Notable Women of Modern China
BY MARGARET E. BURTON
_Notable Women of Modern China_
Illustrated, 12mo, cloth. Net $1.25
The author's earlier work on the general subject of Women's Education in
China, indicates her ability to treat with peculiar interest and
discernment the characters making up this volume of striking biographies.
If these women are types to be followed by a great company of like
aspirations the future of a nation is assured.
_The Education of Women in China_
Illustrated, 12mo, cloth. Net $1.25
"Thrilling is a strong word, but not too strong to be used in connection
with _The Education of Women in China_. To many it will prove a revealing
book and doubtless to all, even those well-informed upon the present
condition of women. Miss Burton's book will interest all the reading
public."--CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE.
[Illustration:
Dr. Hü King Eng at the Time of Her Graduation from the Medical College]
Notable Women of Modern China
By
MARGARET E. BURTON
AUTHOR OF
"THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN IN CHINA"
NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO
Fleming H. Revell Company
LONDON AND EDINBURGH
Copyright, 1912, by
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
New York: 158 Fifth Avenue
Chicago: 125 N. Wabash Ave.
Toronto: 25 Richmond St., W.
London: 21 Paternoster Square
Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street
TO MY FRIEND
GRACE COPPOCK
WHO TAUGHT ME TO KNOW AND LOVE
THE WOMEN OF CHINA
Preface
During a stay of some months in China in the year of 1909, I had an
opportunity to see something of the educational work for women, and to meet
several of the educated women of that interesting country. I was greatly
impressed, both by the excellent work done by the students in the schools,
and by the useful, efficient lives of those who had completed their course
of study. When I returned to America, and spoke of some of the things which
the educated women of China were doing, I found that many people were
greatly surprised to learn that Chinese women were capable of such
achievements. It occurred to me, therefore, that it might be worth while to
put the stories of a few of these women into a form which would make them
accessible to the public.
It will be noted that the majority of the women of whose work I have
written received a part of their education in America. My reason for
selecting these women is not because those whose training has been received
wholly in China are not doing equally good work, but because it is
difficult to gather definite information in regard to the women whose
lives have been spent entirely in their native country. The fact that most
of the biographies in this book are of women in professional life is due to
the same cause. The great aim of the girls' schools in China is, rightly,
to furnish such training as shall prepare their students to be worthy wives
and mothers, and the large majority of those who attend the schools find
their highest subsequent usefulness in the home. But in China, as in other
countries, the life of the woman in the home remains, for the most part,
unwritten.
I have therefore told the stories of the women concerning whose work I have
been able to obtain definite information, believing that they fairly
represent the educated women of China who, wherever their education has
been received, and in whatever sphere it is being used, are ably and
bravely playing an important part in the moulding of the great new China.
For much of the material for these sketches I am indebted to friends of the
women of whom I have written. To all such my hearty thanks are due. For
personal reminiscences, letters, and photographs, I am most grateful.
M. E. B.
Contents
DR. HÜ KING ENG
I. CHILDHOOD IN A CHRISTIAN HOME 15
II. EDUCATION IN CHINA AND AMERICA 23
III. BEGINNING MEDICAL WORK IN CHINA 39
IV. THE BELOVED PHYSICIAN 44
V. THE FAVOUR OF THE PEOPLE 58
MRS. AHOK
I. THE MISTRESS OF A HOME OF WEALTH 73
II. WORK AMONG THE WOMEN OF THE UPPER CLASSES 82
III. A JOURNEY TO ENGLAND 90
IV. PATIENT IN TRIBULATION 101
DR. IDA KAHN
I. CHILDHOOD IN THREE COUNTRIES 115
II. AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN 121
III. SEVEN YEARS IN KIUKIANG 126
IV. PIONEER WORK IN NANCHANG 140
DR. MARY STONE
I. WITH UNBOUND FEET 161
II. THE DANFORTH MEMORIAL HOSPITAL 169
III. WINNING FRIENDS IN AMERICA 183
IV. A VERSATILE WOMAN 190
YU KULIANG 221
ANNA STONE
I. EAGER FOR EDUCATION 233
II. AMONG HER OWN PEOPLE 244
III. THE POWER OF AN ENDLESS LIFE 254
Illustrations
Dr. Hü King Eng at the Time of Her Graduation
from the Medical College _Frontispiece_
Dr. Hü's Medical Students 41
Dr. Hü's Christmas Party 61
Mrs. Ahok and Her Two Granddaughters 73
Reception Rooms in Chinese Homes of Wealth 83
Dr. Ida Kahn 115
A Nurse in Dr. Kahn's Hospital 138
One of Dr. Kahn's Guests 141
A Village Crowd 141
Dr. Mary Stone 161
Elizabeth Skelton Danforth Memorial Hospital, Kiukiang, China 172
Dr. Stone, Dr. Kahn, and Five of the Hospital Nurses 174
General Ward of the Danforth Memorial Hospital 182
Nurses of the Danforth Memorial Hospital 192
Yu Kuliang 221
Anna Stone 233
The Anna Stone Memorial 257
* * * * *
DR. HÜ KING ENG
I. CHILDHOOD IN A CHRISTIAN HOME
II. EDUCATION IN CHINA AND AMERICA
III. BEGINNING MEDICAL WORK IN CHINA
IV. THE BELOVED PHYSICIAN
V. THE FAVOUR OF THE PEOPLE
* * * * *
DR. HÜ KING ENG
I
CHILDHOOD IN A CHRISTIAN HOME
Among the earliest converts to Christianity in South China was Hü Yong Mi,
the son of a military mandarin of Foochow. He had been a very devout
Buddhist, whose struggles after spiritual peace, and whose efforts to
obtain it through fasting, sacrifice, earnest study, and the most
scrupulous obedience to all the forms of Buddhist worship, remind one
strongly of the experiences of Saul of Tarsus. Like Saul too, Hü Yong Mi
was, before his conversion, a vigorous and sincere opponent of
Christianity. When his older brother became a Christian, Hü Yong Mi felt
that his casting away of idols and abolishing of ancestral worship were
crimes of such magnitude that the entire family "ought all with one heart
to beat the drum and drive him from the house." He tells of finding a copy
of the Bible in his father's bookcase one day, and how, in sudden rage, he
tore it to pieces and threw the fragments on the floor, and then, not
satisfied with destroying the book, wished that he had some sharp implement
with which to cut out "the hated name Ya-su, which stared from the
mutilated pages."
But when, through the efforts of the very brother whom he had persecuted,
he too came to recognize the truth of Christianity, he became as devoted
and tireless a worker for his Lord as was Paul the apostle, preaching in
season and out of season, first as a layman, afterwards as an ordained
minister of the Methodist Church. His work often led him to isolated and
difficult fields; he was "in journeyings often, in perils of rivers, in
perils of robbers, in perils from his countrymen, in perils in the city, in
perils in the wilderness." But, alike in toil and persecution, he remained
steadfast.
He was made a presiding elder at the time of the organization of the
Foochow Conference in 1877, and from that time until his death, in 1893, he
was, in the words of one of the missionaries of that district, "a pillar of
strength in the church in China, because of his piety and wisdom and his
literary ability, having, withal, an eloquent tongue which in the ardour of
pulpit oratory gave to his fine six-foot physique a princely bearing."
A striking testimony to the power and beauty of this Christian man's
character is a picture, painted by a Chinese artist, an old man over eighty
years of age. This man was not a Christian, but after hearing Mr. Hü's
preaching, and watching his consecrated life, he embodied in a painting his
conception of the power of the "Cross Doctrine" as he knew it through Hü
Yong Mi. The picture, which is five feet long and nearly three wide, and is
finely executed in water colours, was presented to Mr. Hü by the artist. At
first glance its central figure seems to be a tree, under which is a man
reading from a book. Lower down are some rocks. But looking again one sees
that the tree is a cross, and that in the rocks are plain semblances of
human faces, more or less perfect, all turned toward the cross. The thought
which the artist wished to express was that the "Cross Doctrine," as
preached and lived by such as Hü Yong Mi, would turn even rocks into human
beings.
The wife of Hü Yong Mi was brought up in a home of wealth and rank in
Foochow. Her aristocratic birth was manifested by the size of her tiny
embroidered shoe, which measured exactly three inches. When Hü Yong Mi was
asked by the missionaries to become a minister, he was somewhat dismayed to
learn that in the Methodist Church the minister's family must frequently
move from place to place. In his own words, "The Chinese greatly esteem the
place of their birth; if a man goes abroad it is considered a matter of
affliction; for a family to move is an almost unheard of calamity." He
replied, however, that although he had not known of the existence of the
custom, he was entirely willing, for Christ's sake, to undertake the work
of a minister in spite of it. The missionaries then asked if his wife would
be willing to go with him. He answered that he could not tell until he went
home and asked her. But when he had talked the matter over with her, this
dainty, high-class lady replied, "It matters not to what place; if you are
willing to go, I will go with you."
Within a few weeks they left Foochow to work among their first
parishioners, a people who might well have caused the hearts of the young
pastor and his wife to fail, for Hü Yong Mi says of them: "In front of
their houses I saw piles of refuse, and filthy ditches. Within, all was
very dirty--pigs, cattle, fowls, sheep, all together in the one house. Not
a chair was there to sit on. All went out to work in the fields. They had
no leisure to comb hair or wash faces.... None knew how to read the Chinese
characters. Some held their books upside down; some mistook a whole column
for one character." Mrs. Hü and the children were very ill with malarial
fever while in this place, but in spite of all their hardships, a good work
was done.
Mrs. Hü was as earnest a worker among the women as was her husband among
the men, telling the good news to those who had never heard it, and
strengthening her fellow-Christians. Many a programme of the Foochow
Women's Conference bears the name of Mrs. Hü Yong Mi, for she could give
addresses and read papers which were an inspiration to missionaries and
Chinese alike. Her friend, Mrs. Sites, has written especially of her
influence on the women whose lives she touched: "In the stations where the
Methodist itinerancy sent Rev. Hü Yong Mi, this Christian household was
something of a curiosity. The neighbouring women often called 'to see' in
companies of three to twenty or more, and Mr. Hü expected his wife and
children to preach the gospel to them just as faithfully as he did from the
pulpit. There are many hundreds of Chinese women to whom this lovely
Christian mother and little daughters gave the first knowledge of Christ
and heaven." The same friend says of this wife and mother, "In privations
oft, and in persecutions beyond the power of pen to narrate, she has
become a model woman among her people."
In 1865, not long after a period of severe persecution, and while their
hearts were saddened by the recent death of their little daughter, Hiong
Kwang, another baby girl was born to Mr. and Mrs. Hü, and named Precious
Peace, the Chinese for which is King Eng. Born of such parents, and growing
up in such an environment, it is perhaps not surprising that unselfishness,
steadfastness of purpose, and courage, both physical and moral, should be
among the most prominent characteristics of Hü King Eng. One of the
clearest memories of her childhood is of lying in bed night after night,
listening to the murmur of her father's voice as he talked to someone who
was interested in learning of the "Jesus way," and hearing the crash of
stones and brickbats, the hurling of which through the doors and windows
was too frequent an occurrence to interrupt these quiet talks.
Of course little King Eng's feet were bound, as were the feet of every
other little girl of good family. But the binding process had scarcely
begun when her father became convinced that this universal and ancient
custom was a wrong one. He accordingly made the brave decision,
unprecedented in that section of the country, that his daughters should
have natural feet, and the bandages were taken off. This proceeding was
viewed with great disapproval by his small daughter, for while it freed her
from physical pain, her unbound feet were the source of constant comment
and ridicule, far more galling to the sensitive child than the tight
bandages had been. Now, an ardent advocate of natural feet, she often tells
of her trials as a pioneer of the movement in Fuhkien province. "That I
have the distinction of being the first girl who did not have her feet
bound, is due to no effort of mine," she says, "for the neighbour women
used to say, 'Rather a nice girl, but those feet!' 'Rather a bright girl,
but those feet,' and 'Those feet,' 'Those feet' was all I heard, until I
was ashamed to be seen."
Finally her mother, who did not wholly share her husband's view of the
matter, took advantage of his absence from home, and replaced the bandages.
When she would ask, "Can you stand them a little tighter?" the little
devotee to the stern mandates of fashion and custom invariably replied,
"Yes, mother, a little tighter"; for was she not going to be a lady and not
hear "those feet," "those feet" any more! But when her father came home he
had a long and serious talk with his wife about foot-binding, and off came
the bandages again. Later the little girl went on a visit to a relative,
who was greatly horrified at her large feet, and took it upon herself to
bind them again, to the child's great delight. It was with an immense sense
of her importance that she came hobbling home, supported on each side. Her
mother was ill in bed at the time, but greatly to King Eng's
disappointment, instead of being pleased, she bade her take the bandages
off and burn them, and never replace them. To the child's plea that people
were all saying "those feet," "those feet," until she was ashamed to meet
any one, Mrs. Hü replied, "Tell them bound-footed girls never enter the
emperor's palace." "And that," says Dr. Hü, "put a quietus on 'those feet,'
and when I learned that all the world did not have bound feet I became more
reconciled."
II
EDUCATION IN CHINA AND AMERICA
When she was old enough, King Eng became a pupil in the Foochow Boarding
School for Girls, where she did good work as a student. No musical teaching
was given in the school at that time, but King Eng was so eager to learn to
play that the wife of one of the missionaries gave her lessons on her own
organ. Her ability to play may have been one of the causes which led to the
framing of a remarkable and eloquent appeal for the higher education of the
Chinese girls, which should include music and English, sent in 1883 by the
native pastors of Foochow and vicinity to the General Executive Committee
of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, under whose auspices this school was carried on.
To the same committee there came at the same time another remarkable
request, this one from Dr. Trask, then in charge of the Foochow Woman's
Hospital. After leaving boarding school King Eng had been a student in the
hospital, and Dr. Trask had become so much impressed with her adaptability
to medical work, and her sympathetic spirit toward the suffering, that she
longed to have her receive the advantages of a more thorough education than
could be given her in Foochow. She accordingly wrote to the Executive
Committee of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, speaking in the
highest terms of Hü King Eng's ability and character, and urging that
arrangements be made to bring her to America, to remain ten years if
necessary, "that she might go back qualified to lift the womanhood of China
to a higher plane, and able to superintend the medical work." She assured
the committee that they would find that the results would justify them in
doing this, and that none knew King Eng but to love her. Arrangements were
soon made, largely through Mrs. Keen, secretary of the Philadelphia branch
of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, and word was sent to Foochow
that Dr. Trask's request had been approved.
This word found Hü King Eng ready to accept the opportunity which it
offered her. It had not been easy for this young girl, only eighteen years
old, to decide to leave her home and her country and take the long journey
to a foreign land, whose language she could not speak, and whose customs
were utterly strange to her, to remain there long enough to receive the
college and medical education which would enable her to do the work planned
for her on her return to China. So far as she knew she was the only Chinese
young woman who had ever left China to seek an education in another
country; and indeed she was the second, the only one who had preceded her
being Dr. You Mé King, the adopted daughter of Dr. and Mrs. McCartee, of
Ningpo, who had gone to America with them a few years before. King Eng's
parents did not oppose her going, but neither did they encourage it. They
told her fully of the loneliness she would experience in a foreign country;
the dangers and unpleasantness of the long ocean voyage she would have to
take; and the unparalleled situation in which she would find herself on her
return ten years later, unmarried at twenty-eight. But with a quiet faith
and purpose, and a courage nothing short of heroic, King Eng answered, "If
the Lord opens the way and the cablegram says 'Come,' I shall surely go;
but if otherwise I shall do as best I can and labour at home."
Years afterward, when two other girls from the Foochow Boarding School
were leaving China for a period of study in America, a farewell meeting was
held for them in the school, at which Dr. Hü told how she had reached her
decision to go. She said: "I was the first Fuhkien province girl to go to
America.... My father told me, 'I cannot decide for you; you must pray to
God. If you are to go, God will show you.' Then I felt God's word come to
me, 'Fear not, for I will go with you wherever you go.' At that time the
school girls were seldom with the missionary ladies and I could not speak
any English, therefore I did not know any American politeness; and all my
clothes and other daily-need-things were not proper to use in the western
country. Although everything could not be according to my will, I trusted
God with all my life, so nothing could change my heart."
In the spring of 1884, in charge of some missionaries going home on
furlough, Hü King Eng left China for America. The journey was a long and
rough one, and a steamer near theirs was wrecked. One of the missionaries,
wondering how her faith was standing the test of these new and terrifying
experiences, asked if she wanted to go back home. But she answered, "No, I
do not think of going home at all." She felt that it was right for her to
go to America, and although when she met her friends at the journey's end
she confessed that sea-sickness and home-sickness had brought the tears
many a night, she never faltered in her decision.
Upon landing in New York she went at once to Mrs. Keen in Philadelphia, and
there met Dr. and Mrs. Sites, of Foochow, whom she had known from
childhood, and who were then in Philadelphia attending the General
Conference of the Methodist Church. She spent the summer with them,
learning to read, write, and speak English, and in the autumn went with
them to Delaware, Ohio, and entered Ohio Wesleyan University. Miss Martin,
who was then preceptress of Monnett Hall, recalls King Eng's efforts to
master English. "She was an apt pupil," she says, "yet she had many
struggles with the language." A friend in Cleveland, with whom she spent a
few weeks during her vacation, promised her that some day they would go
around the square to see the reservoir. King Eng seemed much interested in
this proposition and several times asked when they were to go. When they
finally went, her friend was somewhat surprised to see that King Eng
manifested very little interest in the reservoir; but when they reached
home again it was evident that she had been interested, not in the
reservoir, but in the proposed method of reaching it. "How can you go
'round' a 'square'?" she asked.
When she entered college she set herself the task of learning ten new words
a day; but Miss Martin says that she sometimes had to unlearn several of
them, owing to the fondness of her fellow students for slang. However, she
was persevering, and in time learned to use the language easily. One of the
teachers, who had returned a plate to her with an orange on it, still
treasures a half sheet of paper which appeared on a returned plate of hers,
on which King Eng had written:
"You taught me a lesson not long ago,
Which I have learned, as I'll try to show.
When you would return a plate to its owner,
Of something upon it you must be the donor.
One orange you put on that plate of mine,
Two oranges find on this plate of thine."
She was a great favourite with both faculty and students. One of her fellow
students shall tell of the impression she made: "Those who were at Monnett
Hall at any time from 1884 to 1887 will remember a dainty little foreign
lady, a sort of exotic blossom, whose silk-embroidered costumes,
constructed in Chinese fashion, made her an object of interest to every
girl in college. This was Dr. Hü King Eng, who came to prepare for her
life work. Gentle, modest, winning, her heart fixed on a goal far ahead,
she was an example to the earnest Christian girl and a rebuke to any who
had self-seeking aims."
Another, looking back to her college days, and to the college life of Hü
King Eng, "or, as she was familiarly and lovingly called, King Eng,"
writes, "She was so sweet and gracious, so simple in her faith and life, so
charitable, that you felt it everywhere. I shall never forget standing in
the hall one day with her and another girl, when a young man delivered some
books. I asked his name. The young lady gave it, a well known name, and
added that he had very little principle, or character. King Eng spoke up at
once, and calling the other girl by name said, 'Yes, but his parents are
fine people.'"
The King's Daughters' Society was organized during King Eng's stay at Ohio
Wesleyan, and ten groups, of ten girls each, were formed among the students
of Monnett Hall. King Eng, who was the leader of one of these groups,
proposed that each girl in it should earn enough money to buy one of the
King's Daughters' badges, and that they should be sent to some of the girls
in the Foochow school, that they too might organize a society. She was
eager that the girls should not only give the badges, but should earn them
by their own efforts, that they might thus show the Chinese girls that
American students did not consider any kind of work beneath them, but
counted it an honour to serve their Master in any way possible.
During the April of King Eng's first year at Ohio Wesleyan University,
special meetings were held in connection with the Day of Prayer for
Colleges, one of them a large chapel service at which the president of the
college and the preceptress spoke. The report of this meeting shows that
King Eng did not wait until her return to China to begin active efforts to
win others to the Christian life. "At the close of an address by Miss
Martin, the preceptress, there stepped forward upon the rostrum our little
Chinese student, Miss Hü King Eng, who, dressed in her full native costume,
stood gracefully before these six hundred young men and women while she
witnessed to the saving power of Christ.... The following evening, at our
earnest revival service in the chapel of the ladies' boarding hall, there
knelt the Chinese girl at the side of her American sister, helping her to
find the Saviour; and the smile of gladness on her countenance at the
closing of the meeting told the joy in her heart because her friend was
converted. The faith of many has been made stronger by hearing the
testimony of Miss Hü."
The statement of one of her fellow students is impressive: "She had a great
influence over the girls, and during our revival seasons she usually led
more to Christ than any other girl in the school. One mother, when she came
to visit the school after such a meeting during which her own daughter had
been converted, exclaimed, 'Little did I think when I was giving money for
the work in China, that a Chinese girl would come to this country and be
the means of leading my daughter to Christ.'"
Miss Martin tells of one student who had long resisted all appeals, but who
would listen to King Eng when she would not hear any one else; and who was
finally led by her to such a complete consecration that she afterward gave
her life to missionary service in Japan.
During her vacation periods King Eng often addressed missionary meetings
with marked success, winning such testimonies as these: "We are thanking
God for that grand missionary meeting. It would have done your heart good
to have heard the references to it in our Wednesday night prayer meeting,"
or, "One gentleman said to me, 'That was the best missionary meeting we
ever had in Third Avenue.'" It was probably while doing such work as this
that she had the experiences which led her to realize so keenly the
blessing of the unbound feet which had caused her so many tribulations as a
child, for she says that when she was running for trains in America she
always remembered "Those feet," "Those feet," and was glad that she had
them.
In the summer of 1886 she attended a meeting of the International
Missionary Union, and there met Mrs. Baldwin, who had known her as a child
in Foochow. Mrs. Baldwin wrote of the impression she made at this time:
"Our dear little Chinese girl, Hü King Eng, won all hearts, as usual, by
her sweet, gentle, trustful Christian character. To us who have known her
from her infancy up, the meeting was of peculiar pleasure; and as she
grasped my hand and in low, earnest, glad tones exclaimed in our Foochow
dialect, 'Teacheress, all the same as seeing my own house people,' I could
heartily respond, 'All the same.'"
At the same time she was making rapid progress in her studies. At the
annual meeting of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society in 1886, "the
marvellous progress of Hü King Eng was reported ... and tears of gladness
filled many eyes as her implicit faith, her sturdy industry, and her
untiring devotion were described."
She completed her course in Ohio Wesleyan University in four years, and in
the autumn of 1888 entered the Woman's Medical College of Philadelphia,
doing the regular class work, and making her home with her friend Mrs.
Keen. After two years of work there, she was very ill with a fever for many
weeks. When her strength began to come back, it was decided that she should
stop studying for a time and go to China for the following year, as she was
very eager to visit her home, especially as her father was ill. Her
lifelong friend, Miss Ruth Sites, was also returning to Foochow at that
time. So after securing a passport for Hü King Eng, in order that she might
be able to return to America, the two girls made the trip together,
spending Christmas in Yokohama, and enjoying a short visit to Tokio. The
steamer stopped for a day at Kobe, and there Miss Hü had the pleasure of
visiting Dr. You Mé King, then practising medicine under the Southern
Methodist Mission. Dr. You was the only Chinese woman who had ever left
China for study up to the time of her own going. They had a day at Nagasaki
also, where several college mates from Ohio Wesleyan were working; and two
days were spent in Shanghai, during which Miss Hü visited Dr. Reifsnyder's
splendid hospital. The trip from Shanghai to Foochow was the last part of
the long journey, and they were soon in the quiet waters of the Min River.
Miss Sites, writing back to America, said that she could never forget King
Eng's look as she exclaimed, "The last wave is past. Now we are almost
home." A brother and a brother-in-law came several miles down the river in
a launch to meet her, and sedan chairs were waiting at the landing to take
her to her home, where her parents were eagerly awaiting her. A reception
of welcome was given for her and Miss Sites a few days later, which was for
her father and mother one of the proudest occasions of their lives.
Some of the missionaries had wondered whether so many years of residence in
America would not have changed King Eng, and whether some of the luxuries
she had enjoyed there might not have become a necessity to her. With this
in mind many little comforts unusual in a Chinese home had been put into
her room. "But," one of them writes, "this was needless." King Eng was
unchanged and all the attention she had received in America had left her
unspoiled. This was doubtless largely due to the purity of her purpose in
going. In bidding good-bye, a few years later, to some girls who were going
to America for the first time, she said: "Some people do not want girls to
go to America to study because they think when the girls are educated they
will be proud. I think really we have nothing to be proud of. We Chinese
girls have such a good opportunity to go to another country to study, not
because God loves us better than any other persons, but because He loves
_all_ our people in China. Therefore He sends us to learn all the good
things first, so that we may help our people. The more favour we receive
the more debt we owe the Chinese women and girls. So wherever we go we must
think how to benefit our people, and not do as we please, and then how can
we be proud?"
The only cloud in this happy home-coming, after eight years of absence, was
the illness of her father, who was suffering from consumption. But even
this cloud was lightened by the help and cheer which King Eng was enabled
to bring to him. Miss Sites wrote: "It is an unspeakable comfort to him to
have King Eng with him, while she, with skill and wisdom learned in
Philadelphia, attends to all his wants as no other Chinese could." Soon
after King Eng's return her father was prostrated with a severe attack of
grippe, which in his already weakened state, made his condition almost
hopeless. Even the missionary doctor who attended him had no expectation
that he would recover. "But," reads a letter from Mrs. Sites, "through the
knowledge King Eng had acquired of caring for the sick, and her devotion to
her father, with work unfaltering, and prayer unceasing, he was brought
back to us."
For many years Rev. Hü Yong Mi had been planning to build a house, wherein
he and his family might live after he was too feeble to preach, and which
his family might have if he should be taken from them. At this time he had
laid by enough money to carry out his plan, but his weakness was such that
he could have done little, had it not been for the energy and vigour of his
wide-awake daughter. She helped make the plans for the house, and afterward
urged forward the building, so that a few months after her return the
family moved out of the parsonage into a comfortable little home, built in
Chinese style, but with glass windows and board floors.
In addition to the care of her father and the superintendence of the
building of the new house, King Eng was kept very busy in the hospital,
interpreting for the physicians in the daily clinics, and working among
the in-patients. This experience was invaluable to her at this time in
giving her a clearer knowledge of the especial preparation needed in her
future work. She saw and learned much of the prevalent diseases among the
women for whom she was preparing herself to work. She also taught a class
of young women medical students, which gave her valuable experience in that
line of work.
One of the missionaries has written of the impression she made during this
stay in Foochow: "She was kept very busy in the hospital and her home, but
she was always cheerful and helpful. Her Christian love and natural
kindness drew to her the hearts of hundreds of suffering native women, who
felt that there was sympathy for them in her every look and touch.
Moreover, the affectionate regard in which she had been held by her
missionary associates in Foochow has been vastly increased by her
unassuming manner, and the meek and quiet spirit in which she mingled with
us in work and prayer through the months."
The new home was beautifully situated, overlooking the river and receiving
constant south breezes, which made it cool and comfortable in summer. It
was hoped that in its quiet Mr. Hü might live for a number of years, and
it was therefore decided that King Eng should return to America, to
re-enter the Woman's Medical College of Philadelphia in the fall of 1892.
On the return trip she said to Mrs. Sites, who was with her, "I have
learned to trust God fully, else how could I be going away from my sick
father whose every move and cough I had learned to hear so quickly through
all the hours of the night, and still my heart be at rest?" Mrs. Sites
adds, "Personally, her companionship on the voyage was a continual joy to
me, notwithstanding my alarming and wearisome struggle while in Montreal to
get permission for her to re-enter this alarmingly exclusive country."
Hü King Eng re-entered the Medical College in the autumn of 1892,
graduating with honour the eighth of May, 1894. She spent the following
year in hospital work, being fortunate enough to be chosen as surgeon's
assistant in the Philadelphia Polyclinic, which gave her the privilege of
attending all the clinics and lectures there.
III
BEGINNING MEDICAL WORK IN CHINA
In 1895 Dr. Hü returned to Foochow. She at once began work in the Foochow
Hospital for women and children, being associated with Dr. Lyon, who wrote
at the end of the year's work: "Dr. Hü, by her faithfulness and skill, has
built up the dispensary until the number of the patients treated far
exceeds that of last year. She has also been a great inspiration to our
students, not only as teacher, but in right living and in Christian
principles." The following year Dr. Lyon returned to America on her
furlough, leaving the young physician in entire charge of the hospital
work, a responsibility which she discharged so effectively that at the
close of the year her co-labourers enthusiastically declared: "Sending Hü
King Eng to America for a medical education was providing for one of the
greatest blessings that ever came to Foochow. Skilled in her profession,
kind and patient, Christlike in spirit, one of their very own, her
influence cannot be measured."
At about this time Dr. Hü was honoured by being appointed by His
Excellency, Li Hung Chang, as one of the two delegates from China to the
Women's Congress held in London in 1898. But she was very seriously ill
with pneumonia that year, and for weeks it was feared that she could not
recover. A letter from Mrs. Lacy, then living in Foochow, reads: "Dr. Hü
King Eng has been lying at the gates of death for nearly three weeks. Dr.
Lyon said she was beyond all human aid. Most earnest and constant prayers
by the native Christians have been offered in her behalf. We are glad to
report a decided improvement in her condition although she is by no means
out of danger yet. Dr. Hü is a very valuable worker, not only a most
successful physician, but a very superior instructor in medicine, and is
very greatly beloved by both natives and foreigners, and it does not seem
as if she could be spared. We can but believe that God is going to honour
the faith of His children and raise her up to do yet greater service for
Him."
Gradually health and strength came back, and the next year it was reported
that Dr. Hü had sufficiently recovered her health to teach one class in the
Girls' Boarding School. A trip to the home of a married sister in Amoy,
which gave her a sea voyage, and change of air and scene, completed her
recovery and in 1899 she was strong enough to take charge of the Woolston
Memorial Hospital.
[Illustration: Dr. Hü's Medical Students]
The Foochow Hospital for women and children is situated on Nan Tai Island,
three miles from the walled city of Foochow. The physicians had long felt
the need of a similar work within the city walls, and a few years before
Dr. Hü's return from America, work had been undertaken in the city. A small
building was erected, in which forty in-patients could be accommodated.
This little building was named the Woolston Memorial Hospital, and nurses
from the Island hospital took turns in working in it, under the supervision
of one of the physicians. But until Dr. Hü took charge of the work, in
1899, there had been no resident physician.
Some years later, in telling of her appointment to this work, Dr. Hü said:
"It is very different from what I had heard of the city people being proud
and hard to manage. I am glad God created Lot. If he did not help any one
else he surely helped me. At the time I said nothing and went, simply
because I did not want to be like Lot. No one knows how I shrank when I was
asked to work in the city; for when I thought of the place, the pitiful
picture of the Island hospital students would come most conspicuously
before me. I can see them even now, wiping away the tears just as hard as
they could when their turn came to go into the city; while the other
students were like 'laughing Buddhas,' for their turn in the city hospital
had expired. I am glad I can speak for myself to-day that in my five years'
experience I have never had to shed a tear because the people were
obstinate."
Nevertheless the first few months were not altogether easy ones. Dr. Hü
herself tells the story of the beginnings of the work: "When I first took
up my work in the city here, during the first few months what did I meet?
People came and said that they wanted a foreign doctor. When our Bible
woman told them that I had just returned from a foreign country, and that I
knew foreign medicine, what was the immediate reply which I heard? 'No, I
don't want a Chinese student, but I want a foreign doctor.' It made my
Bible woman indignant, but by this time I usually stepped out and told them
just where to go to find the foreign doctors. It surprised my hospital
people that instead of feeling hurt I would do what I did."
It was only a few months, however, before the city people discovered that
this "Chinese student" was a most valuable member of the community. By
summer the work of the little hospital was so prosperous that Dr. Hü
decided to keep the dispensary open for three mornings a week, even after
the intense heat had necessitated the closing of the hospital proper. Some
of the patients signified their approval of this decision by renting rooms
in the neighbourhood, in order to be able to attend the dispensary on the
open days.
During this first year of work in the Woolston Hospital Dr. Hü had two
medical students in training, who also assisted her in the hospital work,
one of them her younger sister, Hü Seuk Eng. She speaks warmly of their
work among the patients, and of the patients' appreciation of what was done
for them. "Very frequently," she wrote at the close of the year, "I hear
the patients say, 'Truly my own parents, brothers, and sisters could never
be so good, so patient, and do so carefully for us; especially when we are
so filthy and foul in these sore places. Yes, this religion must be better
than ours.'"
Thus, although the work was begun in fear and trembling, and the young
physician had some obstacles to overcome, she treated 2,620 patients during
the first year, and was able to report a most encouraging outlook at its
close.
IV
THE BELOVED PHYSICIAN
As Dr. Hü's work grew it fell into four main divisions; the dispensary
work, the work among the hospital patients, visits to the homes of those
too ill to come to her, and the superintendence of the training of medical
students. The city hospital has been crowded almost from the very outset.
The situation was somewhat relieved in 1904, by the building of a house for
Dr. Hü on Black Rock Hill. This enabled her to move out of the hospital and
thus enlarged the space available for patients; but the additional space
was soon filled and the building was as crowded as before. Dr. Hü is
utilizing the building to the best possible advantage. One of her fellow
missionaries writes that every department is as well arranged as in any
hospital she has ever seen; every nook and corner is clean and tidy,
students are happy, helpful, and studious, and patients are cared for both
physically and spiritually.
The hospital records hold many a story of those who found both physical
and spiritual healing during their stay there. One day a woman over fifty,
whose husband and son had died while she was very young, came to the
hospital for treatment. When she was only twenty-two, crushed by her grief,
and feeling, as she said, that there was no more pleasure in this world for
her, she made a solemn vow before the idols that she would be a vegetarian
for the rest of her life, hoping in this way to obtain reward in the next
life. At the time she came to the hospital she had kept this vow sacredly
for nearly thirty years, being so scrupulous in her observance of it that
she even used her own cooking utensils in the hospital, lest some particle
of animal matter should have adhered to the others and thus contaminate her
food. She was so unostentatious about it, however, that Dr. Hü did not know
she was a vegetarian until she prescribed milk for her.
While in the hospital this woman was greatly surprised to hear, in morning
prayers every day, that which she could but admit was better than her old
belief. Day by day she compared the Christian teaching with her old
religion, until finally one morning, after she had been in the hospital
about a week, she went to Dr. Hü after the service, and said: "Doctor,
your religion is better than mine. I want to be a Christian, but very
unfortunately I have made a solemn vow to idols, and now, if I should
change my faith, these idols would punish me, my children, and children's
children." The doctor assured her that she need not be afraid, since the
idols to which she had made her vow were only wood and stone, powerless to
harm her. She went off comforted, and a few hours later she created
tremendous excitement through the hospital by preparing and eating the
first meal of meat she had had for almost thirty years. Some of the
patients were much frightened, for the vegetarian vow is considered a most
sacred one which, when broken, can never be made again, and they feared
that some dire calamity would overtake her. Nothing worse occurred,
however, than an attack of indigestion, the natural consequence of too free
indulgence in the flesh pots after so many years of abstinence; and the
dauntless old lady announced her intention of enjoying many a similar meal
in the days to come.
Her home was at some distance, and after she left the hospital nothing more
was seen of her until three years later, when she appeared one day,
bringing with her several patients for treatment. She had gained so much
flesh, and looked so well, that she had to tell the doctor who she was.
She said that after she went home, and her vegetarian friends saw the
dishes of meat on her table and realized that she had broken her sacred
vow, they were indignant and alarmed, and would have nothing to do with
her. But within the previous year some of them had gradually begun to come
to see her again. "I felt badly for their ignorance," she said, "but, oh, I
was very glad to have the opportunity to tell them of what you had told me
when I was converted."
At one time a former patient of the doctor's, who belonged to a prominent
family in the city, brought an old man of seventy-one for treatment. The
rule of the hospital is that only women and children shall be received as
in-patients, so the doctor directed him to go to Dr. Kinnear's hospital.
But the old man looked greatly disappointed and begged pitifully: "I am a
poor old man and my limb is very painful; _I-seng_ (doctor), do help me and
have mercy upon me. Do not look upon me as a man, but a child." The
doctor's tender heart finally prevailed and she made an exception of him.
When the old man was cured he came back to the hospital regularly, every
day, for the morning service. After listening attentively for a few weeks,
he said to the doctor, "_I-seng_, I truly know this is a good religion and
is just what I want, and I have decided to bow down to this very God."
His health did not improve as rapidly as the doctor thought it should; and
upon making careful inquiries she learned that it was because the small
amount of money which it was possible for him to earn, was not sufficient
to provide him with the nourishing food he needed. She at once gave him
some money, telling him to buy the sort of food which would build-up his
strength, and not to tell any one that he had been given this help. But
this was altogether too much to ask of the grateful old man, and "he went
out and began to publish it." The family who had sent him to the doctor
were much touched by this fresh evidence of her kindness, and thereafter
they sent their son with the old man to the morning services each day,
saying: "The Christian doctor is so good and kind. She has not only treated
this poor man free of charge but has helped him with money. Surely this
religion must be good."
Often patients come from far away villages to enter the hospital. One young
girl from a town many miles up the Min River, who became a happy, eager
Christian in the hospital, went home with the hope of coming back to study
in the Girls' Boarding School the next year. She was very eager to tell the
people of her village, in the meantime, of the glad truths she had learned.
"I will be the only Christian in the village," she said. "How I wish Dr. Hü
and Lau Sing-sang Moing (the Bible woman) would come and tell my people
about the new religion. I will tell them all I know, but I don't know very
much." One case is related of an old woman with double cataracts, whose son
brought her on a wheelbarrow a distance of several hundred miles to consult
Dr. Hü. The doctor performed a successful operation, restoring the woman's
sight, and thereby earning the title of "The Miracle Lady."
A large work is done every year in the dispensary, where Dr. Hü receives
patients each morning. This work has grown from 1,837 cases the first year
to 24,091 in 1910, and has made literally thousands of friends for the
doctor and her work. When she planned to erect the little building in which
she lives on Black Rock Hill many people told her that they were sure the
priests, especially those of the Black Rock Hill temple, would strongly
object to the erection of a mission building on that site, which was
considered a particularly sacred one. But Dr. Hü felt no anxiety in regard
to that, for the priests had been coming to the dispensary for treatment
for some months previous to the time of beginning the building. "Some have
come from Singapore monastery," she wrote, "others from Kushan, still
others from those in our own city. Thank God that their illnesses were
quickly healed."
She tells of one of the Singapore priests who was so grateful to be well
again that he came to the hospital one morning, dressed as for some
festival occasion, and bringing with him two boxes of cakes and two Chinese
scrolls, the Chinese characters of which he had himself written. These he
presented to Dr. Hü with his lowest bow, saying, "If I had not come to you
and taken your medicine I would have been dead, or at least I would not be
able to go back to Singapore." Many priests even came to the morning
services and listened attentively to what was said there.
A somewhat incidental but very useful work carried on largely in the
dispensary, by the Bible women, is a crusade against foot-binding. Dr. Hü's
useful life, and the important part her strong, natural feet play in it, is
a most effective object-lesson; and the annual reports usually record a
goodly number of those who have unbound their feet during the year.