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

Darkness had almost descended when he rode into the village and stopped before a small grass-covered bamboo dwelling where the cook-preacher lived. For years the people here had looked for Kai Bok-su’s coming, for years they had talked of this great event, and for years their preacher had been writing and saying as he received his reply from the eager missionary in Tamsui, “He may come soon.”

And now he was really here! The sound of his horse’s bells had scarcely stopped before the preacher’s house, when the news began to spread like fire through the village. The preacher, who had worked so hard and waited so long, wept for joy, and before he could make Dr. Mackay welcome in a proper manner the room was filled with men, all wildly eager for a sight of the great Kai Bok-su, while outside a crowd gathered about the door striving to get even a glimpse of him. The ex-cook of Oxford College had preached so faithfully that many were already converted to Christianity, many more knew a good deal of the gospel, and crowds were ready to throw away their idols. They were weary of their heathen rites and superstitions. They were longing for something better, they scarcely knew what. “But the mandarin will not let them become Christians,” said the preacher anxiously. “It is he who is keeping them from decision. He has said that they must continue in idolatry, as a token of loyalty to China.”

“Are you sure that is true?” cried Dr. Mackay.

The converts nodded. They had “heard” it said at least.

But Kai Bok-su was not the man to accept mere hearsay. He was always wisely careful to avoid any collision with the authorities. But remembering the kindness shown him back in Hoe-lien-kang, he could not quite believe that the mandarin who had been so kind to him could be hostile to the religion of Jesus Christ.

To think was to act, and early the next morning, he was riding back to the seacoast, to inquire how much of this rumor was true.

His reception was very warm. It was all right, the officer declared. Whatever had been said or done in the past must be forgotten. Kai Bok-su might go where he pleased and preach his Jehovah-religion to whomsoever he would.

It was a very light-hearted rider the pony carried as he galloped back along the narrow paths, with the good news for the villagers. The word went round as soon as he arrived. Kai Bok-su wanted to know how many were for the true God. All who would worship him were at once to clear their houses of idols and declare that they would serve Jehovah and him only. At dark a great crowd gathered in an open space in the village.

Representatives from five villages were there, chiefs were shouting to their people, and when Dr. Mackay and his students arrived, the place was all noise and confusion. He was puzzled.

It almost looked as if there was to be a riot, though the voices did not sound angry.

He climbed up on a pile of rubbish and his face shone clear in the light of the flaring torches. His voice rang out loud and commanding above the tumult.

“What is this noise about?” he cried. “Is there a difference of opinion among you as to whether you shall worship these poor toys of wood and stone, or the true God who is your Father?”

He paused and as if from one man came back the answer in a mighty shout:

“No, we will worship the true God!”

The tumult had been one of enthusiasm and not of dispute!

Kai Bok-su’s heart gave a great bound. For a moment he could not speak. He who had so often stood up fearless and bold before a raging heathen mob, now faltered before this sea of eager faces, upturned to him. It seemed too good to be true that all this crowd, representing five villages, was anxious to become followers of the God of heaven. His voice grew steady at last, and standing up there in the flickering torchlight he told those children of the plain what it meant to be a follower of Jesus Christ. It was a late hour when the meeting broke up, but even then Dr. Mackay could not go to bed. Never since the day that A Hoa, his first convert, had accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior, had he felt such joy, and all night he walked up and down in front of the preacher’s house, unable to sleep for the thankfulness to God that surged in his heart.

Morning brought a wonderful day for the Ki-lai plain. It was like a day when freedom from slavery was announced. Had there been bells in the village they would certainly have been rung. But joy bells were ringing in every heart. Nobody could work all day. The rice-fields and the shops and the pottery works lay idle. There was but one business to do that day, and that was to get rid of their idols.

Early in the morning the mayor of the place, or the headman as he was called, came to the house to invite the missionary and his party to join him. Behind him walked four big boys, carrying two large wicker baskets, hanging from poles across their shoulders; and behind them came the whole village, men, women, and children, their faces shining with a new joy. The procession moved along from house to house. At every place it stopped and out from the home were carried idols, ancestral tablets, mock-money, flags, incense sticks, and all the stuff used in idol worship. These were all emptied into the baskets carried by the boys. When even the temple had been ransacked and the work of clearing out the idols in the village was finished, the procession moved on to the next hamlet. The villages were very near each other, so the journey was not wearisome; and at last when every vestige of the old idolatrous life had been taken from the homes of five villages, the happy crowd marched back to the first village.

There was a large courtyard near the temple and here the procession halted. The boys dropped their well-filled baskets, and their contents were piled in the center of the court. The people gathered about the heap and with shouts of joy set fire to these signs of their lifelong slavery. Soon the pile was blazing and crackling, and all the people, even the chiefs of the villages, vied with each other in burning up the idols they had so lately besought for blessings.

And then they turned toward the heathen temple and delivered it over to Kai Bok-su for a chapel in which he and his students might preach the gospel.

And so the temple was lighted up for a new kind of worship. It had been used for worship many, many times before, but oh, how different it was this time! Instead of coming in fear of demons, dread of their gods’ anger, and determination to cheat them if possible, these poor folk crowded into the new-old temple with light, happy hearts, as children coming to their Father. And was not God their Father, only they had not known him before?

The heathen temple was dedicated to the worship of the true God by singing the old but always new, one hundredth Psalm. The Lam-si-hoan were not very good singers. They had not much idea of tune. They had less idea of just when to start, and there was very little to be said about the harmony of those hundreds of voices. But in spite of it all, Kai Bok-su had to confess that never in the music of his homeland or in the more finished harmonies of Europe, had he heard anything so grandly uplifting as when those newly-freed people stood up in their idol temple and with heart and soul and voice unitedly poured forth in thunderous volume of praise the great command: All people that on earth do dwell,

Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice.

For a whole week with his pony and groom, which were still his to do with as he pleased, the busy missionary rode up and down this plain, visiting the villages, preaching, and teaching the people how to live as Jesus Christ their Savior had lived; for it was necessary to impress upon their childlike minds that it would be of no use to burn up the idols in their homes and temple unless they also gave up the still more harmful idols in their hearts.

But at last the day came when the pony had to be returned to its owner and the missionary and his helpers must leave. It was a sad day but a joyous one—the day that great visit came to an end.

Crowds of Christians, fain to keep him, followed him down to the shore, and many kindly but reluctant hands shoved the little boat out into the surf. And as the rowers sent it skimming out over the great Pacific rollers, there rose from the beach the parting hymn, the one that had dedicated the heathen temple to the worship of the true God:

All people that on earth do dwell,

Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice.

and from the rowers and the missionaries in the boat, came back the glad echo:

Know that the Lord is God indeed

Without our aid he did us make.

They were soon out of sight. The rowers pulled hard, but a stiff northeaster straight from Japan was blowing against them, and they made but little headway. Night came down, and they were again skirting those dark cliffs, where, here and there, along the narrow strip of sand, the night-fires of the savages flamed out against the dark tangle of foliage. All night long the rowers struggled against the wind. They were afraid to go out far for the waves were wild, they dared not land, for, crueler than the sea, the headhunters waited for them on the shore. And so all that night, taking turns with the rowers, the missionary and his students toiled against the wind and wave. The dawn came up gray and stormy, and they were still tossing about among the white billows. No one had touched food for twenty-four hours. They had rice in the boat, but there was no place where they dared land to have it cooked. There was nothing to do but to pull, pull at the oars, and a weary task it seemed, for the boat appeared to make little headway, and the rowers barely succeeded in keeping her from being dashed upon the rocks.

They were becoming almost too weak to keep any control over their boat, when about three o’clock in the afternoon they managed to round a point. There before them curved a beautiful bay. Behind it and on both sides arose a perpendicular wall several hundred feet high. At its foot stretched a narrow sandy beach. It was an ideal spot, secure from savages both by land and sea. A shout of encouragement from Kai Bok-su was the one thing needed. Tired arms and aching backs bent to the oars for one last effort, and when the boat swept up on the sandy beach every one uttered a heartfelt prayer of thankfulness to the Father who had provided this little haven in a time of such distress.

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