Insanity and Lightning One Day’s Experience in a Young Missionary’s Life
O N the morning of April 16th 1 awoke to find myself sitting up right in my bed, eyes wide open and all my senses keenly alert. There was a strange glare lighting the pic ture that should have been only dimly visible at that hour in the morning. The trees about me, the compound wall 50 feet away, and beyond it the roofs of a Chinese village all were clearly visible in the strange yellow light. Only an instant the picture was there and then all was dark again. Beside the strange sight I was con scious of having been awakened by two tremendous reports such as one would expect to hear on the discharge of two sixteen-inch guns almost sim ultaneously at one’s bedside. AfteT feeling of myself to make sure that I was alive and not stunned I settled back on my bed for a time to enjoy my first tropical electric storm. The booming continued through the fore noon, although with the exception of one terrible crash at 10:30 a. m., I heard nothing as thrilling as the one that set me bolt upright in bed. Being a young missionary who had only been in China five and one half months, and April the 16th being neither Sunday nor a holiday, my day’s program was easily followed, consisting in an hour of language study and an hour of study of the language alternately for the better part of the day. After tea it was time for exercise and recreation and since we have not yet invented a water proof style of tennis, I took my um brella and started for a short walk to terminate in a call on my friend Dr. Ross. My walk was uneventful ex cepting a little delay I experienced chasing some gamblers who had set
their tables and paraphernalia on our Mission property. As I had long since been initiated and had taken my degree in the gentle art of routing gamblers and raiding opium dens, this little side trip provided but little recre ation and I walked on through a Chinese village to the compound of my friend Dr. Ross. Here I found real diversion in playing with the doc tor’s two lively boys and later listen ing to some delightfully restful opera sent out from America boxed in a Vic- trola talking machine. It took little urging to induce me to stay for dinner and Dr. and Mrs. Ross and I were soon seated at a little table eating corn cakes and other extravagant dishes. Our conversation on this occasion con sisted in swapping tales of college and Seminary stunts which never seem to be forgotten by the missionary who has to look back to college days as his most recent escapades in society. A f ter dinner we returned to the library to enjoy the entertainment of the Vic- trola. We were deep in the dreams inspired by Alma Gluck’s wonderful voice when a servant announced a man to see the doctor. Here let me say that Dr. R. M. Ross, formerly of our Lienchou sta tion is with Dr. Seldon in charge of a large refuge for the insane, and is doing wonderful work by his sym pathy and skill with these more than 500 Chinese men and women who would be outcasts or in prison were it not for the open doors of this refuge. The man who had come for the doc tor was one of these patients prac tically cured who was acting in the capacity of a helper at the refuge. On this rainy night he came to take the doctor to the home of a friend who
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs