An Autobiographical Sketch 
 nenvj Poor Perkins
 
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 An AuK)biographical 
 Sketch 
 
 Read Before The Afternoon Club of Claremont, California 
 
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 HENRY POOR PERKINS 
 
 October 6, 1921
 
 > CHAPTER I ' V > . 
 
 \o My life easily divides into three chapters, 1856. the birth-year, opens the 
 
 Ai first. 1882 saw me starting- for China, bej^inning- Chapter Two. 1910 brinpi-s 
 
 • the two parents and five children together in my parents' home in Worcester, 
 
 — Mass., thus opening Chapter Three. 
 
 My honorable birth-place was Ware, Massarchusetts, a thriving town of 
 -^ perhaps three thousand persons on the Ware riveV which furnished the major 
 S^ power of three large cotton mills and two large woolen mills. 
 
 , My father was the minister of the "Orthodox" Congregational Church. 
 
 1 was born in the large house on Main Street just West of the Palmer Road, 
 but, before I can remember, we moved to the house which afte rward 
 became the Parsonage. This was the home all through this first chapter and 
 here four brothers and one sister were born. 
 
 My mother was the daughter of Henry Poor and Mary Osborn of South 
 Danvers, later, Peabody. My travels abroad began in visiting these grand- 
 parents. The first part was a ride in a large two-horse stage to either Palmer 
 or over the hills to West Brookfield. Thence by train to Boston where 
 behind their rails in the big station perhaps fifty hack-men were lustily 
 calling out "Hack," "Hack," "Hack," making a soul-stirring din. 
 
 Perhaps my earliest memory is of my experience in the South Danvers 
 church vestry where a fair was being held. I was not very tall as I had to 
 look up to the toys on the board counter. My grand-father asked me which 
 of two horses I liked best (I am very sure he said "best" not "better"), the 
 one on wheels or the one on rockers. I think I more admired the one on 
 wheels, at any rate he bought and gave me the one for which I voted. 
 
 On the tablets of my memory I find no one more cordial, no one more 
 loving and lovable than my mother's father — Henry Poor of Peabody. I did 
 not go to school until after I was seven. I think I could read a little. As 
 far back as I can remember I read my verse in morning prayers and perhaps 
 was doing so at this time. My most vivid recollection of this first school is 
 that of the teacher — Miss Hutchins — every now and then getting out a box 
 of beans which she would throw over the floor. At once the whole school 
 was also on the floor, each girl and boy trying to salvage the largest number. 
 When reseated the one in the corner would call out the number in hand. 
 To this number the next pupil added his own as quickly and correctly as he 
 or she could. I have never had a more stimulating educational exercise 
 than this. 
 
 How much of our education comes from the books we read all along the 
 wa}^ — Robinson Crusoe, Aesop's Fables — I can see many of the pictures still 
 — The Rollo Books, Agnes Strickland's Queens of England, Cudjo's Cave, 
 Mayne Reid's books, Swiss Family Robinson, Hans Anderson's Fairy Tales 
 (Great Claus and Little Claus was my favorite), Carlton's Winning His 
 Way and all of Oliver Optic's books that I could get hold of. 
 
 Some of these were our own or in my father's library. Others we got 
 from the circulating library owned by the book store and let out for, I 
 believe, one cent a day. 
 
 For our Sunday reading there was the Sunday School library but T 
 remember none of its books unless possibly Pilgrim's Progress, although I 
 suspect that 'this was one of my father's books. 
 
 I clearly remember the announcement of Lincoln's death by a man who 
 rode past my cousin and myself who were wheelbarrowing tanbark into my 
 grandfather's woodshed. Lincoln died on the morning of April 15, 1865. 
 We at once decided that we would do no more work that day, though we 
 were being liberally paid. 
 
 Our circle gradually enlarged to the number of seven children. Two 
 died in early boyhood, the others are living. We must have talked at the 
 table of all the usual topics but the one subject that stands out vividly is 
 theology ; predestination and free-will being the favorites. 
 
 I remember when we began to use "fluid" in small hand lamps instead 
 of candles. We always had gas from one of the mills. 
 
 We burned wood in the furnace and kitchen which gave me early and 
 intimate acquaintance with the saw-horse and ax. We always had a horse, 
 hens and garden from which I derived a first-hand knowledge of natural 
 history.
 
 \\'e children had a monthly allowance of from lo to 20 cents according- 
 to age. This gave tis a fund from which to spend or give or save — a very 
 important feature in our education. 
 
 Huckleberrying in summer and chestnuting in the fall were sources of 
 much pleasure and sometimes of profit. One summer I laid by $13.00 from 
 the berries I sold. I think^vith much satisfaction of the fact that when a 
 boy I was not taught eithePfear or to hate capital. 
 
 At the age of thirteen I joined the church — a well remembered event in 
 my life. Also my first public prayer — what a hard battle that was ! 
 
 Speaking of battles, I remember one from which I ran away. This was 
 at a time when 1 stuttered very badly. One day my grandmother sent me 
 down to the fish-market for fish. By the time I had entered the place I 
 felt sure that I could never pronounce the name of the fish wanted so I 
 excused myself and ran back. Of course they laughed at me and I think I 
 returned and accomplished the task. 
 
 My father had some tools and a work-bench in the attic which he let 
 us boys use. We came to own a turning-lathe and other tools from which 
 we derived pleasure and education. 
 
 All of my schooling before entering college was in the public schools 
 except two terms in Monson Academy to which two or three of us went 
 daily by train, the first coming of which to Ware, a year or two before, I 
 well remember. Charles Hammond was Principal and taught us Cicero. 
 Probably as often as once a week he would remind us of how "Old Father 
 Mills of Torrington, Conn., used in his long morning prayer to pray, "O 
 Lord, help these my people to learn to distinguish between things that 
 difi^er." I am sure I owe both minister and teacher a large debt for this 
 oft repeated warning. 
 
 Between this time and my entrance to college I was under Charles 
 Edward Carman who later became professor of moral philosophy in Amherst 
 College. His working motto must have been, "Hard worn can accomplish 
 anything," and he certainly led the way. 
 
 I entered Williams with my brother Charles in 1875. Those four 
 years abide in reverent and loving memory. Mark Hopkins taught only the 
 seniors in the class-room but took his turn in the college pulpit. 
 
 I am sure that those four years did much to establish my faith in 
 Reason. They helped me to see why the Roman church makes such per- 
 sistent efi""orts to hold the education of its children in its own hands. 
 
 Then followed two years in Hartford Theological Seminary. Here I 
 had to go back and breathe very mediaeval atmosphere. I remember asking 
 President Hartranft whether Noah's scheme of keeping alive two of all the 
 species was not too large a tax on our minds. His reply was that having 
 to accept miracles (which he and all the members of the faculty had to do) 
 one might as well believe in a big one as in a little' one. 
 
 The day before our licensure examination I asked Professor Carr 
 whether we should answer according to what we had been taught or accord- 
 ing to what we believed. He made no reply and later I was told that he felt 
 pained at the question. However, we were not very roughly handled by our 
 examiners. One of them said, "What we really want to know is whether 
 vou young gentlemen are all right theologically." One of the class — W. D. P. 
 Bliss — made answer, "I know them all and I think I can assure you that 
 we are, all of us, all right." This confident assertion seemed to satisfy the 
 consciences of the examiners and all six of us were let by. 
 
 I had bought, a year or two before, an anatomy, a physiology and a 
 skeleton, with which I had passed a good many spare hours with the idea 
 that the call of the foreign field would probably get me. So now I chose, 
 instead of a third year of theology, one year in the Medical School of the 
 University of the City of New York. As I look back o\er my life I am 
 convinced that this was a thoroughly wise decision. 
 
 Of those very able instructors the one who stands out most prominently 
 is Dr. William Thompson, the son of the Syrian missionary who wrote "The 
 Land and The Book." His hour's lecture was a driving into the mind of 
 one or two nails, many of which remain in my mind today firm enough to 
 hang" things on. I hardly need say that not one of these teachers was
 
 concerned oxer the traditions in medicine or surgery. What is true as to 
 disease? What is true as to the cure of disease? These were the two all- 
 important questions. In the summer of 1882 I was ordained and packing" 
 lip my skeleton and a few other essentials I set forth for Tientsin onto the 
 Bund of which great city I walked from the Shanghai steamer, November 
 19th. 
 
 C"H AFTER TI 
 
 I found life in this foreign community very i)leasant. I had for teacher 
 a young native who knew not one English word and to whom, before coming 
 to me, all foreigners had been very suspicious characters. He told me later 
 that at first he was careful to take a seat near the door so that if attacked he 
 would have a better chance for escape. Also that one day when 1 took my 
 knife from my pocket and opened it he thought that perhaps his last hour 
 had come. "Why did you fear?" "Why you know all those stories about 
 foreigners cutting out Chinese eyes for medicine which started the massacre 
 of 1870 — we all believed them then." 
 
 In- the spring of '85 I went to our Shantung station of Pang Chuang to 
 study and work with the two doctors as we had no medical work in Tient- 
 sin. In October, 1885, I married Miss Dr. Akers of the Methodist Women's 
 Hospital of llentsin. 1 do not ask anyone to explain to me the meaning 
 of the four Chinese characters whose translation is "A mate made by 
 Heaven.." 
 
 The mission was more than satisfied with the development of our 
 country station and asked Rev. and Mrs. F. M. Chapin to open another, 
 fifty miles further south, in the Chou city of Lin Ching. Sometime later we 
 were asked to join them. I spent the summer of '88 with Mr. Chapin in the 
 small compound on Doughnut Street in which the native buildings were be- 
 ing foreignized with board floors, glass windows and plastered walls. We 
 had no ice but kept our butter on the ground under the trap-door in our 
 largest room. Even so, a spoon \^'as often more useful than a knife for 
 getting it out of the dish. 
 
 Our families came in the fall. 
 
 W^e rented two other places; one for preaching, the other for dispen- 
 sary and hospital purposes. Dr. and Mrs. E. R. Wagner came in '90 so that 
 we could and did return in '92 to the United States. 
 
 Returning to China in '93 we were asked to go to Pao Ting Fu where 
 we lived for one year and then back to Lin Ching where we spent the rest 
 of our second term. The work developed slowly but steadily. The Chinese 
 found that we could give them real help in their troubles of body, mind and 
 estate. They found that the Bible was a very interesting and important 
 book. Dr. Taylor of Pao Ting Fu gave me a Japanese manikin which 
 proved a thing of interst to thousands of men from near and far. 
 
 Our station was in the northwest corner of the Shantung province. No- 
 vember 14, 1897, (jermany liegan operations with "mailed fist," taking pos- 
 session of Tsing tao on the coast and the territory thirty miles around it. 
 By the fall of '99 we began to get premonitions of the coming storm. Our 
 compound was adjacent to the large Mohammedan mosque around which 
 were living several scores of Mohammedan families who were sure that 
 if we were looted they would also suffer. 
 
 One day 1 was asked to go out to the gate-house guest-room where I 
 found a burly Mohammedan corporal who told me that the day before he 
 had taken a band of his soldiers out to the east where they met another 
 the foreigners. He told them that they had his permission except that if 
 M^and of young men coming to the city, as they told him, to pay a visit to 
 the foreigners. He told them that they had his permission except that if 
 they did so they would have to go over his dead body. 
 
 A few years after in Pao Ting Fu I asked one of the Mohammedan 
 priests "Do you Mohammedans feel nearer to us foreigners or to the Chi- 
 nese??" He at once replied, "To you," and I think he was sincere. 
 
 In May, 1900, the two families of the station, with Miss Jones, left for 
 Mission meeting or Pei Tai Ho our summer resort. I remained in Lin 
 Ching. The German minister in PeJ^jng was shot Jvme 20th which must
 
 have been about the time that Gov. Yuan Shin Kai ordered liis subordin- 
 ates to get all the foreigners out of the province. 
 
 I obeyed the command by going to Tsinan, the capitol, where of 
 course the Governor was. There 1 found in the Presbyterian compound 
 a small company of that mission and others who had come in from the 
 Avest. 
 
 The Canadian Presbyterians of Honan were expected to come out our 
 way, so Mr. Hamilton of the Tsi^n station and myself waited for them 
 while the others left for the coast by small river boats. 
 
 W'hile we were waiting we heard that all the foreginers in Peking had 
 been killed and soon the Imeprial Edict calling Ifor the extermination of 
 all foreigners in China was posted in our city gate-way. At the same time 
 the Governor posted by the side of it his own proclamation stating that it 
 was not certain that the other was authentic and so was not to be obeyed. 
 He also kept a guard of soldiers in our compound, some, if not all, of whom 
 were more than half persuaded that the Boxers were the genuine agents of 
 the gods who w^ere angry with the foreignrs for trying to dethrone them. 
 
 When we learned that the Honan missionaries had gone south we left by 
 the same route taken by the others, found the steamer returned for us and 
 so to Chefu where I learned that my wife and five of the six children had 
 left for Japan an hour before. 
 
 1 therefore shaped my course for Kobe which I reached July i6, Mon- 
 day. On Thursday my oldest daughter, who had been at Tientsin at 
 school, appeared, and on the late afternoon of the same day I went out and 
 boarded the steamer where I met my' wife with the other children and 
 Franklin Chapin. 
 
 We waited in Kobe until the foreigners in Peking were liberated and 
 then came on to the United States, thus bringing to a close our second 
 term in China. 
 
 During this and the former vacation I did considerable speaking in the 
 Congregational churches both of New England and the Middle W^est. This 
 work I found very pleasant. 
 
 In the late summer of 'oi I set forth for China by way of England. Dur- 
 ing my wait in London I \isited Oxford and had a pleasant chat with Dr. 
 Driver. To my principal question his immediate reply was, "I do not 
 know." 
 
 The question was whether human nature and the Divine nature were two 
 things or one thing. 
 
 Reaching Tientsin the first business seemed to be to arrange for a mis- 
 sion meeting of the few missionaries on the field. By this meeting 1 was 
 located in Pao Ting Fu, after visiting Lin Ching. 
 
 Returning to Tientsin I was surprised to find that a remark made to 
 friends in the London Mission had been taken seriously. The remark was 
 to the effect that now would seem to be a good time for the two Con- 
 gregational Missions of England and America to unite their educational 
 work in North China. 
 
 Now 1 found myself invited to elaborate the idea before their Mission 
 meeting which I very briefly did. Rev. W. H. Reese was ai)pointe.d to 
 work with me on the matter. We at once tried to enlist other influential 
 members in the two missions and succeeded so well that before long the 
 Union was standing on its own feet and in due time extended its influence 
 to the other large missions of North China. 
 
 1 then went to Lin Ching. 1 easily found the place where our com- 
 pound used to be, but nothing (dse, e\en the- l)ricd<s had been taken oiit of 
 the well and the hole filled to the top. 
 
 After a few days pleasantly spent here, I returned through Paong 
 Chuang where were living Dr. and Mrs. A. H. Smith in the only compound 
 of the whole mission which had not been destroyed. He had a large library, 
 but I very quickly found in it the one book which I wanted, namely, a 
 school history of the United States with the Constitution. This book and 
 another which I found in Dr. Porter's library, and a Greek and English 
 New Testament, taken when i left Lin Ching, were the only books of my 
 library not destroyed. 
 
 Speaking to Dr. Smith about our -.Constitution having in it something,
 
 or some things perhaps, likely to be of use to China in the near future, he 
 said to me, "You are a hundred years too late." Not long after in Peking, 
 our other Nestor — Dr. Sheffield — said to me on the same subject, "You are 
 a hundred years too earl)." 1 could not resist the inward conclusion that 
 perhaps the right time was not far away. However, the Constitution had 
 to wait a few years. 
 
 The first evening in Pao ling Vu I was called on by the board of 
 members living in the neighborhood. As they were leaving and about to 
 say "Ciood-night," altogether outside the open door, 1 said to ithem, "I 
 have come to China this time not to ask you to help me, but to help you." 
 It took forty-fi\'e years o flife and nineteen years of missionary experi- 
 ence to bring out that sentence. Their response was immediate and very 
 noticeable, and I have always been glad that I began my third term on 
 this platform. 
 
 Yuan Shih Kai was then Governor of Chihli and li\ing in Pao Ting 
 Fu. 1 slowly and prayerfully composed a letter to him thanking him for 
 saving lives of so many Shantung missionaries, and saying that I would 
 like to do something for China if possible. So 1 ])ointed out one of the 
 chief sources of strength common to all the greater governments, except 
 Russia, in their elected Parliaments working with the Government for the 
 general welfare. 1 wrote the letter in English as 1 wished to have it cor- 
 rected as much as possible before sending it to the Governor. A few 
 friends in Peking read it, also Minister Conger, but \ did not succeed in 
 getting any suggestions or amendment. I then turned it into Chinese and 
 sent it to the Governor. He thanked me very cordially in his reply but 
 said that China must have education first, etc. 
 
 I then had some fifteen copies of the political ])art of the letter written 
 out and for these there was an active demand from the non-official literati 
 of the city, though I reserved a few for circulation outside of the province. 
 
 The pressure on the Governor began at once so that he had to take 
 it to Peking. When I was next in Peking 1 was inxited to meet Prince 
 Su and then some of the higher Chinese officials. It was not long before 
 Governor Yuan put out a proclamation 'in which it was easy, for me at 
 least, to see traces of a new idea about the future government of China. 
 
 A very brief outline of another kind of aetivities will have to begin back 
 at the Mission meeting before referred to. One of the Mohammedan 
 priests of Pao Ting Fu came to Peking to urge Dr. Peck, the then single 
 missionary of the station, to save a Mohammedan prisoner from torture and 
 death. He was rich, which accounted for the torture. The officials of a 
 Chinese court are i)rofoundly anti-capitalistic whenever they get hold of a 
 man of large property. After the French soldiers came he had worked 
 with them against his enemies — the Boxers — and had no doubt dealt out 
 drastic punishment. After the soldiers retired, it was an easy matter to 
 arrest him and separate him, alive or dead, from his money. Dr. Peck went 
 to Pao Ting Fu and asked me to await his report. When this came it sent 
 my mental temperature higher by several degrees and I took it to Mr. 
 Conger who advised me to take it to the French Minister. After reading 
 it he telegraphed that if the torture of this man was not stopped immediate- 
 ly, he would have a company of h^-ench soldiers in Pao Ting Fu in a cer- 
 tain number of hours. The Governor thought best not to call his hand and 
 the torture was countermanded. 
 
 Not long after this in Pao Fing Fu this same priest was calling on me 
 and confided to me the fact that the authorities had there in prison, the 
 Boxer leader on whom the Empress Dowager had relied to exterminate all 
 the foreigners of the ])rovince and that he was soon to be beheaded. This 
 news he doubtless thought would please me. ] did not feel that he was more 
 guilty than the Empress Dowager and as soon as 1 could do so I Called on 
 the District Magstrate and toldi him that if the authorities would turn him 
 over to me I would be answerable for his future good behavior and make 
 him our compound gate-keeper. He said he would inform the Governor of 
 n\\ request, which he doubtless did, though probably not l)efore he had 
 heard of it. 
 
 He was beheaded, but T at once became the leading Boxer of all the 
 district^. So far as 1 could see, about all the Roman Catholics were play-
 
 ing- the same g-ame, namely, the transferring of the bulk of their property 
 from all those who had g-iven any sort of assistance to the Boxers, to them- 
 selves. Here was a foreigner in the city who had tried not to speed up the 
 execution of the Boxer leader, but rather to save him from execution. 
 "Perhaps he will help us." So to that foreigner they came from a wide cir- 
 cuit. In some cases I would asR one of our preachers to investigate. In 
 other cases I went myself. It was often not necessary for me to look into 
 the case, for when really free to do so, the Chinese can and do work out 
 very even justice. 
 
 In this way I visited quite a number of towns and villages where no 
 Protestant missionary had ever been. In some of these towns the interest in 
 the doctrine of a foreigner who had heli)ed them in very real trouble de- 
 veloped into a local church. 
 
 The Mohammedan priest above spoken of, had a son about fifteen years 
 old. "Might he not come to the pastor's study each day for a little instruc- 
 tion in the English language?" "Yes." So began a work which rather rap- 
 idly broadened into what might be called a young men's school of the 
 English language. Several hundred young men secured drill in English; 
 some only a few months, some four or fire years. Most were from that 
 part of the province, but now and then, one from another province. From 
 too close confinement to this very interesting work, I contracted my rheu- 
 matism. But also I found that this work as well as my assistance to men 
 of property was giving our church a very wide-open door all over the 
 country side. 
 
 The school was more than self supporting, for I furnished nothing but 
 instruction, and though I did not insist on a fee, some of the pupils paid 
 three dollars a month. This helped the station expense, although the bulk 
 of it was used to buy more land for the Mission Boys' School. 
 
 The pressure of the provinces on the throne for representative gov- 
 ernment steadily strengthened from the first. An Imprial Commission was 
 sent to the United States and Europe in the summer of 1905 to study and 
 report the actual working of the governments of the countries visited. The 
 commission was away nearly a year, and on its return recommended the 
 preparation of the country for the introduction of representative govern- 
 ment. 
 
 I think it was before this commission had been formed that I decided 
 to put the United States Constitution into Chinese. I omitted nothing but 
 one section dealing with representation in the slave states. One day I put 
 the finished sheets into the hands of one of the writers, and .'after two or 
 three weeks he put into my hands a bundle of printed booklets. I never 
 knew where they were printed, nor , who paid for them, nor how many 
 copies were kept by others, hence I could imagaine anything I wanted to 
 as to the extent to which it was contributing to the pressure which was all 
 the time growing. 
 
 September i, 1906, an Imperial Edict was issued, approving the rec- 
 ommendations of the Commission. A subsequent Edict fixed the time of 
 preparation as ten years, ending in 1917. 
 
 In 1907, the first municipal council (Chinese) Avas elected in Tientsin, 
 the new Chihli capital. 
 
 Provincial Assemblies met for the first time on the first of the ninth 
 moon, in the autumn of 1909. 
 
 The first National Parliament met in Peking in October, 1910. It was 
 a single chamber assembly. Prince Pu Lun presided, but it had only delib- 
 erative power. 
 
 There was no let u]) on the pressure for a real Parliament, and 1913 
 was promised instead of 1917. 
 
 On October 10, 191 1, the Revolution, which led to the establishment 
 of the Republic, broke out in Wu Chang, and most of the provinces aided 
 the revolt. China was declared a republic January i, 1912, with its capital 
 at Nan King. February 12th, the Edict of Abdication was issued, bringing 
 to an end the thirty-fourth Dynasty. The first one, according to Chinese 
 chronology, began in the year 2953 B. C, which date ,added to 1912, gives 
 4865 years. 
 
 'The Ta Lu Jih Pao of Peking, July 19, 1921, has the following (trans-
 
 lated) : "The Government is in receipt of a telegram dated the sixteenth 
 instant, from General Lu Yung-hsiang, Military Governor of Chekiang, to 
 the effect that Chel^ang has adopted the self government system and drawn 
 up the provincial constitution in accordance with tlic world tendency and 
 the trend of the times. It is through this system that the real sentiments 
 of the people can be represented and their natural rights developed. As 
 the autonomous movement is advocated by the (people who are making 
 constitutions for themselves, it is but natural that such action can neither 
 be put into operation through compulsion, nor put down through suppres- 
 sion. Telegrams advocating self government have been repeatedly sent 
 to the Central Government, which has given its consent to the provinces 
 to introduct the autonomous system and at the same time to promulgate 
 regulations and laws for self government, so that the people may have 
 something to depend upon." 
 
 I^Larly in 1910 we prei)ared for our home going. 'J"he Chinese set a 
 day to come in from the country churches to say "Good Bye," and brought 
 presentation scrolls. 1 remember three of them. 
 
 One was: "Carrying All Men Across the Ferry." A second read: "Go- 
 ing We Escort You ; Returning We Go Out to Greet You." The third was 
 a saying of Confucius; "Loving Men, Men Forever Love." This one we gave 
 to the Campcllo church which had for some years been our supporting 
 church. 
 
 Among our treasures are the embroidered memorial from the Pao Ting 
 Fu church with the names of the members written o nthe back and a larger 
 silk offering on which is a picture of one of the country churches. One of 
 the sentiments means, "Very Quickly Come Back to China." 
 
 This would seem to be the place for a few words as to why we did not 
 return. 
 
 During all this third tl^erm, I think, I never used the church creed in 
 admitting persons to church membership. The P. T. F. church had three 
 steps into the church, i. The giving one's name as an inquirer. 2. Taking 
 the covenant. 3. Baptism. 
 
 1 was very well satisfied with this plan. It made several months of 
 probation and preparation. But the native pastor also followed the mis- 
 sion cusiom of reading the church creed and asking assent to it. I do not 
 think it was so extreme as was the creed to which I assented when I join- 
 ed the church. Nevertheless the thinking that had gone on in my mind 
 since the time made me feel that the application of the Golden Rule to this 
 matter demanded that I should not call for either a public or private ac- 
 ceptance of this creed. Thus it was, as I suppose, that there began a slow- 
 ly widening difference between myself and the native pastor. By the time 
 our N'acation was due, he had on his side the Presbyterian Mission and the 
 larger part of the American Board' Mission. 
 
 To decide whether we should be given a vacation or something not so 
 pleasant, the Mission sent a deputation of three to Pao Ting Fu. 
 
 The chairman's first sentence as to why they had come was, as I re- 
 member, that they wished to ask the Board to make us a retiring grant. I 
 replied that I was not interested in the subject. They remained two or 
 three days in which they interviewed and were interviewed. Then the 
 chairman wrote me a letter in which he stated that we need have no hesita- 
 tion in making our plans for returning to the United States. At our fol- 
 lowing annual meeting 1 asked for a mission vote on our having a vaca- 
 tion, which was given us by what the teller said was a practically unanimous 
 vote. So we were to have, D. V., another term of service. 
 
 We had our vacation and were making plans for our return when the 
 Board received a cablegram asking for our detention until another mission 
 meeting for deciding the matter. The reversal of the first decision came in 
 due course. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 In the spring of 1912 we invested in a smalll green-house plant in 
 Westboro, near Worcester, and grew flowers. 
 
 I joined a real estate firm in Worcester for about half a year. In the 
 summer of 19 14 we migrated to Arkansas. A Chinese friend of Westboro, 
 now of Shanghai, escorted us as far as West Brookfield, where he brought 
 
 4471 1 "?
 
 us a paper which announced the departure of the British fleet for the North 
 Sea. This was, I think, Tuesday morning (England's ev^ening) August 4th. 
 
 In the Ozark foot-hills we sampled the very primitive civilization of 
 this part o fthe world, where the log cabin has not yet disappeared. 
 
 Our small canvass house stood under a large oak which shook down 
 icicles large and small, in winter, on our humble roof. None of them, how- 
 ever, came through. Good old Uncle Sam sent our mail to our door. 
 
 In 1916 we moved again, coming to Claremont. 
 
 The house in the Tientsin compound into which I was ushered upon 
 my arrival, was known as the Smith-Porter house, both of these families 
 having departed for the new station of Pang Chuang. Now, Hadley Cottage, 
 built by Dr. Porter's sister and furnished by his brother, became our first 
 home. 
 
 Our second home was provided by the generosity of Mrs. Helen Ren- 
 wick, whom we first met in Pao Ting Fu, some ten years before. 
 
 I would like to mention a ifew outstanding names ;^vith very brief 
 comment. The first is Timothy Richard. He was a noble, Christian man. 
 He went for the center of things. He was not very much tied to stereotyped 
 phrases. I think heonce applied for naturalization to the Chinese authori- 
 ties. He became the head of the Christian Literature Society of Shanghai. 
 
 Jffict him first in my Tientsin period, and ^several times after, always 
 with increasing admiration. 
 
 Gilbert Reid — a man of wide influence, always planning large things. 
 
 Sir Robert Hart, I met only once, when we talked half an hour about 
 a representative government for China. He was, of course, very tightly 
 tied to the old order and frankly said that he could do nothing to help me. 
 This was very different from saying that he did not believe in the idea, and 
 I gathered not a little refreshment of spirit from our conversation. 
 
 Minister and Mrs. Conger I became acquainted with during the win- 
 ter of 'oi-'02. It would be impossible to measure the assistance they gave 
 to China in those early months of reconstruction. He said to me once that 
 he spent most o fhis time working for the Chinese. 
 
 Yuan Shih Kai I met twice. He was President from February 15, 1912, 
 to June, 1916. He was an able man in a very difficult position. 
 
 I think it was in his first sermon to our college class that Pfe^ident 
 Chadbourne said that in all other branches of knowledge we were to look 
 for progress, but not in theology. I had not been in Pao Ting Fu many 
 months when I met this idea in a more concrete form. The senior mis- 
 sionary of the Presbyterian Mission had discovered that I did not accept 
 this proposition and wrote me that the condition of their fellowship was 
 that I take my stand squarely upon "the faith once for all delivered to the 
 saints." 
 
 It seemed to me then as it does today that a "faith once for all deliv- 
 ered" was in no respect comparable to the faith growing and fructifying in 
 one's own mind. It seemed to me then, as it does today that to love God 
 with all the mind calls for the free and sincere exercise of the mind on the 
 great religious questions. Can we improve, in this very important matter, 
 on the example of Jesus? When he looked within did he not see something 
 which He was not willing to turn down? That something we call the 
 knowing-together, or conscience. PVom this region of our minds, it seems 
 to me, our best religious thoughts come. If we are loyal to them they 
 continue to come. If, for any so called reason, we refuse loyalty to them 
 they do not continue to come. 
 
 In his address to our club, last s])ring. Dr. Graham Taylor said, re- 
 garding his work, "There is no panacea." Sometimes I incline to think there 
 is. Loyalty to one's best thoughts seems to me almost good enough to be 
 called a panacea. Which of our thoughts are the best need cause us no 
 great anxiety. Csc those which seem the best. 
 
 What better than this can Robinson Crusoe on his island do? What 
 better the prisoner in his cell? 
 
 What better can they do who gather in conference over national mat- 
 ters or relations between the nations? 
 
 How else can they or we weld the nations of the world into the King- 
 dom of Heaven?
 
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