Chapter 6.
It was indeed a problem. And plan as they might Hsi and his wife did not know how to meet it.
The work that had grown up around them was becoming increasingly complex. More and more the Christians from neighboring villages, brought to the Lord through their efforts, looked to them for help and teaching. The mission station in the city was fully ten miles away, and though younger men walked over on Sunday for the services, thus coming into touch with the missionaries, old people, and most of the women and children, found the double journey more than they could manage. This meant that they must be cared for nearer home. And in many cases the help needed was for body as well as soul.
For the converts were not only poor, they were often persecuted. Many a man who had managed to provide for his family before becoming a Christian, suddenly found himself bereft of all means of subsistence. His heathen employer, or relatives, turned him off; or the work he was doing was of such a nature that he was obliged to abandon it. Others were oppressed and defrauded, and sometimes driven out of house and home. Opium crops had to be sacrificed, with their large profit; and more honest methods in business often meant financial loss. Suffering and impoverished, many of the converts were in need of temporary succor, and Hsi’s resources were taxed to the utmost.
Then again there was not a little hospitality to be exercised by one in his position. Inquirers coming from a distance frequently had to be entertained for a few days in that Christian household, that they might see in practice the truths they were being taught. Believers gathering from miles around for Sunday services were often weary, and too far from home to go back between the meetings for their mid-day meal. Some brought flour, bread, and other provisions; some had little or nothing to bring; and all needed the use of kitchen and guest hall, not to speak of the women’s apartments. Then benches for the meetings had to be provided; oil for the lamps; hot water for perpetual tea drinking, without which nothing can be done in China, and many other hospitalities too numerous to mention.
“I thought much,” Hsi recorded, “of the parable of the Good Shepherd; and pondered the words of Christ: “They shall go in and out and find pasture!”
To his mind this clearly meant that the sheep must be looked after in temporal as well as spiritual things. Young believers going in and out of this fold must have their needs supplied. Coming long distances to worship on Sunday, it was his business to see that they did not go away hungry. There must be practical proof of Christian love toward the brethren. This was part of the problem.
The rest of it was — the wider issue. This message of salvation must be preached “to every creature.” Clearly the missionaries, alone, could never accomplish so great a work. And then, the converts won must be helped, if they needed it, to find some suitable means of support. Of course they could not depend on the foreign missionary. Native workers, many native workers, would be needed. They must be drawn from the ranks of these very converts. And some way must be devised by which such men could earn an honest livelihood, while giving themselves to soul saving work.
It was not that this view of the matter presented itself definitely or all at once. But little by little, as they did their best in the midst of a growing work, Hsi and his wife came to see these things, as parents the needs of their own children. And they came to realize, also, that the care of His lambs, His sheep, meant sacrifice; and that for sacrifice even under shepherds must be prepared.
Power to help all; willingness and ability to serve the greatest number; these constitute the seal of a divine commission to lead among men. “He that will be greatest among you, let him be least of all and servant of all.” Whether or not Hsi fully understood this principle, he was beginning to put it into practical effect.
As need arose, he had from the first willingly parted with his superfluous belongings, selling whatever could be spared, that he might help the brethren.
He went all lengths in their service, and would just as readily boil the copper and make tea on Sunday as lead the meetings, or give money and advice to those in need. His home, time, and influence were all theirs. He shared the burdens of the troubled; visited and prayed with the sick; prescribed and gave away medicines; and received into his own care one and another enslaved to opium smoking, that he might the better watch over and help them in their struggle to be free.
It must not be supposed, of course, that he did all this without mistakes of manner and method at times. Not in one year, or ten, can lifelong faults be conquered. He was still, often, quick tempered and overbearing, lapsing into the haughty manner of the scholar, and bent upon having his own way. But the willingness to toil and suffer for the Lord he loved, and for the good of souls committed to his charge, was very real.
But already the work entailed considerable financial burden, and now for the first time he had come to an end of his resources. With urgent claims in many directions, he had no money to draw upon, and no means left of raising even a few strings of cash. This was, for the moment, the pressing difficulty; and with his wife he took it to the Lord in prayer. Helpers of each other’s faith they truly were, and in sharing all their burdens made them lighter.
As they prayed, light came; Mrs. Hsi had a plan. She could not offer much toward the permanent solution of the problem, but she could at least give temporary aid Stored away in vermilion colored boxes were still a number of garments and some jewelry, part of her bridal outfit. Her husband, though disposing freely of his own belongings, had never thought of drawing upon her supplies, and was reluctant still to let her make the sacrifice.
“But I do not need these things,” she urged. “Why should we store them up? Gladly let us make them an offering to the Lord to provide means for shepherding His flock.”
So the boxes were investigated and a number of articles chosen. Quickly the mules were harnessed, and Hsi set off for the city. The joy of sacrifice was in their hearts. There must be no delay.
But difficulties were not yet at an end. Half the journey still remained when clouds began to gather and the wind blew up, bringing a drenching storm. Soon the cart and its occupants were soaked, and even the important box suffered damage. But though attributing this misfortune to “the prince of the power of the air,” Hsi cheered himself by remembering that the Heavenly Father had allowed it to happen, and that it must be all right. Far from vexed or troubled, he went on his way “praising the Lord with a loud voice” for the privilege of enduring hardness for Jesus’ sake. In spite of their wetting, the things obtained a good price; and in fair weather, with a glad heart, Hsi journeyed back across the plain.
Now it happened that just at this juncture a shop became vacant in the village of Teng-ts’uen, only five miles from his home. This led to a practical suggestion. Teng-ts’uen was a market town, frequented by crowds of people from all the surrounding villages, very few of whom had ever heard the Gospel. Why not rent the house, and employ some of the Christian men needing help, to open it as a drug store? if well managed, would soon become self-supporting, and at the same time be a center for missionary work throughout the neighborhood. The more he prayed over it, the more Hsi liked the plan. As a Chinese doctor he had some knowledge of drugs, and from a business point of view was fully equal to the undertaking.
And so it came to pass that the summer days of 1881 witnessed a fresh departure of some significance. A medical mission station, on purely native lines, sustained and conducted apart altogether from foreign supervision, was a new thing in those days. The missionaries in the city were interested and sympathetic, but thought it wiser not to render any direct assistance. Alone and very prayerfully Hsi went to work, and soon the new drug store was in running order.
The room behind the shop was fitted up as a guest hall. High-backed chairs stood in the place of honor, ready to welcome visitors. A bright brass teapot and china cups waited invitingly on the table. Christian mottoes adorned the walls, and a good supply of books and benches suggested the evening meeting and Sunday services. The shop itself was neat and attractive, from the open window with its plentiful supply of drugs, to the conventional corner within, where the doctor interviewed his patients and made out prescriptions. Over the doorway hung the characters FUH-IN T’ANG — Hall of the Happy Sound, or Joyful News.
Hsi was very busy in those days, for he was doctor, preacher, and business manager all in one. He was, in some sense, doing the work of a medical missionary, with the advantage of being a voluntary, native agent as well. It was a good combination.
Meanwhile, in his own village, responsibilities were increasing round him. His home, capacious like his heart, was filled with people needing help. As early as the summer of 1881, scarcely two years after his conversion, the missionary in charge of the district wrote as follows: A man from Hsi’s village was here at the meetings yesterday, well dressed and healthy looking. He prayed in beautiful Chinese, that we all might learn what it is to die with Christ, to be buried with Him, and with Him even now to rise and live the resurrection life. A few months ago that man was ragged, dirty, and miserable; a heavy opium smoker. He used to consume nearly an ounce of poison daily. Hsi took him by the hand, had him in his own house, treated him like a brother, bought opium medicine to cure his craving, cared for him, and led him to Christ. He is now perfectly free from the opium habit, and is Hsi’s right hand man at all the prayer meetings and services. Whether he is truly converted or not I cannot say; but as a specimen of the work our brother Hsi is carrying on, he is to my mind a most cheering case.
Hsi has also opened a medicine shop near his home.... The idea is to make it a basis for missionary operations in the town.... At present I do not go over, as I intended, because there is a great deal of ill feeling against the “foreign religion,” and I think my presence would only hinder the cause. These brethren are quite competent, guided and strengthened by the Holy Spirit, to carry on the work they have undertaken. Being voluntary, unpaid agents, they naturally feel a deep interest in their own work, and need less looking after than might be required by men receiving several dollars a month from us.
It was not all smooth sailing, even after the medicine shop had been opened. In China as well as at home there are people who will profess almost anything for the sake of gain; and some among the inquirers doubtless thought that by becoming Christians they would establish a claim for financial aid. Nothing could be further, however, from Hsi’s point of view. Independent and resourceful himself, his ideals were high for the native church. But with the heart of a true shepherd, he always felt deep solicitude for the suffering and weak. He never could merely say “Be warmed and fed,” and let a fellow believer go away hungry and miserable. He never did. At the same time it was useless to try to impose upon him. No one could more swiftly discover a fraud, or detect insincerity wherever it existed. This penetration of character saved him from many a blunder, and balanced his large hearted sympathy.
Then, also, he was among his own people, and understood them so well that he was not likely to be much misled. From the beginning he was too wise to suggest, or even think, that missionaries from abroad should attempt the same forms of benevolence. Necessarily unfamiliar with Chinese character and customs, they were so much more open to imposition; besides which they occupied a different relationship to the native church. But, personally, he never saw any reason to curtail his own generous hospitality, and as long as he lived his home was open to all whom he could serve for Jesus’ sake.
Occasionally he had disappointments. The men, for example, whom he first put into the medicine shop, failed him, and would not stay because of the smallness of the profits. Hsi was concerned about this, chiefly on their account; and as he feared, they never afterward proved satisfactory. Undiscouraged, however, he filled their places with others, and carried on the work of that station for more than twenty years.