Notable Women of Modern ChinaBurton, Margaret E. (Margaret Ernestine)
History
Notable Women of Modern China
Burton, Margaret E. (Margaret Ernestine)
China -- Biography; Women -- Biography
At the time that this letter was written the Revolution was in progress,
and Nanchang, with all the rest of Central China, was in a turmoil. Because
of the disturbed conditions most of the missionaries left the city, but Dr.
Kahn refused to leave her work. With the help of her nurses she kept the
hospital open, giving a refuge to many sufferers from famine and flood, and
caring for the wounded soldiers. None of the forty beds was ever empty, and
many had to be turned away.
The close of the Revolution did not, however, bring a cessation of work for
the doctor. She already needs larger hospital accommodation, three times as
much as she now has, one of her friends writes. But Dr. Kahn delights in
all the opportunities for work that are crowding upon her; for she says,
"When I think what my life might have been, and what, through God's grace,
it is, I think there is nothing that God has given me that I would not
gladly use in His service."
* * * * *
DR. MARY STONE
I. WITH UNBOUND FEET
II. THE DANFORTH MEMORIAL HOSPITAL
III. WINNING FRIENDS IN AMERICA
IV. A VERSATILE WOMAN
* * * * *
[Illustration: [Handwritten] Yours in His service Mary Stone]
DR. MARY STONE
I
WITH UNBOUND FEET
On the "first day of the third moon" of the year 1873, a young Chinese
father knelt by the side of his wife and, with her, reverently consecrated
to the service of the Divine Father the little daughter who had that day
been given them. They named her "Maiyü,"--"Beautiful Gem"--and together
agreed that this perfect gift should never be marred by the binding of the
little feet. It was unheard of! Even the servant women of Kiukiang would
have been ashamed to venture outside the door with unbound feet, and the
very beggar women hobbled about on stumps of three and four inches in
length. No little girl who was not a slave had ever been known to grow up
with natural feet before, in all Central or West China. That the descendant
of one of the proudest and most aristocratic families of China, whose
genealogical records run back without a break for a period of two thousand
years, little Shih Maiyü, should be the first to thus violate the
century-old customs of her ancestors, was almost unbelievable.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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