Forty Years in South China: The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D.Fagg, John Gerardus
Religion
Forty Years in South China: The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D.
Fagg, John Gerardus
Missions -- China; Talmage, John Van Nest, 1819-1892
"Use whatever you have got, be glad when you are corrected, but use your
words." To some of us the advice was invaluable.
And in other ways the same spirit was manifest. He did all he could to get
us to attend every Christian gathering, to sit and listen to the business
of the Sessions, and to show the Chinese as soon as possible that we were
one with them, and he succeeded. There was an enthusiasm and warmth
distinguishing these early days of the Amoy church that were formative in a
very high degree, and that are now a precious memory.
Then Dr. Talmage was a scholar, with a very wide range of scholarship. We
looked up to him and we respected him, with an esteem few men have ever
won. And in conjunction with his scholarly furnishing there was an
absorbing, consuming zeal for Christ and His kingdom, and an intense love
for the Chinese people. If he had not this latter, he could not have been
the unmistakably influential and successful missionary he was. These,
coupled with a Christian walk and devotion, formed the furnishing of this
man of God.
He was also a true gentleman, a Christian gentleman in every sense of the
word. The best proof of this was that we loved him, and if the foreign
ladies in Amoy who knew him were asked what they thought of him--many of
them have gone to rest--they would hardly get words to tell out all their
respect and love for him. His visits in our houses were most welcome, and
when he spent an evening with us there was always sunshine where he was.
He was essentially a happy man, and nothing pleased him more than to see
all happy around him.
There is still one point to which reference must here be made.
Missionaries were not the only foreign residents in Amoy. There was also a
considerable number of American and European merchants. Unfortunately the
missionaries and the merchants did not always see eye to eye. Dr. Talmage
was a favorite with every one of them. They esteemed him, they would have
done anything to serve him; and at no cost of principle or testimony he won
this place with them.
And to those who know the conditions of life in China, it will be at once
understood what a man he must have been to win such a position.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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