04 Beginning the Study of Medicine

Chapter 4 BEGINNING THE STUDY OF MEDICINE

History, languages, the classics, never seemed to interest John Anderson, and as a consequence his college record in these studies did not secure for him his Arts degree at Furman. But he became a new man when he entered the medical class at Wake Forest College, North Carolina, in the fall of 1910. It was like the ball of the femur falling into its socket after a dislocation. Instead of dreading to pick up a book as before, now it was early and late to the study of anatomy, physiology, histology and the rest. Dissection was his fascination. The point of interest and attention having been touched, examination marks leaped away up. At times he led the class. He had found his groove at last. His love for the study of medicine and the more stringent demand on his time made by these studies, did not lessen his interest in the Christian activities of the college. He was preparing to be a missionary as well as a physician and his concern was that his life should count for his Master in school as well as later in China. Wake Forest College had then about four hundred students. Of these, perhaps fifty were in the medical department, which gives the first two years of the regular course for the M. D. degree. The College Y. M. C. A. the year he entered was going along at a poor dying rate. Almost the only individuals who attended the weekly meetings were those who were expecting to be ministers, and the other students left them and their prayer-meetings severely alone. Like many churches it was a calm and sure retreat for the pious, not an organization directed toward the elevating and purifying of the campus life. If there was one thing that made John impatient it was the type of Christian who thinks himself too good to be contaminated by association with "worldly men." ’’He that saveth his life, loseth it" — was a vital word to him. The situation challenged him to action. He went out and played on the scrub football team for the sake of the influence it would give him with the fellows, though he often remarked that it was hard to take the time and the bruises to do it. The ’’publicans and sinners" liked him. He never compromised with their sin, however. And they respected him for his convictions. It was not long before he had been elected to the cabinet of the Y. M. C. A. and with his hands on the weekly program, he soon had men coming to the meetings who formerly would not touch the door with a ten foot pole. Live speakers from nearby cities were invited to address the men instead of depending on a few ministerial students to "lead the devotions." In the spring of that session, John took a large part in organizing a mission study canvass of the college which enrolled about half of the students in the study of "Negro Life in the South." He led a class himself in which some of the roughest men in school were members. It was a joke among those who knew the crowd that a crap game had to be broken up every Sunday night when they were rounded up for the class meeting. In a letter he speaks of this class:

I am leading a mission study class here in a book entitled "Negro Life in the South." It is fine. This morning before Sunday School I went out to see if I could find the preacher of one of the Negro churches to get his permission to carry my class to hear him to-night. He said, "Yes," in a real kind of way. I told him why we wanted to come, of our duty to help the darkies, for we are alike in that we have the same God, are made alike in every way except that their skin is pigmented, which makes them black. I went to one home and asked for this preacher and the boy said that he was about a mile away in a certain direction at a certain house. I asked the boy to go with me and show me the place. I believe that boy is better than the average white one. He is twelve years old, in the eighth grade, has been a Christian for four years, reads his Bible every morning, is an humble fellow. His ambition is to be a school teacher for the good he can do and not for the money he can make. I found out many other things of interest about him. This is the most interesting study I ever was in.

Later he wrote:

I carried my mission study class to the colored Presbyterian Church last Sunday night for the service there. We were all surprised by the good worship they had. We came away feeling that the darkies are not so far behind as we think they are. We are going to take a religious census of this place and we think we shall get some interesting information.

There was no Student Volunteer Band in the college, but before half the year had passed John had found two or three others who were looking forward to missionary service who agreed to meet Sunday afternoons in his room, and before the end of the year there was a band of eight or ten men gathered together. Until the spring meeting of the South Carolina Volunteer Union, he held the office of Secretary, and prepared the monthly news letter as he had done in Furman. He brought his typewriter and mimeograph with him to Wake Forest and most of his spare moments were spent in using them. His correspondence was voluminous. The South Carolina Union conference which was held at Rock Hill in Winthrop College that spring was largely of his planning. He helped secure the speakers, made arrangements for registration and so on. He had a genius for organization and a great capacity for detail.

John was always driving for definite results. In a letter to his mother after the Rock Hill conference this is illustrated. He had been very anxious for one of his sisters to attend the meeting and she finally agreed to go. He writes:

I hope Lois will tell you about the conference at Rock Hill. Ask her some of the following questions. How did she like Winthrop? The dining-room?. The music at the conference? The best songs she heard? The exhibit? Mr. Turner and the other speakers? How did she like the delegates who attended? Have her tell you about a number of addresses. Have her tell you the most interesting thing she saw on the trip. What were the things that impressed her most? Ask her if she were to sum it all up, what would she say was the message for her life? I suppose you see that I am after getting her to tell you all about it.

Relieved of his responsibility in the South Carolina Union on returning to Wake Forest after the conference he wrote:

I will bring all my marks up now that I am done with the South Carolina Volunteer Union. I am not sorry, though, for what I have done for the Union, but now that it is on its feet it ought to go forward.

Though he had something like fifteen hours of recitations and twenty-three hours of laboratory a week, it was not long before the fact that North Carolina had no Volunteer Union at work for foreign missions in the colleges, was on his mind. The first step was the organization of the Wake County Union which included the schools near Raleigh. One or two meetings were held in the spring of 1911, and the next year a State Union was launched. All these things were done as a new student in his first year at Wake Forest. In his second year, John organized a mission study class of his fellow medical students and led it himself. He had asked permission to start the class of the dean of medicine who had replied:

’’You’ll be a good one if you get those fellows into a mission study class, but go to it."

Let one of his own letters tell the story.

I dislike to write a letter of the nature of this one for it seems selfish. I trust that you will not look at it in that way, for I desire that it be read in the spirit that God can use men for spreading His message. I do not know of a year that God has done more for me or used me more in helping those that I associate with. He has been more real to me this session than ever before. This session began with everything going wrong and it looked like the Christian work and the Christian spirit at this place was on the decline. Everything seemed to go wrong and we could not reach those that we desired to touch. During the summer we made a number of plans as to the Y. M. C. A. work to be started here at the beginning of the session. Most of these plans were thrown aside as the fellows one after another would fall down on their jobs. I had worked with the faculty in the summer in regard to the North Carolina Bible Institute coming to Wake Forest, as it is eight years old and had never met at this place. The faculty said that the Institute could come if I would stand good for the entertainment of one hundred men. We needed that many delegates in order to get Drs. Weatherford and Cooper to attend. I undertook to arrange for the entertainment and last week we had the Institute. One hundred and five delegates came in on Thursday and stayed over Sunday. On Monday and Tuesday Mr. Cooper stayed over to speak to the college. The professors say that we had the best evangelistic meetings that the college has ever had and that the spirit is better than it has ever been. Many of the fellows confessed to cheating, smoking, betting, gambling, cursing, not studying the Bible, winning debates through taking unfair advantages, and so on, and over two hundred agreed to study the Bible daily.

I should have said something about the work that we are trying to do in mission study. Last spring we had over two hundred men enrolled in mission study and this year after the canvass was made we had only a little over ninety. It fell to my lot to take a class of medical students of my own medical year. There are fourteen of us, all swear but one, some gamble, all use tobacco but one, three are not members of the church, and the others are not living as they should. It was a hard task to think of trying to get these fellows into a mission study class when you are thrown with them every day and they josh you about not cursing, not using tobacco, several of them saying that they were going to put me out and make me stop medicine. God does not want a man to undertake a task that is easy, but He wants him to be dependent on Him for help. With Him as my helper I attempted to line up these men in this work. It was hard to begin and I put it off for several days, but I did begin and I approached every man in the class personally about the matter. Every one agreed with me heartily and seemed to be very willing to go into such a study. The last man that I approached was about as rough as any in the class. After I placed the matter before him he said: "Well, John, you know that I am not a Christian nor living the life that I should, but if there is any good in it, I want to help you out." The class has had four meetings and only four men have been absent, three from neglect and one from sickness. We have been having good meetings, every man taking part in the discussion and I have never been in a mission study class of any kind where there was more interest. Those fellows have been thinking about their lives and one of them who is not a Christian has said that he is going to try and live a better life. Oh, how I long for these fellows to be brought into the personal friendship of Jesus. This is my prayer, that every man in this class will become a Christian and live as a Christian each day. Some of the men in this class have begun daily Bible study. At the close of the evangelistic services spoken of above, Mr. Cooper helped us set up a plan to get every man who is not in Sunday School into Bible study. There are about one hundred and twenty who do not attend Sunday School, the toughest fellows in the place. Every man I have asked to join me in this study has agreed, and the Dean says that I have the worst bunch. I have sixteen to solicit and five of them are away on a football trip. I have asked over half of them already. Two fellows told me that if I wanted to get those fellows I would have to get a keg of beer or something stronger to get them there. How I need your prayers to help me in this work. I have two of the worst fellows in this school, so considered by many, but I do not think so for they have big hearts. Both of these fellows are trying to live a better life. I have been interested in one of these men ever since I came here and used to say, as I had to eat at the table beside him when I first came, that I could hardly stand him, he was so wicked and filthy. I stuck to him, however, and in a talk with him last week just before the meetings, he said two things that were of especial interest to me. He said that he was not satisfied with the kind of life he was living and that he did not have any friends. There were two fellows that he considered his friends, some one else and me. No one can tell how much good it did me to hear him say this. He had two talks with Mr. Cooper and he is on his feet, and has not said anything out of the way nor done anything which he should not this week. He is trying to live a Christian life. He said Tuesday night that he was considered the meanest, filthiest, dirtiest fellow in school and that he knew that he was, but with the help of God he was going to try and live a straight life from now on.

Please let me drop out of this letter and give God all the credit. My heart’s desire is expressed in the following, whatever the cost that must be paid:

"There are hermit souls that live withdrawn In the place of their self-content:

There are souls like stars, that dwell apart, In a fellowless firmament:

There are pioneer souls that blaze their paths Where highways never ran — But let me live by the side of the road And be a friend to man.

Let me live in a house by the side of the road Where the race of men pass by — The men who are good and the men who are bad, As good and as bad as I.

I would not sit in the scorner’s seat, Or hurl the cynic’s ban —

Let me live in a house by the side of the road And be a friend to man.

I see from my house by the side of the road, By the side of the highway of life. The men who press with the ardor of hope. The men who faint with strife: But I turn not away from their smiles nor their tears.

Both part of an infinite plan —

Let me live in my house by the side of the road And be a friend to man."

How I do yearn to be of service, an humble unselfish servant to my fellow students and every one with whom I come in contact. No greater thing can you do for me than to pray for me. My prayer is for you and may our prayers be united in a petition that God will take our selfish lives and use them each day as He sees best, making us willing to let Him come in and take full possession of us each moment.

One of John’s most prized possessions was a watch fob which he wore always, a silver skull and crossbones, presented to him by the members of that medical mission study class when the year was over, in appreciation of what he had done for them.

Let no one think that John Anderson’s fidelity to his Master meant the living of a restricted and narrow life in college. Although he was only at Wake Forest for two years, he was elected student manager of athletics by the Alumni Athletic Association. He was full of fun and fond of practical jokes. He knew how to take the good-natured jibes of his fellows with a smile when they called him "the preacher-medico" — and he kept right on with his work for Christ. He knew how to have a good time with the fellows, but he never lowered his standards to do it. At the close of the college year he wrote: The last three examinations were awfully hard. I do not like to claim any praise if there be any for not studying on Sunday. But out of thirty medical students I was the only one who did not study yesterday. There was only one other who attended any form of service yesterday and he attended only in the morning. I had rather flunk than do that. I do not believe they gain anything by studying on Sunday. I suppose that three-fourths of the boys here study on that day.

Other letters written from time to time during these two years have extracts worth quoting:

I am sorry to know that Mamma is sick and I hope she will soon be up. She ought to get out some, for it is enough to make any one sick to stay at home all the time. I went to Raleigh to the fair some time ago for that reason and no other. I think that one should have a rest from everything or a change from the old things, except religion which you can carry with you. Dr. Brown says that a person need never have a vacation from religion.

It is too bad about H. I was just reading for a few moments as I came from dinner after being in the laboratory all the morning. I picked up a book just come which is the life of Z. S. Loftis who went out as a missionary doctor and only lived one year. He entered a field that no missionary had ever been in and he was there only a few days. His last two descriptions were of patients which he had, two dying without any hope whatever. It is awful to think that

H has passed away in a Christian home and community without any hope of the life eternal. One life is as much value in the sight of God as another, but how it grieves us when we think of friends dying without hope. But what do we think when we know of millions dying in non-Christian lands in the same way every day? This is the thought that grips me so at times that I think that I had rather have my life multiplied a number of times than to have anything else that any one could desire.

John had a way of helping around the kitchen and with the housework when he was home for vacation visits. He lightened the work of his mother and sisters by assisting in the cooking, in serving the table, and in the backyard chores. Returning to college after the Christmas holidays he writes:

I tried to make Christmas a rest for myself and to serve you all the balance of my time. I am sorry that I did not do more to make others enjoy the occasion. I like to look at Christmas as a time of real pleasure. I like to look at it as a time for being drawn closer to God and making Jesus a closer, dearer friend. I like to look at Christmas as Mrs. Taylor did once in China. Her prayer and work was to present Jesus and His love to many. She tried to make Jesus her gift to others and eleven accepted Him that day. From now on I hope to be of service to others at this time. In writing to one of his sisters on her engagement he says:

Yes, F is as solid or true a man, I should say, as could be found anywhere. I have more confidence in him than in myself. I have seen bigger sports, fellows that I thought could make more money, having more "brass," but that does not count in my valuation of a man. He is a Christian in the truest sense.

How often the excuse is met by those who are trying to enlist their fellows in some active Christian service — "I have no time to spare." And how shallow and feeble such an excuse appears in the light of a life like this.