Beyond

We had been in Liangchow about a week and were at table one day when the door opened and a friend appeared — a traveller who had come almost as far on the great road as we had, but from the opposite direction. A breath of frosty air blew in with him and a breath of joyous welcome too. How good it was to see him! The open-heartedness we knew so well, the brightness of manner was all there, but there was a something else, not easy to define, that made us wonder what had come into his life since last we met.

It was not long before, seated at the fireside, he reminded us of our first meeting and told us more than we had known till then of what it meant to him. We had been travelling at the time with Mr. Hudson Taylor, just a few weeks before his Home-going, and at one of the stations in Honan a bright lad had been set free to accompany and help us, a lad who watched more keenly than we realised the family-life of the little party. After some weeks together we came to the railway-line at which he was to leave us. It was dear Father’s parting words that so impressed him, carried home by what he knew of the life that lay behind them.

“The Lord be with you,” was all he said, looking into the eager face. “I shall be waiting for you in heaven.”

“Waiting for you in heaven” — the words would not leave him. Within a fortnight the speaker had passed in to see the King, and the Honan lad, who had given his heart afresh to the Lord after that parting, longed as never before to live for eternity, a life of which he would not be ashamed when his call came. It was the first step in the making of a missionary.

For it was a missionary who had come down to meet us — a missionary from the Great Beyond, six days out into the darkness where those twelve cities wait for messengers of salvation. The story of how he came to be there, so far from his home in central China, and of how the Lord is working in that remote, neglected region greatly moved our hearts.

At long intervals, lines of light had radiated into the darkness, when evangelistic journeys had been taken by Liangchow workers or by missionaries travelling to and from Sinkiang. Such journeys had been few, only two pioneers, as we have seen, having taken up work in those distant regions, though the Chinese who go out to trade and settle are numbered by the thousand. All men, and for the most part young, they are attracted by the prospect of quickly making a fortune. Coming from populous, productive provinces, they little realise the cold and hardships that have to be faced in these high altitudes. Kansu opens their eyes, however, and before they reach its western boundary many wish themselves back in the homes they have to

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r* left. Some settle in cities by the way, cities like the one in which our friend is working. Others go on with a brave heart. But all feel home-sickness and misgiving when it comes to passing out through the Great Wall and facing the barren wastes of the Gobi Desert. Very pathetic are some of the inscriptions both inside and outside that famous gate. Some are in literary style, some in homely language, like the lines so familiar as to be almost a proverb:

Forth from Kia-yu-kwan,

Eyes blinded with tears —

Looking ahead, nothing but desert;

Looking behind, the great gate closed.

Wife and Mother far from sight!

Thinking upon them, tears will not cease.

The gate is opened only at certain hours, and the traveller has to register his name at Kia-yu-kwan and pay two hundred cash for a ticket to pass out. He then throws a stone on the ever-growing heap near the tablet of the great General Tso, who reconquered Sinkiang for China, and joins the westward-moving stream — more than a hundred thousand every year, so few of whom return.

This Western Gate of China, twenty miles beyond Suchow, naturally makes that city a place of importance. Government officials, soldiers, settlers, merchants and the long-exiled returning home sojourn in its inns and those of other cities on the road. Yet none of these places, beyond Liangchow, has ever had a missionary. Mr. Arthur Moore, on early evangelistic journeys, had spent days at a time in some of them, meeting with little to encourage, but a change had come when in 1914 he escorted Mr. Mather up to join Mr. Hunter at Ti-hwa-fu. In spite of the weariness of the long stages, they used every opportunity for preaching, and in city after city found willing hearers.

“Everywhere we have met with respect from all classes,” Mr. Moore wrote, “and have had wonderful times preaching on the streets. The crowds in the large centres have numbered hundreds, and the people have stood listening by the hour. During book-selling, it has taken Mr. Mather and myself all our time to supply the demand for Gospels. In fact, at Kanchow, we had to call one of our carters to help us, in order to supply the people as they came.... Listeners, older men especially, have helped us to find suitable places where we could preach to them. Shopkeepers have allowed us to stand outside the closed part of their shops, and have supplied us with forms.... Some¬ times we have spent three hours in one place, then have moved to another where we have remained till nearly dark, not even returning to the inn for food. I mention these facts that you may in measure realise the ripeness of these places for the Gospel.”

That was in 1914, but still the cities west of Liangchow, right out to the border of the province, were left waiting — waiting for the messengers who never came. For not a single Protestant missionary has been even on a preaching tour up the great road since Mr. Moore’s visit. Not one, did we say? Yes, one! For when no foreign missionary was available, God had His messenger ready, and sent the Honan lad.

He was a young doctor by that time with considerable experience in hospital work. Family matters had called him home, and amid a multitude of cares he had lost something of the heavenly vision. A letter from his old chief took him back to his Alma Mater, the C.I.M. Hospital in Honan, where many happy years had been spent. It was there he had received his medical training, and the training in Bible study and soul-winning that he valued even more. There he had learned much about the power of prayer; had been transformed through a definite filling with the Holy Spirit, and had seen a whole church uplifted in a wonderful season of revival. There he had been used of God in leading not a few to Christ, and had been clearly called to missionary work in the far-off, needy province of Kansu. The hospital had recently been enlarged through the addition of a new out-patient department, and Dr. Kao was soon absorbed again in the work he loved.

And this was the very time of Mr. Moore’s return from his long journey, burdened about the cities in which he had found such willing hearers. Dr. Kao was not thinking of Kansu that summer: its appeal had lost the ear of his heart, besieged by nearer, more attractive claims. Friends were many in the provincial capital (Kaifeng), and openings others sought were at his feet. His skill as a doctor was considerable and his popularity dangerous. Flatter¬ ing offers were being pressed upon him that meant wealth and influence. He had children of his own to provide for, and insensibly was being drawn into a line of things very different from his true ideal.

In his room in the hospital one night he was hurrying over a brief prayer, giving thanks for help and guidance through the day, when, all unexpectedly, a Voice spoke in his heart:

“Do not thank Me. I have not been leading you to-day. Your way has not been of Me.”

Startled, he realised that God was speaking.

“All these years, what have you lacked? Has any good thing failed of all I promised? This going into official life — is it what I called you for? Was it for wealth I called you, or to preach the Gospel?”

Deeply convicted, the past in all its sacredness came before him. He remembered the prayers, the hopes, the consecration of early years in that very place, and realised how near he had come to missing God’s best. With contrition of heart and many tears he came back to the Lord, asking only to know His will, and before he rose from his knees the decision was made — for Kansu.

So to Kansu he came, bringing wife and children, for at the last moment she accepted all that was involved and decided to accompany him. For a young Chinese woman, who had never been beyond her village, to leave home and relatives and with two little children face such a journey, and life in a far-off province where food and language, climate and customs would all be different from her own, required courage of no ordinary kind. That was six years ago, and still the brave little woman holds on, strengthened in God and richly rewarded in the work that has grown up around them, but with a heart that often hungers for a sight of home and the sound of her childhood’s speech.

8 1

At first they lived in the hospital at Lanchow and helped Dr. King in his growing work. Quite as much an evangelist as a physician, Dr. King encouraged Kao’s missionary zeal, and set him free from time to time for itinerations. In this way journeys were made north and south from Lanchow and west to the Tibetan border. Each one quickened the young man’s longing to preach Christ where He was unknown, and finally he made his way up the great road to Liangchow and beyond.

From that time it was wonderful how the way opened up, though he had to strike out alone and, humanly speaking, unprovided for. He had found the place to which God was calling — that very city of Kanchow about which Mr. Moore had written — and from the first he realised that the Lord was working with him. What else could have accounted for the warm reception met with, and still more for the faith awakened in many hearts?

In the inn, for example — that first inn to which he came as a stranger — with what thankfulness he listened to the soldier who was talking to his restive horse. Dr. Kao had been seeing patients and preaching the Glad Tidings, and this man had shown no little interest, but in a quiet, retiring way had not said much about the change that had come to him. The horse could not be unconscious of it, however. As he rubbed it down, he was remonstrating over its bad behaviour, little thinking he was overheard.

“You know very well what I was before I became a Christian,” he was saying. “You know how I would have beaten you and sworn at you for carry¬ ing on like this! Can’t you see I am changed?

Come now — you must change too and learn better ways!”

Whether the horse understood or not, Dr. Kao rejoiced with a great joy over this first evidence that his preaching had not been in vain. Soon this new convert, Mr. Lin, developed such a love for the Bible that he read it through from cover to cover, again and again. Within the first year he read it three times, and prayer became so natural to him that Dr. Kao was often refreshed by the simple way in which he brought everything to the Lord.

Then there was Wang Fah, also a man of forty who lived in the inn. He was a worker in brass and had a shop at which most of his time was spent, but as often as possible he was in Dr. Kao’s company listening to the Gospel. He could not read but began at once to learn, poring over the hymn that specially attracted him:

Heaven is my home — homeward then!

There is nothing here below worth anxious care.

Sitting by his smelting-fire one day, in which was a piece of brass, he was working the bellows and at the same time conning his hymn, wholly oblivious of a group of passers-by who were looking on with delight. For he had forgotten about the brass he was heating, and was singing over and over the words that had come to mean so much.

“Heaven may be your home,” laughed one of the bystanders at length, “but you had better mind the fire! Wait a bit to kwei-kia pah (hasten homeward)!”

Wang took it in good part and attended to his business. He attended to his reading too, so well that when Dr. Kao came to live in Kanchow, a year later, there were comparatively few characters in the New Testament that he did not know.

Mrs. Ch’en was another of those who heard, on that first visit, with a prepared heart. Liu, the silversmith, needed special treatment. He had come to Dr. Kao with tuberculosis of the spine, and had been ordered to lie up for three months. Mrs. Ch’en, the mother of a friend, undertook to care for him, and both nurse and patient looked forward to the doctor’s visits. It was not only that he was bright and cheery; it was the Great Healer they loved to hear about, the Saviour of soul as well as body. And the best proof of what the Saviour meant to them was that, before long, five others were trusting in Him too, through the silversmith and his kind old nurse.

And so the blessing went on spreading from heart to heart. One of the five, a peddler of silver ornaments, was soon telling the Good News as he went his rounds. Another, old Uncle Yu, was the means of winning his daughter-in-law, the tragedy of whose life was wonderfully softened when they became Christians. For she was the mother of six little girls, and no son had come to mitigate her husband’s displeasure. A seventh daughter, indeed, arrived after the grace of God had come into the mother’s heart, but she received a very different welcome from her sisters. The growing disapproval they occasioned may be judged from their names — the only wonder being, in this heathen land, that they were allowed to live at all.

The first was called hopefully, Ling-ling (Lead, lead), for though she was a girl her brother would soon follow. But the second was a girl also. However, as a plain hint, they called her Ts’ingts’ing (Invite, invite). Surely that would bring the desired response. Alarmed when a third girl appeared, they called her Kwan-kwan (Control, control). Would nothing break the disastrous succession! The next is simply S’i-nu (Fourth girl), as though nothing could be worse. And so with number five and six. But little number seven has come to a loving home. The father, though not yet a Christian, has refrained from taking another wife, and the mother no longer regards the children as a burden and disgrace. She rises early on Sunday to dress the older ones and send them off to the meeting. Such a business — doing their hair especially! But all the plaits are shining and adorned with red cord in devices suited to their ages; shoes and socks display the natural, unbound feet, and as the little procession passes down the street the neighbours smile and say:

“See, it is Sunday! The church bells are ringing!”

For they have Sunday services now in that city where Dr. Kao is the only Protestant missionary. The church bells are a dream of the future, but the best room in the house he occupies is set apart for meetings, and is filled to overflowing. It was a joy to hear him tell of twenty-five or thirty people of whose conversion he has little doubt, mostly men in business or land-owners in the neighbourhood. As he spoke of the broad, fertile valley, thirty miles wide and over a hundred long, one seemed to see the villages, one close upon another, among their orchards and abundant trees. Water is so plentiful that rice grows freely, a very unusual thing in Kansu, and the city has three clear streams running down its streets. He told us of many temples, the famous “Sleeping Buddha” of colossal size, of demon¬ worship that is rampant, and thousands of pilgrims who flock to the great festivals for which Kanchow is renowned.

He told us too of deeper things, some of the things that enter into the making of a missionary. For all has not been easy. Loneliness, poverty, a severe winter in unfinished quarters, lack of friends who understood their circumstances, and the apparent forgetfulness of others whose letters were looked for in vain, all combined to make them feel forsaken. They had come to an empty house which had been mortgaged some time previously, but the outgoing tenants had done more damage to the property than is usual in such cases. Not only had they smashed the k’ angs (brick beds, heated with flues) to prevent those who followed from taking their “good luck,” they had broken down walls and removed doors and partitions. Some of the k’ angs had been repaired, but there was no way of securing the premises at night or protecting themselves from robbers. The latter could come in anywhere, and the neighbours in consequence were far from friendly.

The position was an unusual one. In giving up his work at Lanchow, Dr. Kao had relinquished also his salary from mission sources. When he and Mrs. Kao went to Kanchow to care for the little company of believers, they did so at their own charges.

The house was one he had himself mortgaged, with help from personal (Chinese) friends, and his intention was to support his family by medical work, although he charged no fees, patients being free to pay as they could or would. This was a step of genuine faith, the more so that the Christians in Kanchow who gladly welcomed them did not realise the situation. Patients were few that winter, and some did not make any return for the doctor’s services. Alone in the big, empty house, Mrs. Kao had many an attack of home-sickness. The Christians were mostly men, and the women, though earnest and friendly, were busy as she was herself, and unable to be much away from home. They did not know, nobody knew, that the little family were without sufficient clothing or bedding to meet the coldest months, that they could not afford fires and often hardly knew where the next meal was to come from. The Sunday meetings were well attended and happy; there were many inquirers and endless opportunities for the work they loved. But return¬ ing from street-preaching, Dr. Kao would find his wife in tears. The little ones were cold and fretful. The rooms were dreary and the courtyards un¬ protected. At night thieves came again and again, and the nervous strain was trying. Neighbours were annoyed because they did not rebuild the outside wall.

“Where is your God?” was the taunt as Dr. Kao came and went. “Why does He not take care of you, if you are too poor to put up a door!”

It was but for a time, and it was permitted in love. For not only is it faith that is “precious,” but “the trial of your faith” — “much more precious than gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire.” Their privilege was great — the only witnesses for Christ in so vast and neglected a region! The results of their work were to be great — a bright, witnessing church, from which the light is shining far and wide. The fight is great, greater than they realised at first; and the patient endurance must be great, if no man is to take their crown. So those long months of testing were permitted at the outset, and when he came down the following winter with the look in his face that went to our hearts, Dr. Kao could thankfully speak of them, in his imperfect English, as “my nice school.”