The Unseen Missionaries 187

The Unseen Missionaries 187

THE UNSEEN MISSIONARIES

December 12, 1939.

Let Him lead thee blindfold onwards, Love needs not to know; Children whom the Father leadeth Ask not where they go.

Tersteegen.

"BLINDFOLD ONWARDS"

We thought we were going to Luda for just three weeks. It happened that five of our Ma-Pas had to go back to their home in the Stockade

Hill District for one reason or another: Luke to take his little daughter to school there; Job to be present while his dead father's estate was divided; Andrew, Titus, and James for other reasons. It seemed just the time for us all to unite in giving the Luda district a bit of help—a shower of love and grace—before going our separate ways for the winter.

One bright November morning we started out with the best evangelistic party we could assemble—Luke and Lucius, and two of our best deacons. Job also was to meet us at Luda. So, full of hope that God was going to give us revival blessing, we began the trip.

For six days we travelled, with adventures every day, but I will quote mainly those parts of the narrative that touch the problem at Three Clans.

THE RECEPTION

The last morning a happy, long, serpentine tail of us wagged along the river road. Rock formation was entrancing. At one point was a huge wall as smooth as if the missing part had been sliced off with a cake knife—a cake hundreds of feet high. At its feet approaching us was a little band with a gaily bedecked horse. "What is this—a wedding party?" I asked Peter.

He smiled knowingly and said, "No; not a wedding party." Then the supposed party began to shout and wave to us, and here if it was not a reception committee from Three Clans Village! Their serviceleader A-ge-tsi and many others—and the red-trimmed horse-was for us to ride, if you please!

But this was not all. Farther along we met someone else, who handed John a written invitation for the evening meal! Still farther on was a shout and along came the famous A-deng, who had paid forty cows to redeem his wife so he could marry her. With a bamboo tube in one

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hand, a tea kettle in the other and a grand smile on his face, he invited us to drink out of the kettle's spout—honey-water, but cold.

"Oh, take a good drink, Ma-Pa," he said. "I've plenty more here!"

| patting his long bamboo tube. Still farther on were some more Three Clans folk with hot honey-water—much more palatable, for the Lisu do not strain off the wax, and cold wax bits were sticking in my mouth.

At the riverside, before the ascent to Three Clans Village, they had made a second raft (for at that time of the year we did not need to go over by rope bridge) to get us all across more quickly, and on the hither bank were still more folk waiting to greet us with hot tea! At the top of the hill was an arch of wild orchids and a long line (Lucius counted over a hundred and then lost tally) for Three Clans is a big village, "the New

York of Lisuland," says John.

We never had been given such a reception before, but our elation was short-lived. Alas! it was not all affection (though some undoubtedly was), for Three Clans had an axe to grind. The three main clans in this village were at loggerheads over some mountain plots left them by their ancestors, on which valuable wormwood had been discovered, and they all were in hopes that John would settle the dispute. Each relay of the reception, then, was not the lovely thought we had imagined, but a different clan trying to gain our favour. One side would not come to meet us with the other side, and each was afraid the other side's attentions would outdo theirs! Alas and alack for the missionary who takes things at surface value!

We had not brought Luke and party just for pleasure. They scattered over the hills to give a loving ministry, but before doing so they assisted

John in the long and tiresome discussion meetings over this wormwood.

More or less all day and late into the night our party pleaded with those dear folk to be forgiving and generous toward one another, and to accept the church's decision rather than take the disagreement to the heathen official for settlement. Though respectful and loving (I want to say that for them), they simply would not listen. John refused to make a decision—in fact, Ah-be-pa and all said that it was impossible—so they

"went to Egypt" for aid, with the result we had expected.

The Chinese official came to inspect the disputed fields. They had to carry him on their shoulders free of charge, kill a pig and feed him royally, and then he went back home and sent them this word: "First tax—for weariness of feet"—the trouble of inspection, but the title amuses me, for his precious feet never touched the ground, so to speak—

"$220.00; after this is paid me I will give judgment," which means the tax for that, and the tax for writing out the document, and other incidental charges will be made later after he received the Weariness-of-

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Feet Tax! Result—the quarrellers are sitting around holding their headaches and groaning. Now my husband will say that is an exaggeration, but it just describes the woeful countenances I have looked upon.

The devil surely is a hard master, but men won't believe it until they feel his blows.

Three Clans was only one out of many villages in that great Lisu district, so John decided that we had better change our plans and stay three months, instead of three weeks, and tour the whole district. In the meantime, word of the seemingly hopeless condition of Three Clans could be sent home, and the Lisu prayer partners could get under its burden.

With that decision made, we entered into the Christmas festivities.

December, 1939.

Gop's CuristMas GIFT We had not expected any gifts this year. Notice from the Chinese post office said that after last July all parcels from abroad containing—

(then followed pages of forbidden imports which seemed to include everything that a missionary uses)—would not be allowed to cross the Chinese border, so we concluded all gifts for us would accordingly be confiscated. Nobody knew we were to be in far off Luda for Christmas anyway, so the possibility of a private celebration never entered our mind. We set our hearts to forget what Christmas used to be like and to make it a happy day for the Lisu. But His Name is Wonderful and part of the wonder of Him is revealed (to those with eyes to see) in the way He thinks and takes care of even very little things which add to happiness.

But the first was not a little thing. Some weeks before Christmas we had heard most astounding news—that Mr. Morrison, a missionary of another mission to the north of us, had already received his Lisu New Testament! A little later we received a note from him, asking if we could spare him some of our Lisu hymn-books. Very crafty were we. We immediately sent him a load of them with the request that he lend us some of his New

Testaments! He was most kind and gave us all that he had left—not as many as we had hoped but enough for us missionaries to have one each—and we were able to send one to Job

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and one to Luke. Oh, the joy of owning a copy—it has not left me yet! I felt as I turned its pages that God had given me all the Christmas gift I needed to make me happy, but He had yet | more in store. The evening of Christmas Day, carriers from Oak

Flat unexpectedly walked in with mail, and in their bag was our girlie's Christmas gift to us—a new photograph of herself; and also two small packages from America (containing things forbidden to cross the border! Was the postal examiner asleep that day?) In one of them was some candy, so we had a white man's Christmas after all. In those days of China's turbulence, no one but God could have timed mail to arrive like that!

Job, very busy as all Ma-Pas are during the festivity, wrote us later: "I got the New Testament you forwarded, Big Brother; thank you. I was very pleased to get it. That evening the festival was on, so I was too busy to do more than glance at it. All night

I was so happy I could not sleep, so at midnight I got up and studied it. Iam ever so delighted. Thank God."

The time had come for Luke and Job and the others to bid goodbye to us and start on their long trek to their homes in the south. As our little band of dear comrades dropped out of sight down the steep mountainside, and we turned back to the missionary shanty, it seemed cold and desolate. I noticed a watery look in my husband's eyes, and I could hardly keep the tears of loneliness out of my own. Leila Cooke had once written from that very same house, "I feel as if I've jumped off the edge of the world," and now I knew what she had.meant.

We felt sorry too, that the evangelistic party which had come to Three Clans with us with high hope that God would use us, had to return with the knowledge that all our labours, exhortations, and teaching had seemingly been in vain. But there remained one hope. The returning party carried with them letters to America and England, to the prayer partners of the Lisu Church and when those faithful, unseen missionaries got to praying, things might happen. We had explained the Three Clans problem and had given details of the need. Keep this in mind as the story unfolds to you just as it unfolded to us. We saw nothing, felt nothing, but turned our attention to the large district, full of villages, around the village of the Three Clans. We left the latter

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I9I to the Lord, and to the unseen missionaries; for we had done all we could without them. Now I quote:

The evening of December 30, returning from prayer meeting, we heard voices in the servants' shanty. Peeking in, who should we sce but Simon, Caleb, and another Plum Tree Flat boy—Joshua. The little bamboo hut rang with shouts of mutual joy, and the loneliness which had haunted us since arriving here seemed to melt away before the warmth of their comradeship. They had come, not for themselves, but to give several months to the Lord in either forward evangelism or teaching. Everyone is food-conscious these days, and most young men are making strenuous efforts these winter months to make money by trade or other work, with the hungry future in mind. Seth, Simon, and Caleb are all married men, each with a little one to care for, yet they are putting His Kingdom first, for they know there is a spiritual dearth in Lisuland worse than its physical need. Seth we did not see, for he had been retained in Oak Flat District in the absence of Luke, Thomas,

James and Job. I wish I could pray down some special blessing on those _ three and their brave wives, but it comforts us to realize that the Lord is more careful to reward faith than we could ever be.

Sitting around the wood fire, John said to them something like this:

"Well, Mr. Fisher of Lanping" (an independent missionary) "has asked for teachers to evangelize the Lisu around his district, but our own Luda field is in such sad need of teachers that I'd like to split you three—find a partner for Joshua and send them to Lanping, keeping Simon and Caleb here in this field to go around the villages and teach." Hugging their knees, the boys looked up and said, "Anything you decide is all right with us. We want the Lord's will, that is all." A young Luda

Christian was present, and the next day John asked him if he would be Joshua's partner—he knew the road across the mountains and could act as guide and helper in general.

"T have to be back to plough in March, but I will be glad to go until then," he answered. So we named him Thaddeus, and he and Joshua left early on New Year's morning to mine for Christ in the mountains around Lanping, a Chinese city some five days' journey east of here.

New THINGS WITH THE NEw YEAR AT LUDA

To reach the missionary's home at Luda you must first prepare for a terrible climb, perhaps two thousand feet up from the banks of the Salween. Luda Mountain is gracefully knobby, and the village itself is spread over these tiers of knolls. It is a village of over four hundred souls and, as you climb, to right and left and in front of you are these rounded

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swells of the mountain with Lisu homes perched on their flat tops.

Daniel's family live toward the bottom, so you may perhaps first meet his pretty little sister shyly waiting at the roadside to shake hands, as we did.

After this breath-taking ascent you follow a bamboo-trough watercourse around the side of the knoll on which the chapel is built, and above you on the next mountain knob are two native bamboo shanties at right angles to one another. The one facing you is marked on the door "Mr. Cooke" and the right-angle one is marked similarly "Charlie," only, of course, in Lisu. As you pant up through the hillside garden to Cookes' front door, you notice a big tree down to your right and beneath it a roughly fenced enclosure. That is God's garden, where two precious grains of wheat have fallen into the ground to bring forth fruit more abundantly. Weather-worn wooden crosses are roughly carved "Sylvia Ward" and "Earl Carlson," with texts which I do not remember. Significantly, opposite the large tree which shades their sleep is a huge old stump.

"That was a devil-tree in the old days," said John to me. "The people used to worship it, and when they turned Christian they were still afraid of it, so Job said, 'I'm not afraid of it! Bring me an axe and I'll cut it down !'—and that is how it fell."

Up behind the simple shanties winds a road to further mountain tiers, where Peter and Dan live, and crowning all is a precipitous mountain peak out like a gingerbread loaf. I looked everywhere, on arrival, and inquired for Leila Cooke's waterfall which she had so enticingly described in her circulars, but saw none, and no one seemed to know of it. Then one day it was revealed, and this is how it happened: it snowed. Lucius was hoping it would, for in all his twenty-one years he had never seen it snow. From the low-lying Village-of-the-Olives, when the clouds cleared after a rainstorm, he had seen that the opposite peaks were white, and once only someone had shown him a wee bit of the white stuff brought down from the heights but that was all he knew of snow. One morning early, toward the end of the Bible school, I heard Lucius go out the kitchen door; then came a great yell, ""Ma-Ma!

It's snowing ! A-bo! A-bo! (Oh my !) It comes down just like the rain does!

A-bo! A-bo!"" An hour later an excited laddie was showing us a snowball.

"Ts this what you used to throw at one another when you were a little girl in America, Ma-Ma?"

"Yes, Lucius; only do not pack them too tight or they will hurt."

"I'm going to put mine on the stove and see what will happen," and away he trotted, while John and I exchanged grins, but allowed him to make his own experiment. Soon he reported. "Yes, it turned into water.

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They had told me you could cook with snow, but I did not believe them." Well, he himself had to cook with melted snow for some days after, for it continued to storm and the water ceased flowing. Gradually the snow turned to rain, and it was then, in the quiet night that we heard a steady, thunderous sound. It was the waterfall! Dry weather had turned it into a mere dripping, but the storm had brought it back to life. It falls in tiers down the ravine which faces Cookes' house and can be heard but not,seen from there.

In January, 1940, we toured the district of Luda, and in the course of events came to the village where Mary of the Nosu tribe lived: we called her Nosu-Mary.

In THE Home or Nosu-Mary These are Yunnan's golden winter days—a chill nip in the air, but until February, clear skies and little fear of rain or snow. This is the time to travel, so on the second of January we set out to visit the southern part of this field, with Nosu-Mary's home particularly in mind. We visited eight villages, holding service and sleeping in six of them, and also held a baptismal service in one of the cold mountain streams. It was an exciting journey for we rode Jasper and Jessmine, though many folk said animals could not possibly go over those trails. Undoubtedly little horses would have been of small use and how grateful we constantly were to friends at home for their gift of our big mules. In several places, we had to say to those begging for a visit, "Fix the road for our mules to pass and we will come." One place was a rock ascent where we could not even "ride by tail," for the mules had to spring up it at a run. Another place was a face of rock about thirty feet high broken three times by earth ledges some ten feet apart. Against the rock leaned the now familiar knotched-sapling ladders. Truly no animal could climb them, but they found a detour through dense growth which "Jas" and "Jes" could traverse after having all harness removed.

What a difference a frame makes to a picture! Mary against the frame of her dainty cousin last summer had seemed so loud and unattractive.

But up here among her own wild mountains, and especially against the frame of her own mother, Mary shows up quite golden. I think, of all the women I have met who have loud, piercing voices, Mary's mother ranks among the three most outstanding. (One was an elevator girl in Canada, one is a Chinese woman in a poor, mountain-top village, and - the third is this little old Nosu lady!) I heard her about fifty yards away before ever we met. "Eh-eh, now isn't this just awful? They told us you weren't coming till Saturday, so we have no flower arch made to N

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welcome you. It's perfectly dreadful, but there was nobody home to make it, and we can't help it; you will have to forgive us," and so on, was shouted in a continuous stream as we appeared around the curve of the road and came toward her. But oh, what a kind heart—she had

Mary lives; and a full, happy, gurgling stream at the bottom, night and day seems to testify that a person has to talk loudly if she is to be heard above its chatter.

Like most husbands of talkative females, Mary's father is a silent partner, but he listened to our messages with such a glowing countenance, and at parting put a leg of pork into my hand, a practical token that he was one with the rest of them in good deeds. Mary is the oldest child; she is followed by two brothers and a sister. One of the boys was very ill some years ago and all expected him to die. Later Job heard of him. "Why, is that fellow still living?" he exclaimed. "He ought to be called Lazarus!" And the name stuck. So Mary and Lazarus live together in the house by the rushing stream. Lazarus now is twenty-one, plump, healthy, and a very keen student.

The village is a small one and the chapel one of the tiniest we have been in, but those who worshipped there were among the best taught and the most interested we have met in this district. Isn't that a good testimony for Nosu-Mary?

A gladness greeted us shortly after our return to Luda Village. Aristarchus, Secundus, and a new convert named Yongpeh-Peter arrived from Yongpeh! Tired, thin and worn, our dear Aristarchus is just the same as ever. When John asked him to give a word about the work at Yongpeh at the Saturday Prayer Meeting, he got up in the old awkward way, with the same old awkward "Ahem... Ahem," and then sailed into his testimony. "Now this is not the work of Aristarchus, nor is it the work of Secundus. This is the work of God." After plainly emphasizing that, he went on to tell of four hundred and thirty-five adults and children in Yongpeh who now own the name of Christ.

Another great joy on our return to the Cookes' shanty was the arrival of the Lisu New Testaments, packages and packages of them—enough for everybody!

"Now we really must have a February Bible School!' cried John, and at the following chapel service in Three Clans Village, he stood up and said something like this: "Now that the New

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I95 Testaments are here, and the missionaries are here temporarily, we really must have some teaching on the Word of God. I am going to send word out all over this district and invite anyone who wants to come, to join us in study for the month of February.

We go back in March. Now you folk at Three Clans were a heavy disappointment to me in the Big Matter, when I asked you for Jesus' sake to rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded than to dishonour Him by quarrelling in front of a heathen judge. You did not do it, and my heart is sore." Here there were many nods and tears in a few eyes, in the audience. The Three Clans believers were not individually hard-hearted; it was just that they were in bondage to the law of the clan and did not know how to get free. "Now I am going to ask one other thing of you. Don't say no to me. Iam going to ask you to entertain the students of the February Bible School—one family to feed one student, or even two students, for one month. Now that is not a lot. Hands up, those of you who will promise hospitality to one student for the month of February!'

And hands went up all over the chapel. Dear souls, they wanted to do right. They were just enslaved to wrong and had not the courage to break away. So the Bible School was held. I quote from the circular:

The February Bible School was just ending. It almost failed once.

It is hard for people who have lived an active outdoor life and never been to school all their days to keep their noses in books for a month on end. By the middle of the month numbers had dwindled somewhat.

A delegation of Nosu interviewed John on that rainy, cold, miserable day.

"We must go home. Dan's sister-in-law died of typhus last night and we daren't stay," they announced. It was true that the typhus epidemic then raging in other parts of the canyon had reached Three

Clans Village, but only in Dan's home, which is the very highest in the village and so easily segregated, and it proved later that his sisterin-law had not died. John pleaded with them to trust the Lord and not go, but they shifted uneasily, and it was plain they meant to leave.

' There was only one thing left to do. John and I went into our bedroom, shut the door, and asked the Lord of Calvary once more to vindicate

His victory there, over Satan and all his powers. We said no more to the students, but not one of them left, and the school finished the month triumphantly. Oh, how well we know that it is not we who do the work; feeble little us-lings whose best arguments were but as empty air to

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those restless, frightened students. And in the blessings poured out finally, we had to stand and just look on and marvel; like Jannes and Jambres of old we must admit, "This is the finger of God."

Bible school teaching days are very difficult ones in which to write circular letters. Although thrilling to the teacher, they make poor "copy" for the writer. Every day is just the same in events, and it is impossible to appraise the work justly. Often the student who gives the most brilliant testimony of blessing received, does not turn out afterward so satisfactorily as the lametongued one who could not put anything into words—so that the writer does not know what to record. Many of the students of that February Bible School could not even read properly, and to judge from appearances some learned practically nothing all month. Yet experience has taught me in Bible teaching not to walk by sight: His is the Word of Life and somehow it does bring life, though it may fail to do so in certain individuals. After the school had closed there seemed to be an epidemic of quarrels and fleshly outbreakings that seemed to betoken that the study had produced no results. But the last two days, March 11 and 12, without any explanation that we could discover a sudden and astounding change took place.

Before we tell of that astounding change, I must announce that the February School ended with wedding bells! A double wedding took place, A-che to A-nyi-ma, and Aristarchus to— whom do you think?—to Nosu-Mary! Feeling he needed a wife, and hearing that one girl had come all the way from Luda to Oak Flat to enter the R.S.B.S., he concluded, without knowing more of her, that she must be the right material for a preacher's wife, and he proposed on the strength of that! We do not recommend to all and sundry this way of getting a wife! but merely record it.

Great were the preparations. The mud chapel was decorated with pine needles and wild rhododendrons, and to endeavour to instil decency and order into the service, Caleb and Lucius were posted at the doors to refuse entrance to anybody after the ceremony had begun. A bench was placed in front of the officiating minister, and on it the two wedding couples with their attendants were to sit.

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All went beautifully, in tribal eyes. The brides, according to Luda custom, entered the chapel with an old skirt or blanket over their heads, so that they could hardly be seen at all, and stood thus beside the bridegroom until asked to be seated by the minister. At this crucial and breathless moment the calamity happened. Caleb and Lucius, anxious not to miss the ceremony

(the bride is,frequently too nervous to answer properly and it is often fun), forgot the doors; and a young fellow, knowing he must be late, but eager to see the evangelists' wedding, broke through. Before anyone could stop him or even realize his entrance, he had dashed up the aisle searching for an empty seat, thought he saw one in front, and planted himself hopefully on a corner of the bridegroom's bench! With one simultaneous cry of wrath and horror, the bridegroom's bench arose, two stalwart and indignant doorkeepers dashed down to the front, and _ before the luckless guest knew what he had done, five pairs of hands fell upon him, and he was evacuated bodily to a place of less honour.

Decorum having thus been restored, the ceremony proceeded.

A-nyi-ma shook so much that I went close to her in case she collapsed utterly, while Mary refused to answer anything at all—she just tittered. But then, if the brides did not do anything unusual Lisu weddings would not be any fun. To the Lisu the pork feast afterward was the most important, anyway. And so they were married.

Now we were coming to the last days of our stay at Three Clans and the most significant part of this story remains to be told. In fact, I would not have told any of it, if it had not been for this last part. For the whole material of this book is dependent on the truth I want now to emphasize. That truth is this—the slaves of the Munitions of Rock could never be freed by so feeble a thing as missionary witness and effort. They are held under a Tyranny of Darkness so strong, that only God is stronger! Only tremendous spiritual forces, working on the ground of the Atorfement of Calvary, can bring Light to those sightless eyes. That spiritual force is the prayer of many. The prayer of one or two missionaries or converts is not enough to break such bonds.

We had reasoned, we had opened up the Word of God to the

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Three Clans, until their souls shivered with conviction, but they still could not see the way out, still they could not muster up the © courage to break the custom of years. But by March the friends at home had received our appeal for prayer, and had gone to their knees in intercession. Then, and then only, this little corner of Satan's kingdom began to shake. We felt it. Notice again how that last circular read. "The last two days... without any explanation that we could discover a sudden and astounding change took place.'" When I wrote that in April, 1940, a letter with the explanation was already written and on its way, but had not reached us yet. And the letter was written in human ignorance of how the victory had come.

Those last two days we sensed that the atmosphere of the village was softening, was changing, and the night before we left to return home, my husband got an inspiration. I will let the circular now tell the rest:

The last night before we left to return to Oak Flat we held a service in the chapel. John had decided to make a plea for the abolishing of the "'law of the clan." That law was, that if any member of the clan gets into trouble whether he is guilty or not, all the rest of his clan must back him up financially or otherwise. So if one man decided to steal a plot of farm land, his whole clan would have to help him steal it.

If any man fail in this loyalty, when his time of legitimate trouble comes, he must face it alone—the clan will not help him.

John had prepared a set of paper arrows. On one set was written, "T have no desire to practise the law of the clan"; on the other set was written, "I desire to practise the law of love." That last service together

John very simply drew their attention to how Satan was binding them to sin by the law of the clan, and though it would be costly to break away from it, followers of Christ are bound to the law of Christ which is love—love toward all men, not just your own clan.

"Now I am going to ask all who henceforth will break free from the law of the clan and follow only the law of Christ to come forward, take the clan arrow, and burn it in the fire here. If you do this, I will give you a love arrow to keep always." Then he waited. There was no excitement, no play on emotion, but deliberately and slowly, one after another leaders of the various clans came forward, took a clan arrow and burned it, giving at the time a short testimony, received a love arrow and returned to his seat. Some twenty did so—all the important leading fighters but one man. (I always myself remember his name was "Lamb"

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because the word, with the exception of tones, is the same as the Lisu name for Lamb. The change in tone gives it another meaning of whichI am ignorant, so I will just call him the Luda~-Lamb for our convenience although never was there a worse misnomer.)

Lamb sat silent, head down, looking up at John through shaggy eyebrows. My husband ignored him for the moment and turned to some famous old quarrellers. He publicly named the disputants and asked them 4o stand, seek each other's forgiveness and shake hands before us all. They did so. I myself have never been present at such a scene as God gave us to see that night. Two brothers who had not spoken civilly to one another for twenty-six years were among those reconciled. Then John quietly sprang a surprise. ""Now, a certain man present has held a quarrel with the Oldest Brother" (of the two just mentioned) "and I noticed that he did not burn a clan arrow. LudaLamb! Are you going to be the only one in the village to refuse the law of love?" The old woman sitting next to me sat up and whispered excitedly, "Oh, yes, yes—those two!" But the Lamb sat silent and _ obstinate. He is one of the most powerful personalities in the community and was at the bottom of all the wormwood fighting. I whispered to the woman, "Pray for him! Pray for him!" and while we did so John said sadly, "Well, I am afraid we must say of Lamb like that one of old,

'he went out from us because he was not of us.' " Then, just as John was about to close the meeting, suddenly Lamb stood up and clearly and definitely made a public apology to his long-hated enemy, who likewise apologised, and they two shook hands.

Luda-Lamb then came forward, plucked a clan arrow and burned it in the fire and took away an arrow of love. It was wonderful. Only

God could have done it, and only God can maintain it, but He has decreed that you and I must help Him by putting our spirit with the Holy Spirit in "groanings that cannot be uttered," which is the travail of intercession.

That night, after we had returned to our shanty, I said to my husband, "John, that was more than your own inspiration.

I'm going to note this date down and see—I'm sure someone in the homelands has been very specially praying for us." And the date went down in my diary.

We returned to Oak Flat. Some two months passed. Then one day when the mail had come, I called out to my husband,

"John, read this, while I go and get my diary!'

It was a letter from a dear prayer-warrior, in a small town

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in North America, a Mrs. K——. It read something like this:

BELOVED CHILDREN:

I must write and tell you what happened to-day. All morning I could not do my housework, because of the burden on me concerning the Three Clan Village, so finally I went to the telephone and called

Mrs, W——. She said that she had been feeling the very same way and suggested that we phone Mrs. J—— and all go to prayer. We did so, each in her own kitchen, this morning we spent in intercession for those quarrelling clans. We feel God has answered. You will know.

I consulted my diary. Night with us is morning with them.

It was the very time that we felt the "astounding change" of which I had written in the circular. It was the same twenty-four hours that the clan arrows were burned!

Now these prayer-warriors were not seemingly of the earth's mighty ones. Mrs. K—— was delicate, had a heart condition.

Mrs. W—— was expecting a serious operation, and Mrs. J was going blind. All three were elderly women, too frail physically to cross the small town and gather in one place, but each in her own kitchen was joined to the others in spirit, and the strength of that extra intercession, in addition to what all the prayer-helpers were sending forth, pushed the battle over the wall.

Our Lord differentiated between the strength of demons.

(Matt. xvii. 21.) Some strongholds of Satan require more spiritual force to overthrow than others. And it is not surprising if numbers count in such battles.

I have been helped in this matter by an analogy from mental telepathy. But I do not want to be misunderstood; prayer is not mental telepathy. Science can never explain prayer, though it does profess to explain mental telepathy, and tells us that there are such things as wave-thoughts, which exercise influence upon the one to whom they are directed. Just supposing that to be true, how easy it is to see the power of missionary intercession.

For wave-thoughts would emanate only from the soul and so are limited. Prayer, on the other hand, emanates from the spirit, the only part of man that can reach out and touch God as well as man. How simple, then, the power of the prayer closet: many

THE UNSEEN MISSIONARIES

spirits working together with God the Holy Spirit for the liberating of a human soul, or a village of souls. Thus, as man has been able to advance in his research of mental telepathy, it is not surprising that those who "by reason of use of their senses exercised to discern'' can tell when they have prayed through to victory. The unseen missionary, the prayer-helper, has here an effectual weapon against the Sharp Winds from a Bitter

Height, which is the last word in spiritual warfare. Remember the parabolic picture of this in Exod. xvii. 11-14. Joshua on the battlefield won only as Moses on the mount kept his hands of intercession lifted high. Even in that work (some think Moses a type of Christ as our Intercessor) Moses had to have human help.

The missionary on the foreign field must likewise have other spirits to aid him with the battle in the heavenlies. Explain it as you wish, it is a fact, and it works.

The Lisu work has had wonderful prayer-warriors in the past; but many of them have been translated into His Presence. We are needing prayer-warrior reinforcements. And China, all

China, needs them too.

If radio's slim fingers can pluck a melody From night—and toss it over a continent or sea;

If the petalled white notes of a violin Are blown across the mountains or the city din,

If songs, like crimsoned roses, are culled from thin blue air— Why should mortals wonder if God answers prayer?

Ethel Romig Fuller.

"Jes? Pebbles''

De sunflower ain't de daisy, and de melon ain't de rose, Why is dey all so crazy to be sumfin' also dat grows?

Jes' stick to de place you're planted, and do de best you knows, Be de sunflower or de daisy, de melon, or de rose,

Don't be what you ain't, jes' you be what yo is.

Pass de plate if you can't exhaust and preach.

If you're jes' a little pebble, don't try to be de beach. de to now, this book has been mainly about outstanding

Lisu Christians, those who could "exhaust and preach."

The biographies also have been of those who have completed their course. It is not safe to write of those who are still in the running—if one had written of David, for instance, before the Bathsheba incident, he would have been accused of "'misrepresenting." All of us are possible Davids. But I would like to say that the power which wrought in the lives of Me-do-me-pa and Homay, is still working in other lives just as attractive. That power is still as potent, and you may correctly pray for the Homays and Me-do-me-pas still being stormed upon by the blasts of Sharp Winds from the Bitter Height—for there are many of them. You may pray also for those who would be Homays and Me-do-me-pas if they had their opportunity to hear the gospel— there must be many of them, too.

There are also some who are "'jes' pebbles"; and a real picture of the Lisu church is incomplete without its "'pebbles.""

Op Bic Old Big, a rough country farmer, accepted the Lord the first

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JES PEBBLES

time he heard of Him, when La-ma-wu and his party first took the gospel to Pine Mountain Village. His hut was on the lowest level of the village, but his mansion in glory. Until he died, I never heard of his dishonouring the Lord in any way. On Sundays he used to sit up near the front, and the light on his face was never dim.

Sometimes in an audience a speaker will notice one face particularly: because of its shining sympathy—always such a face is of untold help to the preacher. Old Big was like that—a tall, lean old man with a countenance of kindly wrinkles. He was delighted with the music and kept pressing forward until he was next to the organ and finally sat down on the same box as a prodigal boy. A favourite hymn was chosen and Old Big knew every word by heart. How his face glowed as he sang—

I shall know Him, I shall know Him, When redeemed by His side I shall stand; I shall know Him, I shall know Him By the print of the nails in His hand.

There he sat with such a light on his face, seemingly unconscious that beside him was Prodigal, the boy who had been at fault with his daughter. When the beautiful song was ended and the voices had dropped into silence, I could not resist leaning across the organ and pointing a finger right at Prodigal. "When we see the Lord, we shall be ever so pleased, but when you see Him you are going to be terribly afraid!' I said. And while his startled eyes held mine I reminded him of the sin which stood between him and God—and his head hung down like a shot.

There is a word of St. Augustine's which I like; to me it is the only answer to Peter's, "To whom, Lord, shall we go?" He says,

"And he who loveth Thee... goeth . . . but from Thee wellpleased to Thee displeased."

Old Big was facing his Lord well-pleased, and his wrinkled countenance was one glow of beatific joy; but Prodigal was facing the same Lord displeased, and his head hung so low you could not see his face.

Sunday in Lisuland was a different day from all the rest of the week. First of all there was a before-breakfast service for just our

NESTS ABOVE THE ABYSS

own village, when from up above us and down below us our neighbours gathered together at the Lord's feet for an hour or so.

Then followed breakfast and after a while folks from the other _ villages began to gather. To right and left thin brown trails

— crawled up the mountain's giant sides, and gradually over them came, trickling single file, village after village of worshippers who approached like tiny armies of coloured ants. Immediately on arrival most of them ran into House of Grace to shake hands with Ma-Pa and Ma~-Ma—and it used to be to hear the victrola, but it was broken later. Almost always one of the first of these eager greetings was from dear Old Big, whose village is near, just down by the Salween bank. I always looked forward to his beaming smile and loving handshake. About sixty-five years old, his kindly face was a token of "'the adding up of days in which good work is done.'' Some others of the Lisu saints may have given us heartache or worry from time to time, but never Old

Big. Behind him came his sweet, happy-faced wife. Lisu couples if they love each other never show it in public. True, the happy newlyweds sometimes cannot help letting out a beam or two, but it is not considered good form. This old couple were the exception, however, and it was lovely to watch the simple pleasure they took in each other's company. Charles named them Zacharias and Elizabeth in these latter years, for they truly "walked blameless.'' They were not rich, but so often, in shaking hands, an egg or two or some other like gift, was slipped quietly to their missionaries. The first-ripe corn each year was faithfully brought to us, and if they killed a pig, a bit of the pork would be sent up the hill as a gift to Ma-Pa and Ma-Ma, or to any of our missionary guests.

I still chuckle over the recollection of a visit we had some years ago from the British Consul of those parts. A very tall, dignified gentleman with a monocle, he was. Old Big heard that a white man visitor had come to House of Grace, and supposing, of course, that it must be another new Ma-Pa, and having just killed a pig, he trotted up the hill to present the gift himself. I was not aware of it when he walked in, until

I suddenly heard him saying in Lisu—which His Britannic Majesty's Consul did not understand, of course—"Ma-Pa,

"*JBS' PEBBLES"

we're so glad you've come. I've brought you a bit of pork!"

I turned around to see my elegant guest adjusting his monocle downward toward a strip of greasy pork tied in the middle with a straw for carrying, which was being confidently held out toward him with the left hand while Old Big's right was pushed forward for the expected handshake. I took in the situation in a second, and could have hugged the dear kindly old saint—but I feared the Consul felt otherwise! I quickly explained the situation

—in English!—and my guest proved to be a good sport, for he shook hands with Old Big while I rescued the pork and delivered it to the care of his valet!

Because of its connection with Old Big, let me quote here from the circular which told of that Consular visit:

May 27, 1941.

"Oh, Ma-Ma, look at all the pack horses coming up the ridge! A-bo, they are still coming; I've never seen such a caravan in these parts.

What can they be hunting?" This question took me running to the window, and as I watched and wondered I suddenly remembered a letter received the month before, telling of a proposed journey of the Tengyueh British Consul up the Salween canyon.

"The English Consul!" I exclaimed. "Whatever shall I do? How can we entertain a Consul in this bamboo shanty? Oh, John-n-n!" But the great gentleman was already coming over the trail, and John, having no time to give advice, ran out to receive him.

He proved to be a six-foot, well-built Englishman—a real gentleman.

He was not a Christian, but was not a hypocrite either. He made no pretence about his standing, but said that he respected Christianity and, if anything, had a leaning toward Roman Catholicism, "because of its beautiful ritual." He was really very enjoyable and endured us for two nights and a day with all the courtesy and niceness one could wish.

After he left he sent us a letter which I copy below. The "Ma" and "Ho" whom he mentions are two Lisu Christians he hired as guides from here on. This is his letter:

H.B.M. Consulate, Tengyueh, Camp Chihzelo.

Dear Mrs. KUHN:

In choosing paper to use to write and thank you very much for your kindness and hospitality to me at Maliping (Oak Flat), I have been at pains to choose a large sheet which may leave some clean paper for your students.

NESTS ABOVE THE ABYSS

Officially I am glad to have had the opportunity of meeting you; and privately it was a pleasure. I very much enjoyed my halt at Maliping

[isn't he a good sport?] and the rest refreshed me much.

Ma-fu-yi and his friend were of the greatest help to me, and the journey, though certainly arduous, was very enjoyable. The mules made it all right, with only two minor accidents, but after the first accident . . . the head muleteer became frightened and hired carriers for most of the loads.

The scenery was certainly impressive; but I was equally impressed with the work that you and your colleagues have done in this part of the world. At one time travel along this route was a matter of some danger; but now wherever I went I was received with friendliness and courtesy. Even though I was obviously no missionary (I use tobacco a lot) people seemed to take great pleasure in shaking me by the hand and wishing me "hwa-hwa."" There appeared a very real sense of companionship when Ma and Ho met other Christians and shook them by the hand. At An-a-ma-po [one of the newly turned villages this year] many of the locals produced well-thumbed hymn-books from their bags and started shouting them at me, and at night I went to sleep to the sound of hymn-singing from the local chapel. [But I must be frank and say that the hymn tunes were neither so musical, beautiful or suitable to the mountains as the wilder Lisu songs.] And while halting before starting to climb up to Bya-lo-shih one of the coolies hired by the muleteers produced a Lisa Hymn-book and Catechism and a simple

Chinese religious work from his pack and passed the time by reading to me. It was certainly most impressive.

Yours most gratefully and sincerely, M. L. GILtett The mention of the large sheet of writing paper is in laughing reference to a remark of mine that we use the blank backs of all letters not private (including his!) for scribbling paper for our R.S.B.S. students who are too poor to afford much writing paper.

The account of the hired Lisu at Bya-lo-shih especially thrilled me as he must have been one of the small group there, which group first found Christ by Luke's testimony that night in the rice-field as we went up to Luda. "Ye know not whether shall prosper, this or that." Only one believed then, but others have since, though teachers seldom get to that part, it is so far away.

Old Big did not escape from the Sharp Wind of the Munition of Rocks. At the very outset of his Christian life he was faced

"'JBS' PEBBLES''

with the problem of the two wives he had taken as a heathen.

That is a very worrisome Wind: it blows up heated discussions with relatives-in-law, and Old Big might not resort now to his former solace of an opium pipe or drink of wine, to help endure taunting words. But somehow he was led to a solution, and somehow given strength to endure. The wife that did not love the Lord, was put away, and eventually married someone else.

Safely out of that spiritual monsoon it would not be long before others blew up. Sometimes inclement weather would destroy much of their crop, their year's food; once it was a nephew hired to help him, but misbehaving. "If I dismiss him, Ma-Ma, his parents will make it hot for me. But"—and I remember how his face set—''the most important thing is eternal life." He felt that God required him to rule his house after a godly manner and,

Wind or no Wind, he did.

In 1943 we told of Old Big's death from a fever:

Yesterday as I took the weeping widow in my arms to comfort her, and tried to tell her how that dear, good, shining face was worshipping in heaven, this his first Sunday there, she whispered to me, "Yes, but Ma-Ma, I won't be able to see his face in chapel." And in my heart I had to add, "And so say we all." Too old to learn to read, he always sat up close to the front and with radiant countenance did his best to memorize hymns, texts and sermon outline, so that I had long regarded him as my special Sunday joy. During the week he held services in his own home for his neighbours and preached and sang from memory.

"Pebbles in a brook polish one another'"—thank God for the pebbles of His Lisu church.

Tue INFANT BRIGADE—AND A GOATHERD IN PARTICULAR

"Ma-Ma! The new goatherd has come!"

"Oh, all right, Homay, I'll eat supper with you all, seeing I'm alone to-night. [ll see him then. Show him his room and make him comfortable."

A new servant always meant a girding up of one's loins to attack the disagreeable. Leila Cooke once described breaking in a new cook, in words something like this: "You must teach him not to throw egg-shells behind the stove, that the sweepings of the kitchen floor will be discovered if pushed behind the door,

NESTS ABOVE THE ABYSS

not to throw dirty dishwater on the floor, and if he gets jam on his fingers not wipe it off on the wall.'' Every word of it is true. People at home have servants, too: the bottle of milk that arrives on your doorstep, pasteurized and ready to drink; the © gas which comes when you turn on the jet of your cook-stove; the water in your faucets and the electric light button on your wall. In Lisuland, water has to be carried up several hundred feet of mountain on a human back, usually. Food grains must be pounded out and husked by primitive foot-mills. Salt and sugar arrive in stone-like lumps and must be granulated by hand, and so on. House-helpers are indispensable, but not always agreeable. I have always tried to receive these trials in the form of servants, however, as an answer to the old question, What is that in thine hand?—in other words, as human souls to influence for Christ. I have not always been successful. Moreover, as pointed out before, when we do meet with success, they get called into the preaching ministry and we may not but relinquish them, and start in with a raw one, probably not nearly so easy to deal with. Goatherds are not a very close contact, however, and at supper-time I was introduced.

I beheld a little fellow (looked like nine years old, but they said he was seventeen!) seated on his haunches, with his head lowered and staring at me with the glare of a little wild animal.

I did not feel comfortable.

"All right, I said, as pleasantly as I could, after we had shaken hands, "'let's eat. Perhaps the new goatherd will ask the blessing?"

"Nope. Won't. Can't."

I was astounded! What a beginning! There he squatted, still staring at me, this time pugnaciously, a sort of hit-me-and-I'll bite-you look on his face. I turned to Homay. The church found servants for us usually, and only those who were Christians were allowed to enter our employ.

"Tsn't he a believer?" I asked.

"Yes, Ma-Ma, though not baptized yet.'' She was doing her best to be sympathetic, but the corners of her mouth were curling with the desire to laugh. "He can't read or write."

"But every Christian knows how to pray!" I continued, dissatisfied. Then, catching the look on her face—she was ever a

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JES PEBBLES

lover of peace—''All right, I'll pray then,' I agreed, and the meal started in silence.

Diminutive in size, but not at all in thoughts of his own importance, Goatherd seemed to think that he must take care that no one took advantage of him. He used to glare at me, and snap back his answers just as viciously as a little chipmunk, so I mentally labelled him that! He did not milk any more faithfully than he pleased, either. One morning we would get a quart of milk, the next perhaps a little over a cupful—but woe betide me if I tried to point out that goats don't go dry that fast! Many times we would have dismissed him for cheekiness if it had not been that he was the only son of a widow. She was blind and needed part of his wages. So we struggled on.

A year later I decided that I would not have an eighteen year-old in my house who could not read! Goatherd must learn, so at evening I called him in, told him nicely that it was good

_ to know how to read God's Word for himself and that I meant to teach him. But he made not the least effort to learn. His body was there, for he came each night if called, but that was all.

An evening is difficult for a missionary to spare, and I seemed to be wasting it all. I was almost in despair. Then the Luda trip, just narrated in Chapter Nine, took us from home for three months and Victor Christianson took over the teaching of Goatherd.

The next March, when we returned to Oak Flat, Mr. Christianson said, ""Goatherd can read now, and is learning to sing!

I've named him Amos! You'd be surprised what a nice singing voice he has!' This was as good as it was astounding. I wonder if the reason was not much due to the fact that the previous summer, when Goatherd had been very ill with typhus fever,

Mr. Christianson had nursed him as kindly and tenderly as if he had been a dear chum, instead of an unsatisfactory servant.

Now, if this were an ordinary story, I would tell you that from ' now on, Love did its work and the chipmunk became a sweet saint. But these are not made-up stories. The truth is, that although Amos "allowed" us to educate him, he still often played when he should have worked (one evening he had to report four kids eaten by panthers, only the little heads left,

NESTS ABOVE THE ABYSS

while he had been playing) and still was saucy when it pleased him—to me at any rate. Now I will quote from letters of April,

1940.

Heat Mists Heat mists come unannounced, veil all the lovely familiar mountain forms and take the colour out of life, and they are a parable, for there are times in human days when happiness seems to depart and just the drab and commonplace are left. I knew I was in for one such again, as I stood on the upper road and watched the long beloved line wend its way on to Sunset Ridge and drop out of sight over its farther edge:

John, Lucius, Cath and Victor Christianson, and a wriggly tail of carriers. Without the loved faces for over six weeks what a desolate stretch lay ahead. John and Lucius were going to Chinaland because

John's new appointment as superintendent of the China Inland Mission work in West Yunnan made a hurried survey necessary. Cath Christianson was going out for medical advice and Victor to hold meetings at Hollow Tree District. There was no reason for me to go, and every reason for one of us to remain, so here I was. Duty with the sparkle of companionship is a happy thing, but alone with more or less unfamiliar faces (for Homay and Dorcas had left us and Job and party were not yet back) it looked very drab.

At evening, I thought, there would be inspiration as usual at Sunset Ridge, but for the first time the Ridge failed me, for heat mists had truly and physically come and filled up all the canyons and covered with a grey dull film every outline of beauty which would please one's soul.

No, no comfort anywhere without, but within? No Heat Mists can blur out Him who is our fountain within, and as perhaps some of you are facing a drab period when all the colour has seemed to depart from life

I would tell you how He comforted me, for He has given peace and quiet happiness.

I have been through Heat Mists before, and I know that there are three things I must do. First, remember that this has come only to pass.

How often have I thanked Dr. Page for that story of his; there will be some of you who have not heard it, so here it is. An idiot boy was seeking for guidance in the old magic way of shutting your eyes, opening the Bible and diving your finger on to a spot at random, He had done it three times in different places and each time the book and finger came to "and it came to pass that . . ." He pondered anxiously, then the light broke. "Why, of course," he said to himself, "this trouble came to pass not to stay." So the first thing is to remember that Heat Mist days are not eternal—they have just come to pass, that is all.

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JES PEBBLES

Secondly, be sure that they are an opportunity for more abundant fruitfulness. That is always their purpose. It was the ugly confinement of prison which brought Luke's Gospel, Paul's prison Epistles, Bunyan's

Pilgrim's Progress, and Rutherford's undying letters into being.

Thirdly, tears or no tears, just go on and open your eyes to see God's edelweiss. That is what Miss Carmichael calls the little happy things sent to cheer the greyness of the Heat Mist days, as the edelweiss cheers the mountain-climber at a bleak, hard place. "The bright flowers of the edelweiss waiting to be gathered among the rough rocks of difficult circumstances—and they always find, I think, that far more than the toils of the climb, they remember the places where they gathered the edelweiss of God."

On the very first day I found an edelweiss. His name is Joe (I refuse to speak of him as Joseph; he has not attained unto that yet). He is one of the two new servants that replaced Homay and Dorcas, and the breaking-in of Joe into an American cook was one of the Heat Mists which had confronted me. I suppose every missionary woman dreads the hour-by-hour trial of training a new, raw servant.

Joe is a little old man in a nineteen-year-old skin. In other words, dignity, solemn dignity, under a pimply skin, small eyes that never look straight at you—for that would not be proper; bristly hair that by no amount of water and plastering can be made to lie flat, but with an honest heart which makes up for all. Joe wants to do well. The new girl doesn't; she merely hopes to 'hold her job. When Joe breaks a dish he is flabbergasted. When the girl does, she tells you about it with a careless laugh and if you don't show equal lightness she sulks. We prefer them to be flabbergasted.

Well, that first day at noon, when I was trying to drown loneliness by hard work on the Rainy Season Bible School preparations, Joe came solemnly into my room with an air of gravity and mystery which made my heart sink, wondering, What has happened now? Coming up close, he cast his eyes to the northeast corner of the ceiling and said in a low tone of confidentiality, "Just set the table for one, eh?" Blessed aspirant to butlership—if I had been a heathen I would have thrown my book at him for reminding me of what I was trying so hard to forget, but being a Christian and his "Ma-Ma" I got rid of him as quickly as possible and then sat back and laughed. Joe expands to his fullest stretch beneath the glory of being the missionary's cook. You should see the swell of his chest as he sets the table in the presence of his admiring fellow villagers, who know nothing of the mysteries of tablecloths and cutlery!

Yes, quite unconsciously, Joe helped me over a hard place, and I am grateful for him.

NESTS ABOVE THE ABYSS

Passionate devotion to the things which are vital delivered Paul from bitterness of soul, from anger and ill will. Disappointments and hardships .

. may be used for the perfecting of character and for the glory of Christ.—C. R. Erdman.

The above thought was a blessing to me; truly turning to things which are vital clears up self-pity and puts the pep back into life. I decided to teach a class in the evenings, calling in the servants as a start.

They assembled, and on looking them over I named them the Infant Brigade, for they are all just beginners. They do not look particularly promising. Joe was one of the first to come in. He sucked in his breath noisily and exclaimed with a happy little laugh, "This is unthinkable" — meaning perhaps, that now the dignity of Bible student, as well as of missionary cook, was about to descend upon his already burdened shoulders.

The laundress and house-cleaner is the girl mentioned above. Our beloved Homay found that she could not take care of her baby and look after us too, so she withdrew from our home, but not from our hearts.

Gruff-Growl's daughter delightedly promised to take her place, but she has proved to be not strictly honest and unless the Lord changes her heart she will have to be dismissed. She seems to like to join the evening classes, however, and of course is welcome.

Next are Mule-Boy and Amos. (It costs a great deal less to keep goats and a herd than to buy canned milk.) Mule-Boy is Simon's younger brother with the family hot temper, and added to it a graceless tongue which has nearly cost him dismissal more than once. In fact, the reason he still is here is only the compassion of Christ. During our visit to Luda one day I found a Lisu Gospel in a wrong place. Opening it to find the owner I saw written inside in ill-spelled scrawl, ""My beloved Testament." Mule-Boy had won it as a prize at the Christmas games, and has taken to Bible study since then. This year he can both read and sing, and even applied for baptism! Not at all graciously, but with obvious interest, Amos is now a member of the Infant Brigade.

My big edelweiss of these weeks has undoubtedly been YongpehPeter. As you know, Yongpeh-Peter and Yongpeh-John, converts of only a year, were sent here to learn the doctrine in hopes that they will return as evangelists to their own people so that the China Inland

Mission can gradually withdraw from those parts. But both boys know how to burn charcoal, so in the day time they burn for us (Mule-Boy is kept at home to learn from them, with an eye to the future) and at night I teach them. Peter is big, twenty-five years old, plain-faced and very quiet in voice and manner. He does not impress you at all, until

JES PEBBLES

some day you are in a difficulty and a gentle voice beside you says, "T'll attend to that for you, Ma-Ma," and in a twinkling and without fuss or pupae your problem is shouldered and, in course of time, satisfactorily solved.

Others beside myself are beginning to see this. Joe runs to Peter now, when he finds it hard to decipher his growing cook-book. One morning early, while still at my devotions, I heard the shanty door swing open and two come running breathlessly in. Peter's feet arrived at my bedroom door 4nd Joe's nose was pressed against the bamboo matting wall.

A serious problem was shaking the little cook's universe. "Ma-Ma!" came his voice through the matting, "what and where is maple flavouring?"

"It's in the square bottle."

Simultaneously from the door and wall came a sigh of relief. "Oh, the square bottle!" and forthwith they turned and rushed out again.

Who got to the square bottle first I do not know, but I'm sure Peter likes to be consulted. He is better with his hands than his brain. When it comes to study, Yongpeh-John is much more showy, but I praise the Lord for Peter. He was once married, but four years ago a band of Wild Lolo carried off his beautiful young wife and she has never been heard of since.

Yongpeh-John, fat, round, and pleasant, is the last member of the Infant Brigade. As he has but lately joined us I do not know him very well. Can you see these six, gathered around our table at evening time, making most awful noises in their effort to learn a new hymn; struggling laboriously with the New Testament letters, and after reading, trying to bend unwieldy minds to the task of getting thought out of those symbols as well as words? Baby lessons these, but these are foundation days. This is the kind of work that the Ma-pa-ra must do in the villages as new believers are brought in. Joe—girl—Mule-Boy—Amos—Peter—

John—not very wonderful material, but Teacher Job began as Mr. and Mrs. Cooke's goatherd. At any rate, even though they are not lovely, shall we not take the crude new believers of His church into our hearts and prayers also?

Moses' mother made an ark of bulrushes that death might not swallow her child. Who thought that the small babe would one day shake Egypt?

—From Bishop Taylor Smith's Bible.

If we but notice God's edelweiss He will send us more. Spoiled children are those who will not allow you to console them. You will remember that all those winter months, our leading Ma-pa-ra had been away down south. The day they were expected back they did

NESTS ABOVE THE ABYSS

not arrive, although we had built a flower arch of welcome for them and put wild rhododendrons in their rooms. The next night it was raining and as the Infant Brigade was in the midst of preliminary

_ acrobatics on the phonetic scale we heard a gunshot. Immediately we were all out of the room and into the dark and rain as if we were the bullets. I called out to Joe, "You stay and mind the house" (for a thief had entered a few nights before), which, poor fellow, checked his speed and made him turn back in groaning obedience. Pushing up to the trail

I could just discern other villagers emerging from their huts. A white horse was coming with someone leading it—Job! Wasn't it like him to arrive first and all alone. Oh, how good to greet again those you love!

I have told about that arrival in Homay's story. The Infant Brigade could enjoy such evenings. Slipping into the cosy circle around the fire in Luke's hut, or our own servant's shanty, they could listen while these more mature Christians talked. Very often the talk was just good-humoured storytelling of their trips and experiences, with lots of laughter interspersed. Even a small, illiterate "chipmunk" like Amos could not help but be a bit broadened by such contacts.

Amos was not accepted for baptism that year, however, as his work was so unsatisfactory. It was pointed out to him that if he really believed in his heart he was saved then, but that new life always manifests itself sooner or later, and that for the sake of those watching the church, we felt that we wanted to delay his baptism until his life more nearly matched his profession.

At the end of one month of careless work, after giving the wages to each servant I went to my room, but soon was surprised at the appearance of Amos who, with a crimson face, held out his hand to give me back his money.

"T don't want it, Ma-Ma,"' he said with much embarrassment.

"T don't deserve it." I nearly fell over with the shock. It was the first sign of a conscience he had ever shown. Trying quickly to seize such a grand opportunity, I pressed the wages back on him, and gave him a talk on it being required in stewards that a man be found faithful, and told him that mere money will not repay the cost of faithless service.

Amos was meeker and nicer for quite a few weeks after that but gradually the old spunkiness and carelessness would return.

Nevertheless, his books became very precious to the laddie; he began to take them out to the herding with him, and studied

"*JES' PEBBLES"

ang constantly. Gradually too, he began to pray in public, and a year or two later, Luke passed him for baptism.

It was in 1942, I think, that Amos decided to leave us. By that time he had saved enough money from his wages to buy a small farm and set up for himself. His blind mother and sister also lived with him and I was glad to see him ambitious to become something. I knew that he would have to work far harder on the farm than he did for us, and probably make less money, but he would be growing into a useful member of the community, so we gave him our blessing, and he left us.

Little goatherd! He had developed one of the truest and sweetest tenor voices in the whole church. May be when I get to heaven I shall see my once vicious little Chipmunk, with transformed, radiant, face, glorifying God among the choristers there.

ROMEO AND JULIET

It was in 1939, while visiting villages on the west bank of the Salween, that we came to one called Runaway Horse Ascent.

In the little chapel there we were attracted to a sweet young girl, obviously the most spiritually minded among the women.

On inquiry we were told that she was going through a trial.

One of the young men had proposed to her and she wished to accept him, but there was an ancient feud between their families, and the parents of each side bitterly refused to let the marriage take place.

"Then we must call them Romeo and Juliet!" I laughingly said, and we henceforth referred to them by those names.

Their love had persisted, and their parents' bitterness had also persisted, but Juliet said she would say yes to no one but Romeo. I turned to take a good look at this lad who had won such a loyalty of affection. He was not attractive. True, there was an honesty and earnestness in his eyes and a strength in the ruggedness of his face, but there was also an ugly tubercular gland on his neck.

Our first contact with Romeo left an impression on us that he was but one among many. We saw that he was manly and honest but so were (and are) many of his neighbours. One does not notice a pebble much at first.

NESTS ABOVE THE ABYSS

A year passed; that winter we had spent at Village of the Three Clans, and on our way back to Oak Flat, an accident occurred which drew Romeo to our attention. Again it involved a horse-riding escapade, but not with trusty old Jasper. In descending the canyon from Three Clans, we had met with a raging stream whose bridge was broken. Jasper and Jessie could not ford such a torrent, nor could they be expected to cross on the one or two wobbling planks which were left, and over which we ourselves had to cross, so from there on we all had to walk.

After many miles, at noon the next day, we met Romeo's uncle, who pressed us to stay at his village that night.

"Only if you will get a horse for Ma-Ma to ride up the hill," said our Lisu. "She's tired walking; you should not ask her to climb to your house." Thereupon the old man gave up his animal to me, but it was much smaller than Jasper. Halfway up the slope it suddenly jerked back, missed its footing, and fell over backwards with me still in the saddle. My head just missed striking a sharp rock, but my ankle was badly sprained and I had to be carried into Romeo's little shanty. There I was introduced to his sister, a sweet-faced girl about twenty years old, who was full of sympathy for me. She gave me the best bed they had, and set in to cook something for me to eat. The house was a model of neatness and cleanliness.

"T'm awfully sorry Ma-Ma's foot hurts so," she said as she worked, ''but it is all in the Cross, isn't it? There must be suffering if there is to be blessing. And none of ours is to be compared to what our Lord went through for us."

I turned and looked at her. She was talking as naturally as any other Lisu lassie would have about where she found her firewood, but her thoughts were those of a mature Christian!

I have never met a Lisu girl of her youth who was so acquainted with the deeper things of God! In silent amazement, for she talked on as she worked, I got my foot into an easier position, then said, "Will you tell me, little girl, how you became a Christian?" Her answer ran like this:

"It was about six years ago when Teacher Andrew was in these parts. Brother [Romeo] and I both decided at the same time to leave devil worship and to trust God. But father bitterly

ee >

JES PEBBLES

opposed us; he said he would take away our share of his land when we refused to worship the demons and went on praying and studying the Books, so he thrust both Brother and me out of his house. Mother was dead, but uncle, here, had turned

Christian and he said he would let us live on his land if we would help him in his farm work until we could clear a farm for ourselves. We had to work hard''—her hands were calloused and rough;-—"but oh, we were free to worship God, and Jesus has been so precious to us! We've been very happy in this little house, and when Father married again, we moved over here.

Of course we go over and help him now and again, when his farm work is heavy, but we come back here to live. We have peace here." She lifted such a bright, serene face to mine, that I loved her on the spot. Romeo was away from home. He had heard of the missionary hospital in Burma where Thomas had been helped, and where they did not ask for fees from Christian

Lisu, so he had taken all the savings of his and his sister's (gladly given) to pay his road expenses and had gone off to see if they could heal his tubercular glands.

The next morning, when it was time to leave, I found that Romeo's sister was one of our porters. "Oh, it's all right, MaMa," she said brightly. "I am accustomed to carry heavier loads than this, and the village men are not free to go to-day."

When we finally parted, I had a picture on my heart of a clean young soul, determined to follow her Lord wholly no matter what the suffering. Why had not someone told me there was such a girl in those parts? Were there many more like her that I had never heard of? Was her brother, Romeo, as fine as she? "Yes," said the Lisu; "the two of them are just the same.

They are good and earnest."

The next winter we took our trip to Stockade Hill and the south. I believe it was on the way down that we met Romeo on the road, coming home, fully healed. A broad, open-faced young fellow, we just sensed trustworthiness, and manliness, as we looked at him.

"'No; they did not charge mea cent," he answered. "They even paid me, because I worked for them carrying water for the hospital.... Yes, thank God, the gland is healed. Go in peace, Ma-Ma!"'

NESTS ABOVE THE ABYSS

We had to part, he going north and we to the south. I thought pleasantly of the joy of the little sister waiting to welcome him back, and of sweet Juliet's shy pleasure that her one-and-only was now free from the disagreeable sore on his neck. They would

~ see one another in chapel, and sometimes on the mountain trails, perhaps. Then our own journey commanded our attention.

Months passed. A year or so passed. We were back at Oak Flat discussing the possibility of a girls' Bible schgol. ""There is one girl I want to have—Romeo's sister," I said to the Lisu teacher conversing with me.

"Oh, Ma-Ma, don't you know?" he said, amazed at my ignorance. "She is dead! When Romeo got home from the hospital she was ill with a fever, and she never recovered."

"Oh," I cried, sitting back, heart-broken, "why didn't someone tell me?"

There was silence. The Lisu were puzzled at my interest.

There are hundreds of girls in the Lisu church; some die every year. One cannot report everything. These white people take the strangest fancies! Romeo's sister was a good girl, but not very able at singing or writing—big things in the Lisu man's eyes. Why be so interested in her?

But Ma-Ma was obviously interested in that family, so they replied: "Perhaps you don't know, Ma-Ma, that Juliet is dead, too? She died before Romeo's sister did. Lots of people died from that epidemic of typhus."

Oh, poor Romeo! I was speechless. Lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow—the words pressed themselves in upon my numbed feelings. By this time my thoughts had stirred the group around me and all were quiet, thinking of the tragic grief of one young life—of the Bitter Wind that had blown upon one small Nest.

"How is Romeo? If I had only known, I think I would have tried to go and see him,"' I said. He lives across the river and about two days' journey from House of Grace, which is a long way if there is not an important reason for going.

"Oh, he's all right. He's living alone in their little hut. He does not complain, and he goes to church regularly. But his neck has started to suppurate again. It certainly is hard for him."

Again a silence. "I think he's going to try to come to R.S.B.S ,"

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said one. From then on, Romeo was definitely on my daily prayer list.

And in April, 1943, he came. His tubercular glands had inflamed, and as that disease is infectious, and the Lisu sense this and fear it, it was arranged that Romeo sleep alone and cook his own food separately. It was a joy to teach him, and his mature, experienced mind simply licked up the truths of the Words That year we had tried splitting up the R.S.B.S. into three periods of one month each, so in August he promised to return and join us again. After all had dispersed to their homes, at the end of the April study, word gradually filtered through to us that Romeo had begun teaching his fellow villagers every night, and that they had built a little mud chapel.

August saw Romeo gather with us once more for further study, and during those few weeks God gave us a revival such as we had seldom experienced. Our little son, Daniel Kreadman, was born on August 1, so I was not able to teach that session, but the students would often come after classes and talk with me.

When they spent one whole night in prayer, I was awake most of the time and with them, of course, in spirit. By the time the school closed I was up and around, and one day I had a talk with Romeo alone.

Of course he had been much on my heart. By that time our own China Inland Mission Hospital at Tali had been opened, so I wrote to them and told them of Romeo, and asked if they would take him in and treat him free of charge, in exchange for simple duties like carrying water. Their affirmative answer had just come, so with much joy I told Romeo of the new opportunity for healing.

"Thank you, Ma-Ma," he said, but without display of any great thrill. He hesitated a moment, then said slowly, "I don't think I will go, thank you."

"But, Romeo, it would mean healing for you!" His noble face was lifted up and had a far-away look in his eyes. 'Quietly he said, "I do not despise their kindness, nor yours, Ma-Ma. Please thank them for me. But it is this way. I believe this sickness of mine is aggravated by lack of nourishing foods, such as you white people can get. As long as I stayed near a hospital it

NESTS ABOVE THE ABYSS

would be better. I came home to my native diet and the old trouble came back again. So if I want to stay healed, I must stay all my life near a hospital."'

Here his eyes came back from the far distance and looked straight at me. "Ma-Ma, it was good for my body, being in the Burma hospital, but it was not good for my soul!"

"T know. I know," I said sadly. I had been told that the native nurses there had tempted him constantly.

"And where in Chinaland would I get food for my soul like we have been having these past few weeks?"'—and his arm pointed out to the little Bible School House up the hill from us. "No,

Ma-Ma. Many thanks to them, but I will just stay here—" his eyes flooded with tears, but on his face there was a light I have never forgotten. "Yea, though my life be now at a point to be shed as wine over the burnt sacrifice—still I rejoice" (Phil. ii. 17;

Arthur Way).

I knew he meant to give what remained of his life: to the service of God, and I stood silent, thrilled, yet with tears.

His disease was too dreaded by the Lisu to admit of a travelling ministry among them. He would not have been welcome in many homes, so he specialized on his own village. In the daytime he worked his little farm as he had strength; in the evening he taught all who would come. His village, and more especially the Village-of-Wheat-Level above it, had been notoriously

"rotten'' (to use the Lisu word). Nazareth never had a more hopeless reputation. "Can any good come out of Wheat Level?" has been the cry, with tears, from its Lisu pastor's heart. But as Romeo taught a wonderful little group began to collect around him. A young girl whom we named Leah-the-second came two years in succession to our Girls' Bible School, and fine young boys came from Romeo's group to our Boys' Bible School.

Now, if I were a fiction-writer I would stop there. I do not fear the truth myself. I know the God behind it. But when God's providences take an unexpected turn, shallow thinkers make shallow and dishonouring remarks. One would expect Romeo's offering to have been "crowned with success." But God does not always deal so with His loved children. In His Word, one of the pictures which has so deeply moved me is that of Paul at

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