TH E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
406
Thanks to God In a Japanese Prison By BRUCE F. HUNT
Along with more than thirty K o r e a n Christian friends, M r . H u n t , mis sionary of the Committee for Foreign Missions of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, was imprisoned in Manchuria for opposition to shrine worship and gov ernment c o n t r o l of the church. H e was held in the Harbin jail four days, later handcuffed and taken to the Korean border and placed in solitary confine ment in a large peniten tiary. Tried before a high er court of Manchuria and found not guilty, he was nevertheless o r d e r e d de ported as an undesirable alien. While he was preparing for deportation, war be tween the U n i t e d States and Japan broke out, and on December 8 he was re imprisoned. Many w e r e the times, during the 105 days of im prisonment, and later dur ing the six months in con centration camps and ex c h a n g e ships, t ha t M r . Hunt p r a y e d w i t h the Psalmist, “ Bring my soul out of prison,” but always on the condition that such deliverance should glorify God and that he m i g h t give thanks unto H im . Today in the comfort of home in America, he gives praise to God for de livering him and uniting him with his family, but chiefly for H is sustaining grace.
I T WAS getting dark in my cell at the close of that first long day of solitary confinement. The chill gloom of a late October day was grow ing oppressive. The prospect of an other night on the hard floor, while I would try to keep my toes under the edge of the overcoat which was my only covering, was far from pleasant. That morning a guard had thrust a cake of steamed corn at me; then, with his hand, he had scooped a few leaves of salted cabbage out of a bowl and slapped them on top of the corn cake. This had been breakfast. After “breakfast,” I had had de votions. The Bible having been taken from me, for my Scripture reading I was forced to resort to memory, which, in my case, never had been good. I went over all the Psalms and other Scripture passages I could think of. I sang all the hymns I could remem ber. Then followed a long season of prayer. With no distractions, there was time for all my friends: to pray for them individually. The various towns and villages where I had preached the gospel in the United States, Can ada, Korea, Manchuria, and North China came up before me, and I prayed for them each one. There in prison,! had a great longing to glorify God in every experience into which He .brought me. I spent some time carving a Bible verse on the hard plaster of the cell wall with the metal tip of my shoe lace. When my f i n g e r s became cramped from trying to write with such a small object, I changed my occupation and began a systematic Search of my literally lousy clothing. This was my first day in solitary con finement, but it was the seventh day since my arrest, and in the preceding prison I had been in a crowded, ver min-infested cell which had left me with my clothes literally crawling. The search ended, I'began pacing my cell vigorously for exercise and went through some calisthenics. Still there was time left in what seemed an end less morning, so I stood.and just gazed through the bars across a prison cab bage patch, now denuded and bare,
at the high brick wall of the peniten tiary, wondering how many more such interminable days I would be spending in this place. - Lunch, which was another corn cake with a bowl of thin cabbage soup brought to me by a couple of chained prisoners under guard, created a wel come' break. The afternoon dragged out to supper time, when there was another corn cake and salty cabbage. I did not want to sleep in the day, lest sleep should not come at night, so I filled in my time with other periods of prayer, song, and exercises. But they seemed repetitions of what I had done in the morning, and as I thought of the countless times I might be re peating them before I was released, they already began to take on a monotony. A Heart Sings In Prison The chill gloom at the end of that first day was oppressive, so I sprang to my feet to throw it off, feeling a Christian had no right to be despond ent. God would, I knew, enable nae to glorify Him, even here. I began whistling a tune under my breath and, before I knew it, was putting words to the tune. Gradually they took form and I was singing: “ Give thanks, give thanks unto Je hovah, for He of kings is King! Let every nation, race, each tongue and tribe, unto Him praises bring.” The gloom was dissolved. The Lord had put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God, and I was thrilled to realize I was going through the ex perience David records in the fortieth Psalm when he said, “ I waited patient ly for Jehovah; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay; and he set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in Jehovah.” I did not want to lose the song, but I had alwayb had a poor memory, and
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