she was enabled to give to her work after her return to China, her service
was brief. Almost all her life had been given to preparation for service,
and it may seem as if she had hardly begun her life work when she was
bidden to lay it down for the richer service of another life. But if to be
is more than to do, and if Anna Stone's life be measured by what it was,
rather than by achievements which could be recorded, we must count her
years of service to have been many. Through all the years of preparation
for her work she was, in fact, serving in the truest sense, through what
she was. Bishop Joyce often said that her presence in the home was a
benediction. One who had close contact with her work pays the following
tribute:
"Hers was a rare character. So simple, unaffected, and tender and
yet withal so strong. Like the blameless knight of old, 'her
strength was as the strength of ten because her heart was pure.'
Gifted with a winsome personality, and a voice of great sweetness,
she literally sang her way into the hearts of all who heard her,
while the illumination of her life 'hid with Christ in God'
particularly impressed those who saw in her a product of the
missionary enterprise of our church. All who came within the
influence of her radiant presence were the better for it."
Her life was an inspiration to people in Christian America. She once said
while here: "Since coming to America the greatest wonder to me has been how
any one can live in this country and yet not be a Christian. If I had not
given myself to God it would be the first thing I would do. But thank God
He has _me_ off His mind. I am His child and I will love and serve Him all
my days." One woman who heard her sing asked, "Why do you let her go back?
We need her right here to help us. I never felt so near Christ as when I
heard this Chinese girl sing, 'And I shall see Him face to face,' for the
light of her vision shone from her eyes. I knew that she saw what she was
singing about." Another wrote, when the news of her death came, "Of Anna
Stone it can truthfully be said, 'None knew her but to love her.'...
Wherever she mingled with people she drew them not only to herself, but to
Christ. Eternity alone will reveal the many souls won to a Christian life
through her influence."
At the annual meeting of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, held a few
months after Anna Stone's death, the following resolution was unanimously
adopted: "Resolved: That in memory of our dear Chinese girl, Anna Stone, we
recall to your thought these words, applied to her by one who knew her
well:
'And half we deemed she needed not
The changing of her sphere
To give to heaven a shining one
Who walked an angel here.'"
Her life was a blessing to people in her own great country. Her sister
wrote: "I am so thankful that she returned and spent about two years
working for our own people. When I saw how much she was loved by the women
and girls here I knew her short time with us had not been spent in vain." A
letter from another Kiukiang worker says: "We felt when Miss Stone was
taken from the Women's School that indeed its light and glory had departed.
Her influence and life among the women will never be forgotten. Her
gentleness, sweetness of spirit, and unselfishness, won a place in our
hearts, and made us feel that we had caught a glimpse of the Master. Among
her fellow-workers and her own people, she was universally beloved."
Miss Hughes, who was later appointed to take up the work which Anna had
laid down, wrote in a letter to Mrs. Joyce: "I don't think any one will
ever be able to tell you what a vacancy there is in Kiukiang since that
little girl was taken from us. I was not in China any length of time before
I, personally, realized something of the influence of her life. Her spirit
of beautiful, consecrated young womanhood that so impressed every one at
home seemed intensified when I saw her in the fall upon my arrival." Miss
Hughes went on to tell of an incident which revealed what was doubtless one
of the great sources of the power of the life that was so short in years.
She says:
"I think nothing that I have heard of Anna Stone's life speaks more
clearly of the depth of real self-abnegation,--perfect obliteration
of self, in fact--and the secret of her power in winning souls
where others failed to win, than this story I am now to tell you.
Several years ago, before Anna returned home from America, an old
woman about sixty-four years of age, was engaged to do sewing for
Dr. Stone from time to time. The woman was a widow with one son,
who was an opium fiend in every sense of the word. He was unable to
work, and deprived his mother of all the comforts, and often of the
necessities of life, that he might buy opium."
"One day the old woman was taken ill, and while ill, her son
carried off the only clothes the old mother had (she slept with her
clothes spread on top of the bed-clothes as you know is the custom
in China), and sold them for the miserable drug. The mother
appealed to Dr. Stone, who took her, in her helpless, sick
condition, into the hospital. As she grew well, she stayed on,
doing such sewing as she could for her board, and in the hospital
she heard for the first time of the 'Jesus doctrine.' Her hungry
heart opened to the truth and she wanted to learn to read the
Bible."
"One day, however, she came to the doctor and asked her if she
thought if they prayed to God, He would save her son from his
dreadful life. The doctor talked with her and found that the old
woman was full of faith that it could be done. So they prayed about
it, and a little while after, Dr. Stone gave the old woman money to
take her son to the hospital for men in the city here and have the
habit broken off. But the mother, instead of giving the man into
the care of the authorities, and paying for his treatment herself,
gave the money to the man, and he used it all in opium, being in a
worse condition than ever."
"Some time later, due to the lack of funds, the hospital had to be
closed for some time, but when it was reopened, the old mother
pleaded that the son should be taken on as a coolie to work for his
keep, and thus be out of temptation's way. He had been supplied
again with money and put into the hospital, from which he came out
apparently cured, but fell again. The plan for him to come to the
hospital seemed to the doctor a rather dangerous one, for the man
was a positive good-for-nothing. But in the meantime Anna had
returned from America, and was, with her sister, willing to try
him; for it seemed his last chance, and the mother had begged so
hard for him. So he came to the hospital--a poor wretch, indeed,
weak as a little child from the awful life he had lived."
"All opium was out of his reach here, and in a few days the absence
of it showed by dreadful swelling of the limbs. He could not carry
the smallest weight without great exertion, and the case seemed
almost hopeless. But he gradually was broken from the use of the
drug and was able to work about the place. Anna was using a sedan
chair for her itinerating work, but she was so light that the
coolies jolted her a great deal and hurt her; so she got her
'ricksha, and chose this poor wretch of a fellow, as her personal
body-servant. When she went out on her evangelistic work, she had
her mother with her, as you know, and this coolie went along
drawing the 'ricksha. He became very devoted to her, and very
carefully cared for her. When she had her meals with her mother,
she had this coolie eat with her, lest he go off and get hold of
opium. He is a very weak, easily led fellow, as you will have
judged, and Anna felt his one safety was in keeping with them all
the time. Little by little, the fellow straightened up and became
stronger and able to do a respectable amount of work."
"Meantime Anna was teaching him, as she had opportunity, about
Christ. Finally last New Year's Eve, at the watch-night service led
by Anna herself, among those who openly took their stand for
Christ, was this poor fellow. As far as we know he has led a
straight life ever since. He is still working about the hospital
and there is no sign of the old dissipation. When Anna left us a
few weeks ago, the man's grief was great, and it was this old
'body-guard' who sat up all night the one night after the coffin
was sealed and remained in the house. The old mother at
sixty-seven years of age has learned to read the Bible and is a
very earnest Christian."
"I wish I could tell you how it impressed me as Dr. Stone told of
the efforts of Anna to win that poor wretch of a fellow to Christ.
There wasn't a thing attractive about him, in fact, just the
opposite; but she saw that there was a soul there to save, and with
no apparent thought of herself, no shrinking from a man of his
type, she, with the true spirit of the Lord she so closely
followed, bent every effort to save him from the thing that had
cursed his own and his mother's life. I think I have never heard
anything more beautiful than this story of Anna, who with all the
delicacy of her nature, her pure, sweet womanhood, her love of the
refined that always marked her, and her keen sensitiveness to the
niceties of life, laid all, as a sacrifice to her Lord, in the
background, and had at the same board with herself and her mother,
that miserable man, thus helping him to fight the enemy of his soul
and body."
Her Master's work was indeed everything, and self was nothing to Anna
Stone. She once said in a letter to Mrs. Joyce, "It has been a grief to my
heart not to have seen more people who have means to support themselves
come out to work for China. I am hoping to find some means by which to
support myself without getting pay from the society, to let others know
that I am not working for money, but for the love of God which is in my
heart."
The influence of this young Chinese girl is but another witness to "the
power of an endless life." She lives to-day in those whom she has inspired,
and who seek to be as true as she.
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