"I have no inclination to shirk the work to which Providence has directed me, but rather rejoice that such a high privilege could be mine. … I am confident that my desire to be a missionary is the result of no ephemeral emotion. I propose to do my life-work, to consecrate to it all my energies and to do my best. Difficulties do not appall me, for I rest assured that as my day is so my strength shall be."
— William Scott Ament
Source: Letter of application to the American Board, Andover, Nov. 4, 1876, in Henry D. Porter, William Scott Ament: Missionary of the American Board to China (1911), pp. 32–33
Life, opportunity, Jesus, presence, soul, destiny
Views: 269
"Now every child of God knows that happiness is alone enjoyed in walking in obedience to God's revealed will, and so conscious am I of being where God has placed me that no further desire enters my head: it is not duty, no, but joy unspeakable and very real."
— Arthur T. Polhill-Turner
Source: "A Year's Experience in China" (June 1886), in B. Broomhall, ed., The Evangelisation of the World (1889)
Life, value, worldly affairs, mission, love, redemption
Views: 221
"The German missionary Richard Wilhelm (1873–1930), born in Tübingen, was sent to Qingdao, Shandong, at the end of the nineteenth century. When Germany's forcible construction of the Jiaozhou–Jinan railway led to bloodshed, he led doctors to rescue the injured. He founded the Lixian school, organized a society for Confucian studies in 1913, and turned his tennis court into a library of some 30,000 old Chinese books. In his twenty-odd years in China he translated many Chinese classics into German; returning home in 1924, he taught Chinese studies at the University of Frankfurt and founded the China Institute there."
— Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Christianity (BDCC)
Source: BDCC, "Wilhelm, Richard" (reproduced from A Dictionary of Asian Christianity, ed. Scott W. Sunquist, 2001), bdcconline.net
Life, mystery, destiny, will, order, time, death, peace
Views: 203
"In the summer of 1885 J. W. Stevenson of the China Inland Mission spent days with Hsi at P'ing-yang, and long afterwards recalled: "To him God was a reality. In everything and always, he dealt with God. … It was impossible to be with Hsi without having prayer. His first instinct in everything was to turn to God. Long before daylight, those summer mornings, I used to hear him in his room across the courtyard, praying and singing by the hour together. Prayer seemed the very atmosphere of his life, and he expected and received the most evident answers.""
— Mrs. Howard Taylor (biographer)
Source: Pastor Hsi: One of China's Christians (1903), ch. 15, "For the Work of the Ministry"
Life, prayer, ritual, breath, God, request
Views: 188
"Only I, the weakest of all, am still here. ... I am not anxious about anything; my ticket is in the hands of my Savior in heaven, and He will let me know when I reach my station. Meanwhile, since the Lord has let me live so long, He must have His purpose. ... Though I am old, ill and weak, with ever-increasing limitations, I gladly answer Him: I must go forward!"
— Christiana Tsai
Source: Christiana Tsai, Jewels from the Queen of the Dark Chamber, ch. 25 (English rendered from the Chinese translation by Yuan Houdai)
Life, Value, Health, Journey, Love, Glory
Views: 155
"Daniel Nelson (1853–1926) was born to a poor Norwegian family and, during his years at sea, twice visited China before emigrating to farm in Iowa. With no mission society behind him, he sold his farm and arrived in Shanghai with his family in 1890; after the Boxer Rebellion (1900) the Nelsons settled in Xinyang, southern Henan, where they spent 25 years planting churches and opening schools and hospitals. In February 1926, as missionaries gathered in Xinyang behind closed doors for protection from marauding troops, Nelson preached his final sermon before being struck in the head by a bullet; he died 40 days later."
— Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Christianity (BDCC)
Source: BDCC, "Nelson, Daniel" by James A. Scherer (reprinted from Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, 1998), bdcconline.net
Life, People, Destiny
Views: 119