MY DEAR BISHOP EASTBURN,--I shall not soon forget that the first
letter which met my eye on reaching San Francisco, after a voyage
of one hundred and eleven days, was in your handwriting. I have
since then been so pleasantly reminded of you through a good man’s
influence here in China that I must tell you of it. Being on a
visit to Shanghai, I was invited to attend worship in a Chinese
chapel five miles from the city. We went through the fields in
chairs borne by coolies, till we came to the village where trade
was plying all its arts, and handicraft its implements, unconscious
of the Sabbath. A small church-bell notified us that we were near
the chapel; and soon we emerged from heathenish sounds and sights
into a christian temple, neat and orderly in all its appointments.
There were about one hundred and fifty Chinese assembled for
worship, which was conducted by a very good looking Chinaman,
tall, and of pleasing address. Though ignorant of every word he
said, my attention was riveted by his agreeable action and manner,
eminently becoming a preacher of the gospel and withal eloquent,
if his whole appearance and the attention of the people were true
indications. I could see that the services were liturgical from
the responses, and from the Chinese books used by the people, the
little girls around me keeping my attention directed to the place
in the service; though very little good did this do me, except
that it helped me to keep my book right side up. The service ended
with singing, “There is a happy land,” the tune so familiarly
known in our Sabbath schools. The preacher came to speak with me
before service, with his welcome in very good English; and after
service he came again and gave me much information. He has been
rector there sixteen years, the chapel being built and he being
sustained there by the munificence, said he, “of a Mr. William
Appleton, of Boston.” This made my heart leap for joy, to come so
far into heathenism and find myself in a christian temple erected
and maintained by a fellow-citizen of Boston. Mr. Appleton I did
not know personally, though I once received a very kind note from
him with a pamphlet. But I had long cherished a sincere love for
him from many impressions of his truly estimable character. I was
led to think, What a memorial of christian zeal has he built in
this distant land! What pleasure it must afford his happy spirit
in heaven to look down on this place of christian worship in
the depths of heathenism! What a noble use of wealth, blessing
a multitude of people who but for him might have been left in
heathenish ignorance! I told the preacher that I should report his
chapel and his labors to christian friends at home, and I mentioned
your name in speaking of those who would be glad to hear of him.
He desired me to give his respects to you; so it is my pleasure to
send you the respectful and christian salutation of the Reverend
Wong Kwong Chi, of one of the villages of Shanghai.
As we came out of the chapel, our ears were saluted with some
musical instruments from a house where people were making a tumult
over a dead person. Little knew they of that “happy land, far,
far away:” which the people of Appleton Chapel had just been
celebrating. I felt a desire to tell good men in Boston that
there yet remaineth much land to be possessed here by christian
philanthropists; that they can readily find villages of sixty
thousand waiting each for its chapel, to say nothing of cities with
millions in them, where it would be easy to begin a work for the
ransomed spirits of good men and women to review with pleasure in
heaven. Truly enviable is that rich christian who can employ wealth
to do good for him when he is with Christ. The Appleton Chapel at
Shanghai seemed to me a cup of cold water, the donor of which is
not losing his reward.
From the steamboat-landing at Shanghai, looking across the river,
you see a comely church of fair proportions, surrounded in part
with banyan and bamboo trees, affording it a perpetually verdant
appearance. It is a stone chapel for seamen, built through the
efforts of A. A. Hayes, Jr., of the firm of Olyphant & Co., and
son of Dr. A. A. Hayes, of Boston. It is under the care of the
Rev. Mr. Syle, Presbyterian, a devoted and most useful man. A
large churchyard has there received the remains of seamen of
all nations. It is within the same enclosure with the church,
ornamented with plants and trees, and is nearly filled with the
dead. It has been opened fourteen years, and there are fourteen
hundred interments. The graves are in close and even rows for
economy of rooms, so that this large collection of the dead looks
like a buried battalion who have lain down by platoons. The orderly
disposal of them has a saddening influence. I never before felt
that there is a natural appropriateness in having a burial-place,
as Job says of the land of the departed, “a land without any
order.” We feel that promptitude and exactness are out of place
at a funeral; but slowness and delay are congenial. Surely, these
ranks of the dead will not rise by roll-call, though they lay down
in such good order. They made me think of some lines of an uncle of
Sir Walter Scott, a sea-captain, on a sunken man-of-war, all her
crew on board:--
‘In death’s dark road at anchor fast they stay,
Till Heaven’s loud signal shall in thunder roar;
Then, starting up, all hands shall quick obey;
Sheet home the topsail, and with speed unmoor.’[7]