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
"There is very much poverty and misery among the heathen. They do not pity
each other and love each other as some Christians do. Those who have the
comforts of life seem to have very little pity for those who are destitute.
Therefore they have no poorhouses where the poor may be taken care of.
Consequently very many steal, very many beg, and very many starve to death.
In going from my house to church on the Sabbath I have counted more than
thirty beggars on the streets. The most of them were such pitiable looking
objects as you never saw. I have seen persons who are called beggars in
the United States, but I never saw a real beggar till I came to Amoy. Some
of them are covered with filth and a few filthy rags. Some of them are
without eyes, some without noses, some without hands, and some without
feet. Some crawl upon their hands and feet, some sit down in the streets
and shove themselves along, and some lie down end can only move along by
rolling over and over. On Sunday before last, while I was preaching, a
blind girl came into the chapel. She was led by a string attached to a boy
going before her. He could see, but could not walk. He crept along on his
hands and knees. A month or two ago, during a cold storm, late in the
evening, just as I was going to bed, I heard some one groaning by my front
door. I went out to see what was the matter. I found an old man with
white beard Iying in the mud and water, and with very little clothing. He
was shivering from cold. He was unable to speak. I had him carried into
my house, and covered over with some mats. We prepared some warm drink and
food for him, as speedily as possible, hoping that thus we might save his
life. But before we could get it ready he died. He had probably been
carried by some persons and laid at my door to die, that they might be free
from the trouble and expense of burying him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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