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Note:
Please click thumbnails for larger photos
Hills'
Photo Album! Bio
of Jessie M. Johnston
Amoy
Mission Bibliography Christ
in Chinese Artists' Eyes
Abbe Livingston
Warnshuis
Warnshuis had a great influence
not only on Christian work in China but also on the lives of people like
the great writer Lin Yutang. For this page's
material I am indebted to Norman Goodalll's "Christian Ambassador:
A Life of A. Livingston Warnshuis," (see Amoy
Mission Bibliography)
An "Interesting" Story Behind A.L. Name
Livingston Warnshuis was born in 1877 in Clymer, New York.
When Jan Willem Warnshuis tried to raise money for the Clymer church,
Margaret Livingston Abbe, of the First Reformed Church in Albany, gave
a generous contribution. When Jan wrote to tell Abbe that the church
had been renamed Abbe Reformed Church of Clymer, Mrs. Abbe, she offered
another $100 to be put into a New Albany savings bank in Jan Willem's
son's name if they woule call him Abbe Livingston, and that he would eventually
sign his name as A. Livingston Warnshuis. The family happily accepted
this (21 years later, a theological student named A. Livingston Warnshui
withdrew from the Albany bank $360--the original $100, plus interest).
Jan Willem was not just a pastor and preacher but a shrewd raiser of funds
for good causes. The year after A.L.'s birth, they moved to Alton,
Iowa. Two years later, when raising funds for the Alton church,
a Mrs. Cook in New York made a donation. Jan Willem thanked Mrs.
Cook, and mentioned he'd had another son, and suggested that his son could
be named Cook. Sure enough, Mrs. Cook coughed up more cash--but
only $50. Goodall wrote, "And for many years afterwards, Abbe
Livingston Warnshuis and Frederick Cook Warnshuis debated their respective
cash values at birth."
Livingston Warnshuis obtained his Bachelor's degree from Hope College
in 1897, and entered New Brunswick Theological Seminary, where he obtained
his master's on May 17th, 1900 (and received an honorary D.D. years later).
He was ordained on June 21st, married three weeks later in the Reformed
Church in Holland, Michigan, to Ms. Anna DeVries, a young schoolteacher.
On September 9th, he sailed for China--at the very height of the Boxer
Uprising, in which an estimated 30,000 Catholics and 3 to 4,000 Protestants
perished, including 47 Catholic missionaries (5 were bishops) and 134
Protestant missionaries (52 of whom were children). Fujian was the
safest province for foreigners, but still, nothing was certain in China.
Goodall
notes that when Warnshuis revisted Amoy in 1931 he marvelled at the modern
city it had become, but when he arrived, he described it thus:
"The
streets in Old Amoy were six and eight and ten feet wide, paved with uneven
stones, and through the cracks between the stones one could see the filthy
open sewer that made the air thick with odors so that it was almost impossible
to breathe. The streets were always wet and slippery, but in the
rainy season I remember that I was accustomed to wear knee-high rubber
boots when going to the old Sin-Koe-a Church. On more than
one occasion after a torrential rain storm, I remember wading through
the streets in water and filth that reached almost to the top of my boots.
The streets were crooked, so that the stranger walking in them was soon
lost as in a maze. Up and down the hillside they were built, with
stone steps, and there were such street names as "Twenty-one Steps,"
"Eighteen Steps," and "Top of Five Steps."
Of course, there were no wheeled vehicles, and one usually walked, pushing
his way through the crowds of people and perspiring burden bearers, or
stepping into a shop to let a sedan chair pass, with its bearers shouting
to clear the way." (Goodall, p.26)
Still, even then the city, in spite of its squalor, was wealthy, and Kulangsu
was "a competitor for the reputation of being the 'wealthiest square-mile
in the world.'" In spite of this, Warnshuis wrote during his
first year:
"One
of our recent letters told me that some people learning of what we were
doing thought it quite a snap to be a missionary...Perhaps those people
would enjoy being where fleas are so thick that one hand is kept constantly
busy chasing them; where rats own the house...; where ants get into all
your food...; where cock-roaches are an inch-and-a-half long and not only
crawl but fly. We are just entering into a period where all our
clothes are packed away in tin-lined boxes to keep them from molding and
shoes turn green in a night....And there is one more thing to which we
have not been able to reconcile ourselves. This is the exile from
home... In our experience this exile from home is hardest to bear.
I can't describe it. You that are at home can form not the slightest
idea of it. You cannot imagine that awful longing which sometimes
comes to get away from all these smells, from all this filth, and all
this misery and wickedness, and to go where we can have all the pleasure
that the 20th century ingenuity can devise, to have all the comforts,
and to be at home among friends."
"All
you can do," he wrote, "is to grind away at the endless taks
of learning Chinese." His language learning paid off. In 1911,
he co-authored with Henry P. De Pree the "Lessons in the Amoy Vernacular."
He was also a member of the Committee of Revisers of the Bible in Amoy,
and wrote marginal references for the Amoy New Testament.
In his second year, he was sent to work 60 miles upriver from Amoy in
Siokhe. Warnshuis was much impressed by the Chinese pastor at Poa-a,
and by one of his small boys, who was a pupil in the local mission school.
This boy was to become the world-famous author, Lin
Yutang. A.L. had great influence on young Lin, and after A.L.Warnshuis
died, Lin Yutang sent Warnshuis' wife a copy
of his autobiography, "From Pagan to Christian" (he turned from
Christianity, and then returned to it decades later). Within the
book he inscribed the words: "In memory of your great and genial
husband who helped so much to open up the mental horizon of my family."
In this book, Lin Yutang recalls how, in Warnshuis,
"my
father had met his match and they became great friends, for Mr. Warnshuis
had discovered in my father a voracious appetite for all that was western
and new. He introduced us to a Christian weekly called the Christian
Intelligencer, printed on very shiny paper, with greasy, oily ink.
He sent us all kinds of pamphlets and books about the western world and
western science which the Christian missions in Shanghai had put out.
In this way western learning came to our family." (quoted in Goodall,
p.36)
Young Warnshuis was zealous and energetic--and sometimes impatient with
decisions made by a distant mission board that he felt might not really
be in touch with the realities of the field. When the board
transferred Warnshuis to Kulangsu to engage in thelogical instruction
and educational work, many Amoy missionaries were unsupportive of the
move. Warnshuis proved up to the responsibility, however, of starting
a normal school, editing a monthly church magazine, and performing editing
and publishing work for the Chinese Tract Society, as well as engaging
in the business management of a hospital, care of mission properties,
and organizing of evangelistic activities. In his copious free time,
he taught six hours a week in the seminary, and helped lead policy discussions
for the three missions' efforts to improve Amoy's educational work.
And on the side, he engaged in business such as selling windmills and
pumps to raise funds. He wrote to a former classmate, "With
all this work on hand, it is impossible not to be happy!" In
1912, he started a canning operation in Amoy, with the view that better
paid Chinese Christians could better support their own churches.
He also accepted an invitation to work with the Chinese Anti-opium Society,
as well as joined the Amoy Municipal Council (he was Secretary, which
may have been an overwhelming task, as the previous Secretary had committed
suicide).
In
March, 1916, Warnshuis left Amoy for Shanghai (to the dismay of other
Amoy missionaries), to work with the China Continuation Coimmittee, which
sought to unify the work of the Church in China.
To
learn more about Warnshuis, please refer to Norman Goodall's "Christian
Ambassador: A Life of A. Livingston Warnshuis" (Channel Press, Inc.
New York, 1963).
Please
Help the "The Amoy Mission Project!" Please
share any relevant biographical material and photos for the website and
upcoming book, or consider helping with the costs of the site and research
materials. All text and photos will remain your property, and
photos will be imprinted to prevent unauthorized use. Thanks!
Dr.
Bill Xiamen University MBA Center
E-mail: amoybill@gmail.com
Snail Mail: Dr. William Brown
Box 1288 Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian
PRC 361005
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