06 The Last Year in the University

Chapter 6 THE LAST YEAR IN THE UNIVERSITY

It is sometimes complained that college men and women who are more or less active in their Student Christian Associations, when they return to their home communities do not enter heartily into the religious work of their home churches and fail to share in services for which their training has peculiarly fitted them. Such a criticism would hardly apply to the one of whom we have been writing. Note this letter:

You do not know what a busy man I have been this summer. I had a Chinese with me the first of the summer for something over two weeks. Then I went to the conference where I saw him confess Christ. I came home and tried to install some mission study classes in the church. I got some sixty odd to do this, but some dropped out. A mission Sunday School was started at one of the mills the Sunday before I came home and since I arrived I have been acting as Superintendent and teaching a class of girls. In my home church I have been teaching the Philathea Class (Young Women) all summer. I have had to make a number of talks, etc. I have been practicing with a physician and working in a drug store at intervals, besides many other things. This has been a glorious summer with me. This mill Sunday School later developed into a church which John’s father has served as pastor ever since. Of the way John prayed for his father and encouraged him in that responsibility, when there were so many difficulties and discouragements, his father never ceases the telling.

John returned to Louisville at the beginning of his Senior year a week or so before school opened in order to set up the work of the Y. M. C. A. He had written to several of the men to meet him and help in arranging a Y. M. C. A. reception for the incoming students in the City Y. M. C. A. building, where John said there would be less danger from hazing for the Freshmen than in the Medical School buildings. The planning included medical Bible classes in two of the city churches as well as the week night medical Bible class in the City Y. M. C. A. This latter class was boosted from an attendance of a half dozen men to forty or fifty and at times to an even hundred. The deepest concern of his heart lay in Foreign Missions. Nothing seemed more important to him than the bringing of light and healing to those nations which had been denied them so long. With one doctor to every two or three hundred population in America contrasted with one doctor for approximately two million population in the non-Christian world, he was sure that the people across the seas had not had their share in the ministry of Christ. As in South and North Carolina, so in Kentucky, John took an important part in the work of the State Volunteer Union. In all three states, he acted as Secretary and Treasurer of these organizations. One who was associated with him in the Kentucky Union writes:

Except for John Anderson, the State Union of Volunteers for Foreign Missions in Kentucky would never have been more than a mediocre affair. He came into it after the first year and was elected Secretary-Treasurer. The service that he rendered during the next two years in a purely voluntary way was astonishing. How he found time for all he was doing at this time I still do not know. He was continually writing to the Volunteer Bands of the state, often two or three letters before he could get a response. He got out the monthly news letter, paying the printer’s bills himself because there was no money in the treasury and he felt it would hurt the Union to press members for dues just then. I could never be quite sure that he was ever fully reimbursed for these amounts. At special times he visited Bands in person at his own expense, to stir them into action. And this he did in spite of the fact that he was not a good letter writer nor a good speaker. His English was often ungrammatical, but he kept writing and kept speaking and the results came. During the five months following the Kansas City Convention there were fifty-one Kentucky students who became Student Volunteers, an astonishing number out of some three thousand students of college rank in the state. While only a few of these were under John’s direct influence, much of the credit for the total is due to his work through the State Volunteer Union and in securing large attendance at the Kansas City Convention. His mind was continually busy on the problems of the Union. He was forever thinking up some new way to wake up local Volunteers. No statement that he had done all that could be done ever satisfied him if the end had not been accomplished. How disgusted he used to become with the failure of students to make good their promises. If he accepted a responsibility himself, he carried it out. I never knew him to come back from a task with an excuse for not doing it. He didn’t quit.

Several of John’s own letters speak of this work:

I would be glad to get a list of the Volunteers at ____, also what class they are in. We should do all we can to get them to continue their preparation and ever keep their purpose before them. You remember the statement that Dr. L — — made, that only twenty-two per cent of those who applied to the boards last year were rejected. But there are so many who do not apply and I believe that there are not over twenty or twenty-five per cent of those who sign the declaration card who ever reach the field. So I feel that the work of the Volunteer Bands and Unions is to instill into the lives of the present Student Volunteers the importance of the work they have before them, that they cannot afford to dally around, but must press onward with all the vigor and energy of their lives with the help of God. In another letter he says:

I have not heard anything from any of the other bands. I wrote the leader of the Band, but I have not heard from him. I have written two letters to B, but have not heard a word. This does not faze me, for I believe in the work. It makes me the more anxious to do it for I see more clearly the need of it. As to his own school he writes:

I am trying to get a Band here at the Medical School. One man and his wife have signed the card since I came here and there are two others who are willing to go. Another fellow whom I go with more than any of the others who live here should go if I am capable of judging.

Before he left Louisville there were eight or ten in the school who had declared their purposes, God permitting, to be foreign missionaries, and since that time several have already gone to their fields of service. The couple mentioned above are in a hospital in Canton. The quadrennial convention of the Student Volunteer Movement was scheduled for the last of December of this year. John had been to the previous convention at Rochester, N. Y., and knew the tremendous spiritual power of the meetings. Early securing for himself the assurance that he might go to this 1913-14 convention, he began to emphasize the importance of this opportunity in his work with the Volunteer Union. He wrote to a student in Wake Forest:

Say, old boy, I think that you have one of the greatest opportunities before you that you have ever had and that is in getting a large delegation to Kansas City. Wake Forest College was not represented at the last convention at Rochester. This is to be the greatest of any that has ever been held, in numbers and in quality. I think that you would not find it a loss of time to see that every college is represented by one or two delegates at least. We are only entitled to three from the Medical School and I know of five now who will go if they can. Pray about this matter and form groups of men to meet from time to time to pray about this convention. Read some of the articles in the report of the Rochester Convention and you will work up some real enthusiasm.

Then follow details of railroad schedules worked out to show the best route for the trip. These schedules were prepared with great detail and similar letters were mailed to many friends in several states. The railroad agent in Louisville granted him free passage to the convention for the help he gave in working up some special trains. L. M. Terrill, the President of the Kentucky Union at that time, has told the story of this special service:

Early in 1913 John was keenly awake to the possibilities of the Student Volunteer Convention at Kansas City and began to stir some of us who had small realization then of its significance. He began getting under the skin of the Kentucky Volunteer Bands and as the time drew nearer began writing to friends all over the South, the two Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama and Virginia, trying to stir them to action in sending large delegations. When he first broached to me the plan of a special train it seemed too ambitious. Then he expanded it still further. Why not special trains to take all the students from the Southern States? He worked out places, junction points and schedules with minute detail. He was a master at this sort of thing, anticipating every contingency. As it turned out later, it was best for the Mississippi and Tennessee students to go through Nashville, but the special train plan worked. Special cars from the other states were assembled in Louisville into a special train of two sections. This left most of the students a half day or more in Louisville. This too John had anticipated. There was a luncheon at the Y. M. C. A. building, then a choice of six personally conducted expeditions through the city, carefully worked out in advance and gone over so that the time involved was definitely known — then a big dinner at night with talks that prepared heart and mind for the great convention. I doubt if there were any other students so expectant and prepared as they came to Kansas City. A few days before the convention, John and I got together to work out suggestions for the delegates — the things that would help make the convention mean most, together with final transportation instructions. One of the instructions was "Go to bed early. Get as much rest as possible." When we got through he pointed to this item, then looked at his watch and laughed. It was 3:00 A. M. He never thought of himself when there was a chance to serve. On the return trip from Kansas City we had another all-night vigil together. The party was dead tired and it was midnight or later before we got on the special train. The single conductor had an almost impossible job of getting the tickets of that packed train, without keeping the folks up all night. So John started in and I followed taking tickets. After that they had to be checked up which took longer still and when the job was finished it was five o’clock in the morning. John was up in a little more than an hour wiring to St. Louis for breakfast and boxes of lunch. Later in the day when every one was all in, he brightened things up again by going through the train with a box of big red apples, one for each. He had bought them himself. The only unpleasant experience of the trip was on the way out. A Chinese student, not a Christian, made endless complaint of his arrangements. John changed his berth twice, but still he was not satisfied. Kuei Chow, who was on the trip, even offered to give up his berth to him. John remarked afterward that it was a fine testimony to the effectiveness of the Christian life that of all that trainload — crowded and inconvenienced every one — the only one to complain or criticize was the one man in the crowd who was not a Christian.

All these various and extensive services were entirely a labor of love. John was not engaged by any agency or individual to do these things. He simply saw a need and went forward to meet it. There was nothing officious in any of it either. Many of those who benefited by the well-planned arrangements for their comfort and enjoyment probably never knew to whom they were indebted. He was exceedingly anxious to have one of his sisters go to the convention and wrote home some time before saying: I had rather for her to go to Kansas City than to college this spring. I will borrow the money and pay her way if that will be satisfactory. And shortly before the trip itself he wrote: This Christmas will be different in many respects to those that I have spent in the past and I am trusting that it will be a time in which I will be able to deepen my spiritual life in a way that I have never been able to before. Most of next week will be spent in my room trying to prepare myself in every way to get the most out of the Kansas City Convention. I feel that it is a great opportunity that has been given me to attend this convention and I feel that this will be a greater Christmas present than any one could give me. I know of a number of students who want to go and are not able, and still as large a number who are able to go, but who could not get into the meetings if they were to go. God has given me this great privilege and has given me so many opportunities of a similar nature and I have not made use of them as I should. I surely want to make use of the one that is ahead of me.

One other incident in connection with the work of the Kentucky Union should be recorded. A young woman, Miss Carrie Reaves, a graduate of Winthrop College in South Carolina, who had been active in the South Carolina Volunteer Union, had come to the mountains of Kentucky to teach in a small mission school. It was her thought that such service would best prepare her for work as a missionary in China. With her were two other girls. They did their own housekeeping, bringing water from the spring and sometimes cutting their own firewood. The salary from which all expenses had to be paid was $20.00 a month. John heard that she had come to Kentucky, but he did not know just where she was located. He wrote back to South Carolina for her address and then invited her to come to one of the Kentucky Union conferences. At that meeting she was elected Vice President of the Union. It was not long thereafter that she was taken ill with typhoid fever. Isolated in the mountains there was no chance for proper medical attention. Her sickness became the immediate concern of John Anderson. He was far removed from the place, but he sent letters and telegrams and finally she was brought to a hospital in Lexington. He asked an intern there who was a friend of his to give him daily reports on her condition by telephone, and he drew together several of his friends who also knew her to intercede for her recovery. Somehow he felt that it could not be God’s will that such a consecrated and useful one should be taken and he prayed with a faith that he felt could not be denied.

I have been spending much time in prayer for her he wrote and I believe that God will restore her to health. Have any of you all ever had a real answer to prayer? Have you prayed for a number of days for something and it has come to pass just as you prayed or God gave you more than you expected? Since I have been here this fall I have had a number of my prayers answered in just that way. In this past week I have had three direct answers to prayer. I have more faith in God to-day than I ever had before. It has been my plan for some time to write down what I want to pray for. I put the date down with this also. If God answers this I mark it out. If He does not answer this I put down beside it "lack of faith’ and pray that God will give me more faith and teach me how to pray. I do not put down everything that I desire, but I give each matter a prayerful consideration before I put it down. But Miss Reaves did not recover and when word came that she was gone, John had some black days of doubt and questioning. His mind seemed to beat itself up against a blank wall. Why had not God given her back to her labors? When the world so much needed lives like hers, why had He let her die? Had not he been faithful and believing in his prayers for her? But it was not long before his old faith and simple trust returned, perhaps a bit chastened, but nevertheless just as real as ever in the belief that God does work in this world through prayer. And his understanding of prayer grew as he exercised himself therein. One of his favorite books which he kept constantly beside him and gave to many of his friends was Fosdick’s "The Meaning of Prayer."

While at the Kansas City Convention, John was able to schedule with Mr. C. D. Hurrey of the Student Department of the Y. M. C. A. an engagement to come to the Medical School for some evangelistic meetings. Mr. Hurrey had been approached some time before, but had replied that his schedule was already full and that he could not possibly come. John had been bombarding him with letters and finally brought all his arguments to bear on him personally at Kansas City. He was convinced that Mr. Hurrey was the man to do the work and he would not take a refusal for his answer. Mr. Hurrey could not resist this kind of importunity and finally agreed to rearrange his dates and come. So far as known there had never been an evangelistic campaign in that school. When Mr. Hurrey came four meetings were held. They had been thoroughly advertised and there was a fine attendance. John brought Mr. Hurrey about a dozen of the "rough-necks" of the school for interviews, men who were openly dissipated, but in whom he had discovered qualities that led him to believe in them. Several of these made decisions for the Christian life and cleaned up. One was a brother of a prominent religious worker in another city. In the campaign there was no more interested worker than the young Chinese who had declared himself a Christian the summer before.

Gambling, drinking and dishonesty in examinations were the three prominent evils in the student body that John felt had no business there. He was no ’’holier-than-thou" reformer. He simply hated the things that spoiled the souls of men he loved. And even if he had to stand against such things alone, he did it, for he had no "yellow streak." One night in the amphitheater he had a meeting which was largely attended in which betting was discussed by a prominent speaker. As to drinking, he rallied around him some of the Seniors in a fight for a dry class banquet. The "wets" got the support of one of the professors who asked the men in his lecture one day if they were babies and had to still drink milk. But John won the fight fairly on the vote of the class and whiskey was not served on the banquet table. And before the close of his Senior year he had seen the Honor System largely adopted to govern examinations. He believed that one and God were a majority in any crowd. Very few men ever actively antagonized him. They knew he stood for the things they ought to uphold. He did not excuse questionable practices for himself on the ground that it was necessary to do certain things in order to get in with the fellows. One of his fellow medical students who professed to be an atheist said of him one night in conversation:

"If there is one man in the world I believe in absolutely, it is John Anderson."

’’And let us not be weary in well-doing," says the Apostle Paul. As if these manifold labors among his fellow students were not sufficient, he ran a Boys’ Club in the slums of Louisville and had a Christmas party for them during the holidays; visited the City Hospital on Sundays with some friends, distributing flowers and holding religious services for the shut-ins; and answered charity calls among the poor of the city. On one occasion he found a family in the dead of winter living in rooms over a livery stable. The drunkard father had deserted them, and the mother, a bottle-washer, was out at work when he discovered the two children huddled together in the middle of the floor with what clothing they could wrap around them to keep them from freezing. There was no coal or bread in the house. John had groceries and coal sent to them and got a woman to look after the children. On a later visit, he found the father at home and prayed with him and got him to work. Writing of Christmas, 1913, he says that he had several calls to visit the sick in the slums on that day.

Before the year was over new officers were elected in the Y. M. C. A. It was nearly time for him to leave the school and so he had been grooming some of the strongest of the men to take his place that the work might not fall down. They were the men he had persuaded to go to the Summer Conference, and some of them were Student Volunteers by then. Kuei Chow was made Chairman of the Mission Study Committee. John used to get them together in his room in the City Y. M. C. A. for prayer together. He had moved from the Seminary to the Association which was nearer the Medical School in order that it might be more convenient to have his fellow ’’medics" in his room. He was always trying to pour his zeal and enthusiasm into them. Perhaps the work has not gone on so well since those days, but he did his best to perpetuate it through these men whom he called into the service. A letter of his contains the following: A few days past I read the first three chapters of Mark looking for several things about Christ’s life. Two of these things were popularity and opposition. I found that He met with opposition six times and had some indication of popularity eight times. I want to finish up the gospels this way. I want to read Paul’s life looking for these things and others that I have on this list. I have met with opposition many times, in fact, about every time I start to do anything there is some opposition and yet if God is with me I pull through. Paul said: ’T can do all things through Him that strengtheneth me." In another letter written near the close of the session he says:

I came out O.K. on my exams, although I will not hear before the last of the week. I am not at all uneasy but that I got through and I did not have to do as many of the class did, who cheated their way through.

Unremitting and abundant service for his fellows had not meant the forfeiture of his medical degree, for he received his M. D. at the commencement, and a little later passed successfully the State Medical Board examinations of South Carolina and received his license to practice medicine.