The Shame Of Shansi

The Shame Of Shansi

It was the Boxers versus the Christians.

THE YEAR 1900 found China increasingly embroiled in political conflict. Foreign powers were asserting their influence on China, polarizing the Chinese into two warring factions: those in favor of westernization and those opposed to it. A particularly conservative Chinese group called “The Righteous and Harmonious Fists,” known as “Boxers,” did everything in their power to fight westernization. Their goals were to preserve old pagan religions and to keep foreigners out of China. Organized and active throughout all of the Chinese provinces, the Boxers had a particular stronghold in the Shansi Province, where they were able to get one of their own appointed governor. Their movement was called the Boxer Rebellion.

Because of the Boxers, no missionary was safe in Shansi Province. The China Inland Mission’s (CIM) Emily Whitchurch from England and Edith Searell from New Zealand were two of the many single women teams stationed in isolated towns. In their town of Hsiao-i, in south central Shansi Province, they worked with opium addicts. In the midst of the Boxer reign of terror Miss Searell wrote to a friend, “From the human standpoint [all missionaries in Shansi Province] are equally unsafe. From the point of view of those whose lives are hid with Christ in God all are equally safe! His children shall have a place of refuge, and that place is the secret place of the Most High.”

Two days after the letter was written a Boxer mob stormed their house and brutally killed the two women. The local Christians risked their lives to rescue their bodies and bury them properly, covering them with flowers from Miss Searell’s garden.

Another group of CIM missionaries, Willie and Helen Peat, their two daughters, and two single women missionaries, were hidden by Chinese Christians in caves for three weeks before being discovered by the Boxers. “We are in God’s hands,” Willie Peat wrote. “I can say, ‘I will fear no evil, for thou art with me. Edith Dodson, one of the single women, wrote in her last letter, “We know naught can come to us without His permission. So we have no need to be troubled: it is not my nature to fear physical harm, but I trust, if it come, His grace will be all-sufficient.”

They were temporarily spared when a magistrate intervened and ordered that they be delivered to a nearby city. But threatened by a mob, they were forced to flee again to the mountains. While hiding in a cave, Willie Peat wrote his final letter to his mother and uncle:

The soldiers are just on us, and I have only time to say “Good-bye” to you all. We shall soon be with Christ, which is very far better for us. We can only now be sorry for you who are left behind and our dear native Christians. Good-bye! At longest it is only “til He come.” We rejoice that we are made partakers of the sufferings of Christ, that when His glory shall be revealed we may “rejoice also with exceeding joy.”

Helen Peat added: “Our Father is with us and we go to Him, and trust to see you all before His face, to be forever together with Him.”

On August 30, 1900, Willie and Helen Peat, their two daughters, and the two women with them were martyred.

Throughout China, 188 missionaries and missionary children were killed during the Boxer Rebellion. Of these, 159 were martyred in Shansi Province.

Reflection

The missionaries in China during the summer of 1900 experienced incredible sufferings. Are you willing to share in Christ’s sufferings as they did? Can you rejoice like the Peats when you are made to suffer for him? What do you think you would write in a final letter to your family?

And they were not afraid to die.

Revelation 12:11