by Linda Banks
foot-binding. As arranged marriages were customary in China and small feet in females considered more attractive, foot binding was practised to make women more marketable. From four or five years old, especially among the upper classes, the major bones in the feet were broken and twisted into specially made lotus-shaped shoes that permanently cramped their development. While a few educated or religious Chinese had begun to oppose this practice, up to half of all Chinese girls were affected by it.9
lack of schooling. Since girls were regarded mainly as household help and future child-bearers, educating them was not considered to be economically worthwhile. As a consequence, where schools were established they were primarily for boys and professions were almost exclusively reserved for men.
During her first year in Deng Doi, Amy’s eyes were opened to the possibility of a new dimension to her work. The following is a pastiche of accounts about how this happened.
In [my] homeland, I had passed the blind on the other side of the street, for I had no special interest in them. Now my heart was stirred to its depths on many occasions when blind children were brought to me in our dispensary. What could I do? The answer I received from a small boy when I asked how he received a bruise on his face. ‘Oh my uncle just struck me in the face and said: ‘Get out of my way, you blind boy’ …
Going to a village one day, I stumbled across a helpless blind boy cowering in a ditch. He told me his father had wanted to kill him but seeing I was coming, had left him for me …
An appeal made to me by a woman for her only son in the little mission church of Lieng Kong. ‘He is my only son. I am a widow, and he is blind: do good deeds, open his eyes and give him to see.’ Alas! his sight was beyond restoring, and the fact left a lasting impression on my mind. To be blind is a terrible thing. To be blind of poor Chinese parentage is still more terrible. My sympathy was drawn out as I thought about them being blind of God’s beauteous world around and blind of Heaven’s own light! 10
Amy was aware that Chinese children had a greater tendency to contract blindness.11 This was brought about by a number of factors like vitamin A deficiency, trachoma, glaucoma, congenital cataracts, accidents and measles. Lack of adequate medical treatment escalated the problem. Among more well-to-do Chinese, sightless people were sometimes encouraged to become respected fortune tellers, musical performers or administrators. The general desire to know the most propitious times for betrothals, marriages, funerals, business deals or journeys enabled a minority of blind people, primarily men, to forge some kind of living for themselves. However, the oversupply of blind street musicians and ballad singers trying to make a living meant that most of these remained little more than beggars.12
In a further collection of accounts, Amy goes on to describe how she responded to this challenge. After a severe typhoon in Lieng Kong, she was evacuated to the port of Amoy (now Xiamen) further down the coast.
During September 1898 there was a terrible typhoon, and our kitchen and servants quarters were almost destroyed, only one room in the house remained undamaged …
God opened a ‘door’ – and I was invited to visit a blind school in the Amoy district. Miss Graham of the English Presbyterian Mission had brought out to Amoy a blind Scotsman, Mr Cooke, to try to teach the blind Chinese. It was he who showed me English Braille …
With the help of the grace of God, I was [the first] to adapt the Braille system to the romanized version of our Foochow dialect [in which parts of the Bible were already translated]. This was a great improvement and the British and Foreign Bible Society agreed to print the Epistle to the Romans and the Prayer Book version of the Psalms for us …
Returning to the Lieng Kong district I rented a tiny native house in one of the dirty streets of Deng Doi, approached by a cobblestone path, up some very uneven steps. This contained my school room, 2 feet by 8 feet, just long enough for a table, two chairs, and a form. On either side was a bedroom, 8 feet by 10 feet, and outside a shed which served as a kitchen and dining room combined. Then, with an old cook, I opened my School for the Blind …
Well do I remember sitting in that tiny school room and teaching my first boy.13
That first boy, Xiao Nin Kai, was the only son of the widow who had earlier appealed for her help, and he was destined to become a significant figure in the work she had begun.
The complex Chinese writing system – containing more than 4000 individual characters – made anything to do with language extremely difficult for the blind. Though some embossed Bibles and religious books had appeared in the mid 1800s, a form of Braille was first introduced by a missionary to Peking in 1879. As this was based on numerical equivalents for each character, it took a long time to learn and was complicated to use. The development of a more alphabetic equivalent for the sounds of the characters – built on so-called initials and finals roughly corresponding to consonant and vowel sounds – gradually followed. Amy’s was the first school to render the Foochow dialect into Braille. In this, each syllable required two or more Braille dots.
院書光靈
Alongside starting to teach the blind, Amy continued to be involved in her regular missionary work with her colleagues.
From an article in the Church Missionary Gleaner, describing the character of the work in Deng Doi:
As we were the first ‘kuniongs’ [single women] to live in this city the people were anxious to see our house, and numbers came in every day. We trust that the Word that was preached to them may take deep root in their hearts and bring forth fruit.
A few people asked for medicine and when they found that it did them good they told their friends and relatives, with the result that for days hundreds of people came: we limited the number to eighty or ninety a day, women and children only. Wherever we went in the street or villages some poor creatures would beseech us to look at their sore leg, or eye or something. A poor widow mother would bring her only son, and he hopelessly blind. A brother would bring his leper sister, and beg us to do something for her, and one day some men carried their mother from a village nine miles distant, and the poor thing died of cancer.
It is possible here to have an audience at a few moment’s notice and open the church doors and then play some hymns on the baby-organ, and in come all sorts and conditions from the proudest man in the long blue coat to the dirtiest child imaginable and the people will listen by the hour while the gospel is preached to them … The people are very willing to receive us into their homes, and there are more invitations than we can accept.14
Letter to Isabel, mentioning Nellie and Topsy Saunders’ mother, who was now also a CMS missionary serving in Fukien Province, 27 February 1898:
This week I went to Sien O with Mrs. Saunders. We had a grand day. The Devil tried to hinder by upsetting the coolies along the road and it ended in me walking the 3 miles and then later on the chair pole broke and we had great work to tie it up. At Sien O hundreds heard the Gospel, over 15 children gave their names as willing to attend day school. Over 20 sick people were treated and a family publicly burned their idols. Our hearts were thankful.
We have a new Catechist, one who has been Miss Searle’s teacher for two years and he will be a real help to us and the people. The new church is begun, also the Women’s School. There are six boys in the Blind School, all getting on well. Your little Ning Kai, who has written you a letter and made you a pair of cuffs is the best boy. I do thank God for him, I am now teaching him to play the organ.
Letters to Isabel and Aunt Marianne at ‘Darriwill’, 7 and 11 May 1898 respectively:
My dear Isabel,
I have just received an invitation to go to a wedding … I went to the feast with S. Newton but we had some dinner immediately before we started. The house we went to is not very grand. Just inside the front door there is a room with an earth floor and various tubs, fishing nets, etc., all about. The next room is like it but today had two square tables spread ready for the feast … here were about eight saucers full of things, in two dried fish,
in two watermelon seeds. We were invited to sit down and the bride was brought out of the bedroom for us to look at. Poor thing, she was not allowed to speak and she did look miserable, her hair was covered with ornaments and she had on a red dress. After standing for us to gaze at she was turned to face the wall and left standing in that position.
The eating soon began and it was not really bad, we were not pressed to eat, the Bride sat at the other (inferior) table and was not given anything to eat. After about an hour and a half it was over. I was glad because it is tiring sitting so long not talking, and four dirty hungry dogs under the table all the time is not pleasant. We came to this feast because they are all Christians except the bride, three members were baptised lately. We were invited into the bride’s bedroom and then contrary to custom talked. The Bride had a sore foot and asked for medicine and so I sent up for some at once. I do pray that the friendship begun today may grow into love in the Lord.
My dearest Auntie,
All day I have been down at the Blind School … it is so very wonderful, the way the Lord has given me this work to do and how gently He has led me on from step to step, not with a great bound that would frighten me. The next step I am in the dark about, how to manage every day housekeeping on so much per month, each boy ought only to cost a certain amount.
Report from fellow-missionary Miss Little about a visit to Deng Doi, 1 July 1898:
I wonder if those in the homeland know what an enormous district Lieng Kong is, in which their three representatives, Miss Oxley, Miss Newton and Miss Searle are the only resident foreigners … Miss Oxley is Senior Missionary … there is the medical work twice a week, with an average of at least eighty patients each time. The patients have numbers distributed to them when the gate is opened, and are seen in turn. Preaching goes on before and during the dispensing. God is blessing the remedies used to heal many; and there are signs of spiritual results too …
There are two day schools in this village … Miss Oxley has a women’s class on Tuesday and Sunday afternoons, which one of the others takes when she is itinerating. She had the joy of seeing 11 women, whom she had been preparing for some time, baptised in the chapel last Sunday.15
This small church in Deng Doi had been funded almost exclusively by donations from CMA supporters in New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania.
Letter from Amy in The Church Missionary Gleaner, 1 November 1898:
At the Leper Asylum [in Foochow], I saw a man with a glory and a brightness on his face, that could not possibly have been there unless God had been shining upon him. There are two tiny places where the eyes had been, for now he is blind; there is a small round hole, where once there was a nose; his lips are drawn far apart, and both top and bottom rows of teeth were showing, and yet I have never seen such a wonderful face; for truly love, joy, and perfect peace are written there … I have never realised in quite the same way before, how very wonderful is the grace of God, and how His indwelling Presence can so wonderfully transform a human being.16
Letter to Isabel, 16 November 1898:
I just long for you to see the Blind boy and the School cook that you are supporting. Ning Kai … has a very sweet face. It just shines with the Peace of God, for he is a true little Christian. His mother died when he was about four years old. He went blind at five and his father died when he was seven. I do not know what his life was like then but last year he went to a place called Ceng Song and there an uncle has been feeding him and … a Biblewoman …has been teaching him. It was such a pleasure to see him before eating his rice fold his hands together and thank God for it … I never thought I should have anything to do with the Blind, and here I am really teaching them and loving to do it.
3.4 Amy’s handwritten letter to Isabel, 16 November 1898.
Letter to Margaret Griffith, 18 January 1899:
Just at present we are having a time of great blessing. The women who were baptised last year are really beginning to see the sin of foot binding and really it is beautiful the way they are unbinding in spite of the pain and the ridicule of the neighbours …
I am more than pleased with the success of the Braille. Some of the boys are learning to knit. I am thinking of sending a little packet of writing etc. to the [CMS] Loan Exhibition as it will make the work better known and we do need prayer and funds. Perhaps some of your Sunday School members will help in this work by prayer and by giving money. Wool would be very acceptable as the boys are learning to knit. Later on some of them will earn money this way …
There is much one wants, yea, longs to do but there is work enough to keep dozens employed. We never have time to spend the evening together. Often I have to remind myself that the work must not take all the time. God First. Without Him what can we do? I shall be so glad to hear from you again. In two more years I expect I will be leaving for Sydney, how very quickly the time passes.
Letter to Isabel, 30 April 1899:
God is working in a most wonderful way here just now. The Women’s School is full with 26 women. The Blind School full with 15 boys … We attend about 60 patients a week just now. Last week on making up the Books I find we have registered the names of 1195 patients.
3.5 Amy with Minna Searle (left) and Sophie Newton (middle) and the women’s Bible class at Deng Doi.
Two letters, a few days apart, to Isabel, 11 and 15 May 1899:
Our beautiful new church is nearly finished and the school for women will be finished in August. Oh there is such a wonderful difference in this place compared to this time last year. Then it seemed nothing but misunderstanding and trials, nearly empty church, etc. Now full old church and real love within people. We had the Bishop here for a Sunday. He confirmed 52 men and women. Some of them were from other villages. 84 partook of the Lord’s Supper. Several families lately have given up their idols, it seems as if God has let me see Him working, it is wonderful.
O Bel, I do long to be more full of God’s Holy Spirit, and there is such a lot of daily sin to be confessed. One thing I often fail in and that is hasty words, often indignations that I have no right under any circumstances to speak hastily. These sick people often make me completely out of patience with them. Perhaps I have and with much care and trouble succeeded in washing clean a wound, an abscess that has been filled with earth, and in four days it is really beginning to improve, to find the patient does not turn up. Then he comes again hand filled with mud!!! And expects me to go through everything again. Then my nerves seem to tingle and I tell him what a goose he is. And then I wish I hadn’t.
Then the coolness of these people making use of our things without asking or by your leave. Just fancy, a family here had diphtheria. Father and daughter died. Very quickly other people who went in to have a look have died. Then a little boy got it and just as he was dying his mother carried him to the Blind School and laid him on one of the beds. The boys were at dinner and a knock came to the door. Ning Kai opened it and could not see who came in but the cook etc. hearing a cough went to see and found this boy. All were terrified as they think it is the plague. The brother was made to take the boy away, he died almost at once, and up they came for me. Of course they were comforted and the matting he was laid on was burnt and the bed washed, but I cannot help being a little anxious … But these boys are in the Heavenly Father’s keeping and I must not worry.
My own Dear Captain,
I said to Long Hie, one of the small boys, what shall I do, can I stay the night here. He thought for a time and then said, ‘I don’t know which bed you would sleep on.’ Nor I, for the place is packed and two boys are sleeping in another house which I do not like. More boys want to come and I am looking out for another house – none near at hand to let. One rambling house for sale at 700 dollars = £70, but I hope later on to build. God has begun this work. He sees and knows our need and He will surely supply it in His own time.
A general letter to missionaries in Fukien from Rev. B. Baring Gould, which would have future significance for Amy, 18 June 1899:
&
nbsp; It is with strong satisfaction that we write to inform you that at length the Committee have appointed a medical man to open up a Medical Mission in the city of Foochow. Dr. Wilkinson, an M.A. and M.B. of Cambridge, who has had some ten years in medical practice, and some experience of Medical Missions in England, will we hope, sail for Foochow with Mr. Carpenter, on Oct. 5th. And we trust that a long and useful career of Medical Mission work lies before him in that city. We recognise how hearty will be the welcome offered to him by all the brethren inasmuch as this has been a project which has been for years in the hearts of so many … Meanwhile, we would ask you and the other brethren to join with us in earnest prayer that this new development may be abundantly used of God to the extension of His kingdom, not only in Foochow but throughout the Province.
Letter to Isabel, 9 October 1899:
You ask what you could send the boys for Christmas. Well, it is a little late for Christmas but I do not think anything would please them better than some flannelette to make them a warm jacket. It gets very cold here in January and February with snow last year. I cannot tell you how many yards to send but perhaps there is a remnant not so good, and I will have it made into jackets as far as it will go …
Just think, I have been nearly four years in China, such very happy years I can never, never tell how happy. You say, ‘I wonder sometimes how you have the heart to go on with your work.’ Well, it isn’t very often I feel like that … on the other hand we are full of joy, the Women’s School really opened with 14 women and more to come.
Report from Minna Searle, 1 November 1899:
Miss Oxley started in chairs in drizzling rain … We were to go to a village on the sea-shore, and there to meet her boat in which she was going to visit three or four villages, and then send it up to Foochow for repairs. The Lord gave her this boat, and it has been so much used in His work, though I don’t think very many help to support it. The Lord kept the feet of our coolies and they brought us through ‘lovely scenery’ to our destination. On the way we passed through a village not one foreign woman had been in before … We learn what it is to be ‘a spectacle’ to men and we must look even funnier to them than they to us, for they have never seen Europeans, even in pictures.17