June, 1939
T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
214
Whangpoo River. Center: In the midst of these awful surroundings the ministry of love is carried on. Courtesy, "China's Millions."
Left: All that remains of a peaceful home after the war-birds have passed. Right: Devasta tion of hundreds of boats jammed in the
What I Saw in War-torn China By ROBERT HALL GLOVER * Philadelphia, Pa.
M Y RECENT journey to China was not my first, but my fifth. I visited China not as a newcomer but as one who previously had lived and labored there for many years, and had traveled in almost every part of the country. My stay this time was brief, and limited to the coast al region because of the war's making in land travel inadvisable. The picture I beheld in China was at once dark and bright, so dark as to be heart breaking, so bright as to be heart-rejoicing. I know this statement is paradoxical, but what follows will explain. I. The Dark Side I saw war, with all its ghastly horrors. No words can describe adequately the dev astation and destruction, the suffering and death which the Japanese invasion has left in its wake. I gazed upon what had been a great and populous city—the native sec tion of Shanghai—but what was now a wide expanse of desolate ruins. Here and there could be seen pitiable survivors searching for some mark of their former homes—but in vain. One scarcely could conceive of any number of bombs and shells as being able to effect such utter desolation. The material loss in destruction of prop erty soars into dimensions beyond any fig ures to express. Property losses in the city of Nanking alone were estimated at $246,- 000,000 in Chinese currency. And Nanking is only one of a score of large cities totally or partially destroyed, not to mention hun-
as those of several other societies, have been completely destroyed, and the plant of the Kiangwan Seminary for young women, a high-grade institution both intellectually and spiritually, has been badly damaged. At Kiangyin, on the lower Yangtze, six days after the Japanese forces had captured the city and when all military resistance had ceased, the entire plant of the Southern Presbyterian Mission, consisting of seven teen good buildings, was deliberately bombed and reduced to ruins. This was the oldest station, and the largest and best equipped, of that Mission, and the loss is irreparable. Thus far thirty-four mission hospitals have been victimized, ten of them destroyed, and the rest damaged, looted, closed, or appropriated by the invaders. The China Inland Mission in common with other missions has suffered considerable loss through the destruction and damage of its properties on a number of stations. There is much more that I could tell of what I saw and learned pertaining to the dark side of the picture, instances of horrid cruelty and crime, of bestial behavior on the part of an unrestrained soldiery, and of harsh and arrogant treatment of the popu lace in areas at present controlled by the invading forces. Bat I prefer to say no more just now about this feature, but to turn to the brighter aspect of the situation. II. The Bright Side I found God still in China, and I saw glorious evidences of His working in spite of the war, yes, and actually by means of the war as well. 1. I saw the missionaries still there. The missionaries had been, given the op-
dreds of smaller towns and countless villag es. All along the 120 miles of rail journey I took from Shanghai to Hangchow were to be seen the charred remains of burned hamlets, as well as the. leafless stumps of tens of thousands of mulberry trees wan tonly cut down, entailing the ruin of the extensive silk industry of that region. Be tween two and three million people fled pell-mell from the inferno into which burst ing shells and incendiary bombs turned the native city of Shanghai. Great numbers died during the flight—from wounds, shock, disease, exhaustion. In the first twelve months of war, 79,000 dead bodies were picked up by the municipal police on the streets of Shanghai’s International Settle ment, while 62,000 little children under five years of age died in the refugee camps of that metropolis. The “death trucks” were still making their daily rounds when I was there. Up to the present, fully one-and-a-half million Chinese soldiers and civilians have been killed by the Japanese forces. A large proportion of these perished not within the fighting areas but in inland towns and vil lages far removed from the battlefields, and through the incessant raids of bombing planes cruising in every direction and mercilessly raining wholesale death upon defenseless communities. The total number of homeless and destitute war refugees is estimated to be as high as 60,000,000. All this constitutes a tragedy which has scarce ly a parallel in human history, and the ap palling proportions of which the Western world has not begun to comprehend. Have mission properties been spared from destruction and damage? No, indeed. The fine buildings and equipment of the well- known Bethel Mission at Shanghai, as well
*Home Director for North America, China Inland Mission.
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