The Black-Bearded Barbarian Part 9

When the little chapel was finished, every evening the big sh.e.l.l rang out its summons through the village; and out from every house came the people and swarmed into the chapel to hear Kai Bok-su explain more of the wonders of G.o.d and his Son Jesus Christ.

Mackay's home during this period was a musty little room in a damp mud-walled hut; and here every day he received donations of idols, ancestral tablets, and all sorts of things belonging to idol-worship. He was requested to burn them, and often in the mornings he dried his damp clothes and moldy boots at a fire made from heathen idols.

For eight weeks the missionary party remained in this place, preaching, teaching, and working among the people. It was a mystery to the students how their teacher found time for the great amount of Bible study and prayer which he managed to get. He surely worked as never man worked before. Late at night, long after every one else was in bed, he would be bending over his Bible, beside his peanut-oil lamp, and early in the morning before the stars had disappeared he was up and at work again.

Four hours' sleep was all his restless, active mind could endure, and with that he could do work that would have killed any ordinary man.

One evening some new faces looked up at him from his congregation in the little brick church. When the last hymn was sung the missionary stepped down from his pulpit and spoke to the strangers. They explained that they were from the next village. They had heard rumors of this new doctrine, and had been sent to find out more about it. They had been charmed with the singing, for that evening over two hundred voices had joined in a ringing praise to the new Jehovah-G.o.d. They wanted to hear more, they said, and they wanted to know what it was all about. Would Kai Bok-su and his students deign to visit their village too?

Would he? Why that was just what he was longing to do. He had been driven out of that village by dogs only a few weeks before, but a little thing like that did not matter to a man like Mackay. This village lay but a short distance away, being connected with their own by a path winding here and there between the rice-fields. Early the next evening Mackay formed a procession. He placed himself at its head, with A Hoa at his side. The students came next, and then the converts in a double row.

And thus they marched slowly along the pathway singing as they went. It was a stirring sight. On either side the waving fields of rice, behind them the gleam of the blue ocean, before them the great towering mountains clothed in green. Above them shone the clear dazzling sky of a tropical evening. And on wound the long procession of Christians in a heathen land, and from them arose the glorious words:

O thou, my soul, bless G.o.d the Lord, And all that in me is Be stirred up his holy name To magnify and bless.

And the heathen in the rice-fields stopped to gaze at the strange sight, and the mountains gave back the echo of that Name which is above every name.

And so, marching to their song, the procession came to the village.

Everybody in the place had come out to meet them at the first sound of the singing. And now they stood staring, the men in a group by themselves, the women and children in the background, the dogs snarling on the outskirts of the crowd.

The congregation was there ready, and without waiting to find a place of meeting, right out under the clear evening skies, the young missionary told once more the great story of G.o.d and his love as shown through Jesus Christ. The message took the village by storm. It was like water to thirsty souls. The next day five hundred of them brought their idols to the missionary to be burned.

And now Mackay went up and down the Kap-tsu-lan plain from village to village as he had done before, but this time it was a triumphal march.

And everywhere he went throngs threw away their idols and declared themselves followers of the true G.o.d.

He was overcome with joy. It was so glorious he wished he could stay there the rest of his life and lead these willing people to a higher life. But Tamsui was waiting; Sin-tiam, Bang-kah, Kelung, Go-ko-khi, they must all be visited; and finally he tore himself away, leaving some of his students to care for these people of Kap-tsu-lan.

But he came back many times, until at last nineteen chapels dotted the plain, and in them nineteen native preachers told the story of Jesus and his love. Sometimes, in later years, when Mackay was with them, tears would roll down the people's faces as they recalled how badly they had used him on his first visit.

It was while on his third visit here that he had a narrow escape from the head-hunters. He was staying at a village called "South Wind Harbor," which was near the border of savage territory. Mackay often walked on the sh.o.r.e in the evening just before the meeting, always with a book in his hand. One night he was strolling along in deep meditation when he noticed some extremely large turtle tracks in the sand. He followed them, for he liked to watch the big clumsy creatures. These green turtles were from four to five feet in length. They would come waddling up from the sea, scratch a hole in the sand with their flippers, lay their eggs, cover them carefully, and with head erect and neck out-thrust waddle back. Mackay was intensely interested in all the animal life of the island and made a study of it whenever he had a chance. He knew the savages killed and ate these turtles, but he supposed he was as yet too near the village to be molested by them. So he followed the tracks and was nearing the edge of the forest, when he heard a shout behind him. As he turned, one of his village friends came running out of his hut waving to him frantically to come back. Thinking some one must be ill, Mackay hurried toward the man, to find that it was he himself who was in danger. The man explained breathlessly that it was the habit of the wily savages to make marks in the sand resembling turtle tracks to lure people into the forest. If Kai Bok-su had entered the woods, his head would certainly have been lost.

It was always hard to say farewell to Kaptsu-lan, the people were so warm-hearted, so kind, and so anxious for him to stay. One morning just before leaving after his third visit, Mackay had an experience that brought him the greatest joy.

He had stayed all night at the little fishing village where the first chapel had been built. As usual he was up with the dawn, and after his breakfast of cold boiled rice and pork he walked down to the sh.o.r.e for a farewell look at the village. As he pa.s.sed along the little crooked street he could see old women sitting on the mud floors of their huts, by the open door, weaving. They were all poor, wrinkled, toothless old folk with faces seamed by years of hard heathen experience. But in their eyes shone a new light, the reflection of the glory that they had seen when the missionary showed them Jesus their Savior. And as they threw their thread their quavering voices crooned the sweet words:

There is a happy land Far, far away.

And their old weary faces were lighted up with a hope and happiness that had never been there in youth.

Kai Bok-su smiled as he pa.s.sed their doors and his eyes were misty with tender tears.

Just before him, playing on the sand with "jacks" or tops, just as he had played not so very long ago away back in Canada, were the village boys. And as they played they too were singing, their little piping voices, sweet as birds, thrilling the morning air. And the words they sang were:

Jesus loves me, this I know, For the Bible tells me so.

They nodded and smiled to Kai Bok-su as he pa.s.sed. He went down to the sh.o.r.e where the wide Pacific flung long rollers away up the hard-packed sand. The fishermen were going out to sea in the rosy morning light, and as they stood up in their fishing-smacks, and swept their long oars through the surf, they kept time to the motion with singing. And their strong, brave voices rang out above the roar of the breakers:

I'm not ashamed to own my Lord, Or to defend his cause.

And standing there on the sunlit sh.o.r.e the young missionary raised his face to the gleaming blue heavens with an emotion of unutterable joy and thanksgiving. And in that moment he knew what was that glory for which he had so vaguely longed in childish years. It was the glory of work accomplished for his Master's sake, and he was realizing it to the full.

CHAPTER X. REENFORCEMENTS

Some of Mackay's happiest days were spent with his students. He was such a wonder of a man for work himself that he inspired every one else to do his best, so the young men made rapid strides with their lessons. No matter how busy he was, and he was surely one of the busiest men that ever lived, he somehow found time for them.

Sometimes in his house, sometimes on the road, by the seash.o.r.e, under a banyan tree, here and there and everywhere, the missionary and his pupils held their cla.s.ses. If he went on a journey, they accompanied him and studied by the way. And it was a familiar sight on north Formosan roads or field paths to see Mackay, always with his book in one hand and his big ebony stick under his arm, walking along surrounded by a group of young men.

Sometimes there were as many as twenty in the student-band, but somewhere in the country a new church would open, and the brightest of the cla.s.s would be called away to be its minister. But just as often a young Christian would come to the missionary and ask if he too might not be trained to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Whether at home or abroad, pupils and teacher had to resort to all sorts of means to get away for an uninterrupted hour together. For Kai Bok-su was always in demand to visit the sick or sad or troubled.

There was a little kitchen separate from the house on the bluff, and over this Mackay with his students built a second story. And here they would often slip away for a little quiet time together. One night, about eleven o'clock, Mackay was here alone poring over his books. The young men had gone home to bed except two or three who were in the kitchen below. Some papers had been dropped over a pipe-hole in the floor of the room where Mackay was studying, and for some time he had been disturbed by a rustling among them. At last without looking up, he called to his boys below: "I think there are rats up here among my papers!"

Koa Kau, one of the younger of the students, ran lightly up the stairs to give battle to the intruders. What was his horror when he saw fully three feet of a monster serpent sticking up through the pipe-hole and waving its horrible head in the air just a little distance from Kai Bok-su's chair.

The boy gave a shout, darted down the stair, and with a sharp stick, pinned the body of the snake to the wall below. The creature became terribly violent, but Koa Kau held on valiantly and Mackay seized an old Chinese spear that happened to be in the room above and pierced the serpent through the head. They pulled its dead body down into the kitchen below and spread it out. It measured nine feet. The students would not rest until it was buried, and the remembrance of the horrible creature's visit for some time spoiled the charm of the little upper room.

The rocks at Kelung harbor were another favorite spot for this little traveling university to hold its cla.s.ses. Sometimes they would take their dinner and row out in a little sampan to the rocks outside the harbor and there, undisturbed, they would study the whole day long.

They always began the day's work with a prayer and a hymn of praise, and no matter what subjects they might study, most of the time was spent on the greatest of books. After a hard morning's work each one would gather sticks, make a fire, and they would have their dinner of vegetables, rice, and pork or buffalo-meat. Then there were oysters, taken fresh off the rocks, to add to their bill of fare.

At five in the afternoon, when the strain of study was beginning to tell, they would vary the program. One or two of the boys would take a plunge into the sea and bring up a subject for study,--a sh.e.l.l, some living coral, sea-weed, sea-urchins, or some such treasure. They would examine it, and Kai Bok-su, always delighted when on a scientific subject, would give them a lesson in natural history. And he saw with joy how the wonders of the sea and land opened these young men's minds to understand what a great and wonderful G.o.d was theirs, who had made "the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all that in them is."

When they visited a chapel in the country, they had a daily program which they tried hard to follow. They studied until four o'clock every afternoon and all were trained in speaking and preaching. After four they made visits together to Christians or heathen, speaking always a word for their Master. Every evening a public service was held at which Mackay preached. These sermons were an important part of the young men's training, for he always treated the gospel in a new way. A Hoa, who was Mackay's companion for the greater part of sixteen years, stated that he had never heard Kai Bok-su preach the same sermon twice.

On the whole the students liked their college best when it was moving.

For on the road, while their princ.i.p.al gave much time to the Bible and how to present the gospel, he would enliven their walks by conversing about everything by the way and making it full of interest. The structure of a wayside flower, the geological formation of an overhanging rock, the composition of the soil of the tea plantations, the stars that shone in the sky when night came down upon them;--all these made the traveling college a delight.

Although his days were crammed with work, Mackay found time to make friends among the European population of the island. They all liked and admired him, and many of them tried to help the man who was giving his life and strength so completely to others. They were familiar with his quick, alert figure pa.s.sing through the streets of Tamsui, with his inevitable book and his big ebony cane. And they would smile and say, "There goes Mackay; he's the busiest man in China." (*)

* See CHAPTER XIII, Formosa becomes j.a.panese territory.

The British consul in the old Dutch fort and the English commissioner of customs proved true and loyal friends. The representatives of foreign business firms, too, were always ready to lend him a helping hand where possible. His most useful friends were the foreign medical men. They helped him very much. They not only did all they could for his own recovery when malaria attacked him, but they helped also to cure his patients. Traveling scientists always gave him a visit to get his help and advice. He had friends that were shipcaptains, officers, engineers, merchants, and British consuls. Everybody knew the wonderful Kai Bok-su.

"Whirlwind Mackay," some of them called him, and they knew and admired him with the true admiration that only a brave man can inspire.

The friends to whom he turned for help of the best kind were the English Presbyterians in south Formosa. They, more than any others, knew his trials and difficulties. They alone could enter with true sympathy into all his triumphs. At one time Dr. Campbell, one of the south Formosan missionaries, paid him a visit. He proved a delightful companion, and together the two made a tour of the mission stations. Dr. Campbell preached wherever they went and was a great inspiration to the people, as well as to the students and to the missionary himself.

One evening, when they were in Kelung, Mackay, with his insatiable desire to use every moment, suggested that they spend ten days without speaking English, so that they might improve their Chinese. Dr. Campbell agreed, and they started their "Chinese only." Next morning from the first early call of "Liong tsong khi lai," "All, all, up come," not one word of their native tongue did they speak. They had a long tramp that morning and there was much to talk about and the conversation was all in Chinese, according to the bargain. Dr. Campbell was ahead, and after an hour's talk he suddenly turned upon his companion: "Mackay!" he exclaimed, "this jabbering in Chinese is ridiculous, and two Scotchmen should have more sense; let us return to our mother tongue." Which advice Mackay gladly followed.

His next visitor was the Rev. Mr. Ritchie from south Formosa, one of the friends who had first introduced him to his work. Every day of his visit was a joy. With nine of Mackay's students, the two missionaries set out on a trip through the north Formosa mission that lasted many weeks.

But the more pleasant and helpful such companionship was the more alone Mackay felt when it was over. His task was becoming too much for one man. He was wanted on the northern coast, at the southern boundary of his mission field, and away on the Kap-tsu-lan plain all at once. He was crowded day and night with work. What with preaching, dentistry, attending the sick, training his students, and encouraging the new churches, he had enough on his hands for a dozen missionaries.

But now at last the Church at home, in far-away Canada, bestirred herself to help him. They had been hearing something of the wonderful mission in Formosa, but they had heard only hints of it, for Mackay would not confess how he was toiling day and night and how the work had grown until he was not able to overtake it alone. But the Church understood something of his need, and they now sent him the best present they could possibly give,--an a.s.sistant. Just three years after Mackay had landed in Formosa, the Rev. J. B. Fraser, M. D., and his wife and little ones arrived. He was a young man, too, vigorous and ready for work. Besides being an ordained minister, he was a physician as well, just exactly what the north Formosan mission needed.

Along with the missionary, the Church had sent funds for a house for him and also one for Mackay. So the poor old Chinese house on the bluff was replaced by a modern, comfortable dwelling, and by its side another was built for the new missionary and his family. One room of Mackay's house was used as a study for his students.