Part 12 (1/2)
He was also a true gentleman, a Christian gentleman in every sense of the word. The best proof of this was that we loved him, and if the foreign ladies in Amoy who knew him were asked what they thought of him--many of them have gone to rest--they would hardly get words to tell out all their respect and love for him. His visits in our houses were most welcome, and when he spent an evening with us there was always suns.h.i.+ne where he was.
He was essentially a happy man, and nothing pleased him more than to see all happy around him.
There is still one point to which reference must here be made.
Missionaries were not the only foreign residents in Amoy. There was also a considerable number of American and European merchants. Unfortunately the missionaries and the merchants did not always see eye to eye. Dr. Talmage was a favorite with every one of them. They esteemed him, they would have done anything to serve him; and at no cost of principle or testimony he won this place with them.
And to those who know the conditions of life in China, it will be at once understood what a man he must have been to win such a position.
It may not be generally known that in Amoy we have a ”Union English Church,” with regular Sabbath services in English. These services were conducted by the missionaries in turn. And we fear it may also not be known what Dr Talmage's powers as a preacher were. He was a very prince among English preachers; and if he had remained in America this would very soon have been acknowledged. There were no tricks or devices of manner or words employed by him for winning the popular ear. He never seemed to forget the solemnity and responsibility of his position in the pulpit. He hesitated not ”to declare the whole counsel of G.o.d.” He stands before me now as I listen with bated breath to the fire of his eloquence, denouncing where denunciation was needed, contending with a burning earnestness that never failed to carry us with him, for ”the faith once delivered to the saints,” and then with exquisite tenderness seeking to draw his hearers to Him who is Saviour and Brother. He never failed to think and speak as much about temptation as about sin. It was a real feast to attend the English service when it was conducted by him. And during all my time in Amoy, there was always a large congregation when Dr. Talmage was the preacher.
He was not all tenderness. He would only have been a one-sided man if this were all. He was as strong as he was tender; a keen and powerful opponent in discussion. And we often had very warm and keen discussions; keener and warmer than I had ever seen before I went to Amoy, or have ever seen since.
We had to discuss principles and methods of translation, hymnology, Church work, Church discipline, and many other subjects. And there was no mincing of matters at these discussions. Foremost amongst us was Dr. Talmage, tenaciously and persistently advocating the view he happened to have taken on any question. There were men of very strong individuality among us, and these gave as good as they got. I can recall these scenes, but I cannot recall a single word he said that involved a personal wound or left a barb.
When it was all over he was the same loving brother, and not an atom of bitterness was left behind. By us, the brethren of the English Presbyterian Mission, he was looked up to as a revered father, just as much as he was by the brethren of his own Mission. This will be seen more fully further on, and a simple statement of the fact is all that is necessary here.
There is another and most sacred relation--his position as the head of a family,--the veil of which it seems almost sacrilege to uplift. But it must be said, and it is only a well-known fact, that few happier homes exist than his home was. He was there what he was elsewhere, the man of G.o.d.
Dr. Talmage was not perfect. He was essentially a humble man, and he would be the first to tell us that of every sinner saved by grace, he was the most unworthy. And when he said it, he felt it. And he had not the very most distant idea how great a man he was. Sometimes one fears that this very modesty pushed to an extreme prevented others who did not know his life and his work from accurately gauging his real work. Better perhaps, he would say, that it should be so; better to think of the work than of the workers. To hold up Christ and to be hidden behind Him is the highest privilege of those engaged in the service of this King. And this, his uniform bearing, made him all the greater.
DR. TALMAGE-THE MISSIONARY.
It would be useless speculation to lay down here what should be the special qualifications of a missionary to the Chinese. The better way is to find them in the concrete, so far as you can do so in an individual, and set Him forth as an example for others. The friend of whom we write would deprecate this, but it is the only way in which we can see him as he was and account for the singularly prominent place he occupied amongst us.
I do not need to say here that he was a man of faith and prayer, earnest and zealous for the spread of Christ's Kingdom; in the face of difficulties and dangers, of disappointments and failures, maintaining an unwavering faith that the Kingdom must come and would yet rule over all.
He had both an intense love for his work and enthusiasm in carrying it on.
He came with a definite message to the people to whom the Master had sent him. There was no apologizing for it, no watering it down, no uncertain sound about it with him. Christ and Christ alone can meet the wants and woes of humanity,--Chinese or American or British. He had no doubt about it whatever; and hereby some of us learned that if we had not this message it would have been far better for us to have stayed at home. And this feature marked him all over his course. You felt as you listened to his pleadings that sin and salvation were terms brimful of meaning to him. He had traveled this road, and all his pleadings seemed to be summed up in the one yearning cry, ”Come with us and we will do thee good.” ”This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” And he would have gone to the end, ”of whom I am chief.”
Then he had a great love for the people. He made himself acquainted with the family and social conditions of the people. He had not come to Americanize but to Christianize the Chinese. And for this he equipped himself. I never saw him so happy as when he was surrounded by them. He was then in his real element, answering their questions, solving their difficulties, opening up to them the Scriptures, and meeting them wherever he thought they needed to be met. And go to his study when you liked, you almost always found some Chinese Christians there. He was the great referee, to whom they carried home difficulties and family trials, a.s.sured that his sympathy and advice would never be denied them. This endeared him to them in an extraordinary manner. We never on such occasions found a trace of impatience with him. What would have annoyed others did not seem to annoy him, and the consequence was that the whole church loved him.
There was an inexhaustible well of tenderness in the man's nature, and it was sweetened by the grace of G.o.d in his heart.
We sometimes thought he erred by excess in this particular. He was unwilling to think anything but good of them, and was thus apt to be influenced too much by designing and astute Chinamen. Often we have heard it said, ”Well, if you won't listen to us, Dr. Talmage will.” But, looking back to-day over it all, if it was a fault, it was one that leant to virtue's side. He was wonderfully unsuspicious: and so far as his fellow men were concerned, Chinese or Westerns, the mental process which he almost invariably employed was to try to find out what good there was in a man.
And now one loves him all the more for such a Christlike spirit.
Dr. Talmage was thoroughly acquainted with the spoken language of Amoy.
Few men, if any, had a more extensive knowledge of its vocables. He spoke idiomatically and beautifully as the Chinese themselves spoke, and not as he thought they should speak. There was no slipshod work with him in this particular. Here was the indispensable furnis.h.i.+ng and he must get it. And he did get it in no average measure. This was the prime requisite, and through no other avenue could he get really and honestly to work. There is no royal road to the acquisition of the Chinese language. It is only by dint of hard, plodding, and persevering study one can acquire an adequate acquaintance with it.
And till the last he never gave up his study of it. He was not satisfied, and no true missionary ever will be satisfied with such a smattering of knowledge as may enable him to proclaim a few Christian doctrines. Such superficiality was not his aim or end. And when he first acquired Chinese, it was more difficult to do so. There were no aids in the way of dictionaries or vocabularies.
It may be his knowledge of the language was all the more accurate on this account. He got it from the fountain-head, and not through foreign sources. He was thus qualified to take a prominent place in all the varied work of a mission--in translation, in revision, and in hymnology--departments as important and as influential for attaining the end in view as any other possible department in the Mission.
As a preacher to the Chinese he was unrivaled. The people hung on his lips and never seemed to lose a word. He was in this respect a model to every one of us younger men.
The ideal of the church in China which he had set before him, the goal he desired to reach, was a native, self-governing, self-supporting, and self-propagating church. This is now axiomatic.
It was not so in those early days. The men in Amoy then were men for whom we have to thank G.o.d--men ahead of their time, with generous and far-reaching ideas; not working only for their own present, but laying the foundation for a great future. Side by side with him were the brethren of the English Presbyterian Mission, with whom he had the fullest sympathy, and they had the fullest sympathy with him. It is difficult to say who were foremost in pressing the idea of an organized native church. All were equally convinced and strove together for the one great end. After many years of waiting the church grew. Congregations were formed and organized with their own elders and deacons, and in this he took the first steps. He was a born organizer. And then came the next great step, the creation of a Presbytery and the ordination in an orderly manner of native pastors. Some congregations were ready to call and support such pastors, and the men were there, for the careful training of native agents had always been a marked feature of the Amoy Mission. But how was it to be done? Common sense led to only one conclusion. This church must not be an exotic; it must be native, independent of the home churches. And there must be kept in view what was a fact already--the union between the Missions of the ”Reformed Church” and of the ”English Presbyterian Church.” It must be done, and done in this way, and so it was done.
The Presbytery was created with no native pastor in the first instance, but with native elders and the missionaries of both Missions. Then came a struggle that would have tried the stoutest hearts.