Children of ChinaBrown, C. Campbell (Colin Campbell)
General
Children of China
Brown, C. Campbell (Colin Campbell)
Children -- China -- Juvenile literature; China -- Social life and customs -- Juvenile literature
“My father soon took me to Tung An, and all the time I was there I
could only manage to go to church once....
“Someone told my father that I had been to church and he was very
angry, and told me to take salt and salt down my heart, to make dead
my heart. He said he certainly would not let me go to church, and told
others that they must not let me go. He also said that if I had any
communication with the lady missionary he would throw me down stairs
and kill me. But the Lord was always with me and delivered me out of
the mouth of the lion.
“Afterwards my father brought me to Amoy to my uncle’s house.
Two-thirds of the family are vegetarians, and early and late they
burn incense and candles to the idols. My heart was miserable in the
extreme.
“My father tried to sell me to be the second wife of a rich man, who
was willing to give nearly three hundred dollars for me. He said:
“‘Your old friend, the Bible-woman and the Christians will do nothing
for you, you might as well make up your mind to it. The Bible-woman
says there is no use trying to do anything more for you, that no
Christian will marry you now.’
“I felt that he was telling me a lie, but I could not know if the
Bible-woman, who had always been so good to me, had really said that or
not, and I was very unhappy. My father kept urging me to agree to being
sold to the rich heathen man, so that he might have the money to use.
He was very angry with me because I was so strongly opposed. I said, ‘I
have made a covenant with the Lord, which I cannot break, I am His.’
“One day a sister of a Christian came to speak to my uncle, and someone
said to me, ‘That person is a follower of the Gospel like you and
lives at Bamboo-tree-foot.’ I said, ‘Is that true?’ After this I found
that she knew one of my classmates, who lives at Bamboo-tree-foot,
and through her I secretly sent a letter to my classmate, asking her
to tell the pastor’s wife where I was. The letter was delayed several
days, and before it was delivered one day I saw three Christians
passing the house with Bibles in their hands, on their way to church,
and so I knew that it was Sunday--I had lost count of Sundays--and I
called to them. My father was out, or I should not have dared to speak
to them. They were pleased to find me. They told the Bible-woman, and
through them and my letter in a week’s time the pastor’s wife and the
Bible-woman both came to see me. I found out that what my father had
said about the Bible-woman was not true, and they both comforted my
heart.
“After this, I dreamed I had fallen into a ditch up to my neck, and
someone pulled me out; that I went to school again, and was writing on
my slate, and I thought: This means that God is going to open the way
for me. In six more days, beyond all my hopes, God’s great goodness
was manifested, and I truly jumped for joy, when I was told that my
father’s consent was gained, and Miss ---- had redeemed me for two
hundred dollars, and that I was to go back again to school.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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