The Black-Bearded Barbarian - Mary Esther Miller MacGregor (books to read as a couple .txt) 📗

spend from four to five hours with them. And as they were very willing to talk, he not only learned their language rapidly, but also learned much about their homes, their schools, their customs, and their religion.

One day, after a lengthy lesson from his servant, the latter decided that the barbarian was unbearable, and bundling up his clothes he marched off, without so much as “by your leave.” So Mackay fell back entirely upon his little teachers on the common.

With their assistance in the daytime and his Chinese-English dictionary at night, he made wonderful progress.

He was left alone now, to get his own meals and keep the swarms of flies and the damp mold out of his hut by the riverside. He soon learned to eat rice and water-buffalo meat, but he missed the milk and butter and cheese of his old Canadian home. For he discovered that cows were never milked in Formosa. There was variety of food, however, as almost every kind of vegetable that he had ever tasted and many new kinds that he found delicious were for sale in the open-fronted shops in the village. Then the fruits! They were fresh at all seasons—oranges the whole year, bananas fresh from the fields—and such pineapples! He realized that he had never really tasted pineapples before.

Meanwhile, he was becoming acquainted. All the families of the herd-boys learned to like him, and when others came to know him they treated him with respect. He was a teacher, they learned, and in China a teacher is always looked upon with something like reverence. And, besides, he had a beard. This appendage was considered very honorable among Chinese, so the black-bearded barbarian was respected because of this.

But there was one class that treated him with the greatest scorn.

These were the Chinese scholars. They were the literati, and were like princes in the land. They despised every one who was not a graduate of their schools, and most of all they despised this barbarian who dared to set himself up as a teacher. Mackay had now learned Chinese well enough to preach, and his sermons aroused the indignation of these proud graduates.

Sometimes when one was passing the little hut by the river, he would drop in, and glance around just to see what sort of place the barbarian kept. He would pick up the Bible and other books, throw them on the floor, and with words of contempt strut proudly out.

Mackay endured this treatment patiently, but he set himself to study their books, for he felt sure that the day was not far distant when he must meet these conceited literati in argument.

He went about a good deal now. The Tamsui people became accustomed to him, and he was not troubled much. His bright eyes were always wide open and he learned much of the lives of the people he had come to teach. Among the poor he found a poverty of which he had never dreamed. They could live upon what a so-called poor family in Canada would throw away. Nothing was wasted in China. He often saw the meat and fruit tins he threw away when they were emptied, reappearing in the market-place. He learned that these poorer people suffered cruel wrongs at the hands of their magistrates. He visited a yamen, or court-house, and saw the mandarin dispense “justice,” but his judgment was said to be always given in favor of the one who paid him the highest bribe.

He saw the widow robbed, and the innocent suffering frightful tortures, and sometimes he strode home to his little hut by the river, his blood tingling with righteous indignation. And then he would pray with all his soul:

“O God, give me power to teach these people of thy love through Jesus Christ!”

But of all the horrors of heathenism, and there were many, he found the religion the most dreadful. He had read about it when on board ship, but he found it was infinitely worse when written in men’s lives than when set down in print. He never realized what a blessing was the religion of Jesus Christ to a nation until he lived among a people who did not know Him.

He found almost as much difficulty in learning the Chinese religion as the Chinese language. After he had spent days trying to understand it, it would seem to him like some horrible nightmare filled with wicked devils and no less wicked gods and evil spirits and ugly idols. And to make matters worse there was not one religion, but a bewildering mixture of three. First of all there was the ancient Chinese religion, called Confucianism.

Confucius, a wise man of China, who lived ages before, had laid down some rules of conduct, and had been worshiped ever since.

Very good rules they were as far as they went, and if the Chinese had followed this wise man they would not have drifted so far from the truth. But Confucianism meant ancestor-worship. In every home was a little tablet with the names of the family’s ancestors upon it, and every one in the house worshiped the spirits of those departed. With this was another religion called Taoism.

This taught belief in wicked demons who lurked about people ready to do them some ill. Then, years and years before, some people from India had brought over their religion, Buddhism, which had become a system of idol-worship. These three religions were so mixed up that the people themselves were not able to distinguish between them. The names of their idols would cover pages, and an account of their religion would fill volumes. The more Mackay learned of it, the more he yearned to tell the people of the one God who was Lord and Father of them all.

As soon as he had learned to write clearly, he bought a large sheet of paper, and printed on it the ten commandments in Chinese characters. Then he hung it on the outside of his door. People who passed read it and made comments of various kinds. Several threw mud at it, and at last a proud graduate, who came striding past his silk robes rustling grandly, caught the paper and tore it down. Mackay promptly put up another. It shared the fate of the first. Then he put up a third, and the people let it alone.

Even these heathen Chinese were beginning to get an impression of the dauntless determination of the man with whom they were to get much better acquainted.

And all this time, while he was studying and working and arguing with the heathen and preaching to them, the young missionary was working just as hard at something else; something into which he was putting as much energy and force as he did into learning the Chinese language. With all his might and main, day and night, he was praying—praying for one special object. He had been praying for this long before he saw Formosa. He was pleading with God to give him, as his first convert, a young man of education. And so he was always on the lookout for such, as he preached and taught, and never once did he cease praying that he might find him.

One forenoon he was sitting at his books, near the open door, when a visitor stopped before him. It was a fine-looking young man, well dressed and with all the unmistakable signs of the scholar. He had none of the graduate’s proud insolence, however, for when Mackay arose, he spoke in the most gentlemanly manner.

At the missionary’s invitation he entered, and sat down, and the two chatted pleasantly. The visitor seemed interested in the foreigner, and asked him many questions that showed a bright, intelligent mind. When he arose to go, Mackay invited him to come again, and he promised he would. He left his card, a strip of pink paper about three inches by six; the name on it read Giam Cheng Hoa. Mackay was very much interested in him, he was so bright, so affable, and such pleasant company. He waited anxiously to see if he would return.

At the appointed hour the visitor was at the door, and the missionary welcomed him warmly. The second visit was even more pleasant than the first. And Mackay told his guest why he had come to Formosa, and of Jesus Christ who was both God and man and who had come to the earth to save mankind.

The young man’s bright eyes were fixed steadily upon the missionary as he talked, and when he went away his face was very thoughtful. Mackay sat thinking about him long after he had left.

He had met many graduates, but none had impressed him as had this youth, with his frank face and his kind, genial manner. There was something too about the young fellow, he felt, that marked him as superior to his companions. And then a sudden divine inspiration flashed into the lonely young missionary’s heart. THIS WAS HIS

MAN! This was the man for whom he had been praying. The stranger had as yet shown no sign of conversion, but Mackay could not get away from that inspired thought. And that night he could not sleep for joy.

In a day or two the young man returned. With him was a noted graduate, who asked many questions about the new religion. The next day he came again with six graduates, who argued and discussed.

When they were gone Mackay paced up and down the room and faced the serious situation which he realized he was in. He saw plainly that the educated men of the town were banded together to beat him in argument. And with all his energy and desperate determination he set to work to be ready for them.

His first task was to gain a thorough knowledge of the Chinese religions. He had already learned much about them, both from books on shipboard and since he had come to the island. But now he spent long hours of the night, poring over the books of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism, by the light of his smoky little pewter lamp. And before the next visit of his enemies he knew almost more of their jumble of religions than they did themselves.

It was well he was prepared, for his opponents came down upon him in full force. Every day a band of college graduates, always headed by Giam Cheng Hoa, came up from the town to the missionary’s little hut by the river, and for hours they would sit arguing and talking. They were always the most noted scholars the place could produce, but in spite of all their cleverness the barbarian teacher silenced them every time. He fairly took the wind out of their sails by showing he knew quite as much about Chinese religions as they did. If they quoted Confucius to contradict the Bible, he would quote Confucius to contradict them. He confounded them by proving that they were not really followers of Confucius, for they did not keep his sayings. And with unanswerable arguments he went on to show that the religion taught by Jesus Christ was the one and only religion to make man good and noble.

Each day the group of visitors grew larger, and at last one morning, as Mackay looked out of his door, he saw quite a crowd approaching. They were led, as usual, by the friendly young scholar. By his side walked, or rather, swaggered a man of whom the missionary had often heard. He was a scholar of high degree and was famed all over Formosa for his great learning. Behind him came about twenty men, and Mackay could see by their dress and appearance that they were all literary graduates. They were coming in great force this time, to crush the barbarian with their