19 - Chapter 19
Chapter 19 - Further Blessing
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The promise of blessing at T’ai-yüen Fu has continued and increased. Souls are being added to the Lord, and more than twenty have been baptized and admitted to Church fellowship.
MR. STANLEY P. SMITH wrote on June 10th:―
“You will be glad to hear that the Holy Spirit is moving over this city. You will have heard, doubtless, from other pens of the blessed case of the mandarin’s widow. Of her in the future I am sure there is ‘more to follow.”
“‘Up! For there is a sound of abundance of rain.’”
BAPTISM OF 245 CONVERTS. At P’ing-yang Fu in April Mr. Bagnall baptized 16 new converts. At Hung-t’ung in the same month, 52 women and 158 men were baptized by the workers at Mr. Stanley P. Smith’s Conference. In the Sih-chau district, also, 19 persons were baptized in May, bringing the number received into Church fellowship during these two months to 245.* (*Feb. 1890—Some of these subsequently caused much sorrow, and have had to be excused; but the life and testimony of many others has caused great joy.) From Mr. D.E. Hoste.
“Hung-t’ung, April 28th, 1887.―Since I last wrote, the conference here is over. Praise God, it was a most memorable time. The fact that some 300 men and women were able, in peace and safety, to meet for three days to worship God in Mid-China, is, of itself, a cause for great praise, and a sign that God is with His people here.
“As you can imagine, it is not the easiest matter in the world to house and feed such a number of men and women; but in this important department the Lord’s power was manifested, and things went with that smoothness which God alone can produce. Dear Stanley was wonderfully helped in arranging and directing matters, and the Lord supplied ‘willing, skilful workers’ for all the various departments.
“The services themselves were seasons of real power. Dear Mr. Hsi spoke with great unction on the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ; and on Sunday again at noon on the Lord’s temptation.
“The baptisms were on Saturday; Mr. Bagnall baptized 52 women before breakfast. At about 10 o’clock we began baptizing the men; Mr. Hsi, S. P. Smith, and myself dividing the 158 amongst us. In the morning S. P. Smith and myself baptized; in the afternoon, dear Mr. Hsi, who had been fasting for a day or two previously, baptized the remainder of the men.
“Lord’s Day was a day of blessing indeed; perhaps the most interesting part being The Testimony Meeting in the afternoon. It was opened by dear Orr Ewing relating briefly, through interpretation of S. P. Smith, the grace of the Lord amongst them up at T’ai-yüen Fu. Hallelujah! Dear Orr Ewing is so bright and happy and is going ahead finely at the language. I am sure he will be a great blessing wherever he is.
ANOTHER NEW OUT-STATION.
“Then followed a most interesting account from a young deacon named Hsu, who has just returned from T’ung-liu Hien, where he has been working an opium refuge. The Lord has been preparing the hearts of the people there for the Gospel: there is a great spirit of interest and readiness to hear the Word. He told us how one day, when preaching on the streets, he was invited in by the owner of a medicine shop, who was so impressed by what Hsu told him, that of his own accord, when Hsu was gone, he pulled down and destroyed his idols. He now believes in the Lord and has been baptized. Praise God!
FAN LIH-YU.
“The most striking testimony of all was that of a man named Fan Lih-yu, who lives in a village fifteen li to the southeast of here. From childhood he had always been careful and correct in his conduct, and as he grew older the desire to attain to a high standard of virtue deepened into a fixed longing. He resorted to the usual devices of the human heart for attaining to this, and his name for benevolence and well doing spread through his immediate neighborhood. Though others praised him, the Holy Spirit, was deepening conviction of sin in his soul. He decided ‘to leave the dusty world and cultivate the practice of virtue.’ At this time he was a young man, and his female relatives would not hear of his taking this step of becoming a recluse. A compromise was effected; he consented to live with his wife and family till he reached the age of 30, when it was agreed he should be free to leave all and become a hermit; thus having leisure to attend to the salvation of his soul.
“Meanwhile he attached himself to one of the many religious sects in this region, and continued to live a life of great strictness. He had heard of the Gospel from some of our brethren, who live in his village and the surrounding neighborhood, but appears to have been uninterested in what he heard.
“Last year the news that there was in this city a place where a doctrine, said to be very good in its teachings, was being promulgated, reached his ears. Accordingly, one Sunday last December, he came in and sat through the service. Stanley Smith conducted it, and spoke on the words of the Lord, “Except ye be converted, ad become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of God.” The Holy Spirit sent the word home into the man’s heart, and next morning he came full of eagerness to hear more. After some hours of conversation with him, Stanley asked him if he was willing then and there to receive the Lord Jesus Christ as his Lord and Saviour. He said, ‘Yes!’ They knelt down, and the matter was settled. Praise God!
“Since then he has been growing in the knowledge of the Lord, and was baptized at the conference. Now comes the crowning blessing. He had been feeling that baptism was a very solemn rite, and felt the deep responsibility that rested upon him to devote himself wholly to God and his service, and appears to have had a season of consecrating himself fully to the Lord. Well, the afternoon after his baptism, he whilst sitting by himself, received a most definite baptism of the Holy Spirit.
“Naturally a very quiet, rather silent man, he now in his village is preaching away and publishing the news of the Gospel. As he walked home a carter offered him a lift, which he accepted, and then preached the Gospel to the kind carter, who then and there believed in the Lord.
“His manner is perfectly clear and collected, but there is an intensity and earnestness, especially in his prayers, that would convince much more sceptical people than one’s self. What is the most cheering feature of this case is the simple, clear faith in a crucified Redeemer. Oh, it is glory indeed, to see this dear man’s joy and love, and wonderful enlightenment in the things of God! It is just another call to preach the Gospel of Christ; to have faith in it as the power of God unto salvation. Expect to hear of mighty outbreaks in these parts. I feel convinced that God’s time has arrived.
FLOODS!
“Well, on Monday morning dear Stanley Smith gave us ‘Floods,’ by Mr. Radcliffe. I could not help wishing Mr. Radcliffe could have been there, it would have filled him with praise to God. I do not think I have ever been in a more powerful meeting, and when at the close dear Mr. Hsi led in prayer, and seemed to be literally all aglow with prayer, one did feel it was an unspeakably solemn thing to be permitted to have any share in the great project which God has of saving souls from the power of Satan.
“Mr. Hsi asked and thanked for ‘Flood;’ he is looking for thousands of converts, and so are others of us, as I know you have been for a long time. Praise the Lord! Indeed, there ought to be a stream of praise going up to God for His wonderful works out here!
NEEDS OF THE UNREACHED.
“T’ai-yüen Fu, May 8th—We reached here on the evening of Friday, May 6th having, through the grace of God, had a journey of much blessing. As we passed up the plain we had grand times of tract-distributing and preaching; but, oh, what a mockery it seemed to tell a poor fellow, who asked about breaking off opium, that there was no place nearer than 160 to 200 li!
“We found willing listeners everywhere; but how one’s heart ached as we felt there was not a single man who was caring for these souls; and then thought of streets at home packed with churches, chapels, mission halls, meeting houses, coffee houses, and institutions of all kinds; and positively not even a room in which a work was going on in whole, vast cities. May God rescue the Church at home further, and make them remember the masses; it is just awful!
“May a gracious God fit one for His service! How he must be longing for anybody whom He can pick up to satisfy His great heart of love, in gathering in the multitudes of the lost. One feels one has scarcely got a glimmer of John 3:16 — “God so loved the world, ‘ etc. What an infinitely solemn and important matter God must have regarded the salvation of souls as being—He gave up His only Son; and one catches one’s self doubting whether one can give up some little comfort for the same object! May the God of all grace enable us to please Him.” FROM MR. STANLEY P. SMITH. THE CRY FOR WORKERS.
“T’ai-yüen, May 7th, 1887.—I think it worth while, dear Mr. Taylor, just to write a line on arriving here; we had a most blessed journey, and grand opportunities on the way up of scattering very many tracts and preaching the Gospel.
“You have no idea how the people listened to the tidings of a Saviour—a God who can save; ―but oh, for workers up on that T’ai-yüen plain! Kiai-hiu Hien, P’ing-yao Hien, Ch’i-Hien, all big towns—P’ing-yao very big; and not one witness for Jesus! No one to point them to the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world! No one to publish the momentous fact that God has made peace with the world through the blood of His Son, and if they will believe they can now have peace with God! But HOW shall they hear without a preacher?
“O God scatter Thy children at home! Give them, O God, such a look at Christ crucified that they shall become—in a deep sense those whom thou dost love—‘cheerful givers.’
“’God loveth a cheerful giver.’ Loves them, for it is the Spirit of His Son in them that makes them such: loves them because such are in sweet accord with His own most gracious character. The generous God delights in the generous, and He that gave His only begotten Son loves the cheerful giver.
“My soul is burdened as I think of those towns, full of iniquity and destitute of God.
“O Christians, with talents, wealth, with time at disposal, cast God’s gifts to you back into His royal treasury. What deep, what whelming need! Here we speak not of a country’s but of a world’s famine.
“A subscription list has been opened, the donors’ names are to appear not in the world’s records, but heaven’s archives. Let us look into that list: we see that He who ‘stands by the Treasury’ is the first donor. What is His donation?
“Is it some large sum to be spend in rearing gorgeous fabrics that shall be notable to all time—not for the number of souls that have therein found God, but notable for their perfect symmetry, their massive columns, their lofty pinnacles, their noble arches, their decorated windows, for gorgeous ritual and pompous music? Or did this first Donor, in order to relieve the sufferers, give large sums into the treasury to be spent in rearing vast educational establishments, that men might by the husks of education stay the famine-pangs of stricken souls?
“No! Not thus does this Donor compassionate the souls of men.
“We look at the record, and we see no single name, but words of Scripture, from which we select the following:―
“‘The bread that I give is My flesh, which I give for the life of the world.’
“‘Christ suffered that He might bring us to God.’
“‘He loved me, and gave HIMSELF for me.’
“‘Be it yours, reader, and mine to tread in His steps.”