by Jennifer Lin
The one person who has witnessed my obsession almost from the start is my husband, Bill Stieg. I know you’re supposed to save the best for last, but I could not continue without acknowledging right here and now his role in this book. Bill is a graceful writer and thoughtful editor, who gave me honest criticism, constructive ideas, and endless encouragement. He literally read every word of every draft of every chapter—and changed more than a few, always to make the narrative stronger. He encouraged me to follow the story wherever it took me, whether it was back to China for more reporting or jetting off to London or Austin, Texas, to comb through archives. Through more than thirty years of marriage, he has made life seem like an endless adventure, full of possibility, and for that, I am eternally grateful. It is no exaggeration to say that this book would not have come to fruition without Bill working beside me.
I have been fortunate through this odyssey to have friends and family in my corner. My sisters—Angela, Daria, Damien, and Stefanie—shared my curiosity about the family history. They carefully read my drafts and cheered me on. My children, Cory and Karl, were good listeners and knew that when Mom was in her “zone,” writing in the attic, they should tiptoe lightly. They were troupers, too, at ages three and five, when I announced to them that we were “moving to China!” Later in life, they accompanied me on separate reporting trips to China to research my book.
My lao pengyou, old friends from my days as a Beijing correspondent, offered critiques and indulged me by listening to me yammer on about this project for years and years. Thank you to Rod Mickleburgh and Lucie McNeill; Richard Tomlinson and Tess Poole; Mary Kay Magistad; Renee Schoof and Bob Erskine; and Vivian Polishuk. My former news assistant in the China bureau of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Knight-Ridder Newspapers, the incomparable Guo Hui, worked with me as I dug into the past. Her daughter, the equally talented Wei Xinyi, joined me on expeditions to the Shanghai municipal archives. Meanwhile, in Germany, my research assistant for the book, Mei Chen, provided prompt translation of documents, chapters, and articles and checked my manuscript for historical accuracy. The reporting for many sections depended on her contributions. Another translator and longtime friend who aided me was Chen Yourong, who was also my first Chinese-language tutor, a job that required enormous patience. Meanwhile, in Australia, Colin Hall provided new material on the life of Watchman Nee.
Because I wanted to write this book as a narrative, I relied on diaries, letters, and articles that I found in archives to bring the places and people to life. Henry Hong took me on a walking tour of Shanghai to show me some of the sites from my family history, including the Wing On neighborhood and Third Uncle’s house. Archivists, meanwhile, fed my obsession and were as thrilled as I was with every little discovery. Gratitude goes to Ivana Frlan and her team at the Cadbury Research Library’s special collections at the University of Birmingham in England; Martha Smalley and Joan Duffy at the Yale Divinity School Library; Sarah Dana of the Archives of the Episcopal Church in Austin, Texas; Kaiyi Chen and Nancy Miller at the University of Pennsylvania; and the library staffs of the Episcopal Divinity School, Drew University, and Princeton Theological Seminary.
Over the years, numerous scholars gave freely of their time to help me understand the history of Christianity in China. Joseph T. H. Lee of Pace University and his wife, Christie C. S. Chow, led private tutorials to guide me through the teachings and legacy of Watchman Nee. Daniel H. Bays, who wrote A New History of Christianity in China, answered questions, read my manuscript, and offered encouragement. Robert André LaFleur of Beloit College shared his boundless insight into Chinese history, Buddhism, and Confucianism. In Hong Kong, Philip L. Wickeri, an adviser on historical studies for the Anglican archbishop, opened up his archives, sharing books and documents as well as making important suggestions. On two occasions, he invited me to present papers on my research at academic conferences in Hong Kong, allowing me to connect with Chinese scholars who also provided direction and information on archival sources. To those many Chinese experts, thank you for your interest and guidance at critical stages of my reporting.
Along the way, I have met many kindred spirits, including fellow researchers working on family histories or interested in China’s Christian history. While wandering online, I stumbled upon the work of George Niu of Fuzhou, who had an English-language blog on the rich missionary history of his hometown. George located for me a rare photograph of my grandfather from 1920. He also introduced me to Chen Zhaofen, an expert on the history of the hospital where my great-grandfather worked as a surgeon.
I got to know many helpful “mish kids,” the children of missionaries, including Peyton and Mary Craighill, and Helen Roberts and her daughter, Katherine Granfield. Luckily for me, Frances Slater, a retired geography professor in London, spent years researching the life of her relative, Archdeacon John R. Wolfe, a Fuzhou missionary for more than a half century. She published much of her research, including primary sources, in several books. Her efforts saved me multiple trips to archives. Also sharing materials with me was the daughter of Angus Kinnear, the biographer of Watchman Nee who authored Against the Tide. In London, Fiona Putley allowed me to look through her father’s files and photographs, two of which appear in this book.
As a reporter for more than thirty years, I could count on my former colleagues at the Inquirer for their expert opinions. Avery Rome applied her sharp pencil to the first draft of my manuscript, while Sue Warner, Jeff Gammage, Emilie Lounsberry, and Andy Cassel provided thoughtful feedback on an ongoing basis. At critical junctures in the reporting of this book, editors Bill Marimow and Stan Wischnowski gave me time away from work to move the project forward.
I also owe appreciation to the many inquisitive friends whose unwavering curiosity in my topic bolstered my confidence when I needed it most, people like Jane Pepper, Linda Harris, Bob Fu, Robert Strauss, Joshua Bergey, Kathy Hacker, Miriam Hill, Monica Yant Kinney, Maria Panaritis, David Beverage, Wayne Baumgaertel, and the Dance Moms of Doylestown.
Finally, I want to thank Jessica Papin, my agent with Dystel and Goderich Literary Management, who believed in this project from the very beginning, and the editors of Rowman & Littlefield, who have taken my obsession and put it between two hard covers.
Notes
Prologue
The scene at the Tian Chan Theater was based on Liberation Daily newspaper, February 1–10, 1956; Lily M. Hsu, My Unforgettable Memories: Watchman Nee & Shanghai Local Church (Longwood, FL: Xulon Press, 2013), 113–51; Angus Kinnear, Against the Tide: The Unforgettable Story Behind Watchman Nee, rev. ed. (Eastbourne, UK: Kingsway, 2005), 264–79; and Basil Sun, A Higher Ground: Testimony of a Tortuous Life Journey (Sydney: Aukeli, 2001), 49–53.
Chapter 1: Cook
To re-create the world of Chinese converts and missionaries in Fujian in the mid-1800s, I relied on Church Missionary Society Annual Proceedings, 1862–1917; CMS Annual Letters of the Rev. John Wolfe, 1862–1910, published in 2007 by John Fitzgerald and Frances Slater in a print-on-demand publication, JRW: CMS Annual Letters, at http://www.lulu.com/johnfitzgerald; For Christ in Fuh-kien (London: Church Missionary Society, 1904); Daniel H. Bays, A New History of Christianity in China (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012); Ellsworth C. Carlson, The Foochow Missionaries 1847–1880 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974); Ryan Dunch, Fuzhou Protestants and the Making of Modern China 1857–1927 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001); Eugene Stock, The Story of the Fuh-kien Mission (London: Seeley, Jackson & Halliday, 1890); and John Wolfe, “The Fukien Mission,” Church Missionary Gleaner, October 1894.
14 His arrival as a passenger: Donald MacInnis, China Chronicles from a Lost Time: The Min River Journals (Norwalk, CT: Eastbridge, 2009), 200–202.
14 It didn’t help: MacInnis, China Chronicles, 200.
15 Missionaries seized the moment: Carlson, Foochow Missionaries, 64–66.
15 “I preach and preach”: Carlson, Foochow Miss
ionaries, 65.
16 When Wolfe arrived: In his annual letters to the CMS office in London, the archdeacon recounted his travels and work in the region around the village of Erdu, which at the time was known as Nitu.
16 In Ningde: Stock, Fuh-kien Mission, 158–59.
17 giving up their worship of idols: Stock, Fuh-kien Mission, 162.
17 Lin Yongbiao was an old man: Genealogical records at the Lin Ancestral Hall in Erdu, Fujian Province, recorded the time and date of the birth of Lin Yongbiao; his son Lin Dao’an; and his grandson (my grandfather) Lin Pu-chi. The jiapu also contains some biographical details, such as when individuals died, burial sites, and information on heirs.
18 foreigners were out to poison: Rev. John E. Mahood to CMS board, Sept. 8, 1871; Carlson, Foochow Missionaries, 128–32.
19 road to Fuzhou: Many early missionaries wrote vivid descriptions of Fuzhou and Fujian province, cited in Stock, Fuh-kien Mission; Stephen Livingstone Baldwin, Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly, Dec. 1884, http://foochowmission.blogspot.com/2014/09/foo-chow.html; Lloyd Llewellyn, “Fuh-chow, the Banyan City,” Church Missionary Gleaner, June 1, 1899; MacInnis, China Chronicles.
21 temples on Black Stone Hill: John Fitzgerald and Frances Slater, Wu Shih Shan Affair, in a print-on-demand publication at http://www.lulu.com/johnfitzgerald, reprinted: Trial transcripts and court filings that appeared in the Hong Kong Daily Press from April through August 1879; 1878 article on the conflict that appeared in the publication Fair-Play, Hong Kong; Carlson’s paper, “The Wu-shih-shan Incident of 1878,” in Festschrift for Frederick B. Artz (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1964).
22 Stewart was in charge of the project: The Reverend Robert Stewart, letters to the CMS board, September 6 and 14, 1878, from the Australian National University online database for The Flower Mountain Murders, compiled by Ian Welch, part II, 185–92, https://digitalcollections.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/7273.
Chapter 2: Doctor
After the death of my great-grandmother, Zhan Aimei, the magazine for the Fujian Diocese of the Anglican Church ran a brief obituary, CHSKH Fukien Diocese Monthly 10, no. 4 (April 15, 1943): 12–14. I used that to retrace her life.
She met her future husband in Funing (known today as Xiapu). The most detailed description of missionary life in that walled city was found in Elsie Marshall, For His Sake: A Record of the Life Consecrated to God and Devoted to China (Oxford: Religious Tract Society, 1896). Marshall, one of the eleven missionaries and children killed in Gutian in 1895, studied Chinese in 1893 in Funing.
To further re-create the world of my great-grandparents, I reviewed the annual letters to the London-based Church Missionary Society from twenty-nine missionaries and one Chinese cleric stationed in the Fujian cities where they lived, including Mary Isabella Bennett, Funing, 1902; Maria Dechal Boileau, Funing, 1890–1894; Janet Clarke, Funing, 1894–1895; Jemima Clarke, Funing, 1894–1904; Rosamond Clemson, Funing, 1896–1899; Hugh Mortimer Eyton-Jones, Funing, 1891–1896; Augusta Frederica Forge, Hinghua, 1899–1902; Florence Annie Forge, Hinghua, 1903; Emma Sophie Goldie, Funing, 1888–1891; Anna Louisa Greer, Funing, 1899–1900; Gertrude Maude Harmar, Funing, 1899–1901; John Hind, Funing, 1903–1904; Marcus Mackenzie, Funing, 1898–1902; John Martin, Funing, 1886–1890; Isabella Mears, Funing, 1891–1893; William Pope Mears, 1891–1893; Sydney James Nightingale, Hinghua and Sieng-iu, 1899–1904; W. S. Pakenham-Walsh, Fuh-kien, 1901–1904; Kathleen Power, Funing, 1892; John Riggs, Funing, 1889; Leonard Star, Funing, 1898–1899; Charles Shaw, Hinghua, 1894–1901; Thomas de Clare Studdert, Funing, 1898–1903; Mary Synge, Funing, 1899–1902; Samuel Synge, Funing, 1897–1903; Birdwood Van Someren Taylor, Funing and Hinghua, 1890–1903; Christiana Van Someren Taylor, Funing and Hinghua, 1893; Edith Marian Thomas, Funing, 1897–1900; Ting Chung-seng, Sieng-iu, 1903; and W. S. Walsh, Funing, 1898.
On the work of Fujian missionaries from Dublin University, I also consulted: R. M. Gwynn, E. M. Norton, and R. W. Simpson, “T.C.D.” in China: A History of the Dublin University Fukien Mission, 1885–1935 (Dublin: Church of Ireland, 1936); Project Canterbury, A History of the Dublin University Fuh-kien Mission, 1887–1911 (Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, 1911).
27 The stone bridge: Robert Nield, The China Coast: Trade and the First Treaty Ports (Hong Kong: Joint Publishing (H.K.), 2010), 149–73.
28 The cook enrolled his son: Multiple interviews with his granddaughter Martha Sun, 1980 to present.
28 He selected the cook’s son: Y. Y. Huang, Streams of Living Water (Singapore: Diocese of Singapore, 1972) 101–3. Also see Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, Culture and History Committee, Xiapu Cultural and Historical Materials, “A Promoter of Western Medicine in Xiapu: Mr. Taylor,” no. 8, 104–6.
28 To reach Funing: Church Missionary Review, The Dublin University Mission in China, vol. 59 (July 1906).
29 The deacon immediately dismissed: Taylor defended his medical missionary work in “Twenty Years’ Experience in the Training and Employment of Medical Students,” China Medical Journal, Shanghai, Oct. 1901. Taylor and his wife, Christiana, regularly reported on their work in CMS publications, including Medical Missionary Quarterly, 1892–1895, and Mercy & Truth, 1896–1899.
30 “We were thought to be spies”: Taylor recounts this in Medical Missionary Quarterly in 1892, which reprinted his “Paper #2.”
30 a military officer asked him for help: Eugene Stock, The Story of the Fuh-kien Mission of the Church Missionary Society (London: Seeley, Jackson & Halliday, 1890), 307–9. The treatment of addicts was discussed in Donald MacInnis, China Chronicles from a Lost Time: The Min River Journals (Norwalk, CT: Eastbridge, 2009), and Kathleen L. Lodwick, Crusaders against Opium: Protestant Missionaries in China 1874–1917 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2009).
31 two out of three patients were addicts: Taylor made multiple references to the prevalence of opium addicts among his patients in annual letters. It was also referenced in Gwynn et al., “T.C.D.” in China, 31.
31 Another British cleric in Funing: Rev. Hugh M. Eyton-Jones, annual letter to CMS, December 6, 1895.
35 Elsie tried not to laugh: Marshall, For His Sake, 54.
35 the nearly blind woman: Rev. Dr. S. Synge, annual letter to CMS, December 17, 1901.
35 felt like a barn: Marshall, For His Sake, 45.
37 the world opened up inside the classroom: Descriptions of students were gleaned from the annual letters of teachers, including Rosamond Clemson, Janet Clarke, and Edith Thomas.
38 celebrated with a banquet: Marshall, For His Sake, 61–62.
38 A young English lady: Marshall, For His Sake, 39–41.
Chapter 3: FirstBorn
39 On a Monday morning: W. S. Pakenham-Walsh, Twenty Years in China (Cambridge: W. Heffer & Sons, 1935), 40–51. Also see W. S. Pakenham-Walsh, “The Reform Movement in China” (London: Operative Jewish Converts’ Institution, 1911), in which he describes the mood in the country from 1900 to 1910.
41 the Anglican mission was “half asleep”: W. S. Pakenham-Walsh, annual letter to CMS, January 13, 1908.
41 “you will never get ten boys”: Pakenham-Walsh, Twenty Years in China, 45–47.
42 voluntary incarceration: R. S. Maclay, Life among the Chinese (New York: Carlton & Porter, 1861), 145–46. Additionally, Ralph Gold of the YMCA photographed the vacant examination center in Fuzhou.
45 Autumn winds brought rumors: Many missionaries described the battle between Qing and revolutionary forces. Among them are the American physician H. N. Kinnear, who provided a detailed account in his annual report for the Foochow Missionary Hospital for the year ending January 31, 1912. Rev. Pakenham-Walsh also published an unsigned diary of the week of fighting in the English-language newspaper, the Foochow Daily Echo. While the account ran without his name, the newspaper clip was sent to the CMS office in London, and both Pakenham-Walsh and a colleague told the home office that he had penned t
he unsigned newspaper account.
47 lop off the braids: Missionaries in Fuzhou described the rush of men to cut off queues in 1911, including Edith Couche in the unpublished manuscript The Garden of the Lord: The history of the C.E.Z.M.S. Work in China (no date).
50 On the third Sunday in February: Eleanor Harrison, a missionary with the Church of England Zenana Missionary Society, described the ceremony for the consecration of the Trinity College chapel in an undated letter from 1913. She made particular note of seeing the son of Dr. Lin, adding that he was bound for the ministry.
Chapter 4: Light and Truth
The main sources for this chapter were Mary Lamberton, St. John’s University, 1879–1951 (New York: United Board for Christian Colleges in China, 1955); Andrew Y. Y. Tsu, Friend of Fishermen (Ambler, PA: Trinity Press, n.d.); F. L. Hawks Pott, A Short History of Shanghai (Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh, 1928); issues of St. John’s Echo, 1915–1917; and catalogues for St. John’s University, 1915–1920.
53 Inside Alumni Hall: “St. John’s University: Closing Exercises,” North China Herald, February 8, 1913, 379–80.
54 In September 1915: W. S. Pakenham-Walsh, Twenty Years in China (Cambridge: W. Heffer & Sons, 1935), 114.
55 By 1915, the foreign population: Samuel Couling, Encyclopedia Sinica (London: Amen Corner, E.C., 1917), 508.
59 He was a senior theology student: Lin Yutang reflected on his years at St. John’s University in From Pagan to Christian (Cleveland and New York: World, 1959), 35.
