Robbie Taggart

by Michael Phillips

  “Why did not the other villagers pitch in and give him a hand?”

  “They are sorry for Li,” replied Hsi-chen, “but he has alienated most of his neighbors, especially after the incident with Chang. Li was responsible for that whole attack, and even the handful of his companions had not intended for anyone to be hurt. Even the villagers who are opposed to the mission would never stoop to violence, and are in fact appalled by it.”

  They walked on in silence for some time. Then Robbie paused and turned to Hsi-chen. “I realized now that I’ve been wrong about many things,” he said. “But I still don’t know what to think of your father.”

  “What you think about my father is not so important, perhaps,” she replied. “He is but a man and does what good he can. He makes mistakes like everyone, and will continue to do so. He is but a tool, and yet a tool greatly used by our Lord. I think it is not the tool, but the Master Builder upon whom you must base your understanding, Robbie. Do you know whom I mean?”

  “I suppose I do,” answered Robbie with a perplexed crease in his brow. “It has to come down to what I think of God himself, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes. It always comes down to that for all men and all women in the end. That is really the only question in life there is.”

  “Hsi-chen, I don’t know what I think. I’m not sure I want to think anything. I’m not even certain I can. I’ve just never been the type to go in for . . . you know, for religion.”

  “With the religions of my people, it is perhaps a matter of religion. But Christianity is not a matter of religion. It is a life with a God who is personal and who is love. That’s what is so different about the Christian way, Robbie Taggart. The man Jesus makes everything different, Robbie. Different and new.”

  Robbie kicked at the dirt. Again the confusion washed over him. And the questions! Why did God require him to make a choice? Wasn’t it enough just to believe and let it go at that? He was no heathen. He was trying to live a decent life. Wasn’t that good enough?

  “God will show you the answer,” said Hsi-chen quietly. “He is the God of peace, not confusion, He carries the answer to your frustrations in His heart.”

  ———

  Later that evening Robbie sat at the table for dinner with the mission “family.” It was a different sort of dinner than any previous had been. Now Robbie sat among these people not as a fighter, or a rescued sailor, or a temporary worker at the compound. Instead, he was a seeker. No one had to say anything about the change. Yet something in the air told him everyone was aware of the difference—including him.

  For the first time since the shipwreck and his seemingly accidental landing at this most unusual of places, his vision was clear. Now he saw each of these people in a new and different light. No longer did they appear to him as weaklings unable to face life, hiding behind their religion, cowering under the thumb of the authoritarian figure of Dr. Isaiah Wallace.

  Coombs, for example, was no weakling. He had proven that the day of the fight. But he had chosen instead to serve a God of peace and love. He could have had dozens of other occupations, perhaps with more glory or riches. But he had chosen this life!

  Prim and proper Miss Trumbull was not a stoic and unfeeling schoolmarm. Now he could see her as a courageous woman who had sacrificed her Victorian nature and whatever fineries might have been hers to enjoy in the drawing rooms of England to serve her God in a backward foreign land with no luxuries to look forward to.

  And Wallace himself . . . he loved these people just as the God he served loved them. Yes, he expressed that love differently than Jamie had. But it was there, and it was real, and Robbie could no longer ignore it.

  But what now?

  What would be required of Robbie Taggart, Highland sailor, adventurer, wanderer? Where had his journey across the oceans of the world led him? Had he been led here, on some sort of holy pilgrimage, without even realizing it? Of all the places he could have landed, why here?

  Was he now to give up everything he had known, everything he held dear in life, to do as these people did? Was he to serve the God these people so nobly espoused? Yet Hsi-chen had already answered that question for him. He could not accept a God only because of the people, the tools, He used. They might alert him to God’s presence, and they might help him to understand God’s character. But in the end, this God had to become real . . . to him—He had to become a personal God, as Jamie had always said.

  ———

  When dinner was over, Robbie found himself alone in the sitting room with Wallace. One by one each of the others had gravitated away, perhaps sensing the need for the two men to talk together.

  Robbie thought back to the first time they had been alone in that room. How indignant he had been at the man’s righteousness—self-righteousness, he had thought then. Now Robbie sat quietly sipping a cup of tea, wondering what the good doctor was thinking. For a long time they sat, Robbie thinking that Wallace would begin at any moment, not knowing if he relished such a private interchange. But when at length it began to appear that Wallace did not intend to initiate any conversation, Robbie sucked in his breath and decided to plunge in with a question that had been nagging him all afternoon since their meeting in the field.

  “I’ve been wondering, Dr. Wallace,” said Robbie, “this afternoon when we met in the field, why did you tell me not to be afraid? How did you know?”

  “I did not know,” answered Wallace. “I only guessed—from experience. It is a fearful thing to come into the presence of the living God. I sensed that you were struggling with Him even as we spoke.”

  “Why should I be fearful? I thought He was a God of love.”

  “He is. But until you know that, know Him in an intimate and personal way, it is not so easy to stand before Him, or even to think about the possibility of casting aside your reservations to claim this Lord as your own Friend and Companion and Redeemer.”

  “Yes, I have been afraid—and I have wondered,” said Robbie, simply but thoughtfully. “But something inside keeps telling me that it’s only when you’re weak or in trouble that you should need God. I’ve always prided myself on being a man, on being strong, on being able to take care of myself. Isn’t that what it means to be a man?”

  “In the kingdom of man, yes. But in God’s kingdom things are often just the opposite from what they seem to our earthbound eyes. All men, all women need God, whether they be weak or strong. You are drawn to Him because there is an emptiness within you that will always be hungrily searching, even unconsciously, until it is filled with the Spirit of Jesus Christ, God’s Son. You can take care of yourself, Mr. Taggart, feed yourself, fight for yourself, think for yourself. You are a very self-reliant man. But the one thing you cannot do for yourself is satisfy that hunger within you, which is in all men, that hunger after something more than the world can give you, that hunger after the person of the God who made you. It will always be there, aching to be satisfied, until you turn to Him. It is the same struggle that all men and all women must face sooner or later in their lives. In God’s providence, your time seems to have come now.”

  Robbie was silent, staring vacantly into his cup of tea. He had many things to think about, things that had come to him unsought, but which now he could not escape.

  “Do you think you will be less of a man in confessing your need for God?”

  “I suppose I have thought that,” answered Robbie earnestly. “I suppose that is the basis for my reluctance, for my fighting so hard against what Jamie used to tell me, and what you and Hsi-chen have been telling me now. I have always looked upon religious people as somehow . . . I don’t know—lacking in something. Lacking in self-confidence, lacking in that strength to take care of themselves. I always thought religion was all right for women, of course, and old people—”

  He stopped abruptly and looked almost sheepishly toward Wallace. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “Think nothing of it, my boy!” laughed the doctor. “I’m not offended in
the least! Believe me, I’ve been called many things worse than old!”

  Robbie smiled.

  “Please go on,” said Wallace. “I truly am interested in what you’re thinking.”

  “I suppose I always thought that there must be something wrong with a man if he had to use God as a crutch. You must know what I mean—men like the Vicar—I mean Drew.”

  “The Vicar?”

  “He used to be a clergyman. But he was so filled with turmoil inside him that now he’s nothing but a drunkard and a coward.”

  “Hmm,” mused Wallace thoughtfully.

  “And other so-called religious men I’ve run across. They’ve all seemed to be . . . well, if you’ll forgive me, mollycoddles—if you know what I mean.”

  The doctor laughed again. “Weaklings, not quite men in the full sense of the word, is that it? Not the sort of men you’d go to the pub with and have a good time?”

  “That’s it! And I couldn’t stand to become one myself, or even to be looked upon as one. I can’t help it—I’ve got a certain pride about who I am. I’m not sure I want to let go of that.”

  “That’s the great fallacy, Mr. Taggart,” said Wallace, “that we have to let go of our beings when we come empty-handed to the Lord. True, there is a moment, like a brief moment of death, when we must give it up, lay it on His altar and say, ‘I give my whole self up to you, Lord God.’ And yet that moment of death to the old is also a moment of birth—of birth into the new life. We leave behind the kingdom of man, and are born into the kingdom of God. And that moment is sometimes a frightening one. There is a relinquishing of all that has come before, of all we have wrongly thought about God, of all that pride we have built up around ourselves. All that must be laid down. But at the same time there is a wonderful new birth. And out of that birth emerges a new perspective on life, new goals, new attitudes, new priorities, and a new and more complete personhood. Out of that new birth comes your true self—even greater and stronger and more vital than what you thought your old self was. Because now it is not a self-reliant existence; instead, it is God-reliant. The moment of death is brief, and it is followed by receiving back so much more than you laid down. We lay down little bits of twigs and straw, thinking them so valuable; and yet the moment we do, we are given gold and silver in return.”

  “You make it sound both wonderful and easy,” said Robbie almost sarcastically. “But from where I stand you might as well ask me to jump over the moon.”

  “Wonderful? Yes, though not without its own kind of hardships. But easy? No. I realize that it is an awesome change to confront in one’s life. I am afraid I cannot assuage your fears with words, Mr. Taggart. There is only one thing that in the end will dispel them . . .”

  He let his words trail away as he rose and went to the bookshelf. There he drew out a Bible. He leafed through the pages a moment, then stopped and read: “‘And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.’”

  “You said that this afternoon,” said Robbie, “that perfect love casts out fear. What did you mean?”

  “When you discover that Love, you will find the end to your fears. But no one can talk it into you. You, on your own, must come face-to-face with the reality of God’s love through His Son Jesus. Only when you see Him for who He truly is will you be capable of understanding fully what I am saying. Then you will be able to perceive what the scripture means by having boldness. Then you will see that it is only a true man who can face Christ and admit his need—not because you are weak any more than all men are weak in light of Christ’s strength, but because you have seen the reality of His person, and know you are nothing without Him. Contrary to the world’s view, it is the coward who shrinks from that admission, and it is in fact the true sign of manliness to make it.”

  Robbie sagged back in his chair. He had never heard such truths before, even from Jamie. He sat in silence a long time. Wallace seemed not in the least bothered by the lapse in the conversation. He remained standing by the bookcase reading further in the Bible as if their talk had ended. Perhaps for him it had; he knew it would accomplish little to attempt to talk Robbie into a faith. Robbie felt constrained to speak, but for the moment he had nothing to say.

  He was, for the moment, spared from having to give the matter further thought when Hsi-chen came quietly into the room.

  “Fu-ch’in,” she said, “forgive me if I interrupt you.”

  “Come in, my dear,” said Wallace, holding out his hand to her. “What is troubling you?” Her face was etched in tension, the same look Robbie had seen about her when Chang had come into the mission that day seeking the doctor.

  She approached her father and took his outstretched hand as if for very life. “A man has come to the mission,” she said, “from one of our villages upriver.” Seeming to gather strength as she spoke, she continued on. “ A small group of bandits came through their village last night. They were fearsome, he said, though they did no harm other than getting drunk and stealing some food. But one let it slip that they were on their way to the mission—on their way here!”

  “This frightens you, Hsi-chen?”

  “I know God will care for us, but . . . I am frightened, yes. Fu-ch’in, they are with—” She paused, as if the name caught in her throat. At last she forced out the rest, “Their leader is Wang K’ung-wu!”

  It seemed impossible, but for a brief moment even Wallace appeared daunted by the mention of the name. Robbie also started forward where he sat, for there was something familiar about the words, though he could think of no reason there should be. As he searched his mind, suddenly the words of a pirate aboard the ill-fated Sea Tiger leaped back into his memory.

  “I would not miss watching you squirm before Wang K’ung-wu . . .”

  What can it mean? Robbie wondered. What could be the possible connection between some friend of the pirates and the mission? Was he, Robbie, somehow the reason for their coming?

  But the look that passed between Wallace and his daughter said something else. Wallace was hardly the type to be frightened over mere bandits. They could take or destroy what they would about the mission compound. That was always a danger inherent in missionary work, and he had accepted it long ago.

  But the danger they feared was much worse than that.

  46

  Tale From the Past

  Robbie and Hsi-chen were walking again outside, only now it was under a star-studded evening sky. A light breeze wafted over them from the river, relieving some of the stifling heat of the day.

  “What can the fellow Wang want here?” asked Robbie, perplexed. “I heard his name mentioned by the pirates who sank my ship, as if he was even worse than that lot.”

  “Wang is a very powerful man in this area,” replied Hsi-chen, “perhaps in all East China. But his power comes not by government sanction, although the very weakness of the central government makes it possible for men like Wang to wield their will over the land. They rule by force, instilling fear in the folk of the country. Because here we are closer to Hangchow, our villages have been relatively free from their terrible sway. Such bandits prefer to concentrate their activities in the outlands where they are not near the scrutiny of the legal authorities, such as they are. We had been free from them until several days before your arrival here.”

  “I was afraid I might have somehow drawn them here.”

  Hsi-chen sighed, then turned to face him. “No, Robbie, it is not you they seek.”

  “Then who? What could they possibly want here?” Robbie’s eyes reflected the depth of concern that had begun to form in his heart for this tiny piece of the world, previously so unknown to him, where he found refuge in the midst of his soul’s turmoil.
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br />   “I am afraid you will hardly believe me when I tell you, for it is the last person you could imagine being drawn into such an evil drama.”

  “I don’t understand,” replied Robbie, puzzled.

  “They seek my mother.”

  “Impossible!” exclaimed Robbie. “What for?”

  “You once asked me how I came to Wukiang,” answered Hsi-chen. “I said it was a long story. But in the story is contained the answer to your question. That same day you also told me you loved stories. But this will not be a pleasant one to hear.”

  “Don’t tell me what I shouldn’t know,” said Robbie. “But if there is any way I could help, I would like to know.”

  As Hsi-chen began to speak, Robbie listened attentively. But as she had warned, the story was tragic, despite its seemingly happy ending. Hsi-chen’s voice often broke as she spoke, catching on the emotion which lay in her heart as she related the events that had befallen her mother, Shan-fei.

  ———

  The story was of a girl, the daughter of an old and wealthy merchant family. The power of the House of Tien dated back nearly as far as the great Manchu dynasty itself. Tien Shan-fei lived as a princess, no matter that she had no royal blood in her delicate veins. Indulged and pampered in every way by her parents, by the age of fifteen—two or three years beyond what was considered the best age for such things—she had still not been promised in marriage. Other families might have begun to worry about their daughter making a good match at such a late age, but the parents of Shan-fei harbored no such concern. She was sought after by the best families, not only for her beauty, but for the promising family connections she would offer. Yet because marriage for a Chinese maiden meant separation from her family, sometimes forever, Shan-fei’s parents were loathe to encourage the inevitable. In poor peasant families, girls were a drain on the meager budget, and as they reached a certain age were usually married off by necessity. Such was not the case for the Tiens. Yet they could not keep their beloved daughter indefinitely.