Servants of the King iobert E. Speer UCSB LIBKAKY .,4-' Servants of the King ROBERT E. SPEER NEW YORK MISSIONARY EDUCATION MOVEMENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA 1914 Copyright, 1909, by Young People's Missionary Mo\-ement OF THE Ul-IITED StATES AND CANADA CONTENTS Page Preface vii I David Livingstone 1 II Henry Benjamin Whipple 19 III William Taylor 35 IV Alice Jackson 55 V Guido Fridolin Verbeck IZ VI Eleanor Chesnut 89 VII Matthew Tyson Yates 115 VIII Isabella Thoburn 137 IX James Robertson 153 X John Coleridge Patteson 173 XI Ion Keith-Falconer 189 Index 205 itt ILLUSTRATIONS Page David Livingstone 3 Inscription on the Tree in Ilala, Africa, Under Which the Heart of Livingstone Was Buried 15 Henry Benjamin Whipple 21 The Rev. J. J. Enmegahbowh, a Full-blood Chippewa, Ordained by Bishop Henry B. Whipple 25 William Taylor 37 Missionary Journeys of William Taylor 50 Alice Jackson 57 Smith College Basket-ball Team 61 Guido Fridolin Verbeck 75 Decoration of the Order of the Rising Sun 85 Eleanor Chesnut 91 Ruins of the Lien-chou Hospital, China 107 Matthew Tyson Yates 117 Yates Memorial Hall, Shanghai, China 133 Isabella Thoburn 139 Isabella Thoburn College, Lucknow, India 145 James Robertson 155 James Robertson's Grave in the Kildonan Churchyard, Manitoba 165 John Coleridge Patteson 175 Facsimile of a Letter Written by Bishop Patteson from Melanesia 183 Ion Keith-Falconer 191 Keith-Falconer's Home in Scotland 201 Ruins of His Home in Arabia 201 V PREFACE The Bible itself is, in the main, simply a book of biographies. The most wonderful part of it is the biography of Jesus. The next most wonderful is the life and letters of Saint Paul. And almost all of the Old Testament is either the record of men's lives or God's revelation through men who, in pro- claiming the message which had been given to them of God, also unawares laid bare their own inmost souls. Through the lives of men and of his own Son, God has revealed his truth, and in the record of their lives reveals it still. And we learn best what this revelation of God means and can effect, by studying it, first in itself, and then in true men who have studied it and who are living by it. Of all such, none have lived more richly or originally than the missionaries who have gone out to live now such lives as Paul lived, and to work such work as Paul wrought nearly nineteen centuries ago. The sketches in this volume are studies of such men and women. Some worked at home, and some abroad. Some are known to all, and some to smaller circles, but in each one the great principles of the Savior's own life were in a true though lesser meas- via Preface ure incarnate, and our purpose in studying them should be to find those principles and open a larger place for them in our own lives. As they served Christ, so also ought we to serve him. And surely we will serve him better as we see what a fine, great thing their service was. If those who study these sketches wish to consult fuller biographies, they may turn to the following, from which the material for the sketches has been drawn: Blaikie, The Personal Life of David Livingstone; Whipple, Lights and Shadows of a Long Episcopate; Taylor, The Story of My Life; Speer, A Memorial of Alice Jackson; Grififis, Verheck of Japan; Taylor, The Story of Yates, the Mission- ary; Gordon, The Life of James Robertson; Tho- burn, Life of Isabella Thoburn; Yonge, Life of John Coleridge Patteson; Sinker, Memorials of the Hon- orable Ion Keith-Falconer, Robert E. Speer. New York City, April 15, 1909. DAVID LIVINGSTONE I will place no value on anything I have or may possess, except in relation to the kingdom of Christ. — David Livingstone ^. at J|B ^^^j- Wfp* #B?f ^1 * ■* ^' % ^^CS^si^^ i iv ^^^m^^^^^^^H ^'^ fl ^^r ^^Ih^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^p^^ ^ ^Br ^CUX^j^l^Ji^ t DAVID LIVINGSTONE IN Westminster Abbey the visitor, wandering about studying the monuments and inscriptions, comes in the middle of the nave upon a large black slab set in the floor bearing these words : BROUGHT BY FAITHFUL HANDS OVER LAND AND SEA^ HERE RESTS DAVID LIVINGSTONE, MISSIONARY, TRAVELER, PHILANTHROPIST, Born March 19, 18 13, At Blantyre, Lanarkshire. Died May 4, 1873, At Chitambo's Village, Ilala. On the right border of the stone is a Latin sen- tence, and along the left border : OTHER SHEEP I HAVE WHICH ARE NOT OF THIS FOLD, THEM ALSO I MUST BRING, AND THEY SHALL HEAR MY VOICE. This is the resting-place of the body, but not of the heart, of the Scotch weaver lad who went out 3 4 Servants of the King from his simple home an unknown lad and died as one of the greatest and most honored of men. From his earliest childhood he was of a calm, self- reliant nature. We are told by his best biographer that '*it was his father's habit to lock the door at dusk, by which time all the children were expected to be in the house. One evening David had infringed this rule, and when he reached the door it was barred. He made no cry nor disturbance, but, hav- ing procured a piece of bread, sat down contentedly to pass the night on the doorstep. There, on looking out, his mother found him. ... At the age of nine he got a New Testament from his Sunday-school teacher for repeating the 119th Psalm on two suc- cessive evenings with only five errors, a proof that perseverance was bred in the bone." At the age of ten he went to work in the cotton factory as a piecer, and after some years was pro- moted to be a spinner. The first half-crown he earned he gave to his mother. With part of his first week's wages he bought a Latin text-book and studied that language with ardor in an evening class between eight and ten. He had to be in the factory at six in the morning and his work ended at eight at night. But by working at Latin until midnight he mastered Virgil and Horace by the time he was sixteen. He used to read in the factory by putting the book on the spinning- jenny so that he could catch David Livingstone 5 a sentence at a time as he passed at his work. He was fond of botany and geology and zoology, and when he could get out would scour the country for specimens. On one expedition he and his brother caught a big salmon, and, to conceal the fish, which they had no right to take, they put it in his brother's trousers leg and so got it home. When he was about twelve he began to have se- rious thoughts about deeper things, but not till he was twenty did the great change come which brought into his life the strength of the consciousness of his duty to God. Feeling *'that the salvation of men ought to be the chief desire and aim of every Christian," he made a resolution "that he would give to the cause of missions all that he might earn be- yond what was required for his subsistence." But at twenty-one he read an appeal by Mr. Gutzlaff on behalf of China, and from that time he sought him- self to enter the foreign mission field, influenced by "the claim of so many millions of his fellow crea- tures and the want of qualified missionaries." So he went out from his home to follow the advice of old David Hogg, one of the patriarchs of the village : **Now, lad, make religion the every-day business of your life, and not a thing of fits and starts; for if you do, temptation and other things will get the better of you." 6 Servants of the King China was the land to which Livingstone wished to go, but the opium war prevented his doing so at once. About the same time he came into con- tact with Dr. Robert Moffat, who was then in England creating much interest in his South African mission. He told Livingstone of ''a vast plain to the north where he had sometimes seen, in the morn- ing sun, the smoke of a thousand villages, where no missionary had ever been," and it was not long before the young Scotch student decided for Africa. Livingstone was thorough in his preparation, as he was in all things. He determined to get a medical as well as a theological education. To do it he had to borrow books, to earn his own way, and to live with the closest economy, paying alx)ut fifty cents a week for the rent of his room. The first time he tried to preach he entirely forgot his sermon, and saying, *Triends, I have forgotten all I had to say," he hur- ried out of the pulpit and left the chapel. One of his acquaintances of those days wTote, years after, that even then his two strongest characteristics were sim- plicity and resolution. "Now after forty years," he adds, "I remember his step, the characteristic for- ward tread, firm, simple, resolute, neither fast nor slow, no hurry and no dawdle, but which evidently meant — getting there." On December 8, 1840, he sailed for Africa, going out by way of Brazil and the Cape of Good Hope. David Livingstone 7 The captain of the ship taught him the use of the quadrant and how to take observations. He was to find good use for this knowledge. Arriving at the Cape, he went on to his first station, Kuruman, but he had no thought of staying there or of working in any fixed groove. He was thinking of new plans, and, above all, his eyes were turned northward to- ward the great region absolutely untouched and un- known. The first period of his work might be roughly marked as from 1840 to 1852. From Kuru- man he made several trips deeper into the country, and had some of those experiences with lions of which he was to have so many. On one trip he broke a finger, and when it was healing broke it again by the recoil of a revolver which he shot at a lion which made him a sudden visit in the middle of the night. Some of his trips were in ox-wagons and some on ox-back. *Tt is rough traveling, as you can conceive," he wrote. *'The skin is so loose there is no getting one's great- coat, which has to serve both as saddle and blanket, to stick on; and then the long horns in front, with which he can give one a punch in the abdomen if he likes, make us sit as bolt upright as dragoons. In this manner I traveled more than four hundred miles." His investigations were undertaken on his own responsibility. He wrote home to ask the direc- tors of the London Missionary Society to approve, 8 Servants of the King but if they did not, he said, he was at their disposal "to go anywhere, provided it he forward." He soon left Kuruman to locate at Mabotsa, and it was there that a lion nearly killed him, tearing his flesh and crushing the bone in his shoulder. A na- tive diverted the attention of the lion when his paw was on Livingstone's head. When asked once what he thought when the lion was over him, Livingstone answered: "I was thinking what part of me he would eat first." When years later his body was brought home to England it was by the false joint in the crushed arm that it was identified. To avoid friction at Mabotsa, Livingstone, who had just built a house and laid out a garden, but who would quar- rel with no one, gave up the station and went on with the daughter of Robert and Mary Moffat, the great missionaries of South Africa, whom he had just married, and established a new station at Chonuane. But there was no water there, so he moved again to Kolobeng, on the river of that name, and the whole tribe among whom he lived moved with him. Kolobeng was unhealthful, and far beyond it stretched the vast unknown interior. Something in Livingstone's heart told him to go on. So on he went. On August i, 1849, he discovered Lake 'Ngami, a body of water so big that he could not see the opposite shore. And, later, he found the River Zambezi. The lake was 870 miles from Kuruman David Livingstone 9 across a desert. He must find a passage to the sea on either the west or the east coast. ''Providence seems to call me to the regions beyond," he wrote, and he heard ever more loudly the call of God to strike at the awful slave traffic. But what should he do with his wife and children ? The only course was to send them home to Scotland. So, hard as it was, he took them to Cape Town in March, 1852, the whole party appearing out of the interior in clothes of curious and outworn fashions, having been eleven years away from civilization, and in April he parted from his family and turned back into the darkness. Before he reached Kolobeng the Boers had at- tacked and destroyed that station. With all ties to any one place now broken, he started north, and in June, 1853, reached Linyanti, fifteen hundred miles north from the Cape. It was a hard and dangerous journey, part of it made with fever, through swamps and thickets and water three or four feet deep. *'With our hands all raw and bloody and knees through our trousers, we at length emerged. But,'' as he wrote in his journals on the way, "if God has accepted my service, then my life is charmed till my work is done. ... I will place no value on anything I have or may possess, except in relation to the king- dom of Christ. If anything will advance the inter- ests of that kingdom, it shall be given away or kept only as by giving or keeping of it I shall most pro- lo Servants of the King mote the glory of him to whom I owe all my hopes in time and eternity. May grace and strength suffi- cient to enable me to adhere faithfully to this reso- lution be imparted to me, so that in truth, not in name only, all my interests and those of my children may be identified with his cause. ... I will try and remember always to approach God in secret with as much reverence in speech, posture, and behavior as in public. Help me, thou who knowest my frame and pitiest as a father his children." Evidences of the curse of the slave-trade multiplied constantly, and he saw more clearly at Linyanti that both for the suppression of that traffic and for the expansion of the missionary work it was necessary to open up the continent. Accordingly, on November ii, 1853, he started westward for the Atlantic Ocean, and on May 31, 1854, came out at Loanda, about two hundred miles south of the mouth of the Congo. He had thirty- one attacks of fever on the way. He must find and make his own road. The floods and rains kept him almost constantly wet. Savages opposed him. He had no white companions. He arrived ragged and worn and exhausted, to find no letters from home waiting for him. An ordinary man would have felt that he had done enough and would have started for home, but not Livingstone. He plunged back into Africa and went eastward across the continent. He David Livingstone ii left Loanda September 24, 1854, and reached Quili- mane, on the opposite side of Africa, on May 20, 1856. On the way he became nearly deaf from fever and nearly blind from being struck in the eye by a branch of a tree in the forest. On this trip he dis- covered the great Victoria Falls, higher and fuller than Niagara, and he had yet more exciting times with savage tribes, whom, as always, he found a way to placate. From Quilimane he sailed for England, arriving August, 1856. At Cairo he learned of the death of his old father, who had longed to see him once again. He got a tremendous welcome home. The Scotch weaver lad who had been all alone in Africa found himself the great hero of the day in Scotland and England. He was received by the men of science, by the Queen and the royal family, by all friends of humanity. He was given the freedom of the cities of London, Edinburgh, and Glasgow, and honors of the Universities of Glasgov/, and Oxford, and Cam- bridge. Unspoiled by all the flattery, he left Eng- land to return to Africa on March 10, 1858, going out now to Quilimane as British consul for the east coast and interior of Africa. As he sailed, he wrote back to his son, Tom : "London, 2nd February, 1858. — My Dear Tom: I am soon going off from this country, and will leave you to the care of him who neither slumbers nor 12 Servants of the King sleeps, and never disappointed any one who put his trust in him. If you make him your friend, he will be better to you than any companion can be. He is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother. May he grant you grace to seek him and to serve him. I have nothing better to say to you than to take God for your Father, Jesus for your Savior, and the Holy Spirit for your sanctifier. Do this and you are safe forever. No evil can then befall you. Hope you will learn quickly and well, so as to be fitted for God's service in the world." "Pearl, in the Mersey, loth March, 1858. — My Dear Tom : We are off again, and we trust that he who rules the waves will watch over us and remain with you, to bless us and make us blessings to our fellow men. The Lord be with you, and be very gracious to you ! Avoid and hate sin, and cleave to Jesus as your Savior from guilt." It was six years before Livingstone returned again to England. During this time he explored the Zambezi and the Shire rivers, making his way about among the people, whatever the difficulties, always with success, because he knew how to win and keep their confidence and love by being himself ever truthful, ever fearless. Mrs. Livingstone returned with him to Africa on this trip, and died on April 27, 1862, at Shupanga, where she was buried, and her husband went on alone to Lake Nyasa, making David Livingstone 13 unwearied explorations, surmounting the obstacles of nature and bad men, and learning ever more and more about the iniquity of the trade in slaves. In 1864 he went to India and thence to England for the last time. While there he learned of the death of his son Robert, who fought on the North- ern side in the American Civil War and lies buried at Gettysburg, and his mother also died while he was on his way. He got home in time to fulfil her wish that one of her laddies should lay her head in her grave. He had another crowded year, which included the writing of a book, as his previous visit had done, and then with the last public words in Scotland, "Fear God and work hard," he returned to Africa to open up the unknown eastern interior. This time his con- nection was with the Royal Geographical Society. For the first six years he explored eastern equatorial Africa, discovering new lakes, rivers, and moun- tains, exposing the slaVe-trade, suffering, struggling, but never yielding. One Christmas he writes, "Took my belt up three holes to relieve hunger." He had no white companion, and in 1866 the report reached Zanzibar that he had been killed. This story was found to be false, but still no white man had seen Livingstone for a long time. He was not seeking to be seen, however. In the dark of the interior, all alone, hungry and weary, he was press- 14 Servants of the King ing on to open new country and to insure the future freedom of poor and oppressed peoples. In 1871 he was reduced to the last straits, all the goods sent to him at Ujiji having been sold by the rascal Shereef to whom they had been consigned ; but just then Henry M. Stanley, who had been sent by the New York Herald to find him, came to him after a long search, bringing him ample stores. What im- pression he made on Stanley, Stanley himself has told us : "I defy any one to be in his society long without thoroughly fathoming him, for in him there is no guile, and what is apparent on the surface is the thing that is in him. . . . Dr. Livingstone is about sixty years old, though after he was restored to health he looked like a man who had not passed his fiftieth year. . . . You may take any point in Dr. Livingstone's character and analyze it carefully, and I would challenge any man to find a fault in it. . . . His is the Spartan heroism, the inflexibility of the Roman, the enduring resolution of the Anglo-Saxon — never to relinquish his work, though his heart yearns for home; never to surrender his obligations until he can write finis to his work." Refreshed by Stanley's visit and the supplies he brought, Livingstone turned inland again, hunting for the source of the Nile and fighting the slave- trade. The iron frame had been taxed almost to its INSCRIPTION' OX THE TREE IN ILALA, AFRICA, UNDER WHICH THE HEART OF LIVINGSTONE WAS BURIED David Livingstone 15 limit, however, and ever fresh difficulties had to be overcome. His last birthday, March 19, 1873, found him very weak. "The 29th of April was the last day of his travels. In the morning he directed Susi to take down the side of the hut that the kitanda might be brought to him, as the door would not admit it, and he was quite unable to w^alk to it. Then came the crossing of a river; then progress through swamps and plashes; and when they got to anything like a dry plain he would ever and anon beg of them to lay him down. At last they got him to Chitambo's village, in Ilala, where they had to put him under the eaves of a house during a drizzling rain, until the hut they were building should be got ready. "Then they laid him on a rough bed in the hut, where he spent the night. Next day he lay undis- turbed. He asked a few wandering questions about the country — especially about Luapula. His people knew that the end could not be far off. Nothing oc- curred to attract notice during the early part of the night, but at four in the morning the boy who lay at his door called in alarm for Susi, fearing that their master w^as dead. By the candle still burning they saw him, not in bed, but kneeling at the bedside with his head buried in his hands upon the pillow. The sad yet not unexpected truth soon became evi- dent : he had passed away on the farthest of all his 1 6 Servants of the King journeys, and without a single attendant. But he had died in the act of prayer — prayer offered in that reverential attitude about which he was always so particular; commending his own spirit, w^ith all his dear ones, as w^as his wont, into the hands of his Savior; and commending Africa — his own dear Af- rica — with all her woes and sins and wrongs, to the Avenger of the oppressed and the Redeemer of the lost." His faithful African companions prepared his body for transportation to the coast, burying his heart and other organs at the foot of a mvida tree in Ilala, which is now marked with a rough inscrip- tion. The body they carried to Zanzibar. Thence it was taken to England and buried in the Abbey under the great slab which bears his name, and the feelings of the whole world were expressed in the lines in Punch: **Droop, half-mast colors, bow, bareheaded crowds, As this plain coffin o'er the side is slung, To pass by woods of masts and ratlined shrouds, As erst by Afric's trunks, liana-hung. " 'Tis the last mile of many thousands trod With failing strength, but never-failing will, By the worn frame, now at its rest with God, That never rested from its fight with ill. "Or if the ache of travel and of toil Would sometimes wring a short, sharp cry of pain From agony of fever, blain, and boil, 'Twas but to crush it down and on again! David Livingstone 17 *'He knew not that the trumpet he had blown Out of the darkness of that dismal land, Had reached and roused an army of its own To strike the chains from the slave's fettered hand. ^*Now we believe, he knows, sees all is well ; How God had stayed his will and shaped his way. To bring the light to those that darkling dwell With gains that life's devotion well repay. *'Open the Abbey doors and bear him in To sleep with king and statesman, chief and sage, The missionary come of weaver-kin. But great by work that brooks no lower wage. *'He needs no epitaph to guard a name Which men shall prize while worthy work is known ; He lived and died for good — be that his fame : Let marble crumble: this is Living — stone." HENRY BENJAMIN WHIPPLE >9 I ask only Justice for a wronged and neglected race. — Henry Benjamin Whipple H. <^. O^^KvVV'^^ II HENRY BENJAMIN WHIPPLE THERE are causes which need to be fought for. Sometimes it is right to fight for them with arms, though it is terrible when it is so. But wrong is not to be allowed to flourish unopposed, and those who oppose it must be prepared to meet it fearlessly. Often the conflict calls for no physical strife. It is a moral struggle. But it is a struggle, as truly as the work Paul had done and the life he had lived seemed to him to have been "a good fight." And Paul was glad that he had fought manfully, had put his soul in it, and, whatever his own fate, had prevailed. That is the only way to wage any battle. In the last century one of the great struggles was for justice to the American Indian. Little by little his lands were taken from him. He was driven west- ward from the East and eastward from the West. Hemmed in by the encircling and ever-contracting lines of white encroachment, his hunting-grounds were destroyed, the money promised him was squan- dered before it reached him, or, if it reached him, was 21 22 Servants of the King made an occasion of debauching him, his manhood was ruined by the trade in liquor, vices of which he never knew were introduced, and the solemn treaties made with him by the government were broken. At one of the councils between the govern- ment representatives and the chiefs of the Sioux, an aged Sioux, holding in his hands the treaties made with the Sioux, said: "The first white man who came to make a treaty promised to do certain things for us. He was a liar." He repeated the substance of each treaty, always ending with, "He lied." And his accusation was true. When Red Cloud was once asked for a toast at a public dinner, he rose and said : "When men part they look forward to meeting again. I hope that one day we may meet in a land where white men are not liars." The Indians needed a friend who would fight for them in their struggle against the Injustice and wrong with which they were forced to contend. And God raised up for them a defender. He tells us that as a small boy he had a foreshadowing of the battles he was to fight for his "poor Indians." "It was upon the occasion of a quarrel," he writes, "between a boy much older than myself and another half his size. Indignant at the unrighteousness of an unequal fight, I rushed upon the bully and in due season went home triumphant, but with clothes torn and face covered with blood. My dear mother, with Henry Benjamin Whipple 23 an expression of horror upon her fine face, ran toward me and, putting her arms around me, cried : 'My darling boy, what has happened? Why are you in this dreadful condition?' 'Yes, I know it's bad,' was my answer ; 'but, mother, you ought to see the other fellow!'" This boy was Henry Benjamin Whipple, the fu- ture Bishop of Minnesota, and the unwearied friend and protector of the Indians. He was born in Adams, Jefferson County, New York, on February 15, 1822. At ten years of age he was sent to a boarding-school in Clinton, New York, and later to Oberlin College, where the great Charles G. Finney w^as then president. His health failed as a student, and he went into business and politics, where he did so well that when his health improved and he entered the Episcopal ministry, Thurlow Weed, one of the leading New York politicians, said that he "hoped a good politician had not been spoiled to make a poor preacher." One of his first lessons as a preacher was from an old judge, who, after what Henry felt was a great sermon, laid his hand on his shoulder and said: ''Henry, no matter how long you live, never preach that sermon again. Tell man of the love of Jesus Christ, and then you will help him." "It taught me," said Bishop Whipple, "that God's message in Jesus Christ is to the heart." His first preaching appointment was in Rome, 24 Servants of the King New York. Then he went to Florida, and, working as he did always and everywhere for all sorts and conditions of men, gained a lifelong interest in the negro. Next he went to Chicago and established a new church there, gathering the people in from the highways and hedges and visiting every shop and saloon and factory within a mile of his hall. To get hold of the railway men he studied the struc- ture of steam-engines. In 1859 Mr. Whipple was elected Bishop of Min- nesota, and began his work in the fall, and imme- diately visited the Indians, of whom 20,000 lived in his diocese — the Chippewas, Sioux, and Winneba- goes — and saw for himself their dark condition. At the same time, as he said years later, he never found an atheist among the North American Indians, and, though the field was hard, that was the more reason for not neglecting it. The Bishop chose Faribault as his headquarters, and had his first service there on February 19, i860. It was a humble beginning in an insignificant vil- lage. Now there are a Divinity School, with gray- stone buildings, in a park of three acres; a Girls' School, with pleasant grounds, and Shattuck School for boys, with armory and elaborate buildings in a place of 160 acres. Though often opposed, even in Faribault, for his defense of the Indians, the Bishop won over all foes, and when in 1895 THE 2EV. J. J. ENMEGAH30WH, A FULL-BLOOD CHIPPEWA, ORDAINED BY BI-SHOP HENRY B. WHIPPLE Henry Benjamin Whipple 25 the General Convention of the Protestant Epis- copal Church met in St. Paul, the delegates visited Faribault at the invitation of its citizens. How firm a hold the Bishop had gained upon the affections of the community was shown by what followed. There could be no better test of true character. One of the committee, a Roman Catholic, said, *There must be a four-horse carriage for our Bishop," and when it was suggested that the Bishop would think it un- necessary, he exclaimed, *'The Bishop shall have a four-horse carriage if I pay for it myself." And when a Roman Catholic liveryman was asked how many carriages he could furnish for the occasion, he answered, "You can have every horse and carriage in my stable without a dollar of expense." The Bishop had plenty of rough-and-tumble work to do in the early years. Among other things, he learned early to pull teeth and to practise a little medicine, and used his knowledge on his next visit at White Fish Lake. "After the service a chief came to me and, with his hand on his cheek, said, 'Wibidakosi.' With a not unmingled sensation I boldly answ^ered, T will help you.^ He opened his mouth, and to my dismay I saw that the sick tooth was a large molar on the upper jaw. But 'in for a penny, in for a pound.' It was a comfort to remember that Indians never show signs of pain, no matter how great the agony. I 26 Servants of the King followed to the letter all the good doctor's directions and I did pull. In spite of appearances I knew it was the 'ligaments' and not an artery that I had cut, but I used salt as heroically as I did the forceps, and it was with no small degree of satisfaction that I heard the old chief telling his people that 'Kichi- mekadewiconaye w^as a great medicine man.' " He was lost in winter storms on the prairie, and he roughed it to and fro across the plains and among the frontier settlements, without any thought of sparing himself, only rejoicing that he could preach the real gospel to hungry hearts, which often wel- comed it in earnest but homely ways. After a ser- mon preached in a town, an old woman said to him, with tears in her eyes, 'Thank God, I got a good boost to-day." A border man once said to him, "There are two kinds of preaching, one with the lips and one with the life, and life-preaching doesn't rub out." In 1 862 and again later there were outbreaks among the Indians in Minnesota, in which fearful outrages were perpetrated, but which would never have oc- curred had there been just dealing w^ith the Indians. Bishop Whipple spoke out for fair dealing and against all revenge. In so doing he did what was very unpopular. He fearlessly met the hostility which his course aroused. When urged to omit his blackest charges against the nation for the wrongs Henry Benjamin Whipple 27 inflicted on the Indians, he rephed : "They are true and the nation needs to know them! And, so help me God, I will tell them if I am shot the next min- ute!" He made the charges before a gathering in Cooper Union, New York City, in 1868, and it led to the organization of the Indian Peace Commis- sion. But, though he was firm, he was seeking not to arouse enmity but to produce friendship, and he had a way of winning men which led Captain Wil- kins to say to some frontiersmen whom he heard declare that they "must go down to Faribault and clean out that Bishop" : "Boys, you don't know the Bishop, but I do; he is my neighbor, and I will tell you just what will happen when you go down to 'clean him out.' He will come on to the piazza and talk to you five minutes, and you will wonder how you ever made such fools of yourselves." The fron- tiersmen went no further. Bishop Whipple believed that it was rum which made most havoc among the Indians. At one Indian council he spoke very plainly against the evils of the use of the fire-water. The head chief of this band sometimes indulged in fire-water, and, be- ing a cunning orator, he arose and said : "You said to-day that the Great Spirit made the world and all things in the world. If he did, he made the fire-water. Surely he will not be angry 28 Servants of the King with his red children for drinking a Httle of what he has made." Bishop Whipple answered : "My red brother is a wise chief, but wise men sometimes say foolish things. The Great Spirit did not make the fire-water. If my brother will show me a brook of fire-water I will drink of it with him. The Great Spirit made the corn and the wheat, and put into them that which makes a man strong. The devil showed the white man how to change this good food of God into what will make a man crazy." The Indians shouted ''Ho ! ho ! ho !" and the chief was silenced. The greater part of the work of his diocese was not among the Indians, but in the fast-growing cities and towns of the white people. Among them for nearly half a century Bishop Whipple went to and fro establishing churches and building up Christian institutions and winning men to Christ. This last was his constant work wherever he was. He was tactful in trying to win all men. Bishop Whipple tells the following story in his remi- niscences, The Lights and Shadows of a Long Episcopate: "In the early days of my episcopate I often trav- eled by stage-coach, and my favorite seat was beside the driver. On one of these journeys from St. Cloud to Crow Wing the driver struck one of the wheel Henry Benjamin Whipple 29 horses who was shirking his duty, accompanying the blow with a fearful curse. There were three pas- sengers on top of the coach, and, waiting until they were absorbed in conversation, I leaned toward the driver and said : " 'Andrew, does Bob understand English ?' . " 'What do you mean, Bishop ?' was the response. 'Are you chaffing me ?' " 'No,' I answered. 'I really want to know why the whip was not sufficient for Bob, or was it neces- sary to damn him ?' "The man laughed and answered: 'I don't say it's right, but we stage-drivers all swear.' " 'Do you know what it is to be a stage-driver ?' I asked. " 'I ought to know,' was the reply. 'I've done it all my life; it's driving four horses.' " 'Do you think that is all?' I asked. " 'Well, it's all I have ever found in it,' was the reply. "I said : 'Andrew, there is a civil war going on and men are fighting on the Potomac. There are five hundred troops at Fort Ripley, and there is no telegraph. There may be an order in this mail-bag for these troops to go to the front. If they get there before the next battle, w^e may win it ; if not, we may lose it. When you go down to-morrow there may be a draft in the mail-bag for a merchant to pay his 30 Serv^ants of the King note in St. Paul. If the St. Paul man receives the draft, he will pay his note in Chicago, and the Chi- cago man in turn can pay his note in New York. But if this draft does not go through, some one may fail and cause other failures, and a panic may ensue. Andrew, you are the man whom God in his provi- dence has put here to see that all this goes straight, and it is my opinion that you can do better than to use his name in cursing your horses.' "The man said nothing for some time, and then, looking earnestly into my face, he said : " 'Bishop, you've given me a new idea. I never thought of the thing in that way, and, God helping me, I will never use another oath.' "It changed the current of the man's life and he became an upright and respected citizen." His work was effective with men because they knew he loved and believed that God loved them. He also believed in the unity and fellowship of all who loved Christ. "The heaviest sorrows of my heart have come from a lack of love among brothers. When this love shall make men take knowledge of us that we have been with Jesus and compel them to say, 'See how these Churchmen love one another,' we may be, in God's hands, the instruments to heal these divi- sions w^hich have rent the seamless robe of Christ. And when I plead for love I plead for love to all who Henry Benjamin Whipple 31 love Christ. Shall we not claim as our kinsman Carey, the English cobbler, who went out as the first missionary to India, and who translated for them the Bible; and Morrison, the first missionary to China ; and David Livingstone, who died for Christ in heathen Africa; and Father Damien. who gave his life to save lepers; and the Moravians, who of- fered to be sold as slaves if the King of Denmark would permit them to carry the gospel to the black men?" If all Christians felt this way more men would be Christians. In 1865 Bishop Whipple went abroad and visited Egypt. Five years later he was in Europe again. In 1888 he attended the Lambeth Conference of Bishops of the Anglican Church in England and preached the opening sermon. On this visit he was given the degree of Doctor of Laws by Cambridge University, and made an Indian speech which he said "the boys cheered like mad." In 1890 his health led him again to Europe and Egypt, and he was re- ceived by the Queen at Windsor Castle and preached in Westminster Abbey on his Indians. Seven years later he was in England again, preaching and work- ing, and, as always, commending to men the love of their Heavenly Father. In 1899 he was back once more, and for the last time, to represent the Protes- 32 Servants of the King tant Episcopal Church at the Centenary of the Church Missionary Society of England. But, though he went to and fro, he never laid down the work of his ow^n field, and in 1871, after no little struggle of mind, refused to take the bishopric of the Hawaiian Islands offered by the Archbishop of Canterbury. It would have been a better climate for him, but he loved Minnesota, and at that time the Indians were a great and holy responsibility. When his health broke he got it repaired again, and his love of fishing, of which he was a master, and of open life helped to keep him strong. Bishop Whipple knew all the Presidents of the United States from Jackson to McKinley. He was a man of bright and hopeful spirit. He said, at the close of his volume of reminiscences : "My readers may think me an optimist, but a Christian has no right to be anything else. This is God's world, not the devil's. It is ruled by One who is 'the Lord our Righteousness,' 'the same yester- day and to-day, yea, and for ever.' . . . Ours is not a forlorn hope. We may, out of the gloom of our perplexed hearts, cry, 'Watchman, what of the night?' But faith answers, The morning cometh.' " Into the brightness of the city, where there is neither evening nor morning, but light forever, arid light without light of sun or light of moon to shine upon it, because the glory of God alone lightens it, Henry Benjamin Whipple 33 he passed on September 16, 1901, leaving- behind him a great diocese as a memorial, and, what is even more than a great diocese, a great love in the hearts of men. WILLIAM TAYLOR I belong to God ^William Taylor 36 f^Cuy.^^iout theU N ITED- MISSIONARY JOURNEYS OF WILLIAM TAYLOR 1849-1897 CKMORSAW William Taylor 51 schools were established which abide. The whole work is now under the regular care of the Methodist Episcopal Church through its bishops and missionary society. The plan of self-support is often prac- ticable, and there must be room for such free and independent workers, but, as in the case of William Taylor's missions, the loss and waste would be much greater than it has been, if there were not permanent missionary organizations which believe in self-sup- port as earnestly as Taylor did, but which believe, also, in the value of organized and sustained effort. The mistake which Bishop Taylor made was in ex- pecting the native Church to support, not only its native workers, but also the foreign missionaries. In 1884 the old rugged warrior, now grown gray, was made Missionary Bishop of Africa. "I was not a candidate for any office in the gift of that venerable body," said Taylor, in discussing his election. ^'Subsequently, when nominated for the missionary episcopate of Africa, I hurriedly inquired of a number of the leading members of that body whether or not that meant any interference with my self-supporting mission work; if so, I should certainly refuse to have the nomination submitted. They assured me that the General Conference had no such design, but just the opposite; that they wanted me to introduce self-supporting methods into Africa ; 52 Servants of the King and that fact was compressed into the short sentence of Turn him loose in Africa.' " He went out with a company of over forty men, women, and children. At St. Paul de Loanda one died, and eight or ten more, sick or discouraged, returned home. The remainder settled in Angola. Leaving his first company there, Taylor returned to Europe, saw the King of Portugal, in whose terri- tory he had begun his new work, and the King of Belgium, the head of the Congo Free State, in which the second chain of stations was soon begun, to be followed by an enlarged work in Liberia. The great service which he performed for Africa was in lifting his Church out of the narrow limits of Liberia and committing it to a continental task. For twelve years Bishop Taylor worked in Africa, and then in 1896 was retired from active duty. The old man accepted his retirement like a soldier, and issued a note in which he said : ''Many of my friends think and declare that the action of the General Conference which kindly put my name on the honorable list of retired heroes, such as Bishop Bowman and Bishop Foster, was a mis- take. No such thought ever got a night's lodging in my head or heart. I have for fifty-four years received my ministerial appointments from God. If any mistakes were made, through the intervention of human agency, they did not fall on me. For the William Taylor 53 last twelve years God has used me in Africa as leader of a heroic host of pioneer missionaries in opening vast regions of heathendom to direct gospel achievement, which will go on 'conquering and to conquer' till the coming of the King, if no bishop should visit them for half a century, but the General Conference has appointed as my episcopal successor a tried man of marvelous adaptability. ^'Bequests and deeds to mission property are made to Bishop William Taylor or to his 'living successor/ Bishop J. C. Hartzell is now my living successor/ If he should die, or superannuate, then the episcopos appointed by the General Conference to take his place at the front would be my 'living successor/ I bespeak for Bishop Hartzell, on behalf of my work and faithful workers at the front, all the lov- ing sympathy and financial cooperation of all my beloved patrons and partners in this great work of God. 'And you are going to lie on the shelf?' I am not a candidate for 'the shelf.' I am accustomed to sleep in the open sparkling of the stars, and re- spond to the bugle blast of early morn. "At present God calls me from mudsill preparation — John the Baptist dispensation — To proclaim more widely the Pauline story Of our coming Lord and of his glory. "Under this call of God I expect to lead thousands 54 Servants of the King of Kaffirs into his fold. In an evangehzing cam- paign of a few years through southern and eastern Africa I will, D. V., strike the warpath of the grand heroic leader of our Inhambane and South Zambezi missions — Rev. E. H. Richards. I will, D. V., go directly from New York to Cape Town, South Africa." And thither he went, and during fourteen months of further labors, until his voice failed, won many more converts to Christ. On May i8, 1902, at Palo Alto, Cal., the old missionary, who had preached on every continent and founded churches in many lands, finished his w^ork. He was one who had ideas of his own and whose w^ork other men have had to carry forward on other plans. But he wrought with mighty power and unafraid of all that might oppose. He was one "Who never turned his back, but marched breast-forward, Never doubted clouds would break, Never dreamed tho' right were worsted, wrong would triumph, Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, Sleep to wake." ALICE JACKSON 55 Father, make us pure and holy, Father, make us good; Show us how to love each other As we should. — AHce Jackson S6 IaO'UC.^C. yC^-<>'^^.yUrt-^..^ IV ALICE JACKSON ALICE JACKSON was bom at Styal,Cheshire,Eng- land, on December 19, 1876. Her father, Stan- way Jackson, was an ardent Liberal in politics, an effec- tive party worker, and a powerful platform speaker. He had a keen interest, which Alice inherited, in all movements of social progress, and his interest, as hers, sought expression in practical helpfulness. He was a member of the Church, superintendent of the Sunday-school, teacher of a men's Bible class, and leader of a children's service. On her mother's side, Alice was descended from a long line of Congrega- tional ministers, and from both sides of the family inherited her interest in foreign missions. Alice was brought up by her mother and father, the latter of whom died when she was nearly thirteen, with the idea that work in the church and for the com- munity was a matter of course. Iti October, 1884, the family came to America and made its home at Englewood, N. J., where Alice lived until she went away to Smith College in the 57 158 Servants of the King fall of 1894. She was, like many children, shy and diffident, and often shrank from meeting people. In her simple unselfishness she would think she was not wanted in one or another company, and would re- tire, accordingly, into the background. She had an intense reticence of character, which always made it hard and therefore all the more im.pressive for her to speak of the deepest things. She was not a very strong child, and this brought the temptation of irri- tability, and one of her first battles was the battle which she victoriously won for self-control. When the shadow of a great limitation fell in later years and she sufifered much, even her closest friends would not have known it from any outward betrayal, and she had learned this lesson of complete self-mas- tery as a child. Her childhood, as all her later life, was filled with joyous good humor and playfulness of spirit. She had a great desire to hear funny things to make her laugh. As a child she would say, "Tell me some- thing funny. I like to laugh." And in later years she always saw the ludicrous side of things, and no one who ever heard can forget the silvery ripple of that laughter which lightened all her talk. She was very fond in these early years of big words and of pets and of all living things. She informed an older sister one day that she knew a certain person was engaged to be married, for she saw her wear a dia- Alice Jackson 59 mond ring, and "so my superstitions were imme- diately enlarged." She was not a robust child. How serious her physical limitations were few ever discovered, ex- cept when she was suffering from the disease which ended her life. She appeared to w^ork with exhaust- less energy. During her college course, in spite of her childhood's delicate health, she w^as exceptionally proficient in athletic games. That w^as in part due to her nervous energy and in part to her indomitable purpose. What she made up her mind to do she did, and nothing could change any purpose she had dis- tinctly formed. She would readily give up any wish of hers for the sake of another, but she would not be swerved from her own conviction one hair's breadth. Characteristic of this unswerving purpose was her determination as a child to learn her home lessons in the family sitting-room, where all the older members gathered after dinner to chat. She could not be persuaded to go into a quiet room apart. She liked company, and she liked even then to prove to herself that she could so concentrate her attention as not to hear what was going on around her. Per- haps to this self-planned discipline of mind may be due much of her later power to accomplish work at all times and in all surroundings. After completing her preparation at the Dwight School in Englewood, Alice entered Smith College in the fall of 1894. 6o Servants of the King There she was given the nickname of Ajax. One of her classmates wrote in the Smith College Monthly for January, 1907, of what AUce was and did in college : "Unusually versatile, Alice Jackson entered into almost every phase of our college life, and whatever she touched became beautiful in her doing of it. Whether in work or in play, she reached out always for the underlying ideal, unconscious of herself save as an instrument of service. A member of the bas- ket-ball team, she played a wonderful game, swiftly, quietly, efficiently, and fairly, always in the helpful place, never grasping an opportunity for individual glory at the expense of the team work. She grasped the ethics of the game and never even knew there was a selfish side. At the close of our official sopho- more game, as we, crushed, tragic children, were trying to grip the fact bravely that for the first time in our college history the game had gone officially to the freshmen, it was our Ajax who found for us the key to the situation, *It's :fine for the freshmen.' "So in the college honors which, as a matter of course, came to her lot, in Alpha, Biological Society, •Colloquium, editor of the Monthly, and as a member of other organizations, religious, social, and intellec- tual, she regarded her election not as a cause for self- congratulation, not as a tribute to her own abilities, but simply as an opportunity for further usefulness. Alice Jackson 6i It was in this spirit that she entered into the Shake- speare prize essay contest, not with the desire of win- ning the prize for herself, but in order to fill out the necessary number of competitors. When word came to her that the prize had been awarded to her essay, she received the news with a burst of grief and dis- appointment. *I thought C. would get the prize! She worked so hard.' '' Perhaps she grasped the class spirit so quickly be- cause she was one of a large family of children who had always ''done things together." Her idea of work had always been ''team work," and a little home incident illustrates this. An elder sister was to be married, and the children, wishing to make the wedding gift their very own, planned to pick black- berries, sell them to their mother, and buy the pres- ent with their earnings. When the contents of the baskets were measured, Alice's proved to hold twice as much as either of the others, and so four teacups were bought instead of three; but the four, she in- sisted, should be given "from us all three together." The Christian life, which had always been the dominant thing in her, came to full development in college. And as college closed, the thoughts of child- hood ripened to large missionary purposes. In a letter written three years later she described the growth of her Christian experience and desire for Christian service : 62 Servants of the King ''I do not think that my Christian experience has differed very much from that of most children of God-fearing parents. My father and mother loved God and trusted absolutely in him, and I grew up to love him, too, and to see, at first through them and then for myself, how he is indeed the lov- ing, heavenly Father, who is always ready to help and strengthen his children, to bring comfort in sorrow, strength in the time of trial, to give power to overcome all temptations, and to sanctify and purify and beautify all life. "During my senior year at college I was asked to serve as the chairman of our class prayer-meet- ing committee, and I think that at that time, in plan- ning the work and in prayer for a deeper spiritual life in the college, I came closer to God than ever before. It seems strange that just after graduating from college, doubts as to whether there really was a God should arise. It seemed for the moment that the whole story of the Christ and of the Father might be a most beautiful legend, and one which I longed to believe, but had no right to do so unless I really knew it to be true. I determined to pray to God just the same, trusting that if there really was a God he would answer my prayer and give me a clearer vision of himself, and soon the doubts and troubles cleared away. "Since that time Christ has seemed nearer and Alice Jackson 63 more real than ever before, and I know and feel that he is indeed the truest and dearest of friends, who is always near and ready to help and to sympathize. I think that I long now with an ever-deepening desire to do God's will and to live as Christ did, a life of loving, unselfish service. *'Ever since a small child I have always longed to go and live among the poor and unhappy. At first not from any idea of doing missionary work, but simply because my own life had had so much happi- ness in it that I could not bear to think of any one else being unhappy. I wanted to share my joy with them. "I always had a great admiration for missionaries, but their lives seemed to me to be so set apart, so far above my life or anything that I could ever be- come, that I never thought that I myself might one day be a missionary. It was not until the summer of 1898, when I was asked if I was not willing to go abroad as a missionary, that the possibility of really being able to do so came to me with any force. At Northfield, that same summer, I was taught that God can use our lives, and, working through us, can teach us how to bring others into his kingdom. Since that time I have longed to be a missionary, that I may not only share the joy that has come into my life with others, but that I may tell them of the love 64 Servants of the King of God, believing that through him they may be brought into hves of happiness and usefulness." But before she offered herself for missionary ser- vice, she turned to the opportunities and responsibili- ties near at hand which called to her, and which of- fered the best preparation for the work to which she looked forward. And, as it turned out, she never went abroad and her life-work was as a missionary at home. She took up work in the New York School of Pedagogy, teaching at the same time, first in Brooklyn and then in Miss Audubon's school in New York, and working as a volunteer worker in the Christodora House. The following two years, 1 899- 1 90 1, she was secretary of the Girls' Club at Greenfield, Mass. It was at this time that she of- fered herself for work in China. "About China," she wrote, "1 do long to go there more deeply than to any other place, and especially in the interior or to northern China. Mother wTote me the other day that I could not go to China next year. I think that the only reason is the danger, and I feel that when I can talk to her myself about it she may be willing to let me go in the autumn. At the same time, though my greatest desire is centered in China, I want to go wherever my life is going to be the most useful, and I don't want to let any personal desires come in. So, if it is really not best for me to go there, it will be a great joy to go to some other coun- Alice Jackson 65 try. I really do want to go or to stay, whichever is best, only I cannot help hoping that I may be fitted for a life abroad. As I have written you, I long to go as soon as possible (if I shall prove to be fitted for such work), but I do want to have the best prepara- tion and so be really useful." The mission board's medical adviser declined to approve Alice's appointment, and informed the board and told her that probably she could never go to the mission field. He discovered that she was suf- fering from an ailment (diabetes) from which she could not hope to recover. She refused to be daunted, however, and, though she left the Girls' Club at Greenfield, went steadfastly on in her work at home, at the same time that she sought to carry out faith- fully all the advice of the physician, whom, as with all whom she ever met, she made her fast friend. Noth- ing could disturb her serene and joyful confidence that if it was God's will she would get to China. The summer of 1901 she spent at the Christodora House in New York City, a Christian social settle- ment on Avenue B, near Tenth Street. She had worked there before, and always went back when she could. She founded the Mothers' Club, begin- ning by asking the mothers of some of the children in the clubs to come and drink coffee and sing German songs once a week at the House. The club from its beginning of six German women, who met to talk 66 Servants of the King over their children and to sew, is now going on with a membership of thirty. She had clubs for girls, the "Loyalty" and the "Steadfast," and also a club for boys, which bore the name of "The Young Patriots' Club." She regularly taught the boys politeness, and greatly enjoyed the fact that the secretary of her "Young Patriots' Club" solemnly announced to an assembled audience at Cooper Union that the boys had spent the year in the study of "history, manners, and other relics." She wrote a little song for the children which became a great favorite : A PRAYER Father, hear thy little children As to thee we pray, Asking for thy loving blessing On this day. Father, make us pure and holy; Father, make us good. Show us how to love each other As we should. Through the day, O loving Savior, Alay we grow like thee, In the beauty all about us Thy reflection see. When at length the evening cometh And we fall asleep, In thy arms of love, thy children Safely keep. Father, hear thy little children While to thee we pray, Asking for thy loving guidance All this day. Alice Jackson 67 The little children still sing the song every Sun- day afternoon. In the fall of 1902 Alice went back to Northamp- ton, Massachusetts, to become secretary of the Smith College Association for Christian Work, and re- mained till the summer of 1904. No years could be filled more full of rich and loving service than Alice Jackson filled these two years at Smith. What she had regarded as her limitations in childhood — her sensitiveness and her reserve — had developed into the very sources of her power. She was able to win every one, and there was no one whom she was not seeking to help and no work which she was not eager to do. No girls were left out of Alice's thought and plan- ning, and she sought especially, and with the most tactful sympathy, to help the Roman Catholic girls. In this she had the cordial help of Father Gallen of the Catholic church in Florence, a village near Northampton. Father Gallen has kindly writ- ten, with warm Christian sympathy, of his impres- sions of her and his estimate of her work : 'Trom my knowledge of the splendid results that followed years of self-sacrificing labor I am con- vinced that the Christian workers of Smith College found the leader they needed so much in the person of Miss Alice Jackson. She enabled them to direct their best energies with good results in a spiritual 68 Servants of the King way to themselves and others. All the churches ben- efited by her work, and especially my own. She sent me teachers for the Sunday-school — faithful, self- denying college girls. The distance from the col- lege to my church is two miles, and some of these girls, because of our early services on Sunday, were forced to leave their houses before the breakfast hour and to fast until noon. "I have always felt that Alice Jackson had splen- did natural powers for Christian work. She was most gentle, yet persistent, in pursuing her object. In voice and manner there was a sympathetic quality so winning as to be irresistible. There seemed to be a perfect consonance between her charming person- ality and the beautiful teachings of the Master she served and loved so well. However, I like to think that her great success in her life-work was due to the grace supernatural bestowed by a loving Father in the light of whose presence I trust she may ever dwell." In the fall of 1904 Alice went to Ludlow, Massa- chusetts, as secretary of the Welfare Work of the Manufacturing Associates. The factories made coarse textiles and employed 2,000 people, mostly unskilled foreign labor and largely women and chil- dren. The company had built and owned most of the village, streets, also the water and electric light service. They had some 300 houses, mostly single Alice Jackson 69 cottages with small grounds about them. The town authorities manage the schools, which contained over 600 children; but no instruction was given in cook- ing or sewing. During the year 1904-5 Alice took charge of the work for the women and children. All the while she was fighting her battle for health, and even for life, but with a smile so cheerful and an enthusiasm for others' interests so genuine that no one but her doctor and a few of her closest friends knew of the struggle that was going on. In the fall of 1905 she returned to New York to be under the doctor's closer care, but all the while to be busily at work as industrial secretary for the New York City Young Women's Christian Association. The work was among the girls in the factories in New York City and was carried on under the super- vision of a little committee, but Alice was left free to develop the work in accordance with her own ideas, the aim being to improve the condition of the girls, but more especially to improve the girls them- selves by winning them to the Lord Jesus Christ. During the year she taught on Sundays a class in Sunday-school, and, of course, kept in close touch with the work at Christodora House. She had assisted Miss Grace H. Dodge in the summer work of the vacation circles and so had gained an additional opportunity for meeting self-supporting women. ''She once remarked to me," writes one of 70 Servants of the King her sisters, "that there was only one shop in New York in which she did not know some of the sales- women, and on going there was immediately ad- dressed as a friend by one of them." The summer of 1906 Alice spent in good part at home in Englewood, where she found special ways of giving loving help to friends in need. And in the autumn she went, with the doctor's consent, to Wellesley, Massachusetts, to teach the Bible and to work among the girls in Miss Cooke's School, Dana Hall. In December what the doctor had long appre- hended came. The disease which she had coura- geously fought, to which she had never for one mo- ment surrendered, closed in inexorably. Her one thought, as always, was of others. * 'Don't let mother know I have any pain," was her entreaty. "Don't let mother be sad." Her suffering was not for many days, and on December 13 she entered into the great light for which she had longed and saw in his beauty the King she had ever loved and served. So she passed on, leaving behind her a trail of glorious service. The Wednesday after her death would have been her birthday. It was her birthday, only not here, but in a far fairer country. There, beyond all the pain and limitation against which she strove bravely, she began the blessed service of eter- nity, fitted for it by the purity and unselfishness of Alice Jackson 71 the life which Christ had lived in her and which she had described in verses which she wrote about another for one Christmas Day : "Her life was one of sweet simplicity. Forgetting self, unconsciously each day, She taught the lesson of that sweet denial, The joy of those who on the altar lay Their lives — to take them up again for others. Who to the world deep joy and gladness bring, Fulfilling by their daily lives the message Which on the Christmas morn the angels sing." GUIDO FRIDOLIN VERBECK ,73 I prefer to work on quietly and at peace with all. . , The name is nothing, the real results are all. — Guido Fridolin Verbeck 74 -^C^tu^/g:^ ^,^^^G^Z^(^^^ V GUIDO FRIDOLIN VERBECK ON the 23d of January, 1830, at Zeist, Holland, a little Dutch baby-boy was born. His full name was Guido Herman Fridolin Verbeck. Sixty- eight years later the little Dutch boy, grown to be a man, died in Tokyo, Japan. When he died he was not a Dutchman, and he was not a Japanese. Indeed, he was a man without any country of his own. Yet he was a Dutchman and a Japanese. And he was also an American. So he had three coun- tries at the same time that he had none. How could such a thing be? He was a Dutchman because he was born in Holland and grew up as a boy in his father's com- fortable home near Zeist. "We lived," he said, "as Jacob did, in the free temple of nature, enjoy- ing the garden, the fruit, the flowers, with joy, on green benches between green hedges. And after sunset, when the stars were sparkling, then we brothers and sisters went lovingly arm in arm and passed our time in garden, wood, or quiet arbor, 75 76 Servants of the King enjoying each other's happiness and God's peace. The winter days we spent mostly on the ice, but toward evening in the cozy twihght we gathered around the warm stove, to enjoy with all our heart our happiness. Then father told us many a story, and we sang many good and favorite songs; after lamps were lit we all engaged in reading, ate apples, nuts, and pears." He had colts and rabbits and poultry and peacocks for pets, and a boat for the canals which ran through the place and the country round about, into one of which he fell at the age of two years and v/as nearly drowned. He was confirmed with a brother in the IMoravian church at Zeist and went to school in the Moravian Institute, where he learned Dutch and French and German, to which he added English at home. He and his sister took pains to teach themselves a good English accent. They taught their tongues to say "th" by repeating "Theophilus Thistle thrust three thousand thistles into the thick of his thumb." So he learned to speak English as well as any English- man. After graduating from the Institute at Zeist he entered the Polytechnic Institute at Utrecht and became an engineer. For twenty-two years the old Dutch house at Zeist was his home and then he left Holland. Next he became an American. In 1852 he came to Green Bay, Wisconsin, where a sister and her Guldo Fridolln Verbcck 77 husband were living, intending to work in a foundry which a friend of his brother-in-law was establish- ing there for the manufacture of machinery for steamboats. On his way he was nearly wrecked on Lake Erie. He reached Green Bay after a rough journey, the last part of it by wagon and sleigh over terrible roads, 6n\y to find that the opportunity was disappointing. "I must see more of America," he said, "and be where I can improve myself. I am determined to be a good Yankee." He found em- ployment at Helena, Arkansas, where he was soon busy planning bridges and engineering improve- ments, but the climate was unfavorable and he fell ill of fever and was wasted to a skeleton. His sick- ness was a turning-point with him. He promised God that if he recovered he would consecrate his life to service in the missionary field. As soon as he could walk again he returned to Green Bay and took charge of the factory there. But the purpose of Christian service had been firmly fixed, and en- couraged and aided by a New York City business man he went to Auburn, New York, to the theologi- cal seminary in 1856. Just as he finished his course the call came to the seminary for an "Americanized Dutchm.an" for Japan. Commodore Perry had opened the long-sealed land in 1853-4. The first generous treaty had been negotiated in 1858. The Japanese 7^5 Servants of the King had long been friendly to Hollanders, and were now well-disposed to Americans, and Guido Verbeck had clearly been prepared for this very hour. He was all ready to go, and the Dutch lad, who had become an American, started in 1859 as a missionary to Japan. He reached Nagasaki on November 4, 1859. His vessel steamed into the bay by moonlight. "With the first dawning of the day," he wrote, "1 cannot describe the beauty that is before me. I have never seen anything like it before in Europe or America. Suppose yourself to be on the deck of a steamer with- in a port as smooth as a mirror, about sixteen neat vessels scattered about here and there, before you that far-famed Deshima, and around it and beyond an extensive city with many white-roofed and walled houses, and again all around this city lofty hills covered with evergreen foliage of great variety, and in many places spotted by temples and houses. Let the morning sun shine on this scene, and the morn- ing dews gradually withdraw like a curtain and hide themselves in the more elevated ravines of the sur- rounding mountains, and you have a very faint pic- ture of what I saw." When he landed the notice- boards prohibiting the Christian religion were scat- tered all over the country in city and village and by the roadside. This is what was inscribed on them; Guldo Fridolln Verbeck 79 "The Christian religion has been prohibited for many years. If any one is suspected, a report mubt be made at once. REWARDS To the informer of a hater en (father), 500 pieces of silver. To the informer of an iriiman (brother), 300 pieces of silver. To the informer of a Christian who once recanted, 300 pieces of silver. To the informer of a Christian or catechist, 300 pieces of silver. "The above rewards will be given. If any one will inform concerning his own family, he will be rewarded with 500 pieces of silver, or according to the information which he furnishes. If any one conceals an offender, and the fact is detected, then the head man of the village in which the con- cealer lives, and the *five-men company' to which he belongs, and his family and relatives will all be punished together." Natives who associated with missionaries were looked upon with suspicion. "We found the nation not at all accessible touch- ing religious matters/' wrote Dr. Verbeck long years afterward in speaking of these early days. ''Where such a subject was mooted in the presence of the Japanese, his hand would alm.ost involuntarily be applied to his throat, to indicate the extreme perilous- ness of such a topic." Still God had been preparing some to hear and accept the gospel. Before the policy of exclusion had been abandoned, and while a British fleet was in Japanese waters, the duty of guarding the coast at Nagasaki had been assigned to the daimio or baron of Hizen, and he delegated one of his min- isters, a house officer named Murata, whose title was 8o Servants of the King Wakasa no Kami, to look after it. He was to keep the foreigners from the fleet out of Japan, and also to prevent Japanese from leaving the country to go abroad. Murata frequently went out by night and day in a boat to make sure of the success of his vari- ous measures for fulfilling his duty, and on one of these trips found a little book floating on the water. His curiosity was aroused and he became more inter- ested when he found out that it was about the Creator and the Christian religion. He sent a man to Shanghai and secured a translation of the book in Chinese and took it home with him to Saga. He was studying this book when Dr. Verbeck came to Nagasaki, and hearing of the missionary he sent his younger brother to get more information from him. In 1866 he and his brother and his two sons and a train of followers came to see Verbeck. ''Sir," said he, "I cannot tell you my feelings when, for the first time, I read the account of tlie character and work of Jesus Christ. I had never seen, nor heard, nor imagined such a person. I was filled with admira- tion, overwhelmed with emotion, and taken captive by the record of his nature and life.'* The conversa- tion lasted for hours, and then, though the men knew they were facing death in doing it, they asked and received baptism, and twelve years after finding the book in the water went home as Christian be- lievers, the first converts of the young missionary. Guido Fridolin Verbeck 8i Already, however, great changes were passing over Japan. The old political order was over- thrown and a hunger for knowledge filled the land. Dr. Verbeck was asked by the government to open a school for foreign languages and science in Naga- saki. It was soon filled with more than one hundred pupils, among whom were many future statesmen of Japan, including one prime minister and the two sons of Prince Iwakura. From this school he sent out the first of the large company of more than five hundred young Japanese who came with his introduction to study in America. In 1868 came the great political upheaval with the retirement of the Shogun and the resumption of active rule by the Mikado, who took an oath in the presence of the nobles to establish the empire on the following principles : 1. Government based on public opinion. 2. Social and political economy to be made the study of all classes. 3. Mutual assistance among all for the general good. 4. Reason, not tradition, to be the guide of action. 5. Wisdom and ability to be sought after in all quarters of the world. In consequence of the change, Dr. Verbeck was called from Nagasaki to Tokyo to establish a school for the government, and he accepted the call. This 82 Servants of the King school grew into the Imperial University. At the same time, by force of his wide knowledge, his up- right character, his self-obliteration, and his devotion to the best interests of Japan, he became the great adviser of the men who were controlling her destiny. *'It impressed me mightily," says Dr. Griffis, who visited him at this time, "to see what a factotum Dr. Verbeck was, a servant of servants indeed, for I could not help thinking how he imitated his Master. I saw a prime minister of the empire, heads of de- partments, and officers of various ranks, whose per- sonal and official importance I sometimes did, and sometimes did not, realize, coming to find out from Dr. Verbeck matters of knowledge or to discuss with him points and courses of action. To-day it might be a plan of national education; to-morrow, the engagement of foreigners to important posi- tions; or the despatch of an envoy to Europe; the choice of the language best suited for medical science ; or how to act in matters of neutrality between France and Germany, whose war vessels were in Japanese waters; or to learn the truth about what some foreign diplomat had asserted; or concern- ing the persecutions of Christians ; or some serious measure of home policy." Perhaps the two greatest services which he ren- dered were the translation of the Western law books, law codes and books on political economy and in* Guldo Fridolin Verbeck 83 ternational law, and the projection of the famous Iwakura embassy. This was a body of the most in- fluential men of the empire sent abroad to America and Europe. In America Joseph Hardy Neesima, then a student here, was attached to the embassy as an interpreter. Dr. Verbeck's share in planning this embassy was little known at the time, and his policy w^as always to conceal his influence. He wrote of this particular enterprise, however, to an old friend in America. "All this," he said, *1 only write to you, and not to the public; for, as I said before, publish- ing such things would be directly contrary to my invariable principles of operation, would ruin my reputation, and make me lose the confidence of the people, which it has taken me twelve years to gain in a small degree. Besides, there is a tacit under- standing between Iwakura and myself that I shall leave the outward honor of initiating this embassy to themselves. And who cares for the mere name and honor, if they are sure to reap the benefits, toleration and its immense consequences, partly now, but surely after the return of this embassy? More- over, there is quite a band of foreign ministers and consuls who look with envy on me and my doings, and it would not be right nor expedient wantonly to stir up their ire. I prefer to work on quietly and at peace with all. Each man has his sphere of action ; I like to keep within mine, without intruding 84 Servants of the King myself on others. The name is nothing, the real results are all. Except to an old friend and a brother, like you, I would not have ventured to write the above, for fear of being misunderstood." This embassy accomplished all that Dr. Verbeck had hoped. The nation moved forward more rapidly and steadily than ever, and, best of all, the notice- boards against Christianity were taken down and the door for missionary work began to open widely. After starting the new school in Tokyo Dr. Ver- beck was for five years attached to the Senate. This was a body formed as a preparatory step to a national constitution and parliament, and Dr. Verbeck was adviser to it. By 1877 the new government was well-established and had a num- ber of foreign advisers, and Dr. Verbeck decided to withdraw from its service and give all his time again to direct missionary work. This he did in 1877, and to show that Japan appreciated what he had been to her, the emperor bestowed upon him on his withdrawal the decoration of the third class of the Order of the Rising Sun. He later gave further service to the government, but his remaining years were spent directly in the work of missions. His great reputation, his favor with the govern- ment, his wonderful command of the Japanese lan- guage, which brought great crowds to hear him speak, and his unselfishness and lowliness of mind DECORATION OF THE ORDER OF THE RISING SUN Guido Fridolln Verbeck 85 made him one of the great Christian forces of the empire, and he went far and wide, preaching in thea- ters and halls and churches. He taught in one of the theological schools and aided in the translation of the Bible. All this time he had been a man without a coun- try. Leaving Holland as a minor he had lost his Dutch nationality, and he had not been naturalized in the United States, so that he had no American citizenship. In Japan there was no provision for the naturalization of foreigners, so that he could not be a Japanese. Yet Japan was his real country, and in 1 89 1 he applied to be made a citizen of Japan. After explaining his situation to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, he wrote: "If there existed in this empire laws for the naturalization of foreigners, I should under these circumstances gladly avail my- self of them. But in the absence of such laws, I take the great liberty to request of your excellency to be so very kind, if possible, to use such means as your excellency may deem proper and suitable to have me placed under the protection of the supreme govern- ment of this empire. I have but little to recommend myself to your excellency's favor, unless I be allowed to state, for the benefit of those who may perhaps not know it, that I have resided and labored in this empire for more than thirty years and spent one- half of this long period in the service of both the 86 Servants of the King former and the present government of Japan." The Japanese Government granted him his request and took him and his family under its protection and gave him and them the right, which no other for- eigner then enjoyed, "to travel freely throughout the empire in the same manner as the subjects of the same, and to sojourn and reside in any locality." The Minister of Foreign Affairs, in sending him this statement, wrote: "You have resided in our em- pire for several tens of years, the ways in which you have exerted yourself for the benefit of our empire are by no means few, and you have been always be- loved and respected by our ofilicials and people." Seven years later the life so influential and beloved came peacefully to an end in his home in Tokyo. The city government of Tokyo presented the family with the burial plot in which his body was laid, and the emperor himself paid the funeral expenses, and a representative from the emperor came to the funeral to carry the decoration which had been presented to the missionary and which was laid on a cushion and placed on the casket during the funeral services. Being a decorated man, a company of soldiers escorted the body two mJles to the cemetery and afterward saluted the grave with presentation of arms and other ceremonies of honor. .What the nation thought was expressed by the Guido Fridolln Verbeck 87 Kokumin no Tomo (The Nation's Friend), one of the Japanese journals : '*By the death of Dr. Verbeck the Japanese peo- ple have lost a benefactor, teacher, and friend. He was born in Holland, was educated in America, and taught in Japan. The present civilization of Japan owes much to his services. Of the distinguished statesmen and scholars of the present, many are those who studied under his guidance. That during his forty years' residence in this land he could witness the germ, the flower, and the fruit of his labor, must have been gratifying to him. It should be remem- bered by our people that this benefactor, teacher, and friend of Japan prayed for the welfare of this empire until he breathed his last." So the man without a nation helped to make a nation. ELEANOR CHESNUT 89 My life is lived so much among unlovely and unlovable people that I have learned to have great sympathy and great love for them. — Eleanor Chesnut 90 "M^^^*^ VI ELEANOR CHESNUT On the wall of one of the rooms of the Presby- terian Foreign Mission Board, in New York City, is a bronze memorial tablet bearing this inscription : In Loving Memory of the MISSIONARY MARTYRS of Lien-chou, China, ELEANOR CHESNUT, AI.D. MRS. ELLA WOOD MACHLE AND HER LITTLE DAUGHTER AMY REV. JOHN ROGERS PEALE MRS. REBECCA GILLESPIE PEALE who, for Christ's sake, suffered cruel death at Lien-chou, China, October 28, 1905. "They loved not their lives unto the death." Rev. xii. 11. ''They climbed the steep ascent of heaven Through peril, toil, and pain: O God, to us may grace be given To follow in their train." ELEANOR CHESNUT, whose name stands first on the tablet, was born at Waterloo, Iowa, on January 8, 1868. Her father was Irish, 91 92 Servants of the King and her mother, whose maiden name was Cain, a Manx woman. The father disappeared about the time Eleanor was born and was never heard of again, and the mother, who had the sympathy and respect of the neighbors, died soon after, when Eleanor was three years old. Eleanor was adopted, but not legally, by friendly neighbors of scanty means, who had no children of their own and found the little girl both a comfort and a problem. Her adopted parents did for her what they could, and the father, looking back across the years, recalls *'her loving, kindly ways, her obedience in the family circle, her studious habits, and her unselfish ways." But from the time she first understood her situation and loneliness and poverty, the child felt it keenly and w^as filled with inward resentment. However tractable she appeared outwardly, she afterward said, she was unhappy and lonely, hating control and longing for the sympathy of a mother's love. Her great happiness lay in her school life, but when she was twelve it seemed that she might have to give up school altogether. At that time she left Waterloo and went to her aunt's in Missouri. The home was a farm in an ignorant backwoods country community where school privileges were of the most primitive character, and the struggle for life in the home was too strenuous to leave anything for the expense of education. Eleanor Chesnut 93 In her new home, however, she heard in a round- about way of Park College. The knowledge of the existence of such an institution, where she might work her way to an education, brought a gleam of hope into her despair. In characteristic fashion she wrote directly to the president of the college, tell- ing him her longings and difficulties, and he wrote to her to come to Parkville. She entered the academy and remained until she had completed the full college course, usually staying there summers as well as winters. Here she found an entirely new and congenial environment. She entered Park Col- lege a forlorn, unapproachable girl with many faults of many kinds; she found in Dr. Mcx\fee a true friend, whose patience was inexhaustible and whose influence remained with her always. She also found many warm friends among the students, her sur- roundings were congenial, and she became as zeal- ously honest as she declared she had been before unreliable. She was not strong physically, and in those early days of the college, teachers and students alike knew the strain of overwork and undernourishment. "I do not know," writes a friend, "how her personal expenses were met. Her eldest brother was now at work and occasionally sent her a little money, and Mrs. McAfee had clothes given her for needy students, from which store Eleanor was largely 94 Servants of the King clothed, a charity which she never could receive in any spirit of gratitude, but which she accepted of necessity and with bitter resentment. All these ex- periences made her in after life full of understand- ing, gentleness, and tact for others who were poor and forlorn and proud." Outwardly she bore her- self bravely and quietly, but her heart was very lonely, and her life had not found yet the great inner secret which brought her later the beauty and peace of a consecrated soul. Before she left Park College she had yielded to the steady Christian influence of the college and be- come a member of the Church. She had also gone further and decided to become a missionary. As her reason for the decision she gave simply "desire to do good in what seems the most fitting sphere." She left Park College in the spring of 1888, and went to Chicago to study medicine. To one who offered to aid her, she wrote: ''I have had developed in me a liking for medical study, al- though I did not seriously think of the matter until of late. It seemed to me such an utter impossibility to carry out the design, as I am with- out means and without friends to assist. But I do trust that I am by divine appointment fitted for this work. My age — twenty-one next January. Oh! I just do long to do this work." The strong power of an unselfish purpose was beginning to work within Eleanor Chesnut 95 her. In Chicago she entered the Woman's Medical College. "During the first year," writes the friend whom she came to know about this time and who became her one intimate friend and correspondent, "she lived in an attic, cooked her own meals, and almost starved. At the close of this first year of medical education, she decided to take a course in nursing as well, and that spring entered the Illinois Training School for Nurses in Chicago for the course, which was then two years. This was a new and trying experience. Eleanor always resented authority which hampered her own methods, also she was careless and inexact in her ways, and training-school discipline was a continual thorn in her flesh. She loved the poor and suffering pa- tients who were under her care, and was tender and untiring in her care, faithful to the last detail where essentials were concerned. After leaving the medical college, she spent a winter in the Woman's Reformatory in South Framingham, Mass., as as- sistant to the resident physician, a very useful and happy experience, and then took a short course in the Moody Bible Institute." In 1893 she sent in her formal application for missionary appointment, expressing a preference to be sent to Siam : *'Am willing to be sent to what- ever location may be deemed fittest. But being asked if I had a preference, my thoughts turned to 96 Servants of the King Siam. It is a specially interesting field to me since I have always had throughout the country friends and correspondents. If their special need and my desire should coincide it would be for me a delightful circumstance. I do not, however, set my heart on any one place, but rather pray that wherever it may be it will be the appointed one, that what powers I possess may be used to the best advantage." She had prepared herself carefully for the work. She had made her own way through college, medical school, and nurses' training-school, while she worked as a nurse in summer vacations, having nursed Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes in his last illness. She had also taken hospital training, including a good deal of pharmaceutical work, and she had sought to make up for what she regarded as her shortcomings in the knowledge of the Bible and spiritual experience by going to the Bible Institute. Those who knew her believed that she was well fitted for the work. She was appointed without hesitation as a medi- cal missionary on August 7, 1893, was assigned to South China, and sailed in the fall of 1894 on the steamship Oceanic from San Francisco for Hong- kong. There was quite a party of missionaries on board. The fifth day out she wrote : "I fear there were very few dry eyes as we caught the last glimpse of her [the tug which had accompanied them out of the bay] and heard the last strains of Auld Lang Eleanor Chesnut 97 Syne. I am glad to say that thus far I have shed no tears. It would have been easy enough, but I know there will be enough to weep over in the future." At the end of the journey she wrote: "I did hate to say good-by to the Oceanic. The officers were all so kind that I shall regard them as old friends." As soon as possible after reaching Canton she went on inland to her own station at Sam-kong, a town at the head of the waterways in the north- west corner of the province of Kuang-tung near the border of Hu-nan. The mission station consisted at the time of one family, one self-supporting single woman and one single man. There were a girls' boarding-school, three churches at Sam-kong, Lien- chou, and Lam-mo, and wards for the medical care of women and men, though these were very inade- quate. Dr. Chesnut began at once upon arrival the study of Northern Mandarin. Later she tried to acquire also some use of local dialects, almost in- dispensable for reaching women who know nothing but their own village dialect. She began her work in her own way, drawing on the inner resources, and not making herself a de- pendent upon others. "Every morning," she wrote to her friend at home, 'T have a choice little time all to my lonesome. First I read the new quotation on the calendar, then the thought for the day in 'Daily Strength for Daily Needs' and finally play 98 Servants of the King and sing a hymn. I enjoy my faltering attempts at music very much. I can speak the language of my soul quite as effectively in a simple melody as some one else might in a grand sonata. The Thwings have two baby organs and so have loaned me one to have in my room. It is a good com- panion. Whenever I get restless over Chinese hieroglyphics or a trifle dull I play one of the few only tunes I know. Thus far, I am thankful to say, I ha.e been visited but little by the dread demon of homesickness. There was a time of all-goneness which lasted a week or two and helped to reduce my avoirdupois. But, thank fortune, it is past. I pray that it may not return." A little hospital for women was prepared. Of this she wTote : 'The little hospital is nearly finished. I look out upon it with admiring eyes and fancy myself within it administering 'yarbs' and 'essences' at a great rate. I have at present a joung girl in my charge sick with a low fever. How I should like to remove her from her dark room to the hospital and look after her myself. Am afraid she will not recover, though I do hope for her sake and for the work's sake she will. Every patient that I lose counts so much against the work here. I really do labor at a disadvan- tage. Being able to talk so little, I do not get as clear a history as I might at home. Another Eleanor Chesnut 99 obstacle is the scarcity of drugs. When I want one it never seems to be in the dispensary; and when it is, sometimes I can't find it because many of the bottles are labeled in Chinese. The horrid tin cans instead of bottles! Oh! lots of things one never would dream of. But I don't care for any of these trifles if only I am well and make a success of what I have begun." She had reached China about the time of the anti- foreign disturbances in the Yang-tzia Valley foment- ed by Chou-han and his propaganda in Hu-nan. She refers to these conditions in one of her letters : *The missionaries here are all well and the city is peaceful. The interior seems pretty well disturbed. I do hope you won't be frightened by newspaper accounts. I don't think we are in any danger, and if we are, we might as well die suddenly in God's work as by some long-drawn-out illness at home. Miss Johnston writes that the Sam-kongites are usually friendly. I think there is still much hope for China in spite of such expressions as 'an un- claimable lot of heathen savages.' But I am sure that it is our duty as a Christian nation to enhghten the Chinese, and I think very few persons at home realize what idolatry is — how full of cruel super- stition China is. They spend their whole existence in fear of some devil or other, and die with it still upon them. I feel especially sorry for the women. 100 Servants of the King The majority don't know anything aside from comb- ing their hair, doing a few household duties, bearing children, and afterward hanging them upon their backs till they are five or six years of age. They are not expected to be intelligent, and do not expect it themselves. Their lives seem so barren — their tasks no higher than those of a beast of burden — vexed with human passions and endowed with no power to control them." Within a year after reaching Sam-kong, Dr. Ches- nut had an opportunity to go down on a visit to Canton, and while there she studied the extensive medical work of the mission hospital and also seized every chance of rendering service to those in need. In the spring of 1898 Dr. Chesnut removed to Lien-chou, a miOre favorable location than Sam-kong, the station having purchased a good site on the river bank opposite the city. "Here I am at last," she wrote, "in the much-looked-forward-to Lien- chou. Monday I had a few of the most important things carried overland. I hear that the boats are on their way. They have divided their cargo with several others and are floating the hospital bed boards and my springs. Won't they be rusty! I only hope they won't try to float the books and the organ. I don't mind being here alone at all." She was living alone at this time at Lien-chou, the five other members of the station still residing at Sam- Eleanor Chesnut loi kong. She was in the men's hospital, the women's hospital having not yet been built. In the absence of Dr. Machle, who was in charge of the men's hospital, she was conducting all the work. In her letter she writes : ''How many people do you suppose are tempo- rarily in my charge ? Two day-school teachers, the hospital preacher, janitor, scribe, doctor, watchman, woman who helps in Sam-kong dispensary, the woman who helps in this dispensary, and the Bible- woman. I have to be after some one continually, but I do hate to get after people. I am conscious of so many failings on my own part that I don't feel equal to attending to those of others. "I have to perform all my operations now in my bathroom, which was as small as the law al- lowed before. Now with an operating table it is decidedly full. I do not mind those incon- veniences at all, however. I wish I could look for- ward to as good accommodations for the work next year. ''I really cannot find time to write much these days. There are thirty in-patients in the hospital, most of them fever cases. If they w^ere all of the common class they would serve to keep one person busy, but the fact of belonging partly to the official class accentuates matters. The Lien-shan official, his wife, his cousin, one child, and a whole retinue 102 Servants of the King of servants are in the hospital, and the wife and child of a smaller official. To-night I have a case of dementia on hand, a Lien-chou official who has ruined himself with opium. He is only thirty-five years of age and has an excellent mind. He came to me this evening to implore protection. He thinks he is continually pursued by demons. I had no place for him but my study. He is sometimes vio- lent and has to be carefully watched. So I am sit- ting here on guard now. I do hope he will recover, but you have seen enough of these opium cases in the hospital to know what they are like. My patient is now seated at the table reading, but I can see that he is decidedly fidgety. He is a fine, tall man with a clear complexion and fine white teeth. He seems to have a good mind, and it is a pity that he is in this condition. I often think what a different idea you would have of the Chinese if you could see some of these handsome, well-dressed gentlemen. They are so polite that one minute I am filled with awe and the next overcome by the ludicrousness of some child-like freak. There is the making of a great nation in China. "One of my patients, a wealthy man, the one whose wife I mentioned before, has had a tablet made for me like the one the Lien-shan official and his cousin presented me with. The tablet is to be sent in the morning and I am going to the feast in Eleanor Chesnut 103 the evening. I dread the thought of it. I am so tired. I wish I could sleep a whole day. I shall soon be rested, however. . . . The other night the druggist gave me a prescription which you may find useful, though the ingredients are more diffi- cult to procure in America than in China. You must catch some little rats whose eyes are not yet open, pound them to a jelly, and add lime and peanut oil. Warranted to cure any kind of an ulcer." How many surgeons would like to amputate a leg without any skilled helper? Of course, it is done, but it is not customary. During the time above mxcntioned ]\Ir. Lingle occasionally returned to the station from his almost constant itineration. He came to Lien-chou just when Dr. Chesnut was about to perform such an operation. I believe he held the leg, but Dr. Ches- nut did the cutting and sewing. *The operation was very successful," wrote one of her associates. The man not only did not die on the table, but, better still, he recovered strength. Several times I saw him going about on crutches with a bright smile and good color. But Dr. Chesnut was not satisfied with the results. The flaps of skin which were to fold over and cover the stump did not fully unite. She said little about it, but one day, when she was at my place, I observed that she walked with an appearance 104 Servants of the King of pain. I asked if she had met with an accident, but she said, *0h, it's nothing.' Knowing her tem- perament, I forbore further questioning, but in a few days took occasion to walk over to Lien-chou, and while there made some inquiries of our good women at the hospital. 'Yes,' said one, nodding her head. 'I should think she couldn't walk well after cutting off so much skin from her leg to put on that boy's leg.' She was determined, at any cost, to make it a success. This was just like Dr. Chesnut. To have spoken further to her about it would have been to let her know that I knew that the flaps had not united. Silent appreciation of her sacrifice was best." She did not shrink from being alone. She had written some years before of preferring it, but she felt the loneliness none the less, and the burden of responsibility was very heavy for her. In due time new missionaries came to take the place of several who had stayed on the field but a brief time, and older missionaries returned from furlough. The Board did its best to keep the force full. Mean- while she went on unflinchingly with her work far away in the interior alone. In 1900 the money was provided for a woman's hospital. She had begun the building in faith with $300 Mexican before she knew that the appropria- tion had been made by the Board. Eleanor Chesnut 105 The Boxer troubles in the north had sent for- eigners in all parts of China down to the coast, but for months Dr. Chesnut declined to go. In August, however, the pressure from Canton became so great that she consented to go down, though she was without fear. In the spring, when the storm was over, she returned. The political conditions were full of perils, however, and the perils did not de- crease, and little was needed to touch off a confla- gration, as later events showed. The station had always kept free from political entanglements, and that w^as one great safeguard. But great care was necessary. In the spring of 1902 she came home on fur- lough. She returned by way of Europe. Her time at home was spent visiting, doing postgraduate work in medicine, making missionary addresses, and raising over a thousand dollars gold to supplement a good sum raised on the field for a chapel at Lien- chou. She declined a proposal that came to her to go to Hu-nan to take charge of the woman's hos- pital medical work in that new mission. *T con- cluded," she wrote, "that it would be a mistake for me to leave Lien-chou. I am acquainted with the people there, their dialect, diseases, faults, virtues, and other points. Then I am so fond of them. I do not believe I could ez'er have quite the same feeling of affection for any other people. All my io6 Servants of the King early associations in missionary life are connected with them. Moreover, Lien-chou has been so un- fortunate in the matter of losing its missionaries that I fear it would be very discouraging to those at the station. The work is increasing every year. Before I left in the spring there was work enough for twenty missionaries instead of five." In the fall of 1903 she returned to Lien-chou. Her work was never conceived by her in a narrow sense, however, and her first letter to the Board after her return was a clear and convincing appeal for a building for the boys' boarding-school, from which they were obliged to turn away boys because the old house which was in use was too small. Her second letter was an expression of her hope that another doctor might be sent to take her place so that she could go to Ham-kuang, an important town on the river south of Lien-chou, near the abandoned mission station of Kang-hau. But she did not go to Ham-kuang. Her next journey was to another city, the city "whose builder and maker is God," and the day of her departure was near. She had some intimation that trouble might be coming. The talk of the streets as she passed by was intelligible to her, and she knew that the general condition of the country was very in- flammable. The new missionaries whom she had been for Eleanor Chesnut 107 some time expecting, Mr. and Mrs. Peale and Dr. and Mrs. Machle, who had been at Canton at the mission meeting, arrived at the station on the eve- ning of October 29th, 1905. It was near the close of the Chinese celebration of Ta Tsin, or All Souls' Day, which they were observing with the usual idolatrous ceremonies. A mat shed connected with the celebration had been erected on mission prop- erty. The same thing had been done the year be- fore, and when Dr. Machle spoke about it to the elders of the village in which the mission property lay, they agreed that it was improper and would not be done again. When Dr. Machle went to the hospital on the morning of October 28th the shed had been erected on mission property again. He picked up accordingly three of six small cannon which were being fired off and carried them to the men's hospital, less than a hundred yards away. It was a customary Chinese w^ay of indicating that he wished to confer with the elders. They came to see him accordingly and matters were arranged satisfactorily, and the cannon were returned. As the elders went away a mob came from the opposite direction, armed with a sword, a revolver, and sticks. The old man carrying the cannon came back and told the mob that everything was satisfactorily set- tled, but the rabble had already determined upon trouble, had indeed probably been waiting for an io8 Servants of the King opportunity for it, and attacked the hospital. Dr. Chesniit had come on the scene during the discus- sion, and on seeing the turn of affairs, instead of going into the hospital, hurried off, pursued by part of the mob, to report the matter to the Chinese au- thorities. She reached the police boat on the river and might have escaped in safety, but seeing the peril of the others, returned to Dr. Machle's resi- dence, where all the other missionaries, save Dr. Machle, were assembled — Mrs. Machle, Miss Pat- terson, Mr. and Mrs. Peale and Amy Machle, a little girl of eleven. The mob increased. The Chinese officials who came were unable to do anything to restrain them, and Dr. Machle joined the other missionaries and all fled by a back door. A ferry- man refused to carry them across the river to Lien- chou, and they started toward Sam-kong. The mob pursued them so closely, however, that they sought refuge in a Buddhist temple about a mile away, where they hid in a cave opening into the rocks back of the temple. Here all were caught except Dr. Machle and Miss Patterson, who were separated from the others and in deeper recesses of the cave. Mrs. Machle reasoned calmly with the mob until a blow from behind ended her life. The little girl was flung into the river and stabbed and drowned. Mr. and Mrs. Peale, less than forty-eight hours at the station, were slain together. Dr. Chesnut Eleanor Chesnut 109 was killed first. A Chinese eye-witness told of her death : "I arrived at the temple shortly before noon, just in time to see the mob bringing Dr. Chesnut down the temple steps to the foot of a large tree, and she sat down on a mound at the side. Some young fellows then went up to her and hit her with a piece of wood. It was not a hard blow. Four ruffians then rushed upon her and dragged her from the tree, and getting behind her pushed her down the steep bank leading to the river and threw her into the water, where she lay as though asleep. Then one of the men jumped into the river and stabbed her with a trident three times — once in the neck, once in the breast, and once in the lower part of the abdomen. Other men jumped into the water. She was then to all appearance dead. About ten minutes afterward they brought the body ashore." The last service she rendered the Chinese was under this tree, when she noticed a boy in the crowd who had an ugly gash in his head. Dr. Chesnut called him to her, tore off a portion of her dress and bound up the wound. It was her last patient. The lad came afterward to the missionaries and showed them the healed wound. Other Chinese boys felt the shame and disgrace of the massacre, and one of them wrote this letter: no Servants of the King "Canton Christian College, "Canton, China, "November 20, 1905. "To the Family and Relatives of Dr. Eleanor Chesnut : "We are sadly shocked and deeply chagrined to hear of the hideous massacre at Lien-chou. It is indeed a surprise to us. After she and the other missionaries up there have done so much for the benefit of our people, instead of appreciating and feeling grateful for the many kindnesses received, they repaia them in such a cruel and brutal way. This is a shame to our people, a shame to our race ! It is a sad and melancholy spec- tacle to see our people become so degraded and debased men- tally; for there is no excuse whatever for their savagery and brutality. When we think of this our hearts break. "We can imagine your distress and despair at the loss of your loved ones. Believe us, you have our warmest sympathy and prayers for God's blessing upon you all. Your loved one has but gone up to her eternal home to be with the Savior. She is at peace after a life of labor and toil, enjoying her reward. And who knows but that her 'faith unto death' influ- ence may be more to the lives of the people at Lien-chou here- after than it has ever been before? "Accept our deepest sympathy and heartfelt apology. "With the utmost respect we are very sincerely, "Students of Canton Christian College.'* It was clear, however, that her work was done, her life finished, and she was made ready for the higher service of the life everlasting. All the hardness of the early years was gone, and she was perfected in love at last. The peculiarity and desolation of her girlhood had been transformed into sympathy with all who were in need and complete and Christlike ministry to all suffering. "As a college girl," wrote one of her classmates, "she was somewhat odd and eccentric, but to those who really knew her she was generous, kind-hearted, genuine, and especially true to her friends. She was mentally one of the brightest Eleanor Chesnut iii girls in the class of '88. As a medical student her eccentricities decreased and her life grew and un- folded until, when she went to China, she went thoroughly trained and fitted for a service of the finest quality. One little incident seems to me to give the key to her whole life as a missionary in China. She heard us talking in our home of a very unlovely old woman who was dependent on the church and who made herself so disagreeable that it was sometimes hard to find money for her sup- port. In the evening she came to Dr. Mci\fee and said : 'I want to give you this money for that un- lovely old woman whom nobody loves. My life is lived so much among unlovely and unlovable people that I have learned to have great sympathy and great love for them.' 'Not to be miinistered unto, but to minister,' was the key-note of the life of her IMaster, and she, too, had learned not only to minister with no thought of return, but to love to do so, which is a far greater thing." ^'The terrible news from China brought by our daily papers last w^eek has indeed been sadly veri- fied," wrote another. ^'It came with especial sad- ness to us, because of our opportunity two years ago to renew with Dr. Chesnut our friendship of col- lege days in a week's visit she made us on her re- turn journey to China. We shall always be thank- ful for that opportunity to know the strength and 112 Servants of the King beauty of her character as developed in those lonely years of devoted service in China. So unassuming and modest were the accounts she gave of her life there, that not till she had gone did we realize the self-sacrifice and heroism underlying those years. How lonely her first years in China were I suppose we at home can never know. But in them she grew sweet and strong and wonderfully sympathetic and Christlike. To know her was a call to higher living, to nobler serving. She has gone home, but who can doubt that her life will blossom and bear fruit in the lives of many of those Chinese women to whom in Christ's name she gave *all she had' — no mean sacrifice ?" All this perfected character was not lost when Dr. Chesnut went. It was simply transferred to its own higher and nobler sphere. She had come thus to trust God. So also may we. On the day of her death a letter was received from her, in the Board rooms, in which she had quoted these lines : 'Being in doubt, I say, Lord, make it plain ! Which is the true, safe way? Which would be in vain? "I am not wise to know, Not sure of foot to go, My blind eyes cannot see What is so clear to thee ; Lord, make it clear to me. Eleanor Chesnut 113 "Being perplexed, I say, Lord, make it right ! Night is as day to thee, Darkness as light. "I am afraid to touch Things that involve so much; My trembling hand may shake, My skilless hand may break— Thine can make no mistake." MATTHEW TYSON YATES "5 So much work, and I can't do any of it. . . . God needs men. — Matthew Tyson Yates ii6 ^. / r