HEAT! Stifling, intense, unbearable beat!
IFE IN SOUTH CHINA seemed, particularly at this difficult season of the year, to be a fight against heat —a strenuous fight for very existence. We often tried dipping sheets in water and hanging them over the doors and windows in hopes that the air would cool a little as it came through!
t is not strange that one of the first words I learned to say in Chinese was “suet go,” meaning “ice cream,” and “ling mung suey,” meaning “iced lemonade
Besides the heat, we had to put up with the unpleasant task of examining our rooms, beds and walls, many times a day, for centipedes, reptiles, and scorpions, which flourished in abundance. Of centipedes, the natives had a great fear.
There was practically no sanitation in China— no sewers and little if any street cleaning. If a horse died in the street, it was often devoured by dogs and the bones left there to bleach. The method of fertilizing the ground was unspeakable. I s not warned, until too late, of the danger of eating lettuce, celery, tomatoes, and other vegetables and fruits uncooked.
The intense heat, combined with the filthy, unsanitary condition of the country began to tell upon our health. Malaria was raging, and we were both stricken with the dread fever in its worst form.
The memory of those days seems like a nightmare. Through the mist of fever and ague, which plagued me, I would rise from my bed and stumble across the room to care for Robert.
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Then, when he would sufficiently recover from his attack, he would come across the room to care for me!
At last we took the boat for the island of Maco, where we had been working in a new mission station, back to Hongkong. There Robert was carried on a litter up the long winding hill to the English sanitarium, built especially for missionaries, where care was given free of charge. I, who was still able to sit erect, rode on the little inclined railway.
In that hospital we were placed in separate wards. I should have loved to have been with him every moment so that we might have been a comfort to each other amid the grimness of that storm-swept mountain summit, but the strict rules of the hospital permitted only three short visiting hours a week.
The anniversary of our second year of married life was celebrated in the sanitarium by an exchange of notes carried by the kindly nurse who waited on me.
During the few visits I was permitted to make to Robert's ward, I always found his well-worn Bible—the one from which he had preached the night I felt the convicting power of God ‘on my life—to be his constant companion, It was marked from cover to cover, and his fingers were always between its pages.
Fach day he grew weaker, and seemed to feel as though his work was ended, that he had fought a good fight and finished his course.
One evening, at the end of a week in the hospital, the doctor granted me special permission to see my husband. I was grateful, little realizing the reason for that consideration — that it was to be my last visit with my loved one!
Hurrying to his side, I brushed back the hair from his hot brow. How white and thin he looked! His eyes seemed bluer and larger than I had ever seen them before. His Bible lay open on the white sheet. We talked together for awhile in whispers, and then he said:
“T wonder what in the world you would do if I weren't with you any more — if you were left alone out here?”
As I talked comfortingly, attempting to dispel the fear and doubt in his heart and mind, a gray look seemed to slowly overshadow his face. It was as though some great, gray bird had flown across the sky outside the window and thrown its shadow upon him The nurse came and said: “Come, dear. I am afraid you are wearying him.’ iood night, dear. I'll you —in the morning.” A queer lump came into my throat and I swallowed hard but answered as brightly as I could: “Good night, dear. Good night.” d “Tl see you — in the morning.” Oh, how those words have ed in my memory and cheered me! In the morning! There is going to be a morning when the sun shall rise to usher in a day in which light shall never more fade — a mornling ing when hands shall clasp again the hands of those whom we have loved long since and lost a while! Yes, there is going to dawn a bright and cloudless 1 jorning one of these days, wh there shall be n
No more pacting, no more tears, No more crying, no more fears,” for these things shall all pass away when the Lord returns — in that eternal morning
I returned to the bed in the women’s ward, and tried in vain to sleep. But sleep was far from me, and I lay for houts staring out in the darkness, listening to the irregular breathing of the other patients round about me
Outside, the wind had risen and was shrieking frantically, adding to my fear and discomfiture.
Suddenly, about midnight, I sat up in bed with a frightened start. The nurse was coming swiftly along the corridor, her starched garments swishing in the darkn I felt somehow that, passing all others, she would come to me. She did. Her hand fell upon my shoulder
“Get up quickly! Put on your slippers and kimono and come with me.” Stumbling out of bed I tremblingly endeavored to do as I was bidden, asking at the same time:
“What is it? Oh, what is it? My husband
“Don't stop to talk, dear. Just come
The next thing I remember I was walking quickly down the long, dark corridor beside the nurse. One light was burning in the distance — the light above Robert's bed. As though through a mist I saw the white-robed internes, doctor and nurses bending over him.
Then, at last, I was standing by Robert's side. I looked down upon that beloved face. He was smiling! Not at me, however, for his eyes were closed; it must have been at Jesus.
Something happened to my knees. I crumpled to the floor, as I fell I caught his hand, pressing my lips, my cheek against it and whispering brokenly, desperately:
“Oh, Robert, you wouldn't, you couldn't leave me—now!”
In a moment, however, there came the doctor's voice like a bursting shell out of the night:
“He's gone!”
"Gone? No! No!” I cried.
But it was true. It seemed for a moment that I would scream in anguish, but before the cry could leave my lips the comforting arms of the Lord had enfolded me and the scripture came to my mind:
“The Lord gave and the Lord taketh away: blessed be the name of the Lord.”
Kind hands lifted me and led me back to my room.
The sun was blazing down the next day, when I awoke from a brief and fitful slumber. The storm of the night before had outworn itself,
‘The nurse entered my room and quietly drew all the shades. I wondered why, until I heard heavy footsteps — men walking as though bearing a burden —I knew it was the body of my husband — and each footfall seemed as a stone falling on my wounded heart.
How could I stand it here, with Robert gone — friendless, penniless, tired?
The Lord was with me! We in Christ who sorrow, sorrow not as those who have no hope!
I have never ceased to marvel at the manner in which God heard and answered the prayer of my heart, even before I uttered it. Truly that scripture which says: “Before they call I will answer,” has been true in my life many times over.
The afternoon mail of that very day brought a letter from two ladies in Chicago — saints of God — which was dated one month previous and stated that the Lord had awakened them in the middle of the night saying:
“Sister Semple is in troubl sixty dollars.”
They did as they felt led by the Spirit of God, and there was the money, just when needed!
. Rise immediately and send her * One month after Robert passed away, my little daughter was born in that English hospital on the top of the mountain in Hongkong. I named her Roberta, in memory of him whom I loved so well
Six weeks later, babe in arms, I stood at the rail of the Empress of China, San Francisco bound. The money from the two sisters in Chicago paid Robert's funeral expenses, and funds which arrived following my hasty cablegram home provided the passage to the States
As the ship ploughed through the waters, however, certain matters began to perplex me.
I knew we would arrive home in winter, and here was my baby, certainly not fitted out for America’s snow and ice! She needed a thermos bottle, a bonnet and a shawl even now.
One day there came a rapping at my stateroom door. ‘Come in.’
“Madame,” a white-clad steward appeared in the doorway, a gentleman passenger who disembarked at Kobe, Japan, left this warm woolen shawl and thermos bottle which he declared he would no longer need. He thought they might be nice for your baby.
All through the trip it seemed as though there was not one thing which I needed, but the Lord quickly sent!
I was in my stateroom, only a short time later, while nearly everyone else was ashore sightseeing at Yokohama. Turning one of the baby's light bonnets over and over on my fingers, I wished I had a warmer one for her, as it was nearing Christmas time, and the weather was steadily becoming colder.
A light tap on my door, caused me to open it and look out
A beautifully gowned, sweet-faced woman held forth some. thing and said:
“Imagine finding this in Japan! Buying it for your baby made me so happy!”
It was an irresistible little bonnet of eiderdown and shellpink satin!
These people gave those little gifts not because I had asked them—which I had not—but because God had touched their hearts and shown them the need. It is always thus with the children of God; He promises and does supply their every necessity.
Upon disembarking at San Francisco, some one touched my arm. Turning, I saw the purser, He pushed an envelope into my hand and turned away with this comment and friendly smile:
“Here's something the passengers asked me to give you.”
The envelope contained sixty-seven dollars, the solution to my problem of how I should reach New York and relatives!
From San Francisco, I crossed the ferry to Oakland, and soon my train was thundering East. As I rode along, my thoughts began to keep time to the ceaseless tattoo of the clicking car wheels. “What'll you do? What'll you do? Now, what'll you do?”
Yes, what would I do? Where would I take up the broken threads of my life? This one thing I knew—God had His hand on my life, and would direct my path!