Project Canterbury

The Diocese of Anking

By the Right Reverend Daniel Trumbull Huntington, D. D., Bishop of Anking

Hartford: Church Missions Publishing, 1943.


At the General Convention of 1910 the Missionary District of Anking was established and set off from the Missionary District of Hankow. It consisted of the province of Anhui and that part of the Province of Kiangsi lying north of latitude 28. It measured something over four hundred miles from north to south and from two hundred to three hundred miles east and west, with an area of approximately ???? square miles, being about equal to the states of New York and Pennsylvania. The General convention also elected Dr. Pott as bishop; but after accepting, he changed his mind and came to the conclusion that he had better stay on as President of St. John's University. The House of Bishops then elected me at a meeting in 1911. This election came just at the time of the outbreak of the Revolution and it was impossible to arrange for the consecration before March, 1912. It took place on the Feast of the Annunciation, in 1912, in St. John's Procathedral, Shanghai. The delay was occasioned partly by the disruption of traffic consequent on the Revolution and partly by the difficulty of getting some one to take over my work. Also there was a matter of a siege of boils which I had beginning about New Year and lasting into the summer. I never decided whether they were occasioned by eating Chinese food with the school children, or by an infection caught taking a bath on a Japanese boat. Anyway the consecration took place, as stated, on Lady Day 1912, Bishop Graves being the consecrator and Bishops Roots, Cassels and Molony co-consecrators. Bishop Roots was the preacher.

The District at that time as stated above, consisted of the Province of Anhewi and that part of the province of Kiangsi lying north of latitude 28. It was later enlarged by the addition of the southern part of Kiangsi. This was done by the Chung Hwa Sheng Kung Hwei at the instance of Bishop Dupui, of the diocese of Victoria-Hongkong, and myself. That diocese is even larger than Anking, consisting of four provinces; and they were glad to get rid of this half-province which has little connection with the southern province of Kwangtung. We made a request to the General Synod for the changing of the boundaries of the two dioceses. We have as yet only one station in the southern part of the province of Kiangsi-Kian--which was a place of refuge for the workers who came down from Kuling in 1938. There is a good prospect of opening more stations in consequence of the work of the refugees.

The stations of the mission were Wuhu, the oldest station, which was opened in 1885, with three outstations, Nanling, Fanchang and Sanshan; Anking with seven outstations where our largest work was centered; Kiukiang in the province of Kiangsi; and Nanchang the capitol of that province. This last was not at that time one of our major stations, being superintended by the missionary in Kiukiang, with a Chinese deacon in [7/8] residence. All of these except Nanchang are on the bank of the Yangtze River and obviously they left a large part of the diocese entirely untouched by our missions. In fact the whole diocese was very inadequately staffed whether by our own mission or any other. I found that the ratio of Christians to population in Anhui was the next to the lowest of the whole country, and Kiangsi, I think, was fourth from the bottom. Kiangsi had only two stations and one small outstation for a great province. All the work except Nanchang was within forty miles of the River.

In the matter of plant we were poorly equipped. There was St. James' School, Wuhu, the gift of Mrs. Walpole Warren in memory of her husband, and also St. James' Church in the same city. In Anking we had St. James' Hospital, which was at the time one of the best hospitals in China; St. Paul's School; and the Cathedral, which at that time was not quite completed but was consecrated on November 10. In Kiugiang we had a small property with a small house and a Chinese building which served as a church, but was not too satisfactory. In Nanchang we owned no property.

More important than plant is staff. The district received from the District of Hankow not only the plant but also a good, though small staff. It consisted of six occidental priests--two Swedes and four Americans; one Chinese priest and five deacons, one American doctor, two nurses, two American woman teachers, one evangelistic woman worker, one English man teacher, and about twenty-five Chinese teachers and fifteen catechists.

The diocese had already begun to experience the difficulties which seem to be inherent in mission work in China. As I mentioned above, the Revolution was under way and the governor of Anhwei was of the old party and in danger of his life.

He accordingly fled to the mission compound and was taken in by Mr. McCarthy. The compound backs on the city wall and he was let down over the wall in a basket at night. Mr. McCarthy accompanied him on board a Japanese gun-boat which was lying off the town. The story that he was with us of course got around and there was great danger that the compound would be attacked, so it was decided to evacuate the girls from St. Agnes' School. They were cared for by the French father in charge of the Roman Catholic mission; on the following day part of them were sent to their homes. Fifteen were taken down to Shanghai and found refuge in St. Mary's School. This happened before my consecration.

My first episcopal act was the calling of a diocesan synod which met at Wuhu. I do not remember just what it did aside from electing delegates to the conference to be held in Shanghai for the purpose of organizing the Chinese Church.

Also during the time of meeting I ordained four of the Chinese deacons to the priesthood. They were the Rev. Lindel Tsen, now Bishop of Honan; the Rev. Hunter Yen, the Rev. Bernard Ts'en and the Rev. Reuben Nieh. Mr. Yen is still in the diocese, where he has held various [8/9] important positions; Mr. Ts'en has been transferred to the diocese of Honan where he is doing good work under his old school mate. I regret to say that Mr. Nieh had to be deposed. These two things--the synod and the ordination--represent two of the most important matters for the diocese. The number of the clergy has grown steadily and the selfgovernment of the church has grown with it.

I think it was in 1902 that the first conference of bishops of the Church in China was held. There at that time two American bishopsBishop Graves and Bishop Ingle, and four English bishops--Moule of Mid-China, Scott of Peking, Iliff of Shantung and Hoar of Victoria. These meetings had been repeated about once every three years and steps had been taken to get the church properly organized. At the conference in 1909, a constitution was drawn up and submitted to the dioceses and the real business of the conference of 1912 was to ratify the constitution and change itself from a conference to a synod. In that action the diocese of Anking of course had its part, and the Chung Hwa Sheng Kung Hwei has existed as a national church of the Anglican Communion since April, 1912.

After the close of the synod I returned to the diocese and spent much of the time in visiting the stations and outstations and in deciding to make Anking the see city instead of Wuhu. It had been assumed that Wuhu would be the residence of the bishop and there were a number of reasons for that choice. Wuhu is slightly larger, it is a treaty port and so open to the residence of foreign business men, and the steam boat service is better. On the other hand Anking is the provincial capitol, it is nearer the center of the diocese, and it had nearly twice as much work connected with it. There are the hospital, the Girls' School, St. Paul's Boys' iVIiddle School and the then unfinished cathedral. There were eight outstations as compared with three around Wuhu. There was also another reason. The people of America seem to think "Wuhu" is a joke. The Presiding Bishop, when the diocese was created, said with a voice that could be heard a mile away, "I will put the new diocese under the charge of the Bishop of Hankow for I do not wish to be in charge of a diocese with a name like WOOHOO." The Bishop of Wuhu then brought in a motion that, "Since the bishop had decided to make his residence in Anking, the name of the diocese be changed from Wuhu to Anking," which motion was carried unanimously.

The Cathedral was consecrated on November 10, 1912. It was a fine building, seating nearly a thousand. We had a three days mission at the time of the consecration. A mission in China is a very different thing from one in America. The congregation is made up almost entirely of people who have absolutely no knowledge of Christianity. Often, as in this case, admission is by ticket and tickets are given away. This is really an advertiser's trick. Perhaps you are wanting to get shop clerks and such:--you form a committee and the members' chief duty is to take the tickets to the shops and explain to the manager that there will be a very [9/10] interesting lecture at the church and that if he and his staff would like to go, "here are some tickets which I shall be glad to give you." It is the same way with schools. (We try to get the same social class at a meeting). Students, for instance, have to be talked to in a very different way from that used with laborers. The meetings were successful in getting a large number of people to hear the gospel, and a good many of them signed cards saying that they would like to study further. Classes were formed and some inquirers started, but the most of them fell away (we expected they would), while some stayed.

It was not only the Cathedral which was consecrated that year, but also St. Luke's Church, Tsingyang. Tsingyang is a town of about ten thousand inhabitants situated near the foot of one of Buddhism's sacred mountains--Chiu Hwa Shan. The last picture I have of the church was taken after Japanese had bombed it, and the church, the school, and the rectory are a mass of ruins. The town is as complete a wreck as one could find in places which had been fought over. I do not think there were any Chinese soldiers in the place at the time.

COUNTRY WORK

One of the most interesting duties of a bishop in China is to visit outstations. There were at that time three groups of outstations, one south of Wuhu, one east and one west of Anking. Anking west was the largest and covered the most territory. There were four stations, each with a resident cathechist; Shihpai, Taihu, Susung and Wangkiang. All except Shihpai were county seats or Hsien cities. The Rev. Edmund Lee took me on my first visit to them. Part of the journey was made by sedan chair and part by Chinese junk. We left Anking early in the morning and about ten o'clock reached a ferry. That ferry is about two miles long and cuts off an arm of a lake. In low water you can walk across; but it was not low water and the wind was contrary, so it took about two hours. We expected to reach Shihpai that night--they say it is ninety li, about thirty miles--but the delay at the ferry made that impossible and we stopped at a small town about thirty li short of our destination. We had at that time a rented house in Upper Shihpai. A great reception was awaiting us--a procession of school boys and Christians with long strings of firecrackers. I rather object to firecrackers, especially on a large scale, because they not only make a noise at the time, but they also attract a crowd who do not make it any easier to hold services, examine candidates and go over the various matters requiring attention.

We got to Shihpai the next morning and found plenty to keep us busy. There were catechumens to be examined and also candidates for baptism and confirmation--I think this was the first time that a bishop had visited the town. Account books had to be examined, to be sure that the catechist in charge was keeping a record of services and accurate lists of catechumens, baptized persons and communicants. That is regular routine in all places visited. Of course the lists of names and services and [10/11] the accounts are not the most important things, but if they are not carefully kept, there certainly will be trouble later on, and the annual reports will not be in order.

While I am writing of my first journey it might be well to say a word about the way we traveled. In the early years when there were very few clergymen, most of the outstations were in direct charge of catechists and I usually was accompanied by the foreign clergyman who was in charge of the district. As the number of Chinese clergy increased, I frequently went alone with a cook who, in addition to feeding me for as many meals as I could persuade my Chinese hosts to refrain from giving me, arranged for transportation. Always I could get breakfast and sometimes another meal in western style--not so very stylish either.

Late in the afternoon we reached Taihu which is a nice little city of perhaps ten thousand inhabitants, with a good wall around it. About half of the population lives outside the wall. Our church, however, was inside, and we have a nice property there. It consisted at that time of a church, a house for the catechist, and a guest room for the reception of those coming to attend church, or for other purposes. There was also a small school house. We slept in the guest room. We brought our own camp cots and blankets. If I remember rightly, Mr. Hsiang, one of our best catechists, who later took a course in theology at the Central Theological School and was ordained, was in charge. He still is doing good work and is one of our most valued clergy.

After Taihu we went on to Susung which is about twenty-five miles distant and is a city like Taihu, but a little larger. At that time we were working in a rented house; but we owned a lot on which we later built a school, a house, and a temporary chapel.

From Sunsung we went to Ch'uchia Ch'iao, which, while not a city in the Chinese sense of the word--that is, a county seat with a city wall and a resident magistrate--is a lively market town where we had started work. From there we went to Wangkiang, a very sleepy little city, and thence walked five miles to the bank of the Great River. In Wangkiang, we also had the beginning of a work which included fewer city people and more farmers than in the other places. About eighty-five per cent of the inhabitants of China are farmers. It has always been our ambition to get as large a number of famers as possible. They are, however, harder to reach, as the city people are movable and not so closely tied up with their family affairs. The farmers are more conservative and bound by tradition, and unless they come in large numbers by clans it is hard to reach them. When they do come, there is usually a reason which does not appear on the surface and has nothing to do with the Christian faith. I shall have more to say about this later.

We crossed the river and waited till about five o'clock, when a Japanese steamer came down and slowed up sufficiently to let us get on. In about two hours we were back in Anking and very glad to be there. This [11/12] is a fair specimen of a country trip. Sometimes they were longer and sometimes shorter; sometimes the weather was good and sometimes bad. Sometimes we had queer incidents and sometimes everything went smoothly.

After consultation I decided to try to get some Sisters to help in the work, and after some correspondence I stopped off at Glendale, Ohio, to see the Sisters of the Transfiguration, and arranged with them to send three of their number. We also drew up some rules--perhaps they do not deserve the name of rules--and we agreed on certain lines of procedure. This was, I think, the first diocese in the foreign missionary work of the American Church to employ members of a religious order. This was arranged when I went to America to attend the General Convention of 1913. At that convention the name of the diocese was changed.

I consulted the Rev. Samuel Hart D. D., custodian of the Standard Book of Common Prayer, and Secretary of the House of Bishops, on a canonical matter. The canons of the Church directed that a missionary district should adopt the canons of some diocese, so I consulted him as to what diocesan canons it would be well for us to adopt. He advised in favor of the diocese of Connecticut (his own diocese) for two reasons; first, the canons were quite brief, and second, there would be very little in them which would be applicable. They were adopted and I do not think they ever have been referred to. I am probably the only person in the diocese who ever read them. A few years later we started making our own canons (they are much briefer than those of Connecticut and for a few years I conformed to the general canons by sending copies of our canons to the Presiding Bishop; but as they were in Chinese I am afraid no one ever read them.

This reminds me of a somewhat similar incident which occurred when I was in Hankow with Bishop Ingle. He was instructed by the Board of Missions to send them copies of all land deeds held by the mission. He groaned at the prospect of translating all those deeds, but I said, "Hold on. It doesn't say translations, but copies." He cheered up, had his Chinese writer make copies of a couple of deeds and sent them home. They did not ask for any more.

On my way to America another change took place in politics. The southwestern provinces rebelled on the ground that Yuen Shih Kai was trying to make himself emperor. That was before all ships carried wireless, and the first we heard of it was when we reached Vancouver. The governors of both Anhwei and Kiangsi were involved. The governor of Anhwei was a very good friend of the mission and a fine man, though not of sufficient ability to handle such a situation. The rebellion in Anhwei and Kiangsi was soon put down and we got our first acquaintance with the new military leaders; and a pretty bad lot they were. We continued to have polite dealings with governors of less than doubtful character because we could not help it.

[13] Not long after I came back from America we had a call from some men from a small town named Chungch-en, who wanted us to come and open work for them. They reported that there were several hundred people in the neighborhood who were anxious to enter the church. They had heard the doctrine and were anxious to receive instruction. All that did not fill my heart with joy for I had had previous experience with large numbers wanting to enter the church, and the experience had not been happy. I found that the town was nearer Wuhu than it was to Anking so I sent them to Mr. Lund. He was not enthusiastic, but we agreed that something must be done, so we sent the Rev. Lindel Tsen to investigate. He reported that he could not find out anything against them, though he also was doubtful. It is almost impossible for a large number of menthe women seldom appear--to feel a sudden desire to enter a church of which they, in the nature of the case, can know nothing. A few of them had bought Bibles because they knew that was the thing to do. After much deliberation we decided to send them one of our best catechists. The movement continued to spread, and centers developed further to the south. Maolin became the chief center. That is much more of a town, having a population of about ten thousand. From there one goes over a fairly high ridge and down the other side to the town of Lungmen which is a great tea growing center, and one of the most beautiful little towns I know. A brook flows down into a larger river and at the junction is a town of white houses. The surrounding mountains are largely covered with tea plantations. But "only man is vile." We gradually found that the real motive was enmity against the Roman Catholics. I doubt if the foreign clergy--French esuits--knew any more about what was going on than we did. There are always clan fights almost anywhere in China, and this district was no exception. One side was getting the worst of it. They went to the Roman Catholics, told a good story and got them to come to teach them. That was just at a time when one of the things which a Chinese official did not want was trouble with foreigners, so when any difficulty came up in court, if one side had foreign backing, it won. A change from weak to strong came about. That change having come, the others sought our aid. Of course we did not find this out for several years. Naturally the work has not prospered and of the four or five stations which we once had, only one has survived--Maolin. I think, however, we now are in a position to make some progress. We have an old Chinese priest in charge who has not, I think, done very active evangelistic work, but he has a very good primary school which has been awarded the prize for several years as the best in the county, and he has gotten on friendly terms with the people.

About this time we had a rather exciting incident. Sherwood Eddy had come to Anking and addressed several meetings in the Cathedral. He greatly interested many of the younger students and they signed cards volunteering to study the Bible. Most of them dropped off after a few months, but some held on firmly, among these a Mr. Chao. He was a teacher in a government school, and also a socialist. He was an [13/14] enthusiastic patriot, but the message of the Gospel touched him more strongly than his political ideas, though he never gave them up. He wanted to leave his teaching and study for the ministry. He was a good Chinese scholar and had a considerable perception of Western thought, though he had no knowledge of English. We were arranging for him to go to Hankow and study at the Catechists' School under Dr. Ridgely, when, on Christmas Eve, while he was attending service in Grace Chapel, policemen came in and arrested him. It was rumored that he was to be shot in a few days. I wrote as strong a letter as I could to the governor, ending with, "arrest was made on our property contrary to treaty rights." He was an unjust judge and had some fear of the trouble which foreigners might make, so he changed his sentence from shooting, to two years imprisonment. The governor was changed and Mr. Chao was liberated. It was not thought safe for him to stay in Anking and he went into North Anhwei to enter the service of another mission. Each year about Christmas time he used to send me twenty dollars for the work at Grace Chapel.

Meanwhile the general work of the diocese was going on in a fairly satisfactory manner. In Wuhu the main building of St. James' School was occupied and the number of scholars had increased. None of the clergy were trained teachers and we had in the whole diocese, if I remember rightly, only one trained Chinese teacher. A union normal school had been started in Wuchang in which our mission had a share, and we soon began sending men there for training. A marked improvement was visible, though the schools still left much to be desired. The girls' schools lagged even behind the boys', as it was almost impossible to get women teachers. Of course the education of girls throughout China was almost nil. Mission schools were far in advance of government and private schools, but they were none too good. We really had to begin from the bottom and build up.

Nearly all of our country stations had little day schools. The school room usually was poorly lighted; the desks and seats were mostly furnished by the parents of the scholars. We succeeded in getting the Confucian Classics excluded by slow degrees. New text books were being published all the time and some of them showed considerable improvement. They really seemed to give the idea that the children were to be considered. The first trouble was that the teachers did not really know how to use these new books. They could make the children repeat the Chinese classics, or the Bible or anything else, and when they got these new books, they naturally did the same, but the books were totally inferior to the Classics. I mean that the Classics are part of a great and noble literature and if children are to be taught, they ought to learn something that is worth learning, and not poor reproductions of American readers.

Of course they ought not to have been taught to repeat the books, but it was very difficult to get that idea out of the teachers' heads. Then another difficulty arose. The fathers sent their children to school with an armful of ancient volumes which they had studied when they were small [14/15] boys. They--these volumes--were "learning", and putting new f angled books into the children's hands was not "education." Furthermore, they would have to buy these new books, and they already had the others. What was the sense of buying a new and inferior lot of books? So between the teachers and the parents, the bishop had a hard time introducing educational methods which were less than a thousand years old. Gradually we got new teachers, and understanding of the new education slowly seeped into the minds of the parents, though we get an occasional out-crop of the old ideas even now.

The diocese has not many large cities, Nanchang, the capital of Kiangsi, is a city of f our or five hundred thousand, being the largest. It is an interesting city and at that time had a wall made of large bricks, capped with red sandstone, with a moat around it. There is a popular legend that Hsu Chen Ren, a Taoist worthy of ancient times, had appeared when the city was besieged by the Taipings. He was of such enormous size that he sat on the wall and washed his feet in the moat. The Taipings, seeing this terrible form, quickly retired from the city and it was never captured. I sent the Rev. Amos Goddard there, as before that it had never been occupied except by a Chinese deacon. He lived in one of the houses belonging to the Methodist Mission; and before very long he succeeded in buying a suitable piece of land, and building a house. It is a spacious house and cost only about forty-six hundred dollars, Chinese currency. I think we got more house for our money there than anywhere in the mission. The church, however, was only a rented Chinese house modified to serve as a church. During Mr. Goddard's stay there, he also bought this house. Later, during Mr. Craighill's time there, our present commodious and beautiful church, the school, the preaching hall, and the rector's house, were built. The architecture of the church is modified Chinese and is one of the most successful attempts at adapting Chinese architecture to ecclesiastical purposes. I shall have more to say about Nanchang later.

Our next largest city is Kingtehchen, which has a population of about three hundred thousand, and is the center of the porcelain industry of China. There are one or two other places in China where such work is carried on, but at least nine-tenths of the porcelain manufactured in China is made in Kingtehchen. So-called "Canton china" is made in Kingtehchen, but is decorated in Canton. It is a rather inconvenient place to get to, but in 1914 we decided to open work and sent the Rev. H. T. Wu there. It is, as I have said, a difficult place to reach. I have tried all possible ways. A bus line was opened about 1930, but at that time buses were hardly dreamed of. I first tried the overland route from Hukou at the mouth of the Poyang Lake where we have an outstation connected with Kiukiang. It is only about one hundred miles distant, but it took us four days--days of continuous rain. The next time I tried the boat from Kiukiang. That took three days and was more comfortable, though often the boats are infested with bugs. Then I tried the boat (these boats are steam launches) from Nanchang, which is really the best way, taking only two [15/16] days. The launches only go to Jaochou where a small river runs into the Poyang Lake. There one gets a small junk with a crew of three men. If you get in about dark they will start off after an hour or so of fussing about buying food and other things. The reason they do not get ready sooner is that they wait for part of the boat hire, to have money with which to pay for their purchases. It is the custom to pay part of the fare on engaging the boat. The journey is up the little river, and about two-thirds of the way is nice going up a very pretty stream. Then the stream turns swift and shallow. The crew strips and goes into the water, pulling and pushing the boat which scrapes along over the bottom. Much of the shallowness is due to the carelessness of the manufacturers. They dump the refuse from the kilns along the river bank. When there is a rise it is carried off and fills up the river so that the bottom is not stones, as one is at first inclined to suppose, but broken pieces of porcelain. Some of the more progressive manufacturers have been desirous of getting a dredge to deepen the river, but they never have succeeded in doing so.

I tried one more route, not so much in order to find a better way to Kingtehchen, but f of the purpose of investigating a part of the diocese which I had never visited. I went to Tatung and there got coolies, going south through Tsingyang, Shihtai, Hsiou Hsien and Kimen. It is a beautiful mountainous country and the mountains are for the most part covered with woods--not very large trees, but very lovely. It is a poor country agriculturally. An innkeeper at Hsiou Hsien told me that they raised only rice enough in a good year to carry the place through three or four months. However, a lot of tea is raised and that partly supports them. Nearly all of the young men go away in business for some years. A large part of the hotel business in the Yangtze Valley is in their hands and a lot of money comes back there from the wanderers.

The trip to Kingtehchen by that route took six days and was most interesting. The first three days were done by chair and the last three by a tea-boat. It was loaded full of tea-boxes and we sat and slept on tea. We scraped the bottom a good deal but the boatmen seemed to think that was quite normal. If that river were in America, anybody would know that it was not navigable for anything larger than a canoe, but tons of tea come down it every year; also tons of clay for making porcelain.

Kingtehchen differs from any other Chinese city. Although there are about a hundred tall chimneys emitting smoke from time to time, the fuel used is pine wood and the smoke is much less disagreeable than coal smoke. They have tried using coal, but not with much success. I am told that the following is the way they tell whether the kiln is hot enough: There is a hole near the place where the chimney leads out from the main part of the kiln. A man sits opposite it and from time to time he spits into the hole. If it hot enough the spit comes buzzing back.

At about this time occurred an incident which showed up the utter inefficiency of the government. A bandit of more than usual ability arose. He was called "White Wolf," though what his real name was I do not [16/17] know. He started in Honan Province. After looting sundry cities in that province and collecting followers, he moved east to the northern part of Anhwei, made a grand circuit through that region, turned back and recrossed Honan and went on into Shensi and Kansu and was said to have been killed in that far western region. Anyway he disappeared after having looted many cities, and showed the incompetence of the Yuen Shih Kai government.

Student strikes are one of the methods by which young China keeps us from finding life too monotonous. About this time we had one in St. Paul's School, Anking. I have forgotten just what the difficulty was, but I think it was expelling some undesirable youth from the school. There were three boys whom I was helping through school at that time and they came to me in great fear. They did not want to strike, but there was more pressure than they could withstand. I did not blame them very much, but I would have thought more of them if they had stood out against the crowd. The strike lasted two or three days. The parents were a great help, as nearly all of them wanted their boys to go back to school and try to learn something; so they sent them back with notes of apology and peace reigned again.

The causes of student strikes are varied. Perhaps the most common is an attempt to enforce school discipline. One or two boys misbehave and are expelled. Their friends rally to their aid and work up a strike. Any boy who does not go in for it is ostracized, and very few Chinese boys can stand that. If there are some who will not co-operate, they may possibly be able to stop the strike; but if the matter has progressed, it is almost hopeless. Flunking a few boys in examination may easily start a strike. In most government and private schools "exams" mean nothing. Everybody passes. I remember talking to one of my old school boys, then teaching in a government school, asking him how he got along in the matter of marking. "Oh," he said, "I pass them all. About half of them want to study, and I teach them, and pass the others." There has been considerable improvement in these matters in recent years.

I remember one incident where the school cook and one of the boys got into a fight. The boy became angry at the cook for something and invaded the kitchen. The cook went at him with a meat chopper. The headmaster was in a great state of mind and summoned me. I got the facts as clearly as I could and delivered judgment: "Fire both of them!" "Will you back me up?" said the headmaster. "Of course I will," said I. They both were "fired" and peace was restored. We have had other strikes of a more serious character, especially one in Kiukiang, where the boys shut up the acting-headmaster and did considerable damage to the property. However, the harm they did to our general educational system was slight.

Our work among women and girls has always lagged behind that among men and boys, and at this time St. Agnes' School, Anking, was the only school for girls going beyond primary grades. Even that did not go [17/18] very much beyond first or second year middle school, and the accommodations were woefully insufficient. We could take only about forty girls as boarders and we decided not to take day scholars, which, considering the general condition of things, was wise. In 1913 it quite the stylish thing for the officials to send their daughters there. The provincial governor, Peh Wen Wei, was a warm supporter of all of our work and he had two daughters there. Mrs. Peh carne over about once a week to see that the girls were all right and also to see if their clothes needed mending, or anything of that sort. She was a nice country woman and a great contrast to the wives of some of the officials, who brought along servants to attend to all such matters. But the governor unfortunately was deep in the revolution against Yuen Shih Kai which was suppressed in 1913. After that we were not quite so stylish, which was, on the whole, a good thing. Even so, we were badly over-crowded and we succeeded in getting some special funds for putting up an addition; but our financial troubles were by no means over. I think that in every year of my episcopate I put an item in the estimate for increasing the appropriation for St. Agnes' School. During our highest years--1929 and 1930--we received only three hundred dollars from the National Council. Fortunately one good woman has always supported us with from five hundred to one thousand dollars a year, so we have been able to carry on.

This addition was the last building that we did for St. Agnes' except the chapel, which was built in 1925, on the model of St. Lioba's in Wuhu, but with more Chinese lines. I have always considered it one of the most successful imitations of Chinese architecture, but alas, we had the use of it for only two years. Then we refugeed in 1927, and nationalist soldiers were quartered there for something over a year. Then, as we were unable to reopen, we rented both St. Agnes' and St. Paul's to the Anking Provincial University, and they used the chapel for a library. After we succeeded in getting the University out, we lent it to St. Paul's and moved St. Agnes' to the Cathedral compound. The last I saw of it was when I went to Anking in the spring of 1938. It had then become the chief church of the city, and a class of seventy-eight persons was presented for confirmation.

I was conversing with a member of the faculty of Berkeley Divinity School and he told me of the Dean of the Yale Theological School asking him what his specialty was, and he replied "Real Estate." That is not the chief function of a missionary bishop, but it is an important one. During my episcopate we did a good deal of buying and building. When I was consecrated there were three churches in use and several Chinese housessome rented and some bought. During my episcopate, twenty churches and chapels were erected. Most of them are good substantial churches. Two have been completely demolished by bombs, and several have been less seriously damaged. Of course a great deal of land has been purchased also, and we have had some amusing, and some rather disagreeable experiences. In Wanggiang we secured a piece of land--a really fine site --but as soon as it was known that we were buying it, everybody who [18/19] owned land adjoining arose and said that the boundaries were not as reported and that they owned from three to twenty feet of it. The Rev. E. J. Lee and I went out there and called on the magistrate. He was very polite and said he would come out and go over the land with us and see what could be done. The owner was named Hsie and the location was known as Elsie Family Ridge. I asked him for his deeds and he said, "Deeds! This is Elsie Family Ridge and has been in our family since the Sung Dynasty (about 1100 A. D.). We haven't any deeds." The deeds that the claimants presented were also of doubtful validity, the newest of them being about a hundred years old and others over two hundred. Now as the form f or stating boundaries in Chinese deeds is usually "To the Wang (or Li or Chang) family wall," and as the Wang family would very likely have sold or rebuilt their wall, such a deed is not much use if it is over twenty years old. After much talk and considerable tea-drinking we got the matter settled by the good old system of compromise. We yielded a little to each of them and they went off fairly well satisfied, thinking that they had "done" the foreigner, a little, anyway.

One of the regular lines of work has been summer schools for the workers. They were held sometimes in Wuhu and sometimes in Anking, and all catechists and school teachers were asked to attend; a considerable majority did so. The staff was improving all the time and among the chief means of progress were these summer schools. They were held, of course, after the schools were closed, so that we could have the use of the buildings. The summer school teachers were mostly members of the diocesan staff, though we tried after a little experience to have one or two teachers from outside. It was not that I thought they could contribute more than the members of the staff, but that the scholars of the summer school thought so. They were getting some noted person from outside, and that gave them a feeling that this was really a great opportunity. The classes offered were partly subject matter--most of our teachers were short on arithmetic, geography and that sort of thing. The catechists were a little better because they had a more limited field, chiefly Biblical. However, I slowly discovered that the catechists usually took some classes other than religious. This was nearly always the case when the local teacher was weak on some of the subjects he had to teach and until we were pretty well supplied with Normal School graduates. I say that they were not up on the subjects they had to teach. The Chinese language was the only subject on which they were sure to be well informed, and they were inclined to take the method of the old schools where learning by rote was the only kind considered necessary--that, and writing Chinese characters. However, we gradually worked out of some of our worst errors and in the end had a pretty good system of schools; fewer indeed in number, (because we had fallen into the time of curtailed appropriations), but larger and very much better. The summer schools, as has been said, were one of the chief means of improving the quality of the work.

Later, when our staff was better trained, we dropped them as they did [19/20] not seem necessary, and in place of them we had institutes in Kuling in which the Diocese of Hankow co-operated.

Another great difficulty was that we had no women teachers. There were almost no educated women except those who had studied in our schools or those of other missions, and they were but slightly trained. There was St. Agnes' School and later St. Lioba's, but they graduated only a few each year and at best they covered only about eight grades. I shuddered to think of the inadequate training we were able to give these girls. Most of them married too, as soon as they had graduated, if not before. Later, Deaconess Hart had a training school in Hankow and we were able to send our girls there for further instruction. After her death, the school was continued for some years, but finally had to be closed. We then took advantage of the school which the Methodists had in Kiukiang, and a very good school it was. Here we trained some of our best workers.

Missionaries have not been slow about organizing; in fact, they may have over-organized at times, but I do not think they overdid it in the matter of education. We found ourselves, however, in a somewhat awkward position. A general meeting of missionary educators was called in Shanghai, and the China Christian Educational Association was organized. Then it was divided up into various sections for convenience in working North China, East China, and Central China.

The Diocese of Anking was split. The province of Anhwei was in East China and the Province of Kiangsi in Central China. Now it came to pass that Central China paid more attention to primary schools, and East China laid more stress on middle schools; so we tried to "straddle" the thing and had our primary schools register as of the Central China Association, and the middle schools as of the East China Association. This was not an ideal arrangement, but it seemed to be the best we could manage at the time. Anyway we got some assistance from both Associations.

The Central China Association put out a series of examination questions for primary schools. While I am no advocate of examinations, I think this was a good way to "jack up" inefficient teachers.

One of the problems ever with missionaries in China is famine relief. For us it began in the winter of 1912 and 1913 when there was a flood in the valley of the Yellow River and of the Hwai, which latter is largely within the Diocese of Anking, though in North Anhwei, where we have no work. Our share was not very large, being only an attempt to raise some money locally. We held meetings and had a fair and passed around subscription papers among officials. In that way we raised several thousand dollars which was passed over to the central committee in Shanghai; through which most of the work of distribution was done.

In 1922 there was a much more disastrous flood, at least as far as the Hwai Valley was concerned. We had to do not so much with the collection, as with the distribution of the funds. Most of the money came from [20/21] other sources. An "International Famine Relief Committee" was organized in Shanghai, which received funds from the Red Cross and other foreign sources, and from Chinese sources, both government and private. A branch committee was organized in Anhwei, of which the provincial governor was Chinese chairman, and I was foreign chairman. The committee was composed of equal numbers of Chinese and occidentals, and it held frequent, and sometimes stormy, meetings. The sub-committee which had actual charge of distribution, was located in Pengpu, the city located where the P'uk'ou-Tientsin R.R. crosses the Hwai. The very able chairman was the Rev. Thomas Carter, of the Presbyterian Mission. There had been governors chose chief aim was to see what they could get out of it financially, though I don't think they did very well on that score, but just at the worst time we had Hsu Shih Yin as governor. He was one of the most delightful, as well as one of the ablest of governors, and he co-operated with us most cordially. He was, however, hampered by the military governor who resided in Pengpu, and was one of the most corrupt of the war lords. I went with two Chinese members of the committee to investigate conditions in the Hwei Valley. My two companions were not on very good terms and Mr. Ko whispered to me of the wickedness of Mr. Shih. Mr. Shih was the more clever of the two, and did not say much about Mr. Ko's morals.

We went by train from Nanking to Pengpu where we called on the military governor, who gave an appearance of cordiality and lent us a small steam launch in which we went a couple of hundred miles up the Hwai to call on officials and missionaries. I was rather surprised to find in what good order the officials had their information. They could tell just how many families there were in such and such a region, and who would be affected by the flood. The Hwai Valley is a very level plain and a small break in the dyke in one place sends water over a vast territory. There was a very able and conscientious young Chinese engineer in actual charge, though there was an old tricky official over him. I told the American engineer whom we sent later, that I thought he could depend on anything Mr. Yu told him; and he afterwards told me that he had checked Mr. Yu's report in several places and found them so accurate that he had accepted everything else in it without question.

We had a good deal of discussion as to what form the relief should take. I was in favor of new dykes, but Mr. Yu was not. If we had money enough to do the whole thing from the sources of the river to the head, he would be glad to undertake it; but to build for only a short distance would merely be preparing flood for the places in which we could not undertake work, so most of the work relief was put into roads. They were only dirt roads and not very permanent, but they were of some use to the whole region. Some of the Chinese members of the committee were all for cash relief. That would get the greatest amount of food to the greatest number and it would also give the finest opportunity for squeeze. We succeeded in heading that off as I will relate.

[22] From the Hwai Valley we went to Shanghai to attend a meeting of the central committee and were joined there by two or three other members of the Anhwei committee. Our reports were such as to turn the feeling of the central committee toward work relief, though of course no one suggested that squeeze had anything to do with it. I should here mention Mr. Wu, whom Governor Hsu had appointed as his proxy. He was an able man and so far as I could see, thoroughly honest. He was a devout Buddhist. He entertained us at dinner in Shanghai and a very good dinner it was, but he ate only vegetarian food. He had, however, a fairly hot temper, which one does not associate with Buddhistic exercises. He usually acted as chairman at our meetings and his soul was sorely tried by one of the few members of the committee whom I heartily disliked. This man had the rudeness to interrupt Mr. Wu when he was speaking. Mr. Wu rapped sharply on the table and said, "You listen to me." That sounds a great deal worse in Chinese than it does in English. The man had no face left at all, to be called down in public by his superior. We were, on the whole, a harmonious group. Bishop Graves remarked, "Huntington has those-officials eating out of his hand," which was true in regards to their conviction that I knew how to get money from the central committee. That method was to tell them the truth and produce a reasonable plan of operations.

A little later the Anhwei committee decided to send someone to assist at Pengpu. We sent Mr. Smith. The choice was unfortunate. Mr. Shih was all for cash relief and Mr. Carter was for work relief. Mr. Carter was convinced that the real reason for this was that cash relief affords, as I said above, greater opportunity for squeeze. Mr. Carter telegraphed that he and the other foreign members of the committee would resign unless Mr. Shih were recalled. I went to see the governor and was ushered into a part of the yamen where I had never been before. Out came the governor with a sheet pinned around his neck. He said, "I have been trying to get my hair cut for two weeks. Come in here and talk while he cuts my hair." I told him the situation and he said, "That is too bad. Mr. Shih was here this morning and offered his resignation; but I thought he was all right and I declined to accept it. Now we must go into the whole business." I summoned the committee and put the matter before them and we appointed two members to go to Pengpu to see what could be done. They brought back a report that the ideas of the two were not harmonious, and advised the recall of Mr. Shih. This was done and peace was restored.

I think on the whole a pretty good job was done. We closed down in the spring, having succeeded in saving the lives of probably some hundreds of thousands, possibly a million people, and having built a good many miles of roads--rather poor dirt roads except for one section where we put in macadam--but previously there had been no roads--only mud paths.

There was one annoying feature. I received a lot of telegrams and they usually came at night. Theoretically they were not delivered after midnight, but the office interpreted this liberally and often they came about [22/23] one o'clock. They were all in Chinese code and I never attempted to decode them, but waited until my writer came to do it the next morning.

Hsu Shih Yin was the kind of man to whom stories naturally attach themselves. Here are a couple of them. Before he was governor of Anhwei, he was governor of Fukien, and as usual, he and the military governor were not harmonious. The latter wanted something done, of which Mr. Hsu entirely disapproved. After a stormy argument, the military governor said, "Well, if you will not do it, it will be your fault if I use rough methods." There was an old cannon in the yard of the Yamen and Mr. Hsu jumped up and backed up to the cannon. "Rough methods!" said he, "start your rough methods now." The matter was dropped.

This next one the Governor told me himself, so I think it is true. There was at Foochow a lake with a pavilion in it which dated back to the Tang Dynasty, but it had been allowed to fall into ruin. The governor started to restore it and the people who lived near it objected strongly, so the governor told them to send a delegation to see him about it. Two men came. "I knew what was the matter," said the governor, "they pastured their cows on the edge of the lake. The came in looking very cross and I said, `We are going to restore the pavilion and we are going to park the lake'. They were very angry. ‘Wait a minute,' said I. ‘The lake has some fish in it but it has never been stocked. We will stock it and give you the fishing. Furthermore, this will be about a seventy thousand dollar job and we will give you the work.' They bowed very low and said, ‘Please Governor, start work tomorrow'."

There are two other men whom I would like you to meet: Mr. Hsiung, the warden of the "Model Prison" in Anking, and Judge Chang. I do not remember how we became acquainted with Mr. Hsiung, but under his management the prison was well run. It was built after what I believe is the usual pattern, with alleys running out fan-shaped from a central spot from which everything else is covered.

Various trades were carried on by the prisoners and there was a certain amount of teaching, both of the Chinese language and of trades, with the purpose of getting the prisoners to a position where they could support themselves. We asked permission to preach to them on Sundays, and this was gladly given. We (usually one foreigner and one Chinese priest) went to the prison every Sunday for about two years. The prisoners did not seem to be at all a bad lot and I am sure I could not have told them from any ordinary Chinese if I had met them on the street. They listened to our preaching with apparent attention and interest. After we had been going there for some time we decided that what we were doing was altogether inadequate and Mr. Hsiung and I got up a plan for a temporary home for discharged prisoners. As Mr. Hsiung pointed out, the men were convicted and sent to prison. While there they were taught a trade and then went out but could not get a job. Then they became hungry, and stole, and back they carne. If we could have a home for them when they were discharged, where they could do a half-day's work to partly [23/24] pay for their board, and in the meantime look for a job, while we also tried to find jobs for them in other places where their past was not known, there would be a better chance of their not getting into trouble again. Governor Hsu was much interested and promised to give us room in some unused public buildings. We had just gotten the thing well on the way to completion when he was removed, and the next governor took no interest. I might mention that we had as a visitor, about this time, a lady who had been a prison inspector in the State of Ohio, and she said the prison was quite up to the average of Ohio prisons.

The other man of whom I would write is Judge Chang Chih. He was chief judge of the supreme court of the province, a small man and not very impressive looking, but with a keen mind and high ideals. He delighted in discussing religion, social science and politics; and he made it a rule that all members of the court should read some good book every day. "For," said he, "we spend all our time going into all sorts of wickedness, and if we do not read something good, how can we keep decent?" He was transferred to the province of Shangtung and the last time I saw him he told me that he had come to the conclusion that Christianity was the highest form of religion.

Now at this time in Shantung there was a military governor who among the evil ones deserves pre-eminent place--Chang Chung Chang. The governor wanted the judge to do something which was not according to law and the judge refused and was shot. I saw General Chang Chung Chang once in Japan where he had fled for safety. I was sitting in the hotel parlor one evening when in came a big Chinese with a brutal face, accompanied by three or four little Japanese. He sat down not six feet from me. If I had had a weapon I would have been greatly tempted to stick it into him. He grew rash and a few years later returned to China and was shot in the railroad station at Tientsin.

In the meantime, the regular work of the mission was going on as usual. We released one or two foreigners and several Chinese members of the staff for the famine work, but the rest of us kept on with our regular jobs. Building was always going on. In 1915 we put up some buildings in Wangkiang. These consisted of a house for the clergyman in charge, some structures of a somewhat temporary character to be used as a church, a school and a guest room. Later we put up a new school building and took out the wall which formerly separated the church from the old school, giving us room for our present congregation. The Bishop's house was also completed in 1915. In this were included three office rooms for the bishop, his English secretary, and his Chinese secretary; and a nice little chapel. It seats about fifty and has been used for English services, or for any small meetings.

In Kiukiang we did considerable building, the largest undertaking being St. Paul's Church. It was on a new piece of land near the East Gate and together with the school buildings it made a very good plant; but the site was not chosen with real good judgment. It was too far out and the city [24/25] did not grow in that direction, as there had been reason to think it would. It served as a chapel for the school while the school existed, but after it became necessary to close the school, chiefly for financial reasons, the church had no congregation and we ultimately sold the land and tore down the building. It was a great grief to us all, but it seemed the best thing to do.

Our property in Kiukiang is on a corner, but it was once in two pieces separated by an alley. After considerable argument we got permission from the government to move the alley and so bring the whole property into one. We now have a nice church, school rooms and guest rooms, with houses for the workers. For many years the Rev. Mr. Lindstrom was in charge; but since his retirement on account of age, we have had only a foreign priest there for a short time, and for the most part, the work has been in charge of a Chinese priest.

In 1915 the Sisters of the Transfiguration purchased a very good property from the Disciples' Mission. It was separated from the Lion Hill Compound by a small road. Later we had the road moved, thus bringing a section of the Lion Hill Compound which was not in use into the Sisters' compound, where there was not much room. The Sisters were engaged in various kinds of work which grew steadily. There was St. Lioba's School, the industrial work, which gave employment to about a hundred women, and the dispensary. Sister Constance, a trained nurse and a born saleswoman, had charge of both the dispensary and the industrial work. We had an arrangement with the Wuhu General Hospital--a Methodist institution--by which one of their doctors came either daily or four times a week.

St. Lioba's Chapel is, as mentioned before, a somewhat Chinese type of building, and on the whole, a successful one. The altar is fine and the whole chapel breathes an air of devotion. The Rev. Y. M. Li, our senior priest, once said to me, "I like to worship in St. Lioba's. In other churches it takes me five or ten minutes to get into a spirit of prayer, but as soon as I go into St. Lioba's, I find a spirit of prayer."

Perhaps this is an appropriate place to say something about the English services in the diocese. There were four places the English services were regularly held--at Wuhu, in St. Mark's Church; at Anking, in the Bishop's Chapel; at Kiukiang, in St. Paul's Church; and in the Church of the Ascension, at Kuling. Prior to the building of St. Mark's, union services were held in the houses of various missionaries. These services were always in the afternoon, as the missionaries who made up the larger part of the congregation were busy in the mornings. When I got to Wuhu I found that Mr. Lund had plans for a chapel which should serve partly as chapel for St. James' School and partly for English services for the foreign community. We sent a subscription paper to the foreign firms and to all foreigners in the port; and we also asked for assistance from the Church Building Fund Commission. We raised about six thousand dollars, [25/26] Mexican--(at that time about three thousand dollars in U. S. currency)--and we put up a nice little church from plans drawn by the Rev. E. K. Thurlow. The church was called St. Mark's and served its purpose until the capture of Wuhu by the Japanese in 1937, when all services were transferred to St. Lioba's. The service was Evening Prayer, taken in turn by the various missions. When it was the turn of the Episcopal Church we of course used the Prayer Book, but others did not. We also had a Communion Service on the great festivals, to which all were invited. When I came back to Wuhu in 1939, I suggested moving back to St. Mark's, and was somewhat surprised to find that the members of other missions were all in favor of staying at St. Lioba's. The candles and the knowledge that vestments and incense were used did not seem to trouble them in the least.

At Anking most of the time there were no foreigners except missionaries. There were three missions--China Inland Mission, Roman Catholic, and our own; and as neither of the others cared to come to our English services, it became a source of edification for ourselves.

Conditions at Kiukiang are again different. The church there was built long before I came to China. The land was part of the original Kiukiang concession and was set apart by the British Government for the church. For a time services were taken by the clergy of various missions. At the time, we had no missionaries in Kiukiang; but when we opened work there, about 1901, the British consul insisted that we take the services. Some of the other missions were annoyed by this, but I think most of them were glad to be rid of it. Then white ants got into the floor of the church. I remember going over it with the British consul. As he went in he said, "I will not hold myself responsible for anything that may happen to you." Of course I did not expect him to. He continued walking down the aisle, tapping the floor with his cane. "I think it is all right here in the middle, but over here . . . " He put his cane over to one side and it went right down through the floor. We discussed what had better be done. Soon afterwards a slight earthquake occurred and the wall split in several places. It became apparent that the whole thing should be taken down and rebuilt. Just about that time the consul was removed and his successor took no interest. However, we started a subscription for rebuilding. Then came the troubles of 1927, the concession was returned to the Chinese government, and all of the most interested people moved away. Mr. Lindstrom retired, and it seemed impossible to do anything. Since then, the only English services have been in the house of the ladies of the Methodist Mission.

In 1916 I consecrated the Church of the Beatitudes in Fanchang. This is a fairly successful alteration of an old Chinese building for the purposes of public worship. Fanchang is a small city where we took hold, about 1903, and the work has gone on steadily. The Christians are mostly farmers living anywhere up to fifty li from the church. We have a good piece of property just on the edge of the town. The church, as I [26/27] said, is an adaptation of an old Chinese house. It was divided into two rooms, but we took out the wall and had a church which seats about two hundred people. It is usually filled when the bishop comes on visitation.

Kuling is the chief summer resort of central China. It is situated on the Lushan range of mountains about ten miles from Kiukiang, with an elevation of about thirty-four hundred feet above sea level, and of course has a temperature some ten degrees cooler than the plain. It is reached by a bus road from Kiukiang to the foot of the mountain. I went up there for a week the first summer I was in China--1896--in company with Bishop Ingle, Mr. John Archibald and the Rev. Joseph Adams. At that time the only house on the mountain was Mr. Archibald's, though three or four other dwellings were in process of construction. Now there are several hundred houses spreading over a large section of the valley. It is, of course, in the Diocese of Anking. In 1912 several members of the mission owned houses there. In addition there were two houses which were the property of the mission. We divided with the Diocese of Hankow, they taking lot No. 9 and we lot No. 79. English services had first been held on the veranda of Bishop Roots' house.

Then Father Wood was presented with a lot, and on it was built a house with a small chapel attached. The Union Church and been built for some years. The services there were largely attended, hearty and inspiring; but of course we wanted to have our own services, and the Chapel of the Transfiguration (Father Wood's chapel) soon became too small. A new church--the Church of the Ascension--was built on lot No. 79. The plans were drawn by the Rev. Mr. Howe of the Diocese of Hankow and were very good, indeed; but there were certain leaks in the roof of the building which we never succeeded in remedying entirely. After 1927, the number of members of the mission and other foreigners who wanted the services was greatly reduced. I should mention that we never held services at the hour of morning worship in the Union Church; but we had early services--celebration of Holy Communion at seven in Chinese, and at eight in English, with Evening Prayer at five. There were a good many Swedes among those who came to the mountain; when they asked for the use of the church, we were glad to lend it to them.

There was another use to which it was put. The Kuling American School is located not far f rom the church, and during the winter the school used it for their services. The last use to which it was put was as an emergency hospital for women and children during the time when refugees were fleeing from the terror of the Japanese in 1938. I hope it will come into use again in the not too distant future.

I should perhaps say something about the Kuling American School. In the early days of China missions, parents had usually taught their children up to an uncertain age and then sent them to America or England for the later years of their training. Then parents clubbed together in the larger centers and some highly irregular but useful schools were started. About 1910, people began to wish for some more satisfactory [27/28] arrangement and they moved to start an American school. There was much hot debate as to whether it should be in Shanghai or Kuling. Shanghai was the larger center. More people who could use the school lived near it. The children would come in contact with civilization. But as one of my friends remarked, "Shanghai isn't civilized. I don't think my children will shy at trolley cars and autos. If they want them to learn to smoke, I can smoke. I can teach them." Kuling, on the other hand, had a fine climate and all outdoors to play in. Finally the matter was decided by founding two schools. Both have done excellent work, though they certainly could have effected considerable economy by having only one. Also, Kuling has had to close more often on account of wars and riots. Kuling owns a fine property which for the present is not in use. Our mission has always taken a deep interest in it. A large part of the money has come from the Episcopal Church; a considerable number of the members of the board of managers have been Episcopalians; and the Bishop of Anking has been chairman of the board of managers for a good many years. Many children of our mission have received their precollege education here. It is an American school and care has been taken to keep a large majority  of the pupils American, though there also have been Germans, French, Swedes, and Chinese.

The diocese suffered a temporary loss in lending the Rev. Lindel Tsen to general church as Secretary of the Board of Missions. Later we were to lose him permanently, first as Assistant Bishop of Honan, and later as Diocesan.

We opened one new station in 1917 at Chienshan. I have mentioned the buying of the property there. This was another instance of a good people wanting to enter the church but not as many as was the case in Kinghsien, and we felt better acquainted with them. A good many patients had come to the hospital--it is about fifty miles from Anking--and some of our strongest Christians had first come in contact with the Christian faith in that way.

Also in this year, 1917, we bought property in Kingtehchen, but were not able to build for some years.

The political conditions were very stormy, but affected the mission less than one would have expected. As long as Yuen Shih Kai lived, he was able to keep some order; but the chief thing he demanded in officials whom he appointed, was loyalty to Yuen Shih Kai. Consequently when he died, there was no order and no center for order in the country. Li Yuen Hung, the vice-president, did the best he could. He dismissed the premier and sent the provincial governors back to their posts. They then revolted and forced him to resign. Then Chang Hsun restored the boy emperor. That was the one move that could unite everybody against him and after a few days' reign, he was defeated. Things went on much as usual, though it did have one effect. General Ni, who was military governor of Anhwei, was given charge of Chang Hsun's troops who probably [28/29] were the worst lot of brigands in China. They never came as far south as Nanking, but they did considerable damage in North Anhwei.

Each station has its own history which contributes to the general history of the mission. One of the most interesting was Miaochien. This was started as an off-shoot of Tsingyang, from which place it is only eight miles distant. Ane passes over a high ridge which is really a spur of Chiu Hwa Shan and then crosses over a plain surrounded by mountains. By far the highest of these is Chiu Hwa Shan which has an elevation of about five thousand feet. It is one of the great sacred mountains of Buddhist China and hundreds of thousands of pilgrims go there annually to worship. It is sacred to Ti Chang Pusa. In his last incarnation, he was a prince of Siam, or possibly Corea. He was born on the thirtieth day of the intercalated seventh moon. The Chinese calendar, being a lunar calendar, has to intercalate a month about every three years, and further, some months are "large," having thirty days and others are "small," having only twentynine. TiChang, having been born on the thirtieth of the intercalated month, would only very rarely have a real birthday. In 1919 he had one, the first in over a hundred years. Great preparations were made, the roads were put in good repair, the temples furnished and everything put in good order. Over a million pilgrims came. One thing had not been cleaned up and that was the beggars who sat along the road asking alms of all good pilgrims. The Chinese have a saying indicating their lack of confidence in the piety of the pilgrims: "Up the mountain pilgrims. Down the mountain tigers;" and it is by no means unjustified, though of course there are many truly pious and genuinely earnest men and women among them. One of the curious idols there is an embalmed and gilded monk. We call such idols "Flesh Buddhasatva," but in Shantung people are less respectful and call them "Dried Monks."

The Christians in Miao-ch'ien, perhaps partly to keep up with the Buddhists, but I think more for genuine piety, decided to build a church. They had previously been worshipping in a little Chinese house which for the rest of the week was used as a school. They raised about one thousand dollars, and I had some specials from which I took two thousand more. A church much on the lines of the one at Tsingyang was built and called "The Church of the TRUE GOD." The name of the town--Miaochien--means "Before the Temple," and the name was given to bring out the contrast between the gods of the heathen and the one True God. They have subsequently added a rectory and a school, and before the war there was a good primary school. I regret to say that it has been partially destroyed by Japanese bombs.

One other thing which they did is of interest. During the nineteen twenties, the movement for self-support really got under way and theirs being a poor agricultural community, they could not give much in ready cash. They had their rector devise the plan of contributing in rice. They gave the rice when it had just been harvested and was at its cheapest; it was kept till the price went up, and then sold. This plan has of course [29/30] been abandoned during the period of the war.

Another station which rivals Miaochien is Tsyungyang, about thirty miles down the Yangtze from Anking. It is about two miles in from the Great River; on a small river which connects with a series of lakes in which are many fish. The town is a fish market. When I was made bishop we owned a little house which served as church, school and residence. It had three disadvantages: it was at the very end of the town, it was liable to flood nearly every year, and it was too small. Also the work was not prospering. The catechist in charge was a long and genial man without an adequate backbone. He got the church into difficulties by doing what some adherents of the baser sort wanted him to do. I removed him and put in a rather dull, but obstinate little man. The men who had made the trouble came to him for assistance in some law suit and the new catechist just sat tight and referred them to me. In a couple of years they faded away and left room for the small nucleus of genuine Christians. I afterwards put in a much abler man and the work began to grow. Before long there was no room in the church, so we sold the place and bought a new property near the middle of the town, next to the Mohammedan mosque. Later we built a very nice church to seat about three hundred people.

The majority of the Christians are clerks and small shop keepers, but there is an increasing number of farmers. The government, as a means of helping them, set up a granary where farmers could take their crops and receive about fifty percent of an estimated value on them and sell when the price went up, pay off the loan from the government, and keep the rest. Also a good many loan co-operatives have been established, and our priest-in-charge, the Rev. Mr. Ning, has helped in getting the co-operatives started. From this has grown up a meeting place about three miles from the town. We had an institute in Tsungyang in 1930, and at the close of it a delegation came to see me. They said they wanted to build a chapel. I said I did not think they needed one. They said they did not want me to give any money. They would put up a building with mud walls and thatch roof, but they needed beams and they had heard that we had started an agricultural improvement station and had now closed it down. If they could have some beams from the buildings we had erected there, that was all they needed. I agreed to that and they went ahead and put up a building that serves as a meeting place for the co-operatives and for a chapel. However, they had a little under-calculated the expense and I had to help them out to the extent of thirty dollars before they were free of debt.

Mr. Ning fled when the Japanese came, and has been unable to get back though he has made several attempts to do so. He has been helping the priest in Miaochien, his native place. One bomb has hit the church, but it was a dud and did very little damage.

One should not tell about all the progress made, without also telling of these places where the record is not so good. Taihu, a small city of between five and ten thousand inhabitants, is a sample of the difficulties which befell us. When I was made bishop it was the most progressive outstation [30/31] in the diocese, and for some years it continued to be a leading station. An "Autumn Manoeuvres" had been arranged by one of the high the city was quite proud of its neat appearance. Not only our church, but officials. In order to facilitate matters the streets had been repaved, and the Methodist and the Roman Catholic also, began to decline, and I saw that the whole town was deteriorating. I could find no reason for this. One thing had a bad effect on our own church, but would have no influence on others. That is that we had more paid workers from Taihu than from any other station. There were eight clergymen, seven or eight catechists and perhaps fifteen teachers. They were of course among the most earnest and capable of the Christians, and in a church with about a hundred and twenty baptized members, they left a pretty big hole. It is by no means a dead loss for many of them are now in some of the most important positions in the diocese.

We have another station within the bounds of Taihu Hsien and only about fifteen miles off, at Chuchia Ch'iao, a town no larger than Taihu city. For many years we had no property there except a vacant lot, and we worked in one of the worst Chinese houses we had anywhere; but the work has grown steadily and we have put up a nice church, a rectory and a small school. Also we have been given a piece of land in the country, on which oil trees have been planted, as part of an endowment fund. They were getting along all right before the war, but I fear they have been neglected since then.

Speaking of oil trees brings to mind Mr. Den Keh Chen. He was a student in a school for making porcelain, and while there he was converted. This was in Kingtehchen, when the Rev. Bernard Tsen was there. The latter recommended Mr. Den to study as a catechist and he went to the Catechists' School where he did very well. Unfortunately he was taken ill with beriberi, and his legs have never been very good since then; but that did not daunt his spirit. He worked for a year or two as a catechist and then was possessed with a desire to go to the School of Agriculture of the University of Nanking, to which I finally consented. For his graduation thesis, he worked out a plan for his native town, about thirty miles from Nanchang. Although he had not lived there since he was a very small boy, he seems to have been well received on his return. He raised a considerable amount of money among friends and acquaintances; built a dyke which proved to he not high enough; introduced some weaving; gained control of three small country schools; and most important, had a gift of forty thousand tung-oil trees. These should begin to bear in the fifth year and were getting along very well when the Japanese invasion came and he guided the people of the village to a place of greater safety further south. I do not know what happened to the trees.

Perhaps it would be well to say something about our central stations, Wuhu, Anking, Kiukiang and Nanchang. Wuhu is the oldest, so we will begin with that. It was first opened in 1885, with a Chinese clergyman in charge. In 1899, I think, the Rev. F. E. Lund went there. He lived at [31/32] first in a rented Chinese house and the work was carried on in rented quarters. Nearly all of the foreigners in Wuhu lived on hills to the north of the city. One mission or one business firm, one hill, was the order of things. There were a good many hills, and we got Lion Hill which was one of the best. I think the first purchase was made before Mr. Lund came, but he later spent a great deal of time and effort buying odd pieces of ground which ultimately made up Lion Hill. It is a fine property of about twenty acres. First was built Mr. Lund's house on the top of the hill; then business firms began to build near there. Most of the remaining land was paddy fields, the hills having by this time been bought up. The purchasers naturally wished to have land which would be out of reach of ordinary floods and so they wanted filling, which was very scarce. There was no need that our hill should be so high, and Mr. Lund accordingly sold off enough filling to pay for the land which we had already bought. I do not know just how many deeds there were to this land, but as I remember it was something over fifty.

Having the land, what were we to do with it? A school seemed indicated as perhaps the most useful project. A good friend of the mission, to whom we are indebted for the most of our Wuhu property, Mrs. Walpole Warren, came forward with the money, and St. James' School was started as a memorial to the Rev. Walpole Warren, formerly rector of St. James' Church, New York. The main building was completed in 1911, the year before my consecration. Other buildings have since been added. As to the wisdom of having the school, it is sufficient to say that two bishops and five priests have graduated from it.

Of course the school is not the only work in Wuhu. Lion Hill is not a good place for evangelistic work, so about the time that the Lion Hill purchase was being negotiated, Mr. Lund also bought property in a busy part of the city just outside the wall. There he built St. James' Church, a rectory, and some buildings, part of which were used as a school. This was indeed the beginning of St. James' Middle School, which was moved out to Lion Hill when the building was completed in 1911. Up to that time, the only school was in the compound near the city. After St. James' School moved out, the primary school remained at the city compound and later a girls' middle school was started. When schools had to be registered, we registered both schools as one--St. James' Middle School--the Boys' Department being at Lion Hill, and the Girls' Department and the Primary Grades at the city compound. The two departments, at the time when they were obliged to close on account of the approach of the Japanese, had over one thousand students, and were practically self-supporting.

In 1914, the Sisters of the Transfiguration joined the mission. At first they were in Anking, but later it seemed better that they should go to Wuhu. Anking was pretty well staffed as far as women workers were concerned, but there were none at Wuhu. They bought a house and land from the Christian Mission and began work among the women. The roads [32/33] in Wuhu have been made by a committee of foreign residents. The Sisters' compound was separated from Lion Hill by one of these roads. As Lion Hill was bigger than was needed and the Sisters' quarters became somewhat crowded, we moved the road. They first had a girls' school, and then some industrial work and a dispensary which was carried on in the Stanley Memorial building, built in 1924. The industrial work more than paid for itself and whatever profit was made went into the dispensary.

As mentioned before, the outstations of Wuhu when the diocese was created, were three; Sanshan, Fanchang and Nanling. Sanshan is a town of perhaps five thousand people, about fifteen miles up the Yangtze from Wuhu. We bought land there a long and rather narrow strip going down to the River. We built a church, and later a rectory and a school building. This last was largely subscribed by Christians and other friends. There was an old building which had been used as a school, with a room for the teacher. It was in very bad repair and I had urged haste in tearing it down and rebuilding, when one night there was a pretty high wind and one of the roof beams parted. A large section of the roof came down, barely missing the teacher. The rebuilding was started at once and soon was completed. The work of the station went on, slowly at first, but with increasing energy until the war. The last I heard, the Japanese held the town and the Chinese held the "Three Hills" outside, from which the town takes its name. It had, however, changed hands several times.

Fanchang is a county seat and a rather nice little town. Our property is outside the city, just on the edge of the town. The work there has gone on well, though not brilliantly. We have Christians from places throughout the county, mostly rather poor farmer people. An account of the church building has already been given. It has not, so far as I know, suffered much from bombing and almost nothing from looting. It has been captured by the Japanese, but not held for more than a day or two.

Nanling is the largest of the three outstations, and we have the best plant there. It is a town of about twenty thousand people and is also a county seat. We have a nice church, built in 1919, a good rectory, and a school building. The school, I regret to say, was set on fire by one of the boys. It was at a time when student strikes were the order of the day and he went further than the rest. It is a queer way of showing patriotism. We rebuilt a somewhat better structure than the old one. Nanling has been fortunate in the clergy who have been there. Bishop Tsen and Bishop Ch'en have both worked there and the Rev. Rankin Rao has now been there for a number of years.

Anking is the largest, and the next to the oldest of our stations. It was opened by one of the Chinese clergy who went there in 1894. Then in 1899 the Rev. Carl Lindstrom went there, and in 1901 was joined by the Rev. E. L. Woodward, M. D., and the Rev. Edmund J. Lee. Soon afterwards Mr. Lindstrom was transferred to Kiukiang; and what might be called the permanent staff of the station settled down. At first the work was carried on in rented quarters, but before long the property,--or rather [33/34] part of it,--on which the Cathedral now stands, was purchased. Some temporary buildings were erected, in which were housed a day school, a hospital, a chapel, and living quarters for the staff. The staff was gradually increased so that when the diocese was set apart there were two priests (Dr. Woodward having been ordained before this), Dr Taylor, Miss Ogden, Miss Barber, Miss Hopwood, Mrs. Jones, Mr. and Mrs. McCarthy and the Rev. Hunter Yen Under their care were the following institutions: St. Paul's School, St. Agnes' School, St. James Hospital, the Cathedral and Grace Church. Altogether it was quite a complete and wellmanned station.

The site of the Cathedral, the first hospital, and the primary school is on a rather quiet street just off the busiest part of the city. Another site was preferable for schools and the hospital. Accordingly, a large piece of land was bought in the northeast corner of the city where St. James' Hospital, St. Paul's School and St. Agnes' School were already in operation. More land was purchased and more buildings were erected both at the institutional compound and at the Cathedral. At the Cathedral Compound, the Woman's School and the girls' day school were put up in 1922, and the boys' school a little later. The women's work and the girls' school were under the care of Miss Barber, while the Cathedral and the boys' school were in charge of the Rev. Hunter Yen.

At the institutional compound some additions were made at St. Paul's School, and more at St. Agnes', including the chapel, which was modeled on St. Lioba's in Wuhu, but with some changes--4 think on the whole, improvements. The Hospital was added to by the purchase of land across the street and the erection of the clinic in front of the old hospital building. Also there were four residences in addition to three which were already built before the diocese was set apart.

The Anking outstations were interesting. Down the River were Tsungyang, Tsingyang and Mioachien which I have already mentioned. There were also Tatung, Kungshen and Ichinchiao. Tatung is a busy town of about thirty thousand partly on the mainland opposite an island. It was the place from which one could get chairs and baggage coolies to go to South Anhwei. Tsingyang and Miaochien were reached from there. Dr. Woodward bought a piece of land very well situated on the island; but unfortunately the title was not clear and we had to have a meeting of all parties concerned and some whose connection with the matter was tenuous. The matter was compromised by our paying one hundred dollars to the man who had a claim on it. From time to time we have bought more land there, but the school has continually grown and, though we have entirely rebuilt, it is still very crowded. There are about three hundred scholars in the school. The evangelistic work has not prospered as much as the school, but it has seemed to grow more and to have a better set of men during the last few years.

North from Tsungyang thirty miles is Kungchen, a nice little town of between five and ten thousand people. The work, both school and church, [34/35] has not gone brilliantly, but not badly either. A very moderate sort of place, all in all. Halfway between Tsungyang and Kung Chen is Ichin Chiao. It has one long, dirty street. We had inquiries coming from there for some years and it finally was decided to open work. A year or two later we bought a house. It is a very long narrow house, full of leaks which we have tried in vain to stop. The only remedy is to tear it down and rebuild, and we never have been in a position to do this. When we rented that property, some Roman Catholic brethren of the baser sort put in a claim that they had rented it. As they had not occupied it or paid any rent for two years, we did not think the claim was valid. Just at that time it happened that the magistrate in whose jurisdiction Ichinchiao lies, was in Anking and I was advised to go and call on him, which I did. I had already heard of his reputation. There were two good stories about him--probably more that I do not know. At the time of the revolution, some Kiangsi troops in Anking mutinied and marched north to the hsien city of Tungchen, of which Mr. Liu was magistrate. He came to see the Roman Catholic Priest who told me the story. He asked the priest what he thought should be done. He replied, "The walls are good. Shut the gates and hold the city." The magistrate said, "But I have no guns. I only have two. Have you any guns?" "I have a shot gun which belongs to one of the other fathers." "Have you a bugle?" inquired the magistrate. "Yes," said the priest. "All right," said the magistrate, "we will do it. You take charge of the northern half of the city and I will take the southern, where they are coming." So he had the two guns and priest's shot-gun and the two bugles rushed from one part of the wall to another. The mutineers did not know what they were up against and sent in a white flag. The magistrate gave them one hundred dollars under promise that they would not loot the next town to the north.

The other story was of a time when Mr. Liu was removed for six months and a man of inferior ability was put in his place. The town immediately was wide open and everything from opium dens to brothels was prospered. Mr. Liu was sent back and summoned his underlings. Seating himself on his judicial chair he brought his fist down on the table with a bang and said, "I've come to beat. I've come to kill. Go!" They went, and the places of ill-fame were closed.

When I called on him he received me politely, and after the usual exchange of compliments I said, "There is a small matter in Ichinchiao in your honor's district which I wish to speak about." He replied, "Oh yes, I know all about that. The Romanists don't want you to go there. I will attend to it when I go back."

He did, and we got the house without any further trouble.

Anking western outstations spread over more territory than the eastern outstations. The nearest to Anking is Shihpai which is a long thirty miles away. When the water is high one can go by boat, but for more than half the year a chair is indicated. We worked in rented quarters for some years and then bought a piece of land with a building on it which was [35/36] used for school and church. Some of the Christians are townspeople--small shopkeepers, clerks and laborers--but more are farmers. The priest-in-charge spends much of his time visiting the country Christians, and there are several places where he holds meetings with more or less regularity. When the bishop visits, the church usually is crowded, but I do not think it is full at other times.

About fifteen miles west is Hwangnikang, a fairly lively town which has caused us a good deal of trouble. It is what the Chinese call "San pu Swan"--that is, it is on or near three county lines so that a rascal can easily commit a crime in one county and slip over into one of the others and escape arrest. We had people from there coming to worship at Shihpai for several years, and we finally rented a place and put a catechist in charge. Then came the troubles of 1925, and the place was looted. Our rented quarters were thoroughly messed up, and the catechist had to flee for his life. After some attempts to revive it, the work there reverted to its previous status as an outstation of Shihpai.

Instead of going to Hwangnikang, we might turn more to the north and go twenty miles to Chienshan. It is a rather nice little city near the foot of one of the highest mountains in the diocese--the Wanshan--a peak something over five thousand feet high. Mr. Tomkinson and Mr. Lee once ascended it, but they did not really get to the top. There is a peak a couple of hundred feet high which they found impossible without more preparation in the way of ropes and bamboo poles. Chienshan was at one time the capital of the province, and there is situated what was once a very fine pagoda, but it has suffered from the weather. It is a hexagonal structure, one-sixth of which has fallen out and it would be very dangerous to attempt to climb it.

Our work in Chienshan started through the hospital. People came in the forty miles from Chienshan to Anking and were treated and cured. They went back with a little knowledge of the Christian faith, told others about it, and ended by asking us to start a church there. Soon after the work was started in 1919, we had a remarkable opportunity to buy property. The Hsu family had prospered and had built a new ancestral hall. They were anxious to get rid of the old one and sold it to us for eight hundred dollars, of which four hundred dollars was contributed by one of the converts. That, however, was not quite all. The ancestral hall was of course not the property of one person, but of the whole clan; therefore all should get some benefit from the sale. All the heads of families appeared as sellers and the deed stands with over a hundred names. They all came to the feast which the buyers provided! The work there went on steadily if not brilliantly up to the time of the punitive expedition of 1927.

From Chienshan we go southwest nearly thirty miles to Taihu, stopping on the way at the little town of Hsin Chang. situated on a river which comes down from the mountains west of Taihu. At one time this stream was navigable, but now it is all silted up and the only thing that goes up and down is an occasional bamboo raft, and that only in high water. For a [36/37] while we had a teacher there with a little school; and one of the local Christians held services without pay. After lie died, no one took his place and the teacher was dismissed for incompetence. The work has almost died out. Taihu at this time was probably our strongest outstation. It is a nice little town of about five thousand inhabitants, with a wall, well-paved streets and pretty good shops. It is also the seat of a district magistrate. There are two other churches there--Roman Catholic and Methodist. Our own plant consisted, when I first went there, of St. John's Church, a small rectory, a guest room, and a school room. The work seemed to be going on steadily and nicely, but for some reason, about 1927, the town seemed to lose its spirit, and the church also lagged. Some of our best clergy were there, but they were not Taihu men and local feeling is rather strong, so that may have had something to do with it. The other churches also seemed to be suffering the same blight. I do not mean that the church was absolutely dead, but it had not by any means the same spirit that it had earlier.

The next town to the west is Susung. It is very much like Taihu but not as picturesque. It is almost on the border of Hupeh province. There we had some difficulty in the matter of purchasing property. We had some property, but it was too small and we wanted to buy a piece adjoining ours. It belonged to some Romanists and while they were perfectly willing to sell, they wanted an absurd price. I called on the priest, a French Jesuit, as were nearly all of the priests in the province at the time. After the war they changed and put in Spanish Jesuits in their places. I prefer the French, but race makes little difference. Some of them are as fine as can be, and others are not as desirable. Well, this priest was always polite to me, but he had the reputation of being very hot-tempered. He said he thought they would come down in price, but they wanted two deeds--one for one piece, and one for another. We also were glad to have it that way, as there is a tax on land transfer, but not on buildings. So the deed was written with the houses on one deed, and the land on the other. It saved us quite a bit, but I do not know now why they wanted it that way.

On another trip there, I had some trouble in Patou, a small town about a mile from the Yangtze. Patou is in Susung Hsien, and was under the care of the Jesuit priest from Sousung. He was over seventy at this time, but lusty and strong. The difficulty was concerning a right of way which some of our people claimed, while some of the Roman Catholics claimed that there was no right of way, and left our people with very inconvenient access to their property. I asked the Jesuit to go over and look into the matter with me so as to restore peace if possible. He said that he was unable to do so, but he would send one of his teachers who could manage the matter just as well. I did not take much stock in that, but there seemed no other way that promised peace, so I agreed. The catechist thought the whole thing was just a put up job to get face--one of his school teachers was quite sufficient to treat with a Protestant bishop. This was in October and usually we can count on fine weather at that time of year, but this year [37/38] I had been out for nine days and it had rained more or less every day so that the walking was not good. Anyway we started off and met the R. C. brother. He was going by boat and we were going by land. It grew dark early in October and was quite dark before we reached Patou. We came to a little canal with a bridge consisting of one slippery board, when out came our Roman friend. He said that he did not like to go across the bridge. I did not either. The teacher went into a house and asked for a lantern, but the man said he had none. However after much persuasion he produced a little square lantern with the glass out of two sides. Fortunately there was no wind and we got across with the help of this light. The next day after the services were over, we had our talk. After each side had said its say, I gave my opinion in favor of our man. I expected then that the opposition would protest. To my surprise he acceded to everything. It made no difference, for they never kept their agreement; but the matter seems to have gradually worn itself out and I have not heard a word about it for many years.

After the meeting I, with my cook, went on board a boat which had been hired for us, intending to go across a lake eastward to the city of Wangkiang. We got into the open lake about six o'clock. It was a beautiful evening, the rain seemed to be over and there was a nice fresh breeze. The trouble was that by eight o'clock the breeze had freshened into a gale and the boatman said "Pu-teh-lia i" which is untranslatable, but means that there is no way out; so he turned the boat's head and made for the nearest shore. He ran her aground and there we stayed. In the morning we woke up beside a beautiful lake full of white caps, and there was a gale in which no Chinese junk would venture out. We stayed there all day and tried to find out where we were, for it was an unfamiliar shore. The next day, getting some farmer boys to carry our things, we started off on foot. About noon we reached a considerable town where a theatrical performance was going on. By good fortune, we found some of our inquirers among the crowd and they helped us to get one wheelbarrow and one carrying coolie. A mile or two from the town we came to an arm of the lake which one must cross by ferry, and the boats were jam full of people returning from the theater. The wheelbarrow man boarded the first boat and we got on the second. By the time we reached the other bank it was getting dark and the wheelbarrow was nowhere in sight. We went. on through the gathering dusk and succeeded in keeping to the "main road" which was about two feet wide and twisted in all directions. We discovered two ways to distinguish what was the "main road" and what was just a little track going off to some houses. The wind was north and we were going north; so as long as the wind was in our faces, though we twisted a lot, we knew we were in the main road. The other was that the big road had wheelbarrow tracks. About ten o'clock we reached Chuchia Ch-iao, one of our stations which I had visited on the way out. The catechist had gone to bed, but he arose immediately and got us two bowls of noodles. We were hungry, all right, and then we went to bed and slept most soundly in spite of the fact that the wheelbarrow carried our night [38/39] things. As we stepped out on the street in the morning, along came the wheelbarrow. The coolie had spent the night in an inn in Chuchia Ch'iao. So we went on to Wangkiang, three days late. Mr. Lee and Dr. Taylor were about to start on a search for me when I got back to Anking.

I have mentioned that we held conferences for the Christians from time to time. During later years I tried to hold one or two each year, but this was not always possible on account of the disturbed state of the country. About 1926, we held a conference at Taihu. This was one of the few which I did not personally attend. It was planned to last for eight days; but it was rumored that a band of guerrillas was coming, and the day before the conference was scheduled to end, it was decided to close and the teachers and learners left in haste. It was well that they did, for the guerillas came in the night while the teachers were on their way. The town was terrified, but no great harm was done and there were only a few casualties.

Susung suffered in a similar manner, though we had no conference on at the time. That was a few years earlier--I think in 1924. The priest-in-charge was captured and taken away. He remembered the verse of Scripture, "Be ye wise as serpents," and reflected on what the serpent does--he crawls. It was night and raining, and the guard who had several prisoners under his charge was half-asleep. Mr. Kao slipped out and crawled behind a house which was beside the road; and as soon as the guerrillas had passed, he went with all speed back the way he had come, and escaped.

A more tragic incident took place in Taihu. The city was taken and certain prominent persons were seized--among them the priest-in-charge, Mr. Chu. It is said that somebody in the crowd said, "There is Chu Hweichang." Now Hweichang means literally "society elder," and is used for the head of almost any society; so they thought it was the chairman of the local Chamber of Commerce, and shot him as being an anti-communist.

Another more trifling incident occurred at a little town called Hsiang K'ou. Two of our workers were going back to Anking after the New Year vacation, and it so happened that the Rev. Mr. Kwei had had his overcoat forcibly taken from him not long before. There was an unusually large number of people waiting for the boat and one of them had a good looking overcoat. One of our men said, "That looks like Mr. Kwei's overcoat. I don't like this place. I am going." And he left on a boat which was going up river, when he wanted to go down. He saved his overcoat, and the other man lost most of his clothes and what money he had.

A larger scale incident of a somewhat similar nature occurred in Wuhu. I was in Shanghai at the time. I seem to have a genius for being out of the way when excitements occur. About half of the Wuhu garrison mutinied in the middle of the night. They were opposed by the other half and a regular battle took place. All foreign women and children were advised to go on board the British gunboat which was in port, but the most of them did not go. About eleven o'clock a China Merchants' steamer with over a thousand soldiers on board came alongside to land the troops, and [39/40] the mutiny ended. This was the first I had seen of Chiang Kai Shek. He was in Nanking and had gotten a boat-load of troops to Wuhu, about sixty miles up stream, in quick order. The mutiny started about three o'clock. It takes at least four hours to go from Nanking to Wuhu by boat--this was before the railroad was finished. I would say it was rather speedy work.

About 1925 the government decided to make' real streets, and orders were issued to widen them twenty or thirty feet. All of us were glad to have the streets widened, but where was the money to come from? No doubt about that. It was to come out of the pockets of the property owners. The government gave all owners of property fronting on those streets which were to be widened, their choice. They could take down their buildings and rebuild, or the government would tear them down and keep the materials. Our Wuhu property does not front on any large street and we were not troubled. Anking not being a treaty port was slow and nothing was done. In Kiukiang the case was far otherwise. There we had about a hundred feet of property on one of the streets which was to be widened. Fortunately the church was about thirty feet back from the road, but right on it was a building, part of which was used for school and part for guest room. That had to go. So we tore it down and rebuilt on the line established by the government, at a cost of about fifty thousand dollars. And after all, there were certain influential persons living on that street who blocked the project. To this day about half of the houses are moved back and the other half are as they were.

We had another piece of property in Kiukiang. It was given to the Rev. Mr. Mu, at that time priest-in-charge in Kiukiang, for a readingroom. It was on the main street and consistd of a building which was the reading-room, and a house in the rear which was rented to help pay for the upkeep of the reading-room. Mr. Hu formed a committee which never functioned. He was transferred and the mission was left in charge of the property, with no real authority to act. However, we had to move back to the new government line, but we had no money. The priest-in-charge was the Rev. Mr. Lo, and to say that he is not a good person to place in a position of financial responsibility is putting it mildly. He had a beautiful plan. We would build a three-story house on the front and rent two stories, then build a house in back which we would also rent. This would pay for the reading-room. Where would we get the money? Oh, the Bishop would furnish that. I "bit" and took a mortgage on the property for nine thousand dollars. Renting seemed not such an easy matter as it had looked and I have received about one hundred dollars of interest in ten years. Having another priest-in-charge who is a better financier, we were beginning to get something back, but the Japanese came and relieved us of the responsibility.

In Nanchange we were pretty well off. This desire for wide roads had come to birth before the Nanchang church was built and so all buildings were put back some distance from the street. We have had to move back only a short piece of wall. In the other towns where we hold property [40/41] no serious attempts at street-widening were made until a few years later.

The work in Kiangsi has taken a somewhat different character from that in Anhwei. Perhaps that is because of the different character of the province. It contains more cities. There are Kiukiang, the chief commercial town of the province; Nanchang, the provincial capital and by far the largest city in the diocese; Kintehchen, the great porcelain center of all China; and several other cities where we have not as yet started work.

In Nanchang we have not as much of a plant as in Wuhu or Anking, but a good work is established there. I have mentioned the street-widening for which we had been prepared. We now have a church, St. Matthew's, which is built in Chinese fashion, at least so far as the ornamentation goes. It is practically impossible to build strictly on Chinese lines because the Chinese temple--Buddhist, Taoist or Confucian--is not built for social worship. It seems that no polytheistic religion has developed congregational worship. Judaism, Mohammedanism and Christianity are the only ones which attempt to bring their people together at specified times. The temples therefore are adapted for individual worship. A woman comes to pray for a son, Or a merchant for wealth, or a warrior for fame; but they do not come to worship together. It is, however, possible to include much Chinese decoration and that has been done very successfully in St. Matthew's church, as also in St. Lioba's Chapel and St. Agnes'.

The church is on the second floor, the ground floor being occupied by a large lecture hall. There are also school rooms, and back of the church is the house where the Rev. Kimber Den lived until forced out by the Japanese.

The other church--Pure in Heart--is about half a mile away from St. Matthew's and was designed, at least in part, as a chapel for an institution which has never quite fulfilled its inteneion. It was built as a boarding house for students, of whom there are thousands in every city in the country. The idea was excellent, but it did not succeed because we could not rent the rooms at prices which students could afford to pay. The rooms were rented mostly to young men in government positions, many of whom had studied in schools where the standard of cleanliness and decency is above that of the ordinary boarding house. Some of them had studied in America or Europe, and they were in need of just such a place.

Our most southern station is Kian. It is about a hundred and fifty miles south of Nanchang on the beautiful Kan River which drains most of the Kiangsi Province. I went there with one of our Chinese clergy in 1924, or 1925. We went up by steam launch taking two days for the trip. There then was only one family of ours living there, Dr. Dai. He was not a real doctor, being a graduate nurse of St. James' Hospital, Anking; but I think he probably was the best physician in the city. His wife was also a trained nurse. There were three Christian bodies there: the Roman Catholics, who have a bishop and a large and imposing work; the China Inland Mission, which has three or four foreigners and a work that seems [41/42] to be going on well; and the "Church of the True God," one of the congregations which have split off from older bodies. I think that particular congregation has gone out of existence. The Methodists at one time contemplated opening work there, but gave it up. The Methodist ladies, however, had a piece of land given by one of the natives for a girls' school. They had never used it and had given up all thought of doing so, and were willing to turn it over to us. However, they had difficulty in getting the matter cleared up with their board at home, and when the permission had been granted, we found that it was necessary to get the permission of the original donor. He, we found, was dead and it took a long time to locate his heir. He finally was discovered in Hongkong and gave his permission with certain reservations; but then the war came, nothing has ever been done, and we are still working in rented quarters. That is not exactly right either. The quarters consist of a guild house which was in rather bad repair and we were allowed to use it if we would put it in good shape, which we have done. We have space for a school of about sixty scholars, a chapel which will seat about fifty, and room for the priest-in-charge.

The station has not grown very much, due to two causes. There have been a fair number of baptisms, but mostly they have been young men in the Post Office or agents of some firm; and they have been moved from time to time, so that the congregation has not been permanent. The clergy often get discouraged on account of such frequent changes but I tell them the story of my ten years in Ichang. On my first Easter there were twenty-seven communicants, and ten years later, my last Easter there, they numbered ninety-nine, and I was the only one who was at both services. This condition does not prevail to any great extent in the country churches where they have the good earth to hold them, but in the city churches it presents a great problem.

The other difficulty is that Kian was in the Communist area. There was sniping from across the river from time to time, and the city was taken and held for about six weeks in 1935. Executions were frequent and the chief sin was riches. The rich got scant justice, but the poor were well treated. The land was redistributed. Shops were organized as soviets, and in some cases, as a special privilege, the owner was allowed to remain as a member of the soviet. Our two workers there, the Rev. Mr. Tsang and Mr. Hu dressed themselves as coolies. Both of them were old Trade School boys of mine, from the coolie class, and they had no great difficulty in "getting away with it." They had their photographs taken after the reds left and a tougher looking pair of coolies I do not want to see. Mr. Tsang especially looked the part. When he was a boy he had scalp disease and he has a very scanty head of hair. When a marriage was being arranged for him, his friends wanted him to wear a cap when he went to meet the bride but he said, "No." If she does not want me the way I am, she need not have me."

I had one remarkable confirmation class there. When I first came to China there was a young man who, had just graduated from Boone [42/43] School and was teaching there. He left mission employ and went into the Salt gabelle where he got a much larger salary than in the school. He had died and his family, consisting of his widow and five children, had refugeed to Kian and I confirmed them there. Later they moved on further west to places which were less liable to bombing.

I met another old friend there on my last visit, Dr. Peter Chen. He was one of my old Ichang school boys whom I had helped through medical school. He was under promise to return the money I had loaned him, but I had given up hope of seeing it again, when one day I received a letter from him asking me just how the account stood. I told him and received a check for the whole amount by return mail.

Hukou is an outstation of Kiukiang about twenty miles down the Yangtze from that city. We had work there before I was made bishop, but it had never prospered. We owned no property there, but the Brethren Mission had a small house. The man who was in charge finally decided that he was making no progress and that they had better withdraw, so their property was offered for sale and we bought it. It is not much of a property. There is a house which is not too bad, and a chapel and school room which leave much to be desired. The work has never grown much under our care, either. About fifteen miles further down river is Liusize Chiao, which is to Hukou, as Hukou is to Kiukiang. It is a dead and demoralized little town. We have work there also; but when reduced income forced retrenchment it was one of the first places to he cut off and our house stands empty except for an occasional visit from the Hukou catechist. When the Rev. Mr. Lindstrom was in charge of Kiukiang and outstations he and I started out to visit the two places. It was a beautiful day in October, warm, balmy and sunny. We took the launch down to Hukow. It was the end of a trip to the Kiangsi stations for me so I had some extra clothes. Mr. Lindstrom, however, thought it was so warm that he needed only the cotton clothes that he wore. We would be back in two days anyway. We held services in Hukou and went to bed in comfort. In the middle of the night we were awakened by the wildest wind you ever want to hear. In the morning it was obvious that we could not go to Liusze Chiao. The chair coolies said it was impossible to carry a chair in that wind and they were quite right. We went down to the river, but the steam launches were all anchored, with no prospect of starting. I was cold, but Mr. Lindstrom was colder. I went for a walk, but he refused and contented himself by tramping up and down the veranda wrapped in his comforter. On the third day the wind had moderated to such an extent that the steam launches could leave, and we went back to Kiukiang; but one of the men who escorted us on board was nearly drowned when the landing float tipped over.

[45] There are certain matters which pertain to the diocese as a whole and others which pertain to individual churches. These latter are really the most important and I have been treating chiefly of of them; but now I wish to take up some of the matters which pertain to the diocese as a whole.

Perhaps the most important is the school system. As I mentioned before, when I first came to Anking the schools were not very good. They were just beginning to get out of the old-fashioned school which had been the standard in imperial China. There were two high schools--St. James', Wuhu, and St. Paul's, Anking. These were under the direct charge of foreign missionaries, the Rev. Mr. Lund in Wuhu, and Mr. William McCarthy in Anking. They were giving a course similar to that of an American high school and their graduates were accepted in Boone and St. John's Universities. Of course the Chinese language takes the place of English, and English takes the place occupied in America by foreign languages. The language work is really much harder on account of the difficulty of the Chinese language and the fact that written Chinese is almost as unlike spoken Chinese as English is unlike French. Also the English course is much stiffer than the foreign language courses in American schools. St. Agnes' School also was doing very good work, but did not cover such high grades as the boys' schools.

The primary schools were quite another matter. The old-fashioned Confucian school consisted of one teacher and about twenty boys. They learned the classics by heart and got very little in the way of explanation. It would be difficult to find anything less suited to the small boy's mind than the Confucian Classics. The government was trying to reform the schools, but was not very successful. They had in theory ousted the classics; but as a matter of fact, most of the country schools and a large part of those in the city still taught them and very little else. Our schools were better than the government schools, but that is not saying much. The task of wholly changing a system of education which has been in use for over a thousand years is truly enormous. There were almost no teachers who had any knowledge of modern methods, and the text books were almost entirely the composition of missionaries. Foreigners are not as a rule competent to compile text books for Chinese children. We had, however, to a large extent removed the classics; but that was really in itself no help, f or the teachers simply took the new books and made the children learn them by heart just as they had done with the Classics. If they were going to learn by heart, it would be better to learn the classics, because when they grew up they then would have something worth remembering, rather than primers composed by foreigners (I wrote a primer myself and I know). That is the kind of schools we had, and there was one in almost every station and outstation. The teachers had no idea about teaching and did not understand the simplest processes in arithmetic; but they could repeat the classics and write very obscure essays in stiff Wenli, therefore they were thought to be fitted to teach children.

We had been working on this matter in Hankow before I became a bishop, and throughout China educational associations had been formed [45/46] and were doing good work. The Central China Christian Educational Association was the one with which I had the most contact. Geographically Anhwei is in the territory of the East China C. E. A. and Kiangsi in the Central China E. A., but it was better that all primary school should go to the C. C. C. E. A., for it so happened that that association has specialized on primary education and that was what I felt was most needed. The Middle Schools associated themselves with the E. C. C. E. A.

Obviously the thing needed was a normal school, and we had felt the lack of one as far back as 1900. When I returned from America in 1901 I was put in charge of the beginning of such a school, which was at Ichang for four years. Then it was moved down to Wuchang and the Rev. B. B. Chapman of the English Wesleyan mission was put in charge. He was difficult to work with, but was tremendously energetic and a man of large and brilliant ideas. We began sending promising young men to the school and they gained some knowledge of teaching. When I was consecrated we had only one normal school graduate; but every year brought more till we rarely accepted a teacher without a normal school diploma.

Gradually the educational scene in China changed. The government took on the matter of teacher-training and we were sometimes able to get teachers from government normal schools. The schools began to look different. They were much larger, frequently running up to two or three hundred scholars, both boys and girls, and with as many as seven or eight teachers--never enough teachers for the scholars. Then the government decided to do all teacher-training itself and our normal school had to close; but now we were able to get teachers trained in the government schools. Also hard times hit the mission and we had to curtail. One of the places where we cut was primary schools. We closed some and enlarged others so that the number of children under instruction was increased while the cost was decreased.

The middle schools also changed. They increased in size and greatly in fees so that we were able to keep them going with hardly any help from the National Council. The grading of the schools also changed. There are four years: junior primary, two years senior primary, three years junior middle and three years senior middle. Another most important change was that the headmaster and a majority of the board of directors must be Chinese. The text books were a vast improvement on those of an earlier day. In the earlier part of the time I acted as superintendent of schools, but it got to be more than I could handle, and we were fortunate in getting Miss Alice Gregg for the position. Our schools were something which we had a right to be proud of until the Japanese came and we were obliged to close. Even so, some of the primary schools are still able to function and one middle school has been able to resume work in free China.

Of late years much attention has been paid to agricultural improvement. The Chinese are good agriculturalists, but they have made almost no changes in methods of cultivation. Improvement was desired not only in farming methods, but in general living, conditions. Only a very small [46/47] percentage of the farmers can read. Sanitary conditions were very bad, and moral ideas were narrow and uninspiring, being confined mostly to filial piety. That all refers to Old China. In new China changes have been taking place with great rapidity. The attempt to improve conditions was quite as great in industry as in agriculture. The most noted leader in both lines of endeavor has been Dr. James Yen, who has done very remarkable work in Ting Tsien in Hopeh. In all of this the Diocese has had a share.

Industrial work was undertaken early by some of the ladies in Anking. First there was the "Hwa-Lan Cross-Stitch" which was always kept down to a rather small size. Then came the "Anking Colored Cross-Stitch" which for a time prospered greatly. The women did fine work and the product was sold mostly in the U. S. at a very good profit. The question as to what was to be done with the earnings was a problem for some time. Mrs. E. J. Lee, who was largely responsible for starting the work, suggested that it be formed into a co-operative and the profits distributed annually to the workers in proportion to the amount of work they had done. As I say, the work prospered exceedingly, and with the profits land was purchased near the Institutional Compound in Anking, on which very commodious buildings were erected. Everything went along finely until 1927, when the whole diocese was over-run by the troops of the "northern Punitive Expedition" and all of our property was occupied from time to time by troops. All of the foreigners were evacuated and of course the new buildings were occupied. The work stopped naturally. Then the problem was very difficult. What were we to do with the money? Obviously it did not belong to us, but to the women. They had received their wages of course, but this was a co-operative and the surplus should go to the members. (A word should be said as to the organization of the co-operative. There was a Board of Managers, consisting about equally of Chinese and foreigners who really managed the financial side of the business. The members of the co-operative met and a committee was appointed by them. We had at this time a foreign manager who was paid out of the funds of the co-operative. There were about a hundred and twenty-five members at the time when we had to close.)

Well, there was the money. I think there was something over twenty thousand dollars in Chinese currency. What was to be done with it? We had evacuated in March. In October it seemed wise to send some of the Chinese workers back, and I went up to see how things were. We had the good fortune to have the Rev. Lindel Tsen (afterwards Bishop of Honan) in charge of the station, and after much consultation he consented to superintend the distribution of the cash balance. Not all of the members were to be found, which was hardly to be wondered at, considering that three or four armies had passed through. I do not mean that any were killed, but they were scattered. It was owing to Mr. Tsen's great tact that this distribution was accomplished without serious trouble. There was and still is a considerable amount of money that had not come in. I mean, there was a lot of work in America which had not been sold. That work has now been [47/48] sold and the money is still in the hands of the treasurer. The buildings are also there and I suppose this should all be given to the workers, but that is impossible as I do not think more than a quarter of them could be found. We have been hoping to resume operations ever since we closed, but so far it has been impracticable.

A similar work was undertaken by Sister Constance Anna in Wuhu, but without the co-operative idea. For one thing the work done was different, being largely ecclesiastical. They have made very beautiful ecclesiastical embroideries, selling them at a price far below what they could be purchased for in America. At the same time the wages paid to the workers are above what they could get anywhere else. The profit, which is considerable, goes into the running of the dispensary, of which the Sisters have charge.

The industrial work for men has not been as large or as successful as that for women. The first experiment was under the charge of Mr. Leonard Tomkinson and was financially a failure. This was partly due to the fact that neither Mr. Tomkinson nor I are much good as salesmen. We had nobody to push it. The chief occupation was bamboo work--bamboo mats, screens and hats. The hats were, as far as I could see, very good. I wore one for two years with entire satisfaction, but I do not think we ever sold more than half a dozen of them. We were undersold owing to the starvation wages paid to bamboo weavers in Chinese stores; and after a year or so we gave it up.

Then we turned our attention to agriculture. First we rented a piece of ground beautifully situated across the River from Anking and planted it with cotton. That seemed to be doing fairly well but bandits carne and the workers had to flee. After this happened a- few times, we decided to move over to the Anking side of the river. We found a piece of low-lying land two or three miles out from the city and rented it. We put up some mud houses, started a school and parceled out the land to men who were willing to try us on our terms. Everything looked fine; but the river rose and flooded the land, doing much damage to the houses. We repaired them and got the school going again, especially the night school for the farmers of the neighborhood; but the river rose again and we gave it up.

The Rev. Kimber Den started rural work about ten miles out from Nanchang. It was in a good location and things went pretty well except that there was very little rural rehabilitation. There was a school, and each of the children had a little garden; but the teachers did not really understand what was expected of them. Another Mr. Den - Den Keh Chen of whose work I have spoken, later took up the task with tremendous energy.

The organization of the diocese and of the Chinese Church in general deserves mention. As I said earlier, the Chung Hwa Shang Kung Hwei adopted its constitution in April, 1912, shortly after the consecration of the Bishop of Anking, so that the diocese was able to take part in the work of the Chinese Church from the beginning. The organization of the synod is [48/49] similar to that of the American Church. The House of Bishops and the House of Deputies ordinarily meet separately, but join for certain purposes. The deputies are elected by the diocese which they represent and there are four clergymen and four laymen for each diocese. The synod meets every three years, but the war interfered with that. I am sure, however, that as soon as peace is restored the meetings will be resumed. Between sessions the standing committee, which corresponds more or less to the National Council of the American Church, conducts all necessary business. Other committees meet as may be necessary and bring in reports at the time of the General Synod. The most important of these committees is the Board of Missions, which attends to the finances of the mission in Shensi. In all of the activities of the General Synod and its committees the Diocese of Anking has borne a considerable part and I am glad to say we have always paid our apportionment.

Our own diocesan organization is somewhat peculiar. I mentioned above that Dr. Hart advised me to adopt the canons of the Diocese of Connecticut. We did so, but I do not think any one ever consulted them. Then we made our own canons, as was allowed by the American Church, and we modified them from time to time. The American canon directs that any change in canons be reported to General Convention, but as our canons, since about 1920, have been published in Chinese only, the American Church has not paid much attention to them. The diocesan synod meets annually when not prevented by circumstances such as war. (The war itself would not necessarily prevent, but communications are cut off in such a way as to make travel almost impossible.) Between meetings of the synod, the diocesan standing committee convenes as often as may be necessary, usually once a quarter. The standing committee is elected by the synod, but has power to fill vacancies. All other committees are elected by the standing committee and report to it. This saves a great deal of time and seems to work very well.

It should be noted that the Chung Hwa Sheng Kung Hwei is an independent church in the Anglican Communion and hears the same relation to the whole Anglican Communion that the American Church does. For instance the boundaries of the Diocese of Anking as constituted by the original act of the American Church, comprised the Province of Anhwei and that part of the Province of Kiangsi lying north of latitude 28 degrees. That part of the province lying south of latitude 28 degrees was part of the Diocese of Victoria-Hongkong. It seemed to me that there should be two dioceses--one for each province--and the Bishop of Victoria-Hongkong was anxious to reduce the size of his enormous jurisdiction; so we agreed to petition the General Synod to change the boundaries so that the whole of Kiangsi would be in the Diocese of Anking. To this they agreed and I informed the American Church of the change.

In the matter of electing bishops we are still in a somewhat anomalous position. When I resigned, I presented my resignation to the Presiding Bishop of the American Church, at the sane time notifying the Chairman of the House of Bishops of the Chung Hwa Sheng Kung Hwei, and I [49/50] asked for nominations. The House of Bishops then nominated the Rev. Lloyd R. Craighill and we presented his name to the House of Bishops of the American Church. They then elected him. In the case of a bishop of Chinese lineage, where the salary does not come from the National Council, we consider that we have a right to elect. So in the election of the Rev. Robin Chen to be assistant bishop I nominated him, and the Diocesan Standing Committee seconded the nomination. The House of Bishops and the standing committees of the several dioceses gave their consent as is done in the American Church. When all was done the Chairman of the House of Bishops informed the Archbishop if Canterbury and the Presiding Bishop of the American Church. Soon there will be only Chinese bishops and then the matter will adjust itself.

Speaking of bishops brings me to what is probably the most important work of the diocese, the raising up of a body of Chinese clergy. I mentioned above that when the diocese was formed, there were six occidental clergy, one Chinese priest and five deacons. The number of foreign clergy increased slightly and the largest number canonically in the diocese at any one time was eight. Then in 1927, when we were obliged to evacuate, several went home with the intention of returning later and two were transferred to the Missionary District of the Philippines. By 1930 the Rev. L. R. Craighill was the only foreign priest left. In 1937 he was reinforced by the arrival of the Rev. Henri B. Pickens. On Mr. Craighill's consecration as bishop the number reverted to one bishop and one priest, and I doubt if it will get beyond that.

When we turn to the Chinese clergy we find a very different condition. The one priest and five deacons who were resident in the diocese when I was consecrated have grown to thirty-three priests and one deacon. Two of them have been dropped from the rolls of the mission and three are working for the time being in other dioceses, but with the hope of returning when conditions improve.

There are two routes to the ministry. We had for many years a class of what one might call minor clergy, but we termed them catechists. If a man of good character and a fair amount of Chinese learning and desire to preach the Gospel presented himself to the priest-in-charge of the station with which he was connected, the priest would then make investigation. If the applicant seemer suitable he would be recommended to the bishop, who after a little further investigation and sometimes a trial of several months in one of the central stations, would send him to the Catechetical school which was usually in Hankow. There he had a three years' course including a considerable amount of general study, with other instruction of a more strictly religious nature. He might then be appointed a catechist, usually under the direct charge of one of the older priests. If in a few years he proved to be a good man for the place, he might be sent to the Central Theological School which moved from one place to another and finally settled down in Nanking. There he received as thorough a training as could be managed with an inadequate staff and a great dearth of theological textbooks. He might then be ordained and placed in charge of an [50/51] outstation. Some of our most capable workers have come to us by this route.

The other route is the more usual one of taking boys who have studied in one of our universities and giving them two or three years of theology. These men are much better prepared and are almost essential for work in the cities where young men with more or less thorough training in Western science are not willing to listen to men of the old stamp who do not know as much about science as they do. The most prominent of our clergy cone to us in this way.

There is a third route which is not yet open, but which we hope will be after peace is attained. I introduced a canon at the General Synod, I think in 1934, "Of ordination under special conditions." The purpose of the canon is to make it possible for elderly and sound Christians to enter the ministry without salary, and thus relieve the paid clergy from some of their care of outstations, and also to have men with them who could help more at the central stations. They are to receive no salary and are to pass an examination almost entirely on the Bible and the Prayer Book, so that they may be able to use those materials for the edification of the Church. I have mentioned the classes which we have had at various places. One purpose of them was to teach and test such men as wished to enter on this course. My thought was to select from these men some who would be lay readers; from the lay readers some few who would be ordained deacons; and from the deacons some who would be ordained priests. One naturally asks if there is any chance of getting men who would take such positions. We started licensing lay readers in 1934, and that year there were eight. The next year there were twenty-five. In the last year in which we were able to function normally, we had one hundred and fourteen. Only a small number of these were material for deacons and they would have to be tried out for some years before ordination; but the prospect looked good to me. The war broke it up. I hope it will be resumed later.

When I was in Shanghai for the General Synod, I think in 1928, the Rev. Kimber Den asked me to attend a dinner given by the Chinese Society for Lepers. I was very glad to do so though I had never before heard of the society. It was a small dinner of only about ten persons, of whom one was a Chinese lady and the others, excepting myself, Chinese men. I found that the chief subject before us was the establishment of a leprosarium in Nanchang. Naturally I was very much interested. They were getting some help from an English society and were themselves raising about five thousand dollars. Later they approached the provincial government and got a grant of a considerable piece of land about fifteen miles south of Nanchang on a hill. A series of buildings were put up partly by the lepers themselves. These consisted of two dormitories with room for about forty lepers, a dining room, a chapel, and a gateway. Other buildings have been added since then and the last time I visited it in [51/52] 1938, shortly before they were obliged to flee, there were about a hundred and fifty inmates. The government has made a grant, the Shanghai Society has continued its grant, and the Rev. Kimber Den has organized a committee in Nanchang which helps greatly. Regular religious teaching is given by the pastors of the Nanchang churches, though I think Mr. Den has the inside track--as he ought to, for he has done most of the work. On my last visit I confirmed twenty-six persons. I have neglected to mention the great help given by Dr. Wu of the Methodist Hospital in Nanchang. Without him it would have been impossible to carry on. Also I have not mentioned the male nurse and his wife who have done great work in carrying out the instructions of the doctor. I hear that though the inmates all fled when the Japanese came, many have returned. They have a roof over their heads, but I think for their food they have to return to their ancient art of begging.

A good friend in America sent me fifty dollars with which to buy theological books for the clergy. There are few good theological books in Chinese and what there are are so seldom adequate, that I decided to see what could be done in the way of a lending library. With a slight outlay I could get all the books in Chinese which were worth having. I bought one or two hundred volumes and sent out a catalogue to all the clergy. In the first enthusiasm most of them took out something, but I am afraid they did not get as much as they expected, for the requests for books gradually diminished until they became practically nil. The books are still there with some new ones added, but I fear that nobody reads them. China in spite of her literary tradition is not actually strong on reading.

There are a great many blind people in China and their lot is not an easy one. Begging and fortune-telling are their chief means of support; both of which are recognized as legitimate. Even so they do not have a good time. A clever one may get enough to eat, a place to sleep, and clothes enough to keep warm, even if not clean. Missionaries naturally have given a good deal of attention to them. Schools for the blind have been established; some books--the Bible, especially--have been done into Chinese Braille. One of the occupations that has been found for them is playing the organ. The English Methodist Mission had a school in Hankow which had turned out organists to the saturation point. Then came the break up of 1927; the school had to be closed and the boys turned loose. I had sent two or three to them so my name was on the list of those who were interested. The boys carne to see me and begged for help. There seemed to be nothing to do for them except to give them enough money for the steamboat fare to some neighboring town where they thought perhaps they could find something to do. That was not very satisfactory. It was a time of reduced finances and we could not do very much; but the main building of St. James' School was wholly unoccupied because of war, so I decided to take in a few and try to teach them a handicraft of some sort. Some of them could weave and spin more or less efficiently, so we got

a couple of small hand looms such as are used all over China and set them to work at that; but as always there was the difficulty of disposing of tha cloth. A better prospect seemed to be in bamboo work. We hired a man who was more or less familiar with such work and set him to teach the boys. They made chairs and tables and did fairly well at it. Then it seemed advisable to use the building for the purpose for which it was intended, and we had no other place for the blind; so we were obliged to turn them out, and that was the end of the institute for the blind. I gave each of them--there were about a dozen--a small sum of money to start them. They succeeded, on the whole, better than I had expected. One I know set up a little shop selling cigarettes, matches and candy in Anking. Three went into partnership in a weaving industry. They invited me to dinner the last time I was in Hankow and seemed to be getting on well. Others found jobs of various sorts, and a few just went back to begging.

Perhaps the most difficult problem for the mission as a whole is self-support. When we began work the Christians were few and poor. It hardly seemed worth while to try to get anything in the way of contributions from them, so we rather let it slide. Then as time went on numbers and wealth increased, but they had never been taught to give and it was very hard to get them to do anything much. But the whole spirit of the land was changing. A spirit of independence was coming over China and we were able to appeal much more strongly to the Church. The schools also had taken to asking higher fees and the middle schools were practically self-supporting. It seemed possible to proceed in either of two ways: either let each congregation go ahead on its own, or have the diocese as a whole take up the matter. In the diocesan synod of 1925 it was taken up definitely and a plan was adopted by which the diocese was to increase its offerings by two and one-half per cent each year. Each church was assessed a certain amount. We calculated that it would take forty years to achieve self-support if we were able to keep at it steadily. We were, however, not starting from zero as the churches were already giving about eight per cent of their expenses. For the few years until the Japanese invasion, we pursued this course steadily, but some of our wisest Chinese clergy were almost certain that it would not be possible to keep it up any longer, and that the rate of interest would have to be reduced.

Some of the churches, however, did not think this was an adequate plan and wished to do more. They were anxious to get something in the way of an endowment. We have never discouraged this, though we have been somewhat doubtful as to its wisdom. The Church of the Resurrection, Kiukiang, and St. Matthew's, Nanchang, have done a good deal and had several hundred dollars in Chinese banks. Whether it will be possible to recover this after peace is restored I do not know. The Church of the True God, Miaochien, is a country parish, but it started an original plan for raising an endowment. The people are mostly farmers and they made contributions in rice instead of cash. The rice was turned in at harvest [53/54] time at the market price and held until the price rose when it was sold at a profit. Several other churches have copied their example. Some of the money I am glad to say was deposited in foreign banks on Shanghai on a gold basis and is now worth a great deal more than when it was subscribed.

An episcopal endowment fund has also been started. A present of one thousand dollars, Chinese currency, was given to the bishop on the twenty-fifth anniversary of his consecration, which he diverted to this purpose, and much more has since been added, so that now there is over twenty thousand dollars, Chinese currency, in the fund, and this goes to augmenting the salary paid to the assistant bishop by the Department of Missions.

The year 1927 marks a crisis in mission work and indeed in all Chinese-foreign conditions. In 1925 relations were somewhat strained when some students and workers in Shanghai were making patriotic and antif oreign speeches. The British policemen in charge fearing that they were going to rush the jail, ordered the Sikh policemen to fire on them and five were killed. This started the fires of patriotism burning brightly all over the country. At about the same time "Northern Punitive Expedition" started from Canton under the leadership of Chiang Kan Shek. This met with continuous success, coming north through Hunan and crossing over into Kiangsi. They took Nanchang, and came through northern Kiangsi to Anhwei which capitulated. The governor had been sitting perilously on the fence and came down on the side of progress. During this time Chiang Kai Shek had been accompanied by a number of Russian advisors, but relations were strained and finally a break came. During this period there was strong anti-foreign feeling which ended in the capture of Nanking, the shooting of one missionary, and great damage to others. Then we evacuated under strong advice from the consul. In Anking at the time there were a good many missionaries. We of course heard of trouble in other places, and then on the night of March 27, we received a telegram saying that an American destroyer would come to take us off. I was at the time suffering from an attack of influenza--the first illness which had kept me in bed for a day in about ten years--most convenient. My daughters, Jane and Mary, were in a like condition, and Mrs. Huntington was just recovering. She, however, spent the rest of the night packing--the telegram came about one o'clock--and did it with great judgment considering the circumstances. The Chinese authorities were friendly and there was great discussion as to whether we should leave. Of the two generals who were there at the time one was our old friend, Peh Wei; and the other, General Wang, was ready to promise any amount of protection, though it was plain to see that he would rather have us out of the way. The American destroyer came a little after noon, but we had some difficulty in getting in touch with it as we had inferred that the boat would come from Wuhu, while it really came from Kiukiang. There is not much room on a destroyer for passengers, that not being their purpose. The Huntington family, having three cases of "flu," was given the chart-room and the [54/55] others were accommodated, some on deck and some in officers' cabins. The captain made it very clear that it was not because I was bishop, but because we were sick that we had the room.

They took us up river to Kiukiang, where we were entertained by the manager of the Standard Oil Company. We were put on one of their steamers which was alongside Jardine and Mattheson's hulk, and others were put up in the house on shore. Two or three days later one of the Jardine boats came and took us, in addition to many from Hankow, and some from Kiukiang, down to Shanghai. There we were received by the members of the mission and put up at Seaman Hall, St. John's University. The Hankow refugees who had arrived before us had already effected an organization by which food was purchased, cooking done, bath-water heated, and the few dozen other things which civilized man seems to require, were accomplished.

The most exciting and dangerous time any members of the mission had was in Nanchang. Mr. and Mrs. Craighill were there in charge of the station. This was in the autumn of 1926, when the Kuoming-Tang army was coming up from Canton by way of Hunan. Suddenly one night the vanguard of the Southern army appeared. The Northern army being taken entirely by surprise evacuated the city and stopped some twenty miles north. This vanguard was composed of about five thousand from the Hwang Pu Military Academy and they were a fine set of young men. If the main body of the army had come along there would have been very little fighting, but they did not appear and the vanguard had to retreat.

Then the main force of the southerners came and laid siege to the city, then defended by a fine city wall which has since been removed. Later a road was laid down where the wall used to be. The suffering of the people was considerable. Food was getting scarce. Nothing could be brought in from the country and the stock in the city was sufficient for only a short time. Also there was no way of disposing of the night soil which is ordinarily carried out to the country and used as fertilizer. Beside this there was continual firing and looting. So a delegation of prominent men from the city came to see Mr. Craighill, asking him and Mr. Allen of the YMCA to be the bearers of a letter to Chiang Kai Shek asking him to find some other way to accomplish his ends and to relieve the sufferings of the people. The plan which finally was agreed upon with much doubt was that the two men would go out with a white flag and an American flag. Firing would cease while they were going, and to insure this, the gentlemen themselves would stay on the city wall. The firing ceased and Mr. Craighill and Mr. Allen got down from the wall by a ladder, but they had only gotten started across the plain when firing began again. They hid behind Chinese grave mounds, and after much difficulty and danger they got in touch with a sentry who, after much explanation, took them to an officer who promised to take a letter to the General. Wonderful to relate, the fighting did stop. The Southern army went north to Kiukiang and took that city and returned to take over Nanchang without much fighting. Whether the letter had any influence on [55/56] the General or not, no one knows. The Southern army has always tried to spare the people as much as possible and it is not improbable that having already almost decided to move, the letter helped.

Gradually the refugees in Shanghai began to disperse. Some went to the Philippines, some to Hawaii and some back to the U. S. Some returned, but more did not. Anking found itself with only two foreign clergymen and one of them was later transferred to another diocese. We also had one foreign man teacher and four women workers. This was not a time for discouragement, but an opportunity to test out our work. Would the Chinese stand up under the burden? I do not think the members of the mission had any misgivings on that score. The Chinese clergy and lay workers, we felt, were able to carry on and they did. The clergy in the outstations mostly kept on without interruption, for this trouble was distinctly anti-foreign and only mildly anti-Christian. In a few years we were having more baptisms and confirmations than ever bef ore and I think the work was stronger. The schools were continuing with much larger, numbers--in fact they were too large. The one way in which they failed to maintain the standard was that they took in more boys and girls than they could very well handle, but I think things went on all right. The children were there to study and our schools had a high reputation throughout the diocese. Financially also we were improving. The middle schools were practically self-supporting. We had cut down the number of primary schools, but they too had increased in size and in standards. The churches were not progressing as fast as the schools, but they were improving year by year. I hope we shall always have mutual help--China from America, and America from China--but at least the position has now been reached in which the help of China from America has been greatly reduced, and that very large baby, the Chinese Church, is able to walk alone even if it cannot do everything for itself.

I was in Shanghai on some business and about ready to return to Wuhu when I received a telegram from my wife asking me to buy her a new wedding ring! As I afterwards learned, she was just getting over a bad cold, and Miss Capron asked her over to dinner. Dr. Susanne Parsons was staying with her. The soup had just come on when three men entered the room. At first my wife thought they were some young men to see me, but they produced revolvers and demanded money. They did not get much money--Miss Capron had thirty or forty dollars, which they took. My wife got her engagement ring off when they were not looking and slid it into her sleeve, but was unable to conceal her wedding ring which they took. Miss Capron had a ring given her by her father, which they also took. They seem to have thought that Miss Capron, as treasurer of the mission, would have considerable money with her. She did not have much anyway, and what she had was in the office safe. They seemed to be very nervous and did not stay long. They had some "pals" outside who frightened the servants and kept them from giving an alarm. The gate had not been shut, as it was early in the evening and they had the gateman scared. We reported the matter to the magistrate who promised to [55/56] investigate. He called us once to identify two men who were not the ones, though they may have been among the outside set who frightened the servants.

The finances of the church were in a bad state at this time, owing to the general financial condition of practically the whole world. In 1931 there was a considerable reduction in the appropriation from the National Council and we had much difficulty in balancing our budget. This had one good result in that it put more responsibility on the diocese. It is all very well to say that we should have been making more effort towards self-support; but urging people to give more liberally is a very different thing from saying, "The National Council has reduced our appropriation and we shall have to close such and such stations." We began with primary schools and in the course of a few years we closed seven of the weaker schools. Then we dismissed some catechists and two of the clergy. In the meantime we were putting forth our best endeavors to increase the offerings and fees. The school fees grew enormously by means of increasing the number of scholars beyond what we ought to have taken. It was that or close, and the schools had such a reputation that we always had more applicants than we could receive, even when taking five hundred in each of the two boys' schools and about three hundred in the girls' schools. Two hundred for the boys' schools and a hundred and fifty for the girls' was about what I had thought of as a maximum. The schools were at this time under Chinese headmasters--the Rev. Arthur Wu at Anking; Mr. David Lee at Wuhu, with the Rev. Philip Lee in charge of the girls' department; and Miss Elizabeth Lieo in charge of St. Agnes', in Anking, all of them doing excellent work.

There was another question with regard to the schools which gave us even more trouble, namely registration. When mission schools had first been started they were the only ones which offered anything like a recent course in things other than Chinese. Also the Chinese government had no system of schools. They had a scheme of education which largely consisted of examinations. Essay writing was almost the only subject matter and for that the scholar must do the best he could. Accordingly there had sprung up thousands of little private schools usually consisting of one teacher and fifteen or twenty boys--no girls need apply. But the new learning had come in and with it new schools. Great universities sprang up in all the chief centers, and in the smaller towns were middle and primary schools. These last were slowest to feel the power of the new learning, but even these had become entirely different from the old one-man institutions. Some of the primary schools ran up to three or four hundred scholars with seven or eight teachers. In the small towns our schools were almost always better than the government schools, but in the larger cities this was not the case. Not that our schools were poorer in the big cities, but that the government schools were better.

[58] When the school system was getting under way the registration of schools came up as a practical matter. The government schools were registered and the authorities thought that private schools should be registered also. This of course was perfectly reasonable and I do not think many people objected to it in principle, though there were not a few who felt very doubtful as to the probable effect. In the hands of an unfriendly magistrate it might have been very harmful. However, when it came to the point of actually registering, the conditions of registration were naturally of the highest importance. There were clauses which many people thought they could not accept as Christians. There was the ceremony of reverencing Sun Yat Sen, the prohibition of religious teaching or worship in the schools, and the unwillingness of the authorities to accept an application for registration which indicated a religious purpose in the school. As to the Sun Yat Sen ceremony, it consisted of the reading of Dr. Sun's will, bowing before his picture and silence for two minutes. The Chinese authorities and practically all of our clergy and teachers maintained that it was a purely civil ceremony comparable to saluting the flag in America. I felt some doubt on the subject at first, but gradually came to agree with the Chinese.

The prohibition of religious worship and teaching is not to be interpreted too strictly. It all amounted to this--we were not to have religious services in the school-houses or during school-hours, and students should not be required to attend religious services or classes in religion. This was not of course directed toward Christian schools only, but to'Buddhist or Confucian schools in so far as they were religious. Personally I had been more than willing to accept this ruling. I do not think any harm was done to the Christian faith by such regulations, but on the contrary, it tended to make the teaching and worship more real. Where we have complied with these rules, a very large majority of the students have attended worship and classes in religion. There is a nice story of a band of young nationalists who came into the church of the Methodist girls' school in Kiukiang and ordered the service to stop, saying that the girls were "toadying" to the foreigners. The students replied, "Liberty of worship is guaranteed by the constitution. Go away and let us enjoy our liberty."

The matter of a religious purpose in the school was perhaps the most serious, as many, including nearly all of the foreign missionaries in the Diocese of Shanghai, felt that they could not apply for registration without stating clearly their religious intent. However, no negative statement was required and it seemed to a great majority of the missionaries in the Dioceses of Hankow and Anking that we should comply with the demands of the government and register. The first school to register was St. Paul's, Anking. This was done with the Peking government by the Rev. J. K. Shryock at that time (1925) headmaster of the school. The conditions then were not as strict as they were later. The Sun Yat Sen ceremony of course was not thought of then, as the northern government had no love for that great patriot. Also the form of application for registration made it possible to register without taking up the matter of religion. [58/59] The only condition remaining was the prohibition of religious services and classes in school buildings both during school hours, and of compulsory attendance at them. As both Mr. Shryock and I had moved a long way in that direction there was no difficulty in that matter. When registration was ended, one hundred and two out of one hundred and eight scholars re-entered for religious instruction to be given outside of class hours.

My first trip up river after evacuation was interesting. We had taken up our residence in one of the houses at St. John's which was not at that time needed for members of the faculty. Then I left to visit the diocese in October. The steamers were running as usual, but there was one new feature. Iron sheets about a quarter of an inch thick were put up on all steamers to protect the decks and staterooms from rifle fire.

We went through to Kiukiang with no misadventure and after a few days there I went back to Anking. I stayed at the house of one of our Christians and inspected the property. All of our property had been occupied by troops, and the houses were pretty generally looted. In our house very little was left as it had been. I had tried to protect my library by putting all the books one on top of another and boarding up the book cases in which they were stored. The first lot of troops had not discovered them, but the second detachment found them and all but three or four hundred volumes were gone. A friend in the China Inland Mission bought back a good many of the most valuable from book stores and other places. He had a regular price--three volumes for one dollar. In this way I got back a good many, including the Sacred Books of the East; unfortunately not all, for some of the books on China which I valued most were never recovered. Our letters, including correspondence with my wife, were strewed all over the compound. After this we agreed not to keep letters.

All of the mission buildings had been used to quarter soldiers. St. Paul's was in a horrid state. The dining room had been used as a stable and had not been cleaned. Many windows were broken and doors and floor boards had been used as firewood. The hospital had been a so-called military hospital, but there was no doctor in charge and much valuable medicine was lost. The X-Ray machine was badly damaged, but it was ultimately found possible to repair it. The whole place was badly wrecked. The only place which was in anything like good order was the Cathedral compound which was in charge of a Colonel Den who had some idea of discipline. He took us over it and we asked him to see that the chancel was not used by the soldiers, which he promised to do and I think did. Each room of the school was occupied by soldiers and they were under orders to take off their shoes before going into them, so there were rows of shoes outside each door. When we entered a room, those present jumped to their feet, clapped their heels together and saluted. I have never [59/60] heard anything more of Colonel Den, but he ought to have risen to higher rank.

It was reported on the day when were to leave that one of Jardine Mattheson's boats would be in about eight o'clock and, as the city gates were strictly closed at seven, we went outside at that time. I was escorting one of the Chinese nurses at the Methodist Hospital in Wuhu back to that place and we sat up all night waiting for the boat. She went to sleep sitting in a straight backed Chinese chair; but I could not manage it, and waited till about eleven the next day when a very inferior boat of one of the Chinese companies came and took us off about one o'clock. We got to Wuhu, I remember, about midnight and I escorted the nurse to the hospital. Mr. Lamphear had already returned to Wuhu and I stayed with him for a few days, trying to get things into a little better shape. Wuhu had not suffered nearly as much as Anking and it was possible to live there much sooner.

My wife and the children stayed in Shanghai all winter, but I went back to Wuhu. It was inadvisable to go to Anking as the communications were badly disrupted and it was difficult to get to or from that city with any regularity. Also our house was badly in need of repair. We had the only furnace in the diocese and the soldiers had coveted the furnace itself, especially the piping, and it has never been restored.

It was inadvisable to try to run the Kuling School under conditions which prevailed, so the teachers and children were taken to Shanghai and a sort of amalgamation was made with the Shanghai School. A house in the neighborhood was rented for a dormitory and classes. My own children lived with their mother on the St. John's Compound during the winter of 1927-28. The people living on the Compound hired a car to take all the children over to school and back. In the spring my wife went back to Wuhu with me and the children lived in the house which Mr. Stone, the headmaster of the Kuling School, had rented.

The Kuling School was reopened in 1929.

As I said above, we moved back to Wuhu in the spring of 1928, after the meeting of the General Synod in Shanghai. Our servants had f ollowed us to Shanghai with much of our property. They had saved our rugs, the piano and a number of other things. The piano had a large sword wound on the back, but was otherwise uninjured. We had a truckload of things to take back to Wuhu. I have always felt that the steamship company got the best of us. It is an old custom in China that one can take almost anything on a steamer as personal baggage. I once took an office safe which was in need of repair to Shanghai and was told that there was no need to pay anything. At another time I brought up from Wuhu two tons of coal, for which they refused pay; so when the chief officer brought me an account for taels 125, I was surprised. He subsequently cut it down to taels 75, but even that seemed pretty steep and if I had known about it there were many second-hand articles which I would have left in Shanghai. In Wuhu we took the house formerly occupied by the Gowens, renting the Lund house on the top of the hill to [60/61] the Standard Oil agent, with a view to getting something to help on repairs which were needed in so many places.

The foreign staff of the diocese was almost completely scattered. After we ref ugeed to Shanghai twelve persons returned to the United States, of whom three subsequently returned to China; seven went to the Philippines, of whom two returned to China; and five stayed temporarily in Shanghai, none of them remaining more than a year. This looks like a pretty bad break-up for the diocese, but it turned out to be something quite different--a transfer of responsibility from Americans to Chinese. There had been a steady stream of ordinations for some years and in 1927, I ordained four priests and seven deacons. All of them are still working in China and nearly all in the diocese of Anking. The foreigners gradually moved back to their old stations--that is those who continued to work in China; the Craighills to Nanchang, Dr. Taylor and some of the nurses to Anking, and Mr. Lanphear, the Huntingtons and some of the Sisters to Wuhu. But the chief burden was definitely shifted to Chinese shoulders. This of course was all to the good. The Chinese naturally understand their own people better than we do and can reach them better, not to mention the fact that they can live comfortably on a much lower salary than we can.

About this time one of our most noted Christians, Lo Lao Tie, passed away. He never would tell how old he was lest someone should make him a present or have a feast for him; but he himself was one of the most generous individuals I have ever known. He was always giving away something. Especially he always had something for children. He was born of Mohammedan family in Hankow and was one of the earliest converts to our mission in that city. He liked to recall the first Christmas he spent in the Church when there was one table--eight persons--to represent all the members of the Church there. When I knew him he already was a venerable old gentleman with a long white beard and a bald head. Once when I was passing through Wuhu where he was a catechist, he came down on the steamer to see me. A fellow missionary of another denomination said, "When did Confucius enter the American Church Mission?" But he was no Confucian scholar. Neither was he much of a preacher; but his gift was better, in that he was a man who loved everybody and whom everybody loved. There was much genuine grief in the church when he passed away.

As mentioned above, bandits were numerous at that time and one of our faithful teachers--Milton Wang--was killed by them. He was a graduate of St. James' School, Wuhu, and had been a teacher in Nanking for ever ten years. He was coming from Nanling to Wuhu by nightboat when it was attacked by bandits and he and some others were taken off and shot. The Church and the bishop put up a bell tower in Nanling in his memory.

Bandits were gradually though never completely suppressed in Anhwei; but in Kiangsi there were Communists whom I would not like to call bandits, though some of their actions were of the nature of banditry. As I [61/62] mentioned before, every city in that province, except Kinkiang and Nanchang, was occupied by them at some time. I have already told about Kian. They did not occupy Kingtehchen as long, and though they took one of our teachers into captivity, they released him in a few days. They also took our property as headquarters for the youth section of the Communist army of Kiangsi. They took good care of the property and we received it back when they were driven out, without damage.

It was during the time when Chiang Kai Shek was trying to round them up that I had my only meeting with him. I was in Nanchang on usual mission business and had the good fortune to be there at the time when a committee was being set up for "Kiangsi Christian Rural Reconstruction." We spent the morning with the provincial governor discussing the matter and then had lunch with Madam Chiang. The Generalissimo was at the front, or near it at a city called Fuchou. In the afternoon we received a message from Madam saying that she had been telephoning to him and he wanted us to come out for lunch and talk the matter over. It is about fifty miles to Fuchou and he would have cars for us at nine o'clock. I sat next to His Excellency at a very nice lunch. He has not a great stock of small talk and the luncheon was rather quiet. We afterwards discussed the matter in hand and then had our photographs taken. He made a speech which the Madam interpreted, and I replied. The remarks were recorded with a view to future reproduction as news at movies. There was a noisy interruption which interfered with the recording. The noise was stopped and they requested that the Madam repeat her remarks from a certain point, which was done. As we were driving home, Dr. Y. Y. Tsu, now assistant bishop of Hongkong, turned around and said, "I almost have an idea. The only part they are going to reproduce is the Madam's second speech." This turned out to be the case.

Perhaps the biggest thing the diocese of Anking ever undertook was entertaining the General Synod of the Chung Hwa Sheng Kung Hwei. The first synod as mentioned above was held in Shanghai in 1912, at which time the Sheng Kung Hwei organization was completed, the outline laid down and the Constitution adopted. The three following synods were also held in Shanghai and there seemed to be a growing feeling that Shanghai was the only place able to entertain the synod. The precedent was broken when it was held in Canton in 1924. Fukien invited it for 1927, but the disturbed state of the country made it inadvisable to hold the synod that year and the following year it seemed wiser to go back to Shanghai. Shanghai has, I should say, several points of superiority. It is the most easily reached from all parts of the country. St. John's University can easily provide rooms both for meetings, and for sleeping and eating, so we were glad to go back there for the sixth general synod. Then for 1931, Hangchow invited us and entertained us most efficiently and cordially. Anking invited the synod to come to Wuhu for 1934. Most of our foreign delegates were very doubtful as to our ability to entertain so august a body in an adequate manner. The Chinese delegates consulted me [62/63] and I said, "Go ahead if you think you can handle it." So the invitation was given and accepted. We have the finest set of Chinese clergy there is anywhere and they took hold. They asked the bishop's advice occasionally, but I appointed the necessary committees and left it to them, and they did it all. St. James' School suspended classes for about ten days and the school building became the home of the convention. All of the Chinese delegates and some of the occidentals slept and ate there, though I think all of the westerners and many of the Chinese had some of their meals with the Wuhu missionaries. Altogether the whole synod was so well managed that some of my brother bishops insisted that they could not possibly keep up to our standard. Be that as it may, everything was very well managed and everyone was pleased with the smoothness with which things were handled. The synod lasted for a week, as has been the custom, and everyone was pleased, especially the members of the diocese of Anking. The whole thing had cost the diocese about two thousand dollars, nearly all of which was raised by the Chinese.

The most important action taken by the synod was the election of a bishop for the Missionary Diocese of Shensi. The Board of Missions was organized by the second synod in 1915 and after investigation it was decided to open work in Shensi at the capitol city of Sian. Money was raised in sufficient quantity to start the work, which was begun by sending a Chinese priest accompanied by a catechist. Several able and devoted men and women have worked there, but the project has suffered from lack of continuity and episcopal supervision. Bishop Norris has visited them from time to time and Bishop Tsen also; but the need of a bishop for the diocese was increasingly felt and so the General Synod of 1934 elected the Rev. T. K. Shen of Nanking as bishop. Under his care the first missionary diocese of the Chung Hwa Sheng Kung Hwei has grown and prospered in spite of wars and riots.

Another important piece of work was on the hymnal. Next to the translation of the Bible there is probably no literary work which has taken as much time and labor as the translation of hymns. The chief trouble has been that our hymns are very western. Neither in meter nor in thought do they conform to Chinese standards. The classical poetry of China is in very limited forms. Most of the poems are short lyrics. The Book of Odes is the earliest collection of poems in Chinese and most of them are in a meter of four syllables to the line. But the classical period for Chinese poetry is the Tang Dynasty. The poems of that great period are in either fives or sevens and rhymed rather strangely, the first, third and fourth lines rhyming. There are, however, poems of a freer nature. Therefore when the earlier missionaries began translating- hymns they found themselves in a very difficult position. Should they try to conform to Chinese forms or boldly adopt the western meters? The latter won and there is every reason why they should. The Chinese poems were not in a language understood by the people, and they would not fit western tunes. [63/64] Very few of the missionaries and not many of the converts were capable of handling Chinese forms with ease and effectiveness. Our own mission took a middle course which was probably the wiser. Bishop Graves, assisted by some of the Chinese clergy, was chief translator and the book which he got out was finished and published shortly before I reached China. They have a more literary tone than most of the hymnals in use in China, but perhaps are a little hard to understand. However, a friend of mine in another mission who has done a great deal of work in the matter of musical arrangement, tells me that her Chinese co-workers, when given a choice of four or five translations, almost always choose Bishop Graves' rendering.

This state of things was highly unsatisfactory and the Chinese Christians of a younger generation were in active revolt against it. They wanted a hymnal by the Chinese, of the Chinese and for the Chinese. A committee was appointed, consisting partly of Chinese and partly of Westerners from several missions and churches including our own. It was understood that the Westerners would not interfere with the Chinese forms of verse. In that matter great changes have taken place during recent years and a much wider choice in the matter of forms for poetry has come over literary China. This committee brought in a preliminary report at the Hangchow Synod and presented a further report at Wuhu. That was practically a final report (though one more was presented), and was adopted by our Church at the meeting in Foochow in 1937. I do not know of any other group of churches which has adopted a common hymnal, and this was only made possible by the great liberality of the committee and of the churches. One principle was that any church which insisted on any particular hymn should have the hymn desired, however much other churches might object to it. They do not have to use it if they do not wish to. So we have the book, a book of Chinese hymns either written or translated by Chinese or, in the very rare cases of a translation by a westerner, approved by the Chinese. It was a huge success. I cannot remember how many copies were sold, but my recollection is that there were over a hundred thousand. The publishers were for a year or more quite unable to keep up with the demand.

The next General Synod was in Foochow; and if people thought Wuhu might be difficult to reach, Foochow was worse. I went down to Shanghai and found, by great good fortune, a boat sailing for Foochow. She was a good enough boat and we made the trip in about two days. The China coast from Shanghai south is very beautiful. I had been down to Hongkong a number of times, but the liners on which I had traveled ran further out than our small coaster and I had not seen as much of the coast before. The water, however, was muddy, which detracted from the beauty of the trip. Foochow made up for this by the loveliness of the surroundings and the hospitality of the people. The meetings were held in Trinity School, which had suspended classes for the duration of the [64/65] synod. One thing interested me greatly. The Foochow dialect is one of the worst, and quite impossible to be understood by persons who speak only Mandarin; but the schools throughout China had been ordered to teach Mandarin. The orders had been carried out with such good result that the school boys who acted as pages understood us and we them without difficulty.

Some of the delegates came by bus from Nanchang and had a very interesting time of it. I said that they came by bus; but as a matter of fact that was only half-way. The rest of the trip was made by boat down the beautiful Ming River. All of the way they were in some doubt as to whether they would be attacked by bandits, but they got through without mishap.

Our return journey was uneventful except for the suddenness of our getting off to catch a boat which had not been scheduled. Another party who took a later boat found that they were passengers with seventy Japanese wrestlers who had been giving exhibitions of their prowess in Formosa.

I left with the family on furlough at the end of June, 1937. There was trouble with Japan, but that was so usual that we did not think much about it. Then while we were on journey came the news of the trouble at Marco Polo Bridge outside Peking, and when we were in Paris the fighting in Shanghai began. I cabled to ask if they wanted me to return and received a negative answer which I later found was not the opinion of a good many members of the staff, but of one member who was in Shanghai, unable to communicate with the rest of the members. Probably I could not have been of much use, but I know some members who would have liked to have the responsibility for decisions taken off their hands. For various reasons I did not return till January. I had as cabin-mates two very delightful young men--Luther Tucker and Jack McMichael. Tucker was a Y secretary going to China and Japan for work among students. He got along all right in China; but in Japan he distributed some pamphlets which the government objected to and he was arrested and kept in jail for a month or more. McMichael was president of the Students' Union in the United States, and managed all right in China and Japan, but was ejected and arrested in the United States for trying to give testimony on behalf of the Union where his testimony was not wanted.

I had planned to go up to Wuhu when I got to Shanghai, but it seemed that a pass to Wuhu from the Japanese was something not likely to be obtained. I therefore changed my plans and went to Hongkong, intending to fly from there to Hankow. The aeroplanes were all booked up for about two weeks, but I waited and flew up, leaving at eleven o'clock and arriving in Wuchang at three. I was met there by Miss Clark who has established a treasurer's office in Hankow, Miss Parke who was assisting her, Dr. John Sung and the Rev. Graham Kwei. Still I was not in the diocese, and that was where I wanted to be. Dr. Sung and Mr. [65/66] Kwei had, like most people, evacuated Anking when it seemed probable that the Japanese would be there soon; but the Japanese had delayed their coming and stopped at Wuhu, so those two gentlemen were most anxious to get back. The Diocese of Hankow kindly gave me office room, and Bishop Roots took me in. The Bishop's House was one of the most interesting in which I have ever stayed. Agnes Smedley had just brought back a group who had gone to Shensi to take supplies and medicines to the Eighth Route Army and they had vivid tales to tell. All sorts of people came in at all times. It was a sort of meeting place for Eighth Route Army leaders who were temporarily in Hankow, as well as for members of our own and other missions; interesting people also called there.

However, they were unable to help in getting me to Anking, so I put Dr. Sung and Mr. Kwei on the job of finding transportation, while I tried to catch up with my correspondence and find out what the mission workers were doing. Wuhu was taking care of refugees and doing what they could under Japanese occupation. The rest of the diocese was in free territory and the clergy and other workers were for the most part in their stations. After two or three weeks it was reported that the superintendent of roads for the Province of Anhwei was going to Anking and we could go with 'him. We were to start at six o'clock on a fine clear morning, but of course we did not actually start till about eight. The company consisted of two cars, three trucks and two buses. I was comfortably placed in the car of the Superintendent of roads, and Dr. Sung and Mr. Kwei were in one of the buses. We had not been many miles on the way before we got a specimen of the roads at their worst. There was mud about to the hubs. However, we got along all right. Towards noon we arrived at a small town where we were ordered to stop, as there was an air alarm. After half an hour or so the all clear came through and we went on again. The roads grew worse after we left from Hankow, but the commissioner assured us that there would be an improvement when we got into Anhwei; in the meantime they were pretty bad. The other car was ahead of us and we suddenly stopped because one of the front wheels had gone through a bridge. That did not seem to worry anyone very much and they collected a bunch of coolies who lifted it out and we went on again. Twice more we had to collect coolies to get us through mud-holes, but the weather was fine, so it was not nearly as bad as it might have been. Toward noon of the second day we reached Susung which is one of our stations. I was with one of the friends looking for food when by chance we ran into the priest-in-charge, the Rev. Mr. Hsiang. He quickly conducted us to the best restaurant in town and we had a good dinner. He told us that the government had established a temporary school in Susung, as the schools in Anking had thought it advisable to close on account of the approach of the Japanese. The Christian boys and girls--for the school was 'coeducational--had formed a Christian league and had asked him to conduct services. While waiting there we also met a post office truck with mail and part of the staff of the Anking office who were evacuating. Among them was Mr. Bradley Fan who taught in St. Paul's School for [66/67] many years. He was so covered with dust that I did not recognize him at first. There was a continual stream of evacuees on the road. They were going west and south, and there was also a stream of soldiers going north and east, most of them from Kwangsi.

About sunset of the second day we reached Kaoho Pu, which is sixty li from Anking, and there we parted company with most of our friends who were going north to Liuan where the temporary government of the Province of Anhwei was located, Anking being considered too open to attack for a good provincial capitol. We went south to Anking in a truck. I sat in front with the driver. I tried to shut the door, but could not do so. The driver said somewhat hesitantly, "There's a string." I found the string and a nail, wrapped the string around the nail and that was the way to shut the door.

Soon we came to a town where the police stopped us on account of an air alarm. After a little while, however, we were allowed to proceed if we would shut the lights off. It was a beautiful moonlight night and we got along all right. When we reached Anking we found the city as complete a blackout as one could wish to see--or rather, not to see. After scouting round for a while we found a coolie who carried part of our baggage to the compound; and so ended the first of my journeys in war-time China.

I stayed there for several days, continually occupied with interviews and committee meetings. I think a fair number of matters were straightened out. Then the business was to get back to Hankow. This did not prove as difficult as getting down, though the going was not so good. We went down to the river bank, got a shakedown in a little hotel and were awakened about three o'clock to go on board a steam launch which started about seven. This took us about forty miles. They could take us no further because the river was mined. After getting a sampan across the river we tried to find a conveyance, but the best we could do was one wheelbarrow which carried our baggage and some of the time carried me also. We walked around behind a high cliff, on the other side of which is the town of Matang, which was heavily fortified. Soldiers were working on it

at the time. We spent the night at Matang in an inn which was reserved for civilians, all the other accommodations being occupied by troops. In the morning we got another steam launch which took us to Kiukiang and landed us an a big raft which was prepared to be sent down to Matang to, block the river. It was said to be full of explosives, but I doubt it.

There was no boat leaving Kiukiang and I had a pretty bad cold, so, I went to our mission. The Rev. Ralph Chang put me to bed and by the next day I was feeling better. On the third day I took a steamer which was going to Hankow. My companion on this trip was Mr. Yen, an artist and a teacher to newcomers in the China Inland Mission.

I stayed in Hankow till the latter part of June. In the meantime I had asked the Rev. L. R. Craighill to move from Wuhu to Anking, as it seemed certain that that city would soon be attacked. He had been there a few days when I received a telegram suggesting the holding of a [67/68] conference in Kuling. The idea was that we should get the conference compound which was under the care of the Presbyterian Mission, and invite every worker in the mission who wished to do so to come and bring his family. They were to provide their own transportation and five dollars a month for board. I wired back asking that the Rev. Robin Chen come to Hankow and explain matters, which he did. It was thought that the Japanese would not attempt to take Kuling; or that if they did, we could get out in plenty of time. I consulted the Ambassador and the Consul General and they both thought well of the plan, so I telegraphed Mr. Craighill to proceed. We thought there might be two hundred who would want to come, but as a matter of fact there were a little over four hundred. I went up to help, about the 25th of June, and it was well that I did, as only one more boat went from Hankow to Kiukiang for months.

The conference houses were outside of the foreign section of Kuling and consisted of seven buildings. The foreigners--Mr. Craighill, Miss Clark and Miss Sherman--had one house. It was also the chief storehouse for rice, food being one of the chief problems. That house had a wide veranda which was occupied by about a hundred bags of rice. It was always doubtful whether any more could be had. Other food was also scarce, but for the Chinese rice is the one essential.

All this time we were not losing sight of the chief purpose of the conference, which was study. We had courses in the Bible and the Prayer Book; in pastoral work and in preaching, and, of course, regular services. A school was also started for the children of the staff members. As there were at least twice as many as the buildings were intended to accommodate, there were many difficulties to be overcome. We did it by getting all of the adults on some committee--sanitation, food, services, classes, etc. It was found that there were several members who had not brought their Bibles, and I found to my surprise that the Gideons had come to China. A hotel opposite us had a fine stock of Gideon Bibles and loaned us as many as we needed.

Naturally one of the chief interests was to learn how things were going in the world in general and China in particular. There were practically no newspapers, but there were several radio sets and our group regularly assembled at the American School to listen to Mr. Algood's radio. Reception was very bad and the set was both small and old; but we managed to get something. The other source of information was our eyes. The River is visible from certain places as far as Matang and we could see the Japanese boats. They were held back for a considerable time by the boom at Matang. Finally they succeeded in breaking it up and coming on to Kiukiang. There was terror both in Kiukiang and in Kuling. Those in Kiukiang who could do so, came up to Kuling and those in Kuling went down over the south end of the mountain by the various available routes. (I might mention that the main road between Kuling and the rest of the world is north to Kiukiang and the Yangtze River; but there are other roads--one to the east to Nankang and the Poyang Lake, one to Shaho and the railroad and one south to Tehan and Nanchang. There are [68/69] other lesser roads also.) At one time somebody started running and a general stampede seemed imminent; but it was found that no Japanese were coming, so they stopped. The Westerners on the mountain had previously organized committees and planned for taking care of the refugees. The great difficulty was food. We had the best supply of any group on the mountain and that would last, if we could get no more, for about six weeks. It seemed possible that more rice could be gotten up from below, and getting it was one of the major occupations of the inhabitants. Someone would get a report that rice was to be had somewhere part-way down the mountain. Some foreigner would collect a squad of coolies and take money in his purse and go down and get it. That was not always possible, but could sometimes be managed. Our own people stayed quite calm, and we measured our space to see if we could get any more in. All of our beds were "double-deckers" and we succeeded in taking in about a hundred more "visitors," making something over five hundred in space which would ordinarily accommodate about two hundred.

Other places of refuge were organized. The Roman Catholic priest there, with large faith, took in about two thousand and managed to feed them, though not very liberally. A Chinese hotel was turned into a hospital. Several of our people assisted in that undertaking. The Church of the Ascension was turned into a hospital for women and children, with an English Methodist woman doctor in charge.

Some funny things happened, too. The price of eggs went soaring till they were not to be had at any price. Mrs. Tyng invited me to breakfast on Sunday morning after the early Communion Service and had an egg for me! Miss Sherman had some chickens, but they would not lay, so we decided to eat them. One was killed, cooked and eaten and the next morning there were two eggs! Believe it or not, the chickens continued to lay regularly after that.

Because of the excitement induced by the approach of the Japanese, all shops closed for three days. On the fourth a few small boys appeared sitting on the shop steps with piles of cigarettes and matches. In a couple of days more the shops began to reopen and soon it almost "business as usual."

We were defended by guerrillas of the fourth route army. They were not very visible; but one met them sometimes alone and sometimes in small squads. Their uniforms consisted of any coolie clothes they could get; but one thing was necessary--four pockets in the jacket to carry bombs. To be really in style they would have two potato masher bombs in the upper pockets and two pineapple bombs in the lower. That was not all of their equipment. Many of them had rifles; others had revolvers and bandoliers full of cartridges. The mountain was the ideal place for them as there were countless good hiding places. The Japanese were very much at a disadvantage, and retaliated by dropping bombs, presumably made of American scrap iron, from planes fueled with American gas on the lower part of the mountain. For some reason they left the higher part largely alone, but one could see their planes flying over and dropping [69/70] bombs where they thought it would most harm. Then they gradually closed the roads. Kiukiang first, then Nankang and Shaho and some of the minor tracks till the way south to Tehan and Nanchang was the only exit left.

Our food still held out, but we had not enough left to last more than a month, so we decided to go down the mountain. This was about the end of September. There were at that tine a little over four hundred people with us and we had to plan for them. We divided the group into four sections, taking about a hundred each day. With the coolies who carried our baggage that made about a hundred and fifty a day. A few hired chairs, but most of us walked. The old and the very young rode. There were three foreigners--Miss Clark, Mr. Craighill and myself. My chair cost Chinese one hundred and thirty dollars which at that time was much depreciated, though not as much as it was later. Miss Clark and I were in the second day's party and we got off about ten o'clock. The first part of the way was along paths that I had been over in past years. A little added excitement was due to the fact that Japanese planes were visible from time to time, but no bombs were dropped. Soon after noon we came to a fork in the road; one road going east and one south. We took the south road which I had never been over before. It took us over a high ridge and then gradually down steeper and steeper, first over slopes covered with tall grass and then into a beautiful bamboo forest. About sunset we reached a little village beside a rapid stream which came over a fine cliff a little further tip, making a grand waterfall. There we arranged to spend the night. There were two small inns. Miss Clark and I, with about fifty coolies slept in one. The coolies slept on the earthen floor and the foreigners on doors. (The Chinese door is easily taken down. Placed on two benches it makes a very good bed if one does not want softness.) Miss Clark had never slept on a door before and was a little surprised at it, but did very well with this novel "Simmons bed." Just before dark a couple of shots came over, but they were very high and only served to remind us that our friends were keeping watch over us.

We planned to leave before daylight and get out of the narrow valley where the Japanese seemed to have concentrated their attention; but of course there were all sorts of delays and we did not get started till nearly sunrise. I think it was as well that we did not start in the dark as the path was none too good--one might easily have slipped off into the stream. Anyway bombs began to drop as we emerged from the valley into the plain. My chair coolies did not like that and every time a bomb hit within two or three hundred yards they dropped the chair and made for the thick bushes. Then began an argument. I said, "Get up and come along." They said, "But sir, it is dangerous." I said, "I know it is dangerous, but it is just as dangerous to go back. And besides what do you think I pay you one hundred and thirty dollars for?" That argument always won and they would come out and go along as cheerful as you please.

[71] During the trips down there was only one slight casualty among the entire four hundred. The Rev. Mr. Wei, who was in the first day's party, was scratched on the thigh by a piece of shrapnel and another piece splashed mud on him. Beyond this no one was touched. However, a more serious matter came when one of the ladies gave birth to a son. She was taken into a Chinese mud house and everything went off without any complications. In two or three hours she was able to be put into a chair, and she and the baby got along finely. I would like to express my admiration of the Chinese women as they appeared on this trip. They were not used to long walks nor to having bombs dropped in their direction, but they never fussed nor complained. One old woman was walking along with a big bundle of her possessions--too much for her to carry; I was walking at the time and told her to put her bundle into my chair. The coolies objected. I insisted, but it seemed like a deadlock. I took up the bundle and carried it myself. That was too much for the coolies and they took it into the chair. But alas for our good intentions, the coolies walked too fast for the old woman and she would not suffer her belongings out of her sight so she took the bundle back and carried it herself.

About four in the afternoon we reached Tehan which is a rather nice little city. A mission of the Brethren is located there, but the missionaries had left. We were conducted to a place outside the city which had been prepared for the reception of refugees. There was a shelter of thatch, and tea was to be had. Food was more difficult; but we foraged around and managed to get something. There, also, was a group of nice boys and girls who were anxious to help refugees. They were intending to go to Kuling to assist in caring for the wounded. I am afraid we rather damped their ardor by telling them that there were few wounded, if any, and that the sick there were being taken care of.

The man in charge of the refugee camp informed us that there would be a bus to take us to Nanchang about eleven o'clock that night. The county magistrate came later and uttered polite words, saying that the bus would be there about nine. As a matter of fact it carne just at midnight and was filled in a minute. However, Miss Clark and I got on, the others being taken by another bus to a place on the shore of the Poyang Lake where unfortunately they had to wait for three days before they got a boat which took them to Nanchang. Our "bus" was a springless truck and bumped us along into Nanchang about four'oclock in the morning. We got rickshaws which took us to the Burlington Hotel--a very nice hotel--the best I think, between Shanghai and Hankow. The boy who was in charge did not seem to like our appearance--we must have been a pretty tough looking pair--and said, "No room." We stood around for a little while and out came some members of our mission who had come down a day ahead of us. They were just starting to get the train for Changsha. We said, "We will take their rooms." The boy had nothing to say against that, so we got a bath and beds. We slept till towards noon.

We stayed in Nanchang for about three weeks, living at the Methodist [71/72] compound which is situated outside the city on the banks of the Kan River. It is a beautiful piece of property about three hundred yards long and perhaps half as wide. At one end is the hospital and along from that the houses of the foreign staff. We had offices and I slept in the house furthest from the hospital. There were frequent air raid alarms and the rule was that when the siren sounded everybody assembled at the hospital. If the enemy planes got near, we took refuge in the basement of the hospital which is a reinforced concrete structure and probably the best bombproof building in the city. The neighbors also took advantage of it and at one place they had small ladders to assist them over the wall. It was interesting to see men, women and children running along at an easy gait whenever the alarm sounded. However, about nine out of ten of the alarms signified nothing At the tenth alarm a plane might fly over the city to drop a few bombs and draw fire from the anti-aircraft guns. I believe they actually brought down one plane. This was not so bad by day, but moonlight nights were different. There was one full moon while we were there and for four nights in succession the planes flew over us. We would start to go to bed and the alarm would sound. We would get back into our clothes--some of them anyway--and run over to the hospital. In about half an hour the "all clear" would sound and we would go back, get to bed or nearly there, when another alarm would sound. Only once or twice did the planes actually come over the city and drop anything, but one never could tell what would happen next time.

The only time that anything really happened, Miss Clark, the Rev. Robin Chen, Mr. Chou, our accountant, and a barber who was cutting my hair were there when the alarm sounded. They were anxious not to stop work unnecessarily and kept on. I told the barber to hurry up, but he was the slowest barber who ever cut hair. We decided it was time to go and then decided that the time to go had passed. I tried to get into the cellar, but it was locked so I said, "Lie down." Now the house was so constructed that the back hall turned at a right angle and the wall was a good fifteen inch one, of brick. We lay down behind it. The last bomb hit about thirty feet from the house. Fortunately it was a small one and did not knock down the wall, but only smashed all the glass on that side of the house, knocked two doors off their hinges and made a crater about a foot deep and ten feet wide. We were very careful to go over to the hospital promptly after that. While we had been enjoying the hospitality of the Methodists, the rest of our party had been staying at our compound in the city. In the meantime we had sent scouts further south to Kian, as Nanchang seemed far from safe. The Rev. Daniel Liu had gone there earlier and established himself in a small town about thirty miles from Kian. Other small villages were found where the refugees could go. The smaller places are much less liable to bombing than the larger towns. Kian had suffered considerably and was to suffer more later on.

Then came the problem of transportation. Trucks were running more or less irregularly, but civilian travel by truck was not popular. The trucks were wanted for military purposes. The party was somewhat [72/73] reduced, as a number of members had left at Nanchang, some as nurses in the hospital and others going further west to Hunan. There were about three hundred left. These were able to get boats which took them safely to their destination and Kian became the chief center of the diocese for about a year. In the towns and villages to which they went they started schools primarily for their own children, but also for the children of the locality. They introduced some ideas of sanitation, organized preaching bands who went through the country, and of course, started up regular services.

Finances were a great difficulty. There was, however, a branch of the Bank of China in Kian where we managed after some trouble to make arrangements. It was equally necessary to have someone in Shanghai who could send in the money as it was needed. Miss Clark was entirely capable of doing that, but there were continual questions coming up for which she was unwilling to take the responsibility. It seemed also as if there would be matters which could be handled better from Shanghai, so it was decided that we two had better go to Shanghai, Mr. Craighill going on with the rest of the party to Kian. We left Nanchang by train--the one train that should have gone to Hangchow; but as Hangchow was in Japanese hands the train stopped at Kinghwa, thirty or forty miles from Hangchow. We started about eight o'clock and went by sleeping car. The accommodations were a little primitive as there were no curtains nor doors to the sections; so we did not do much in the way of disrobing. The next morning we were still in Kiangsi province, but near the border of Chehkiang. About four o'clock in the afternoon we reached Kinghwa and with the assistance of the China Travel service got to a very nice little inn which we left about four o'clock in the morning, going by rickshaw to the bus station. The buses were trucks and we sat on our baggage. I found that it was better to come a little late as then you sat yourself down on the top of earlier arrivals, whereas if you came early--to say nothing of the annoyance of a long wait--the late comers put themselves down on top of you. Still there was a chance that you would be crowded out entirely and that would be worse.

The bus started about seven o'clock and a little after one we came to the end of our day's journey. The next day we went on to a little town where we changed from bus to a steam launch and about three o'clock arrived at the port city of Wenchow. We put up at the Park Hotel, a pretty good Chinese hotel charging foreign prices. The next day we found that an English steamer was to sail for Shanghai at some rather indefinite date, and with the permission of the captain we moved over to her. A friend had asked us to bring her house boy out with us as it might be difficult for him if unaccompanied. The Chinese government was not issuing passes to men under forty years old. I do not know his age, but I have doubts. With the assistance of the Chinese pastor in the China Inland Mission we were able to get him a pass without difficulty.

As we were sailing along the Chekiang coast we came in sight of a Japanese fleet and a wonderful sight it was. It consisted of one destroyer, [73/74] one transport and forty-nine motorized fishing junks! What they were to be used for I do not know unless it was to land troops in shallow water. We had thought there were some very small and queer craft in the Yangtze as we saw them from Kuling and now we understand a little better. The next day we arrived in Shanghai.

Shanghai while not wholly normal, was not as interesting as free China--still it held our attention. St. John's was running, but not on its own campus. It, with some other educational institutions, had hired a large building on Nanking Road and was carrying on successfully as was St. Mary's also. St. John's kindly lent us office room and we set up shop on that beautiful compound. Edward Chou, our Chinese accountant, had gone with the rest of the staff to Kian so we had to find someone to take his place. We got a middle-aged man who had worked in a bank in Shanghai; but he thought he knew a good deal more than we did and one day he failed to show up. The next day he came and reported that he had been robbed of two hundred dollars with which he was to have bought money orders to send to workers in the interior. The silly man had boarded a crowded bus and the money had been taken. He ought to have known better than to take a bus with money on his person. A rickshaw does not cost much and pick-pockets have much less chance. I think his story was true, but I do not feel sure. He paid most of it back month by month, but I do not think the whole amount was ever returned. He got another job quite soon! Then we found a very nice boy, a recent graduate of St. John's, who knew that he did not know anything and was willing to do whatever he was told, doing it capably and satisfactorily. We would have liked to keep him permanently, but next term we were moving to Wuhu and his father did not want him to go there--perhaps because the salary was not sufficient. He got a job in the Bank of China, Singapore office.

In the autumn a number of events took place in Hongkong, the most important being the consecration of the Rev. Mr. Sargent as assistant bishop of Fukien. There was also a meeting of the House of Bishops and of the Board of Missions.

One of our worries was trying to get a doctor for St. James' Hospital, Anking. We hoped that Dr. John Sung would come back from the far west where he was running a clinic near the foot of Mt. Omei. The doctor who was in charge of a number of clinics in that region would not let him go, so he suggested that I write him ordering him to come down. I did so, but it had no immediate effect. He really had to wait until he could get someone to take his place. Dr. Taylor was in Anking with one Chinese doctor. Chinese doctors, especially a man with such a reputation as that of Dr. Sung, are liable to be called on by the Japanese to take on all kinds of work and it is almost impossible to refuse. We therefore tried to do what some other mission hospitals have done, and get a Jewish doctor from those who have been ejected from Austria. In this, however, we were not successful. The most promising ones all seemed to be specialists and we needed a general practitioner. We finally got one from the China Inland Mission, Dr. Rees. He had, been unable to get back to his station, [74/75] Lanchou, in the far northwest and has been a most valuable addition to the staff. I was very glad to be able to get back into the diocese f or Christmas. Miss Clark and I left Shanghai by the eight o'clock train on St. Thomas' Day and arrived in Nanking about three. Mr. Foster kindly put us up and the next morning we left on the 7:40 train arriving in Wuhu at 12:15 p. m. It was fine to be back. The foreign staff consisted of three Sisters, Mr. Lanphear and Mr. and Mrs. Pickens. There were two Chinese priests, Mr. Yen and Mr. Wang; Mr. David Li, headmaster of St. James' School, and a number of teachers. Our Christmas was a happy one, though the surroundings were not what we would have chosen. The compound was still largely occupied by refugees. There were two thousand of them at one time, but a large majority had left there before this. There were many mud houses to accommodate those who remained. Some damage naturally had been done, but not much, and that was such as could be easily remedied. The Church in the city and the compound were in pretty good condition. The fires had burned almost up to the compound, but had not reached our property. The good condition of the property is largely due to the gatekeeper who succeeded marvelously by saying that this was American property and pointing to the signs which said so. When asked if he was not afraid, he replied, "I am an old man and will die pretty soon anyway. Why should I be afraid?" The only property seriously damaged was a block of three houses across the street, which had been occupied by Japanese troops. It was badly smudged and some of the woodwork was broken.

A large part of the city was destroyed when the Japanese came in, but the people were rebuilding. The new buildings were, to be sure not, substantial, but they served for business purposes till the enemy should depart. Business appeared to be going on pretty well and the street looked much as usual except for Japanese soldiers at certain places expecting to be bowed to by all passers. I found that if I was in a rickshaw the coolie did the bowing and I was exempt. I read this incident in a paper awhile ago: The visitor asks the sergeant, "If a private calls you a D--fool what do you do?" "Chuck him in the guard house." "If he only thinks you are a fool and does not say it what do you do?" "Nothing." That is what the Japanese are doing for the most part if they can extract a bow from the passers-by. I was stopped only twice and then they wanted to see my passport--not my United States passport, but that for use from the local authorities. This they took off to some higher authority, to be inspected. After some delay it was returned and I was allowed to proceed. Some people had more disagreeable experiences.

We stayed in Wuhu only about ten days as much office work was piling up for us in Shanghai. I had been living as a bachelor all this time, boarding with my friends, so I was more than happy to have my wife come out. She arrived about the end of January and the authorities of the Diocese of Shanghai let us have a little house on the St. John's compound.

[76] The children were all left in America, and by June it seemed better that she go back to be with them.

We had the pleasure of a brief visit from the Rev. and Mrs. A. P. Parson and went with them to Wuhu to spend Easter, but they found it necessary to go down to Nanking on Easter Eve. We had a fine Easter in Wuhu and stayed there for some days making arrangements which we hoped would work out so that we could return in the autumn.

When a majority of the clergy and teachers went to Kuling there was a considerable number of those east of Anking who found it too inconvenient to go there. This was true of the workers in the Wuhu outstations Sanshan, Fanchang and Nanling. A number of them were natives of the country south of Wuhu and they wrote me while I was in Kuling asking permission to open St. James' School in Moulin, one of our outstations from Wuhu--and a very nice little town of about ten thousand inhabitants. I told them that they might do so, but that I had no money. They started, depending on what they could get in school fees, and the school prospered in spite of the fact that they had absolutely no laboratory material and almost no books. The students had to copy a large part of their textbooks. Then when it became possible for the people from Kian to return, they mostly came to Moulin which was the best place in free China near Wuhu. It is far enough inland and sufficiently surrounded by mountains so that it was not very liable to bombing. It has been the most important station in the diocese since the war. The middle school had at last reports nearly five hundred students and was prospering. They had also organized primary schools with about the same number. The place has not been bombed, though the Japanese made an excursion in that direction and a few planes flew over the town.

During the summer I went to Tsingtao for a month and had a very pleasant time. One morning I was awakened by a tremendous noise and my first thought was, "Air raid. Where is the dugout?" But it was only a thunder storm.

St. John's University decided that it would be possible to open at least in part on its own compound, so it was necessary for us to find another office. We already had come to the conclusion that we could transact business in Wuhu and be much better off there as regards the general work of the diocese, so about the first of September we moved again. This was the fifth place in which the office had been established during a year and a half, and I had lived in seven different houses. Mr. and Mrs. Craig-hill and Peyton also went to Wuhu, and of course Miss Clark. We also had a new worker--Miss Elda Smith, who lived with Miss Clark. There were also two and sometimes three Sisters and a number of Chinese workers, including the Rev. Hunter Yen whom I had put in charge of St. James' Church, and the Rev. Irving Wang in charge of St. Lioba's. (St. Lioba, by the way, is a saint whom no one seems to know anything about, but she is one of the few women saints of the middle ages who took up foreign missionary work. She was a cousin of St. Boniface and he sent back to England asking that she be sent over to instruct the women of [76/77] Germany. She founded three or four convents for women. Also she was a friend of the Empress and quite an influence in the court of Charlemagne.)

I was able to get a pass to Anking, going up in April, and had a very enjoyable as well as useful time there for about a week. On the first of May I went down to Shanghai to the consecration of the Rev. Y. Y. Tsu as assistant bishop of Hongkong with special charge of the work in Yunnan and Kweichkow Provinces. These two great provinces had been part of the diocese of Hongkong, but there was little work done in them; a small beginning had been made at Kumming, the capitol of Yunnan. Now there were a good many Christians from evacuated areas who had taken refuge there, and it seined a favorable time for doing something. There were some clergy and other workers from the eastern provinces, including the Rev. Quentin Hwang from the diocese of Anking. He is doing a valuable work among the students in Kweiyang, the capitol of Kweichow. An amusing incident occurred when I was trying to get a pass to go down to the consecration. I went to the Japanese consul at Wuhu and asked for a pass. He said, "Very sorry, but travel passes are issued by military headquarters and he has gone off to fight a battle." There seemed to be nothing to do, but Mr. Lanphear suggested that I telegraph to Shanghai and see if they could, get me a pass from the military authorities there. This was done and the pass arrived just in time for me to get to the consecration.

This battle which "headquarters" had gone to fight was an extensive raid in which aeroplanes flew over Moulin. They also visited Nanling and Fanchang doing considerable harm, went across to Ching-yang- which had already been pretty much destroyed, and ended up by bombing the little town of Miaoch'ien where we had a nice plant to which they did much damage. I do not think they had any intention of permanent occupation and they did not stay long enough for the Chinese to assemble any considerable force against them. They were taking a leaf from the guerrilla bands who were opposing them.

The matter of getting back from South Kiangsi was almost as interesting as was getting there. The first attempt was made by the Rev. Philip Lee and his family. The plan was to go down the Kan River to the place where the railroad crosses it, take a train from there to Kingwa, and by bus and junk go to Tunchi in South Anhwei; and from there to go by bus and chair to a place near Moulin. Unfortunately they got to the railroad just at the time when the Japanese were taking Nanchang. They turned back, but found it very difficult to get any means of transport either back to Kian or on to Kinghwa. They finally got passage back to Kian. That was about Christmas time, 1938, and the next attempt was made by the Rev. M. Hsiang. Mr. Hsiang is one of our senior clergy and I thought he would be able to work in Anking where some of the younger men might find it difficult to avoid Japanese desire to make them do something under Japanese direction. This was in the spring of 1939, and he got through all right. Then he had a little difficulty in getting from Moulin [77/78] to Wuhu and again from Wuhu to Anking; but when he got there he was able to work inside the compound with such good result that when I came to Anking the following spring he presented a class of seventy-eight for confirmation--the largest class in the history of the diocese.

Then others began coming down. Some were able to go to their stations, but most of them stopped in Moulin where we had a large company assembled. For business reasons it was found convenient to have someone in Tunchi, a considerable city in the south of Anhwei Province and a great place for the export of tea. It is on the Chien T'ang River which empties into the sea near Hangchow. In addition to the river it now has a motor road; it also has a branch of the Bank of China, which makes it possible to send money with comparative ease. Some of the Chinese clergy were very keen that we open work there, a project which I had long had in mind, and now it has been done, with the Rev. Ralph Chang and the Rev. Tze Hwa Ning in charge.

In closing this account of the Diocese of Anking perhaps I cannot do better than give a brief statement as to the condition of all the stations up to 1940.

Wuhu. The work was going on more normally than in any other station. The only portion not in active operation was St. James' Middle School. Both churches--St. James' and St. Lioba's--were carrying on services and instruction classes as before, but evening classes were somewhat curtailed.

Nanling had been severely bombed and our property had suffered considerably. The priest-in-charge, Mr. Rao, was living in Moulin, making occasional visits to the city.

Fanchang was in similar condition, the Rev. Mr. Hsia also making occasional visits.

Sanshan has been fought over more than any place in the diocese and as far as I can learn the buildings have been greatly damaged. As fighting is going on there from time to time, it is impossible to do any work. The priest-in-charge, the Rev. Wu Tsui Tin, was working in the neighborhood of Miaochien.

Moulin has for many years been the least active outstation in the Wuhu area. Now it is the largest station in the diocese. St. James' School is there and going on very well. Primary schools have about five hundred scholars. Relief work for refugees is active. The clergy and other workers are doing active evangelistic work in the neighboring towns. There are six or seven priests, and Miss Monteiro and Miss Bowne have moved there. Miss Bowne is at the dispensary, and Miss Monteiro works among the women.

Anking suffered severely when it was taken, and it has continued to suffer since. The inside of many Chinese houses has been entirely removed, the floors and other wooden parts being used for firewood. Our property has not been greatly damaged. As Anking is not a convenient place to leave, the ladies moved to Moulin.

[79] Tsungyang has been considerably damaged. I have no detailed account of conditions there, as the Rev. Mr. Ning has made several attempts to go back, but has been prevented every time by severe fighting.

Tatung has been very severely bombed. The Rev. Mr. Sha of the Alliance Mission went there in 1939 and reported that the buildings on the island, which is the best part of the town, where our property is located, had been leveled to the ground, with the exception of our church and one other building. I hear that they also are now destroyed. It has been quite impossible to do any work there.

Tsingyang has one main street and everything on it has been destroyed including our property. The Rev. Wu Hsio Teh has visited it several times, but work there is impossible for the present.

Miaochien escaped all damage till the spring of 1940, when it was badly bombed and our property greatly injured. In the meantime the Rev. Mr. Chou, the priest-in-charge, with the help of the Rev. Messrs. Ning and Wu Tsui T'in who are natives of that place, has been carrying on an active evangelistic and educational work all over the plain in which Miaoch'ien is situated.

The Anking western outstations have fared much as those in the east, but perhaps a little better. Chienshan has not been greatly damaged and the catechist in charge was able to go back in the spring of 1940. While the place is much disturbed, he is able to do some work.

Taihu has been bombed several times and our property considerably damaged. The priest-in-charge, the Rev. Wu Yu Ch'uan took to his own village when the Japanese came. That is about ten miles from Taihu city and he has not been able to go back to live there for some time.

Sousung has fared similarly to Taihu. The city has been bombed and our property somewhat injured. The priest-in-charge is the Rev. M. Hsiang who is doing such good work in Anking. It has been impossible to get another priest there.

Pat'ou has not been much damaged. The catechist in charge has been able to get back and the work is going on under difficulties.

Wangkiang has been bombed, but not very severely. The priest who was in charge, the Rev. Mr. Fang, is one of those who went west when we came down from Kuling. He now is working in the neighborhood of Kunming.

Kiukiang suffered considerably at the time it was taken, and for a long time no one could move in the town without special passes. The Rev. Ralph Chang found it difficult to get back and when he could return he was so hampered by regulations that it was almost impossible to do any work. He went up to Kuling two or three times and was able to minister to the Christians there; but not much could be done, and at his request he was transferred to open new work in Tunch'i. Before Mr. Chang returned, one of our Christians who is in the employ of the Standard Oil Company, with the assistance of Miss Townsend of the Methodist Mission, [79/80] took care of our property; and it is owing to their help that we suffered such slight damage.

I have no news from Hukou, but it is said to have been badly bombed. Its strategic position at the mouth of the Poyang Lake gives it an undesirablè prominence.

Kingtehchen has been most remarkably free from bombing; not that it has entirely escaped, but largely. Our newest building has been destroyed and our other buildings slightly damaged; but on the whole, little damage has been done to this, the second largest city in the diocese, and the center of the porcelain manufacturing industry of China. Our school has prospered enormously, having over five hundred students at last report.

Kian, our most southern station, has been the center of our efforts since we came down from Kuling. The work in the city has been considerably hampered by bombing and the workers have lived outside in surrounding villages. We have almost no buildings, but have at last acquired a piece of land. There is, I believe, one small building on it. So much for the work already established in this very large diocese. The evil is in some ways proving to be for the good of the Church, and at least two new stations have been opened, one in Tunch'i and one in Kanchou, a fine city about fifty miles south of Kian.

At Ichinchiao a bomb struck just in front of our property, killing the man to whom we had sublet a part of it, and doing considerable damage.

The Catechist at Kungchen stayed there and up to the last report it was in comparatively good condition, no great harm having come to the property.

Lichuan is the center of the Kiangsi Christian Rural Improvement Committee of which the Rev. Kimber Den is the present head. This is not a part of the mission of the American Church, being a movement chiefly Chinese in origin, which has a fine piece of work going on at Lichuan near the border of Kukien.

Nanchang has not been a possible place for work since it was taken by the Japanese. The Methodist Hospital has been kept open, but even that has been so hampered that they have been able to do but a little. I hear that our property has not been badly damaged. Of course gatekeepers and watchmen cannot keep robbers out entirely, when thieving is countenanced by the Japanese.

The Leprosarium closed automatically when the Japanese came, but I understand that some of the lepers came back and are living there. I do not know what arrangements are being made for their care and I am afraid they are in a bad way.

I should not close without some notice of the members of the diocese--clergy and others--who have gone west.

The Rev. Quentin Hwang is in Kweiyang with a church chiefly composed of scholars in the three institutions of learning which have moved [80/81] from eastern China.

The Rev. C. C. Fang is working near Kunming.

The Rev. Graham Kwei is chaplain of the Methodist Hospital in Chungking. The Hospital is on the south side of the river where comparatively little bombing has been done.

I ordained the Rev. Amos Hsiang deacon two days before I left China. He is working under the charge of the Rt. Rev. Y. Y. Tsu I think, in Kunming and has been ordained priest by Bishop Tsu. He is a son of the Rev. Hsiang Yung Ren.

Dr. John Sung is in charge of a dispensary near the foot of Mt. Omen, and is hoping to return to Anking.

For twenty-eight years I have been bishop of Anking. When I was consecrated the diocese had been set off and its boundaries defined. There were six occidental priests, one Chinese priest and five deacons, four of whom were almost immediately ordained to the priesthood. There were three or four hundred communicants. When I retired there were only two American clergy; but there were thirty-three Chinese clergy, over two thousand communicants, and schools with over three thousand scholars. Contributions have risen from about five hundred dollars in 1912, to four thousand, four hundred and ninety-six dollars in 1940.

It has of course been my endeavor to build up the Chinese Church, and in doing so we have felt ourselves members of large movements which have been going on around us. Firstly there has been the Chung Hwa Sheng Kung Hwei which has strengthened the diocese, as all of the dioceses have built up the whole church. Beyond that, the general movement of the Christian Church has strengthened all of us; and further, the new life of China expresses itself in many ways, helping and being helped by the churches.

So we have endeavored to build the Church, and now it has an opportunity to show whether it can stand in the day of tribulation. It is doing so all over the country, carrying on its primary work of spiritual development and instruction, building up the ONE CHURCH which shall save the world.


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