Part 1

GLEANINGS FROM CHINESE FOLKLORE

BY NELLIE N. RUSSELL

With Some of Her Stories of Life in China, to which are added Memorial Sketches of the Author from Associates and Friends

COMPILED BY MARY H. PORTER

New York Chicago Toronto Fleming H. Revell Company London and Edinburgh

To Miss Russell’s fellow-workers, who still have the joy of service in the great old-new land which she loved; and who tread the unfamiliar ways with more strength and courage, because in many of them she was the Pathfinder, this little volume is affectionately dedicated by

M. H. P.

La Mesa, California, January, 1915.

FOREWORD

It was in the autumn of 1890 that I sat one evening looking into the face of a young woman who was passing through Tung-chow on her way to her new field of work in Peking. A few words about her work in the past explained the sadness of the brown eyes which had already seen many life tragedies in her five years of city mission work, but their merry sparkle when she entered into the happy flow of talk about her showed that her sympathies were as full and rich for joy as for sorrow. Hers was one of those rare natures in which all the lives about them are relived. Such lives are intense, but their earth span is short.

Before many years Miss Russell knew the life histories of most of the thousand Christians connected with the Peking Congregational churches and outstations, knew them with her heart as well as her head. The timepiece was never made which could tell her that the night hours were passing when she sat in a humble, dirty home in a far-off outstation beside some toil-worn, heartsore woman, listening to the details of the sordid daily life, and the wrecked hopes, then resurrecting hope, and ennobling life by linking it with the Divine life. She took no note of the lapse either of time or strength when, in her city home, she entertained guests of high or low degree with equal courtesy and charm. Hers was the gift of making even the brief, formal call an opportunity for speaking the word which might lead to an upward look or an outward vision.

The Chinese pastor came to Miss Russell with his problems, also the child with her new toy. She loved flowers, animals, and children, the latter with the passionate love of a mother-heart. One who watched her taking a little dead goldfish out of the water said, “Don’t keep goldfish any more, it hurts you so when they die.” But the things which hurt could no more be put outside of that wide-embracing life than could the things which gave a thrill of joy, or enraptured her with a sense of the beautiful.

The tragedy of 1900 brought to one of such wideness and depth of friendship and intimate knowledge a sorrow whose outward tokens were whitening hair and a physically weakened constitution. The first massacres in the country brought refugees to Peking, to whom she ministered day and night. In the British Legation she went to the hospital to nurse wounded soldiers when she needed herself to be carried there on a stretcher. Naturally sensitive not only to pain but to danger and to all that was unsightly or repulsive, her sufferings during those two months cannot be measured. The year that followed was a drawn-out agony, as she heard the stories of martyrdoms, listened with tense sympathy to the tales of returned refugees, gathered orphans and widows into schools, and with a faith that never faltered planned to build up the waste places. She might indeed have said, with Paul, “I die daily.”

Miss Russell was large in her plans as well as in her feelings. The past could not chain her, the present could not bind her. A Bible school for women rose in her future, and after it became a fact, and others were doing most of the routine work, she passed on to work into a reality dreams of a school for women of the higher classes, with lecture courses, mothers’ clubs, and training for social service, a work which for many years to come cannot reach the proportions of her vision. There could be no more fitting memorial for Miss Russell than buildings which would help to make her dreams come true. If Mark Hopkins, one student, and a log made a college, Miss Russell, a Chinese woman, and a tiny Chinese room made a Social Settlement.

Miss Russell was not always logical and judicial. Her virtues carried their dear earthly defects with them. From those who disappointed her hope after long patience of love she might recoil into an attitude which seemed like prejudice. Sometimes she walked so far with others into the Valley of Baca that no strength was left to make it a well.

It might seem that the outpouring of her life was too lavish, and so injudicious. But who knows? The impulse which went upward in prayer and outward in loving service had its fruition in a clearer vision of the earth mission of the Master, a vision for herself, and a vision for the thousands with whom she came in touch. And China needs nothing more than she needs this vision.

For those who find their richest fruition in deeds accomplished, we crave the threescore years and ten, crowded with achievement. Those whose gifts lie in loving and befriending may sooner rest from their labours, for their works do follow them, and love and friendship are deathless. Those of us in Peking who walk where Miss Russell’s feet have trod still see the spiritual blossoming of that beautiful life.

Luella Miner.

CONTENTS

An Appreciation of Nellie N. Russell By Charles Frederic Goss, her pastor in Chicago. 13 Nellie N. Russell (Historical) 16 Miss Nellie N. Russell’s Unique Work An Appreciation—Mrs. Chauncey Goodrich. 31 Miss Russell’s Funeral Service 41

A Tartar Joan of Arc 47 A Daughter of the Orient 52 The Wild Goose and the Sparrow 56 A Chinese Hero Han Hsin. 61 A Chinese Tea-House Story Chi Hsiao Tang. 71 The Jade Treasure 82 Chinese Heroism 88 Literary Glory 92 How the Dog and Cat Came to Be Enemies 98 A Daughter of the Present 106 T’ang Sung’s Journey to Get the Buddhist Classics 110 A Story of Old China 124

Notes 169

AN APPRECIATION OF NELLIE N. RUSSELL

By Charles Frederic Goss,

Her Pastor in Chicago

It is common enough to find persons endowed with one, two, or even three of those four great elemental qualities out of which the noblest souls are made—an inviolable conscience, profound intellect, irresistible will, and illimitable affections. But to meet a man or woman having all is as moving as it is uncommon. Our Nellie Russell had all. For four years she was an inmate of our home and, during all her remarkable career as a missionary in China, we kept in the closest possible touch with her and her work. As a result of this intimate acquaintance we learned to look upon her as an unique and even wonderful woman. Life took hold of her with tremendous power and so did she of life. To see all things clearly, to feel her solemn responsibility to every soul that crossed her path, to act with decision and determination in every emergency, was as natural for her as to breathe. Her great dark eyes were at some times like deep wells at the bottom of which truth lay, at others like stars emitting a tender light, and at others like hot coals flashing fires of generous and righteous wrath.

Righteousness never went unpraised nor unrighteousness unrebuked or unscourged by Nellie Russell. She loved the good and she hated the evil of life with equal ardor. Her sympathy for those in trouble cost her a sort of agony, her love for her friends was an undying passion. When she went to China she took its great people into her very heart. All men, women, and children were brothers and sisters to her, and to spend and be spent for them was a spiritual hunger.

During a memorable week of one of her vacations spent in our summer cottage we were made to marvel at her insight into human nature and into the great problems of life. As we listened to her modest story of her experience in the siege of Peking, or heard her merry, ringing laugh whenever the ludicrous elements in social intercourse or surroundings appeared; when, in our little motor-boat, we saw her great eyes beam with delight at some fresh form of nature’s loveliness and heard her exclaim with irrepressible enthusiasm as we floated here and there among the islands, “Oh, it is as beautiful as the Orient!” we seemed to be in contact with the very soul of the universe in some peculiar manner.

And when we heard of her death! oh, that was hard indeed! Again and again we had written her that there was a room in our home reserved for her perpetual use. It was a cherished hope to have her with us when her work was done, but it was too good and great a hope for realization here.

If this seems like overpraise to you, just let it go at that. You did not know her, or you did not appreciate her. We never heard her overpraised! She has ever been and ever more must be a pure, inspiring presence in our lives.

NELLIE N. RUSSELL

Historical

The enduring charm of a rich personality is ever found to be in devotion to a chosen cause. Such a personality is here presented in a brief study of an earnest life of effort and high purpose.

Nellie Naomi Russell was born in Ontonagon, Michigan, March 31, 1862. The family removed to Wisconsin when she was very young, and there her father died when she was about eight years of age. She was the second of four children whom the widowed mother took to Vermont to live with one of their uncles. He also was soon taken away, and the family removed to Ludlow, in that state. Nellie, however, spent much of her time at West Rutland. Here she united with the church, and attended school, until her mother’s death in 1877. At this time the eldest sister, Janet, was in Michigan, and the following spring Nellie, with her brother William, joined her there, while the younger sister remained with their guardian, Dr. D. F. Coolidge, in Ludlow.

Nellie attended school in Ontonagon, but she longed to return to New England. Dr. Coolidge, at her earnest request, advanced the money for her travelling expenses from the funds of a small legacy left her by her uncle, on condition that it should be returned to the fund from her first earnings.

In the autumn of the year 1879, Nellie, although so young, taught a country school, boarding around from house to house, as was the custom at that time. The sum advanced to her was returned from her first earnings with the scrupulous integrity which, throughout her life, marked all her business dealings. She won the admiration of the school district by her industry and capacity for work and service both in school and out.

At the close of the session she went to North Bennington, Vermont, where she spent two years in the family of Mrs. Coolidge’s sister, Mrs. H. W. Spafford.

All this time her great desire had been to prepare herself for missionary service. In order that she might get the education requisite for it she toiled and saved until she was able to enter Northfield Seminary, which had just been founded by Mr. D. L. Moody. After the first year she was given a scholarship. With this as a help she was able to meet all other expenses by what she earned during vacations. All she had received from the scholarship she later returned to the institution she had learned to love. At Northfield she spent four years in study and congenial work. During the last two years she roomed with Lila Peabody, now Mrs. Edward F. Cragin of Brooklyn, New York, with whom she formed a friendship, one of the most intimate and strongest of her life. It is to this friendship that we are indebted for the few details of the years between her entrance into the seminary and going to China. She was an eager, enthusiastic student and was recognized at once by her companions as a leader, was made president of her class, and of the first missionary society formed among the pupils of the Northfield Seminary.

Mrs. Cragin says of her, “She was of a deeply spiritual nature.” I remember her telling me that from her early childhood she loved no stories so well as those of foreign missionaries, and that she hoped, even when a little girl, that some day she might become one.

One June morning, just before graduation, Mr. Moody took us for an early drive. He told us of a plan he had for us to go together to Chicago, to be pastor’s assistants and Sunday-school workers in Mr. Moody’s, the Chicago Avenue Church. The Rev. Charles F. Goss was the pastor at that time. It seemed a large undertaking for two inexperienced young women to go from the little village of Northfield to the great city of Chicago, and to engage in such a work. But Mr. Moody felt confident of the results and assured us that we could do it, and so we made the venture.

Our experiences the first winter were strangely new and varied. We worked under Dr. Goss’s directions, calling upon church members and others who we thought might be influenced to attend the services. We also visited the sick and helped such as were in need in the neighbourhood.

Our Sunday-school work was among the very poor, and in localities where we went with not a little trepidation. Our custom was to select a street and to call from house to house, from family to family. We asked the children of those visited to come to the Sunday-school, and gave them cards telling them when and where to go. In many cases the parents could not understand English, but, as the children practically lived on the streets and so picked up its language, they understood us when we asked them to come and to bring others with them. In this way we gathered the children into Sunday-school, the boys into Miss Russell’s class and the girls into mine. Miss Russell soon had a class of one hundred and fifty or more boys. In connection with this there were organized evening classes. The help of young men, who taught the boys carpentry and other kinds of manual work, was secured, and they were encouraged to seek other vocations than those of newspaper venders and boot-blacks. Some showed unusual talent, but had no opportunity for study or advancement. Miss Russell wrote to Mr. Moody with regard to them and asked if an arrangement could be made by which the most promising could be admitted to Mt. Hermon. He gladly entered into the plan and carried out her wishes. A number of these boys thus entered Mt. Hermon school and afterward took college courses. They were accompanied all the way upward by the sympathy, advice, and assistance of Miss Russell. She kept in touch with many of them all her life, corresponding with them after going to China, and hunting them up during her furloughs in this country.

Miss Russell’s great characteristics were, I think, the giving of herself unsparingly for others, and doing this with sympathy, tenderness, and love. One incident, among many which I recall, strikingly illustrates this. During the anarchist riots in Chicago, when even men did not dare go into the disturbed neighbourhood, Miss Russell went without fear, and without protection, to the anarchist headquarters to comfort the little old mother of one of the condemned men.

After five years of earnest, successful work in Chicago, Miss Russell, well fitted by such training, felt that the time had come for her to go to the distant field, which she always had kept in view. The way was opened for her to enter the work in China under the Woman’s Board of the Interior in connection with the American Board of Foreign Missions. She accepted the opportunity as the fruition of the hope and desire of childhood, girlhood, and young womanhood, and in twenty-one years of devoted service made “good proof of her ministry.”

The record of the rare life of Miss Russell is in the hearts of many to whom she was very dear. It is suggestive of some of her loveliest qualities that it has been difficult to secure anything beyond the bare historical facts with regard to her early years.

The brief outline, given by the only sister who survives her, Mrs. J. R. Branaman, and a lifelong friend, Mrs. D. F. Coolidge of Ludlow, Vermont, show how heavy were the burdens of her youth and explain, in a measure, her peculiar and yearning sympathy for toilers struggling under difficulties for an entrance into a larger intellectual and social life; for widowed mothers, caring for groups of children, and for young students making their way with little aid through courses of study. Of her own early experiences she rarely spoke. In years of close companionship I learned little of them beyond the ever-recurring suggestion of her rich inheritance from a father of deep religious faith and a mother brave and tender, with the highest standards of duty. These so impressed her daughter that, in incidental ways, they were often implied in the reasons given for her choice of lines of conduct.

Her warmth of affection for her own was apparent in every mention of them, and knowing this, one can realize what separation from them, even in childhood, meant to her. She truly “Bore the yoke in her youth” and learned to carry it so buoyantly, and walk under it with such elasticity of spirit, that one’s memory of her is always that of largeness and joy rather than of mere patience or resignation. She knew better than most of God’s children how to delight in all the beautiful things her Heavenly Father had placed in the earthly environment, and it was not until disease and sorrow had wasted her reserves of strength that she began to speak often of the life beyond. To that she looked and for it she longed, not as rest from service but as larger opportunity and wider vision. The springs of her life deepened as the physical resources were depleted, and we who were much with her during the last years often realized that she drank from celestial fountains and in weakness found courage and power among the Hills of God. In the long night watches when pain was her companion, and the burdens of those about her who claimed her never-failing sympathy pressed heavily upon her loving spirit, she would often light the candle at the head of her bed and read from some author of insight a poem or other glowing page, ponder it for relief, and bring to us at the breakfast table the result of her thought upon it, in a radiant face and a gentle aloofness from everything petty and trivial, which banished mere gossip or small talk and sent us refreshed to our tasks. She, worn with sleeplessness and anxiety, was yet the inspirer and comforter, and all with a self-effacing sweetness which sought no recognition of what she gave! Indeed, in her quiet dignity, she made any allusion to, or expressed gratitude for, such obligation difficult.

So it was with her intercourse with the Chinese. She came from interviews with individuals or groups of women with the most delightful stories of those she had met. There were almost always among them “Such a charming” or “Such a bright and lovely lady.” She set their striking characteristics before us in racy, sympathetic stories to which we, in the Ladies’ Home, listened with delight, and went from the recital to our routine duties with a sense of having been introduced to a fresh circle of attractive friends from day to day. But of herself and what she had done for them, rarely a word! She who gave herself so lavishly, who had by her wonderful tact and charm won from each their best, had nothing to tell of how she had come to learn so much of these strangers. One of her sentences was rarely introduced by “I said” or “I told her.” Yet we, who sometimes caught a glimpse of the inner life, knew that she made a constant study of methods of approach and went with prayerful preparation to meet the various calls.

She, more than any other missionary whom I have known, held herself conscientiously free from the restrictions of fixed hours and a teaching schedule, that she might be at liberty for large social and individual service. It was her aim to come into intimate touch with many and to order her days so that she might be ready to respond to every call which came. In this, as in everything to which she really set herself, she was singularly successful.

It was beautiful to see her welcome a group of curious visitors and make them feel that their interests were hers and, for the time, the thing of most importance. In a little while she knew something of their personal history and, before most hostesses could have gotten beyond the merest conventionalities, she was touching, tenderly, the sore spot in some life, with words of help and healing.

From the very beginning of her life in China Miss Russell realized the importance of the country work. For years she spent more than half her time in the outstations connected with the Peking church as a centre. This work involved long and trying journeys and great physical fatigue. On these trips she established herself whenever practicable in a room or rooms of which she could have control. Here she could receive guests and give, by the attractiveness of her surroundings, object lessons in home-making. To any who desired to follow her example she gave advice and help so unobtrusively that it never seemed like criticism or an assumption of being wiser or better than they, but just ordinary neighbourliness. She knew so well that “It is more blessed,” and also more comfortable, “to give than to receive,” that in the happiest ways she made herself debtor to those about her. She learned from the Christian women many Chinese household arts and liked to show her missionary associates of less dexterity that she could feed a fire under a native kettle with as little waste of fuel and as large result in the boiling of porridge as those to the manner born.