9. The Death of the Heathen, and a Christian’s Victory Over Death.
PROBABLY the greatest difficulty the missionary has to meet in presenting the Gospel to the Chinese, is the universal superstition regarding ancestral worship. The following instance of its power made a lasting impression on the writer’s mind before he had been many months in the country. One afternoon in September―soon after the great famine in North China―we were taking our usual walk through the dusty streets of a city, to the open field! beyond its wall. Just before reaching the south gate, we noticed, on the side of the road, three or four women together, one of whom was kneeling upon an old grave am crying piteously. We looked earnestly at the troubled woman and her companions, but being unable to speak the language well enough to make ourselves understood, we made no inquiries, and judging by the composure of the women who stood by, took it for granted that nothing very serious had occurred. Outside the city wall we passed several men, at different times, carrying bundles of colored paper and crackers under their arms, and on re-entering the city we observed heaps of burnt paper before nearly every house. Men and boys were busily engaged in heaping up strings of colored paper, and a ring of incense ashes having been made around the heap, it was set alight, amid great excitement. In every direction, women were weeping and wailing―in houses, streets, and fields, as only the heathen can do. Indeed, nearly every woman in the city seemed suddenly overcome with grief.
We hastened through the streets to our home, to ascertain from our native friends the cause of this sudden outburst. Had the firstborn in every family been suddenly taken from their midst, as in the days of Pharaoh, or had some great slaughter of rebels, in some part of the empire, suddenly bereaved half the women of the city of a husband or a brother? We soon learned that nothing extraordinary had occurred. It was the feast of the eighth moon, on which occasion it is the duty of widows to bewail the death of their husbands, and to pray to their spirits, which are believed to be present, to hear and to give the desired help. On certain great feast days, so it is believed, the spirits of the dead visit the earth to receive the worship of their offspring.
As we sat outside our door, in the cool of the evening, with the starry heavens and the serene rising moon above, offering a forcible contrast to the din of gongs and drums, the excited singing of the worshippers in the temples, and the noise of the actors in the out-of-door theaters about the streets, we could but wonder what must be the thoughts of the Great and Holy God, as He looked down upon the scene of confusion. Is it possible, thought we, that such a wilderness can ever be made to blossom as the rose? It is possible. With God all things are possible, and this thought alone was sufficient to stimulate us to increased zeal for the spread of the gospel among the heathen.
It has often been said, and with great truth, that China presents the aspect of one vast cemetery. Go where you will, on the plains, in the hills, or by the road-side, and in nearly every field, you find mounds representing the last resting-place of a father, a mother, or a child. There do not appear to be many public cemeteries; but, as a rule, each man buries his dead in his own field, just as Abraham desired to do, when he purchased the plot of ground from the children of Heth. Only the very poorest of the people in the large cities, who have no land of their own, bury their dead in the waste places of the earth.
Everywhere, as we pass through the country, we see graves, and often, in the famine districts, unburied coffins. Large sums of money are frequently spent, at the suggestion of the Necromancer, in the vain hope of finding a suitable spot where the spirit of the departed man may rest in peace. It is no unusual thing to meet parties of men conveying a corpse to the very ends of the empire. When this is done the coffin is fixed between two long poles, and carried by two mules. A cock, with a string tied to one leg to prevent his escape, is attached to the coffin, and, when the body is at last interred, the cock is slain and his blood sprinkled on the coffin. These journeys are often long and expensive. Certain prepared paper is burnt at short stages along the road, with the idea that in some strange way the path of the spirit of the dead man may thus be illuminated. Prayers are chanted for the dead for days and weeks together; indeed the length of the period required to release the soul from its purgatory is often in proportion to the length of the purse of the family, by whom the priests are engaged Purgatory is older than Rome.
Almost one of the first things we saw, upon entering the inland province of Ho-nan, was an early morning funeral.
We had started on our day’s march at dawn. The surrounding country was flat and uninteresting, and the morning moss dismal and cold, the sun not having yet riser to dispel the darkness and to drive away the mists of early dawn. We had not travelled more than a mile into the open country, when strange sounds of weeping and wailing mingled with chanting of prayers, reached our ears. Everything seemed in keeping with the wailing of the mourners and the hopeless prayers of the priests, proceeding from a clump of Cyprus trees not far distant from our path. We could distinguish in the disappearing gloom, the forms of some dozen persons in deep mourning. They had a strip of white calico over their heads, and a long white sash of the same material round their waists, while one or two were clothed entirely in white, even to their shoes. All stood round a newly-dug grave. They had just lowered the remains of a relative to his last-resting place. A more dismal hour could not have been chosen for such a sad duty. The night had barely gone; day had not yet commenced as these mournful cries ascended to Heaven. There was no place for rejoicing among the mourners, that the departed had gone to be with Christ. The future of their absent one was darker than the gloom which now surrounded his grave. No Sun of Righteousness had risen upon his soul. He had died, as he had lived, without the knowledge of Christ’s salvation. The darkness of death reigns in this vast province of fifteen million souls. The sound of the gospel is never heard there. No hope of eternal life lightens the path of those who die in this country.
The following account of the triumphant death of a young Christian girl, named Teh-sing, who had been brought up in a mission school at Shao-hing, is a remarkable contrast to what we have just said concerning the death of the heathen. I give the account as written by the lady under whose loving care the mission school prospers.
“During the last fortnight that she was with us, she was watched day and night; and many times during that period we all gathered round her bed, expecting that every breath would be her last. Still she rallied again, and suffered on as before, till Friday, the 30th September. Then a scene burst in upon us as wonderful as it was sudden and unlooked for; it seemed as if she had been borne on the crest of a wave to the very shores of glory, and was brought back in its receding flow, not to tell us what she had seen, but to let us know how inexpressibly happy it had made her.
“A little after noon, on my way to her room, I was met by one of the school-girls coming to call me, as they thought her dying. In an instant I was by her side, and taking her cold hands, I asked her ‘How is it with you now, Teh-sing’? She fixed her beaming eyes on mine, and said, ‘Oh, I am so happy! Do not weep: you need not be troubled; you must not weep. I am going to heaven. I am inexpressibly happy. I have seen the Lord! I have seen heaven. It is so good; very, very good.’
“ ‘Have your sufferings ceased entirely, then?’ I asked. ‘Only my chest is sore, but that will soon be over. In heaven there will be no pain, no sorrow―no, not the least. Heaven is so good, inexpressibly good. You cannot even imagine how good it is. Oh, I am happy, happy!’”
“Looking round on us all, she thanked us repeatedly, saying several times, ‘We shall all meet in heaven. You need not weep; you must not weep. We shall meet in heaven. Good-bye! good-bye! Its door is very wide, so that whosoever will, may enter in if they will only trust in Jesus.’”
“Before this she had asked me to pray for her mother and exhort her. She now called her mother to her, and, taking her hand, said, ‘You must repent, and trust in Jesus; you must become a disciple, and meet me in heaven. Heaven is so good: I shall wait for you there.’”
“The hymn, ‘There is a happy land,’ was then softly sung. She was quiet till the last line, and then she began again to talk of its blessedness, saying ‘Yes, yes,’ as the singing ceased. I asked her if she would choose a hymn. She said, ‘Sing, Rock of Ages,’ and tried to sing herself. When the singing ceased she said, ‘It is wholly on account of Jesus’ merit that I am clean. I could do nothing to save myself―no, not the least thing.’ She then said, I shall soon see Æ-tsia (a fellow school-girl, who had recently died), and, drawing me towards her, said, ‘You are coming, too?’ Then, looking earnestly and tenderly on me, she continued: ‘But, remember my words, there is nothing to fear―it is so easy.’ Holding her forefinger and thumb apart about two inches, she said, ‘The water is just about so deep. When faith is weak, the river is deeper.’”
“She then rested quietly, and most of those around her bed went away, wondering and amazed at what they had seen and heard. Truly pen cannot describe it, nor words convey any adequate idea of what the scene, which lasted about half-an-hour, was like. All was spoken in a whisper, for her voice had failed for some time.”
“Just then, not thinking that she was listening, I said to Æ-ling, ‘Do you remember that verse, “O death, where is thy sting’”? Before the child could reply, Teh-sing said, ‘It is in Corinthians. That is like me now; my name is Teh-sing (Victory),’ and putting her hand on her bosom and then pointing upwards, she implied she was then experiencing the victory.”
“About ten p.m. she said to me, ‘I want a text. I think it is in the twenty-sixth chapter of Matthew, but I am not sure.’ ‘Can you give me a word or two of it?’ I asked. I could only make out the words ‘king,’ and ‘servant.’ Kying-me then put her ear to Teh-sing’ slips, and understood at once. She found for me Matt. 25, and began to read from the 34th verse. ‘Then shall the King say unto them on His right hand, Come, ye blessed of My Father.’ She took no notice till she heard, ‘I was sick, and ye visited me.’ ‘That is what I want,’ she said. ‘I give it to you’―what a legacy! ― ‘and to you all.’ We thanked her, but she waved her hand impatiently, saying, ‘Not so. Not so. These are not man’s words. Thank Jesus. He gives it to you.’”
“Early next morning she complained of pain and hunger. She said, ‘When the Lord calls me I have no pain; when He sends me pack, then I have pain. I am going now.’ In half-an-hour more she breathed her last. There was nothing to indicate the moment when her spirit took its flight ... ‘And when the shining ones bore her away from us, we looked till we saw her no more, and when he gates were shut, after what we had seen, we wished ourselves among them.’”
“She was well named Victory.”
Such was the death-bed of a young girl, rescued from heathenism but a short time before she was called home. Some of those around her were still in heathen darkness. To her own mother the scene cannot have failed to be an assurance of the realities and abiding comfort of faith in Christ. A.G.P.