Notable Women of Modern China

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II

AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

When Miss Howe went to America on furlough in 1892, she took with her five young Chinese people, three boys and two girls; the latter, Ida Kahn and her friend, Mary Stone.Growing up in China, under singularly sheltered and happy conditions, Ida had been greatly impressed with the misery of many of her countrywomen, and early formed the purpose of becoming a physician and giving her life to the alleviation of their sufferings.Mary Stone had the same desire, and Miss Howe, coveting for them a more thorough medical education than was then available in China, took them to Ann Arbor to enter the medical school of the University of Michigan.Both girls passed the entrance examinations successfully, even to the Latin requirements; in fact their papers were among the best of all those handed in.

The four years in Ann Arbor were very busy ones. In addition to their college work, they did their own housekeeping in a little suite of rooms in the home of Mrs. Frost.She says that they excelled many American girls at housekeeping, having regular days for house-cleaning, and always keeping their reception room in good order to receive their girl friends, of whom they had many.Occasionally they even entertained their friends at a little Chinese feast.Mrs. Frost recalls that the only flaw in Ida's housekeeping was that when the girls stopped in her room, as they often did for a little visit on their way home from college, Ida would pick up a book or magazine and become so absorbed in it that she would forget all about the domestic duties awaiting her.

But in spite of college and housekeeping duties, they were not too busy to take part in the Christian work of the church which they attended. Mrs. Frost pays them the following tribute: "They were lovely Christian characters, ready to respond and assist in any Christian work where their services were solicited. While they were in Ann Arbor they assisted me in my Sunday afternoon Mission Band work with the small children of our church, singing, or offering prayer, or telling interesting stories to the little ones. On different occasions they, with the Chinese boys that came with Miss Howe at the same time, assisted me in the public entertainments given to help swell the funds of the Mission Band and raise enough to support an orphan, or for other missionary work.They were very efficient, consecrated Christians, very lovable and loving, highly respected by every one with whom they came in contact.I have very pleasant memories of our little Chinese doctors, and they have a very warm place in my heart and affections."

Both the girls won many friends among both students and faculty.Ida was elected to the secretaryship of her class in her Junior year.Their record for scholarship was so enviable that the assertion was often made, "They must either be remarkably clever, or they must have applied themselves with unusual devotion."They led their class in their Junior year, and in their Senior year were surpassed by only one student.Dr. Breakey, specialist in skin troubles, on whose staff they worked during their Senior year, speaks warmly of their earnestness and devotion to their work.Another professor said at the time of their graduation, "They will be a credit to the University of Michigan.The society which provided for their course will never regret having done so."

As their study at the University drew to a close, the young physicians received many evidences of the appreciation that was felt for the work they had done.Before commencement a reception was given them in the Methodist church of Ann Arbor, at which each of them received a case of valuable surgical instruments.Many other gifts were also showered upon them,—from medical cases, cameras, clocks, and bedquilts, to books and dainty handkerchiefs.

In order not to attract attention they had adopted American dress during their stay in Ann Arbor; but their graduation dresses were sent from China, made in Chinese style, of beautiful Chinese silk, with slippers of the same material,—Ida's blue, Mary's delicate pink. Seven hundred and forty-five students received their diplomas at that commencement, but to none was accorded the universal and prolonged applause which broke forth as the two young Chinese women stepped on the platform to take their diplomas from President Angell's hands. Even the medical faculty applauded heartily, the only time that the staff joined in the demonstrations of the audience. One who was in the audience says, "Their bearing and dignity made us very proud of them." President Angell was much interested in them and said to their friends, "Their future career will be watched with every expectation of eminent success."

The two months succeeding their graduation were spent in Chicago in hospital work, and in the autumn they sailed for China.While they were in America an old gentleman said to Ida, "I am glad you are going back to your country as a physician.Your people need physicians more than they need missionaries."The Chinese reverence for old age was too great to permit Ida to contradict him, but turning to her friends she said quietly, "Time is short—eternity is long."So it was not only as a physician, but as a regularly appointed medical missionary that she returned to China.

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III

SEVEN YEARS IN KIUKIANG

Quite a little anxiety was felt concerning the reception which the young physicians would receive from the Chinese on their return to Kiukiang. A foreign-trained Chinese woman physician had never been seen or heard of in that section of China, and, scarcely, in all China, since Dr. Hü King Eng, of Foochow, was the only other in the Empire at that time. The doctors' own friends had long been asking when they were coming back, and when at last the time arrived they had their plans all laid for welcoming them. The missionaries had some doubts as to the propriety of a public ovation to two young women, but the Chinese were so eager for it that they at last consented, and from the moment the young doctors left the steamer until they arrived at the gate of the mission compound, they were saluted with an almost continuous fusillade of fire-crackers. Of course the noise attracted curious crowds, and by the time they reached the Bund they were surrounded by a host of their townspeople who were eager to get a glimpse of the "women doctors."Some of them were heard to say, "Why, these girls are receiving more honour than was shown to our commandant when he arrived!"As the company slowly proceeded up the Bund, the missionaries were besieged with eager questions: "Are they Chinese women?""Is it true they have been studying for four years in a foreign land?""Can they heal the sick?""Will they live in Kiukiang?"When all these questions were answered in the affirmative there was a vigorous nodding of heads, and "Hao!Hao!Hao!" (Good, good!)was heard on every side.It seemed remarkable that in so dense a crowd the universal expression of face and voice indicated only favourable interest.

Shortly before the doctors arrived one of the missionaries wrote, "We are expecting 'our doctors' back this fall, and after they have several months of hospital practice in other mission hospitals in China, we hope to have a place ready for them to begin work." The doctors had expected, too, a little time for resting, and visiting with the friends whom they had not seen for so many years. Moreover it was thought that some time would have to elapse before they could gain the confidence of the people sufficiently to begin practice. But on the third day after their arrival four patients appeared and asked for treatment; on the following day the same four returned and six newcomers arrived; and so it went on, until dispensary quarters had to be hurriedly rented and regular work begun.

They had been back only about a month when they were sent for one evening to visit a woman who was in a very serious condition. On arriving at the house they found there the best known native doctor in the city, richly dressed in satin and silk, and accompanied by four chair-bearers. He had told the woman's family that he could do nothing for her, and after welcoming the young women physicians very pleasantly, he took his leave, advising the family to put the patient into their hands, saying, "They have crossed mountains and seas to study about these matters." The family wanted the doctors to guarantee that the woman would live, but they, of course, refused to do this, and after some discussion turned to go. But at that the older members of the family fell on their knees, and begged them to stay and do just whatever they thought best. Their treatment was so successful that three days later the grateful family invited them to a feast, after which they were wound about with red scarfs by the old grandmother, and presented with gifts.The entire family then escorted them home amid the explosion of many fire-crackers.

The China Medical Missionary Journal of December, 1896, in commenting upon the work of these young women, says: "They have not, up to the present time, had to endure the pain of losing a patient, although they have had several very serious cases. When that does come, as of course it must, there will doubtless be some reaction, and present faith may be changed to distrust for a time. But the most hopeful had not dreamed of their commencing work without some opposition, and that they actually sought, before making any efforts to secure patients, has been a great surprise to all. Their early success is doubtless due largely to the fact that they are back among their own people as true Chinese, and while they have gained much in culture and intellect, love and sympathy for their race have ever been present; while the ruling motive in all their efforts has been how best to prepare themselves to help their countrywomen. The native women do not stand at a distance to admire them, but familiarly take their hands and feel their clothing; and while acknowledging their superiority do not hesitate to invite them as guests to their humble homes."

Nor was the reputation of the young physicians limited to Kiukiang.At about the time of their return, the young emperor, Kwang-hsi, had issued edicts to the viceroys of the various provinces, ordering them to search out and send to Peking, young men versed in modern affairs, who could act as advisers to him.Several of these young men held a meeting in Nanking before proceeding to Peking.Two of them had heard of the young doctors just returned from America, and, on their way to Nanking, stopped at Kiukiang for the purpose of calling on them.The doctors, however, felt it wise to adopt a conservative attitude in regard to receiving calls from young men, lest their influence with the women with whom they were to work should be weakened, did they violate Chinese custom in this matter.Miss Howe therefore received the guests in their stead, answered their questions, gave them such information as they desired, and presented them with the diploma of one of the doctors.They displayed the diploma at the meeting at Nanking, where it created much interest.The son of Governor Tang of Hupeh, who was at the meeting, spoke for two hours on the desirability of educating women, and suppressing the custom of foot-binding.Then and there a society was organized in which these men pledged themselves to marry their sons only to natural-footed women, and their daughters only into families whose girls were allowed to grow up with natural feet.

At about this time, also, Chang Chih Tung, one of the most eminent and public spirited viceroys of his time, sent a representative to wait upon Miss Howe, with the request that she and the young physicians accept positions in a school which he wished to establish in Shanghai.His aim was to develop a University for women which would train women teachers, and he wished also to have a medical department in connection with it.Foot-binding concubinage, and slavery were dealt with directly in the prospectus; Sunday was to be observed as a holiday; and liberty of conscience in the matter of religion was to be allowed.While no religious books might be taught in the school, no objections were raised to religious work being done privately.When this request was brought to the Women's Conference of the Methodist Mission they passed a resolution expressing their sympathy with the proposed plan, and advising the acceptance of the positions by Miss Howe and one of the doctors, "if in the process of the development of the plans they feel it best to do so."Although as the plans developed Miss Howe and the doctors finally decided that they could be more useful in Kiukiang, the offer shows the interest felt in the work of the young physicians, even in the highest official circles.

At the close of the first year, Dr. Kahn reported:

The following year she wrote:

During that year, the second of their practice, the young physicians were able to report 90 patients treated in the hospital, 134 in homes, 3,973 in the dispensary, and 1,249 during country trips, making a total of 5,446.

Their third year was also a very prosperous one, not only in their work among the poor, but also in the number of calls which they received from the class of people who were able to give them ample compensation for their services. This money was always turned into the mission treasury by the young physicians, who also, for four years, gave their services to the Woman's Missionary Society without salary, in return for the four years of training which they had received at Ann Arbor.An interesting glimpse of the impression they made upon their fellow-workers is given by a letter from one of the missionaries written at this time: "None who know our beloved doctors, Mary Stone and Ida Kahn, can do otherwise than thank God for raising up such efficient and faithful workers.It is difficult to think of any desirable quality which these two ladies do not possess.To this their growing work gives witness."

Dr. Kahn was honoured in the latter part of the year by being appointed as the representative of the women of China to the World's Congress held in London, June, 1899.

The hearts of the doctors were gladdened during this year by the prospect of a hospital building in which to carry on their work.Early in 1900 Dr. Kahn wrote happily to Dr. Danforth, whose gifts had made the building possible:

A few months later the Elizabeth Skelton Danforth Memorial Hospital was completed; but just as they were about to occupy the new building the Boxer uprising assumed such serious proportions that all work had to be dropped, and the women were forced to leave the city.The doctors accompanied the other missionaries to Japan, and remained there for a few months; then came back to China and spent a few weeks in Shanghai, until the country had quieted down sufficiently to make it safe to return to the interior.The weeks in Shanghai were not idle ones, for they found plenty of patients to treat during their stay there.

There were many missionaries from various parts of China gathered in Shanghai at this time, and the women improved the opportunity thus afforded by the presence of so many workers for a conference on the various phases of women's work. Dr. Kahn was asked to give an address on Girl Slavery at this conference, and made a great impression by her powerful plea for the abolition of this wicked practice. Her appeal had added force because she was a Chinese woman herself, and this evil custom had come close to her life."She was my best friend in school," she said of one victim, "and her mind was as beautiful as her person.We were baptized together and she confessed to me that she would like to devote her life to Christian work, adding so sadly that she must try first to help her opium-smoking father.Where were gone her longings and aspirations when she was sold by him to be the concubine of a man sixty years of age!Surely on this eve of China's regeneration, we, the more favoured ones, must plead with all our might that all these unnatural customs shall be swept away with the last relics of our country's barbarism."

The doctors were soon able to recommence work in Kiukiang, and with their fine new hospital they worked under far more favourable conditions than heretofore.A letter from Dr. Kahn tells of their enjoyment of the new building: "It is now a pleasure to see the little crowds of women and children sitting comfortably in the easy seats of the dispensary waiting room, and to notice how they enjoy the talks of the Bible woman.In former years they were always huddled together in a dark room, or else were scattered here and there in our front yard, and the Bible woman had great difficulty to get them to listen quietly. The new drug room is a constant delight. The operating room, too, is our pride, because it is so light. The confidence which people had in our work before last year's troubles broke out, appears to revive again."

The following summer, Miss Robinson, of Chinkiang, visited the doctors in their new quarters.A letter written from their home reads: "We find them as skilful in housekeeping as in hospital-keeping, and excelling in the happy art of making their guests at home.Such all-round women are a priceless boon to their native sisters.I want to have our graduates attend the coming annual meeting in Kiukiang, improving this opportunity of bringing them in contact with the doctors, who have long since become the ideals of our school girls....Referring to the fear some native Christians have shown of sending their girls to a school having manual labour in its curriculum, Dr. Ida exclaimed hotly, 'This fear of work is the bane of China.'Here are two doctors of exalted privileges, educated abroad, honoured alike by native and foreigner, and yet putting their hand to cooking and housework of every kind, as the need may be, without a thought of being degraded thereby; a glorious object-lesson to accompany the teachings of the mission schools."

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IV

PIONEER WORK IN NANCHANG

In the first year of the young physicians' practice in China, a launch had been sent to Kiukiang by one of the high officials of Nanchang, the capital of Kiangsi province, with the request that one of the physicians should return to Nanchang in it and treat his wife, who was very ill.Dr. Kahn went, and brought the woman back to Kiukiang with her.After a few weeks under the doctors' care she returned to Nanchang completely recovered, and gave such glowing accounts of the benefit she had received that many of the wealthy ladies of the city followed her example and went to the Kiukiang hospital for treatment.

At that time no American missionary work was being done in Nanchang; but the successful treatment of the wife of the official is said to have "opened the gates to Protestant missionaries."The Methodist Mission soon established a station there, and the work grew rapidly in spite of the fact that Nanchang was not an altogether easy place in which to work. As it was in the interior and off the highway of travel, little was known of foreigners. Moreover, there was a rowdyish element of the population which was very hostile to them and everything connected with them, as Dr. Kahn had good cause to know. Soon after the work in Nanchang had been begun by their mission, she and Miss Stanton made a trip there, the latter to do evangelistic work, Dr. Kahn for medical work. Dr. Kahn shall tell the story of their experiences:

Yet it was to this city that the Christian physician's heart went out in such compassion that, for its sake, she was not only willing, but glad to leave her home in Kiukiang, the prosperous work which she had been doing in fellowship with her lifelong friend, Dr. Stone, and the beautiful new hospital to which she had long looked forward with so much eagerness.

"This old city of Nanchang with about three hundred thousand inhabitants, and surrounded by a thickly settled country, has not a single educated physician," one of her letters reads."Do you know what that means?The people realize their need and asked us to go and live among them.One of the church members offered to give us, free of charge, a piece of land situated in a fine part of the city, for either a hospital or a school lot.The pastor said he could raise $1,000 among the people if we would only begin medical work there.Do you think we ought to refuse that offer, which is a wonderful one, because the church has only just been established there?'And when they came to Jesus they besought Him instantly, saying that he was worthy for whom He should do this.'"

The people of Nanchang, both Christian and non-Christian, pleaded so eagerly for medical work, and promised to do so much toward its support, that the missionaries agreed with Dr. Kahn in feeling that a door to great opportunity was open before her, which it would be a serious mistake not to enter. Accordingly, early in 1903, she responded to what Dr. Stone termed "the Macedonian call," and began work in Nanchang.

The Woman's Foreign Missionary Society did not feel able to assume any responsibility for the financial support of the medical work in the new field, beyond that of the doctor's salary. But Dr. Kahn firmly believed that missionary work should be just as nearly self-supporting as possible; and since many of the urgent invitations from Nanchang had come from homes of wealth, she was very willing to attempt to carry on medical work there on a self-supporting basis. In an article on the subject of self-supporting medical missionary work, written for the China Medical Missionary Journal, she gave some of her reasons for believing in self-support, and her theories as to how it might be carried out.

Although the new step was taken so bravely, it was not an easy one. Some idea of the courage it required is shown by the doctor's report of her first year in Nanchang; "The very thought of making a report causes many poignant memories to rush upon us.With what hesitancy and timidity did we begin our work in the new field!Knowing our own limitations, it was not with a light heart that we began the new year.Yet," she was able to add, "as we toiled on, we could but acknowledge that we were wonderfully led along 'The Pathway of Faith.'"

Enough money was contributed by the Nanchang people to enable Dr. Kahn to rent a house in the centre of the city, in which dispensary work could be carried on, and in which she lived.They also supplied her with a small stock of drugs with which to begin work, and she treated something over two thousand patients during the first eight months.The number seemed small after the work to which she had been accustomed in Kiukiang; but she was becoming known in the city, and in addition to her patients several of the women of the city had called on her in a purely social way, many of them educated women of the official class.Dr. Kahn says of them:

As to the financial side of the work, Dr. Kahn reported: "The outlook is most promising.During the eight months I have received over $700 from the work, and as much more has been subscribed."

During the succeeding two years the work developed steadily.The number of patients treated at the close of 1905 was almost three times the number reported in 1903, and Dr. Kahn wrote, "We have tried to check the number of patients, simply because we did not feel financially able to treat so many."The rent which she had been obliged to pay for her building in the city had been a heavy burden financially.Great was her delight therefore to be able to report, at the end of this year, a new $2,000 building for dispensary purposes, the money for which had been secured partly from fees, partly from subscriptions."With the incubus of a heavy rent off our shoulders we may be able to relieve more patients, as we would wish," she wrote.

The dispensary building was not the sole cause for rejoicing that year; for in addition to it a fine, centrally located piece of land, worth $3,600, was given for a hospital site."All the assistance received has been from the gentry and not the officials, and therefore it really represents the people and we feel much encouraged by the fact," reads Dr. Kahn's report.The gentry wanted to make over the deeds of the property to the doctor.This, however, she would not permit, but insisted that they be made in the name of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Church, assuring the donors that the work would then be on a permanent basis, as it could not be if the deeds were made out in her name.

It would not have been just cause for discouragement had the work dropped off the next year; for a dispute between some French Catholic priests and the Nanchang magistrates led to such serious disturbances and bloodshed that the missionaries were obliged to flee for their lives. Dr. Kahn refused to leave her work until the last possible moment, and returned just as soon as it was at all safe to do so. At the end of the year she was able to report that although it had been necessary to close the dispensary for three months, fully as many patients had been treated in the nine months as in the twelve months of the year previous.Another gift had also been received from the gentry, a piece of land near the hospital site, on which a home for the physician was already in process of building.

During 1907 the work continued to grow steadily in scope and favour.Dr. Kahn's annual report for that year shows something of its development: "My practice has increased steadily among the foreigners and Chinese, until now we have patients come to us from all the large interior cities, even to the borders of Fuhkien.You would be surprised to know how many foreigners I treat in this out-of-the-way place.During the year we have treated over eight thousand patients.The evangelistic work among them has been better undertaken than ever before, and I am sure we shall see results in the near future.Several inquirers have been accepted, and seven women have been taken in as probationers."

Although the demands of her work in Nanchang are constant and absorbing, Dr. Kahn has never become provincial in her interest; while working with whole-hearted devotion in her own corner, she still keeps the needs of the entire field in mind.At the fifth triennial meeting of the Educational Association of China, held in Shanghai in the spring of 1905, she gave an address on "Medical Education," in which she said in part:

At the close of 1907 Dr. Kahn had been back in China for twelve years, years of arduous, almost unremitting labour; and her fellow missionaries felt that before the work on the new hospital building began she ought to have a vacation. Certainly she had earned it. Not only had she worked faithfully for seven years in Kiukiang, but she had, within the five succeeding years, established medical work in a large city, where she was the first and only physician trained in Western sciences. Assisted only by two nurses whom she herself had trained, she had kept her dispensary running the year around, all day and every day.Moreover, she had kept the work practically self-supporting, in spite of the fact that she had refused to economize by using inferior medicines, or bottles of rough glass which could not be thoroughly cleansed.She had insisted that her drugs be of the purest, and dispensed in clean, carefully labelled bottles, and had often furnished besides the food needed to build up strength.In addition to all this, she so commended herself and her work to the people of the city that in 1906 she was enabled to hand over to the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, a dispensary building and two fine building lots, to be used for a hospital and physician's home.

She was finally persuaded to go to America for a period of change and rest. "Rest" for Dr. Kahn evidently means a change of work; for she went at once to Northwestern University to take the literary course which she felt would fit her for broader usefulness among her countrywomen. Eager to get back to China she did three years' work in two, studying in the summer quarter at the University of Chicago, when Northwestern closed its doors for the vacation. In addition to her University studies, she undertook, for the sake of her loved country, a work which is peculiarly hard for her, and almost every Sunday found her at some church, telling of the present unprecedented opportunities in China.

The question may perhaps be raised as to whether days could be crowded so full and yet work be done thoroughly.But Prof. J.Scott Clark of Northwestern University said of her, at this time: "Dr. Kahn is one of the most accurate and effective students in a class of eighty-four members, most of them sophomores, although the class includes many seniors.The subject is the study of the style and diction of prominent prose authors, with some theme work.Last year Miss Kahn attained a very high rank in the study of the principles of good English style during the first semester, and in that of synonyms during the second semester.In the latter difficult subject she ranked among the very best students in a class of over three hundred members.She is very accurate, very earnest, and very quick to catch an idea.In fact she is nothing less than an inspiration to her classmates."

In the spring of 1910 Dr. Kahn was a delegate to the Conference of the World's Young Women's Christian Association held in Berlin, and from there went to London for six months of study in the School of Tropical Diseases.She had planned to return to Northwestern University to complete the work interrupted by her trip to Europe, and to receive her degree.Her work had been of so unusually high a standard, however, that she was permitted to finish her course by correspondence, and was granted her degree in January, 1911.She completed her course in the School of Tropical Diseases with high honour, and in February, 1911, she reached Nanchang, where one of her fellow-workers declares, "she is magnificent from the officials' houses to the mud huts."

The new hospital was still in process of building, but the doctor began work at once in her old dispensary, and the news of her return soon spread. In a short time she was having an average of sixty patients a day, and several operations were booked some time before the hospital could be opened. It was ready for use in the autumn and in October Dr. Kahn wrote: "The work has gone on well, and patients have come to us even from distant cities clear on the other side of Poyang Lake. The new building is such a comfort. It looks nice and is really so well adapted for the work. I would be the happiest person possible if I did not have to worry about drug bills, etc.... It is impossible to drag any more money out of the poor people.Our rich patients are very small in number when compared with the poor.Yesterday I had to refuse medicines to several people, though my heart ached at having to do so.You see I had no idea that the work would develop so fast, and things have risen in prices very much the last few years."

At the time that this letter was written the Revolution was in progress, and Nanchang, with all the rest of Central China, was in a turmoil.Because of the disturbed conditions most of the missionaries left the city, but Dr. Kahn refused to leave her work.With the help of her nurses she kept the hospital open, giving a refuge to many sufferers from famine and flood, and caring for the wounded soldiers.None of the forty beds was ever empty, and many had to be turned away.

The close of the Revolution did not, however, bring a cessation of work for the doctor.She already needs larger hospital accommodation, three times as much as she now has, one of her friends writes.But Dr. Kahn delights in all the opportunities for work that are crowding upon her; for she says, "When I think what my life might have been, and what, through God's grace, it is, I think there is nothing that God has given me that I would not gladly use in His service."

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DR. MARY STONE

I.	With Unbound Feet
II.	The Danforth Memorial Hospital
III.	Winning Friends in America
IV.	A Versatile Woman

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DR. MARY STONE

I

WITH UNBOUND FEET

On the "first day of the third moon" of the year 1873, a young Chinese father knelt by the side of his wife and, with her, reverently consecrated to the service of the Divine Father the little daughter who had that day been given them. They named her "Maiyü,"—"Beautiful Gem"—and together agreed that this perfect gift should never be marred by the binding of the little feet. It was unheard of! Even the servant women of Kiukiang would have been ashamed to venture outside the door with unbound feet, and the very beggar women hobbled about on stumps of three and four inches in length. No little girl who was not a slave had ever been known to grow up with natural feet before, in all Central or West China. That the descendant of one of the proudest and most aristocratic families of China, whose genealogical records run back without a break for a period of two thousand years, little Shih Maiyü, should be the first to thus violate the century-old customs of her ancestors, was almost unbelievable.

Even the missionaries could not credit it, not even Miss Howe, whose interest in the family was peculiarly keen, since Maiyü's mother was the first fruits of her work for Chinese women, and had ever since been working with her.To be sure Mrs. Shih had said to her, "If the Lord gives me a little daughter I shall not bind her feet."But Miss Howe had made so many efforts to induce the women and girls with whom she had worked to take off the crippling bandages, without having been successful in a single instance, that she did not build her hopes on this.One day, when calling in the home and seeing little Maiyü, then five years old, playing about the room, she remarked, "My dear Mrs. Shih, you will not make a good job of it unless you begin at once to bind little Maiyü's feet."But Mrs. Shih never faltered in the purpose which she and her husband had formed at the little girl's birth, and promptly answered, "Did I not tell you I should not bind her feet?"

The first years of Maiyü's life were unusually happy ones.Her father was a pastor in the Methodist church, and had charge of the "Converting to Holiness" chapel in Kiukiang; her mother was successfully conducting a day school for girls. From her mother Maiyü received much of her earliest instruction and before she was eight years old she had studied several of the Chinese classics and memorized the Gospel of Matthew and the catechism in Chinese so thoroughly that she has never forgotten them.

But as she approached the age when custom required that her feet should be bound, the little girl discovered that the way of the pioneer is not an easy one.The unbound feet were a constant source of comment and ridicule, not only by older people, but by other children as well.She was stopped on her way to school one day by an older girl, who taunted her with her "big feet" and refused to let her pass unless she would kneel down and render obeisance to her own bandaged stumps.The small descendant of the proud house of Shih absolutely refused to submit to such humiliation; but it was only after her mother's assistance had been invoked that she was allowed to proceed on her way.

Relatives and friends protested vigorously against such apparent indifference to their daughter's future on the part of her parents."You will never be able to get a mother-in-law for her," they declared.Mr. and Mrs. Shih felt, no doubt, that this was true; for who could have then prophesied that the time would so soon come in conservative old China when young men would not only be willing to marry girls with natural feet, but would decidedly prefer them!Maiyü's father and mother never reconsidered their decision that their daughter should grow to womanhood with natural feet; but they did try to devise some plan by which her life might be a useful and happy one, even though she might never enjoy the blessing of a mother-in-law.They were very much impressed with the service which Dr. Kate Bushnell was rendering the suffering women and children of Kiukiang, and when Maiyü was eight years old her father took her to Dr. Bushnell and announced, "Here is my little girl.I want you to make a doctor of her."

This was almost as startling as the unbound feet!A Chinese woman physician was unknown and undreamed of.But this young father's faith in the possibilities of Chinese womanhood was not to be discouraged.The necessity of general education, preliminary to medical training, was explained, and Maiyü was put in charge of Miss Howe, then at the head of the Girls' Boarding School of the Methodist Mission. In this school she spent most of the next ten years of her life, studying in both Chinese and English, and fitting herself under Miss Howe's direction for her medical course.

In 1892, Maiyü and her friend, Ida Kahn, accompanied Miss Howe to America, there to receive the medical education for which they had long been preparing.If America held much that was new and interesting to them, it was no less true that they were something new and very interesting to America."What makes these girls look so different from the other Chinese women who come here?"the Government official who examined their passports asked Miss Howe."All the difference between a heathen and a Christian," was her prompt response.

That there were Chinese girls who could successfully pass the entrance examinations to the medical department of the University of Michigan, in arithmetic, algebra, rhetoric, general and United States history, physics, and Latin, was a revelation to the people of America, and their college career was watched with the greatest interest.

While in Ann Arbor, Maiyü took pity on the professors who found it so difficult to pronounce her Chinese name, and decided to use the English translation of it, Mary Stone, during her stay in America.Accordingly one morning when the professor started to call on her, she announced, "I have decided to change my name, professor."The burst of laughter with which the class greeted this simple statement was most bewildering to her; but after she had seen the joke she often declared that she was "one of the products of Christianity, an old maid," for, as she pointed out, an unmarried woman is practically unknown among non-Christians.

During her medical course Mary became more strongly impressed than ever before with the evils of foot-binding.Her mother's feet had, of course, been bound in childhood, and although Mrs. Stone had never bound the feet of any of her daughters, she had not unbandaged her own.For she said that if she also had unbound feet people would say: "Oh, yes, she must be from some out-of-the-way place where the women do not bind their feet, and so she does not know how to bind the feet of her daughters.That accounts for such gross neglect."On the other hand, she reasoned that if she herself had the aristocratic "golden lily" feet, it would be evident that her failure to bind her daughters' feet was due to principle.But while Mary was pursuing her medical studies she became convinced that the time had come when her mother ought to register a further protest against the harmful custom, by unbandaging her own feet, and wrote urging her to do so.Mrs. Stone readily agreed to this.Moreover, at the annual meeting of the Central China Mission in 1894, when a large mass-meeting was held for the discussion of foot-binding, she ascended the platform and in a clear voice, which made every word distinctly heard to the remotest corner of the large chapel hall, told why she had never before unbound her feet, and why she was now about to do so.Her husband was so in sympathy with her decision that later in the meeting he added a few words of approval of the course she had taken.The last shoes worn before the unbinding, and the first after it, were sent to Ann Arbor to the daughter who had so long been a living exponent of the doctrine of natural feet.

After four years at the University of Michigan, during which she and her friend, Dr. Ida Kahn, had won the respect and friendship of both faculty and students by their thorough work, Dr. Stone went to Chicago for the summer, in order to attend the clinical work in the hospitals there. It was at this time that she met Dr. I. N. Danforth of that city, who was ever afterward her staunch friend.He was about to leave for Europe, but found time before his departure to introduce Dr. Stone to many of the Chicago physicians and hospitals.He says: "She won the hearts of all with her charming ways, and got everything she wanted.When I took her to clinics she would often not be able to see at first, being such a little woman; but the first thing I knew she would be right down by the operating table.The doctors would always notice her, and seeing that she couldn't see would open up and let her down to the front."After what Dr. Danforth considered a thorough clinical training, including visits to practically all the good hospitals in Chicago, Dr. Stone sailed for China with Dr. Kahn, reaching there in the autumn of 1896.

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II

THE DANFORTH MEMORIAL HOSPITAL

On their return to China, Dr. Stone and Dr. Kahn received a most enthusiastic welcome from the Chinese.It had been expected that it would be necessary for them to spend the first few months in overcoming prejudices and gradually building up confidence.But on the contrary, patients appeared the third day after their arrival, and kept coming in increasing numbers, until in December it became necessary to rent dispensary quarters and rebuild a Chinese house to serve as a hospital.Dr. Stone reported in July, 1897, that since October of the preceding year, she and Dr. Kahn had treated 2,352 dispensary patients, made 343 visits, and had thirteen patients in their little hospital, besides spending a month in Nanking visiting the hospitals there.

The following year the little hospital was presented with what was probably its first, though by no means its last, "merit board." One of Dr. Stone's letters gives an account of this event:

As the fame of the young physicians grew and their practice steadily increased, they found themselves greatly hampered by lack of a proper building in which to carry on their work.In 1898 Dr. Stone wrote back to America: "Our tiny hospital is crammed full.An observer might think that we carried home but a slight idea of hygiene.Our hospital measures on the outside 28 by 21 at Chinese feet (our foot is one inch longer than yours) and we have been compelled to crowd in twenty-one sleepers.The building being so small and not protected from the heat of the sun by any trees or awnings, by evenings it is fairly an oven, which is certainly not a very desirable place for sick people.We are looking forward all the time for signs or signals from the women of America to build our new hospital, but not a letter comes to bring us this kind of message.Still we are thankful for the hope of building some time."

This hope was realized almost at once, largely through the generosity of the friend Dr. Stone had made in Chicago, Dr. I. N. Danforth, who felt that no more fitting memorial could be erected to his wife than a hospital for Chinese women and children. Dr. Stone and Dr. Kahn drew their own plans and sent them to Chicago, where they were perfected in every detail by an architect of that city, and sent back to Kiukiang with the necessary specifications and instructions.These plans were carried out to the letter and in 1900 an airy, grey brick building, finished with white granite and limestone, plentifully supplied with comfortable verandas, and bearing over its pillared entrance the name, "Elizabeth Skelton Danforth Memorial Hospital," was ready for occupancy.But on the very day that the furniture was moved in, the American consul advised all foreign women and children to leave Kiukiang immediately.The other missionaries were so unwilling to leave the young doctors to face the possible dangers from the Boxers alone, that they finally prevailed upon them to go to Japan with them.

The hospital escaped any injury, however, and in her report for 1900, Dr. Stone said: "Our new hospital is a comfort and constant inspiration to us in our work.We were indeed grateful, after half a year's enforced exile, to come home and find it intact and ready for use....During six months there have been 3,679 dispensary patients, 59 in-patients, and 414 visits."

The hospital was formally opened on the seventh of December, 1901, during the annual meeting of the Central China Methodist Mission, held that year at Kiukiang. The North China Daily Herald gives the following account of this interesting occasion:

THE OPENING OF A MODEL HOSPITAL IN KIUKIANG

Dr. Stone, describing the opening of the hospital to Dr. Danforth, wrote, "The Chinese were very much impressed with your way of commemorating your wife."Dr. Kahn added that one of the highest officials, who was being shown through the building, signified his approval by emphatically declaring, "It would make any one well merely to stay in such a pleasant place."

As a matter of fact, work had been carried on in the new building for some time before the formal opening. It had been ready for occupancy none too soon, for in the summer of 1901, the Yangtse River overflowed its banks, working great havoc among the crops and homes of the people living near it. Dr. Stone wrote Dr. Danforth: "Tens of thousands have been rendered homeless and destitute. Some of them are literally starved to death. The sick and hungry flock to our gates, and for several months we have had over a thousand visits each month to our dispensary." Some idea of the part which the hospital played in relieving the sufferings of the flood refugees is given by an article in Woman's Work in the Far East, written by Dr. Stone at about this time:

This was only one of many cases of need which the hospital sought to alleviate.A few days after Christmas of this year Dr. Stone wrote to a friend in America: "What a busy time we had getting ready to celebrate the joyful event!We gave a good square meal to the refugees, and let them take home what they could not finish here.It made me feel happy to see them so pleased, and gave us an opportunity to tell them of the greatest Gift to mankind.Although we were so rushed that we did not even sit together to eat our regular meals, yet we felt it was the happiest Christmas we have ever had."

In addition to the refugees larger numbers of regular patients than ever before were coming to the doctors for treatment.The new hospital had hardly been opened before Miss Howe wrote, "Patients who are able to bear their own expenses are being sent away, because the present accommodations are already overtaxed."

Just at this time, when the doctors' growing reputation, and the increased facilities which the new buildings afforded, were greatly enlarging both opportunity and responsibility, the question of Dr. Kahn's going to Nanchang to open medical work there arose.It is not surprising that at first Dr. Stone wondered how she could spare her friend and fellow-worker, now that the work was greater than ever before, and every indication pointed to large growth in the future.But when she became convinced that the opportunity at Nanchang was too great to be neglected, and that only Dr. Kahn could meet it, she bade her God-speed and cheerfully accepted the added burden thus laid upon her.

Left alone with the entire work in Kiukiang, Dr. Stone's hands were full indeed, as the answer which she gave to a request for a synopsis of her day's work shows: "We breakfast at half-past seven and then I go to the chapel in the hospital and conduct prayers for the inmates and patients able to attend. After prayers I make a general inspection of the hospital, and then I teach my class of nurses. I take young native girls in their teens and give them a thorough course of training such as they would get in America.I translate the English books into Chinese for them, and sometimes put the Chinese books into English too.Then I go to the dispensary and am busy there for hours....In the afternoons I make calls, generally on women of rank who need my assistance and have been unable to get to the hospital.I return home only when here seems no further work for me that day."

So far from decreasing in number after the medical force had been lessened by half, the stream of patients became larger than ever.A few weeks after Dr. Kahn had gone, Dr. Stone said, in a letter to Dr. Danforth: "For a long time I have been wanting to write to you, but have been so pressed with work that I had to let my correspondence suffer.Now I find that I must write to you to let you know how crowded we are already, at this season when we generally have a scarcity of patients, as it is Chinese New Year.Now that our work is better known we seem to draw a better class of people.I don't mean very rich people, but the well-to-do, thrifty class, who earn their way by labour.Just now I have to accommodate seven private patients who are paying their own way, with only two private rooms at my disposal.So what do you think I do? I had to put one in our linen room, one in the sewing room, one in a bathroom, and finally, as a last resort, we had to put one in the nurses' dining-room.... We generally have to put patients on the floor in summer, but I am afraid we will not have enough room to accommodate more even on the floor."

Dr. Stone's dispensary patients soon averaged a thousand a month, and as the people's confidence grew, her surgical work also became much heavier. In 1906 she reported: "In looking over the record for the year we realize that we have advanced decidedly in gaining confidence with the people. Tai-tais (ladies of rank) who formerly refused operations, returned to us for help."

Often her work kept her busy far into the night and she not infrequently fell asleep from sheer exhaustion as she was carried home, in her sedan chair, from some difficult case in the country.Yet her work was well done.The tribute of a fellow-missionary was well deserved: "Dr. Stone is a tower of strength in herself and with her trained assistants carries the large work here nobly.She has been eminently successful in surgical cases and is having more and more to do in this line."Another, working in a different station, wrote, "It was my happy fortune to be the guest of another ideal Chinese woman, Dr. Mary Stone, at Kiukiang. I saw her in her model hospital, where every little wheel of the complicated machinery was adjusted to perfect nicety."

As the work grew, it became evident that larger accommodations would soon be imperative, and Dr. Stone succeeded in securing some additional land.The first addition was a lot which she had long desired to enclose within the hospital grounds.For some time she was unable to do this because of a road which ran between, but in 1905 the road was moved to the other side of the lot, at her petition, and the land was included within the hospital compound."Most of the neighbours have been patients and are friendly," one of her letters reports."When the magistrate came to see about moving the road to the other side of the lot only one man objected.He was soon pacified by the magistrate's remark that 'the hospital here is for the public good, and when it is in our power to do it a service, we should gladly do it.'" Another piece of land was purchased during the same year, by money raised entirely from the Chinese.

The next addition greatly delighted Dr. Stone's heart. Adjoining the hospital was a temple known as "The White Horse Temple."This was so close to the hospital that it made one of the wards on that side damp and dark, and, moreover, the noisy crowds of people who thronged it, and the beating of the temple gongs, made it a most undesirable neighbour for a hospital.Immediately after the annual meeting at which Dr. Stone had been enabled to report the purchase of the other lots, a cablegram came from America with the good news that $1,000 had been secured for the purchase of the temple and the lot on which it stood.Purchasing a temple is quite sure not to be an easy task, but in spite of many hindrances Dr. Stone succeeded in securing the lot and in making what she gleefully termed "a real Methodist conversion" of the temple into an isolation ward.

In 1896 Dr. Stone had landed in China and with Dr. Kahn begun medical work in a small, rented Chinese building.In 1906 she found herself in sole charge of a large, finely equipped hospital for women and children, with a practice which was increasing so rapidly as to make constant additions to the hospital property necessary.

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III

WINNING FRIENDS IN AMERICA

In 1907, after eleven years of almost unceasing labour, during four of which she had carried the growing work at Kiukiang entirely alone, except for the help of the nurses whom she herself had trained, Dr. Stone reluctantly laid down her beloved work for a few months.During the winter of 1906 she had a severe attack of illness which she herself diagnosed as appendicitis, and for which she directed treatment which brought her relief.But renewed attacks finally convinced her and her friends that she must submit to an operation if her life was to be saved.It was decided that she should go to an American hospital, for as a fellow physician located at another station of the mission wrote, "We all have a very high regard for her and her work, and wanted her to get the best that could be had."Moreover, it was a good opportunity to get her "away from China for a much-needed change and rest."

Accordingly Dr. Stone, accompanied by her friend, Miss Hughes of the Kiukiang mission, sailed from Shanghai, February 9.President Roosevelt, who was acquainted with her work and knew of her serious condition, had a telegram sent to the Commissioner of Immigration at San Francisco, giving instructions that the Chinese physician be admitted with no delay or nerve strain.She was therefore passed at once, with all consideration and all possible help.

From San Francisco Dr. Stone went straight to the Wesleyan Hospital in Chicago, that she might be under Dr. Danforth's care.The operation was entirely successful, and early in April, less than a month after reaching America, she was sufficiently recovered to take the trip to Miss Hughes' home in New Jersey, where she was to rest for a few weeks.

Complete rest, however, was an impossibility to Dr. Stone, even during her convalescence, so long as there was any service she could render. Two weeks after her arrival Miss Hughes wrote Dr. Danforth that "our little doctor" was accompanying her to several of the meetings which she was addressing, and was "making friends right and left for her work." Boxes of instruments, pillows, and spreads for the hospital beds, a baby organ for the hospital, the support of a nurse, and other useful things were being promised by these new friends."Her smiling face, with no word from her even, is a wonderful revelation to people who judge the Chinese by the putty-faced laundrymen, the only specimen of China they have ever seen," said Miss Hughes.Dr. Stone spent the month of May in New York, attending lectures and clinics in the hospitals there.As she was starting for Chicago at the end of May, she wrote Dr. Danforth:

Thus did the indefatigable little doctor take the "much-needed rest" of which her friends in China had written.That she did make the most of her two weeks is testified to by Mrs. Danforth, who visited many of the hospitals with her, and who says: "In visiting the hospitals she never missed a thing.She saw everything—nothing escaped her notice, not even the laundries.She was always keenly alert for every idea that would improve her hospital."

On her way back to the East, Dr. Stone stopped at Ann Arbor, for she was eager to revisit her "dear old campus," and the faculty under whom she had taken her medical work."We had a lovely time in Ann Arbor," she said in writing to a friend."Dr. Breakey, in whose home we stayed, arranged a meeting, or reception, where I saw most of my old professors.Then in the parsonage we met all the ladies of our church.Next day I had a meeting in the church."

The next few months were filled with almost incessant labour, chiefly speaking and making friends for her work. The cordial responses which she met everywhere never became an old story to Dr. Stone and her letters are full of enthusiastic accounts of them. "Here at Silver Bay, a society wants to support a missionary and we hope to find the missionary to-night.The first was yesterday's work and the second we hope to gain to-day."Again, "Last night on the car we met a gentleman whom I know through my sister Anna, and after a few minutes' talk he wants to give me his camera, 5x7, for hospital work.Isn't that splendid?"Or, "This morning we went into a flower-seed store and what do you suppose the proprietor did but to give us the seeds, a big list of all kinds we wanted, and then offered to add a few more varieties.We are having lots of fun here."

Dr. Stone met with no less enthusiasm in public meetings than in her contact with individuals.One of her hostesses tells of her remarkable success in arousing genuine interest in her work: "She spoke at churches very often while she was with us, and not once did she fail to get what she asked for.She did not ask for things in general but for definite things,—pillows for the beds, lamps for the gateway, etc. She is irresistible."

The same friend tells of the glee with which Dr. Stone, whose English is perfect, delighted to learn modern slang phrases. After practising them in the bosom of the family she would sometimes innocently introduce them into her addresses, invariably bringing down the house thereby.At one meeting, after telling a most remarkable story, she remarked, "You may think this is a whopper, but it is true!"

Reports of the meetings at which she spoke contain such items as this: "The pastor of St. James Church offered to duplicate all money given in the collection when Miss Hughes and Dr. Stone spoke. Six hundred and eighty-two dollars was the result. A gentleman present offered one hundred dollars for a speech from Dr. Stone in his church. The speech was made and one hundred and eighty-two dollars put in the treasury." Other items read: "At the district meeting a new auxiliary came into being in —— Church. No one could resist Dr. Mary Stone's persuasive tones as she went up and down the aisles asking, 'Won't you join?' She told the people how much she needed a pump in Kiukiang and forthwith the pump materialized." The New York Herald gave a long and enthusiastic report of her work, ending with the words: "'Am I not fortunate? And I am so grateful to be able to help a little!' is the modest way she sums up a work of magnitude sufficient to keep a corps of medical men busily employed."

Everywhere this little Chinese woman made friends.The words of one of her hostesses are emphatic: "She was in our home for a month, and she is one of the most attractive women of any race I have ever met.She is so charming that she wins her way everywhere.""She is so gracious and cordial," said another."She came into our family just as a member of it.I was not very well at the time and she gave me massage every night.Her whole life and her whole interest is in doing for others.And the wonderful thing about her is her ability to do so much.""No missionary that we have is more greatly loved," is the verdict of another.

Dr. Stone greatly enjoyed her stay in America."Dr. Danforth called my appendix 'that blamed thing,'" she said."I call it that blessed thing, because it brought me to this country and people have been so kind to me."But she was eager to return to Kiukiang, and early in September was on her way back to China, rejoicing in renewed health and new friends for her work, and in the many gifts which were going to make that work more efficient.

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IV

A VERSATILE WOMAN

Chief among the gifts which Dr. Stone received for her work while in America, was the entire sum of money needed to build another wing to the hospital. The need of this wing had been felt for years, for the hospital had become crowded as soon as it was opened. Dr. Stone's ingenuity had been taxed to the utmost to enlarge the capacity of the original buildings, by putting patients into rooms designed for far different purposes, and even partitioning off sections of the halls for them. Still many whom she longed to take in had to be turned away. Many times it had seemed as if the much-needed addition were almost a reality. But the money would not be quite sufficient; or the contractors could not be secured; or prices of building material would rise and the cost would prove to be double that originally estimated; it seemed as if the wing were too elusive ever to materialize. On her return to Kiukiang work on the new wing was commenced, and it was finished the following autumn.This addition practically doubled the hospital work, and Miss Hughes wrote that Dr. Stone was in "the seventh or seventeenth heaven over it all."

At the same time that the new wing was being built, a little bungalow was erected in the hills behind the city, where children with fevers could be sent to escape the intense heat of the summer months in Kiukiang."The Rawling Bungalow is finished and the children are all up there for the summer," Dr. Stone wrote in 1908."I know you will be delighted at this annex to the hospital.Of course it is only a bungalow ...but it is a blessed relief to have this place to which to send the sick little ones and those who otherwise would be left to suffer here all summer."

As soon as the masons had finished their work on the new wing of the hospital they began on another new building just beside it; a home for the doctor and Miss Hughes, also a gift from friends in America. That, too, was completed by the end of 1908, and during Chinese New Year, a time when the hospital work was less pressing, Dr. Stone and Miss Hughes took a trip to Shanghai to buy furniture for it. It is easy for one who saw the doctor then to imagine the keenness with which she noticed every detail in the American hospitals, for while visiting in the homes of friends in Shanghai nothing escaped her quick eye. Miss Hughes' attention was constantly called to things that pleased the doctor's taste by her often reiterated, "Look here! We must have this in our home." "Miss Hughes and I shall try to make our home so homey," she wrote to a friend, "and we shall open it for everybody, the everyday, common folks as well as the Tai-tais."

The next addition to the hospital property was a home for the nurses, money for which had been pledged during Dr. Stone's stay in America.As soon as the funds were sent out building was commenced, and in March, 1909, the nurses moved into their new home.The accommodations of the hospital were thus enlarged still further, and moreover the nurses had a far more restful environment in which to spend the hours when they were off duty.

One who met Dr. Stone in America spoke of the great impression made upon her by the doctor's ability to do many things.The demands upon the physician in entire charge of the large Danforth Memorial Hospital are indeed many and varied, but Dr. Stone has proved equal to them all.

She is a good general practitioner.Probably the best proof of this is the number of patients who throng the hospital gates.In 1908 she reported, "Last month we saw over 1,700 people in the hospital and dispensary, and in April we saw over 1,800."A year later she wrote, "Taking the statistics for last month I found we treated 2,743 in the month of April."Her successful treatment of the most difficult diseases is all the more remarkable to one who knows the tendency of many Chinese not to consult a physician until the patient is at the point of death.Their utter lack of knowledge of the simplest rules for the care of the sick, and the dreadful surroundings in which so many of them live, produce, in those who are brought to the doctor after long weeks of suffering, conditions which are almost too terrible to describe.

The words of a fellow-missionary throw light on the difficult character of Dr. Stone's work:

Dr. Edward C.Perkins, who visited Dr. Stone for several days, lays similar emphasis on the serious condition in which the doctor finds those who apply to her for treatment."The cases which came to the dispensary were sorely in need of help.This was, I think, the invariable rule.Such cases they were as do not often come to the observance of physicians in this country, and some familiarity with the dispensaries of four of the large hospitals in New York City, has almost failed to show such need as the little doctor sees continually."

No physician in China can be a specialist. One of Dr. Stone's letters shows the variety of diseases which she is called upon to treat. "Women come to us almost dead; paralyzed, blind, and helpless.... We have in the isolation wards, measles; and in the contagious rooms, locked up, leprosy; an insane woman locked up in her room; typhoid, tuberculosis, paralyzed women and children, ulcer cases such as you would never dream of, surgical cases of all kinds, and internal cases too numerous to mention."

A letter from a Kiukiang missionary tells of one woman who came to the hospital with "not a square inch of good flesh on her entire body."Fingers and toes were so diseased as to be dropping off, and the poor woman's suffering was unspeakable.Dr. Stone put her in isolation, and taking every precaution with gloves and antiseptics, herself washed and dressed the repulsive sores, in spite of the sufferer's protests, "Oh, doctor, don't touch me.I am too filthy for your pure hands to touch."This she did every day, until, her sores completely healed, the woman was discharged from the hospital a few weeks later.

Hon.Charles M.Dow of Jamestown, N.Y., who was taking a trip around the world, met Bishop Lewis on a Yangtse-kiang steamer, and was invited by him to stop off at Kiukiang to make the acquaintance of a remarkable surgeon of that city.Great was Mr. Dow's astonishment when the surgeon appeared and proved to be "a small and very attractive native Chinese woman."

Dr. Stone is so small that she has to stand on a stool to reach her operating table; but Dr. Danforth's testimony is that she is performing the largest operations known to surgery, and that no Chicago surgeon is doing work superior to hers.Moreover she has no fellow physicians to assist her in her surgical work.The most delicate operations, for which an American surgeon would call in the assistance of brother physicians, internes, and the most expert of graduate nurses, are performed by Dr. Stone entirely unaided except for the faithful nurses whom she has herself trained.Only at rare intervals does she receive a visit from a fellow physician such as Dr. Perkins of New York, who, in an interesting account of his stay at Kiukiang, tells of performing his first major operation "in her operating room and under her direction."

At first the people were afraid to submit to operations, but the doctor's marked success with those who permitted her to operate soon overcame their fear.The results of her skilful use of the knife have been most marvellous to them.That a young woman of over twenty, who could not be betrothed because of a hare lip reaching into the nose, with a projection of the maxillary bone between the clefts, could be successfully operated on and transformed into a marriageable maiden, seemed nothing short of miraculous.Nor was it less wonderful to them that an old woman could, by an operation, be relieved of an abdominal tumor from which she had suffered for sixteen years, and which, when removed, weighed fifty-two pounds."The people appreciate surgery more and more," reads one of Dr. Stone's recent letters."A lot of the tuberculosis patients who have seen the quick results from operations want me to operate on their lungs."

Another large department of Dr. Stone's work has been the training of her nurses.This has been an absolute necessity, for, as Dr. Stone said: "When I found I had to run a hospital with accommodations for 100 beds, and an out-patient department with sometimes 120 patients a day, I at once found I had to multiply myself by training workers.These workers I selected from various Christian schools with good recommendations as to qualifications.I do not dare to take into training any one who has failed as a teacher or in any line of work, because nursing is an art still in its embryo.To succeed in this profession one must not only know how to read and write, but also know arithmetic and some English."

The course of study which Dr. Stone gives her nurses is about the same as that prescribed by the regular training schools, or hospitals, in America.To do this she has had to translate several English text-books into Chinese for the use of her students.The reliable and efficient nurses who have completed the course and are now her trusted assistants in all her work, have amply repaid her for all the time and labour she has expended upon this part of her work.

In an article on "Hospital Economics" she speaks of the efficient service of these nurses:

"Dr. Stone is multiplying herself many-fold by her splendid training of nurses in the Kiukiang hospital," is the verdict of Mrs. Bashford, wife of the Methodist Missionary Bishop of China.She has watched Dr. Stone's work with keen and intelligent interest, and her opinion seems to be justified by the results.When after weeks of unusual strain Dr. Stone was persuaded to take a short vacation in the mountains back of Kiukiang, her corps of fourteen nurses, five of them graduates, kept up the work of the hospital, and treated about eighty patients a day in the dispensary.Twice, in answer to telegrams, Dr. Stone returned to Kiukiang, only to find each time that everything had been done to her entire satisfaction."Were it not for the efficient help I have from my nurses, I should not be able to manage this work at all," she says.

Doubtless one great reason for Dr. Stone's success in raising up efficient workers is her confidence in them, and her sympathetic attitude toward them."I believe many a valued worker is lost to her profession through lack of sympathy and encouragement when needed," she once said."Surely the Lord values the workers as well as His work, and we who want our work to prosper cannot afford to ignore the interests of those upon whom we depend so largely for success."

The nurses in turn have a pride in the hospital as great as the doctor's own, and are as devoted to it."The nurses are fine in standing up for our standard of cleanliness," Dr. Stone wrote to a fellow-physician."For instance, when this patient came (a very poor woman) the nurses got hold of her, bathed her, and put her in our clean, white clothes and tucked her away in one of these clean white beds in no time....She begged to keep the bandages on her bound feet.'No,' the nurses said, 'such dirty bandages in our clean bed!No!'"

Writing to Dr. Danforth of her first graduating class, Dr. Stone said: "You may ask if they are going to run away and earn large sums for themselves. No, they are going to stay and help me in the hospital work, or earn money for the hospital.You see, I assign each one to a department of work, and she is the head-nurse of that department.Then by turn I send them out to do private nursing, and the sums they earn are turned into the hospital for caring for the poor who cannot help themselves.Mrs. Wong is nursing Mrs. B—— of our own mission at Nanking, and when she comes back Miss Chang will be sent to Wuhu to nurse a lady of another mission.Dr. Barrie, of Kuling, has written to me to engage several for the new hospital at Kuling for foreigners during this summer season.I told him I could accommodate him because I have three other classes in training....The spirit has been most beautiful among the nurses.Many of them take their afternoon 'off duty' to do evangelistic work in the homes of patients."

The well-trained corps of nurses is one of the most convincing testimonies to that of which the whole hospital is a proof—the administrative ability of the physician in charge.No detail of a well-managed hospital, from the record files and wheel stretchers to the hand-power washing machine, is neglected.Nevertheless the hospital is conducted with true economy.Dr. Stone defines economy as "the art which avoids all waste and extravagance and applies money to the best advantage.It is not economy to buy cheap furniture that has to be replaced all the time.It is poor economy to buy cheap food and let patients suffer for lack of nourishment....It is poor economy to use cheap drugs and drug your patient's life out.It is poor economy to use wooden beds and have to patronize Standard Oil to keep them clean.It is also poor economy not to use sheets and thin quilts, instead of the heavy comfortables the Chinese have, just in order to save the heavy washing and disinfection.It is poor economy to have cheap servants who can do nothing.With trained workers to look after instruments, instead of having to depend on servants, I find instruments last longer."As a result, the universal testimony of those who visit the hospital is, "Dr. Stone has one of the finest hospitals we have ever seen."

From the outset the doctor's ideal has been to make the medical work as largely self-supporting as possible.Of course many of those most in need of medical aid could pay nothing for it, nor for their medicines, nor even, if they were in-patients, for their food.Others, however, could pay something, and still others were able to pay in full.Soon after work in the Danforth Hospital was begun, Dr. Stone wrote: "Our ordinary charge for food is sixty cash a day or two dollars per month.For private rooms they pay ten to twenty dollars, according to the kind of room they have.Occasionally we meet some generous Chinese who give freely and thus help a great deal our poor patients, some of whom cannot even pay for their rice.For instance, one man has paid three hundred dollars this year for his wife, who is still here for treatment, and will probably give more when she is through.Another man has given one hundred and forty dollars for his wife's treatment.Last quarter we received over four hundred dollars, and this quarter over five hundred dollars here.We are getting to have more of the well-to-do patients."

A letter written in 1905 tells of ways in which the Chinese assist the hospital financially: "It has been my privilege to minister unto many of this poor class of people with the fees I receive from the rich. So often I find in the morning I earn a good fee, and in the evening I spend it on a very poor case. Lately I have been sending a subscription book around. I first sent it to the highest official here, and it was immediately returned with fifty dollars. It encouraged me very much, for I know the work is approved of by the officials and the common people, and they are both helping all they can." Once she reported that at a time when the financial outlook was unusually discouraging, an unknown non-Christian Chinese sent a messenger several hundred li with a gift of money to relieve the situation.

Patients who cannot afford to pay anything, but who can use their hands, are given sewing to do, and in this way make some contribution toward the expenses of the work.The nurses, too, who have received training from the hospital, either give their services or the money which they receive from private cases.Thus, in various ways, many of the running expenses are met on the field, but as so much work is done for the poor, the physician's salary and the larger part of the equipment have come from friends in America.

Even in the interior of China, and in the midst of the most active of lives, Dr. Stone has never ceased to be a student. Early in her work she wrote to a friend in America who was also a physician, "We feel that in order to keep up in our profession we need occasionally some of the latest works, especially since medical science is one of the most progressive of all." Subsequent letters are full of commissions such as, "I need an English and Latin dictionary very much in the work.Will you buy one—a good one—for me?""Will you kindly buy Hyde's work on 'Venereal Diseases,' not on Skin, for I have that."Or "I should like very much to have a work on Hygiene.You know the Chinese have such primitive ideas on that subject, and if I can get a good standard book I can pick out and translate for the benefit of the people.Then if there is still anything left, I would like a small book on bandaging and massage, for I want to train new nurses.Occasionally, when you see something new and well-tested, such as articles you think will help my work, especially anything on tuberculosis, cholera, hydrophobia, etc., etc., just remember the back number in China, won't you?"

With keen recognition of the inestimable value which her scientific study and training have been to her in her work, Dr. Stone has never failed to remember the great Source of motive and power, and has ever been eager to share with her patients the joy and peace of the Christian religion.Every morning she conducts a service in the hospital chapel for the employees of the hospital, and such of the patients as are able to attend.At the same time the nurses are holding a similar service in the ward upstairs.While the dispensary patients are waiting their turn in the examining room, one or more Bible women utilize the time by telling them the truths of Christianity.Dr. Stone's own mother has done such work for years, morning after morning, among her daughter's dispensary patients.

One of the other missionaries at Kiukiang tells of going through the hospital one evening, as the nurses were getting the patients settled for the night.She noticed a low murmur which she did not at first understand, until she saw that at every bed someone was in prayer.Here a mother was kneeling by the side of her little suffering son; there another mother of high rank was praying that the life of the baby by whose crib she knelt might be spared to her.In one corner a woman had crept out of bed and was kneeling with her face to the floor; in other places those who were too sick to leave their beds were softly praying in them.

The nurses are all Christian women, able to minister to the spiritual as well as the physical.Dr. Perkins says of them: "The nurses, too, are strongly evangelistic in their thought and effort, and even to one who could not understand the language, the atmosphere of Christian harmony and the remarkable lack of friction in a place so busy and so constantly full of problems, was very noticeable."

One night Dr. Stone went into the room of a patient who had been greatly dreading a serious operation which she was to undergo the next day, to be greeted with a radiant face and the words, "Oh, doctor, I'm not afraid now of the operation. I've been talking to your God." Earlier in the evening one of the youngest of the nurses had found her crying bitterly and the old woman had told her: "I'm so afraid of the operation. You see the other woman you told me of was a Christian and of course your God helped her. I've never worshipped your God. I never knew of Him before and He may not help me." "Why, you needn't cry over that!" the little nurse assured her. "Our God doesn't blame you when no one had told you about Him. Now that you know, if you love Him and pray to Him, He will help you." Then she knelt down beside her and taught her how to pray to Him. After the operation was over and the patient, fully recovered, was going back to her village, she said to the doctor, "I am the first one in our village to hear of Jesus. Won't you come soon to my people and tell them."

Dr. Stone's letters and reports are full of accounts of the way in which, from the beginning, the work of the hospital has brought the knowledge of the Great Physician to those whose bodies had been so tenderly cared for by His followers that their hearts were very open.Whole families, sometimes almost entire communities, have become Christian as a result of the medical work.An interesting instance of the way in which the hospital's influence is spread by its patients is the case of a little girl, eight years old, who unbound her feet while in the hospital, and became so ardent an advocate of natural feet that after she had returned to the village in which she lived, she and her father succeeded in persuading three hundred families to pledge that their daughters should have natural feet.

It is quite impossible to separate Dr. Stone's definitely religious work from her medical work; for while Sunday afternoons and the chapel hour in the morning are set aside by her for purely evangelistic work, her Christian faith permeates all that she does. In the first years of her practice she did some itinerating work, but now that the work is so large and she is the only physician in charge, she has had to give that up. The nurses, however, still carry it on. "You see, while I am practically tied to the place," writes the doctor, "it gives so much happiness to be able to send out workers like these and to spread our influence.As the nurses say, they will be able to send a lot of patients back to the hospital.You see the more work we have the merrier we are."

Every time an evangelistic worker goes out on the district, one of the nurses accompanies her, and with ointments, simple medicines, bandages, vaccine, etc., treats several hundred patients in the country beyond the reach of physicians. At one time in the bitter cold weather of winter a message came from a distant village where smallpox was raging, asking that a nurse be sent to treat the sick people and vaccinate those who had not yet taken the disease. One woman in that village had once been at the hospital, and it was through her that the call came. One of the nurses at once volunteered to go, and with a Bible woman and a reliable man-servant she took the trip down the river, in a little sampan, to the smitten village. During four days she treated over one hundred patients not only in the village, but also in the region round about; for she and the Bible woman walked thirty li every day to sufferers in the country. While the nurse worked, the Bible woman preached, and in this way hundreds of people heard of Christianity for the first time.As Dr. Stone says, "The cry now is not for open doors, for we have free entrance into the homes of the rich and poor.What we need now is an efficient force of trained evangelistic workers to ...follow up the seed thus sown broadcast on such receptive soil."This need the Training School for Bible Women is helping to meet.

Mrs. Stephen Baldwin writing to Dr. Danforth said, "The Lord honoured your investment by placing in it one of the most wonderful doctors in all this world."But Dr. Stone is not only a physician, but an all-round woman."She is equal to any sudden call to speak," said one who heard her often when she was in America.A report of the Missionary Conference at Kuling, China, states that "Dr. Stone's paper on 'Hospital Economics' was the finest feature of an attractive conference."At the request of this conference she prepared a leaflet on the diet suited to Chinese schoolgirls, and a few years ago wrote a very useful book on the subject: "Until the Doctor Comes."

"I observed her in her home," writes a missionary who stopped at Kiukiang for a few days en route to Peking, "a housewifely woman, thoughtful of every detail that might ensure a guest's comfort.In a single month recently she treated 1,995 women and children, yet she is not too busy to be a gracious hostess.Chinese ladies delight to visit her, and such is the influence of this modest woman that the Hsien's wife has unbound her feet."

It may well be questioned, great as are Dr. Stone's achievements, which is of more value, the actual work she is doing, or the inspiration which her efficient, self-sacrificing Christian life is bringing to the awakened womanhood of the new China. The words of Miss Howe regarding Dr. Stone and Dr. Kahn indicate their influence: "They seem to be an inspiration to the girls and women of all classes. When our schoolgirls learn of anything 'the doctors' did when they were pupils, they seem to think they have found solid ground on which to set their feet." A letter from another fellow-worker stated that Dr. Stone was to give the address at the graduation exercises of the class of 1909 of the Nanking Normal School for Women at which the viceroy and "other notables of China" were to be present. Dr. Stone was greatly touched when the daughter-in-law of a viceroy once said to her that she would gladly give up all her servants, her beautiful clothes, her jewels, even her position, if she could lead a useful life like hers, instead of making one of the many puppets in the long court ceremonies, with nothing to think of except her appearance, and nothing to do but kill time.

It is a great joy to the doctor to have a part in bringing about a realization of the achievements of which Chinese women are capable, and she has been willing to make any sacrifice necessary to do this. Soon after Dr. Kahn's transfer to Nanchang had left her with almost double work, Dr. Danforth wrote that he had found a nurse in one of the Chicago hospitals who was willing to go to China, and asked Dr. Stone what she would think of having her come to the Danforth Hospital. Dr. Stone replied that while she would take her if Dr. Danforth wished, she would really rather not, on the whole. Personally, she said, she would have been very glad to have her come, but she was eager that her work should accomplish two things which it could accomplish only if it were purely Chinese: first, that it should convince the Chinese women themselves that they are able to do things of which they have never dreamed; and, second, that it should show the people of other nations that the only reason why Chinese women have for centuries lived such narrow lives is that they have not had opportunity to develop their native powers.She feared that if an American nurse came to the hospital it would look as if the purely Chinese work had failed, and that it had been necessary to call in help from America.

Accordingly, although Dr. Stone has sometimes been forced to admit that her work has been so heavy as to tax both heart and strength to the utmost, she has carried it all these years with no help, except from the nurses she has trained.She has counted no task too hard, no labour too constant, if she may thereby benefit her countrywomen physically, intellectually, or spiritually."She does not spare herself," one of her friends writes, "she seems unable to do so, and is too tender-hearted to turn the suffering away for her own need."

The past year has brought peculiar burdens to the doctor.She carried on her regular hospital work as usual, until the disturbances caused by the Revolution came so near that all the women and children in the schools and hospital were ordered into the foreign concession.This order came at night, and by two o'clock the next morning not a patient was left in the hospital.

Dr. Stone turned over the hospital to the revolutionary leaders, and each day she and her trained nurses cared for the injured soldiers sheltered in it.The leaders of the Revolution urged her to wear the white badge which was their emblem, but she told them that while her sympathies were with them, as a Red Cross physician she must remain neutral, that she might be able to render assistance to the wounded on both sides.Her explanation was courteously accepted, and an armed guard was furnished to escort her to and from the hospital each morning and evening.

When the Manchu governor of Nanchang was captured he was taken to Kiukiang, where, in chagrin at his imprisonment, he attempted suicide.Deserted by his servants and soldiers, he would have died alone and uncared for had it not been for Dr. Stone, for no one else dared to go near him.Dr. Stone and two of her nurses cared for him until the death which they could not prevent, but which they made far easier than it would otherwise have been.It was this same governor who, but a few months before, had refused Dr. Stone the rights of Chinese citizenship because, in purchasing land for a men's hospital at Kiukiang, she was buying property for foreigners.

When the leaders of the revolutionary party learned that their prisoner had committed suicide they were greatly disturbed.None of them dared to carry the news to General Ma, lest, in accordance with an old Oriental custom, he should punish the bearer of ill tidings.In their perplexity they went to Dr. Stone and asked her to take the news to the general.Accordingly the little doctor, accompanied only by one of her nurses, went to the general's headquarters to break the news to him.It is significant, not only of the universal respect accorded the doctor, but also of the new position accorded woman in China, that these women, who ventured unattended into a soldiers' camp, were received with every courtesy.General Ma asked the doctor many questions about her work, and at the close of their interview exclaimed, "When things are settled once more, I intend to find support for such a work; the Chinese ought to help it."

Because of the disturbances caused by the Revolution, many students in the Kiukiang schools returned to their homes. The family of one young woman insisted that she make use of this enforced vacation to become married to the young Chinese to whom she had long been engaged. The marriage was unwelcome to her, for she was a Christian and the man was not, but as she was the only Christian in her family she received no sympathy from them, and the wedding was set for Christmas day. The parents, however, yielded to their daughter's earnest desire for a Christian ceremony, and her brother was dispatched to Kiukiang to seek Dr. Stone, who had been eminently successful in all kinds of operations and might surely be relied upon to tie a satisfactory marriage knot. Dr. Stone accordingly left all her Christmas engagements, and accompanied by a Chinese pastor and one of her nurses, set out, through a heavy snow storm, for the girl's home. When the wedding guests were all assembled, Dr. Stone said that she would like to say a few words before the ceremony took place, and for an hour and a half she told her hearers of the Christian good tidings. The result was that when the wedding was over the mother and father of the bride brought their idols to her, and allowed their daughter to apply the match to them, for both had determined to become Christians. The father said that he wished other people to hear the good things Dr. Stone had told them, and would give the land for a Christian school. The bridegroom volunteered to do the carpenter work which would be necessary before a school could be opened, and now the young wife is teaching a group of children who have entered this new Christian school, and in the new home husband and wife daily unite in morning prayers.

After the Revolution was practically over, but conditions were still so unsettled as to make it unwise to reopen the hospital, Dr. Stone and several of her nurses made a trip to a number of towns in the region around Kiukiang.In a recent letter Dr. Stone tells of being given a piece of land by the influential people in one of these towns, with the earnest entreaty that she leave a nurse there to carry on a permanent medical work.She could make them no definite promise, but is hoping that friends in America will make it financially possible to support a nurse and dispensary where they are so greatly needed.

Truly the Chinese women are blessed in having so perfect an embodiment of the ideal woman of the great new China in this unassuming physician, whom a friend who has known her from babyhood declares to have the most perfect Christian character of any one she knows. After his visit in Kiukiang, Dr. Perkins exclaimed: "Such a wonderful woman as Dr. Mary Stone is! I do not know of any good quality she does not possess"; and one who has had an intimate acquaintance with the college women of America says: "What a marvel Dr. Stone is!To me she is unexcelled in charm, in singleness of purpose, and all-round efficiency, by any other woman I have ever known."

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YU KULIANG

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YU KULIANG

The same year that little Mary Stone first saw the light, on almost the same day, in another part of the same city, another little girl was born, a member of the same proud old family whose line runs back so many years into Chinese antiquity.Unlike Mary Stone, she was not born into a Christian home, but it was a home where the parents truly loved each other, and one in which she might have spent a very happy childhood, had not the young father died while she was still a baby.

The mother, broken-hearted over her husband's death, decided to become a Taoist nun and devote the remainder of her life to the search for truth. With her baby she shut herself up in a little hut outside of the city, seeing no one, and giving her whole time to the care of the child and her efforts to find truth. The members of her family, which is one of the wealthiest and most aristocratic in Kiukiang, were greatly pleased with what they considered an eminently virtuous resolve for a young widow to make, and applied to the Emperor for his approval of the course she had decided to follow.This being heartily given, they built a very comfortable home for her on the outskirts of Kiukiang.The building was christened Purity Hall, and over its gateway were placed large placards announcing the imperial sanction of the life which the young widow had chosen for herself and her child.

Here the little girl grew to womanhood, knowing no companionship except that of her mother and her teachers. Her mother employed the best possible Chinese teachers for her, and she early learned to read the books of the three religions of China, that she might join her mother in her pursuit of truth. She seldom left the house, and no one but her teachers ever entered it, but day after day she pored over the books on Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism until she had read them all. She, too, became a Taoist nun, but continued in the worship and study of Buddhism and Confucianism also, determined to find the true religion.

She even surpassed her mother in the ardour of her search for truth, for she spent twelve entire years, in periods of three years each, in one room of the house, living in the most absolute seclusion, not seeing her mother, speaking to no one, and hearing no voice, for three years at a time.After such a vigil she came out into the rest of the house for a year, then went back for another three years of solitude.In one corner of this room were the shrine and the altar before which Yu Kuliang knelt hour after hour during the years of her long vigil, and the idols, large and small, of wood and stone, which were her only companions.She always kept three sticks of incense burning before the shrine, one for each religion, that she might be sure not to make a mistake.In the ardour of her devotion she even made offerings of pieces of her own flesh to the idols.Her whole body, even her face, was covered with the ugly round scars caused by this self-mutilation.

When Yu Kuliang was a woman of thirty-two she learned that the Stones were her cousins, and of her own accord went to call on them. Thereafter the doors of "Purity Hall," so long fast closed to all, were thrown open to the Stone family. Yu Kuliang and her cousin Dr. Mary Stone, born at almost the same time, living, and having always lived, lives as totally different as two lives could be, became fast friends. To Dr. Stone, Yu Kuliang frankly confessed that an entire life spent in seeking truth had not brought her success.She was very willing to listen to all that Dr. Stone had to tell her of the truth which she had found, and finally even succeeded in summoning up sufficient courage to attend the Sunday morning church service.Her years of seclusion had made her so timid, and so afraid of mingling among people, however, that the first time she came to the church she disguised herself in the garb of a Chinese man.Dr. Stone gave her a Bible and she began the study of it at once, with the same earnestness and determination to find truth that she had shown in her study of the books of the Chinese religion.

After she had once gained courage to attend the church service she came frequently, no longer in man's clothes, nor in the coarse, grey cotton costume of the Taoist nun, which she discarded soon after knowing Dr. Stone, but in the ordinary dress of the Chinese woman.She became a frequent visitor to the hospital, too, where she loved to follow Dr. Stone from ward to ward, or to sit beside her in the dispensary as she cared for the suffering women and children who flocked there daily.

Finally Dr. Stone invited her to come to her for a week's visit, hardly daring to hope that she would do so; for she had never, since entering "Purity Hall" as a baby, spent a night outside of it.But she consented, and gladly drank in all that Dr. Stone and the doctor's mother told her of the truth which she had so long sought.One day soon after she had gone home, when Dr. Stone was calling on her and her mother, the mother drew Dr. Stone aside and said, "Since my daughter came back from your house she hasn't been upstairs to see the idols once."After years of ceaseless devotion to them, Yu Kuliang had forsaken her idols, and was turning toward the living God.Soon afterward, when it was necessary for Dr. Stone to go to America for an operation, and for Miss Hughes, who was in charge of the Bible Woman's Training School, to accompany her, Yu Kuliang came and asked that she might enter the school when Miss Hughes returned from America.But when Dr. Stone and Miss Hughes returned to China, they found Yu Kuliang suffering from tuberculosis.The long years of self-inflicted imprisonment had left her with no vitality to resist, and the disease was making rapid progress.

Soon after the doctor's return, Yu Kuliang's mother went away for a visit of some days.One afternoon during her absence, when Dr. Stone and Miss Hughes were calling on Yu Kuliang, she told them that she was studying the Bible, and trying to pray, and added: "I never go near the idols any more. They are all upstairs in my old cell." Dr. Stone at once said: "If you no longer believe in the idols, get rid of them. Give them to us." Yu Kuliang assented immediately, saying, "Take them if you want to," and went upstairs with Dr. Stone to get them. They brought down a Buddha and a goddess of mercy, which, after a few moments of further talk and prayer, Dr. Stone and Miss Hughes took away with them, Yu Kuliang watching them without a murmur.

The next day Dr. Stone and her mother went to see Yu Kuliang again, and with her consent and approval chopped to pieces a huge wooden idol, which was too large to carry away. When they were wondering what they should do with the stump of the body, Yu Kuliang exclaimed, "Throw the horrid thing into the ditch!" Thus passed out of her life the idols to which she had prayed for hours at a time, before which she had burned numberless sticks of incense, beside which she had lived and slept, and which she had made her most constant companions all the years of her life. The old temple bell, which had for years been used to call the gods from sleep, was given to Dr. Stone on the same day.

But when Yu Kuliang's mother returned she was furiously angry—not at the daughter to whom she was devoted, but at those who had turned her away from her idols.Dr. Stone took the old woman's hands in hers and pleaded with her: "You know your daughter does not believe in idols, you know the misery of her life, you know how she longs for peace; and as long as you harbour the idols in your home, Jesus cannot come into her heart and dwell there."The old woman at once broke out, in the tones of one taking the part of an injured friend, "But if your God is such a mighty one, and has the tens of thousands of followers you tell us He has, why should He be jealous of our poor little idols and those who worship them?"

Dr. Stone did not interrupt the tirade which was now poured forth, but picked up a piece of wood and a pebble from the floor, and when the old woman waited for her to answer, quietly replied to the pebble and bit of wood in her hand. Finally the woman said, "Why don't you answer me? You have come to see me, and perhaps I have been rude, but you are my relative and I want to be friends with you." Still Dr. Stone did not answer, but went on talking to the stone and wood, until the old woman lost patience and exclaimed, "What nonsense is this!"

Then Dr. Stone put her arm around her and answered, "If you think it is nonsense for me to talk to the stone and wood in your house, instead of giving you attention, how do you think the Heavenly Father feels,—the one who created you, the one who is your Father—when you satisfy yourself with images of wood and stone instead of giving that love and devotion to Him?"Before Dr. Stone left the young women knelt in prayer, but the mother would not join them.

Later, with her mother's consent, Yu Kuliang went to the hospital, and there spent four of the ten last days of her life, in the companionship of her cousin.Dr. Stone gave her every minute that could be spared from her hospital duties, telling her of the glad new life which she was soon to enter, and praying with her.Many times Yu Kuliang tried to leave the bed to kneel with Dr. Stone, but the doctor explained to her that her prayers were just as acceptable where she was, and that she was too weak to kneel."Those four days in the hospital with cousin were the happiest in my life," she told her mother when she returned to her home.

When she knew that she could not get well she insisted, weak as she was, upon being dressed and having her photograph taken, for all the photographs which she had had before were in the dress of the Taoist nun, and she wanted to have one taken after she had become a Christian.

Just before her death she said to her mother, "Mother, there is nothing in this life of ours, nothing!We were all wrong.I'm so glad it is over and now I am not at all afraid, for I am going to that beautiful place."And then, her lifelong quest at length crowned with success, she went to behold the face of Him who is the Truth.

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ANNA STONE

I.	Eager for Education
II.	Among Her Own People
III.	The Power of an Endless Life

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ANNA STONE

I

EAGER FOR EDUCATION

"God knew where to send girls; He knew who would be good to them," Mrs. Stone assured the neighbours who had come to condole with her on the birth of a second daughter, and to remind her that "ten queenly daughters are not worth as much as one son with a limp." Years before, when the baby's father, one of the literati, had lost all his property in the Tai Ping Rebellion, he had adopted the profession of teaching Chinese to the missionaries, as the only dignified means by which one of his rank and learning could earn a living. While he taught them Chinese characters, they taught him about Christianity, and it was not long before he was in charge of a Christian chapel in Kiukiang. So when this little daughter was born, she was given the good old Bible name of Anna, and great plans were laid for her future. While she was still a tiny baby her mother carried her to the missionary in charge of the girls' boarding school, one of those to whom her father had taught the Chinese language years before, and said to her, "As soon as this baby is old enough, I want you to take her and train her for Christian work."

If she was to fulfil her mother's ambition for her Anna must of course receive an education, although a girl who could read or write even the simplest sentence was then almost unknown in China.But Mrs. Stone knew well that the more education Anna had, the more efficient a worker she would be.She herself had never been taught at all, and after she had become a Christian and was eager to tell other women of the good news which she had learned, she had found herself sadly hampered because she could not read the Bible.It was not so difficult when her husband was at home to read it for her; but while he was away on his preaching tours, she had lost many opportunities of teaching Christianity to the women who came to see her, because of her inability to read the Book which told of the great new truth she had learned.So, busy as she was with her babies and her household cares, she determined to learn to read, and asked her husband to teach her.

Pastor Stone, however, had still something to learn.He did not believe that it was possible for the feminine mind, especially that of a woman grown, to learn the difficult Chinese characters; and he told his wife that, in his opinion, it was not worth while for her to attempt it.If Mother Stone was discouraged she did not show it.Every night after the rest of the family were asleep she set a candle beside her bed and studied characters diligently.Whenever Pastor Stone woke up for a moment, or turned over in bed, he would receive a gentle nudge and Mother Stone would delightedly exclaim, "Oh, father, won't you please tell me what this character is?"He soon decided to teach her in orthodox fashion, and she proved to be such an apt pupil that it was not long before she was in charge of a little day school for girls.

Anna received much of her early education from her mother, and for a time she and her older sister Mary went to school with their brother. Girls at school were decidedly a novelty, and the visiting mandarin opened his eyes in amazement. "Can girls learn anything?" he demanded of the teacher, who was forced to admit that they learned as fast as the boys, and sometimes a little faster. When a little older, Anna became a member of the Kiukiang Boarding School for girls, where she proved to be a diligent and quick pupil.During this time her sister Mary went to America to take her medical course, and down in her heart Anna cherished a secret hope that when she had completed her high school work she, too, might go to that wonderful Christian country from which her missionary teachers had come and in which her sister was receiving the training which would fit her for such large service among her countrywomen.She said very little about this hope to any one, but she and her friend I-lien Tang, who was also eager to go to America, determined to pray about it, and to study so faithfully that if the way should ever open for them to go, they would be ready.Accordingly they completed the high school course in Chinese, and studied English and Latin in addition.

In 1898 Bishop Joyce, of the Methodist Church, and his wife took a trip to the Orient to visit the mission stations. While in Kiukiang they became so much interested in the two girls, Anna Stone and I-lien Tang, that they offered to take them back to America with them. The autumn of 1898 therefore found Anna in America, the country of her dreams, and a student in Hamline University. She entered into her college work with much enthusiasm and made excellent progress in it.She was not strong, however, and was so far from well at the end of the year that it seemed best for her to relinquish her plan of following in her sister's footsteps by taking a medical course.She therefore planned to fit herself for some other form of service which would involve less physical strain, and left Hamline, after having been there only one year.But she left behind her many warm friends among the students, some of whom had become Christians as a result of the consistent and beautiful Christian life of this young Chinese girl.

The next autumn Anna entered Folts Mission Institute, where arrangements were made for her to take the two years' Bible course in three years, in the hope that she might thus regain her health.Her teachers testify that she was a brilliant student, and that her English was so perfect that one who heard her, without seeing her, would never have known that she was a foreigner.When one of them once asked her how it was that she had such a correct pronunciation, she said that when she was in Kiukiang Boarding School she used to watch the lips of the missionaries when they were speaking English, in order to see just how the words were formed.

Her use of words, too, was almost as accurate as her enunciation of them, although occasionally the intricacies of the English language proved somewhat mystifying.For example, when she was at her doctor's office one day he asked if he had given her any medicine when she was there before.

"No, doctor, you gave me a proscription," she answered.The doctor's smile showed her that she had made a mistake, and as soon as they were outside she asked the teacher who was with her what she ought to have said.

"Prescription, prescription," she repeated."I must remember that.What was it we had in church last Sunday?Was that a prescription or a proscription?"

"That was a subscription," the teacher told her.

"Oh, yes, a subscription.But what did you call the writing on the stones in the graveyard?Was that a prescription or a subscription?"

"That was an inscription," was the answer, and perhaps it is small wonder that Anna exclaimed in despair, "Oh, this terrible English!Can I ever get it!"

On the whole, however, she was very much at home with the English language. One morning as she was going down to breakfast some one asked, "How is our little China girl this morning?""Neither cracked nor broken!"was her instant response.

During all her stay in America she was in great demand as a speaker, and did as much of this work as her health permitted, always giving her message in English, and everywhere winning friends for herself and her loved people."Those who have watched her as she held the attention of large audiences with the simple story of her own people, will not soon forget the modest, unassuming girl who touched their lives for a brief hour," says one who heard her often.

When she entered Folts Institute it was thought that it would be a good thing for her to take vocal lessons to strengthen her throat and lungs. This training was given simply for the sake of her health, and with no expectation that she would ever sing in public, but it soon became evident that she had musical ability of no small degree. Her voice was very sweet, and had such a power to capture the hearts of her hearers that she was given the title of the "Sweet Singer," and was in great demand for meetings large and small. The whole energy of her life was so given to her Master that this newly discovered gift was at once consecrated wholly to His service. "You may think me narrow," she said earnestly, when her teacher proposed that she should study some nature songs, "but I feel that I must be the girl of one song."And into the one song, the Christian hymn, she put her whole soul, as any who heard her sing, "I love to tell the story," "Faith of our fathers," or the one that she perhaps sang most often, "Saved by Grace," will testify.

"I can hear her still as she sang 'Saved by Grace' to the large audience of the General Executive in 1902," wrote one, several years later."She put such fulness of meaning and power into this simple song.It was a part of her own experience."Another said, "I heard her sing 'I love to tell the story' to an audience of over five hundred college girls at the student conference of the Young Women's Christian Association at Silver Bay, and the effect was wonderful."

It had been the thought of the principal of Folts Institute that the cost of Anna's musical education should be defrayed by gifts from friends who were interested in her and her work. But after one spring vacation, when Anna had been addressing several meetings and had been given quite a little money, she went to the principal's office and turned over the entire amount which she had received. "But this is twice as much as your lessons for the year will cost, Anna," the principal told her, and started to hand back half of it.But Anna would not take it, and insisted that it be used to pay for the piano lessons of another Chinese student at the Institute."I don't want —— to get into debt," she said.

While studying at Folts Institute Anna's first great sorrow came to her in the death of her father.They had always been comrades, and she had often accompanied him on his preaching tours into the country.It was on one of these tours, made during the time of the Boxer uprising, that Pastor Stone received the injuries at the hands of a mob which were probably the cause of his death.The news was a great blow to Anna, but she bore it quietly and bravely, and when a few days later it was her turn to lead the students' prayer meeting, she chose "Heaven" for her topic."Before I came to your country, I used to think it was heaven," she said; "but now I am so glad it isn't, for then they might try to keep father out, and now I know he is inside."

She completed her course at Folts Institute in 1902, and as she seemed in good health, entered Central Wesleyan College for further training. But her zeal for her work always led her to overestimate her own strength, and her patience in suffering and desire not to cause any one any trouble, made it hard for others to know the true state of her health.One of her teachers at Folts says that Anna would often be ill for days before any one would have any knowledge of it, so uncomplaining was she.This teacher tells how at one time, when Anna finally had to give up, the tears rolled down the cheeks of the girl who bore pain so bravely that it was unsuspected even by those who were watching her carefully, at the thought that the friend to whom she gave both the century-old reverence of the Chinese for a teacher and the warm love of her grateful heart, should have to minister to her needs.It was found, after she had been at the Central Wesleyan College for a few months, that courageous as she was, her strength was not sufficient to enable her to go on with her studies.

She spent the rest of the year in Minneapolis in the home of her good friends, Bishop and Mrs. Joyce. She was never content to be idle, and after a few months of rest she gave several addresses in the churches of Minnesota and North Dakota, awakening interest in the cause she represented wherever she went. She so won the hearts of the young people that when she went back to China it was as the representative of the young women who formed the Standard Bearer Society of the Minneapolis branch of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society.

In the summer of 1903 a specialist pronounced her to be suffering from tuberculosis, and the next winter was spent in southern California in the hope that in that favourable climate she might be cured. Even here her eagerness to serve her people led her to do as much speaking as her physician would permit. But she was anxious to get to the work for which these years of preparation had been spent, and with hopeful and eager expectation she sailed for China on the S. S. Siberia, June 11, 1904.

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II

AMONG HER OWN PEOPLE

On her return to her own country, Anna began her work with great enthusiasm.The spirit with which she entered into it is shown in her report of the first year's work: "After six years of special preparation, for which I feel greatly indebted to my Master, it is a happy privilege to do what may be in my power to show Him my gratitude.The blessings I received from the hands of those who gave cheerfully for His sake, I will endeavour to pass on to others.During those years of absorption in study there were times when I was anxious for others to share with me the joy which comes from the Christian faith, but the real opportunity did not appear until last July when I returned to my home land.With gladness and thanksgiving I entered into the work already well and carefully organized by my senior missionaries."

The evangelistic work for women, of which she was put in charge, offered a large and varied field for service. "The success which my sister has had in her profession gives me easy access to many classes of our people," she reported soon after her return.Among the hospital and dispensary patients she found one of her greatest opportunities.She was not only able to reach those who came for treatment, but through them she had access to their homes, and spent a large part of her time in visiting among them and in entertaining guests in her own home."Many know of the hospital and of the lady physician, and come to see the work, and daily we cordially welcome such guests into our home," a letter reads."There are times when I walk with my sister on the street, and the ladies call the doctor in.Thus I gain access to friendly homes."

She was untiring in her efforts to fit herself to make use of every opportunity which presented itself, never regarding her preparation for service as completed, but always eager to learn any new thing which would help her. A letter written soon after beginning her work tells of one of the means by which she sought to increase her usefulness: "I think it is imperative for me to study something more of the Chinese classics. The little knowledge I have, God has helped me to use for His glory, and a knowledge of the classical sayings will enable me at least to approach the educated classes on a common ground, and to induce them to see that which they know not, from that which they do know."

During her first year of work she had four Bible women associated with her who went out with her daily, conducting meetings for women in the two chapels which were under her direction, visiting in the homes, or talking to patients in the dispensary waiting room.One of her early letters reads: "I felt that these Bible women needed special hours for prayer and Bible study, in order to give out the Bread of Life to others.So arrangements were made to have at least two hours of study every Monday morning, and we have prayer together before planning to carry out the Lord's will in the week's work."

In addition to this work she was given oversight of the two day schools for girls in Kiukiang. Of them she reported: "The teachers are trying to do their best, but many times I have wished that we could secure better educated women and have our day school standard advanced. The girls who can afford to go to school don't care to study the old Chinese books which these women are prepared to teach, so the better classes are not being touched by the Christian teachers. Those who have nothing special for the girls to do let them go to while away the time; then when tea picking time comes they leave the school.All can see that such work cannot be of any great value."

Conditions of this sort were discouraging indeed, but she met the situation with characteristic courage, and added to her other duties the task of teaching a little music and English in these schools.The introduction of these subjects proved to be very successful in reviving the pupils' flagging interest."The girls are more interested just now," a letter says, "because they have once a week a lesson in singing; formerly it was given on Saturday in our home, but experience soon taught me that this was an impossibility on account of the continuous callers and disturbances.I go now to each school once a week and teach them there.They also have a lesson in English during the week.It seems so strange to me that all people, old and young, male and female, are seeking a knowledge of English."

She was quick to see, however, that the only permanently successful solution of the day school problem was in well-trained teachers. Her great desire was for "the day when day school teachers should be better qualified for their work, that they might draw pupils to school by their own knowledge."In the meantime she did all she could to add to the efficiency of the teachers she had.One of her letters tells of her efforts to help one of her discouraged assistants: "One of the teachers is very anxious and feels that she cannot teach the school.She spoke to me several times of her inability to keep the pupils' attention because of her own lack of knowledge.As we have no trained teachers to take her place I cannot spare her.Though she has not a good head she has a good Christian heart, so for the good of the school I have to keep her and give her a few lessons each week.It is doing her good and helping her to teach better."

Again she reported the following year, "A special effort was made to throw away the old, parrot-like way of learning. As the teachers needed instruction as well as the pupils, sometimes, the text-books were taken away. The teachers were required to tell a story every day; and with the story a verse of the Scriptures, meant for a peg on which to hang the tale, was committed to memory by the girls. The teacher would write six easy characters each afternoon on the blackboard for the girls to copy before going home. Thus the girls learned how to listen, to memorize, and to write.Since the number of girls increases perceptibly when we have a little English I use it as a bait.By Miss Merrill's consent, help was secured from the boarding-school in teaching half an hour of English every day in the two city schools."

In December of 1904, at the annual meeting of the Central China Methodist Mission, Miss Stone was given the entire charge of the Bible Women's Training School.A letter to a friend shows the keen delight with which she entered upon this new work: "I am enjoying the work very much," she wrote."It seems so strange to me that these women are like my old friends.They are free and at home with me, and I can say already that I love them....I wish you could be here just to look at them and see how willing they are to be taught."It was her desire to live in the school that she might share the life of the women outside of class hours, but after a few days' trial this proved too wearing, and the doctor insisted upon her giving it up, greatly to her own disappointment and that of the women.

She was very eager that these women, all of whom were from families of small means, and were supported by scholarships while at the school, should do something towards meeting at least a part of their expenses.A few months after she had taken charge of the work she joyfully wrote Mrs. Joyce: