Chapter 4.
Yes, those were early days, and in spite of the reality of his love to Christ and his uncompromising devotion, Hsi was only a beginner in spiritual things. In later years he became a man of such rare illumination in the knowledge of God, that it is startling to find how long it took him at first to see some things that to us would appear self-evident.
God has His schools for training. Even among the heathen, missionaries are not the only teachers. Often indeed, if wise enough, they are the taught; awed by the manifest working of the Holy Spirit in willing hearts. We blunder in our efforts to enlighten, hindering often by our very haste to help. The Great Teacher is so wise and patient, never discouraged, never at a loss for natural, simple means of bringing home the needed lesson.
Thus Hsi developed; learning all he could from occasional intercourse with the missionaries in the city, and taught of God, often in quaint, surprising ways, through the enlightenment of His Word applied to the daily experiences of life. In the matter of ancestral worship, for example, means were used to awaken him that probably none of us would ever have thought of.
For some months after he became a Christian, Hsi still kept in his guest hall a tablet bearing the name of his first wife, and supposed to be tenanted by one of her three spirits. This occupied an Honorable place among other tablets belonging to the family, and was of course his special property, though he had ceased to burn incense before it.
Apparently it had never occurred to him that ancestral worship is idolatry in one of its most subtle and dangerous forms. He seems not to have thought about it at all; or if he did, it was merely to conclude that though he could no longer worship the tablet, it might still remain among the others, and be treated with respect. Its removal would certainly give offense and be misunderstood.
Under these circumstances, what was to be done? With no one to show him the inconsistency, how was conviction to come, as come it must, if he were ever to become a strong, wise leader in the church?
Time passed, and the tablet was still there, Hsi quite unconscious of his duty regarding it; until one morning, coming into the room as usual, what was his surprise to see this almost sacred object lying with its face upon the ground. None of the other tablets had been touched; but this one had fallen over, apparently without hands, for it was prone upon its face just in front of the spot where it had always stood.
Hastening to raise it, Hsi’s astonishment was increased when he saw the cause of its fall. The base of the wooden slab had been deliberately gnawed across by rats, a thing that had never happened in his experience before. Carefully he repaired the damage, and restored the tablet to its place. One lesson was not enough.
Strange to say, only a few days later the same thing occurred again. The same tablet was assailed, and tumbled over as before. This was too marked an occurrence to pass unnoticed. Raising it thoughtfully, Hsi could not but wonder why this particular tablet, belonging exclusively to himself, should have been singled out twice over and thrown down in so unusual a way.
The circumstance led to thought and earnest prayer. And then, very simply, the conviction grew upon him that the whole system of ancestral worship was idolatrous and of the devil, and that as a Christian he could have nothing to do with it any more. This settled the matter. The tablet was at once destroyed, and his testimony upon the subject became clear and uncompromising.
But he always felt that the Lord had allowed light to come to him gradually in that strange way to teach him to be gentle and patient with others under the same circumstances.
“We need to be very careful,” he would say, “in putting this question before young converts and inquirers. Of course, ancestral worship is idolatry. It is simply exalting human beings, dead men and women, in the place of God. And yet there is much that is tender and beautiful connected with it: memories of the past, gratitude, reverence, and natural affection. We need to discriminate. Great harm may be done by utterly condemning the best la man has known, before you make sure that he has grasped something better. Like dead leaves, wrong and questionable practices will fall off when there comes living growth.”
It certainly was so in his own case, not only in the matter of ancestral worship.
One is surprised, for example, to find that during the first summer after his conversion, he continued with a clear conscience to grow and sell opium, and this although he knew so well the deadly effects of the drug. No one had suggested to him that, as a Christian, he ought not to have anything to do with the production or sale of the poison. The crop was most valuable, bringing five times the price of wheat. Of course, he no longer used it himself; but if others wanted the drug...?
“Take heed, lest by any means this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to them that are weak.... And through thy knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died.... Wherefore, if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend.... We suffer all things, lest we should hinder the gospel of Christ.... Giving none offense, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God.... Not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved.”
No wonder he came to see it, as the truth began to exercise more influence upon his life. And then he unhesitatingly made a clean sweep of the whole business, though it involved the sacrifice of a considerable portion of his income.
Not content, indeed, with banishing opium from his estate, he also abandoned the growth and use of tobacco, and would not tolerate it in his household. Nor would he continue to keep pigs on his farm. “No,” he insisted, “they are filthy.” Which is certainly true in China. “We must have nothing to do with that which is impure.”
“Be ye clean, ye that bear the vessels of the Lord,” was a command that gradually came to exercise much influence in his life. He endeavored to apply it in every detail, including personal cleanliness and exemplary household management. But we must not anticipate.
Another great truth that began to influence him early in his Christian experience, was one of the deepest yet one of the simplest of all: the necessity and privilege of sharing the sufferings of Christ, if we would follow in His footsteps. To deny self and endure hardness for Jesus’ sake, and in the service of others, seemed to him only the right and natural thing. And he was very practical about it.
On one occasion, for example, when he had been converted a little over a year, he went into the city as usual to attend the Sunday morning service. This was a walk of over thirteen miles, and he was still far from strong. But as he tramped the dusty road he “thought about the Lord Jesus carrying that heavy cross over a much more weary way; and so pressed forward, not daring to fear difficulty.”
The service over, he was resting a little while before the homeward journey, when a poor man sought him out and begged him to go at once to the village of the White Mountain, to pray for a woman, dangerously ill, who wanted to hear of Jesus. The village was seventeen miles farther on. No cart or animal had been provided. The road was lonely and somewhat dangerous. And no one was going home that way with whom he could travel. But it never even occurred to him not to go.
Hour after hour, faint and solitary, he pressed on. At length evening fell, and he had only reached the rushing torrent three miles from the village. Very soon it was dark, and neither moon nor stars could be seen. Belated on that mountain road, he knew that travelers were exposed to the attack of hungry wolves grown fearless since the famine. And sure enough, as he stumbled on, he heard sounds that too plainly indicated their approach. Yes, they were on his track. Nearer and nearer came the howling, until he knew that they were all around him in the darkness. But there was a Presence nearer still.
Falling on his knees in that moment of peril, Hsi cried aloud to the Unseen Friend. He never knew what happened, or how he was delivered; but the next thing he was conscious of was silence, and that he was alone.
“Everything,” he records, “grew strangely still. I know not when the wolves disappeared, or where they went. But they returned no more. Truly the Lord was my shield and my protector.”
A little later he reached the village, and had the joy of telling the glad tidings to the sick woman and her friends, who probably had never seen a Christian before. What the result was in their lives we are not told. But the preacher himself never forgot that remarkable deliverance, nor the blessing that came to him in a service that involved some suffering.
In his brief chronicle of those early days some incidents are recorded that to us may seem trivial, until we understand the intense sincerity of the man, and how all life, to him, was of one piece — no difference of secular and sacred, great or small, but God in all circumstances, and some purpose of blessing in everything that affects His people. In this faith he saw deeper significance in the details of life, and took little account of second causes, tracing everything to the will, or the permission, of the Father with whom alone he had to deal.
One evening, in the gloaming, he had gone to bring the cattle home. Passing along a steep hillside, probably absorbed in thought, his foot slipped and he was thrown down an embankment of considerable height. The accident was one that might easily have proved fatal, but strange to say he was little hurt. Climbing painfully up to the road again, instead of being annoyed by what had happened, he began to think over the circumstance and wonder what lesson it was meant to teach. There must be some purpose in it. “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord.” Why should his steps have been permitted to slide in so unexpected a way?
And then it came to him that he had not been watching the path as he walked along. He had been careless, and so fell into trouble. And how much more serious would spiritual declension be; the falls that would certainly result from carelessness in his walk with God. His heart was thoroughly awakened, and more than ever he sought to watch and pray as he traveled the heavenward road.
Again, a little later, he needed warning along similar lines, and records a humiliating occurrence. He seems to have been off his guard in some way, and even allowed himself to be drawn into a lawsuit among his heathen relatives. Mixed up in this proceeding, he acted in a way dishonoring to God.
As he left the scene of the disturbance, conscious of having done wrong, he was suddenly attacked by a powerful, ferocious dog, which threw him to the ground, and seemed as if it would tear him in pieces. In his peril it flashed upon him how much more terrible were the assaults of Satan, who as a roaring lion goes about seeking whom he may devour. Earnestly he cried to the Lord for deliverance; and the first thing was that, without any apparent reason, the dog ran away; but this was followed by very real and deep repentance, that put the great enemy to flight.
It was also not a little characteristic that when the onlookers wanted to chase and beat the dog, Hsi would not permit it, saying from a full heart: “No, this is my Heavenly Father’s chastisement. I have needed the lesson. What has the dog to do with it?”
Now all this may seem to us most elementary.
But is it really so? Perhaps as we grow in grace ourselves, and walk more constantly and closely with our God, we too, though in a different way, may have more practical evidence of His presence and be more conscious of the veiling of His face.
At any rate is there not something for the oldest Christian to learn from a testimony, such as the following, culled from those early pages: — On account of many onslaughts of Satan, my wife and I for the space of three years seldom put off our clothing to go to sleep, in order that we might be the more ready to watch and pray. Sometimes in a solitary place, I spent whole nights in prayer: and the Holy Spirit descended. Frequently my mother noticed a light in our bedroom toward midnight, by which she knew that we were still waiting before our Heavenly Father.
We had always endeavored in our thoughts, words, and actions to be well pleasing to the Lord, but now we realized more than ever our own weakness; that we were indeed nothing; and that only in seeking to do God’s will, whether in working or resting, whether in peace or peril, in abundance or in want, everywhere and at all times relying on the Holy Spirit, we might accomplish the work the Lord has appointed us to do. If we had good success, we gave all the glory to our Heavenly Father; if bad success, we took all the blame ourselves. This was the attitude of our hearts continually.