Notable Women of Modern ChinaBurton, Margaret E. (Margaret Ernestine)
History
Notable Women of Modern China
Burton, Margaret E. (Margaret Ernestine)
China -- Biography; Women -- Biography
Years afterward, when two other girls from the Foochow Boarding School
were leaving China for a period of study in America, a farewell meeting was
held for them in the school, at which Dr. Hü told how she had reached her
decision to go. She said: "I was the first Fuhkien province girl to go to
America.... My father told me, 'I cannot decide for you; you must pray to
God. If you are to go, God will show you.' Then I felt God's word come to
me, 'Fear not, for I will go with you wherever you go.' At that time the
school girls were seldom with the missionary ladies and I could not speak
any English, therefore I did not know any American politeness; and all my
clothes and other daily-need-things were not proper to use in the western
country. Although everything could not be according to my will, I trusted
God with all my life, so nothing could change my heart."
In the spring of 1884, in charge of some missionaries going home on
furlough, Hü King Eng left China for America. The journey was a long and
rough one, and a steamer near theirs was wrecked. One of the missionaries,
wondering how her faith was standing the test of these new and terrifying
experiences, asked if she wanted to go back home. But she answered, "No, I
do not think of going home at all." She felt that it was right for her to
go to America, and although when she met her friends at the journey's end
she confessed that sea-sickness and home-sickness had brought the tears
many a night, she never faltered in her decision.
Upon landing in New York she went at once to Mrs. Keen in Philadelphia, and
there met Dr. and Mrs. Sites, of Foochow, whom she had known from
childhood, and who were then in Philadelphia attending the General
Conference of the Methodist Church. She spent the summer with them,
learning to read, write, and speak English, and in the autumn went with
them to Delaware, Ohio, and entered Ohio Wesleyan University. Miss Martin,
who was then preceptress of Monnett Hall, recalls King Eng's efforts to
master English. "She was an apt pupil," she says, "yet she had many
struggles with the language." A friend in Cleveland, with whom she spent a
few weeks during her vacation, promised her that some day they would go
around the square to see the reservoir. King Eng seemed much interested in
this proposition and several times asked when they were to go. When they
finally went, her friend was somewhat surprised to see that King Eng
manifested very little interest in the reservoir; but when they reached
home again it was evident that she had been interested, not in the
reservoir, but in the proposed method of reaching it. "How can you go
'round' a 'square'?" she asked.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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