.A5 P6 
 
 A GREATHEART 
 OF THE SOUTH 
 
 JOHN T. ANDERSON 
 
 MEDICAL MISSIONARY 
 
 GORDON POTEAT 
 
Book . P\5~Fl 
 GopigiitN? 
 
 COKRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
A GREATHEART OF 
 THE SOUTH 
 
JOHN T. ANDERSON, M.D. 
 
A GREATHEART OF 
 THE SOUTH 
 
 JOHN T. ANDERSON 
 
 MEDICAL MISSIONARY 
 BY 
 
 GORDON POTEAT 
 
 PROFESSOR OF NEW TESTAMENT 
 SHANGHAI BAPTIST COLLEGE 
 
 "The Interpreter then called for a 
 
 Man-Servant of his, one Great-heart." 
 
 Pilgrim's Progress, 
 
 new xar YORK 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 

 COPYRIGHT, 1921, 
 BY GEORGE H. DOEAN COMPANY 
 
 JAN 21 m\ 
 
 ^ 
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
 ©CU608099 
 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
 
 The assistance which others have given, particularly 
 in the supplying of letters and incidents which were 
 unknown to me, and their urging me to the waiting 
 of this memoir have in large measure contributed to 
 the completion of this book. They, as well as I, came 
 under the influence of John Anderson's short life. So 
 many have written since his passing, "He was the best 
 friend I ever had." None of us would dare claim to 
 have been John's best friend, but all of us drew heavily 
 upon his unfailing love and friendship. John Ander- 
 son's endowment was not one of rich intellectual gifts. 
 His superiority to the common run of men lay rather 
 in the unreserve of his giving of his life and love and 
 service to others. This book is no eulogy — John 
 Anderson never wanted praise. The record of his 
 deeds speaks for itself. I must acknowledge specially 
 the help that John's companion, Mrs. Minnie Middle- 
 ton Anderson, and his father and mother, and close 
 friends, L. M. Terrill, H. J. Langston and L. W. 
 Langston, have given me. The use of several verses 
 from the poem "Tamate," by John Oxenham, at the 
 close of the last chapter is also acknowledged. 
 
 Gordon Poteat. 
 November, 1920. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I The Yang Tze River . . > : .11 
 
 II Early Indications of Character . 19 
 
 III At Furman .... . 27 
 
 IV Beginning the Study of Medicine . 37 
 V The First Year in Kentucky . . 51 
 
 VI The Last Year in the University . 63 
 
 VII A Hospital Interne . . . .79 
 
 VIII Into the Far East . . . .93 
 
 IX Yang Chow and Beyond . • . 109 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 John T. Anderson, M. D. • Frontispiece 1 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Dr. Anderson in His Hospital Uniform . 31" 
 
 Dr. and Mrs. Anderson and Their Son in 
 Yang Chow 
 
 On the Way to Hwanghsien . 
 Off for a Wheelbarrow Ride 
 Loyal, Friends of the Hospital, 
 The Parents of "Little Four" 
 
 46^" 
 46^ 
 
 95^ 
 
 . 110 
 
 c> 
 
 IX 
 
CHAPTER I: THE YANG TZE RIVER 
 
A GREATHEART OF 
 THE SOUTH 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE YANG TZE RIVER 
 
 After three long weeks on the blue sea, the Pacific 
 liner dropped anchor in the swirling yellow flood of 
 the Yang Tze River. In the darkness no hint of the 
 shore line of China could be seen, but the travelers 
 knew that they were at the end of their journey as 
 the lights of the vessel revealed the muddy waters of 
 that great river beneath the sides of the steamer. 
 There was a thrill in this first contact with the land of 
 their quest. 
 
 How truly this great river, seen first in the dark- 
 ness, typifies that endless stream of life that is China, 
 sweeping on through countless centuries, full of old 
 world sorrows and old world joys. The river, rising 
 far to the West in the snows of the Himalayas, brings 
 with its swift deep current the blessings of fertility to 
 all its banks, but also at times the bane of destroying 
 floods. It bears the ships of commerce on its navigable 
 waters for a thousand miles, the artery of trade to the 
 heart of China; but, in its wilder moments, it crushes 
 
 ii 
 
12 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 boats with their freight of teas and silks in the teeth 
 of the rapids in the Yang Tze Gorges. Thus also are 
 the possibilities of good and evil in the teeming mil- 
 lions of the land of Sinim. Steadily down the files of 
 time they have come, virile and strong, faithful to 
 their past in a marvelous conservatism, with unlimited 
 resources of man-power, to pour their wealth into the 
 larger oceans of new world relationships. And yet 
 the mouth of this stream of blessing is clogged by 
 the silt of disease, of plagues and infection from fetid 
 cities, by the filth of immorality in homes and of cor- 
 ruption in state, the deposit of low standards of de- 
 caying religions. 
 
 To conserve the power of the river for the benefits 
 of commerce and agriculture comes the engineer. To 
 purify the life of the people that they may have their 
 part in the Kingdom which John saw as a holy city 
 descending from God out of Heaven, comes the mis- 
 sionary. And of all the special types of missionaries, 
 none serve larger ends than those who with their 
 Bibles bring their lancets and their medicine cases. 
 At first, prejudices against "foreign medicine" must 
 be overcome and skill in healing demonstrated, but 
 the day soon comes when the doors of the mission 
 hospital are crowded with the maimed and halt, the 
 diseased and unclean, and there is more to be done 
 than the one or two doctors in charge can possibly 
 accomplish. 
 
 There are only about four hundred and fifty medical 
 missionaries among the four hundred million Chinese. 
 Sometimes a single doctor stands alone amidst a great 
 
THE YANG TZE RIVER IS 
 
 multitude with no other doctor to assist in major 
 operations that must be performed. And because fur- 
 loughs must be taken to rebuild worn-out strength, 
 and because sometimes doctors die, perhaps of plague 
 contracted from a lowly Chinese to whom the mis- 
 sionary physician has given himself in sacrificial serv- 
 ice, hospitals have to be closed for a year and some- 
 times longer. Time goes on, and all too few of the 
 young medical students in American schools seem to 
 hear the call of the sick of China. There is little of 
 financial compensation and much of sacrifice ; there are 
 few great fees, but many dire needs. The appreciation 
 of those to whom loving and skilled help is given is, 
 after all, the greatest reward. 
 
 The Grand Canal touches the Yang Tze River near 
 the city of Chinkiang. Following the canal northward 
 for ten or fifteen miles, one comes in sight of the walls 
 and the pagoda of the city of Yang Chow. (Yang 
 here is the same character as the Yang of the river. 
 Chow means district. ) Here the canal begins to twist 
 and turn as a serpent until it passes by the walls of 
 the city, for an evil spirit could enter the city along 
 the course of a straight stream. The canal is crowded 
 with ancient junks, but much of the traffic nowadays 
 along this single outlet of Yang Chow is in steam 
 launches which swarm with Chinese who pack them 
 to their limits. Inside the city walls the streets are 
 very narrow and the odors that rise from the con- 
 gested population are seldom fragrant. Conditions of 
 life from the modern standpoint are unsanitary and 
 primitive. Chinese doctors of the old school have 
 
14 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 never been able to alleviate such conditions. At th$ 
 best their services are inefficient palliatives. What can 
 feeling the pulse in four or five different places and 
 piercing the body with needles to release the evil 
 spirits do to bring health and sanitation to such a city ? 
 
 Fifteen years or so ago, Dr. Philip Evans, a gradu- 
 ate of Johns Hopkins University, and his wife, the 
 daughter of one of the leading business men of Balti- 
 more, entered Yang Chow as missionaries of Jesus 
 Christ and apostles of modern medicine. Not long 
 thereafter, they were joined by Dr. Adrian Taylor and 
 his wife, who came from Mobile, Alabama. Dr. 
 Taylor had made a brilliant record at the University 
 of Virginia and had quite disgusted one of his pro- 
 fessors by deciding to "waste" his talents on the 
 "heathen Chinese," when he might do so well in 
 America. Later still, Dr. Richard V. Taylor, Jr., with 
 his wife, followed his brother to the hospital in Yang 
 Chow. Calls came to Dr. Evans and Dr. Adrian Tay- 
 lor to give themselves to training Chinese physicians in 
 two different medical schools, and so shortly after Dr. 
 R. V. Taylor was settled in Yang Chow, he found 
 himself alone in charge of the men's and women's hos- 
 pitals with an enlarging clinic on his hands. He was 
 so occupied with this work that he did not consider 
 it feasible to leave the hospital even during the hot 
 summer months. Day in and day out he ministered to 
 the crowds of sick who came for treatment, seeking 
 always to heal their souls as well. 
 
 Back in America, there was a young physician serv- 
 ing out his interneship in a New York hospital. In 
 
THE YANG TZE RIVER 15 
 
 his college days he had been touched by Dr. R. V. 
 Taylor, when, familiarly known as Dick Taylor, he 
 had been traveling for the Student Volunteer Move- 
 ment. The inspiration of that contact with this en- 
 thusiastic secretary, who was soon to sail for China, 
 lived on in this young college man through his own 
 medical course and was one of the cords that drew 
 him steadily toward the foreign field. Perhaps neither 
 of them dreamed that they should one day be together 
 in a medical mission in China, but in the fall of 19 17, 
 Dr. John T. Anderson sailed up the Grand Canal and 
 landed at the stone wharf of Yang Chow. He had 
 come to help share in the heavy burdens which were 
 bearing down the strong shoulders of the doctor who 
 stood alone. 
 
 A short year passed by and the Red Cross Unit 
 with the American Expedition in Siberia began to 
 send appeals to missionary doctors in China to volun- 
 teer for service with the Unit. The call came to Yang 
 Chow and though there were only two physicians to 
 care for the host of patients in the hospital and out- 
 side, the two agreed together that one of them should 
 go. The decision fell on Dr. Taylor and Dr. Ander- 
 son was left in charge of the hospital. 
 
 On the night of November the twelfth, 1918, Dr. 
 Anderson left for Shanghai to attend a committee 
 meeting of the mission. In crossing the Yang Tze 
 River to take the train, the small sampan in which he 
 was riding was run down in the darkness by a large 
 river steamer and he was thrown into the river and 
 drowned. The great relentless tide swept his body 
 
16 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 on in the darkness and it was never recovered. After 
 all, what could one life do pitted against that stream? 
 What could one missionary physician accomplish with 
 that Augean task? Wasn't it hopeless in the begin- 
 ning? Wasn't it waste in the end? 
 
CHAPTER II: EARLY INDICATIONS OF 
 CHARACTER 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 EARLY INDICATIONS OF CHARACTER 
 
 A wide main street, very dusty or deeply mired ac- 
 cording to the weather, lined with dwellings toward 
 either extremity, and with stores at the center of the 
 village, that, for the most part, was the quiet South 
 Carolina town called Woodruff. In the section where 
 the shops clustered was a large frame residence, the 
 only home that faced the street in that locality. A 
 magnificent magnolia, fifty feet high, stood in the front 
 yard. The tree had been brought from Charleston at 
 the close of the Civil War. The Andersons who lived 
 in this home were relatives of Captain Woodruff, the 
 founder of the town. W. A. Anderson, the father, 
 came as a boy of nineteen to work for his great-uncle, 
 the Captain. His own father had died when he was 
 quite young, and the uncle had agreed to adopt him. 
 With his grandfather and mother and brothers, Mr. 
 Anderson worked nineteen years to pay off war debts, 
 owing for slaves set free. Lawyers had advised the 
 grandfather to repudiate the debts, for the creditors 
 were well-to-do and were not pushing their claims, 
 but he insisted on paying all. The mother taught 
 school to help earn the money. The grandfather died 
 before the debt was canceled, but the boys paid off 
 
 19 
 
20 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 the last dollar. It was Mr. Anderson's great ambition 
 to go to college and he begged his uncle with tears to 
 let him go, but it was impossible for his uncle, who had 
 no son, to spare him from the work on the farm. 
 Denied a college education himself, he cherished in 
 his heart the purpose to send all his children, of whom 
 there were eight, to college when they were grown. 
 Six have already graduated. 
 
 Such the stock of which John Todd Anderson, the 
 oldest son of William A. Anderson, was born, April 
 20, 1887. Limited in opportunity, it was rich in in- 
 tegrity and ambition. John early committed himself 
 to Christ. He recalled years afterward his uncles 
 speaking to him down at the barn, asking him whether 
 he did not want to be a Christian. During a country 
 "protracted meeting/' his father and he knelt alone, 
 hard by the old church, and John gave himself to the 
 Lord, joining the church at the age of twelve. He 
 early knew the sweat of toil, and he loved to work 
 and worked hard. At fourteen he planned and built 
 a cotton house to protect the cotton picked in the fields 
 before it was taken to the gin. The house is still stand- 
 ing, its door still swinging true. He knew how to 
 plow and had a section of the farm as his own to 
 cultivate. At fifteen he began to help dig artesian 
 wells with a well-machine, and when he had finished 
 high school he was sent to Georgia by his father to 
 drill wells on his own account. Largely because of 
 John's own energy and initiative, his father's home 
 was the first in Woodruff to have water works and 
 plumbing facilities. John dug the well, put up the 
 
EARLY INDICATIONS OF CHARACTER 21 
 
 water tank, and put in the fixtures. Later neighbors, 
 observing these conveniences, asked to be connected up 
 with the tank and the town water system had its 
 genesis in the Anderson back yard. 
 
 In the fall of 1905 John entered college at Furman 
 University, Greenville, South Carolina. He came on 
 to the campus carrying the suitcase of one of the 
 upper classmen. His face bore a smile, the smile that 
 became famous around the college, of one who had 
 already learned the lesson — "Whoever forces you to 
 go one mile, go with him two miles," and do it cheer- 
 fully. At the beginning of his second year he was 
 called home to take up well-drilling again, to tide 
 over financial difficulties in the family. Telegrams had 
 come from Georgia saying : 
 
 Send your son John out here and he can get all the work 
 and more than he can do. 
 
 His father called him on the long distance telephone : 
 
 "John, you know how I am pressed. You will be 
 worth one thousand dollars to me next year in Georgia. 
 Will you promise me to go and then return to Furman 
 a year hence ?" 
 
 John replied: 
 
 "Father, I will do what you tell me." 
 
 His father said : 
 
 "If you are in doubt about being able to return to 
 college later, stay where you are, but if you will go, 
 pack your trunk." . 
 
 John went to Georgia and made the thousand dollars. 
 It was characteristic of his relations with his parents. 
 
22 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 His father has said that he never disobeyed him but 
 once, and that time he came to him and acknowledged 
 his fault saying: 
 
 "Father, I will never disobey you again." 
 Like the boy Jesus, whose outlook was far wider 
 than his parents', he was yet submissive unto them. 
 
 In succeeding summers he was engaged in well- 
 drilling, making funds to carry him through school. 
 The machine was driven along the country roads from 
 town to town where contracts were secured for wells. 
 He was his own engineer and repair man and business 
 manager. Regular reports on the progress made in 
 digging were sent to his father and itemized accounts. 
 Some interesting sidelights on his character come out 
 in letters written home from Georgia. 
 
 Mother was saying that she felt so sorry for me because 
 I have to work so hard in the sun. Well, I am sorry that 
 she cannot be in the same fix that I am and enjoy the 
 sun and the good health that I am enjoying. I am going to 
 take care of myself and am working only eleven hours a 
 day. 
 
 In another letter he writes : 
 
 I am staying at the hotel here. The fare is very poor, 
 but I can make out on anything. The weather has been hot, 
 but I have not felt at all bad a single moment that I have 
 been here. My hands and arms and face have been sore 
 with blisters and peeling skin. It has not hurt me, though, 
 and I am about tough. My work yesterday was to rise at 
 four and work on the boiler until the negro helpers came 
 to work. While they were at dinner I took the engine to 
 pieces and filed the brasses. 
 
EARLY INDICATIONS OF CHARACTER 23 
 
 In a letter to his father he gives as his motto : 
 
 Look on the bright side and work so hard that you can- 
 not think of the other side of life. 
 
 As he was conscientious and industrious in his work, 
 so was he faithful and devoted to the church. On 
 Sundays he was regularly at the services and attended 
 Sunday School if the place had one. He invariably 
 comments on the sermon in his Sunday letters home 
 and on the state of the religious life of the community. 
 For instance : 
 
 I have spent a Sunday in another Georgia town about 
 the size of the last one. I went to church this morning, 
 
 but did not hear of any Sunday School. Mr. E invited 
 
 me to dinner. They have a fine large house. They did not 
 go to church. They are friendly people, but full of this 
 world. 
 
 In a certain town where he went to drill a well, no 
 home would take him in to board except the poorest 
 couple in the place. There was only one wash pan 
 in the house and no water bucket. Ablutions had to 
 be performed at the well. As he remained in town 
 at work, some of the other people came to know that 
 he was of good family and asked him to move over 
 to another place. He refused, however, to leave the 
 poor folk who first took him in. 
 
 One rainy day when they had stopped work, a man 
 of the town noticed John and his helpers standing in 
 the shelter of some freight cars. It was damp and 
 chilly, and one of the men drew out a flask of whiskey 
 
24 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 for a drop of cheer. When it came out of his pocket, 
 the townsman saw John speak to the fellow, but could 
 not hear the words. In a moment the flask was re- 
 turned to the pocket and not a drop was touched by 
 any of them. 
 
 His experiences in Georgia were making their con- 
 tribution in training and development for the career 
 that lay ahead. Already there were indications of 
 those traits which made his friends later regard him 
 as the most Christ-like man they knew. 
 
 "In my reading to-day I came across the following 
 which I memorized/' he writes in a letter from a town 
 in Georgia. 
 
 My Prayer 
 
 In my home life may I be made a blessing; 
 
 A tender comfort when days are full of pain; 
 
 Always thinking of others before myself. 
 
 And in my daily calling may I work not for the wages I 
 
 may receive, 
 But so as to please Jesus, my Master. 
 In my inner life I desire to be kept pure and holy. 
 O Holy and Spotless One, be in me a crystal fountain of 
 
 purity. 
 Teach me what my talents are and help me to make the 
 
 two four and the five ten. 
 
CHAPTER III: AT FURMAN 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 AT FURMAN 
 
 The following fall John was back in Furman again. 
 The college belongs to that group of small colleges, 
 definitely Christian in purpose, which has produced 
 so much of the finest leadership in America. Its 
 traditions are healthily and honestly religious. It is 
 "a brotherhood for character building and a fellow- 
 ship in the pursuit of knowledge/' Because of the 
 moderate size of the student body there is a real com- 
 munity of interest and the students enter fully into 
 the whole life of the institution. The daily chapel 
 services are no perfunctory affair, nor is the athletic 
 and social life less hearty than in larger institutions, 
 and the close contact of student and professor affords 
 special intellectual advantages. 
 
 John took his full share in all the life of the col- 
 lege. His cheery disposition and unselfish spirit made 
 him one of the most popular men in school. Not par- 
 ticularly skillful in athletics though physically well- 
 built, he faithfully played his part on the "scrubs," 
 and was an enthusiastic supporter of the athletic teams. 
 He was no saint who thought himself too good to 
 mix with other men. His ability to manage affairs 
 
 27 
 
28 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 laid him open to many calls for his services. If there 
 was a college picnic or banquet or reception, he was 
 sure to have the chief responsibility for the arrange- 
 ments. He decorated the halls for public functions; 
 he was in the kitchen when refreshments were to be 
 served. He was student manager of the college dormi- 
 tory and dining-room, business manager of the college 
 monthly and the year book, and held many other such 
 offices in the various student organizations. As one 
 of his fellow students has said: 
 
 "He was the servant of the student body while at 
 Furman. He made opportunities to serve." 
 
 A fellow student fallen sick, it was John who nursed 
 him, who went to the kitchen and prepared him palata- 
 ble food. These things he loved rather than his books, 
 and because there were so many things that called for 
 his time outside of the class-room, he did not usually 
 stand well in his classes. But there is no man who 
 went through Furman in those years who stood higher 
 in the estimation of the faculty. The President re- 
 marked many times : 
 
 "John Anderson has a genius for helpfulness/' 
 
 And one of the professors has written : 
 
 What John Anderson was at the end, he was at the be- 
 ginning of my acquaintance with him. Throughout his 
 student years in Furman, he ministered to the physical needs 
 of fellow students. He was almost as much of a physician 
 then as he was afterwards. And in all of these ministra- 
 tions one felt that John Anderson was first a Christian, and 
 second, a physician. He was one of the purest spirits I 
 have ever known. 
 
AT FURMAN 29 
 
 In this second year at college, Dr. W. W. Hamilton, 
 at that time a pastor and later head of the Depart- 
 ment of Evangelism of the Southern Baptist Conven- 
 tion, came to Greenville for a week of meetings in the 
 church attended by most of the college students. In 
 a midnight prayer-meeting which lasted until two 
 o'clock in the morning, John made his full surrender 
 to Christ and from that time on heart and soul were 
 dedicated to the Master's service, looking toward the 
 day when he would be a missionary. He became a 
 man of one purpose. Everything he did subsequently 
 was related to that "one thing I do. ,, Moreover, he 
 did not postpone his missionary service until he was 
 in China. The two things that were nearest his heart 
 from that time forward were the college Young Men's 
 Christian Association and the Student Volunteer Band. 
 He became an officer in both organizations, and served 
 with contagious enthusiasm and energy. Dr. George 
 W. Truett came for an evangelistic campaign one 
 year, and John prepared a list of the college men who 
 were not Christians, and called some of his friends 
 together for daily prayer that they might be saved. 
 He also talked to many of them personally and ar- 
 ranged conferences for them with ministers and 
 friends. He would take his place beside a timid, un- 
 saved fellow student when the invitation was given 
 and go with him to the front of the church. Always 
 was he concerned that his friends should find the 
 same high joy in the friendship of Christ that he 
 himself knew. 
 
 Greenville is a cotton mill center. There are fourteen 
 
30 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 or fifteen large mills in the outskirts of the city. On 
 a visit to the Union Bleachery Mill, John was so im- 
 pressed with the religious needs of the mill village 
 that he subsequently organized a Sunday School there 
 and himself taught one of the classes. Six of the 
 forty girls in his class were converted, and since that 
 time, as an outgrowth of that Sunday School, a church 
 has been organized. Besides this service he frequently 
 visited the county jail with a deputation from the col- 
 lege Y. M. C. A., holding meetings there on Sunday 
 afternoons, giving literature to the prisoners and con- 
 versing with them personally. 
 
 He once remarked of a man who had become a 
 missionary : 
 
 "He did not do anything for missions while he was 
 in school in America. I wonder how he can do any 
 good on the foreign field. ,, 
 
 John set himself to his endeavors so that this should 
 not be said of him. He had a prayer list of friends 
 whom he sought to influence to volunteer for foreign 
 missionary service. It would be difficult to calculate 
 the number of those who had the opportunities for 
 service in lands across the sea first brought to their 
 attention by John Anderson, in a word or the gift of a 
 pamphlet or a book. There are many who have borne 
 testimony to this influence, as, for instance, a college- 
 mate who went subsequently to South America as a 
 missionary. 
 
 "John made a deeper impression upon me than any 
 other young man that I ever met. I remember that 
 while at Furman, he had me on his prayer list, asking 
 
DR. ANDERSON IN HIS HOSPITAL UNIFORM 
 
AT FURMAN 31 
 
 that God would send me to the foreign field. He ar- 
 ranged conferences for me with Student Volunteer 
 Secretaries. I remember especially one he arranged 
 with Dr. Truett which helped me greatly to surrender 
 my life for foreign service." 
 
 John was a member of deputation teams which went 
 from the Volunteer Band into the surrounding churches 
 to speak on Africa or China or Japan or some phase of 
 missionary enterprise. Though not an easy speaker 
 he never failed to impress by his earnestness and en- 
 thusiasm. Most of all did his friendliness and sunny 
 smile attract people to the cause he represented. As 
 one said: 
 
 "He was not a very fine speaker, but he lived his 
 religion more than he spoke it." 
 
 At the summer Student Conference of the Y. M. C. A. 
 at Montreat, N. C, in 1908, John was one of a group 
 of five who met together and laid plans for the or- 
 ganization of the Student Volunteers of the South 
 Carolina colleges into- a State Volunteer Union, with 
 the object of increasing the missionary interest of the 
 college students, The first meeting of this Union was 
 held in Columbia in the spring of 1909 with only a 
 very few delegates in attendance. In the spring of 
 19 10, John was the principal factor in arranging for 
 a meeting in Greenville. There were about forty dele- 
 gates from the different colleges present and they had 
 a good conference. John McEachern, now a mission- 
 ary in Korea, was elected President for the ensuing 
 year and John Anderson, Secretary and Treasurer, and 
 together they perfected the organization and got the 
 
82 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 Union on its feet. The next year the number of dele- 
 gates was doubled and there was a strong group of 
 missionary leaders present. The expenses of the or- 
 ganization had been advanced by the officers, but that 
 was cleared up and since that time the Union has held 
 regular annual meetings and exerted an increasingly 
 important influence in the South Carolina colleges. 
 What is now the regularly published Bulletin of the 
 Union was once brought out by John Anderson 
 monthly on a mimeograph and mailed by him to the 
 members of the Union. It took a good deal of time 
 in connection with his other college activities, but he 
 never seemed to tire of doing this service. He had 
 the help of a few others in this work, but his was the 
 principal responsibility. 
 
 In the winter of 1909-10 he was chosen as one of 
 three men to represent the college at the Quadren- 
 nial Student Volunteer Convention at Rochester, N. Y. 
 There were nearly four thousand delegates from 
 the colleges of Canada and the United States who met 
 for five days in the great Convention Hall. In that 
 throng there was no one who responded more whole- 
 heartedly than John Anderson to the appeals of the 
 representatives of the mission lands of the earth, the 
 Chinese, the men of India, the Africans, the foreign 
 missionaries and the secretaries of the mission boards. 
 The white harvest fields spread out before his eyes 
 by these speakers confirmed in him his purpose to help 
 answer the prayers for more laborers by the offering 
 of his own life. And when he had returned to the 
 college again after those high days, for months he was 
 
AT FURMAN S3 
 
 handing on to his fellow students and to church con- 
 gregations near at hand, the visions and inspirations 
 that came to him in the convention. 
 
 There is a revelation of what was behind this full- 
 ness of life and abandon of service, in one or two of 
 his home letters at this time. A letter dated April 15, 
 19 10, contains the following: 
 
 I believe more and more in giving the first half hour of 
 every day to God in prayer. If you do this you will have 
 something to think on during the day. You will have God 
 with you that day to help you battle with the evils of that day. 
 At night you are tired and sleepy and do not remember 
 anything you have read in your Bible. You need the pro- 
 tection of God through the night, but the devil does most 
 of his work in your life through the day through men with 
 whom you come in contact. 
 
 In another letter of the same year he wrote : 
 
 I believe more and more in prayer. You can get what 
 you pray for if you are in earnest and if the request is 
 best for you. Prayer is the greatest instrument in the hands 
 of living men. It is the greatest lever there is. You can- 
 not get a lever long enough or with the right purchase to 
 turn the world over, but prayer is able to turn it over. The 
 person who is the sincerest Christian is the man of prayer. 
 He is the man who can go out alone and talk to God aloud, 
 feeling that he is within a few feet of Him. 
 
 Again : 
 
 One's motto should be: Better to-day than yesterday. It 
 is not expected that every one shall be a great man or a 
 great woman, but it is expected that they shall be better to- 
 day than yesterday. 
 
34 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 To many of his fellow students, the most remark- 
 able characteristic of John Anderson was his genuine 
 humility. There was nothing of Uriah Heep in his 
 self -depreciation and desire to keep himself in the 
 background. He was invariably out of sight when the 
 time came to give credit to those who had shared in 
 some enterprise. If he was caught in the limelight, 
 he would blush like a girl, and pass off any compli- 
 ment with "Oh, shucks !" As a friend has remarked : 
 
 "I have never known a person who had a greater 
 abhorrence of doing good to be seen of men." 
 
CHAPTER IV: BEGINNING THE STUDY 
 OF MEDICINE 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 BEGINNING THE STUDY OF MEDICINE 
 
 History, languages, the classics, never seemed to 
 interest John Anderson, and as a consequence his col- 
 lege record in these studies did not secure for him his 
 Arts degree at Furman. But he became a new man 
 when he entered the medical class at Wake Forest Col- 
 lege, North Carolina 2 in the fall of 1 910. It was like 
 the ball of the femur falling into its socket after a 
 dislocation. Instead of dreading to pick up a book as 
 before, now it was early and late to the study of 
 anatomy, physiology, histology and the rest. Dis- 
 section was his fascination. The point of interest and 
 attention having been touched, examination marks 
 leaped away up. At times he led the class. He had 
 found his groove at last. 
 
 His love for the study of medicine and the more 
 stringent demand on his time made by these studies, 
 did not lessen his interest in the Christian activities of 
 the college. He was preparing to be a missionary as 
 well as a physician and his concern was that his life 
 should count for his Master in school as well as later 
 in China. Wake Forest College had then about four 
 hundred students. Of these, perhaps fifty were in the 
 medical department, which gives the first two years of 
 
 37 
 
38 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 the regular course for the M. D. degree. The College 
 Y. M. C. A. the year he entered was going along at a 
 poor dying rate. Almost the only individuals who at- 
 tended the weekly meetings were those who were ex- 
 pecting to be ministers, and the other students left 
 them and their prayer-meetings severely alone. Like , 
 many churches it was a calm and sure retreat for the 
 pious, not an organization directed toward the elevating 
 and purifying of the campus life. If there w T as one 
 thing that made John impatient it was the type of 
 Christian who thinks himself too good to be con- 
 taminated by association with "worldly men." "He 
 that saveth his life, loseth it" — was a vital word to 
 him. The situation challenged him to action. He 
 went out and played on the scrub football team for 
 the sake of the influence it would give him with the 
 fellows, though he often remarked that it was hard 
 to take the time and the bruises to do it. The "publi- 
 cans and sinners" liked him. He never compromised 
 with their sin, however. And they respected him for 
 his convictions. It was not long before he had been 
 elected to the cabinet of the Y. M. C. A. and with his 
 hands on the weekly program, he soon had men com- 
 ing to the meetings who formerly would not touch 
 the door with a ten-foot pole. Live speakers from 
 nearby cities were invited to address the men instead 
 of depending on a few ministerial students to "lead 
 the devotions." 
 
 In the spring of that session, John took a large part 
 in organizing a mission study canvass of the college 
 which enrolled about half of the students in the study 
 
BEGINNING THE STUDY OF MEDICINE 39 
 
 of "Negro Life in the South." He led a class himself 
 in which some of the roughest men in school were 
 members. It was a joke among those who knew the 
 crowd that a crap game had to be broken up every 
 Sunday night when they were rounded up for the 
 class meeting. In a letter he speaks of this class: 
 
 I am leading a mission study class here in a book en- 
 titled "Negro Life in the South." It is fine. This morning 
 before Sunday School I went out to see if I could find the 
 preacher of one of the Negro churches to get his per- 
 mission to carry my class to hear him to-night. He said, 
 "Yes," in a real kind of way. I told him why we wanted 
 to come, of our duty to help the darkies, for we are alike 
 in that we have the same God, are made alike in every way 
 except that their skin is pigmented, which makes them black. 
 I went to one home and asked for this preacher and the 
 boy said that he was about a mile away in a certain direc- 
 tion at a certain house. I asked the boy to go with me 
 and show me the place. I believe that boy is better than 
 the average white one. He is twelve years old, in the eighth 
 grade, has been a Christian for four years, reads his Bible 
 every morning, is an humble fellow. His ambition is to be 
 a school teacher for the good he can do and not for the 
 money he can make. I found out many other things of 
 interest about him. This is the most interesting study I 
 ever was in. 
 
 Later he wrote : 
 
 I carried my mission study class to the colored Presby- 
 terian Church last Sunday night for the service there. We 
 were all surprised by the good worship they had. We came 
 away feeling that the darkies are not so far behind as 
 we think they are. We are going to take a religious census 
 of this place and we think we shall get some interesting in- 
 formation. 
 
40 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 There was no Student Volunteer Band in the col- 
 lege, but before half the year had passed John had 
 found two or three others who were looking forward 
 to missionary service who agreed to meet Sunday 
 afternoons in his room, and before the end of the year 
 there was a band of eight or ten men gathered to- 
 gether. Until the spring meeting of the South Caro- 
 lina Volunteer Union, he held the office of Secretary, 
 and prepared the monthly news letter as he had done in 
 Furman. He brought his typewriter and mimeograph 
 with him to Wake Forest and most of his spare mo- 
 ments were spent in using them. His correspondence 
 was voluminous. The South Carolina Union con- 
 ference which was held at Rock Hill in Winthrop 
 College that spring was largely of his planning. He 
 helped secure the speakers, made arrangements for 
 registration and so on. He had a genius for organiza- 
 tion and a great capacity for detail. 
 
 John was always driving for definite results. In a 
 letter to his mother after the Rock Hill conference this 
 is illustrated. He had been very anxious for one of 
 his sisters to attend the meeting and she finally agreed 
 to go. He writes : 
 
 I hope Lois will tell you about the conference at Rock 
 Hill. Ask her some of the following questions. How did 
 she like Winthrop? The dining-room? The music at the 
 conference? The best songs she heard? The exhibit? Mr. 
 Turrfer and the other speakers? How did she like the dele- 
 gates who attended? Have her tell you about a number of 
 addresses. Have her tell you the most interesting thing she 
 saw on the trip. What were the things that impressed her 
 most ? Ask her if she were to sum it all up, what would she 
 
BEGINNING THE STUDY OF MEDICINE 41 
 
 say was the message for her life? I suppose you see that I 
 am after getting her to tell you all about it. 
 
 Relieved of his responsibility in the South Carolina 
 Union on returning to Wake Forest after the con- 
 ference he wrote : 
 
 I will bring all my marks up now that I am done with 
 the South Carolina Volunteer Union. I am not sorry, 
 though, for what I have done for the Union, but now that 
 it is on its feet it ought to go forward. • 
 
 Though he had something like fifteen hours of 
 recitations and twenty-three hours of laboratory a 
 week, it was not long before the fact that North Caro- 
 lina had no Volunteer Union at work for foreign mis- 
 sions in the colleges, was on his mind. The first step 
 was the organization of the Wake County Union which 
 included the schools near Raleigh. One or two meet- 
 ings were held in the spring of 191 1, and the next 
 year a State Union was launched. All these things 
 were done as a new student in his first year at Wake 
 Forest. 
 
 In his second year, John organized a mission study 
 class of his fellow medical students and led it himself. 
 He had asked permission to start the class of the dean 
 of medicine who had replied : 
 
 "You'll be a good one if you get those fellows into 
 a mission study class, but go to it." 
 
 Let one of his own letters tell the story. 
 
 I dislike to write a letter of the nature of this one for it 
 seems selfish. I trust that you will not look at it in that way, 
 for I desire that it be read in the spirit that God can use 
 
42 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 men for spreading His message. I do not know of a year 
 that God has done more for me or used me more in help- 
 ing those that I associate with. He has been more real 
 to me this session than ever before. 
 
 This session began with everything going wrong and it 
 looked like the Christian work and the Christian spirit at 
 this place was on the decline. Everything seemed to go 
 wrong and we could not reach those that we desired to 
 touch. During the summer we made a number of plans 
 as to the Y. M. C. A. work to be started here at the be- 
 ginning of the session. Most of these plans were thrown 
 aside as the fellows one after another would fall down on 
 their jobs. I had worked with the faculty in the summer in 
 regard to the North Carolina Bible Institute coming to 
 Wake Forest, as it is eight years old and had never met at 
 this place. The faculty said that the Institute could come 
 if I would stand good for the entertainment of one hundred 
 men. We needed that many delegates in order to get Drs. 
 Weatherford and Cooper to attend. I undertook to arrange 
 for the entertainment and last week we had the Institute. 
 One hundred and five delegates came in on Thursday and 
 stayed over Sunday. On Monday and Tuesday Mr. Cooper 
 stayed over to speak to the college. The professors say 
 that we had the best evangelistic meetings that the college 
 has ever had and that the spirit is better than it has ever 
 been. Many of the fellows confessed to cheating, smoking, 
 betting, gambling, cursing, not studying the Bible, winning 
 debates through taking unfair advantages, and so on, and 
 over two hundred agreed to study the Bible daily. 
 
 I should have said something about the work that we are 
 trying to do in mission study. Last spring we had over two 
 hundred men enrolled in mission study and this year after 
 the canvass was made we had only a little over ninety. It 
 fell to my lot to take a class of medical students of my own 
 medical year. There are fourteen of us, all swear but one, 
 some gamble, all use tobacco but one, three are not mem- 
 
BEGINNING THE STUDY OF MEDICINE 43 
 
 bers of the church, and the others are not living as they 
 should. It was a hard task to think of trying to get these 
 fellows into a mission study class when you are thrown 
 with them every day and they josh you about not cursing, 
 not using tobacco, several of them saying that they were 
 going to put me out and make me stop medicine. God does 
 not. want a man to undertake a task that is easy, but He 
 wants him to be dependent on Him for help. With Him 
 as my helper I attempted to line up these men in this work. 
 It was hard to begin and I put it off for several days, but 
 I did begin and I approached every man in the class per- 
 sonally about the matter. Every one agreed with me heartily 
 and seemed to be very willing to go into such a study. The 
 last man that I approached was about as rough as any in the 
 class. After I placed the matter before him he said: ''Well, 
 John, you know that I am not a Christian nor living the 
 life that I should, but if there is any good in it, I want to 
 help you out." 
 
 The class has had four meetings and only four men have 
 been absent, three from neglect and one from sickness. We 
 have been having good meetings, every man taking part in 
 the discussion and I have never been in a mission study 
 class of any kind where there was more interest. Those 
 fellows have been thinking about their lives and one of them 
 who is not a Christian has said that he is going to try and 
 live a better life. Oh, how I long for these fellows to be 
 brought into the personal friendship of Jesus. This is my 
 prayer, that every man in this class will become a Christian 
 and live as a Christian each day. Some of the men in this 
 class have begun daily Bible study. 
 
 At the close of the evangelistic services spoken of above, 
 Mr. Cooper helped us set up a plan to get every man who 
 is not in Sunday School into Bible study. There are about 
 one hundred and twenty who do not attend Sunday School, 
 the toughest fellows in the place. Every man I have asked 
 to join me in this study has agreed, and the Dean says that 
 
m A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 I have the worst bunch. I have sixteen to solicit and five 
 of them are away on a football trip. I have asked over 
 half of them already. Two fellows told me that if I wanted 
 to get those fellows I would have to get a keg of beer or 
 something stronger to get them there. How I need your 
 prayers to help me in this work. I have two of the worst 
 fellows in this school, so considered by many, but I do 
 not think so for they have big hearts. Both of these fellows 
 are trying to live a better life. I have been interested in 
 one of these men ever since I came here and used to say, 
 as I had to eat at the table beside him when I first came, 
 that I could hardly stand him, he was so wicked and filthy. 
 I stuck to him, however, and in a talk with him last week 
 just before the meetings, he said two things that were of 
 especial interest to me. He said that he was not satisfied 
 with the kind of life he was living and that he did not 
 have any friends. There were two fellows that he con- 
 sidered his friends, some one else and me. No one can tell 
 how much good it did me to hear him say this. He had 
 two talks with Mr. Cooper and he is on his feet, and has 
 not said anything out of the way nor done anything which 
 he should not this week. He is trying to live a Christian 
 life. He said Tuesday night that he was considered the 
 meanest, filthiest, dirtiest fellow in school and that he knew 
 that he was, but with the help of God he was going to try 
 and live a straight life from now on. 
 
 Please let me drop out of this letter and give God all the 
 credit. My heart's desire is expressed in the following, what- 
 ever the cost that must be paid: 
 
 "There are hermit souls that live withdrawn 
 
 In the place of their self-content: 
 There are souls like stars, that dwell apart, 
 
 In a fellowless firmament: 
 There are pioneer souls that blaze their paths 
 
 Where highways never ran — 
 
BEGINNING THE STUDY OF MEDICINE 45 
 
 But let me live by the side of the road 
 And be a friend to man. 
 
 Let me live in a house by the side of the road 
 
 Where the race of men pass by — 
 The men who are good and the men who are bad, 
 
 As good and as bad as I. 
 I would not sit in the scorner's seat, 
 
 Or hurl the cynic's ban — 
 Let me live in a house by the side of the road 
 
 And be a friend to man. 
 
 I see from my house by the side of the road, 
 
 By the side of the highway of life, 
 The men who press with the ardor of hope, 
 
 The men who faint with strife: 
 But I turn not away from their smiles nor their tears, 
 
 Both part of an infinite plan — 
 Let me live in my house by the side of the road 
 
 And be a friend to man." 
 
 How I do yearn to be of service, an humble unselfish serv- 
 ant to my fellow students and every one with whom I come 
 in contact. No greater thing can you do for me than to 
 pray for me. My prayer is for you and may our prayers 
 be united in a petition that God will take our selfish lives 
 and use them each day as He sees best, making us willing 
 to let Him come in and take full possession of us each 
 moment. 
 
 One of John's most prized possessions was a watch 
 fob which he wore always, a silver skull and cross- 
 bones, presented to him by the members of that medical 
 mission study class when the year was over, in ap- 
 preciation of what he had done for them. 
 
46 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 Let no one think that John Anderson's fidelity to his 
 Master meant the living of a restricted and narrow life 
 in college. Although he was only at Wake Forest for 
 two years, he was elected student manager of athletics 
 by the Alumni Athletic Association. He was full of 
 fun and fond of practical jokes. He knew how to take 
 the good-natured jibes of his fellows with a smile 
 when they called him "the preacher-medico"— -and he 
 kept right on with his work for Christ. He knew 
 how to have a good time with the fellows, but he never 
 lowered his standards to do it. 
 
 At the close of the college year he wrote: 
 
 The last three examinations were awfully hard. I do 
 not like to claim any praise if there be any for not 
 studying on Sunday. But out of thirty medical students I 
 was the only one who did not study yesterday. There was 
 only one other who attended any form of service yesterday 
 and he attended only in the morning. I had rather flunk 
 than do that. I do not believe they gain anything by 
 studying on Sunday. I suppose that three-fourths of the 
 boys here study on that day. 
 
 Other letters written from time to time during these 
 two years have extracts worth quoting : 
 
 I am sorry to know that Mamma is sick and I hope she 
 will soon be up. She ought to get out some, for it is enough 
 to make any one sick to stay at home all the time. I went 
 to Raleigh to the fair some time ago for that reason and no 
 other. I think that one should have a rest from everything 
 or a change from the old things, except religion which you 
 can carry with you. Dr. Brown says that a person need 
 never have a vacation from religion. 
 
DR. AND MRS. ANDERSON AND THEIR SON IN 
 YANG CHOW 
 
 ON THE WAY TO HWANGHSIEN 
 
 Dr. Anderson carrying his Chinese teacher 
 across a river ford on the way overland in 
 Shantung. This journey of 80 miles from 
 Chefoo to Hwanghsien was undertaken in 
 order to serve in a difficult case when there 
 was no foreign doctor to attend a missionary 
 mother. 
 
 w 
 
BEGINNING THE STUDY OF MEDICINE 47 
 
 It is too bad about H . I was just reading for a few 
 
 moments as I came from dinner after being in the laboratory 
 all the morning. I picked up a book just come which is the 
 life of Z. S. Loftis who went out as a missionary doctor and 
 only lived one year. He entered a field that no missionary 
 had ever been in and he was there only a few days. His 
 last two descriptions were of patients which he had, two 
 dying without any hope whatever. It is awful to think that 
 
 H has passed away in a Christian home and community 
 
 without any hope of the life eternal. One life is as much 
 value in the sight of God as another, but how it grieves us 
 when we think of friends dying without hope. But what do 
 we think when we know of millions dying in non-Christian 
 lands in the same way every day? This is the thought that 
 grips me so at times that I think that I had rather have my 
 life multiplied a number of times than to have anything else 
 that any one could desire. 
 
 John had a way of helping around the kitchen and 
 with the housework when he was home for vacation 
 visits. He lightened the work of his mother and sisters 
 by assisting in the cooking, in serving the table, and 
 in the backyard chores. Returning to college after the 
 Christmas holidays he writes : 
 
 I tried to make Christmas a rest for myself and to serve 
 you all the balance of my time. I am sorry that I did not 
 do more to make others enjoy the occasion. I like to look 
 at Christmas as a time of real pleasure. I like to look at 
 it as a time for being drawn closer to God and making Jesus 
 a closer, dearer friend. I like to look at Christmas as Mrs. 
 Taylor did once in China. Her prayer and work was to 
 present Jesus and His love to many. She tried to make Jesus 
 her gift to others and eleven accepted Him that day. From 
 now on I hope to be of service to others at this time. 
 
48 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 In writing to one of his sisters on her engagement 
 he says : 
 
 Yes, F is as solid or true a man, I should say, as 
 
 could be found anywhere. I have more confidence in him 
 than in myself. I have seen bigger sports, fellows that I 
 thought could make more money, having more "brass," but 
 that does not count in my valuation of a man. He is a 
 Christian in the truest sense. 
 
 How often the excuse is met by those who are trying 
 to enlist their fellows in some active Christian service 
 — "I have no time to spare." And how shallow and 
 feeble such an excuse appears in the light of a life 
 like this. 
 
CHAPTER V: THE FIRST YEAR IN 
 KENTUCKY 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE FIRST YEAR IN KENTUCKY 
 
 The well digging business of W. A. Anderson & Son 
 was carried on while John was in college by a man 
 from Pennsylvania who was engaged to run the ma- 
 chine. The actual management of the business was 
 done by John Anderson through correspondence with 
 this man from Wake Forest. The man had to be 
 "jacked up" every now and then as he did not feel his 
 responsibility as keenly as he might have done. Con- 
 tracts had to be straightened out and collections made. 
 Many a day John's typewriter clicked as he cared for 
 these affairs. This work was done in addition to the 
 activities catalogued in the last chapter. The summer 
 after graduating from Wake Forest with a B. S. degree 
 John spent in Georgia again, drilling wells. A medical 
 education is expensive and money had to be secured 
 to further prosecute those studies. Writing to a col- 
 lege mate about the middle of the summer, he says : 
 
 This has been a busy summer with me and I have had 
 very little time to myself. I had a good time yesterday in 
 this little place by myself and with Him. It was the best 
 Sunday I have spent in some time. What have you been 
 doing for yourself? What have you been doing for others? 
 Did you know that there were only two fellows at the sutn- 
 
 5i 
 
52 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 mer conference from Wake Forest? I am sorry that it was 
 this way. You have decided to go back to Wake Forest next 
 fall, have you not? Well, you all must do things there in 
 a spiritual way. I have often thought of what you all will 
 do next year and have built air castles for you. Do not 
 let them fail, but build to them. I would be glad to hear 
 from you as to your plans and what you have done. My 
 work this summer has not been what I would like it to 
 have been as I have been occupied more with material than 
 with spiritual matters. But I have made a number of talks 
 and led Sunday School classes. I have not fully decided 
 where I will go next year as I want to get to a place where 
 the spiritual atmosphere is as good as it can be in a medical 
 school— even at that it will be low. 
 
 "What have you been doing for others ?" is his 
 question to his friend. It was always on his heart. 
 The thought of a poem that he enclosed in one of his 
 letters from Georgia, he came as near embodying in 
 his life as any man that many of us have ever known. 
 
 "Lord, help me to live from day to day 
 In such a self- forgetful way 
 That even when I kneel to pray, 
 My prayer shall be for — Others. 
 
 Help me in all the work I do 
 
 To ever be sincere and true, 
 And know that all Fd do for you, 
 
 Must needs be done for — Others. 
 
 Let 'self be crucified and slain, 
 And buried deep ; and all in vain 
 
 May efforts be to rise again, 
 Unless to live for — Others. 
 
THE FIRST YEAR IN KENTUCKY 53 
 
 And when my work on earth is done, 
 And my new work in Heaven's begun, 
 
 May I forget the crown I've won, 
 While thinking still of — Others. 
 
 Others, Lord, yes, others; 
 
 Let this my motto be: 
 Help me to live for others, 
 
 That I may live like Thee." 
 
 For the reasons mentioned above, John decided be- 
 fore the summer was over to go to the University of 
 Louisville for his last two years of medicine, as it 
 would be possible to have association with the students 
 of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, where 
 several of his friends were studying. For a time, when 
 he first came to Louisville, he lived in the Seminary 
 dormitory, a procedure quite out of the ordinary for 
 a medical student. He attended the chapel services and 
 special lectures as often as possible, though he did not 
 have much time with a schedule that kept him at the 
 Medical School from 8 A. M. to 6 P. M. every day, 
 with an hour off for lunch and Saturday afternoon 
 free. 
 
 It was not long before he was doing those kindly 
 services for men in the Seminary which were typical 
 of his life everywhere; waiting on table to substitute 
 for one who was absent, nursing students who were 
 ill, setting a shoulder dislocated in the gymnasium, and 
 so on. One of his friends was taken sick with a bad 
 case of tonsilitis and he came over from the medical 
 school between classes — it was four or five blocks away 
 
54 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 — to give him medicine and nourishment. He once 
 told one of the Seminary men that he had counted his 
 steps from the Medical School to the Seminary so 
 that he would know the shortest route to come when 
 he wanted to save seconds. He wrote in a letter : 
 
 One night I was called three times and one time I had 
 to go to a drug store four blocks away at three A. M. for 
 some medicine. There is nothing like getting used to being 
 awakened any time in the night. 
 
 This service was all, of course, gratuitous, and this 
 was only his third year in medicine. His letters home 
 at this time are full of advice for sick friends and 
 neighbors in Woodruff. He was interested in all his 
 home community ills. 
 
 On Sunday afternoons John went with two or three 
 of the Seminary students for a twenty-minute street 
 car ride and a two-mile walk from the end of the car 
 line, to teach in a Sunday School which was held in a 
 public school house in a religiously neglected com- 
 munity. Most of the attendants were young people 
 and only a few of them were Christians. They had a 
 missionary rally in the spring of that year with one 
 hundred and one present and a collection for missions 
 
 of $52.75. 
 
 John Anderson could not be satisfied to nourish 
 himself on the spiritual food the Seminary provided 
 and disregard the needs of the Medical School he was 
 attending. The moral conditions there distressed his 
 soul. There was no religious organization in the 
 school and beyond the seven or eight men who at- 
 
THE FIRST YEAR IN KENTUCKY 55 
 
 tended a Bible class in the city Y. M. C. A. there were 
 none who seemed concerned about Christian living. 
 There was drinking and gambling and immorality un- 
 abashed. The year before, the State Student Secre- 
 tary had conferred with the most interested students 
 about the organization of a Student Y. M. C. A. but 
 they had declared it to be impossible. One would 
 hardly call it a promising situation. But John was 
 "just fool enough to think that he could do the im- 
 possible/ ' and he did it. He began by finding out the 
 few men who attended church services, cultivating 
 them, talking to them about their obligation to do 
 something to better the moral tone of the school, draw- 
 ing them together into an inner circle, that they might 
 stand by him in the attempted transformation. It was 
 not until May that he had worked up enough interest 
 to feel justified in calling a meeting for the organiza- 
 tion of the Association. It was organized with twenty- 
 seven members and the number had doubled in two 
 weeks. They were strong enough by the end of the 
 session to send five delegates to the Student Christian 
 Conference at Blue Ridge, North Carolina. Before the 
 organization meeting, however, some religious meet- 
 ings had been held in the school. A letter dated March 
 22, 1913, reads: 
 
 The first meeting of any religious nature for a number 
 of years was held at the Medical School after the seven 
 to eight class on Wednesday night. We did not do much 
 advertising, but gave much time to prayer and personal 
 work and instead of twenty or thirty being there as we 
 expected, we had sixty odd. These fellows gave attention 
 
56 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 to the speaker better than they have to any surgeon or 
 practitioner that we have had this year. I believe that God 
 will use some of us to bring about a change in that place. 
 We have before us some plans and are also doing some 
 definite praying. Mk. 1 1 132 — Jesus said : "Have faith in 
 God," and it does seem that we should have faith when He 
 has done so much for us and we have been able to see what 
 He has done for so many people. 
 
 In this same letter he copies from his note book 
 some sentences that he had put down while attending 
 the Kentucky State Y. M. C. A. training conference at 
 Lexington. 
 
 Are our lives surrounded by so many things that we 
 cannot see God? 
 
 Every Christian student should set standards, set an 
 example of practical faith, set his college atmosphere right, 
 set great ideals for life service. 
 
 To conquer the world for Christ, we must first conquer 
 self. 
 
 Inactive lives are like a pool with no outlet which be- 
 comes stagnant. 
 
 Pray without ceasing. 
 
 Two necessities for the successful missionary. (Why not 
 any Christian? — John adds.) Simple Obedience and Faith- 
 ful Tenacity. 
 
 An associate of those days has written of him : 
 
 John was not unusual as a personal worker in winning 
 definite decisions, but he was constantly seeking contacts 
 with men who were morally weak, and his life with his 
 radiantly clean mind and unselfish spirit exercised a profound 
 influence. During the time that I knew him I never heard 
 him utter a word that would indicate the harboring of any 
 
THE FIRST YEAR IN KENTUCKY 57 
 
 unclean thing in his mind. He gave me the impression of 
 being transparently pure. His face was as open and frank 
 as a child's and there was a kind of radiance in his smile 
 that was a revelation of the Christ spirit within. I have 
 seen him often when it could be truly said — "His face shone." 
 
 There was a single Chinese student in the Medical 
 School. He was a retiring kind of a chap and for the 
 most part was ignored by his fellow students. Thou- 
 sands of miles away from his ancestral home, no one 
 knew how lonely he was, for a true Chinese never lets 
 his feelings be known. He seemed to have plenty of 
 money, but he was without friends. Should a man 
 who was proposing to be a missionary in China neglect 
 an opportunity to serve a Chinese who was at his 
 door? 
 
 Early m the year John wrote : 
 
 We have a Chinese here in the Sophomore Class who is an 
 extra smart fellow. He is not a Christian, but we are trying 
 to bring him across. He is a nobleman's son and it will 
 mean much to his people for him to go back as a Christian. 
 He has only been in this country a little over two years. 
 He has no Christian home to be in and has to live in a board- 
 ing house. At the Medical School the atmosphere is not 
 what it should be anyway. He knows some of the mission- 
 aries in China. If I could win him to Christ, he would be 
 worth two or more of my lives in Christianizing China. 
 
 John simply set himself to be a friend to this young 
 Chinese, whose name was Kuei Chow. He invited 
 him to dinner, visited him in his room, took him out 
 to lectures and to church and Sunday School. Chow, 
 though nominally a Conf ucianist, was practically with- 
 out religion of any kind when John began associating 
 
58 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 with him. But he could not resist the genial warmth 
 of the friendship which was offered to him. John had 
 him out to his country Sunday School to give a talk 
 on China. In the course of that talk Chow said : 
 
 "I am not a Christian, but I believe that Christianity 
 is the true religion, and I want to know more about it." 
 
 John used to get his Seminary friends together, 
 going from room to room, to pray for Chow's con- 
 version. 
 
 If Kuei Chow could be persuaded to go to Blue 
 Ridge, North Carolina, and have touch with the fine 
 type of Christian living found there, and be thrown 
 with several hundred aggressive Christian students in 
 Bible study and recreation for the ten days of the 
 Student Y. M. C. A. conference, surely he would give 
 his heart to Christ. So thought John and so he 
 planned. Before the year was up he had Chow's 
 promise to attend, and in order to make sure that he 
 would not change his mind between the close of school 
 and the time of the conference, he invited him to go 
 home with him to South Carolina for a two weeks' 
 visit. There Chow had the new experience of being 
 in a true Christian home. John and Chow talked often 
 of the meaning of the Christian life, but there was no 
 attempt to force any decision. Then together they 
 went up into the mountains for the student conference. 
 John saw to it that Chow was enrolled in a class in 
 Christian fundamentals. But in the midst of the week 
 Chow said that he had to leave for New York to meet 
 some Chinese friends with whom he had an engage- 
 ment. John felt that it would be fatal to all that he 
 
THE FIRST YEAR IN KENTUCKY 59 
 
 had planned if Chow were not to stay through the 
 whole time. He brought him to one of the Student 
 Secretaries and together they talked it over. Chow 
 finally agreed to send a telegram canceling the engage- 
 ment, and two days later this young Chinese student 
 voluntarily came to John to declare his purpose to be- 
 come a Christian and ask to be baptized. 
 
 Kuei Chow wanted to confess Christ then and there 
 before the conference and so it was arranged to hold 
 the baptismal service late Saturday afternoon. There 
 was no baptistry, but John put on some old clothes 
 and secured a wheelbarrow and with two or three 
 others worked several hours that afternoon damming 
 up the stream which runs by R. E. Lee Hall. It was 
 one of the happiest services he ever rendered and he 
 wrought with a heart on fire. What an impressive 
 scene that baptism was ! In the cool of the afternoon 
 the crowd gathered on the slopes about the pool. Dr. 
 A. T. Robertson, the great Greek scholar, read the 
 Scripture. Mr. W. B. Pettus of China asked the can- 
 didate in Chinese whether he would hold true to his 
 confession if on returning to China he were to be sub- 
 jected to persecution. And Dr. E. M. Poteat, then 
 President of Furman University, led Kuei Chow into 
 the pool to bury him solemnly in the watery grave 
 from whence he rose dedicated to the new life in 
 Christ. 
 
 On the train going down from that conference, John 
 Anderson turned to a friend and said : 
 
 I went to that conference with a three-fold purpose: to 
 see Kuei Chow become a Christian; to get a delegation 
 
60 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 from the Medical School there and get them lined up with 
 plans for the next year; and to gain power and inspiration 
 for my own life and tasks. All three things have been ac- 
 complished. 
 
 Turn back a few years in this story and Kuei Chow, 
 a grandson of one of the great Viceroys of the Chinese 
 Empire, is a boy in China. His family is one of the 
 wealthiest in the city of Yang Chow. The doctors in 
 the mission hospital have served them in times of 
 sickness and are on very friendly terms with them, 
 though no one in the family is interested in the Chris- 
 tian religion. Kuei Chow conceives the idea of going 
 to America to study medicine, perhaps because of what 
 he has seen those Christian physicians do. When 
 finally he sails for the West, the prayers of Dr. R. V. 
 Taylor go with him, asking the Father God to bring 
 him into such relationships in that new atmosphere in 
 America as will help him to understand the meaning of 
 the Gospel and bring him into discipleship to Christ. 
 In the providence of God, unknown to Dr. Taylor, 
 Kuei Chow and John Anderson came to the same medi- 
 cal school and John Anderson, the friend of Dr. Tay- 
 lor and later his associate, was the answer to his pray- 
 ers for this Chinese boy. 
 
 The year after John Anderson graduated at Louis- 
 ville, Dr. R. V. Taylor's older brother, traveling while 
 on furlough for the Student Volunteer Movement, 
 visited the University of Louisville and saw Kuei 
 Chow. He asked him why he had become a Christian. 
 Chow's reply was : 
 
 "I saw that it w r orked in the life of John Anderson." 
 
CHAPTER VI: THE LAST YEAR IN THE 
 UNIVERSITY; 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE LAST YEAR IN THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 It is sometimes complained that college men and 
 women who are more or less active in their Student 
 Christian Associations, when they return to their home 
 communities do not enter heartily into the religious 
 work of their home churches and fail to share in serv- 
 ices for which their training has peculiarly fitted them. 
 Such a criticism would hardly apply to the one of whom 
 we have been writing. Note this letter : 
 
 You do not know what a busy man I have been this sum- 
 mer. I had a Chinese with me the first of the summer for 
 something over two weeks. Then I went to the conference 
 where I saw him confess Christ. I came home and tried to 
 install some mission study classes in the church. I got 
 some sixty odd to do this, but some dropped out. A mission 
 Sunday School was started at one of the mills the Sunday 
 before I came home and since I arrived I have been acting 
 as Superintendent and teaching a class of girls. In my 
 home church I have been teaching the Philathea Class 
 (Young Women) all summer. I have had to make a num- 
 ber of talks, etc. I have been practicing with a physician 
 and working in a drug store at intervals, besides many other 
 things. This has been a glorious summer with me. 
 
 This mill Sunday School later developed into a 
 church which John's father has served as pastor ever 
 
 63 
 
64 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 since. Of the way John prayed for his father and 
 encouraged him in that responsibility, when there were 
 so many difficulties and discouragements, his father 
 never ceases the telling. 
 
 John returned to Louisville at the beginning of his 
 Senior year a week or so before school opened in 
 order to set up the work of the Y. M. C. A. He had 
 written to several of the men to meet him and help in 
 arranging a Y. M. C. A. reception for the incoming 
 students in the City Y. M. C. A. building, where John 
 said there would be less danger from hazing for the 
 Freshmen than in the Medical School buildings. The 
 planning included medical Bible classes in two of the 
 city churches as well as the week night medical Bible 
 class in the City Y. M. C. A. This latter class was 
 boosted from an attendance of a half dozen men to 
 forty or fifty and at times to an even hundred. 
 
 The deepest concern of his heart lay in Foreign Mis- 
 sions. Nothing seemed more important to him than 
 the bringing of light and healing to those nations which 
 had been denied them so long. With one doctor to 
 every two or three hundred population in America 
 contrasted with one doctor for approximately two 
 million population in the non-Christian world, he was 
 sure that the people across the seas had not had their 
 share in the ministry of Christ. As in South and 
 North Carolina, so in Kentucky John took an im- 
 portant part in the work of the State Volunteer Union. 
 In all three states, he acted as Secretary and Treasurer 
 of these organizations. One who was associated with 
 him in the Kentucky Union writes : 
 
THE LAST YEAR IN THE UNIVERSITY 65 
 
 Except for John Anderson, the State Union of Volun- 
 teers for Foreign Missions in Kentucky would never have 
 been more than a mediocre affair. He came into it after 
 the first year and was elected Secretary-Treasurer. The 
 service that he rendered during the next two years in a purely 
 voluntary way was astonishing. How he found time for all 
 he was doing at this time I still do not know. He was 
 continually writing to the Volunteer Bands of the state, 
 often two or three letters before he could get a response. 
 He got out the monthly news letter, paying the printer's 
 bills himself because there was no money in the treasury 
 and he felt it would hurt the Union to press members for 
 dues just then. I could never be quite sure that he was 
 ever fully reimbursed for these amounts. At special times 
 he visited Bands in person at his own expense, to stir them 
 into action. And this he did in spite of the fact that he was 
 not a good letter writer nor a good speaker. His English 
 was often ungrammatical, but he kept writing and kept 
 speaking and the. results came. During the five months 
 following the Kansas City Convention there were fifty-one 
 Kentucky students who became Student Volunteers, an 
 astonishing number out of some three thousand students of 
 college rank in the state. While only a few of these were 
 under John's direct influence, much of the credit for the 
 total is due to his work through the State Volunteer Union 
 and in securing large attendance at the Kansas City Con- 
 vention. His mind was continually busy on the problems 
 of the Union. He was forever thinking up some new way 
 to wake up local Volunteers. No statement that he had 
 done all that could be done ever satisfied him if the end 
 had not been accomplished. How disgusted he used to be- 
 come with the failure of students to make good their prom- 
 ises. If he accepted a responsibility himself, he carried it 
 out. I never knew him to come back from a task with an 
 excuse for not doing it. He didn't quit. 
 
66 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 Several of John's own letters speak of this work: 
 I would be glad to get a list of the Volunteers at , 
 
 also what class they are in. We should do all we can to 
 get them to continue their preparation and ever keep their 
 purpose before them. You remember the statement that Dr. 
 L — — made, that only twenty-two per cent of those who ap- 
 plied to the boards last year were rejected. But there are so 
 many who do not apply and I believe that there are not over 
 twenty or twenty-five per cent of those who sign the 
 declaration card who ever reach the field. So I feel that 
 the work of the Volunteer Bands and Unions is to instill 
 into the lives of the present Student Volunteers the im- 
 portance of the work they have before them, that they can- 
 not afford to dally around, but must press onward with all 
 the vigor and energy of their lives with the help of God. 
 
 In another letter he says : 
 
 I have not heard anything from any of the other bands. 
 
 I wrote the leader of the Band, but I have not heard 
 
 from him. I have written two letters to B , but have 
 
 not heard a word. This does not feaze me, for I believe in 
 the work. It makes me the more anxious to do it for I see 
 more clearly the need of it. 
 
 As to his own school he writes : 
 
 I am trying to get a Band here at the Medical School, 
 One man and his wife have signed the card since I came 
 here and there are two others who are willing to go. An- 
 other fellow whom I go with more than any of the others 
 who live here should go if I am capable of judging. 
 
 Before he left Louisville there were eight or ten in 
 the school who had declared their purposes, God per- 
 mitting, to be foreign missionaries, and since that time 
 several have already gone to their fields of service. 
 
THE LAST YEAR IN THE UNIVERSITY 67 
 
 The couple mentioned above are in a hospital in Can- 
 ton. 
 
 The quadrennial convention of the Student Volun- 
 teer Movement was scheduled for the last of December 
 of this year. John had been to the previous convention 
 at Rochester, N. Y., and knew the tremendous spiritual 
 power of the meetings. Early securing for himself 
 the assurance that he might go to this 191 3-14 con- 
 vention, he began to emphasize the importance of this 
 opportunity in his work with the Volunteer Union. 
 He wrote to a student in Wake Forest : 
 
 Say, old boy, I think that you have one of the greatest 
 opportunities before you that you have ever had and that 
 is in getting a large delegation to Kansas City. Wake Forest 
 College was not represented at the last convention at Roches- 
 ter. This is to be the greatest of any that has ever been held, 
 in numbers and in quality. I think that you would not find it 
 a loss of time to see that every college is represented by 
 one or two delegates at least. We are only entitled to three 
 from the Medical School and I know of five now who will 
 go if they can. Pray about this matter and form groups of 
 men to meet from time to time to pray about this conven- 
 tion. Read some of the articles in the report of the Roches- 
 ter Convention and you will work up some real enthusiasm. 
 
 Then follow details of railroad schedules worked out 
 to show the best route for the trip. These schedules 
 were prepared with great detail and similar letters were 
 mailed to many friends in several states. The railroad 
 agent in Louisville granted him free passage to the 
 convention for the help he gave in working up some 
 special trains. L. M. Terrill, the President of the Ken- 
 
68 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 tucky Union at that time, has told the story of this 
 special service: 
 
 Early in 1913 John was keenly awake to the possibilities 
 of the Student Volunteer Convention at Kansas City and 
 began to stir some of us who had small realization then of 
 its significance. He began getting under the skin of the 
 Kentucky Volunteer Bands and as the time drew nearer be- 
 gan writing to friends all over the South, the two Carolinas, 
 Georgia, Alabama and Virginia, trying to stir them to action 
 in sending large delegations. When he first broached to me 
 the plan of a special train it seemed too ambitious. Then he 
 expanded it still further. Why not special trains to take 
 all the students from the Southern States? He worked out 
 places, junction points and schedules with minute detail. He 
 was a master at this sort of thing, anticipating every con- 
 tingency. As it turned out later, it was best for the Missis- 
 sippi and Tennessee students to go through Nashville, but 
 the special train plan worked. Special cars from the other 
 states were assembled in Louisville into a special train of 
 two sections. This left most of the students a half day or 
 more in Louisville. This too John had anticipated. There 
 was a luncheon at the Y. M. C. A. building, then a choice of 
 six personally conducted expeditions through the city, care- 
 fully worked out in advance and gone over so that the time 
 involved was definitely known — then a big dinner at night 
 with talks that prepared heart and mind for the great con- 
 vention. I doubt if there were any other students so ex- 
 pectant and prepared as they came to Kansas City. 
 
 A few days before the convention, John and I got to- 
 gether to work out suggestions for the delegates — the things 
 that would help make the convention mean most, together 
 w T ith final transportation instructions. One of the instruc- 
 tions was "Go to bed early. Get as much rest as possible." 
 When we got through he pointed to this item, then looked 
 at his watch and laughed. It was 3 :oo A. M. He never 
 
THE LAST YEAR IN THE UNIVERSITY 69 
 
 thought of himself when there was a chance to serve. On the 
 return trip from Kansas City we had another all-night vigil 
 together. The party was dead tired and it was midnight or 
 later before we got on the special train. The single con- 
 ductor had an almost impossible job of getting the tickets 
 of that packed train, without keeping the folks up all night. 
 So John started in and I followed taking tickets. After 
 that they had to be checked up which took longer still and 
 when the job was finished it was five o'clock in the morning. 
 John was up in a little more than an hour wiring to St. 
 Louis for breakfast and boxes of lunch. Later in the day 
 when every one was all in, he brightened things up again by 
 going through the train with a box of big red apples, one 
 for each. He had bought them himself. 
 
 The only unpleasant experience of the trip was on the 
 way out. A Chinese student, not a Christian, made endless 
 complaint of his arrangements. John changed his berth 
 twice, but still he was not satisfied. Kuei Chow, who was 
 on the trip, even offered to give up his berth to him. John 
 remarked afterward that it was a fine testimony to the ef- 
 fectiveness of the Christian life that of all that trainload — 
 crowded and inconvenienced every one — the only one to 
 complain or criticize was the one man in the crowd who 
 was not a Christian. 
 
 All these various and extensive services were en- 
 tirely a labor of love. John was not engaged by any 
 agency or individual to do these things. He simply 
 saw a need and went forward to meet it. There was 
 nothing officious in any of it either. Many of those 
 who benefited by the well-planned arrangements for 
 their comfort and enjoyment probably never knew to 
 whom they were indebted. He was exceedingly 
 anxious to have one of his sisters go to the conven- 
 tion and wrote home some time before saying: 
 
70 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 I had rather for her to go to Kansas City than to college 
 this spring. I will borrow the money and pay her way if 
 that will be satisfactory. 
 
 And shortly before the trip itself he wrote : 
 
 This Christmas will be different in many respects to those 
 that I have spent in the past and I am trusting that it will 
 be a time in which I will be able to deepen my spiritual life 
 in a way that I have never been able to before. Most of 
 next week will be spent in my room trying to prepare myself 
 in every way to get the most out of the Kansas City Conven- 
 tion. I feel that it is a great opportunity that has been 
 given me to attend this convention and I feel that this v/ill 
 be a greater Christmas present than any one could give me. 
 I know of a number of students who want to go and are not 
 able, and still as large a number who are able to go, but 
 who could not get into the meetings if they were to go. God 
 has given me this great privilege and has given me so many 
 opportunities of a similar nature and I have not made use 
 of them as I should. I surely want to make use of the one 
 that is ahead of me. 
 
 One other incident in connection with the work of 
 the Kentucky Union should be recorded. A young 
 woman, Miss Carrie Reaves, a graduate of Winthrop 
 College in South Carolina, who had been active in the 
 South Carolina Volunteer Union, had come to the 
 mountains of Kentucky to teach in a small mission 
 school. It was her thought that such service would 
 best prepare her for work as a missionary in China. 
 With her were two other girls. They did their own 
 housekeeping, bringing water from the spring and 
 sometimes cutting their own firewood. The salary 
 from which all expenses had to be paid was $20.00 a 
 
THE LAST YEAR IN THE UNIVERSITY 71 
 
 month. John heard that she had come to Kentucky, 
 but he did not know just where she was located. He 
 wrote back to South Carolina for her address and then 
 invited her to come to one of the Kentucky Union 
 conferences. At that meeting she was elected Vice- 
 President of the Union. It was not long thereafter 
 that she was taken ill with typhoid fever. Isolated in 
 the mountains there was no chance for proper medical 
 attention. Her sickness became the immediate con- 
 cern of John Anderson. He was far removed from 
 the place, but he sent letters and telegrams and finally 
 she was brought to a hospital in Lexington. He asked 
 an interne there who was a friend of his to give him 
 daily reports on her condition by telephone, and he 
 drew together several of his friends who also knew 
 her to intercede for her recovery. Somehow he felt 
 that it could not be God's will that such a consecrated 
 and useful one should be taken and he prayed with a 
 faith that he felt could not be denied. 
 
 I have been spending much time in prayer for her he 
 
 wrote and I believe that God will restore her to health. 
 
 Have any of you all ever had a real answer to prayer? 
 Have you prayed for a number of days for something and 
 it has come to pass just as you prayed or God gave you more 
 than you expected? Since I have been here this fall I have 
 had a number of my prayers answered in just that way. In 
 this past week I have had three direct answers to prayer. I 
 have more faith in God to-day than I ever had before. It 
 has been my plan for some time to write down what I 
 want to pray for. I put the date down with this also. If 
 God answers this I mark it out. If He does not answer this 
 I put down beside it "lack of faith," and pray that God will 
 
72 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 give me more faith and teach me how to pray. I do not put 
 down everything that I desire, but I give each matter a 
 prayerful consideration before I put it down. 
 
 But Miss Reaves did not recover and when word 
 came that she was gone, John had some black days of 
 doubt and questioning. His mind seemed to beat itself 
 up against a blank wall. Why had not God given her 
 back to her labors ? When the world so much needed 
 lives like hers, why had He let her die? Had not he 
 been faithful and believing in his prayers for her? 
 But it was not long before his old faith and simple 
 trust returned, perhaps a bit chastened, but neverthe- 
 less just as real as ever in the belief that God does 
 work in this world through prayer. And his under- 
 standing of prayer grew as he exercised himself 
 therein. One of his favorite books which he kept 
 constantly beside him and gave to many of his friends 
 was Fosdick's "The Meaning of Prayer." 
 
 While at the Kansas City Convention, John 
 was able to schedule with Mr. C. D. Hurrey of the 
 Student Department of the Y. M. C. A. an engage- 
 ment to come to the Medical School for some evan- 
 gelistic meetings. Mr. Hurrey had been approached 
 some time before, but had replied that his schedule 
 was already full and that he could not possibly come. 
 John had been bombarding him with letters and finally 
 brought all his arguments to bear on him personally 
 at Kansas City. He was convinced that Mr. Hurrey 
 was the man to do the work and he would not take 
 a refusal for his answer. Mr. Hurrey could not re- 
 sist this kind of importunity and finally agreed to re- 
 
THE LAST YEAR IN THE UNIVERSITY 73 
 
 arrange his dates and come. So far as known there 
 had never been an evangelistic campaign in that school. 
 When Mr. Hurrey came four meetings were held. 
 They had been thoroughly advertised and there was a 
 fine attendance. John brought Mr. Hurrey about a 
 dozen of the "rough-necks" of the school for inter- 
 views, men who were openly dissipated, but in whom 
 he had discovered qualities that led him to believe in 
 them. Several of these made decisions for the Chris- 
 tian life and cleaned up. One was a brother of a 
 prominent religious worker in another city. In the 
 campaign there was no more interested worker than 
 the young Chinese who had declared himself a Chris- 
 tian the summer before. 
 
 Gambling, drinking and dishonesty in examinations 
 were the three prominent evils in the student body that 
 John felt had no business there. He was no "holier- 
 than-thou" reformer. He simply hated the things 
 that spoiled the souls of men he loved. And even if 
 he had to stand against such things alone, he did it, 
 for he had no "yellow streak." One night in the 
 amphitheater he had a meeting which was largely at- 
 tended in which betting was discussed by a prominent 
 speaker. As to drinking, he rallied around him some 
 of the Seniors in a fight for a dry class banquet. The 
 "wets" got the support of one of the professors who 
 asked the men in his lecture one day if they were babies 
 and had to still drink milk. But John won the fight 
 fairly on the vote of the class and whiskey was not 
 served on the banquet table. And before the close of 
 his Senior year he had seen the Honor System largely 
 
74 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 adopted to govern examinations. He believed that one 
 and God were a majority in any crowd. Very few 
 men ever actively antagonized him. They knew he 
 stood for the things they ought to uphold. He did 
 not excuse questionable practices for himself on the 
 ground that it was necessary to do certain things in 
 order to get in with the fellows. One of his fellow 
 medical students who professed to be an atheist said 
 of him one night in conversation: 
 
 "If there is one man in the world I believe in 
 absolutely, it is John Anderson." 
 
 "And let us not be weary in well-doing/ ' says the 
 Apostle Paul. As if these manifold labors among his 
 fellow students were not sufficient, he ran a Boys' Club 
 in the slums of Louisville and had a Christmas party 
 for them during the holidays; visited the City Hos- 
 pital on Sundays with some friends, distributing flow- 
 ers and holding religious services for the shut-ins ; and 
 answered charity calls among the poor of the city. 
 On one occasion he found a family in the dead of 
 winter living in rooms over a livery stable. The 
 drunkard father had deserted them, and the mother, a 
 bottle-washer, was out at work when he discovered 
 the two children huddled together in the middle of 
 the floor with what clothing they could wrap around 
 them to keep them from freezing. There was no coal 
 or bread in the house. John had groceries and coal 
 sent to them and got a woman to look after the chil- 
 dren. On a later visit, he found the father at home 
 and prayed with him and got him to work. Writing 
 
THE LAST YEAR IN THE UNIVERSITY 75 
 
 of Christmas, 1913, he says that he had several calls 
 to visit the sick in the slums on that day. 
 
 Before the year was over new officers were elected 
 in the Y. M. C. A. It was nearly time for him to 
 leave the school and so he had been grooming some 
 of the strongest of the men to take his place that the 
 work might not fall down. They were the men he had 
 persuaded to go to the Summer Conference, and some 
 of them were Student Volunteers by then. Kuei Chow 
 was made Chairman of the Mission Study Committee. 
 John used to get them together in his room in the City 
 Y, M. C. A. for prayer together. He had moved from 
 the Seminary to the Association which was nearer the 
 Medical School in order that it might be more con- 
 venient to have his fellow "medics" in his room. He 
 was always trying to pour his zeal and enthusiasm 
 into them. Perhaps the work has not gone on so well 
 since those days, but he did his best to perpetuate it 
 through these men whom he called into the service. 
 
 A letter of his contains the following: 
 
 A few days past I read the first three chapters of Mark 
 looking for several things about Christ's life. Two of these 
 things were popularity and opposition. I found that He met 
 with opposition six times and had some indication of popular- 
 ity eight times. I want to finish up the gospels this way. I 
 want to read Paul's life looking for these things and others 
 that I have on this list. I have met with opposition many 
 times, in fact, about every time I start to do anything there 
 is some opposition and yet if God is with me I pull through. 
 Paul said: "I can do all things through Him that strength- 
 ened! me." 
 
76 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 In another letter written near the close of the session 
 he says : 
 
 I came out O. K. on my exams, although I will not hear 
 before the last of the week. I am not at all uneasy but that 
 I got through and I did not have to do as many of the class 
 did, who cheated their way through. 
 
 Unremitting and abundant service for his fellows 
 had not meant the forfeiture of his medical degree, for 
 he received his M. D. at the commencement, and a 
 little later passed successfully the State Medical Board 
 examinations of South Carolina and received his li- 
 cense to practice medicine. 
 
CHAPTER VII: A HOSPITAL INTERNE 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 A HOSPITAL INTERNE 
 
 To be a first class physician, one had better stick 
 to his science and leave preaching to the parson. To 
 accomplish the best results in the profession it is hardly 
 wise to be too much of a saint. This is a world of 
 give and take and in the keen commercial competition 
 of the day, too much idealism means failure. Be 
 straight and fair, but don't do more than you are paid 
 to do, and charge well for your services. Religion is 
 good in its place, especially for women and children, 
 but an excess of it is not good for a doctor. So say 
 the worldly-wise. 
 
 But did John Anderson's absorbing interest in bring- 
 ing in the Kingdom of God among men militate against 
 his efficiency as a surgeon? Rather did it not enlarge 
 his capacities and sympathies and make him the more 
 skillful in his ministry to the sick? In his first year as ! 
 an interne in the Good Samaritan Hospital at Lexing- 
 ton, Kentucky, his unusual ability as a physician was 
 manifested. In ten and a half months he gave two 
 hundred and thirteen anesthetics and no one was lost 
 on the operating table on account of the anesthetic. 
 He assisted in eighty-one operations and operated 
 thirty-seven times himself, and he averaged caring for 
 
 79 
 
80 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 thirty emergency cases a month. There were two ex- 
 ceptionally serious cases for whose recovery he was 
 entirely responsible. One, an obstetrical case, in 
 which the woman was poisoned, was turned over to 
 him by her physician with the remark that he had done 
 all he could for her and the case was hopeless, but if 
 John wanted to try his hand he could do so. Perhaps it 
 was because the family was very poor that the doctor 
 gave her up. At any rate, that did not count with 
 John. He worked steadily for seven hours that night 
 without a rest before he was rewarded by a flicker of 
 the eyelids which indicated returning consciousness. 
 The woman was finally restored to her grateful hus- 
 band. The other, also a septic case, this time a man, 
 was brought back from the grave after his own physi- 
 cian had pronounced him beyond hope, by John's de- 
 voted labors on his behalf. The man was discharged 
 from the hospital some days thereafter, declaring that 
 if it had not been for that young Dr. Anderson he 
 would not have been alive that day. 
 
 In a letter John describes one of his days in the 
 hospital : 
 
 Saturday night I got up five times. On that night I had 
 five emergencies before twelve o'clock and had to handle 
 them by myself. I gave four anesthetics, one of them taking 
 over an hour. I assisted in another operation. Had about 
 twelve cases to come in besides the fifteen in the wards I 
 had to look after. This is just a regular day. There are 
 eighty or ninety more patients that I have to do laboratory 
 work for, also go with their private physician as much as 
 I can. 
 
A HOSPITAL INTERNE 81 
 
 His special care was the little children in the wards. 
 One little baby, a foundling, he nicknamed "Queen." 
 She was his pet. He made it a practice to go through 
 the wards to wish each patient a cheery good morning 
 and some told how they noticed this special attention. 
 There was no smile just like Dr. Anderson's, nor any 
 one! so good-natured. Of Thanksgiving day and 
 Christmas John wrote in two letters home : 
 
 I was right busy Thanksgiving day, but I spent all the 
 spare time in visiting the patients and seeing most every 
 nurse and asking them what they had to be thankful for. 
 I had some rich replies. Most of them were thankful they 
 were living. Many did not know what to say, as possibly 
 they had not thought about it. On the whole, most of them 
 expressed their thanks in a selfish vein. One darky said that 
 she was thankful she was living and would be more thank- 
 ful if I would give her something to eat and let her sit up. 
 It seemed to me that my whole thought was of the peace 
 that I was thankful for; peace of mind, body and spirit in 
 God's leadership. 
 
 I have enjoyed this Christmas even if I did have to be 
 away from you all. Thursday night I did crave to be with 
 you all and have some of the good times I have had at home. 
 I could not, so I went to work and got up a Christmas tree 
 for the children here in the hospital. Some little presents 
 were sent in for them and we had the tree and decorations 
 here. I fixed up some electric lights to light the tree. I got 
 up a Santa Claus rig and marked all the presents. Got up 
 at five and dressed, got the tree with all the bundles in a 
 sack at my side and went into the children's ward. There 
 were five in there. I went around and picked up three others 
 and brought them in. There were several other children in 
 the hospital, but they could not be moved. I gave out the 
 
82 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 presents and chatted with all of them. After this I had 
 enough apples to give each patient in the wards who could 
 eat one, one apiece. I visited all the patients in the hospital 
 that morning and wished them a Merry Christmas. I carried 
 Baby Queen with me and she enjoyed it as much as any of 
 the others. She appeared to be a little afraid at first, but 
 as soon as I picked her up she began to pick at my eyes. 
 Queen will be six months old to-morrow and only weighs 
 twelve pounds. She is very, very bright, can play peep-eye, 
 put out her hands to come to you, and notices everything 
 that goes on. All seemed to enjoy the occasion. I could 
 hardly keep back the tears while fixing the tree in wishing 
 that I was at home and a child again. 
 
 One of his patients wrote some verses which she 
 gave to him shortly after this Christmas. The form 
 is rather crude, but the appreciation is genuine. 
 
 Here's to dear Dr. Anderson, 
 
 So pure and undefiled: 
 Most every time you see him 
 
 He's carrying a foundling child. 
 
 Then he comes with a smile so bewitching, 
 That he sets my nerves all twitching; 
 
 And my feelings are most distressing, 
 
 Until he is through with the surgical dressing. 
 
 Then he's gone again in a hurry, 
 
 Just as gentle and mild; 
 For he hasn't a single worry, 
 
 Except for a foundling child. 
 
 He's as nice as any brother, 
 
 He's kind to every one: 
 Oh! Happy must be the mother 
 
 That possesses such a son. 
 
A HOSPITAL INTERNE 83 
 
 Oh Nurses, some of you catch him, 
 
 Just catch him if you can, 
 This wonderful piece of manhood, 
 
 This Dr. Anderson man. 
 
 Just never mind his shyness, 
 
 Just get his head in a twirl; 
 For the man who loves the foundling 
 
 Is the man for any girl. 
 
 His mother wrote to him in her concern lest he wear 
 himself out in his care for the sick. John replied : 
 
 You asked me if I did not get tired seeing and living with 
 the sick. I do not get tired, but it is quite a strain. I 
 have seen some cases that I have worked so hard over and 
 then they die. When I get alone at some other work I can- 
 not keep back the tears, although I never saw them before 
 coming to the hospital. I had a darky die that I wanted to 
 see get well so bad. This, irregular hours, and other strain 
 is what sometimes wearies me. 
 
 Sometimes it is stated that a physician should culti- 
 vate a kind of steely indifference in order to be at his 
 best professionally. Certainly from the standpoint of 
 the patient it is desirable that the doctor have the big- 
 ness of heart and sympathy that John Anderson had 
 for the suffering. The sources of his sympathy were 
 deep in his religious life. He wrote in one letter: 
 
 Each day as I go about I see so much being done for the 
 physical body. Effort is made here and there to save this 
 or that person's physical life. That is all well and good, 
 but of what value is the physical life without the spiritual 
 life being saved? My heart burns more and more each day 
 for those who do not know Christ and His love. You 
 
84 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 cannot help but feel His love and strength if you will only 
 let Him come into your life. 
 
 And so as he went his rounds in the hospital the 
 cure of souls was his great passion. There was nothing 
 being done socially or religiously for the nurses and 
 in the routine of their work to which they were bound, 
 even their Sundays were rarely their own. There were 
 influences, moreover, that tended to mar the best in 
 their lives, and John saw the need for definite religious 
 work on their behalf. He wanted to organize a vesper 
 service in the hospital for them, but the superintendent 
 objected. In a letter dated January 6, 1914, he tells 
 of this effort : 
 
 Last Friday night a group of nurses got together for a 
 prayer-meeting after much talk and they are going to keep 
 this up each week. They have never had any religious 
 
 services before to amount to anything. I got Miss H ■ 
 
 of the Student Volunteer Movement to speak to them a few 
 weeks past and they were quite carried away with her. The 
 Superintendent said "No/' but I persisted until I got per- 
 mission for her to speak. I am expecting to organize a 
 mission study class soon among the nurses and would have 
 done so earlier had it not been for the Superintendent. 
 
 John had a way of winning people's hearts to higher 
 and holier living by drawing them to himself through 
 little kindly services in the every day rush of life. He 
 used to lighten the work of the nurses now and then 
 by carrying a tray of food to a patient or by cleaning 
 up things which it lay in their duty to care for, and 
 by other little unprofessional services. It is to such a 
 person that one in trouble immediately turns, even 
 
A HOSPITAL INTERNE 85 
 
 though in health his religion was held in light esteem. 
 This young interne was the first one called by Mrs. 
 Green, the housekeeper of the hospital, when she met 
 with a fatal accident in the hospital elevator. She 
 was a woman of fifty and she had lived a careless life, 
 gambling annually on the Kentucky horse races, getting 
 drunk now and then, and so on. Two of her sons were 
 professional gamblers. On her way upstairs one day, 
 the electric current in the elevator went off half way 
 between the second and third floors. She tried to 
 climb out on to the second floor, but the power came 
 on suddenly and she was caught and crushed against 
 the upper floor. She was terribly mangled and knew 
 that she did not have long to live. She sent for John 
 to come and talk to her after everything possible had 
 been done for her in the operating room. He came 
 and with his New Testament in his hand led her to 
 understand that there is mercy and pardon with God 
 even to those who call on Him in their last extremity. 
 And she was wonderfully converted. From the time 
 of the accident she only lived twenty-eight hours, but 
 she had them call all the servants who were in her 
 charge to her room and she witnessed to them of the 
 salvation which was hers. Her children came and 
 she told them not to cry for her, that she was going 
 to leave all pain and go to a land of joy. "The 
 weather is fine here," she said, "but nothing to be 
 compared with that above." She told her friends 
 and the nurses around her bed that she wanted to meet 
 every one above. John, writing of it, said : 
 
86 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 It was the most beautiful and expressive death I have ever 
 witnessed. I went to the funeral on Friday afternoon and 
 the body was taken to Frankfort, thirty-five miles away, for 
 burial. I did not have time to go, but John (her son) begged 
 me so hard that I could not resist. Her death shook the 
 whole hospital and the next few nights many of the patients 
 could not sleep. Some of the lessons I have learned from 
 this experience are: There is a Christ who is able to save; 
 in all Americans there is a feeling of the reality of God in 
 some form or other whether they acknowledge it or not for 
 they have heard of Christ; I should refrain from judging or 
 criticizing any one and do more to see what is deep in their 
 lives. This has broadened my sympathy for people who do 
 not live as I would like them to live. 
 
 As in other places, John's service for others was not 
 confined to the institution with which he was con- 
 nected. While in the hospital at Lexington he still 
 continued his work with the Kentucky Volunteer Union 
 and did the major part of the arranging for the an- 
 nual conference in February at Georgetown College. 
 He led a mission study class in the University of Ken- 
 tucky. His comment in one of his letters about the 
 University was that they had fourteen hundred stu- 
 dents and not a single Volunteer for foreign missions. 
 He was a regular attendant at church despite his heavy 
 schedule of duties at the hospital. If he could not get 
 off in the morning he went at night. He made talks 
 in the Young People's Society. He was appointed 
 chairman of an inter-church committee to get the for- 
 eigners of the city into English classes. One of his 
 best friends in Lexington was a Greek who ran a shoe- 
 shine parlor on the main street of the city. John had 
 
A HOSPITAL INTERNE 87 
 
 been kind to this mans wife when she was in the hos- 
 pital and had helped them out in a situation where 
 they had been dishonestly overcharged by a doctor in 
 the city. 
 
 The following year was spent in New York in the 
 Post Graduate and Riverside Hospitals. He had been 
 chosen by the China Medical Board of the Rockefeller 
 Foundation as one of the first of the young doctors 
 they would support in China, and they called him to 
 New York for further preparation. A few extracts 
 from his letters show that the great city had no power 
 to lure him from the faithful performance of his duty 
 as a follower of Christ : 
 
 Sunday I went to church and Sunday School. After 
 dinner I came back thinking I would be in time for church 
 here (service in hospital), but failed. We have only a formal 
 service and I do not enjoy it at all, but I try to attend when 
 it is possible as my influence might be of some value. 
 
 I am on duty to-day, but I have got some one to relieve 
 me this afternoon for a few hours when I am going down 
 town to hear some missionaries. 
 
 I used to read my Bible as a duty and did not get much 
 out of it. But now I find it a joy and pleasure. 
 
 I went to prayer-meeting last night to hear Dr. Jowett. 
 He was not as good as he has been sometimes, but possibly 
 it was my fault. I have not been feeling extra good. 
 
 What fun is there in that kind of a dull church go- 
 ing existence ? cries some young college man. Do you 
 expect us to revert to the stupid days of the Puritans ? 
 On with the dance — there is no excitement in prayer- 
 
88 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 meetings! Well, for John Anderson at least, there 
 was no dullness in his existence, no somber asceticism 
 or sanctimonious withdrawal from the pleasures of life. 
 He entered heartily into the social good times of the 
 hospital, the masquerade parties, the good cheer of 
 dinners with other doctors. And just because he had 
 his best fun in making other folks happy does not 
 mean that he satisfied himself with a spurious brand 
 of happiness. Perhaps he was nearer the secret of 
 happiness than those who seek it like moths in the 
 candle flame of their impulses and passions. 
 
 John's conception of the value of student Christian 
 conferences has already been indicated in these pages. 
 His younger brother and sisters were in their first 
 years of college life when he wrote to his father from 
 New York : 
 
 I do not care to make my will at this time, but if I should 
 die I request that the first money to be taken from my in- 
 surance be enough to send William and my younger sisters 
 to one of the quadrennial Student Volunteer Conventions 
 and enough money to send them to at least one of the 
 Southern Student Conferences at Blue Ridge. Not anything 
 in my life has helped me more than these two things. I 
 think that William should go this summer by all means. I 
 would hate to have him wait another year and then possibly 
 not go, for he might not get a grasp as to what life is and 
 what it means to live a life of service. There are many 
 people who are just existing, not living, with no purpose, no 
 desire to be anything. William is in a dangerous period of 
 life, awfully dangerous. Are you all going to let him go 
 on this way and not encourage him to choose the kind of 
 life he is going to live? Do you want him to select his life 
 work apart from God? After one of these conferences a 
 
A HOSPITAL INTERNE 89 
 
 fellow can do more plowing, cutting wood or anything else, 
 for he is ashamed to let a little work conquer him. These 
 conferences have enabled me to do far better work in drill- 
 ing wells, enjoying better health, and have kept me out of 
 a great deal of mischief and meanness. I had rather see 
 William go to this conference or really want to go, than to 
 be in Furman next year. If he goes and gets the right idea 
 of life, he is going to be in Furman no matter what happens, 
 whether you all assist him at all or not. If -you educate a 
 fool he will be a bigger fool, as the old proverb goes. If 
 you educate a fellow without any ambition to be or do any- 
 thing, the less desire he will have to be anybody. I would 
 like to see all my younger sisters and my brother of great, 
 influence in their communities. They can be if they get the 
 right conception of life. Possibly you think that I am crazy 
 about these conferences and I am. They have been of un- 
 told value to me and I want to pass on the benefits to some 
 one else, so that they too may be helped. Some professors 
 would rather have their students be Daughters of the Con- 
 federacy than followers of Jesus Christ. 
 
 With the coming of summer, the time for sailing 
 to China drew very near. John had already received 
 his appointment from the Southern Baptist Foreign 
 Mission Board some months earlier. He was engaged 
 to be marrried in June to Miss Minnie Middleton who 
 had graduated from Meredith College in North Caro- 
 lina, where she subsequently taught in the English de- 
 partment, and who had later graduated from the Bap- 
 tist Woman's Training School in Louisville. There 
 was the rush of the winding up of affairs in America, 
 the gathering of equipment for the voyage and the life 
 in the great land across the seas. 
 
90 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 John wrote to his father : 
 
 For nearly five years I have been looking forward to 
 going to this field. I have been trying to prepare 
 myself for this work for nine years. Not any of you all can 
 feel the joy in my life when I found that it was possible 
 for me to begin this work. Then I have never felt so com- 
 pletely unable to do any work as I have in the past few 
 days. God has opened the field, the way, and every op- 
 portunity for me, and now I am willing to let Him come into 
 my life and take me and use me, completely surrendered to 
 His will. Then what am I going to carry those Chinese? 
 I will not tell you the questions I have asked myself, but I 
 feel my weakness. I feel the need of your prayers as I 
 never felt it before in my life. 
 
 And in another letter he said : 
 
 It is one of the hardest things for me to get rid of that 
 selfish spirit that makes me think of what people say about 
 what I do, rather than what God might say. This is one of 
 the reasons that I have wished to bury myself in the interior 
 of China where no one may hear of the work that God can 
 do through me. 
 
CHAPTER VIII: INTO THE FAR EAST 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 INTO THE FAR EAST 
 
 A wedding in June ; a farewell service to the depart- 
 ing missionaries in the old home church ; the last good- 
 bys to loved ones left behind ; and then the long journey 
 to the great land beyond the Pacific. With the high 
 hopes of those who sent them out, with the holy pur- 
 poses of true apostles, they ventured forth. To father 
 and mother in the old home and to several of his closest 
 friends John quoted this poem in letters at the time 
 of parting: 
 
 "Go thou thy way and I go mine; 
 
 Apart, yet not afar; 
 Only a thin veil hangs between 
 
 The pathways where we are; 
 And 'God keep watch 'tween thee and me/ 
 
 This is my prayer. 
 He looks thy way — He looketh mine, 
 
 And keeps us near. 
 
 I know not where the road may lie, 
 
 Or which way mine may be; 
 If mine will lead through parching sands 
 
 And thine beside the sea: 
 Yet 'God keeps watch 'tween thee and me/ 
 
 So never fear: 
 He holds thy hand. He claspeth mine, 
 
 And keeps us near. 
 
 93 
 
94 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 Should wealth and fame perchance be thine, 
 
 And my lot lowly be, 
 Or you be sad or sorrowful, 
 
 And glory be for me: 
 Yet 'God keeps watch 'tween thee and me/ 
 
 Both be His care. 
 One arm 'round thee and one 'round me, 
 
 Will keep us near. 
 
 I'll sigh sometimes to see thy face, 
 
 But since this cannot be, 
 I'll leave thee to the care of Him 
 
 Who cares for thee and me. 
 Til keep thee both beneath my wings/ 
 
 This comfort dear, 
 One wing o'er thee and one o'er me, 
 
 So we are near." 
 
 At Chicago on the way to China, the Andersons 
 joined a group of missionaries who were making the 
 same boat from Vancouver. A man on his way out to 
 India to drill oil wells occupied a berth opposite them. 
 The first night out from Chicago, he was taken 
 violently ill from gall stones, with convulsions and 
 nausea and high fever. John took the man in charge 
 and cared for him all the way to the coast. At Van- 
 couver, in consultation with the hotel physician, it 
 was decided that an operation was necessary. His 
 passage on the steamer had to be canceled, his baggage 
 sent to the hotel, telegrams sent to his wife and the oil 
 company in Pennsylvania, and John cared for all these 
 matters. On the next day, however, the man felt bet- 
 ter and refused to be operated on. He insisted that 
 he was going on the steamer. So John rearranged 
 
OFF FOR A WHEELBARROW RIDE 
 Both sides of the family necessary in order to preserve the 
 balance. 
 
 LOYAL FRIENDS OF THE HOSPITAL 
 
 The patient who was brought back to life by interesting 
 her in an adopted baby after losing her own little son 
 thru the mal-treatment of an ignorant midwife. A bottle 
 fed baby is a new thing in China. Ordinarily the Chinese 
 do not use cow's milk. This is one cause of the high 
 death rate of children 
 
INTO THE FAR EAST 95 
 
 everything connected with the trip, and as he continued 
 unwell all the way across the Pacific, John cared for 
 him as far as Shanghai. The man preferred this 
 young doctor to the ship's surgeon. There was no 
 fee given for all this service. John said one time that 
 he thought the oil company ought to pay him fifty 
 dollars, but he probably never sent in a claim. 
 
 The tedium of the three-day railroad journey to 
 Vancouver was relieved by games which John organ- 
 ized for the party. He also took care of two young 
 women who were making the trip alone. He went up 
 into the baggage car and looked up their trunks for 
 them, and was the general utility man for the crowd. 
 And so on the boat, being one of those who did not 
 succumb to the sickness of the sea, he kept up the 
 spirits of the others, with Rook parties, deck sports, 
 and so on. One of the party was a Chinese, a graduate 
 of Vanderbilt, who was an enthusiastic competitor in 
 all their contests. He was returning to Peking to 
 teach in the Christian University there. Of his asso- 
 ciation with John Anderson he has written : 
 
 I must acknowledge that I have in my life seen or met 
 very few men to whom my heart went out so unreservedly 
 as in the case of John Anderson. He was so jolly, good- 
 natured, energetic and unselfish. He never thought of 
 danger to himself. 
 
 An ocean voyage can be a very unhappy experience 
 to certain susceptible natures. This voyage was no 
 exception and there were several whom John had to 
 cheer up with his jokes and medicine. One lady who 
 
96 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 was especially miserable was given his own berth 
 which was more comfortable and he slept thereafter 
 in the cramped quarters where some of the crew were 
 staying. These were not great deeds perhaps, but it 
 is the little kindnesses, the thoughtfulness for others' 
 comfort, which reveal a genuine unselfishness of spirit. 
 From the steamer he wrote 
 
 The nearer I get to China, the closer I feel that I am 
 to God and the more I feel that I am doing what He would 
 have me do. 
 
 On September 26, 191 6, they landed at Shanghai. 
 Kuei Chow, who> had established his home in that city, 
 had them out to dinner. On returning to China, Chow 
 and his brothers had made a gift of $3,000 to the mis- 
 sion hospital at Yang Chow. Yang Chow itself was 
 visited on the way up through the interior to Peking 
 to the Language School. Of the work there John 
 wrote : 
 
 I found that Dick was the only doctor there and he had 
 from sixty to one hundred out-patients every day besides 
 the hundred in-patients. He had no American nurse at 
 that time — she was away resting for a short time. Can you 
 imagine a doctor having this much work? He has been 
 here ever since he arrived in China and has not had any 
 vacation. He was run down and needs rest badly. This 
 is the place the Rockefeller Foundation is wanting to send 
 me to. Every morning before Dick looks at any of his pa- 
 tients (except emergencies), he has a prayer-meeting with 
 all the in-patients who can come to the chapel and with 
 the out-patients. One morning he leads and the next morn- 
 ing a Chinese preacher leads. I attended the service on 
 
INTO THE FAR EAST 97 
 
 Sunday morning and I do not recall any service in America 
 that was more spiritual or reverent than this, though every- 
 thing was in Chinese. 
 
 It was thought at that time that the Andersons were 
 to be located at Chengchow, Honan, in connection 
 with the Interior China Mission. This city was also 
 visited on the way to Peking. Of that place John 
 wrote : 
 
 I wish that I had five lives instead of one as all could be 
 used. Just think of the need here in this city; the things 
 that you see make you shudder. That is not only true of this 
 city, but of others. Oh, that I could put one of my lives at 
 Soochow, one at Yang Chow, one at Pochow, one at Kuei 
 Lin and one here. The work is greater than I ever dreamed* 
 
 The North China Union Language School is lo- 
 cated in Peking, the capital of the Chinese Republic. 
 Nearly all the new missionaries who are to work in 
 the Northern Mandarin speaking section of China 
 study the language in this school in their first year. 
 The enrollment has been over one hundred in the last 
 few sessions. The establishment of this school, and 
 several other similar schools in other sections of China, 
 has smoothed out the path of the young missionary 
 wonderfully and has made the introduction into 
 Chinese life much easier. Instead of sitting down 
 alone in some isolated station with an old Chinese 
 scholar, six or eight hours a day, who gave up his 
 knowledge of his mother tongue only by a process of 
 extraction awkwardly undertaken by the one who 
 sought to learn, there are now group classes in charge 
 
98 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 of trained teachers. There is recreation together and 
 sight-seeing trips in one of the most interesting cities 
 in the world. The Altar of Heaven, the Great Wall 
 creeping for fifteen hundred miles across the northern 
 border, the Forbidden City of the ancient Emperors, 
 the marvelous Summer Palace of the Empress 
 Dowager, are all in easy journeys from the school 
 hostel. Moreover, there is the opportunity of hearing 
 mature missionaries in lectures to the school, and the 
 large English-speaking student population in the 
 capital is a field for the teaching of Bible classes before 
 one is able to get into regular missionary work. 
 
 John dreaded the study of the Chinese language. 
 He hated to get back to books. He did not want to lay 
 down his medical work which he loved so thoroughly 
 even for a short interval. He wrote of his introduc- 
 tion to the study on the 2nd of October : 
 
 We had our first day of language study. I felt as tired 
 as if I had done a whale day of plowing. It takes every 
 bit of energy you have to try and catch the sounds that the 
 teacher makes. It takes as much energy as to stay real 
 firing mad all the time. 
 
 And a little later he wrote : 
 
 Did you ever study until your head fairly ached? That 
 is the way with this language here. But I am enjoying it 
 and I would not change positions with any doctor in 
 America. 
 
 It was not long, however^ before his hands were full 
 with caring for fellow language students. Of the ex- 
 periences of those days Mrs. Anderson writes: 
 
INTO THE FAR EAST 99 
 
 We had no sooner arrived in Peking than demands began 
 to be made on John's time, and he gave it not only willingly, 
 but with real joy, because he was so much more interested 
 in medicine than in the language. It used to be a joke to 
 us both that no matter how blue he was over studying (and 
 that was often), some one was sure to arrive with a "bing" 
 (sickness) and then he was happy again, dosing out pills 
 and giving directions for proper treatment. The first few 
 weeks were very strenuous. No doctor had been provided 
 for the Language School and we had some serious illness, five 
 cases of dysentery and four of typhoid, one of which de- 
 veloped into pneumonia of the most dangerous type. John 
 not only doctored, but nursed, often sitting up all night. 
 And those whom he nursed there, as elsewhere, can testify 
 to his ability and gentleness. He seemed to know by instinct 
 the things a sick person wanted done and did them with a 
 deftness and sympathy that many a nurse would envy. He 
 often said that he loved nursing, and he studied it too, know- 
 ing how often there would be need of such training in 
 China. 
 
 During the year there were many other cases, both among 
 the foreigners and Chinese who came to him for treatment. 
 I don't believe there was a servant who escaped having some- 
 thing done for him. John and one or two others interested, 
 bore the expense of having an operation done on one and 
 later cared for that servant's little son who was very ill with 
 pneumonia, going two or three times a day to their little 
 home, helping give him sponge baths, etc. He went for 
 weeks to one teacher's home, treating his children who had 
 trachoma. The head teacher came to him for tuberculosis 
 examination and seemed always grateful for John's con- 
 tinued interest in his diet and care of himself. 
 
 John had a "way" with his patients and they often 
 "minded" obediently when I hardly expected them to do so. 
 
 I recall especially the case of Miss P who lost her mind 
 
 for a while. She roomed next door to us and John was 
 
100 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 often called in the middle of the night to quiet her. Once 
 when she ran away from the hospital, he brought her up 
 to our room and I remember distinctly how he coaxed her 
 with jokes and foolishness into taking a cup of cocoa, the 
 first food she had taken in days. 
 
 There was nothing at the Language School Hostel in 
 which he did not have a hand. At Chinese New Year he 
 played the part of kitchen coolie, all the servants having 
 been given a holiday, and he left the kitchen shining clean. 
 I remember how he boasted that he had used twice the usual 
 amount of water. 
 
 (Of that day John himself wrote: "I got to wash dishes 
 twice. It was work, but I enjoyed it better than any day I 
 have had in China. I wish I could learn Chinese that way. 
 I would change in a minute.'') 
 
 If there was ever a stunt on, John was sure to do more 
 than his share of the work that didn't show, but counted 
 most. I remember one night I was chairman of a serving 
 committee when we were having a great crowd. He found 
 ns all a bit confused about the best way to do it and in a 
 few minutes had us organized so that things went smoothly. 
 
 Some of us know that there was no financial return 
 for all this service for the sick, and that John used 
 up practically all of his private stock of drugs that 
 he had brought from America without being re- 
 imbursed. And he did this in a time of real personal 
 difficulty because of the falling foreign exchange. The 
 monthly salary was eaten up in board and room rent, 
 and often there was only the margin of a dollar or 
 two for incidentals after these charges w r ere paid. But 
 those who were sick had no money either and he would 
 not withhold his hand whatever it might cost him. 
 The Language School was in its beginnings and no 
 
INTO THE FAR EAST 101 
 
 doctor had been employed to care for the students. 
 It is customary for one who goes to live in China 
 to take a Chinese name. This is on account of the 
 difficulty in transliterating foreign names into the 
 Chinese characters and sounds. Usually one's first 
 Chinese teacher decides on the name which is fitting. 
 There are only one hundred Chinese surnames and so 
 the range of selection is limited. John Anderson was 
 given the name of An, meaning "peace," and his title 
 as a doctor was Dai Fu — An Dai Fu, or as we should 
 say, Dr. Peace. The surname in Chinese comes before 
 the given name or title. 
 
 A letter dated February 4, 19 17, reads : 
 
 The teacher that we have now is not a Christian. I have 
 been talking to him. We have just got to the place that 
 we can talk to the Chinese about being Christians at all. 
 It is hard to say what we want to say in Chinese. We may 
 think that it is not appreciated, but it does count if it is done 
 in the right spirit. "Even a cup of cold water in His 
 name " 
 
 A later letter, dated April 1st, says: 
 
 I must say that I was a little blue last fall for a while with 
 the language, but it gets more interesting the farther we go. 
 We have a great deal of fun in learning it. We tell all 
 the jokes we can think of. I have never regretted that I 
 came to China in the least, but I have been a little dis- 
 couraged as to the language. Now we can get around and 
 we can make most of the people understand us. Just this 
 past week I received the fourth appeal from one of our 
 missions not so very far from here asking me to come there 
 for a year if I cannot stay longer. There is a good hospital,. 
 
102 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 fourteen adults and thirteen children in the mission, not to 
 speak of thousands of Chinese, without any physician. The 
 doctor had to take his daughter home on account of her 
 health. They are more than a day's journey from any physi- 
 cian. This is only one appeal; I could give numbers of 
 others. 
 
 A man about four days' journey overland wrote here 
 about two months ago asking for a doctor to come and be 
 with his wife during confinement. This was the nearest place 
 where there were any doctors. No one could go. So he 
 brought her to Peking about a month ago. She caught small- 
 pox on the way down in one of the places they spent the 
 night in, the result being that the mother and child both 
 died. We have a number of such things before us from day 
 to day. I am glad that I am here. 
 
 At the close of the school year in June, he wrote: 
 
 The Chinese have little fighting blood in them. They al- 
 ways talk and never fight. I think they would be better off 
 if they had fighting blood in them. Not that I want to see 
 them fight, but I want to see them have manhood enough 
 to stand for the right, for justice, and stand against sin 
 and wrong and evil. In my student Bible class I have been 
 trying to help the fellows into this attitude. They think 
 that all that is necessary is for them to live a moral life, let 
 others do as they please. They don't think that it makes 
 any difference whether they join the church or not. It is 
 hard to get them to come out and make a bold stand. To- 
 day one of my fellows united with the church and I believe 
 others will unite soon. I am going to get a personal inter- 
 view with each one of them if I can before I leave. 
 
 That summer was spent by the seaside at Chefoo, 
 one of the ports of Shantung. A large summer colony 
 of Americans and British takes advantage of the op- 
 
INTO THE FAR EAST 103 
 
 portunities there for sea bathing and boating, and 
 there are tennis and cricket, teas and concerts. Dr. 
 Nevius, one of the earliest American missionaries to 
 North China, imported fruit trees and now the hills 
 that slope down to the harbor are covered with orchards 
 that bear the finest apples, peaches and pears. There 
 are fine vineyards as well. Dr. Hunter Corbett, over 
 eighty years old, who came to China in the sixties, had 
 a villa high up on one of the overlooking hills. Steam- 
 ers of many nations come to anchor behind the break- 
 water. The Chinese fishing junks carry out long nets 
 which are in the evening or early morning drawn 
 ashore by the half -naked fishermen. The American 
 flag, the most beautiful in all the port, floats high over 
 the Consulate on Light-house Hill. 
 
 A stone house, right by the sea, was occupied by 
 a jolly crowd of former friends, of which the Ander- 
 sons were a part. There were frequent picnics out 
 near the Chinese fort that guards the mouth of the 
 Chefoo harbor. In July there was a moonlight fete 
 in the American Consulate gardens for the benefit of 
 the Red Cross, with Chinese jugglers, a musical pro- 
 gram given by visiting "talent," and booths with soda 
 and candy for sale. Then there was a two-day trip 
 across to Hwanghsien and the first experience with a 
 Chinese "Shan Tzu," a mode of land travel which 
 often produces sensations sometimes felt at sea. 
 Parallel poles with a kind of cradle swung between are 
 fastened to the backs of two mules, and one or two 
 passengers seat themselves in the cradle for the voy- 
 age. There is a bamboo mat which serves as a pro- 
 
104 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 tection overhead. Progress is exceeding slow, so slow 
 that the muleteer who walks beside to drive the animals 
 often falls asleep as he walks. On this trip a stop 
 was made at a Chinese inn, and fearing "animals' ' 
 the travelers chose to sleep in the open courtyard under- 
 neath the stars of a Chinese summer night. A sum- 
 mer vacation in China is a most interesting experience. 
 John set himself a heavy schedule of language study 
 with his personal teacher to make up for time lost at- 
 tending to the sick around the school in Peking. But 
 a doctor is at a premium in China, and with sick peo- 
 ple in Chefoo as well as in Peking, he could hardly 
 call his time his own. One of the children in the house 
 was taken seriously ill with dysentery and John was 
 trained nurse and doctor for him for the next few 
 weeks. A lady missionary was brought from one of 
 the interior stations to Chefoo to the home of her 
 sister which was next door to where the Andersons 
 were living.. She was in a state of nervous collapse 
 with other complications. When John went in to see 
 her, he said that she was raving like a wild beast and 
 had no control of herself at all. It was really a case 
 of deferred furlough, waiting to go home until it was 
 too late. John was her constant attendant for the next 
 month, and when the nurse who was on the case broke 
 down under the strain, he nursed her for eighteen 
 hours and then relieved the family every third or fourth 
 
 night. Miss H who accompanied this missionary 
 
 to Chefoo wrote later of Dr. Anderson : 
 
 To me he seemed one of the gentlest, most unselfish men 
 I have ever seen or heard of. I can never forget the way 
 
INTO THE FAR EAST 105 
 
 he worked over Tommie (Miss T ). He was physician 
 
 and nurse and brother all in one. Again and again she said 
 to me, "Oh, Dr. Anderson is so good to me." 
 
 Besides this John had many of the school girls of 
 the mission to care for in their various ills. He was 
 supposed to be on his vacation and this was not his 
 "parish" at all. Moreover he was beginning to show 
 signs of strain. But no* one in distress ever turned to 
 him in vain. At the end of the summer he took a 
 long cross country trip to attend in a maternity case 
 where there was no other doctor available. He wrote 
 on his return from this trip : 
 
 How would you like to be two days from a doctor and no 
 trained nurse to assist? They begged me to stay on so 
 that I could hardly stand it. On the way back we had 
 several streams to cross and I pulled off my shoes and 
 
 carried my teacher and S across. I could carry them, 
 
 but they could not carry me. 
 
 He followed out literally Paul's injunction : 
 
 We that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the 
 weak, and not to please ourselves. 
 
 It had been decided in consultation with the Mission 
 Board and the China Medical Board that it was best 
 for the Andersons to go to Yang Chow in the fall, 
 that John might ease the burdens of Dr. Taylor who 
 had been alone so long. In September, before leaving 
 for the South, he substituted for several weeks for a 
 doctor in the Presbyterian Hospital at Chefoo, and 
 during the illness of the other doctor, he bore the 
 
106 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 responsibility of the hospital alone. Dr. Hills, the 
 founder of the hospital, was impressed with his "sim- 
 plicity andj gentleness of spirit, his persistency in 
 carrying things through, and his medical ability which 
 was much above the average." 
 
 The journey to Yang Chow was made as far as 
 Shanghai by coastal steamer. The day they left Chefoo 
 for Shanghai, John discovered that a lady, a stranger 
 to him, had been crowded with her four children, one 
 of whom was sick, into one of the smaller staterooms. 
 He suggested that she and the children exchange 
 cabins with his wife and himself and he helped in 
 getting them comfortably settled, and then he cared 
 for the sick child for the rest of the voyage. 
 
CHAPTER IX: YANG CHOW AND BEYOND 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 YANG CHOW AND BEYOND 
 
 The city of Yang Chow is one of the most aristo- 
 cratic in China. It is famous as the home of great 
 officials, Marco Polo, the traveler, visited it long ago 
 (A. D. 1275), and its aspect has hardly changed from 
 that time until to-day. The soft pad, pad, of the feet of 
 the chair bearers and their singsong as they swing 
 rapidly through the streets, the great brass kettles 
 hissing in front of tiny tea shops, the venders of green 
 vegetables who give their strange cries before the 
 barred gates in high walls, the green scum on the 
 Grand Canal, these are the same yesterday and to-day 
 — will they be forever? The present population of the 
 city is estimated as 360,000, most of the people be- 
 ing crowded together in the closest quarters. Some- 
 times there is only a single room for a family of six 
 or seven. But inside those walls are also the gardens 
 and rockeries of the wealthy. Winding walks and 
 tea pavilions and lotus ponds are beautiful in chrysan- 
 themum time. 
 
 Several missions are at work in the different sec- 
 tions of the city. The Baptist Mission to which the 
 Andersons were attached has a church and a school 
 and a hospital in the southwestern part of the city, 
 
 109 
 
110 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 just inside the city wall. Here they were joyously 
 welcomed in the fall of 191 7. 
 
 The story of the busy days in that great and hoary 
 city is told by Mrs. Anderson : 
 
 John began his work in Yang Chow with great enthusiasm 
 which grew steadily in spite of many difficulties. With all 
 his old relish for making things comfortable, he spent most 
 of the first few weeks getting our house in order, though 
 helping with operations and making the rounds with Dr. 
 Taylor. The house in which we lived had many con- 
 veniences added mostly by his suggestion and often by hi$ 
 own hands. I remember finding him one day digging a 
 ditch in the back yard so that a pipe could be connected 
 with the cistern from our kitchen pump. A Chinese had 
 been at it two days, but the work was too slow for John! 
 All that winter he spent much of his spare time pruning 
 trees and shrubs that had been neglected some time, laid 
 new walks and brought order into what had been a rather 
 dilapidated looking lawn. He was already planning to dig 
 some artesian wells whenever he could secure a well ma- 
 chine. 
 
 On January first he took formal charge of the woman's 
 clinic and hospital. This was a great relief to Dr. Taylor's 
 burdened shoulders and he was never tired of saying how 
 thankful he was for John's help. John began gradually to 
 add conveniences that Dr. Taylor had not had time to at- 
 tend to and with his instinct for nursing he soon helped the 
 Chinese nurses to more professional ways of doing things. 
 
 I cannot give the exact number of his patients, operations, 
 etc. They were the usual throng of discouraged sick who 
 had tried Chinese doctors to their greater suffering, with 
 occasional patients who knew enough about foreign medi- 
 cine to come early. These latter were rare. 
 
 John was especially anxious for more normal maternity 
 cases. Nearly all who came had undergone untold suffering 
 
f 
 
 < 
 
 THE PARENTS OF " LITTLE FOUR" 
 
 The father and mother of "Little Four" and the baby born 
 on the street who died of starvation, They were famine 
 refugees and were cared for in the hospital for more than a 
 month. 
 
YANG CHOW AND BEYOND 111 
 
 at the hands of ignorant midwives, often after four or five 
 days' labor. One I remember especially. I met the stretcher 
 (a Chinese wicker cot) coming along our main street, being 
 heralded by Mrs. Ye, a former patient and one of the hos- 
 pital's staunchest friends. John found the poor woman in 
 an awful state. I shall never forget the look on the faces 
 of her two women relatives who stood by, one on either side. 
 How strange it was to them — no wonder their white faces 
 dripped perspiration at every tiny moan from under the ether 
 cone. Finally when John had to tell them that the baby 
 was dead, one cried out: "Oh, Doctor, bring him back to 
 life. ,, The baby was a little boy and would have been the 
 hope of the family, for his father had died shortly before, 
 the parents refusing to let him have a simple operation that 
 would probably have saved him. The mother lay almost 
 lifeless, in great pain from the terrible infection following 
 the treatment she had received. John worked night and 
 day, even carrying dainty broth from our own kitchen to 
 tempt her, trying to coax her into an interest, for he said: 
 "If she dies it's because she does not want to live." Then 
 an adopted son was suggested and a wee scrap of a baby 
 brought from the foundling home gradually won the listless 
 woman back to life. The baby lived on there for six weeks 
 and grew to be a bonny fat boy, being bottle fed from milk 
 that John prepared most of the time himself. It was in 
 times like these that he sighed so often for an American 
 trained nurse, but he did his work and the nurse's too, with 
 never failing gentleness. The woman and her mother, a 
 sweet old lady, grew to be great friends of ours. 
 
 John loved his children patients best of all and it was no 
 unusual sight to see him swinging along the wards or hos- 
 pital walks, one on either side chattering aw r ay. "Little 
 Apricot" was one of his best beloved, a pretty child of 
 twelve. She used to run to him and snuggle up against him 
 just as if she had been an American child. "Little Ear" 
 came with a terrible fracture of the elbow, the arm swollen 
 
112 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 for a week. She was so shy that she used to bury her face 
 in the cover when we came around, but in ten days John 
 had coaxed her over home to play with the baby and in less 
 time than that she was the affectionate little friend of the 
 whole place. Still another, almost a beggar, but a bright 
 sweet child of ten or twelve, came with a tubercular ankle. 
 She was there for months and came to seem a part of the 
 hospital. I remember John's saying as we made the rounds 
 one evening: "I am going to keep that child until she gets 
 well if we never get a penny even for her food/* 
 
 Then in April came "Little Four" and his family, the most 
 interesting group we ever had. It was a cold, rainy after- 
 noon when John sent for me. I found Dick and John 
 getting a picture of the most desolate family group I ever 
 saw. The woman had dropped wearily on a bench, leaning 
 against the wall in utter abandonment of strength and desire 
 for anything. By her, in a similar state of filth, vermin and 
 dejection, sat her husband, holding a wisp of a six-day old 
 baby, born on the street. A blue rag was wrapped about 
 its body, but legs purple with cold dangled down helplessly. 
 And ten feet away I could see the body lice crawling on 
 the poor little thing. 
 
 John started them upstairs, a nurse on either side of the 
 woman. But they handled her gingerly, to say the least. I 
 saw John's eyes flash with anger. He pushed them aside 
 and helped the woman up himself, straight into the warm 
 operating room. "We'll cut off her hair first," he said, to 
 which the man protested that she would be no longer "hao 
 kan" (good-looking). But the hair was cut, John himself 
 doing the deed. The woman's lips were so parched from 
 starvation, we could hardly get her to drink tea. She had 
 not had anything to eat in over a week. John asked the 
 man why she had not eaten. The answer was simply: "We 
 had no food." You can fancy how much nourishment she 
 had for the baby. We fed it on a bottle, but the poor little 
 thing had had too hard a start, six days without anything. 
 
YANG CHOW AND BEYOND 113 
 
 A week later it died, though John worked literally day and 
 night to save it. I came back from a trip to Shanghai to 
 find John padding and lining a tiny coffin. He had already 
 carried over some of our baby's clothes for the little body. 
 And then he smashed all precedents for hurrying dead bodies 
 out of the hospital by having a funeral. It is one of the 
 most vivid memories of our life at Yang Chow — the little 
 room growing dark in the twilight, nurses and the carpenter 
 who had made the coffin standing against the wall, father 
 and mother and brothers of the baby seated in stupid won- 
 derment at the meaning of it all — and there by the coffin, 
 Miss Hwang, the woman evangelist, read by the light of a 
 flickering lamp the immortal words of the Bible abo'ut the 
 resurrection. Then she prayed and suddenly the father, 
 stirred by some strange new emotions, flung himself on the 
 floor and tried to pray. It was the queerest jumble of long- 
 ing and need I ever heard, but somehow we all felt as if God 
 took heed. Then he turned and began kow-towing to John. 
 
 "Why," he said, "all this waste of heart on a girl baby? 
 It would have been all the same to her if we had just carried 
 her out and thrown her over the wall." 
 
 But it was not the same to John, nor was it, I fancied, 
 to any of the few who witnessed it. 
 
 There were three boys in this family who were almost 
 as badly off as their mother. They were also cared for in 
 the hospital while the father worked on the hospital grounds 
 for a month or more. Restored to health and strength at 
 last, they became homesick and wanted to return to their 
 ancestral village, which was sixty miles east of Yang Chow. 
 They had left there three years before in a time of famine 
 and had not been able to return. John tried to get them to 
 stay in Yang Chow, promising to find work for the father, 
 but they would go. And so John and Dr. Taylor supplied 
 them with money for the journey. It was finally agreed 
 that "Little Four" should stay behind. A little room was 
 fitted up for him in the servants' quarters, his queue was cut 
 
114 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 off, and then he was started to school. The first Sunday he 
 went to church, John gave him a penny to put in the col- 
 lection, and later he was allowed ten pennies a week for 
 which he rendered a weekly account of expenditures. His 
 first purchase was a pair of socks. John put him to learning 
 the Ten Commandments, and as soon as these were learned 
 he set him to other Bible verses. He has since been sent to 
 the mission school in Soochow, and has been given a new 
 name — Peter. 
 
 One other funeral John managed in an outside room where 
 a smallpox baby died. "It's their only chance to know any- 
 thing of our conception of death/' he answered the Chinese 
 who insisted that he was wasting his energies for nothing. 
 
 Through the long summer months he worked untiringly, 
 often beginning his operations at five in the morning. I 
 remember a Mrs. Wang who had a very serious operation. 
 She was a valued worker in the China Inland Mission school 
 and three of the missionaries spent the night before with 
 us that they might be there to see the operation and en- 
 courage Mrs. Wang. John slept almost none that night and 
 I knew he was praying anxiously for skill to do the opera- 
 tion. I feared he would come to the task worn out and 
 nervous from his night's vigil, but he was as cool as I ever 
 saw him and did a splendid operation. He said he had 
 never seen so many complications, but the patient recovered 
 fully and was a real blessing to our hospital during her stay. 
 
 It should be recalled that this was only the second 
 year of John Anderson's life in China. Ordinarily, 
 the second year as well as the first, is given up more 
 or less wholly to the study of the language. It is 
 more difficult for a medical missionary to take time 
 for the second year of study on account of the im- 
 mediate demand for his professional services. John 
 tried to carry on his studies in the language with his 
 
YANG CHOW AND BEYOND 115 
 
 other work. At first he set aside three hours a day 
 to be with his teacher. The change from Peking to 
 Yang Chow added the difficulty of a difference of 
 dialect. He had originally gone to the Peking School 
 because he expected to work in Honan. There w r ere 
 excuses enough to simply let the language go, and try 
 to do the best service possible without proficiency in 
 speaking Chinese, as is sometimes done. But it was 
 not his habit to do things half way, especially when a 
 limitation on his speech meant a limitation on his op- 
 portunity to speak for his Lord. He set himself the 
 task of leading the hospital chapel in his turn, and 
 though it took more energy than the performance of 
 a major operation he stuck to it. This determination 
 impressed deeply the hospital evangelist who was one 
 of John's best friends among the Chinese and he spoke 
 of it later. In this first summer at Yang Chow, he 
 gathered the hospital workers into a class in "The 
 Manhood of the Master," using the Chinese transla- 
 tion. 
 
 Moreover, he was as faithful as ever in the general 
 work of the church. Note this letter written in the 
 w r inter time : 
 
 Every night this week there has been a meeting in the 
 church. The average attendance has been over two hun- 
 dred, mostly men. The church has no heat and part of it has 
 no roof, the windows all loose, and the floor is made of dirt 
 brickbats thrown together. I have been three times and I 
 do not see for my life how the Chinese can stand it. It 
 was all that I could do to stand it as it has been so cold 
 this past week. Last night the preacher talked about Christ 
 being crucified and the people would come in off the street 
 
116 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 while he was talking, stand up, go out, change seats, talk, 
 read, sing, smoke, or anything else they wanted to do. It 
 is so hard to tell them about Christ and His life in a few 
 minutes for all this talk is foreign to them. I do not blame 
 them for they do not know any better, but I certainly do pity 
 them and wish and pray that they may see and believe. It 
 is going to take time and a long time and a great deal of 
 hard work and prayer to Christianize this country, so fixed in 
 its ways and customs. I am not discouraged and I do not 
 believe 1 am going to be, for I have as near an ideal home 
 as I can to go to after mixing with the filth and dirt and 
 unspeakable diseases. 
 
 John's chief happiness centered in his home. All 
 during the year at Peking he was looking forward to 
 having a home of his own where he would have in 
 his own hands the keys of hospitality and where there 
 would be real quiet and peace and rest alone. When 
 they were at last settled in their own home in Yang 
 Chow, he wrote that Minnie and he had had their 
 first meal alone for many months. But he loved com- 
 pany too. He wrote in one letter : 
 
 We had just a few days past a man, his wife, two chil- 
 dren and a friend of theirs, to spend the night with us. 
 I am going to copy a portion of the note she wrote us — 
 "We are under life-long obligation to you all for taking 
 us in and giving us such good care. I don't think I was 
 ever so struck by the hospitality of a lovely Christian 
 home than when we came into your quiet, sweet home 
 after the dirty, wet, miserable heathen launch and streets. ,, 
 I do believe that a Christian home in China is the shadow 
 of a great rock in a weary land, not only from the hot 
 sun, not only from the dirt and filth, but a shadow against 
 sin in every form. I do hope that we shall always be able 
 
YANG CHOW AND BEYOND 117 
 
 to keep our home open. These people we had never met 
 and knew nothing about them except that they were com- 
 ing through Yang Chow. We want to keep our home open 
 not only to our own countrymen, but to the Chinese as 
 well. We had a Chinese lady at dinner with us to-day 
 who a few years ago was a Buddhist nun. 
 
 It was the Andersons' regular custom to have some 
 Chinese to a meal once a week, sometimes patients 
 nearly well, sometimes hospital assistants and others. 
 Mrs. Anderson tells of two Sunday dinners in par- 
 ticular when An Dai Fu brought over his favorite 
 "Little Apricot' ' and Tsang Ken Tzu, a little cripple 
 boy. He entertained them with funny stories and 
 post cards of American scenes, just as if they had been 
 children at home. Never a father was happier over 
 the coming of a little son, than John when his boy 
 was born in the autumn that they came to Yang Chow. 
 His letters were always full of him thereafter. 
 
 He wrote September 12, 1918: 
 
 Mink was gone about six days to Shanghai for dental 
 work. It kept me busy at odd times taking care of Griffith. 
 I had some sick patients and had to go to the hospital at 
 night. One night Griffith was so wide awake that I 
 wrapped him up and took him with me, though it was rain- 
 ing. He enjoyed every minute as we had a red lantern 
 and he enjoys light so much. 
 
 About this time the matter of going with the Red 
 Cross to Siberia had to be decided. Both Dr. Taylor 
 and John wanted to go. John had written to his 
 brother who was entering the army : 
 
118 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 I hope that you will enjoy military life and that you 
 are anxious to get out and fight for your country and for 
 the right. I have wished that I was not so tied down here 
 or I would be in France with some coolies. Dr. Taylor 
 has an Edison and has two records about the war. The 
 first time I heard them, it certainly did make my heart 
 fairly thrill. You will not find military life easy, but 
 hard, with things that it takes a man to do with the 
 best that is in him. Last spring in Peking we got up at 
 five and went two miles to drill every morning. That was 
 fun beside what you will go through. I am proud of hav- 
 ing a brother in the war. The fellow who will not fight 
 for the right has not much red blood in him. 
 
 The China Medical Board decided finally that Dr. 
 Taylor should go on account of his approaching fur- 
 lough. The two doctors had a long talk together and 
 John said to his friend : 
 
 Dick, I want you to feel that half of me is going to 
 Siberia too, and half of me is staying here, and I want to 
 take care of Anne (Mrs. Taylor) and your children just 
 as I do of Mink and Griffith, if I may. 
 
 Dr. Taylor's family moved into the Anderson home^ 
 and John even had their piano moved over and upstairs 
 for them. It was quite an undertaking. The piano 
 stuck half way up the stairs in spite of the efforts of 
 about a dozen Chinese, and the ladies begged him to 
 give up for fear that the stairway might collapse. It 
 was thoroughly typical of John's determination to see 
 things through that he calmly propped up the stairs 
 and took away part of the railing and the piano went 
 up of course, though moving it consumed most of the 
 
YANG CHOW AND BEYOND 119 
 
 afternoon. John had a "shoot the chutes" built for 
 the Taylor children in the back yard. 
 
 Here are some quotations from several of John's 
 letters written about this time: 
 
 It has been a right interesting day for me, dispatching 
 three Chinese whom we have taken on to send to school 
 this year. One will cost us $60, one $8, and the other about 
 $12. We have one more that we are mighty anxious to 
 help through college, about $120 a year. He is such a fine 
 fellow. He was my teacher last summer. 
 
 This morning it was my time to lead prayers and I 
 talked about twenty minutes on the barren fig tree, as re- 
 corded in Mark XI. Christ did not say that this tree had 
 never brought forth fruit, but that it did not have any 
 on it then. How we Christians think that if we do some- 
 thing once a year, or once a month, that it is sufficient. 
 Christ told the tree that it should wither for it had no 
 fruit. If He should come and find our names on the church 
 roll, pretending to be Christians and not bringing forth 
 fruit, I fear that He would treat us as He did the fig tree. 
 
 At this time also, word came that the China Medical 
 Board had granted $45,000 and the Baptist Foreign 
 Mission Board $15,000 for the erection of a more 
 commodious hospital. Of this John wrote f 
 
 With this equipment you have no idea how meek and 
 unable I feel to do my part in running this hospital as 
 it should be. I am looking to God for guidance and direc- 
 tion from day to day. In order to get in more time with 
 God I have been getting up at 5 130, but as Mink is getting 
 stronger and I do not have to wait on her, we are going to 
 make it six o'clock. 
 
120 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 On October 9th, the home letter which was received 
 in Woodruff on November 18th, contained the follow- 
 ing: 
 
 In the last seven days I have had five operations for 
 appendicitis. I have averaged five or six operations a day 
 for nearly a month. I have over sixty patients in the 
 hospital. On top of this four or five of my helpers have 
 been sick, and our chief Chinese assistant who has been 
 here twelve years has gone. Then I have to see after a 
 number of workmen as we are getting ready to build a 
 big addition to the hospital. The Building Committee of 
 the Mission on which I happen to be one of three members, 
 has left all the plans to be decided on by me after I have 
 consulted with the architect. With this I still keep up 
 leading chapel twice a week and attending seven days a 
 week, prayer-meeting once, church once, and the prayer- 
 meeting of the missionaries once each week. I could name 
 a number of other things, but from this you can see that 
 I have enough to do to keep me out of mischief. I do 
 not know what we will do to run the hospital much longer 
 if we do not get more help, as drugs are so high. I have 
 had six cases of typhoid recently. I am looking forward 
 to one month's rest the first of February, as that is Chinese 
 New Year and medical work slacks off at that time. 
 
 A meeting of the Executive Committee of the Cen- 
 tral China Mission called John to Shanghai for the 
 thirteenth of November. Begrudging even a few hours 
 from his work, he planned to take the midnight train 
 on the twelfth. A launch was scheduled to leave Yang 
 Chow at 8 130 P. M. to connect at Chinkiang with the 
 Shanghai train. The day was very full. The hospital 
 accounts were all straightened up in perfect order, 
 
YANG CHOW AND BEYOND 121 
 
 and his desk was cleared. A letter was mailed with 
 a check for $25.00 as a contribution to the Educational 
 Campaign in North Carolina for Wake Forest College. 
 After supper he packed his bag, and then sat around 
 with the two families, laughing and joking in high 
 good spirits. He started out once or twice to walk 
 to the canal, and then decided that he might have 
 to wait by the canal bank for the launch, and so came 
 back to the warmth of his happy home. Finally he 
 and one of the older missionaries went out into the 
 night to catch the launch. Arriving at the wharf they 
 found that it had already departed. The only chance 
 to make the train would be a small sampan, and at 
 that it was a question as to whether it would not ar- 
 rive too late. For a moment John hesitated and al- 
 most decided to go back and go to bed and get a good 
 night's rest. Then striking a bargain with the boat- 
 man for the trip he waved good-by to the missionary 
 and jumped aboard with his old servant, Dzu Da. To 
 speed up the journey, John took turns with Dzu Da 
 and the boatman in towing the boat from the bank of 
 the canal until they reached the mouth of the canal 
 on the north bank of the Yang Tze River. Dzu Da 
 was the last man to do any towing, and when he got 
 aboard the sampan he was perspiring freely. John 
 took his own steamer rug off his knees and, in spite 
 of the protests of the old man, he wrapped it around 
 the servant and put his lantern between his legs to 
 keep him from catching cold in the November night. 
 He told Dzu Da that he himself was already warm. 
 
122 A GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH 
 
 The night was dark and the river was far from quiet 
 as they put out into its swift current to cross to the 
 south bank to Chinkiang. John and Dzu Da were 
 sitting together in the body of the boat, the boatman 
 at the rear sculling with the oar, when a large river 
 steamer loomed up in the darkness. Never thinking 
 of himself, John reached for the lantern and sprang 
 to the bow of the little boat, to give warning lest they 
 be run down. Apparently the lookout on the steamer 
 never saw the swinging light, for the steamer struck 
 the sampan, and John encased in his heavy overcoat 
 was thrown into the river. The boatman heard a cry, 
 but night and the Yang Tze had swallowed him up. 
 The steamer without stopping passed on up the river. 
 Lifting the light in the darkness to save others John 
 Anderson went down into the dark waters. The others 
 clung to the little sampan which was broken in two, 
 and drifted safely to shore in the later morning. They 
 ran at once to the missionaries in Chinkiang with the 
 news, and in the afternoon it was brought to the hos- 
 pital in Yang Chow. 
 
 "Great-heart is dead, they say, — 
 Fighting the fight, 
 Holding the light, 
 Into the night. 
 
 Great-heart is dead, they say, — 
 
 But the light shall burn brighter, 
 
 And the night shall be lighter, 
 
 For his going: 
 
 And a rich, rich harvest for his sowing. 
 
YANG CHOW AND BEYOND 123 
 
 Great-heart is dead, they say, — 
 What is death to such an one as Great-heart? 
 One sigh, perchance, for work unfinished here, 
 Then a swift passing to a mightier sphere, 
 New joys, perfected powers, the vision clear, 
 And all the amplitude of Heaven to work 
 The work he held so dear. 
 
 Great-heart is dead, say they? 
 
 Nor dead, nor sleeping ! He lives on ! His name 
 
 Shall kindle many a heart to equal flame. 
 
 The fire he lighted shall burn on and on, 
 
 Till all the darkness of the lands be gone, 
 
 And all the kingdoms of the earth be won, 
 
 And one. 
 
 A soul so fiery sweet can never die, 
 
 But lives and loves and works through all eternity." 
 
 THE END 
 
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