The Black-Bearded Barbarian by Mary Esther Miller MacGregor (latest books to read .TXT) 📕

They always began the day’s work with a prayer and a hymn of praise, and no matter what subjects they might study, most of the time was spent on the greatest of books. After a hard morning’s work each one would gather sticks, make a fire, and they would have their dinner of vegetables, rice, and pork or buffalo-meat.

Then there were oysters, taken fresh off the rocks, to add to their bill of fare.

At five in the afternoon, when the strain of study was beginning to tell, they would vary the program. One or two of the boys would take a plunge into the sea and bring up a subject for study,—a shell, some living coral, sea-weed, sea-urchins, or some such treasure. They would examine it, and Kai Bok-su, always delighted when on a scientific subject, would give them a lesson in natural history. And he saw with joy how the wonders of the sea and land opened these young men’s minds to understand what a great and wonderful God was theirs, who had made “the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all that in them is.”

When they visited a chapel in the country, they had a daily program which they tried hard to follow. They studied until four o’clock every afternoon and all were trained in speaking and preaching. After four they made visits together to Christians or heathen, speaking always a word for their Master. Every evening a public service was held at which Mackay preached. These sermons were an important part of the young men’s training, for he always treated the gospel in a new way. A Hoa, who was Mackay’s companion for the greater part of sixteen years, stated that he had never heard Kai Bok-su preach the same sermon twice.

On the whole the students liked their college best when it was moving. For on the road, while their principal gave much time to the Bible and how to present the gospel, he would enliven their walks by conversing about everything by the way and making it full of interest. The structure of a wayside flower, the geological formation of an overhanging rock, the composition of the soil of the tea plantations, the stars that shone in the sky when night came down upon them;—all these made the traveling college a delight.

Although his days were crammed with work, Mackay found time to make friends among the European population of the island. They all liked and admired him, and many of them tried to help the man who was giving his life and strength so completely to others.

They were familiar with his quick, alert figure passing through the streets of Tamsui, with his inevitable book and his big ebony cane. And they would smile and say, “There goes Mackay; he’s the busiest man in China.”*

* See Chapter XIII. Formosa becomes Japanese territory.

The British consul in the old Dutch fort and the English commissioner of customs proved true and loyal friends. The representatives of foreign business firms, too, were always ready to lend him a helping hand where possible. His most useful friends were the foreign medical men. They helped him very much.

They not only did all they could for his own recovery when malaria attacked him, but they helped also to cure his patients.

Traveling scientists always gave him a visit to get his help and advice. He had friends that were ship-captains, officers, engineers, merchants, and British consuls. Everybody knew the wonderful Kai Bok-su. “Whirlwind Mackay,” some of them called him, and they knew and admired him with the true admiration that only a brave man can inspire.

The friends to whom he turned for help of the best kind were the English Presbyterians in south Formosa. They, more than any others, knew his trials and difficulties. They alone could enter with true sympathy into all his triumphs. At one time Dr.

Campbell, one of the south Formosan missionaries, paid him a visit. He proved a delightful companion, and together the two made a tour of the mission stations. Dr. Campbell preached wherever they went and was a great inspiration to the people, as well as to the students and to the missionary himself.

One evening, when they were in Kelung, Mackay, with his insatiable desire to use every moment, suggested that they spend ten days without speaking English, so that they might improve their Chinese. Dr. Campbell agreed, and they started their “Chinese only.” Next morning from the first early call of “Liong tsong khi lai,” “All, all, up come,” not one word of their native tongue did they speak. They had a long tramp that morning and there was much to talk about and the conversation was all in Chinese, according to the bargain. Dr. Campbell was ahead, and after an hour’s talk he suddenly turned upon his companion: “Mackay!” he exclaimed, “this jabbering in Chinese is ridiculous, and two Scotchmen should have more sense; let us return to our mother tongue.” Which advice Mackay gladly followed.

His next visitor was the Rev. Mr. Ritchie from south Formosa, one of the friends who had first introduced him to his work. Every day of his visit was a joy. With nine of Mackay’s students, the two missionaries set out on a trip through the north Formosa mission that lasted many weeks.

But the more pleasant and helpful such companionship was the more alone Mackay felt when it was over. His task was becoming too much for one man. He was wanted on the northern coast, at the southern boundary of his mission field, and away on the Kap-tsu-lan plain all at once. He was crowded day and night with work. What with preaching, dentistry, attending the sick, training his students, and encouraging the new churches, he had enough on his hands for a dozen missionaries.

But now at last the Church at home, in far-away Canada, bestirred herself to help him. They had been hearing something of the wonderful mission in Formosa, but they had heard only hints of it, for Mackay would not confess how he was toiling day and night and how the work had grown until he was not able to overtake it alone. But the Church understood something of his need, and they now sent him the best present they could possibly give,—an assistant. Just three years after Mackay had landed in Formosa, the Rev. J. B. Fraser, M. D., and his wife and little ones arrived. He was a young man, too, vigorous and ready for work.

Besides being an ordained minister, he was a physician as well, just exactly what the north Formosan mission needed.

Along with the missionary, the Church had sent funds for a house for him and also one for Mackay. So the poor old Chinese house on the bluff was replaced by a modern, comfortable dwelling, and by its side another was built for the new missionary and his family.

One room of Mackay’s house was used as a study for his students.

After the houses were built and the new doctor was able to use the language, he began to fill a long-felt want. Mackay had always done a little medical work, and the foreign doctor of Tamsui had been most kind in giving his aid, but a doctor of his own, a missionary doctor, was exactly what Kai Bok-su wanted.

Soon the sick began to hear of the wonders the missionary doctor could perform, and they flocked to him to be cured.

It must not be supposed that there were not already doctors in north Formosa. There were many in Tamsui alone, and very indignant they were at this new barbarian’s success. But the native doctors were about the worst trouble that the people had to bear. Their medical knowledge, like their religion, was a mixture of ignorance and superstition, and some of their practises would have been inexcusable except for the fact that they themselves knew no better. There were two classes of medical men; those who treated internal diseases and those who professed to cure external maladies. It was hard to judge which class did the more mischief, but perhaps the “inside doctors” killed more of their patients. Dog’s flesh was prescribed as a cure for dyspepsia, a chip taken from a coffin and boiled and the water drunk was a remedy for catarrh, and an apology made to the moon was a specific for wind-roughened skin. For the dreaded malaria, the scourge of Formosa, the young Canadian doctor found many and amazing remedies prescribed, some worse than the disease itself.

The native doctors believed malaria to be caused by two devils in a patient, one causing the chills, the other the fever. One of the commonest remedies, and one that was quite as sensible as any of the rest, was to tie seven hairs plucked from a black dog around the sick one’s wrist.

But when the barbarian doctor opened his dispensary in Tamsui, a new era dawned for the poor sick folk of north Formosa. The work went on wonderfully well and Mackay found so much more time to travel in the country that the gospel spread rapidly.

But just when prospects were looking so fair and every one was happy and hopeful, a sad event darkened the bright outlook of the two missionaries. The young doctor had cured scores of cases, and had brought health and happiness to many homes, but he was powerless to keep death from his own door.

And one day, a sad day for the mission of north Formosa, the mother was called from husband and little ones to her home and her reward in heaven.

So the home on the bluff, the beautiful Christian home, which was a pattern for all the Chinese, was broken up. The young doctor was compelled to leave his patients, and taking his motherless children he returned with them to Canada.

The church at home sent out another helper. The Rev. Kenneth Junor arrived one year later, and once more the work received a fresh impetus. And then, just about two years after Mr. Junor’s arrival, Kai Bok-su found an assistant of his own right in Formosa, and one who was destined to become a wonderful help to him. And so one bright day, there was a wedding in the chapel of the old Dutch fort, where the British consul married George Leslie Mackay to a Formosan lady. Tui Chhang Mai, her name had been. She was of a beautiful Christian character and for a long time she had been a great help in the church. But as Mrs. Mackay she proved a marvelous assistance to her husband.

It had long been a great grief to the missionary that, while the men would come in crowds to his meetings, the poor women had to be left at home. Sometimes in a congregation of two hundred there would be only two or three women. Chinese custom made it impossible for a man missionary to preach to the women. Only a few of the older ones came out. So the mothers of the little children did not hear about Jesus and so could not teach their little ones about him.

But now everything was changed for them. They had a lady-missionary, and one of their own people too. The Mackays went on a wedding-trip through the country. Kai Bok-su walked, as usual, and his wife rode in a sedan-chair. The wedding-trip was really a missionary tour; for they visited all the chapels, and the women came to the meetings in crowds, because they wanted to hear and see the lady who had married Kai Bok-su. Often, after the regular meetings when the men had gone away, the women would crowd in and gather round Mrs. Mackay and she would