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Updated: June 8, 2025
His constant and consistent life of Christlike self-denial in the effort to bless them told even more upon the beholders than all these other things combined. His correspondence is full of sharp and clear pictures of his daily toil, and of his spiritual experiences. 'Ch'ao Yang, May 14, 1886. The people are very poor here. Last year the crops were not good.
I hope also to come to some arrangement for a lodging in Ch'ao Yang. A letter to his boys, dated March 24, 1887, depicts the kind of scene he so often witnessed, and the routine of work which would have proved so irksome but for the love and peace with which the Saviour filled his soul.
We certainly know he is in the presence of the Lord, not only praying for us, but also for you our brothers. 'We pray you, when you see this letter, not to grieve beyond measure. We hope that you will study with increased ardour, so as to obtain the heavenly wisdom, like Solomon, and that afterwards you may come to China, to this Ch'ao Yang, to preach the Gospel widely.
He is coming in six or seven weeks. Then he stays two months, and goes back to Tientsin for a while again. The Ch'ao Yang man we have not seen yet. 'I have made all your letters to me into a book, and have them with me. Your letters are nice to read, and show great improvement in the writing. I am going to keep all your letters this year too and bind them.
'A most pleasing incident in our experience at Ch'ao Yang was a visit from a well-to-do farmer who lives some twenty li from the town. He has been friendly and an inquirer from the first. He has made no profession of Christianity, but says he reads his New Testament regularly, and prays. He has also taught two men in his neighbourhood. The one is a carpenter. The other is a farmer.
The latter, being afraid of imitating an act evidently associated with the supernatural world of evil spirits, refused to do so. T'ieh-kuai then told Ch'ao to step on to a leaf floating on the surface of the river, saying that it was a boat that would bear him across safely.
The wars which followed Huang Ch'ao's rebellion greatly affected the ruling gentry. A number of families were so strongly affected that they lost their importance and disappeared. Commoners from the followers of Huang Ch'ao or other armies succeeded to get into power, to acquire property and to enter the ranks of the gentry.
The rebellion of Huang Ch'ao in fact meant the end of the T'ang dynasty and the division of China into a number of independent states. Only for reasons of convenience we keep the traditional division into dynasties and have our new period begin with the official end of the T'ang dynasty in 906.
I spent a day each at two market towns on the way, and two days in Ch'ao Yang itself. 'The journey home I made on foot, a donkey driven by a Mongol carrying my bedding and books. I adopted this plan mainly to bring myself into close contact with the Mongol. He proved himself a capital fellow to travel with, but as yet has shown no signs of belief in Christ.
In his report of work for the year he is able to point to progress. '1888 has been a tumultuous year. In December, at Ch'ao Yang, there was a sudden irruption of men and boys to learn the doctrine. Evening after evening we had from twenty to fifty people in our rooms to evening worship. We hardly knew how to account for it, but did all we could to teach as many as we could.
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