Peeps Into China Part 1

Peeps Into China.

by E. C. Phillips.

CHAPTER I.

THE COUNTRY RECTORY.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"NOT really; you can't mean it really!"

"As true as possible. Mother told me her _very own_ self," was the emphatic reply.

Two children, brother and sister, the boy aged ten, the girl three years older, were carrying on this conversation in the garden of a country rectory.

"But really and truly, on your word of honour," repeated Leonard, as though he could not believe what his sister had just related to him.

"I hope my word is always a word of honour; I thought everybody's word ought to be that," Sybil Graham replied a little proudly, for when she had run quickly to bring such important news to her brother, she could not help feeling hurt that he should refuse to believe what she said.

"And we are really going there, and shall actually see the 'pig-tails'

in their own country, and the splendid kites they fly, and all the wonderful things that father used to tell us about? Oh! it seems too good to be true."

"But it is true," Sybil repeated with emphasis. "And I dare say we might even see tea growing, as it does grow there, you know, and I suppose we shall be carried about in sedan-chairs ourselves." She was really as happy as her brother, only not so excitable.

At this moment their mother joined them. "Oh, mother!" the boy then exclaimed, "how beautiful! Sybil has just told me, but I could not believe her."

"I thought the news would delight you both very much," Mrs. Graham answered. "Your father and I have been thinking about going to China for some time, but we would not tell you anything about it until matters were quite settled, and now everything seems to be satisfactorily arranged for us to start in three months' time."

"That will be in August, then," they both said at once.

"Oh, how very beautiful!" Sybil exclaimed. "_I like my father to be a missionary very much._ He must be glad too; isn't he, mother?"

"Very glad indeed, although the joy will entail some sadness also. I expect your father will grieve a good deal to leave this dear little country parish of ours, and the duties he has so loved to perform here, but a wider field of usefulness having opened out for him, he is very thankful to obey the call."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CHURCH.]

"And father will do it so well, mother," answered Sybil. "I wonder whether I shall be able to do anything to help him there?"

"I think you have long since found out, Sybil," was her mother's loving answer, "that you can always be doing something to help us."

Sybil and Leonard had as yet only learnt a part of the story. They had still to learn the rest. This going to China would not be all beautiful, all joy for them, especially for Sybil, with her very affectionate nature and dread of saying "Good-byes," for she and Leonard were only to be taken out on a trip--a pleasure tour--to see something of China, and to return to England to go on with their education at the end of six months.

Mr. Graham then calling his wife, the children were again left alone.

It was no easy matter to go as a missionary to China. This Mr. Graham well knew, for his father, although only for a short time, had been one over there before him, and had discovered--what so many other later brother missionaries have found out also--that to obtain even a hearing on the subject of religion from a Chinaman, who has been trained and brought up to be a superst.i.tious idolater, very vain of his wisdom and antiquity as a nation, and to look upon Europeans as barbarians, is often a most difficult matter.

Eighteen years before Mr. Graham the elder went out to Peking as one of the first missionaries to China, and his only son, who had then just qualified for the medical profession, accompanied him. A year later, the father dying, his son returned at once to England, but with a changed mind, determined now to seek holy orders and enter the ministry, instead of following his profession, so as by thus doing to add one more to the number of earnest clergy that his short stay in China had shown him were so much needed. To carry out his resolution, he went to Oxford to prepare, and soon after his ordination he married, and settled down, in the little country village, where we find him, surrounded by his little family.

Often since then had he contemplated leaving England for missionary work, but until now he had been prevented from carrying his wishes into effect.

His knowledge of medicine had not been lost to him, for many a sufferer in the little, yet wide-spreading country parish, who lived at too great a distance to send for the doctor for a slight ailment, had been very thankful, when the clergyman came in to read and pray with him, to learn from him what his slight ailment was, and how he could prevent its becoming a great one.

And this knowledge would be most helpful and invaluable in China, where Mr. Graham knew that the science of medicine was held in veneration by the inhabitants, and gained a ready admission to those who were glad to be cured of bodily ailments, but knew not how sick their souls were.

The missionary's slight acquaintance with the Chinese dialect, which, when time permitted, he had endeavoured to keep up, would also be of service to him when he arrived in China; for although the dialects of the south, where he was going, were very different from those of the north, the Mandarin, or Court language, spoken by the officials, was understood in every part.

"That's why father's been reading all those books lately with the pig-tail pictures in, and wonderful kites, and why he has been studying the language without an alphabet," Leonard said, when he and his sister were again alone. "If I hadn't been at school so much, I expect I should have found out what was going to happen."

"I don't believe we should ever find out anything that father did not wish us to know, however much we wanted to do so," answered Sybil. "But isn't it splendid?--all but one thing, and that is having to leave everybody, and my best friend Lily Keith. I shan't like doing that at all."

"And I shall miss my friends too, of course," said Leonard; "but then I expect we shall make some new ones; and I thought you were so fond of writing letters. Why, you could write splendid ones from China, and tell Lily what we see, and perhaps mother would draw you some pictures for them, for she can draw anything, you know."

Sybil was comforted, for she was very fond of writing letters, and her friend, she knew, would be very glad to have some from China.

Directly after the six o'clock dinner was the children's hour with father, who, being a very busy man, had to regulate all his time; but this one hour a day belonged entirely to his family, and unless anything unforeseen happened, they had and claimed every moment of it.

Sybil came down-stairs first, and going up to her father, who was sitting by a large bow window, gazing out of it, with a very serious look on his face, she said with surprise as she kissed him: "You look sad, dear father. Aren't you glad to go to China?"

He drew her on to his knee.

"Very glad, my darling," was the answer; "but I was just picturing to myself some farewells that will have to be taken. I shall be very sorry, too, to say 'Good-bye' here, where our lives have been so blessed and our prayers so abundantly answered. We cannot help feeling sorry to leave our old friends, can we?"

"But you don't look, father," she continued, "as if that were all that you had been thinking."

"I dare say it was also about the work in which I am so soon to engage, for that, Sybil, is full of grave responsibility; but now I think it is my turn to ask what your thoughts are," he went on, for at that moment Sybil was looking quite as grave as, just before, her father could have looked.

"I was remembering two verses of a piece of poetry that I learnt last term at school, which I think must have been written for missionaries,"

she replied.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP OF CHINA.]

Her father then asking her to repeat them to him, Sybil said:--

"Sow ye beside all waters, Where the dew of heaven may fall; Ye shall reap, if ye be not weary, For the Spirit breathes o'er all.

Sow, though the thorns may wound thee; One wore the thorns for thee; And, though the cold world scorn thee, Patient and hopeful be.

Sow ye beside all waters, With a blessing and a prayer, Name Him whose hand upholds thee, And sow thou everywhere.

"Work! in the wild waste places, Though none thy love may own; G.o.d guides the down of the thistle The wandering wind hath sown.

Will Jesus chide thy weakness, Or call thy labour vain?

The Word that for Him thou bearest Shall return to Him again.

On!--with thine heart in heaven, Thy strength--thy Master's might, Till the wild waste places blossom In the warmth of a Saviour's light."

"Thank you, Sybil," said her father. "I am sure you will make a capital little missionary's daughter some day."

"To what part of China are we going, father?" she then asked; "to the same place where you were before?"