Gleanings from Chinese folklore — Text and Context

ers 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.

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

AN APPRECIATION OF NELLIE N. RUSSELL

By Charles Frederic Goss,

Her Pastor in Chicago