Kiukiang schools returned to their homes. The family of one young woman
insisted that she make use of this enforced vacation to become married to
the young Chinese to whom she had long been engaged. The marriage was
unwelcome to her, for she was a Christian and the man was not, but as she
was the only Christian in her family she received no sympathy from them,
and the wedding was set for Christmas day. The parents, however, yielded to
their daughter's earnest desire for a Christian ceremony, and her brother
was dispatched to Kiukiang to seek Dr. Stone, who had been eminently
successful in all kinds of operations and might surely be relied upon to
tie a satisfactory marriage knot. Dr. Stone accordingly left all her
Christmas engagements, and accompanied by a Chinese pastor and one of her
nurses, set out, through a heavy snow storm, for the girl's home. When the
wedding guests were all assembled, Dr. Stone said that she would like to
say a few words before the ceremony took place, and for an hour and a half
she told her hearers of the Christian good tidings. The result was that
when the wedding was over the mother and father of the bride brought their
idols to her, and allowed their daughter to apply the match to them, for
both had determined to become Christians. The father said that he wished
other people to hear the good things Dr. Stone had told them, and would
give the land for a Christian school. The bridegroom volunteered to do the
carpenter work which would be necessary before a school could be opened,
and now the young wife is teaching a group of children who have entered
this new Christian school, and in the new home husband and wife daily unite
in morning prayers.
After the Revolution was practically over, but conditions were still so
unsettled as to make it unwise to reopen the hospital, Dr. Stone and
several of her nurses made a trip to a number of towns in the region around
Kiukiang. In a recent letter Dr. Stone tells of being given a piece of land
by the influential people in one of these towns, with the earnest entreaty
that she leave a nurse there to carry on a permanent medical work. She
could make them no definite promise, but is hoping that friends in America
will make it financially possible to support a nurse and dispensary where
they are so greatly needed.
Truly the Chinese women are blessed in having so perfect an embodiment of
the ideal woman of the great new China in this unassuming physician, whom a
friend who has known her from babyhood declares to have the most perfect
Christian character of any one she knows. After his visit in Kiukiang, Dr.
Perkins exclaimed: "Such a wonderful woman as Dr. Mary Stone is! I do not
know of any good quality she does not possess"; and one who has had an
intimate acquaintance with the college women of America says: "What a
marvel Dr. Stone is! To me she is unexcelled in charm, in singleness of
purpose, and all-round efficiency, by any other woman I have ever known."
* * * * *
YU KULIANG
* * * * *
[Illustration: Yu Kuliang]
YU KULIANG
The same year that little Mary Stone first saw the light, on almost the
same day, in another part of the same city, another little girl was born, a
member of the same proud old family whose line runs back so many years into
Chinese antiquity. Unlike Mary Stone, she was not born into a Christian
home, but it was a home where the parents truly loved each other, and one
in which she might have spent a very happy childhood, had not the young
father died while she was still a baby.
The mother, broken-hearted over her husband's death, decided to become a
Taoist nun and devote the remainder of her life to the search for truth.
With her baby she shut herself up in a little hut outside of the city,
seeing no one, and giving her whole time to the care of the child and her
efforts to find truth. The members of her family, which is one of the
wealthiest and most aristocratic in Kiukiang, were greatly pleased with
what they considered an eminently virtuous resolve for a young widow to
make, and applied to the Emperor for his approval of the course she had
decided to follow. This being heartily given, they built a very comfortable
home for her on the outskirts of Kiukiang. The building was christened
Purity Hall, and over its gateway were placed large placards announcing the
imperial sanction of the life which the young widow had chosen for herself
and her child.
Here the little girl grew to womanhood, knowing no companionship except
that of her mother and her teachers. Her mother employed the best possible
Chinese teachers for her, and she early learned to read the books of the
three religions of China, that she might join her mother in her pursuit of
truth. She seldom left the house, and no one but her teachers ever entered
it, but day after day she pored over the books on Taoism, Buddhism, and
Confucianism until she had read them all. She, too, became a Taoist nun,
but continued in the worship and study of Buddhism and Confucianism also,
determined to find the _true_ religion.
She even surpassed her mother in the ardour of her search for truth, for
she spent twelve entire years, in periods of three years each, in one room
of the house, living in the most absolute seclusion, not seeing her
mother, speaking to no one, and hearing no voice, for three years at a
time. After such a vigil she came out into the rest of the house for a
year, then went back for another three years of solitude. In one corner of
this room were the shrine and the altar before which Yu Kuliang knelt hour
after hour during the years of her long vigil, and the idols, large and
small, of wood and stone, which were her only companions. She always kept
three sticks of incense burning before the shrine, one for each religion,
that she might be sure not to make a mistake. In the ardour of her devotion
she even made offerings of pieces of her own flesh to the idols. Her whole
body, even her face, was covered with the ugly round scars caused by this
self-mutilation.
When Yu Kuliang was a woman of thirty-two she learned that the Stones were
her cousins, and of her own accord went to call on them. Thereafter the
doors of "Purity Hall," so long fast closed to all, were thrown open to the
Stone family. Yu Kuliang and her cousin Dr. Mary Stone, born at almost the
same time, living, and having always lived, lives as totally different as
two lives could be, became fast friends. To Dr. Stone, Yu Kuliang frankly
confessed that an entire life spent in seeking truth had not brought her
success. She was very willing to listen to all that Dr. Stone had to tell
her of the truth which she had found, and finally even succeeded in
summoning up sufficient courage to attend the Sunday morning church
service. Her years of seclusion had made her so timid, and so afraid of
mingling among people, however, that the first time she came to the church
she disguised herself in the garb of a Chinese man. Dr. Stone gave her a
Bible and she began the study of it at once, with the same earnestness and
determination to find truth that she had shown in her study of the books of
the Chinese religion.
After she had once gained courage to attend the church service she came
frequently, no longer in man's clothes, nor in the coarse, grey cotton
costume of the Taoist nun, which she discarded soon after knowing Dr.
Stone, but in the ordinary dress of the Chinese woman. She became a
frequent visitor to the hospital, too, where she loved to follow Dr. Stone
from ward to ward, or to sit beside her in the dispensary as she cared for
the suffering women and children who flocked there daily.
Finally Dr. Stone invited her to come to her for a week's visit, hardly
daring to hope that she would do so; for she had never, since entering
"Purity Hall" as a baby, spent a night outside of it. But she consented,
and gladly drank in all that Dr. Stone and the doctor's mother told her of
the truth which she had so long sought. One day soon after she had gone
home, when Dr. Stone was calling on her and her mother, the mother drew Dr.
Stone aside and said, "Since my daughter came back from your house she
hasn't been upstairs to see the idols once." After years of ceaseless
devotion to them, Yu Kuliang had forsaken her idols, and was turning toward
the living God. Soon afterward, when it was necessary for Dr. Stone to go
to America for an operation, and for Miss Hughes, who was in charge of the
Bible Woman's Training School, to accompany her, Yu Kuliang came and asked
that she might enter the school when Miss Hughes returned from America. But
when Dr. Stone and Miss Hughes returned to China, they found Yu Kuliang
suffering from tuberculosis. The long years of self-inflicted imprisonment
had left her with no vitality to resist, and the disease was making rapid
progress.
Soon after the doctor's return, Yu Kuliang's mother went away for a visit
of some days. One afternoon during her absence, when Dr. Stone and Miss
Hughes were calling on Yu Kuliang, she told them that she was studying the
Bible, and trying to pray, and added: "I never go near the idols any more.
They are all upstairs in my old cell." Dr. Stone at once said: "If you no
longer believe in the idols, get rid of them. Give them to us." Yu Kuliang
assented immediately, saying, "Take them if you want to," and went upstairs
with Dr. Stone to get them. They brought down a Buddha and a goddess of
mercy, which, after a few moments of further talk and prayer, Dr. Stone and
Miss Hughes took away with them, Yu Kuliang watching them without a murmur.
The next day Dr. Stone and her mother went to see Yu Kuliang again, and
with her consent and approval chopped to pieces a huge wooden idol, which
was too large to carry away. When they were wondering what they should do
with the stump of the body, Yu Kuliang exclaimed, "Throw the horrid thing
into the ditch!" Thus passed out of her life the idols to which she had
prayed for hours at a time, before which she had burned numberless sticks
of incense, beside which she had lived and slept, and which she had made
her most constant companions all the years of her life. The old temple
bell, which had for years been used to call the gods from sleep, was given
to Dr. Stone on the same day.
But when Yu Kuliang's mother returned she was furiously angry--not at the
daughter to whom she was devoted, but at those who had turned her away from
her idols. Dr. Stone took the old woman's hands in hers and pleaded with
her: "You know your daughter does not believe in idols, you know the misery
of her life, you know how she longs for peace; and as long as you harbour
the idols in your home, Jesus cannot come into her heart and dwell there."
The old woman at once broke out, in the tones of one taking the part of an
injured friend, "But if your God is such a mighty one, and has the tens of
thousands of followers you tell us He has, why should He be jealous of our
poor little idols and those who worship them?"
Dr. Stone did not interrupt the tirade which was now poured forth, but
picked up a piece of wood and a pebble from the floor, and when the old
woman waited for her to answer, quietly replied to the pebble and bit of
wood in her hand. Finally the woman said, "Why don't you answer me? You
have come to see me, and perhaps I have been rude, but you are my relative
and I want to be friends with you." Still Dr. Stone did not answer, but
went on talking to the stone and wood, until the old woman lost patience
and exclaimed, "What nonsense is this!"
Then Dr. Stone put her arm around her and answered, "If you think it is
nonsense for me to talk to the stone and wood in your house, instead of
giving you attention, how do you think the Heavenly Father feels,--the one
who created you, the one who is your Father--when you satisfy yourself with
images of wood and stone instead of giving that love and devotion to Him?"
Before Dr. Stone left the young women knelt in prayer, but the mother would
not join them.
Later, with her mother's consent, Yu Kuliang went to the hospital, and
there spent four of the ten last days of her life, in the companionship of
her cousin. Dr. Stone gave her every minute that could be spared from her
hospital duties, telling her of the glad new life which she was soon to
enter, and praying with her. Many times Yu Kuliang tried to leave the bed
to kneel with Dr. Stone, but the doctor explained to her that her prayers
were just as acceptable where she was, and that she was too weak to kneel.
"Those four days in the hospital with cousin were the happiest in my life,"
she told her mother when she returned to her home.
When she knew that she could not get well she insisted, weak as she was,
upon being dressed and having her photograph taken, for all the photographs
which she had had before were in the dress of the Taoist nun, and she
wanted to have one taken after she had become a Christian.
Just before her death she said to her mother, "Mother, there is nothing in
this life of ours, nothing! We were all wrong. I'm so glad it is over and
now I am not at all afraid, for I am going to that beautiful place." And
then, her lifelong quest at length crowned with success, she went to behold
the face of Him who is the Truth.
* * * * *
ANNA STONE
I. EAGER FOR EDUCATION
II. AMONG HER OWN PEOPLE
III. THE POWER OF AN ENDLESS LIFE
* * * * *
[Illustration: Anna Stone]
ANNA STONE
I
EAGER FOR EDUCATION
"God knew where to send girls; He knew who would be good to them," Mrs.
Stone assured the neighbours who had come to condole with her on the birth
of a second daughter, and to remind her that "ten queenly daughters are not
worth as much as one son with a limp." Years before, when the baby's
father, one of the literati, had lost all his property in the Tai Ping
Rebellion, he had adopted the profession of teaching Chinese to the
missionaries, as the only dignified means by which one of his rank and
learning could earn a living. While he taught them Chinese characters, they
taught him about Christianity, and it was not long before he was in charge
of a Christian chapel in Kiukiang. So when this little daughter was born,
she was given the good old Bible name of Anna, and great plans were laid
for her future. While she was still a tiny baby her mother carried her to
the missionary in charge of the girls' boarding school, one of those to
whom her father had taught the Chinese language years before, and said to
her, "As soon as this baby is old enough, I want you to take her and train
her for Christian work."
If she was to fulfil her mother's ambition for her Anna must of course
receive an education, although a girl who could read or write even the
simplest sentence was then almost unknown in China. But Mrs. Stone knew
well that the more education Anna had, the more efficient a worker she
would be. She herself had never been taught at all, and after she had
become a Christian and was eager to tell other women of the good news which
she had learned, she had found herself sadly hampered because she could not
read the Bible. It was not so difficult when her husband was at home to
read it for her; but while he was away on his preaching tours, she had lost
many opportunities of teaching Christianity to the women who came to see
her, because of her inability to read the Book which told of the great new
truth she had learned. So, busy as she was with her babies and her
household cares, she determined to learn to read, and asked her husband to
teach her.
Pastor Stone, however, had still something to learn. He did not believe
that it was possible for the feminine mind, especially that of a woman
grown, to learn the difficult Chinese characters; and he told his wife
that, in his opinion, it was not worth while for her to attempt it. If
Mother Stone was discouraged she did not show it. Every night after the
rest of the family were asleep she set a candle beside her bed and studied
characters diligently. Whenever Pastor Stone woke up for a moment, or
turned over in bed, he would receive a gentle nudge and Mother Stone would
delightedly exclaim, "Oh, father, won't you please tell me what this
character is?" He soon decided to teach her in orthodox fashion, and she
proved to be such an apt pupil that it was not long before she was in
charge of a little day school for girls.
Anna received much of her early education from her mother, and for a time
she and her older sister Mary went to school with their brother. Girls at
school were decidedly a novelty, and the visiting mandarin opened his eyes
in amazement. "Can _girls_ learn anything?" he demanded of the teacher, who
was forced to admit that they learned as fast as the boys, and sometimes a
little faster. When a little older, Anna became a member of the Kiukiang
Boarding School for girls, where she proved to be a diligent and quick
pupil. During this time her sister Mary went to America to take her medical
course, and down in her heart Anna cherished a secret hope that when she
had completed her high school work she, too, might go to that wonderful
Christian country from which her missionary teachers had come and in which
her sister was receiving the training which would fit her for such large
service among her countrywomen. She said very little about this hope to any
one, but she and her friend I-lien Tang, who was also eager to go to
America, determined to pray about it, and to study so faithfully that if
the way should ever open for them to go, they would be ready. Accordingly
they completed the high school course in Chinese, and studied English and
Latin in addition.
In 1898 Bishop Joyce, of the Methodist Church, and his wife took a trip to
the Orient to visit the mission stations. While in Kiukiang they became so
much interested in the two girls, Anna Stone and I-lien Tang, that they
offered to take them back to America with them. The autumn of 1898
therefore found Anna in America, the country of her dreams, and a student
in Hamline University. She entered into her college work with much
enthusiasm and made excellent progress in it. She was not strong, however,
and was so far from well at the end of the year that it seemed best for her
to relinquish her plan of following in her sister's footsteps by taking a
medical course. She therefore planned to fit herself for some other form of
service which would involve less physical strain, and left Hamline, after
having been there only one year. But she left behind her many warm friends
among the students, some of whom had become Christians as a result of the
consistent and beautiful Christian life of this young Chinese girl.
The next autumn Anna entered Folts Mission Institute, where arrangements
were made for her to take the two years' Bible course in three years, in
the hope that she might thus regain her health. Her teachers testify that
she was a brilliant student, and that her English was so perfect that one
who heard her, without seeing her, would never have known that she was a
foreigner. When one of them once asked her how it was that she had such a
correct pronunciation, she said that when she was in Kiukiang Boarding
School she used to watch the lips of the missionaries when they were
speaking English, in order to see just how the words were formed.
Her use of words, too, was almost as accurate as her enunciation of them,
although occasionally the intricacies of the English language proved
somewhat mystifying. For example, when she was at her doctor's office one
day he asked if he had given her any medicine when she was there before.
"No, doctor, you gave me a proscription," she answered. The doctor's smile
showed her that she had made a mistake, and as soon as they were outside
she asked the teacher who was with her what she ought to have said.
"_Pre_scription, _pre_scription," she repeated. "I must remember that. What
was it we had in church last Sunday? Was that a prescription or a
proscription?"
"That was a subscription," the teacher told her.
"Oh, yes, a subscription. But what did you call the writing on the stones
in the graveyard? Was that a prescription or a subscription?"
"That was an inscription," was the answer, and perhaps it is small wonder
that Anna exclaimed in despair, "Oh, this terrible English! Can I ever get
it!"
On the whole, however, she was very much at home with the English language.
One morning as she was going down to breakfast some one asked, "How is our
little China girl this morning?" "Neither cracked nor broken!" was her
instant response.
During all her stay in America she was in great demand as a speaker, and
did as much of this work as her health permitted, always giving her message
in English, and everywhere winning friends for herself and her loved
people. "Those who have watched her as she held the attention of large
audiences with the simple story of her own people, will not soon forget the
modest, unassuming girl who touched their lives for a brief hour," says one
who heard her often.
When she entered Folts Institute it was thought that it would be a good
thing for her to take vocal lessons to strengthen her throat and lungs.
This training was given simply for the sake of her health, and with no
expectation that she would ever sing in public, but it soon became evident
that she had musical ability of no small degree. Her voice was very sweet,
and had such a power to capture the hearts of her hearers that she was
given the title of the "Sweet Singer," and was in great demand for meetings
large and small. The whole energy of her life was so given to her Master
that this newly discovered gift was at once consecrated wholly to His
service. "You may think me narrow," she said earnestly, when her teacher
proposed that she should study some nature songs, "but I feel that I must
be the girl of one song." And into the one song, the Christian hymn, she
put her whole soul, as any who heard her sing, "I love to tell the story,"
"Faith of our fathers," or the one that she perhaps sang most often, "Saved
by Grace," will testify.
"I can hear her still as she sang 'Saved by Grace' to the large audience of
the General Executive in 1902," wrote one, several years later. "She put
such fulness of meaning and power into this simple song. It was a part of
her own experience." Another said, "I heard her sing 'I love to tell the
story' to an audience of over five hundred college girls at the student
conference of the Young Women's Christian Association at Silver Bay, and
the effect was wonderful."
It had been the thought of the principal of Folts Institute that the cost
of Anna's musical education should be defrayed by gifts from friends who
were interested in her and her work. But after one spring vacation, when
Anna had been addressing several meetings and had been given quite a little
money, she went to the principal's office and turned over the entire amount
which she had received. "But this is twice as much as your lessons for the
year will cost, Anna," the principal told her, and started to hand back
half of it. But Anna would not take it, and insisted that it be used to pay
for the piano lessons of another Chinese student at the Institute. "I don't
want ---- to get into debt," she said.
While studying at Folts Institute Anna's first great sorrow came to her in
the death of her father. They had always been comrades, and she had often
accompanied him on his preaching tours into the country. It was on one of
these tours, made during the time of the Boxer uprising, that Pastor Stone
received the injuries at the hands of a mob which were probably the cause
of his death. The news was a great blow to Anna, but she bore it quietly
and bravely, and when a few days later it was her turn to lead the
students' prayer meeting, she chose "Heaven" for her topic. "Before I came
to your country, I used to think it was heaven," she said; "but now I am so
glad it isn't, for then they might try to keep father out, and now I know
he is inside."
She completed her course at Folts Institute in 1902, and as she seemed in
good health, entered Central Wesleyan College for further training. But her
zeal for her work always led her to overestimate her own strength, and her
patience in suffering and desire not to cause any one any trouble, made it
hard for others to know the true state of her health. One of her teachers
at Folts says that Anna would often be ill for days before any one would
have any knowledge of it, so uncomplaining was she. This teacher tells how
at one time, when Anna finally had to give up, the tears rolled down the
cheeks of the girl who bore pain so bravely that it was unsuspected even by
those who were watching her carefully, at the thought that the friend to
whom she gave both the century-old reverence of the Chinese for a teacher
and the warm love of her grateful heart, should have to minister to her
needs. It was found, after she had been at the Central Wesleyan College for
a few months, that courageous as she was, her strength was not sufficient
to enable her to go on with her studies.
She spent the rest of the year in Minneapolis in the home of her good
friends, Bishop and Mrs. Joyce. She was never content to be idle, and after
a few months of rest she gave several addresses in the churches of
Minnesota and North Dakota, awakening interest in the cause she represented
wherever she went. She so won the hearts of the young people that when she
went back to China it was as the representative of the young women who
formed the Standard Bearer Society of the Minneapolis branch of the Woman's
Foreign Missionary Society.