THE mission house at Tengyueh was a very different place now that bachelor housekeeping was again exchanged for the life of a family. Mrs. Flagg was a great acquisition, not only to her husband—now in charge of the Chinese side of the work—but to Allyn Cooke, whom she relieved of household cares, and to Fraser, whose letters frequently refer to her efficiency and kindliness.
Mrs. Flagg came from Buffalo, U.S.A. [he explained to his mother] expecting to go straight into work in the interior of China, but being an expert accountant she was asked to remain in Shanghai, to give help in the Treasurer’s department of the Mission....
After six years in that important service, she is now tremendously glad to be set free for this inland province, and we are tremendously glad to have her. She knows but little of the language as yet, but she is quick and capable and will soon be able to make herself understood.
Mrs. Flagg was also an excellent housekeeper and made the best bread Fraser had ever tasted in China. But her helpful spirit meant far more to the sometimes-lonely pioneer.
She is certainly very kind to me [he continued] and does not at all encourage my going out to live among the Lisu. She wants me to stay on here (as headquarters) and to make me as comfortable as possible. Now she is your friend for ever, is she not!
But Fraser’s point of view was different. He saw in the new arrangement the opportunity he had long desired of leaving the station and Chinese work entirely to his colleagues and going out himself to live in the wilds’. He wanted to be more in touch with his Lisu and more completely to share their life. And this desire was realized some weeks later.
It was a poor little home to which Fraser was welcomed. in the heart of his western district. Turtle Village, lying six thousand feet up in the mountains, was almost entirely Christian. A little house of bamboo matting was placed at his disposal, with a thatched roof, a hollowed-out fireplace in the middle of the floor, and a bamboo bed. stead, table and stool of Lisu manufacture. At the bad of the room a long broad shelf was fixed up for him—consisting of a coffin plank, borrowed for the purpose—on which to dispose of his belongings, consisting chiefly of a few books, medicines and stores, such as cocoa and milk and a tin of biscuits sent as a gift from Ba Thaw’; young wife in Burma, For Ba Thaw, again generously spared from Myitkyina, had come up to give help in the translation of a second Gospel which was urgently needed, The bamboo shed was divided into a central and two side compartments, one of which was the kitchen and the other the bedroom.
Here then, in much thankfulness, Fraser made himself at home with young and old, entering into all the life oi the village. He had a real love for children and welcomed their informal visits; they ran around him at all hours, learning when they must keep quiet not to disturb his work.
Seated at his rickety table one day that summer, Frasei was writing to his prayer helpers, when he heard whisper; and the shuffling of little feet outside his door. Timidly at first, six or seven children appeared, and the charming sequel was incorporated in his letter.
The leader of this afternoon’s party wanted a piece of soap. Now a piece of soap for one means, of course, a piece for each and all, so I suggested that she might wash her hands with my soap and basin, both on the low shelf behind us. The desire to be clean is such a laudable one that we must not discourage it, must we? So she prepares to start in, but her hands being innocent of previous washings, she is a little in doubt of the modus operandi, and looks at me inquiringly. There is some lather in the soap dish and I tell her to use that first, whereupon she scrapes some up gingerly and spreads it on the back of her left hand―just as you would spread butter on a piece of bread. No, I tell her, she must rub it in, not just spread it on, so she tries again. However, it soon seems evident that a practical demonstration is necessary, so after washing my own hands to show her the approved method, she starts in again. She warms to her work this time, and washes both hands and face with rather more vigor, more splashing, and more blowing than I thought I had included in my demonstration. However, there is nothing like erring on the right side, is there?
Of course by this time all the others have discovered that the thing they desire more than anything else in the world is to wash their hands too. They never thought of it before, but sometimes discoveries are made on the spur of the moment, you see. So very soon they are all squatting around the little galvanized iron basin, not without some edging and pushing―to say nothing of differences of opinion as to who ‘had the soap first’ ―and are reveling in their newly found amusement. As there were not more than two or three tumblers-full of water in the small basin to begin with, and as their hands were scarcely snowy white when they came in, the color of the water when they have been at it five or ten minutes need not be described. Some of them seem to think it necessary to present their hands to me for inspection after washing. One very small boy comes along with such a solemn face (washing is a very serious business, you see) and holds both hands out in mute inquiry.... So I smile approval, pat his head, and back he toddles to the basin as solemnly as he came.
Of course they all succeed in getting their sleeves wet up to the elbows, and part of their tunics and dresses wet too. Moreover, they do not seem as anxious to remove the soap from their hands and faces as they were to put it on. They smell of soap for hours afterwards, and go about with soapy-shiny faces. One little girl comes to present herself for inspection and I seat her on the stool beside me. She is not at all afraid, but looks up out of the tops of her eyes with a kind of awe, as if I were a mile instead of a foot or two above her. It is a pure pleasure to get children’s confidence, is it not? They finish their handwashing, as you might guess, by spilling all the water on the floor―a touch of nature! but we will not blame them.
Little Miss Kung, about ten years old, was one of Fraser’s chief friends in Turtle Village. Introducing her, he wrote She has big brown eyes, round and full like a deer’s, a bright face and an eager childish smile. She has her head shaved (like all other Lisu girls and women) except for a circular patch about four inches across at the back of her head, the hair of which is plaited into a short queue. She wears a cloth cap on her head which we might call a rainbow cap (for it must certainly contain nearly all the colors of the rainbow!) on the top of which is fastened a little tuft of fur about four inches long. Her dress is held together by a pattern-woven cloth belt about two inches wide, and her apron, which is separate from the dress, comes down nearly to her feet. I wish you could hear her eager childish prattle you would realize two things―first that these children are not lacking in quick intelligence, and secondly that they are just flesh and blood children like ours in England. How she will chatter! These children live such natural lives; they know all their hills and valleys by heart, know the names and habits of all the animals, birds and insects to be found there, as well as all about the trees, shrubs, etc., etc., found on their hills. They will sit and make necklaces of red berries, or plait bracelets out of wild grass while they tend cattle. And she will talk about these and many other things. She will tell you all the affairs of the village―how So-and-So lost something, and then his mother scolded him, at which he got sulky and ran up and slept in the hut on their buckwheat field, then how his sister saw him and told his uncle, what the latter said and then what someone else said, and how they had a quarrel about it, etc., etc., etc., all of which details do not interest me half as much as the charming vivacity of the child who is telling them. She will close her periods by looking straight up into your face with an eager smile as much as to say, ‘Isn’t that interesting?’ Then she will suddenly look serious and gaze off into space for a moment’s reverie―just as you see eager, demonstrative children do at home―but her reveries only last about two seconds, after which she will suddenly start up again on a new tack, as bright and eager as before. And so she prattles on.
She can write a little, though she usually contrives to get her n’s and s’s the wrong way round. Once when I was sitting at my table writing to one of my prayer members it struck me to ask her (she was standing at the other side of the table watching me) to put her name at the head of the sheet. She complied with alacrity, and was just going to write when she suddenly pulled herself up and said, ‘I haven’t yet asked God to help me,’ whereupon she bowed her head on the table and asked God to help her write her name! I think I can see her now, with her head in her hands, her rainbow cap on, and the tuft of fur flapping noiselessly forward on to the table in front of her.
To win the love of the children was one of Fraser’s chief joys in his Lisu wilds, but he did not often succeed with the very little ones. ‘They usually give me a doubtful, suspicious look,’ he confesses, ‘and then decide in the negative.’
Such was a tiny little girl at Water Bowl Village. She was about two years old, but only able to walk by holding on to the bamboo partition as she went round the room. She would not come to me. But, do you know, she could sing ‘Jesus loves me’ with scarcely a false note! I could hardly believe my ears, for she was little more than a baby. I could not but recall the words, ‘Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings Thou hast perfected praise.’ Did you ever wonder why God has set so high a value on the praise of little children?... Whatever the reason be, their praise is ‘perfected,’ and we can never go on better than perfect, in spite of all our poetical and musical sophistications! Oh, yes, we grown-up people know a great deal, or think we do; we may indeed do many things in God’s service better than children can. We may preach better, we may pray better; hut there is one thing we shall never do better than children―and that is to praise God better. For there is no sweeter music in the ears of our Heavenly Father than His praises sung by the innocent lips of a tiny little child.
There was something about the singing of the Lisu converts that brought Fraser himself no little pleasure. He rarely mentioned, even to his mother, any sense of privation in his strangely primitive surroundings, but the hunger for music, real soul-stirring music, was always there.
Cooke is musical [he wrote at this time], not in the disappointing way some people are ‘musical,’ but with real taste and feeling. He has a good violin... and puts his soul into his playing in a way that makes it a pleasure to accompany him. But a harmonium is a poor thing to accompany a violin, much more so a ‘baby organ’ such as mine!...
When I dip into real music, I often have the feeling that a part of myself has been more or less undeveloped—I do not mean in regard to execution, but in regard to general musical education and soul culture. Not that I would have my life different in actual practice, if I had the choice of making it so. One has sometimes to prune a tree in one direction, that it may develop better in another. But if I ever dream, and I do sometimes, of golden ages and existences, the golden age to me is that of a century ago more or less, and the golden existence the swim of the musical world in Continental conservatoires. I dream of bathing my soul in the creations of Beethoven, Mozart and other great masters; of drinking in opera music; of living in the world of the Rubinsteins, Sarasates, Paganinis, and the great singers. I know very well that all this never is, nor can be wholly satisfying, and I deliberately relegate it to its own place. It is not and I do not wish it should be more to me than dreams. My natural longings, however, go out in that direction.
So he loved the singing of his young Lisu and took great pains to train them in a method of his own, by which they could read simple music and even copy out new tunes for themselves. The value of hymns was so great in imparting truth and developing Christian experience that, with Ba Thaw’s help, he constantly added to their supply of both original hymns and translations. Two special favorites set forth Bible history in many verses, easily remembered by reason of their tunes and rhymes. These two long hymns of the Old, and New Testaments were eagerly learned and sung by the young converts, and went far to supplement the fragmentary portions of Scripture as yet available.
The days at Turtle Village were largely devoted to the translation of a second Gospel, that of John, and to thought and prayer over the practical problem of self-support in the growing Lisu church. How easy it would have been to slip into the too-frequent custom of paying out of foreign funds the larger part of the expense incurred in the work! But the more Fraser lived in touch with the people, the more he was convinced that they were really able to do for themselves all that was necessary. And he did not regard them as Christians of another type from himself. The greatest joy and privilege of his life lay in service and sacrifice for the Lord he loved. Fellowship with Christ was indeed precious in the realm of spiritual gain and gladness, but fellowship with Him in suffering brought yet deeper revelations of His love. Were these spiritual children, for whom he so truly travailed in birth, to be denied their right to this deeper fellowship? Were they to be debarred from free, self-propagating life as believers? Was the Lisu Church to become a parasitic body, dependent upon foreign money and control? Not so did Fraser envisage the situation. As he looked out upon the problem of the mountain people―the need and darkness of tribe after tribe throughout that great borderland―he saw the possibility of a growing, indigenous Church, unfettered by foreign funds and methods, carrying the Name of Jesus far afield by its own zeal and devotion. He saw voluntary, unpaid preachers, guided by the Spirit of God, going out in faith to make known the Gospel, which was indeed Good News to them, and attesting by self-sacrifice the reality of their love to the Saviour. He saw in a word, saw in faith, the blessed possibilities so largely to be realized in the Lisu Church, by the grace of God. And for that Church, beloved of his soul, he was ready to deny himself as all wise parents must, ready to endure and to let them endure, that they might ‘grow up into Him in all things’.
But it was not easy. The extreme poverty of the mountaineers was always there before his eyes. Was he not sharing it—living for months together in their primitive homes? No aspect of their hard, bare life was unknown to him. Yet he loved them well enough not to make their way as Christians too easy, or a one-sided receiving. The joy of giving must be theirs too; and there was much they could give. So Fraser did not pay the young men who volunteered to carry his loads from village to village. When chapels were needed, he did not take the initiative, but left it entirely to those who would use them. The principle he inculcated was that those who enjoyed the benefit should bear the labor or expense. He let them pay for their Gospels and catechisms, notebooks and pencils, which came to be in great demand as the young folks learned to read and write. He let them supply the food for their Christmas festivals and the oil for lighting the chapels at night. He refrained from paying the voluntary preachers who went out from time to time; even the two young teachers still working in the eastern district he left to the care of the warmhearted converts over there. How much easier it would have been to go ahead and do things at his own or Mission expense! But no: he held on in the apostolic spirit, ‘I endure that they may obtain’.
In this connection Fraser had written to his prayer helpers a few months previously:
One thing about which I am much exercised and want to ask your prayers is the matter of self-support. I could write much more than you have time to read on the subject, but will at least say this―that the Lisu converts, if wisely organized for the purpose, are well able to support their own evangelists and teachers, and to put up their chapels, schools, etc., without the help of a single penny of foreign money. Quite at the beginning of things it may be best for us to help them out somewhat, but I regard the entire self-support of the work as a goal to be reached as soon as ever possible.... It is not at all pleasant for us missionaries to insist on such poor people giving for the support of their work, when we are wealthy by comparison. It has nevertheless to be done, unless we want them to become parasite Christians.
On my last journey I was up against the problem in the village of City Hill. A young man, one of the converts, wished to join me in order to learn as much as he could while helping in evangelistic work among the heathen Lisu. As he could be of considerable use to his fellow villagers on his return, I put it to them that they might help his wife and children while he was away. I calculated that five rupees a month (6s. 6d.) would be sufficient to provide for the family, and as he was willing to give eight months to the work, a sum of forty rupees would be needed. It would have been far easier to provide the money from my own funds, but I had determined upon principle not to do so. On broaching the matter to them, the converts said they would think it over and give me an answer the next evening.
The result was that next evening the villagers announced that they were prepared to give two annas (2d) per family, not per month, but for the whole time the young man would be away―a total of one rupee for the eight Christian families, no doubt expecting Fraser to give the remaining thirty-nine.
There was a time [he continued] when I should have been chary of pressing the subject any further, with people living in such poverty. But I know the Lisu better now, and so proceeded to give them a good round reproof for suggesting such a meagre contribution. They did not much like it, naturally enough, and some of them grumbled and argued against me vigorously. But I stood my ground.
I pointed out that they were proposing to give to the work of the Lord, Who had given His life for them, just about one-sixtieth part of the money they usually spent on tobacco and betel nut. I reminded them that there was more than one among them who had not yet broken off opium, and that a single opium smoker would burn away enough money during eight months to meet the entire need! They could not deny that for a single marriage they would spend eight hundred times the amount they had suggested each family should give―if not a thousand or two thousand times as much!
‘Yes,’ they argued, ‘but we have to get wives. That is a necessary expenditure.’
‘Very well,’ I answered, ‘if you think so little of preaching the Gospel, perhaps it is not necessary for the young man to go at all.’
And there I left the matter, begging them to reconsider it. The lad himself was disappointed and so was his young wife, a nice, true-hearted girl, who really wanted her husband to go and learn more. I myself felt saddened, more than any of them, and made it a special matter of prayer that they might be brought to a better state of mind and heart.
That evening they seemed to have come round a little, and eventually they made the following arrangement.
Three of the eight families concerned promised to take the wife and two children into their homes and support them for a month at a time. Two other families gave a rupee each (is. 4d.) outright. This amounted altogether to a contribution of seventeen rupees―instead of one. It was not all they could have done, by any means; but not thinking it wise to press the matter further, I paid the balance of twenty-three rupees myself. I made it quite clear, however, that I did not want them to give anything at all, if they did it grudgingly.
‘No Teacher,’ they instantly replied, ‘we are glad to give.’
How different a spirit from the evening before! The Lord had been working in the meanwhile.
It was on prayer and the work of the Holy Spirit that Fraser was learning to depend more and more. None other could reveal the joy there is in service and sacrifice for the Lord Jesus. He longed to see the Lisu Church a missionary Church from the beginning, and spared neither prayer nor effort to make it so.
Now is the time [he wrote from Turtle Village this summer] to commence self-support among my Lisu, now while the work is still in its formative stage, and I want you to pray very earnestly that it may go forward on wholesome, self-sustaining lines.
‘Do not be afraid of burdening the people,’ was advice which had sounded strange to Fraser some years previously. ‘It does them good,’ went on the experienced and truly devoted missionary.
The advice was needed [Fraser continued in the above letter]. We do not consider ourselves rich as compared with other Europeans out here, but we are rolling in wealth compared with these poor tribespeople, and are tempted to feel mean, burdening them in any way. But I am convinced that we ought to do it, and really the people themselves expect us to. So I let them carry my baggage on their backs from village to village, sometimes as far as twenty miles, and never offer payment. They do not expect it, any more than they expect to be paid for the hospitality I always accept when staying among them. They expect to do these things for their foreign teacher, as for their own evangelists. Would I then be doing them a kindness to encourage a mercenary spirit where there is none to begin with?
As to paying converts to preach the Gospel, Fraser had reason to feel that for the foreign missionary to do so was ‘a vicious system’ and fruitful in grievous results.
It is the line of least resistance [he commented], but is something like the broad road that leads to destruction. No! far better let our work go slowly, and tread the narrow way of self-support. We shall never regret it....
What I want to see everywhere is the spirit of SACRIFICE for the Lord Who bought us with His blood―a desire to prove not what we can get but what we can give―and my heart burns as I write it.
It was just like Fraser to apply to himself even more rigorously than to others this principle of self-support, He had long wanted to earn his own living in China rather than receive funds from the Mission to which he belonged, and after correspondence with Mr. Hoste on the subject, at length obtained permission to accept a teaching post in a Government school for boys at Tengyueh. In return for teaching English for two hours daily, from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m., and on Mondays from 1 to 3 p.m., he was to receive a salary of $80 a month, equal at that time to about eight pounds sterling. To make his position perfectly plain, he retained for his personal use only as much of this salary as would have come to him normally in C.I.M. remittances, placing the remainder to Mission funds. For these sums (paid in whenever the notice of a remittance came to hand) Fraser received regular receipts from Shanghai.
This will avoid the imputation of my making money on the side for myself [he wrote to his Prayer Helpers], and yet I shall have the delightful feeling of earning my own salt―working for the right to be a missionary, so to speak―and shall also have extra money to put into the printing of Lisu books, which is costly, hospitality to Lisu visitors, etc. It will tie me down somewhat, of course, except for the summer vacation in July, but I do not mind that just at present. I want to do literary and training work, which can be better managed here than elsewhere.
The arrangement worked well as long as it lasted, for Fraser enjoyed his relations with the Chinese headmaster and staff; and won the respect of the boys, some sixty of them, ranging in age from sixteen to eighteen. The work left him free from 9 a.m. for other occupations, of which his hands were full, for he was getting out a Handbook of the Lisu language, at the request of the British Government in Burma, besides teaching a group of young converts who desired to be home missionaries, and completing with Ba Thaw’s help the translation of the Gospel of John.
Another engrossing interest at this time was the study of agriculture to which Fraser had been drawn by his eagerness to help the Lisu to improve their farming methods and to earn a little money. Careful investigation of local conditions had assured him that much might be done along this line. From a well-known naturalist and other Europeans in the district he had learned the possibilities of soil and climate, and was collecting seeds of various crops likely to do well round his Lisu villages.
By the by [he wrote to his mother], do you remember my telling you of Forrest, the botanical expert who has spent some years in Yunnan, collecting specimens of orchids, rhododendrons, etc.? He has just been here again, and I have been pumping him for all the agricultural information he could give me.... He had been a farmer in Scotland and a fruit grower in Australia before taking on his present work, besides which a man could hardly be a botanist and know nothing of agriculture, could he? I am glad to find that some of my own conclusions, derived from reading and inquiry among people of this locality, are not far out.
Forrest says that much of the red soil of this plain and district is loam, not pure clay, and that there is a considerable amount of the same kind of soil in England. He says that the large waste area to the N.W. of our plain could be made to grow wheat, potatoes and other things, if properly handled, but that this soil lies in pockets of volcanic rock, which come near the surface in places. He thinks that sugar beet would grow well in it, but no native here has ever heard of such a crop―though sugar is even more expensive than at home.
Rare orchids and other flowers found their way to the mission house from this interesting Mr. Forrest. Rhododendrons were his specialty, and he would wax eloquent over great sweeps of hillside just one mass of gorgeous color.
Would you not like [Fraser questioned] to be able to go out for an afternoon’s walk and gather as many orchids as you could carry? Those we now have are a rich orange-red color. We have hung some on tree stumps and some from a suspended bamboo gutter. Wonderful things, are they not?―clinging wherever you place them and drawing all their sustenance from the air.
Strangely enough, it was only the second week of Fraser’s engagement in the Middle School when tidings reached him of a new movement of the Spirit of God out in his eastern district, which before long was to supplant both school teaching and agriculture in their claims upon him. It was Lao-luh, the leader of the two young Lisu Cooke had left behind, who came in to Tengyueh in a sorry plight. He was suffering from an ulcerated eye that badly needed attention and was shabby and way-worn from his long journey. But he was also overflowing with gladness as the bearer of good tidings.
Listening to all he had to tell, Fraser was carried back in thought to the banks of the Salween and the day he had crossed it, coming from Rangoon the previous summer. While waiting for a coolie for the next stage up the mountains, he had noticed two Lisu come down to the river on the Burma side and call, as he supposed, for the ferry. But they could get no answer, and finally turned back and disappeared. He had not forgotten them, and now heard the unexpected sequel. For Lao-luh had just come from these villages across the Salween, bringing with him two of many tribespeople over there who were earnestly inquiring about the way of salvation. They had sent for the Lisu lad of whom they had heard, and he had gone willingly from village to village and home to home, telling all he knew of the saving power of Christ. The joy in that remote region was great as demon altars were destroyed and whole households turned from darkness to light. Lao-luh, indeed, was overwhelmed when more than a hundred families had declared themselves Christians and were asking for books and further teaching. All he could do was to hasten back to Tengyueh, a week’s journey over the mountains, to find Fraser, and at the same time seek help for his eyes.
More and more, the interest of both Mr. and Mrs. Flagg had been drawn out to the Lisu side of the Tengyueh work, and he was happily at liberty to return before long with the messengers. Fraser deeply felt the call of the new development, and though tied for the time by his teaching work, took upon his heart the burden of these seeking souls. He, no less than his colleagues, Mr. and Mrs. Flagg, felt that the time had come when they should remove their center to that eastern district and follow up as fully as possible the manifest working of God. Meanwhile, Fraser turned to his praying friends at home with a deep sense of his own insufficiency. Here is the letter to his mother, written as he thought matters over.
My young Lisu helper arrived in here three days ago (on April it), and reported the ‘turning Christian’ of over a hundred families in a new district just across the Salween. The movement is still spreading there. Lao-luh only came in because of a very painful eye (ulcer on the cornea) which we are trying to cure. He says that there were many more invitations from other villages which he had not had time to accept.
Imagine what it is to have between five and six hundred families (representing some three thousand people) looking to you as father, mother, teacher, shepherd, adviser, etc. etc. It is a big responsibility.
Compared with mass movements in some parts of India and Africa, Fraser realized that his task was compassable, yet it was great.
You know [he added] that, rightly or wrongly, I went in for big things when I took up tribes work: and I do not regret it. I believe that to a large extent we get what we go in for with God―only sometimes we have mistaken ideas as to how it will come about.