Notable Women of Modern ChinaBurton, Margaret E. (Margaret Ernestine)
History
Notable Women of Modern China
Burton, Margaret E. (Margaret Ernestine)
China -- Biography; Women -- Biography
When the leaders of the revolutionary party learned that their prisoner
had committed suicide they were greatly disturbed. None of them dared to
carry the news to General Ma, lest, in accordance with an old Oriental
custom, he should punish the bearer of ill tidings. In their perplexity
they went to Dr. Stone and asked her to take the news to the general.
Accordingly the little doctor, accompanied only by one of her nurses, went
to the general's headquarters to break the news to him. It is significant,
not only of the universal respect accorded the doctor, but also of the new
position accorded woman in China, that these women, who ventured unattended
into a soldiers' camp, were received with every courtesy. General Ma asked
the doctor many questions about her work, and at the close of their
interview exclaimed, "When things are settled once more, I intend to find
support for such a work; the Chinese ought to help it."
Because of the disturbances caused by the Revolution, many students in the
Kiukiang schools returned to their homes. The family of one young woman
insisted that she make use of this enforced vacation to become married to
the young Chinese to whom she had long been engaged. The marriage was
unwelcome to her, for she was a Christian and the man was not, but as she
was the only Christian in her family she received no sympathy from them,
and the wedding was set for Christmas day. The parents, however, yielded to
their daughter's earnest desire for a Christian ceremony, and her brother
was dispatched to Kiukiang to seek Dr. Stone, who had been eminently
successful in all kinds of operations and might surely be relied upon to
tie a satisfactory marriage knot. Dr. Stone accordingly left all her
Christmas engagements, and accompanied by a Chinese pastor and one of her
nurses, set out, through a heavy snow storm, for the girl's home. When the
wedding guests were all assembled, Dr. Stone said that she would like to
say a few words before the ceremony took place, and for an hour and a half
she told her hearers of the Christian good tidings. The result was that
when the wedding was over the mother and father of the bride brought their
idols to her, and allowed their daughter to apply the match to them, for
both had determined to become Christians. The father said that he wished
other people to hear the good things Dr. Stone had told them, and would
give the land for a Christian school. The bridegroom volunteered to do the
carpenter work which would be necessary before a school could be opened,
and now the young wife is teaching a group of children who have entered
this new Christian school, and in the new home husband and wife daily unite
in morning prayers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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