7. J. O. Fraser of Lisuland
CHAPTER SEVEN
J. O. FRASER OF LISULAND
WHEN AT THE CLOSE of The Firs conference in 1923, Mrs. Whipple lent me a book called The Growth of a Soul, she had no idea that for many years Dr. and Mrs. Isaac Page had been secretly praying that God would lay His hand on Isobel Miller for missionary service in China. She did know, however, that in the life story of Hudson Taylor, founder of the China Inland Mission, were experiences of searching for God and proving Him which were parallel to some through which I was now passing.
Anyone who knows The Growth of a Soul will recognize the gold mine it was to me. Hudson Taylor went much deeper in his searchings, of course, and came out with definite maxims for life and conduct. “Learn to move man, through God, by prayer alone” was one of the many that I eagerly noted, and it has blessed me all my life.
By the time I had finished the book one thing was clear to me. I wanted to belong to the Mission that Hudson Taylor founded: I wanted to work with the group who had proved God in that quiet, unostentatious fashion.
Having finished The Growth of a Soul, I went on to read the second volume, The Growth of a Word of God—the founding of the China Inland Mission. It was while reading this that I received a call to the field. Previously I had felt a call to the Mission regardless of where it worked. But as I read of the sorrows and sufferings of Chinese women my heart was greatly stirred. I knew now what a heartache was. When I had been groping for a way out of spiritual darkness, my Bible was handy on my bookshelf. It was easy for me to find the way. But what about those who had never heard of Christ? No matter how willing they might be to follow Him fully, if they only knew of Him and of His death for their salvation, they must perish unless someone went and told them. How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? (Rom. 10:14). I knew I must go and tell them. So when I arrived at The Firs in 1924, my decision to apply to the China Inland Mission had already been made.
No one needed to give up a pair of shoes to bring me to the conference for the second time. I had been saving money during the year, and had also applied for the position of waitress to earn my board while there.
I was simply thrilled to be back at the beloved place. I ran, almost flew, from spot to spot of hallowed memory. The cabin which Edna Gish (now back in China) and I had shared, the spot in among the tall fir trees where I had often prayed alone, the open-air auditorium where our classes had met, the original Firs cabin with the big fireplace where we had held such blessed times of testimony—I wanted to see them all. Last in my inspection tour was this old cabin. I dashed in eagerly and was halfway to the center of the room before I could check my impulsive entrance. For it was not empty. One lone occupant, a middle-aged gentleman, was sitting there by himself. He smiled at my surprise, and I tried to apologize while backing out as speedily as I could.
Some old bachelor, I told myself, and flew off to look at the kitchen. How I sensed that he was unmarried, I do not know. Maybe it was a certain lonely, wistful look in his eyes. Anyway, I promptly forgot him in the joy of greeting other arrivals, and getting into the swing of the waitress routine, which was new to me. Little did I dream that I had just met one who was to be a spiritual lodestar to me and to the dear husband God was planning to give me but of whose existence I, as yet, knew nothing.
It was not until the evening meeting that, to my intense surprise, I found that the “old bachelor” of the sitting-room loneliness was seated on the platform, and being introduced as our principal speaker for the conference—Mr. J. O. Fraser of the China Inland Mission. I had never heard of him before, and apparently neither had anyone else. Even Mr. Whipple probably did not know at the time that this young Englishman was an honors graduate of London University in electrical engineering, and a brilliant pianist. He appeared among us as a simple missionary, and never by word or action gave any hint of his extraordinary gifts.
When he got up to speak, he told us simply how the C.I.M. had sent him to one of the farthest corners of China, to the border of Burma and Yunnan Province. There he had worked among the Chinese for several years, but had frequently noticed a people coming into the market who were not Chinese at all. They did not speak Chinese among themselves and they did not dress like Chinese. They wore turbans and their clothing, especially that of the women, was very colorful and trimmed with cowrie shells and silver bangles. They knew some trade-language Chinese and through this he discovered that they were Lisu tribespeople who lived in the mountains of the Salween River canyon. They had never heard of the Lord Jesus Christ, and their language had never been reduced to writing—they were entirely illiterate. Moreover, they were not idol worshipers like the Chinese, but animists who worship demons. God called him to go to these people with the Gospel.
Since he was scheduled to speak several evenings during the conference, Mr. Fraser told us of a different phase of work among the Lisu each night. For instance, one night he took us itinerating over those wonderful alpine mountains, climbing great heights to where small villages perched—precariously, it often seemed!—on the edge of abysmal ravines. He told of the language difficulties—how he learned it from living with the people in their smoky little shacks, how he reduced it to writing, and how with two colleagues he was led to form what is now called the Fraser Script.
Another evening he stressed the patience needed in teaching the older folk, illiterate from their youth. He was full of humor and his descriptions of the old ladies who declared they had no power of memory, and then were tricked by him into relating with detail what had happened to their children fifteen years ago, were simply hilarious—and touching. We learned to love those old women.
One lecture was on the spiritual battle in the heavenlies. How he roughed it, and labored, and had given them a written language—and still there were so few converts, and such as did come were not stable. Then he wrote his mother in England to gather in the neighbors and pray. It was only after this prayer group began to function in earnest that “the break” came in the Lisu tribe. At that time he on the field had been led to resist in Christ’s name the devil and his host who were holding this tribe enchained.
As I sat listening I saw plainly that it was true the Lisu church was born in prayer travail, and I decided that I must also employ this weapon of “all-prayer.” It is so obviously effective and is attainable to any of us. I received a life-pattern at that moment for which I have ever been grateful.
Another evening was given over to the joys of harvest. He took us on a trip with him, and his descriptions were so vivid that we were simply transported out of America to the mountainous banks of the Salween canyon. We saw him dressed in the costume of a Chinese coolie, lest better clothes detract from his message, with a Lisu carrier or guide, climbing the steep approach to one of these high villages. He cupped his hands to his mouth and gave the Lisu call: “Ma-pa chi la-o!” (The male teacher is arriving!) at which all the dogs of the village rush out and down the path at them. Then followed the banging of doors and merry shouts as the brightly colored costumes of the women flashed back and forth and the menfolk darted forward to drive off the dogs. The Christians lined up to shake hands, and as the tall missionary went down the line each woman managed to stick an egg into his hand as she gave the handshake of welcome! They had learned that he liked eggs, so he always had to carry a bag over his shoulder to hold the eggs, fresh and ancient, which such a visit collected!
He told of the Prophet’s Chamber behind the chapel, which the Christian villagers built for him on learning that queerest trait of the white man, that he liked privacy sometimes! Imagine wanting to be alone! Eh, eh, how queer! Perhaps it came from the color of his skin. But if he wanted privacy he should have it. So he had a little Prophet’s Chamber of his own in each village.
Then would start the catechizing for baptism. He told of going to call the next candidate and finding the man on his face, prostrate in prayer, asking his new-found Saviour to help him to answer correctly, so that he might be adjudged ready for this solemn step.
And so on.
The last night Mr. Fraser said he needed more missionaries—young men of consecration, willing for the privations and loneliness such a life entailed.
Down in my seat in the side aisle my heart thrilled with love for the Lisu people. Inwardly I prayed, “Lord, I’d be willing to go. Only I’m not a man.” Never did the vision of the Lisu tribe leave me. I dared not name it a call, but I believe that time has proved it was.
My father was with me at The Firs that summer. And as it happened, he was Mr. Fraser’s cabinmate. To my surprise, I found out that Father had invited Mr. Fraser to come and stay with us in Victoria for a week, before he sailed for China in August. That summer we had rented a house at Oak Bay, near the beach, and had room for a visitor.
I was amazed at Father’s temerity in inviting Mr. Fraser without consulting Mother, because she and my brother at that time were both opposed to my going as a missionary to China. And Mother was not likely to be pleased at bringing a C.I.M. missionary into her home when she was trying to influence me to be content with Christian work in America!
But I was thrilled at the possibility of having a private talk with Mr. Fraser about missionary service. I was hoping to go to Moody Bible Institute that autumn, but the obstacles in my way were so many that I sometimes wondered if they could be from the Lord. I was Mother’s only daughter: how important was that? I had made up my mind, during those evening talks on Lisuland, that this unknown missionary was a great man of God. His gifts, apart from his platform ability, were still hidden and unknown to me, but the man himself was obviously walking closely with the Lord. It was one of the thrills of my life in later years, to discover that many others, far more capable of judging such matters than I, also acclaimed him as one of the great spiritual men of his generation. He is, of course, the hero of the book, Behind the Ranges1—written many years later after his death by Mrs. Howard Taylor.
Come he did, and by his simple sincerity and kindly interest won the admiration both of my mother and brother. My mother had been a musician before her marriage. She composed music and often wrote the lyrics too, and none of her pieces had ever been refused by any publisher to whom she offered them. She did not go on with this after marriage—that was all. It was in seeking for a contact with Mother that Mr. Fraser suddenly revealed his brilliance at the piano. Mother was enthralled. They “talked music” and Mother knew the names of his teachers and said he had been taught by some of the best masters in London.
I was watching for a chance to present my own problems, and it came later in the week. Mr. Fraser wanted to see the beach and I was appointed to take him down one afternoon. We were no sooner alone than I told him I had wanted to speak with him about my missionary call, so we sat down on the sands by a rocky bit of shore and I told him. I have never forgotten that session.
“Missionary life can be very lonely,” he said quietly, and then he proceeded to unfold some of his own early sufferings. I believe now that he did it deliberately to sift me. If I were truly called of God, I would not be discouraged by plain talk about the cost. If I were not called by God, but just had romantic notions of a foreign land, the sooner my gossamer dream wafted away the better. But he little knew the unveiling of his own life that he was giving unconsciously. In fact, as he reminisced he seemed to forget for a while that I was present. His blue-grey eyes brooding out over the sunny, sparkling ocean, he seemed almost to be talking to himself. In the quiet of contemplation, as now, his eyes seemed to reveal an understanding of all the sorrows and loneliness that a human heart can know. Acquainted with grief, they were sad eyes; knowing the victory possible, they were steadfast and patient.
I told him of Mother’s viewpoint and her opposition to my call. He answered with the slow drawl which was his when thinking out a question—for none could talk faster than he on occasion: “I have sensed that Satan is opposing you and working through your mother and your brother. We are taught ‘whom resist’ when it comes to obstacles produced by the devil. I think that should be your stand. In prayer resist the devil, always remembering to be kind to those who are unconsciously his tools at the moment: II Timothy 2:24. I have a prayer-formula which I use on such occasions. It is this: If this obstacle be from Thee, Lord, I accept it; but if it be from Satan, I refuse him and all his works in the name of Calvary. I have found that this formula works.” I was to use it throughout my life and never found it to fail when prayed with the honest intention of obeying all that it implied.
Again Mr. Fraser brooded out over the ocean thoughtfully, then added, “I wonder if you will ever get to China. You are very young and you have great obstacles to face.” He lapsed into a reverie for a few moments, then began to talk as if he knew what to say: “It is even conceivable that after you get to Bible school, Satan will attempt to get you away. For instance, a telegram might come saying that your mother was very sick and urging you to return home immediately. Now, if that should happen, you cannot leave the moment you get the telegram. You would have to pack your trunk and buy a ticket, and these things take time. Is there any Christian in Vancouver or here whom you can trust to be unprejudiced and yet godly enough to discern such a matter and be able to advise you?”
“There is Mr. Charles Thomson, district secretary of the C.I.M.,” I answered.
“The very man!” he replied quickly. “If you get such a telegram, wire immediately to Mr. Thomson, asking him to check just how ill your mother is. By the time your trunk is packed you should have his reply, and can then see more clearly the path the Lord would have you take.”
I listened in awe, but would have been still more amazed if I had known how exactly that prophecy was to be fulfilled.
He that is spiritual judgeth all things (I Cor. 2:15).
It was an afternoon well spent. Upon the plastic material of a young life had been imprinted standards and ideals which were to last forever. And a deep glimpse had been afforded me into the life that is hidden in God—the cost of it, the fragrance of it, and the power of it.
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1 China Inland Mission, 1944.