From DR. C. E. SCOTT, of Tsinan, came an important letter calling attention to the urgent need for prayer on behalf of our suffering fellow believers in China. Speaking of the devotion of Mr. Chang Hsiu-sheng, who gave his life in a noble effort to protect John and. Betty, and of the courage of Evangelist La in rescuing little Helen Priscilla, Dr. Scott wrote
These events have brought a new revelation of the power of prayer to undergird weak Christians with spiritual strength in the face of personal peril. So remarkable were the courage and selflessness of Evangelist Lo and Mr. Chang that it is hard to believe that, only a few days earlier, both were rather uncertain in duty doing. Evangelist Lo was timid and fearful, and Mr. Chang was rather unwilling to witness for the true and living God. But Betty and John had, last fall, sent out prayer requests for these “little ones in Christ,” and those prayers were wondrously answered in a Christlike unselfishness and fervor of spirit and magnificent daring on the part of these two men that have thrilled the world.... They illustrate Paul’s grand aphorism: “God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”
It is one thing to talk of Christian courage in the snug safety of our comfortable homes; it is quite another for these men and the others so nobly associated with them to count not their lives dear unto themselves, for Christ’s sake.
In all this there is a message to our own hearts, in the words of Samuel: “God forbid that I should sin against the Lord, in ceasing to pray for you.” Let us, by practice, reiterate our conviction of the duty and privilege of prayer for our friends in China, especially for those whom we know to be weak in the faith, for those needing heart-comfort and assurance in Christ, and for those in sickness of body, or in peril of life from evil men. Prayer makes the weak, strong; the cowardly, bold; the faithless, faithful. Real prayer actually, objectively, changes things.
Forget them not, O Christ, who stand
Thy vanguard in the distant land.
In flood, in flame, in dark, in dread,
Sustain, we pray, each lifted head.
Exalt them over every fear,
In peril come Thyself more near.
Thine is the work they strive to do,
Their foes so many, they so few.
Be with Thine own, Thy loved, who stand,
Christ’s vanguard, in the storm-swept land.