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By UNA ROBERTS LAWRENCE

“He is truly great who hath great love’”’

From the margin of Lottie Moon’s
copy of Imitation of Christ.

 

NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE
SUNDAY SCHOOL BOARD

OF THE

SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION.
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Copyright 1927

Baptist Sunday School Board
Southern Baptist Convention

Printed in

Nashville, Tenn.

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the United States of America

1. SN 617DEDICATED TO
THE DEAREST COMRADES

My MOTHER AND
My HUSBANDOe aeFOREWORD

It is a presumptuous thing to write the story of
a life. To dare to think that the reality of it can
be translated into cold type, that the vitality of
it can be made to pulse through pages of dry
paper, that the glory of it may be captured be-
tween the covers of a book, is folly.

Yet that is what is here attempted. That the
result is but the faint tracing of a faltering pen-
cil, copying a masterpiece, none knows better than
the author. Yet it is a picture that we have never
had before.

The story of the life of Lottie Moon, missionary
to North China in the early days of Southern Bap-
tist occupation of that part of the Yellow Empire,
has been an inspiration to thousands, but it has
never been told in its entirety. As a child I re-
member her name spoken by my pastor in such
a way that ever after to me it was as the name of
a brilliant star in the sky to which I looked in awe
and wonder, scarcely understanding why. So did
her name become an inspiration to many before
ever they knew a story around it.

Then, in 1919, while searching through the files
of the Southern Missionary Journal and its suc-
cessor, the Foreign Mission Journal, for stories
for boys and girls, I was so thrilled by reading
excerpts from her letters that I well nigh forgot
my purpose. Indeed, I did take the time to copy
pages of these published letters, hoping that in
some way I could use them to thrill others with
the same fire they stirred in my own heart.

[7]LOTTIE MOON

It was in showing these letters to Miss Blanche
White, then Field Worker of the Woman’s Mis-
sionary Union, auxiliary to the Southern Baptist
Convention, that the idea began to grow into one
of far larger import. Under the inspiration of her
interest and enthusiasm, and with the sympathetic
and helpful cooperation of the Woman’s Mission-
ary Union, the gathering of material for a com-
plete biography of this wonderful life began in
1923. Without this help, the two trips to Virginia
for records and a touch with the Moon family
could not have been made. It is not complete, as
many a reader will see, for the life of Lottie Moon
has touched vitally the whole sweep of Southern
Baptist life. So there may come many an inci-
dent and many a reminiscence from sources un-
touched by the sincere search we have made.

However, there have been authoritative sources
discovered and freely drawn upon. From her fam-
ily there have come treasured letters, pictures, in-
formation and descriptions that have given not
only background, but provided many an intimate
glimpse of her life. Especially am I indebted to
Hon. W. L. Andrews, of Roanoke, Virginia, a
nephew of Lottie Moon, and Mrs. Fannie Moon
Butts, a cousin, of Washington City, for gather-
ing invaluable material and entrusting to me
precious pictures. Nor would I fail to mention
lovely Genevieve Andrews, grandniece of Lottie
Moon, whose youthful enthusiasm is responsible
more than any other one influence for the discov-
ery of this wealth of family history and corre-
spondence.

It was a rare privilege to hear from the lips of
Mrs. W. E. Hatcher the story of her own school
days with Lottie Moon, and to have from her pen
the story which tied together many otherwise un-LOTTIE MOON 9

related facts of her education and conversion.
Such eye witness testimony is priceless.

From the files of the Foreign Mission Board
came the letters and articles that tell the story of
the years in China. To Dr. J. F. Love, Dr. T. B.
Ray, and Miss Mary Hunter I give especial
thanks for access to the marvelous record of the
work year by year which Lottie Moon did in
China as representative of Southern Baptists on
the farthest frontier.

From China there has come other invaluable
help. From Dr. and Mrs. Pruitt, Dr. T. W. Ayers,
and Prof. Charles Hartwell, from her dear co-
laborers of the last years, Mr. and Mrs. W. W.
Adams, and most precious of all, the story of her
going to Pingtu from Pastor Li, translated by
Mrs. David Bryan. Especially am I indebted to
Mr. Adams for the splendid pictures, letters, and
the laborious copying of an old diary of the Teng-
chow Mission, which could not be secured as a
loan.

An attempt has been made to verify from more
than one source all of the main facts of the story.
In so far as we have succeeded, will the story be
complete and authoritative. That this was diffi-
cult is evident when it is remembered that the
chronology of the story, for the most part, had to
be pieced out from the letters written to the For-
eign Mission Board, and doubtless many inaccura-
cies will be found where there were missing links
in the correspondence or failures to properly cor-
relate that in hand. Many have helped in com-
pleting and verifying the story, to all of whom I
give thanks.

Often did I have to remind myself that I was
not writing a history of Tengchow mission, so
tempting was it to bring in the interesting stories10 LOTTIF. MOON

found of missionaries closely associated with Lot-
tie Moon. But I refrained save only as the story
so told gave an insight into her own thinking, or
influenced her actions. Thus there will be found
-mention' of many comrades, whose stories are left
for another, some day, to tell. In keeping with
this resolve, I have tried to see these fellow work-
ers through her eyes rather than to evaluate their
personalities and deeds from the historian’s view-
point. Wherever possible I have let her letters
tell the story, for only thus could it be freed from
the bias of another’s mind. So you will walk hand
in hand, for many a page, with Lottie Moon her-
self, working with her fellow-missionaries as she
worked, seeing the Chinese through her eyes, hear-
ing them talk through her interpretation, and liv-
ing with her as she lives with them.

So the story has been written. In the four years
of its growth it has. blessed the writer in mind and
heart. May it now be a blessing to you.

UNA ROBERTS LAWRENCE.Prologue....
Chapter I.
Chapter II.

Chapter III.
Chapter IV.
Chapter V.
Chapter VI.

Epilogue....

 

THE STORY TOLD

PAGE
The Thread of Romance...... 13
AY Girllot the Old South. =-- Zo
In Which Three Decisions Are
Made :*... ere. sass eee 67
Doing the Work of an Evange-
list#2.3.° 2.3. <a oe. o eee 106
The Furlough That Never
Game. rk oe eee geen 148
In Which Some Dreams Come
True ce es see 181
Shadows and the Heavenly
nightie se oe ee 248
Life Eternal 313

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LOTTIE MOON

LOTTIE MOON (Seated) WITH MISSES PETTIGREW AND JETER
Taken in the yard of the “House at the Little Cross Roads.”’PROLOGUE
THE THREAD OF ROMANCE

NE day in the year 1672 a strange figure
O was seen walking down the streets of the
7S old city of Aberdeen, Scotland—a tall man,
tl With a leonine head bare to the wind and sun,
clothed in a straight hanging garment of coarse
sacking, with the gray of ashes strewn upon head
and shoulders.

“Tis the mad Quaker!” ran the whisper
through the curious crowd that gathered to watch
him from the corners of the streets.

Robert Barclay, theologian and preacher, with
degrees to his credit from more than one great
continental university, gentleman of large estate
and favorite of James, Duke of York, afterward
to rule as James II of England and Scotland, was
doing penance for the sins of a hardhearted and
stubborn people.

Born December 23, 1648, of most honorable
parentage, he had been sent away from his troub-
led land to be educated in the schools of France.
There he observed Catholicism in its treatment
of the minds of men, holding them in servile sub-
jection to the authority of a church which at that
time was full of corruption. Equally was he re-
pelled by the bitter Calvinism that had swept in
persecuting waves out of Geneva across to his
own bonnie land of Scotland.

  
  

[18]14 LOTTIE MOON

So when he came to man’s estate and returned
to his father’s house at Urie, he was ready to
join with his father in a new movement, headed
‘by George Fox, William Penn and others of like
spirit, known to them as the Society of Friends
but derisively called the Quakers.

Robert Barclay was the scholar of that move-
ment. Mild of manner, quiet in speech, gentle in
behavior as became one who consistently opposed
contentiousness and war, he bowed his head often
beneath the yoke of an intolerant authority. Yet
when he took up his pen to define and defend his
belief, he was merciless in argument and trench-
ant of expression.

Outstanding in the products of this brilliant
mind is the “Treatise On Universal Love,” a plea
for the ending of war, that came most strangely
into that world of violence and strife.

"Tis a far cry from that day in Aberdeen with
its mingled devotion and ridicule to a lovely old
Virginia mansion situated on a fair hillside which,
two hundred years later, overlooked a highway
along which the leaders of a nation went to and
fro on the business of a young republic. But
‘twas thus the thread of romance ran from the
Old World to the New.

For to Philadelphia in the stirring days just
before the Revolution came one Thomas Barclay,
grandson of the Aberdeen preacher, son of David,
a rich merchant of London, and Lady Gordon, his
lovely wife, celebrated in Scottish song and story
as the “White Rose of Scotland.” Leaving his
estates in Straban, Ireland, inherited from his
mother, he cast his lot with the young bloods of
the Quaker City and speedily found his talents
for gay adventure a passport to all the stirring
political intrigue of those days when first theLOTTIE MOON 15

spirit of independence was finding voice. On the
very eve of the Revolution, Thomas Barclay was
married to a belle of Philadelphia, Mary Hoops.
Through the stormy time that followed, he be-
came the warm friend of Washington, the mad-
cap companion of Tom Paine, and trusted sup-
porter of Thomas Jefferson, was appointed by the
Continental Congress on a special mission to
France in the days when the help of France was
the crucial issue in the success of the colonists,
and when victory finally came was sent to France
to help establish trade relations with this power-
ful and cordial friend.

In Paris, the friendship of Thomas Barclay and
Marquis de La Fayette, begun during the war
days, was strengthened by the closer friendship
of Mary Barclay and Madame de La Fayette, an
intimacy so close that it was Madame’s own hands
that cared for the infant daughter, born in the
Paris home and the Marquis himself cradled her
in his arms.

In 1787 Thomas Barclay successfully concluded
the treaty with Morocco by which American ship-
ping was made secure from the depredations of
Morocco pirates and in 1791 was sent as the first
consul from the United States vested with min-
isterial powers. As a mark of his esteem for this
American representative the emperor gave a
handsome house to the United States for use as
an official residence. Until 1925, this was the only
Foreign Envoy residence owned by the United
States in a foreign country.

In 1793, Thomas Barclay died in Lisbon, Por-
tugal, as a result of a duel with a Spanish noble-
man who had been guilty of speaking insultingly
of American womanhood. At that time his only
son, Robert, was in school in Virginia. Here, on16

 

LOTTIE MOON

the first day of the first month of the new century,
Robert Barclay was married to Sarah Coleman
Turner, of King and Queen County, Virginia. To
them were born two sons and two daughters, the
baby, Anna Maria, coming in the days of sorrow
following the death of the young father by drown-
ing while crossing a swollen river on horseback
in 1809, on the journey back from Philadelphia,
where he had been to purchase goods for his mer-
cantile establishment.

Mary Hoops Barclay, the grandmother, still
lived in Philadelphia. She took a very active in-
terest in the affairs of the young daughter-in-law,
so tragically left alone with four babies to rear.
Long letters full of advice and admonition came
frequently from Philadelphia, and in spite of ad-
vancing age and the difficulties of travel in that
day, she spent part of each year with the family
in Virginia and part with a daughter who had
moved west into Kentucky. Sarah Barclay seems
to have needed the wise counsel of the mother-in-
law, for she had been reared under the traditions
of the South, where women were allowed little
participation in the business side of life and the
management of the estate left by her husband
was a task too heavy for her to handle unaided.

So it was a fortunate day for her and her chil-
dren when she met Captain John Harris, one of
the wealthy men of Albermarle County, owner of
eight large estates and a cotton buyer and ex-
porter, with many interests in New Orleans and
Memphis. He was an elderly man, had never
married, and his marriage to the widow Barclay
was an event of wide interest to the society ofLOTTIE MOON 17
Charlottesville and Richmond. He took his charm-
ing bride to Viewmont, his beautiful home in
Albermarle County, surrounded her with the lux-
ury of the day, and adopted her children as his
own, giving them the love and tender care of a
father.

Albermarle County lies in the heart of Virginia.
With the Blue Ridge for a background, and many
flowing streams merging into the Ravanna River
until it empties into the James at the far corner
of its boundaries, with richness of soil and mild-
ness of climate to encourage the art of agricul-
ture, it is not surprising that here flourished much
that represented the best of the culture and social
life of the young republic.

Running from Scottsville on the James, with a
turn to the right at Carter’s Bridge, through
Charlottesville in the center of Albermarle and on
through Orange County on the north, was a high-
way known as the Road of the Presidents, because
three presidents lived on or near it, and a fourth
was born on a tributary road.

Just before reaching Charlottesville, if travel-
ing north from Scottsville, the road passed the
‘beautiful mansion of Thomas Jefferson, Monti-
cello, overlooking that center of intellectual life
where the influence of the great Democrat had lo-
cated the | niversity of Virginia. As the road
ran to the east and north from Charlottesville it
passed Montpelier, in Orange County, the home
of James Madison, “The great little Madison,”
father of the Constitution, first president of the
first Agricultural Society in America and fourth
president of the United States. To the eastward
and also on a road tributary to the Charlottesville
road wag Ashlawn, home of James Monroe, who18 LOTTIE MOON

enunciated during his term as fifth president of
the United States, the international doctrine that
bears his name, and at Gordonsville was Monte-
bello, birthplace of Zachary Taylor, twelfth pres-
ident of the United States.

There were other great estates on this road,
quite as well known as these of the political lead-
ers of the day. Just below Monticello were the
great estate and mansion of the Carter family,
that of Edmund Randolph, and that of the Rives
family, forbears of the gifted Amelie Rives.

Beyond the Hardware River, which bounded
these estates on the west, lay Viewmont, Caanan,
and Churchill, all belonging to Captain Harris,
while a little to the south and across the James
from Scottsville, lay Snowdon, another of his
estates.

The mansion at Viewmont is probably the old-
est house still standing in Albermarle County. It
was once a blockhouse, but the house as it now
stands was built by Col. Joshua Fry, a famous
Colonial architect, between 1744 and 1751. Situ-
ated on a hill, with extensive sloping grounds on
which grew tall locust trees festooned with trum-
pet vines, surrounded by outbuildings of great
age, it was charming in its Old World simplicity.
The timbers were hewn by hand with broad-axes,
and put together with hand-made nails. Two
great chimneys towered at the gables, each large
enough for two fireplaces. The mantles and much
of the woodwork was hand-carved and the furni-
ture was of heavy mahogany in the impressive
style of the period.

The house faced west, with a long driveway
winding down the slope from the highway to the
residence. The orchard to the left of the driveLOTTIE MOON 19
way embowered the carriage house, while the gen-
eral stock barns were on the right. Back of the
house was a sunken garden where mignonette and
heliotrope, larkspur and hollyhocks, roses and
lavender grew in abundance, while at the back
was an extensive berry garden providing rasp-
berries, blackberries, strawberries, gooseberries,
currants and grapes in their season.

In Southern fashion, the kitchen was a separate
building. Alongside the garden were the poultry
houses, providing for chickens, ducks, geese, and
pigeons. While in an oblong square to the north
and west were the “quarters,” thirty-nine cabins,
where the slaves were housed. The estate includ-
ed five thousand acres, much of it being planted
in corn, tobacco, wheat and pasture land culti-
vated by a force of eight hundred slaves, the re-
mainder being clothed in virgin timber rarely to
be found now in the state of Virginia.

Here, for several years, Captain Harris and his
lovely wife lived in happiness. The children grew
up in the home to young manhood and woman-
hood amid all the advantages afforded children of
wealth. When the burdens of management of so
large an estate became too heavy, a home in Char-
lottesville was purchased, and it was here that the
voungest daughter, Anna Maria, bloomed into
lovely womanhood.

Captain Harris had taken into business with
him some years before two grand nephews, Isaac
and Edward Harris Moon, grandsons of his sis-
ter, Elizabeth, who had married a grandson of
Sir Dudley Diggs, Colonial governor of Virginia.
The delight of the Captain can well be imagined
when the oldest of his adopted daughters, Mary
Elizabeth, at the age of seventeen, was wooed and
won by an older brother of these two, John Diggs20 LOTTIE MOON

Moon. The young couple went to live at Mt. Ayr,
near Scottsville, a large estate that had been the
property of Governor Glenmore. But when the
other sister, Anna Maria, decided to wed Edward
Harris Moon, the business partner of the old gen-
tleman, he seems to have been even more delight-
ed, for to them he made a wedding gift of his own
home, Viewmont. ’Twas said by all the country
that never did a young couple begin life together
under more auspicious circumstances than the
bridal pair at Viewmont.

Truly it was a glad day when the young mas-
ter and mistress came to Viewmont. Laughter
rang again through the high ceilinged rooms, gay
company came and went in the hospitable manner
of the day, and a home was established in which
the best traditions of the Virginia of romance and
history were typified.

Thus it was that the new land grew from out
the history, tradition and family life of the old.
Thus the thread of romance tied Old England to
the New Virginia. For the spirit of the Scotch
Quaker hero and scholar found expression in many
a trait and quality of the lads and lassies of his
blood that grew up in the old Southern mansion
on the Road of the Presidents.

Nor did it end there. For from out that South-
ern mansion went the adventuring spirit of one
whose life has touched the world in its influence.
The thread of romance spun out its web through
the years of her life, catching in its slender
meshes the hearts of Southern Baptists to whom
the name Lottie Moon has for more than a gen-
eration stood for the very spirit of missions. So
the thread spins on—as in America and China
young men and women, touched by the story ofLOTTIE MOON 21

 

her sweet sacrifice, give their lives to telling the
same story of salvation to which she gave her
beautiful life.

So the whole world, from the old land to the
new, and on to the oldest land of all, is bound
together by the romance of a royal loyalty to the
King of kings; from Scotland to China, through
three hundred years of history—unto all the fu-
ture days when young lives still shall be devoted
in utter sacrifice to the service of that King of
kings.

_—tt»
ema

DAee la

eeCHAPTER I

A GIRL OF THE OLD SOUTH

‘‘AFTER ALL ISN’T LOVE THE SWEETEST THING ON
EARTH? IS IT NOT THEN EASY TO BELIEVE THAT
TO LOVE LOVE ITSELF MUST BE THE PERFECTION OF
ALL SWEETNESS? AND TO LOVE JESUS CHRIST IS
NOTHING ELSE, WHEN WE LEARN TO LOVE HIM
ABSOLUTELY AS WE LOVE ON EARTH.”

From margin of Lottie Moon’s
copy of Imitation of Christ.

GIRL and a dog romped through the great

hall at Viewmont. Company was coming!
Wes The Negro servants were busy upstairs and

down, but the girl and the dog gaily romped
around them, now under their feet, now out on
the porch, stirring the good-natured darkies to
mild protest, yet more often causing them to stop
their work to watch the merry chase.

“Now, ain’t she a sight,” said a woman with her
arms piled with linens, turning to go up the stair.
“The sweetes’ chile on this place, I tells Miss
Ann.”

“Mebbe, mebbe,” grumbled the old man who
was patiently mopping up the pail of water the
girl and the dog had overturned on the floor.
“Mebbe, but she am one more sight ter git inter
mischief.”

They were both right, for Lottie, the third child
of the home, was the merriest and the gayest.
There were always pets at Viewmont, and there

[ 23 ]yeaah Jena Sane eet dent iets ae ll aaa

ree eae

ee

 

24

 

LOTTIE MOON

were always children. The home belonged to
them and leader from her babyhood in all the fun
and frolic was this girl, named for the grand-
mother Moon, Charlotte Diggs.

She was born in December, 1840, and had ever
been the mischief of the household. With blue,
dancing eyes, long, smooth brown braids that were
her mother’s pride, a happy disposition, making
friends easily and holding them closely, she was
the most responsive to her mother’s teaching and
the most provoking in her tendencies to mischie-
vous fun.

She loved the outdoors, loved to run across the
fields in the blowing breezes, loved to walk in the
springtime in the woods and find the little flower
folk as they lifted pink and white and purple
heads to greet the balmy breezes, loved a brisk
walk in the crisp snow up hill and down dale,
loved to sit and watch the sun set behind the ir-
regular outlines of the Ragged Mountains, a spur
of the Blue Ridge to which the farther reaches
of the “mountain field” ran.

It was a lovely company of children that grew
up in the mansion on the Road of the Presidents.
There was Thomas, named for the illustrious
grandfather and destined already for the honor-
able profession of medicine. Then came Orianna,
who bore the name of her maternal great-grand-
mother, Orianna Russell, daughter of Lord Rus-
sell, of England, and niece of Nathaniel Bacon,
of Colonial fame. Next younger to Charlotte,
whose name was early shortened to Lottie, was
Sarah Coleman, who bore the other grandmother’s
name. Then came Mary, named for the great
grandmother, whose memory was yet bright in
the lives of her children and grandchildren. The
second son was named for his uncle, Isaac, whileLOTTIE MOON 25

to the baby of the family was given the name akin
to the father’s name, Edmonia.

Life was never dull with such a household. In-
deed, if there had been any chance for time to
hang heavy on the hands of the children at View-
mont, it was but five miles over to the John Moon
home, at Mt. Ayr, where there were boys and
girls aplenty with whom to play. Then there was
always company coming and going.

It was company from Richmond that was ex-
pected today. A schoolgirl friend of Mrs. Moon
had recommended a new governess for the girls
and a tutor for young Thomas, who was nearly
ready for the university. She was bringing them
out for a visit, and if they were liked they were
to stay.

There had been much discussion among the chil-
dren concerning this new governess, and many
deep, dark plans were laid to find out whether she
would suit their own ideas of what a ‘governess
should be. They gathered on the porch for a last
conference.

“She’ll go to church with us, of course,’ said
Orianna. “We will find out whether she is too
plous.”’

“And I’ll take her down to see the new pup-
pies,” added Sarah, “so we can tell whether she
just hates dogs like the last governess didi

“Well, all I ask of her,” sighed ten-year-old Lot-
tie, “is that she does not give me French verbs
to learn.”

So the talk of the children about the new gov-
erness and the life that swept around them in all
the brisk preparations for company from Rich-
mond revealed glimpses of the conditions, customs
and activities of a home in the Old South.26

 

LOTTIE MOON

It was a day when all the activities by which a
home was maintained were carried on within that
home. There were slaves to do all the work, but
the mistress of the home was the director of all
that they did. She looked after the food of the
family, seeing that the garden bore bountifully,
that the vegetables were properly dried and pre-
served for the winter, provided the clothing for
the family, seeing to it that the cloth was spun
and woven, not only for all the ordinary uses of
the members of the family but for the great num-
ber of slaves who lived on the estate, maintained
the social life of the home, and looked after the
education of the children and their religious train-
ing. All activities centered in the home and
around mother. So it had been in the Moon home,
especially in religious matters.

Mr. Moon had been reared a Presbyterian, while
the mother of the home was a Baptist. He was a
rather indifferent Presbyterian, while she was an
ardent and devoted Baptist. There was no church
of either faith near them. Little Mrs. Moon quiet-
ly set to work to buiid her home around the Chris-
tian faith by having regular services every Sunday
morning in her parlors, calling in the neighbors
and their children and slaves to take part. Ina
day when it was not considered at al] proper or
scriptural for a woman to take any part in public
worship, she bravely led these services when there
was no visiting minister to do it for her. Some
ten years passed with this home worship the re-
ligious center of the home life.

In 1842, two years after the birth of Charlotte,
a movement was begun in Scottsville, ten miles
away, to organize and build a Baptist church. The
interest of the mistress of Viewmont was enlisted.
A Presbyterian minister, long a friend of theLOTTIE MOON 27

Moons, became concerned about the staunchness
of the Presbyterian convictions of Mr. Moon and
in view of the increased activities of the Baptists
thought it wise to give him a small book setting
forth the Presbyterian views on baptism, thus
confirming him in the faith of his early teaching.
The study of the argument, perhaps interpreted
by the consistent example and ardent faith of the
little wife, led him to a definite decision to align
himself with the new Baptist congregation and
he was baptized as soon as it was organized and
became the largest contributor to the new build-
ing. This building is still used in worship in
Scottsville.

In education as well the mother’s fine work could
be seen. Governesses were provided for the chil-
dren while small, the girls and boys studying to-
gether until the elementary courses were finished.
Then the boys were sent away to the university,
and to further graduate study in the professions
chosen. It was not maidenly for the girls to de-
sire to follow their brothers in the study of chem-
istry, mathematics and other such subjects, con-
sidered useless to them in their business of social
and home leadership. By custom as well as by
the demands of the daily life, the women of the
South were confined to the home as a sphere of
activity. Teaching was respectable but only the
girl who was forced to earn her living thus would
enter its service. The profession of nursing was
not yet open to women and as for women in busi-
ness—it was unthinkable!

Anna Maria Moon had been brought up under
the very strictest of the old ideals for education
of women. The attitude of the day toward educa-
tion of women is well illustrated in a letter writ-
ten by Mary Barclay years before to her young

 

” St Cth een eB “ - _ Rhy oe ta
BE Rene me em yea am Ee Wen ee

N a

eater ess 7 we ne —28 LOTTIE MOON

daughter-in-law concerning the progress being
made in writing by Anna Maria, then but a baby.
The mother had sent to Philadelphia a sample of
the little girl’s handwriting, to which the stern
grandmother replied:

“I am interested in Anna Maria’s writing, but
would rather know she could spin her own clothes
and knit her own stockings.”

The only schools open for girls in the days when
Anna Maria Moon was growing into womanhood
were finishing schools where for a brief time the
young ladies were placed under teachers of
French, music, elocution, art and fine embroidery.
Manners and deportment in society were consid-
ered of primary importance. Such a school was
the one to which Mrs. Moon had gone as a girl,
established by a Mrs. Broome, in Richmond, upon
the solicitation of Mrs. Mayo, a friend of the Har-
rises. Through this friend’s interest, Anna Maria
had been sent to this school, it being hoped that
Mrs. Broome would be able to impart a finish much
to be desired in the little lady’s behavior, since

She was fresh from England and was a cousin of
Lord Byron. Mrs. Mayo often called to see how
her friend’s daughter was progressing and was
wont to take Mrs. Broome driving in her splendid
carriage with Anne Maria sitting between them.
They usually spoke French, then the fashionable
language of society, and as she wrote Mrs. Harris,
“Anna Maria seemed well content to listen.”
Whether in this bit of outside education there
came a vision of greater opportunities that would
some day come to the women of the South, or
whether the vigorous spirit of a long ago ancestor
stirred her to brave the opinion of her neighbors
and friends, it is a fact that Anna Maria Moon
gave to her children educational advantages far29

 

LOTTIE MOON

in advance of the standards of her day. So the
best governesses and tutors available came and
went at Viewmont, giving to the growing boys and
girls cultural education of the day.

Happy days they were. But there came a time
when children’s feet no longer romped through the
hall—the children were growing up! Thomas
chose to be a doctor, and was sent to the Univer-
sity of Pennsylvania, where the young men of Vir-
ginia usually went for this type of professional
training. This was not strange, but when the
daughter, Orianna, desired to follow her brother
to this same institution, it was a very radical pro-
ceeding. But the father and mother at Viewmont
seem not to have been disturbed in the least by her
unladylike ambitions.

Be a doctor! The countryside buzzed with the
wonder. Why should a woman wish to be a doc-
tor! And a Moon of Viewmont! There was no
necessity for her entering any profession, even if
it were proper!

Nevertheless, Orianna Moon was not deterred,
and the father and mother encouraged her. ‘So
away she went, first to a preparatory school, Troy
Female Seminary, in Troy, New York, daring to
set a new precedent in education, for rarely, in-
deed, had girls gone from the valley of Virginia
to a school of higher education for girls save to the
finishing schools where the studies were all adapt-
ed to the prevailing ideals of “‘woman’s sphere.”

The Orianna Moon who returned was a girl who
had begun to think in terms of life far differently
from the girls of the sheltered, guarded Southern
homes. She told of the freedom she had seen
among the girls of the North! Freedom to study,
think and act as their brothers did, told of dis-
cussions of woman’s rights, and even of abolition30 LOTTIE MOON

of slavery, which she had heard among the girls
of the North. Orianna was well aware that she
did not conform to the traditions of the past in
her determination to be a doctor, but it mattered
to her not at all. Nor does it seem to have dis-
turbed the father and mother, though the younger
brother, just then coming into manhood was very
much concerned about the traditions so ruthless-
ly broken by this older sister. When he became
engaged to a lovely young girl in a neighboring
county, the sister, knowing well what the social
leaders were Saying of her, remarked to his
fiancee:

“My dear, I think you are a very, very brave
girl!”

When asked why, she replied, “To be willing to
marry Isaac, knowing that J am his sister !”

Away to the Female Medical College of Penn-
Sylvania she went, being among the first women
to enter that institution for medical training, and
the first from the South. She won her diploma
of graduation in 1857, and with it the right to
practice the profession of medicine as a compe-
tent, equipped physician.

In the meantime, there had been stirring times
in Virginia, theologically Speaking. Mrs. Moon’s
brother, James Barclay, purchased the home of
Thomas Jefferson, Monticello, in 1832, perhaps
through sentiment. wishing to keep up the beauty
of this home of his father’s friend. He was at-
tracted also by the idea of cultivating silkworms
on mulberry trees which he planted on that great
estate. He was a Presbyterian. Alexander Camp-
bell had begun his preaching of agitating and dis-
turbing doctrines among Baptists, and finally had
withdrawn from their fellowship to form his own
group of followers, known popularly as Camp-LOTTIE MOON 31

bellites, but calling themselves Disciples, or sim-
ply, Christians. The schism had torn the Baptists
of Virginia asunder, whole churches following
Campbell, families being divided, and there was
much controversy and discussion. Mr. Barclay
became much concerned about his sister, Mrs.
Moon, being affected by all this theological dis-
cussion, and drove down for a visit with her at
Viewmont, to see if she remained firm in her Bap-
tist doctrines. The conversations of that week-
end may well be imagined as neighbors came and
went in calls upon the brother; as all views and
opinions were aired on the subject of the moment,
and interest and argument ran high.

The unexpected result of the visit was that
upon his return home, James Barclay began an
earnest and thoughtful study of the teachings of
Mr. Campbell, and upon getting into direct com-
munication with him, became an ardent follower
and co-worker with him. His son, John Judson,
later married Mr. Campbell’s tenth daughter,
Decima. Mrs. Moon was untouched by all this
dissension, her faith being like a steady light that
never wavered.

Drawn possibly by his love of research, but
more by his zeal for the new doctrine, Mr. Bar-
clay, having sold Monticello to Ensign Levy, of
Baltimore, offered himself as the first Campbellite
missionary to a foreign land, choosing Jerusalem
as his field.

His letters through the years were fascinating,
and his descriptions of the life in Palestine allured
Orianna, now “Dr. Moon.” So immediately after
graduation she set out for a year of foreign study
in the medical schools of Europe and a visit with
her uncle at the end. This was in 1858.32 LOTTIE MOON

Spending six months in study in Paris, she went
on to Jerusalem to find there an absorbing field
of work for a woman doctor. Especially was she
touched by the prevalence of opthalmia among
the Arabs and she gave herself tirelessly to allevi-
ating this disease of the eyes, especially among
the children. She entered into the missionary
work of her uncle, and was baptized by him in
the river Jordan into membership in the First
Christian Church of Jerusalem.

She won the gratitude of an old Arab chief by
curing him of an acute disease. He gave to her
the Arab blessing, ““May your children be as many
as the sands of the sea and the stars of the sky—
with never a daughter.”

It was rare fun to write home her thrilling ex-
periences and to astonish the family at Viewmont
with her adventures!

Sorrow had come to dim the brightness and
shadow the joy of the lovely old mansion. Cap-
tain Harris had died, and the estate and business
had been inherited by the three Moon brothers,
Isaac, Edward Harris, and John. It had been
the custom for the first two to make annual trips
to New Orleans and Memphis to buy cotton, Ed-
ward Harris Moon usually attending to the busi-
ness in New Orleans while Isaac went on up to
Memphis. This was a long, tiresome trip by boat,
and in 1852, it was necessary for Edward Harris
Moon to make the trip alone due to the illness of
his brother.

On his way up the Mississippi to Memphis; the
boat caught fire, and in trying to lift from the
boat the heavy leather trunk containing the money
which he would use in his business transactions
in Memphis, he was stricken with apoplexy and
died on the shore. The body was brought back toLOTTIE MOON 33

 

Viewmont and laid in the little family cemetery
beyond the orchard.

Anna Maria Moon was then mistress of View-
mont in every sense of the word. With a quiet,
silent energy, unobtrusive manner and guided by
an invincible love of right, she took over all the
intricate business of the estate, of the real estate
transactions in which her husband had been in-
terested, and of the store which he had conducted
at Carter’s Bridge, at the northern border of
Viewmont. She was a positive force in the com-
munity life, her opinions, firm but tolerant, were
valued, her counsel sought, and her qualities as a
capable and efficient manager of large business
interests unquestioned. A friend who loved her
said of her, “Whether as a neighbor, friend,
mother, or a disciple of Jesus, she acted well her
part. She adorned all the relations of life. Among
the many excellent women in Virginia who have
been an ornament and a blessing, she held very
high place.”” Especially was she a blessing in the
church life, succeeding quietly to the place of lead-
ership which Mr. Moon had held since uniting with
the Baptist Church at Scottsville.

The business demanded that someone should be
in close touch with the cotton markets, and after
Mr. Moon’s death his brother, Isaac, moved to
Memphis. On a visit there, Dr. Thomas Moon
and his family were passengers on a boat which
was stricken with yellow fever. He sent his fam-
ily to safety and stayed on board to minister to
the unfortunate men and women who could not
escape the plague, contracted the disease and died
in Tennessee, where he is buried. So the oldest
son died a martyr to his high calling as a phy-
sician—died at the post of duty.34

 

LOTTIE MOON

Thus sorrow made its mark on lovely View-
mont.

There were other cross-currents of life that
Swept through these years of growing up. For
several years a gifted and famous music teacher,
Nicholas Couch, author of Kathleen Mavourneen,
taught the girls of Viewmont and Mt. Ayr. One
of the daughters of Mt. Ayr, Anna, was so deeply
influenced by the Catholic faith of this teacher
that she entered a Catholic sisterhood. Soon there
came letters from a nunnery at Wheeling, West
Virginia, to the aunt and cousins at Viewmont
telling of the content and satisfaction of the life
there.

All these happenings were making their impres-
sions upon the girl, Lottie, then growing into
lovely young womanhood at Viewmont.

Her especial companion was James, the double
first cousin of her own age at Mt. Ayr. With
much in common in love of nature and apprecia-
tion of the rich treasure of enjoyment that comes
to the child reared amid happy country life scenes,
they were chums and playmates, and companions
in all the fun and frolic of the young life of the
two homes. She fell into the habit of calling him
“Brother” as he called her “Sister,” a habit that
persisted into mature years when time and cir-
cumstances separated them widely.

To the mother, anxious to impress the truths of
religion upon her young mind, there came little
encouragement. Lottie was not religiously in-
clined. Instead, with a will of her own, from early
childhood she eagerly inquired into the whys and
wherefores of all matters that stirred her curios-
ity, and she took much more readily to the read-
ing of the classics than she did to the study of
Bible passages. Her mother’s library was a veryLOTTIE MOON 35

choice collection of the best literature. Here she
found Shakespeare, who fascinated her, the stately
prose of the English novelists and essayists, the
flowing poetry of Byron, all the standard histories,
Seott’s romantic novels, Cooper’s stories of Ameri-
can history, and at least one book of biography of
which we-find her speaking afterward with deep-
est feeling. It was the “Lives of the Three Mrs.
Judsons,” which her mother read aloud to her
when it first appeared.

Seottsville was still the church-going center of
the countryside. The Sabbath was strictly ob-
served at Viewmont, Mrs. Moon allowing no work
to be done on that day which could possibly have
been done on Saturday. All the Sunday baking
was done on Saturday, all the housecleaning and
preparation for Sunday guests.

One Sunday Lottie persuaded her mother that
she should not go to church, and so was left at
home when the others went off in the carriages.
On returning home, Mrs. Moon found a smoking
hot dinner on the table awaiting the family. In
amazement she swept into the kitchen to find
twelve-year-old Lottie calmly putting the finishing
touches upon an elaborate dinner she had cooked.
She never had an opportunity to repeat the feat,
for after that the kitchen was always securely
locked when the family went to church.

Two years after the father’s death, the gov-
erness reached the end of her possibilities with
Lottie, and plans were made to send her away to
school. There was a small, well-managed school
for younger girls at Charlottesville, so there she
went first. In 1854 Mrs. Moon placed her daugh-
ter in Virginia Female Seminary which had, since
1842, been conducted under most auspicious clir-
cumstances, at Botertourt Springs, in the westernpad pe ee
ee

LOTTIE MOON

am

 

rie

—
Cec

Sona ie ba aoe fe ete ete at

 

HOLLINS COLLEGE IN 1854LOTTIE MOON 37

part of Virginia. This school offered what would
now be regarded as high school courses, and there
Lottie Moon first came into contact with the fas-
cinating subject of philosophy and showed her un-
usual aptitude for languages, which was to mark
her as a real scholar.

The course she took was a right heavy one for
a fourteen-year-old girl, Latin, French, Natural
Science, Arithmetic, Algebra, and English com-
position. But it was a school with sternly high
ideals of education for women and teachers who
spared no pains to lead their pupils not only into
intellectual understanding of the subjects in the
course, but: beyond that to a love for learning and
a thirst for knowledge that would make them
scholars in the real sense of the word. That they
succeeded with the merry girl from Viewmont
there is no doubt. Her grades show that she did
work of the finest type. ‘Teachers were much
more strict about accuracy in grading on exami-
nation than they are in modern schools, and so her
grades show a fine shade of distinction, with no
doubt a background of stern examinations. In
Latin, for instance, her grades run for the quar-
ters of that first year 41/4, 414/309, 411/32,
46/7, with 5 as perfect. Rarely did any pupil se-
cure the coveted “perfect” grade, but in this study
she ran very close to the “5” in every quarter.

In French for that year she secured two ORS
and in her second year they marked with distinc-
tion three of her quarterly records. Her mathe-
matics records do not show such a high rating,
though never do her grades drop down to the “2”
which meant “Deficient.”38 LOTTIE MOON

Only in deportment is there a record over which
her mother perhaps worried, for there She often
had a low grade. Beginning with two quarters of
“D’s” in her first year, she dropped to 4 1/2 and
then to no mark at all for the last quarter. Her
second year runs along the fractional border line
of “very deficient,” no doubt to the despair of
many a teacher. For strict rules meant little to
the irrepressible spirit of Lottie Moon. In fact
her teachers may have been puzzled often as to
just how to manage this brilliant, gay, daring
child whom all loved even when she set at de-
fiance the time-honored rules and traditions of
the school.

There were many things girls just did not do
in that day, which are not thought in any wise
indecorous for girls to do today. In so far as she
dared to do them, did Lottie Moon blaze the way
for more freedom of action for girls today. Still
is the story told of the night before the first of
April in ’55 when she Stole up to the attic of
the dormitory after al] the lights were out, walked
the rafters of the belfry, climbed into its pre-
carious tower and with towels and sheets muffled
the great bell that rang out the daily regime to
the school. There was no rising bell on that
April Fool day! And the tale of that exploit has
become a part of Hollins history.

In the spring of her first year at Virginia Fe-
male Seminary there came a change in the school.
Through the generous gift of Mr. and Mrs. John
Hollins of Lynchburg, the schoo] was placed on
a much more substantia] basis and its name
changed to Hollins Institute. The faculty was
enlarged, facilities for taking care of girls in-
creased and the schoo] opened in the fall of ’55
with a larger enrollment than ever before.LOTTIE MOON 39

Strangely do the accounts of the daily life in a
girls’ school of that day sound to our ears today.

“Pupils are expected to be engaged in their
studies from worship in the morning (30 min-
utes after rising) to 4 P.M., and from candle
lighting to 10 P.M.” Classes were held on every
day except Saturday and Sunday. Saturday,
however, was not a free day, for there were Rhe-
torical Exercises, and certain hours to be spent in
general reading, in an endeavor to introduce these
girls to the rich treasures of classical literature.
Worship usually consisted of reading the scrip-
ture, prayer and sacred music. This was always
in charge of the Principal, Charles L. Cocke,
around whose personality the school was built.

“Young ladies will not be allowed to receive the
attentions of young gentlemen while connected
with this-institution,” ran another of the princi-
ples of decorum of the school. One day there
marched by the school a body of students from a
nearbv boys’ school. In the excitement of this
event the girls rushed to the edge of the school
campus to make the most of the thrilling sight of
so many boys at one time. Dr. Cocke knew that
no rebuke for such unlady-like conduct would be
quite so effective as ridicule, so at worship the
next morning he painted a word picture of the
scene that made the girls feel very much ashamed
that they had so far forgotten their proper
womanly dignity!

In spite of restrictions there was plenty of fun
in the school life. The school life centered around
“The Circle,” a graveled walk that ran in an el-
liptical shape around the wide space between the
two buildings of Hollins at that time. Here the
girls walked after 4 o’clock, talking about every
subject from studies to sweethearts, as girls of40 LOTTIE MOON

 

every day and time have done. Often chums kept
step with each other and practiced their French
conversation until it was not unusual at all for
those in advanced classes to carry on conversa-
tions freely in this language which was the major
study of most of them. Down in the basement of
the dormitory was a room in which the girls
might gather for any kind of frolic they wanted.
It was called the “Frog Parlor,” because it had a
damp brick floor from which they often had to
chase the frogs before they could begin to dance.
There was a piano in the room and many an
hour was spent here in the graceful pacing and
swirling of skirts in the stately minuet, and Vir-
ginia Reel, or the more lively mazurka. For these
occasions half the girls would tie handkerchiefs
on their arms and be “boys” to provide the right
atmosphere.

There was an unusual May Day Festival with
the May Pole Dance, and program of musie and
recitations, and once each spring there was a Pil-
grimage to the top of Tinker’s Mountain, the peak
that lifted its lofty head above the campus. This
was an affair in which the whole school took part,
pupils and teachers alike, with a program planned
for the hour spent on the top of the mountain.
Often one of the teachers, Prof. Pleasants,
watched the procession up the mountain from his
telescope at the college, a fact that gave a little
thrill to the whole affair in those days when tele-
scopes were magical windows of vision into the
unknown distance.

Girls of that day were just as prone to give
their teachers disrespectful names in the same
spirit of girlish devotion as they do today. The
best-loved and perhaps most admired teacher of
all was J. A. E. Winkler, teacher of piano, whomLOTTIE MOON Al

they merrily called “John Adam Eve,” not quite
daring to adopt his wife’s name for him, “Pinky,”
save in the innermost recesses of their rooms.

There were other avenues of expression besides
classes and frolics. The Literary Societies were
organized through the initiative of the girls,
though heartily encouraged by the teachers. Lot-
tie Moon was a charter member of the Euzelian
Society, and one of the editors of the paper which
this society established as its first achievement and
ambitiously named “Rising Star.” Emma Lyon,
first president of the society, wrote a novel which
was published in installments in the paper. So
eager were the girls to know “what happened
next”? that the issues were the exciting event of
each week until the story was finished and the fair
heroine was rescued from the villain by the ro-
mantic hero.

So in classes, in hours of play, in ambitious
literary ventures, and most of all in daily contact
with teachers who had high ideals of their respon-
sibility and privileges did Lottie Moon shape her
ambitions and dreams. In such an atmosphere
did she begin to set up her ideals of life and ser-
vice. Not yet was there any yielding to the defi-
nite teachings of religion, influenced unquestion-
ably by the close contact she had through her
family with the personality and writings of that
devoted patriot and religious rebel, Thomas Paine.
But the religious atmosphere of the school did its
intended work in unconscious influence on her
mind.

There was romance in those school days as well
as study. For in girlish confidence to her closest
friends, Emma Lyon and Betty Fowlkes, she read
bits from letters that came from a young theolo-
gical student, especially those parts that dealt42 LOTTIE MOON

 

with theological questions. For this young man
had taken it to be his ministerial duty to win the
gay young girl away from her rebel stand against
religion, and the letters contained far more of
abstract discussion of theology than of lover-like
wooing. Neither of them realized that thus has
love taken on strange disguises since time imme-
morial. More thrilling, because more real, was the
romance that had developed between Lottie’s
room-mate, Carey Ann Coleman and the cousin,
James, of Mt. Ayr. June of 1856 brought gradua-
tion to Lottie in the course in French, and the gay
round of wedding festivities to the homes at View-
mont and Mt. Ayr as her dearest friend became
the bride of the cousin she had always called
“Brother.”

In the meantime a new and startling project
was brought under way at Charlottesville. <A
group of gentlemen conceived -the possibility of
offering to young women the same educational
advantages that the young men of Virginia en-
joyed. John Hart, a distinguished alumnus of the
University of Virginia and a Baptist preacher,
was the leader in the project. Many influential
and scholarly men were associated with him,
among them Herbert Harris, afterwards on the
faculty of Richmond College, John Cooke, Burl
Sneed, noted for his oratory and active in the
campaign of Douglas against Lincoln, John A.
Broadus, afterwards to become the President of
the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and
C. H. Toy, a young and scholarly graduate of the
University. They established their school, known
as Albemarle Female Institute at Charlottesville
that it might enjoy the atmosphere and share in
the scholarly teachers of the University of Vir-
ginia. For the first time a faculty constituted en-LOTTIE MOON 43

tirely of teachers who had won their Master’s De-
grees was employed for a girls’ school. The stand-
ards of scholarship and requirements for gradua-
tion were made equal to those of the University
and privileges of taking elective courses under
University professors in private classes were
granted those who wished to pursue studies not
offered at the Institute.

The school opened in 1857—the first school of
this type for education of women, and Lottie Moon
entered the college courses of this school, bringing
her splendid grades from Hollins and asking to
specialize in modern languages.

She was a dominant personality from the first.
Her keen wit, often merciless in an argument in
which she usually had the better of her opponent,
made her respected, while her merry disposition
and happy comradeship made her beloved. She
was the leader in scholarship, taking the heaviest
courses of the school and doing them all with ex-
ceptional ability. She delighted in the language
study, and majored in Greek and Latin, adding to
these as many electives in modern languages as
was possible. Several of these courses were ar-
ranged especially with the professor of languages
at the University.

She read much of the skeptical literature of the
day, writings of Tom Paine, of the French philos-
ophers, and the reflections of the old Greek think-
ers. She was the despair and delight of her teach-
ers. Her brilliant, responsive mind, her quick
powers of thought, and her natural gift of scholar-
ship were an inspiration to teachers and class-
mates.

On the other hand this same quick mind was
perpetually getting her into mischief. She was
the leader in all the pranks, the frolics and the44 LOTTIE MOON

good times. She was the mainspring of the es-
capades, her courage leading in the daring ex-
ploits against established authority, to which girls
of even that sedate time aspired.

Once when asked what the “D” in her name
represented, and she replied quickly, “Devil—
don’t you think it suits excellently ?”

The various strong influences to widely differ-
ing religious faiths found in her own family cir-
cle, made her think most seriously about such
matters. Perhaps it was this which caused her
to demand full satisfaction of her reason before
She accepted any religious faith. Certainly her
keen wit was never more brilliantly employed than
When she was dissecting religious beliefs and
holding them up to ridicule. Those girls who
were religiously inclined were often at a loss for
answers to her keen thrusts. She held in scorn
those who had been Swept unthinkingly into their
parents’ beliefs without any especial convictions
of their own, independently arrived at. She had
arrived at some conclusions for herself, and there
was no room for the Christian religion in them.
Philosophy offered all she wanted along this line.

A favorite prank of hers was to tell every new
girl in a confidential manner that on the first
Sunday they were in school they must join the
Baptist church. When the girl would protest
that she did not wish to do so, Lottie would sol-
emnly reply,

“But Dr. Hart is a Baptist and you must be a
Baptist, too. It is a rule of the school.”

Not until the puzzled girl had asked someone

else did she learn it was a practical joke Lottie
Moon had played on her.45

 

LOTTIE MOON

When asked one Sunday afternoon by a girl
who had missed her at church, where she had
been during the morning service, she replied,

“Under the haystack reading Shakespeare,
which was much better than listening to a dry
sermon.”

Dr. John A. Broadus was the pastor of the
Charlottesville church. In the spring of 1859 he
held a revival in the school. The students con-
ducted an early morning prayer meeting as their
part of the revival activities. At this prayer
meeting petitions were sent up for the conversion
of Lottie Moon. She knew the girls were praying
for her, and resented it for she felt no need of
prayer. Laughingly, wittily, cleverly, she would
answer their pleas with her and turn aside from
their invitations.

Dr. Broadus had become deeply interested in
this petite, flashing-eyed girl, whose mind had so
brilliantly responded to the opportunities of the
school. He determined to win her during the
meeting. Whether it was a sermon, or a word
spoken in private we will never know; we have
only her testimony to a cousin,

“T went to the service to scoff, and returned to
my room to pray all night.”

We do know that the battle was fought through
that night and Lottie Moon appeared at the sun-
rise prayer meeting of the girls the next morning
—-not to look on in amusement at their embar-
rassed efforts to express themselves before her,
but to turn the prayer meeting into a praise ser-
vice, for she had surrendered to her Lord!

For her, surrender meant the complete giving
of herself to the Lord Jesus. There were no reser-
vations. She threw herself into the revival in a

glorious way, losing not a whit of her leadership46

 

LOTTIE MOON

among the girls. Rather she gained, for now
there was an enthusiasm none could resist. Mrs.
William E. Hatcher, who knew her well in those
days, said of the change:

“This I know, the Lottie Moon after her conver-
sion was different from Lottie Moon before. She
was not a different person, though it did seem that
her face, always radiant with intelligence, had
assumed a softer radiance than before. She was
not different intellectually, but different in the
spirit and purpose of her life—different in her
influence on her fellow pupils—different in all
those details of daily life which at last may afford
the most delicate test of the Christian character.”

The beauty of her mind shone more brilliantly,
the glow in her face was more alluring, the charm
of her personality was irresistibly attractive. By
now denominational loyalties within her family
were still more varied for the sister Mary, special-
izing in music in Richmond Female Institute, had
become a Catholic and Sarah Coleman followed
her soon into that faith. Thus there were strong
influences to draw her into the newly organized
Disciples, to the ancient faith of the Roman
Church and to the faith of her father, the Pres-
byterian. Certainly she must have thought deep-
ly before she gave her whole life into the service
of the church of her mother. Thus do we know
that from deep conviction Lottie Moon was a Bap-
cist. She was always a tolerant one, granting to
others the right to their own beliefs, exacting only
from them the evidences of the Christian faith

which show in Christian practices in daily life.
As one closest to her in the family expressed it,

“With Lottie it was the life that evidenced the
faith.”LOTTIE MOON 47

Never considered a beauty, she was always at-
tractive with a charm that in girlhood was viva-
cious, but mellowed to quiet grace as the years
brought their richness of experience. A bubbling
sense of humor made vivid her charm in youth
and saved her from many a heartache in after
years. “Don’t think because she was ‘good,’ that
she was ‘goody-goody,’”’ wrote a friend who knew
her in the years of ripest achievement. The bud-
ding promise of the girl found lovely fulfillment
as from this day forward she sought to know how
best her life might fit into God’s plan for her.
From the day of her conversion she seems con-
sciously to have sought to know what he would
have her do with her life.

The next year she proved to be an exceptional
scholar in Bible. Dr. A. B. Brown, who had been
her English teacher in Hollins, had come to be
pastor of the Charlottesville church upon Dr.
Broadus’ becoming a member of the faculty of the
newly established Southern Baptist Theological
Seminary at Greenville, Southern Carolina, in the
fall of 1859. She was an especial joy to him in
her new eagerness to know God’s Word.

One of her teachers in writing of her in the
later years said:

“Her career as a student was marked with dis-
tinguished success. She never failed to pass every
examination that she attempted, and usually was
the highest in the class. It would be hard to say
in which studies she most excelled. The writer,
who has had the pleasure of reading many of her
examination papers, remembers her superlatively
fine work in Latin, history, literature and moral
philosophy. He thinks her strength lay especially
in languages, and the Belles Lettres studies. The
Greek language was not included in the graduate48 LOTTIE MOON

 

course but Miss Moon, entering upon the work
with her usual industry and intelligence became
a very good Greek scholar. Since that day the
writer has not heard young ladies read with such
pleasure and appreciation the plays of Euripides
and Sophocles. It is not invidious to say that in
the judgment of many who had opportunity to
know, she was the most scholarly of all the grad-
uates of that school.”

At the University was the young man with
whom she had corresponded in Hollins days, now
professor of languages at the University of which
he was an honor graduate. He became her de-
voted admirer.

Graduation came amid the roll of war drums
as Virginia went out to fight for what she thought
was right. During the last hectic weeks of school
in the spring of 1861, the girls of the school
attended one flag raising after another, their
partisan enthusiasm running beyond bounds as
their brothers and sweethearts marched out +o
fight for the Stars and Bars. So demoralizing
to the school life were these patriotic events that
President Hart exclaimed one morning in chapel.

“You are running these flag raisings into the
ground!”—and wondered why the girls laughed!

At the graduation, however, five girls realized
that they had pioneered in education for women,
for in solemn ceremony there was conferred upon
them the first Master of Arts degrees ever given
to women in the South, a degree equal in value
to that given by the University of Virginia. There
were few in all the land who had preceded them
in this adventure into the realm of higher educa-
tion for women. Of these Lottie Moon was the
bright particular star.LOTTIE MOON 49

It was a serious world into which she stepped
from the schoolroom. War was on, war that
was to tear the fair land of Virginia into bloody
shreds for four long years. All the high hopes
for achievement, stimulated unquestionably by
the example of the sister who had blazed her way
into a hitherto unoccupied field for women, all
the dear ambitions, must await the coming of
peace, for now the war demanded every energy,
every enthusiasm, Her inclinations were toward
the teaching profession and the further pursuit
of scholarly attainments. Deep in her heart was
that persistent, insistent voice that called her to
find her place in the world according to the will
of God. But all must await the events now
impending. So back to Viewmont Lottie Moon
went to bear her part in the strenuous days that
were ahead.

Yet not so serious were the times that youth
was all forgot. For down to Viewmont in that
troubled June the young professor came a-wooing.

June time at Viewmont! The last blossoms of
the trumpet vines were still hanging on the fes-
tooning wreaths, pendent heavily from the locust
trees. The rose garden glowed with color, and
in the evening time the air was heavy with their
perfume. Though war drums might sound in all
the valleys of Virginia, it was peaceful here at
Viewmont in the June of 1861.

The younger daughters were home from Rich-
mond, gay companies of young people came and
went, for always from Mt. Ayr there were cousins
visiting, and from all the countryside there came
friends of the Viewmont young people.

Polly Anna Austin, Lottie’s especial friend, was
staying at Viewmont. After the custom of the50 LOTTIE MOON

day in courtship, the young professor was also a
guest in the home.

It would be a most excellent match, that of this
distinguished young scholar and the cultured,
gifted daughter of an old Virginia family. Polly
Anna’s sympathies were openly with the young
professor, but as the days went gaily by, the
serious look on Lottie’s face deepened. There
were many factors to emphasize the serious con-
sideration of the matter before her. The call to
the defense of his state had been answered by the
young man. He would leave Viewmont to begin
his duties as a Chaplain in the Confederate Army,
and be in active service during the days of battle
to come.

This was rather to the advantage of the young
man’s suit. With Virginia women all astir with
zeal to aid and inspire their men, with all the
excitement of war and the apprehension of its
dangers in the air, with June at its loveliest,—
truly a maid’s heart would be cold indeed not to
stir at the touch of love.

We do not know what thoughts lay behind the
blue eyes of Lottie Moon during those days. We
know that to one of the Mt. Ayr cousins, loved
as a sister, she said on one of those summer days,
“Ever since that night when I went to scoff at
the sermon and back to my room to pray, I have
wanted to give my life to carrying the gospel
to the heathen.” The old story, read by the
mother in childhood days, was beginning to
direct her life. In the light ahead, along the
woodland paths of Viewmont, there gleamed the
feet of Ann Judson, with ever the challenge to
follow to the heathen lands that had, as yet, never
heard of a Saviour.LOTTIE MOON 51

There was one last talk, as the young man
and Lottie Moon walked among the roses in the
silver moonlight, when the decision was given.
Perhaps because of some as yet faintly glowing
purpose in her heart, perhaps simply because
she could not be sure she loved him, she said
“no” to the love he offered her, and turned aside
from all the fascination of the life amid the
scholarly atmosphere of universities that would
be hers at his side.

The next morning the young man bade the
household farewell, to ride gallantly away from
Viewmont to his duty in the battle lines then
forming. Polly Anna, who read in the faces of
her two friends the answer Lottie had given, ran
out to the garden where pansies were blooming
in purple and gold splendor. Gathering a hand-
ful of these she gave them to him as he was
leaving.

“Take these, my friend, they are all the heart’s
ease I can find for you,’”—and the young man
rode away with Polly Anna’s pansies in his but-
tonhole.

So love came, and went—to await a fairer time
for his call to her heart again.

There was many a problem to absorb her at-
tention in these June days. Her mother needed
her help with the estate. With no market for
their products, with all the unrest and distur-
bances of the war time upon them, even though
Viewmont was out of the sweep of the armies,
it was no easy task to keep all the human factors
on the large plantation provided for and the ma-
chinery running smoothly.

Often there were rumors of raids on the planta-
tions near them, wild alarms brought by the
negroes, “The Yanks are coming,” down the road52 LOTTIE MOON

 

from Charlottesville. Charlottesville was often
the center of conflict, and from the very first
was a hospital center, the wounded being brought
there from the battlefield of Manassas.

Orianna Moon was there, throwing all her
splendid young womanhood into making the Uni-
versity of Virginia buildings into hospital units.
Her ability and energy were recognized by a sur-
geon’s commission as a Captain in the Con-
federate Army, the only one given to a woman.

Sarah Coleman and Mary, and for a little while
Lottie also, went to help with the nursing in the
overcrowded buildings, while cellar and linen
rooms were ruthlessly robbed at Viewmont, to
provide the necessities for the wounded and sick.

In that first frantic week of July, when few
doctors were to be had, and no equipment for
their use, a young doctor from Alabama who had
been in the battle of Manassas with his two
brothers, called for assistance in caring for the
one brother left to him out of the battle. Dr.
Orianna Moon was the doctor sent for the con-
sultation. Side by side they sat through a long
night, and her sympathy was drawn to the man,
who after doing all that medical skill could do,
must watch his brother die.

He was grateful for her help and sympathy, and
as the two of them continued to work together
in the days that followed, love blossomed even
amid those dreadful scenes and Orianna Moon
found her woman’s heritage to be the love of a
good man, and was married to Dr. John S. An-
drews. Through a long life together they prac-
ticed their profession to the blessing of the peo-
ple among whom they lived, first in Tennessee
and later, about 1881, they established a hospital
in Scottsville. Often did she remember the oldLOTTIE MOON 53

Arabic blessing which had so amused her, as sons
to the number of twelve came to bless their home
—but never a daughter. Such good Bible students
as the children of Anna Maria Moon could not but
know the symbolic interpretation of that number
as being a mystical “completeness,”—‘“and so,”
the family said, ‘“‘the blessing was fulfilled.”

Others of the family were active participants
in the scenes of war. James Moon of Mt. Ayr,
with his brother, rode with Mosby’s men in their
mad, daring raids upon the Federals. Twice did
the terrifying news come that James was wound-
ed with the attendant days of suspense before
the household of Viewmont could know how ser1-
ously and.could have a part in providing comforts
and luxuries for the beloved cousin. Two girls,
cousins of Lottie Moon, gave splendid service as
Southern spies, using the disguise of Irish wash-
women and often penetrating the Federal lines.
One of them had been the sweetheart of General
Burnside in the days before the war. While on a
dangerous mission in the very camp of the enemy
she was suspected and taken before the General.
He recognized her and using his authority as a
General sent her back through the lines escorted
by a guard, with a warning that the next time the
General who captured her might not be so con-
siderate. 3

When the war broke out Edmonia should have
been going away to school. Of course there was
no hope for that now. That the little sister might
not miss the opportunities that had been given to
all the others, Lottie turned her attention to
giving her the best of her own brilliant attain-
ments. Edmonia proved to be a most apt student
of languages. So in the quiet of the home there
was much study of French, Latin and Greek, as54

 

LOTTIE MOON

well as the accompanying sciences. In the enjoy-
ment of the classics of the French and Italian
writers there was forged a bond between the older
sister and the baby sister that endured through
all the years, a closeness of spirit, a congeniality
of tastes, and a fellowship of the deeper things
of the mind and heart that bound these two
closer than merely the tie of blood. Ina world of
great literature the two sisters found relief from
the burdens of the heavy days. It was in these
days that Lottie Moon extended her reading of
the classics in the original languages until she
had mastered the greatest of them in German,
Italian, Spanish and French, and turned to a
study of New Testament Greek that was to be
life long. The habit of reading the Gospels in
the original became a daily one, never to be
broken.

There was once a time of frantic excitement..
An excited negro, flying like the wind down the
Road of the Presidents spread the news that
Sheridan was coming southward,—Charlottesville
was a smoking ruin, beautiful Monticello was be-
ing sacked, all the valley was doomed! Sheridan
would soon be at Viewmont! So the rumors flew.
Hurriedly Lottie sent the negroes away to the
flatwoods in the river bottom with the stock and
food supplies, to be securely hidden until the Fed-
erals were gone. Then she took the family jewels
and silver out to the orchard, burying them in
two separate places so if one were discovered,
the other might escape. It was a good plan, if
She had not in her excitement completely for-
gotten one of the burying places. Few of the
jewels were recovered, though through the years
the orchard was dug over many times.LOTTIE MOON 5D

As was the case all over the South, the slaves
of Viewmont were faithful. Not one left the place
even when word came to them that they were
free. They wished no freedom from the gentle
rule of their mistress, who cared for them as
children. So when the war was ended, there
seemed little change in Viewmont. Slowly the
place recovered its old well-kept air. The son,
Isaac, came to be his mother’s assistant in all
the affairs of the place, and now Lottie, freed
from responsibility, could look about her and see
what place there might be for her in the South
that was arising from the ashes of desolation and
despair. With keen insight she saw that first
of all must the problems of education be solved.
Here was a pioneer field for the woman educator.
Here was the challenge to all the trained and
cultured powers of her mind and soul. It was a
challenge to a hard task. With the former system
of society abolished, fortunes ruined, the very
means of a livelihood cut off, it took a brave heart
to begin business or educational ventures in the
South in those first years after the war.

She found her opportunity to enter this field
as a private tutor in a family in Alabama, but
this lasted only for a brief time. Then came the
invitation to join in an enterprise to establish a
School for Girls at Danville, Kentucky, where
Mr. Herbert Davis was principal of the schgol and
pastor of the Baptist church. Her duties were
to be partly as teacher in the school and partly
an assistant to him in his church work,—the first
of many pastor’s assistants who would in later
years enter that field of service.

She entered upon her duties in the fall of 1868:
She so impressed herself upon the pupils in her
charge, the little girls in her Sunday school class56

 

LOTTIE MOON

and those with whom she came in touch in the
social life of the town, that today her personality
is rich and vivid in their memory. One of the
girls of her Sunday school class wrote,

“She was very popular and greatly beloved by
all with whom she came in contact.” While an-
other said, “I can never forget her. She taught
me the Twenty-third Psalm.”

A rare friendship was formed between Lottie
Moon and a fellow teacher in the school, Miss
A. C. Safford, which was to endure through all
the years. Miss Safford was a Presbyterian.

The school at Danville had many trials. Mr.
Davis was so generous with free tuition that he
could not finance the school after two years of
its existence and it was reorganized as Caldwell
College, under Presbyterian management, Dr.
Lewis Barbour, President. Miss Moon and Miss
Safford were retained as teachers.

The summer months were always spent at
Viewmont with the mother and little sister.
Many changes were taking place in the lovely old
estate. The old methods of Southern plantations
could no longer be used. The slaves had drifted
away, and new methods must be introduced in
order to make the land productive under the
regime of wage-paid labor. The adjustment came
slowly, and in the meantime parts of the estate
had to be sold to take care of the expenses that
accumulated. The old home life was gone. The
brother lived on the place, the two sisters, Sarah
Coleman and Mary had gone. Sarah Coleman
had first thought to follow the steps of the cousin
from Mt. Ayr who was now the Mother Superior
in St. Joseph’s Convent in Wheeling, West Vir-
ginia. She entered the convent but ever a ‘belle
and a beauty, her purpose weakened and she leftLOTTIE MOON 57

 

to become a teacher of elocution and music in a
girls’ school in Pittsburgh, where she married a
Professor Myers and died a few years later.
Mary had married also, her husband being a
young Dr. Shepard with whom she began a life
of quiet happiness as ahomemaker. Orianna now
lived in Tennessee, where Lottie spent part of
the summer of 1870 in a visit to this much-loved
older sister. The second boy, a little chap of
nearly six years, was her constant companion. He
never forgot the delightful times he and “Aunt
Lottie” had together, child though he was. One
vivid incident contained a bit of fright for the
boy, for on a long walk together in the woods
they became lost, and the stories she told to keep
the little boy brave and make him feel that he
must be her protector became a part of the man’s
heritage of memory. The boy remembered also
many long hours that he sat listening to the con-
versation of the two sisters, the weighty subjects
they discussed, fascinating to him because of the
glamor of distant lands that fell over them, for to
this sister Lottie had brought her problem of what
to do with her life. Some conclusion had been
arrived at, for at this time she was seeking help
in deciding whether a woman missionary would
invest her life to better advantage in China or
Burma. Again the influence of the book, read
long ago in childhood, came to direct her mature
thought. The question of differing religious back-
grounds of the people, the problem of caste in
India which blocked many a missionary enter-
prise, the advantages offered by the advanced
culture and ethical teachings of Chinese eiviliza-
tion,—all were thoroughly covered in these inti-
mate talks with the older sister. Strange sub-
jects for two women of that day to be discussing!58 LOTTIE MOON

What backgrounds of intellectual activity in the
old home at Viewmont they portray! The hand
of Anna Maria Moon, fostering the world vision
for her children, can be clearly seen in this sig-
nificant visit of the two sisters. Significant also
is the fact that it is to the one who had dared
the conventions of her day and had gained ex-
perience in the months spent with Dr. Barclay
in the Holy Land, Lottie Moon turned as she
pondered the step she was considering which
would determine the course of her life.

Early in 1869 a movement was begun at Car-
tersville, Georgia, for a new school for girls. The
school was offered to the two friends at Danville.
The spirit of the citizens appealed to them, the
financial arrangements were most favorable for
them and with unbounded courage they entered
in the beginning of 1870 upon a school enterprise
of their own in the Georgia town. They pros-
pered far beyond their highest expectations.
Georgia had suffered from the war and its after-
math of reconstruction more than -any other
Southern state except Virginia. Even without
the handicap of the war, a school for girls would
not have been a thriving proposition in those
days in the South. There had been few success-
ful attempts at such. But the attractiveness of
the two teachers, their ability, their scholarship
and above all their consecration to their task
proved an irresistible combination, and on open-
ing school they found themselves overwhelmed
with pupils. Before the first term was out, there
came a sad interruption. Called to Viewmont,
Lottie found her mother slipping away from life.
All thought of returning to Cartersville was
abandoned and Lottie stayed by the bedside of her
mother until in the quiet of an early afternoon59

   

LOTTIE MOON

she tranquilly and smilingly went to sleep to
awake in Eternal morning. In spite of the sad-
ness and the heartbreak of separation, those were
days of quiet joy, for the peaceful face of the
mother shone with the victory over death already
achieved in faith, even while her lips could still
speak of the happiness that her children had given
her, of the earthly joys of companionship and
of her high hopes for her children whom she
was leaving.

This was on June 21, 1870. That evening Lot-
tie wrote a tender letter to her sister, Orianna,
whose home in Tennessee was too remote for her
to hope to come to the funeral. The letter was
directed to the brother-in-law, John S. Andrews,
but its sad news and words of comfort were meant
for the sister’s heart.

“The worst, no, the best, has come. Mother
went home to God today about two o’clock. We
bury her Saturday. She spoke often of sister,
said, ‘My affection for Orianna is unchanged,’
and another time, ‘All my children are dear and
sweet to me.’ She died peacefully and happily.
There was no pain. I think I shall never fear
death after seeing her triumph over it. I wish
dear sister could have seen her. We told her we
would all meet her in the many mansions. How
happy she is now with the husband and children
gone before! She said on yesterday, “Lottie, my
darling, don’t ever cry for me. I want not a tear
at my grave to be shed,’ and then added ‘You must
rejoice with me.’ My precious sisters and brother
bear it with Christian resignation. I do so sym-
pathize with dear sister, tell her this with my
love.”

Through the long quiet days that followed,
Edmonia and Lottie had many a talk about life,

 

a
s

en ie F ae
ns a Ee60

 

LOTTIE MOON

—and death, and the short time one has to spend
between. The little sister had been cherishing a
dear dream, also, of giving her life in service.
She was just eighteen, but her heart burned with
a devotion that was accented in these days when
love was shadowed and deepened by sorrow. Her
purpose crystallized during that winter in a deter-
mination to offer herself in response to the pleas
of Mrs. T. P. Crawford and Mrs. J. L. Holmes,
veteran missionaries of North China, for a single
woman to help in the educational work of that
field.

In the summer of 1871, while Lottie was at
Viewmont, Dr. H. A. Tupper, Secretary of the
Foreign Mission Board, visited the sisters and
talked with them about Edmonia’s going. Despite
her youth, and the still vigorous opposition to the
appointment of single women as missionaries,
Edmonia Moon was appointed in the winter of
that year, sailed in the spring and arrived in
Tengchow, the center of work in North China,
in June, 1872. She was to be supported by the
women of the Missionary Society of the First
Baptist Church, Richmond, Va. In the minutes
of the eighty-first meeting of the Albemarle As-
sociation in the fall of 1872 we find these words,
in the Report on Foreign Missions, “We should
feel a deep interest in all our missionaries, but
while doing this, it is neither unreasonable or
improper for us to feel a peculiar interest in
Sister Edmonia Moon, and to remember her and
her labors of love especially in our prayers.”

The school in Cartersville had prospered in
that year. The two friends had jubilantly and
bouyantly laid plans for future development that
promised to make the school a leading one in the
New South that was gradually coming into being.LOTTIE MOON

LOTTIE MOON

EDMONIA

MOON

 

 

ON pe een62 LOTTIE MOON

Through that fall and winter, 1871-72, there must
have been many a stirring in her heart of the old
intention that had once led Lottie Moon to think
of the mission field. In the duties of her im-
mediate task, she found surcease from these secret
promptings of her heart, especially as success
crowned every phase of her work. In this New
South there would be new opportunities, with
education the primary need and the richest field
of endeavor. The two friends had begun early,
facing the problems of the poverty of the people,
the depression of business and society, and were
winning out. With their high standards of schol-
arship, they bade fair to have soon the leading
institution for girls in that part of the South.

The fall of 1872 came. Long, charming letters
came from Edmonia, telling of the voyage, of the
kindness of new friends, her interest in the lan-
guage, the people and their customs and especially
of her eagerness to get at the business for which
she had gone—telling them about Jesus.

These letters were answered by long ones in
return telling of the busy life the older sister
was leading in Cartersville. Lottie Moon did not
confine herself to the schoolroom as all her world.
Setting to work in the Sunday school, she built
up a class of young people. remembered yet in
that church. She was beloved by all types of
people. It was joy to her to hunt out the desti-
tute families—there were many in those days—
and take to them the comforts of the Scriptures
and of friendly interest and fellowship in prayer.
She did not wait for Sunday school pupils to come
to her, but went out after them, often out of her
Own purse supplying them with clothing needful
for their comfort. She endeared herself to theLOTTIE MOON 63

entire community, and was the right hand of the
pastor of the church, Dr. R. B. Headden.

In February of 1873 there was a Ministers’ and
Deacons’ Meeting of the Middle Cherokee Asso-
ciation at which a stirring missionary address
was given. The pastor of Cartersville was pres-
ent and upon the inspiration of the hour, pro-
posed that those present should covenant together
“To pray to the Lord of the Harvest to send now
more laborers into the harvest,” and that the min-
isters present should pledge themselves, as a part
of the carrying out of that covenant, to preach
a missionary sermon on their return home.

For his own sermon, Dr. Headden selected the
text that had provoked the covenant, “Lift up
your eyes and look upon the fields, for they are
white already unto harvest,” and preached on it
the next Sunday in Cartersville, with a prayer in
his own heart that it would call forth at least one
volunteer for the mission fields. His prayer must
have entered into his sermon in a most vitalizing
way, for it is remembered vividly by those who
heard it. But his faith had not been strong
enough to foresee the answer to his prayer.

At the close of the sermon the two beloved
teachers of the school, that was the pride of the
community, walked down together to signify that
they had answered the call. Lottie Moon’s words
to Dr. Headden were, “I have long known God
wanted me in China. I am now ready to go.”
Her friend, Miss Safford, stood by her side, an
equally eager volunteer.

The glad news was written to Edmonia in
China, that her sister was coming to join her in
the work there. Then came complications about
the school in Cartersville. Many people expressed
great indignation at the waste of such a noble64

   

LOTTIE MOON

life upon the Chinese! There were some obliga-
tions concerning the school that were not easy
to adjust, for those who had given it financial
support were not willing -to give up the teachers
who had made it such a success. It was not easy
to break away from generous-hearted friends,
wide-open opportunities and definite obligations.

So we find Edmonia writing in May of that
year,

“Tf am not grieving over your letter, for I
believe you will yet come to China. True, you are
doing a noble work at home, but are there not
some who could fill your place? I know of no
one who could fill your place here. In the first
place not every one is willing to come to China.
In the next place their having the proper quali-
fications is doubtful. Laborers are so needed here.
Only last Saturday I declined three invitations to
go visiting where I might have told the gospel
to many, for lack of time and strength. The
poor hear us gladly. The rich sometimes turn
us out of their doors, but there is plenty of hard
work to be done among the poor. The Richmond
ladies want me to have a female boarding school.
I can’t carry it on alone. They wrote that they
thought they could raise the money this summer
to build me a home. So you see the school is not
far in the future. I don’t dread teaching the
school, but to have all the responsibility on me
and to be keeping house alone I would dread.
But after all, it is not for my sake I want you
to come, but for the sake of the Chinese. I would
not persuade you against what you think right.
For how many years did you engage to stay in
Cartersville? Would not the trustees release you
if you insist? Seems to me if they are ChristianLOTTIE MOON 65

men they would give you up gladly to come to
China!”

In the end the trustees did prove that they
were sympathetic, for matters were arranged and
Lottie Moon made application to the Foreign Mis-
sion Board for appointment to North China.
She was appointed July 7, 1873, and quickly began
to make all preparations for sailing.

Back in Cartersville the friends of the Baptist
church wished to make a parting gift to her, to
show their love and appreciation and to speed
her on her way. The informal meeting called to-
gether to talk this over resulted in a plan for a
missionary society among the women which was
organized August 17 with its purpose stated in
the Constitution thus:

“Our immediate purpose shall be to aid as far
as possible in the maintenance of Miss Lottie
Moon, who has gone from this church as a mis-
sionary to China.”

A little girl brought by her mother to that meet-
ing listened in wonder to all the talk of this tre-
mendously interesting project. In the years that
followed she heard many a letter read from Miss
Moon, and the impressions thus made by them
on her young mind had much to do with shaping
her life. In her young womanhood she gave her-
self to active service in her own church, and
from that came larger opportunities to serve in
Association and State, until the years had marked
out a notable path for her as a leader of Woman’s
Missionary Union. For that little girl, shyly lis-
tening at her mother’s knee that far away day
in Cartersville was Mrs. W. J. Neel, for many
years President of the Georgia W.M.U.

A visit to Richmond, where Lottie Moon was en-
trusted with’a communion set for the Monument66

 

LOTTIE MOON

Street Church sent by the girls of Richmond
Female Institute—the forerunner of the great
Westhampton College of today—a briefer visit
in Baltimore, with many messages of farewell,
made the time pass quickly. Leaving Baltimore
August 18, she arrived in company with Miss Saf-
ford in San Francisco on August 30, taking as
long to reach the Pacific Coast from the Atlantic
as it now takes to cross the Pacific Ocean.

There she was met by an old friend, a fellow
teacher in Danville, who wrote of her visit:

“Tt has been a cherished purpose with Miss
Moon for years past to be a missionary to the
heathen; now that her desire in that regard is
about to be realized, she is quite happy, and says
that in going to China to join her sister, she
feels as though she were going home. A lady of
fine intellect, of rare culture, and of splendid
social gifts, she lays herself on the altar of sacri-
fice for him who purchased her with his precious
blood. Virginia never reared a nobler woman.”

She sailed on September 1, 1873. That day be-
fore going to the boat she had a last mail from
the old home in Virginia and the friends in
Cartersville. She wrote in reply to the message
telling of the organization of the missionary so-
ciety in Cartersville:

“The intelligence gave me much pleasure for it
proved your sympathy in the work to which I have
consecrated my life, and cheered my heart with
the assurance that I shall not be forgotten by
you, though in a distant land. I shall regard my-
self as your representative, and in seeking to
lead the darkened and degraded to the true Light,
I shall feel that you are speaking through me,
and that you send while I carry the Bread of
Life to the perishing heathen.”CHAPTER Il

IN WHICH THREE DECISIONS ARE MADE

“WORDS DO FAIL TO EXPRESS MY LOVE FOR THIS
HoLy Book, MY GRATITUDE FOR ITS AUTHOR, FOR
HIS LOVE AND GOODNESS; HOW SHALL I THANK

HIM FOR IT!”
—From margin of Lottie Moon’s Bible.

   

E sun was shining brightly and the waters
of the bay sparkled brilliantly in its beams,”
ma wrote Lottie Moon to the home folks of her
§sailing from San Francisco on that beautiful
September morning in 1873. “The bay is large
and very beautiful. It is said that all the navies
of the world could be gathered there and find
room. The shores on either side are noted for
their loveliness. As we were passing out of our
last sight of land the gong sounded for lunch.
Very prosaically, and as it turned out, very un-
wisely for me, I chose the lunch in preference to
the beauties of nature. I felt rather queer about
the head, and made my escape from the table as
soon as possible.” Being the victim of ‘‘mal de
mer,” however, did not prevent her enjoying the
activities of the passengers on the boat. Her pic-
ture of the social life on board the steamer is a
delightful comment on the amusements of the day.

“The gentlemen played quoits, or practiced
feats of gymnastics. For those who liked quieter
games there were cards, chess and anagrams. The

[ 67]68 LOTTIE MOON

 

surgeon of the vessel who is quite a literary char-
acter treated us to a very interesting treatise on
Shylock, and interspersed it with readings from
the play in which'the Jew appears. One gentle-
man gave us an adcount of a dangerous voyage he
had made under a drunken Captain.”

They had stunts in those days, too, very amus-
ing ones, as the following account will prove.

“Another night an Egyptian mummy was on
exhibition and a lecture was delivered on the sub-
ject. The mummy had been bought for the enor-
mous sum of 3714 cents! By the process of mod-
ern science, he had been revived to some extent,
could understand what was said to him, and could
respond by a wink. The lecturer proved this by
asking various questions as to the mummy’s past,
inquiring if he had walked about the streets of
Thebes three thousand years ago and so on. A
wink gave satisfactory evidence that the mummy
understood and responded. The lecturer then pro-
ceeded to state that he hoped in time that the
mummy would speak. He would now try to make
him do so. He uplifted an enormous iron ring,
which so startled the mummy that he sprang
up with a terrific shriek, and in endeavoring to
get away, dragged off the table cloth and revealed
our young friend from Boston! Of course, that
part was a failure, because the design was for
him to vanish under the table.”

Landing in Yokohama, the party of mission-
aries bound for China, which included several of
different denominations, decided to see the sights
of the city. They had many gay adventures, and
saw many curious sights.

She wrote delightedly of the curio shops and
of the lovely silks she found. Her first impres-
sions of the Japanese were those of amazement atLOTTIE MOON 69

the beauty of their industries and the courtesy
of their tradesmen. This favorable opinion was
deepened as the years in China brought to her
a realization of the importance of Southern Bap-
tists opening work in the land of their increasing-
ly powerful neighbor.

A brief stop was made at Kobe on Sunday when
the party was met by missionaries of the Church
of England, and all attended the church of that
faith for the morning service. Miss Moon was
much impressed by the consecration and ability of
the clergyman, Mr. Burnsides, but her sense of
humor added to the account of the service.

“T am sure I responded heartily to the prayer
for the Queen and Royal Family!”

The short voyage from Nagasaki to Shanghai
was the most eventful part of the journey. A
terrible storm arose and for hours the ship was
driven helplessly before it. The thoughts of those
hours were set down graphically in a letter home.

“You will want to know how we felt, this facing
what seemed almost inevitable death. The cap-
tain and officers did their duty nobly. Without
any thought of themselves, they bent every energy
to the guidance of the shattered ship. The sur-
geon and one other buoyed themselves up with
bottle after bottle. Our own party spoke and felt
calmly of the coming end. If it was God’s will,
surely it was well. As I watched the mad waste
of waters, howling as if eager to engulf us, I think
I should scarcely have been surprised to see a
Divine Form walking upon them, so sweetly I
heard in my inmost soul the consoling words, ‘It
is I, be not afraid.’ ”

The storm abated on the second day and the
ship landed safely back in Nagasaki.70 LOTTIE MOON

The next attempt to cross the stormy East China
Sea was a happy experience and on the morning
of October 7, 1873, Lottie Moon was greeted at
the wharf of Shanghai by Mr. and Mrs. T. P.
Crawford, veteran missionaries of Tengchow, and
Dr. and Mrs. Matthew T. Yates, who had for
twenty-eight years been Southern Baptist mis-
slonaries in Shanghai.

She was overwhelmed with friendly greetings
and invitations from not only the Baptist mission-
aries, but those of other denominations. The hos-
pitality delighted her. China, after all, was very
much like Virginia!

She was delighted, also, by the expressions of
high esteem from those who had met Edmonia,
the little sister.

“People speak of her in terms of enthusiastic
praise,” she wrote Orianna. ‘She had been in
charge of three schools, her own, Mrs. Crawford’s,
while she is in Shanghai, and Mrs. Holmes’ while
she is away on country tours. Eddie likewise is
superintending the building of additional rooms to
Mrs. Crawford’s house, and has under her eight
carpenters and masons. So you see the dear child
is a woman of business. Mrs. Yates says the gen-
tlemen, married and single, were up in arms, very
indignant that a ‘pretty young thing’ should be
buried in Tengchow! Mrs. Crawford said she had
shown wonderful good sense in her power of
adapting herself to circumstances, and that she
bears off the palm for quickness in acquiring the
language, speaking it with remarkable ease and
likeness to the Chinese.”

That the life of a missionary, young and pretty
as was Edmonia Moon, had its romantic incidents
is shown in a bit of gossip sent on to the family
that the little sister had been invited “to presideLOTTIE MOON 71
over the beautiful home of a well-to-do bachelor
in Shanghai.” “Of course,” she adds, “I give
the report for what it is worth, for Eddie has
never mentioned it.”

Early in December the Crawfords and Miss
Moon landed at Chefoo, the seaport and post office
town, from which they went fifty-five miles west-
ward to Tengchow, the prefecture city, which had
for many hundreds of years commanded a magni-
ficent situation on the Pe-Chi-Li Gulf.

The Province of Shantung is a little larger than
Virginia and West Virginia combined, lying in
about the same latitude as those States and with
something of the same contour of land. The name
Shantung means “East of the hills.” The Hoang
Ho River marks its western border, while to the
east and north lie the Yellow Sea and Pe-Chi-Li
Gulf. Across the Gulf, winding through the many
rocky islets in the sea lies the course of the
vessels plying between Shanghai, five hundred
miles to the south and Peking two hundred miles
to the west. Chefoo, with its splendid harbor is the
seaport, while Tengchow, then the larger city, with
a beautiful harbor, but beset with many pine clad
islets, called the Chang San Tao, is located fifty
miles up the coast. Rolling hills with here and
there mountain ranges cutting across to jut out
as rugged promontories in the Gulf make it an
excellent agricultural region. The chief products
are grains, wheat and millet predominating.

The city of Tengchow has a history running
back far before the birth of Christ. The Yamen,
or seat of government, was established there about
A.D. 681, while the Examination Halls, bringing
great honor and prestige to the city, were built
A.D. 627. The wall of the city dates certainly to
one hundred years before Christ, is about 36 feet~

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LOTTIE MOON

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VIEW OF TENGCHOW CITY FROM PING LAI KWOA TEMPLE
B—Baptist Church, White Steeple.
P—Presbyterian Church.
N—North Gate.
E—East Gate.
S—South Gate.
T—Temple Mountain, one and one-half miles south of city.
F—Newly Built Electric Light Plant.
M—Newly Built Motor Car Station.
Bri... . , ;LOTTIE MOON 73
high, and has four gates, named very picturesque-
ly in Chinese fashion. The East Gate is “Birth
of Spring,” the South, “Looking Toward Heaven,”
the West, ““Welcome Mercy,” while the North Gate
is simply “To Go To The Sea,” for just outside
this Gate is the beach with its white capped waves
ever washing the shores.

Between the North Gate and the Sea, forming
a gray green setting for the city, is the Temple
mountain, where according to the Chinese, dwell
the good and evil spirits who control the destiny
of the city. The Water City, with a separate
wall, was built around an inlet of the sea where
the water rose Geep enough to float the boats in
through the water gate at high tide. Across the
city proper, ran two great streets, North to the
South and East to West. Besides these there was
no regular arrangement of streets. They were
narrow, mostly paved with stones, and often end-
ing in the courtyard of some temple, or even that
of a home.

It was through the great East Gate that Lottie
Moon entered the city that was to be her home
for forty eventful years—a gateway that she came
to look upon as symbolic of the people that came
and went beneath its silent guardianship.

The beginnings of missionary work in this con-

_servative old city had not been easy. With prac-
tically no contact with the foreigners until these
white-faced teachers had come to bring new ways
and new worship, the people of Tengchow had
been unfriendly and resentful from the firsts
B. Hartwell, coming from Shanghai in 1860, had
met with every form of opposition, from the po-
lite ignoring of his presence by the gentry, to ac-
tual violence that more than once threatened his

life. More than ten years had passed. Dr. Hart-A nee er nee Ss
ee etna Leena ti cent one \t eae a

er

LOTTIE MOON

 

 

   

 

pis:

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NORTH CHINA oe
MISSION ARTHUR

SHANTUNG

      
 

,LAICHOW

sLAIYANG
®PINGTU

 

 

 

TSINGTA

 

 

CHINA

 

 

 

 

 

MAP OF NORTH CHINA MISSION

Showing Expansion During the Forty Years Service of Miss Lottie

Moon75

 

LOTTIE MOON

well had been compelled to leave in 1870 on ac-
count of the death of his wife and the necessity
of taking his children to the homeland. He had
just returned with the second Mrs. Hartwell, lo-
eating in the city of Chefoo where most of his
work had centered.

The senior member of the missionary force in
North China Mission at the time Lottie Moon ar-
rived in Tengchow was Mrs. J. L. Holmes. Left
a widow in less than a year after moving from
Shanghai to Chefoo in 1860, with an infant son
born two months after his father had been killed
by a robber band while interceding for the safety
of the city, a baby daughter buried in a grave by
the sea, Sallie J. Holmes had shown the true hero-
ism of a missionary heart in staying on in North
China, spending her life to ‘win the people who
had robbed her of her husband. She conducted
a school for boys in the city, but spent most of her
time in visiting in the villages where the people
were much more responsive than in the city.

Dr. and Mrs. T. P. Crawford had gone to Teng-
chow in 1863, after both of them had undergone
a breakdown of health in Shanghai. The more
invigorating climate of North China had restored
them to health and they had given devoted service
to all phases of the work. Dr. Crawford believed
in self support, urging that the Chinese should be
taught from the beginning to support their own
workers. He employed no native workers, except
his personal Chinese teacher. In this he was at
variance with others of the missionaries, although
there had been harmony in a policy of each pur-
suing his own plan of work. There were now
two centers of work in the city. The North Street
Church, meeting in a rented building with a school
building adjoining, had been begun . by .Doctor76 LOTTIE MOON

Hartwell. The pastor was now a native preacher.
The Monument Street Church in the southwest
part of the city, organized by Dr. Crawford, was
at this time the more active center, since Dr. Hart-
well had gone and the work had lagged in the
northern section.

There were so few missionaries in such a vast
field that it was often a case of “trying every
plan.” With millions of people within easy reach
of their itinerating tours, two men and four wom-
en were a wholly inadequate force. The Presby-
terians had entered North China with the Bap-
tists, but even when their slightly larger group
of missionaries was added to the Baptists their
numbers were so small that making a deep dent
upon the heathenism around them seemed an im-
possible task. Only during the summer months,
when tired missionaries from the South of China
came up for rest and recuperation in the cool
sea breezes of Chefoo and Tengchow, was there
companionship of foreigners for the missionaries.
There were no attractions at that time in North
China for the trade seekers of the Western na-
tions. This was in a way very good for the work
they wished to do, for often the un-Christian life
and actions of the commercial traveler in the
Orient has handicapped the missionary far more
than the darkness of the heathenism he is trying
to pierce with the light of the gospel. But this
fact also meant that many a comfort to which
they had been accustomed could not be secured
and they must learn, in a great measure, to live
Chinese fashion.

Her first impression of the difficulties of the
task she had undertaken may be gathered from
a letter written by Lottie Moon to the Religious
Herald, appearing April 16, 1874.LOTTIE MOON 77

   

“We noticed last night a gratifying increase
in attendance of the preaching service. Mr. Craw-
ford says that the night service is the trap he
has set to catch any Nicodemus who may fear
ridicule attendant on coming by day. One in a
Christian land cannot begin to understand the
terrible, almost unsurmountable obstacles in the
way of the heathen. It is only the grace of God
that can give a man courage to trample these un-
derfoot and come out bravely as a Christian. The
habits of a lifetime, the cherished customs hand-
ed down from their ancestors, customs so closely
interwoven with their social life that neglect of
these shuts a man almost out of the pale of society
_all these must be relinquished. Add to this the
odium attached to association with foreigners and
some faint idea may be formed of the difficulties
a man must encounter. Yet, in the face of all
these things, we believe a Christian society is
growing up in China. A leaven is at work which
shall penetrate into all this vast empire. We al-
ready see results calling for devout gratitude;
the words of inspiration are being verified under
our own eyes—‘The heathen shall be given “Thy
Son” for an inheritance and the uttermost parts
of the earth for a possession.’ ”

Her understanding of the difficulties in the way
of the Chinese believers as shown by these words
was significant of the deep interest in Chinese
life and thinking which was characteristic of her
from the first.

“Miss Moon is making remarkable progress
with the language,”’ wrote Mrs. Crawford a few
months after she had arrived. The language was
a task she attacked with joy. She found it hard,
but its study led her irito deep researches into
Chinese life and history which became her78 LOTTIE MOON

 

recreation when she wished to turn aside from the
often monotonous duties of the day. She delighted
in noting all the traditions of the people among
whom she lived and worked. She became one of
the best scholars of Chinese literature and his-
tory of any missionary, grasped and mastered the
Chinese language to a degree far above the aver-
age. Her admiration of the Chinese as a people
grew until we find her writing from Japan when
visiting there some years later, “I do love the
East and Eastern life! Japan fascinated my
heart and fancy four years ago, but now I honest-
ly believe I love China best, and actually, which is
stranger still, like the Chinese best!”

Edmonia Moon had been living in the home of
the Crawfords. But now they were at home, so
the sisters moved to the house which had been first
leased by the Hartwells many years before. For
the past two years it had stood locked and empty.
It was located in a section where the gentry lived,
men who had the right to wear the button on their
caps, showing they had won certain degrees in
the Examination Halls, and women who lived in
houses with dead walls upon the street, when to
enter meant to knock fruitlessly at the false wall
before the real door, or to open the door uninvited
and risk being repulsed as a discourteous intruder.
It had taken courage to do the house to house visit-
ing that was gradually breaking down this oppo-
sition—courage must still be mustered to go on.
The house, built of stone, had been improved by
the various missionaries who had lived in it until
now it had windows of glass fitted into wooden
sashes, substantial doors, and the living rooms
had wooden floors laid over the native floors of
hard packed dirt.LOTTIE MOON 79

Here the sisters began their home in China.
From the first the women of Georgia and Virginia
had been urging the purchase of a house for them,
in which they might begin the school work both
wished:to do. So negotiations were opened for
the purchase of this, or some other well-located
house, that would be their very own. Purchase of
property in China was not easy at that time. Ac-
cording to the custom a buyer could not approach
a man directly about the purchase of his property.
It was considered an insult, an insinuation that he
was in such circumstances that he was compelled
to sell. So a “go between” must be employed to
feel out the man’s desires on the matter and all
communication concerning the purchase must be
made through this “go between.” Dr. Crawford
began negotiations in this very round-about man-
ner for a house for the sisters. “Things move
slowly in China,’ Lottie often reminded the
friends back home, as the matter of a permanent
home dragged along without any tangible results.

Then, before they were really settled, something
happened to disrupt all the happy plans. School
work, home life, all must be laid aside, for Kd-
monia began to have trouble with her eyes. A
trip to Chefoo to see a doctor confirmed the be-
lief of the friends in Tengchow that her trouble
was a nervous affection that was quite serious.
So in January of 1875, the sisters went to Shang-
hai to consult the doctors there and see-if the
change might prove helpful. From Shanghai they
went up the river for a little visit with Miss Saf-
ford, stationed in Soochow. The beauty of that
ancient city delighted them both and Lottie wrote
vividly of what she saw there. Most of all was
she impressed by the advances made by Christian
activities in both these cities where missionaries80

 

LOTTIE MOON

had been at work much longer than in Tengchow.
It heartened her.

Dr. Yates had just finished rebuilding the
church in Shanghai, largely at his own expense,
and she wrote at length of its splendid equipment
and of the fine body of workers he had associated
with him. She talked with him long about the
early problems in Shanghai when he had gone
there thirty years before, and commented on the
great advantages to the missionary of her day
over the day of the pioneers who had come before
her.

“Formerly there were no books from which to
learn Chinese,” she wrote to the Foreign. Mis-
sion Journal. “There were no means of com-
municating even with one’s teacher except by
signs. If you wanted to know the word for
‘water’ or ‘bread’ for instance, you must show
them to your teacher. The New Testament had
not been translated, and there were no hymns.
Imagine a worship without hymns, where only
the preacher prayed, while all about was confu-
sion, talking, the people continually going out or
coming in. There were no religious or scientific
books for school use, such as the new missionary
now finds to his hand in abundance, as soon as he
is able to use them.

“The more I see of mission life the more im-
pressed I am with the amount of hard work, real
drudgery one might call it, of those noble veterans,
the pioneers of missions in China, many of whom
are now gone to their reward above, others of
whom are still toiling at their. posts with all the
ardor of youthful days, and yet with the added ex-
perience of years of active service.”

So the young missionary learned lessons that
were to stand her in good stead one day whenLOTTIE MOON 81
she, too, would be called upon to pioneer for the
gospel in a strange city, where the drudgery side
of mission life would be all too apparent.

The sisters went back to Tengchow with hope-
ful hearts for the opening of the schools after the
Chinese New Year. There was an encouraging
note in the opening of school work that year. Mrs.
Holmes had seventeen girls, Edmonia fourteen in
another part of the city and Mrs. Crawford’s
Boys’ School was full to capacity with twenty
boys. News had come of expected reénforcement,
which evoked the glad comment:

“There is plenty of work for her. There are
villages by the hundreds where the gospel is
heard only at long intervals, and only God knows
how many in which it has never been proclaimed.”
The hope was shattered however by word that the
expected recruit could not be sent. The Board
was in debt.

Edmonia’s health continued to be a matter of
concern. Her throat was now affected. She
found much difficulty in carrying on her school
work, even with the help of Lottie, who could by
now take over considerable of the work with the
girls. (In her eagerness to use this time of en-
forced idleness to profit, Edmonia began working
out a project long in her mind, the preparation
of a primary geography for the school children.
She had purchased an organ which also added
much to the efficiency and attractiveness of the
school.

Despite her great desire to stay at her post,
her health grew worse, the lungs became involved
and the nervous trouble increased, until it was
decided that again she should go down to Shan-
ghai to consult the doctors. The verdict was
“Back to America,” and by now it was evident82 LOTTIE MOON
that Lottie must accompany her, if she was to
reach home safely.

Dr. Yates, writing to the Secretary of the
Board, said in explanation,

“It is necessary for Miss Edmonia to return
home, and that she have company. The Board
and the churches will, I trust, see the necessities
of the case and deal tenderly with these dear sis-
ters whose hearts are so deeply interested in the
mission work.”

So back to Viewmont came the little sister who
had so buoyantly gone out to a far country just
five years before. The decision was made for her
to have a little home of her own in Scottsville
where she would be near to many relatives, and
then Lottie, seeing her quickly improve in the
pleasant surroundings and happy companionship
of her loved ones, turned her face again to China.

If the love of the little sister had once influenced
her to place her life in China, we can have no
doubt that now she turns her face Chinaward
because of a conviction in her own heart that
there alone may she fulfill God’s will for her life.
With every tender tie and every bond of love to
hold her in the homeland, she wrote urgently
to Dr. Tupper that she be allowed to go back at
once.

But the Board was in debt. There was no
money for her passage back. Dr. and Mrs. E. Z.
Simmons of South China were being held in this
country for the same reason. So in the report of
the Foreign Mission Committee at the 1877 meet-
ing of the Southern Baptist Convention there was
this recommendation:

“That effort be made to raise the $1,500 or
$2,000 over and above our regular contributions
to pay expenses of Miss L. Moon and Mr. and Mrs.LOTTIE MOON 83

Simmons, all of whom are anxious to go back at
once to China.”

The “effort”? necessary was made by the
Woman’s Missionary Society of the First Bap-
tist Church, Richmond, Virginia, who asked also
the privilege of supporting Miss Moon, “providing
the women of Georgia do not feel they have a
prior claim.” The matter of support was settled
by an agreement to make it a cooperative enter-
prise. The money they had undertaken to raise
for the house was all in hand, $2,382.63, and she
took it back with her for deposit in Shanghai
against the day when the purchase of the house
would be all settled.

Perhaps it was an inner victory over herself
that gave to her an air of quiet Christian exulta-
tion noted by friends in those last days before
sailing. She started back to China with none of
the illusions of one who had not been there. She
knew the hardships, the denial that must be made
of the comforts and luxuries that would have been
hers in Virginia, she knew the stern realities of
the business of carrying the gospel to a heathen
land, for she had been there! There was little of
romance in the anticipations of this voyage, but
much eagerness to go back. She wrote Dr. Tup-
per on the eve of sailing:

“I am delighted at the prospect of being in
China so soon. I hope to reach Tengchow by
December and to begin the New Year in my dearly
loved home.”

And when Shanghai was reached after a pleas-
ant voyage in comapny with eleven other mission-
aries, she wrote,

“Tt is almost worth while to go away from
China for a while to get the hearty welcome one
receives on returning. I sometimes think that84 LOTTIE MOON
missionaries are the warmest hearted people in
the world. At Soochow,” where she had gone
for a two days’ visit with Miss Safford,—‘“‘At Soo-
chow you might have thought I was a near and
dear relative, instead of a comparative stranger.
Such overflowing cordiality and hospitality!”

It was Christmas eve, 1877, when she finally
was unbundled from the mule litter at Mrs. Craw-
ford’s home in Tengchow. She had come through
a snow storm all the way from Chefoo. “One of
the dear brethren,” she wrote home, “had been
sent down to meet me. Under his escort I made
the short overland journey very pleasantly. Mrs.
Nevius, (Presbyterian missionary in Chefoo)
bundled me up so thoroughly that it was impos-
sible to suffer from the cold. I felt like a Chinese
Mandarin with so many clothes on and most of
them padded! I found the dear friends here well
and cheerful. Of course we have done little but
talk the two days I have been here. There is so
much to tell on both sides.”

Indeed there was much to hear and tell. Dr.
Hartwell had again been forced to go home, leav-
ing Chefoo again without a missionary. Mrs.
Holmes was not well, her furlough was overdue,
but the work had been so pressing that she had
bidden her son farewell and sent him away for
his school work in America with the Mateers,
Presbyterian missionaries in Tengchow leaving
for furlough—and she stayed on.

Only one man was left in the Baptist mission of
North China, Dr. T. P. Crawford, a veteran now
beginning to grow old, two veteran women mis-
sionaries who should have been taking the work a
little easier, and this brave young missionary.

Yet in the face of this depletion of their forces,
the work was taken up vigorously in the seasonLOTTIE MOON 85
of activity after the Chinese New Year in Feb-
ruary.

The first matter to be settled was that of the
house. Some changes had occurred that made the
purchase of a permanent home even more desir-
able than before. The two churches, North Street
and Monument Street, were planning to merge
into one organization, taking over the Monument
Street property for worship. This would leave
the North Street buildings idle and the people
there untouched by the church life. Most of the
members of this church, however, were country
people. So a church was organized at Shant-
swang, a large village accessible to the greater
number of these country members. There were
a few Christians in the north section of the city
that would be left rather far away from any ac-
tivities. The building used for worship and school
was their natural rallying point. There was no
other missionary living in that section, and it
seemed to Miss Moon very unwise for the Bap-
tists to move out entirely, after so many years
of making way in that part of the city. She had
lived for a year in this house, and liked the loca-
tion very much. The neighbors, while not es-
pecially friendly, were mostly of the upper class
and she felt that whatever advantage might have
been gained among them should be patiently fol-
lowed up. Another feature that appealed to her
was the fact that the house was only a five minute
walk from the North Gate and ten minutes from
the seashore. Her love of walking, and delight in
scenes of natural beauty led her to count this a
real asset. So she urged that the house, which
had up to now been only leased, should by some
means be purchased.86

 

LOTTIE MOON

The owner was obdurate. He not only would
not sell, but he raised the price of the annual
rental. Then Dr. Crawford, agreeing with Miss
Moon in the very great advantage of holding
their center of activity in the north part of the
city, took advantage of a Chinese law which, af-
ter a certain number of years of occupancy gives
the lessee the right of an indefinite lease. With
this assurance that under no circumstances would
she ever be turned out of the house, and after
much negotiation securing a reduction in the
rental, Miss Moon suggested to the women in
Georgia and Virginia that the money they had
instructed should be used for the purchase of prop-
erty be placed at interest and the income used to
pay the annual rental.

This was finally agreed upon as the best solu-
tion of the matter and she wrote joyfully to Dr.
Tupper, “The rent is reduced to one hundred dol-
lars annually and the money is safely invested in
the Shanghai bank at five per cent. I am happy
that the house question is now definitely settled,
for a state of doubt as to one’s ‘local habitation’
is conducive neither to one’s usefulness or happi-
ness. I like this part of the city better than any
other. I am attracted to the place and have a
home feeling that I should not have elsewhere.”

This impression of the value of the North Street
property was never changed, even though her
home was there for only a little more than three
years. The removal of the church activities to
Monument Street, in the southwest portion of the
city, coupled with the fact that some of the North
Street brethren were dissatisfied with the disposi-
tion made of the former place of worship and the
dwelling that was near to it, finally brought about
a situation that made it much better for her toLOTTIE MOON 87

buy a house nearer to the church and turn the
North Street home over to the new missionary,
Mr. C. W. Pruitt, when he came to North China.

Down on the street that led to Tengchow Bap-
tist Church, at the corner where a large street
crossed the great West Gate Street, Mrs. Holmes
had been living for many years. The situation
was more convenient of access to the city and
near to the center of Baptist work. It was not
far from the West Gate. This was an especial
advantage since it made it easy to escape from
the crowded city streets with their often unpleas-
ant sights and smells. The crisis in the negotia-
tions for the North Street house came about the
time that Mrs. Holmes went to America, in 1881,
for an extended furlough, and it seemed wise for
Miss Moon to move into her house during her ab-
sence. It was to be her last move, for Mrs. Holmes
never returned and so the home problem was set-
tled. When it became apparent that this was the
wisest disposition to make of the vexed question,
permission was obtained from the donors for as
much of the money as was necessary to be used in
repairs and remodeling the home. With the in-
stinct of a homemaker Lottie Moon began to turn
the old Chinese house into a real home.

The house was three hundred years old, built
in ancient Chinese fashion of stone around a court-
yard, with a wall uniting the outer walls of the
smaller buildings inside. Along the north side of
the courtyard ran the street to West Gate. The
gate to the courtyard was very near to the corner
where the cross street ran north and south. Be-
cause of this the house was known as “Shao Shi
Tsi Ko,” or literally “The Little Cross Roads.”
Inside the walls she had a little empire all her
own, and it was here she began to bring into beingeo

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a little bit of old Virginia away in North China.
Her own house was separate from the rest of the
buildings. It consisted of a study, bedroom, par-
lor and dining room, built in an “L” shape with
a veranda running along two sides. Windows
were built in, doors of substantial wood were hung
and floors laid. A tiny bathroom added to the
comfort of the home. At the corner of the
veranda a Marechal Neil rose climbed upon a trel-
lis. In the center of the open space in front of
the study windows a crepe myrtle, brought from
Virginia soil, flourished, while outside the parlor
windows the branches of a pomegranate tree
waved in the breeze. Around the walls and
in the corner of the yard there bloomed many of
the old-fashioned flowers that had been favorites
at Viewmont, touch-me-nots and hollyhocks, ver-
bena and mignonette, and many roses. Next to
her own house was a second house for the enter-
tainment of foreign guests, and in the southwest
corner were the rooms of her Chinese servants
and guests. Along the wall that shut out the
small street to the east, ran the rooms used for
kitchen, storerooms and laundry, with a second
gate to the street at the far corner.

As the years went by the home became more and
more comfortable with touches here and there of
a born homemaker, and the house glowed with
the old-time air of hospitality that had once made
Viewmont the center of the social life of the coun-
tryside. Here was always old-time Southern hos-
pitality to greet the new missionary, here was
restful quietude for the tired worker from the
interior, here was a place where the outside world90 LOTTIE MOON
might not intrude to disturb, yet where all the
currents of thought in all the world were gathered
to enlighten and inspire. In the little study were
to be found the latest magazines from New York
and London, the latest worth-while books, a few
at a time, the most important of the discussions
of timely topics, a bit of poetry to relax tense
nerves, and always the gentle presence of the mis-
tress of the house, to make the house truly a home.
So finally, the house matter was settled. for the
North Street property in the after yeu:~ became
the center of her school for girls, and she had it
after all! But the home was “The Little Cross
Roads’—significant name, for it was the call of
the crossroads that drew her away from the home
so often in the years that followed.

There had been another demand upon her
thoughts immediately upon her return. North
China was in the grip of the worst famine it had
experienced for many years. The crops had failed
for two years, and by the spring of 1878 the con-
ditions in some parts of the province were appal-
ling. During 1877, Mr. Richards, the English Bap-
tist missionary, who had been pastor of Monu-
ment Street Church during Mr. Crawford’s ab-
sence, removed to Chingchow, farther in the in-
terior, and was the administrator of the relief
money raised by private solicitation of the mis-
sionaries. Two hundred miles west of Tengchow
the people were dying by the thousands, and were
leaving their homes by the tens of thousands in an
effort to find food. Money had been sent Mr. Rich-
ards from Shanghai, but it had been of little help
against such desperate and wholesale need. In
1878, Tengchow was crowded with refugees, and
Lottie Moon had her first experience with the
sight of people actually starving to death.LOTTIE MOON 91

She aroused much sympathy by her graphic de-
scriptions of the famine sufferers and received
gifts for the relief work from some who responded
to her appeals through the Foreign Mission Jour-
nal. Of one of these gifts she makes the following
accounting in a letter to Dr. Tupper:

“The money you sent me—five dollars and fifty
cents—was disposed of as follows: I sent five dol-
lars to Mr. Richards, who had been distributing
food to the famine sufferers for two years. The’
remaining fifty cents I gave to famine refugees
here.”’

In these letters, several of which were published
in the Religious Herald, there crept now and then
a note of loneliness, which was but natural. To
one reader there was a personal appeal in this
wistful evidence of the courage it took to lay out
plans for a life forever apart from loved ones. So
there went from Virginia to old Tengchow a let-
ter bearing friendly greetings from the friend of
schooldays, the young professor, now a distin-
guished teacher in a great college. The years be-
tween that June time of shadowed gayety at View-
mont had brought many experiences to him. Soon
after the war he had gone to study in the great
universities of Germany. There he had won lau-
rels of scholarship that made him much sought
on his return. No one had as yet taken the place
in his heart, however, that he had once given to
blue-eyed Lottie Moon.

The letter was answered and all the pleasure of
a touch with the old atmosphere of study and
happy discussion of subjects absorbingly interest-
ing was brought to the home at the Little Cross
Roads.

Just at that time the controversy over the theo-
ries of Darwin, which had been raging in Great92 LOTTIE MOON
Britain and on the Continent for twenty years,
began seriously to disturb American scholars and
appear in American periodicals. It was then con-
fined almost entirely to the field of scientific re-
search, though some looked ahead and saw a time
coming when it must inevitably be brought into
the world of theological thinking. In Germany
the brilliant mind of the young professor had been
deeply interested in all the fascinating possibili-
ties of this new and revolutionary theory. He had
been a deep student of Old Testament literature,
and when the opportunity came for him to take
a professorship in this subject in a seminary, he
accepted, with his thinking along the line of the
Darwinian theory still in a state of uncertainty.

“In his classroom he advanced some of his ideas of

reconciliation of the new hypothesis with_ the
Genesis account of creation and the new ideas of
the German scholars on history and inspiration
of Old Testament. A great stir was made over
the matter and he resigned to accept a professor-
ship in the greatest American university of his
day. In harmony with his changed views, he left
the Baptist denomination and united with—a
Unitarian congregation.

In the meantime, Mrs. Crawford, on furlough
in Virginia, visited a dear friend of Lottie Moon’s
and confided to her the delightful bit of news that
Miss Moon was to be married to the old lover of
her schooldays. The only part of the wedding
plans yet undecided at the time Mrs. Crawford
had left China was the question of whether they
would settle in Japan, where he wished to go as
a missionary, or come to her field in Tengchow.

Down to the home of Lottie’s brother, Isaac
Moon, there came a letter from the Sister, saying
that she was returning in the spring to be mar-93

 

LOTTIE MOON

ried. She wished to be married from her brother’s
home. She mentioned in that letter that it was
not yet decided whether they would live in Japan
or in China.

The young professor himself talked the mat-
ter over with Dr. Tupper, Secretary of the Board.
That he told this dear friend of Miss Moon’s of
his attachment through the years to her we know
from a letter which Dr. Tupper wrote, containing
a bit of gentle teasing about the delightful secret,
to which she replied:

“What you say of our mutual friend is very
pleasing to me. You are right in supposing that
I ‘think very highly of him.’ (This is not to go
into the Journal!) Thank you for the nice things
you say to me personally. Would that I merited
them!”

In this same letter she wrote also, “We are look-
ing eagerly for reénforcement. I, especially, am
bored to death living alone. I don’t find my own
society either agreeable or edifying. I asked Mrs.
Yates to stir you—i. e., the Board—up to send Mr.
and Mrs. E. out as soon as possible. I really think
a few more winters like the one just past would
put an end to me. This is no joke, but dead ear-
nest. Verbum sat. So send on the good brother
and sister.”

But reénforcement did not come. Instead there
came a tentative announcement of the going of a
couple to Japan, a plan suddenly terminated less
than a year later.

It is undoubtedly true that in all this time there
were most interesting letters crossing the Pacific
Ocean, for the question of the field in which they
would place their lives was not by any means the
only one that had to be settled. It was a time of
great change in the most fundamental views of94 LOTTIE MOON

the young scholar. He had thought to make a
great contribution to the theological thought of
his day. He had failed and a storm of controversy
waged about him.

Away in China, Lottie Moon was reading the
many articles that appeared in the Baptist papers
in the discussion that arose about the matter. She,
too, was thinking of what these changes might
mean. (More and more as she adapted herself to
the hard conditions of the life in a pioneer station,
she had come to rely upon God as revealed to her
in his Word. More and more had she come to
feel the reality of his presence with her. As she
faced the almost insurmountable problems before
her—problems of heathenism, problems of meth-
ods and plans of work, problems of keeping her
own self fresh and free from morbidity and the
peculiarities that come to one who lives much
alone—as she faced above all the great problem
of making God real to these women who were
gradually becoming more accessible to the gospel,
she realized that she had a trust from God which
no personal consideration could abrogate.

That she studied the question from his view- >
point is quite evident from the marginal notes in
the scientific works in her library. She had prac-
tically all the notable works that came out of that
first controversy on Darwinian theories. Her
notes show unmistakably that she came to the con-
clusion that it was an_untenable position, and
certainly it could not be so harmonized with the
Word of God as to make one who believed_it_a
“good workman” on a frontier of the Kingdom. ~—

We do not know just what brought the crisis,
but we do know that in the spring when the little
Sister-in-law was expecting a letter telling just
when she would arrive, there came a letter fromLOTTIE MOON

LOOKING NORTH FROM THE HOUSE AT THE LITTLE CROSS
ROADS

THE WALK TO THE

 

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Lottie Moon saying there would be no marriage.
We know, too, that in after years she said to a
beloved relative who had been so bold as to ask
her if she ever had a love affair:

“Yes, but God had first claim on my life, and
since the two conflicted, there could be no question
about the result.”

So in these first six years there came two great
decision times, when she must lose the compan-
ionship of a beloved sister, and go back to China
alone, and when she must lay love aside and face
life alone.

It is at this time we find her writing to her
sister, Orianna:

“I plod along in the same old way. I have a
small boarding school of some fifteen girls, more
or less. Like all schools, there are things pleasant
and things disagreeable. It is a very hard life
and wears upon one’s health.”

Yet in the same letter with its note of discour-
agement, she wrote in the old merry way of a tiny
little girl in the school who was very amusing in
her efforts to “fill her stomach with learning,” as
the Chinese phrase the process of education.

She wrote of walking often by the seashore, tak-
ing her pupils out for picnics where they might
enjoy to the fullest the freedom of the outdoors,
and adds:

“The walk is a pleasant one. I wish your boys
might take it with me.”

So love came and went, and life went on again
as usual in the house at the Little Cross Roads.
But from this time on we find Lottie Moon for-
getting self more and more, and growing intoLOTTIE MOON 97

more of a mystic in her perception of the very
real presence of her Saviour.

“Wiss Moon expects to open a boarding school
for girls of the higher class,” had been the an-
nouncement in the Foreign Mission Journal, in
1877, when she returned to China. The school was
opened in the spring of 1878, with five pupils, the
number quickly increasing to fourteen. This was
a very good indication of the possibilities. But as
another year went by with no appreciable increase
in numbers, despite the gradual wearing away of
the distrust of the foreigners in her part of the
city, she began to wonder if after all the time was
right for such a project in this old, conservative,
cold Chinese city.

As she came to understand better the Chinese
way of thinking, the possibilities of having the
educational institution of her dreams in Tengchow
seemed more and more impossible. In 1879, she
made a trip inte the country with Mrs. Holmes.
It awakened her to the possibilities among the vil-
lage women which were denied the woman mis-
sionary in the city. There was more freedom
from custom among the women of the village who
had to work in the field, feet were bound less
tightly and curiosity more easily overcame fear
and hatred of the foreigner. The children crowded
around their chairs in the streets and the women
came into their room at the inn to listen to the
words of the strange white women who were so
amazingly dressed.

True, traveling from village to village, answer-
ing questions incessantly, talking until the throat
was aching, being ever ready with a smile for any
emergency with carriers, stubborn mules, or hesl-
tant hosts—all was hard to do day after day, but
the joy of it all was that the gospel could be98 LOTTIE MOON

preached, the women would listen and were re-
sponsive to teaching. This was far more than
could be done in Tengchow.

As the months went by and the school grew by
almost imperceptible degrees, she went more and
more with Mrs. Holmes to the villages to the south
of Tengchow, or with Mrs. Crawford to those to
the west, in the direction of Hwanghsien.

There was little hope of additional reenforce-
ment. Urgent requests, pleadings with arguments
showing the exceeding ripeness of the field for
evangelistic work especially, had seemed to fall
on deaf ears in the homeland. Dr. Crawford re-
turned to America for an extended stay of more
than a year, leaving no foreign Baptist preacher
in all North China. Dr. Mateer, at the head of
the Presbyterian school work in Tengchow, sup-
plied the pulpit of the Tengchow Baptist Church
twice each month. Late in 1878, Miss Moon sent
a special request to the Foreign Mission Board
that they make suitable acknowledgment of the
gratuitous service to the Baptist Mission in its
hour of need, by passing a vote of thanks to Dr.
Mateer. She added to this request the following
comment:

“The mission is in usual health. The schools
are improving. The church remains in statu
quo. With no one to administer the communion
or the ordinance of baptism it would require a
large faith to expect a revival. It is odd that the
million (it is a million‘) Baptists of the South can

furnish only three men for al] China! Odd that
with five hundred preachers in the state of Vir-
ginia we must rely on a Presbyterian minister to
fill a Baptist pulpit! 1I wonder how these things
look in heaven. They certainly look very queer
in China—but the Baptists are a great people, asLOTTIE MOON 99

we never tire of saying in our associations and
conventions, and possibly our way of doing things
is best!”

In 1878, Mrs. Crawford changed the policy of
her boys’ school from a free school with food fur-
nished by the mission to a pay school with the
boys “eating their own rice,” in the Chinese man-
ner of expressing it. It really amounted to the
boys paying about $2 per year for their board.
This checked the growth of that school which had
been quite promising, but the policy was continued
as best even if the attendance was small.

The fact that the evangelistic force was so small
brought Lottie Moon more and more to realize the
importance of that type of work at this stage of
the development of the mission. Even an increase
in the attendance at her school in 1880 to more
than thirty girls did not give much added encour-
agement to the situation, for she realized by now
that she would not soon reach any but the beggar
classes, or at best the middle class with this means
of teaching the gospel. This gave little hope for
much permanent results in rebuilding the social
structure of Chinese life.

The customs were too firmly fixed upon the peo-
ple for a project opposed in every way to the
Chinese way of thinking to break them down. The
women of China must be reached in another way.
The immediacy of the task—of reaching the
women and the home life—was forced upon her,
and the opportunities in village work called in-
sistently to her. Her eyes were filled with the
sight of the hundreds of villages, with from a hun-
dred to several thousand people in each one, where
crowds of women would sit and listen to “‘the old,
old story of Jesus and his love.” It was “the field”100 LOTTIE MOON

 

that had called to her that long ago day in Carters-
ville. It was the field now that called.

In a moment of despondency about the school
work she wrote to Dr. Tupper, “I feel that I am
beating my head against a stone wall.”

So she wrote more and more of visiting outside
the walls of the city.| It was exceedingly hard.
She was trying to be’two workers at once. She
wrote to a friend aftér giving details of the way
in which the school was maintained:

“I have been exceedingly busy with country
work in the intervals. I have also had many let-
ters of inquiry to answer and as you know this
takes up a great deal of time. Each girl in school
is supported in whole or in part by some society,
and this fact entails a good deal of writing to
these societies, and besides there are many
other letters of inquiry. I had hoped the letters
in the Journal might have been accepted instead
of so many private letters/

“Once I had strength enough to work all day
in the village and at night sit down on the ‘kang’
and write off the day’s experience. But somehow
mission life takes the strength and energy out of
us before we know it, and we have to learn to
be watchful and not overwork, lest the time come
too soon when we can work no more.”

In 1882, Lottie Moon came to the crisis in her
school work. She was now convinced that it was
not yet time to do school work for girls. By every
instinct and by all her years of training she was
primarily a teacher, yet she had caught a vision
of a new field of teaching, the schoolroom of the
wide, extended fields around her, where, in village
after village, she might have her classes, visiting
them at irregular intervals, but gradually build-
ing, year after year, in the minds of these womenLOTTIE MOON 101

and girls a conception of God’s love that would
free their minds to the entrance of the truth of
the gospel. That the life was hard she well knew.
She had Mrs. Crawford’s and Mrs. Holmes’ testi-
mony before her, as well as her own experience
of it.

She wrote to her sister at about this time, “I
have not gone to the country very much this
spring for various reasons. It is a very hard life,
and wears upon one’s health. I have now quite
a dread to go out on a country tour. The dirt and
discomfort and fatigue are very trying on one’s
nerves.” So it was not for ease or pleasure she
turned to the village work.

No wonder it was trying! She was attempting
to do two tasks, either of which would have been
enough for any worker.

The decision time came in 1883. In September
of that year she placed the whole question before
Dr. Tupper in very clear and unmistakable terms.
She had thought it all through, had weighed her
dreams with the hard reality of the conditions be-
fore her, had tested again the quality of the call in
her heart, and her answer had already been given
to her Lord, who had called her to this field—it
was literally to be interpreted, “To the field!”

Now she wrote to the man who stood as her
counselor on behalf of the churches that had sent
her out, laying the whole case before him:

“I wish to have a chat with you, unofficially,
face to face, about the school here, present and
prospective. It seems to me that the time has
come when we must arrive at a definite decision
about the school for girls. The quarters (the
North Street House) are too small for more than
forty. With forty they are much crowded. Last
session there were thirty-eight present. All have102 LOTTIE MOON

not returned, but others will probably come in.
The question to be decided is, how far shall we ex-
pand our school work: It is my profound convic-
tion that it does not pay a woman to give her life
teaching forty girls. I would not do it myself,
nor advise any other woman to do it. A school
of eighty or a hundred would repay the outlay and
Sacrifice a woman makes of time and strength.
But that is impossible in Tengchow at present
without compromise on the question of foot-bind-
ing. Now shall we go on and have a large school,
or has the time come and are we strong enough
to make a decided stand on foot-binding? Hereto-
fore we have used only moral suasion, and tried
to induce the parents to unbind the girls’ feet. If
we decide to take no girls with small] feet, it would
reduce the school to ten or fifteen girls. Shall we
make it a rule that all who come shall unbind their
feet? I would rather, as a matter of principle,
have fifteen girls with large feet than fifty with
smal] feet. But under no circumstances do I wish
to continue in school work.

“I confess it would please my ambition to build
up a big school but I hate sham. If I] pretend to
have a school, I want the best, one that will repay
the time spent on it, but I don’t want a poor little
affair that will drag on in the hands of the Chinese
while I am half the time away on country work.

“If I am to devote myself to evangelistic work
in the city and country I must be free from the
school. No woman, had she the strength of Her-
cules, could do justice to either if she had to carry
on both.

“Now think it all over, tell me as a friend, not
aS a secretary, what your judgment in the matter
is—and then, as a secretary, turn over in your
mind some way to relieve me of the school!”LOTTIE MOON 103

After the letter was written, she evidently read
it over, and lest she be misunderstood, and her
deep desire to go into the village work be inter-
preted as an opinion that schools were not worth
while as a method of mission work, she added a
postscript:

“Please don’t think I am not heartily in sym-
pathy with educational plans. I am most thor-
oughly. I want my friend, Mr. Halcomb, to build
up a self-supporting school of high grade for the
boys and hope he will have the hearty support of
the Board in his plans. I want the best school for
girls—if another lady will teach it and leave me
free to go to the villages!”

If it may seem that she was impatient at the
“day of small things” it must be remembered that
she had little upon which to build hope of this
method bringing soon the day of larger things. A
gentleman of Tengchow, approached by Dr. Craw-
ford on the question of sending his daughter to
the mission school, smiled most courteously and
replied:

“My daughter, no. But my cow I will send,
she can learn more quickly!’

This attitude toward the education of girls, the
hostility of the very class of Chinese who would
have been most worthwhile to enlist in educa-
tional endeavors, the problem of acceptance or dis-
approval of foot-binding, was all added to that
problem, ever present with the pioneer mission-
ary, of encouraging an outward acceptance of
Christianity through material benefits gained
thereby. There would be no school for girls if
the Chinese were required to pay even for the up-
keep of the girls while in school, so always there
was the recurring fear that those who accepted
Christianity as a result of such methods of104 LOTTIE MOON

conducting school work, had done so for the sake
of the material benefits thus secured. Dr. Craw-
ford’s views on the matter were decidedly those of
abandoning all methods involving such problems.
Others of the missionaries regarded it as a prob-
lem to be worked out as other problems were, by
patiently teaching and training until the Chinese
understood.

It is very clear that Miss Moon thoroughly ap-
proved of schools, but she believed that a school
for girls in Tengchow was impractical at this
stage of the development of North China Mission.
In December, of that year, her school was forced
to disband on account of the outbreak of a con-
tagious disease. This seems to have settled the
question definitely. When time came to reopen
the school, in the spring of 1884, she wrote to Mrs.
Holmes, then on furlough in the homeland:

“Perhaps it is selfish of me, but I do not want
ever again to bear the heavy burdens of a board-
ing school. If such work must be done, I prefer
that younger hands shall take hold and push it.
I wish to carry the gospel to as many as I can
reach. I cannot do both school and country work
so as to satisfy my own conscience. If I have a
school I must devote to it my whole time and
strength, or it seems inefficient. I don’t mean to
criticize others who think and work differently
but as between school and evangelistic work, being
free to choose, I turn to the villages !’’

Were the dreams all vanished! Or had am-
bition been transmuted into a higher vision of the
glory of bringing to her Christ the Chinese
women she was coming to love with deep passion!
Surely the very character of a mind could not be
so changed—that the scholarly, cultured, trained
Lottie Moon should count as dross the very gold105

 

LOTTIE MOON

of her hopes and dreams for the bringing of that
same culture and scholarship to the bound and
starved girlhood of China. Overshadowing all
there had come a vision of God’s way for her—
and following the gleam through many a rough
mountain road, she came in God’s own time to the
dream again, and we find that she had only left
it for a time, surely to follow the steps of the
Saviour as in company with him she went out to
win his lost ones among the teeming millions in
the fields beyond!

—t>

oe

LOVECHAPTER III

DOING THE WORK OF AN EVANGELIST

   
   
   
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
   
     
   
    
   

“GO ON JOYOUSLY AS MUCH AS YOU CAN: AND
IF YOU DO NOT ALWAYS GO ON JOYOUSLY, AT LEAST
GO ON ALWAYS COURAGEOUSLY AND CONFIDENTLY.”

Translated from St. Francis de Sales, on margin
of Lottie Moon’s copy of Imitation of Christ.

 
   
  
  

DDING bells had been ringing in Old Teng-
chow. Young men with forward-looking eyes
and strong young arms had come to reénforce
the failing strength of Dr. Crawford and Dr.
Hartwell, the veterans of the North China field.
N. W. Halcomb and C. W. Pruitt arrived in Teng-
chow in February, 1882. In September of that
year Mr. Pruitt was married to a lovely and loy-
able young woman, Miss Ida Tiffany, a member of
the Presbyterian mission in Tengchow. Of
the attractiveness of the young bride, their joy
in welcoming her into fellowship in church and
mission council, their happiness in the eagerness
with which the young couple undertook their
tasks, the older women of the mission wrote
freely.

Mrs. Pruitt shared her husband’s enthusiasm
for the evangelistic work and went with him on
the first tour undertaken by the Baptist mission-
aries as far as the Pingtu region early in 1883.
Mr. Mateer and others of the Presbyterian mis-
sion had been there nearly twenty years before,

{ 106 ]

Ppp
YAR
NNNLOTTIE MOON 107

and there were a few Christians scattered in the
villages lying between Tengchow and Pingtu, but
no one had succeeded in opening a station or
establishing a center of missionary activity.
There was a very active Baptist church at
Shantswang, on the road to Pingtu, organized
from the members of the former North Street
Church who lived in the country. These had been
won by Dr. Hartwell in the early years of his
pioneering in the region to the south of Teng-
chow, but the difficulties of the work in that
direction had been many and the work to the
west toward Hwanghsien seemed so much more
promising that there had been no serious effort
made to push on to Pingtu. Hwanghsien was a
flourishing commercial city, and the people living
there had a more liberal spirit toward foreigners.
So it was to this city the young men turned
their efforts. Dr. Crawford had preached in
Hwanghsien and his judgment confirmed the de-
sire of the new missionaries to press forward as
soon as they could to this new territory. Chao
Yuen, south of Hwanghsien, where Dr. Hartwell
had done much work, was a center for many of
the first converts in that region and it was
through these that the Chinese could be more
easily enlisted and developed from Hwanghsien
than from Tengchow. Hopefully the young mis-
sionaries wrote to the Board, ‘‘We hope our ad-
vance will be but the beginning of a determined
invasion of the Board into this very promising
field. The next strategic point is Laichowfu,
about eighty miles west of Hwanghsien.”
Hwanghsien is twenty miles west from Teng-
chow. Thus were the hearts of the men mis-
sionaries turning westward.. But there was to
be sorrow along the way. Just after that long108

 

LOTTIE MOON

tour to the west and south when Pingtu was
touched, and several villages briefly visited, Mrs.
Pruitt died, lamented by missionaries and Chinese
Christians alike. Beautifully did Lottie Moon
write of her unselfishness, her great kindness,
her genuine love for the Chinese and their love
for her in return. She was buried on the morn-
ing of October 22, 1883, on the hill overlooking
the sea with those of the Baptist and Presby-
terian missions who there awaited the Resur-
rection Day.

Her death disarranged all plans for the work
in Hwanghsien. There was now no woman mis-
sionary who could go into the new work there.
Mr. Pruitt, crushed by this blow, took up addi-
tional duties in Tengchow, while Mr. Halcomb
turned his attention to the boys’ school work
and became pastor of the Shantswang church.
So the actual occupation of Hwanghsien lagged,
and the mission marked time until reénforcement
could come, and recovery be made from the blows
of fate. At one time Dr. Crawford was in Chefoo,
the young men were out on country tours, Mrs.
Crawford and Mrs. Holmes were in America and
“Miss Moon is holding the fort!” so the report
read.

The country work was growing increasingly
joyful. Her letters were full of the rich expe-
riences she had as she traveled from village to
village. Of her modes of travel she wrote, “The
last used always seems the worst. The toa chiao
(flat-bottomed mule-litter) is intolerable until we
try the shent-za (rope-bottomed mule-litter) ; that
being unpleasant, we try the cart, the latter atro-
cious, we take to the sedan chair, and then we go

back to the toa chiao as being after all not so
bad!”109

 

LOTTIE MOON

The fascination of the village work was ‘caught
into the articles sent frequently to the Foreign
Mission Journal. Better than any words of a
biographer do they tell of the sacrifice, the joy
and the rich reward that came as day after day,
month after month she came and went, in and
out of the villages around Tengchow. The house
at the Little Cross Roads was merely a center
from which to work, with now and then a day,
or a week spent helping in the school work and
with city visiting done as a duty that must be
performed, though it. always seemed fruitless.
She traveled among the responsive women of the
villages in ever-widening circles into the regions
to the south and west of the old city. Mrs. Craw-
ford sometimes went with her, that they might
go “two and two” as the Master sent out his
disciples. Always she had a Chinese Christian
woman companion and sometimes her Chinese
teacher who was of much help.

She wrote vividly of these trips.

“As you wind your way from village to village
you feel it is no idle fancy that the Master walks
beside you. I returned yesterday from a short
tour of four days. On the first day, being over-
taken by the rain, we only visited four villages.
The next day being one of sunshine, we visited
twelve. We were joined by an excellent native
brother, who gave us effective service. The third
day we visited nine villages and had an enjoyable
time talking with the women. That the men chose
also to listen was no fault of mine. Arriving at
the inn, I had scarcely gotten established on the
‘kang’ before a party of men came in to eall. They
had heard us at the first village we had visited
that morning. My visitors were extremely re-
spectful and I handed one of them a catechism,110 LOTTIE MOON

which he read aloud, making comments of his
own. Naturally there were many corrections to
make in the course of his remarks. I presented
him with the book. Others listening, I opened
my hymn book and took for my text ‘Jesus Loves
Me.’ Till nine o’clock I was busy teaching the
song to different groups and then the family had
to be taught it. The next day I returned making
ten villages on the way.”

Villages in China are grouped according to
families or clans, and for safety, as well as for
necessity, because of the multitudes of the peo-
ple, are very close together. The farmers live
thus in little clusters of houses, a mile, two miles,
or three miles apart, and every such group is
called a village, no matter how large it may be,
if it is not a seat of government. So, it must
be remembered that while often the village is a
cluster of just a hundred or so homes, it may be
a center for several thousand, even twenty thou-
sand people, all with agricultural interests and
having no market. Thus along the paths, often
wholly unsuited for any but wheelbarrow passage,
one could quickly pass through village after vil-
lage in which lived thousands. How the crowds
of people filled her heart!

To the Cartersville Society she wrote:

“Since I gave up my school more than a year
ago, I have been making a specialty of country
work. My plan is to settle down for awhile in
a village and try gradually to get acquainted with
the people. I am at an inn now, and have toler-
ably comfortable quarters. I have the use of two
rooms, it is true, but practically my living room
is the ‘kang’ or Chinese brick bed. This is about
four feet high and is 10x5 feet on the top. On it
is spread a variegated mat, white and red. ILOTTIE MOON 111

have, besides, a rug to sit on. At one end of the
kang is rolled my bedding which makes a good
support for my back during the day. At night
I spread it out on the kang. For a table, I have
a small Chinese trunk. On this I take my meals
and also use it for various other purposes,—really
it is my sole article of luxury!

“Having seated myself on the kang, which is
heated by a fire built underneath it, I await visi-
tors. They usually come in considerable numbers,
mostly women and children. I prefer as a rule
not to admit men. To all I talk about the True
God, give books to such as can read and teach
those who are willing to learn. My aim is first
to get hold of the children. They are delighted to
learn to sing. At home they show the books and
delight their parents by reading and singing what
they have been taught. Taking a village as a
center I visit all the neighboring villages as time
and strength permit. In two weeks I have visited
sixteen villages, on this trip. I usually talk or
the streets, though I am sometimes invited to
enter the houses.”

She was a keen and interested observer of
Chinese life. Their daily round of labor, their
customs and traditions, were all worth her while,
and worth recording. The insatiable curiosity
of the women turned to good account in making
her contacts with them, though this, too, was a
problem in endurance as the following picture
shows:

“Tf only a machine could be invented to grind
out answers! It must be admitted that patience
less than angelic must grow weary at the endless
round of questions. ‘Where do you live?? ‘How
old are you?’ ‘Have you any children?’ ‘Did you
make this dress, or hire someone to make it?’112 LOTTIE MOON

‘Why don’t you wear earrings?’ ‘Have you holes
in your ears?’ ‘Did you make your shoes?’ ‘Do
you eat pork, beef, mutton, eggs, rice, chickens?’
‘From what country are you?’ ‘Do they till the
soil in your country?’ ‘Have you mountains?
‘How long have you been in China?’ ‘Which coun-
try is the best, yours or ours?’ ‘Do the women’
rule in your country ?—the monotony of answer-
ing the same questions put by some dozens of
people in the course of an hour and this not once
but thousands of times, would be endurable were
monotony the only drawback. The utterance of
Chinese demands an expulsive energy which so
strains the muscles of the throat as to render
even ordinary conversation physically wearisome.
When more than one’s strength is needed to talk
of matters of the highest moment, when one’s
articulation begins to fail and the speaker longs
to relapse into utter silence so the wearied mus-
cles may rest, how delightful it would be to turn
a crank and have the machine play, ‘I am an
American, I have been in China ten years, I am
not cold, people are alike everywhere in think-
ing their own country the best,’ and so on,—till
as on the hand organ it is all ground out and
the instrument goes back to its first tune!

“The Chinese are a kind-hearted, friendly race
when once you know them and come to live among
them in a friendly way. They are disposed to be
neighborly and are kind in sickness. I have been
troubled with a sprain and two different neigh-
bors have sent me a decoction of some plant which
will reduce the swelling. The women are much
more friendly than the men.

“Tt sometimes happens that I am sent for to
visit the family and the remark slips out that the
men are away and therefore they ask me. TheLOTTIE MOON 113

other day I was urged to visit a certain family.
-The little daughter and a young relative came to
conduct me. We had quite a walk through the
village, and at last came in view of the house.
To the chagrin of my young conductor, a man of
the family was loading a donkey near the door.

“As soon as he caught sight of the hated for-
eigner he began to utter some very uncompli-
mentary remarks about ‘the devil-old-woman’ and
my young friends slunk back in alarm. The
daughter said in an undertone to the cousin,
‘Don’t tell that I brought her here.’

“The man suddenly demanded what I had come
for, and the young cousin said I had come out
upon the street to enjoy the air! As the remarks
were not addressed to me, I passed on in silence,
and was soon invited into another house.

“In a few minutes the room was jammed with
a chattering crowd of women. The window was
down tight and the kang on which I sat was very
hot. I did what was possible to get their atten-
tion and talked to such as would listen. As soon
as politeness would allow I took my leave.

“Soon I was asked into another house where
the kang was cold and the window was up. The
room was filled at once, and I talked a good while.
Then some men came and the women scattered.
The men were evidently hostile, though main-
taining a show of politeness, and I immediately
withdrew.

“Then one of my young friends dragged me to
a third visit, much against my will, for I was
wearied in body and disheartened in spirit by
so much unkindness, for the time. The woman
for whom the visit was intended received me
kindly and learned some of the catechism. In a
few minutes a man appeared, looking like a114 LOTTIE MOON

 

thundercloud. As the woman is a widow and free
to do as she likes, I gave myself no concern about
the young man’s looks.

“TI listened to an odd conversation this morn-
ing. Two of the old women had been bemoan-
ing to each other their sad lot. One of them
remarked that she was only sixty-four years old,
and she ought to have more strength. The other
said in the most natural way in the world, ‘Have
you a coffin?’ ‘Oh, yes,’ was the reply, ‘How old
are you?’ was the question in return. ‘Sixty-
nine.’ Then came the remark, ‘You only lack one
year of seventy, have you a coffin” She replied
she had thought of supplying herself with that
most necessary article, but somebody had said
she would not likely die for six months and SO
the matter had been postponed.

“This reminds me of a visit I paid in the city a
month or two ago. The old lady was a stranger
to me, but welcomed me most cordially. In her
small room was a large unpainted coffin which
she graciously explained she had provided for her-
self. She seemed to regard it affectionately as
the place for her future repose. The top was
not dry and one end of it rested on the coffin
while the other was on the kang. The old woman
cheerfully remarked that the top would be dry
within a few days and then it could be placed on
the coffin.

“It is childless people or people whose children
are undutiful who think it necessary to provide
themselves coffins. The Chinese have a great de-
sire for what they regard as a respectable burial.
And for that reason they provide themselves with
good coffins if they have reason to believe this
will not be done by surviving relatives.LOTTIE MOON 115

“As I was teaching the catechism this morning
to the widow referred to above, she remarked to
a neighbor who was admiring the readiness with
which she learned, ‘I have no other thought but
this.’ The neighbor replied, ‘You are like my eld-
est son, he is all the time reading these books.
Even at meals he reads the New Testament.’ This
same woman told me the other day that her son
had been a better man since reading my books. A
catechism given to his daughter first attracted his
attention, then a hymn book and afterwards he
literally seemed. to devour the ‘Peep o’ Day.’ He
spoke of one of the miracles, and said emphatical-
ly that this proved Jesus is the True God. His
daughter and niece are bright girls and have both
learned some in the catechism and hymn book. I
spent a good part of Sunday morning teaching
these girls in their own home. The woman listen-
ed with much interest. I have great hope for some
from this village coming into the Light.”

So the work went on. The catechism she used
was one that had been prepared many years be-
fore by Mrs. Crawford and Mrs. Holmes for use
in the exceedingly elementary teaching that was
the foundation of all their work in the villages.
The hymn book was a collection of the simplest
of the loved Christian hymns made by Dr. Craw-
ford. She speaks most often of using “Jesus
Loves Me.” Peep o’ Day was a little book that
had been early translated and published by Mrs.
Holmes. It was the forerunner of all the Baptist
literature for North China.

The day to day life in the villages is pictured
most graphically in an account written to the
Foreign Mission Journal of a tour made in com-
pany with Mrs. Holmes.116

 

LOTTIE MOON

“The morning of our intended departure
dawned cold, windy and disagreeable. It seemed
to me the part of wisdom to stay indoors. To my
penciled query sent by a boy over to her house, ‘to
go or not to go?’ came back the emphatic ‘Go’.
There was nothing to do but to get into one’s chair
and depart!

“About twenty li (three li make an English
mile) from the city is a row of villages known
as the ‘An-Hing’ villages. We-meant to take
these on our way, and spend the night at the
thirty li station. However we gave directions to
our chair-bearers to take us to as many villages
as possible. They followed our directions liter-
ally and the afternoon found us still within twelve
li of the city. Upon consultation we decided that
as the weather was still cold and cloudy we had
better, after taking two more villages, return to
the city. At the last village the children eagerly
closed upon my chair, and answered promptly
what had been taught them more than two years
before. We had been all along pleased with the
spirit with which we had been received, but here
we were delighted.

“Our chair-bearers who had set out for a good
job of it, and did not feel disposed to lose it, were
disconcerted at the idea of returning to the city
that day. They respectfully assured us that
there was no fear of bad weather the next day,
but what was to be done? There was no inn
nearer than the destination for which we had set
out in the morning, and it was too late to go there
now. Seeing our willingness to stay, two of the
chair-bearers set off to seek quarters in the vil-
lage, and in a little time returned with the agree-
able intelligence that a gentleman had consented
to open his house to receive us. We have some-LOTTIE MOON 117

times found difficulty in making good our right
to stay in the inns, but to be received into a home
in a village where all are heathen, was a most
unexpected good fortune. We took immediate
possession of our room, and it was at once filled
with an eager, excited crowd of boys and girls
and women. Mrs. Holmes and I undertook to
teach them, but the space was too small and the
confusion too great for any success to attend our
efforts. Pretty soon she withdrew to the yard,
carrying the boys with her, and I could hear her
putting them through the eatechism in her usual
vigorous style. I wish I could convey to you
some of the delight I had in teaching those who
stayed in the room. Especially there were three
young girls, whom I taught with keen pleasure.
They begged earnestly for books, a rare request
from a girl, for they usually think themselves too
stupid to learn.”

Is it any wonder she had turned from the fixed
form of a school to this great untouched field of
teaching?

“Our host,’ she went on, “while never obtru-
sive, was very kind and polite. He asked for a
New Testament and I was sorry to have none with
me. I, however, gave him a copy of Mark’s
Gospel.

“Next morning we had visitors until the time
of departure. We had now changed our plans
and concluded to leave the ‘An Hing’ villages for
the last day of the tour and to take, on this second
day, a line of villages known as the Wan-sez-k’o.
We knew that whenever we took them, it would
be a hard day’s work, for they are many, some of
them are large and the people inclined to be dis-
orderly. We meant after taking them all, to push
on to the thirty li station that night. They were118

 

LOTTIE MOON

out of our direct course but we hoped by losing no
time to carry out our plan. The sun was nearing
its setting when we found ourselves at the eleventh
village for the day, with many, many li between
us and our intended sleeping place. I had said
to Mrs. Holmes very decidedly at the tenth village
that I should do no more missionary work that
day, but no sooner had our chairs been set down
than the people came crowding around us and it
was impossible to keep silent. We have the words
of eternal life, and we must speak them to this
people in spite of all weariness.

“While we were talking our chair-bearers had
not been idle. They had no fancy for the long
pull before them and they bestirred themselves to
find quarters. Receiving a premature report of
non-success, we started off, but had hardly left
the village before we were recalled by the joyful
intelligence that a place for the night had been
secured.

“We were prepared to put up with anything,
and we expressed our pleasure to ‘mine host’? when
he conducted us to our quarters. Fancy a low-
pitched room, nine feet by nine, with smoke-black-
ened walls and rafters, a dirt floor, a mud bed
covered with matting, a dust-covered table and
one bench. There was a small paper window
which could not be opened and a doorway with
no door. This doorway opened into a room which
our chair-bearers used as an eating room, and this
led in turn into their sleeping apartment. We
were scarcely seated on the mud bed, according
to the Chinese fashion, before the room was filled
with a crowd, and as usual we found it best to
divide our forces, Mrs. Holmes teaching in the
yard and I in the house,”LOTTIE MOON 119

Did there ever rise before her, as wearily she
lay down to sleep in such a room, a memory of
lovely Viewmont! If so, there is never a hint of
it in her letters, never a complaint of any hard-
ship, save as it hindered and handicapped the
work she wished to do.

Bits of delightful description flashed through
the articles in the Journal and Religious Herald,
like reflecting pools of clear insight into the mean-
ing of Chinese life. Of a wheat harvest she
writes:

“The men go out to the field while the women
and girls and smaller children down to the least
babies take their places on the threshing floor.
The floor is on a levél spot and is rolled until it
is perfectly firm and round. The wheat is pulled
up by the roots and tied into bundles. Mules and
donkeys are then heavily laden and led to the
threshing floor. The women unload the animals
and then with a chopper cut the bundles in two,
the roots being piled in one place and the heads
in another. These roots are afterward used as
fuel. The wheat is stacked at night, and in the
day is spread out on the threshing floor for sun-
light until it is perfectly dry. A good deal of the
wheat drops out as the drying process goes on
and is carefully swept up. The main mass, how-
ever, has yet to be disengaged from the straw and
chaff. The wheat is spread out on the threshing
floor and is threshed by means of a stone roller.
This roller is dragged around by a blindfolded
mule urged on by the whip of the driver. The
mode of cleaning is like that of Bible times. The
wheat and chaff is tossed up; the wheat falls in
one pile and the chaff flies before the wind. This
process is repeated until the wheat is perfectly
clean.120 LOTTIE MOON

“During the wheat harvest the price of labor
advances. The usual pay for a man’s work is
about twelve or fourteen cents a day without food.
During the wheat harvest food of the best quality
is provided, with Chinese wine at dinner, and the
pay ranges from fourteen cents a day to as high
as fifty cents. In the neighboring country of
Hwanghsien higher prices prevail.”

How she often cleverly turned the curiosity of
the women to good account is best told in the fol-
lowing incident:

“We seem to have become one of the institu-
tions of this region. People now look for our
coming from year to year. At the first village
where we stopped this morning, a woman came up
laughing with pleasure.

“*You have come again,’ she said, ‘The same
who were here before!’

“ “Yes, the same, and we have come to tell you
the same things we told you before. You can’t
have forgotten them all!’

“““No,’—she had remembered some.

“The room was soon filled with women and chil-
dren. My glove was passed around for examina-
tion and as usual elicited the remark that for-
elgners are skillful.

“We are skillful, as you say, but there is one
thing we can’t do. We can’t make God!’

“The woman looked greatly surprised.

““We can make steamboats and sewing ma-
chines—but we can’t make God,’ I repeated. Her
face expressed puzzled surprise still.

““What, not if you could see one of our gods?
Couldn’t you make one?’

““No,’ I replied, ‘We can’t make God.’ I think
she was beginning to feel a little contempt, when
the woman standing by me, who saw the point,LOTTIE MOON 121

said with a laugh, ‘They don’t want gods. They
don’t allow worship of mud images.’

“Then in the turning to me in amazement I had
my chance to tell them of the One True God, who
made all things himself, and who cannot be wor-
shiped by images, ‘made by men’s hands.’ We
talked long about it.”

A story of a strange custom deeply interested
her, as illustrating the attitude of the Chinese in
old times toward their aged. She was shown on
one of her trips a series of great caves in the
mountains. There, so the Chinese said, they used
to take their aged people, those who had passed
the age of seventy, leave with them a little bread
and water, seal up the cave and leave them to die.
She found it difficult to reconcile this story with
the reverence the Chinese have for age, but the
caves were pointed out to her in the mountains to
the west of Tengchow and the story impressed her
so much that it found its way into her diary.

In the spring of 1883, Mr. and Mrs. Pruitt had
visited the city of Pingtu, the most interior point
that had at that time been reached from Teng-
chow. A servant in the Crawford home in Teng-
chow, Mr. Chao, was a Pingtu man, and some ten
years before, Dan Ho Bang, of a village near
Pingtu, had been converted under Dr. Craw-
ford’s preaching while on a brief visit to Hwang-
hsien. None of these contacts gave much prom-
ise, however, for the men of the city and villages
were bitterly resentful of the intrusion of the for-
eign men, and the unfriendliness of the people in
general toward the men missionaries made the
consideration of permanent work there impossible
at that time. The Pruitts, however, found enough
response at one village, Sah Ling, to make a brief
stay there and brought back to Tengchow a122

 

LOTTIE MOON

report of the responsiveness among the women
there. This one favorable item in the report was
balanced by the story of the indignities and in-
sults, suspicions and accusations heaped upon Mr.
Pruitt’s head in more than one village. However,
the Pruitts planned to make regular trips back
into this region, hoping to wear down the wall of
prejudice by persistent and patient contact with
the people.

Mrs. Pruitt’s sudden death ended these happy
plans, and gave a dramatic direction to Miss
Moon’s work.

Nearly ten years before, when she first came to
China, there had come to her attention a story of
women in a far interior city whom she thought
were a remnant of the Nestorian Christians, those
converts of the missionary invasion of China in
the first Christian era. The faith had become
very much encrusted with the beliefs of the
surrounding religions of Mohammedanism and
Buddhism, but some remnants of Christianity
were still evident. This interested her very much
and tentative plans were made by her and Mrs.
Holmes to go in the direction given them by their
informants, and seek out this group of women, re-
ported to be very pious and very eager to learn.
The ever-present duties of the day pressed so
upon them that the plans were never carried out,
though reports came at intervals of these seekers
after truth who would undoubtedly be most re-
sponsive to the gospel.

Mr. and Mrs. Pruitt found these worshipers of
one God in the Pingtu region. It was a country
filled with religious sects of various types, mostly
fundamentally Buddhists, but the most helpful
characteristic of their worship was an attitude of
seeking, an eagerness to learn and a vague rem-LOTTIE MOON 123

nant of teaching about the future life. There were
here and there definite groups who were vege-
tarians, the adherents of which were generally
women. The city of Pingtu was one hundred and
fifteen English miles from Tengchow, over the hill
country and into a beautiful valley country be-
yond, rich and very productive. It was a region
rarely visited in that day by foreigners, and the
resentment and fear of the white man, prevalent
throughout the region, made it dangerous for the
men missionaries to enter.

But the story of the seeking women tugged at
Lottie Moon’s heart.

A woman missionary could go where the men
could not!

She talked over with Dr. Crawford the matter
of her trying to push into Pingtu alone. He dis-
couraged her, saying, “It is better for a woman
not to go where no men missionaries go, for if
she does go and is persecuted, she would have no
men to protect her.”’

Was it Orianna Moon speaking through the sis-
ter in the reply that came quick as a flash?

“Tt is not fitting for us to trust men rather than
God. What is there for me to fear if God be with
me?” The fearlessness of the old Quaker ancestor,
defying the established powers in defense of his
faith, was finding expression in the gentle, blue-
eyed woman in whose heart, too, there was no
fear.

The disturbances of the Franco-Chinese War
held her in the city through the spring of 1885.
The coming of two new missionary families, Mr.
and Mrs. E. E. Davault, and Mr. and Mrs. Joiner
gave hope that the long deferred opening of
Hwanghsien as a station could speedily go for-
ward, and through the summer months she made124 LOTTIE MOON

the usual rounds of the villages in the Tengchow
region.

Early in September, 1885, found her teaching
in Shantswang, the farthest organized point of
attack on the interior, where Mr. Haleomb was
pastor.

Here, to the delight of the Chinese Christians,
she placed her church membership. The die was
cast! She was now truly identified with the in-
terior work. She was ready to push on to Pingtu.
With a promise from Mr. Chao, the Pingtu man
whom she had known in Tengchow, that she
might have a room in his mother’s house, she
went on in October, alone, reaching Pingtu early
in that month. At that time it was seven days’
journey from Tengchow to Pingtu, four days from
Shantswang. On the way she passed through
Laichowfu, where the antagonism against the for-
eigner was so intense that her carriers muffled the
bells on her shentza mules with straw and passed
through the city at night to insure her safety. For
many years the journey had to be made thus.

She found the Pingtu country, with the city of
that same name the center, very different from the
region around Tengchow. It was a fertile region.
There was not the grinding poverty with which
she had become so familiar around Tengchow.
The prevailing religion was Buddhism with its
many different sects, or groups of worshipers as
contrasted to the blank atheism and non-religion
of Tengchow. There had been some contact with
Christianity through men who had gone to Teng-
chow and in the homes of their relatives she found
a willingness to hear of this religion from the gen-
tle, kindly-faced woman who had come to live
among them. It was no disgrace for one to join
a religious sect, for they were accustomed to theLOTTIE MOON 125

 

idea. There was no feeling against listening to a
teacher, no resentment of foreign learning as had
been the case in Tengchow.

There was distrust and suspicion when she tried
to rent a house for a permanent residence, ex-
pressed by one loud objector to the coming of the
foreigner thus:

“When I was at Chefoo I saw the foreigners
take Chinese girls, put them on boats and take
them away. I also saw them take boys and take
their hearts and eyes out. This kind of devils in
China, as I see it, are all spies. They come to
China to get possession of the land. Who will
rent them a house? Who can say that they won’t
just take the house completely away? Or, having
rented them the house, say they do live in it, will
they ever turn over the rent money when it is
due?” Naturally such talk did not make it easier
to secure a home.

Taking note of these and other difficulties that
would be thrown in her way, especially by the
men of the city, she balanced that with the open
door to the women and sent a challenge to the
Board to develop here a rich new field for the
gospel through the throwing in of capable women
missionaries.

“T have seen nothing comparable to it in my
whole missionary experience,” she wrote Dr. Tup-
per, after the conference with the mission mem-
bers on her return to Tengchow. “Such eager
drinking in of the truth, such teachableness, I have
never seen before. There are many hundreds of
women in that region who belong to religious
sects, devout worshipers of Buddha and abstain-
ing from animal food. Such women leaven a com-
munity wherever they are and I regard them as
the most hopeful material with which to work.126 LOTTIE MOON

They are deeply and earnestly religious. They
are groping after God, ‘If haply they may find
him’ and I doubt not that many of them will
eagerly embrace the truth if presented to them
lovingly and earnestly.”

She outlined a line of attack on the interior,
which would have the men begin with establish-
ing the station firmly at Hwanghsien first, then
pushing on to Laichowfu and Pingtu as mission-
ary reinforcement could be sent out to occupy
them. At the same time the unmarried women
missionaries could occupy the interior stations in
order to break down prejudice, eventually throw-
ing a line of missionary occupation from Hwang-
hsien in the north to Chinkiang in Central China.

Eagerly she made her plans to spend the win-
ter in Pingtu. Until a missionary could come she
would occupy the field. She could not free her-
self entirely from responsibility for the Tengchow
work, there were too few workers there now, but
the ,call to Pingtu was clear. With a high hope
that the next two years could be spent in special-
izing on Pingtu, she wrote frankly that she would
be but preparing the way, breaking the ground
for missionaries to come.

“Our idea is for the older missionaries who are
acclimated and can rough it to do the preliminary
work,” she wrote—and she volunteered first for
the hard task. That the missionaries would come
she never doubted!

Early in December of 1885 she turned her face
happily toward Pingtu, celebrating her forty-fifth
birthday on the way. The house she had arranged
for tentatively until the Board’s approval could
be secured was not available, the owner havingLOTTIE MOON 127

been intimidated into breaking the contract made
with her. In this crisis God’s hand moved in a
strange way to give her entrance into the city.

Mr. Chao, the Christian from Tengchow, was
with her. An opium addict, named Chao Teh
Shin, who had been reduced to penury by his en-
slavement to the drug, came to Mr. Chao offering
his house and asked that he act as guarantor of
the rental, and secure the foreigner’s money for
him. So through the desperate need of the opium
eater for money, a comfortable house at the
west corner of the city wall, where the people
passed daily in great crowds, was secured and the
messenger of the gospel was established in that
great heathen city.

The women and children of the neighborhood
at first dared not have anything to do with Miss
Moon. She kept on hand always a jar of delicious
cookies, made by an old Virginia recipe, and gave
them to the children, who at first dared not eat
them for fear the strange woman would poison
them. But one day a boy, too hungry to remem-
ber his fears, could not resist the tempting odor
of a freshly baked cake and once it was tasted, it
quickly disappeared. No harm came to him!
After that the goodies she passed around in
friendly kindness were eagerly eaten and the fear
of the foreigner began to turn to kindness and
neighborliness.

Gifts were sent to her in return for her gifts
to them. She was able to hire a man to draw
her water for her, the opium eater’s wife washed
for her, another neighbor woman sewed for her,
and soon she had friends who went with her
openly in the streets, and word went around theOE a a ee ee Lal ara aan oi ee ae al a D ere

 

  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
  
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
  

128 LOTTIE MOON

city that the white woman living by the West
Gate was a friend and not a foe.

Mrs. Chao took her to call upon other families
of that name, and soon the women began to come
into her home and eagerly listen as she taught
them of the strange new faith. Classes were
taught with more regularity than had even been
possible in her itinerating work in the villages.
She made her home a meeting place for the
women, thinking it better to win them thus rather
than to risk the displeasure of the men by visit-
ing often in their homes. She made very few im-
provements on the Chinese house in which she
lived, preferring to “rough it” rather than to
intrude her foreign ideas upon the pepole, even
in matters that concerned her comfort. Since it
was impossible to get foreign articles of food that
far in the interior, she accustomed herself to the
Chinese food, and adopted Chinese dress both as
a matter of economy and policy. Thus she became
“all things” to these people that she might “by
all means win some.” Identifying herself in out-
ward appearance with them, she was accepted by
them and no wall was built between her and these
women of Pingtu. So the evangelization of
Pingtu began.

For six months, she lived and taught in the
house of the opium eater, just by the West Gate
of Pingtu. In this time she touched also three
villages, going by invitation each time, and mak-
ing in all thirty-three visits in the villages and
one hundred and twenty in the city. When one
remembers the long ten years of unfriendliness
that lay behind her in the Tengchow work, the joy
with which she met the cordiality and affection of
these Pingtu women can be understood. About
the time she went to live in Pingtu some foreign-LOTTIE MOON 129

ers employed by the government were sent to the
gold mines, thirty miles from the city. The proc-
lamation of the government regarding the courte-
sies and consideration that must be shown these
foreigners paved the way for her in a marvelous
fashion. Instead of having to contend for the
rights given foreigners by the treaty, she was al-
ready under the protection and approval of the
government.

Prosperous villages all around the city attract-
ed her greatly. Sah Ling viilage, the first point
of contact for the gospel, gave the most gracious
response. Here lived Dan Ho Bang, the convert
from Hwanghsien, who eagerly gave all his in-
fluence to making pleasant the coming of the for-
eign teacher. He was faithful, dependable and
devoted. This was the first home open to her in
the Pingtu country.

Especially was she delighted with the teach-
ableness of the young women. “Sweet, affection-
ate, modest,” are the words often on her pen in
speaking of them. The women here were allowed
more freedom than in the northern region. They
went freely to the temples to worship, to the mar-
ket to buy and sell and were most hospitably in-
clined, once their confidence was won. The chil-
dren were teachable, lovable, and crowded around
her home, begging her to come to their homes and
fearlessly walked with her on the street.

There was a dark side to the picture. Opium
smoking was much more common in Pingtu than
in Tengchow. Four of her neighbors were addicts
of the habit. Often she speaks of the habit as
being very tenacious once it has hold on a person,
and comments always:

“There is no remedy but the gospel.”ne ee ee ae aad eee

aes fo ie

LOTTIE MOON

YN
ra
i
2
Z
<
a
fs
rr
=

Crawford, Miss Knight, Miss Moon.

Mr. Pruitt,

Bostick, Mrs.
Bostick,

Pruitt, Mrs.
Standing: Mr.

Mrs.

Left to Right—Seated:131

 

LOTTIE MOON

She went back to Tengchow in June, 1886. At
the mission meeting, in July, the little group
bravely made plans to occupy these widening fields
until the long-expected workers would come. Mrs.
Crawford would work through the country to-
ward Laichowfu, one day’s journey this side of
Pingtu, hoping in this year to do some definite
work in that city. Mr. Halcomb and Mr. Pruitt
would continue the development of the Tengchow
school and churches, and make long spring and
fall tours, reaching out to Laichowfu and Pingtu
if possible. Mr. Halcomb was especially inter-
ested in getting into Pingtu, and planned to spend
the winter there. Miss Moon, settling in Pingtu
temporarily, would work from that city as a cen-
ter in all the country around about. Of her fu-
ture plans she says, “For myself, my idea is not
to settle in Pingtu permanently, but when once
the mission is established there to push on to some
new fields and break the ground for others to
come later. This, of course, with due deference to
the wishes of the Board and also with due regard
to my own health. I don’t know how long I could
stand the rough life in the new places. What I
want now is to beg you to send six new missiona-
ries to Pingtu.”

After writing of their own willingness to stretch
every energy to hold the vast territory at the ex-
pense of health and comfort, until help should
come, the missionaries presented a formal plan of
occupation which they thought a reasonable ex-
pectation, if Southern Baptists were to continue
their work in North China. Two married couples
for Pingtu, at least one for Hwanghsien, where
Mr. Davault was holding on by sheer will power,
fighting against slowly developing tuberculosis,
which probably had its inception in exposure to132 LOTTIE MOON

bitter weather on his trip from Chefoo to Teng-
chow, when arriving in China. Mr. Halcomb,
kindly, humble, energetic and aggressive in the
work, most attractive in personality, had resigned,
to the regret of his fellow missionaries, and had
gone to the American consulate in Chefoo. So in
the final summary of their plans for the year, only
Mr. Pruitt was left of the younger men of the
mission. “A growing man, a very fine preacher,
a man of good judgment and of very gentle and
winning spirit,” Lottie Moon wrote Dr. Tupper.
But it would not do for him to go alone to Hwang-
hsien, as the loneliness had been a large factor in
the breakdown of Mr. Davault. So there must be
additional workers for Hwanghsien.

Dr. Crawford, whose views concerning mission
work had undergone a radical change, especially
in regard to the administering of mission funds
and the advisability of carrying on school work
as a part of missionary activities, went to Amer-
ica early in 1885 to present his views to the Board
and secure their approval of his plan to unite the
whole of North China work, hitherto considered
as three stations, Chefoo, Tengchow, and now
Hwanghsien, under one organization, to be
known as the Shantung Mission, with himself as
the director.’ Mr. Haleomb had had unusual suc-
cess with the boys’ school, Mrs. Pruitt and after-
ward Miss Roberts, who had come out in the
spring of 1884, had kept going a very good girls’
school. These younger missionaries, while de-
ferring most courteously to the older man’s wishes
and judgment, still were under the conviction that
they should be left in freedom to work out their
own plans along such lines. It is interesting to
see how Lottie Moon, while deeply admiring Dr.
Crawford, and respecting the wisdom his longLOTTIE MOON 133

 

years in China had brought, flew to the advocacy
of the right of the younger missionaries to work
out their own ideas in this task which would one
day be theirs to carry on alone.

“There has been conflict of opinion in what was
formerly the Tengchow Mission,” she wrote in
April, 1885, to the Secretary of the Foreign Mis-
sion Board. ‘‘As you know, we have two missions,
the Tengchow and Hwanghsien. Nearly two
years ago, Dr. Crawford formed a plan of getting
the Board to make changes in the rules under
which we came out, and have been going on these
many years. The majority of the mission made
so determined and resolute a stand against the
proposed changes that he did not send his sugges-
tions to the Board. Now he goes in person to
Richmond to press his peculiar views. While we
are perfectly willing that he should carry out his
views as far as himself and his wife are concerned,
and also so far as he can induce others to accept
them freely and without official pressure, we are
not willing that those views should be forced upon
those of us who do not see our way to accepting
or even approving them.

“Dr. Crawford insists that his plan of work
would give perfect freedom to all parties. As the
rest of us see it, it would make him, through the
Board, dictator not only for life, but after he had
passed from earthly existence. His plan includes
even the cash we should spend for mission work
and extends even to regulation of mission salaries.

“Tf that be freedom, give me slavery! I believe
the only hope of peace is in having the two inde-
pendent missions as we now have, responsible to
the Board alone, and through it to the churches.

“T have not written this in any spirit of un-
kindness to Dr. Crawford. I told him I would134 LOTTIE MOON

write the Board about the matter upon which we
disagree. This is in no sense an accusation of
him. As he will see the Board in person, it is
right that they should know that he represents
nobody but himself and his wife. While we are
willing that they should have perfect freedom,
we are not disposed to submit ourselves to dicta-
torship. All we ask is the same freedom we
concede.”’

The crux of the trouble lay in the policy of
maintaining mission schools. Dr. Crawford had
come to the conclusion that no school work should
be done by the missionaries, and no schools main-
tained by mission money. He demanded that
the younger missionaries pledge themselves to
his view.

The old dream had not died, for in the struggle
Lottie Moon, while believing it was primarily
‘time for evangelistic emphasis, at least until their
force was increased, came out vigorously as the
champion of the development of all phases of
mission activity. Very aptly she remarked,

“It took Dr. Crawford twenty years to find out
the folly of schools. Now he wishes others to
reach that point in as many months. Naturally
they decline to do so, when they see as the re-
sults of schools, the most efficient members of our
churches.”

Dr. Crawford’s trip to America resulted in
his severing his connection with the Board since
he could not bring them to take action according
to his views. He returned to China, however,
working independently. Mrs. Crawford continued
to work with Miss Moon and the cordial fellow-
ship and friendship was never broken. Lottie
Moon’s ability to see all sides of a question keptLOTTIE MOON 135

 

the balance often in the inevitable controversies
that arose on mission policies.

Only once did a matter of mission policy strike
so near to her personal feeling that she was be-
trayed into resentment. In this instance a re-
action, instant and vigorous, led to the extreme
measure of resignation. The story may be best
told by herself. It occurs in the same letter in
which she laid the history of the struggle over
school policies before the Board, written in July
of 1885.

“Thus far my letter has been taken up with
general mission matters. If you will kindly per-
mit, I should like to ask a few questions on a
subject which concerns me personally. Can you
tell me, or rather will you tell me, if the China
Committee purposes to make any changes in the
status of unmarried women in the mission?

“Here in Tengchow the ladies have always been
admitted on equal terms with the gentlemen of
the mission when meeting to consider the matters
pertaining to the conduct of the work here. For a
long time, you know, the mission consisted of
only Dr. and Mrs. Crawford and Mrs. Holmes.
Then my sister came and these four made up
the mission. Later, I joined it and the mission
consisted of one man and four women. We met
and consulted together always on equal terms.
At one time, as you know, the mission was left
entirely in the hands of women, Mrs. Holmes,
Mrs. Crawford and myself. It was at a very
trying time, but we weathered the storm. When
Miss Roberts came no one even dreamed of ques-
tioning her right to enter the mission on equal
terms. Our meetings were held together to consult
about matters in which all were equally con-
cerned. To exclude the married women from136 LOTTIE MOON

the meetings might be unwise, but it could hardly
be deemed unjust, as they could be represented
by their husbands. To exclude the. unnrarried
ladies would be a most glaring piece of injustice
in my opinion. To such exclusion I could never
submit, and retain my self-respect.”

The storm had all been raised by an article
written by Miss Moon and published in the For-
eign Mission Journal of November, 1884, in which
she had discussed the matter of Woman’s Work
on the mission field from the standpoint of the
freedom that must be given to women mission-
aries to have a voice in shaping the policies of
their work. It had been written to give the
established custom of the North China mission
and its experience in order to help other mission
organizations to reach the same basis.

Some brethren in the South, reading the article
and not knowing its background or purpose, wrote
to the Foreign Mission Board, denouncing in
vigorous terms such advocacy of Woman’s Rights
on the part of a missionary of the Board. They
seemed to see in it dangerous tendencies toward
woman suffrage and other violent doctrines. The
Committee on China promptly met and after hasty
consideration passed a vote of disapproval of the
article, and expressed the sentiment of the Board
to be against such doctrines.

Away in China, this seemed to be the estab-
lishment of a new ruling on the standing of the
women missionaries and all the deep impressions
of a childhood spent in the atmosphere of a home
where an older sister was the adored leader in
the new freedom of women, rose to dictate a re-
ply. It isa classic, this letter written two months
later, when for a principle she believed with herLOTTIE. MOON 137

wore soul, Lottie Moon came to a decision so
vital.

“Tt seems to be the purpose of the Committee
to relegate me henceforth to the class of those
women missionaries who must work in silence,
without voice in any shaping of mission policies.
I distinctly decline to be so relegated. Will you
be so kind as to request the Board to appropriate
the proper sum to pay my return passage to
Virginia? On arrival I will send in my resig-
nation in due form.

“T regret the necessity of taking this step, but
any other course is impossible.

‘Yours with kindest feelings,
L. Moon.”

The signature is written here with more firm
emphasis than was usual.

Of course, when the matter was explained, and
the Committee found that their action would set
aside the time-tested method of the missions, cause
a new policy to be established and lose to the
mission a most beloved and valued worker, they
made haste to set all right, and the next letter
from the home at the Little Cross Roads in Teng-
chow held no reference:to a resignation, but rather
was full of plans for the opening work in Pingtu.

There was formal request made by the mission
for single women to come out to each of the
interior stations,—Hwanghsien, Pingtu, and later
Laichowfu. It is exceedingly interesting to note
that in this matter there had been a great change
in Lottie Moon’s attitude. Her experience in
the country work in Tengchow had caused her
to oppose the sending of single women. It was
too hard and the work too lonely. She did
not think it could be worth all that it cost. The138 LOTTIE MOON

field developed so slowly that the worker would
be easily discouraged.

But now there was a really wonderful oppor-
tunity for consecrated women to spend them-
selves for the women of China. The interior
promised to be a different field. It was worth
while for a woman to bury herself among the
responsive Pingtu women and other fields like it.
So plea after plea went to the Board for women
missionaries. One of the problems connected with
the coming of single women was that of com-
panionship, particularly for the first year, while
getting started in the language. She offered a
solution of that by inviting them into her home,
offering freely all its comforts and happiness that
they might gradually become accustomed to the
conditions of life in North China. She further
suggested that they come to Tengchow from their
interior stations for recuperation and rest in the
summer, offering her home freely for this pur-
pose.

“Now if you send the young ladies I purpose
to take them into my heart and hold to them the
place of a mother,” she wrote, “if older, more
mature ladies, I wish to do for them a sister’s
part. The field of women’s work is simply bound-
less. If the Board will send us the women my
long experience and observation suggest that we
make them comfortable and happy. They should
have comfortable homes provided for them, two
living together. That would be no more expen-
sive than a home for a married couple.”

Then followed plans the missionaries had
worked out to make the occupation of the new
fields as inexpensive as possible. There would be
no building of homes. Chinese style houses, with
the least possible improvements, would be used.139

 

LOTTIE MOON

Modest chapels would be rented, both as a matter
of economy and as a means of entering these fields
in an unobtrusive manner. No native assistants
would be employed, a policy by now somewhat
established in the work of most of the North
China force. At first no boarding schools would
be attempted, just the proclamation of the Word,
on the streets, in the market places, and in the
homes. The women missionaries would have a
rich field in house-to-house visiting and teaching
classes of women and girls in their homes. It is
interesting to see that she often mentions the
establishment of schools as “the next step in
the development, after the force shall be strong
enough to maintain them well.”

So the appeal, not for equipment, not for any
large sums of money—but simply for workers,
went to Richmond. The estimated cost would be
about six thousand dollars.

“Wouldn’t such an investment pay better, say,
than twenty-five thousand dollars contributed by
one man for a memorial church in a city already
supplied with churches?” she asks after reading
of such a gift in a home paper. “Why can’t we
have Memorial Missions? When will some rich
Baptist come forward and start a mission which
would give the gospel to some hundreds of peo-
ple? When will some church say, ‘We will sustain
one missionary in Pingtu’ and not only say it,
but raise the money and send the missionary 2”

This was the summer of 1885. In September
of that year, she was happily settled in Pingtu
for the winter. Again her heart was thrilled by
the progress of the work. There were some be-
lievers now. She wrote enthusiastically about
the classes that came regularly to her. Her visit-
ing in the villages had grown to large proportions.140 LOTLIE MOON

Letters went to the Board, full of joy in the work,
and always with the plea, “Send on the Mission-
aries.” She had planned for two years of pioneer-
ing, of burying herself in Pingtu,. but there must
be some younger woman getting ready to take
over the work when her part of it should be done.
That meant they should come soon!

In March of 1886 she wrote from Pingtu:

“You will remember that I have heretofore
deprecated the sending of unmarried women to
Shantung. In the Tengchow region the work is
done under such discouraging auspices in the city
and under such physical hardships in the country
that it has not seemed right to encourage ladies to
go there. Here things are different. City and
country are alike accessible. Ladies could, from
a comfortable home in the city, work not only the
city but a country region full of villages. To
go out for a day to a village, returning at night,
while very wearisome to mind and body, is not
physically wearing. It is the long tours, the
knocking about in inns, the publicity that wears
one out. Still there are drawbacks in the interior
and ladies should not come without being fully
aware of just what they are undertaking. It is
literally true that there is absolutely nothing to
attract one but the abundance of hard work. If
a woman can be content to bound her life within
very narrow limits for the sake of the good she
may do, the work will reward the self-denial.
Will the Board send the men and women to enable
us to go forward?”

No workers could be sent. The Foreign Mis-
sion Board was in debt. No additional mission-
aries could be appointed. So through 1886 Lottie
Moon, making two brief trips to Tengchow, spent
herself in the developing of the Pingtu work. InLOTTIE MOON 141

this time no other worker had come to aid her
except Mrs. Crawford for one unforgettable
month.

Organizing their work, these two, a matchless
team of missionaries, went from village to village
teaching the gospel to the crowds that thronged
them. Mrs. Crawford had been in China so long
that she had forgotten all the handicaps that
interpretations of scripture had thrown around
the opportunities for women to teach the gospel,
so she took the men in large classes. Miss Moon,
true to the traditions of her Virginia upbringing,
taught the women and girls only. In one of these
hours of study with the men of the village near to
the first point touched by the gospel, Sah Ling,
an old man named Li, became an earnest inquirer.
Mrs. Crawford taught him patiently but he.was
slow to learn, and when she had gone back to
Tengchow, he returned to Miss Moon asking for
further instructions. With him came several men
from his village, all asking to be shown the Way
of Life.

This was a request she dared not ignore. But
she had been brought up under the most rigid
interpretation of the limitations of women in the
work of the gospel. “I suffer not a woman to
teach nor to usurp authority over a man” had
been the authority for that interpretation in her
thinking. Yet here were men with eternal souls
asking her, who knew the way of life, to tell
them of it. She had often had men to stand in
her classes of women, but never before had she
come face to face with the question of teaching
a class of men. There was no man missionary
nearer than Mr. Pruitt in Tengchow, and he could
not come.142 LOTTIE MOON

With characteristic energy she cut the Gordian
Knot of her problem. She told the men to come to
the threshing floor to which she had moved her
class of women in order to have room for all who
wished to come. There was ample room for the
men to sit back of her and with books in hand
to study the scripture with the women who sat
in front of her. She taught the women—if the
men studied along with them, she was sure even
Paul would not have objected!

Old Man Li, who had first interested this group
of men, was by now an eager inquirer. To him
she gave a copy of the New Testament. But he
could not read, and so to a kinsman of his, a
young man who had been educated to be a Con-
fucian teacher, he went for help in understanding
the new doctrines that had so fascinated him.
Through this year, the inquirers, both men and
women, came in encouraging numbers. It was
almost like having a school, with as many as a
dozen girls at one time earnestly learning to read
their New Testaments, and sing the hymns. At
one time her throat gave out and she was forced
to dismiss them. “No matter,” they replied,
‘bring out the book and we will study ourselves.”
From after breakfast until the sun had set, she
was constantly busy. From the little Chinese
house by the West Gate went many an appeal]
to Richmond for workers for Pingtu.

On New Year’s Day, 1887, she arrived in Teng-
chow from a four-months’ stay in Pingtu to find
a heavy mail awaiting her. News from her loved
ones, long delayed because there was no way of
getting it over to Pingtu, and a letter from Dr.
Tupper concerning important mission matters. In
reply she wrote some interesting news of the
missions, the most pertinent being that of herLOTTIE MOON 143

going for the rest of the winter to Hwanghsien
to be company for Mrs. Joiner. Mr. Joiner had
suffered a slight stroke of paralysis and since
Mr. and Mrs. Davault must be in’ Tengchow on
account of his health not permitting him to stand
the severe winters in Hwanghsien, she had ex-
changed her home for theirs, and would be within
call if Mrs. Joiner needed her. Her further plans
included spring tours around Tengchow and then
in the early summer she would go on to Pingtu.

It had now been ten years since she had gone
back to China after taking the little sister home
—ten years of much living alone, and since Mrs.
Holmes’ return to America, of working alone.
She felt that it was unwise to stay longer without
some rest and recuperation. For a year she had
been bothered with a trouble in her throat that
would not yield to treatment. She had a dread
of falling into ill health, and having to return to
America, leaving her beloved work. So she made
formal request for a furlough which she thought
was not unreasonable.

That was a year of many changes—changes in
the attitude of the Chinese government toward
foreigners living within the Empire, as evidenced
by the first official recognition of foreign learning,
changes noted for the first time in the behavior
of the Tengchow people toward the foreigners
living in their midst. The famine relief work,
begun in 1876 and continued in similar disasters
in the ten years that had passed, had made an
impression upon the people. The unselfish lives
of the missionaries who had lived so long among
them had begun to break down prejudice—even 1n
Tengchow. In March, 1887, Lottie Moon wrote
from Tengchow:144 LOTTIE MOON

“A mighty change is being wrought in the feel-
ings of the people toward foreigners. No true
missionary cares for the physical hardships. He
endures them without a regretful or discontented
thought. But the iron enters his soul when all his
advances are met by suspicions, coldness, dislike
or actual hatred. For many long years this was
what the missionary in China had to endure. Hap-
pily that state of things rapidly passed away.
The change is very marked in the prosecution of
country work in the Tengchow region. Where
of old we were met by cold averted glances, by
murmurs of dislike, we are greeted now by smiles
and words of cordial welcome. The mere idle
gaze of curiosity is exchanged in many cases for
thoughtful, earnest, respectful attention to the
Words of Life. I have just returned today from
a short trip into the country. I was much de-
lighted by the friendliness of the people. I am
more and more impressed by the belief that to
win these people to God, we must first win them
to ourselves. We need to go out and live among
them, manifesting the gentle and loving spirit of
our Lord.

“But what can so few do among so many? One
missionary could spend months with profit in a
circle of a dozen villages. We have in this coun-
try hundreds of villages. By short, hasty visits
we might reach them perhaps once a year, but to
what profit? We need to make friends before we
can hope to win converts. We should have scores
of workers for every one we now have in the
field. I have spoken only of the region around
Tengchow, but what of the regions beyond?

“What of Hwanghsien with its eight hundred
villages and its four missionaries?LOTTIE MOON 145

“What of Pingtu where we have pleaded to
have missionaries sent? What of that vast region
beyond with its teeming millions?

“One is amazed that Christians in the west do
not bestir themselves to give the gospel to this
people. The prayer in former times was that
God would open China. God has answered that
prayer, and now who goes forth to possess the
land?

“Where are the hundred missionaries that we
ought to have today in Shantung, if we would
begin to reach these people? Where is the silver
and the gold that should be in the Lord’s Treas-
ury to send out to those men and women who are
asking to be sent to the heathen?

“Alas, alas, some are adding more fields to their
broad lands, some are laying it up in banks, some
are spending it in selfish indulgences! So these
heathen souls go down to death without ever hav-
ing heard the name of Jesus. In the day of Judg:
ment at whose door will lie the sin?”

To the appeals of the North China missionaries
in that year for some reénforcement there came
the reply from the Convention meeting in May of
“no funds,” but there was the erumb of encour-
agement in a movement to pay the debt hanging
over the Foreign Mission Board and the faint
hope that after that was done the missionaries
could be sent. :

This news evoked the following comment in
June of that year from Lottie Moon’s pen: |

“Great changes are taking place in China.
Wonderful progress is being made. The question
comes up, what are Southern Baptists doing to
utilize the opportunities now offered? Here in
Shantung where we ought to have a hundred
missionaries, we have just eight! How long can146 LOTTIE MOON

this state of things continue? How long is the
King’s business to go undone? How many mil-
lions more of souls are to pass into eternity with-
out having heard the name of Jesus? In Pingtu,
the opportunities for work are simply limited by
the strength of the worker. Again I plead for
a mission station to be opened there.”

That the “strength of the worker” was grow-
ing limited, was becoming evident to her more and
more as She tried to do the work in Pingtu and
keep up the work established in Tengchow. July,
1887, came without any definite hope being given
from Richmond that the prayed-for worker would
come soon. But the papers and journals of the
South had been stirred by the appeals of Lottie
Moon, as no other one appeal had ever done. A
leaven. was working among Southern Baptists
that would bring the answer to such earnest
prayer.

One day in Tengchow an amusing incident
provoked a brilliant bit of philosophy from her
pen. She had been on a short trip to a few
villages. Everywhere she had been met with
smiling faces and pleasant words that day, until
the last village. There, while she was talking
in the street with some women, an elderly man of
respectable appearance came by and spoke in an
undertone to the women. He passed on and im-
mediately the women began to make excuses—it
was cold, they were busy, and finally all had
slipped away. She understood at once what had
happened, and looking at the disappearing form
of the disturber, she thought to herself, “Poor
old man, you have not many years in which to
do this evil work! When you are gone there will
be none to oppose, and I may come and sit down
in peace in your village!”LOTTIE MOON 147

To this story she adds, “One must not be dis-
couraged by the extremely slow progress of the
gospel in heathen lands. To be impatient of early
results is as if the pioneer in an unbroken wilder-
ness with forests to be cut down, houses to be
built, lands to be cleared, with soil to be plowed
and sown, should be dissatisfied that houses do
not go up by magic and broad acres in a moment
bear golden harvests. The hardy pioneer plods
on patiently year after year, and in time he reaps
the reward of his labor.

“So in heathen lands we plod on in patience,
waiting in faith during the time of seed sowing.
The harvest will come in time, and in China—
what a harvest it will be!”

Was it with eyes of prophecy that she foresaw
the time of harvest in Pingtu? But there were
still the years of waiting.CHAPTER IV
THE FURLOUGH THAT NEVER CAME

“TF SHE HAD NOT HAD FAITH SHE COULD NOT
HAVE GONE TEN THOUSAND MILES FROM THE UNI-
TED STATES TO GET TO TENGCHOW. IF SHE HAD
NOT HAD ZEAL, SHE, A LONE WOMAN, WOULDN’T
HAVE GONE THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN MILES
FROM TENGCHOW TO THE BLACK HEATHENISM OF
PINGTU. BELIEVING THE MASTER SURELY WOULD
PROTECT HER, SHE DISCOUNTED THE DISCQURAGING
ARGUMENTS OF OTHER MISSIONARIES, CONSIDERED
HER OWN LIFE AS OF NO IMPORTANCE, HEARING
ONLY THE MASTER’S COMMAND. THUS GOD’S GRACE
CAME UPON SAH LING VILLAGE!”’

—Pastor Li, of North China.

 

Shanghai asking about dates of boat sailing
to San Francisco. Plans were made for
some of the missionaries to make brief visits
to the Pingtu region, holding the work there until
the expected workers were ready to take it over.
The break in occupancy would not make any great
difference in the development there, for it was
still in the “ground-breaking stage.”

Then one Sunday—but let her tell the story in
her own words!

“Two men reached here on Sunday from Sah
Ling in Pingtu, the village of which I have pre-
viously written. The women and girls interested

g OING HOME! Letters had been written to

 

 

 

{ 148 ]LOTTIE MOON 149

in the gospel got impatient of my long delay and
these men set out to seek me, hoping to meet me
on the way. As they did not, they came on here.”

Can you see her face as she listened to the story
the two men bore of the appeal of the women and
girls she had taught? Can you see their own eager
faces, these two men who had walked all the way,
the one hundred and fifteen miles from Pingtu to
find the teacher who knew the Words of Life?

Home!

Pingtu!

In that hour of decision she turned aside from
all the dear thoughts of Virginia, with eyes see-
ing only the eager faces of the crowds of women,
the men standing more reservedly but just as in-
terestedly behind them. She heard only Pingtu
calling.

But let her tell it again:

“T have decided to try to hold on until next June
(1888). There is no one to send to Pingtu. We
do so long for new missionaries, but we realize
that the Board can act only as the churches pro-
vide the means. So I will go back to.Pingtu for
the winter. I have sacrificed more in health and
comfort for that region than any other. I believe
that a good foundation has been laid for a perma-
nent station. I always leave Pingtu with regret
and go back to it with joy. Perhaps you will ac-
cuse me of having ‘Pingtu on the brain!’ I cer-
tainly have it on my heart!”

So it was back to Pingtu, while the dear de-
lights of Virginia were laid aside until such a
time as the call no longer came with no one to
answer.

Back to the little rented house by the West Gate
of the city, back to be neighbor to the opium150

 

LOTTIE MOON

eater’s wife, back to the gracious opening at Sah
Ling.

By now most of the people of Pingtu city knew
that there was a Miss Moon who preached the
Jesus doctrine. The wife of her cook, Mr. Chao,
who had heard the gospel first in Tengchow, went
with her on her visits and gained entrance for her
into the homes of others of that name, one a
yeast-maker, who received her and heard the gos-
pel gladly. Often, passing along the street, men
and women would fling at her the reviling terms
of hatred, “Devil-old-woman” and worse. Quietly
she would reply:

“If I am a person, it is not right that you
should call me such names. All people on earth
are brothers and sisters.” Never angry, never
impatient, never resentful, she patiently wore
away the prejudice and hatred by her gentle,
gracious presence and her blameless life.

At times of the principal holidays and festivals,
when many women from the surrounding country
villages came in to burn incense at the temples in
the city, she cordially invited them into her home,
and, curiosity overcoming fear, they would go in.
So in this way her name was carried out into the
countless villages in all the Pingtu region. In re-
turn, invitations came to her to visit their villages.
Though she knew very well that the invitations
came only that they might have the curious sight
of a foreign woman in their villages, she never
lost an opportunity to turn the event into a time
for teaching the gospel. The majority of the peo-
ple scorned her, but of ‘them she took no notice.
She overheard many discussions of herself. Some
said she was a man, some a woman. No matter
what they said she only the more kindly invited
them to come and hear her tell of the One TrueLOTTIE MOON 151

God whom she worshiped. Teaching little groups
here and there portions of the Scriptures, leaving
copies of the Gospels in the hands of those who
could read, teaching hymns, the favorites being,
“Jesus Loves Me” and “The Father Will Surely
Watch Over Me,” and a little prayer which
summed up the need of the heathen heart, “O
Father, have mercy on me, forgive my sins, in the
name of Jesus who died on the cross, Amen,” she
went on constantly, never saving herself, pressing
on to accomplish the task set before her. So
passed the winter of 1887-88.

That she knew something of the stirring of or-
ganization among Southern Baptist women in that
eventful winter is shown by some articles she
wrote through 1887 and 1888 for the Foreign M1s-
sion Journal, the Religious Herald, of Virginia,
and the Christian Index, of Georgia. The call,
“Woman’s Work for Women,” had been rung out
by many of the missionaries, especially Dr. R. H.
Graves and Dr. E. Z. Simmons, of South China.
The brilliant writing of Mrs. T. P. Crawford and
Mrs. Nevius, of North China, had appeared for
more than twenty years, presenting the appeal of
heathen womanhood to the women of the South-
land. The words had become a slogan for the
crystallizing of sentiment among the women of
the South for some definite part in the work of
fostering and stimulating foreign missions among
the churches. The Secretary of the Foreign Mis-
sion Board had fostered this growing interest of
the women, hoping that they would be allowed to
come into full participation of the work of the
Convention.

Miss Moon had kept in close touch with these
various movements among the women of, the
Southland. Through her reading of the many152 LOTTIE MOON

discussions of woman’s work appearing in those
days in the Baptist papers of the South, she was
able to make definite, effective contributions to the
slowly crystallizing purpose of the women to or-
ganize in some way their forces for more effectual
work. In one of these appeals for the women to
do something in a worthy way for the foreign
mission enterprise she made a suggestion that was
to bear rare and rich fruitage.

The article appeared in the December, 1887,
issue of the Foreign Mission Journal and was pro-
voked by a movement for a week of prayer begun
by the Methodist women in June, 1887. After
giving the resolutions in which the Methodist
women set forth their purposes and plans, she
comments:

“IT am convinced that one of the chief reasons
our Southern Baptist women do so little is the
lack of organization. Why should we not learn
from these noble women and instead of the paltry
offering we make, do something that will prove
we are really in earnest in claiming to be the fol-
lowers of him who ‘though he was rich, for our
sake became poor?’ ”

She suggested that Southern Baptist women
should institute a week of prayer and offering, not
only for the Foreign Mission Board and its work
but for both Boards of the Convention. She sug-
gested the week before Christmas to be set apart
for this purpose.

“‘Need it be said why the week before Christmas
is chosen?” she asked, then went on to answer,
“Is it not the festive season, when families and
friends exchange gifts in memory of the Gift laid
on the altar of the world for the redemption of
the human race, the most appropriate time to con-
secrate a portion from both abounding riches andLOTTIE MOON 153

scant poverty to send forth the good tidings of
great joy into all the earth?”

Then she returned to the discussion of better
organization for the women.

“In seeking organization we do not need to
adopt plans or methods unsuitable to the views or
repugnant to the tastes of our brethren. What we
want is not power, but simply combination in
order to elicit the largest possible giving. Power
of appointment and of disbursing funds should be
left as heretofore in the hands of the Foreign Mis-
sion Board. Separate organization is undesirable,
and would do harm, but organization in subordi-
nation to the Board is the imperative need of the
hour.

“The world is the field,’—the vision is still
clear! “The world is the field, and woman’s work
for Christ is wherever there is a home to be re-
formed, or a soul to be redeemed. The broad field
of our Home Board in which we are to raise the
missionaries for the foreign field, should claim
much of our gifts and prayers.”

Vigorously she pressed home the truth as to the
starvation methods which were being pursued,
methods that were strangling the foreign mission
enterprise in its very beginning. She illustrated
the trend and found its solution in an example of
missionary work with which she was familiar.

“Some years ago the Southern Methodist Mis-
sion in China had run down to the lowest water
mark; the rising of the tide seems to have begun
with the enlisting of the women of the churches
in the cause of missions. The previously unex-
ampled increase in missionary zeal and activity in
the Northern Presbyterian Church is attributed to
the same reason—the thorough awakening of the
women of the churches upon the subject ofLOTTIE MOON

missions. In like manner, until the women of
our Southern Baptist churches are thoroughly
aroused, we shall continue to go on in our present
‘hand to mouth’ system. We shall continue to see
mission stations so poorly manned that mission-
aries break down from overwork, loneliness and
isolation ; we shall continue to see promising fields
unentered and old stations languishing, we shall
continue to see other mission enterprises, no
richer and no better educated than our own, out-
stripping us in the race.

“TI wonder how many of us really believe that
‘it is more blessed to give than to receive!” A
woman who accepts that statement of the Lord
Jesus Christ as a fact, and not as ‘impractical
idealism’ will make giving a principle in her life.
She will lay aside sacredly not less than one-tenth
of her income or her earnings as the Lord’s
money, which she would no more dare touch for
personal use than she would steal. How many
are there among our women, alas! alas! who
imagine that because ‘Jesus paid it all,’ they need
pay nothing, forgetting that the prime object of
their salvation was that they should follow in the
footsteps of Jesus Christ in bringing back a lost
world to God, and so aid in bringing the answer
to the petition our Lord taught his disciples, ‘Thy
Kingdom come!’ ”

These stirring words were commented upon in
all the Baptist papers, and the discussion began
to draw to some definite conclusion. In May,
1888, the Southern Baptist Convention met in
Richmond, Virginia. There the women organized,
setting forth their purpose in words which in a
remarkable manner were like those Miss Moon
had used in her article of December. She was in
Pingtu at this time. It was not until in the lateLOTTIE MOON 155

summer that she heard the glad news of the step
forward Southern Baptist women had taken.

In August, of 1888, she went down to Chinkiang
for a visit with Mr. and Mrs. R. T. Bryan, enthu-
siastic new missionaries who were just getting
into their work at that station. There were some
perplexing problems in the Chinkiang work which
she might help them solve with her longer experi-
ence, and it was an opportunity to get away for a
little while from the monotony and loneliness of
the life in Tengchow and Pingtu.

“T should have felt very helpless at first without
the assistance of experienced missionaries,” she
wrote in sympathetic explanation of her eager-
ness to be of service to these two young mission-
aries whom she admired and loved. “I know from
experience the difficulties in the way of the be-
ginner.”’

She adds, as if it were a minor consideration:

“Then, too, I felt the need of mental change. J
have worked so hard in Pingtu, and have been so
much alone there that I was mentally jaded. I
though: it would not be wrong to remain in bright
and pleasant society if I could at the same time be
of service as a missionary. The people of Sah
Ling are urgent to have me live among them. I
confidently believe that we would have hundreds,
yes, thousands of inquirers and converts. I know
whereof I speak, for I have lived right down
among the people and I know they can be won by
loving self-sacrifice on the part of the missiona-
ries. I have been very happy here with these dear
friends, and the sunshine will go with me in mem-
ory when I plunge back into the hard life of the
interior.”skal toot toes aieaah tet eek "i a Dal i) e* Ne wr pat) ee ~

 

  

156 LOTTIE MOON

Then she wrote of the prospect of help coming:

“Thanks for the hope you hold out for a woman
reénforcement!”’

Little did Southern Baptist women know what
that meeting in Richmond, in May, 1888, meant to
a lonely woman in far away North China.

“T wish you could send us two women in the
fall for Pingtu. Is that one of the possibilities?”
She went on to say, “I am anxious that they shall
come and make a beginning before I leave for
America. I should like to go with them to Pingtu
and introduce them to my numerous friends
there.” And again came the insistence upon two
women, in company with each other, that the
workers who should come after her might be
spared the loneliness that had been hers.

Then, “I should be most heartily glad of ten
women for the Pingtu region! No one who has
not seen can imagine the wide field opened there
for women’s work. I would I had a thousand
lives that I might give them to the women of
China!”

But she had only one life, so must plead for
Southern Baptists to send the others—one, half
promised, two must come—Oh, for ten women!

“T am very desirous to go home next year. I
think my health requires it. Still,’ again came
the voice of devotion, “still, I am not willing to
go until Pingtu is provided for. When once that
is done, I can go home happy and with a clear
conscience. But I cannot leave those eager people
without the certainty that there will be someone
to carry on the work.”’

While she was in Chinkiang she asked Dr. Tup-
per’s help in adjusting a matter of business. She
had had on deposit in Shanghai for several years
a sum of nearly $1,000. This was probably a partLOTTIE MOON 157

of her inheritance from the estate of her mother.
It had occurred to her that the Board could use
this money as a loan, though her business instincts
told her it would be much wiser, from a financial
standpoint, to leave it in the bank where the com-
pound interest amounted to quite a bit each year.
But she offered it to the Board at the modest rate
of 6 per cent and left the matter in Dr. Tupper’s
hands to arrange, for she could not look after it
from Pingtu.

And back she went to Pingtu.

In the office at Richmond these letters from
Chinkiang were shared with the new Secretary of
the Woman’s Missionary Union, an organization
now three months old. The words haunted Miss
Armstrong when she went back to the new little
office in Baltimore, which was the clearing house
for all the missionary affairs of the women in the
Southern states. The suggestion made in Decem-
ber came to her attention. A letter went to Dr.
Tupper asking if he thought it would be possible
for the women of the South to raise the amount
necessary to send relief to Miss Moon by a special
Christmas love offering. He responded, “Try it!”
He had the utmost confidence in the women suc-
ceeding in anything they undertook.

Most interesting is the correspondence that fol-
lowed in those busy days of getting ready for this
special effort. ‘Dare we spend $100 for litera-
ture?” “Would the reckless expenditure of post-
age be justified by the results?’ were some of the
questions that flew from Baltimore to Richmond.
In everything, the Foreign Mission Secretary,
heartsore over the unanswered pleadings not only
from Tengchow and Pingtu, but from every other
Southern Baptist field, gave optimistic counsel.158 LOTTIE MOON

 

So precious packages of literature were sent
from Baltimore to the women’s societies that were
springing up from Savannah to the new towns of
the Panhandle, and eager plans were made in
city, town and village for this first Christmas Of-
fering, while out on the lonely outpost of the long,
thin line of missionary occupation, Lottie Moon
was being all things to the Chinese women of
Pingtu, that she might by all means win some!

Back in Pingtu and at work again! There was
cholera at Shantswang and the little church was
sorely afflicted, losing several valuable members.
Fearlessly she went to aid and comfort them. Mr.
Pruitt had given up the pastorate there, taken
over after Mr. Halcomb had resigned. Happiness
had come into this young missionary’s life again
in the love of a devoted woman, a member of the
Presbyterian mission at Tengchow, Miss Anna
Seward, and the two had gone to reopen the work
in Hwanghsien. Mr. Davault had died and the
Joiners had gone home. Truly now was Lottie
Moon “holding the fort,” for she was teacher,
comforter, helper—even pastor, now, to the little
flock of the farthest outpost.

In Sah Ling a group of thirty people were meet-
ing regularly every Sabbath for worship, and she
must take care of them. In Pingtu the interest
was increasing. The opium eater’s wife was now
a believer. Li Sen Si, kindly neighbor and friend,
had humbly asked if she, too, might be a believer.
Mr. Chao and Mr. Kiang were her active helpers,
taking as much as they could of the teachings of
the classes of inquirers now formed in several vil-
lages. There was enough work for four mission-
aries in just what was actually begun, with fields
all fallow that had as yet not been touched. ‘Send
on the missionaries!”’LOTTIE MOON 159

In October, she wrote again of the little matter
of business which she had entrusted to Dr. Tup-
per’s care. Now she had a new proposition to
make. If he would take the money and send out
two women missionaries immediately for Pingtu,
she would leave it in his hands, drawing no in-
terest until the condition of the Board was such
that the interest payments could be assumed, dat-
ing from any future date when that would be
possible. “Send on the missionaries!’’

This letter was sent on to Miss Armstrong.
The Christmas Offering came on with the fervor
of the women behind it sharpened to deep anxiety
by a knowledge that in Pingtu there was one who
had given her all!

Christmas in Pingtu, 1888!

“The hard pioneer work is done!’’ she writes.
“We now need women to do the patient teaching
in the city and village. I think you know I would
not ask ladies to come here if I did not think the
time and occasion ripe for such work. Just now
we need two immediately for Pingtu and two for
Tengchow. A vast field Mrs. Holmes and I used
to work there has been untouched for years. Alas,
I could wish myself five women instead of but
one! Mrs. Crawford is with me. We expect Mr.
Pruitt next week. Send on the missionaries!”

Christmas in the Southland!

All through the states, loyal, devoted women
were giving the small coins they had been saving
since the call first reached them. The First
Christmas Offering for China! In sacrifice and
love, in tender-hearted sympathy for the lives
spent gloriously, unselfishly on the outposts of the
Kingdom, the women of the. Southland gave.
Enough for the missionary! There was enough
for two—and more!160 LOTTIE MOON

On January 8, 1889, Lottie Moon wrote to Dr.
Tupper for the second time refusing the “cordial
invitation” of the Board to come home. Pingtu
was not relieved, though his letter had borne the
joyful news of the Christmas offering and the
meaning it would have for Pingtu. The mission-
aries would come, just as soon as they could be
found.

In the same mail that brought Dr. Tupper’s let-
ter was one from Miss Annie Armstrong, telling
of the joy Southern Baptist women had in this,
their first definite undertaking, to carry out the
purpose for which they had organized, “The
stimulation of the missionary spirit and the grace
of giving among the women and children of the
churches.”

The letter Lottie Moon wrote in answer is well
worth reading by every son and daughter of the
women who gave that first Christmas offering.

“T write to thank the Executive Committee for
the hearty response they have made to my appeal
for Pingtu. I urge that the new missionaries be
sent out immediately. I am holding on after more
than eleven years of work at considerable risk of
permanent injury to health. Yet I must not leave
until others are here to take over the work. After
the new missionaries arrive there must be prepa-
ration on their part and delay on mine. Therefore,
the sooner they come the better. Please listen to
no suggestion of delay. The two should be in
Tengchow in June at the latest. Then they could
come out with me in the autumn to Pingtu and
make acquaintance with their field.”

Then follows practical suggestions as to their
equipment, a caution about the coolness of the
climate, and these words in closing:LOTTIE MOON 161

“Please say to the missionaries that they are
coming to a life of hardship, responsibility and
constant self-denial. They must live the greater
part of the time in Chinese houses in close contact
with the people. They will be alone in the interior
and will need to be strong and courageous. If the
joy of the Lord be their strength, the blessedness
of the work will more than compensate for its
hardships. Let them come rejoicing to sacrifice
for that Lord and Master who so freely gave him-
self for them.”

To Dr. Tupper she wrote of the growing little
congregation at Sah Ling. Men and women were
remaining faithful. From the neighboring village
of Ho Pei, just a half-mile away, Old Man Li was
walking after work each evening that he, too,
might sit in the outer room with the men and lis-
ten as she instructed the women and girls in the
inner room. “As sheep without a shepherd!” she
exclaimed to her friend and confidant, the Sec-
retary.

One evening there was a touching scene in the
little rented chapel. Mr. Pruitt had been there
and had instructed them for a week, but could not
stay. In Hwanghsien the work was developing
far faster than he could keep up with and when
Mr. Pruitt left Hwanghsien there was no one but
the faithful wife and Baby Ida to man the station.

So these dear Chinese at Sah Ling and Lottie
Moon talked the matter over. They would pray
for the missionary to come. Not just the two
women they were expecting, but a man to guide
them into all the paths of Christian living and
working. A pastor!

It was touching to hear those who were just
beginning to follow Christ falter a prayer that
some man in the Southland of America might feel162 LOTTIE MOON

 

the call to come to them and teach them the Way.

To the account of this scene, written to the
Foreign Mission Board, Miss Moon added the
practical suggestion that if a minister were not
available who was willing to come to this waiting
congregation in a promising field, a layman would
do. He would be invaluable in leading these men,
in giving them strength to stand against the per-
secution that even then was beginning to break
over them. Old Man Li was shut up in his room
each night by angry relatives who were deter-
mined that the strange doctrine should not come
into their village. But still he carried the New
Testament and still the Young Man Li helped him
to read it!

At the close of the prayer meeting they decided
to write to the Foreign Mission Board and ask for
the pastor.

Right loyally did they begin their petition.
These are the words:

“For zeal in the propagation of religion, for
pureness in giving instruction, we have never
heard there was the like of Miss Moon.”

Then came the appeal written by their spokes-
man.

“IT am a Pingtu man. For more than ten years
I have known of this doctrine but did not inquire
into it. On having opportunity to inquire, im-
mediately I truly believed. I am deeply in earnest
in learning, but there is no pastor here to teach.
If the house is full of hay, it is hard to open the
door. Mr. Pruitt is at Hwanghsien but that place
is distant from Pingtu more than two hundred li.
I am willing to go there to learn but it is difficult.
I very earnestly look to the Venerable Board to
send out more teachers to Pingtu, to establish a
church building’, to open the road of eternal life,LOTTIE MOON

 

 

 

ee

 

 

las

THE PINGTU COUNTRY

 

 

Seer mcs er en

 

 

 

 

 

THE SHENTZA164 LOTTIE MOON

to lead the people to the gate of virtue, that the
light of this mercy shall shine everywhere, and
gratitude will be without limit. I am looking for
it as if, when the earth is dry, rain is longed for.
Believer Tan Ching P’ing.”

Mrs. Crawford spent several weeks in Pingtu,
teaching in Sah Ling and other villages with Miss
Moon that spring.

Poignantly did these words, written in those
busy days, fall on the ears of Southern Baptists:

“As I watched Mrs. Crawford last week in-
structing patiently for hours the men who eagerly
gathered around her, my memory was haunted
by the words ‘That no man take thy crown.’ It
seemed to me that here was a woman doing the
work of some young man among Southern Bap-
tists who ought to be here, and that when the
harvest should be garnered in heaven, and the
laborers receive their rewards, the Master would
place on her head the crown that should have been
his.

“There was One who for us sinners and our
salvation left the glories of heaven and sojourned
upon this earth in weariness and woe, amid those
who hated him and finally took his life. There
was another, his chosen missionary who preached
the gospel ‘in much patience, in afflictions and
necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprison-
ment, in tumults, in labors, in watching, in fast-
ings, as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor,
yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet
possessing all things.’ The Son of God and his
humble disciple, the Apostle to the Gentiles! ‘Who
follows in their train?’ Will not you who read
these lines, say, ‘Here am I, send me!’ ”

To the Convention meeting in Memphis, the
little group in North China sent the daringLOTTIE MOON 165

demand for thirty new missionaries for that field
and a challenge to the faith of Southern Baptists!
There was a response and in July of 1889 there
came three new missionaries, Mr. and Mrs. G. P.
Bostick and Miss Fannie Knight. Later came Mr.
and Mrs. League. How joyfully they were wel-
comed! Reénforcement at last!

In November Lottie Moon wrote,

“<T plead for expectation. The only thing that
binds God’s arm is our lack of expectation’—
so said a speaker at Memphis, in support of his
resolution that $150,000 should be raised for the
next Convention year for Foreign Missions.

“Missionaries also plead for expectation. Ex-
pectation honors God. . Expect that he will send
‘Thirty Seed Sowers’ to Shantung: pray for it,
work for it, and soon it will be an accomplished
fact.

“‘Whatsoever ye ask in my name, that will I
do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son’—
‘All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, be-
lieve that ye have received them, and ye shall have
them!’—Three of the Thirty have come,—Now
for the twenty-seven more!”

In October, 1889, Mr. Pruitt organized the first
Baptist Church in Pingtu County, at the village
Sah Ling, ten miles from the city, baptizing eleven
into membership in the new church. It was a
time of great rejoicing for Lottie Moon. She had
warned time and again against too great expecta-
tion of immediate results from all the open-heart-
edness of the people to the gospel. Yet sooner
than she had hoped there came this tangible re-
result of her work. Old Man Li was one of the
first to be baptized. The Young Man Li was now
an earnest inquirer. He was a student by disposi-
tion and to him Miss Moon gave several books,166 LOTTIE MOON

one that proved especially helpful being Super-
stitions of China, by Dr. R. H. Graves of Canton.
Mr. Li had become very helpful to Mrs. Crawford
while she was in Sah Ling teaching. He contin-
ued to study and lend his help to Miss Moon in all
her work through the months that followed the
organization of the church. As yet, however, he
had not come out in the open confessing Chris-
tianity. All his training as a Confucian teacher,
all the customs and traditions of his family and
the active opposition of his brothers in particular
stood as obstacles in his way.

The organization of the church was the signal
for the outbreak of. persecution. Miss Moon,
working then in the city, was distressed by the
suffering of her beloved Christians in Sah Ling.
Brother Dan, one of the earlier believers, was
tortured and beaten in an effort to force him to
worship the ancestral tablets, but so faithful was
his testimony that a man of his village, stricken
into conviction by it, walked all the way to Teng-
chow, one hundred and fifteen miles, to ask bap-
tism at the hands of the missionary there, saying
that there was no doubt now as to the truth of
Christianity. The bitterness and hatred against
Christianity culminated at the time of the Chinese
New Year, and was intensified by Miss Moon’s
presence in Sah Ling, and her organization of
inquirers’ classes which proved too popular to
escape the notice of the authorities whose tradi-
tional hold upon the people was now most serious-
ly threatened. Her life was threatened. A man
of vicious disposition and wicked history was the
agent of the threat and the Christians feared
greatly for her. To their suggestions that she
leave for safety’s sake she replied, “Only believe,
don’t fear. Our Master Jesus watches over us,LOTTIE MOON 167

and no matter what the persecution, Jesus will
surely overcome it.” Her very fearlessness over-
awed the man and he was unable to carry out his
murderous intent. This direct threat, and the
possibilities it presented must have turned her
thoughts to the inner problem of whether there
was really fear in her heart, whether death could
terrify her. In her little copy of Thomas a Kem-
pis’ Imitation of Christ, which had been her
book of devotion next to her Bible, there are sev-
eral deeply underscored lines dated in this Jan-
uary when she faced death at Sah Ling.

They are exceedingly interesting, these lines
which she read to encourage her own heart and
search it to see if there was any fear in it.

“Didst thou oftener think of thy death than of
the length of thy life, there is no question but
thou wouldst be more zealous to amend.”

And again:

“If thou canst be silent and suffer, without
doubt thou shalt see the Lord will help thee. He
knoweth the time and the manner to deliver thee,
and therefore thou oughtest to resign thyself unto
him.”

With the same date mark is this line under-
scored,

“Thou oughtest so to order thyself in all thy
thoughts and actions, as if today thou wert to
die.”

The Young Man Li, who had not yet asked for
baptism, entered into fellowship with the Chris-
tians in their persecution, defending and shield-
ing them. This crisis brought about his open
alignment with the little church, and so enraged
his brothers that they sought his life, and he was
forced to flee from village to village. But he bore
testimony to the truth as he went. So in China168

 

LOTTIE MOON

the time of persecution proved a time of marvel-
ous spread of the gospel even as it had that long
ago day in Jerusalem. F

But the storm passed. On June 6, 1892,
Mr. Pruitt came to strengthen and counsel the
little church. The wave of persecution had spent
its force. There was now quiet in which the meet-
ings on the Sabbath might be resumed. Miss
Barton, the longed for second missionary, had
been for a very short time with Miss Moon and
Miss Knight in Pingtu studying the language.

As yet, however, neither of the new missiona-
ries could undertake the burdens that the older
one was carrying. A church! Many classes of
inquirers! Applicants for baptism! And the
only minister a hundred and fifteen miles away!

That Sabbath day was very full. The Chris-
tians were gathered eagerly to hear the mission-
ary. After the sermon Mr. Pruitt called the can-
didates for baptism together for examination.
This was as much as he could do, however, for in
their inexperience, they had constructed their
baptismal pool incorrectly and the ordinance
would have to be performed at another visit.

The Young Man Li was the first to come for-
ward for examination. He had passed through
the fires of testing. He now knew “in whom he
had believed.” Mr. Pruitt wrote, “I never heard
a more earnest and thorough Christian expe-
rience. Let us thank the Lord for that brother.”

The day of harvest had come early!

That day there came also the grandfather and
grandmother, a son and a daughter-in-law and a
little grandson of the Yuen family. It was a
great day for Mr. and Mrs. Tai, and for Lottie
Moon whom they had received into their home
that long ago day when the white-faced teacherLOTTIE MOON 169

of a strange doctrine came first into their quiet
village. It was a great day for Dan Ho Bang
who had waited years to win his own people to
the Christ he had found as Saviour that long
ago day in Hwanghsien. It was the day of be-
ginnings, just one little church, just a few scat-
tered believers in the hundreds of villages round
about, just a few faithful ones in the great city
lying so near, but it was a beginning with prom-
ise for the future.

July, 1890! Two women missionaries had come
and a third one, Miss Thornton, was expected.
With happiness the workers made their plans for
the occupation of the Pingtu region. Now with
the women on the field the greater need was for
a pastor. Miss Moon wrote,

“The native brethren are doing admirably but
there should be a foreign resident to lead them.
Last year some of the brethren became discour-
aged because no pastor could be found to go and
live among them. I said, ‘No matter, we natives
will push the work!’ Well, ‘we natives’ mean to
push it still, but wish you would send some ‘for-
eign brethren’ to help.”

From Sah Ling the persecution had driven some
of the Christians into the city and now there was
hope for a church there very soon.

G. P. Bostick, whose wife had died suddenly in
May, had by now acquired the language sufficient-
ly to be an active worker. Mr. Pruitt being ill,
it fell to Mr. Bostick’s lot to go to Sah Ling on the
first Sunday in August, 1890, to baptize the con-
verts examined by Mr. Pruitt in June. Thus
did an incomplete baptistry give to the newest
missionary the joy of burying the Young Man Li
in the waters of baptism.170 LOTTIE MOON

Matters were turning out happily for all the
new women missionaries. Miss Thornton had her
heart set on going to Pingtu, which exactly fitted
into the plan for the work. Miss Barton wished
to stay in Tengchow, which provided for that
field, and Miss Knight was already at home in the
Chinese house by the West Gate of Pingtu. Miss
Knight had proven to be a dear and delightful
work-mate. Dr. Tupper said, laughingly, on her
appointment, “I am sending you out so that the
Moon might be a light for the Knight.” Truly
the older and younger missionaries had beautiful-
ly linked their lives together for Pingtu.

For the Christmas Offering program of that
year Miss Moon sent a description of this mis-
sionary home to the Foreign Mission Journal.

“Entering her yard, you see a Chinese house,
one story in height. Our missionary meets you
with the sunniest, happiest face. You enter the
house and note that she lives in three small rooms.
One, her bedroom, is fitted up and furnished in
foreign style. The dining room, which is also the
entrance way, is paved with brick, but has a glass
window and a foreign door. The remaining room
is Chinese style. There is the ‘kang,’ a sort of
divan made of mud bricks and covered with mat-
ting, on which the women and children sit, flat
down, in Chinese style. The modern quarters
Were put in order, not at the expense of the Board,
but of the missionary herself. She also pays her
house rent, traveling expenses and her teacher’s
salary. Left alone repeatedly, in this great hea-
then city, our missionary has felt herself not to
be alone. With Jesus as her nearest and dearest
friend, she had lived such a holy and happy life
amid her heathen neighbors that she has won
hosts of friends. You should see how the peopleLOTTIE MOON 171

love her. You should see how the little children
run to meet her as she passes about the streets,
herself a veritable sunbeam. ‘Abiding under the
shadow of the Almighty,’ she lives a joyous life
amid that heathen people.”

Two of the Christian men, Mr. Li and Mr. Yuen
from the Sah Ling church, were proving to be
splendid helpers in all the work. With joy Miss
Moon reports a convert in Pingtu city asa result
of their witnessing. The two were preaching
regularly at Li Tz Yuen and a teacher was sorely
needed there for the large and eager class of
inquirers. So September found Miss Moon and
Miss Knight setting out for a stay with a kindly,
genial farmer who had offered a comfortable room
for the use of the missionaries, if they would but
come and teach the truths of the gospel to those
eager to learn.

“Are you comfortable?” asked Miss Knight,
solicitously as the two of them settled in the cart,
matting over them to shelter from the sun, and
two wooden wheels directly beneath them, guilt-
less of springs of any sort.

“No, and I never expect to be in a cart,’ was
the reply from Miss Moon’s years of jarring
experience with such vehicles.

It was a happy visit, for the host had invited
in his neighbors and friends and the days passed
in a most profitable manner. From this home
she wrote an article for the Foreign Mission
Journal in which occurs this paragraph on
methods of work,

“When the gospel is allowed to grow naturally
in China, without forcing the process of develop-
ment, the ‘church in the home’ is usually its first
form of organization. God grant us faith and
courage to keep hands off and allow this new172 LOTTIE MOON

garden of the Lord’s planting to ripen in the rays
of Divine Love free from human interference.”

The church at Sah Ling was still without a
foreign pastor. Four of the native brethren con-
ducted the regular Sunday services, taking turns
in having charge, the three who were free each
Sunday going into different villages and preach-
ing the gospel to any who would hear. Thus
there was growing up a group of leaders, native
leaders, working side by side with Miss Moon and
her helpers, with now and then a trip to Teng-
chow or Hwanghsien for a short class in Bible
with the men missionaries, or a brief time spent
with Mr. Pruitt and Mr. Bostick when they could
come out to Pingtu.

Of these the most earnest was the young teacher
Li. Now and then he brought a parable or other
passage in the Gospels or Acts to Miss Moon for
explanation. Modestly, humbly, yet earnestly he
persisted in learning more about this wonderful
teaching. Thoroughly consecrated, he wished to
pursue the teaching until he, too, would be able
to help his brothers to find the Light of the Gos-
pel. In the fall of 1890 Mrs. Crawford held a
class in Pingtu City, teaching Exodus and giving
an outline study of the Old Testament. This
meant much to Mr. Li. Gradually he became the
leader of the group, yet always giving due defer-
ence to the older brethren. Much time had to be
given by the missionaries to the guidance, not
only of this young man, but of the others who came
into the city for teaching in such numbers that
the city work had to be left to Miss Knight in-
creasingly. Early in the winter regular meetings
were begun in the city, the first growing out of a
rally of the Sah Ling Christians in the city, to
which they invited their city relatives and friends.LOTTIE MOON 173

It is no wonder that a report from the North
China Mission to the Foreign Mission Board bore
the comment on the work of Miss Moon in these
years in Pingtu,

“She is the best ‘man’ among us,” for she was
doing the work out there that several men should
have been doing.

From a journal kept during the years of 1889
and 1890 there are intimate glimpses of daily life
and work which give deeper insight into the prob-
lems and trials of pioneering on a heathen mission
field than may be had in any other way. This jour-
nal is not in diary form, but seems to have been
simply the jotting down of incidents as notes for
future articles and letters to the people back home,
with here and there a writing out of impressions,
especially concerning the points of contact that
the missionary must make and methods he must
use in trying to get the truths of the gospel into
the hearts and minds of a people to whom such
ideas were utterly foreign. Possibly she recorded
these impressions as a basis for future discussion
in mission meetings, for usually a missionary
brought into these meetings a paper on some
timely subject which was then discussed to the
profit of all the missionaries.

The journal brings an exceedingly vivid picture
of the difficulties of teaching the gospel in that
pioneer day, when there was no background pro-
vided by any sort of contact with the Christian
world.

“I wish it were possible to get those who are
interested in foreign missions to understand some-
thing of the immensity of the work confronting
the missionary,” she begins. “I do not refer to
the enormous numbers of the heathen or the vast
extent of the countries not yet evangelized, nor174 LOTTIE MOON

to the paucity of the workers in all the mission
fields. I am thinking only of what has to be done
in even one smal] community merely to make a
beginning.

“The Chinese, as regards foreigners, stand to-
day somewhat as our ancestors did hundreds of
years ago; the alien is a natural enemy to be
hated and despised. He is a being of inferior
civilization to be regarded and treated as devils.
Go into one of their temples and see the grotesque
and hideous images that represent to them the
devils of their Buddhist Hell and you will under-
stand how the Chinese regard the foreigner upon
whom he bestows this uncomplimentary epithet.
The missionary comes on and settles down among
the natives. His first object must be to convince
them that he is human, and that he is their sin-
cere friend.

“By patience and gentleness and unwearied love,
he wins upon them until there begins to be a
division in sentiment. There are those who will
hate him to the end and think him a wicked inter-
loper, capable of the basest crimes. But others
come to regard him as wiser and better than them-
selves. Having won the confidence and even the
regard and esteem of a few, the missionary may
hope that his teaching will begin to make some
impression.

“Now the magnitude of.the work he has under-
taken may well begin to dawn upon him and
appalled by its immensity and his own feebleness,
he may well cry out, ‘Who is sufficient for these
things?” Hopefully and confidently may he add
‘Our sufficiency is of God.’ At every step, the
missionary must remove error as he tries to teach
the truth. He dwells upon the fact that there
is but one True God, and that all the idols areLOTTIE MOON 175

but mud images, or images carved in wood, or
painted on paper, as the kitchen god and the god
of wealth. They may accept this statement in
general, but immediately they make an exception
in favor of some particular divinity in some es-
pecial temple.

“The missionary tells them of a soul to be saved
or lost.and they tell him that there are three
souls. One at death will dwell in the tomb to be
worshiped there at stated seasons, one remains
in the ancestral tablet to be worshiped at home,
and yet another goes to a temple where it re-
mains two days, after which it goes away to the
southwest. They will tell you that paper horses,
carriages, men-servants and maid-servants, and
above all paper money are burned for the use of
the deceased in the spirit-land. The soul that
goes into the unseen world is supposed. to go
through endless transmigrations, in some cases
rising to be a god and in others returning to this
world where it animates the bodies of animals or
of human beings. Except on the theory of trans-
migration, they conceive it to be impossible to
account for the soul of a new-born child.

“Tell the heathen of the different eternal states
of the righteous and the wicked as being the
just sequel of life on earth and they will reply,
‘Yes, those who are poor and suffer here, will
suffer in the other world; those who are pros-
perous here will be prosperous there.’ Tell them
of the falseness of the idols and they quote the
proverb, ‘Worship them and they are gods; don’t
worship them and they are mud images.’ :

“We will suppose, however that some faint
glimmerings dawn upon them of a desire for
better things. They confess that the idols are
false and that there is but one True God and that176 LOTTIE MOON

 

he alone is the lawful obiect of worship. They
say that they do not know how to pray and the
missionary undertakes to teach them. Their
spiritual darkness is inconceivable to one who
had not seen it. A simple prayer is presented,
beginning, ‘I pray the heavenly Father to pity
me and forgive my sins.’

““ “Ah yes,’ says one, ‘Pray to heaven and father
and mother!’

“Another caught by the similarity of sound in
the Chinese words ‘Father’ and ‘Happiness’ says,
“Yes, pray to Heaven for Happiness.’ The mis-
sionary patiently explains the glorious truth of
the Fatherhood of God until he hopes the hearer
has caught a glimpse of its meaning and then
he passes on to talk of sin and the need of for-
giveness. The hearer readily admits the fact of
sin and the need of forgiveness, but thinks it
must be obtained through outward works of
supposed merit, such as burning incense, knock-
ing heads to the ground in worship and chant-
ing prayers. The minds of. the heathen are so
dark that even a brief prayer has to be explained
sentence by sentence, often not once alone, but
over and over again. This especially holds
true of the women, very few of whom can
read. It is often the case that a man who
reads and goes glibly over the prayers has but
slight conception of the spiritual meaning. The
words of the prayer being learned, the learner
consents to begin to pray. It is easy to see that
such a one has taken only the first step in the
divine life. How many never go beyond that!
What watchcare is needed, what prayer for God’s
Spirit, what constant instruction of this poor soul
upon whose dim eyes the light has only begun to
dawn. Then, when God has converted that soul,LOTTIE MOON 177

how does it need guidance and instruction that
it may walk worthy of the high calling wherewith
it has been called.

“Now let it be borne in mind that the case
above presented is not a solitary one, but that
it is representative of every man, woman and
child in a heathen community. Then consider the
mighty power of public opinion, and above all
the weight of family authority. The man who
dares to think for himself draws down the dis-
pleasure of the whole family connection whom
he is supposed to have disgraced. To refuse to
worship one’s ancestors is to become a marked
man in any community; is to be regarded as
disloyal to the Emperor, who worships his an-
cestors; as untrue to his country and unfilial to
his parents and as lacking in reverence for the
departed. Thousands who would willingly inves-
tigate truths are held in iron bonds by the fear of
public opinion. ‘Afraid people will laugh,’ is
probably the reason of the ruin of innumerable
souls. Such then are some of the obstacles that
confront the missionary on settling in a new place.
Such, as I well know by experience, were some
of the obstacles before me in settling in Pingtu.”

In contrast to this picture we find in this same
journal a pean of joy over the Pingtu Christians.

“Nine converts have recently been added to
the Sah Ling Church. Inquirers are by no means
confined to Sah Ling, but are found scattered
about .in neighboring villages. The success of
the country work has re-acted favorably upon that
in the city. The meeting for women has steadily
increased in interest, and among those lately bap-
tized at Sah Ling was a woman from the city.
A number are studying Christian books, and two
or three desire baptism.178 LOTTIE MOON

 

“T should like to say a word as to the character
of these Pingtu Christians. In no country have
I seen Christian women of sweeter or lovelier
spirit, nowhere have I seen men more heartily
consecrated to God’s service. Their one chief,
absorbing thought seems to be the glory of God,
and the salvation of souls.

“T have yet to see or hear of the first Chinese
Christian who refuses to lead in prayer when
called upon. I have noticed among the Pingtu
Christians and inquirers a simple, child-like faith
in the power of prayer. One night at Sah Ling
I was lying sick on the kang, feeling too miser-
able to attempt to teach as usual. The women
lingered affectionately about me, but before they
left me for the night they all kneeled and one of
them prayed for a blessing upon me. At that
time, none of these women were church mem-
bers. On an occasion when I was absent from
Pingtu, two women, also not members of the
church, volunteered to lead in prayer in the
women’s meeting on Sunday. Somewhat more
than a year ago, my colleague, Miss Knight, and
I were about to take a journey from Pingtu to
Tengchow. The evening before our departure,
some men from a neighboring village, Li Tz Yuen,
called to take leave. They told me that, the night
before, they had held a prayer meeting especially
to invoke God’s blessing upon our journey. These
men were all inquirers, not church members.

“Another good point in these Pingtu Christians
and inquirers is their diligence in studying the
New Testament. One young woman whose Chris-
tian books had been burned by her family, did
not dare to take home the New Testament that
was given her, but left it at a neighbor’s, to whose
house she would steal over to study it. AnotherLOTTIE MOON 179

young woman dared not take her Christian books
to her mother-in-law’s house, knowing they would
be destroyed. When at her own father’s she was
exceedingly diligent in studying the New Testa-
ment and she committed to memory whole chap-
ters in the Gospel of Matthew. Like the Psalmist,
she could truly say, ‘thy word have I hid in my
heart that I might not sin against thee.’

“Still another good point in our Pingtu breth-
ren is their readiness to conduct public worship.
Only at intervals of several months, sometimes
only once or twice a year can they have a minister
visit them and preach them a sermon. Among
the brethren at Sah Ling four men voluntarily
conduct the services on Sunday and the prayer
meeting on Thursday night. Two of these breth-
ren were teachers, one of them the devout and
godly man whom I have mentioned several times,
Mr. Yuen,—a man poor in this world’s goods, but
rich in faith. The other is a young man who
would spend his days in toil at the loom or on the
farm and at night pore over his New Testament.
In addition to keeping up services at Sah Ling,
these brethren also hold service on Sunday in
Pingtu City and Li Tz Yuen.

“The need not only in Pingtu, but in our whole
North China field, is for more workers. “The
harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are
few—Pray ye therefore” ”

New Year’s 1891 in Pingtu--New Year’s in
Virginia, too. Fourteen years had passed since
Lottie Moon had seen the blue hills behind View-
mont, since she had talked with the little sister,
walked with Orianna’s boys or rejoiced in the
spiritual feasts of Baptist gatherings in Old Vir-
ginia.180 LOTTIE MOON

Home yet! No, for there is a young church in
Sah Ling, the promising brethren who must have
guidance, the villages where just now the harvest
is ripe for the reaper’s hand! Not home yet!

Then came the mission meeting in June, 1891.
Two things happened. Mr. League and his wife
were asked to move to Pingtu. Mr. Pruitt de-
cided not to take his furlough due that year.
“The work here is too interesting and in too great
need of workers for us to turn our backs on it
for sometime to come,” he wrote Dr. Tupper.

A man and his wife for Pingtu, at last! Mr.
League was, in the minds of the missionaries, just
the man for the place and now for Lottie Moon,
conscience clear, it’s Home Again!

She was jubilant. The little sister, all the dear
loved ones, the women who had in these past few
years been drawn so near to her through the
united effort they were making for the missionary
enterprise were as magnets drawing her home.
Yet there is pain at parting even for a little while
with the work so dearly loved, for which so
costly a price of self-denial and sacrifice had been
paid. She promised to visit Miss Knight’s home,
near Franklin, to bear personal messages to the
father and mother there.

“Tt is good to be home again!” she wrote simply
to Dr. Tupper.

It was good to be home again!CHAPTER V

IN WHICH SOME DREAMS COME TRUE

“GOD RATHER DESIRES IN US FIDELITY TU THOSE
LITTLE THINGS WHICH HE DOES PLACE UNDER OUR
CONTROL, THAN AN ARDOUR FOR GREAT THINGS
WHICH DO NOT DEPEND UPON US.”

Translated from St. Francis de Sales, on margin
of Lottie Moon’s copy of Imitation of Christ.

HE trip home had been made with the
Pruitts after all, for the Presbyterian doc-
rae tor in Tengchow thought it much wiser for
BESS this young missionary couple to take the fur-
lough due them, than to risk breakdown by over
staying the term of service that experience had
taught was long enough under the hard conditions
of life in North China. So on the maiden voyage
of the “Empress of China,” the three missionaries
journeyed homeward, the first of many trips
Southern Baptist missionaries were to make on
the Canadian Line.

It was October when Lottie Moon reached
Seottsville. There in a ““wee modest house,” as
she termed it to Dr. Tupper, about a mile from
town, she and Edmonia set up housekeeping for
the year at home. The joy of companionship with
this beloved sister is glimpsed through references
in letters to the Foreign Secretary, and in letters
to relatives. Once more she had someone with
whom she might talk freely of the things she loved

{ 181 ]182 LOTTIE MOON

best. Such discussions of books and men and af-
fairs as went on in the quiet of that little home!
Friends came and went, too many at first for her
tired mind and body, but the stimulation of old
associations began a blessed ministry to the heart
that had endured the loneliness of Pingtu.

There were many demands for her to speak
before gatherings of women, especially in Vir-
ginia and Georgia. The first of these calls seems
to.have come from Baltimore, where the desire
to see and hear her had been stimulated by the
close connection she had had with the Woman’s
Missionary Union from the first, for here was
located the Headquarters of the W.M.U. In her
reply we find for the first time a hint of a serious
physical trouble which was causing her anxiety.
She wrote to Dr. Tupper,

“I was disposed to go, but only thinking about
it made my head hurt. I therefore wrote Mrs.
Rowland that I had been so unmerciful to myself
in China that I thought it time to call a halt now
and take needed rest. I have been often warned
by missionaries not to begin work until thorough-
ly rested, lest the homecoming do more harm than
good. My present purpose is to keep quiet all
this winter. I don’t think my head will ever get
well without perfect rest.”

The winter was a quiet one. There were many
of the family with whom ties of fellowship were
renewed. There were others who had come into
the family since she had gone to China, cousins
and nieces and nephews by marriage, children
with whom she must make acquaintance, winning
their youthful love and loyalty by her stories and
her merry play with them. For the lonely years
had not robbed her of the gift of laughter that
had been hers in youth.LOTTIE MOON 183

A little reflection of all this is found in a letter
written to another relative by the young wife
of one of the dearly loved cousins of Mt. Ayr, who
had never met her before.

“Of course I dreaded a stranger’s coming,” she
wrote, “but when she came she was so charming.
I loved her more every day, and she must have
liked us for she stayed a week longer than she
intended. She entered into our country life, went
bathing in the creek, spending the day visiting
my friends, and taking buggy rides and long
walks. We all loved her and were sorry to have
her leave.”

So the links with the old, dear life in Virginia
were caught up once again. Rest and loving com-
panionship brought their healing to the tired body
and renewed energy to the weary mind.

There were other visits to be made. Mrs. W.
E. Hatcher, dear friend of the Charlottesville
school days, invited her to Richmond for a week.
So precious were those days that the visit to the
Hatcher home became a feature of every furlough.
Thus three times, through the forty years of Lot-
tie Moon’s life as a missionary did these two great
women touch hands and hearts, one a leader in all
the work of women in the homeland, the other
a bearer of the light to the women of a far land.

The winter did not pass, however, without those
interests that lay nearest her heart coming in for
their toll of time and thought. As secretary of
the North China Mission she knew much that the
Foreign Secretary needed to talk over with her.
So in November an invitation went from the lit-
tle home in Scottsville to Richmond, planning for
a day of conference about affairs in North China.
Evidently Dr. Tupper had invited her to come to
Richmond, from the opening sentence.184 LOTTIE MOON

“Thanks for your kind invitation which I highly
appreciate. But I think it best, at present, to
tarry quietly at home. Yet I should be glad to
talk over North China matters with you accord-
ing to your wish.” Then came plans for his com-
ing up to Scottsville, closed with the gracious in-
vitation, “My sister and I would be pleased for
you to come and have dinner and supper with us.”

The “North China matters” consisted chiefly
of the pleas of the missionaries she had left in
China for reénforcement, and her own presenta-
tion of the marvelous opportunities now before the
Board to enter wide open fields, if only the men
and women could be sent.

“We sorely need now six more families—two
for each station—and two single women for Teng-
chow,” she wrote before Dr. Tupper came. “You
remember the Mission formally asked for the lat-
ter more than a year ago. It might as well be
frankly said that only single women can be de-
pended upon for evangelistic work. Except Mrs.
League, we have had no married woman to un-
dertake work of that sort since the death of the
first Mrs. Pruitt. Mrs. Crawford, of course, is
also an exception. Ladies with families, cannot,
indeed ought not, to do country work. Their
work lies immediately around their homes.

“In North China the very large majority of the
people are in villages. To reach them, one must
be away from home a good part of the year. It
is manifest, then, that we must have single women
to do this work. As I have often said, they should
not be young. The nearer forty the better, I
think. It is a pleasant fact that the older a single
woman grows, the more the Chinese reverence
her. I have often had them tell me that when I
die I shall become a god! So much by way ofLOTTIE MOON 185

enforcing our pleas for two more ladies for Teng-
chow.”

The Soochow mission had also entrusted to her
advocacy their plea for helpers. Her interest in
this station was all the more earnest because of
her dear friend, Miss Safford, having been with
the Presbyterian Mission there for so long. Per-
haps in her advocacy of the cause just at this time
we find a more tender note, for Miss Safford died
before this furlough came and Lottie Moon’s pil-
grimage to Soochow in 1893 was one of tribute
to her memory. Ever a student of mission policies
she presented most diplomatically the situation
in the Soochow Baptist mission with its one mis-
sionary family, and argued that their lives would
be wasted if reénforcement was not to be sent.
Either send an adequate force to handle the work,
or send these missionaries where there would be
a chance to build permanently with a proper mis-
sionary force, was her plea.

She kept in very close touch with North China.
In the spring of 1892, in a letter about mission
matters, we find the following glowing tribute to
the young missionary who had been such a com-
rade in all of the work of the North China mission,
and whose youthful strength had saved the day
when the mission had been torn by the conflicting
opinions on the school question. It is also an il-
luminating side light on missionary pioneering.

“Mr. Pruitt has done and can do for the
Hwanghsien station what no other man has done
or can do. He went there when the name of the
foreigner was utterly cdious to the Chinese. Fear-
ful blunders had been made in the beginning of
the station which we feared twenty years of holy
living would not and could not retrieve. Mr. and
Mrs. Pruitt went there, however, and set quietly186 LOTTIE MOON

to work. In five years the change was amazing.
I know whereof I speak. I spent a winter in
Hwanghsien in 1885-6, and the place was abso-
lutely closed to all mission effort, I had searcely a
visitor and there was not a house, except among
the few Christians, open to me in all that region.

“Last spring, at Mrs. Pruitt’s request, I spent
about two weeks helping her in her work about
her home. I never was more Surprised and de-
lighted in my life. I found that, instead of being
hated and despised we were welcomed heartily
into many families and in some there was an
eager desire to hear the gospel. Unlike Teng-
chow, Hwanghsien is a rich and prosperous re-
gion. I found that Mr. Pruitt was visited by men
belonging to leading families.”

So through her eyes we see into the work of
others of the mission. Controversy over mission
policies had not entirely died out. In fact it was
just now coming to a head along some lines, in the
decision of some of the missionaries to join their
efforts in an independent movement known as the
Gospel Mission, depending solely upon the direct
contributions of the churches at home whose in-
terest they might enlist in the project. Miss
Moon was a staunch believer in the principles of
mission work as carried forward through the
Foreign Mission Board. But her marvelous abil-
ity to see the other person’s viewpoint was never
more clearly illustrated than in her position of
tolerance and liberality in this controversy in
which many held their views to a divisive conclu-
sion. She expressed it thus in comment to Dr.
Tupper on one of the missionaries involved in the
discussion.

“The news from is what I have been ex-
pecting. As to the question of an ‘independentLOTTIE MOON 187

 

missionary’ I think his acceptability to the Mis-
sion as a body would depend upon what policy he
should pursue. I don’t think he would be likely
to go into anything unacceptable to others in the
Mission. To speak frankly, we missionaries
‘box the compass’ in our methods so constantly
that I shouldn’t be astonished, should I live ten
years longer, to see Bro. an ardent advo-
eate of schools, native preachers and Bible
women!!!”

That her insight was keen is proven by the fact
that in about ten years this missionary was back
in complete harmony with the Mission on all these
matters! It is significant that in all these years
of many differences of opinion on mission policies,
she kept the warm friendship of all sides.

So through the days she counseled with those at
home who had in hand the adjusting of all these
matters, giving out of her own rich experience
and wise judgment, valuable aid to the burdened
Secretary and Board.

Then there wére meetings to attend, after the
quiet winter had passed. In May, 1882, she was
present at the Southern Baptist Convention in
Atlanta. Here she spoke before the eager women
who had come to hear the missionary whose writ-
ten words had been a challenge to them through
these history-making years. We have no record of
her own feelings in this meeting, or her own reac-
tion to this first contact with the organized body
of Southern Baptist women. But we have many
a story of the effect she had on their hearts and
minds. Back to their States they went, with the
thrill of her voice and eyes upon them still and
the spell of the story she told of the women of
North China—of Pingtu—to pass on to the women188 LOTTIE MOON

of the churches and set a new pace for the work
all along the line.

Though it was a woman’s meeting at which she
spoke, yet we know there were some men who
came, drawn by the desire in their hearts to hear
first-hand the story she had to tell. One of these
was her old pastor, Dr. Headden, whose heart had
gone out to her in her work as that of a father.
With him was a friend, a young doctor. For four
years the North China Mission had prayed for a
doctor. Just as she was leaving Tengchow a dis-
tressing accident had happened. The mules of a
cart in which Mr. and Mrs. League with the
Pruitts, their children and their cook were rid-
ing had run away, injuring them all to some ex-
tent, and breaking the leg of the Chinese cook.
To get the sufferer to a doctor, they had to make
a painful journey of more than fifty miles. This
experience had intensified the appeal for a doctor
for the Mission.

This was on her heart as she came before South-
ern Baptist women, and she gave a ringing chal-
lenge for some trained man to give his life to
North China. She spoke by direction of the Spirit
of God. The young doctor was there and could
not. forget her words. Years later they took
T. W. Ayers to North China to establish the first
hospital ever built by Southern Baptists on for-
eign soil!

There was another listener through whom God
was working out a strange providence for her.
Dr. Spalding, pastor of Capitol Avenue Baptist
Church, in Atlanta, also heard her. So deeply
was he impressed by her words that he followed
closely all her work. Five years later in a ser-
mon he made mention of her with such reverence
and great fervor that a doctor in the audience, aLOTTIE MOON 189

Presbyterian elder, determined to place her name
on his prayer list. This was in 1898. Ten years
later the doctor, now a Baptist, was in her home
at the Little Cross Roads in Tengchow, he and his
wife appointees of the Foreign Mission Board of
the Southern Baptist Convention. For the story
she had told, re-told by one who heard her, had
changed the current of his life, and through the
providence of God, Dr. J. McF. Gaston was sent
to China to establish the medical work at Lai-
chowfu and to be her physician when the time
came that she needed him.

So did her contacts during this first furlough
widen into measureless circles, of which she was to
know only in part.

The fall of 1892 found her going to the Associa-
tions in Virginia. Her own Association, Albe-
marle, met at Scottsville. For all these years
they had been making mention of her and her
work in their minutes, praying for her and finding
in her an inspiration for the increasing of their
gifts to missions. Now she could tell the story
of her work to them face to face.. But only the
women heard the story from her lips, in a meeting
held in the Presbyterian Church, crowded to the
doors with eager listeners. A woman who was
there that day adds to the account of this report
brought from the far fields by the gifted daughter
of the Association, “How the men did envy our
chance to hear her tell it, but they decorously
stayed at the Baptist Church attending to the
prosaic affairs of the Association, obeying the let-
ter of the law, according to their own interpre-
tation.”

Thus the winter passed and in the spring of
1893 she was again at the Southern Baptist Con-
vention, this time in Nashville. Women who190 LOTTIE MOON

heard her on that occasion pressed for her to visit
their societies, so into Tennessee and Georgia she
went through that summer with her message of
the far fields where women were waiting by the
millions to hear the story of Jesus. She spent one
week with the Cartersville friends who had meant
so much to her all these years. One letter speaks
of a trip to the missionary societies of Virginia.
Though this must have been not quite literally
true, we do know that she visited many of them,
speaking constantly on behalf of the dear women
of China to whom she was beginning to be anx-
ious to return. We have a reflection on what
she meant to the women she came thus to know
in a bit of reminiscence from one in whose home
she visited during this time in Tennessee.

“T shall never forget the pleasure, also the spir-
itual benefit her visit of three days in my home
was tous. The memory of it is ever with us as an
oasis of spiritual joy in our lives. As she and I
drove home from the service held with our women,
she said in talking of her work as a missionary,
‘The call to me to go to China was as clear as the
crystal tones of a bell.’ At another time, she re-
marked as we talked together, ‘People talk of the
hardships of missionary life. ’Tis true there are
hardships, but I am so happy in the work that I
never see the hardships.’ She sought earnestly to
induce others to go back with her to China.”

So in appeals, in blessed contact with the
women, eager and responsive, in constant spend-
ing of herself that the people might know about
the work, the last few months at home passed
quickly. She wished to stay for the wedding of a
young cousin, but as the fall of 1893 approached
she became more eager to get back to China. Let-
ters had come regularly from Miss Knight in191

 

LOTTIE MOON

Pingtu, and from others of the missionaries. A
new missionary, the long-prayed-for missionary to
Pingtu had gone out, W. H. Sears, and she was
eager to be back in the midst of the work she
so loved.

“China is my home,” she said happily to a
friend.

The cherished dream of taking Edmonia back
with her had long ago been given up as she had
seen how frail was this little sister, so it was
again alone that she turned her face westward,
China bound, in October of that year.

In San Francisco she found Mrs. Yates and her
daughter, Mrs. Seaman, whom Miss Moon calls
“Lovely” in a letter written to a cousin. Two
new missionaries, Mr. and Mrs. Peyton Stephens
and Dr. Hartwell and his family had just pre-
ceded her on earlier boats. So there was much
missionary news to be heard and homeland ex-
periences to be exchanged. Landing in Chefoo
in the middle of the severe North China winter,
she was caught in a great snowstorm on the trip
from the seaport to Tengchow and spent three
days making the trip usually made in a day and
a half. So she arrived in Tengchow more tired
and worn than on any previous trip. But the
welcome was warm. In Miss Barton’s little home
she tarried joyfully while making the usual ar-
rangements to open the house at the Little Cross
Roads. She was constantly busy greeting friends,
both foreign and native, who crowded in to tell
her how happy they were to have her “home”
again.

There was much mission news to hear. The
work was going along at somewhat the same pace
in Tengchow. In Hwanghsien much advance had
been made, while glowing reports came from the192

 

LOTTIE MOON

new missionaries in Pingtu. Miss Knight had
stayed by the work, as she had promised she
would. Mr. Sears, young, energetic and enthu-
siastic about the possibilities before him, had gone
to work already, having for his constant com-
panion Mr. Li as teacher and helper.

Miss Knight, however, was longing to see her—
the older woman who had meant so much to her.
A strong friendship had sprung up between the
two in the days before Miss Moon left for
America, the older woman looking upon this first
missionary of the Christmas Offering as a little
sister to be carefully guarded and guided, while
Miss Knight admired and loved her as one would
an ideal. In letters that passed between the two,
and between Miss Knight and her own home folk,
there are beautiful revelations of the character of
both of these women, who had first been bound
together by their love for the Pingtu field.

As Miss Moon was leaving for America, Miss
Knight wrote to her sister in Virginia, of. her
hope that the two could meet and become ac-
quainted, “She is a wonderful woman,” the young-
er missionary wrote. “Has all the courage and
firmness of a man, and yet a more gentle and
womanly woman it would be hard to find. I think
She is one of the most useful missionaries on
China soil. Yet she makes very little ado about
her sacrifices. I think I might safely say that no
missionary is making greater sacrifices than she
is making. May a double portion of her spirit
fall on me.”

On arrival in Tengchow, Miss Moon received a
letter from Miss Knight urging her to come on
out to Pingtu. In reply she wrote a letter so full
of tenderness and affection for this young woman
who had taken her place in Pingtu that only theLOTTIE MOON 193

perspective of the years can justify our reading
words that reveal so intimately her innermost
feelings. This is a Lottie Moon rarely seen, a
tender, loving, confiding Lottie Moon whom few
people ever knew.

“My own precious Fan’—the letter began,
dated January 8, 1894, just a day after she had
landed.

“Many greetings have I met since landing in
China and especially many most cordial and af-
fectionate in Shantung, but none have sent such
a glow of happiness as your dear letter, received
while at breakfast this morning. You brave,
noble, unselfish darling! My trust in you has not
failed. I relied implicitly upon your promise that
whether I lived or died, you would push the work
at Pingtu. Right nobly have you kept your word.
It was our Lord’s work, and you were only too
glad and thankful to do it for his sake. Yet I
cannot forget how you upheld my weary hands
and cheered my sometimes almost fainting spirit
during that first winter in Pingtu together. Do
you wonder then, my precious darling, that I turn
to you with all and more than all the old time
love and that if you are ‘homesick’ for me, I am
longing with intense desire to look upon your dear
face again? In China, you are my dearest and you
know that I do not speak lightly words of affec-
tion. When I truly love, as I love you, it is with
my whole heart.

“Yes, come to me, dear child, in the early
spring. I had thought of doing some much need-
ed work in this region before going to Pingtu.
You may help me in this and then in the summer
I can go with you to Pingtu.”

There is a postcript to this letter which has a
place here only as it reveals the shyness and reti-194 LOTTIE MOON

 

cence of her nature, as Lottie Moon wrote across
the corner of the first page,

“This is a love letter, so you must regard it as
for yourself alone, for I am naturally very shy
of expressing much of my own feelings to any-
one.”

So life in China began again with old ties of
affection to renew and the dropped threads of the
work to pick up. The early months of 1894 saw
many changes in the work in North China. The
division over mission policies had lost to the For-
eign Mission Board force some of the younger
workers as well as the veteran Crawfords. Miss
Thornton married Mr. Bostick, Miss Knight
joined the Crawfords at Tai-An-fu, the new cen-
ter for the Gospel Mission enterprises, and a year
later died of smallpox just after her marriage to
Mr. King. Dr. Hartwell was back but was not
very well. Miss Anna Hartwell came up from
Canton where she had been working and joined
the Tengchow mission. Miss Barton soon left
for her furlough which was to mark the end of
her work in China and the beginning of her mis-
sionary life as the wife of Z. C. Taylor in Brazil.
All told, there were only six missionaries left in
the North China mission that year. The Teng-
chow work had to be built up again, and to this
task Lottie Moon turned after one brief happy
trip out to Pingtu to greet her beloved women
there.

The North China Association met at Hwangh-
sien Nov. 5, 1894. There were thirty delegates
besides the Hwanghsien members in attendance.
Dr. Hartwell was not able to be there but Mr.
Sears and Mr. Li brought a heartening report of
nine baptisms and splendid interest from PingtuLOTTIE MOON 195
—so the work held together and in faith and hope
the workers went on.

In the midst of these trying problems within
the mission there came a trial from outside.
China and Japan were at war, and all at once the
struggle centered over the control of this rich
Shantung region, where the two nations were
striving to secure control of trade and resources.
All the affairs of the city and country were dis-
turbed. Dr. Hartwell had been very ill but for-
tunately was better just at the time the war broke
over Tengchow. Miss Moon wrote of the situa-
tion.

“We have been in the midst of intense excite-
ment, on account of the nearness of the war.
Rumors that China will ask for peace fills us with
delight. Our work has gone on as usual, I think.
The church here is doing admirably. The meet-
ings have been kept up with spirit during Dr.
Hartwell’s illness. One good result of the war
has been to draw the people and the missionaries
closer together. The common danger has been a
bond of sympathy. Strange to say the danger
dreaded was not from the Japanese, but from the
Chinese soldiers. The people feared that if the
Japanese men of war should appear, their own
soldiers would loot and fire the city.

“The country people feared lest disorganized
bands of soldiers would rob and commit outrages.
As long as the missionaries are here the sense of
security to some extent continues. The people
think that we are well informed and that we would
leave if there was any danger. The country peo-
ple tell me that so long as I go to the country they
feel safe. If I did not go they would feel sure
there was trouble here in the city, either from
their soldiers or from the coming of the Japanese.a a er le ee ee Rae

 

  
  
    
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
    
    
 
 
 
  
   
 
 
 
 
  
  

   

196 LOTTIE MOON

The city people say that their soldiers behave bet-
ter on account of our being here. I have never
been received so cordially in the country as at
present. People come around to talk about the
war, and when that has been discussed they will
listen to the gospel.”

So no matter what befell, it all turned out to the
furthering of the gospel!

Thus it was that one evening, coming in from
a country trip, tired and worn, having patiently
talked for days without stopping to the crowds of
people who listened to the matchless story she had
to tell of a God of love, she was not the least dis-
turbed when she found a great hole in the corner
of her bedroom where a cannon ball had passed
through, over her bed, and into the courtyard
beyond, where it lay as a grim reminder that
death was in the air. The dull heavy booming of
the guns was still punctuating the air at regular
intervals, for the threatened bombarding of Teng-
chow had actually begun. Nevertheless, so fear-
less was her spirit, so calm her faith, that she
lay down and sweetly went to sleep, disturbed not
at all by the evidence that the house at the Little
Cross Roads was within range of the guns.

The attack on Tengchow sent the people fleeing
through the cold of winter to Hwanghsien, which
was out of reach of the guns. Dr. Pruitt, writing
from Hwanghsien, says:

“The bombardment of Tengchow greatly upset
the steady gravity of that old city. It has almost
emptied the city of its population which is terrible
in this cold and snow. Hundreds have reached
this city, thirty of our Christians and their fami-
lies being with us, occupying the school quarters
during its vacation. We are glad to have them.LOTTIE MOON 197

It reminds me of a Georgia camp meeting, and it
is resulting in great spiritual good.”

Those days in Tengchow were exciting. The
Japanese ships, probably searching for Chinese
men of war, hidden among the Chang San Tao
Islands, had been caught in a fog and came nearer
to the city than they meant to. They were fired
upon by the one good gun of Tengchow, located
on a high hill to the west of the Water City. The
Japanese returned the fire. They soon learned
the range of the gun, then standing outside its line
of fire, they threw shot and shell into the city at
will with their much superior guns.

On the second day of the bombardment, Dr.
Mateer, the Presbyterian missionary, wired the
American Consul for a gunboat to take away the
women and children. It had been decided that
the men missionaries should stay with their
frightened Chinese people, for it was evident that
there would be a panic if they withdrew. The
Chinese officials had called them in to solicit their
aid in keeping the city quiet. But when the time
came to get the women and children off to the
gunboat there were so many difficulties in getting
coolies to carry the baggage that several of the
men were compelled to go with them. It was a
bitter cold day, the tide was low and the rocks
of the beach were covered with ice. A storm was
threatening and the ship’s officers hurried the
refugees into the cutter to get them away while
it was possible for the little boat to reach the ship.
In the confusion the baggage of the Hartwells
was left unclaimed on the rocks while the ship
put out to sea to meet the storm away from the
dangerous reefs. Chefoo was reached safely and
there in one small house they spent the anxious
days that followed.198

 

LOTTIE MOON

In February, Dr. Hartwell went back to Teng-
chow, but matters were still too unsettled for any-
thing to be accomplished, and the banditry and
looting was spreading inland, until it was deemed
wise for the missionaries to come from Pingtu to
Chefoo. So the little colony of refugees in the sea-
port city was increased by the arrival of the Sears,
Randles, and several families of Swedish Baptist
missionaries from the interior cities.

Hwanghsien was the only station where the mis-
sionary force was not broken. From this vantage
point Dr. Pruitt was able to analyze better, per-
haps, than the others some of the influences at
work in China during this troublous time. They
are very valuable as comments on what is now
history.

“There is here a general belief,’”’ he wrote the
Board, “that all the European countries are in
sympathy with Japan. The reason is partly due to
the fact that the Japanese are more in sympathy
with the west and understand and employ western
methods more, and partly to the fact that the Chi-
nese do not understand what it is to be neutral.
In their theory he that is not for us is against us.
Then there is another point which is pretty strong
in the ordinary Chinaman’s mind, and that is that
we all ought to be for him. China is the celestial
empire. The fact that this war is destroying that
idea makes us who live out here endure it uncom-
plainingly. I have a strong belief that more op-
portunities than ever before will be offered to this
old country when peace is made. This war means
so much to Christian people because it increases
our responsibilities so much.”

By April of 1895, the country was quiet again,
at least sufficiently for the missionaries to return
to their stations, and begin work again. SlowlyLOTTIE MOON 199

   

work in the villages was resumed, Miss Anna
Hartwell going with Miss Moon on trips that
gradually took in the territory formerly reached
by Mrs. Holmes and Mrs. Crawford.

An incident linking the work with that of the
early pioneer days occurred which proved the be-
ginning of a new phase in Tengchow. A boy who
had gone to school to Mrs. Holmes many years
before had come to be very successful in his busi-
ness. He desired to make a gift to the mission,
for the purpose of establishing a school for
heathen boys. The boys’ school for the mission
had been established at Hwanghsien, under Mr.
and Mrs. Pruitt and was proving very succesful.
The aim in the minds of the missionaries was that
it would minister primarily to the training of the
children of Christian families. On the other hand,
this Chinese Baptist layman, having doubtless in
mind his own heathen boyhood, wanted the Teng-
chow school to be for boys of heathen homes. The
Chinese were much interested and undertook to
support the school so that. it would not become de-
pendent upon the Board. The wife of this Chris-
tian Chinese had been a pupil in Miss Moon’s
school in her girlhood, and was in thorough sym-
pathy with her husband’s generous impulse. So
the work of the years began to bear fruit and the
school projects in Tengchow took on new life, this
time from the Chinese themselves.

This was not the only school in Tengchow, how-
ever, for Mrs. Hartwell had a flourishing girls’
school and Miss Moon and Miss Hartwell had both
been giving much time to the supervision of two
other schools, both of which showed much prom-
ise. They were now the only single women at
work in the whole mission. In November of 1895,
she wrote a long letter to the son of Orianna200 LOTTIE MOON

Moon in which we have an intimate glimpse into
the life during these years in the house ut the
Little Cross Roads.

“I live a quiet life,” she said. “I live alone, and
except On very special occasions entertain very
little. One such special occasion has lately oc-
curred in the meeting of our association with our
church here and at the same time in the meeting
of a Presbytery in our city.

“I had a family of five with me during the As-
sociation. They were here only from Saturday
until Tuesday. Besides these Americans I had
seven Chinese guests. I have separate apartments
for the Chinese and foreigners.

“Then there were numbers of the Chinese breth-
ren calling to pay their respects, so that I had a
busy and fatiguing experience. I have also had
all the members of the Presbytery to dine with me
several times.”’

It was at this Association she noted several
marked advances in the work, calling for special
mention. Two new churches were admitted to
membership, and there were more baptisms than
in any previous year. The zeal and enthusiasm of
the leaders were most gratifying and the way in
Which the Chinese themselves were taking part
in all the work gave new courage to the mission-
aries. She reported to her nephew in America a
most interesting discussion at this gathering of
Christian Chinese.

“Among the subjects discussed were foot-bind-
ing and education. Some of the younger men
have developed a strong opposition to foot-bind-
ing, but the older men were significantly silent.
Their consciences tell them that the custom is
wrong, but they think it bad manners probably to
talk publicly on the subject. One young man inLOTTIE MOON 201

 

opening his address said that he had once felt hor-
rified at the thought of discussing the subject pub-
licly, but his conscience forbade his remaining si-
lent longer. An exhaustive paper was read on
education, the writer urging that each church have
a school. He was followed by a foreigner, who
urged that every child in the family should be
educated. The Chinese custom is to pick out one
and send him to school, leaving the others in par-
tial or complete ignorance. Of course, the well-
to-do people generally send all their sons to school,
more or less.”

A letter to the Sunbeams, published in the For-
eign Mission Journal, gives a vivid picture of a
day in the house at the Little Cross Roads, during
this year.

“T will tell you how I spent this morning. After
breakfast I called in a boy for a lesson in English.
He is a little chap, without father or mother. He
is bright and good, and trustworthy. Il had
thought that some day I would teach him English,
but did not tell him my intention. He determined
he would learn English, so every day when I would
be busy in the dining room he would ask me
‘What is this called?) He quite persecuted me,
haunting me wherever he could to get new Eng-
lish words. I was much pleased with his eager-
ness to learn, and struck by his clever way of get-
ting taught. I told him to borrow the cook’s
primer until I could send to Chefoo and get one
for him. Such a happy boy! It is a great pleas-
ure to teach him.

“This is my holiday time and four of my school-
boys were cleaning up my yard for me. I prom-
ised them twenty cash apiece for cleaning each
yard. There are three yards. The boys are little
fellows, and were very much pleased to earn some202

 

LOTTIE MOON

money to spend as they like. They had two rough
knives with which they cut the grass, and they
pulled up the weeds and swept the paved walks.
As they finished this morning task I found two
boys waiting for me. They were from a village
and had called to see me. I asked if they had come
to the city to ‘hear theatricals.’ They said ‘No,’
they had come to ‘eat wine.’ By this they meant
that they were invited to a feast. I asked them
in and read and talked to them. I read them part
of a hymn that begins, ‘Come, ye sinners, poor
and wretched,’ and inquired if they knew what it
meant. Then, as they did not understand it, I ex-
plained the meaning. I let them read some*in the
‘Peep o’ Day,’ and showed them pictures of Beth-
lehem and Jerusalem. When they were leaving
I gave them each a picture. I asked them to come
to Sunday school next Sunday. As they were
about to go a young man came in who is to be
married next week. He asked me to write and
ask Pastor Pruitt to perform the ceremony. I
told him that Mr. Pruitt would be here for the
wedding.

“When he went away I told my cook I had time
to teach him. He read to me the fifth chapter of
Matthew, and afterward I gave him a lesson in
his English Primer. One of my schoolboys hung
around and finally wanted to know if he might
go to the sea. I consented, but said that if he
would wait awhile I would pay the money due.
So I brought out a heavy string of five hundred
Chinese brass cash, and counted out to each boy
twenty cash. They went off happy to the sea.
Tomorrow they must clean up a yard they did
not finish today.”

Evidently in letters from home her family had
shown how disturbed and fearful for her safetyLOTTIE MOON 203

 

they had been during all the excitement of the
war earlier in the year, for now she adds a com-
ment on the condition of the country that was
characteristic of her accurate evaluation of the
movements of her day which have become history.

“Here everything has been quiet since the Jap-
anese left us. The people are more friendly than
I ever knew them to be before. There is a Mo-
hammedan rebellion out west of which we have
varying accounts. Thus far China has managed
to survive foreign wars and internal commotions
and probably this rebellion will be put down as
others have been.

“To my thinking, Russia is the most formidable
power that China has yet been brought into con-
tact with, and yet she turns from Japan, her nat-
ural ally, to cast herself in the arms of Russia.
I believe she will rue the day when it is too late.
Missionaries naturally do not want Russia to ac-
quire Chinese territory because she tolerates none
but her own ‘orthodox’ propagating of the gospel.
Japan, on the other hand, is very friendly and
liberal toward Protestant Christianity.”

In a letter written to a cousin, a woman of her
own age, she told quaintly of how she managed
her shopping and chatted in true feminine fash-
ion of her manner of dress.

“T ghall be interrupted presently by a clerk
coming in from the shop in which I do most of
my dealing, but I will begin a letter. It is the
custom here for women not to go to the shops.
The goods is brought to our houses. Of course,
that is not half so interesting as to go to a well-
stocked place and see lots of lovely new goods dis-
played temptingly on the counter. Probably one
buys a good deal less, being not exposed to tempta-
tion.204 LOTTIE MOON

“I suppose clothes are the smallest of my ex-
penses. I wear the Chinese dress in modified form
and that costs less than the western. There are
no expensive bonnets or boots. For three-fourths
of the year my shoes cost less than eighty cents
apiece (800 cash). In winter I wear boots that
cost a little over a dollar. They are made by a
Chinese woman. They are not real Chinese shoes,
but a modification, or rather a foreign cloth slip-
per—shoe, I mean—and boot. They are very com-
fortable. So far as the Chinese dress goes, I wear
the very large, long loose-flowing sacque, as we
used to call them in my young days. They ‘cover
a multitude of faults.’ Owing to that fact I have
worn my old skirts since my return from America
and am now having my first one made in about
three and a half years. Don’t you think that
pretty economical? I am the only one who wears
the Chinese dress under all circumstances. Sev-
eral wear it when they go out in the country, but
not at home or usually among foreigners. I find
it too troublesome and too expensive to wear the
foreign dress. Besides, as a chief reason, one gets
nearer to the people, I think, when wearing the
Chinese dress.”

She had been having some repairs to her com-
pound made, and in telling of this she again gave
much information about the life in that little
home, how it was built, and the surge of life about
it in that great Chinese city.

“IT have been quite overrun with masons for
about a week and they are still here. Some of
my many roofs got out of order, and I am having
some parts changed from thatched roofs to tiled.
The straw roof is vexatious as the birds pick it
to pieces and so it does not last. The tile roof is
lasting. I have also three whitewashers here atLOTTIE MOON 205

work in my Chinese guest rooms. In all, there
are seven workmen. I hope they will get done
this day week.

“Last week a thief came over my wall at night,
broke into the kitchen and carried off between
four and five thousand cash ($5). Part belonged
to the cook but most of it was mine. One of the
masons was suspected, but there was no proof.
Evidently the thief climbed over by aid of an over-
hanging tree. I had the tree well trimmed and a
foreign door with a foreign lock exchanged for
the Chinese-door and lock of the kitchen. Here-
tofore my house has remained unlocked at night,
and windows all up. I trusted to the security of
the street doors, not thinking of any one climbing
over the wall. I suppose the low overhanging
limbs of the tree were tempting. Once climb up
on the wall, get into the tree and come down “just
as easy!’ I had sharp-pointed glass on top of the
wall and then inside a frame for flowers. He
knocked off the glass, got a foothold on the wall,
swung himself by a limb into a tree, came over
the wall, down into the yard, and I slept!”

The work around Tengchow, now so pitifully
undermanned, demanded all her time. Yet this
did not keep her from continuing to have a keen
interest in how everything went in Pingtu. Now
that the missionaries had come for that field, she
withdrew, that the loyalty of the people might be
undividedly given to the new missionaries, who
must be the ones to carry forward the work, but
her heart still yearned over Pingtu and she noted
with deep concern every turn of events. In July
of 1897 there came news of the organization of
a new church in a village where she had gone ad-
venturing in those first days in Pingtu. Mr. Sears
and his teacher, Mr. Li, had first gone there to-206 LOTTIE MOON

gether three years before. Now came the glad
news that in spite of persecution the little church
had been organized and was standing staunchly
for the faith. There were Christians in seven vil-
lages as the result of the work of three years, cen-
tering in that village. There were now three
churches with a total of eighty-three members,
and two missionary families to carry on the work.
Hwanghsien, with its two churches and growing
school, had also two missionary families, while the
mother station of North China Mission, Teng-
chow, had one church, one missionary family, that
of the veteran J. B. Hartwell, and two single
ladies. Thus stood the work and workers at the
close of 1897, thirty-seven years after the first
Southern Baptist missionary had entered this
region to claim it for Jesus Christ.

Thus did a new year begin.

“I never knew the people to be in so receptive
a mood,” wrote Lottie Moon in April. “I am giv-
ing five days a week to the country work. I go
out on Tuesdays and return on Saturdays. In-
quirers multiply. We have had nine baptisms
here this year, and expect other applicants at the
next communion season, which falls on the first
Sunday in the fourth Chinese month. So far as
I know the church is harmonious. All our diffi-
culties seem happily surmounted. The schools are,
with one exception, full to overflowing. The girls’
school ought to have enlarged quarters. There is
not room to receive the numerous applicants.”

She had seen the homeland since last she wrote
those impassioned appeals for the occupation of
Pingtu. The same plea comes now, inevitably,
yet on a different note.

“T must not worry you about reénforcement, but
three ladies want to come and live and work withLOTTIE MOON 207

me. The work simply clamors to be done. Miss
Hartwell is kept in the city, and so I only am left
to look after the country work. There is plenty
for four women to do among our country sta-
tions, and as there is only one to do it, you will
know that much is left undone. I do trust the
brethren will lift the burden of that awful debt.”

So it was with a muted note her calls came
now, for she knew better the burdens of the Board
in its endeavor to awaken the people at home to
the reality of the work on the frontier. There
came many letters filled with news of the work,
but only in an undercurrent is the appeal made,
“IT am alone in this village tonight’”—‘“There is
no one to send in answer to this invitation,” and
once in awhile a note of utter weariness expressed
in such words as, “I have waited long and long-
ingly for co-workers.”

In the latter part of 1898, illness struck the lit-
tle missionary force a heavy blow. Dr. Hartwell
had to return to the United States to spend several
months in the hospital. Miss Anna Hartwell, left
with the school work that Mrs. Hartwell had been
carrying on, in addition to her own work, broke
down and for three months was prostrated by a
very serious illness. So upon Lottie Moon there
fell the responsibility for all the work in and
around Tengchow, and the care of the invalid also.
They were the only single women in the whole
North China Mission, and there was no one to
come to their relief, or to share their heavy bur-
dens. Once every two months Mr. Pruitt could
come over to preach for the Tengchow Church and
administer the ordinances of baptism and the
Lord’s Supper, and several times he came for brief
periods of teaching classes of inquirers, and look-
ing after affairs of the schools, there now being208 LOTTIE MOON

 

five of these schools in the city. The country work
which had been so fruitful was sorely neglected,
for in these months at the bedside of the sick mis-
slonary there could be only a few trips made,
while the wide field that Dr. Hartwell had been
covering with his preaching tours, could only be
touched now and then by Mr. Sears or Mr. Steph-
ens, both of whom had all they could possibly care
for in their own fields in Pingtu County.

By April, her letters had a more cheerful note.
Dr. and Mrs. Hartwell had returned, Dr. Hartwell
in better health than for many years. He was
then sixty-three years old, but still vigorous in
mind and now, with restored physical health, be-
gan to do the best work of his long life in North
China. The trying experiences of these months
had developed a Chinese leader, Mr. Wong, whose
life became a blessing to all the work. So ina
letter, written in April of that year, to the beloved
nephew in Virginia, son of Orianna, there was in-
teresting and cheerful news from her work, and
delightful comment on life in general:

“Yesterday I went out to the country and great-
ly enjoyed it. I visited three villages. They are
two or three miles from the city and within a
stone’s throw of each other. In the first village
I sat in my sedan chair and talked to the people.
In the second village it was much better, for a
woman asked me to go in and after dinner I had
a quiet time talking to several women. My hostess
especially seemed very favorably disposed to
Christianity. She has an opium-smoking husband
who is in Manchuria. With an aged mother-in-
law and two children to support she has a hard
time.

“This is not a rare case. The no-account men
go to Manchuria as a last resort and leave help-LOTTIE MOON 209

less families behind. The energetic men go, make
money and send it to their families. You probably
know from telegrams what goes on in China, as
we here learn what goes on in America and Eu-
rope. Our province is supposed to be mostly in
the German sphere of influence. There has been
much disorder in the interior as well as violent
persecution of the Catholics and Presbyterians.
Some of the former were murdered with aggra-
vated cruelty. Of the latter the Christians in
eight villages were rendered homeless. Some
Germans were attacked with intent to kill. They
defended themselves and wounded and killed some
of their assailants, afterward making their escape
to the coast, where they were received on board a
German man-of-war. All foreigners would say,
I suppose, that Germany did right to send soldiers
to the disturbed district. The partition of China
seems only a matter of time.”

Thus reads the account of the small beginnings
of that dreadful time that was presently to sweep
China with terror and startle the world into recog-
nition that China was a giant of terrible power,
once aroused into fanaticism. Several months
went peacefully by, however, with little reference
to the disturbed state of affairs.

School work had begun in real earnest now.
Mrs. Hartwell’s school was full and running over,
the school begun at the instance of the Chinese
Christian business man was prospering under
Miss Moon’s supervision and in the kitchen on
the North Street property next door to the first
house in which a Baptist missionary had ever lived
in Tengchow, another school for boys had be-
gun. For this she could secure only a woman
teacher, and the boys were almost all of the beggar
class, the only ones in that neighborhood who210 LOTTIE MOON

would come to a foreign Christian school. But
she had ever been interested in making a dent
in the hard indifference of the aristocratic people
of this section of the city and so, with a hope and
a prayer, she began this school enterprise in their
midst. It flourished, outgrowing its quarters, un-
til a wall had to be taken down to provide more
room, and the days were full of happy work, for
still the country work had to be looked after, no
matter how absorbing the work in the city be-
came. For there was no one else to do it. There
Was a reassuring note in a letter written in June
of 1899 concerning the health of the force:

“Dr. Hartwell is much better than I ever ex-
pected to see him, and is prudent, I am glad to
say. Mrs. Hartwell’s health is superb.” There
was deep concern, however, about Miss Anna
Hartwell. She had mothered and fathered four
children while her parents were in the United
States the previous year, had carried on three
schools, looked after her own country work and
had done all that was done of evangelistic work
in the city. No wonder she broke down! And
there was no one to take her place.

Is it surprising that there should come a cry
from the older missionary’s heart to Dr. Willing-
ham, now the Secretary of the Foreign Mission
Board? “I wish our people could realize that our
Lord’s last command is as binding as is the com-
mand to baptize.”

In that same month there came good news. In
the mission meeting held in Tengchow she met
the newest missionary, John Lowe, and just after-
ward Dr. Hartwell had a letter telling of the
appointment of J. C. Owen. “We are all much
pleased to have so valuable additions to our force,”’LOTTIE MOON 211

she wrote in joy. But yet there were no single
women.

“We need immediately two or three unmarried
women for country work,’ she pleads. “We
used to have Mrs. Crawford, Miss Barton, and
Mrs. Bostick for that work, and on my return
from America I was to have been the fourth. This
would have given us a reasonably good force. Il
came back to find everything changed. Mrs.
Crawford, worth her weight in gold, was working
in Pingtu with the Gospel Mission force, with her
accustomed zeal and ardor. Mrs. Bostick was also
there, doing what she could. Miss Barton had de-
serted us for Mr. Taylor and another field had
claimed her, at the close of 1894. I found myself
left to do as best I could work which would absorb
the energies of at least four women. Needless to
say, it cannot be done. I grieve that I must neglect
for a year at a time or longer stations that used to
be visited faithfully twice each year by Mrs.
Crawford. I can simply skim over the field. Con-
nected with Tengchow are thirty stations that
should be constantly visited. Miss Hartwell had
agreed to take about ten of these, but she had been
so hindered by her father’s illness and her
mother’s long absence that she had done almost
no country work in the last two years. She was
doing splendid work with the Girls’ School and
looking after the city work when she herself be-
came ill from overwork. Southern Baptists do
not seem to realize the need of strongly manned
stations. Having sown sparingly we reap spar-
ingly. The fault is not the Board’s and certainly
not the Secretary’s, but lies in the selfishness of
the churches. There is no reason why we should
not have large success, except lack of workers.”212 LOTTIE MOON

 

Matters went on this way through the year. In
September at the mission meeting she urged that
another plea be made to the Board for women
workers. So much was it on her heart that the
women of North China must be reached with the
gospel that in every mission meeting she reiter-
ated this one question that burned into the hearts
of the other missionaries so that they never for-
got it, “What of the women, what of the women?”
In all their plans for the work she constantly pre-
sented this neglected side of the work, in all the
reports to the Board she accented this need: At
the same time, despite the fact that she was near-
ing the sixty-year line, she threw herself more
vigorously than ever into the impossible task of
being four missionaries herself.

“In all the twenty-six years I have been in
China,’ she wrote Dr. Willingham, “the force
here has never been so low as during this year. I
keep at the country work and find much to en-
courage me in its prosecution. I shall rejoice
when there are others younger and more energetic
to share and push the work. I trust it will not be
much longer that I must wait for co-workers.”

Late in September Miss Hartwell left for Can-
ton, it being thought the change would do her
good. This left Miss Moon the only single woman
missionary in North China. She sent in her re-
port on the thirtieth of September showing that
in the three months of that quarter she had visited
fifty-five different towns and villages, besides look-
ing after the schools in Tengchow carried on by
Chinese teachers.

“T hope you understand,” she wrote with this
report, “that the work is still in the stage of
seed sowing. I hope a great harvest is beingLOTTIE MOON 213

prepared, but it is not yet ripe. When it is, where
are the reapers?”

With her keen insight into the Chinese mind she
had seen a marvelous transformation coming
gradually in the attitude of the Tengchow people,
once so hard to reach. Twenty-seven years be-
fore, the young, brilliant Lottie Moon, eager for
a girls’ school, consecrating all her splendid equip-
ment of heart and mind to Chinese womanhood,
had made the great sacrifice of all her dear ambi-
tions and turned from the building of a school to
the greater schoolroom of the villages of China,
led by the Spirit of God. Now, to her unspeak-
able joy, she finds schools beginning to spring up
and thrive in this same old city of Tengchow, a
city of stone walls and stonier-hearted people. It
was a marvelous change, and one that evoked
many happy comments and much discussion in
long letters to the Secretary in Richmond. One
of these letters went into detail concerning the day
school that had been opened in a section of the
city hitherto out of the reach of the church
directly.

“One fairly groans over the neglected possi-
sibilities,” she begins. “In the expectation of an
increase of pupils in my day school I have been
looking out for new quarters. Rent heretofore
has been at the rate of about fifty cents a year.
The room is too small and is overcrowded so that
I have tried to find a place that would cost about
five dollars a year, but have not succeeded. We
ought to have quarters where the pupils would
have a play yard. At present they have none,
If a suitable place is found I shall rent. Other-
wise, I may have to divide the school which would
necessitate another teacher. I have rooms here214 LOTTIE MOON

on my place that I could use if the school be
divided.

‘Perhaps you will say, Where is the money to
come from for this enlargement? If the Lord
gives the enlargement he will surely not withhold
the funds. He will surely say to the brethren of
the Board, ‘Since you have authorized the work,
don’t let it suffer.’ If, however, the Board hears
no such voice, missionaries have a way of quietly
Supplying deficits out of their own pockets, what-
ever personal self-denial or economies are needed
in order to accomplish it.”

So this phase of the work began to grow faster
than the money from the homeland could support
it. In another letter Miss Moon spoke of the
deficits that Mr. Pruitt was quietly making up in
the operation of the Boys’ School at Hwanghsien
which the Board intended to make the chief school
in the entire field. Bravely she justified her men-
tion of the matter in these words, “The Board has
cut the funds so low that he has to provide for a
deficit every year out of his own salary. I sup-
pose he does not mention it, but it seems right
that someone should.”

In March, 1900, there came more school news.

‘The rooms are jammed to their utmost capac-
ity, too much, I fear, for the health of the pupils.
I have borrowed desks and benches for three
months while seeking gradually to purchase sec-
ond-hand ones. Those now in use will have to be
returned to Dr. Hartwell in June for use in his
Bible class.” This Bible class had been begun by
Dr. Hartwell in the fall preceding and so encour-
aging had been the response of Christian young
men in the church and the Boys’ School in Teng-
chow that he intended to repeat it for a short
term in the summer.LOTTIE MOON 215

“When the boys first come to school,” she went
on in this letter, “I use books printed here in
Tengchow, hymn books and catechisms, and these
cost very little. Later I have to get books from
Shanghai, Peep of Day, Old Testament History,
Pilgrim’s Progress and geographies. The cost is
very heavy besides extremely heavy postage. But
one cannot have a school without books. The
twenty-five dollars sent me by the Sunbeams of
Freemason Church, of Norfolk, pays for the
teacher and the books for this school, but leaves
nothing for rent. If I had proper rooms the
school could easily run up to forty or fifty pupils.”

In the development of this school there came
up another matter that linked this question again
with the old ambitions. It, too, is best told in her
own words.

“There are some rooms I covet and had I the
funds I would buy them on my own account. They
would do not only for the school, if it should grow
to a hundred pupils, but would be a place for hold-
ing Sunday school in a wholly destitute part of
the city, where we used to have a church years
ago. I have never been willing to abandon our
hold on North Street where Baptists were first
to establish themselves. The first missionary to
Tengchow, Dr. Hartwell, settled on North Street.
I have lived there three years. Mr.\Pruitt and
Mr. Halecomb also lived there. I hope to see the
day when we will have missionaries again living
on North Street. The property has never belonged
to us, but we have had a lease on it and can get
it again. It would be ideal for this day school.”

The very next week there came a joyful letter
to the Secretary in which the whole school oppor-
tunity in Tengchow was summed up.wet

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“T am happy to say that the work seems to have
taken new life. The day schools are flourishing.
In the Memorial School there are twenty-five pu-
pils.. They are eager, alert and cheerful. It is
a delight to teach them. The oldest pupil is nine-
teen as the Chinese count. We have a promising
Primary department in which most of the pupils
are new ones. Still the whole is under one teacher,
an excellent young man, a good disciplinarian
and a capable teacher. In another school for boys
alone there are fifteen little fellows. who are the
joy of my heart. They have a fine teacher in
Mrs. Wang, a graduate of the Presbyterian Girls’
School here in Tengchow. She is a sweet and
lovely character and I am very glad to have her
influence extended over these little ones. They
are all from heathen families except three. Then
there is the girls’ school with twelve pupils. The
teacher is a graduate from our Tengchow Girls’
School and, as she is faithful and efficient, the
children made good progress in their studies. I
am sure you will rejoice with me in our large and
growing Sunday school. The Lord is very good
to us in building up our work here. The con-
gregations are good in the mornings, but the
attendance is better in the afternoons at Sunday
school. The brethren are faithful, ‘active and ef-
ficient and the Chinese sisters have a mind to
work.”

The North Street school came to be a reality,
though the quarters secured were small and the
school was still overcrowded. So responsive were
the people of that section of the city that she saw
fine prospects for a Sunday school soon, and if
only a suitable building could be secured and the
additional expense assured by the Board, the
school could easily have a hundred pupils. SoLOTTIE MOON

 

218

far the twenty-five dollars from the Norfolk
Sunbeams was all she had had for the school, pay-
ing the deficit every year herself. Thus had one
dream of the enthusiastic first years in China be-
gun to come true. If only the money were avail-
able to take advantage of the opportunity now
just before her!

To read these letters one would think *at the
school work was enough for one work But,
alongside the accounts of the development in
schools, there always came the insistent presenta-
tion of the country work. Through this winter
of 1899-1900 her letters were filled with pleas for
more workers. Sometimes it was with a bit of
apology she came with the plea.

“T have a fear that you will consider me trou-
blesome,” she wrote when near her fifty-ninth
birthday in December, 1899, “but we do so need
workers. I feel that I ought to urge again and
again that they be sent. At present Dr. Hartwell
and myself are in full work. It should be remem-
bered that he is considerably past sixty and that
in about a year I will also be sixty years of age.
It is not to be expected in the natural course of
events that we can go on many years longer. It
does seem that younger people ought to be here
to learn the ins and outs of the work. I say the
simple truth when I affirm that I am the only one
now in the mission fully acquainted with the Teng-
chow field. There ought to be women here now
whom I could introduce to the work. Dr. Hart-
well has resumed country work, but as pastor here
he cannot give much time to the country. For
nearly six years the chief burden of the country
work has fallen on me. I have tried to do it faith-
fully, but it is utterly impossible for one woman
to do the work of four women. I know that youLOTTIE MOON 219

have calls like this from all the fields and that
you long to answer them all. I think, however,
that it should be remembered that Tengchow was
left unmanned nearly two years and that now the
stations have only two missionaries in full work.
Mrs. Hartwell is lovely in character and person,
but she is busy with her school and cannot do the
evangelistic work. Miss Anna Hartwell will not
return for sometime, I fear a long time. We are
very thankful for Mr. Owen here, but he is only
one, and we need several more to be learning the
language. You promised me several years ago
that when the finances of the Board should justify
it you would bring the matter before them. Later
you gave me hope of reenforcement this year.
Pardon me if I venture now to stir up your pure
mind by way of remembrance. I have been going
to the country every week for sometime and ex-
pect to make two trips or more before settling
down for the winter. So I hope you won’t think
that it is laziness that makes me call for help.
All the trips I can make will not overtake one-
half the work, nay not one-fourth of what
clamors to be done.” :

On New Year’s Day, 1900, there came a letter
with joyful tidings. Miss Dutton had been ap-
pointed to Tengchow and was even then on her
way. With new hope and high enthusiasm she
wrote her thanks to Dr. Willingham.

“I thank you heartily for your New Year’s
greetings. Nothing could be more to my taste.
My only disappointment is that the Board ap-
pointed one instead of three missionaries. Miss
Dutton and I cannot begin to cope with the work
now demanding to be done, and it is always widen-
ing, broadening out indefinitely. Please don’t220 LOTTIE MOON

think me unreasonable. I speak the words of
truth and soberness. Tengchow should have not
less than four families as maximum force. To
this add four single women to do the hard rough
country work that women with young children
ought not to be expected to undertake. If the
Board could give us such a force we could not
only hold our own but could lengthen our cords
and strengthen our stakes. One great difficulty
is to get the people at home to realize the im-
mensity of our fields in actual square miles and
the countless numbers living in said square miles.

“Take, for instance, a big town like Buh Go,
where Mrs. Crawford worked so long, so faith-
fully, and so efficiently. A missionary might take
that town as a center and spend a lifetime work-
ing only it and the adjacent towns. Take Wu Shi
Li Pu, to which I go constantly. Were I free to
settle there, work there and be in the neighboring
towns and villages would more than engross all
my time. Why, only three or four miles away is
a large town of probably five thousand inhabi-
tants which I can’t get time even to touch. One
fairly groans over the neglected possibilities.”

A plague swept Tengchow in the early spring,

causing anxiety on account of the missionaries.
A letter to Dr. Willingham made this comment,
evidently in reply to an inquiry of their safety.
' “T am glad to say the plague has not returned
thus far as an epidemic, though there are sporadic
cases of what the doctor calls ‘septic’ plague. This
is usually fatal in twenty-four hours. We go on
cheerfully. with our work, not thinking much about
the plague, but avoiding so far as possible the
streets on which there have been recent cases.”’

Two interesting events of the year were ap-
proaching. The marriage of Mr. Owen to MissLOTTIE MOON 221

Miller, of the Presbyterian mission, and the ar-
rival of Miss Dutton. In reference to the first
event, Mrs. Pruitt wrote to the Secretary about a
house for them, a letter in which there occurs a
sentence that reflects clearly the need for suitable
living quarters for missionaries. “I hope the
Board may be able to grant them the money neces-
sary for buying a good-sized lot and erecting a
substantial foreign house upon it. I emphasize
those two words because the Hartwells and their
school girls are all suffering in health from lack
of courtyard room and fresh air in their premises.
In a Chinese city we are obliged to furnish our
own fresh air, or go without, for our neighbors
contaminate all that comes within their reach,
without fail.”

The coming of Miss Dutton was a joyful event.
“She is all I could desire in a co-worker,” Lottie
Moon wrote from the house at the Little Cross
Roads, where she welcomed the new missionary
to her heart and field. After looking over the
work and conferring with the missionaries, it was
decided that Miss Dutton should take over the
country district which had once been Mrs. Craw-
ford’s field, about one-fourth of the entire coun-
try district that has formerly been well covered
by the missionaries. Miss Moon was to take an-
other fourth and another urgent request was sent
to the Board for two more missionaries quickly to
retrieve what was being lost in the hundreds of
villages still left where once the work had been
established.

By this time it was the beginning of summer.
This had always been the season for constant
country work. But out of the north and west
there had come mutterings of a storm, whispers222 LOTTIE MOON

of anti-foreign, anti-Christian movements and
a name that came to stand for all the aeccumu-
lated fear and hatred of the foreigners—The
Boxers. The last week of May there came an
order from the United States minister, Conger,
that the missionaries stay strictly at home except
in cases of absolute necessity, and then to call for
escort of Chinese soldiers. The missionaries dis-
trusted the soldiers more than they feared the
Boxers, so the situation was one to cause much
confusion as to just what course should be pur-
sued. The more thoughtful missionaries regarded
the rising tide of Chinese feeling with grave
fears for the outcome. With all due regard for
the fearfulness of the United States minister,
they quietly as possible went about their duties,
Dr. Hartwell even going out to Shantswang to
preach, and Miss Moon made several] trips into
the country. Neither was molested, though news
had come that the Boxers farther west in Shan-
tung had attacked foreigners, torn up the rail-
road into Tientsin, burned the Peking railroad
station and devastated the villages in the west
and north. The attacks having been upon Euro-
peans and European interests, the different for-
eign powers requested the Chinese Government to
either control the situation and protect the lives
of foreigners or they would take steps with gun-
boats and troops to do so themselves. It then
became apparent that the Empress Dowager, who
was the real ruler of China, was secretly encour-
aging the Boxers, and the seven foreign powers
took possession of the forts around Peking in
order to make their threat effective.

On June the sixteenth the message reached
Tengchow, ‘“‘Paoting Fa is burning.” Then cameLOTTIE MOON 223

anxious days when the fate of the dozen mission-
aries in that interior city was unknown, followed
by the sorrowful tidings of the dreadful massacre
when these brave men and women were martyred
by the fanatics. Dr. Hartwell wrote all this to
the Board in Richmond, adding to the account
what he knew of events in general:

“Some Boxer emissaries have been in this city,
trying to stir up the people, but have received
no encouragement from the people who have now
come to regard the foreigners as pretty decent
people.”’ What a change from the Tengchow days
when this same veteran missionary had to flee
for his life under cover of the night! “At least
they do not seem to wish any disturbance in the
city to interfere with their little trade. Of course
we do not know what secret machinations may be
going on, but everything seems quiet and the of-
ficials are true friends of the foreigners as well
as General Sha, who gave us today the news from
Peking.”

Ten days went by with watchfulness on the part
of the missionaries and anxiety in the homeland.
That there was cause for fear was shown in the
following paragraph in a letter from Mr. Pruitt
written on June the twenty-sixth:

“IT am happy to be able to tell you that we are
not only not molested, but that we have had many
tokens of esteem shown us during these days of
stress. It is my candid opinion that our neigh-
bors are not anxious to get rid of us. For one
thing, we have had no friction in the courts
which has in some places been a prolific source of
anti-foreign feeling. But, of course, we do not
shut our eyes to the tremendous organizing power
of the Boxers and others. They are at this mo-224 LOTTIE MOON

ment carrying on their propaganda in different
parts of the country, but without much success as
yet. It is very important for the people at home
to remember that this is not an anti-Christian
agitation so much as an anti-foreign one. The
feeling has been stirred very much more by the
presence of the commercial than the missionary
foreigner. The ordinary European deals in a
high-handed way with the Chinese he meets. Of
course, I do not pretend to say such dealing is
unprovoked. But there is the fact to work out its
direful results. The last news from our Gospel
Mission friends was the one word, ‘critical.’
News from Peking is that all foreigners in the
city are practically prisoners. May a loving Fa-
ther stretch out his hand to save. Pray for us.”

On July the fourteenth the American Consul at
Chinkiang, Mr. William Martin, ordered all the
missionaries to the seaport where they would be
under the protection of American gunboats. Two
days later the situation became so grave around
Tengchow that a Chinese steamer was chartered
by the Consul at Chefoo, John Fowler, to go up the
coast to take the missionaries to a place of safety.
It was under such exciting circumstances that
Mr. Owen and Miss Miller were married, having
hurried up their preparations under the fear of
being separated in the confusion of getting away.
The women and children were taken to this boat
and placed under the considerate care of Com-
mander Sah, a Christian Chinese officer who won
the praise of everyone by his faithfulness and
kindness in this crisis. At the risk of his own life
he disobeyed the orders of the Empress Dowager
and, to relieve the anxieties of the missionaries,
stood at anchor for twenty-four hours atLOTTIE MOON 225

Tengchow until the missionary families could all
come on board. Mr. Seaman, son-in-law of Mat-
thew Yates, of Shanghai, had offered the use of
his house at Chefoo for the fugitives, and the little
group of missionaries from Tengchow, Hwangh-
sien and Pingtu found it already crowded. The
Crawfords were there and others of the Gospel
Mission groups from farther west in Shantung.
It was a happy meeting of old friends in the midst
of the stress and strain of the anxious time. But
the house was too small for the more than twenty
grown people and eleven children who had fled to
it. So as soon as conferences could be held many
changes were made in the plans for the next few
months. The furlough of the Pruitts was due in
six months, so it seemed wise for them to move
up the date and take their furlough during this
time when all work was impossible. So they went
home. Miss Dutton and Miss Moon decided to go
to Fukuoka, Japan, and find more comfortable
quarters with the missionaries there. Presently
arrangements were made to take care of the Pres-
byterian and Congregational missionaries, and
finally the little Seaman house settled down to a
normal population of only four missionary fami-
lies which was still rather crowded.

It was well that they had gotten within the
shelter of the American flag, flying over the con-
sulate next door to the Seaman house, for word
came in a few days that the official headquarters
at Tengchow was completely in possession of the
Boxers, and they were drilling in the courtyard
of the governor of the province. This was evi-
dence that there had been a secret alliance for
many weeks, perhaps, between the officials and
the Boxers.226 LOTTIE MOON

 

Each day there came news of the looting of
the missions, narrow escape or martyrdom of
missionaries and the terrible persecution of the
Chinese Christians. On July 20 there came the
news that Pingtu was looted by the Boxers and
the Christians fearfully persecuted. Especially
were the hearts of the missionaries torn by the
news from Pingtu. It was in the full sweep of
the Boxer bands. In order to arouse the populace
against the Christians, men, saying they were
hired by the foreigners, went through the coun-
try smearing blood on houses here and there, and
when caught had on them medicine with which it
was said they poisoned wells. Fearful tales were
circulated about the foreigners. Many of these
centered around the building of the railroads,
then new in China. It was said that the bodies
of women and children were needed for the abut-
ments of the bridges.

Brother Sun Hwe Teh, the sixty-four-year-old
pastor at Shantswang, was caught about twenty
miles away from home with some simple medi-
cines in his bag. So suspicious did this look that
the head of the village where he stopped for the
night aroused the men of the village and they
tortured the evangelist for three days by tying
him up by the hands and feet with a stone for a
weight about his waist. Finally he prevailed on
them to send to his own village for men to iden-
tify him, and was released, but not until his hands
were in such a condition that gangrene set in and
the faithful old man died on August the first.

Stories of the faithfulness of the Christians in
the villages around Pingtu City was borne by refu-
gees who had managed to slip through to Chefoo
to the shelter of the influence of the missionaries.LOTTIE MOON 227

The Consul at Chefoo, John Fowler, endeared him-
self to all the missionaries by his untiring efforts
in behalf of these fugitives and his fearless in-
tervention for the tortured captives. Not much
could be done, however. Thousands of Chinese
Christians were killed in most revolting manner,
buried alive, beaten to death, burned and cut to
pieces. Few recanted to save their lives, though
there was a proclamation made by the Provincial
Governors to induce them to do so temporarily.
Yuan Shi Kai, the governor of Shantung, though
not a Christian, was accused of being one be-
cause of his efforts to placate the fanatical popu-
lace, control the situation and save the Christians.
One company of some twenty Christians from a
village near Pingtu City were captured, given
time to recant, but on refusing were tied by their
queues to the tails of horses and thus dragged
twenty-five miles to Laichowfu, where death
awaited most of them. Pastor Li was among
these, but in the providence of God his life was
spared and he escaped into the country where he
was hidden away until the storm had passed.
Many of these Christians were beaten unmerci-
fully, and the missionaries in Chefoo, waiting with
saddened hearts, heard daily of the massacres and
torturing to death of the faithful Chinese in all
parts of the province.

Going into the interior was impossible. Not
until October did anyone venture to go into Teng-
chow. Then Dr. Hartwell and his son, Mr. Charlie
Hartwell, came by the road safely, not being mo-
lested by anyone, though five days later another
missionary attempted the same trip and was
turned back by the appearance of suspicious look-
ing men. Dr. Hayes, of the Presbyterian Mis-228 LOTTIE MOON

 

sion, preceded the Hartwells in a Chinese junk,
but the father and son were the first of the for-
elgners to travel the road. Mr. Lowe and Mr.
Stephens both wanted to go to Hwanghsien on
their bicycles, but the Consul, John Fowler, who
had been such a faithful friend, dissuaded them,
for that would be an inland trip and there were
still very strict orders from the United States
Government that no Americans were to go into
the interior. Dr. Hartwell found the Christians
pathetically glad to see him again. They had
gone through bitter persecution and two had been
beaten to death. As news of his being in Teng-
chow spread they came in numbers from the vil-
lages all through the country to tell their trou-
bles to their pastor and receive comfort from his
sympathy. The bond that bound the missionaries
and native Christians together in this time was
exceedingly tender and strong. On the other hand,
the heathen Chinese seemed amazed to see the
foreigner back in their midst. The appearance of
the missionaries was a signal for many demon-
strations, all seemingly based simply on surprise
that after all that had happened these strange
teachers of religion dared to return. But they
did not stay long in Tengchow, for no work could
be opened. After holding services, the Hartwells
returned to Chefoo until the country was in a
more settled state. So matters stood in old Teng-
chow at the beginning of the winter of 1900.

In all this troublous time Lottie Moon was in
Fukuoka, Japan, where she and Miss Dutton had
taken refuge late in July with the missionaries,
securing rooms that were much more comfortable
than the crowded quarters in Chefoo and remov-
ing themselves from the anxieties of the Consul.LOTTIE MOON 229

At first she expected to be able to return to Teng-
chow in a short time, but as the reports from
North China came with the news of the uncertain
conditions, and the impossibility of the mission-
aries returning, she and Miss Dutton settled down
to wait until they could return directly to their
own homes in Tengchow. The Seaman home in
Chefoo remained overcrowded, with seventeen oc-
cupants, and certainly it was much better for them
and for the others that they stay in Japan. At
the time Dr. Hartwell ventured to Tengchow in
October Mr. Stephens wrote to Miss Moon of the
opposition of the Consul to the going of the mis-
sionaries to the interior, and though her hopes
of returning were raised by Dr. Hartwell’s reply,
the very next mail told of his decision to settle
for the winter in Chefoo.

So it happened that after all she was a mis-
sionary for one winter in Japan, the land she had
always loved and toward which she had felt drawn
since her first sight of it in 1873. She lived near
Mr. and Mrs. McCollum of whom she spoke with
grateful thanks, “They confer their favors so
graciously that they seem to convey the impres-
sion that it is they who are receiving the kind-
ness.”” She visited the Walnes for a day on her
way to Fukuoka, and in October spent several
days with Mr. and Mrs. Maynard, in Kokura. Two
new missionaries, Mr. and Mrs. W. H. Clarke vis-
ited her on their way to their own home in Kuma-
moto.

The months in Japan were a much needed rest.
She had been in China now six and a half years
with no rest or change even for a few months. It
was a grateful interlude, this stay in a beautiful
Jand, where new friends and new contacts bright-230 LOTTIE MOON

ened the routine of missionary life and brought
contrast that rested mind and heart. But they
were not idle months. Her presence brought joy
to the Japanese missionaries who were burdened
with their own problems, and who welcomed her
as a blessing to their work. At the beginning of
the winter when she saw that she could not re-
turn to Tengchow, she had undertaken the teach-
ing of Mr. McCollum’s boys. A little later the
head of a school for Japanese young men came to
her asking that she teach English four hours a
day in the school, which was managed by a Com-
mercial Club of the city. The English teacher,
a Japanese, and the Principal came to her daily
for private lessons in English. She accepted the
opening as offering an opportunity for the teach-
ing of the Bible, for no stipulation was made as
to what book she was to use as a text. The Prin-
cipal was a man famous over all Japan as a
fencing master, and he and the English teacher
soon became earnest Bible students, coming for
two hours extra of Bible study on Saturday.
The English class of young men proved a great
joy to her. They eagerly listened to her teaching
of Christian truth, some becoming so interested
that they asked to come in the evenings to her
home for discussion of what she had told them.
Several formed a Sunday class for Bible study,
and from these there were three who openly pro-
fessed their faith in Christ.. She had her picture
made with these three young men, the trophies of
her stay in Japan. It was a satisfaction to her
also that she was able to help in her own support
during this trying time when the Board had to
meet sO many unexpected and unavoidable ex-
penses, for she was paid for all her work in the
school.LOTTIE MOON 231

In January there came news with a hopeful
tone. The missionaries had taken up with the
Governor of Shantung, Yuan Shi Kai, the matter
of the safety of the Christians who had fled rather
than recant, now returning to their homes. They
had also raised the question of the standing of
those Christians who had recanted under the
promise of protection of the authorities, having
been told it was but a temporary measure and
that when the storm passed they could renew their
pledges to the Christian faith, for there were a
few who had been tempted to take the easier way
offered by sympathetic officials. It was thought
that this order came from Yuan Shi Kai, for he
had all along shown great sympathy for the mis-
sionaries and the native Christians and had risked
his own life in order to give them some measure
of protection.

So in courteous terms the missionaries pre-
sented their problems and the cause of the native
Christians. A most courteous reply was made,
in which there occurred two sentences that re-
called to the Tengchow missionaries an incident
that had often been retold among them, for it was
both significant and amusing.

Lottie Moon had ever been punctilious in her in-
sistence on the missionaries observing the fine
points of Chinese etiquette. No less strict was she
in seeing that inside the church, in the carrying
forward of all Christian services, Chinese proprie-
ties should be respected, and that no disorder, or
erudeness of Chinese etiquette should ever stamp
the Christian meeting with vulgarity from the
Chinese viewpoint.

Several years before the Boxer outbreak Yuan
Shi Kai had been a minor official in Tengchow232

 

LOTTIE MOON

and had been a frequent attendant on the services
of Monument Street Church. On one occasion he
had entered and seated himself on the women’s
side of the church, either inadvertently, or think-
ing his official position placed him above the rules
of the church, or perhaps in a spirit of bravado to
see just how far these Christians carried their
new ideas and revolutionary customs.

He soon found out their attitude. For from her
own seat Lottie Moon saw him, and well knowing
the embarrassment it would be to the women of
the congregation, and the scandal it might cause,
she at once requested him to move, enforcing her
words with the vigorous use of her umbrella, until
she had him marching over where he belonged.
Needless to say, he moved, and if this message
with its words of approval and commendation of
the missionaries’ strictness of conduct be any in-
dication, he never forgot the incident, nor did
he fail to understand its significance.

So the letter means more than just an official
recognition of the request of the missionaries to
return to their stations, and pledge of security
for the native Christians. It is an illuminating
glimpse into the attitude of the younger genera-
tion of Chinese officials who were bringing about
the changes in China which Miss Moon so often
mentioned, in spite of the distressing events of
that terrible year.

“Your letter with the enclosed list of districts
where your mission work is carried on was re-
ceived yesterday and its contents noted,” said the
Governor to the missionaries. ‘With reference to
the cause of the recanting of Christians on the
6th Moon, (July, 1900), all chow and hien offi-
cials on their own authority determined and ar-
ranged the matter in the hope of protecting theLOTTIE MOON 233

Christians. Their action was not on my instruc-
tions. I, on numerous occasions, ordered my sub-
ordinates to protect Christian interests as you,
Reverend Sirs, well know. As there is no dis-
order from international friction it is the more
important that foreign treaty engagements be
looked after and carefully observed. All pledges
of Christians to recant, whether given to offi-
cials or to persons acting as security therefor,
all voluntary pledges or promises of whatever
kind to the same effect are null and void and no
further account is to be taken of them. I have
moreover instructed my subordinates to put out
proclamations for public information lest Chris-
tians be subject to hindrance or annoyance.
“You, Reverend Sirs, have been preaching in
China for many years and without exception ex-
hort men to righteousness. Your church cus-
toms are strict and all your converts may well
observe them.” (Was it a memory of a day in
Tengchow church that made him comment on this
as a count in the favor of the missionary?) “In
establishing your customs you have been careful
to see that Chinese law was observed. How then
can it be said there was disloyalty? To meet this
calumny I have instructed that proclamations be
put out. I purpose hereafter to have lasting
peace. Church interests may prosper and your
idea of preaching righteousness I can promote.
Enclosed please find copy of proclamation and or-
ders to my subordinates for which I ask for your
forbearing consideration. The present turning
over is of a most extraordinary character. It
forced you, Reverend Sirs, by land and water to
go long journeys and subjected you to alarm and
danger causing me many qualms of conscience.
If you, Reverend Sirs, wish to return to the In-234 LOTTIE MOON

terior I would beg that you first give me word
that I may most certainly order the Military to
carefully protect and escort you. With wishes for
your happiness, Yours in reply,

Yuan Shi Kai.”

Application to the American Consul, Mr. Fow-
ler, however, brought earnest request that they
should not yet venture into the interior, though
Mr. Lowe and Mr. Stephens each made trips to
their fields, and several trips were made to Teng-
chow and to Hwanghsien. Frequent letters went
from Chefoo to Fukuoka, keeping Miss Moon in
close touch with the situation. But all agreed that
nothing could be done yet, certainly not until the
Consul, who had been so earnest and untiring in
his efforts for them, should agree that it was safe
for them to leave Chefoo.

As February, 1901, brought the beginning of the
Chinese New Year, Miss Moon began to hope that
she could go back. She well knew that there would
be much disturbance during the holiday time, so
when Miss Dutton, hearing that the men mission-
aries had been permitted to return to their sta-
tions by the Consul, decided to try to return, Miss
Moon stayed on a little while longer, preferring to
be busy in Fukuoka rather than to be idle in
crowded Chefoo. The country was still in a state
of war in many places, the papers being filled with
accounts of cruelties and persecutions, looting and
pillaging.

Not until after the first of April did she sail
from Nagasaki, arriving in due time at Tengchow.
The home at the Little Cross Roads was opened
and set in order. The Christians crowded in to
greet her, coming from the villages for many
miles when they heard she had returned. So life
in old Tengchow was resumed, the threads of theLOTTIE MOON 235

 

work picked up once again and gradually order
came out of the chaos of the last ten months, and
life, though never again to be quite the same af-
ter such a fearful tragedy, was fuller than before,
for a New China was beginning to emerge from
the ancient land.

In May of that year the long-prayed-for, long-
hoped-for medical missionary, T. W. Ayers, of
Georgia, came out to Hwanghsien. He was wel-
comed with joy by everyone. The Consul, Mr.
Fowler, commented on his coming to Mr. Steph-
ens, “I always welcome the medical missionary to
China, and you will find that with the dispensary
and hospital work at Hwanghsien you will bring
to Christ one hundred persons where one has been
brought heretofore.” It meant the making of
Hwanghsien into the main station of North China.
At the mission meeting in June several new and
important phases of work were decided upon.
There was great need for more training of leaders
and preachers among the native Christians. So it
was decided that Dr. Hartwell was to teach train-
ing classes in three centers of the work, Teng-
chow, Hwanghsien and Pingtu, for one month
each. This was the beginning of a regular theo-
logical class for the entire year. Mr. and Mrs.
Pruitt had already sacrificed much for the boys’
school. The new medical work rapidly developed
and Miss Moon led in the request to the Board that
a medical department be established in connection
with the boys’ school for the training of Chinese
young men who would be great helpers to the
missionaries in all their country and city work.
This appealed to her very much, for through the
years she had seen so much of suffering and pain
in all her country work that now a prospect of
giving relief not only to those who could come to_ 236 LOTTIE MOON

the doctor in Hwanghsien, but to the people of
the hundreds of villages in the country filled her
with great joy. This was a dream not to be real-
ized soon, for it was many years yet before the
Board could send the second medical man neces-
sary to carry forward the plan.

Her report for the quarter ending in June was
exceedingly interesting.

“I have made five trips to the country. The first
was to Buh Go, where the Christians gave me a
most joyful welcome. They could hardly talk of
anything but the fearful perils through which
they passed during two months of last summer.
Out of them all the Lord delivered them. They
were full of thankfulness for the deliverance. At
Wu Shi Li Pu, which I used to consider very hope-
ful, the work seems to have gone back, and poppy
planting is much in evidence. I heard of many
opium shops. Of course they have been there all
these years but I have never before seen the poppy
growing there and the women pressing out the
juice. The women and girls came about me as
usual, but the men with whom I used to be on ex-
cellent terms were conspicuously absent. At Wen
Ga Hia considerable interest was manifested. I
expect to go there again next week.

“I teach as usual in the Sunday school here,
though my old class of men and boys is scattered.
I have a small class of young men not one of
whom can read. We had a very pleasant mission
meeting at Hwanghsien. We regretted very much
the absence of the Pingtu brethren who are busy
attending to indemnities and restoring their
homes. They deserve our deepest Sympathy.
Their burdens are heavy. I heard yesterday that
a new society has sprung up in Pingtu and Lai-
yang whose purpose is to resist the payment of237

 

LOTTIE MOON

indemnities. In Chihli several hundred villages
have banded together and have united their forces
with the Boxers. The Imperial troops have been
defeated and no one can foresee the end. We pray
that the trouble may not extend to this end of the
country. A Boxer proclamation was put upon
Mr. Stephens’ door recently saying that his house
was to be burned. Mr. Stephens was absent at
the time, but Mrs. Stephens took vigorous meas-
ures and the affair seems to have been nipped in
the bud. The officials are sincerely anxious to
keep down disturbances. If once they get beyond
control the scenes of last year will be repeated
with added horrors.”

In the homeland the reflection of all the stirring
events in China had been shown by greatly in-
creased missionary zeal and interest. The sto-
ries of tragedy and heroism, of martyrdom and
spiritual triumph in time of sore trial had stirred
the hearts of the people and the Board was given
courage and means to throw in the long needed
reénforcements all along the line. Tengchow and
North China received its share of the new mis-
sionaries, to the great joy of the veteran woman
who had pleaded so long and seemingly so much
in vain.

That these were still days of much anxiety can
be seen from a letter written to a young cousin
on receipt of the announcement of his wedding.
After tender felicitations on the happy event, she
wrote of a crisis that was then on in which
Chinese custom threatened to bring about an-
other Boxer outbreak. Again does this reveal the
changing attitude of the younger leaders in China,
for the Governor she speaks of is the same Yuan
Shi Kai who, for the sake of a new China, had238 LOTTIE MOON

dared the vengeance of the Empress Dowager
during the past year of terror.

“I returned here about the middle of April.
Shantung is apparently as quiet as it ever was.
The people are kind and friendly. Yet every-
thing depends, humanly speaking, on the life of
one man. If our governor should die, or be re-
moved, the province would be in a blaze in a few
weeks. His mother died over a month ago. Ac-
cording to Chinese customs he should go into
retirement for a period of twenty-seven months.
Immediately in a district out west, the ‘Boxers’
began to drill and they declared that they would
exterminate all Christians in that region. Last
year they killed one hundred and twenty.

“The Governor was ordered not to go into
retirement for the usual period, but to mourn in
his Yamen, (Court of Law), for one hundred
days according to the Manchu custom. His sub-
stitute was ordered to consult him on all matters
of importance. The Governor then, remains in
power, much to our relief. As soon as the ‘Box-
ers’ began again, he sent out cavalry to suppress
them. He is said to have the best troops in China.
They are well fed and clothed and promptly paid.
Hence, they are contented and obey orders. They
are drilled in Western style. The ‘Boxer’ move-
ment is not dead but it no longer has government
help and therefore is not to be greatly feared.”

Life settled back into much the same routine
as the days passed. In late July there came an
opportunity for a remarkable step forward, in
Miss Moon’s opinion, in the offer of the Presbyter-
ian Mission to sell its admirably located property
in Tengchow to the Southern Baptists and with-
draw from that field. This had been brought
about by the decision of the Presbyterians toLOTTIE MOON 239

remove their splendid school from Tengchow to
Wei Hsien, and early in the year 1901 there had
been much debate as to the further step of aban-
doning Tengchow as a mission station. This
did not happen, however, and the Presbyterians
kept their mission station. So the opportunity
passed.

In August, along with the return of the Pruitts,
there came the news of a new woman missionary
for Tengchow and one for Hwanghsien. ‘There
is plenty of work for her to do,’ was the reply
of Lottie Moon to the announcement of her ap-
pointment. The high tide of feeling in the home-
land aroused by the heroism during the Boxer Re-
bellion had crystallized in the form of men and
means for reenforcement all along the line. Miss
Hartwell was returning, and there was much to
be done to have residences ready. All the work
was progressing in splendid fashion. The coun-
try work, in which only Dr. Hartwell had been
active now for many years, was in the capable
hands of Mr. and Mrs. Owens. “Mr. Owens is
most active and energetic,” wrote Lottie Moon
just before the Association in October, 1901. “Still
it is hardly possible for him to cover a fourth of
our field, and his heart goes out to the regions be-
yond. He is a choice spirit and I believe will ac-
complish much for the Master. His wife is a
gifted worker and does well everything she under-
takes. We are greatly blessed in having two such
workers. Our most imperative need in Tengchow
just now is more men. We greatly need active,
energetic young men like Mr. Owens for the coun-
try work. It is a hard, rough life, and the only
attraction it possesses is that it is the Master’s
work. All our churches have been built up largely240 LOTTIE MOON

or entirely from the country people. It is, there-
fore, a wise policy to send out now strong young
men who will be ready to endure hardships for the
gospel’s sake. One hardly hears of Mr. Owens’
return before he is off somewhere else. Fancy how
delightful it is to an old worker to see such energy
and zeal exercised in a field so long neglected for
lack of workers.”

The fact that she had turned with all her heart
and mind again to the Tengchow work did not
prevent her from following with eagerness and a
tender watchfulness the progress of the work in
Pingtu. With joy she had seen the new mission-
aries take hold, reach out and occupy the field,
building their foundations deep and strong. But
for two years now Pingtu had been marking time.
The Boxer troubles had struck harder at Pingtu
than any other North China mission. The recov-
ery was slower. There had been no reenforce-
ment, and the work was growing far beyond the
power of the three missionary families to handle.
Then at the mission meeting at Hwanghsien, in
October, there came a new crisis. It was decided
to open work at Laichowfu, with the Lowes enter-
ing as the first missionary family to live there.
This took away one-third of the force at Pingtu.
The year before, the mission had requested the
sending of single women to all three stations,
Tengchow, Hwanghsien and Pingtu. Hwanghsien
and Tengchow had been sent one each, but as yet
none had gone to Pingtu. When word came to the
mission that there were two more single women
under appointment for North China, Miss Moon
wrote from her heart of love for Pingtu, making
an appeal that they be sent to this field for which
she had pleaded in days gone by. Again theLOTTIE MOON 241

devoted advocate came to plead for the women of
Eimgtur

““At the mission meeting Mr. Sears said that in
Pingtu there are one hundred Christian heads of
families whose wives are heathen. Single women
are needed to teach the wives and children of
these Christian men. One of the saddest sights
in the world is to see a congregation made up
wholly or almost wholly of men. Then the Lowes
leaving, leaves her school for girls now number-
ing twelve. Next year there will be twenty. Who
is to look after this school? I want to urge that
something be done and done promptly for Pingtu.
I told Mr. Lowe yesterday that surely the South
has two other women who might be found for
Pingtu. The need is very great. Tengchow has
three single women, Pingtu none; Hwanghsien
has one single woman, Pingtu none; as to the
overwhelming pressure of work Tengchow and
Hwanghsien combined do not compare with
Pingtu.”

So she had written twenty years before. Pingtu
still on her heart!

The plan for Dr. Hartwell to spend a stated time
each year in Pingtu and Hwanghsien teaching
classes of workers had worked splendidly so far
as that phase of the work had gone, but had
proven disastrous to his regular work at Teng-
chow. Her letter presented the problems that had
resulted. “Mr. Owen, of course, puts his shoulder
to the wheel, but however willing he may be, he
cannot do three men’s work, nor be in two places
at once.” Winningly, pleadingly and urgently she
wrote to Dr. Willingham, telling him of the work,
of its changing phases, of the great need. Her
pen was as vigorous as of old, her love for the242 LOTTIE MOON

work had deepened as the years had passed, her
heart was filled with joy at the opportunities now
before them in North China, and possessed by a
great longing that somehow Southern Baptists
could be made to see the necessity for throwing
in the needed forces to occupy the land so won-
drously changing in these eventful years.

In February, the two young women, appointed
in August, Miss Jessie Pettigrew and Miss Mary
Williford, arrived in North China, one going to
Hwanghsien and the other to Pingtu, whither
Miss Dutton had already removed from Teng-
chow, with the hearty approval of the mission.

“I shall always contend,” wrote Lottie Moon in
a letter giving this news to Dr. Willingham, “that
a well-equipped station needs not less than four
single women and four families. Of the latter one
should be a physician. Do wake up the Foreign
Mission Board to see our needs. Oh, if they could
all be transported to Shantung just for a few days
and could see for themselves! Then right quickly
would they say, ‘Men and women for Pingtu, a
good strong reenforcement for Laichowfu, another
family and two single women for Hwanghsien,
two more families and two more single women
for Tengchow”’

“Why is it that the new missionaries are so
deeply impressed with the need of more laborers?
Why is it that as soon as they get on the field their
hearts are so stirred within them that they write
and beg for more workers? It is that their eyes
are opened to see the awful need as the people in
America cannot perceive it. I think we old ones
feel it more than the newcomers.

“Southern Baptists were the first to enter Shan-
tung; they were also the first to settle inLOTTIE MOON 243

Tengchow; yet we have never at any time had an
adequate force at any station. We have had in all
Shantung until within the very recent years only
as Many missionaries as the Presbyterians had in
Tengchow alone. Besides they have had five other
well-equipped stations. The English Baptists be-
gan on a small scale but Mr. Jones waked them
up and they poured missionaries into Shantung.
They have strong stations in Shantung and
Shansi. So you wonder when I see the need as
I do that I continue to cry out for more workers.
Mission workers in Shantung this year are look-
ing for a large ingathering. Who is to teach the
new converts? Who are to evangelize the enor-
mous masses hardly beginning to be moved? You
should have heard the prayers that went up last
Saturday evening in the station meeting for
strong young men to go out into the country and
build up churches—strong, earnest, consecrated
young men.”

Again she spoke of the need for strong new
missionaries:

“The plea is always for strong men and women,
the very best that can be had. We want those
that will be missed in their communities and
churches!”

The beginning of the year 1902 came with a
sweep of work in both country and city. A re-
vival spirit that filled the little churches with in-
quirers was pervading all the work, and the let-
ters during this spring were happy and rejoicing.
In a letter to a cousin, she wrote with exultation:

“From being the hardest, coldest and most in-
different of people, the inhabitants of Tengchow
have become most cordially kind and friendly. I
have lived on this street where I now reside about244 LOTTIE MOON

twenty years, and my nearest neighbors have
seemed absolutely oblivious of my existence. They
were altogether too respectable to associate with
the ‘foreign devils.’

“Now they seek me and invite me to their
homes. Of course, some still hate us, but as I go
about the city numbers of people, especially the
children, speak to me most kindly by name. I have
not the remotest idea who they are. My day
school (the one on North Street) has run up to
thirty-five children, twenty-three boys and twelve
girls, with probability of increase. We have a
woman’s prayer meeting in the schoolhouse on
Wednesday afternoons, and have begun services
for men, women and children on Sundays.

“By the way, will you ask the Scottsville Sun-
day school to gather up all their old cards and
send me, unless they are sending them to someone
else? I need about one hundred and twenty a
month. Please ask Mr. Daniel to speak to the
Hardware and other Sunday schools and ask them
to send Sunday school picture cards. I need them
as rewards, one a week when I examine the chil-
dren in my day school. This school is really a
Sunday school six days a week. On Sundays the
children attend Sunday school at the church near
my home. I am busy on Sundays from breakfast
until about sunset. Fancy how glad I am when
the darkness settles down and I can rest.”

A significant change came in the name by which
the people addressed her or spoke of her. In the
old days she had had to smile and be kind to those
who called her ‘‘Devil Old Woman.” Now, even
in Tengchow, she was met by the gracious name,
“The Heavenly Book Visitor.” Past sixty, she
was, too busy to think of resting, too happy in theLOTTIE MOON 245

work to consider slowing down and now had come
the long hoped-for, long prayed-for change.

On North Street improvements had been made
in the house, and the school was growing steadily.
A small class of women attended the Sunday ser-
vices regularly and in April, one of these, a woman
who had been taught in her childhood by Mrs.
Crawford, was baptized. She was one of the more
than one hundred baptisms that gladdened the
hearts of the missionaries that year. There was
a friendliness to Christianity that made all the
work seem lighter, happier and more worthwhile
than ever. Gone was the old feeling of the ‘Stone
Wall.” A new Tengchow had come to be.

In the village work the only difficulty was in
getting to them often enough to follow up the hun-
dreds of opportunities. In Buh Go, where the
Boxers had been so active, regular meetings of in-
quirers were begun again. Here one of Mrs.
Pruitt’s boys began a self-supporting school, to the
great joy of Miss Moon, who had visited the vil-
lage for years. In April, she wrote that there
were twenty boys in the school from five different
villages.

So the work grew—in joy and pain, in times of
eager, stressful labor and times of quiet peace.
One evening, in the spring of this year, she had
been teaching at Wu Shi Li Pu all day. The
women had thronged the little room where she
sat on the kang teaching Scripture and songs to
the eager listeners. Lost in the fascination of
leading souls to an understanding of the plan of
salvation, she had forgotten the problems of the
mission, forgotten the indifferent ears of Southern
Baptists, deaf to her pleading for more workers,
forgotten all save the supreme joy of telling his246 LOTTIE MOON

story to these people, her people, who would never
have known him and his love, except for her.

Dark had come and the crowd had scattered.
Only a few women who had come to be friends in
her many trips to this village lingered to minister
to her with gifts of food, and eager offers of ser-
vice for her comfort. Their kindness filled her
cup to overflowing. The village noises died into
peaceful quiet. Supper was over. By the sput-
tering light she wrote a letter, then from the lit-
tle traveling case she took a small black book
from its place between her Hebrew Old Testament
and her Greek New Testament. Bought in Car-
tersville while she was teaching there, she had
come to love its stately prose next to her Bible.
Of late she had read and marked its lines often.
Into its blank pages in front and back she had
copied through the years many passages she loved
from other devotional writings in French, Ger-
man, Latin, and Italian, as well as English. Here
on a page was John A. Broadus on Baptism by the
side of a great passage on love from Staupitz.
The book was Imitation of Christ, by Thomas
a Kempis. Quietly she read.

“Oh, unspeakable grace! Oh, admirable con-
descension! Oh, immeasurable love, especially
bestowed on man!

“But what return shall I make to the Lord for
this grace, for charity so unparalleled?

‘There is nothing else that I am able to present
more acceptable than to offer my heart wholly to
God, and to unite it most inwardly unto him.”

Taking her pencil she underscored the last sen-
tence and wrote the date and village name on the
margin. Then she read on to the end of the
chapter.LOTTIE MOON 247

“Then will he say unto me, ‘If thou art willing
to be with me I am willing to be with thee.’

“And I will answer him, ‘Vouchsafe, O Lord,
to remain with me, for I will gladly be with thee.
This is my whole desire.’ ”

She laid the book by its companions in the little
traveling desk, and wrote in the diary open be-
fore her, where she had just finished the account
of the week’s work:

“T bless the dear Lord for being with me on
this tour now almost ended. He keeps my heart
first on himself—and so I have enjoyed the work
today.”

The entry was ended. She snuffed out the light
and quietly went to sleep. For her heart was
stayed on him who had never failed her, and she
was no longer lonely, no longer worried by the
much speaking of the day. She believed his
promise. Sleep fell sweetly over her, to bless her
tired body, and refresh her mind for another day
of witnessing to his love.

Thus the days came and went; thus some
dreams came true; thus the sowing of past years
found fruition in the harvest here and there of
precious souls won; thus the year slipped away
and furlough time came again.

And it was Virginia again in the springtime of
1903!CHAPTER VI

SHADOWS AND THE HEAVENLY LIGHT

“GOD LAYETH HIS CROSS UPON THOSE HE
LOVETH, AND THEY WHO BEAR IT PATIENTLY AC-
QUIRE MUCH WISDOM.”

From margin of Lottie Moon’s
copy of Imitation of Christ.

OTHING seems to me so alluring as an old
Virginia home such as yours,” wrote Lottie
Moon to a cousin a few months before leav-
ing China. It had been hard to leave China

with the work developing in such a rush. But
once her face was turned toward home she was
filled with joy at the thoughts that surged upon
her heart and mind. By January, 1903, she was
in Scottsville, exactly nine years from the time
she had landed in China in 1894, after the last
happy time at home.

The family was more scattered. The home at
Viewmont had succumbed to the fate of many of
the large estates after the war and had gradually
been sold off in small farms. Nieces and nephews
whom she had learned to know as gay young
people on the previous furlough were now press-
ing her with invitations to come to their own
homes and meet the littlest members of the famil-
ies.

She was a high favorite with the children. The

gift of laughter was still hers, and she could tell

a story in matchless fashion. So from the little

 

  

[ 248 ]LOTTIE MOON 249

   

tots to the fascinated young people, she charmed
and captured them. The stories of her visiting in
Chinese homes, giving fascinating glimpses into
that strange life she lived in such a far away
land, madé indelible impressions on these young
kinsfolk of hers. In turn they brought sunshine
and laughter back into her face. How she en-
joyed telling a group of the young people, hang-
ing around her chair, of the day that she went
visiting in a village and had to eat nine eggs and
drink all the water in which they had been
poached in as many different homes for politeness’
sake, and then on reaching her room must needs
accept without a murmur the apology of her hos-
tess for having only two eggs to offer her for
supper—and eat the two eggs!

Perhaps it was because of such dietetic orgies
to which she had accustomed herself for the sake
of winning favor for her message, that she was
now subject to whims of appetite that led to a
most interesting experience in a cousin’s home.

One day she confided to the cousin her longing
for a partridge, but it was the closed season for
hunting them and she regretfully resigned her-
self to doing without, for she expected to be on
her way back to China before the open season
came. Sitting by her side was a great Maltese
eat which had been her constant companion since
coming into the home. No one noticed him, un-
til they saw him walking in a very stately fashion
into the room with a full grown partridge caught
in his mouth. He laid it at her feet, with not a
mark of his teeth upon it. Needless to say, she
had her partridge, and the cat won a place in the
traditionary lore of the family.

She sought the quiet of nature much during
these visits, sitting in meditation often for hours250

 

LOTTIE MOON

under some great oak tree, or walking with some
child through the woods, seeking rest in the re-
newed sight of birds and flowers and trees of the
dear homeland, and recreation of mind and spirit
in the companionship of children.

At the invitation of her friends, Professor and
Mrs. Thornton, she went to Charlottesville to be
their guest at the banquet given in honor of the
visit of President Roosevelt to the University of
Virginia. It was an occasion full of delight to
the little missionary from far away China. With
quiet dignity, but a sparkle of her eyes that belied
her sober demeanor, she sat in the carriage with
the President on the ride to Monticello, thrilled
at the contact with the great man and storing up
against lonely days in China all the experiences
of a day so full of happy incidents. Of all the
honored guests of that memorable day, perhaps
the little missionary in the quiet, somewhat old
fashioned dress was the most unusual and dis-
tinguished, could the crowd have known the story
of her intrepid life. Like a child she enjoyed the
day to its fullest, exclaiming that it had been forty
years since she had seen a President and she
wanted to make the most of this one!

The spring passed gaily, the Southern Baptist
Convention at Savannah. Ga., being the high light
of these first months at home. Here she met old
friends, touched heart and hand again with the
women of the South, and poured out her soul to
them for China in words that her enthralled list-
eners never forgot. Summer came with many in-
vitations pressing upon her. Through Virginia
and Georgia she went, not at the old mad pace of
the other furlough, but more slowly, more con-
siderate of the toll the years had taken of vitality
and strength. There was a memorable visit toLOTTIE MOON 251

Hollins Institute, soon to be a College—a school
that was now bidding for the patronage, not of
just one State, but of the South. Again she
walked under the bending trees down to the Sul-
phur Spring and up the road to Enon Baptist
Church; again she looked at the sunrise over
Tinkers Mountain. There was rejoicing at the
new buildings and ail the improvements that was
to bring a new day to Hoilins.

There were conferences with Dr. Willingham
about mission matters, particularly the future of
the North Street School, in which she was deeply
interested. Then at the end of the summer, as her
mind began to turn again to China, she went to
Careby Hall for a visit with her beloved class-
mate of Albemarle days, Mrs. W. E. Hatcher.
She was welcomed as a dear guest by the whole
family. Here she found companionship and sym-
pathy, with the mental stimulus that stirred all
the best thought of mind and heart. Discussions
of China from the viewpoint of the statesman, as
well as that of the Christian, missionary, as to the
future of that great land politically and religious-
ly, brought this Virginia home into intimate con-
tact with mission problems and policies.

A young Chinese man, O Fang Yeung, in school
at Fork Union, came to see her and she became
much interested in his hopes and plans. She
urged that he return to China, telling him all that
she foresaw in the future of China’s great need
for Christian leadership. It was a joy to her to
hear several years later of his having given his
life to Christian service in his own land. Her
complete absorption in China and China’s needs
brought a new vision of consecration of life to her
friends. Never was it more forcibly brought to252 LOTTIE MOON

their minds as when one day she and Mrs.
Hatcher had been talking most intimately about
life and its meaning. To those who loved her so
it seemed a pity that she was returning to China
as age brought its attendant feebleness and les-
sening of vitality. Something of this feeling was
expressed by her friend. Quickly she answered,

“O Jennie, do not sympathize with me, rather
congratulate me. I would count it a great priva-
tion if I could not return to my work.”

They stood aside from such devotion, such
courage, not daring to suggest that oid age in the
homeland would be much more comfortable, with
the attentions of friends and kinspeople, and the
tender care that would relieve from responsibility.

Fall came on, and she turned her face toward
China. The last months were spent at Crewe
where her brother now lived and where Edmonia
had come to be with her a while before she sailed.
There were some business matters to be attended
to. One was completing arrangements for the in-
come oj1 the money she had loaned the Board to be
paid to the little sister whom she had found frailer
and more in need of care than ever.

Delightful as the year had been, she began to
long for China. America was the foreign land
now, and China was “Home.” Presently she
wrote the Secretary to arrange passage for her,
timing her arrival so as to reach China at just
about the time she had left it the year before.
So it was with a happy heart she turned her face
China-ward on February 15, 1904, bidding fare-
weli to the loved ones at Crewe, stopping for a
day at Richmond, and then outward bound for
home!

The Japanese-Russiaxv War was on and the ship
on which she sailed carried a cargo of beef forLOTTIE MOON 253

the Russian Army at Vladivostok, which she
wrote, was certain to be captured by the Japanese.
But she added, with thought perhaps of the sea-
sickness to which she had always been subject,
“With so heavy a cargo, the ship cannot help but
be steady.”

The journey was uneventful. During the stop
in Japan, she visited the Calder Willinghams, new
missionaries to Japan. It was an especial pleasure
for her to know Mrs. Willingham, since she had
been told by the Foreign Secretary that the Board
had meant to send her to Tengchow, had not ro-
mance stepped in the way and taken her to Japan
as the wife of the Secretary’s missionary son. Of
this visit she wrote later, “Beautiful Japan! It is
the land of my heart ever since I found refuge
there in Boxer times. The people somehow cast
a glamour over one who lives among them with an
open eye and heart. So I fell under the spell and
it abides.”

While on furlough she had presented the need
of a permanent building for the North Street
School, urging that the old property which had
been leased for many years and was well known
as a center of Baptist work would be the most
feasible and effective property to purchase for
this purpose. Her viewpoint seemed wise to the
Board, but the money had to be found, the Board
not being able to take care of the purchase out of
current receipts. From the Sunbeam Band of
Freemason Street Church, Norfolk, Virginia,
came this gift of $450 which insured the per-
manence of the school. As had been the case in the
purchase of her home twenty-five years or more
before, she again found herself in the tangle of
Chinese land laws and customs. Three owners
appeared, all of whom had to be satisfied, and the254

 

LOTTIE MOON

negotiations lengthened into months of annoyance
and endless discussion with owners, leases and go-
betweens. Not until in September, five months
later, was the purchase actually made and Mr.
Pruitt, the treasurer of the mission, had the deed
officially signed and sealed. So, after many years,
this house, where once she had wanted so much to
live, the property that had in the earliest days of
Tengchow work been known as a center of Baptist
mission activities, finally became the property of
the mission and the school there was an estab-
lished fact.

Missionary problems have as many facets as the
most intricately cut diamond. One that came to
a crisis just after her arrival in Tengchow is an
interesting sidelight on the domestic affairs of the
house at the Little Cross Roads. It seems that in
the other missions of China the problem of whole-
sale entertainment entailed by the constant visit-
ing of inquirers from the villages to the homes of
the misisonaries had been somewhat solved by
adjustment of mission work by which the mission-
aries made regular stays in the villages for classes,
rather than have the inquirers come to their own
homes. But in North China, so largely had the
work been country work, that there was a con-
stant stream of inquirers coming in to the mis-
.Sionary headquarters making the burden of enter-
tainment a tremendous one. There was no fund
provided for this particular phase of the work,
and so the missionaries had gone on, taking care
of it themselves from their own meager resources,
until with the growth of the work, it had assumed
proportions that were beyond their financial abil-
ity to care for.

Early in the year Miss Moon wrote of the situa-
tion to Dr. Willingham, assuring him that theLOTTIE MOON 255

missionaries were not wanting to raise a discus-
sion because of their desire to shift their own
proper responsibility, but that the situation had
grown beyond their ability to cope with it and they
needed some adjustment of the burden. Just at
that time there were many women coming in from
the country for baptism. It was the custom to
instruct them for a week or two. Since she and
Miss Hartwell had been doing the country work
for several years it was but natural that they
should come to them as visitors during this time.
This meant more servants to do the work, more
coolie hire, as well as a large increase in the food
budget, all out of the missionaries’ salary.

Mr. Newton and Mr. Owen were also doing
country work and had the same problem, though
neither had raised the question with the Board.
Her presentation of the problem gives a picture of
missionary work and attendant complications of
Chinese customs and manners.

“In some fields the missionary lives right in the
midst of his people. They can easily attend ser-
vices and go home the same day. Here we have
never had any Christians in the near villages.
The people of the near villages have been openly
hostile or entirely indifferent. Until late years
with the breaking down of opposition in the city,
our work was almost entirely in remote villages
and towns. Those who come for communion or
baptism must stay at least two nights. Women in-
variably stay longer. They do not get away un-
der three nights at the shortest is my experience.
With living expenses so much higher, due to the
war, I simply cannot afford to go on entertaining
guests at my own expense, and yet the work
cannot afford to have the entertaining stopped.
We are entertained in the homes of these women, aaictal vine tel leet Nar lan nl a) ae ae Ee de on eae) i aad s

) oe ae ee

 

  

256 LOTTIE MOON

when we go on the field, but where we are at the
most only two guests at a time for them, they are
often twenty at atime for us! I had a small class
of five women last month, three of whom were
from the country. They remained not quite three
weeks. Of the three, two were baptized before
going home and the other had been baptized in the
spring. It is delightful work and the class serves
to attract the women and girls of the city who like
to come in and learn with the women from the
country. I consulted with Miss Hartwell and
tried to limit the expenses of the class to the same
that she allows for her school girls, 2000 cash
apiece per month. This supplies good but plain
food. Of course, guests have to be entertained on
a different scale. It would seem niggardly to feed
them as they live at home. The fact that they
are guests entitles them to expect such entertain-
ing as they would give to guests in their homes.”

So discussion of a small problem gave insight
into the manifold phases of missionary life. Of
course, the question was settled by the Board.
Two solutions were offered, to have classes at
stated times at the centrally located villages for
all those who could attend from their homes, and
second, to have certain times in the year larger
classes of perhaps several weeks duration, the
expense of which to be borne by a small fund pro-
vided by the Board. In the letter in which she
acknowledged gratefully the attention of the
Board to the request she hastened to reassure
them that this fund would be most conscientious-
ly administered for she says,

“This does not mean, of course, that I shall not
entertain personal Chinese friends at my own
expense.”LOTTIE MOON 257

The Japanese-Russian War had affected condi-
tions in North China greatly during the summer.
Living expenses were very much higher, the rate
of exchange lower than in all her years of resi-
‘dence in China, and since Manchuria was shut off
as an outlet for the surplus of Chinese labor,
there was much poverty and suffering in her re-
gion. This had affected the attendance at the
North Street School. An epidemic of smallpox
raged in the city from the spring through the
summer and even into the opening months of
school. The Chinese custom of sewing the clothes
on children and letting them just wear out of
them, prevented the admittance of several chil-
dren to the school for they would be bearers of
the contagion even though all in their family may
have recovered or died of the disease a long while
before. She wrote of all this to the Secretary and
then pictured the economic condition of the peo-
ple as she saw it right on her own street.

“The most trying hindrance at present comes
from the extreme pressure of hard times. Our
proximity to the scene of hostilities has greatly
enhanced the cost of living. Parents who could
formerly spare their children to go to school must
now have their help to eke out a scanty subsis-
tence. It is really pitiable. The poorest food,
Hushu, which is the staple food for even the mid-
dle class, used to cost from six to nine hundred
cash a bushel. It has now run up from twelve to
Seventeen hundred cash a bushel. Only very
poor people used to depend upon grass for fuel.
Now those who were formerly decently comfort-
able have to send out their children to get grass.
They dig it up by the roots, dry it in the sun, and
lay it away for the winter. It used to be three258 LOTTIE MOON

 

cash a catty, now it is ten cash. A catty is one
and one-third pounds. How the poor are to pull
through the winter is a problem. There will be
much suffering and want.

“Our region is dependent for the overflow of
its population upon Manchuria. Nearly every
family has its representatives over there in times
of peace. These send back money to help support
those who stay at home. Now the majority of
those who should be in Manchuria earning money
are idle at home, a tax on the dwindling resources
of the family. Some are still at Port Arthur or
Vladivostok unable to make remittances as be-
fore. The prospects are gloomy in the extreme.
A boy who used to be in the North Street School,
an orphan, was turned out to sleep on the streets
and beg. An old woman past seventy who had
seen better days, has been sleeping on the street
in a temple door, exposed to the wind and rain.
There are many other homeless ones. Those I
have mentioned are people I have known for
years.”

Later in the year she wrote again of the situa-
tion among the people.

“As winter deepens, the poverty and want
around us grow more acute. One admires the
people who meet these trials. They fall heavy on
the respectable poor, who are half the time, I may
say now at all times, on the verge of starvation.
When the War is over, things will brighten.”
More than ever before her letters were filled with
the sadness of the sights about her.

The fall of 1904 brought a momentous decision
in the missionary life of the North China work.
The Training School under Dr. Hartwell had
grown to greater proportions than could longer
be handled by one man. There had for sometimeLOTTIE MOON 259

been feeling among the missionaries that the plan
of having three classes with Dr. Hartwell spend-
ing the time necessary in the three main stations,
Tengchow, Hwanghsien and Pingtu, should be
superseded by a permanent Training School, lo-
cated in one station with buildings sufficient to
provide boarding facilities. So for a year the
school had been established at Tengchow, where
it had pushed the Boys’ School out of its quar-
ters. Something had to be done.

The mission meeting at Pingtu in November
came to the decision to ask that this Training
School be located at Hwanghsien, and provision
be made for it by the Board. Mr. Pruitt had
come over from Hwanghsien to help Dr. Hartwell
during the previous year. This had depleted the
Hwanghsien force by taking its veteran worker
away. After going carefully over the whole ques-
tion it seemed wise to ask the Board to move the
Training School at Hwanghsien, and there asso-
ciate it with the two institutions on which the mis-
sion was already majoring, the Boys’ School and
the Hospital.

This was done. This decision had many impli-
cations. Already the Hospital had been located
at Hwanghsien. The Boys’ School there had been
made the chief educational institution for the
North China mission. Now the school which was
to develop into a Theological Seminary of no small
proportions was located there. As the frontier
of missionary adventure progressed westward, so
did the center of activity move westward, and it
was logical that Hwanghsien, the younger city,
with a hustling air of business, a receptive peo-
ple in a rich valley and a point of departure for
the interior should become the central point for260 LOTTIE MOON

development of those institutions that would pro-
vide the native leadership.

As yet there had been little development of
women’s work beyond the fundamental evangelis-
tic work from house to house. As the years
passed and weightier matters came into the mis-
sion council meeting, Miss Moon continued to
plead for more attention to this vital phase of
the work. ‘‘What of the women” was the question
that stirred the matter at every meeting. But
she plead in vain. One of the missionaries asso-
ciated with her in those days has said, “She was
a generation ahead of her time in her emphasis
on woman’s work. She was a born pioneer.”

In the meantime school work went on splendidly
in the North Street compound, now almost entire-
ly rebuilt into a most attractive school plant. “I
am simply delighted with the facilities afforded
me for carrying on’ school work,” she wrote Dr.
Willingham in a letter telling of all the details of
the remodeling and rebuilding of the property.
It had cost, purchase price and all, only a little
more than $450. Now came the question of ad-
ding another teacher to take care of the crowd-
ing pupils, for the school was growing by leaps
and bounds. This would entail an expense of fif-
teen gold dollars a year. Could she have that
additional appropriation? Happily she wrote of
the large yard where the children could play in
the sunshine, and of the happiness and splendid
progress of the pupils.

“T have the pleasure of reporting a good half
session of the Memorial School on North Street,”
she wrote at the close of June, 1905. “A better
class of boys have come in this year, so we are not
so broken up by the wheat harvest. Of course, we
still have many poor boys who must go out toLOTTIE MOON 261

glean wheat and who in the autumn will have
to dig up fuel for the winter. I recognize the ne-
cessity and praise them for helping their parents.
Still in the advanced department more than half
are from families above this necessity, financially.
Improvements in the curriculum have undoubtedly
drawn in boys who otherwise would not have
come: The New Testament is and will remain the
chief textbook. The school is the joy of my
heart.”

Later she wrote of these boys, “It is a delight
to see the boys growing in character. Each boy
feels that I am his friend, and will come to me
without hesitation. The Chinese ideal of the re-
lation between pupils and teacher is one of fear
on the one side and severity on the other. The
pupil must shrink away when his teacher appears.
They have never dreamed that the law of life is
love. One of the boys was baptized not long
since. The boys are sent to us to be made into
gentlemen. I hope they will some day be Chris-
tian gentlemen.” She also mentioned in connec-
tion with the school the neglect of the country
work that had to be, if the schools were looked
after. “If I were three women and still young
I might do something in the country!” she ex-
claimed.

Changes were taking place in North China,
changes that were gradually remaking the think-
ing of the people. A school system modeled some-
what after the fashion of the foreign schools was
slowly being established. Two of these schools
had been established in Tengchow, and Tengchow
was coming to be quite an educational center In
this new day, even as it had been in the centuries
past with its historic Examination Halls of the

Old China.262 LOTTIE MOON

In the fall the removal of the Training School
to Hwanghsien became an established fact. This
left only the Newtons and Miss Moon at Teng-
chow. She had been heartily in accord with the
decision to establish the school at the other sta-
tion but she faced honestly the situation at Teng-
chow. “It ought to be remembered that I am
not equal to the country work that I used to do,”
was her only admission of her inability to fling
her own marvelous energies into the breach until
relief could come. The school had been such a
joy to her, she longed to stay with it, yet as of
old the country work called to her. “I have al-
ways thought that if I could be in two places at
one time I might accomplish something. As it
is, if one interest is pushed two others suffer.
If I am constantly in the country, the work of city
visiting and the school both suffer. If I confine
myself to the city there is no one to work my dis-
trict in the country which is enormously large.
I have known the field now for over thirty years,
and it has never seemed so hopeful as now. The
people are not naturally religious as they are
out west. It took more than twenty years to live
down the hostility engendered by the Anglo-
French War in China. Now that hostility exists
only to a limited extent. We need now many
workers, missionary and native.” Of Miss Hart-
well’s removal to Hwanghsien she speaks with
deep regret.

“She leaves the Girls’ School without a head.
She also had two day schools in the city and one
in the country. She has country work, but that
can be worked as easily from Hwanghsien. Her
going will be a calamity for our situation and
especially for the Girls’ Boarding School.LOTTIE MOON 263

Whatever she does, she does most admirably. Our
loss is Hwanghsien’s gain.”

But there was hope of reenforcement, hope real-
ized by the coming of Miss Taylor. Of the strenu-
ous program and heavy responsibility that fell on
her shoulders during the school vear of 1906 while
Miss Taylor was learning the language, she said
very little. She was too busy to write! The North
Street School was still flourishing, the city work
was showing gratifying results, the day schools
which Miss Hartwell had been supervising
were full and of the Girls’ Boarding School, for
which she had felt so much apprehension, she
wrote happily.

“Under Miss Hartwell’s wise administration the
discipline and spiritual atmosphere of the school
were such that after her departure the school has
seemed to run itself. The teachers proved most
trustworthy, and the matron is a beautiful Chris-
tian character. Even the school cook bears the
impress of Miss Hartwell’s faithful, prayerful
training. A sweeter, lovelier, more docile set of
girls I have never known. Under such circum-
stances then, the care of the school has been far
less exacting’ than I feared. It has really been a
minimum of trouble.”

Even then, however, Miss Taylor had begun to
relieve her of some of the details of the work, and
when after the Chinese New Year she took entire
charge, Miss Moon could piu »n the work in the
villages, now so long neglected.

So the year passed. Still through the house
the Little Cross Roads passed the currents of mis-
sionary life, still there was no faltering, no slack-
ening of mind or heart, though here and there
is a glimpse of the realization that the years
were telling in an inevitable lessening of vigor264 LOTTIE MOON

of body. From her study she kept in touch with
the thought of the world. The bound volumes of
Review of Reviews gathered on her book shelves,
the Fortnightly Review, Edinburgh Review, At-
lantic Monthly, Littell’s Magazine and books from
America and England kept her in touch with lit-
erature, science and art. Even fashion magazines
penetrated this section of China once in a while,
chiefly Paris fashions re-printed for the Russian
ladies of the Manchurian cities.

She had never ceased to be a student. There
had come up a question about the necessity for
the missionaries continuing to keep a Chinese
teacher after many years in China. It evoked
from her a most scholarly discussion of the Chi-
nese language, its intricacies and the need for con-
stant study on the part of the missionary, no
matter how long his residence in China, nor how
apt a student he might be. Out of her own ex-
perience as a linguist, based on a facility that she
had assiduously developed from the school days
in Virginia, she spoke with authority on the sub-
ject.

“The missionary comes to China knowing Eng-
lish and most probably Greek, Latin and possibly
Hebrew; also one or more European languages as
they are taught in American colleges. These
languages are all alphabet languages, and to know
one is an immense advantage in acquiring another.
English and German «te cognate, so are Italian,
Spanish, Fxeucn and Protuguese. Even Russian,
wrs- Sounds to our ears barbarous, is alphabetic.
To know Greek and Latin gives one a clue to
the meaning of many words in English, or even
in the study of modern continental languages. Not
one of these languages gives any help in studyingLOTTIE MOON 265

Chinese. The Chinese language grew up in a
wholly different fashion. It is not alphabetic.”

Then she went into a most technical analysis
of the Chinese language, concluding in the end
with the simple statement, ‘‘The better the type
of work one wishes to do as a missionary, the
more one needs a teacher, and the longer one lives
in China, the move one needs to learn of this most
intricate language.”

So we find often in these years mention of an
hour spent with her teacher, for habits of study
reasserted themselves as the years became a lit-
tle more exacting of hours for physical rest. The
study of Hebrew, begun ten years before, ‘“‘to
keep her mind in trim” as she said, was under-
taken more seriously now and the reading of
Greek, ever a joy, was done more regularly.

From the earliest years there had been at stated
times a unique gathering of all the missionaries
of every denomination in Tengchow, known as
the Tengchow Literary Society. Modeled un-
doubtedly on the lines of the literary society of
the colleges of that day, its avowed purpose was
to keep its members in touch with the thought
life of the world, broaden their knowledge, and
to keep their minds alert to the best of literature
and current history. They had regular programs
with assigned subjects for discussions and papers.
Sometimes this was on literature, ancient or
modern, sometimes on comparative religion, es-
pecially those phases that would be most interest-
ing to students of Chinese life, sometimes they
went into history, and even archeology. Dr.
Crawford had been a most active member of this
organization, and Mrs. Crawford had kept the
minutes of the society for many years. Many
papers leading out in discussions are still avail-266 LOTTIE MOON

able to those who would like to know what these
missionaries, isolated in a far away part of the
world, thought and talked about. Lottie Moon
kept many of her papers. They are on such wide-
ly diverse subjects as “Grecian Literature,” ‘The
Value of the Study of Modern Languages,” “The
Advantage of Wearing Chinese Dress,” “The
Latest Movements of Scientific Thought,” ‘“Diffi-
culties of Missionary Life,” “The Poetry of
Browning,” and “‘Causes of the American Civil
War.” Fragments of the programs show as varied
a range of study and research from other mis-
Sionaries as these topics taken at random from
her letters. There were many choice and scholar-
ly spirits among the Presbyterian missionaries.
_ One may easily picture the animated discussions,

and brilliant arguments that characterized their
meetings. There is no record as to how long this
organization lived. But for many years Lottie
Moon was a leading spirit, determined that
neither would she grow dull and narrow, nor
would she let those about her sink into the rut
of the task before them, however fascinating and
exacting that task might be. Thus did she try to
balance her life, and find avenues of escape from
the pressure of heathenism, that could have over-
whelmed her mentally and spiritually, as well as
physically, if she did not keep well the fortress
of her own high heart.

There were hours of leisure, too. In the quiet
of the evening it was pleasant to walk through
the city, out of the great city gate, past the an-
cient wall and down between overhanging trees
to the seashore. Often with her Chinese friends,
or one of the missionaries she walked and talked
in this hour of relaxation. In later years she
rode down to the beach in a sedan chair, alwaysLOTTIE MOON 267
with the same Chinese coolies for bearers. There
was one dear Chinese friend whom she called
“sister,” who was often her companion in these
evening walks.

Jane Lide, who came out in 1909 to be her
youthful associate, was the witness of an amus-
ing incident of one of these walks. In one place
the path was very narrow, and elevated above
the cart road below. One evening as they turned
a corner of the great wall, towering on one side
of the path, they saw coming toward them a petty
official of the Chinese army on horseback, riding,
not on the road, but on the foot path. It was far
too narrow for them to pass in safety, and the
younger woman was preparing to get off the path,
fearful he would ride them down, which certainly
seemed his intention.

With her hand firmly grasping that of her com-
panion, Miss Moon held her in the path, saying,

“Don’t be afraid, Jane, I’ll attend to this
fellow.”

She never went out without her umbrella, large
and very useful in many an emergency. She
waited until the impudent horseman was right
upon them, and then suddenly raised the umbrella
to its full spread of top, right in the horse’s face.
Needless to say the horse and rider took to the
road below unceremoniously and rather uncom-
fortably and the official’s dignity was considerably
disturbed. But Miss Moon and her companion
went quietly on with their walk and thereafter
the young man was more careful in his dealings
with the foreign women whether he liked them
any better or not.

There were other times of leisure and recrea-
tion. Often during the summer months the mis-
sionaries came up to Tengchow to escape from268 LOTTIE MOON

the heat of the interior cities. Here there were
cool breezes, and the soothing music of sea waves
to rest tired minds and bodies, marvelous places
for the children to play, and rest from the press
of the crowd. They built a little clubhouse of
mat sheds on the beach which was occupied by
someone most of the summer. Here she came to
know better the missionaries with whom she was
not directly associated, and the children growing
up in their homes in the now widely scattered sta-
tions of North China mission. Here came the
Sears with their two children, George and Mary,
loved as friends all the more dearly because
through them dreams were coming true in Pingtu.

Then, once or twice she went down to Chefoo,
four and a half hours away by coastwise steamer.
It was a delightful trip, never out of sight of land,
and the sea usually very quiet. In Chefoo there
were several homes open to the missionaries, some
of them the summer homes of missionaries at
Shanghai and other Central China stations, or
rather community-owned homes, for not many
of them could claim one all to themselves. Here
she came to know better the missionaries of the
other parts of China. So there had been, especial-
ly in these later years, times of rest and change
that brought relief to her tired mind and heart
and companionship to her spirit.

The home at the Little Cross Roads had come
to mean much to her and to missionaries and
Chinese friends. Through the years there had
been necessary improvements, which had gradual-
ly transformed it from the hundred-year-old Chi-
nese house into which she had moved nearly thirty
years before. The yard was a bit of old Virginia,
with its shrubs, roses and flowers of many kinds.LOTTIE MOON 269

She had much company, of whom sometimes she
wrote in mock despair to the homefolk.

“Our Presbyterian friends have had both mis-
sion meeting and Presbytery here and the two
lasted for nearly two weeks, while, in the mean-
time, our Association also came and went. I en-
tertained a good many of the Presbyterians at
dinner and had of my own mission a family of
five with me from Saturday unto Tuesday, be-
sides a number of Chinese guests. All the lat-
ter are not gone yet. I had the Presbyterians to
dinner three days last week and to supper once.
And twice to dinner this week. I have good ser-
vants and like to entertain my friends.

“On Tuesday I went to the country, returning
on Saturday. As soon as I arrived the Chinese
began to drop in to welcome me. Today I studied
Chinese, paid up teacher and servants for last
moon (month), called at Dr. Hartwell’s, came
back and rushed through a letter to Mrs. Craw-
ford, partly on business. I was expecting mo-
mently to be interrupted by a Chinese woman
and two restless children who are staying here.
Immediately after dinner while I was in my store-
room they came but did not stay very long. I got
some knitting and that somehow moderated any
impatience I may have felt. As I wrote the last
sentence a woman came in to know if I were
going out visiting the Chinese this afternoon. I
have been so rushed of late that I felt I could ex-
cuse myself and told her I had not time. I ought
to go and see a sick neighbor. Another inter-
ruption! Ah me! The good brother has gone
after a rather long talk. Another! Oh! It was
the milk and butter man with his account for
the past month. We go by the Chinese month.
As I have had company the account for both items270 LOTTIE MOON

ran up to over four thousand cash. I had oyster
soup several times for my guests and that requires
a good deal of milk.”

Homemaker, builder, teacher, preacher, execu-
tive, counselor and friend. Certainly the home
which she had made in the old Chinese city played
a great part in all the different fields of service
in which she spent her life.

Into the house at the Little Cross Roads through
the years there had come the interesting boys
and girls of the missionary families.

On the return from her furlough in 1893, she
had made a fast friend of a nine-year-old lad,
the son of J. B. Hartwell. The boy had been born
in San Francisco, in the interval of fourteen years
that had just ended between his father’s first
service in China and this, which was to mean the
rest of his life in China. The boy was going out to
China for the first time, and Miss Moon enjoyed
his eager enthusiasm greatly. Soon there came to
be a bond between them that even the busy life
in China could not break. The house at the Little
Cross Roads was his second home, and it was her
delight to have him in and out of the house, often
staying there with her. The son of a missionary
in those early days often had a very fragmentary
education at best, and when the boy drifted into
a careless attitude toward this very vital factor
in the making of his future, it was his friend, the
older missionary, who touched the mainspring of
ambition and interest and set his mind to eagerly
exploring the fascinating field of knowledge in
books.

For she told him stories—stories of Napoleon,
of Robert E. Lee and his generals, gave him the
stirring life of Prince Kuropatkin to read, fas-
cinated him with the high adventure and swiftLOTTIE MOON 271

movement of history, and the charm and thrill
of biography. Lottie Moon was a Southerner
who had never surrendered. She gave him the
Southern viewpoint of the Civil War, capturing
his ardent boy spirit and turning him into an
eager reader of all the books in her library. It
shaped his life. For today Charlie Hartwell, the
lad, is Prof. C. N. Hartwell, the Dean of Willing-
ham College, of Hwanghsien, nor is it any acci-
dent that he is teacher of history in that school
of higher education for North China.

Little children came and went as the missionary
families stayed for a brief time in Tengchow, first
on arrival, and later as they came to the coast
for relief from the heat of the summers in the
interior. Many a one of these can tell stories of
the cookie jar in the kitchen, kept filled with choice
cake made by an old Virginian recipe. The Law-
ton children, the Newton children, and many
others had their place in her heart, as she had
a place in their childish devotion. George Sears,
born in her home, was always “her boy” in an
especial way. She had a high chair made for his
use on the visits of the Sears family to Tengchow
—a high chair that in after years served well
for his own little son, and the children of his
sister, Mrs. Frank Connely, once the little Mary
Sears, of the red curls and merry laugh.

Tenderly did she write of Robert Pruitt, the
splendid young son of these devoted missionaries,
who lost his eyesight. ‘A brave lad,” she called
him.

“T am especially fond of children,” she wrote
to a cousin, one day as she sat at her desk inside
the study of her home while on the outside there
was a scene which she proceeded to describe most
vividly. ‘On the porch are two Chinese women,

,272 LOTTIE MOON

 

one of whom is teaching the other. A child is
rolling a tin can, to his own amusement and with-
out serious annoyance to other people. Heis more
like a Western child than any Chinese child I
have ever met. He is very natural in his ways
and is not in the least afraid of foreigners. I
like to have the little fellow around. He came
with his mother on Thursday. I had not seen her
for twenty years, and had not the remotest idea
who she was. She said she had longed to see
me and so had come. She used to be in my school
when a girl about twelve years old. She was in
school about two years and has forgotten some
and remembers some that she had learned.

“About four years ago her husband had small-
pox and lost his eyesight, so the burden of the
family fell on her. I feel very sorry for her and
am glad for her to have a rest from household
and farm cares for a few days. She will be here
about eight days longer.”

Little children appealed to her most tenderly.

“T take most pleasure in the little ones of the
school, the youngest of whom is about five years
old. She is a very merry, happy little creature,
fat and rosy and laughs and sings nearly all day
long. I think she is rather proud of having a
book and going to school. Of course, I do not al-
low her to be confined. Your boys,” she was writ-
ing to Orianna and her fine family of boys, “Your
boys would be vastly amused to see her take a
pointer and try to point out the provinces on the
map of China. It often sets me to laughing to
see her. Of course, she learns only a very little
bit of geography in this way, but still she learns
something. Her father is a hopeless invalid and
her mother works out. I was asked to take the
child and consented, not knowing what a littleLOTTIE MOON 273

thing she was. She was a poor, wizened looking
creature in very poor health. But good food and
kind treatment have worked wonders. It is as-
tonishing how she can sing. I am quite surprised
sometimes to hear her sing hymn after hymn she
has picked up, hearing the other girls sing.

“My girls have had a holiday today, and took
a lunch with them to the seaside. I think I’ll go
out and see what has become of them. I wish
your boys were here to walk with me.”

In and out of her house these Chinese children
went, and from them she fashioned the men and
women who were to bless old Tengchow with
Christian leadership in days to come. Yet some-
times they were exasperatingly Chinese in ‘their
acceptance of her home and all that made it the
attractive place it was. Sometimes even her gentle
patience had to find a vent for her feelings. On
one occasion she did pour out her housewifely
soul to a cousin to whom she was writing at the
time.

“My guests are to leave tomorrow. She is a
bright and pleasané woman whom I like very
much, but the children rush in and out at all
hours, turn my chairs about as they please, drop
crumbs all about the floor, and ‘cut-up’ generally.
When they stand in the chairs or spit on the
carpet, I venture to mildly interfere! One has
to be so careful not to give offense. Chinese chil-
dren who live on dirt floors can’t be expected,
when admitted to one’s best room, to act as if
they had been taught that nice chairs are not
made’ to stand in, nor carpets put down to be
spit upon.”

But the children came and went just the same,
the chairs and carpet survived and she won them
to her and often to her Christ.274 LOTTIE MOON

Children of her school grew up and in turn
brought their children to her as to one who would
surely love them. These Chinese boys and girls,
too, knew about the cookie jar. They knew the
happiness of the interest of this foreigner in them.
When they were absent from her school she came
to see them, to sternly march them back to school
if they had played truant or to give them help
in her most strange foreign way if they were
sick. “Law Moo Guniang,” they called her, using
the most respectful term of address in the dialect
of Tengchow, ‘Revered Miss Moon,” she was to
them. There was always a class of boys to whom
she was teaching English.

Perhaps they were often such boys as she de-
scribed in a letter thus:

“Just here two boys have walked in uninvited.
I stopped them at the sitting room door and in-
structed them that they are always to knock at
the outer door before coming in. I told them
that was the foreign custom. They were here
twice on yesterday, besides coming on previous
days, and I really honed the snow would keep them
at home today! They came to say that their
mother was coming to visit me this afternoon. I
dined with them day before yesterday. On yes-
terday a Chinese woman dined with me. I do not
enjoy Chinese food and drinking tea does not suit
me, but social intercourse is one way of winning
the people. One of these boys is very jerky in
his manner, perhaps I might better call it nervous.
He can’t keep still. Both are looking on as I write
and interrupt not a little.”

Just one of the many Chinese boys, whose bright
mind attracted her so that she gave him especial
attention, was Chao Tei San. Along with the
English she taught his mind, there went the loveLOTTIE MOON 275

of God she put into his heart, and he grew up a
devout Christian, full of ambition to do something
worth while in the world. Dr. and Mrs. Pruitt,
too, had a hand in the shaping of the boy’s life.
Between them, the three made a good job, even
as they did with many another Chinese lad. For
Chao Tei San grew up to be a man of influence
and great usefulness in his chosen sphere of
engineering and built the motor road from Weis-
hien to Chefoo over which the missionaries now
travel in their goings to and fro with the gospel.
All of his technical education was secured by cor-
respondence courses from American schools.
Without the knowledge of English he had gotten
in the classes at the house at the Little Cross
Roads this would not have been possible.

There were other children in her life, however
—the children of the homeland. She had constant
and at times heavy correspondence with the Sun-
beam Bands that had begun to multiply under the
consecrated leadership of a young Virginia pas-
tor, Dr. George Braxton Taylor, in the early
nineties. What she meant to them, to many a
Sunbeam who saved pennies to send to the sup-
port of a boy or girl in one of her schools, or to
buy desks, or build a wall, or do a dozen other
things that the Sunbeams did do for her, only
the men and women of today in the South can
tell. For to many a one, now giving the strength
of middle life to kingdom work, that first contact
with the missionary enterprise, in writing to her
and in turn having letters from her was the mold-
ing influence of a life. There are several of these
letters preserved in which she tells in a way to
fascinate any child the thrilling incidents of every-
day life in the house by the Little Cross Roads.
Many references to these letters are in her276 LOTTIE MOON

correspondence with the Secretary of the Foreign
Mission Board, for often she made apology for
putting off such routine work as a quarterly re-
port, because there must be letters written to the
Norfolk Sunbeams, or to the two children who had
sent her part of their Christmas money, or to
some other child or group of children in the South
who were thus her partners in the work of telling
the Chinese boys and girls of Jesus.

There were other children in the Homeland—
those of her own family. “One misses a good
deal in losing the childhood of the young people
among one’s relatives, and I am especially fond
of children. Even among the Chinese I have the
reputation of being a lover of children,” she wrote
to her nephew, W. L. Andrews. There is always
mention of the children in her letters to rela-
tives. “I wish I might see your golden-haired
darling, and hear her talk,’’ she wrote once. She
wrote to many of these boys and girls charming
letters, full of just the interesting anecdotes and
incidents of her life that would give them great
delight. . There were stories of her comical mis-
takes with the Chinese language, such as the time
she gave the wrong inflection to the word for lion
in telling the story of how David killed a lion with
his hands. One little boy commented rather
seornfully, “That is nothing, I kill them every day,
more than one!”’ For she had changed the mean-
ing of the word from ”’lion” to “vermin,” by the
tone of her voice, and no wonder the Chinese boys
gravely listening could see nothing extraordinary
in David’s exploit! Then there was the story
of a contrary mule that upset the missionary, her
bedding, food chest, and all in the ditch; many a
tale of strange ways of travel that sounded queer
to the ears of American children, and amusingLOTTIE MOON 277

stories of adventures that might have been dis-
astrous but for her quick wit and keen sense of
humor.

The letters were not always about China. Some-
times these young people submitted grave ques-
tions for her to answer. Now it was a youth
who had come to the age of doubt about his faith,
and so across the Pacific went a correspondence
that on the one side was the outpouring of a
heart that would have confided to no one at home
but turned with utmost confidence to this one who
had tried and tested her faith until he knew she
could give the certain help he needed. And back
came letters that justified the confidence shown,
for out of her own sure faith she gave the help
needed, gravely discussing all the questions pro-
pounded, and leading on beyond these to the
deeper issues of faith, a sure foundation that no
doubts could assail. For truly did she “know in
whom she had believed.”

Then in the period following the Civil War
there was a generation of young people in the
South who had great handicaps in finding their
places in the economic life of their country.
Patriotically, they desired to give their strength
to the rebuilding of the South. But they had been
deprived of that period of preparation for pro-
fessions which would have been their right in
normal times, and so even in her own family
there was heartbreak and disappointment among
these young people. This they carried to her, sure
of her sympathy, eager for her advice. To one
of these young men she wrote,

“Tt is hard to be qualified for work and yet
unable to obtain it. It is also difficult on the very
threshold of life to be kept waiting, as you have
been. It is a discipline in patience and in278 LOTTIE MOON

cheerful submission to the will of God. The rea-
sons you give for not being discouraged are excel-
lent. I trust you will keep up a brave spirit. The
present crisis is extraordinary and in the nature
of things cannot last.”

So she built herself into the lives of these young
people, her own blood, her own kindred, never
failing them, being to them often a beacon light,
for, though none of them followed in her steps
to a foreign land, yet they all loved her for her
own devotion to a high calling and to them she
was a beloved counsellor and high ideal.

More than letters came across the sea and land
to link the absent-kinswoman with these young
folk. At all holiday times there were firecrackers,
huge and queerly shaped. Any time of the year
there came cards with strange, weird marks that
she vouched for as writing, and translated for
them. Occasionally pictures there were that made
her seem more real to their youthful fancies. At
Christmas time there came boxes with strange
gifts, to be prized as rare treasures, bits of brass
intricately patterned, quaint little dolls, odd pieces
of jewelry, souvenirs of a land that in those days
was very far away indeed. For it was before the
time when there is a curio shop in every city and
town with its “imported” Chinese wares.

Not all the links with these dear young folk of
her own family were happy ones. All the news
that went from Virginia to the house at the Little
Cross Roads was not that of graduations and wed-
dings and happiness and gaiety. For there must
be sadness, too. One of the greatest griefs in
these years came in the death of the son of her
dear cousin, James, the one she always called
“Brother,” who had married her roommate at
Hollins. Lindsay was a very attractive and ambi-LOTTIE MOON 279

tious boy, just entering the University Medical
Department. All the family had had high hopes
for him. She had met him on the furlough in
1898. Then four years later came the news of
his death. Tenderly did she write to the stricken
mother and father.

“You are very much in my heart these days
since I heard of your sore bereavement. Well I
know that shock has fallen on none so heavily as
on the tenderest of all human hearts, a mother’s.
Yet it has been a joy to me to know that you were
bearing this great sorrow in a spirit of patient
submission to the will of him who is ‘“‘too wise
to err, too good to be unkind.”

“I think of him as I saw him always kindly,
gentle and unselfish. I could not realize then that
the young shoulders were patiently bearing a
heavy burden that the noble aspirations to fit him-
self for a life of usefulness might find its fulfill-
ment. He was happy in his home life, happy in
the love and esteem of those who knew him.
Thinking of his slight, graceful form, I suppose he
could never have been very strong, and I have no
doubt that in his noble desire to do his full duty
he constantly overdid. Dr. Broadus says that the
saddest thing about the changed conditions of our
lives in the South is the sacrifice of our young
men. How they toil, how nobly they toil, to fit
themselves to hold their rightful places in the
world, and how inevitably some must fall, weary
with the march of life. I recall that my dear
mother said on her deathbed, that for a year she
had not known what it was to feel rested. I have
often repeated these lines in thinking of her:LOTTIE MOON

“Limbs that shall never tire,
Nor ask to rest,
In service blest,

These shall be thine!

“Life that shall fear no death,
God’s life above
Of light and love,
That shall be thine!
All well with thee!”

““And this is true of our dearly loved Lindsay.
The Lord lent him to you for more than twenty
years. You have all the sweet memories of his
childhood, of his youth, and his young manhood:
These are a beautiful legacy. What a blessing to
have had a son upon whose life you may look with
unmingled joy and satisfaction. God saw he
was ready for promotion to a higher, holier
sphere. How happy he is we may not conceive.
Already he knows more than all the sages. May
the Lord bless and comfort you as he alone can.
All human words are weak in the presence of such
sorrow.”

Then two years later there came the news of the
death of the beloved cousin James. She wrote
touchingly from a village near Tengchow where
she was when the letter was brought to her by
her companion, a Chinese Bible woman.

“IT feel more and more that time is short and
eternity near at hand. Therefore I cannot ‘sor-
row as those who have no hope.’ I rather think
with solemn joy that our dear ones have entered
into that rest that remaineth for the people of
God.”

So there were ties of love binding Virginia to
that old city of Tengchow, that held through joy
and sorrow, with the tears and laughter of lifeLOTTIE MOON 281

linking the family with the dear one of theirs who
had gone afar on a mission high.

Life at the house at the Little Cross Roads
changed little through the years, save that more
time was spent there as age slowed down the old
mad pace and she made less effort to actually be
three or four people. Yet a glimpse she gave
now and then of the daily routine showed little
evidence of any slackening pace,

“My life here is so much the same from day
to day that there seems little to write about it.
After breakfast I study Chinese for a short time
with my teacher. After that, for four days in
the week I must visit day schools and examine
the pupils, or hear them examined. In the after-
noons of several days in the week I go out to visit
the Chinese with a Chinese Bible woman, who is
supported by the Woman’s Missionary Society of
our church in Tengchow. On yesterday after-
noon we made three visits. The first family vis-
ited was not very cordial. My companion, Mrs.
Kiang, talked to them a while and then we went to
see some people living in the same compound.
They received us warmly and Mrs. Kiang taught
the young woman hymns while I talked with the
older woman. I told her of our Lord’s birth, life,
wonderful works, death, burial, resurrection and
ascension. This took a long while. Then we went
to a place where I had never been before. We en-
tered a little yard, passed through a small house
then into another yard, and so into the house for
which our visit was intended. It was small and
dark. A man smiled pleasantly as we entered.
A woman and two girls sat on the kang. We
talked to them a good while. When I came home
the two girls followed me and I taught them part
of a hymn.282 LOTTIE MOON

“Where I am accustomed to go regularly I
usually spend most of the time teaching hymns,
prayers, religious books or the New Testament.
I prefer this, as it seems most useful, but of
course, we ought to extend the work, and when
one goes into a new place there is not always an
opportunity to do anything but tell the gospel
story or talk of the sin and folly of idolatry.

“So closed the day’s work.”

She was thrilled over the adventure of Mr. New-
ton into Manchuria in the spring of 1906. “‘Where
Japanese and Russians had their death struggle,”
she wrote, “‘we hope to see the messengers of the
Prince of Peace enter in.” This first spying out
of the land did not result in any immediate move-
ment into this great territory north of Shangtung,
but it was the first contact with work that was
eventually to be established by Southern Baptists,
and the point of departure in interest and actual
movement of missionaries was old Tengchow, the
mother station of North China, now coming to be
secondary in importance but still the inspiration
of missionary adventure.

The house at the Little Cross Roads had come
to be more than just the center of one missionary’s
life. For the offer made years before of her home
as a place of residence for the new missionaries,
where they might have a brief time of adjust-
ment between the old life and the new was carried
into a blessed reality. Missionary after mission-
ary-came from America to pause here in an old
Virginia home for a few weeks or months as the
need might be before plunging into the interior
where there would be no gentle influences to help
them in the adjustments of the new life. Here they
found the hospitality of the homeland, saw actual-
ly in operation a home where the best relationshipLOTTIE MOON 283

had been established between the foreign and the
native customs and manners, drank deep from the
well of Lottie Moon’s rich experience, glimpsed
the strength of her, the power of her, and took
heart for their own unknown future. Here the
strangeness of the land to which they had come
was brought more gently to their attention.
Hours of study of an impossible language weré
made less tedious and hopeless by her constant
encouragement. That first feeling of the irrev-
ocable separation from loved ones that so often
dismays and daunts the new missionary, no mat-
ter how devoted to the task before him, was as-
suaged by seeing the supremely happy life of this
one who had triumphed over loneliness, racial
barriers, and pioneer hardships and had come out
with a merry smile, gallant bearing and a supreme
faith.

The single women were her especial care. Not
yet had she forgotten the loneliness of Pingtu!
Some of those who came out were destined for as
lonely interior posts as had been hers in that
memorable time when she gave up all things for
the field now beginning to be the greatest har-
vest field of soul winning in all North China. In-
deed she was to see the day when Pingtu was the
scene of the greatest ingathering of all Southern
Baptist foreign fields. So as a loving older sister
she opened her heart and her home to these young
women. Miss Jeter was with her for a while.
Miss Pettigrew and Miss Williford gratefully
came to the quiet of her study through many days
for their first hard battle with the Chinese lan-
guage, though they lived at Dr. Hartwell’s. Miss
Taylor lived with her through many months. At
one time rooms were fitted up in the compound
as a home for Mr. and Mrs. Owens, who had neverLOTTIE MOON

 

284

had the joy of keeping house until they took pos-
session of part of this home within the walls at the
corner of the Little Cross Roads. Nor did they
move until their own home was ready months
later. Often did she speak of the joy of having
them with her.

Down to the waterfront she sent a little Chinese
boy, one day in 1908, to meet the boat from Chefoo
bringing a new missionary doctor and his wife.
To their intense surprise and great delight the
boy greeted them in English, proudly and careful-
ly learned for the occasion. With this escort, they
stepped into “Old Virginia,” as Dr. Gaston em-
phatically asserted, and sat down to a dinner that
night that might have been served in that state
so noted for its hospitality. It was the introduc-
tion of Dr. and Mrs. Gaston to China. Much did
it mean to these who had ten years before begun
praying for the work of their charming hostess—
and now because of that prayer, perhaps, were
her guests in China!

Many another missionary shared the hospital-
ity, were heartened by the cheer, helped by the
atmosphere, both social and scholarly, of that
home she made in the old Chinese city. Perhaps
the last of these new missionaries to be intro-
duced to China through the doors of the house at
the Little Cross Roads were Mr. and Mrs. W. W.
Adams, the last missionaries to be stationed at
Tengchow. They were young and full of enthu-
siasm. They were her hope for the future of the
work at Tengchow. She loved them both at once
and they her. “I don’t know how we would have
ever gotten along without the kind and most help-
ful counsel of Miss Lottie Moon,” he wrote to the
Foreign Mission Board after six months in Teng-
chow. “She is one of the nobility and we all loveLOTTIE MOON 285

her. And how the Chinese love her is beautiful
to see.”

Her ministry was more than just that of com-
panionship and hospitality. Out of her expe-
rience and deep study of Chinese life and customs
she gave them counsel that set forward their work
by many a year of hard learning alone. She had
come to some definite conclusions concerning
methods of work among the Chinese, and so win-
ning was her personality that she was able to
make such impressions upon these new missiona-
ries that unconsciously they took up the work
where she was leaving off and went on without a
break, moulding their thinking after the pattern
she had set by her pioneering into the field of cus-
tom and manners, insisting on the new missiona-
ries shaping their own lives after the standards
of conduct that had been found most winsome in
the days of heartbreak when Tengchow had been
a stone wall of indifference to all the appeal of the
missionaries.

She had always worked closely with the Chinese
Christians, associating with her in all work a
Chinese teacher who was also an assistant, help-
ing her in the teaching of. classes, supervising the
Chinese laborers that were frequently working
under her on some repairs or building of house
or school, looking after her marketing and in
every way possible helping her to establish and
maintain amicable and helpful relations with the
Chinese with whom she must make contact for the
everyday necessities of life as well as for the prop-
agation of the gospel. In her visiting she made
it a custom to take with her a teacher or a Bible
woman, often both, in country work. Thus she
had learned Chinese viewpoints on conduct and
etiquette that had won her the esteem eventually286 LOTTIE MOON

of even the aristocratic families of Tengchow. All
this hard-won experience she passed on to the new
missionaries. So winsomely did she do it, and
yet so firmly and insistently that today the work
bears the impress of her personality, even though
the missionaries who are carrying out her ideals
in their lives among the Chinese of North China
may not be aware of all they owe to her and her
stern, high standards until they read the old let-
ters that are the record of her impressions and
convictions. One such young missionary, now fol-
lowing in her footsteps through the villages of
Pingtu, who never saw Lottie Moon in the flesh,
exclaimed as she read the record of the years into
which she had written all the experiences of those
pioneer days, “That is the way we do it today.
She blazed the trail for us. We even think thus
in our planning for the work.”

In all the record of these years there is one
strangely missing note. There is never a record,
directly, of conversions under her teaching. She
often mentions the baptisms, in this place or that,
but never once does she speak of them as the di-
rect result of her work. It is left to the reader
to infer this. So there is no record by which,
according to modern ideas of measuring the worth
of an evangelist’s work, we might know whether
she was successful or not; So completely did she
merge herself with the efforts of the Chinese
Christians that often we find accounts of their
soul-winning but never does she tell the tale of
her own success in a total of souls won through
her own efforts. Yet the years tell their own
story, aS we measure the growth, slow at first,
then as the believers become more wide-spread
through the villages and cities of North China
and the work gathers momentum, until in the lastLOTTIE MOON 287

years there is harvest time everywhere, with evan-
gelistic fervor characterizing the whole mission,
from the old cities where it first took root, out
to the ever westward-moving frontier, where ad-
venturous men and women continued to press on.
In all this she had her part, and not a small one.
Of the souls that came into the kingdom in large
numbers in the later years, surely some were tro-
phies of her devotion, though never does she cast
them up and credit them to her account. There
is no need, for as the work through all the years
to come widens and deepens in the current of this
surging life of Shantung, so will there still be
gathered trophies of her devotion, for she built
her life into the very warp and woof of the fabric
of the gospel in North China. Now and then we
can catch a glimpse of just what- this means, as
for instance in the record that the churches give
of the more than three thousand baptisms admin-
istered by that young Confucian teacher from Sah
Ling village, who read to his older kinsman the
copy of the New Testament she had given him,
who worked by her side in those early days of
triumph and heartbreak in Pingtu, that young
man, now the associate of Mr. Sears, now the
great evangelist and home missionary—Pastor
Li. But for herself, she wrote no record. She
wrote only of “The Field.” She lost herself in it
and unconsciously proved the law of success which
Jesus laid down for his followers, for truly in los-
ing her life did she find it, eternally, in a thou-
sand lives of Chinese brought to the Saviour. Thus
did she blaze the way of abnegation of self for
all the generations of missionaries to come.

She was a vital part of all the missionary plan-
ning through these forty years of the making of
history in North China. For many years she was288 LOTTIE MOON

mission secretary. Later, turning this over to
younger members of the forces, she was a quiet
listener in mission meetings until something came
up in which she was especially interested. Then
her eyes would sparkle and she would rapidly fo-
cus all her brilliant powers of analysis upon the
issue, expressing herself very clearly and force-
fully. She had strong convictions, was not easily
turned from her conclusions, yet ever ready to
look upon any question from another’s view-
point. The one subject on which she was persis-
tent was that of education of women and develop-
ing of leadership among the women of the church-
es. Her plea always was for them to have equal
educational opportunities with the men. Not until
Jane Lide, the young missionary who came out at
last to carry forward just such a project, did
Lottie Moon see this dream realized. For, from
the Girls’ School she had begun, Jane Lide began
the Normal School for girls, later to be merged
with Hwanghsien College in the first Baptist Co-
educational institution of China. Truly her plea
for equal opportunities for girls has been an-
swered!

From one of the younger missionaries who
knew her has come testimony to the high stand-
ards of conduct established in the North China
mission by the blameless life, even from the Chi-
nese viewpoint, of this pioneer woman. “She was
firm in her convictions that every missionary must
be willing to yield to the Chinese social conven-
tions, and strive to understand their viewpoint
and conform to it. She prepared the way for us,
not by her scholarship or social abilities, superb
as they were, but by her fearlessness and her life
above reproach.”LOTTIE MOON 289

So did the years of loneliness in Pingtu, of
ceaseless effort in Tengchow, of giving her best to
China, make possible her doing what was perhaps
the greatest work of her life in setting forward
on their way the young missionaries who came
into North China during these years.

The days of loneliness were not yet ended, how-
ever. For early in 1908 Mr. Newton was called
to work in the Seminary at Hwanghsien, on Dr.
Hartwell’s leaving for America, broken in health.
It had been hard for Dr. Hartwell to give up, for
he pleaded to be permitted to “Go home to hea-
ven from China.” But Dr. Ayers persuaded him
that treatment in America might give him more
years in China so with this hope he sailed for
the homeland in February, 1908. This necessi-
tated some man coming to Hwanghsien. Mr.
Owen had already gone out to Pingtu in an emer-
gency that called for more workers there. So Mr.
Newton went to Hwanghsien and Tengchow was
left in the hands of the two women, Miss Taylor
and Miss Moon. Graphically did she present the
situation to the Board,

“IT have recently read a statement that the
Board’s rule required at least two men in every
center. I was not aware that there was such a
rule. I am, however, painfully aware of the fact
that there is no man here to bear the burdens that
should rightfully fall on masculine shoulders.
When I returned to China four years ago the work
seemed in full tide of success. Then we lost at
one blow four workers. If it were only the city
work, I should hold my peace. With the natives,
Miss Taylor and I could manage to hold our own.
It is the country work that will slip from our
hands if something is not done and done speedily.”290 LOTTIE MOON

 

Then in June of that year Miss Taylor was
stricken with smallpox. For three weeks Lottie
Moon nursed her with tender care, and all the
work was abandoned while the battle for her life
was on. Miss Jones, the nurse at the hospital at
Hwanghsien, came to help, and after a bit took
the burden entirely from the older woman, secur-
ing a Chinese woman to help her. Miss Taylor
recovered, thanks to the assiduous care she had
had, and to the prayers that had gone up for
her life. She was the third woman missionary of
the North China force to be stricken with this
dread disease, and the only one of the three to sur-
vive.

Early in August Miss Taylor was sent to Japan
to get well, and Lottie Moon was again left alone
in Tengchow. In August there came the welcome
news that a young man and his wife had been ap-
pointed for Tengchow. ‘We will give the brother
a royal welcome to our city by the sea,” she wrote
to Dr. Willingham in a letter of rejoicing over the
news. And a royal welcome it was that Mr. and
Mrs. W. W. Adams received when they finally ar-
rived in the winter. In the meantime Miss Moon
had looked after the church work, supervised four
day schools, beginning in August, and had been
the acting principal of the Girls’ Boarding
Sieh for Miss Taylor was absent most of the

all.

Then in January there came a great sorrow to
her heart. While sitting at dinner with Mr. and
Mrs. Adams, who were living with her until they
could get settled in their own home, a cablegram
was brought in. She opened and read it. It told
of the sudden death of the little sister, Edmonia,
while alone and far away from her own people.
Quietly she bore it, but it was a blow to her spirit.LOTTIE MOON 291

The little sister who had come ahead of her to
China, who had been the dear companion of those
first years, was in her thoughts rather than the
frail, feeble woman whom she had been with on
the last furlough. There was little said about her
sorrow to these new friends of hers, but her grati-
tude was deep for the sympathy they gave to her,
and the strength they were for these days when
grief weighed down her bright spirit.

There was a brief message to the Secretary of
the Board notifying him of the death of her sis-
ter that payment might be stopped on the annuity
invested with the Board. Then silence in all her
letters, a silence that told more than words would
have just what this loss meant to her. This was
in January of 1909.

With a note of the old time buoyancy she wrote
in the early spring of that year of the way in
which Mr. Adams was taking hold of the work.
“Mr. Adams led in the singing of a hymn on yes-
terday and I need not say he did it well.” The
work was most encouraging. The presence of the
new missionaries had inspirited the native work-
ers as well as the two women missionaries. The
Sunday school was growing in size and power.
A fine young Chinese man, son of one of the finest
Tengchow families, had become Sunday school
superintendent. He had made many and great
sacrifices for the work. With a splendid educa-
tion, a career in the Navy open to him, he had
proved himself true not only during the Boxer
outbreak when he had narrowly escaped from
death, but in more recent years he had shown his
loyalty to his faith by resigning from a very high
position in a Government school in Peking rather
than teach on Sunday. There was hope for other292 LOTTIE MOON

new missionaries also, so plans went on happily
for the work.

In these spring months there joined the Teng-
chow force an experienced missionary, W. D.
King, who had been for several years located at
Tai An Fu. The hope for enlargement of the work
was blighted by his death in July, just when he
was beginning to do most effective work. This
blow to the work came at the time that news from
the homeland was rather discouraging. For there
was a heavy debt on the Board which caused con-
siderable doubt about the sending out immediate-
ly of the promised new missionaries.

In July of 1909, there appeared in the list of
Virginia contributions to the Foreign Mission
Board a gift under the name “Albemarle.” It
was the entire income on the annuity which Miss
Moon had invested with the Board, for that quar-
ter, given to help relieve the debt.

In North China, in spite of debt, in spite of
lack of missionaries, in spite, even, of the visit of
death to the little group, the work was going for-
ward amazingly. In November, two of the prom-
ised new missionaries came. They were given a
most unusual welcome service by the Monument
Street Church, for Mr. Kang, the talented Chi-
nese leader, made them a welcome address in Eng-
lish, followed by a sermon in Chinese. This was
a surprise even to Miss Moon and Miss Taylor,
who enjoyed it quite as much as the two young
women for whom it was given. She had much
the same feeling that the fond mother has when
the gifted child shows off to visitors to an advan-
tage, for Tengchow was her child!

Miss Lide came to live with her, a dear com-
panion for her slowing steps, for she was now
nearing her seventieth birthday. Yet the busyLOTTIE MOON 293

days showed little evidence of that fact, for they
were filled with activity from morning to night.
School work, again, about which she wrote with
much joy.

“My schools are now closed for the summer va-
cation. In the boys’ school (North Street) we
were busy with examinations on the mornings of
four days. I was much gratified with the prog-
ress the boys have made. The class of boys is
constantly improving, they come from much bet-
ter homes, regarded from a social standpoint.
Consequently the work we can do with them is of
more permanent value. We have excellent teach-
ers, Christian men, and the school has flourished.

“But my pet schools are for the girls. One has
been going on many years and is flourishing in
numbers and in constant attendance and enthu-
siastic devotion to study. Chinese girls are eager
for an education.

“Two or three months ago, I started a school
for girls on my home place. To my surprise girls
from my street have attended it. My surprise
is due to the fact that nearly all the people of this
street have been coldly indifferent, secretly hos-
tile, rather, to foreigners. There are some sweet
and pretty children in this school. Two came from
so good a family that a servant has to escort them
to school and on their return home. They are
daintily sweet and have beautiful manners. They
live in a handsome compound and their grand-
mother has become one of my warmest friends. I
call her my ‘adopted sister.’ All this shows the
breaking down of prejudice. As to my city work,
more homes are open to me than I have time to
visit. Now that vacation has come I hope to do
more evangelistic work both in the city and the294 LOTTIE MOON

country. I have visited twenty villages this spring
and enjoyed it.”

One of her boys’ schools had been turned over
to Mrs. Adams that spring, not that she wished
to be relieved of some work, but that she might
be freer to do country work! She grieved because
the heavy rains of the spring had prevented her
visiting regularly her boys’ school in the country.
But she had reports from it that indicated fine
work was being done. The opening of the schools
in the fall of 1910 rejoiced her heart. The old
dream of higher education for Chinese women had
not died. The persistent emphasis on attention to
work among the women and girls of North China
had sprung from a deep conviction that only thus
could the mainspring of Chinese life be touched
by the Lord Jesus.

“T can give but three afternoons a week to visit-
ing,” she said in October of that year. “Those
whose hands are tied by school duties cannot give
a great deal of time to city visiting or country
trips. Miss Lide and Mrs. Adams go out with me
once a week. The wife of the pastor asked to go
with me also, as she does not know many people,
and I find her a most valuable worker. Of course,
I knew before what an earnest, faithful woman
she is, but I was never before associated with her
in personal work, until they came to the Monu-
ment Church. She is a very lovable woman.
Fifty years or so ago she was in Mrs. Hartwell’s
school for girls in North Street. That school sup-
plied four of our present women workers, all of
whom are now grandmothers.”

Then she came back to further rejoicing about
her schools for girls:

“My two schools for girls are a joy to me. It
is delightful to see the diligence in study, goodLOTTIE MOON 295

deportment and constant attendance of these
girls, nearly all of whom are from non-Christian
families. There is a very remarkable movement
in Tengchow now toward the education of girls
and the unbinding or non-binding of their feet.
Along with this there is a kind of groping in the
dark among the women for something better than
they have, which something is Christianity. Two
women, each past sixty, have confessed lately.
One that she is secretly a Christian, and another,
only yesterday, that she and her grandson learn
hymns and prayers at night with closed window,
lest the neighbors should laugh at them. The
grandson goes to school and teaches his grand-
mother orally from a book Mrs. King gave him.

“And so the leaven works! Did it not do this
in the early days in Rome? Were not many ladies
there Christians in the days of Jerome, long be-
fore the men accepted Christianity? What sur-
prises me is that men unfriendly to Christianity
will send their daughters to a Christian school
knowing that six days in the week they will be
taught Christianity and take part in Christian
worship. The girls are expected to attend church
and the majority come. As to one or two who have
stayed away from church, I have thought it best
not to make an issue. They study Christian
books daily. Two of my girls come from a family
at once official and wealthy. They must have an
escort to and from school and are addressed as
Ku-niang (Miss). They are gentle, well dressed
and very eager, diligent students. One dear little
girl, very quiet, sweet and gentle, has a grand-
father with a high literary degree, and a father
who also has a degree, though not so high. So
you see, our schools are growing in favor with the
better class. One school is in my front yard. The296 LOTTIE MOON

girls study aloud according to the Chinese cus-
tom. Their childish voices are musical to me, be-
cause they tell of a new China, especially for girls
and women. And so our labor is not in vain in
the Lord. The joy of the work grows day by day.”
And so she did see the day dawn for higher edu-
cation for women in North China. Forty years
had passed, forty years of working, and waiting.
Now she saw these changes taking place before
her eyes for which she had given her life. At the
close of this school year, in July, 1911, she had
five day schools for girls and one for women. The
one on the compound at the Little Cross Roads
had grown amazingly, until it had to be depart-
mentalized into really three schools. The parents
of upper class families were much more willing
to send their girls there for they felt the girls
were safe under her own roof. The boys’ school
she had turned over to Mr. Turner, a new mis-
sionary who had come out the preceding fall, and
was now able to handle the work with the skill-
ful help of the good teacher she had in charge.
Over all this abounding joy there was a shadow.
The debt on the Board had been increasing
through these two years until it had become an
incubus weighing down her heart, as she saw how
crippled the work was in every field because of it.
“T feel deeply for you and the Board in the em-
barrassing debt that hangs over the work. My
earnest prayer is that it may soon be removed,”
she wrote Dr. Willingham. Again in the summer
of that year there appeared the anonymous gift
from ‘Albemarle’ in the Virginia contributions,
the gift of the missionary daughter of that Asso-
ciation in far away China.
In the fall of that year there came an enticing
opening for a girls’ school in the west suburb ofLOTTIE MOON 297

Tengchow. She could not pass it by unheeded.
So, knowing that the Board had no funds for even
so small a new work as this would be, she opened
the school at her own expense, and to her joy
fifteen girls enrolled at once and the school rapidly
grew. “More and more the schools absorb my
time.” And more and more absorbing did the
school work become. Each new one opened was
a center for a Sunday school and soon for regular
preaching services. Through the schools she was
reaching the heart of Tengchow!

It really seemed that the days of pioneering
were over, that she could now sit quietly in the
field which she had developed and spend her days
in cultivating it, rejoicing in it.

But were the pioneer days really over!

In the fall of 1911 came the Revolution. The
country was unsettled, country work had to be
curtailed, and in some regions of Shantung sus-
pended for a time. In November, the fighting be-
tween the Imperialists and Revolutionists became
so general in Shantung that the American Consul
called all the missionaries from the interior to
Chefoo, fearing that some turn of the strife might
crystallize into an anti-foreign movement, as had
happened in the past. There were some unfortu-
nate incidents of this type, all credited, however,
to bandit bands rather than to any of the armies
of the contending political parties. Presently the
armies came to battle near Hwanghsien. All the
missionaries had fled to the seaport. Miss Moon
was safe in Tengchow, for, being on the coast,
that city was easily accessible by boat in case the
armies came. .

Dr. Ayers had left the hospital in Hwanghsien
in charge of Dr. Chu, his splendid assistant,298 LOTTIE MOON

 

giving him the freedom of every building on the
grounds for the use of the wounded soldiers, save
only his little office where his personal effects and
papers were kept. He gave the key to this to Dr.
Chu that he might save these valuables in case of
fire or confiscation.

The missionaries were restless, however, in
Chefoo. They heard nothing that indicated that
foreigners would be in any especial danger and
Dr. Ayers well knew that during war a hospital is
a very great asset in winning the love of the peo-
ple. Finally he and Mr. Charles Hartwell de-
cided that they would waive their rights to pro-
tection as American citizens and make their way
back to Hwanghsien to render service to their
people in this time of great need. This they did,
and experienced no great difficulty in getting into
the city, though there was fighting all around.

There was a surprise awaiting them on reach-
ing the hospital, however. All around were
wounded and sick soldiers, every available space
used, and all in amazing good order, with what
was evidently a well-organized force of volunteer
nurses recruited from the women of the church.
And the door to the office was open!

In amazement Dr. Ayers demanded of his as-
sistant why his orders had been disobeyed. He
received the quiet answer:

“Will the doctor go and see for himself!’

He went—and he saw! There sat Miss Moon
with a group of women about her diligently pre-
paring bandages and other necessities for the
wounded. In amazement he asked:

“Why are you here? We thought you safe in
Tengchow!”’

“T am safe here, you see,’ she replied with a
smile. “I learned that you had all left, and know-LOTTIE MOON 299

ing that the Christians needed help and guidance
at this time, I came over to do what I could.”

What she could do had been simply to mobilize
the hospital for the emergency, organize the
women into the first Red Cross unit of North
China, and set all forces to work to take care of
the situation of wounded and sick in the city, as
far as their capacity could be made to reach.
“Safe in Tengchow!” She was safe, there, but
what did that matter when she knew someone
was needed in Hwanghsien? As unhesitatingly
as she had once stepped into the darkness of
heathenism of Pingtu, those years before, so she
had stepped into the emergency in Hwanghsien
when the men had retreated. And she had made
a matchless job of it.

But now the men had come, and she announced
that she was ready to go home. They protested
that by now the fighting had reached the Teng-
chow road and she could not get through. There
were resources that they knew not of, as pres-
ently they saw. For she called to her a man in
charge of bringing in the wounded, an old school-
boy of hers in Tengchow, now high in the coun-
cils of the rebels. Through him she sent word to
the headquarters of the Revolutionists and a
runner also to the general in charge of the Im-
perialists, saying to each that she wished to pass
_through their lines to Tengchow that afternoon

They knew what she had been doing for the sol-
diers of both sides during the days of the battle.
She was known to more than one of the leaders.
And safely, without a gun fired across the road,
she went on her way to Tengchow that afternoon,
her task turned over to those whose rightful place
it was and that night she slept in peace in the
house at the Little Cross Roads.300 LOTTIE MOON

It was on the third of January of this troubled
year, 1912, that Dr. Hartwell was called by death.
At Chefoo, where he was surrounded by the
younger men who had come out in the past years
to take up the work where he was leaving off,
quietly, and triumphantly his long and marvel-
ously useful life came to anend. Fifty-four years
he had given to North China, interrupted by en-
forced furloughs, but even that time had been
given to the Chinese people, for under the Home
Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Conven-
tion he had organized the first American Chinese
Baptist church in San Francisco, in the fourteen
years of waiting to go back to China. So as anew
day dawned in the China he loved, the great vet-
eran passed his work to the hands of younger men.

Presently peace came. The bloody fighting be-
tween the factions had ceased, and China was a
republic.

“TI have tried to be strictly neutral,” said Lot-
tie Moon, “though my sympathies are all with the
revolutionaries. We rejoice that peace is restored
at least partially, and that China is a republic.
Washington is the ideal held up by the leaders,
and Dr. Sun Yat Sen. has certainly walked in his
footsteps.”

Were the pioneer days over!

Not yet!

For not yet had she seen the steps taken to de-
velop woman’s work as she had longed and prayed
for it to be developed. For many years there had
been a Woman’s Missionary Society in the Teng-
chow Church. Likewise in all the other of the
older stations, some of them very efficient and
active. In the fall of 1911, when the North China
Association met just before the storm of the revo-
lution broke, it seemed time for the organizationLOTTIE MOON 301

of the Woman’s Missionary Union of North China.
Into the house at the Little Cross Roads they
came, these women from Hwanghsien and Lai-
chowfu, Pingtu and Laiyang to meet with the
women of Tengchow. Perhaps they felt the stir-
ring of the spirit of New China that was soon to
lead the men to cut their queues, the age-long sign
of the Manchu rule. Perhaps they felt the need
of united strength to better send succor to their
famine-stricken brethren and sisters in many
parts of Central and North China, for famine had
been stalking in the land three long, terrible years.
Perhaps it was the intense longing of this pioneer
spirit who could wait no longer to see woman’s
work set apart as a task worthy the especial at-
tention of the missionaries. Certainly on that day
in old Tengchow Lottie Moon was the moving
spirit of the meeting held in the living room of the
house at the Little Cross Roads. She was chosen
as the first president of the new organization—
a woman’s organization for Christian work in
conservative North China, in aristocratic, stone-
walled Tengchow! Thus did she see the longing
of her heart realized. Now there would be
woman’s work in North China!

The shadows were deepening, however, over the
bright spirit. Four years before she had written
of the famine in Central China, which was touch-
ing the edges of North China with its devastating
sweep. For three succeeding years it had struck
in various regions, nearer and nearer to the mis-
sion stations of North China. In every Associa-
tional Meeting the brethren had taken measures
to help in famine relief. More and more time and
money had been given every year for succor to
dying thousands at the mercy in turn of too
abundant rains which set the great rivers ragingLOTTIE MOON

 

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Teachers, Evangelists and Bible Women of the Mission

THE TENGCHOW MISSION FORCE IN 1924

Deacons and Officers of Church,

Pastor,LOTTIE MOON 303

in floods that swept away the crops, and then of
the withering droughts that for three years had
dried the crops in the fields. In a letter there oc-
curs a vivid bit of description of a drought.

“We are having a fearful drought. I never saw
anything approaching it in all my life. The sky
looks strange at times. In the evening beautiful
pink clouds stretch from the sunset almost to the
east. In the early morning the whole sky is yel-
low. I suppose the effects are due to the extreme
dryness of the atmosphere. The erops are with-
ering to death in the fields. We had a rain night
before last and while usually such a rain would
do good, the ground was previously so dry that
nothing can be done without more rain.”

The stories that drifted in to Tengchow were
heartbreaking. In 1911, the famine region had
included Pochow, and was reaching toward
Pingtu.

The conditions were laid before the Foreign
Mission Board, in a request that relief funds be
provided, if only for the Christians who were in
dire distress. This was before the day of relief
funds on a large scale. There was no precedent
for such an appropriation, nor were there any
funds, had there been such an item in the pro-
gram of the Board. And besides, the debt was
now a crushing burden upon all the work of the
Board. So there could be but one answer to the
appeal which Lottie Moon had voiced in an elo-
quent letter, an answer which fell like a knell
upon her spirit. There is no item under the name
of “Albermarle” in this year’s record of contribu-
tions for the lifting of the debt, for not only did
she send this to the missionaries of the famine-
stricken interior but she began to give a large
part of her own salary also.304 LOTTIE MOON

 

When she saw there could be no help from the
Board, and realized that no words of hers could
paint such a picture of the conditions that would
draw from Southern Baptists any considerable
sum, she turned to her own people for help. She
poured out her heart in a letter to her nephew,
W. L. Andrews, one of Orianna’s boys, who had
always been a most sympathetic correspondent.

“T enclose to you the official statement about
the famine in Central China! Will you not speak
to the pastor of your church and ask him to ob-
tain a contribution to help these poor sufferers?
The details are heart-rending, as we get them
from Pochow, where our missionary, Mr. Bostick,
is stationed. He and a Catholic priest are charged
with the distribution of grain. Of course, others
go to their help.
, “A man from the country going into Pochow

on Chinese New Year, to make calls, counted
thirteen corpses on the road, people who died of
hunger. Two men, who in the distribution had
received a little grain for their families, were
found dead on the road with their bags of grain
beside them! They had perished of starvation.
Mothers are eager to give their children away,
but no one wants them. Children roam the streets
with no one to care for them. A woman went to
beg a little help, which was given, and on her re-
turn found that her mother had hanged herself.
One cent, United States money, a day, up to the
next harvest, will save a life! There was a famine
here some three or four years ago which was fear-
ful, but this surpasses in horrors anything I have
ever known. Unless help comes, and that speedily,
from one to three million men, women and chil-
dren must perish from hunger. How can we bearLOTTIE MOON 305

to sit down to our bountiful tables and know of
such things and not bestir.

“T hope you know that missionaries not only
give their money but give their lives to help the
famine stricken. Hardly ever did I know of a
famine that did not claim its victims among the
missionaries and the doctors. It is the famine
fever that carries off these noble workers. In the
famine three years ago, two doctors fell victim,
one a missionary, the other the fort doctor. An-
other missionary lost his health for years on ac-
count of his fight with the famine.

“The last appeal I received from Miss Bostick
said, ‘For the sake of God and humanity, send all
the help you can!’ She and her brother and his
wife are standing nobly amid the awful horrors
that rend their hearts daily.”

Attendant upon the famine came the plague,
smallpox and other fearful diseases. These swept
Tengchow twice during this year and a half, caus-
ing suspension of all schools and interruption of
all the work. The plague was especially terrify-
ing. It came right up to the house at the Little
Cross Roads. Miss Moon was inoculated as a pro-
tection against it, as were the other missionaries.
None of them had it, though many of their Chinese
friends fell victims to it.

Then as the spring of 1912 approached news
came that the famine was sweeping into Pingtu,
beloved Pingtu! From the Christians who came
for help she learned of its extent, of the names of
families who had been helpers of the gospel in
the old early days who were now suffering for
food. Through that summer she went about her
work with a heart heavy and aching. The Chris-
tians at Pingtu were starving! The missionaries
sent in appeal after appeal for help. Their306 LOTTIE MOON

fellow missionaries gave all they could, and the
Chinese Christians in more fortunate regions gave
all they had to spare. No one knew what would
be the end, for the famine area increased as the
months passed, and millions of people were
doomed, it seemed.

Along with heaviness of heart because of the
two burdens, the famine in China and the debt
at home, she was more easily a prey to an ailment
that beset her during the summer months. An
abscess behind her ear gave her much pain. She
went over to Laichowfu for treatment by Dr.
Gaston, Dr. Ayers being home on furlough. It
seemed to yield readily and heal as quickly as
could be desired. But the old time buoyancy was
gone. A depression that she could not throw off

__ settled on her spirit. She drew out all her savings

 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   

 

 

in the Shanghai bank to send to the famine relief
workers. In her bank pass book, across the lines
below the last deposit recorded she wrote these
words in August, 1912,

“T pray that no missionary will ever be as lonely
_as I have been.”

When the Association met on November 1, at
Tengchow, the missionaries and native workers
came together with the one topic of famine relief
uppermost in their minds. Mr. Sears and Pastor
Li were there from Pingtu, their faces lined with
-care, their hearts wrung for their people.

They made a report of the conditions. Five hun-
dred Christians in Pingtu county were on _the
verge of starvation. Thousands would die with-
out a chance to know Christ, if help was not given.
It was the story of those Pingtu Christians that
wrung Lottie Moon’s heart. Out of her small
resources she gave all that she had. Her account
book that year shows regular entries “Sent toLOTTIE MOON 307

Famine Relief Fund” totaling a large per cent of
her salary, all for the loved Pingtu Christians.
She saw them before her as she sat down to eat
in the little dining room of her home. She saw
them before her as she sat down to write to the
homeland. They walked beside her all the day.

Pingtu was still on her heart!

In the Association Meeting, as a result of the
report, a collection was taken, Pastor Li leading
with a gift of one-fourth of his salary for the
year as an evangelist. The missionaries had all
given, given all that they had. She had given
down to the last available dollar. Yet it looked
pitifully little in the face of the need.

Then there came the overwhelming realization
that the debt on the Board would prevent any
possible help from them. It was but a step for
an overburdened mind to go on to the conviction
that the condition of the Board was hopeless, that
the missionaries, too, would starve! Old impres-
sions came surging back as she remembered the
vivid pictures painted on her mind by the sights
she saw in a famine when she first came to China.
With these came the memory of a story told her in
those first years of a custom the Chinese used to
have of taking their aged, when they had become
seventy and placing them in the caves above Teng-
chow to die. She was past seventy. She begged
that they take her away, she was useless, and let
the money used to keep her be given to the
younger missionaries who had years of usefulness
before them.

She was not alone in her depression over the
situation. Another missionary, much younger,
much stronger, had written during these days of
shadow, “I cannot bear to think that we are
all living on borrowed money.” One of the308 LOTTIE MOON

missionaries, after having to deal with several
illnesses due to a certain extent to worry and
anxiety, wrote to the Secretary, “This has raised
the question in the minds of some of us as to how
much ought to be said about the debt in letters
to the missionaries. Not even members of the
Board can know how it makes for depression.”

Mr. Charles Hartwell heard of her condition
and thinking perhaps that in the brighter com-
pany of the larger group of missionaries at
Hwanghsien she could be won to a happier outlook
upon all these depressing facts, he went down to
Tengchow and took her home with him. She
seemed happier. With something of her old eager-
ness and interest in people she entered into their
life, grew more cheerful, and, they thought, soon
she would be quite her old efficient, happy self.

Then one night the crisis came. The cheerful-
ness was but a shell she had thrown around the
grief in her heart that was sapping her life away.
Broken, crushed, helpless she was in the grip of
an uncontrollable sadness that swept all her bright
spirit into a hopeless melancholia.

The debt on the Board. The helplessness of the
missionaries! The forgetfulness of Southern
Baptists—and starving Pingtu! In the sad tan-
gle of her brilliant mind she confused the famine
in all its stark reality with the possibility of the
collapse of Southern Baptist missions in North
China.

“Think of poor Mr. Newton and all those lovely
little children starving to death!’’ she would say
to the friends as they came to see her.

But she recovered, apparently, was somewhat
herself again, and begged to go back to her home,
promising Mr. and Mrs. Hartwell that she would
take care of herself and would not worry. ItLOTTIE MOON 309

seemed best to let her go. She would be happier
at the home at the Little Cross Roads, with her
books and her own pleasant surroundings.

The first of December came. Word was sent
to Dr. Gaston by the missionaries in Tengchow to
come quickly. She had broken again, this time
with some serious complications that her friends
could not diagnose.

One look at her told the doctor the story. She
was starving to death! So quietly had she man-
aged her home affairs that those who worked with
her every day did not realize more than that she
was a bit frailer, perhaps a little paler, certainly
less bright than had been usual for even these
sad months. But they did not suspect what had
really happened. With all the courage that had
characterized the years of pioneering in Pingtu,
and the penetration of stone-walled Tengchow,
she had set about to do her share toward relieving
the sad conditions that had shadowed her bright
spirit until literally she sat in the shadow of
death. If her Pingtu Christians were starving,
then she would eat no more! If the debt on the
Board could not be lifted, then she would live
no more on borrowed money.

And she was starving to death.

Gentle hands put her to bed. Tender minis-
trations took charge of all her needs, and present-
ly there was the smile they all loved on her face
as she thanked them for what they were doing
for her. But the shadow did not lift. —

Then they decided that only a change of scene
would help. The Homeland would do for her
what all their love and care could not do. For it
would take her away from the nearness to the
famine that even now was lifting and lightening,
though they could not reach her shadowed mind310 LOTTIE MOON

with the glad news. It would take her away from
all discussion of ways and means of missionary
endeavor. It was the medicine she needed.

So on the twentieth of December, 1912, she and
Miss Cynthia Miller, the missionary nurse of
Laichowfu, whose furlough was due, sailed from
Shanghai on the steamer Manchuria bound for
San Francisco. Dr. Hearn had seen them safely
that far.

Miss Miller noticed an increasing weakness each
day of the voyage, but kept hoping that the brac-
ing sea air would bring healing to the worn little
body. She was but a wisp of a woman, now, little
left of the Lottie Moon that Virginia, Tengchow
and Pingtu had known. Yet the flaming devotion
of her was there, the heart that had loved Pingtu.

Christmas Eve came, December 24, 1912. The
ship rode gently at anchor, at Kobe, Japan. The
clear, winter sunshine shone into the stateroom
where she lay. Miss Miller was at her side to at-
tend to her slightest wish. For a long while that
morning she had lain very quietly, unconscious,
the watcher thought. Then she stirred, and
seemed to be looking for someone. Her lips
moved and as the nurse bent to catch her whisper
she heard a Chinese name. The frail, thin hands
were clasped together in the Chinese fashion of
greeting, and gently unclasped. Over and over
there came that look, and the greeting to Chinese
friends long since gone on before her—her Chi-
nese women of Tengchow and Pingtu, of the vil-
lages round about, whom she had told of the
heavenly home. The watcher did not venture to
break that holy hour. She felt as if the heaven-
ly visitors had come within the stateroom to greet
and bear her spirit away.LOTTIE MOON 311

And it was thus, with the Chinese handclasp, a
smile of greeting and the whisper of a friend’s
name that Lottie Moon went home.

Lottie Moon, Virginia’s gifted daughter, God’s
precious gift to China, was herself a Christmas
gift to heaven, for ’twas Christmas Eve! =

There were formalities to be gone through with.
According to Japanese laws the body had to be
cremated. Sorrowfully, lovingly Miss Miller
brought to the shores of the homeland the little
urn with the precious ashes. At San Francisco
it was delivered to Dr. R. T. Bryan whom the
Foreign Mission Board had sent from Texas in
response to her cable telling what had happened.
Across the continent to old Virginia he came as
its guardian.

On Thursday afternoon, January 28, 1913, a
memorial service was held at Second Baptist
Church, Richmond. Forty years had she been the
servant of the Foreign Mission Board in a for-
eign land. Now they gathered, with her friends
and relatives to do honor to her memory with what
tribute words might bring. Dr. T. Clagget Skin-
ner, pastor of the church, read the scripture les-
son and Dr. J. T. Hutson, one of the few pastors
living who was in the pastorate when she went
to China led in a prayer. The three Secretaries
of the Board added their tribute, Dr. Smith giving
the history of her life, Dr. Ray telling some strik-
ing incidents of her service in China, while Dr.
Willingham spoke touchingly of her courage, de-
votion and rare abilities. Then one of the oldest
members of the Board, Dr. C. H. Ryland, led a
closing prayer. It was a simple service, setting
the period to a great life.

Yet not the end, quite yet! For the next day
under the whispering pines of Crewe, Virginia,312 LOTTIE MOON

tender, loving hands laid away the ashes gently
in a tomb by the side of her brother, Isaac. With
a song and a prayer, and many a tear those who
had known her paid their last tribute under the
open sky of her beloved Virginia. Belle Fowlkes
was there, the Hollins classmate who had become
a famous artist. Others were there who had
known the girl, Lottie Moon, or the teacher, Lottie
Moon, or, dearest of all, the friend, Lottie Moon.
Nephews and nieces and cousins, and the little
sister-in-law, the nearest kin sorrowed over the
going of one whom they had known little in the
flesh, but who had meant much to them in spirit.

Nor was the end yet!

For at the foot of the grave, loving hands plant-
ed a living spruce tree, growing symmetrically
and perfectly through the wind and rain and sun.
It is a most fitting monument to such a life.
Then came the women of Virginia, who loved her
so. At the head of the grave they placed a beau-
tiful block of everlasting marble, with plain lines,
but exquisite in its simplicity. On it they carved
deeply just her name, then the two significant
dates, 1840-1912, and underneath, these all-des-
criptive words, “Forty years a missionary of
Southern Baptist Convention in China.” Then as
if there was just one more thing to tell, they added
three words,—‘“‘Faithful Unto Death.”

Literally true, those words. For the story was
told in Virginia papers by those whose hearts
were torn by the news that came after many days
from China. Literally true, for because Southern
Baptists had failed over here in the hour of great
need over there, this beloved missionary had ful-
filled the last possible meaning of the words,
“Faithful Unto Death.”EPILOGUE

LIFE ETERNAL

Yet for such life there is no death!

Southern Baptist women to whom she had been
an inspiration through all the years of their mis-
sionary organization looked about them for some
way in which they might emblazon her name upon
the hearts and minds of future generations. They
remembered that in the first days of the Woman’s
Missionary Union she had led them in their first
definite, successful effort to aid the cause of mis-
sions—the Christmas Offering. As she had been
the inspiration to them then, so might her name
and memory be an inspiration to all those who
would come after them. So they acknowledged
their debt to her by calling this offering the Lottie
Moon Christmas Offering. This was especially
fitting, for it was at Christmas time she first came
to China and at Christmas time she left it the last
time. So through the years has the story of her
life been told and retold, and her name has be-
come the touchstone of missionary devotion as
year after year the women and young people of
the Southland have come at Christmas time to lay
gifts of sacrifice at the feet of the Christ to whom
she gave her life.

That was not all!

For in China the deep sorrow that linked to-
gether the missionaries and the Chinese from
Tengchow all the way out to Pingtu, that touched

[ 313 J]314 LOTTIE MOON

city and villages alike with its shadow, that
marked with grief the faces of little children and
bent old men and women, that made companions
in loss the aristocratic Chinese woman who had
called her “‘sister’’ and the ragged beggar woman
who knew her as the foreign lady with the “Big
love heart,’’—there, too, sorrow found expression
in an outward symbol.

For in the little churchyard at the end of the
street on which stood the house at the Little Cross
Roads the Chinese erected a stone. Three years
were the Chinese Christians in gathering the love
gifts that went.into the gleaming shaft of marble.
Tall it is and slender, and marked deeply with
three parallel lines of strange Chinese characters.
The first line is simply the date, ‘1915,’ when
Chinese Christians placed here before the church
where she worshiped for forty years this symbol
of their love for her and gratitude for her service.

Let us read the characters of the other two lines
that tell the story, that we may read the hearts
of these Chinese Christians who loved Lottie
Moon.

““A monument to bequeath the love of Miss Lot-
tie Moon, an American missionary,” the second
line says. And then in utter simplicity the last
line adds, ““‘The Tengchow church remembers for-
ever.”

So to future generations would the Chinese
Christians bequeath the love of this one who left
her home in a far away land that she might tell
them of a God of Love and his Son, Jesus Christ,
the Saviour of the world.

But marble is not everlasting.

And life is!

Into a village went a young missionary the other
day. This village is so far distant from the centerLOTTIE

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEQUEATH LOVE MONUMENT
Monument Street Church, Tengchow, China.316 LOTTIE MOON

of the work that even though she had spent many
years in North China, she had never before visit-
ed here. She knew that there were Christians
there but she was not expecting the warm-hearted
‘welcome she received at the edge of the village,
the men and women vying with each other to do
her honor.

To the largest house in the village they led her
and there a woman of great age met her with the
glad light of welcome in her face. There was
the glow of love all about the missionary, in faces
and voices of these Chinese Christians. It was a
rarely beautiful experience. She wondered what
lay back of all this warmth and joy, this glad out-
reach of their hearts to hers.

Then came the explanation.

The old woman led her to the kang, the place
of honor in the room.

“Here she sat, and here she taught us, our be-
loved Moo La Dee. Here she led us to know
Christ. You come now to teach us as she did. So
you shall sit here where she once sat.”

There were tears in the Chinese woman’s eyes,
and tears in the American girl’s eyes. For mem-
ory had brought back the face and figure of one
who had found the way to Life Eternal, and had
spent herself in leading others to walk therein.

‘So in all the villages where once she sat and
taught of Christ, the life of Lottie Moon goes on
forever. From generation to generation shall the
name of Moo La Dee be told as the Christians
multiply in that land to which she gave herself.
Even when the echo of its syllables are lost in the
great corridors of time, the love that breathed it
in heathen China shall work on and on in the lives
of those Christians who shall hear the message
that she gave to their forefathers.LOTTIE MOON 317

For such a life can never die!

High over the gallery in the Baptist Church at
Crewe, Virginia, is a glowing, golden window. I
saw it at evening time when the sun in the west
was pouring through it a flood of blazing light.
Down through a field of beautiful lilies there
walks the figure of a woman, with graceful, flow-
ing garments, clasping the Word of God to her
heart, and holding high a blazing torch. Her face
is uplifted, she is looking out beyond me, into a
distance that I cannot see. She is beautiful.
Underneath the figure is the brief record in gold-
en letters:

MISS LOTTIE MOON
OUR BELOVED MISSIONARY
Born Dec. 17, 1840—Died Dec. 24, 1912

Above the tale of the life so richly lived, as a
great base upon which she walks, runs these
words in glowing gold:

“Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations.”

The glow faded from the window as the sun
went down in the west. But the woman with the
torch, in the field of white lilies, ever walks within
my memory. Nor can I ever forget the line of
glowing living words across which she is walking
into Eternity.Maria ‘63

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