Missionary Stories: China & Korea

The Little Black Hen That Became a Missionary 
Those Poppy Seeds
When the Bandit Chief Paid a Debt
We Know Him
The Cost of a Life
A Boy Who Was Wanted
What Can I Do? 

THE LITTLE BLACK HEN

THAT BECAME A MISSIONARY

LITTLE Dorothy Shelton was only five years old when her father, the famous Albert Shelton of Tibet, spent his furlough year in America, yet all that year she was looking forward to the long ride on the river boats in China, and to the longer ride in the sedan-chair over the mountains to her home.

At last they were in China again, and she danced merrily over the plank into the queer boat, ready to start up the Yangtse River. These boats are very heavy and awkward in shape. They are divided into three parts, and Dorothy's family, consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Shelton and their two little girls, were placed in the middle of the boat.

Dorothy would sit happily on the deck, watching the thirty men pulling at the oars if the river was wide and deep, or pulling on long ropes from the shore when there wire rapids in the river or when it was shallow and narrow. It was hard work to get the boat up the stream, and the men were often very tired and in danger of their lives. Dorothy would call to them and laugh at their queer actions as they hauled the boat.p>

Finally the boat trip came to an end and they started over the narrow mountain trails to their home, with coolies for the Shelton family, and mules for Dr. Shelton and for the baggage. The little mules were heavily loaded, but their feet were sure and they seldom slipped on the trail. Dorothy liked the sedan-chair in which she rode. It was carried on the shoulders of coolies who sometimes sang to the little girls as they walked. The flowers, the birds, the waterfalls, the animals, and the people whom they met were all interesting to wide-awake little Dorothy.

After twelve days of riding they came to a place where there were several missionaries who persuaded Dr. Shel­ton to stay and help them with their medical work for a few weeks. In that time Dorothy and her sister became great favorites in the Mission Station, so when Dorothy's seventh birthday came they gave her a real party and everyone brought a gift. There were sweets in gay boxes, and hand-carved toys made by the mountain folk, and many other nice things. At last one of the missionaries handed her a basket. When Dorothy opened it, out stepped a fat, black American hen.

"How nice!" cried the little girl. "I have always wished I could have a biddy of my very own. Thank you."

Soon the little black hen, which she named Anna, would follow Dorothy wherever she went, and they were great friends. Then the hen began to get cross and fussy, and seemed to want to stay in her basket.

"She must want to set on some eggs and raise some little chicks," said one of the missionaries. So they found ten of the black hen's own eggs, and she began to set. Meanwhile Dorothy made all sorts of plans for the day when she hoped that she would have eleven pets, instead of only one.

A few days later Mrs. Shelton said to the girls:

"We must be up bright and early tomorrow, for daddy thinks we must start on our way to Tibet."

"What are you going to do with your hen?" asked one of the grown-ups.

"She is going with me," replied Dorothy. "Anna wants to go with us."

"I don't think you can take the hen, daughter," said her father, quickly. "You know it will take us more than three weeks to get home to Batang."

"That's all right Anna will be comfortable in her basket. She wants to go," insisted Dorothy.

"If Anna gets there, she may improve the poultry stock of Tibet, and that is a thing that is sorely needed," said one of the men. "In that case, Anna would be a missionary also, wouldn't she, Dorothy?”

When the Sheltons were ready to start the next day, Anna was setting on her eggs in the basket, but the basket was wedged in under the seat of Dorothy's sedan-chair. How the carriers did laugh when they saw that hen start for Tibet. The road was very rough, and often Anna had to sit tight to stay on her eggs, but she was very patient.

Sometimes Dorothy would bend down and pat her head to encourage her. When they stopped, the little girl would feed her pet and let her run about a bit to rest her legs. But Anna was very faithful to her eggs.p>

Some days they traveled over very high mountains where the snow still lay in great banks; then in a few hours they would be down in the valley where it was hot and uncomfortable; but the little black hen did not seem to mind it as much as the grown folks did.

One day Dorothy heard queer noises, and when Anna stepped off the basket to eat, there were eight little black chicks in the basket. All but two of Anna's eggs had hatched, even if she was traveling in a sedan-chair. How proud Dorothy was then! People in the inns where they stopped would feed and play with them when Dorothy let them out on the floor, and all thought the little black hen was very good to be of so little trouble.

But one day two of the little chicks were not quick enough to get out of the way of a cat, so Anna had only six in her family when the coolies set Dorothy's sedan-chair down in front of her home in Batang, Tibet. How glad every one was to end the long, long ride!

Soon people in Batang began to hear of the little black hen, and they came to see it. They had never seen an American hen before, so they were amazed at her size.

When they found that Anna was laying eggs, they wanted to buy one, and that is when Anna began her missionary work, for men would work a whole day, helping in anything that Dr. Shelton had to do, if only they could have an egg.

Sometimes Anna's eggs were given as rewards for those who had tried very hard to do some good thing, or some hard thing. Sometimes they were given for faithful church attendance or for good school work.

When the chickens grew to be hens, the natives took their eggs and put them under their setting hens. Soon they had hens that laid bigger eggs, better eggs, more eggs, and hens that made better food when they were eaten. So Anna did just what the man had said she might do—she became a missionary in Tibet. Wasn't it lucky that Dorothy decided to take her birthday present with her in the sedan chair?

 

THOSE POPPY SEEDS

I WILL take them to the missionary," said the young Chinese farmer, looking at a package of poppy seeds which he held in his hand. "He will help me, I am sure. I cannot plant them, for opium brings suffering and trouble into the world" So he walked from his farm to the chapel in the town of Kienning. Robert McClure, a visiting missionary, happened to be in the chapel, and the young man told him of his problem. "The soldiers have made me buy these seeds," he said, they have taken a month's pay from me for them; they say I must plant them, but that I cannot do. I am a Christian, and I want to do what is right. I cannot raise opium. Will you not take these back to the soldiers tell them that I cannot plant them because I am a Christian?"

"That is what Christianity will do when it grips a man," thought Robert McClure, as he took the seeds and promised to help. "He is worth watching."

One day, the year following, Mr. McClure was sitting home far away over the mountains when he heard one at the door. There stood the young farmer from Kienning.

“Maybe you have forgotten me, but last year I brought poppy seeds to you that I could not plant," he said. “I’ve come to you over the eighty miles, of mountain path because I need some advice. I want to become a Christian pastor. I have saved what money I could. I have studied all I can by myself. Now I want to go to a Bible School and then work for Christ. Please tell me if you think I could ever become a Christian pastor."

For a long time the two sat talking together. Mr. McClure was telling him what a pastor needed to be if he wanted to lead others to Christ. The farmer was telling him of his life and of his dreams. When the young man left, it was decided that he should go to school, and he was very happy.

"Maybe some day I can work with a missionary in one of the American schools. That would be wonderful," he thought, as he trudged back over the long, steep, rough mountain path.

Five years went by—busy, happy ones for Mr. Liao, the farmer youth. He studied for a time and then was assigned to go as a helper and teacher in his home town of Kienning. One day great news came to him. Robert McClure was to bring his family and live right there in his town. How wonderful it would be to be a helper to his friend who had been so kind to him! He spread the good news around the town, and he hurried to get everything in good shape for the new work to begin.

For three years they worked together, hand in hand. They had a boys' school and a girls' school, a church, dispensary, and other interesting things. Other missionaries had joined the staff and work was going nicely. They had even raised the money for a new hospital. Then the bandits appeared.

When word came from the American Consul that the families of all American missionaries in the interior of China must go at once to the coast because of the danger from bandits, Mr. Liao was dismayed. What would become of the work if they all went away?

"I want you to be safe," he said to his friends. "If you stay, I will guard you with my life. I will gladly give mine for yours. If you must go, then I shall go down the river with you until I see you safe in Foochow."

Now Foochow was three hundred miles away on the coast. People had to go by boat—first in a little rowboat that picked its way down the swift river where there were many rocks. Then they had to take one of the clumsy, uncomfortable square-nosed boats used on the large rivers of China. Bandits were numerous on both sides of the river. Sometimes they shot at the boats from the bank. Sometimes they rowed out, stopped the boats, looted the passengers, even taking them for ransom if they thought it worth while.

Mr. Liao knew that the Americans would be much safer if he were along to treat with the bandits. So when the rowboats carrying his friends left Kienning, he was there to go also. For twelve long and dangerous days they went down the river. When they were stopped, Mr. Liao would go ashore, talk with the bandits, pay them a little, if neces­sary, and on they would go. Finally, when all were safe in Foochow, Mr. Liao turned to go back alone to his dangerous post.

"I must go immediately, for I am sadly needed there," he said "When you are ready to come back, send me word and I will come for you."

Four years later, when he had become known as Pastor Liao, and when many people in his town had given up idolatry because of his good work, he heard that the Communists were on their way to Kienning. Because he was a Christian and the head of his clan, he knew that his life was in danger from the men who hated the church. Waiting until they were almost in the town, he fled to the hills, where he lived alone for forty days, hoping that they would go on and he could return to his looted home. Finally word came to him that the Communists were continuing to look everywhere for him, and he decided to try to get to Kiangsi Province, where he would safe.

Dressed as a coolie, he made his way to the Nationalistic lines, but there he was arrested as a spy and was stood up to be shot. He demanded a trial, and when nothing could be proved against him he asked the privilege of trying to find a friend to vouch for his loyalty. He was allowed to walk through the village street, followed by a soldier. Scarcely a block from the prison he met an old friend who knew him and told of his faithfulness and courage. So he was released.

But where could he go and be safe? If only he knew what was happening in his home and his church! At last he decided to try to get to Foochow, where his American friends were living. He worked his way through the hills down to the Yangtse River, where he could get a boat and finally, after fifteen hundred miles of travel, many of them on foot, he arrived at Foochow, still three hundred miles from his family and his work.

There was great rejoicing among his friends in Foochow when he came, for they had had word that he was dead. They tried to make him comfortable after his long journey, and when he began to talk of going home, they offered him money to make the travel easier.

"The more I have, the more dangers I shall have face," he said. "I will take a fountain pen so that I can write my reports and pay my faithful helpers when I get back home again. That is all I want you to give me." So, still garbed as a coolie, Pastor Liao started back up the river again, eager to find his wife, who had b taken away for ransom, and to see the little son whom he loved so much.

And there he is today, with his reunited family, at the head of all the mission work in that town of Kienning, lovingly and faithfully caring for his band of Christians who have suffered so much at the hands of bandits and Communists in these last years, and watching carefully what still remains of the property of the Mission. He is loved and respected for miles around. He is what he wanted so much to be—a real pastor and leader of his people.

 

WHEN THE BANDIT CHIEF PAID A DEBT

WAY back in the hill country of China, many days journey from the coast, lived Dr. Walter Judd, a young American physician who had gone to China in search of a big job. He had had great possibilities America, but China, with its teeming millions and with its few doctors, seemed to offer him a far greater opportunity to use his education and his skill. So he volunteered to go as a missionary under the American Board of Foreign Missions of the Congregational Church, and was assigned to the hospital in Shawou.

When he first went to Shawou, there was a Christian Mission in the city and several missionaries were already at work. Then the bandits came sweeping through valleys, and the missionaries were ordered by the government to leave their homes and their work and go to the coast, where they could be protected.

"You men who have families ought to go," said Dr. Judd, "but I have no one dependent upon me. If I stay, I can try to protect the Mission property. I am needed here among these native Christians more than ever I was before, and here I am going to stay." So he was left behind.

The bandits soon came swarming into Shawou. They looted the village and the Mission Station. They took over Dr. Judd's hospital, filling the rooms with their sick and wounded. Being an American citizen, Dr. Judd was apparently free, but he knew that he was continually being watched and that he would pay with his life for any trouble he might cause.

Now the head of the bandits in that region was Chief Lu Hsin-Ming, a very cruel and wicked man. He was ignorant and degraded. Human life to him meant nothing at all. Yet by his brute force he held his company of nearly a thousand men. Every day they looted and made the life of the residents of Shawou and the region about miserable.

But one day Lu Hsin-Ming was taken violently ill. He took Chinese medicine, and it did him no good. He grew steadily worse. At last he came to the hospital to be cared for by Dr. Judd, and in a little while he was well again. While he was ill he had had a good chance to watch the young doctor and to feel his kindness and his skill. He saw that he was brave and unselfish, and he admired him.

Now malaria is one of the great enemies of the missionaries in that part of China, and Dr. Judd had had one attack after another. Finally in October he became so ill with it that he could not get about to do his work. For two months he tried to get it out of his system, but any little over-exertion put him back into bed again.

Suddenly word came that a Nationalist army was coming to drive the bandits out of that part of the country. Dr. Judd knew instantly what that meant. When they went, they would take him with them to care for their men. It was winter and they would be living in caves and rude shelters in the mountains. In his weakened condition, Dr. Judd knew that it meant sure and swift death for him. Yet there was no escape.

On New Year's Day a man came secretly to him from the bandit camp, saying, "I must tell you something, Doctor. The army of the Nationalists is only twenty miles away, and we must flee to the hills. We are going tonight, for I heard the men talking about it. They are going to take you. They will take many of the women, also and then they will demand ransom. They plan to loot the city again before they go. You are too ill to go. I told you because you have been kind to us."

Dr. Judd thanked him, but there was nothing to be done. He could write to the home folks; he would  get ready a few things to take; but he could not escape being taken along. He felt very ill. Slowly the time went by and evening came.

About seven o'clock Lu Hsin-Ming himself came to the dispensary. He sat down, and Dr. Judd waited for the order to go. Instead the bandit chief said:

"Dr. Judd; we are leaving town tonight. I was going to take you along, as you have probably guessed. I am not going to take you. You have been fair with us. You have willingly and faithfully cared for my men and me. You are not doing it for money. I don't really know why you do it. You have been sick, and if you had to live as we shall have to do, you would soon die. You can do good work, so I am not going to take you. How much do we owe the hospital?"

With a great thankfulness in his heart, the young doctor turned to the books and found the amount of bill. The bandit chief paid him that sum-$170. The men shook hands and Lu Hsin-Ming went out to command of the retreat.

That night, after all the stores were tightly closed. Lu Hsin-Ming gave the order to march. Not a shop was  looted; not a woman was taken along. Lu Hsin-Ming was repaying fairness and kindness with fairness kindness, and Dr. Judd's life was safe.

 

WE KNOW HIM

THE white colporteur, with his bag of tracts and Testaments to give away, or to sell, stopped when he came to the top of the very steep mountain and looked far into the valleys before him. There lay the little villages that he had come to seek, villages to which he was sure no white missionary had ever gone. He had long wanted to carry his Good News to them, and so he was happy as he looked down from the mountain.

Back of him lay the valley of the Yangtze with the river running like a silver ribbon through it. Around him were mountains—steep, rough, and many of them unknown to the world. As he rested, he thought of all the multitudes in the great land of China whom he would like to reach for Christ. Then he hurried on down the slope to the villages. He knew how eager the valley people were for news from the outside world, and he felt sure that they would gladly listen to the story which he had come to tell.

It was nearing evening when he came to the first village and asked for a place where he could cook his supper and spend the night. Soon a crowd began to gather about him, eager to see what a white man would do and how he would eat.

"Where have you come from and why are you here?" asked one of the men.

"I come from the villages along the Yangtze," he replied, "and I want to share with you some Good News that has made my life happy and useful. Gather the people together and I will read to you from a wonderful Chinese book."

By the time he had eaten his supper a large group people were standing and sitting about his tiny house.

Opening his bag that they might see how many books and pictures he carried there, he chose a New Testament in Chinese and began to read. He read of the birth Jesus; of his love for little children; of his healing the leper and the epileptic.

"These were sick people such as you have here in your own town," said the colporteur. "Listen to this story," he started to read of the healing of a lame man. As read, he noticed that their faces were full of a new eagerness and that they spoke one to another. Suddenly interrupted him, saying:

"We know him. He used to live right here in our town. He healed the sick and the lame here, too. He came to us from England."

"That could not be," said the colporteur. "This man did not live in England. He lived in Syria; he was never away from his own country, which is very far from here."

"You are wrong," they said, all trying to talk at once, "It was many years ago and we were children, but our older men can tell you all about him. His grave is here. He was a good man. He was kind to anyone who need him."

"No," said the colporteur. "This man, Jesus, was not here. His face was not white like an Englishman's. It was tanned from the sun like the Arab's."

"We do not know our friend's name," said a woman, "but we can show you his grave and the house in which he lived. When the plague came, and all the rest left us, he would not go. He gave us medicine out of dark bottles and helped us when we were sick. If our babies were born blind, he washed their faces and they could see. My mother has told me how he put his hands on sick folks and they felt better, just as you were reading in your book."

"We can show you a lame man whom he made to walk," added another. "Come and see, and then you will know that he lived in our village."

So the colporteur followed the crowd down the street toward the outskirts of the town.

"Here is where he lived," said an older man. "I have seen him sitting here in his door, and once he came to help when my mother was sick. He had a kind face, and I liked to go by his house."

"And here is his grave," cried a boy.

"Read what it says and then you will know that we do not lie," said a man. "We knew him, just as the people say."

The white colporteur stepped quietly to the little marker which stood over a single grave, not far from the road, and there he read the name of a young English volunteer missionary who had lived in the village and who had died of the plague.

"I must know more of this man," he said to those who were watching him. "Take me to one of your old, old men.” So they all went together to the home of one of patriarchs of the village. The old man listened to the questions of the colporteur, and then said,

"We called him ‘Friend,’ for that was the name he gave us when he came. He had just finished learning to a doctor when he came to China. He wandered along Yangtze for nearly seven hundred miles, looking for place where he wanted to live and work. One day he came to us, and here he stayed. He healed those who were sick and lame and blind, if he could. He worked day and night when we had the plague, and then, when we were better, he died. We have never forgotten him, for he was a good friend; he told us how to live in a good way. He wanted to stay in our town, so we buried him there in the field. I should like to know of this man of whom you read, who was like him."

So the colporteur told how Jesus came to teach a better way of life, and said that their good friend must have been a Christ-man, trying to follow as closely as he could what Jesus had told men to do. He read to them for a long time from the Bible and gave them part of it, that they might read more of the man who was like their doctor.

"We know Him already," said an eager listener. "We know what He was like, for He was like our friend who lived here in our town."

 

THE COST OF A LIFE

"WHAT shall we do?" asked Dr. Wang as he sat with his wife at the entrance of a cave on the side of a hill in Shansi, China. "We have nothing left to sell, and the children are starving. Where shall we go?"

"Perhaps the man who was so kind to us last week will take pity on us again and give us food," said Mrs. Wang. "Go once more to the village and see if some one will not help us. Surely God will not let our children starve. We will pray to Him again before you go."

After her husband had gone, Mrs. Wang sat alone, thinking over the dreadful days through which they had just lived. In the city where their home was situated Dr. Wang was loved and honored and they had had plenty to eat and to wear. But within the year 1900 the terrible Boxer Rebellion had made them flee for their lives, for they were Christians. Cruel men armed with spears and swords and guns were still going about the country killing foreign and native Christians alike, burning their homes, and destroying their property.   

When Dr. Wang had first fled from the city they had had a little money with which to buy food, but as the days went by it was all spent. Then they had sold their jewelry, their extra clothing, and last of all their cooking utensils. Starvation now stared them in the face. Word kept coming to them of the atrocities in the cities and they dared not try to go home again. All day long Mrs. Wang, or the older daughter, Obedience, who was seven, must hold the tiny baby who needed both food and medicine. Mrs. Wang's eyes filled with tears as she looked across the fields where the two children leaned against a rock, too weak to run and play, and she prayed again that some one would help her husband in his search for food.

Down in the village Dr. Wang went slowly along streets, begging for help. At last he came to the home of the man who had offered to feed him the week before. Now this man had a son who was of the age of Obedience Wang, and the villager knew that it would a very good thing if he could betroth his son to the daughter of an educated man like Dr. Wang, so, as they talk together, he said,

"If you will agree to the betrothal of the two children, I will give you three dollars with which to buy food."

"Three dollars!" thought Dr. Wang. "That would buy enough cheap grain to keep us for many days. But how can I betroth Obedience to a villager? What would her mother say?" For a while he was silent. Obedience seemed so young to be betrothed, even though it was the custom of all his friends to promise their children in marriage; but if he had no food for her, she might starve to death. She had been a pupil in the Mission School before Boxers came to Shansi, and he wanted her to have an education. At last he said to the man,

"You have been very kind to me, and I am thankful. Three dollars would save our lives for many days, and perhaps we shall soon have word that we can go home again. If you will let me take Obedience home and send her to school, and if you will promise me to send your son to a Christian school, then I will agree to a betrothal."

"If there are ever any village schools in Shansi again, said the father of the boy, "then I will send him to school"

So the writing was drawn, and Dr. Wang took the three dollars given him by the villager and bought food and medicine to take to his family.

Eight years went by. The Wang family had gone back to their home after the danger was over. They were still very poor, but they were happy to be together and to have enough to eat and wear. Obedience had gone back to the Mission School and by her loyalty and good work had won the admiration and respect of her teachers. It was the plan of the school to send her to Bridgman Academy in Peking to train for a teacher, so that she might help in the Mission Schools, and all the Wang fam­ily looked forward to the day when she could enter the higher school.

One day Dr. Wang came running into the home of one of the teachers, looking haggard and worn.

"It cannot be, and it shall not be," he cried. "Obedience shall never go back there to live in the heathen village with a boy who has never gone to school. They shall not take her."

"Who is trying to take Obedience?" asked the teacher, much alarmed. "Tell me about it."

"The man from the hills claims her for his son," cried Dr. Wang. "When we fled from the Boxers eight years ago, and were starving in the mountains, I betrothed her to a man's son for three dollars, and now he has come for her. He said he would send his son to school, and he hasn't done so. He didn't keep his part of the agreement, and I shall not keep mine."

"Let me see the agreement," said the teacher. 'Perhaps we can do something about it."

"Alas! I have no written agreement about the school," said the doctor. "He had been kind, and had given me food the week before, so I trusted him and said nothing when the paper did not state that his son was to go to school. Now I have nothing to show that he has broken his word. He says there was no school to which he could send him. The boy is ignorant and degraded, and Obedience would be very unhappy there. It were better that she should have starved to death."

"Suppose you go to the man and ask him how much he would ask to break the contract," said the missionary. "Perhaps he is not really eager to have Obedience." The doctor hurried away. When he returned he was shaking his head and walking very slowly.

"He will sell her to me," he began, "but he says he must have five dollars and a half. I have not so much money. I cannot get so much money. I have nothing to sell to get it, and he says he must have the money or the girl at once," and Dr. Wang threw himself, face downward, on the ground, weeping and calling the name of his daughter. A crowd had gathered about the house to see what was the matter, and they talked together to find ways by which the money could be raised, for five dollars and a half is a large sum to a Chinese villager.

When they had about decided that Obedience would have to go back with the man, one of the school-teachers came into their midst with a pocket full of Chinese money. She counted out coins to the value of five dollars and a half and handed them to Dr. Wang, saying:

"Take this money to the villager. Bring me a receipt for the money and a signed statement that he has no more claim on the life of Obedience. She shall belong to me. I am glad to give that amount of money to save her from such unhappiness."

So Dr. Wang ran away again to buy the girl's freedom. When he came back he had a long, red paper in his hand on which were many Chinese characters stating that Obedience Wang was no longer the betrothed wife of the boy, but had been bought for the sum of five dollars and a half.

With a smile the teacher handed the paper to Obedience, who had come into the yard with her father, saying: "Put it away carefully, Obedience. It gives you a right to live happily, and to prepare to be a Christian teacher in the schools of China."

As teacher and pupil walked away, arm in arm, one of the other teachers, who knew how little money was left in the purse of that teacher after five dollars and a half, sorely needed for living expenses, had been taken out, said to herself:

"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, ye have done it unto me."

 

A BOY WHO WAS WANTED

SUPPOSE you had no feet, How would you get from one place to another? In a wheel chair? But suppose you were too poor to pay for a wheel chair? Perhaps then you would crawl.

Chang, a crippled boy who lived in Korea, had found a better way than that. Sometimes he just pushed himself along with his hands as he sat on a leather mat which was fastened to his clothing; sometimes he put two wooden shoes on his hands and walked along, using his hands for feet, and dragging his body after him. Infantile paralysis had left him with useless feet, but he was determined that he would not be helpless.

Chang's father was a carpenter, and he often gave the boy tools with which to make little animals of wood with brightly painted bodies. When he had several done, his brothers would take them out and sell them. In this way Chang had a little money to spend. He had gone to the village school, but often he did not feel well enough to study. Then he would get so discouraged that his friends kept out of his way because they did not like to hear him grumble.

"Why live?" he said to his teacher when she tried to help him to be happier. "I shall never be of any use in the world. I often wish I could die."

"No one knows when he is to be used," said his teacher. "Get ready, and some good thing may come to you."

One day when Chang was seventeen his mother came home saying that she had become a Christian and that she wanted to make a better home for her crippled son. She helped him with his lessons and began to teach him the songs which she was learning to sing. One day offered to take him to the Mission Compound where she had been taught the story of God's love and care, they went together in a queer old cart that creaked its way through the narrow, dirty streets.

Soon Clang began to change. He sang instead grumbling; he wanted to help instead of being helped, he entered the Mission School and began to study as hard as he could, for a big new dream had come to him: wanted to be an evangelist and teacher, and go out with the missionaries to tell the Good News.

"Mother," he said one day, "couldn't we have a little church school in our house? If I am to learn to be teacher, I must teach, and how can I teach if I have no class?"

"That we will do, Chang," replied the mother. "I will invite the neighbors to come and hear you tell the story of the man who fell among thieves. They will know how that seems, for have not the bandits robbed us?”

So Chang's first church school started. He had a great gift as a story-teller, and soon other towns began to hear of the wonderful teacher who had no feet on which he could walk. When his home church school numbered thirty, he said to his mother:

"Let us have a class in the town in the valley. They are eager to know."

"But how will you get there?" asked his mother. "Neighbor Sun, who is a Christian, said he could not talk for Jesus, but he would be feet for me," answered Chang. "He will carry one side of a chair when I go, and father will carry the other."

"I have been wishing I could find some Christian work to do," said Neighbor Sun, when he came to start for the village. "I can sing, and perhaps that will help."

"And I will go along to pray and to talk to the women," said Chang's mother.

So the second class began, and soon it was larger than the one held in his own home. Each week those who went out to work from Chang's town became more numerous, and they told the gospel story as they went.

One day a man came from over the mountain, saying to Chang:

"We need you. We want you. No one has told us the Good News. We will come and carry you over, and we will take you back when you need to go, if you will only tell us your stories and sing us your songs."

So a few days later Chang went over the mountain, and he did not come back for many months. From town to town they carried him, and all along the way the little classes for the study of God's Word sprang up. No one knew much to teach to the others, but all were eager to learn, and to tell what they knew.

That was five years ago. Today Chang is known and loved for many miles around. In thirty towns there are Christian groups that he watches. He goes about cheering those who are sad because of poverty, of war, or of bandits. He teaches those who know nothing of the Gospel; and he trains those who will be "messengers" for him where he cannot go. He must still slide along on the floor, or walk on his wooden hand-shoes when he is at home, but most of the time he is being carried from one house to another, or from one town to another, to tell his beau­tiful stories from the Bible.

"Why should I feel badly because I have no feet?"

He said to a missionary one day. "If I had two feet, I might be going where I ought not to go, or doing what I aught not to do. God has shown me that he can use a man who loves him, even if he has useless feet. I can be of use in the world, even if I am a cripple."

 

WHAT CAN I DO?

"WOULDN'T you like this little card?" said a missionary to the owner of a rug factory in China, after she had purchased some rugs for a friend. "You may be interested in the verses on it."

The man took the card and slipped it into a box while he wrote the address of the Mission Station to which the rugs were to be sent. During the day be was busy, but when he went to his home he took the card with him. Only a few days later he appeared at the Mission Station, saying that he had learned all of the verses and liked them. He wanted to buy more cards, and he was given the privilege of taking any cards or tracts that he chose from the table where they were on display. That was the beginning of an interest which finally led him to become a sincere and earnest Christian.

At first his constant thought was, "What can I do to become a better Christian?" but very soon another thought came to him, over and over, as be tried to follow the teachings of Christ: "What can I do for my boys, now that I am trying to be a Christian?" So he started to study his rug factory.

Many months later a man went to China to buy rugs for a large American firm.

"You should go to that little rug factory at the end of the alley before you leave Peking, and see what they have," said a friend; so on a bright Sabbath morning he hurried through the narrow streets to a small building at the end of an alley. As he stood before the door he heard singing; and he noticed that the doors of the factory were all shut; Soon he recognized the song as one that he, himself, had learned in a Sabbath school in America—“Jesus Loves Me, This I Know."

"That is a strange thing to hear coming from a Chinese rug factory," thought the man, as he waited for the song to end. When another was immediately begun, the American knocked loudly at the door, for he was in a hurry. The owner of the factory, a genial native with a winning smile, came to the door.

"I wish to see your rugs," said the buyer.

"I am sorry," replied the owner of the factory, "but I do not show my rugs on the Sabbath. I am here having a service with my boys."

"I am purchasing for a large American firm and I am in a hurry," suggested the American, hoping to get the owner to change his mind.

"I am sorry, sir," answered the Chinaman. "If you will come around tomorrow morning, I can show you some very fine rugs, but I do not sell on the Sabbath."

The American turned away, much disgusted that the name of his firm would not give him the opportunity to look into a man's factory. At first he thought he would leave the city without going there again, but the more he thought about it, the more he wanted to see the rugs such a man would make, and to ask him some questions about his habit of closing on the Sabbath. So he waited until the next morning, and then went back through the alley.

The inside of the factory was very clean, and the boys, sitting before the frames, were seemingly happy and well. The American had seen many children making rugs in the East and he felt at once the difference between this factory and others. Soon all the children left their rugs and went into the next room to study reading and writing for an hour. In another part of the factory others were practicing in the factory band. An hour in the afternoon was also given to study or to recreation, the owner told him. The rugs were well made and the patterns were excellent. The more he saw, the more the American knew that he would make no mistake if he bought of this Christian rug-manufacturer, even if he had been refused the chance to buy the rugs on Sabbath.

Finally he had finished his inspection of all the rugs and was ready to place his order. Turning to the owner he said:

"I like your factory; I like your rugs; and I like your boys. You may send us the entire output of your factory."

So the boys had steady work throughout the whole year, and the wise owner had money enough to help the boys in his own factory, and also to continue to pay the rent for the building where many of the blind, the crippled, the paralyzed, and the dumb children from the slums of Peking were being cared for, and taught, through his kindness and generosity. His factory was running on full time that year, when many others were falling far behind, because he chose to try to do what he thought Jesus wanted a Chinese Christian to do.

WORLD MISSIONARY TOC