'From far Formosa (Taiwan). The Island, its People & Missions'
- By George Leslie Mackay [1844-1901]
Setting out from Tamsui with a party of students, we made our way over the mountain-ranges south of Kelung and entered the Kap-tsu-lan plain. As this plain is but a few feet above the sea-level, and as the rainfall is very much greater than in other parts of the island, travelling is always attended with discomfort and difficulty. By keeping near the sea one can find a rather dry path, but inland, during the rainy days, one has to wade through sticky mud, sometimes a foot and a half in depth. The paths through the rice-fields are narrow and winding, and when the fields are irrigated are at times completely submerged. Travelling near the base of the mountain, we passed by the mouth of a ravine, and there we heard yells and screams. Immediately a Chinese came up, breathless, and reported that four of his companions had just been speared and beheaded by the savages, and that he escaped by dodging. On entering again on the steep brow of a hill overlooking the sea, I was in advance, and was just past the mouth of the gorge when three savages with spears rushed out and attacked several elders who were a little way in the rear. The elders, with great presence of mind, threw themselves into the water and got out of reach of the deadly thrust. Once, overtaken by night, we got astray and went miles out of our way. The night was dark, and we were wet, hungry, and absolutely without our bearings. We staggered round and round the plats of a rice-field, stumbling into the mud and water, until we stood still and thought awhile. It was a moment for serious thought. We were lost and in a strange territory. No light could be seen near or far. But we remembered that we were on our Master's business. My students uttered no word of complaint ; indeed, they were positively cheerful. We thought of God in front, God in the rear, God on the right, God on the left, God within, God above, and underneath the everlasting arms. So we plodded along, tumbling into mud-pools, scrambling out, and pushing on again. The first object with which we came in contact I knew by touch to be a rice-stack, and we passed the night under its bulging sides.
The next night was spent in a grass-covered hut. Its sides were of reeds, but the mud had been washed from the interstices and now the rain was driven in on the black floor. Going right to one of the villages of about three hundred inhabitants, we were received with disdain. The men grunted, and calling out "Barbarian!" and "Foreign devil!" walked away. Women and children ran into their houses, and then urged wolfish-looking dogs upon us. We stood listening to the yelping of these hungry creatures, and were obliged to leave, for not a soul in the village would hear our words. We visited another village and received similar treatment. This experience was repeated in a third village. Up and down through that plain we laboured, tour after tour, and still no one came forward to accept our message of salvation. “How discouraging! " I hear someone say. Who calls such experiences discouraging? I do not. I never did. Our business is to do our duty, and to do it independently of what men call encouragement and discouragement. I never saw anything to discourage in twenty-three long years in North Formosa. At length three men from a fishing-village by the sea came and said : " You have been going through and through our plain, and no one has received you. Come to our village and we will listen to you." One was a very old man who was fittingly nicknamed " Black-face." A second was middle-aged and had once been an actor on the stage. The third was a young man. On arriving at their village we sat on large stones in front of the head man's house. We talked over matters with some of the influential men, and partook of rice and fish. When evening came on a tent was constructed out of poles and sails from their boats on the beach. Several stones were placed at one end and a plank laid upon them for a platform. At dark a man took a marine shell with the end broken off, such as they used in days gone by when setting out on the war-path, and with this "trumpet" he summoned an assembly. Families brought benches out of their huts and arranged them in rows. These preparations completed, they invited us to proceed with our service. We sang, preached, conversed, discussed, answered questions, till the small hours of the morning. The following day the inhabitants decided to have a house in which to worship the true God. They sailed down the coast into savage country for poles, and although they were attacked and wounded, returned with their load. Bricks were made out of mud mixed with rice-chaff, moulded into shape, and dried in the sun. We erected the walls, covered the roof with grass, and built a platform of mud. Then every evening, at the blowing of the "conch," the whole village turned out. They continued to carry their old benches till we procured new ones, and there they sat to be taught the everlasting gospel of our Redeemer. In several weeks — not months — boys and girls learned many of our psalms and hymns, while the elder people acquired more or less Christian knowledge. After labouring there day and night for six or eight weeks I came to be much impressed by three different classes who attended our services. There were poor old toothless women, who had wrought hard in the constant struggle for existence, squatted on the bare earth, weaving, and as they threw the thread they crooned in a low voice:
“There is a happy land far, far away.”
That land was very real to them — just as real as to their sisters in Christendom — and they came to look wistfully for the sign that would call them, not to the grass-thatched chapel out in the narrow street, but away to the temple not made with hands, in the land where the weary rest. Then there were the boys, with their bright young faces, into whose lives our songs brought something of hope ; and all day long they sang in their own tongue our children's hymn:
“Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”
And not the least attractive were the hardy, bold, brave fishermen going out in the mornings through the surf, standing — not sitting — in their boats, and as they pushed their long oars, kept time to the stroke, singing the old Scotch paraphrase:
“I'm not ashamed to own my Lord, or to defend his cause.”
It was grand. Standing away yonder on the sandy beach looking at them and listening to their voices, I wished that it were possible for the critics of foreign mission work to drop down and, just for once, see for themselves that the gospel of Christ is still;
“...the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek." [Rom 1:16]
