THE KING’S BUSINESS
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son’s iecture. f Schools were dismissed so that students cotild attend the evangelistic meetings. Seven hundred and sixty-five girls came to the first meeting, at which Mrs. Eddy spoke, and which was presided over by a woman, the head of the largest Government^ Normal School in the city. 'What a strange combination. She was of the old and new, as with tiny, bound feet so small she had to be assisted to the plat form, she presided over that large meet ing of modern students listening attentively to the message of Christianity. What hope it gave that scores of those very listeners would accept the message of the One Who alone can emancipate mind, heart and soul. The second afternoon was a holiday and the day before one of their big feasts. Not withstanding, 500 students again came to hear Mr. Eddy’s message on “What Can Save China.” I wish you could have seen them lean forward and fairly strain their eyes to see the charts he used and to hear every word he spoke on this theme, that is a very vital one today to every patriotic man and woman in China. At the close, after a, frank and undisguised appeal to look to Jesus Christ as the only hope of China, 201 girls signed cards pledging to enter a Bible class to study the life and teaching of Jesus Christ. More cards were handed in on the third day when in spite of the com bination of both rain and feast day more than 200 came out again to hear Mrs. Eddy speak on “The Women of India.” It was my great privilege to lead three meetings in the Mission schools where sixty- five girls made the decision to follow Jesus Christ at any cost. One dear girl from a “heathen” home said she “had felt the Holy Spirit working in her heart for three months” urging her to decide to .be a Chris tian. Just so is He working in the hearts of thousands of China’s girls and women who are just waiting to hear the message of the One Who alone saves and satisfies. Surely God is ready and waiting “to work a great work in our day” if we will but believe.
Hupan has been deeply interested in this social work, and in addition to her regular membership fee she has recently donated $300 for a special relief carried on by thè League during a serious flood. This Social Service League is endeavpring to awaken the consciences 6f Chinese -women to the need of their own countrywomen, and arouse them to activity along lines of social regeneration. Seeing their wonderful signs of progress, and hearing of the open-mindedness of the people, both men and women, made it ail the more difficult to believe the words of a young Chinese man accompanying us who said that ten years ago we should have been beaten and driven out of the city had we been entering it on a similar errand. And all the more wonderful was the story we listened to that first night from the lips of one of the missionaries who told of his en trance into Changsha on Thanksgiving night, 1898. This was the first entrance that really counted towards the opening of the city to the Gospel. Think of it, just fourteen years ago! Driven out of the city in less than a day by the officials, he came back a week later only to be forced out again and sent away down the river. But he persistently returned again the next year, to be attacked, beaten by an angry mob and again sent away down the river. But he -persistently returned the next year to be attacked, beaten and again driven from the city with cries of “Kill the for eigner.” In 1900 every foreign missionary was obliged to leave Changsha and almost all the chapels were„ destroyed. Even so late as 1910 an anti-foreign riot took' place at which time many of the missionaries had to leave the city in the guise of beggars. Even in far away Hunan a marvelous change has taken place since 1911, the year of the revolution. Before 1900 not a single school for girls was carried on by the gov ernment ; in 1914 in Changsha alone there were twenty private or government schools, with 2000 students. An audience of 2030 girls and women listened to Mr. Robert
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