Chinese Diamonds for the King of Kings — John Shaqi
Chinese Diamonds for the King of KingsGoforth, Rosalind
Religion
Chinese Diamonds for the King of Kings
Goforth, Rosalind
Missions -- China
As I review the life of the man of whom I am to write, two incidents of
over thirty years ago come to mind. On our way to China one of our
fellow-passengers was a man who had been in business twenty odd years in
China. He declared there were no real Christians in China, that they
were all "rice" Christians—followers of the foreigner for what they
could get and so on. Practically all the passengers, except the
missionaries heartily agreed with these statements. Later we heard the
same thing repeated on the coast steamer. Shortly after reaching our
destination a well-known resident of China, who had occupied for
twenty-five years a responsible position in the "Customs" made such
positive statements along the same line that the writer began to wonder
if these things could be true. Six weeks later this accuser, and as I
know now to be, cruel slanderer of the Christians had gone to meet his
Judge—dying suddenly in his chair as the result of a vicious debauch!
It is now the writer’s privilege to give testimonies after thirty years
standing, to the genuineness of the Chinese Christian—here is one of
them.
Twenty miles northeast of the Mission Station of Changteho lived a
well-to-do banker and landowner named Chen-Lao-Jung. He was a man of
most masterful personality. His old mother, to whom he was greatly
devoted, had long been afflicted by attacks of what the Chinese called
demon possession—which from all accounts exactly resembled those
recorded in the Bible. Every heathen means had been used for her
relief. Witch doctors, necromancers, Buddhist priests, and others had
used their arts upon her (some of these being very cruel), but the poor
woman was "nothing better, but rather grew worse."
One day a Christian called when the woman was in a serious and violent
condition. Mr. Chen asked Mr. Hsu, the Christian, to pray to his God
for his mother, but the Christian replied, "I would gladly do so, but it
is useless for me to pray to my God, who is the only true God, when you
recognize so many other gods that are false. These household gods must
first be destroyed: then I can pray." (Oh, that our home Christians
would realize this too, _then_ would _they_ know the power of prayer).
After some demur Mr. Chen decided that he had tried these gods and they
had failed him, now he would burn them rather than lose this opportunity
of having his mother healed by the Christian God!
In face of the bitterest opposition from his family and neighbors he
publicly burnt all the household gods. Then he and Mr. Hsu followed by
all the family and a crowd of curious neighbors went into the mother’s
room where she lay foaming on the bed. Mr. Hsu first sang the hymn
"Jesus loves me"—then prayed, then sang again.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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