldiers for aid. 
 They offered their children to whomsoever would 
 give them a small amount of money or food in 
 return. By such means both parents and chil- 
 dren, though separated, were saved. Some six 
 hundred boys and girls were thus bought by 
 southern soldiers with the expectation of using 
 them as servants. Some of the girls would 
 doubtless be raised to enter lives of immorality. 
 When these soldiers were shifted back to Nan- 
 king, the people there objected to having these 
 northern children taken back with the soldiers to 
 the South. They took over the entire body of 
 children and started an orphanage in Nanking. 
 It was one of the first to be handled successfully 
 by the Chinese. An educated woman of fine ex- 
 
 [102] 
 
THE DAYS FOLLOWING THE REVOLUTION 
 
 ecutive ability was found and placed in charge. 
 This place played a large part in the 1913 Rebel- 
 lion when it was placed for protection in the 
 hands of the local Red Cross Society managed 
 by the missionaries. This temporary protection 
 by Christian men led the educated woman in 
 charge to Christ and opened the institution to 
 Christian teaching. 
 
 Famine and poverty were not decreased by 
 political changes in the land. Former magi- 
 strates under the old rule openly bought their of- 
 fice and taxes were farmed out to them as in the 
 days of the publicans under Roman rule in 
 Jerusalem. Men feared the yamen and found no 
 justice there. The one ambition of unscrupulous 
 office holders was to get rich, so they moved 
 about frequently, bleeding the people as they 
 went and exerting no beneficial infiuence toward 
 local improvement. Following the establish- 
 ment of the Republic, many patriotic young men 
 who had fought battles for her found themselves 
 in the possession of offices of trust in the land. 
 But so deeply had the practice of bribery been en- 
 trenched in the minds of the unprincipled that 
 the same illicit pressure was brought upon these 
 young men, and numbers of them could not with- 
 stand the temptation. 
 
 A class much in sympathy with the Revolu- 
 tion was the literati. Formerly proud and 
 egotistical, they had been slowly led to see the 
 weakness of the old government. They gave, in 
 consequence, much encouragement to the Rev- 
 
 [103] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 olution and the failure of the new type of magis- 
 trate to withstand the old temptations, the fact 
 that many of their own numbers were responsi- 
 ble for these failures, was a crushing blow to 
 their hopes. They began to see that the work 
 of founding a republic was not to be done in a 
 day. They also began to realize that they them- 
 selves must change if it were to be accomplished. 
 Students from America had given them glowing 
 descriptions of that progressive country and they 
 had thought that with the wave of a wizard's 
 wand their own country could be transformed 
 into a similar condition of prosperity. There 
 are few countries where King Habit holds sway 
 with such power as in China. To be sure, the 
 people had broken with opium, but it was 
 another thing to break with idleness, parasitism, 
 selfishness and gambling. 
 
 They began to realize the need of universal 
 education, the necessity of training a host of 
 teachers and the importance of the extension of 
 their educational system until every child as well 
 as every adult had been taught the privileges and 
 duties pertaining to citizenship. They had their 
 eyes opened to the necessity of educating the 
 women. They found old conservatism most 
 strongly entrenched in the hearts of their wives 
 and mothers. They themselves might throw ofE 
 their belief in idols but superstition held sway 
 among the older women. But the young girls 
 were as anxious for education as the boys. They, 
 too, ran to extremes and frequently brought 
 
 [104] 
 
THE DAYS FOLLOWING THE REVOLUTION 
 
 criticism upon themselves. Single lady mission- 
 aries began to find themselves in demand. Mis- 
 sion schools for girls were carefully guarded 
 and their graduates soon found favor with the 
 people. The contrast between these schools and 
 government girls' schools was striking, and de- 
 cidedly to the merit of the mission schools. 
 
 Although they did not push themselves into 
 places where they were not wanted, the mission- 
 aries sought to be helpful, to give counsel, and to 
 spend themselves for the good of the people. 
 
 Money was at times placed in their hands 
 to carry out some improvement, and positions 
 of leadership were often offered them. They 
 were asked to aid in and to oversee many kinds 
 of tasks. These new lines of activity threatened 
 to absorb their entire time to the detriment of 
 their definite task of preaching the Gospel. On 
 the other hand they were almost daily in homes 
 and among associations where men frankly 
 asked questions concerning Christianity, so they 
 soon found themselves preaching in a new and 
 more telling way. They discovered that to do 
 these extra tasks opened the way to hitherto 
 closed hearts and minds. Unexpected auditors 
 came singly and in groups into the church and 
 its services. 
 
 [105] 
 
VII 
 
 THE REPUBLIC'S POLITICAL DEEDS 
 
 The social dangers in China have been so 
 strongly influenced by the political conditions 
 that one needs to have a knowledge of the latter 
 to understand the former. For this reason we 
 are taking a little time to outline the political 
 events which have taken place since the over- 
 throw of the Manchu government. 
 
 We must remember that the Manchus had 
 discouraged the introduction of western methods 
 of education. They had forbidden public as- 
 semblies. The gaining of wealth and position 
 was the one ambition which inspired boys to 
 study and men to struggle. Official position was 
 to them a stepping stone. For ages Chinese life 
 had centered about the family rather than the 
 community. Sons, to perpetuate the family 
 name, were desired. If one wife bore no sons, 
 another wife was taken. So strong became the 
 bonds of family life that a man who was able 
 to gain wealth and influence found poor relatives 
 of several generations looking to him for sup- 
 port. In this way an unbelievably large portion 
 of the Chinese population had become parasitic 
 in relation to society. Even the heads of well- 
 
 [106] 
 
THE REPUBLICS POLITICAL DEEDS 
 
 to-do households had a tendency to turn the re- 
 sponsibilities over to their sons when these were 
 old enough to shoulder it. The father expected 
 his sons to support him as he had supported his 
 own father. Men learned to work when com- 
 pelled to but were ready to relax as soon as they 
 could shift the burden. All of this tendency to 
 idleness has created a vicious habit among the 
 people. New projects often arouse their en- 
 thusiastic support, only to fail when their en- 
 thusiasm quickly wanes. Hence most of their 
 recent projects have brought no fruit for lack of 
 faithful, steady support. Troubles in the new 
 government have been not a little due to this 
 vicious habit of allowing energies and enthus- 
 iasm to be dissipated in an exceedingly short 
 time. 
 
 Yuan Shi-kai, the first President of the Re- 
 public gained his political influence before the 
 overthrow of the Manchus. In 1898 he held a 
 position in Peking as chief of the palace guard. 
 The Emperor took him in confidence and sought 
 to overthrow the power of the Empress Dowager. 
 Yuan betrayed the trust and a famous coup d'etat 
 resulted. The Emperor never forgot this, and 
 when he passed away he left instructions with 
 the new Prince Regent who, at the first oppor- 
 tunity, sent Yuan back to private life in dis- 
 grace. When the Revolution broke out in 1911 
 there was no one left in official circles in Peking 
 who was strong enough to handle the situation. 
 The Prince Regent was, therefore, compelled to 
 
 [107] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 recall Yuan to power. Yuan refused to come 
 until the Prince agreed to put absolute power 
 into his hands. 
 
 Yuan Shi-kai's oldest son, then but just out 
 of his teens, reached Peking ahead of his father. 
 He freely and openly boasted that, when his 
 father came to the capital, the Manchus would 
 see the end of their reign, the Revolutionists 
 would be compelled to elect his father President 
 of the new Republic and, in due season, his father 
 would restore a monarchical form of govern- 
 ment with himself as the new Emperor. Friends 
 stopped the young man's talk as soon as they 
 could get hold of him. Later events have shown 
 that he was evidently giving away the plans 
 which his father purposed to carry out. 
 
 Yuan Shi-kai reached Peking in November, 
 1911. Fighting, so far, had been chiefly around 
 the three Wu-han cities, Wuchang, Hanyang, and 
 Hankow, the most widely known. The three 
 towns are situated at the junction of the Han 
 and Yangtse Rivers, six hundred miles inland 
 from Shanghai, and the Peking-Hankow Rail- 
 road connects them with the Capital. The Im- 
 perial troops had burned the native city of Han- 
 kow, driving the Revolutionary troops across 
 the Yangtse. Had they followed up their suc- 
 cesses there, the Revolutionary army would un- 
 doubtedly have been scattered. Yuan Shi-kai, 
 however, was now in control of the Peking Gov- 
 ernment and held back their troops. He de- 
 clared for peace and asked the Revolutionists to 
 
 [108] 
 
THE REPUBLICS POLITICAL DEEDS 
 
 accept an armistice and appoint delegates to 
 discuss peace terms. 
 
 The Revolutionary party did not respond at 
 once. Nearly the entire country had now risen 
 against the Manchu Government. Chang Hsun, 
 the Imperial leader who had tried to hold Nan- 
 king, was driven across the river and fled north- 
 ward, leaving the entire lower Yangtse Valley 
 in the hands of the Revolutionists. Yuan Shi- 
 kai sent representatives to Hankow to discuss 
 peace terms. The Revolutionists received them 
 and appointed delegates. Little was accom- 
 plished for Yuan stood for a limited monarchy, 
 with or without the Manchus in power, while the 
 Revolutionists were uncompromisingly for a Re- 
 public. While the discussion dragged slowly on. 
 Sun Yat-sen suddenly arrived in China and was 
 speedily elected President of the Republic, and 
 on December 29, 1911, he took up his residence 
 at Nanking, the proposed new capital. 
 
 Yuan continued his negotiations, compelling 
 the Manchus to give way step by step until, in 
 the middle of February, they accepted the idea 
 of a Republic and retired from the field. Sun 
 Yat-sen saw that Yuan was the stronger man. 
 In order to hasten peace he resigned his office in 
 favor of Yuan. March 16, 1912, Yuan took the 
 oath of ofiice as the first President of the new 
 Republic. The Republic was made to date from 
 January 1st of the same year. President Yuan 
 had been in office but a short time when distrust 
 of him began to show itself in both the Chinese 
 
 [109] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 literati and the foreigners who dwelt in China. 
 They knew that in 1898 he had betrayed his 
 Emperor. In 1911 he had betrayed the Manchus. 
 They began to believe that, when the time was 
 ripe, he would likewise betray the Republic and 
 make himself Emperor. 
 
 Brazil and Mexico early gave recognition 
 to the new Republic, but it took the recognition 
 of the United States in May, 1912, to set the 
 country aflame with enthusiasm. We have re- 
 marked that everywhere the stars and stripes 
 were floating by the side of the new Republican 
 flag. A Provisional Parliament had been organ- 
 ized in Nanking. President Yuan gained his 
 contention to have Peking still made the 
 Capital of the country, so the Provisional Parlia- 
 ment moved to that place. Since the public as- 
 sembling of the people and the public discussion 
 of political questions had been long forbidden, 
 it was not surprising that the early parliamen- 
 tary sessions were taken up with wranglings 
 over petty questions. 
 
 President Yuan knew that his office was 
 none too secure. He labored patiently with 
 Parliament and began to surround himself with 
 trusted men of influence. Wherever he could he 
 dismissed some military leader and placed one 
 of his own men in the vacancy. Parliament 
 realized that its first work was the making of a 
 Constitution. The Committee for drawing up 
 this document refused any aid from the Presi- 
 dent and sought to draft a constitution which 
 
 [110] 
 
THE REPUBLIC'S POLITICAL DEEDS 
 
 would limit the power of the Chief Executive and 
 make his acts amenable to Parliament. This 
 was just what President Yuan did not intend to 
 have. The country was short of funds and a 
 group of international bankers proposed a loan, 
 so he began negotiations without consulting 
 Parliament. Opposition at once arose and he 
 was warned that such a course would precipitate 
 another civil war. Nevertheless he succeeded 
 in getting a loan of twenty-five millions of 
 dollars. But another act widened the cleavage 
 between the President and the radical party. 
 Sung Chiao-ren, the young but powerful leader 
 of the Kuo-ming Party, when taking the train 
 at Shanghai to return to Peking was shot and 
 killed by an assassin. The murderer was 
 captured and the investigation which followed 
 found evidence pointing very strongly towards 
 the guilt of officials close to the President. 
 
 These three things, the Constitution, the 
 Loan and the Sung Chiao-ren murder, stirred 
 up the more violent spirits in the South. General 
 Li Lich-chun, Governor of Kiangsi, declared in- 
 dependence against Yuan and rebellion began 
 to spread. Nanking was again made head- 
 quarters and an army was started up the Tient- 
 sin-Pukow Railroad for the purpose of punish- 
 ing the President. Unfortunately for them, 
 ever since he had been driven out of Nanking 
 two years before, Chang Hsun, the Imperial 
 leader, was with his growing army planted on 
 this railroad at Hsu-chow-fu in north Kiangsu. 
 
 [Ill] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 He had no difficulty in turning back the rebels 
 and then, with General Feng Kwoh-chang of 
 Chihli Province, started for Nanking. In a few 
 weeks his savage troops retook that city and had 
 their long-desired revenge for having been 
 driven out of it before. For three days they 
 were allowed to loot the place. Once more 
 history was repeating itself, and the innocent 
 suffered for the guilty. 
 
 With the collapse of the Rebellion of 1913, 
 Yuan now felt himself strong enough to handle 
 the country and work out his own desires. Some 
 members of the Parliament, no doubt, sym- 
 pathized with the Rebellion but none of them 
 had taken part in it. The Kuo-ming Party was 
 discredited by it and lost much of their influence. 
 Yuan Shi-kai, up to this time, was acting as Pro- 
 visional President awaiting the adoption of the 
 Constitution. He now brought pressure to bear 
 upon Parliament for the early election of a per- 
 manent President. The laws governing such 
 election were prepared early in October, 1913, 
 and on the 6th, under pressure, Parliament 
 elected Yuan Shi-kai as permanent President. 
 Li Yuan-hung was elected as permanent Vice- 
 President, no doubt to make President Yuan's 
 victory less irritating to the radical party. 
 Hitherto Vice-President Li had remained at 
 Hankow with his own troops. President Yuan 
 now prevailed upon him to move to Peking. 
 Upon General Li's arrival he was assigned a 
 residence in the same buildings where, in 1898, 
 
 [112] 
 
THE REPUBLICS POLITICAL DEEDS 
 
 the Emperor found himself placed for safe keep- 
 ing while the Empress Dowager took the rule 
 in her own hands. President Yuan at once 
 placed another man over the troops at Hankow, 
 thus taking all military power from the hands 
 of the Vice-President and practically sending 
 him into retirement. General Li had been the 
 idol of the Revolutionary party, so this was 
 another blow to their prestige. Vice-President 
 Li quietly accepted his lot and through the 
 troublous days of the next three years waited for 
 a turn in political affairs. 
 
 Yuan now felt himself strong enough to 
 bring about the centralizing of power in his own 
 hands. In November, 1913, he dissolved Parlia- 
 ment on the pretext that members of the radical 
 party had forfeited their right to membership 
 in Parliament by secretly supporting the Rebel- 
 lion. There were not sufficient members left for 
 a quorum and no steps were taken to fill vacan- 
 cies. The President spent the large part of 1914 
 reorganizing the government to suit himself, al- 
 ways working toward the restoration of the 
 monarchical form. To show how little power 
 he had beyond the walls of Peking it is neces- 
 sary but to note that for nine months a robber 
 chief robbed and burned at will through four of 
 the provinces in Central China before he could 
 be rounded up and shot. 
 
 Meantime the European War had broken 
 out. Japan, on August 27, 1914, declared war 
 on Germany and demanded that Germany turn 
 
 [113] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 over to her all the leased territory of Kiaochow 
 in Shantung. Thus was begun the attack upon 
 the Republic from the outside. China asked to 
 have a share in the taking of Kiaochow. but 
 Japan openly discouraged it. On September 
 8th, Japanese troops were landed on Chinese 
 soil and sixty days later Kiaochow was captured. 
 Japan had promised to turn the territory back to 
 China, but in the following January she suddenly 
 issued the infamous Twenty-one Demands, 
 which, if she had gained, would have put China 
 hopelessly under her control and taken away all 
 the Republic's independence. Due to interven- 
 tion of other Powers, Japan modified these in 
 her final "ultimatum" but still gained very unjupt 
 control of many of China's industries and un- 
 developed resources. 
 
 By the autumn of 1915 Yuan felt himself 
 strong enough to proceed with the setting up of 
 the monarchy. In order to deceive other nations 
 and lead them to believe that it was done by the 
 unanimous desire of the people, very elaborate 
 machinery was set up to have the affair balloted 
 on by all the provinces. Compulsory measures 
 were brought to bear upon thousands of citizens 
 causing them to cast their vote according to 
 secret instructions sent out. Reports of this 
 iniquitous procedure came to the ears of the lega- 
 tions in Peking and they sent in a protest. But 
 the scheme was put through. When the ballot 
 boxes were opened it was found that a unanimous 
 vote had been sent in calling for the restoration 
 
 [114] 
 
THE REPUBLIC'S POLITICAL DEEDS 
 
 of a monarchical form of government and for 
 Yuan Shi-kai as its Emperor. This was accom- 
 plished in December, 1915. 
 
 Two weeks after the announcement of this 
 ballot, Yunnan in the far southwest, under 
 General Tsai Ao, declared independence on the 
 ground that Yuan Shi-kai had betrayed his trust. 
 The remainder of the country remaining 
 strangely quiet, Yuan announced that the new 
 monarchy would date from January 1, 1916. The 
 quietness broke, however, and not only all the 
 South but many parts of the country spoke in no 
 uncertain terms, denouncing their betrayal. 
 Military governors in partnership with Yuan put 
 their respective districts under martial law, but 
 this did not stop the outpouring of the people's 
 denunciation. Too late Yuan found he had mis- 
 judged the temper of the Chinese, so on March 
 22'nd he cancelled the monarchy. 
 
 This did not satisfy the opposition. He had 
 betrayed his trust. He must retire from the 
 office of President. Some even urged that he 
 must stand trial for crime. Northern soldiers 
 were sent to put down the rebellion in the South- 
 west. Intervening mountains made it a difficult 
 task to push forward troops and their supplies. 
 Yuan was again pinched for money, without 
 which no war could be carried on. Telegrams 
 and letters poured in on him from every part of 
 the country, demanding that he retire from office. 
 No man can successfully govern a country which 
 thus openly impeaches him. He had to yield to 
 
 [115] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 the pressure and on May 29, 1916, issued an edict 
 agreeing to retire. 
 
 The disappointment and subsequent nervous 
 strain broke down President Yuan's health. For 
 some time he had been unable to give personal 
 attention to his work. During the week follow- 
 ing his edict he became much worse and on the 
 6th of June died. His name will go down to com- 
 ing generations in ignominy. Had he been 
 animated by the spirit of unselfish patriotism, 
 instead of wanton selfishness, he would have been 
 remembered as the great leader he was at first 
 proclaimed to be. 
 
 Vice-President Li, who through all these 
 scenes, had remained quietly in the residence 
 set apart for him, was now called to take the 
 office of President. A feeling of relief passed 
 over the entire country. The provinces tele- 
 graphed their loyalty to him. They believed in 
 him implicitly. On coming to Peking, General 
 Li had been separated from his army, and 
 another had taken the command. President Li 
 was therefore not backed by soldiers, but by the 
 good-will of the people. It was not unnatural, 
 then, that the hardest work before him was to 
 get the military to submit to civil power. 
 
 Prom the day he took the office of President 
 until the following March when the question of 
 declaring war on Germany came before the 
 country, the Chinese Republic sailed on very 
 smooth waters. It looked as though at last the 
 Chinese were going to obtain the longing of their 
 
 [116] 
 
THE REPUBLIC'S POLITICAL DEEDS 
 
 hearts and take a respected place with the na- 
 tions of the world. The government was facing 
 some hard questions, to be sure, and it was still 
 difficult to find necessary funds to carry on its 
 work. The people were clamoring everywhere 
 for local self-government. Some were even de- 
 manding that Confucianism become the state 
 religion. 
 
 China was at the same time watching the 
 course of the European war. She was also watch- 
 ing America and Japan. Of Japan she stood in 
 dread. America was China's example and, in 
 the case of the war, as well as in other things, 
 she was trying to imitate her example. When 
 Wilson protested against the ruthless submarine 
 warfare inaugurated by Germany, China also 
 protested. A French transport with five hundred 
 Chinese labor coolies had just been sunk by a 
 submarine. Within a week after America had 
 severed diplomatic relations with Germany, 
 China did the same. 
 
 There were other reasons for China's course. 
 Two incidents in her foreign relations, one with 
 Japan and one with France had recently shown 
 China that it mattered little what demands other 
 nations made on her, she had no power to resist 
 them. Then, too, as the war had gone forward, 
 China began to sympathize intelligently with the 
 Allies who were championing the cause of 
 weaker nations. China needed a place at the 
 Peace table if she were going to be able to resist 
 Japan's encroachments. Japan was openly 
 
 [117] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 seizing the opportunity to make herself dictator 
 in the Orient; she had entered the war for this 
 purpose. America's influence with China was 
 increasing and China wanted to be on the same 
 side with America in the end. 
 
 When, however, an attempt was made to de- 
 clare war against Germany, serious discord, 
 which had been rippling beneath the surface, 
 came to light. President Li was thoroughly 
 democratic in his methods of governing the 
 country, while his Premier, Tuan Chi-jui, was 
 just as strongly military in training. He wanted 
 to declare war without consulting Parliament. 
 The President opposed this. The Premier called 
 a council of the military party to back up his 
 position. This aroused Parliament, and when 
 the question of declaring war was brought be- 
 fore them they refused to act until the Premier 
 had been removed from office. Tuan Chi-jui re- 
 fused to resign and the President removed him 
 in an attempt to save trouble. But Tuan always 
 had been a fighter and he did not now quietly re- 
 tire. 
 
 Two of the military, Chang Hsun and Nieh 
 Shih-cheng, both occupying places along the 
 Tientsin-Pukow Railroad with their armies, de- 
 clared independence of the government. Presi- 
 dent Li issued an edict which showed that he 
 was not intimidated by their power. Neverthe- 
 less, these men called for a meeting of the mili- 
 tary at Tientsin. Some came, but discord soon 
 appeared in their ranks. The American minister 
 
 [118] 
 
THE REPUBLIC'S POLITICAL DEEDS 
 
 sent a pacifying note to the government, calling 
 attention to the fact that internal peace was 
 far more important than the question of how 
 war should be declared on another nation. 
 
 A party in the military felt that Parliament 
 was threatening to injure the prestige of the 
 army and Chang Hsun took the lead in demand- 
 ing the dissolution of Parliament. He threatened 
 to lead his own men in an attack on the Capital 
 if this was not done. The President had no 
 loyal troops in Peking to back up the govern- 
 ment. Chang Hsun actually went to Peking with 
 a small force and compelled the President under 
 such pressure to sign an edict for the dissolu- 
 tion of Parliament. This was in June, 1917. 
 Chang Hsun, on several occasions when visiting 
 Peking had shown his loyality to the Manchus. 
 He now, together with Kwang Yu-wei, a former 
 adviser of the Emperor Kwang-hsu, on July 1st, 
 brought the young Emperor out of retirement 
 and informed him of his restoration to the 
 throne of China. They went to President Li and 
 demanded that he resign and acknowledge the 
 young Emperor. He refused and was placed 
 under guard. A detachment of soldiers from the 
 Japanese Legation marched in and removed the 
 President to their quarters. Later he escaped 
 to Tientsin. 
 
 Tuan Chi-jui now stepped out of retirement, 
 met a gathering of military men and offered to 
 lead their troops against Chang Hsun. Some 
 50,000 so-called Republican troops soon sur- 
 
 [119] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 rounded the Capital and drove Chang Hsun with 
 his small army into the city. A couple of hun- 
 dred well trained European or American troops 
 could have brought Chang Hsun to sue for peace 
 in a few hours. There were a few theatrical 
 contests between the forces and, after a few 
 weeks, Chang Hsun gave up the contest and took 
 refuge in the Dutch Legation. Tuan Chi-jui 
 entered the city and again assumed the oflBlce of 
 Premier. General Li Yuan-hung saw the impos- 
 sibility of overcoming the power of the military 
 party and refused to continue as President. 
 Vice-President Feng Kwoh-chang who had, with 
 his army, kept his headquarters in Nanking, now 
 came to Peking and was accepted as President. 
 War against Germany was declared within 
 a week after the new President took his oflB.ce. 
 There was no Parliament to discuss or hold up 
 the question. There was no attempt for the time 
 being by either the President or Premier or mili- 
 tary men to reorganize a Parliament. A 
 cleavage had- been steadily growing between 
 the progressive South and the Conservative 
 North. Both sides had organized armies and the 
 country had become one vast military camp. 
 There had been no attempt to disband these 
 armies. Even Chang Hsun's were taken over by 
 Nieh Shih-cheng who thus increased his power. 
 The government had to pay for all of these men, 
 whether they supported it or not. The nation's 
 taxes were largely used in this way. Even then 
 the funds were insuflScient, and the new President 
 
 [120] 
 
THE REPUBLICS POLITICAL DEEDS 
 
 began to seek foreign loans with which to pay 
 the bills. President Feng at no time was able 
 to be much more than a figure head. Premier 
 Tuan held the reins of government. 
 
 The South easily slipped back into a position 
 of independence of the Peking government. The 
 Southern provinces formed an alliance. The 
 original Parliamentary members gathered at 
 Canton and were able to command a quorum for 
 business. A military committee was organized 
 to direct government plans until they could once 
 more conquer the North. Large armies were 
 recruited, and from the South began a movement 
 through Hunan toward Hankow. The North 
 immediately sent down a large force to meet 
 them and Hunan became a battlefield and the 
 country was desolated. Missionaries, as usual, 
 did all in their power to protect the innocent and 
 care for the wounded. Their acts gained for 
 them the love of the people and the respect of 
 most of the soldiers but could not save the 
 province. 
 
 The brightest gleam which came from this 
 selfish warring was from the army of General 
 Feng Yu-hsiang. This man is a Christian. 
 Wherever his army was stationed he always 
 sought the work of the Church among his men. 
 His men were not allowed to Injure the people. 
 In the winter of 1918 he sent for a well-known 
 Chinese evangelist and held meetings in his 
 camps. Besides many soldiers, a number of his 
 oflicers and one magistrate were baptized. Mean- 
 
 [121] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 while he had distributed large numbers of 
 Scriptures among his men. 
 
 This needless war again drained the 
 Treasury. Japan was approached for further 
 loans and readily acceded as it meant valuable 
 industrial and political concessions. At this 
 time a well worked-up fear spread in political 
 circles lest Germany should be able to march 
 through disorganized Russia and Siberia and 
 menace the safety of the Orient, more especially 
 of Manchuria and Mongolia. China was hood- 
 winked into forming an alliance with Japan to 
 oppose this and was granted another large loan, 
 giving great concessions to insure it. So deeply 
 was the entire nation stirred up by this action 
 that even the southern leaders telegraphed their 
 willingness to give up their opposition to the 
 north, if the government would cancel this agree- 
 ment, but it went through just the same. 
 
 The North now began to feel the need of a 
 Parliament. Peng Kwoh Chang was not making 
 a satisfactory President. Fighting between the 
 two sections of the country was not getting any- 
 where and the people were clamoring for peace. 
 The original Parliament was considered illegal 
 by the North, so the country was called upon to 
 elect a new one. All provinces save those in the 
 South responded, and the new Parliament con- 
 vened August 12, 1918. The first work given 
 them was to elect a new President. One who 
 could be persona grata to all the country was 
 sought for. The best they could do was to elect 
 
 [122] 
 
THE REPUBLIC'S POLITICAL DEEDS 
 
 Hsu Shih-chang, a man who had held office under 
 the Manchus and had been Secretary of State 
 under Yuan Shi-kai. 
 
 The North probably had not a better man to 
 put forward. The South had nothing against 
 Hsu personally, but did not consider his election 
 legal as they still counted the original Parlia- 
 ment the rightful one. President Hsu was 
 avowedly for peace and began at once to make 
 plans for bringing it about. He appointed peace 
 delegates and asked the South to do the same. 
 At first they demurred, but public pressure com- 
 pelled them to accede. There was long conten- 
 tion over the place of meeting as the South pre- 
 ferred Shanghai where they would have some 
 foreign protection. The North contended for 
 Nanking, but finally yielded. The Peace Con- 
 ference in Shanghai worked well for a while. 
 Peace in Europe was imminent and delegates 
 were gathering in Paris at the world Peace Con- 
 ference and China wanted to be represented. A 
 divided China would have little power. Delegates 
 finally were sent both from the North and the 
 South and the Peking Government recognized 
 both parties in order to enhance China's posi- 
 tion. This, however, did not lead the Shanghai 
 representatives to arrive at a peace basis and 
 they finally broke up and went home. 
 
 The failure of this conference revealed that 
 the leaders on both sides were seeking selfish 
 ends and that militarism was dominating the 
 land. The people no longer had voice in the gov- 
 
 [123] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 ernment. When they had been called upon to ex- 
 press themselves by vote, they had voted as 
 directed for men appointed by the party in 
 power. In the spring of 1919, Sun Yat-sen, who 
 had again allied himself with the Southern party, 
 and had worked hard for peace and justice for 
 the land, withdrew from his party and resigned 
 all his offices. In a public letter he charged the 
 Southern leaders with being as selfish and un- 
 patriotic as the leaders in the North. He would 
 henceforth have nothing more to do with either 
 side. 
 
 Such was the condition in the autumn of 
 1919. The right-minded people of the country 
 are completely discouraged and see no way out 
 of the selfish conflict. A new Consortium of 
 foreign bankers is talking of handling future 
 loans to China. If they can protect themselves by 
 compelling the disbandment of the soldiers and 
 use them only when necessary, and demand that 
 power be restored to civil officers, then all the 
 country will rejoice. 
 
 [124] 
 
VIII 
 
 THE DOCTOR'S JOB 
 
 By keeping in mind the previous chapter on 
 the political changes which have been taking 
 place in the new Republic and also remembering 
 the passive resistance and sometimes violent 
 opposition which took place in the days of the 
 Monarchy, one can understand why mission 
 work at times has been so discouraging and at 
 others shown such rapid progress. The medical 
 work has probably been the most steady of all. 
 It matters not what the political conditions are, 
 people will continue to abuse their bodies and 
 become sick. 
 
 One is often misled when studying such a 
 vast country as China. We see photographs of 
 the deeply rutted roads in the North and at once 
 jump to the conclusion that all China has this 
 loess soil formation. We see a picture of some 
 queer head dress and think all Chinese women 
 wear such gear. The Chinese have a saying, 
 "Ten miles away from home the customs of the 
 land all change." One has but to take a horse- 
 back ride from the Yangtse River north to the 
 borders of Shantung and try to collect samples 
 of the styles of fashioning biscuits from wheat 
 flour and he will have another sample in hand 
 
 [125] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 of the varieties of customs in all matters which 
 so distinguish the varying communities. Go on 
 another such journey and study the head-dress of 
 the women. Their methods of building the walls 
 of their dirt houses, of running their markets, of 
 celebrating at their weddings and funerals, are 
 often quite different. They have styles in carry- 
 ing poles, in straw sandals, in sun hats. The 
 roads of the north are wide; those of the south 
 but cow paths. 
 
 There are some things in which China seems 
 to be uniform. One of these has been the 
 universal ignorance of sanitary laws. Much 
 light has filtered in during the last twenty years. 
 Yet, on the whole, China is still very dirty. One 
 needs but to walk along the streets of any market, 
 town or city to see piles of ancient refuse which 
 are still growing in size. The nose is every- 
 where assailed by a never ending variety of 
 smells, some pleasing but most of them vile. 
 
 One might be deceived into thinking that 
 China has long known much about the laws of 
 sanitation and hygiene. In winter the Chinese 
 gradually increase the amount of clothing they 
 wear, if they have it. As the variable days of 
 spring come on, they take off as many layers as 
 the weather allows. On a warm spring day they 
 will have on as little as on an equally warm 
 summer day. As the coolness of the evening re- 
 turns the clothing again increases. Their rule 
 is to boil all water used as a drink. Their food 
 comes to the table steaming hot. They sweep 
 
 [126] 
 
THE DOCTOR'S JOB 
 
 the ground bare around their door. Their streets 
 have drains. Anything combustible which they 
 cannot eat, wear or otherwise use, is turned into 
 fuel. They seem to waste little. Melon seeds, 
 weeds, shrimps, snails, minnows, the lungs, 
 kidneys, spleen and intestines of slaughtered 
 animals, all become articles of food. Rags are 
 used to make shoes or mops. A garment is 
 patched until it will not longer hold together. 
 Feathers are turned into dusters and toys. What 
 the rich cast off becomes clothing for their 
 servants. What the poor folks cannot eat be- 
 comes food for the beggars — if it does not kill 
 them. Nothing seems to be wasted. When it 
 cannot otherwise be used it goes back to the 
 soil, enriching it that more food may be pro- 
 duced. All this sounds like good sanitation. 
 
 The trouble seems to be that they are liable 
 to work the process too far or too slowly. The 
 garbage pile stands too long; is pulled over by 
 beggars, is allowed to breed flies. After a while it 
 may go to the fields. The city dumps grow like 
 mushrooms in the night. Any unused back lot, 
 unfrequented alley, handy street corner, especi- 
 ally the banks of a nearby stream, are favorite 
 dumping places. Men go about the city gathering 
 up this refuse and stack it near the city gate or 
 river side waiting the convenience of the farmer. 
 In the streams the people wash their vegetables, 
 rice, clothing, and bathe. From thence they get 
 their water for cooking and drinking. The city 
 drains feed into these streams. The sewers are 
 
 [127] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 not laid in concrete or cemented, but usually 
 roughly covered with flat stones so that the 
 drain slowly becomes clogged with a black sedi- 
 ment, good for fertilizing purposes but danger- 
 ous to health. Perhaps once a year each ad- 
 joining shopkeeper or house owner calls men 
 and cleans his portion of the drain. 
 
 The interior of most Chinese houses re- 
 sembles some of our American barns. Around 
 the sides are piled boxes, baskets, utensils, and 
 lumber. Dirt accumulates everywhere. The 
 center of the room is swept and chairs and 
 furniture are dusted with cloth or feather 
 dusters, so the dust settles elsewhere. Ceilings 
 are festooned with spider webs and soot, and 
 rafters are black with smoke from charcoal 
 braziers. Rats and mice find beautiful hiding 
 places and run at will about the place having 
 ample protection for the rearing of large 
 families. One often wonders how the weavers 
 of silk garments manage to keep them from dirt 
 and mould and moth. It is only done by placing 
 them in boxes and stacking them high above 
 the floor, or by turning them over to some of the 
 great pawnshops which make it their chief busi- 
 ness to care for such garments. However, these 
 stormy years have driven numerouy pawnshops 
 out of business. They have found the soldiers 
 too willing to levy on them for subscriptions 
 which take all their profits. 
 
 The butcher brings his pigs or goats alive 
 to the market and there, on the much used and 
 
 [128] 
 
'S 
 
 6 
 
 •OB 
 
 C 
 
 'S 
 o 
 
 .a 
 
 •ofl 
 
 _c 
 
 '5 
 
 _a 
 
 '■00 
 (U 
 
THE DOCTOR'S JOB 
 
 much abused street, slaughters them. If he is 
 catering to the poor, he may butcher his animal 
 elsewhere and not be particular as to its age, 
 state of health, or cause of its untimely death. 
 It may have been a donkey, dog or beast which 
 has outgrown its usefulness. When people live 
 near the starving line they are not particular as 
 to what they are eating. We would eat such 
 meat ourselves, I dare say, if we were as often on 
 the verge of starvation as some Chinese have 
 been. 
 
 So we have to go slowly when considering 
 China's theories and actual practices in regard 
 to the laws of health. Although the water they 
 drink is supposed to have been boiled, one needs 
 to visit the hot water shop to see if this is true. 
 Guests come to the homes at all hours of the 
 day. It is the courteous thing to prepare him 
 a cup of tea. A small coin is given to the 
 servant and he rushes to the hot water shop and 
 brings back a teapot full of water. It rarely has 
 reached the actual boiling point. The gardener 
 adds water to his fertilizing material which he 
 has collected from the homes and streets. He 
 pours this over the growing vegetables and later 
 sells the vegetables. Such practices are fine 
 methods for spreading intestinal diseases. All 
 vegetables are supposed to be cooked, yet some 
 come to the table merely withered. The Chinese 
 urchin or his elder will pull up a turnip or radish 
 or cucumber and munch away at it while he 
 walks along. 
 
 [129] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 Watermelons, pears, peaches and grapes are 
 displayed on the street, are sampled by the hands 
 of would-be purchasers and are covered with the 
 jSne dust raised by the feet of the many passers- 
 by. The watermelon is cut into slices and the 
 slices exposed for sale, so many cents per slice. 
 No attempt is made to exclude dust or flies. 
 
 The daily prepared steamed biscuit is 
 usually perfectly safe and wholesome. People 
 prefer to eat them hot. Those not on the table 
 for immediate eating are kept in the covered 
 steamer. On the other hand, certain bread 
 makers produce large flat round cakes which 
 are exposed on the street for sale and usually 
 eaten cold. Upon these the flies are accustomed 
 to congregate. 
 
 The shop men gather each morning in the 
 teashops, drinking tea and eating biscuit or 
 vegetables and steamed meat pies. Here the 
 waiter is the chief source of trouble. His apron 
 has not been washed for weeks. The dish cloth 
 hanging to his belt is an unworthy partner to his 
 unworthy apron. With the dish cloth he brushes 
 off the table, cleans the chopsticks and wipes the 
 dishes. He uses it to flip flies off the foods and 
 to drive out a hungry dog. We may turn in dis- 
 gust from such a picture. Yet it is well to re- 
 member that there are places in America no 
 cleaner than this. 
 
 Under such age-old conditions one wonders 
 how the Chinese have managed to live and 
 multiply in such numbers. The fact that they 
 
 [130] 
 
THE DOCTOR'S JOB 
 
 are an agricultural people and live simply, has 
 much to do with it. They at least make the 
 attempt to boil the water they drink. Their 
 food is usually eaten hot. These things all aid 
 in killing the deadly microbe. But the fact is, 
 the Chinese do not really live under such conditions; 
 they die. We are not exaggerating when we re- 
 cord that there are more graves in China than 
 living people. Graves of poor people rapidly 
 disappear. A grave is made by heaping a mound 
 of earth over a coffin in a very shallow hole. The 
 mound may be as small as a child's sandpile or 
 twenty and thirty feet in diameter, varying 
 according to wealth. Walk around any town in 
 China and estimate the number of graves which 
 are scattered broadcast in fields and on knolls, 
 under trees and in the open, in family grounds 
 and in pauper groups. Around our city these 
 cover far more ground than is within the city 
 walls. Pew of these graves are old. They re- 
 present very recent generations. 
 
 In America the length of the average life 
 is nearly fifty years. It cannot be more than 
 twenty years in China. There are still thousands 
 of girl babies annually destroyed by poverty- 
 stricken parents. The number who die before 
 reaching twelve months is unbelievable. Women 
 who give birth to eight or ten children do well 
 if they rear two of these to adult life. Cattle and 
 goats and water buffalo abound in the land, yet 
 few sections of the people learned to use milk 
 until very recently. Even now they prefer buy- 
 
 [131] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 ing imported tinned milk. It simply is not an 
 article of food to them. A few dairies are 
 springing up near large cities in which, for- 
 eigners live, and the educated Chinese are be- 
 ginning to buy their products for their children 
 and sick people. They even do not know how 
 to prepare such milk to fit the age and digestion 
 of a babe. When mothers' milk has failed, they 
 turn to rice gruel. They have no other substi- 
 tute. 
 
 The Chinese know nothing of quarantine. 
 They believe that disease is inflicted by evil 
 spirits. Every summer dysentery runs rife in 
 the land and cholera is a frequent and terrible 
 visitor. Typhoid, typhus, relapsing fever, small- 
 pox and similar contagious diseases carry off 
 their victims by the multitude. Children still 
 scaling from smallpox are carried about the 
 street in the arms of their parents. Crowds visit 
 the sick chamber and each person has a favorite 
 prescription to recommend. We were called by 
 a woman to see her husband. We found him in 
 a grass hut by the side of the street. His bed was 
 a pile of grass laid on the ground. We peeped 
 into the hut and found his body covered from 
 head to foot with smallpox pustules. Scores of 
 people were passing his hut every hour. 
 
 We remember reading in our childhood days 
 about Ivanhoe, the Crusaders, the great horses 
 and men covered with armor weighing a couple 
 of hundred pounds. We read of the beautiful 
 and queenly women. We heard of the Indians 
 
THE DOCTOR'S JOB 
 
 who lived near to nature; of their women bear- 
 ing children with the minimum of pain and of 
 subsequent ills. We thought of barbarian and 
 savage as the type of physical strength. The 
 thought of sickness invading their habitations 
 and turning them into weaklings did not occur 
 to us. 
 
 The truth of the matter is, the non-Chris- 
 tian nations of the world are physically sick. 
 Japan with her modern ideas may be somewhat 
 of an exception. Go into homes in China and 
 find the sick members of the family. They may 
 be afflicted with tuberculosis or malaria, with 
 sore eyes or opacity of the cornea, with ulcers or 
 abscesses, with itch or eczema; but sick they 
 are. 
 
 One man who has traveled all over the 
 world, made the statement before an American 
 audience that there is more actual suffering in 
 China today than there was upon the plains of 
 Belgium during the German invasion, or upon 
 all of the battlefields of Europe. Numbers of the 
 Chinese still have their feet bound by conserva- 
 tive grandmothers. There are no dentists to 
 ease the pain of aching and decayed teeth. Huge 
 abscesses and ulcers take their course. Mothers 
 with weakened constitutions suffer acutely in 
 their hour of trial. Ignorant midwives only add 
 to the suffering, and uncounted multitudes of 
 women die in childbirth. Millions of men, women, 
 and children annually live on starvation diet — 
 and die — from unnecessary floods and sub- 
 
 [133] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 sequent famines. We believe it true that the 
 four hundred millions in China have more 
 suffering than the forty millions under arms in 
 Europe during the war. 
 
 The Boxers in 1900 killed between one and 
 two hundred foreigners and some tens of thous- 
 ands of Christians. We held up our hands in 
 horror at the act. But think of what is happen- 
 ing annually in China in the toll of sickness and 
 death. Look over the list of public men then 
 prominent in this land. Yu Hsien, the butcher 
 of so many missionaries and their children is 
 long dead. The Emperor and Empress Dowager 
 are gone. Yung Lu, the then Premier has passed 
 on. Li Hung-chang who acted as mediator died 
 soon after. Liu Kung-yu and Chang Chih-tung 
 who, as viceroys in the Yangtse Valley, kept 
 Central China quiet, are dead. Yuan Shi-kai, 
 the first President of the Republic is dead. Hwang 
 Hsing, one of the leaders in Revolution and Re- 
 bellion died of pneumonia. Tsai Ao, the young 
 and gifted leader in Yunnan, died of tuberculosis. 
 
 When we try to recall the people in our city 
 of 15,000 who were living fifteen years ago, we 
 stand appalled at the number who are gone. 
 Almost any morning we hear the pipers as they 
 escort another body to the grave. But they do 
 not pipe for the little children who die. One 
 spring, not long ago, eight hundred refugees 
 died on our streets and were buried by the city. 
 Neither did any one pipe when they were wrap- 
 ped up in matting and carried out to be dumped 
 
 [134] 
 
THE DOCTOR'S JOB 
 
 into a pauper's grave. So we say again, the 
 Chinese do not live in the unsanitary conditions 
 with which they are engulfed. They die. Were 
 not the women so fruitful in bearing children 
 the race would have disappeared long ago. 
 
 In these days when Christian doctors, both 
 Chinese and foreign, have added to their task 
 that of educating the nation in hygiene and 
 sanitation, there still are some foreigners who 
 look upon such work as unwise. "If the people 
 are not allowed to die off in this way, in thirty 
 years they will double the population," these 
 pessimists cry. "How can China ever feed more 
 than she already has?" Our reply to them and 
 to the Chinese is that it is better to bear fewer 
 children and rear them, than to bear so many 
 and bury both them and their mothers in un- 
 timely graves. It is appalling to think that in 
 China two hundred millions of people — and more 
 — have died since the missionaries came to this 
 land. No wonder they are a poverty-stricken 
 people. 
 
 Now China, as we have seen, is not without 
 her own physicians. Many of her men and 
 women claim a knowledge of curative drugs. As 
 far as we know there are no such institutions 
 as medical schools in the old order. Bach doctor 
 has had passed down to him the knowledge he 
 possesses. Perhaps he has bought a few of the 
 old medical books and added to his stock of 
 knowledge. Or there are those who from the 
 books alone, have started out to treat the sick. 
 
 [135] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 Such will gather in a few herbs, buy a pair of 
 tortoise rimmed spectacles, put up a sign and 
 try to heal the sick of the community. Most of 
 the educated men have read enough of such 
 books to decide whether they want to use the 
 doctor's prescription or cast it itito the waste 
 basket. A man, poor both in medical knowledge 
 and dollars, will gather together a few dt-ied 
 herbs, bee combs, snake skins, bits of animal 
 bones and other articles, spread these upon a 
 piece of cloth by the wayside and begin to treat 
 the ills of any passerby who will pay him a few 
 cents. 
 
 Others who are richer by inheritance or by 
 having patients most fortuitously get well in 
 their hands, may open a pretentious drugstore, 
 go forth in a sedan chair to see patients, or 
 receive patients in an office attached to the store. 
 If they can make room for a bed or two they 
 boast of having a hospital. 
 
 Not all of their drugs are worthless. Some 
 of them are dangerous, the best of them 
 medicinal herbs. On the hillsides near our city 
 are a hundred varieties of plants used for medi- 
 cine. In the spring the poor go forth to gather 
 these, selling them to wholesale houses in the 
 city. These herbs are dried and shipped to all 
 parts of China, and some to other countries. A 
 number of these are found in the lists which 
 make up our western pharmacopoeia. Our drugs, 
 however, are carefully gathered, prepared, ana- 
 lyzed and tested before using. We know just 
 
 [136] 
 
THE DOCTOR'S JOB 
 
 the strength of the medicine we are prescribing. 
 Adulteration of drugs is common with Chinese. 
 
 Granting that in their list they have valu- 
 able herbs, when they mix medicine and super- 
 stition together, they gather no data as to which 
 cures. Likewise they compound a dozen herbs 
 to make one prescription. These they place in 
 a vessel to brew. When the decoction is drawn 
 off and given in huge doses to the patient, the 
 dregs are taken out and dumped into the middle 
 of the street that the evil spirit causing the dis- 
 ease may follow the herbs and enter the body 
 of some one passing by the pile. 
 
 Not only are snake skins and tiger bones 
 useful, in their minds, for medicines, but there 
 are times when they prescribe lizards, grass- 
 hoppers, human flesh and coffin nails. These 
 are boiled with the herbs or alone. Hot or 
 cold needles are repeatedly used. In a recent 
 cholera epidemic nearly every patient brought 
 to us had been tortured with needles. Adhesive 
 plasters are stuck over festering sores or abscess 
 sinuses. They are stuck on the temples for 
 headache. It is supposed that decayed teeth are 
 caused by worms getting into the cavity, and 
 women go about the country claiming to be able 
 to dig out worms with a chop-stick. When they 
 find a victim who believes them, they dig away 
 until they actually show him a white grub. The 
 victim pays the fee asked and goes away happy 
 — for a while. 
 
 The Chinese doctors feel the pulse in both 
 
 [137] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 wrists, and by them tells the patient whether he 
 has a "cold" or "hot" disease. A "cold" drug 
 naturally cures a "hot" disease. The patient 
 always asks what he must avoid in eating. Even 
 beggers will ask us this question. We usually 
 tell them to eat all they can get. Lucky and un- 
 lucky years are often blamed for disease — not 
 the year in which the patient is taken sick but 
 the year in which he was born. This also plays 
 a more important part in marriage life. The 
 old calendar was divided into series of twelve 
 years each, a definite animal or bird controlling 
 each one of the twelve. If a woman should be 
 born in the year controlled by the tiger and her 
 husband in another controlled by a dog — ^well, 
 a marriage between such parties would not 
 likely be consummated. The man would fear 
 that his wife would dominate the home. 
 
 These paragraphs give some faint idea of 
 the job which doctors in China face. To lead 
 people out of belief in such curative agencies 
 and methods as we have outlined and give them 
 a healthy faith in the laws of sanitation and 
 hygiene is the mountainous task. Were it not 
 for the hunger for western knowledge which the 
 Chinese are showing, the eagerness with which 
 they receive lectures and talks on these subjects, 
 we would fear the task beyond our powers. We 
 have lived in their midst for a score of years. 
 We have, in previous chapters, described some- 
 thing of the changes which have taken place in 
 that space of time. Many Chinese in the city 
 
 [138] 
 
THE DOCTOR'S JOB 
 
 in which we live have become our friends. They 
 have come into our homes; they know of the 
 standard of health our children have main- 
 tained. They have seen our children grow from 
 babes to manhood. The small amount of sick- 
 ness which we have had has been a source of 
 wonder to them. Over and over again mission- 
 ary mothers are asked how many children they 
 have lost. In the face of their own terrible 
 losses they cannot understand how our children 
 escape. Gradually they are absorbing some of 
 the simpler hygiene lessons. Where homes 
 have lost several boy babies in succession, upon 
 the birth of a new baby boy, the father will 
 come to the Christian doctor and inquire in de- 
 tail as to our methods of feeding and caring for 
 our children. Slowly it is dawning upon them 
 that our ideas on cleanliness, fresh air, bathing, 
 regular feeding, proper clothing and regular 
 habits of sleep are not so ridiculous as they at 
 first sounded. They begin to see the danger lurk- 
 ing in dust, flies and mosquitoes. They get a few 
 simple lessons in anatomy and appreciate the 
 value of proper posture and of exercise. They 
 have been and still are a sick people, but "the 
 leaves of the tree were for the healing of na- 
 tions." The task is great but the day is not far 
 distant when we shall see China as clean a na- 
 tion, and as healthy, as is America. The King- 
 dom of God will then be in China. 
 
 [139] 
 
IX 
 
 LIFTING UP MEN WHO HAVE FAILED 
 
 We might have called these men beggars, 
 refugees, physical wrecks, or one of a dozen 
 other names. Most of them had no other way of 
 keeping life in their bodies but to beg, and many 
 of them have fallen by the wayside because of 
 the unfathomable selfishness of men who have 
 climbed to wealth over the bodies of their fellow- 
 men. 
 
 One morning when we opened the doors to 
 admit the patients to the clinic, we found at the 
 gate two wretched specimens of humanity. They 
 had taken eight days to come a distance of 
 twenty-five miles. Both were in rags. The man 
 had a huge running sore on his leg. How he 
 had been able to hobble those long miles is a 
 mystery. His wife had only one eye and her 
 hearing was gone and so was her power of in- 
 telligent speech, but her body was in fair shape. 
 The disease had worked its ravages upon her 
 head and face. 
 
 They had no money. They begged from 
 village to village. When asked what had been 
 the motive to drive them such a long distance, 
 the man answered that he had heard we could 
 cure disease and that we were kind to poor 
 
 [140] 
 
LIFTING UP MEN WHO HAVE FAILED 
 
 people. What could we do in the face of such 
 faith? We took them in at the expense of the 
 hospital, fed and clothed their bodies. 
 
 In her younger days the woman had been 
 sufficiently attractive to be desired by a rich 
 man for an extra wife. From him she con- 
 tracted the disease which took away all of her 
 beauty and his desire for her. He cast her off 
 and she returned to the home of her childhood. 
 Then came this man whose trade was to sharpen 
 tools for the country people. He was poor but 
 wanted a wife. He was ignorant and knew 
 nothing about the dangers from such a disease. 
 The woman was willing to follow him and so 
 they went on their way together. In a short 
 time he was transformed from a useful member 
 of society to a useless parasite. 
 
 We kept them in the hospital for six months 
 or more. We could not restore to the woman 
 her eyesight nor her hearing. She was able to 
 work and did all she could for her husband. We 
 were able to heal and bring back strength to the 
 man. While the process was going on we tried 
 him out as we do most unfortunates. Little jobs 
 about the place which we gave him to do, he did 
 with all the strength he possessed. We succeeded 
 in healing his leg and putting a reasonable 
 amount of health into his body. He went out 
 with his wife once more, to face the world, this 
 time not to beg but work at his simple trade. 
 
 One day we called him in to do some rough 
 work about the place- When he had finished 
 
 [141] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 the job we paid him. We can still see him stand- 
 ing at the door, the coins in his hands, unwilling 
 to put the money into his pocket. 
 
 "What's the matter?" we asked. "Is it not 
 enough?" 
 
 "Enough?" he answered slowly. "Enough? 
 Why, teacher, it is not a case of its being enough. 
 I do not feel that I have a right to take it." 
 
 "Oh, that is all right," we responded. "You 
 have earned it. You did your work well. Of 
 course you should take it." 
 
 "But teacher," he said earnestly, "How can 
 I take money from you when you have done so 
 much for me? I came to you an ignorant beg- 
 gar. You gave me two legs so that I can again 
 work like other men. More than that, you gave 
 me a knowledge of Jesus Christ and led me to 
 be His disciple. All that I am and have I owe 
 to you. Now you feel compelled to pay me when 
 I do a little work for you and would like to show 
 you how much of gratitude I have in my heart." 
 
 Is not work done for such people worth 
 while? When one passes along the street and 
 sees these so-called professional beggars in their 
 rags, it makes one heartsick and he wonders 
 whether it is worth while to trouble about them. 
 We marvel that one can be content to exist in 
 rags and filth. When we discover that China 
 has very few such institutions as orphan asy- 
 lums, homes for the aged, places for the blind 
 and defective, and shelter for the widows, we 
 are compelled to come to the conclusion that 
 
 [X42] 
 
LIFTING UP MEN WHO HAVE FAILED 
 
 many of these do not beg out of sheer laziness 
 but because there is no alternative. It is beg or 
 starve. 
 
 One day we saw a poor girl making her way 
 along the street on her hands and knees. It was 
 approaching winter and she was thinly clad. 
 Upon her feet we saw ulcers which were pre- 
 venting her from walking. In pity we took her 
 into the hospital only to find she was a leper. 
 Her ankles had become weakened and would 
 not bear her weight. The ulcers were not pain- 
 ful. We put splints upon her ankles, found an 
 old pair of shoes which one of the children had 
 outgrown and fastened them firmly upon her 
 feet, padding the sores. Our carpenter made a 
 pair of crutches. In a little time she had re- 
 gained the use of her legs and was hobbling 
 about on the crutches. 
 
 The leprosy had twisted and gnarled her 
 fingers. Her husband had abandoned her and 
 she was a long way from the home of relatives. 
 In spite of the fact that we had no regular isola- 
 tion ward, we arranged to keep her during the 
 cold winter. In the warm days of the spring 
 she went out to her life of begging again. We 
 had no funds for establishing a leper ward as 
 there are comparatively few of these unfortunate 
 people in this section. When she went out she 
 was warmly clothed and could walk on her 
 crutches. In the days following we did not for- 
 get her but did what we could to make life more 
 tolerable, 
 
 [143] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 We know that it is impossible for Christian 
 missionary societies to care for all of China's 
 unfortunates. If we could it would be unwise to 
 shoulder the responsibility. Chinese must learn 
 to do it for themselves. We can only do a model 
 work along these lines. By so doing we stimu- 
 late the Chinese to found asylums for their own. 
 The real remedy is not to lead China merely to 
 establish asylums for all of her unfortunates, 
 but methods must be adopted whereby these un- 
 fortunate people may be given opportunity to 
 work. This is one of the tasks which the medi- 
 cal missionary is undertaking. 
 
 To the north of Chuchow is a great flat 
 country, through which flows the Hwai River. 
 Formerly this river flowed clear through to the 
 Pacific Ocean. Through neglect of the gov- 
 ernment its bed slowly filled up at the lower end. 
 At ordinary times it now discharges its waters 
 into the Grand Canal, which in turn pours it into 
 the Yangtse River. When the great spring and 
 summer rains come this river easily overflows 
 its own banks and those of the Grand Canal, 
 flooding the surrounding rice country. In heavy 
 floods homes are destroyed and the crops in large 
 sections of the country are inundated. The 
 people are driven to the high dykes. Their 
 crops being destroyed, they have no resource 
 but to start on the road and beg for a living. In 
 some sections in the north the people work for 
 the landlord for a set wage. When flood or 
 drouth destroys the crops, he merely discharges 
 
 [144] 
 
LIFTING UP MEN WHO HAVE FAILED 
 
 whole villages of them, practically turning them 
 out to die. 
 
 These unfortunate farmers pack a few 
 necessary things on a wheelbarrow and begin 
 their journey to nowhere. They have a little 
 food for the beginning of their journey. Per- 
 haps a crippled old grandmother forms part of 
 the wheelbarrow's load. The children may "get 
 a lift" at times, but they are usually toddling on 
 behind. As they go through the country they 
 will pull a few turnips from one field or filch 
 some beans from another. At night they fasten 
 up some matting for a tent, and cover the ground 
 with wild grass, cut from the roadside. That is 
 their bed and their house for many a weary and 
 cold day. When members of the family fall sick 
 there is no resource but to leave the sick one be- 
 hind. The party slowly disintegrates and few, 
 if any, ever get back to their old home. 
 
 Sometimes the government grants a sum 
 of money and instructs some official to open 
 soup kitchens. For miles around the news 
 travels and the poor people hurry to the spot. 
 The scene around the soup kitchens becomes a 
 riot. Starving people, with no one to keep order, 
 strive with each other for a bowl of thin gruel. 
 It is given out only once a day. Soldiers are 
 usually placed on guard to keep order, but are 
 helpless before the mob. A vast throng of starv- 
 ing, ragged men, women and children fight and 
 struggle to get into the temple where the soup 
 is being given out. Gates are often torn out, 
 
 [145] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 even walls pushed down. Weak ones fall and 
 are trampled under foot by the others. 
 
 A few years ago our own city had such an 
 experience. For the first time within our knowl- 
 edge the local rice crop was a failure for two 
 years in succession. Since we were fortunate 
 enough to be on the line of the new railroad the 
 city authorities were able to import rice and sell 
 it at low enough price to keep off famine until 
 spring. Then the government granted a sum of 
 money and the city elders proposed to open soup 
 kitchens. They asked for the co-operation of 
 our missionaries in the work. We advised the 
 giving of tickets to only local poor and the ar- 
 ranging of some form of relief work for all able 
 to labor. The elders had had no experience in 
 soup kitchen work and did not want to bother 
 with relief work. They saw no method by which 
 local poor could be separated from others who 
 might flood in, so proposed giving to all alike. 
 Although it was not according to our judgment, 
 we threw ourselves into the work. 
 
 With the exception of some rickety gates 
 in the front of the temple in which they pre- 
 pared the rice, there was no provision for con- 
 trolling the crowds. The poor people rushed in 
 from all the surrounding country. They broke 
 down the wooden gates and overflowed the 
 kitchen. Even the official with all of his police 
 could not keep order. Then we suggested the 
 building of a barricade in front, leaving a nar- 
 row passageway through which the poor could 
 
 [146] 
 
LIFTING UP MEN WHO HAVE FAILED 
 
 come one at a time. They turned the gate over 
 to us, and we succeeded in controlling the thous- 
 ands who pushed forward. But the willingness 
 of the elders to feed all who might come reached 
 its limits the fourth day when a numher equal 
 to half the city's population pressed through the 
 gates. We could control the gates but even then 
 the giving out of the food could not be controlled 
 and the kitchen had to be closed down. During 
 those days on guard at the gate, we were several 
 times obliged to force our way through the 
 crowd and pull some feeble person to his feet to 
 save him from being trampled to death. 
 
 This all occurred since the days of founding 
 the Republic, in days when people are much 
 more enlightened than formerly. They wanted 
 to help the refugees and the poor, but found it 
 beyond their capabilities. They found they could 
 not do what they had planned. But government 
 money was in their hands and they must use it. 
 So they came a second time to us for help in 
 solving the problem. Again we suggested local 
 relief work and the limiting of tickets to local 
 poor. 
 
 "What kind of relief work can be done?" 
 they asked. 
 
 We mentioned the macadamizing of a street, 
 the constructing of a small bridge and the level- 
 ing of a suitable market place. 
 
 "If you will register those you think we 
 ought to feed, plan out and oversee the relief 
 work you think can be done, we will furnish the 
 
 [147] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 funds and attend to the feeding of the people," 
 was their challenge. 
 
 We accepted it and at once the hospital was 
 turned into a registry depot. No one was reg- 
 istered who did not bring a note of introduction 
 from some responsible man in the city. Men, 
 women and children came and were organized 
 into groups of ten each. Outside refugees and 
 beggars quickly disappeared when they found 
 we were not attempting the impossible. Many 
 of them did not care to work. They quickly 
 dropped out of the ranks and troubled the soup 
 kitchens no more. Any who were sick or dis- 
 abled were registered in the same manner, 
 divided into groups with a group leader and al- 
 lowed entrance to the feeding station at the 
 same time with the workers. A few responsible 
 young men were found to oversee those who 
 worked. 
 
 Only those who have attempted such work 
 can appreciate the difficulties we encountered. 
 The poor had never before been thus compelled 
 to work for their living when that living was 
 from public funds. Some shirked and others re- 
 belled. Tickets were taken away from the worst 
 and that meant they were denied admittance to 
 the kitchens. Even some of the group leaders 
 had to be discharged and better ones advanced 
 from the ranks. Those capable of doing mason 
 work were selected for the building of the small 
 bridge. Large, ancient, city wall brick furnished 
 the material for the structure. Some fine char- 
 
 [148] 
 
LIFTING UP MEN WHO HAVE FAILED 
 
 acters were discovered during the three months 
 the work went on. These men were promoted 
 and later were aided in securing permanent jobs. 
 One of these today is head of the coolies working 
 the agricultural grounds of the University of 
 Nanking. 
 
 On Sundays we held services for these 
 workers. The steps of the Confucian Temple 
 furnished the auditorium. Later our night 
 school was started and a number learned to read. 
 Some were won to Christ in the process. The 
 visible result of the three months' work is a new 
 street which runs from the heart of the city to 
 the railroad station. Another street which had 
 long been abandoned as an open sewer was 
 cleaned up, leveled off and made fit for traffic. 
 A number of ancient dumps disappeared. A 
 market place was leveled. Best of all the city 
 was stimulated to plan for and carry out other 
 street improvements. 
 
 It was the first attempt here to solve this 
 problem of handling refugees who so often flock 
 to this region. We remember in a previous year 
 that, as a result of floods north of us, thousands 
 flocked through this district. They were a pest 
 to the farmers whose fall crops of turnips, beans 
 and sweet potatoes suffered. The refugees dug 
 up what they wanted as they moved through the 
 country. In the city they begged from shop to 
 shop. The merchants kept a supply of small 
 cash near their counters. A refugee would stand 
 before the shop and beg, hindering trade, until 
 
 [149] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 he had received at least one of these small coins. 
 Shopmen told me that it was an average day 
 when each gave out from one to two hundred of 
 these coins. Had they, under some capable 
 leader, pooled this money and set up relief work 
 at that time, they would have accomplished much 
 for the city and avoided pauperizing the refu- 
 gees. 
 
 Dr. Macklin, in his hospital at Nanking, 
 early set the pace for many of the mission hos- 
 pitals in helping these needy refugees. Through 
 long years, without money and without price, he 
 gathered in from the streets and alleys the sick 
 or disabled. Often these had lain down to die. 
 Malaria, fever or bowel troubles had attacked 
 their weakened bodies. Passersby paid no at- 
 tention though the stricken person was dying, 
 or did die. Dr. Macklin, when finding such a 
 man, would call a ricksha, load in the patient 
 and take him to the hospital. He kept many a 
 poor patient who came with only sufiicient money 
 to pay for a few days' food. The doctor believed 
 in completely healing such men before sending 
 them back to battle with the world. He started 
 gardens on the hospital grounds and put these 
 men to work. When he could not raise enough 
 money otherwise, he appealed to some high 
 official or some rich patient to help. These be- 
 lieved in his work and during the years gave 
 thousands of dollars for the refugees. 
 
 Some such patients, however, would be too 
 far gone to be restored. They were given a 
 
 [150] 
 
LIFTING UP MEN WHO HAVE FAILED 
 
 decent place in which to die. Then the city was 
 called upon to bury them. Some of them had 
 suffered for years with huge ulcers. Some had 
 troubles easily cured — ^when the doctor had an 
 opportunity to minister to them. He not only 
 opened gardens for them; some he had scrub 
 the hospital floors; others carried water; 
 cleaned the yard, or cared for his horses. Many 
 a useful life has been thus brought back to 
 health and saved for a life of usefulness, and not 
 a few became Christians. 
 
 At best such work can only be a model for 
 inspiring the Chinese to care for their own 
 fellowmen. The great solution can only be 
 reached when steps are taken to eradicate 
 poverty. The picking up of a few derelicts is 
 hitting at the wrong end of the problem. Dr. 
 Macklin always recognized this and preached 
 and fought with his pen to arouse the people on 
 this subject. Men who have thus been saved 
 listen the more readily to the Gospel. Their ex- 
 periences have shown them that they need 
 greater strength than they have possessed. In 
 the turning of such men to righteousness, the 
 work has paid with big interest. 
 
 One of Dr. Macklin's earliest cases and his 
 first convert, was Shi Kwei-biao. This man for 
 twenty years had been a strolling story teller. 
 He was addicted to opium smoking. For more 
 than thirty years he has now been a powerful 
 preacher of the Gospel. He has in turn picked 
 up many others who had fallen into like diffi- 
 
 [151] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 culties and not a few of these have also become 
 Christian workers. We recall not less than two 
 educated men who have come back to life and 
 activity through similar work done in our Chu- 
 chow hospital. Both have become Christians 
 and rendered helpful service in hospital and 
 schools. 
 
 Wang Hwei-luen was another example of 
 these sufferers. He had been a coolie worker in 
 railroad construction. Pernicious malaria drove 
 him from his job and when he tried to return 
 to his home in the north he only succeeded in 
 reaching our city and lay down in weakness not 
 far from our hospital. Our refugee ward was 
 overflowing and funds were scant but we took 
 him in and nursed him back to health. He 
 showed his appreciation by hunting out and doing 
 small jobs about the place. He cut wood, he 
 worked in the garden, he cared for our cattle. 
 Finally he graduated into a fine gardener — and 
 a Christian. He learned to read and is now our 
 cook and a most faithful servant. 
 
 When the Revolution came on, everybody 
 was seeking a safe place. Some were closing 
 out their business and hastening back to their 
 old homes. Some were moving into the city and 
 others hastening into the outlying country. We 
 were going out to the hospital one morning 
 when Hwei-luen stopped us at the gate. 
 
 "Teacher, I have been thinking over the 
 trouble," he said. "I know trouble is likely to 
 come to this city. We are on the railroad over 
 
 [152] 
 
LIFTING UP MEN WHO HAVE FAILED 
 
 which soldiers will likely pass. I have been 
 talking the matter over with God and I told God 
 that if trouble does come here, and you need 
 me, I want to help you. You tell me where you 
 may want me to go and I will go. You show me 
 what I can do to help you and I will do my best 
 to aid you." 
 
 How would you have felt if some servant or 
 employee of yours had come to you with such a 
 message? This man made good his offer. He 
 became a messenger between this place and 
 Nanking, losing his fine long queue on one of 
 those trips. He went through dangers but never 
 hesitated. He was always on hand when we 
 had a bit of unpleasant service which needed to 
 be done. He stood by us when we were weary 
 with the heavy responsibilities. His faithful- 
 ness made it easier to do the task which suddenly 
 became ours in aiding the city. He was one of 
 the rope holders when we had to go down over 
 the walls; when we would return he was always 
 there waiting for us. Such faithfulness as this 
 makes our work worth while. 
 
 [153] 
 
THE MISSIONARY DOCTOR AND 
 CHINESE WOMAN 
 
 Ignorant downtrodden women are the most 
 religious people found in the Orient. They are 
 the most fearful of impending calamities. They 
 are the most superstitious believers in miracu- 
 lous manifestations of spirits. They are the most 
 devout worshippers of idols. They most easily 
 believe in and are deceived by any passing rumor, 
 especially if it is a rumor of approaching evil. 
 From of old they have been despised of men. 
 They have been subjected to the will of the male 
 who calls himself their lord. The younger ones 
 are evilly treated by the older ones of their own 
 sex. Why should not such conditions cultivate 
 in them a frame of mind which would lead them 
 always to be fearful of new calamities? Their 
 husbands have called them idiots, demoniacal in 
 temper, unstable in habit. They have no other 
 solace than their religion. Who else is there 
 that will listen to their moaning hearts but the 
 dumb idols who are always at home in the 
 temples? 
 
 Possibly we at times misjudge the sensitive- 
 ness of the Oriental woman. Occidental women 
 
 [154] 
 
THE MISSIONARY DOCTOR AND CHINESE WOMAN 
 
 are liable to regard their sisters in the Bast as 
 they would themselves were they called upon to 
 leave their culture and refinement and move into 
 the ignorance and coarseness and apparent com- 
 fortlessness which surrounds the women of 
 China. Chinese women have known no other lot 
 They have never lived in a foreign house or 
 foreign land. They have not the education and 
 culture of the Occidental women. They do not 
 know the depths of the conditions in which they 
 live, for they have never viewed the heights. 
 But they are not satisfied. They do not neces- 
 sarily aspire to be a companion to their hus- 
 bands, but they have never found pleasure in 
 polygamy, in harlotry, or in being held under 
 the will of man. 
 
 "The smallest thing in the world is no small- 
 er than was the joy of my father when I was 
 born," said one educated Chinese woman. "He 
 didn't want me, had no use for me. I was but a 
 burden on his hands. He must care for me, 
 feed me, until he could find a suitable husband 
 for me. I was expected to go out of his home and 
 life when that husband was found." "Why did 
 you save it!" cried one poor woman to the mis- 
 sionary doctor when he placed in her arms the 
 new born baby girl. "We poor people cannot af- 
 ford to rear girls." "Is it a boy or girl?" im- 
 mediately asks the midwife of the same doctor, 
 "If it is a girl, do not trouble to make it breathe. 
 They don't want it." 
 
 In these latter days the missionary doctor 
 
 [155] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 is called more frequently to attend the mother 
 in her hour of trial. The moment he steals into 
 the room he feels the eager, anxious spirit which 
 possesses every one in the home. "Will it really 
 be a boy this time, or just another girl?" every- 
 one seems to be asking under the breath. 
 If it happens to turn out to be a girl a cloud seems 
 to settle over the home. This feeling is so 
 strong that even the doctor finds himself almost 
 praying that it may be a boy. The depression 
 which reflexly comes over him upon the advent 
 of a girl is so great that with difficulty can he 
 bear the weariness resulting from his hard work 
 over the mother. While in the Christian homes 
 he may hear them say,"It is God's grace," yet he 
 knows that they, too, are still influenced by this 
 age-old atmosphere and they are wishing that the 
 grace of God might have been a little more liber- 
 al and had sent them a boy. If the doctor does 
 announce the new arrival to be a boy, the air 
 becomes fairly vibrant with joy. Everyone is 
 smiling and congratulating the father, the 
 grandparents and each other. The next morning 
 when the father goes out on the street people 
 greet him in a jovial way. When is he going to 
 send around the colored eggs? When is he going 
 to spread the feast? They are all ready to con- 
 gratulate him and rejoice with him. No red eggs 
 are ever sent out to announce the arrival of a 
 girl baby. No feasts are spread. No one greets 
 the father in an unusual way, The arrival of the 
 girl is not even mentioned. Why should she be 
 
 [156] 
 
THE MISSIONARY DOCTOR AND CHINESE WOMAN 
 
 made a topic of conversation? She adds nothing 
 to the home of her parents. Her only value is in 
 the home of a future husband. What incentive is 
 there for poor people to grow such useless 
 timber? Missionaries in their afternoon walks 
 about their city walls still see the little rolls of 
 matting which were cast over the preceding 
 night. Each roll contains a little body, the life 
 of which was snuffed out before it was given 
 its right to breathe. Of course these bundles 
 come only from the homes of the poor or the dis- 
 reputable. People of standing and education 
 would injure their reputation if it were known 
 they had done such a thing. 
 
 No wonder, then, these downtrodden women 
 hold to their religion and their idols with super- 
 stitious tenacity. Their only companionship is 
 found with other women. Their news is mere 
 wild rumor, their pastime is indoor gossip or 
 cardplaying, their happiness is found when they 
 give birth to a son, their chief hope is that they 
 may ward off calamity from their home. As- 
 siduous worship is their chief help. 
 
 The women used to shrink out of sight when 
 the first foreigners appeared in their city and 
 passed their doors. Their children ran in terror 
 from the sight of them. Had they not been told 
 that the glance of a foreigner could bring on 
 sickness? Did not the doctor's skill come from 
 his using the eyes and hearts of children to 
 make medicines? They heard that he could 
 with those blue eyes of his see three feet into the 
 
 [157] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 ground and discover all manner of precious 
 stones. These and many other stories were in 
 the early days circulated by the influential Chi- 
 nese who wanted nothing of the foreigner. The 
 women were quite ready to believe such tales. 
 They rehearsed them over the gambling tables. 
 They frightened the children to silence by threat- 
 ening to turn them over to the foreigner. So 
 when foreigners first visited a place women and 
 children kept far away. 
 
 When, however, the missionary mother and 
 her children came to town, the women could not 
 restrain their curiosity. From their own experi- 
 iences they could reason that she could not be as 
 dangerous as her husband. A crowd usually fol- 
 lowed the foreigner when he entered a place. A 
 far greater crowd gathered when his wife came 
 to town. Although the women would venture out 
 to see her, they would shrink back when she 
 tried to greet them. If her hand stretched out to 
 pat some bonny babe, the Chinese mother pushed 
 back into the crowd lest the touch of that hand 
 would bring disease. 
 
 The men from the beginning would crowd 
 about when the foreigner's home was being 
 built. They had never seen anything like this 
 new structure. Their own homes were poorly 
 built, one story in height. Here in their midst 
 was going up a compact building, while theirs 
 were spread out over large areas. The foreign 
 building would rise to three stories, counting the 
 attic. The floors were of real wood and raised 
 
 [158] 
 
THE MISSIONARY DOCTOR AND CHINESE WOMAN 
 
 high above the ground. The windows were all of 
 glass instead of paper. There were white-wash- 
 ed walls and plastered ceilings. Doors were fast- 
 ened on curious hinges and peculiar locks. Bra- 
 ziers were built into the walls instead of placing 
 movable ones in the middle of the room. Such 
 things as fireplaces they had never seen. Nei- 
 ther had they formerly seen such peculiar outer 
 doors to the windows, doors with a "hundred 
 leaves" (their name for shutters). 
 
 If our houses have been a matter of curios- 
 ity to them, how much more so has been the fur- 
 niture and conveniences we install within them. 
 For the sake of publicity, when we first occupied 
 a new house, we would set a feast and invite the 
 magistrate and chief men of the city. Even they, 
 in the early days, were a trifle afraid of eating 
 what might be set before them. To have asked 
 them to eat with knives and forks would have 
 been asking the impossible. They had never 
 eaten a foreign meal, neither had they seen one 
 eaten. So to set their minds entirely at rest, we 
 would have some restaurant supply a regular 
 Chinese feast with which they were all perfectly 
 familiar. After the feast, or before, as the occa- 
 sion might warrant, we would take the invited 
 guests from kitchen to attic. Of course, we saw 
 that the women and children of our homes were 
 out for the day. It would have been as embar- 
 rassing for the chief magistrate as it would have 
 been to the foreigner's wife, to have expected 
 her to preside at a Chinese feast. Neither could 
 
 [159] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 we show these men guests over the house if she 
 were in some room. 
 
 These august guests would look at the pic- 
 tures on the walls, the books in the case, the 
 typewriter on its stand and the white sheets on 
 the beds. Everything had to be explained and 
 demonstrated. Possibly if we had been taken in 
 like manner into their homes, we might have 
 masked our curiosity, yet there we would have 
 seen a hundred interesting things, we know, for 
 often have we taken our globe-trotting friends 
 into the home of some Chinese friend. This 
 throwing open our homes to the leading men of 
 the city at the very first always gave opportunity 
 to explain and get out of the minds of the people 
 the preposterous guesses they had made as to 
 the utility of the furnishings we placed in the 
 homes. These men went back to their homes and 
 told their friends all that they had seen and 
 heard in our house. These told it to others. The 
 city thus came to know, to become interested and 
 to call upon us. Others wished to see what the 
 chief men of the cSty had seen. 
 
 Since their men folk had entered the foreign 
 compound and escaped unharmed, the women be- 
 gan to wonder why they could not venture to call 
 upon the foreign woman. Often these first visi- 
 tors did not come much farther than the gate 
 and wall around our places. Then some of the 
 bolder ones would venture in. Very likely they 
 were accompanied by some male member of their 
 family whom they had persuaded to come. They 
 
 [160] 
 
THE MISSIONARY DOCTOR AND CHINESE WOMAN 
 
 would hesitate when they were invited into the 
 house, but when they saw a Chinese amah 
 (nurse) standing by the side of the foreign lady 
 they would venture in. 
 
 The rugs on the floor troubled them. Sure- 
 ly they ought not walk on these. The moving of 
 a rocking chair gave fright to many. They po- 
 litely accepted the tea served them but never 
 drank of it. It might contain some secret nost- 
 rum which would influence them to "eat the for- 
 eign doctrine." The men rarely showed any 
 surprise, but the women were full of exclama- 
 tions and questions. The Chinese servant was 
 kept busy answering. They had an idea that it 
 would be impossible to understand a word the 
 foreign lady might say. When they unexpectedly 
 understood some simple statement they would 
 exclaim, "Why she talks just like we do." Curio- 
 sity and fear struggled in their breast. They were 
 offered sweetmeats which had been bought on 
 their own streets and made by their own people. 
 They did not dare to eat a particle. These first 
 visits led many others to come. They came and 
 went and no calamity befell them, so the fear ot 
 the foreigner began to disappear. 
 
 The foreign dispensary became the next 
 point of interest to these women. First patients 
 were always from the poor, the helpless, the 
 hopeless cases. These were questioned. One 
 would be cured of scabies or malaria or con- 
 junctivitis. Chinese doctors would fail to cure 
 some desperate cases and the foreigner was the 
 
 [161] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 last resort. Respectable people did not think of 
 bringing their common ills to him. They would 
 rather suffer for days with the toothache than 
 have the foreigner touch them. Sooner or later 
 there always came some case with a malady with 
 which the patient found life unbearable. If he 
 could not be cured he might just as well die. 
 
 In our case it was a boy with a huge sarcoma 
 upon his entire hand which offered us opportuni- 
 ty to demonstrate the value of western surgery. 
 It was sapping the life of the boy. No Chinese 
 doctor could cure it; neither could a foreigner, 
 except by amputation. The boy and his friends 
 were all willing for this. In prayer we made 
 our preparations. A convenient Chinese door was 
 taken off its posts and laid upon high benches 
 for an operating table. The hands of the patient 
 were carefully cleansed. The group of men ac- 
 companying the boy sat on the side of the room 
 to watch the case. They saw the patient go to 
 sleep under the anesthetic. They saw the knife 
 make the first cut and saw the first blood flow. 
 Then they hurried outside. When the operation 
 was finished and the stump bandaged they came 
 back and saw the boy regain consciousness. 
 Thanks be to Him who watches over these oper- 
 ations, the wound healed by first intention 
 and the boy went home in ten days. Years after- 
 ward we heard he was well and strong. 
 
 Patients began to increase after such suc- 
 cesses. We were able to relieve many, to heal 
 some, occasionally to save a life. The women 
 
 [162] 
 
THE MISSIONARY DOCTOR AND CHINESE WOMAN 
 
 would marvel so much at the tenderness, the 
 sympathic touch of the doctor as at his cure. 
 "He does not turn up his nose at the stench of us 
 women as do our doctors," they would say. 
 
 Better tales slowly would circulate among 
 them. The better class women would, by this 
 time, be on quite friendly terms with the mission- 
 ary mother. To her a group would come and tell 
 a tale of woe. One of their number would be suf- 
 fering from an aching tooth or a boil or scabies 
 or one of a hundred other small things. The 
 doctor would step in from the dispensary and 
 often treat the patient right in the home. If the 
 day's clinic was over they might be persuaded to 
 walk over to the dispensary, the foreign lady go- 
 ing along. If it was an aching tooth, it would 
 not be long before the group would be returning 
 home showing the offending member to every 
 friend met along the street. "It stopped aching 
 before he pulled it," they would tell the women. 
 
 Thus it became an easy step from visiting 
 the sympathetic missionary mother to visiting 
 the doctor. They found sympathy and tenderness 
 at both places. What the doctor could not do 
 alone, his wife was able to do for him and with 
 him. Together the home and the hospital began 
 to storm this great citadel of heathenism, — the 
 Chinese woman. These superstitious women 
 with child minds can be reached only by the 
 patient ministry of love. 
 
 But the women are not an impossible propo- 
 sition. Give them the advantages of a Christian 
 
 [163] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 education and see the wonderful character they 
 can develop. The stories of Drs. Mary Stone and 
 Ida Kahn are known over several continents. 
 They graduated at the medical department in 
 Ann Arbor, Michigan, carrying off the honors of 
 their class. Mary Stone was the child of poor 
 parents. Ida Kahn was thrown out to die. A 
 Christian missionary took them and educated 
 them in her home. When she had given them 
 all she could in China she took them to America 
 and spent that first year with them in the medi- 
 cal school. Then she left them to walk alone 
 and they did not fail her. 
 
 The girls went back to their native province. 
 Dr. Stone has built in Kiukiang a great women's 
 hospital. Dr. Kahn worked for years in the pro- 
 vincial capital, Nanchangfu. The Chinese wom- 
 en have flocked to them for aid. A thousand of 
 them spend time in these hospitals every year. 
 Thousands have heard the Gospel and believed. 
 They have trained bands of Christian nurses who 
 are called to the homes of Chinese and foreigners 
 alike. There is no person in all that country 
 more loved, more sought after than these Chinese 
 women doctors. They minister to rich and poor. 
 Men consult them for their wives, and for their 
 own ills. They are wonderful examples of the 
 power of Christianity to transform womanhood. 
 
 In years past there has been an occasional 
 man with no sons born to him who, in a sort 
 of desperation or in advance of his generation, 
 has educated his daughters. Such girls have 
 
 [164] 
 
THE MISSIONARY DOCTOR AND CHINESE WOMAN 
 
 usually shown themselves capable of taking on 
 the highest culture, and making strong charac- 
 ters. Mrs. Chow, the head of a government or- 
 phanage in Nanking, is one such woman. When 
 the Revolutionary soldiers followed up the re- 
 treating enemy, they found themselves in a fam- 
 ine stricken region. Parents offering to sell 
 their children that they might buy food to save 
 themselves found purchasers in the soldiers who 
 would take them back to their own homes for 
 servants or slaves. The Nanking authorities re- 
 fused to allow them to do this and bought back 
 the entire group of six hundred boys and girls. 
 They hunted for a woman with education and 
 executive ability who could manage the needed 
 orphanage and Mrs. Chow was called. For eight 
 years she managed the orphanage with skill far 
 beyond the strength of her little body; indeed 
 she made the orphanage. One needs visit the 
 place and see the industrial work she has estab- 
 lished, watch the children in their gymnastics, 
 attend their half day school, to realize what a 
 wonderful woman she is. 
 
 During the Rebellion of 1913 the city gov- 
 ernment was thrown into confusion and the Red 
 Cross, organized by the foreigners, was asked 
 to protect the place temporarily. Of the six hun- 
 dred children then in the orphanage, two hun- 
 dred were girls over fifteen years of age. It was 
 an assured fact that the city would be taken, and 
 when taken, looted. Women would be ravaged 
 and there was a grave danger overshadowing the 
 
 [165] 
 
CttiNA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 orphanage. The missionaries accepted the re- 
 sponsibility and the Red Cross flag rightly 
 floated over the place. No harm came to them, 
 though on all sides evil men worked their will 
 on defenseless people. This act of the mission- 
 aries led Mrs. Chow to investigate the claims of 
 Christianity and soon she herself accepted 
 Christ. 
 
 Prom the time single woman missionaries 
 took up the task of girls' schools in China, they 
 have been undermining the age-old attitude of 
 the Chinese toward their women. Christiali 
 girls' schools have compelled the starting of gov- 
 erment girls' schools. The Chinese have seen the 
 missionary homes in which husband and wife 
 are equally educated and trained. They have 
 been furnished examples of the power of Chris- 
 tian education to produce cultured women, even 
 though the material used is from among their 
 own girls. However, they found it easier to 
 start girls' schools than to manage them success- 
 fully. Having no educated women to teach such 
 schools, they have had to turn them over to men 
 teachers, and unseemly actions frequently have 
 injured the reputations of the schools. Invari- 
 ably mission girls' schools have been presided 
 over by single or married women who can give 
 careful supervision; thus scandals are avoided. 
 
 Only a few women physicians have come to 
 China, but all who have come have been warmly 
 welcomed by the Chinese women. No matter 
 how fully their old fear of the foreigner has been 
 
 [166] 
 
THE MISSIONARY DOCTOR AND CHINESE WOMAN 
 
 driven out of their minds and hearts, the long 
 cultivated nature of the Oriental woman makes 
 it exceedingly hard for her to think of bringing 
 her ills to a foreign man doctor. 
 
 Yet there is probably not one male mission- 
 ary physician who has worked in this land but 
 can tell many stories of how these women have 
 overcome their natural dread and placed them- 
 selves trustingly in his hands. We have had 
 them come into our operating room and lie 
 down on the table with apparently as much con- 
 fidence in us as though we were their mothers 
 and they were lying down on their bed of child- 
 hood to be tucked in by loving hands. We have 
 placed the anesthetizing cone over their faces 
 and sent them off to sleep, performing the 
 needed operation, marvelling all the while at 
 the faith they were showing in us. 
 
 In the earlier days, if the medical missionary 
 was called to minister to a woman in her hour of 
 trial, it was not usual that the call came until it 
 had become a matter of life and death. Too often 
 the woman was found with life too far gone to be 
 called back. Today a constantly increasing num- 
 ber of homes expect the doctor to take the case in 
 hand. The doctor goes, not alone to save a life, 
 but also to reveal the spirit of Christ. There have 
 been times when we, exerting every muscle and 
 nerve in our endeavor to save the patient, have 
 received unexpected recognition from the old 
 mothers standing by. Anything we ask they 
 eagerly do. They see the perspiration pouring 
 
 [167] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 from our face and they find a clean towel and 
 wipe away the sweat. When the crisis is past 
 and the life again is in safety, these same old 
 mothers seize hold of our hands and express in 
 every possible way their feelings of thanksgiving 
 for what we have done. "He was spending him- 
 self for us to save us," they say in their own way. 
 
 [168] 
 
XI 
 BUILDING A RAILROAD 
 
 "It is expedient for you that one man should 
 die for the people that the whole nation perish 
 not." 
 
 Thirty engineers had been gathered from 
 England, Scotland, Ireland, and America, for the 
 building of the southern end of the Tientsin — 
 Pukow Railroad. A line a little over two hundred 
 miles in length was to be surveyed, leveled, 
 bridges built over streams, ballast found and con- 
 veyed, stations erected and rolling stock built or 
 assembled. After the preliminary survey the 
 men were scattered along the line ten or fifteen 
 miles apart. A telephone line had been put up 
 that their chief might keep in touch with them 
 and they with one another. Each man had to fix 
 up quarters, some in temples, some in rented 
 Chinese houses, some in junks anchored in con- 
 venient streams and some had to build their 
 own houses out of such material as could be 
 readily found. By the judicious use of flooring, 
 glass, putty and whitewash they could make 
 themselves fairly comfortable. Their food sup- 
 plies were purchased in Nanking or Shanghai 
 and weekly sent upon the backs of animals. As 
 
 [169] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 some of them expressed It, "We lived in tins." 
 Such meals could readily become monotonous, 
 especially as there was only the Chinese "boy" 
 and no woman to plan them. Often they were 
 tempted to try the Chinese vegetables. Some- 
 times, in spite of the warning of their chief who 
 was an old hand in China, they did try them. 
 Perhaps nothing happened; perhaps the experi- 
 menter came down with bowel trouble, or even 
 typhoid fever. Day by day they were wading 
 streams and ponds, facing rain or blistering sun. 
 They would be coming in at night tired and per- 
 haps chilled. Under such conditions it is not 
 easy either to keep well or keep up courage. 
 
 Their contracts called for a foreign doctor 
 who should look after the health of the engi- 
 neers. One doctor had been brought all the way 
 from England but he quickly proved to be the 
 wrong man for the job. A physician from one of 
 the port cities was next induced to accept the 
 task but it was too much for him and he soon 
 resigned. Between times the missionary doctors, 
 scattered in cities along the proposed line, were 
 called in as substitutes for the promised doctor 
 who so often had failed them. 
 
 This condition had been going on for some 
 months, and the men felt that the contract was 
 not being kept. Most of them were not very well 
 at intervals, and they did not know when they 
 might be seized with some serious disease. The 
 only method of traveling up and down the line 
 was by horse and, with the exception of the mis- 
 
 [170] 
 
BUILDING A RAILROAD 
 
 sion doctors, there was no physician within call 
 of their telephone. 
 
 We were talking with one of the engineers 
 one evening and he was criticising very strongly 
 the dilatory way in which the medical question 
 seemed to be treated by those in higher positions 
 on the line. The words of Caiaphas came to our 
 mind. "It is expedient for you that one man 
 should die for the people." Down through the 
 ages history had seemed to indicate the truth of 
 this saying. Some one must give his life to im- 
 press a great truth upon the world before it 
 would be heeded. Would some of these engineers 
 be called upon to lay down their lives before 
 those above them realized the blunder they were 
 making in not furnishing proper medical atten- 
 tion for their men? 
 
 The wife of that very engineer came out in 
 the autumn to join him and make his work more 
 comfortable. How lonely the job out in those 
 isolated villages and towns is, only one who has 
 lived in such conditions can appreciate. The 
 knowledge that a fellow engineer could be called 
 upon a telephone helped to balance the fact that 
 the Chinese language was a strange jargon. Al- 
 though each one was furnished with an interpre- 
 ter he was more often an "interrupter." 
 The customs of the Chinese were, of course, as 
 strange and incomprehensible as was their 
 speech. Happy was the engineer who had a wife 
 to join him. When this engineer's wife came she 
 quickly made a home out of the place he called 
 
 [171] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 "quarters." She was bright and cheery and made 
 his work a real pleasure. Coming home at night 
 after a day's tramp out on the line was something 
 worth looking forward to. But pneumonia sud- 
 denly prostrated the man. The railroad at that 
 time was not recognizing the missionaries as 
 doctors for their men, but we happened to be at 
 home at the time and there was no one else to 
 call. We stepped in, won a fight against the dis- 
 ease and saved his life. He was given a short 
 leave of absence in which to convalesce and the 
 couple went to Japan. He came back to his en- 
 gineer's task but medical conditions were not 
 changed. When the railroad did have a doctor, 
 they stationed him at the lower end of the line, 
 thirty miles from Chuchow and two hundred 
 miles from some of the engineers, a long way 
 indeed, when one has to travel on horseback. 
 
 We had our regular mission work to which 
 we must give regular attention. Although the 
 railroad had no salaried doctor of their own, they 
 gave us no continuous recognition or salary. So 
 mission work must obviously come first. We 
 were called to Shanghai to consider some impor- 
 tant work in that city and upon our return to 
 Nanking a telegram was placed in our hands 
 telling us that the wife of this engineer was 
 dangerously ill. A launch was waiting to 
 hurry us up the country, but it could only take 
 us two-thirds of the way. A construction train 
 had to be depended upon for the remainder of 
 the journey. They had been telephoning and 
 
 [172] 
 
BUILDING A RAILROAD 
 
 telegraphing for three days to get a doctor and 
 finally sent special messengers to Nanking but 
 no doctor was available there. Happily on the 
 same train on which we had returned to Nanking 
 from Shanghai was a physician whom the rail- 
 road had just called. We accidently found this 
 out and laid the case before him. He dropped 
 his luggage and accompanied us on the launch. 
 When we had reached its highest point of navi- 
 gation we waited some hours for the construc- 
 tion train to come down and unload. 
 
 Upon reaching the city we found the patient 
 in such a condition that it seemed wise to move 
 her to a down-country hospital. It would not 
 do to subject her to the jolting of a construction 
 train, so we worked late in the evening to get a 
 sailboat, fixing it up and getting the patient on 
 board. She reached the foreign hospital but died 
 within a few days, her husband coming back to 
 his lonely task. Pew can measure the feeling of 
 injustice which rankled deep in his heart. Yet 
 even this did not arouse the railroad authorities 
 to the negligence they were showing toward 
 their employees. Before the line was finished 
 two women and one engineer had died, another 
 man was laid low with typhoid and others had 
 lesser, though serious diseases, take hold upon 
 them. 
 
 But there is also a bright side to the work 
 they did. They were pioneers in the opening up 
 of lines of communication for China. They had 
 exhilarating rides in the fine autumn mornings, 
 
 [173] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 each one with his ten miles or more of construc- 
 tion to oversee. The telephone was in almost 
 continuous use in the evenings and all had the 
 ear pieces off the hooks listening to what the 
 others were discussing. At week-ends they made 
 shift to get together in small groups. The Chin- 
 ese would occasionally invite them to feasts. 
 The country people everywhere flocked along 
 the line to see what a railroad looked like, and 
 some of the questions they would venture to ask 
 through the interpreter were funny indeed. 
 
 These men faced problems which taxed their 
 skill and fired their ambitions. The Pukow ter- 
 minus by the Yangtze River had to cross two 
 miles of marsh and the new town had to be 
 built upon the filled in marsh land. Ten feet of 
 earth had to be added to raise the land above the 
 river flood level. To do this millions of tons of 
 earth must be brought down and dumped there. 
 Some of the nearby Pukow hills began to dis- 
 appear in consequence. The local gentry watch- 
 ed the process until one day one ot them had the 
 temerity to ask when the railroad was going to 
 return the land to the hills. The engineers had 
 their laugh but the railroad had to begin buying 
 dirt elsewhere. 
 
 The rock-bound Pukow hills took months to 
 pierce. The Tung-ko low-lying paddy fields, five 
 miles in width, had also to be filled in. When, in 
 the dry weather they undertook to throw up 
 embankments from the ground on either side, 
 they thought they had an easy %^sk.. But when 
 [174] 
 
BUILDING A RAILROAD 
 
 the rains began the embaukments melted back 
 into the fields, flowing like slippery oil off both 
 sides. They finally had to plant willows on eith- 
 er side that the roots might hold up the earth. 
 They drove piles down into the sands of the 
 Ming-kwang River and built their concrete on 
 the pile foundation. A summer flood came along, 
 tipped over the concrete piers and dug up all 
 the piles. It took work done through caissons 
 before a foundation was laid which would stand 
 these floods. An American engineer gave three 
 years of steady work building the long bridge 
 over the Hwai River. In the Rebellion of 1913 
 this bridge came near being blown up by the re- 
 bels. Only the quick wit and persistence of the 
 British engineers averted the calamity. 
 
 We Americans learned a new vocabulary 
 from these British engineers. A handcar to them 
 is a trolley, a tie a sleeper, a caboose a breakvan, 
 a freight car a goods-wagon and a freight train a 
 goods-train. They had guards instead of brake- 
 men and engine drivers in place of engineers. 
 Their railroad shops are called locomotive shops. 
 Instead of having one grade of coaches and the 
 same fare for all, or the addition of pullmans for 
 the wealthy, they brought in first, second and 
 third class accommodations. On some railroads 
 even a fourth class was introduced. 
 
 Towards the missionaries these men showed 
 a fine spirit. They were interested in our work. 
 In the beginning we were able to help them in 
 many little ways. They drew on our recommen- 
 
 [175] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 dation for local carpenters and masons in putting 
 their quarters into sliape. We shared the pro- 
 ducts of our gardens and their servants were sent 
 to us for medical treatment. 
 
 On" their hand, we always found a hearty 
 welcome when traveling their way. We had tjie 
 use of their books and magazines. In emergen- 
 cies, their telephones and, at times, special mes- 
 sengers were offered us. Prom the results of 
 their shooting trips pheasant and snipe often 
 appeared on our tables. 
 
 One of the engineers formed a special in- 
 terest in Chinese paintings and ancient pottery. 
 This man showed the possibility of finding re- 
 creation and interest in the most barren of 
 localities. For a time he was stationed in the 
 most desolate piece of country to be found along 
 the entire line. Scarcely a tree could be seen on 
 the hills which rolled away on every side. Farm 
 houses were scarce; there was almost nothing 
 to relieve the monotony of the secnery and life 
 about the spot. The people in the market town 
 where he had his quarters were poor and un- 
 attractive. It was well known, in addition, that 
 a band of robbers had their headquarters there. 
 It looked like a country where even the birds 
 would be tempted to carry their ration as they 
 flew over it. 
 
 This university-bred engineer had, before 
 he left his native land in Sweden, gathered a 
 botanical collection of more than one thousand 
 specimens, so he began studying the plant life 
 
 [176] 
 
BUILDING A RAILROAD 
 
 in this barren district. His temple home was 
 early changed into a miniature zoo. Birds with 
 broken wings, owls, heron, eagles, all were there. 
 He built up an enclosure and filled it wifh 
 captured snakes. Other people had made the 
 declaration that no poisonous snakes existed in 
 this part of China and he demonstrated that 
 there were such. One day, when walking over 
 to his temple home, we saw some workmen 
 hurrying that way who were apparently swing- 
 ing a rope as they hastened. It proved to be one 
 of the big snakes which had escaped and which 
 had just been recaptured. A strolling montebank 
 came along one day with a bear which the en- 
 gineer bought. He also adopted baby deer and 
 purchased young foxes. One baby wolf he reared 
 to full size and had him so tamed that he ran 
 about the place with the dogs and showed 
 characteristics similar to theirs. 
 
 In times past the few Chinese paintings we 
 had seen were mere daubs and we judged the 
 painters as poor artists, lacking in sense of per- 
 spective and proportion. When this engineer 
 turned his interests to the studying of Chinese 
 paintings we quickly learned that China has had 
 great artists who have produced as wonderful 
 paintings as those of Occidental nations. But 
 his increasing collection of ancient Chinese 
 pottery proved even more fascinating. He prob- 
 ably gained the inspiration to start such a col- 
 lection from specimens twelve hundred years old 
 dug out of the earth thrown up from our city 
 
 [177] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 moat. A section of this moat lay across the 
 grounds the railroad bought for station purposes. 
 As the men dug into the old mounds of dirt he 
 offered them a reward for every perfect piece of 
 old pottery they would turn up. Bowls and jars 
 and cups used by the serfs who, centuries ago, 
 had been employed in the digging of our moat 
 and the erecting of our city's walls and had ac- 
 cidentally been buried during the piling up of 
 the refuse dirt, came to light. 
 
 Following his usual custom, this engineer 
 bought all books he could find which had been 
 produced in the study others had given to this 
 subject. He learned the distinguishing marks of 
 various dynasties. From the varied collections 
 which curio dealers brought to his door, he began 
 slowly buying and swiftly comparing. There 
 were relics from ancient graves. There were 
 pots in which coin had been buried, even some of 
 the long-buried coins themselves. There were 
 pots made before the days when the Chinese 
 learned the art of glazing, pots almost as old as 
 those dug from the ruins of Babylon and Nineveh. 
 This engineer not only entertained himself with 
 this hobby, but he was able to delight his friends 
 with it when they visited him. 
 
 The railroad was ready for traffic by the 
 spring of 1911. There was still a terminal depot 
 to be built at Pukow when the filled marsh was 
 solid enough. At other points the depots were 
 finished. Warehouses, or godowns, as they are 
 called in China, and side-tracks had yet to be 
 
 [178] 
 
BUILDING A RAILROAD 
 
 built in places. The rail had been made at the 
 Hanyang Iron Works and they were laid on Japa- 
 nese and American sleepers. Engines and some 
 of the cars had been brought out from England 
 in knockdown condition and rebuilt at Pukow. 
 Oregon pine had found its way into many struc- 
 tures. Cement had been brought from North 
 China, Hongkong and Japan. As soon as traffic 
 was opened passengers crowded the coaches and 
 freight trains were insufficient to supply the de- 
 mands. 
 
 Suddenly the Revolution came. The station 
 agents, telegraph operators and other salaried 
 Chinese had come in from other provinces. They 
 looked upon the people of our district as uncouth 
 and half civilized. They had heard tales of the 
 robber bands that infested the district and also 
 that the local people were manufacturing swords, 
 poniards and large knives. The rumor got about 
 that the local people were going to attack them, 
 so small groups of armed guards were placed at 
 each station, of little avail if a body of the people 
 should decide to make such an attack. The en- 
 gineers began traveling up and down the line to 
 hold things together and encourage the Chinese 
 staff. At some places they would find the sta- 
 tions deserted; the entire staff in fright had run 
 away. Local rowdies and beggars flocked about 
 the station and stole anything they found lying 
 loose. These Chinese from the outside could 
 not realize that the local people were as much 
 afraid of robbers as they were and the manufac- 
 
 [179] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 ture of local arms was for the purpose of self 
 defence. It became a question with the engin- 
 eers whether they could hold the line together 
 and quiet the fears of their men. Soon it be- 
 came a problem whether they could prevent 
 the line from being taken up piecemeal and car- 
 ried away. Often they would find iron spikes 
 had been pulled and bolts taken from the coup- 
 lings of the rails. Under such conditions traffic 
 had to stop. The engineers kept engines, with 
 their private coaches attached, traveling over the 
 line. They sent some of their women folk to 
 Shanghai, but with them there was no thought 
 of running away from their task and they gradu- 
 ally found a few Chinese who were filled with 
 like courage. 
 
 When Chang Hsun and his men were driven 
 out of Nanking, they seized what cars they could 
 find and fled two hundred miles up the line. 
 Revolutionary leaders followed them part of the 
 distance. Here and there dynamite was used to 
 blow up a section of an unimportant bridge to 
 prevent the return of Chang Hsun, an event 
 which wild rumor constantly heralded. Even 
 the engineers with their engine and coach had 
 to cease traveling along the line. Then they fell 
 back on telegraph and telephone until peace 
 came. The government rewarded the engineers 
 and Chinse staff for their fidelity to the task by 
 giving them double salaries for the war period. 
 
 All was running well again for a year or 
 more. The damages to the line were repaired and 
 
 [180] 
 
BUILDING A RAILROAD 
 
 freight trains ran night and day pouring large 
 revenue into the coffers of the government. The 
 contracts with most of the engineers expired and 
 a number of them returned to their native lands. 
 Some took jobs with other railroads then being 
 constructed. District engineers of this line be- 
 came chiefs of newly projected lines. A limited 
 number of the foreign staff were retained for 
 keeping the line in order. 
 
 In the summer of 1913 the railroad once 
 more found itself involved in the war, becoming 
 the war zone itself. At first the rebels captured 
 the entire southern end of the line. Soon they 
 had to retreat toward Nanking. As they with- 
 drew they blew up some of the bridges. The 
 northern troops attached a few foreign engineers 
 from the north to their staff aiid repaired the 
 damaged bridges as rapidly as possible. The en- 
 gineer-in-chief of the southern end of the line 
 was at the time absent on leave. The acting 
 chief did not care to have other engineers intro- 
 duced into the construction or repair of their 
 share of the line. Hearing of the destruction of 
 bridges he hurried north, repairing them as he 
 went. It was in the hottest time of an unusually 
 hot summer. He came face to face with the 
 northern forces who had halted their advance by 
 one of the injured bridges. The German en- 
 gineer from the north said it would take a month 
 to repair, and our acting chief, knowing the ma- 
 terial which he had back of him, after looking 
 over the broken bridge, told the northern general 
 
 [181] 
 
atJlMA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 that he would repair it in ten days if the general 
 would give him full support. This was readily 
 promised. 
 
 Material was quickly brought to the place. 
 Gangs of men pushed forward the construction 
 night and day. The acting chief drafted in his 
 engineers from other portions of the line. Two or 
 three of them were at times prostrated by the 
 heat and the strain under which they worked. 
 The chief held through it all and made good his 
 word to the general. We are happy to record that 
 he was specially decorated by the government 
 for the work he did in those nerve-trying days. 
 The engineers who worked with him were also 
 rewarded. 
 
 The men who came out to the Orient in work 
 of this kind are worthy of all honor. They were 
 the forerunners and builders of better lines of 
 communication. Theirs was a pioneer service 
 and will be remembered long after China has put 
 on the garb of modern civilization. They had to 
 go through country which had never known the 
 surveyor's transit. They had to find rivers and 
 roads and towns which were not always where 
 they were reported to be. They had to plan and 
 construct. They had to rebuild engines and con- 
 struct cars. They had to train Chinese to be the 
 future road builders of their nation. They had to 
 show contractors how to throw up embankments, 
 how to dig foundations, how to do concrete work, 
 and how to build buildings. The engineer in 
 charge of the rolling stock had to train men in 
 [182] 
 
BUILDING A RAILROAD 
 
 the mysteries of running the locomotives. 
 Guards, switchmen and line foremen had to be 
 trained. Station masters were under their direc- 
 tion to a lesser but necessary degree. Telegraph 
 operators and train guards had to be held to 
 a higher standard than the Chinese had ever 
 known. 
 
 These engineers were opening up China's 
 highways and making famine and refugeeism a 
 thing of the past. They were bringing China's 
 products to the markets of the world. They it is 
 who have been making possible the opening of 
 her mines and other hitherto undeveloped re- 
 sources. All the while they have been educating 
 the Chinese in the dignity of labor, showing what 
 real education can do for the uplift of the race. 
 May more of their kind hear the call of needy 
 China and come and take up the task. 
 
 [183] 
 
XII 
 A RANCH 
 
 For thirty centuries the Chinese farmer has 
 been turning over approximately three inches of 
 surface soil with his plow. This implement with 
 its single handle is similar to the ones used in 
 Abraham's time. Along the Yangtse where the 
 rice grows and the fields are flooded with water, 
 the water buffalo is used for their plow animal. 
 Farther north, where corn, wheat and barley 
 flourish, they use cows, horses and donkeys for 
 the purpose. The, water buffalo is in his natural 
 element when he lumbers into the water-flooded 
 field, the farmer, his trousers pulled a bit higher 
 under his belt, wading after him. After the rice 
 is harvested the field is allowed to dry and wheat 
 is sown. When the wheat harvest is past rice 
 once more goes into the flooded field. On the up- 
 lands the farmer plants wheat, barley, corn, 
 beans, hemp and peanuts. 
 
 The treeless land makes fioods or drought a 
 frequent cause of crop failure. These together 
 with an occasional visit from locusts, the con- 
 stant coming of the landlord and a frequent visit 
 from such animal foes as rinderpest have led the 
 farmer a hard chase. The bulk of the refugees 
 
 [184] 
 
A RANCH 
 
 who annually wander from one section of the 
 country to another are recruited from among the 
 farming class, a people who are, notwithstand- 
 ing, among the most industrious, hardworking, 
 frugal that the world knows. 
 
 Along with the other changes which have 
 been taking place in China there have been many 
 attempts to improve farming methods. Agricul- 
 tural schools have here and there been started, 
 and some of them, as is to be expected, have died 
 untimely deaths. Experimental farms have been 
 started and often foreigners have been picked up 
 to run them. Securing teachers or skilled labor- 
 ers from among the foreigners who drift out to 
 China has many drawbacks. One such was se- 
 lected to start a sheep ranch. He wanted to buy 
 the beginnings of a flock from Australia. Ac- 
 companied by a Chinese he was sent down there. 
 When they reached Manila the foreigner and the 
 sheep money disappeared and the Chinese re- 
 turned alone and empty handed. 
 
 Professor Joseph Bailie, formerly connected 
 with the University of Nanking, now with the 
 Union University in Peking, began working 
 among refugees in Nanking to interest the stu- 
 dents in social service. A famine threw more 
 people on his hands than any group of students 
 could manage and he was compelled to give his 
 entire time to working out practical plans to 
 meet the need. He interested the ofiicials here in 
 a project for opening up mountain land near the 
 city. The Governor there being later transferred 
 
 [185] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 to Nanking, the capital of Anhwui Province, it 
 was natural to consider opening up land in this 
 province. Out of this has grown a farm colony 
 at Laian, twenty miles away from Chuchow. It 
 is under the direction of a China Inland mission- 
 ary and the local gentry. 
 
 Prom Professor Bailie's efforts also has 
 come the Department of Agriculture and For- 
 estry in the University of Nanking which is 
 almost entirely supported from government or 
 other funds subscribed in China. The Peking 
 Government sent down many students and paid 
 all bills. Sericulture has been added to this de- 
 partment. Nurseries of young trees are being 
 developed and distributed far and wide. Grains, 
 vegetables and flowers are being acclimated, 
 tested and introduced to China. 
 
 The governor who was transferred from 
 Nanking to Anking decided also to start an ex- 
 perimental farm or ranch in Anhwui. His most 
 difficult task was to find a suitable man to han- 
 dle the project. It would be an intensely inter- 
 esting subject to pursue if one were able to study 
 the large group of foreigners from all lands who 
 slip or drift into such ports as Shanghai, for, 
 whatever reason each one has for landing in 
 these Oriental ports, many of them have a single 
 reason for not leaving, namely lack of funds. 
 In their search for work they often fall upon 
 unexpected fortune. 
 
 One such man, nearly fifty years of age, 
 was found who had been a cowboy in California. 
 [186] 
 
A RAhfCti 
 
 As a boy he had been left an orphan in Illinois. 
 He had been bound out to a farmer who evident- 
 ly did not know how to treat such a boy decent- 
 ly. The boy stayed with the farmer until he 
 was old enough to run away, then he gradually 
 drifted to the West. What education he had 
 was picked up but he could read the ordinary 
 newspaper. On the western ranches he became 
 a cowboy skilled in the knowledge of farm ani- 
 mals. He learned farming by practicing it. 
 Grains, trees, cattle, milk products, the erection 
 of farm building, the handling of horses, were 
 all studied in this practical way. 
 
 One day, while rounding up some cattle, his 
 horse stepped into a hole, broke its own leg 
 and a number of bones in the body of his rider. 
 It took a long time for the broken human bones 
 to knit. Even after they were healed, the man 
 found himself weak and with "something wrong 
 inside," he knew not what. Doctors failed to 
 help him. Some one recommended the mineral 
 springs of Japan and he crossed the Pacific in 
 search of health. A couple of years in Japan 
 found him nearly well but at the end of his bank 
 account. Nevertheleiss, from curiosity to see 
 the Orient, he came across to Shanghai and there 
 found a Chinese governor who wanted to start 
 an experimental farm. They took each other 
 somewhat on faith. 
 
 For a month in the early spring of 1915 this 
 man, with the representatives from the Gover- 
 nor, sought for a suitable piece of country in 
 
 [187] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 which to develop the proposed work. All 
 through Eastern. Anhwui is much land lying fal- 
 low and owned by the government. It is more 
 or less controlled by the elders of the district in, 
 which it lies. They get some revenue from it 
 by renting out portions to small farmers or by 
 leasing out portions to fuel cutters. The pro- 
 posal to utilize such land for a government farm 
 would not be pleasing to most of the controllers 
 as it would mean the loss of some revenue. 
 These men, therefore, used methods for dis- 
 couraging the taking up of land by this party 
 of representatives from the Governor. 
 
 For two years the Chuchow Reform Society 
 had been carrying forward a number of uplift 
 movements. Our city, as we have seen, nestles 
 at the foot of extensive, but barren, mountains. 
 If the purpose of the government was to en- 
 courage the raising of cattle and horses we saw 
 no better place than the unoccupied uplands. So 
 we ventured to correspond with them and final- 
 ly drew them to us. Even here, had it not been 
 for the Reform Society, it is probable they 
 would have been crowded out. These hills of 
 ours annually yield tens of thousands of dol- 
 lars in medicinal herbs which are shipped all 
 over China. The wild grass of the hills fur- 
 nishes the fuel used by the people. These things 
 were financial items to be considered. Also 
 upon the slopes of these hills are thousands of 
 graves and family burial grounds. This was a 
 religious question. Another consideration came 
 
 [188] 
 
A RANCH 
 
 from the fact that three famous resorts in these 
 hills were places of recreation for the people in 
 the spring and autumn. If the government 
 should exempt the land for an experimental 
 farm, would they have the same freedom of 
 access to these places? A meeting opposing the 
 project was called by the conservatives in the 
 city. It was a very excited meeting but it col- 
 lapsed when some one tried to get subscriptions 
 for a fund to oppose the Governor's using this 
 public land for a ranch. 
 
 It was well along in the spring before our 
 American ranchman was given opportunity to 
 begin the development if his new project. Some 
 plows were borrowed from the agricultural 
 grounds in Nanking and water buffaloes with 
 their drivers were rented from the farmers. A 
 handful of men who had worked on the colony 
 gounds in Nanking were also induced to help 
 start the new plant. A student become the in- 
 terpreter, for, if our ranchman had had no 
 American schooling, it could not be expected 
 that he would gain much of a knowledge of 
 Chinese. A beautiful little knoll near an ancient 
 copper mine was selected as the site for the 
 erection of a group of buildings. Twenty thous- 
 and acres of low mountains and three hundred 
 acres of tillable land at their base were gradu- 
 ally set apart for the ranch. It took much time, 
 for the Chinese are never in a hurry. Some of 
 the land was owned by private individuals who 
 wanted to hold off for high prices. The govern- 
 
 [189] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 ment finally decided to give such owners an an- 
 nual rental instead of buying. A local company 
 under the leadership of a Christian pastor had, 
 for years, been developing a tract within the 
 boundary. This had been done in large part 
 that work might be given to deserving poor. 
 With the government coming in as competitor 
 they saw the unwisdom of continuing, so sold 
 out to the ranch. 
 
 The ranchman found many difficulties in- 
 deed in his path. In all of his American experi- 
 ences he had never met such troubles as these. 
 In America, the methods and customs were such 
 that they had become second nature to him. 
 Many Oriental customs are antipodal to those 
 he had habitually followed. America has a mini- 
 mum of lazy men, China apparently a maximum. 
 Many Chinese laborers sought jobs at the ranch; 
 they seemed anxious to work. For three months 
 he discharged them as rapidly as he hired them. 
 They were after an easy job and good pay. They 
 worked hard when he was looking and loafed 
 when his back was turned. His Nanking trained 
 foremen seemed to take this as a matter of 
 course. His student interpreter found it impos- 
 sible to explain the Chinese point of view. To 
 the ranchfnan there was no "Chinese point of 
 view." He was boss and it was up to the inter- 
 preter and foremen to see that the men obeyed 
 and worked according to his methods and in- 
 structions. Interpreting consists more than 
 merely turning one form of speech into another. 
 
 [190] 
 
A RANCH 
 
 If a man has never seen a railroad it is useless 
 merely to translate the word. A railroad must 
 be explained and visualized before the man will 
 understand what the speaker means; so with 
 many things. 
 
 The local people were intensely interested 
 in this new acquisition to the district life. They 
 had become familiar with missionaries who 
 were college bred and had learned self control 
 and to respect Oriental customs. Here was 
 an American whose education had been wrung 
 from bitter experience and who saw no reason 
 for tolerating what seemed to him ridiculous 
 ways of doing things. It is not an easy task to 
 gain a knowledge of the Chinese language. It 
 is ten times harder to adapt oneself to Chinese 
 customs and it is impossible to do so without first 
 learning to speak the language. Yet a man's 
 usefulness to another race, if he is to work in 
 their midst, depends upon his ability to meet 
 them upon their own ground. This is just as 
 true for a railroad engineer as for a missionary, 
 or for an agent of the Standard Oil Company, as 
 a foreign consul or a ranchman. This ranchman 
 had lived a rough western life where rough men 
 were compelled to tolerate in each other what 
 they were unable to change. That was all right 
 for America, but when he found himself alone in 
 the midst of innumerable onlookers of another 
 race, he ran up against undreamed-of obstacles. 
 
 Crowds went out to see his foreign plows. 
 His foreman thought it natural to stop and show 
 
 [191] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 off the plow. He expostulated through his in- 
 terpreter and the crowd fell back to allow the 
 buffaloes to go on pulling the plow. He saw no 
 reason why the ground should not be plowed 
 clear to the base of the numerous grave mounds 
 which dotted and scarred his new fields. Whole 
 families gathered about their ancestors' graves 
 and a full-fledged debating society would be sud- 
 denly started, reasons for which were out of his 
 grasp — and no interpreter could make them 
 clear. He did not want hordes of people tramp- 
 ling over the fields just turned up by the plow. 
 Once or twice he threatened them with his whip 
 and narrowly averted a small riot. 
 
 Many times we walked the half hour walk 
 between our home and his ranch and many 
 more times he came to us. We understood hia 
 point of view and also knew how the Chinese 
 looked at these things. His vocabulary was very 
 limited but forceful. We had even to simplify 
 our ordinary English when talking with him. 
 His interpreter had gained his elementary 
 knowledge of English in a mission school, but 
 was learning a new variety from the ranchman. 
 Among other things there came a plague of 
 locusts which ate up the crops. One day the in- 
 terpreter said to us in a very casual way, "We 
 are having a hell of a time with the locusts." It 
 was one of the milder forms of expression he 
 was learning from his new teacher. We deter- 
 mined mentally that, if ever we were called upon 
 to find a foreign employee for the Chinese gov- 
 
 [192] 
 
A RANCH 
 
 ernment, we would seek for a college bred man 
 who knew how to use decent English. The 
 ranchman had lived a bachelor life and found 
 the loneliness of interior China too much for 
 him. One day he came back from Shanghai 
 bringing a Japanese woman with him. The 
 Chinese have no love for the Japanese people, 
 nor do they look with favor upon the mixing of 
 races, so this move did not raise the ranchman 
 in their estimation. 
 
 The ranchman preferred to use local car- 
 penters and masons to build his bungalow and 
 stock buildings. All had to be erected with brick, 
 as timber is very scarce. We had had years of 
 experience with local men and knew their skill 
 was hardly equal to the task of the better build- 
 ings. We plainly told him so when he came to 
 us about it. He decided to try them out on 
 some of the rougher buildings and asked us to 
 aid in drawing up the contracts. By this time 
 he had found it impossible to do extensive work 
 without consulting us. So he asked that we act 
 as adviser in the construction of buildings. There 
 seemed no way out of it if the ranch was to 
 succeed at all. What he would have done had 
 the plant been placed in some remote corner 
 with no other foreigner handy we can only con- 
 jecture. We had a long and difficult task on our 
 hands. Long accustomed ourselves to the slow 
 moving builders, we had learned to watch out 
 for tricks. It was all new to him, he was learn- 
 ing patience in the school of experience and all 
 
 [193] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 would have come out well had not another very 
 usual complication arose. There are always 
 sqme interested parties hanging about who will 
 try to make trouble if they are not given a little 
 "squeeze." Since this was a government job 
 these characters were more numerous than 
 usual. The carpenters and masons saw no 
 reason why they should spend more of their con- 
 tract price on these people than necessary. In 
 the end these disgruntled and disappointed para- 
 sites hatched up a charge against the contractor 
 and he had to lose some hundreds of dollars. 
 Unfortunately a new magistrate had been placed 
 in office who was only too ready to back up such 
 nefarious schemes. 
 
 While his buildings were being erected, the 
 ranchman had pushed forward the planting of 
 his first crops. Rice had been the common crop 
 in the land formerly tilled. The ranchman 
 had no interest in this crop, he broke up the 
 small terraced rice patches, leveled the dividing 
 banks and enlarged the fields. He drove his 
 American plows to twice the depth of the Chin- 
 ese plow and turned up the long undisturbed 
 rich subsoil. His first wheat crop was the great- 
 est ever seen in the district. He set his men to 
 digging deep ditches and turned age-old marshes 
 into producing fields. 
 
 Lying in one of the mountains valleys is a 
 forest of some forty acres, owned by the monas- 
 tery which is situated in its midst. The leading 
 priest is one of the few priests in China who has 
 
 [194] 
 
A RANCH 
 
 some education and initiative. In these days 
 when the Chinese have largely ceased support- 
 ing their temples by subscriptions he has made 
 his place self-supporting by forest conservancy 
 and by the developing of the open land belong- 
 ing to the monastery. He is less of a priest than 
 a manager. From the forest he has furnished 
 such firewood as the richer people use. He has 
 made charcoal kilns and burned lime. Some of 
 his wheat fields lie on the very top of the moun- 
 tain range. 
 
 This single forest stands alone in all this 
 country. The remainder of the hills have been 
 given over to fuel cutters who not only denude 
 them of the wild grass but cut down every grow- 
 ing shrub and sweep them over annually with 
 fire. Tree roots in the ground have struggled 
 for ages to grow, but annually their shoots have 
 been cut out and sold for fuel. Even some of the 
 roots have yearly been grubbed up and sold in 
 the city. The first act of the ranchman was to 
 forbid the grubbing up of roots or the cutting of 
 tree sprouts. He shipped in fruit trees and 
 planted a great orchard. Mulberry trees were 
 set out along the sides of the streams. Timber 
 producing trees were planted on the mountain 
 sides. If protection is continued over these in 
 another twenty years the barren hills will be 
 covered with extensive forests. 
 
 When his buildings were completed our 
 ranchman had an eighty-foot horsebarn with 
 loft; cowstables, two hundred feet in length; two 
 
 [195] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 chicken houses for five hundred hens; a hog 
 stable with stone wall enclosure for about two 
 hundred porkers, a warehouse, a foreman's 
 quarters, and a comfortable bungalow. The 
 grounds about these buildings had been changed 
 from barren upland to orchards and gardens. A 
 vehicle road into the city had been leveled. 
 
 Meantime, upon the suggestion of the pro- 
 vincial governor, he had drawn up a five year 
 prospectus of what he planned to do. The gov- 
 ernment was devoting forty thousand dollars to 
 the establishment of the plant. The ranchman 
 figured upon the productiveness of his fields, his 
 orchards, his stock, and the figures showed that 
 in a short time, he would not only be paying all 
 expenses but, by the end of the five years, the 
 ranch would be paying considerable interest on, 
 the outlay. He saw no reason why he could not 
 employ California methods to the Chuchow dis- 
 trict with exactly the same results. He believed 
 that the rinderpest which so frequently afilicts 
 the cattle of the local farmers could be kept away 
 from his stock by pasturing them on the hills. 
 He thought he could grow silo corn, timothy 
 grass, clover and alfalfa and cure it and stack it 
 as he had always done in America. Cattle 
 which had always fed upon rice straw, bean 
 vines and bran, he thought could be kept in 
 healthy condition feeding upon the wild grass of 
 the hills. The Chinese are used to the heavy 
 rains and penetrating dampness of the summer 
 months and take special precautions for curing 
 
 [196] 
 
A RANCH 
 
 their straw and fodder. He had never experi- 
 enced a summer in China and saw no reason for 
 learning from ignorant coolies, so he went for- 
 ward trusting in his own American experiences. 
 
 Meantime he had come to his first autumn 
 and with his barns ready for stock, started north 
 to find cattle and horses. Chinese are proverb- 
 ially strong in raising prices on strangers, be 
 they Oriental or Occidental, so he had to pay 
 more for his stock than he had figured. A north- 
 ern snow storm found him miles away from the 
 railroad to which he was driving his newly pur- 
 chased stock. He got them to the railroad and 
 back to his farm, but his body, which had lost its 
 former endurance by reason of the long con- 
 valescence following his accident, could not 
 stand the exposure and he had been using a con- 
 siderable amount of alcoholic drinks all the time. 
 This exposure, which formerly would have been 
 thrown off without trouble, this time kept him in 
 the house for a month and revealed both a bad 
 heart and diseased kidneys. The Japanese 
 woman whom he now introduced to all visitors 
 as his wife, faithfully nursed him through the 
 trjdng days. Indeed, he would hardly have been 
 able to pull through without her. 
 
 His practice had been to rise early each 
 morning and ride from one end of his cultivated 
 fields to the other. During the day he had kept 
 his horse in saddle and personally directed all 
 of the work. He could no longer do this, conse- 
 quently the workmen slackened their energies 
 
 [197] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 and the foreman did not show enthusiasm in 
 keeping the work going. They had not found 
 their master to their liking. He had too often 
 asked impossible things of them. The second 
 summer did not find the ranch going smoothly. 
 The ranchman was often irritated because of the 
 slackness of the men, because of what he sus- 
 pected was going on behind his back, and be- 
 cause he himself did not have the energy to push 
 forward the work as he had hoped. He had put 
 up many miles of wire fence, especially wiring 
 in the orchards and gardens about his house, 
 so outside curiosity seekers did not trouble him 
 as formerly. Still, at times, they would glover 
 his barriers. 
 
 The heavy rains of that second summer in- 
 jured both his grain and his fodder which he had 
 persisted in harvesting and stacking with the 
 ordinary American methods. His cattle failed 
 to do well on the wild grass of the hills. Money 
 was slipping out of his hands through the usual 
 Chinese underhand channels. Most of all he had 
 not been able to win the confidence and whole 
 hearted support of his assistants. He had 
 wanted them to work his way and was unwilling 
 to learn things from them. In the autumn and 
 winter many of his cattle died, either of disease 
 or rinderpest. Our furlough time had come and 
 he lost the medical support for the year. He 
 tried to doctor himself and, at the same time 
 hold his own with the Chinese. He sank most 
 of his own earnings into the plant temporarily to 
 
 [198] 
 
A RANCH 
 
 bridge over the losses. The following summer 
 he was taken down with an abscess of the liver, 
 was taken to the foreign hospital in Nanking, 
 but his weakened body could not longer stand 
 the strain and he passed away. 
 
 This was a sad ending to a hopeful govern- 
 ment experiment, and the Chinese needed such 
 an experimental plant badly. Eighty five per 
 cent of the nation are tilling the same soil. That 
 they could maintain the fertility of the soil 
 through so many generations is a marvel to us. 
 Yet anyone who has given the matter considera- 
 tion can see that the land is not producing one 
 half of what it might. With such a great popu- 
 lation, the amount of grain produced in China 
 means life or death to the pepole. This ranch- 
 man demonstrated that deeper plowing, proper 
 ditching and underdraining, the selection of bet- 
 ter seed, the planting of orchards and the grow- 
 ing of trees on the mountains can more than 
 double the products of the land. He did not real- 
 ize that there were some things he must learn 
 concerning the people and the country, and be- 
 cause of these he failed and died a failure. 
 
 Without even a common school education, 
 this man had come to a strange land and under- 
 taken to work out the scheme of the provincial 
 governor. He had to handle forty workmen to 
 whom all of his instructions must go through an 
 interpreter. Neither the interpreter nor the men 
 had ever seen a farm run on an American plan. 
 They only knew how to do it in the Chinese way. 
 
 [199] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 He could not understand the reasons for such 
 crass disobedience or ignorance and was con- 
 stantly irritated. The workmen learned many 
 forcible expressions by hearing them so fre- 
 quently uttered, and they knew he was cursing 
 them. His vigorous gestures and angry expres- 
 sion told them that without the aid of an inter- 
 preter. No man can gain faithful service through 
 such a method. 
 
 We honored this man for the hard work he 
 did in putting up buildings, selecting seed, cul- 
 tivating ground, buying stock and, altogether for 
 dealing in a straight forward manner. "My 
 word is as good as my bond" was his oft re- 
 peated Americanism. But the longer we watcn- 
 ed him the more we realized that, for a man with 
 his education and training, the task was an im- 
 possible one. His coarseness was even more re- 
 pulsive to the educated Chinese with whom he 
 had to deal than it was to us who had been some- 
 what familiar with such characters in our young 
 manhood. 
 
 The Chinese know the value of experimen- 
 tal farms. The young men who work as assist- 
 ants or laborers on such farms may, in a few 
 years, be able to go out and revolutionize Chinese 
 farming methods to the betterment of Chinese 
 production. But the Americans or other for- 
 eigners who succeed with these experiments 
 must have a very different training and educa- 
 tion than this man had. China has learned 
 the value of Christian character and wants men 
 
 [200] 
 
A RANCH 
 
 of that type. Farming demands strength of 
 character and a peculiar type of culture. China 
 needs men who will appreciate her problems and 
 who will enter such service as true missionaries. 
 Some of the missionary societies have answered 
 the appeals for such men and some missionaries 
 are already on the job delving into China's soil. 
 Through no finer methods can the farming 
 classes of China be led to appreciate the neces- 
 sity of the Gospel for the redemption of China's 
 lands and people. 
 
 [201] 
 
XIII 
 MEDICAL MINISTRY TO THE MISSIONARY 
 
 There is a saying which used to be frequent- 
 ly heard; "The blood of the martjTS is the seed 
 of the Church." Not so many years ago some of 
 our most ardent missionary supporters and sec- 
 retaries were given to saying, "We need more 
 missionary graves on the mission fields." They 
 believed that every death of a missionary on the 
 foreign field meant a hundred fold harvest in 
 new converts, and led many other young people 
 to consecrate themselves to the heroic task of 
 evangelizing the world for Christ. There is no 
 doubt that the death of a consecrated missionary 
 does bear fruitage, but the fruitage has been 
 chiefiy shown in the stirring up of the churches 
 to larger gifts and in leading more young people 
 to volunteer for the service. 
 
 A few years ago a young doctor started on 
 the long journey from America to the Tibetan 
 border. A group of missionaries out there were 
 looking forward with intense eagerness to his 
 coming. One doctor was there but he sorely 
 needed a partner in the medical work. The new 
 recruit, who became known as the "Little Doc- 
 tor," because he was small in comparison to the 
 
 [202] 
 
MEDICAL MINISTRY TO THE MISSIONARY 
 
 stature of the other doctor with whom he was to 
 be associated, while taking the long journey to 
 the "Roof of the World" wrote a diary and that 
 diary has inspired many another consecrated 
 Christian worker. 
 
 The Little Doctor safely reached his destin- 
 ation and great was the joy of that isolated 
 group of workers when they had the privilege 
 of welcoming him to their midst. A Chinese 
 teacher was found and he sat down to his study 
 of the Oriental language. Scarcely two months 
 passed when, one morning, he was taken down 
 with a raging fever. It did not take long to 
 find that not only typhoid but smallpox had 
 taken hold upon him. The Big Doctor at once 
 isolated his patient, going into quarantine him- 
 self that he might care for his associate. The 
 daily meals and other needs were passed to them 
 over an intervening wall. Only a few days 
 passed when as the wife of the Big Doctor went 
 out to inquire how the patient had passed the 
 night, she heard her own husband sobbing. The 
 Little Doctor had gone Home thus early in his 
 unselfish service. 
 
 The Tibetans were not stirred over his 
 death. They had had no opportunity either to 
 know him or his purpose toward them. There 
 had been established no bonds of sympathy. Why 
 should they be stirred over his death? What 
 was he to them? His fellow missionaries buried 
 him up there in the mountains beside the road 
 over which he had come to their station. On his 
 
 [203] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 tomb they inscribed in English, Chinese and 
 Tibetan, "Greater love hath no man than this, 
 that a man lay down his life for his friends." 
 Some day when the Tibetans come to understand 
 the message he had hoped to bear to them they 
 may be stirred by the sight of that lonely tomb. 
 
 But when the cablegram reached America 
 bearing the news of his death and the message 
 was sent to the church from which the Little 
 Doctor had gone out, another young doctor sit- 
 ting in the pews heard the message as a call to 
 his own heart and he quickly sent the question to 
 the missionary society, "Can I go and take his 
 place?" He went and today is trying to fill the 
 place the Little Doctor had hoped to fill. Through 
 him "he being dead, yet speaketh." 
 
 The task of the missionary of to-day is the 
 building up of the Church of Christ in these dark- 
 ened lands. This is a task of years. It cannot 
 be done by filling early graves. No business could 
 prosper if the managers were changed every 
 year or so. No church is likely to grow if It 
 changes its pastor often. Modern Christian 
 workers have no desire to fill untimely graves. 
 Their task is too great. If there are still those 
 in the homeland who think the cause of Christ 
 can be better advanced by such a method — ^well, 
 the missionaries are not even willing that they 
 should have the privilege of coming to the field 
 to fill such graves. The men and women who 
 are able to give twenty, forty and fifty years to 
 
 [204] 
 
MEDICAL MINISTRY TO THE MISSIONARY 
 
 the mission field are the ones who will be blessed 
 by seeing the work of their hands prosper. 
 
 We need men like Goodrich, Sheffield and 
 Mateer of North China who, after long years of 
 service, have produced Chinese With great Chis- 
 tian power, men who are leading forward the 
 Church in China. We need such men as Dr. 
 Macklin who, after more than thirty years spent 
 in Nanking, has permanently connected his 
 name with the salvation and uplift of that city. 
 We need lives like J. Hudson Taylor, the man 
 who founded and saw the China Inland Mission 
 grow until it has a thousand loyal workers 
 spread abroad in every province. Some of these 
 men are to-day filling missionary graves, but 
 they did not fill the graves until they had been 
 living epistles known and read among the Chi- 
 nese for many decades. 
 
 To produce a missionary requires many 
 thousands of dollars. The training may have 
 begun back in the lives of his ancestors three 
 and four generations removed. The missionary 
 himself has passed, at the expense of govern- 
 ment and parents, through all the grades of the 
 public school. He has gone on into college and 
 university. Through all of these years money 
 has been invested in his life, awaiting the day 
 when his earning capacity can be of use to the 
 world. Then interest on the investment will be- 
 gin coming back. His food, clothing, school 
 books, doctor's bills and many other expenses 
 necessary to fit him as an educator, doctor and 
 
 [205] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 preacher, will at a conservative estimate amount 
 at his graduation to ten or twenty thousand 
 dollars. Meantime he has not turned back to his 
 home, town, college or university any interest on 
 all that has been expended upon him. It is just 
 as good a business principle to expect that the 
 capital thus invested in his life become a paying 
 investment, as it is to invest a like amount in a 
 manufacturing establishment. If he is true to 
 the standards of common honor and has his 
 health, somewhere in this broad world he must 
 pay back the investment. 
 
 We send an educated and cultivated young 
 couple to China. We pay the expense of their 
 outfit, of their voyage, of their first two years 
 when they are learning the new language and 
 customs of the people. Just as they have be- 
 come fitted to take up responsibility in the task 
 to which they have been assigned, the husband 
 dies. Perhaps meantime a little one has come 
 to the new home they are setting up. The wife 
 may be compelled, for this reason, to return to 
 the homeland, at least until her little one is old 
 enough for her to do such special work. Can the 
 Church of Christ in China or in any other land 
 be built up in this way? Can another man be 
 sent out who will at once be able to take the 
 place made vacant? Can a new recruit fill the 
 place of a missionary who has spent five or ten 
 years on the field? 
 
 Not counting the large financial investment 
 in homes, churches, schools and hospitals which 
 
 [806] 
 
MEDICAL MINISTRY TO THE MISSIONARY 
 
 missionary societies have built in China, we 
 have here six thousand missionaries in whom 
 the Christian world has in their training invest- 
 ed not less than sixty millions of dollars. We 
 have sent them into a land known to be unsani- 
 tary; a land in which contagious diseases run 
 rife. These missionaries have established 
 homes and in these homes have come not less 
 than four thousand children. The missionary 
 voluntarily took up the risks which such a life 
 impose. But have we the right to say that these 
 children shall be compelled to run greater risks 
 than the children in the homeland? Have they 
 not as much right to health and long life as any 
 children born in the homeland itself? 
 
 American and British missionary societies 
 have come to recognize the business aspect of 
 missions. During the past few years the call for 
 medical missionaries has increased, yet the lat- 
 est statistics available show but little more than 
 three hundred and fifty medical missionaries in 
 China. Not the least of the services rendered 
 by these men and women is the work they are 
 doing to protect the life and health of their fel- 
 low missionaries. 
 
 The situation today is about as follows: 
 the six thousand missionaries of all protestant 
 societies have established homes in about six 
 hundred cities in China. The medical men and 
 women have established medical work in 180 of 
 these six hundred cities. So there are still over 
 four hundred cities in China in which mission- 
 
 [207] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 aries live and work and in which are located no 
 medical co-workers. Some of these places are 
 two, three, five, and even ten days' distance 
 from a medical man. If a missionary in such a 
 place falls sick, he must wait that length of time 
 and usually more before a physician can reach 
 him, or before he may reach the doctor. This 
 shows that the missionary societies are still 
 caring very inadequately for the great invest- 
 ment they hold in human lives, trained lives. 
 Yet let us see of how much value the doctor is 
 to the work. We have at hand the statistics of 
 one mission. 
 
 This mission has carried on work in China 
 for over thirty years. Over eighty men and 
 women have been sent out during this time. The 
 average number on the field at any one time has 
 been thirty-five. More than eighty children have 
 been growing up in the homes of the mission- 
 aries. Ten of the missionaries have died during 
 the thirty years. The first died during the early 
 days when the entire force was compelled to live 
 under unsanitary conditions. They were given 
 little opportunity during the hot summer days to 
 get away from their stations. These four mis- 
 sionaries gave an average of seven and a half 
 years to evangelizing China. Undoubtedly two 
 of them could have been saved had they had the 
 same health protections which the missionaries 
 of today enjoy. Of the other two, one died from 
 drowning and the other of typhus contracted 
 from refugees to whom he had been daily minis- 
 
 [208] 
 
MEDICAL MINISTRY TO THE MISSIONARY 
 
 tering. The last six who have died gave an 
 average of more than twenty-two years to the 
 building up of the Church in China. 
 
 Of the eighty children in the mission three 
 died previous to the year 1901. Two of these 
 could have been saved under the present day 
 conditions. From 1901 to 1917 only one child 
 died. In 1917 one child, while in school in 
 Shanghai, contracted scarlet fever and passed 
 away. In 1919 another babe, less than a year 
 old, died from heart lesion. During these years 
 since the Boxer Rebellion it has been the estab- 
 lished custom that all mothers and their chil- 
 dren spend their summers in Ruling or Mokan- 
 shan, up in the mountains where the nights are 
 ccol and the water pure. They were thus iso- 
 lated from the epidemics of dysentery and 
 cholera which every summer carried ofE count- 
 less numbers of the Chinese and their children. 
 Their bodies were kept in such health that it was 
 easy to resist disease the remainder of the year. 
 Since then, one or two have had smallpox in a 
 light form. One has had relapsing fever and 
 numbers of them have had short sieges from 
 malaria. Those who have gone to the homeland 
 to complete their education, have easily taken 
 their place beside the school children of equal 
 age, often surpassing them in their studies. On 
 the athletic field they have likewise proved their 
 capabilities to stand up to the best. They have, 
 in short, been granted their inalienable rights to 
 life and health. 
 
 [209] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 How has this change been brought about? 
 It has been done by giving health education to 
 the missionaries themselves, to the missionary 
 societies and even to the churches who are 
 sending out the new men and women. Young 
 missionaries have had to return early to the 
 homeland, either because the home society was 
 too careless in the physical examination of 
 candidates, or because the new missionary would 
 not take the counsel given and be careful of his 
 health during the days when he was becoming 
 acclimated to the new land. He forgot that he 
 was nearer the equator, that the sun was more 
 directly over his head, that there was more dust 
 in the air during certain seasons, and that there 
 were sudden changes from extreme heat to cool- 
 ness. He neglected to take into consideration 
 that China is a treeless land, or nearly so; that 
 the streets are full of decaying vegetable matter, 
 that the numerous ponds make mosquitoes om- 
 nipresent, and that flies make CMnese food dan- 
 gerous to eat in summer. 
 
 The Chinese are accustomed to the pres- 
 ence of fleas and many varieties of lice. Es- 
 pecially is this true among the poor, and the 
 poor are everjrwhere in China. There is no such 
 thing in the land as quarantine. Children, in 
 the scaling period of smallpox, are carelessly al- 
 lowed about the street and among crowds of 
 people. We have over and over again, found 
 them with their parents sitting in the church 
 service. Owing to the manner in which the 
 
 [210] 
 
MEDICAL MINISTRY TO THE MISSIONARY 
 
 gardeners pour night soil on the gardens, 
 Chinese vegetables readily convey intestinal 
 diseases. It has been difficult for some new 
 missionaries to understand why they could not 
 eat some such vegetables uncooked. They found 
 out however, when their walks took them into 
 the vegetable gardens. The old missionary 
 boils all of his drinking water and all of the milk 
 used by his family. Some times this seems 
 much trouble for nothing. Why should there be 
 so much washing of hands and changing of cloth- 
 ing and the wearing of cork or pith helmets? 
 Missionary societies have now come to recognize, 
 also, the importance of screening the homes of 
 all missionaries. 
 
 Even with all of these precautions, it has 
 not always been possible to shut out disease. 
 During the spring days mothers have been loathe 
 to allow their children to attend Sunday ser- 
 vices. So many infections are to be found 
 among the audience. Yet the children have been 
 known to pick up germs from a Chinese child 
 passing the door of the compound while the for- 
 eign child was looking out upon the street. We 
 were called recently to see a virulent smallpox 
 case in a hut which had been pitched by the side 
 of the street but a few rods away from the mis- 
 sion compound. 
 
 The doctors have found their walls of pro- 
 tective influence are insufficient when they are 
 composed of brick eight feet high built around 
 the missionary home. This has been especially 
 
 [211] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 true when the intense early summer heat beats 
 down upon the defenceless heads of the children 
 who will run out while mother is not looking. 
 The resistance of the body to disease is much less 
 at that time. The necessity for summer sana- 
 taria became apparent years ago, and places all 
 over China have since been opened. There is 
 Pei-te-ho on the seashore in the north; Kuling 
 and Chi-kung-shan in the mountains along the 
 Yangtse River; Mo-kan-shan, a low mountain 
 not far from Hangchow; Kuliang near Foochow, 
 and other places less known. Before the open- 
 ing of these places, the missionaries gathered in 
 large centers would find themselves, as summer 
 approached, asking under their breath, "Who 
 will be the one to fall this summer?" Today 
 sick missionaries are sent to these places to re- 
 cuperate and the longer sick-leave furlough to 
 the homeland is made unnecessary for most of 
 them. 
 
 Nanking has its large hospitals for Chinese 
 sick. It also has a hospital specially erected for 
 the sick among the foreigners, the gift of 
 a missionary as a memorial to his little son 
 who was taken away from him. In this hospital 
 operations are now performed for conditions for 
 which it was formerly thought necessary to send 
 the patient home. Diseases have been caught in 
 time and the missionary has been put back to his 
 work in a shorter time than it would have taken 
 to make the journey home. We recall two cases 
 of incipient cancer. Operation was performed in 
 
 [212] 
 
MEDICAL MINISTRY TO THE MISSIONARY 
 
 time and both patients are alive and active in the 
 work. In the mountains in Kuling a hospital 
 has been established for the single purpose of 
 caring for foreign patients. Tubercular mis- 
 sionaries go to their cottages in those mountains 
 and remain for a year or two and then are able 
 to come down into the valley and again take up 
 their work. There has also been built a tuber- 
 cular hospital for Chinese and numerous edu- 
 cated Chinese workers have been saved by it 
 for longer life service. 
 
 The doctors have not been satisfied with 
 these measures alone. In the homeland we 
 know that if we would keep out infectious dis- 
 eases we must co-operate with our neighbors and 
 establish town or city boards of health. We have 
 gone farther there and have the state and Na- 
 tional health departments. We have learned 
 more perfectly during the war that international 
 health work adds to the perfectness of such pre- 
 cautions. Men have gone to Cuba and Mexico 
 to fight yellow fever. They have gone to Man- 
 churia to fight the pneumonic plague. They have 
 gone to Servia in the interest of all mankind 
 that typhus might be put down. Ellis Island and 
 San Francisco isolation departments will not 
 keep disease out of the United States. In order 
 to keep out diseased immigrants and travelers 
 we must co-operate with all nations. 
 
 It is likewise impossible to shut disease 
 away from our missionary homes by the building 
 of brick walls about our gardens and by traveling 
 
 [213] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 to the mountains in summer. Disease among the 
 Chinese people must be checked. This cannot 
 be accomplished by such work as we have in the 
 past done in our hospitals and dispensaries. The 
 giving of drugs and advice as to how to eat will 
 not eradicate disease. Preventative measures 
 must do that. When smallpox came to our city 
 we CO operated with the local officials in a cam- 
 paign for general vaccination and not only saved 
 our children but theirs. When cholera came the 
 magistrate refused to co-operate and we could 
 only wait helplessly by, ministering to any at- 
 tacked person brought to us, but powerless to 
 prevent its attacking others. One school boy can 
 spread trachoma through a school. The only pre- 
 ventative means we have found is to draw the 
 teachers and pupils into a class in hygiene and 
 school sanitation. Tuberculosis has been lessened 
 by teaching the schoolboys and girls how to 
 breathe properly, how to stand erect, and how to 
 exercise regularly. A new race of men and 
 women is growing up in China. 
 
 Western trained doctors in China are few in 
 number, but persistently there is growing in 
 their hearts a great ambition. They are length- 
 ening the lives and usefulness of their fellow 
 workers. They are giving the foreiign children 
 their rights to health. They are annually treat- 
 ing fifty thousand inpatients and a million and a 
 half outpatients. They are training assistants. 
 Some of them are translating medical works. 
 Groups of them are gathered into medical col- 
 
 [214] 
 
MEDICAL MINISTRY TO THE MISSIONARY 
 
 leges for bringing the knowledge of western 
 medicine to a new race of young Chinese doc- 
 tors. Besides all of these tasks they are planning 
 and slowly carrying out a campaign the results 
 of which will in the next half century make 
 China as sanitary as America. 
 
 We remember Dr. Jackson who gave his life 
 in the fight against pneumonic plague. We think 
 of Dr. Hart and Dr. Lucy Gajnaor who contracted 
 tjrphus from ministering to refugee patients and 
 laid down their lives as a result. We think of 
 Dr. Butchart who literally wore out his life in his 
 ministry as an eye specialist both to Chinese and 
 foreigners. We think of the great volumes of 
 prayer which have ascended to the gates of 
 Heaven from all classes of people when, these 
 noble workers were prostrated with disease. 
 Their lives went out, but their works do live 
 after them. They were able to live long enough 
 to imitate the spirit of the Master so clearly 
 that the Chinese will not let their memory pass 
 away. Their fellow workers are wearing paths 
 to their graves and keeping them fresh with 
 flowers. These sought to carry out the command 
 of Christ who said, "As the Father hath sent Me, 
 so send I you." 
 
 [216] 
 
XIV 
 CHINA'S CALL TO AMERICA 
 
 It was a dangerous and far reaching experi- 
 ment when our forefathers decid.ed to establish 
 a democratic form of government, when they 
 declared that "life, liberty and the pursuit of 
 happiness" are the inalienable rights of all men. 
 Did they dream that a time would come when 
 people from other nations would flock to "the 
 land of the free" at the rate of a million a year? 
 Did they realize with what power their mo- 
 mentous decision would affect all nations of the 
 earth? Did they have the prophetic vision that 
 could foresee the present tendency of the world 
 toward the same form of government? 
 
 To work out the principles of self-govern- 
 ment our forefathers sought isolation. Wash- 
 ington advised that no permanent alliances with 
 other nations be formed. For a hundred years 
 we asked only to be let alone. But other peoples 
 would not let us alone. An ever increasing host 
 of intelligent people believed in the proposition 
 even before we had worked it out. Indeed, it can 
 be truly said that we have not yet worked it out. 
 But to these peoples born and reared in other 
 nations America has constantly been a Promised 
 
 [216] 
 
CHINA'S CALL TO AMERICA 
 
 Land. So America could not isolate herself 
 from other nations. Her experiment worked 
 so well she became a leading, if not the leading 
 nation of the world. As such she must consent 
 to take a leading part in working out world prob- 
 lems. America has long been a refuge for op- 
 pressed people. She is now being asked to be a 
 refuge, figuratively, for oppressed nations. God 
 has made her a leader in democracy; so she must 
 send out her sons and daughters as specialists in 
 democracy. They must give aid to these nations 
 in the development of the same ideal. 
 
 It is not America's own need which should 
 compel her thus to go out and form alliance with 
 other nations. For her own sake she does not 
 need spheres of influence nor plots of territory in 
 other lands. It was their need and not hers 
 which led to the freeing of Cuba, to the occupy- 
 ing of the Philippines and Porto Rico and to the 
 purchasing of certain islands from Denmark. It 
 was the need in the Philippines which caused 
 America to send a thousand teachers there who, 
 in a decade, did more to lift up the Filipinos 
 than Spanish ofiicials and residents had done in 
 four hundred years. 
 
 Yet, if the people of the United States are to 
 see the homeland grow unto that perfection 
 which may be hers, there must, for her sake as 
 well as the sake of others, be this going, reach- 
 ing out to the weak and struggling nations. It 
 was with something of this spirit that American 
 doctors went into Cuba and Mexico to study and 
 
 [217J 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 fight yellow fever. It was the same compelling 
 force which sent others into Servia to fight 
 typhus. It was that compelling force which led 
 Hoover to give himself for the feeding of Europe. 
 That was the ultimate compelling force which 
 led Americans to enter the world war. There 
 was no other way by which the world could be 
 safe for democracy, either in America or in an- 
 other part of the world. No man can attain unto 
 his highest ideals unless he lifts others with 
 himself. No nation can gain and hold among 
 the nations of the earth superiority in wealth, 
 government and morals unless its beneficent in- 
 fluences are extended to the weaker nations. 
 "No man liveth unto himself;" neither can any 
 nation do so. 
 
 We believe many of the statesmen and 
 leaders in America have recognized this in our 
 nation's relations with China. When, after the 
 Boxer outbreak, other nations were demanding 
 large indemnities, America turned hers back, 
 using it for the establishing of schools, and that 
 China's youth might cross the Pacific and enter 
 American colleges. When famines came to 
 China, America organized relief. America sent 
 an opium commission to study the conditions in 
 the Philippines. This led her to call a world 
 opium commission to sit at Shanghai and China 
 was given power and aid in abolishing the opium 
 traffic. American and British doctors working 
 in China combined in helping China form Red 
 Cross work for the following up of the armies in 
 
 [218] 
 
CHINA'S CALL TO AMERICA 
 
 the Revolution and Rebellion. Our mission hos- 
 pitals were freely offered for caring for the 
 wounded and sick. And America was the first 
 great power to recognize the new Republic of 
 China. In these years of construction Americam 
 missionaries have been in the forefront in reform 
 movements. 
 
 Yet the American government has shown a 
 lamentable weakness in her interest in Oriental 
 affairs. As long as It was a case of philanthropy 
 or sentiment, the American Government could 
 extend to the Chinese the helping hand. So her 
 universities were open to Chinese students. Com- 
 mercial commissions were organized on both 
 sides of the Pacific and fostered by America. 
 Mutual recognition of republics was an easy 
 matter, and the floating of flags from all public 
 buildings was also a beautiful tribute. But when 
 it came to a place where it would be necessary 
 for the American Government to protect Ameri- 
 can trade interests or investments in China, as 
 other countries were willing to do for their 
 countrymen, such protection was refused. The 
 American Red Cross proposed to put an end to 
 the ever recurring famines in the Hwai region by 
 opening up the old mouth of that river. They 
 employed an American engineer to make pre- 
 liminary surveys and estimates to see if the 
 scheme was feasible. All this the American 
 Government approved. But when it became 
 necessary to finance the scheme and financiers 
 wanted security for the money they were willing 
 
 [219] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 to invest in it, the American government was 
 unwilling to promise the necessary security, as it 
 might lead to the using of diplomatic pressure 
 upon a weak and vacillating Oriental Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Japan has openly and secretly sought the 
 influence which America has had in China. She 
 has made repeated advances to groups of the 
 people and to the Chinese Government. She has 
 been willing to give security to the investments 
 made by her nationals in China, even when those 
 investments were made contrary to treaty and 
 without China's consent. All of her relation- 
 ships with China have been so manifestly selfish 
 that she has excited in the Chinese the bitterest 
 animosity. If China had agreed to all the un- 
 righteous demands which Japan tried to force 
 upon her, because China was the weaker nation, 
 China would long ago have lost all her national 
 freedom and would have passed, like Korea, un- 
 der the suzerainty of Japan. In the face of this 
 known antipathy of the Chinese for the Jap- 
 anese, a writer in one of our magazines, after re- 
 viewing the political and trade conditions in 
 China, made the strange and un-American sug- 
 gestion that we should give all possible aid to 
 Japan in obtaining this control of China as it 
 would increase our trade with the Orient. Such 
 action would be betraying one in the house of his 
 friends. We are sure, especially after the light 
 upon the Shantung question which has been 
 given the American public, that they would not 
 
 [220] 
 
CHINA'S CALL TO AMERICA 
 
 consent to such an unrighteous, undemocratic 
 and unchristian act 
 
 The Chinese have, in the past, shown them- 
 selves to be a virile people. They have retained 
 a strong national spirit through many gener- 
 ations. They have over and over absorbed their 
 conquerors, for example, the Mongols and Man- 
 chus. They have a right to glory in their long 
 history as a nation. They have always kept edu- 
 cation to the forefront, even from the days when 
 they were coexistent with the Hebrews and 
 Egyptians as nations. Their textbooks have 
 always held up morals and right conduct. They 
 were taught to honor their parents and render 
 allegiance to their rulers. It has been such his- 
 tory and such education which has made them 
 marvels in the world of diplomacy. 
 
 They amazed the world when they threw off 
 the opium traffic. America fought the liquor 
 traffic for fifty years. China abolished opium in 
 seven. That it is regaining a hold upon the 
 country is not the fault of the educated people, 
 but of the military power which, with Japan's 
 help, is strangling the nation. It is Japan who 
 is smuggling in the drug through Tsingtao which 
 they are anxious to hold as their own. The su- 
 perstitions which held the common people in 
 bondage, preventing the building of railroads, 
 the dredging of canals, the opening of mines and 
 the introduction of better industrial methods 
 have been largely overthrown. The Revolution 
 gave idolatry a deadly blow. So many of its 
 
 [221] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 leaders had been educated in Christian schools 
 they had no fear of the idols and threw them out 
 of the temples when they needed the places for 
 barracks or schools. Even before they took this 
 step, temples were going into decay and the idols 
 were disintegrating into mud and rotten straw. 
 Christianity is surely but steadily defeating su- 
 perstition. 
 
 The attitude of the literati toward the Chris- 
 tian propaganda is most encouraging. Twenty 
 years ago they were not idolaters, but atheists 
 and agnostics. The Japanese had imported 
 much French literature on these subjects and 
 had translated it into the Chinese character. The 
 Chinese literati had thus become familiar with 
 the writings of Voltaire, Huxley and Spencer. 
 They had tolerated in others and in themselves 
 certain moral delinquencies. Numbers of them 
 had two or more wives. This was so common 
 that none of them thought of it as a moral ques- 
 tion. They gambled and gave wine feasts to each 
 other for recreation's sake, forgetting that these 
 things might have a moral side. Like the old 
 pastor, they thought that "the boys had to sow 
 their wild oats before they could settle down and 
 be respectable men." So they were tolerant 
 toward moral lapses. Christianity came along 
 and demanded high moral standards. They 
 were willing to cast out their old superstitions, 
 but they thought it a little too much to ask them 
 to give up their recreations, the only good times 
 they could have. Perhaps they did not reason 
 [222] 
 
CHINA'S CALL TO AMERICA 
 
 that far. for most people do not see any harm in 
 certain weaknesses common to all humanity. At 
 any rate the literati preferred passive agnosti- 
 cism to positive Christianity. 
 
 Then the Revolution came along. They 
 and their women folk remembered the stories of 
 the soldiers of the Taiping days. They knew 
 their towns and districts were filled with irre- 
 sponsible characters who were willing, upon the 
 slightest provocation, to turn robbers and 
 looters. Ravaging and the burning of buildings 
 always had followed in the wake of their former 
 wars. They were faced with their own unpro- 
 tected condition, should such scenes be re-en- 
 acted in the Revolution. When armies began 
 appearing, their terror was pitiable. They ap- 
 pealed to the foreign missionaries who lived in 
 their midst and found an unsuspected faith and 
 courage among the Chinese Christians and un- 
 suspected power emanating from the Gospel. It 
 brought out in bold relief the weakness of their 
 former beliefs or lack of them, and strength of 
 the Christian faith as revealed in many 
 Chinese Christians. Since then thousands of 
 them have enrolled in Bible classes. Others 
 have fully accepted Christ. Very little of the 
 old antagonism remains. Missionaries have a 
 right to be optimistic, to believe that it is in the 
 realm of possibility for China to become a Chris- 
 tian nation. 
 
 The New China has been criticized for not 
 having been able to establish a stable govern- 
 
 [223] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 ment 'satisfactory to all sections. The country 
 is at present divided into a North and a South. 
 It is dominated by a military party, or rather 
 two parties, who are exploiting the country for 
 their own selfish purposes. This is all true, but 
 in making such statements we are prone to for- 
 get the period of unrest, selfishness and jealous- 
 ies which follows most wars. The United 
 States did not even elect a president until eight 
 years after the surrender of Cdrnwallis. China 
 has much harder problems to solve than had 
 the Thirteen Colonies. Geographically she has 
 as large a settled land as America has today 
 and one with very poor methods of communica- 
 tion. She has in addition, the largest population 
 of any nation in the world, with the vast majority 
 of the people illiterate. Other nations have 
 forced international problems upon her which 
 are hampering her progress. If other nations 
 would show the same unselfish spirit toward her 
 which America has shown she would at least be 
 given opportunity to prove whether she could 
 establish herself among the nations of the 
 earth. 
 
 While China holds other nations in distrust, 
 her people have implicit confidence in the 
 United States. Ever since the Revolution, 
 Chinese have been making very definite appeals 
 to America for aid in the development of the 
 country and the uplift of the people. China 
 wants educated young farmers to handle her ex- 
 periment farms and agricultural schools. She is 
 
 [224] 
 
CHINA'S CALL TO AMERICA 
 
 seeking teachers for normal and teclinical 
 schools. Realizing the weakness of the old idea 
 that when a pupil enters school he puts behind 
 him forever manual labor, China wants men and 
 women who will introduce practical industrial 
 education. One man went into a rising city in 
 Indiana and led educators all over the United 
 States to reconsider their former methods. 
 What could a group of teachers do if they would 
 seize this opportunity and lead China into these 
 modem industrial educational methods? 
 
 America has been very busy getting rich, 
 gaining culture and education, inventing new 
 marvels, writing books, learning better health 
 methods; finding ways for enjoying luxurious 
 living, recreation, and entertainments. The busi- 
 ness men have found plenty to do in developing 
 home resources; they saw no reason for taking 
 a vital interest in the progress of the rest of the 
 world. This was noticeable before the war in 
 the way in which our merchant marine was put 
 off the seas. The war brought to the knowledge 
 of American leaders the mistake which they 
 had made. To that extent, the war was a great 
 blessing to the United States. That old pro- 
 vincial spirit has been displayed in the way in 
 which Congress held up the Treaty of Peace, 
 American citizens who, like the missionaries, 
 have had their lot cast in a foreign land, wonder 
 when American leaders will really get a world 
 
 vision. 
 
 God has made the American nation the rich- 
 
 [226] 
 
CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 est on the face of the globe, filled her with in- 
 ventive genius, supplied her with culture, not to 
 the end that her people may merely roll about 
 in automobiles and spend their summer vaca- 
 tions at famous resorts, or that they may go 
 abroad to satisfy a selfish desire for travel and 
 sightseeing. God has placed us in a leading 
 world position to lead. For us to revel in our 
 luxuries and turn deaf ears to the appeals which 
 come to our nation from backward peoples of 
 the earth, would be fatal. He has placed us in 
 this position of responsibility that we may be- 
 come the Big Brother of less fortunate. God 
 demands that we accept mandatory powers over 
 such nations, for He has fitted no other nation 
 to do such work as He has prepared America. 
 
 It is said that within three hundred years 
 after Christ had ascended. His disciples had 
 preached the Gospel in all the then known 
 world. Through persecutions they toiled on in 
 the great task which He had bequeathed to them. 
 Then came recognition and favor from kings and 
 princes. Christianity became popular. The 
 Church became rich. "No longer need we say," 
 one of the Church leaders is said to have boasted, 
 "silver and gold have I none." "That is true," 
 some one answered. "But you cannot add as 
 Peter then added, "In the name of Jesus Christ, 
 walk." The Church forgot its mission and lost 
 its power. Mohammed might have become a 
 great apostle for Christ. But the Church had 
 slept and as it slept men had come and sowed 
 
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CHINA'S CALL TO AMERICA 
 
 tares. The tares sprang up and choked the 
 true seed. The regions which once were occu- 
 pied by the followers of Christ were conquered 
 by Mohammed. More than this, the church de- 
 generated and filled southern Europe with forms 
 and ceremonies which crushed out the spirit of 
 the Christ The religion now left to the people 
 there differs little from that found in so-called 
 heathen lands. 
 
 In its westward sweep, Christianity was 
 propagated by those in whom the Spirit of Christ 
 was strongest. Hence it has kept this spirit 
 the purest, the most uplifting in its front ranks. 
 America is called a Christian nation. Certainly 
 the Church of Christ shows great virility in 
 Canada and the United States. But Christianity 
 has swept on until the Pacific has also been 
 spanned. In the last twenty years the number 
 of missionaries in China has been trebled and 
 the majority of this increase has come from 
 America. Certain conditions now in the home- 
 land are similar to those formerly present in 
 certain European coimtries when they became 
 decadent. The great question is, are we going 
 to allow our homeland to share the fate of other 
 lands in which Christianity once wrought with 
 power? As Christianity becomes stronger in 
 Eastern Asia, are its fires to grow dimmer in the 
 rear ranks? We cannot believe that the Ameri- 
 can people will allow such a fate to come to 
 them. We see many indications which show 
 that American Christians are awakening to the 
 
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CHINA'S CROSSROADS 
 
 real mission of the Church, that the call of God is 
 being heard. 
 
 The world war called forth from our Ameri- 
 can people latent capacities for adventure, sacri- 
 fice and heroism beyond our former imagination. 
 Students went forth under the Y. M. C. A. to 
 sacrificial work behind the trenches and in the 
 prison camps. When th^United States entered 
 the war they eagerly pressed forward not only 
 to officer the ranks of a magically produced army, 
 but they were willing to do any kind of work re- 
 quired. Entire medical schools formed them- 
 selves into hospital units. Women went forth 
 and established home comforts and home re- 
 treats in the midst of the young soldiers. The 
 home people denied themselves food and other 
 comforts with undreamed-of willingness. From 
 among the highest or the poorest in the land the 
 sacrificial and heroic spirit was not found want- 
 ing. 
 
 We did this seemingly impossible task. We 
 warred for a principle, not against a nation or na- 
 tions. We won a victory for that principle, and 
 the winning of it placed a greater task upon us 
 than that placed by the war itself. With the war 
 old things passed away. Shall we still demand 
 that the things of the future be molded in the old 
 molds, or will we mold anew? We can if we will. 
 We showed, during the war, a great spirit of un- 
 selfishness. Our future influence and usefulness 
 to the world will depend upon our still showing 
 forth that same unselfish spirit. God has 
 
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CHINA'S CALL TO AMERICA 
 
 placed before our eyes a great vision, a world 
 vision. We must enter deeply into fellowship in 
 the sufferings of the world. We must be pre- 
 pared to make supreme sacrifices for world peace 
 and world uplift, if we are to be true to the vision 
 we have seen. 
 
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