Chapter 17: Traveling to Execution

“We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter:
NAY:
We are more than conquerors, through Him that loved us.”
SOME considerable time elapsed before the officer’s promise was finally redeemed. Indeed, so long did it seem that my fears began once more to work against my faith, and to suggest that after all his words were only “hsü-kia” — “empty and false” —a current expression in relation to the world of morals in China which unhappily is only too well understood. And yet what reason had he, if he wished to decamp, for showing himself to us again? Surely the hand of God was in it; surely the man was yet to be the instrument of His will in our deliverance.
The restraining effect of his appearance upon the people was evidently due to the fact that they took it as the guarantee of our destruction by the officials themselves. This alone, I believe, hindered them from taking matters into their own hands. If the escort had really abandoned us, there is no question that we should not have left the place alive. As it was, their talk was of nothing but our approaching death. About noon two horse soldiers with drawn swords passed out of the town by the gate close by, and we were informed that they were our executioners, with orders to await our coming and dispatch us on the road. Thus our minds were directed perpetually to the thought of death rather than of deliverance, until it was borne in upon us irresistibly that, even if the escort had decided to discharge their duty and take us on to Kao-p’ing, it was (as they themselves had given out) only for eventual execution. The cherished hope that the cart had been given for life died within us, though it died hard; and its place was taken by the earnest expectation and the hope that in nothing we should be ashamed, but that with all boldness Christ might now be magnified in our body by death, since the will of God was so.
The sequel to the passing out of the horse soldiers was all in keeping with the one thought. About half an hour later the officer reappeared, and, ordering us to follow him, led us outside the gate. Two carts were awaiting us instead of one, and I was dismayed to see the kind of vehicle provided. The covered “chiao-ch’as,” which was originally sent for us, had been exchanged for the low coal trolly of those parts, with spokeless wheel and axle all of one, locally known as the “mountain tiger” from the facility with which it traverses the steep and narrow passes. The body of the cart was simply a strong wooden frame—nothing else; no side supports, no p’eng over our heads, and nothing beneath us to break the concussion. The ladies and children were ordered to seat themselves on the one, while I was to follow by myself alone on the other. What else could this mean than that we were common felons, riding to a felon’s death? Amid a silence that contrasted strangely with the experience of yesterday, we passed away for the second time from Yin-ch’eng, the officer on horseback leading the way. There was no hostile demonstration. Rather a fear seemed to be upon them, or at least an awe, cast, it may be, by the shadow of our impending doom. Silently the great crowd watched us out of sight, and once more we were alone.
Separated now from the fellowship of my companions in suffering, I was left to my own reflections. The bitterness of that lonely ride who can tell! The iron of an unutterable desolation entered into my soul. Some perhaps may wonder why, after such signal manifestations of delivering and sustaining grace, it should have been so—why faith did not rise superior to it. God knows. I only record the fact that it was so. Seasons of darkness do not necessarily argue the failure of faith. Often the very reverse. For faith needs to be educated, and its schooling has to be done in the valley of Baca as well as on the hill of Zion. In leading His people from faith to faith, God asks them to follow Him at times where His path is in the great waters and His footsteps are not known. And after all, was it so much to be wondered at? There was a good deal to account for it from the physical side alone, for it was a month that day since we first took the road, and what had we not endured within that time! Then, too, the hope that had buoyed us up, of deliverance by the cart, for which we had waited in the will of God, was gone; and what that meant no words can express. Moreover, with this barbarous trolly work there was the ever present consciousness of what my precious wife was enduring; its every jolt and bang, as it climbed the rugged passes, went through me in that consciousness, and the sight of her thus under the scorching blaze of the noonday sun, with no alleviations of any sort or kind, was like the tearing of a wound. I had represented to the officer before starting that, situated as she was, such a mode of conveyance was the refinement of cruelty; but the only answer vouchsafed was a callous “Muh fah-tsi” — “There’s no help for it”; or in other words, “She will get nothing better.”
I may also add a remark which is not out of place in this connection. It so happened that the period of this distress of soul synchronized to the hour with the awful tragedy which was being enacted within the governor’s yamen at T’ai-yüen Fu. Who shall say that there was no relation between the two events? For is it not a law that if one member suffer all the members suffer with it, in a far reaching sense beyond the grasp of comprehension? And is it too much to believe that we were being touched by the fringe of the same dark cloud into which so many of our beloved brethren and sisters were at that moment entering?
At the boundary where the Kao-p’ing jurisdiction commenced we were halted before a small yamen, whence the officer presently emerged carrying two small pennons of Imperial yellow, each inscribed with four characters, “Ch’ang Chi Hsien ch’ai” — “Officially forwarded by the Ch’ang Chi district-magistrate” (the official style of the Lu-an sub-prefect). These he carefully affixed with his own hands to the mules’ harness of either cart, and then gave the signal to move on. Thus certainty was made doubly sure. As I pondered the meaning of it, I could find not the faintest gleam of hope that those yellow symbols represented anything else than our death warrant, displayed for all to read as we passed along. The sub-prefect’s reference to a secret edict of the Empress Dowager’s came forcibly to mind, and I could see in them only the declaration that we were Imperial prisoners, being conveyed under guard to execution. The whole demeanor of the escort, as well as the mode of conveyance, were against any other conclusion. But perhaps the strongest confirmation of it was found in a most singular incident. Just as we were about to resume the journey, a man came out of the yamen habited in a rough. garb of coarse white calico, tied at the waist with a girdle of string, a cap of the same white material on his head, white shoes on his feet, and a white braid in his queue—in other words, in the customary dress of a mourner attending a funeral. This man significantly attached himself to us, and joining the officer headed the cavalcade. I give the incident for what it is worth; but the kind of impression it made upon us all, under the circumstances, can be readily understood. It seemed to be designed to impress upon us that this was none other than a funeral procession, and to indicate China’s mock grief at the extermination of the “iang kuei-tsï.”
With such positive evidence to go upon I felt it right to prepare my dear wife and Miss Gates. To sit thus alone with the thoughts that sprang out of it was unendurable; and leaving my cart I dared to run on and speak with them. How sweet was the solace of those few moments of intercourse to me! I found them with the same conviction, but calm and in perfect peace; and together we lifted our hearts to God for grace to glorify Him in the death we were shortly to die. I was then ordered back to the lonely cart.
Some little time after, as I sat praying and reminding God of the mighty deliverances He had already vouchsafed us, and of that Name, “Wonderful, the Mighty God,” which He has given to His beloved Son for us, the thought flashed upon me as a revelation that after all, might not the yellow flags be the symbol of Imperial protection, set there to proclaim the fact to all for our greater safety in a district known to be peculiarly anti-foreign. It reads like an absurd anti-climax, unreasonable to say the least, in view of the evidence against it. Nevertheless, God used the absurd and the unreasonable to bring back to my heart the hope I had lost, and to strengthen my hold of Him as the “Mighty to save.” Guards notwithstanding, I leapt from the cart and ran to impart the comfort of its inspiration to my companions. The words of the promise given to my wife on the morning of the flight, “I shall not die, but live and declare the works of the Lord,” revived in our hearts to the quickening of our faith; and once more He turned the shadow of death into the morning, and gave us the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. I learned then that God had taken away the hope of deliverance by the cart, upon which I had come to lean unduly, that my faith and hope might be in Himself alone. I needed the reminder that the walk of faith can never be by sight, that my expectation must be from Him—always, only, immediately from Him. It was to be enough for me that God was with us, apart from seen possibilities of escape, and that I might safely rest the issue, whether it were life or death, with Him. Again and again He had to bring this to remembrance, in His patient forbearance with my slowness of apprehension.
As we reached the summit of the pass and began to descend on the Kao-p’ing side, the traveling became too awful for words. Our guards seemed to have lost sight of the fact that the trollies this time carried a load of animate, not inanimate, matter. Absolutely no account was taken of our humanity. Probably they would have looked more carefully by a good deal to their going, had the freight been coal or iron instead of foreign flesh and blood. If what we had endured hitherto was suffering, this was torture. The declivity became a succession of ledges, down which “the mountain tiger” plunged, leaping from one to the other with a recklessness all too cruelly facile. The jolt and bang of the previous record now gave way to a series of crashes, the concussion of which was alarming. So impossible was the endurance of it that even the escort relaxed so far as to allow us to make the descent on foot. In this way we were brought once more together, and under the burning sun we toiled down to the foot of the pass.
The words “in weariness and painfulness” were as applicable to our condition now as ever before. The scorching heat not only fell on us from above, but was refracted like a furnace from the rocks around. No refreshment either of food or drink was given us, and our bones ached again with the severity of the ride. What all this meant to the weaker vessels—the women and the tiny children—needs no effort of the imagination to conceive. Yet dear little Hope sang to us by the way, a fact which speaks for itself as to the unmurmuring spirit inculcated by her mother and Miss Gates; and one of the liveliest memories that I have of that memorable journey is the sweet voice in song of my sunny little darling borne to me in my loneliness from the trolly on before.
There came a time at length when the intent of the yellow flags was settled beyond a doubt, in the open declaration of the escort that we were under sentence of death by Imperial decree, and were being taken to Kao-p’ing for execution. Yet though the comfortable meaning of the symbol as that of protection was gone, the comfortable hope in God which it had been used to revive remained. We were allowed still to see nothing else than death; but our eyes had been taken away to the Living One at the right hand of God, and rested on Him to Whom all power in heaven and in earth has been given.
All things have an end, even a never-ending 60 li of jolt and crash and sweltering heat; and at seven o’clock we entered the city. The two horse soldiers who had preceded us from Yin-ch’eng, and who had been pointed out to us as our executioners, had not been encountered on the road. In all probability they had been sent on to prepare the Hsien for our coming. At any rate, our arrival was not unexpected, to judge from the enormous crowd that met us and thronged us to the yamen. I feared when I saw it; for I remembered how, when Dr. Hewett and I entered the city two months previously, they had hooted us out, and we had to confine our preaching to the suburbs. The shame, too, of our rags and dirt and the degradation of the trolly carts would not tend to induce a kindlier feeling; while the Imperial yellow, with its official authorization of hostility would remove all restraint.
As we entered the yamen enclosure the huge crowd pressed in with us. The trolly carts were driven away, the escort went to report themselves and deliver their papers, and we were left standing alone in the thick of it. The experience was not a pleasant one. All attempts made by the runners to quiet the people and keep them back were unavailing. With hoots and yells they thronged in upon us, and forced, us up the steps by the inner gate. I shall never forget darling little Hope’s shrieks of terror as she clung about my neck, entreating me to take her away. What with the great heat and pressure, we were nearly suffocated. The excitement grew in intensity, and but for our timely admittance to the inner courtyard it must have gone hard with us. In the mercy of God the gate opened just at the moment of extremity, and we were pulled inside and locked into a small room containing two small k’ang. Prison though it was, it seemed the calm and rest of Paradise after the howling storm outside. The yelling and battering at the gates continued for hours afterward till nearly midnight; and we blessed God for our hidden retreat, at the same time beseeching His mercy for the people and sufficient grace for ourselves, whatever the issue before us might be.
Once more He proved Himself better than our fears, and magnified His Name as the Lord merciful and gracious. An excellent supper was sent in to us by the Mandarin, of rice, bread and eggs; and though he did not come to interview us himself, yet he sent his son, the “Shao-ie,” to reassure us with the promise that we should be sent on to the next magistracy—the prefectural city of Tseh-cheo—in the morning, and to give us a sum of a thousand cash for the road. We were also visited by several small officials and many of the gentry, who plied us with a running fire of questions of the usual curious sort, without betraying either sympathy or antipathy There was one remarkable exception, however. A gentleman of the yamen, looking hard at me, said:
“Surely you are one of the two pastors who were over here about two months ago preaching in the south suburb?”
“Yes,” I replied, “I am.”
“The Jesus doctrine is a good doctrine, and your words were very good. It is pitiable to see the honorable pastor in a beggar’s rag. Will you please exchange it for this of mine?” And he presented me with a gown of blue calico—one certainly that had been well worn, but still most presentable, and to my eyes at that time a princely garment.
I need not describe the impression this unexpected act of kindness made upon us all. It was at least an indication that there might be others among them who at heart were well disposed towards us, little as they might care to show it. At any rate, the treatment we were receiving, negative and positive, did not look like execution; and the assurance given us that we should be sent on next day strengthened the belief that our life would not be taken here. Happily for us we knew nothing of the events that were transpiring elsewhere in the province, else we should have been a good deal slower in taking account of yamen professions. For as I have already indicated, this proved to be none other than the day of the massacres at T’ai-yüen Fu, the provincial capital, where at the governor’s yamen, whither they had been decoyed by fair seeming promises, a devoted company of men, women and children—44 souls in all—were ruthlessly put to the sword. I may here add that, but for the delivering Hand of God, we ourselves would have been of that company. Yü-hsien had issued an order that every foreigner in Shansi was to be sent up to T’aiyiien for execution. Why, therefore, we were not sent north instead of south is among the secret things that belong to the Lord our God. Our escape from the province is all the more remarkable in that we were sent on under arrest, with nothing but a criminal’s passport, as the sequel will show. The meaning of this was, that the magistrate was under no obligation to send us on. Had we traveled under the safeguard of the full official “uen-shu,” they would have been bound to pass us through without question. As it was, each magistrate was free to exercise his own discretion in one of four directions. He might either pass us on to the next magistracy, or send us back to our own city, or forward us direct to the governor’s yamen at T’ai-yüen, or put us to death himself. He might also, if he chose, wipe his hands of us altogether and turn us adrift at the border where his jurisdiction ended, as in fact was done with the Lu-ch’eng party three days later, and by this very magistrate of Kaop’ing. Thus we never knew when we left one city what awaited us at the next—and this in Ho-nan as well as Shansi. More than once we were on the point of being sent back to Lu-an; and once certainly it was all but decided to forward us direct to Yü-hsien himself. The fact, therefore, that with such odds against us we ever crossed the Shansi border into Honan, or the Ho-nan border into Hu-peh, is itself a standing witness to the reality of God’s direct interference. Of the nineteen yamen we passed through, fourteen were, to our knowledge, so far anti-foreign that it was a moot point with each one whether or no we should be passed on, while even with the remaining five the severe tension as to whether they were for or against us was never once relieved previous to arrival.
These things, however, were graciously hidden from our eyes, and only revealed as we were able to bear them. When at length, at a late hour, our inquisitive visitors withdrew, we stretched ourselves on the stone k’ang and slept a sweet, restful sleep with one pillow between us—my beggar garment, which we rolled up and put under the children’s heads. I need hardly say that before we lay down we gave definite thanks to the God of all grace Who had brought us through another day of extraordinary peril and hardship.
Chief among the wonders which He wrought for us I count the return of the escort. So false were the men at heart, and so evidently anxious to be rid of us, that, humanly speaking, there was nothing to account for it. Whatever the influence at work in their own minds which led them finally to take us on, the efficient cause behind it was the determinate counsel of God. That is patent on the face of it.
July 10, at break of day, we were knocked up and ordered hurriedly out. An escort of six, four of whom were soldiers in uniform armed with bludgeons, was awaiting us, and two carts—to my distress the coal trollies of yesterday. I remonstrated and entreated them at least to give the ladies a litter; but the request was set aside with a hard impatience which made our hearts sink. There was no time, they said, to think about a “shan-tsi” now. If we did not wish to be attacked by the city mob we must begone. And off they hustled us without further ceremony.
Thankful as we were to be away before the city was awake, yet the behavior of our guards was such as to create the apprehension that the very mischief from which they professed to be taking us was purposed in their own hearts. Whether they intended to bring us to Tseh-cheo at all became more and more questionable as time went on. While preserving an outward show of civility, we found that they were inwardly as false as their comrades of Lu-an.
That long, long way of 90 li (30 miles) is a terrible memory, whether I look at it from the inward or the outward point of view. The whole journey was of the same suffering nature as its predecessor crash, crash over mountain roads and boulder-strewn passes. Throughout the entire day, with the exception of one bare hour at an inn, we were exposed to the full power of a burning sun, in the same unprotected condition as heretofore. In my own ease there was one mitigation over the experience of yesterday. I was allowed to have my little son with me on the trolly—a comfort the more appreciable from the taste of its privation. To break as far as possible the force of the concussion I took him on my knee, for I feared for his little spine. The violence of our modes of travel were such as to call again and again for special prayer and for definite committal of our bodies—specially the delicate frames of the mother and the children—into the safe keeping of our heavenly Father; and it stands amongst the miracles of those days, and the answers we received to believing prayer, that we sustained no serious injury under it.
About 9 a.m., when we had made some 30 li (10 miles), we drew near to a large market town. Before entering it the escort were at pains to warn us that the folk were notoriously anti-foreign, and that we should never get through; the effect of which was to bring us once more to the Throne of grace with the cry of the poor and needy. We had no sooner entered the gate than we were driven into an inn and taken to a back room. We were now able to join unitedly in prayer and again we put up the definite petition, that God would be pleased, for His great Name’s sake, to put His fear upon the people of this town in such a way that it might not be possible for them to lift a finger against us. Our little store of road money gave us a measure of independence, and we had the satisfaction of buying our own food for the first time, and also of investing in the luxury of a wooden comb.
Meantime a crowd was gathering at the courtyard gates, which had been closed behind us, and the yelling and battering that now ensued told its own tale. The terrible cry “Shah kuei-tsï!” (“Kill the devils!”) was its own confirmation of the escort’s warning.
We noticed, however, that the soldiers of the guard were not with us; and with their prolonged absence the painful suspicion gained ground that they themselves were at the bottom of the uproar. When at length they called us to “shang ch’ae,” it was significantly to repeat the warning that there was no chance of our getting out of the town alive; and in the prospect of immediate death we passed out on to the street.
“The floods have lifted up, O Lord, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up their waves. The Lord on High is mightier than the noise of many waters.” What was it that paralyzed the arm and tied the tongue of the vast crowd that lined the way? We saw it with our eyes—the people, who but now were at the doors yelling for us to be brought out to them, as though turned to stone at the sight of us. Hundreds of them (I might almost say thousands), massed on either side, watched us pass slowly along the narrow lane they left for us, without speaking a word or lifting a finger against us. A few lads echoed the shout that had so lately rent the air, “Shah kuei-tsï!” but there was no response of any sort or kind—a fact which only served to point the phenomenon. Once more we were allowed to witness the mighty power of God, and in the fearsome awe of a murderous mob to read the literal answer to the prayer we had offered in the inn. And our hearts were bowed in worship before Him as we freely acknowledged, “This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.”
As the escort talked amongst themselves we learned that the wonder of it had not escaped their notice. It had been as we suspected, a plot of their own devising, upon the success of which they had confidently counted, and its inexplicable failure was only the more remarked upon in consequence. From the scraps of conversation that caught our ears, we gleaned that, whatever their orders may have been, their intention was to get rid of us en route in an indirect way that would not involve the yamen.
With such a prospect before us the journey was pursued in the certain expectation of death, whether through treachery by the way or by direct official action at Tseh-cheo. Three hours more of it under the midday blaze and we entered a large village, where we were driven to the farther end and halted before a small shrine. The animals were taken out and led to the refreshment of the inn; the guard betook themselves to food and rest, and we were left on the trollies in the scorching heat and to the uncertain temper of an ever-growing crowd.
One might have thought that, with all we had already passed through, surely the bitterness of death was passed. And yet in this place we were to taste it once again, with no abatement of its sharpness—once again to enter the swellings of Jordan and know no decrease of its surging flood. The food shop attached to the inn where the escort were lodged soon became the center of a busy throng; and from the way in which we were being held up to scorn and contempt it was not difficult to infer that our would-be protectors were again playing us false. The inference was justified by the reports that floated down to us from time to time, showing that beyond question they were busying themselves with schemes against our life. Foreign blood must be spilled by reason of the drought; but the question now seemed to be, How much? Should all be put to death, or only one? And should the victim be taken from the children or the adults?
As the topic was discussed amongst the bystanders, the covert expressions of sorrow and sympathy that fell from many of them were as touching as they were unexpected. The uncertainty was, however, laid to rest when a message was brought from the inn to the effect that it had been decided to put the ladies to death on the spot, and to take on only the children and myself to Tseh-cheo. The reason of this seems to have been that foreign women were credited with possessing an evil influence of peculiar malignity, and that to them the drought and other ills were mainly attributable. More than once in the course of our journeyings expression was given to this sentiment; and the generally cruel treatment of the two ladies, and the often-brutal indifference to their sufferings, certainly seemed to bear it out.
What the agony of that message was to each one of us can be known only to God. As my beloved wife received it, the momentary spasm that shot across her face revealed the depth of the inward suffering, to be replaced immediately by the heavenly light I had seen more than once before when in the immediate presence of death. Turning to me she said, with unfaltering voice, “I do thank God that you and the children are to be spared. It is a comfort to me now to think that they will have you to care for them.” But the thought of having first to witness and then to survive the murder of my wife was insupportable; and for the dear children as for myself I could not but desire of God the mercy of deliverance through death from such unspeakable anguish.
I may not dwell upon the unspoken agony of the long hour of suspense that followed the announcement. It was the very concentration of the sorrows of death. At Han-tien and elsewhere there was given at least the consolation that we were to die together; but the prospect before me now was one that, in the natural view of it, might well unsettle the reason. The talk around us was of nothing but the death of the two ladies, even the spot being indicated where the deed was to be done—yonder field to the right of the shrine.
One sometimes hears it said in this so-called Christian land that “religion drives men mad.” Let those say it who wish to tell it out to their shame that they have not the knowledge of God (1 Cor. 15:34). I bear witness that in the accumulated sufferings of those days of “daily dying,” and above all in that most awful hour, it was religion and only religion (in the true sense of the term) that saved me from going mad. Thank God, I knew Whom I had believed; and I was not disappointed of my hope in the persuasion that He was able to keep that which I had committed unto Him. We knew, each one of us, that these sufferings were “for Jesus’ sake”; and we each one proved in a definite experience that, “as the sufferings of Christ abounded unto us, so our comfort also abounded through Christ.” Even as my beloved wife and I exchanged in secret once again the last farewell, the sting of death was gone in the consciousness of the love of Christ that passeth knowledge, though the anguish remained.
Notwithstanding the fact that the word had gone forth, and that everything pointed to its accomplishment, we still did not cease to make our prayer to God our Refuge and Strength, that He would even now show Himself strong in our behalf and save us from the very jaws of death for His own glory. As the escort emerged at last from the inn, followed by the mules, we knew that the critical moment had come. The animals were put in and the order to “go on” was given. Amid a silence strangely like the hush that had prevailed when we left our morning inn, the trollies moved forward. An awe that rooted them to the spot where they stood settled upon the crowd; and instead of being driven to yonder field at the right of the skins, we passed on through the gate to the Tseh-cheo road. At the last moment the decision had been reversed—whether through the irresolution of the village elders, or from whatever cause, matters not. The simple fact remains, “to the memorial of Thy great goodness,” that “I sought the Lord and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.” I needed to fall back upon no second causes for what was so evidently supernatural. Indeed, Elisha’s experience in Dothan was not more real than ours in that nameless Chinese village. For just as then, “the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha,” so also were we given to know now that “the Angel of the Lord had encamped round about us who feared Him and had delivered us.”
That it was in no sense due to any change in the escort’s disposition towards us was evident, not only from their conversation, but also from the fact that they made one more determined effort to get rid of us before the journey’s end. They sent on two of their number to warn the people, at the last place of any size that we should pass, of our approach, and to incite them to fall on us at a given signal, which signal was to be the raising of the bludgeon at the “present.” My heart quailed at the scene before us as we approached. A mob of several thousands had assembled to meet us, and it seemed incredible that we could run the gauntlet of the long street unscathed. Never shall I forget the feeling of momentary terror when, as we entered the gate, I saw the soldiers suddenly bring their bludgeons to the “present.” What happened? The sense of terror gave place to that of perfect peace as the word came almost audibly to me, “Fear not; for no man shall set on thee to hurt thee”; and then of awe and wonder as I saw the tumultuous crowd fall back on either side, and like the waters of old “stand upon an heap.” The same mysterious hush we had known before was upon them as we slowly traversed the narrow path between; and to the unconcealed amazement of the disgusted soldiery, not a soul broke bounds, or gave heed to the summons to fall on us.
This was the last attempt the escort made to hurt us; and marveling in themselves at the things their eyes had seen, they brought us in due course to Tseh-cheo. Faint and weary indeed we were at the end of that terrible and wonderful journey; but hunger, thirst, and aching limbs were forgotten in the realization of its threefold deliverance. Jordan had been driven back before our eyes and driven back, we knew well, “at the Presence of the Lord,”