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Page 8
"THE UNBELIEVING WIFE SANCTIFIED IN THE BROTHER."
I Cor. vii: 14. (Revision.)
Our Chinese brethren have their full share in the family feeling which
for ages has been nurtured in their race. This feeling is even
intensified by their new life in Christ. They long for what they hope to
make a Christian home, and greatly desire to perpetuate themselves in
children who may follow them in following Christ. But what are they to
do for wives? Many live in a virtual celibacy that is hopeless, because
enforced by the betrothals made for them in China by their parents or
elder brothers. These are accounted sacred, and are honored by our
brethren with an oblivion of their own fancies or affinities that will
be adjudged to be either stolid or heroic, according as the person
judging is disposed to think kindly or unkindly of this people. Many
have returned to China for the express purpose of consummating this
betrothal in marriage. They remain a few months with their wives, and
then return to California to find work and provide for them. Such
persons are obliged by their principles to live in virtual celibacy.
Some greatly desire to send for their wives, but not only does the
Restriction Law bar the entrance, but the father in China will probably
raise effectual objection. A son is as much the property of his father
at sixty as at six, and all he has, not only in property, but in wife
and children as well, is under the father's control. The
daughter-in-law, if strong and willing, is a very serviceable person
about the old homestead in China, and the appeals of the son for the
enjoyment of his wife's society in California are answered with the
advice to get him another wife here. One in China and one in America
seems to them a very safe arrangement. Eight thousand miles of ocean
intervene and assure against domestic broils.
Some, however, of our brethren have in one way or another been set free
from these early betrothals, and are at liberty to seek wives for
themselves. Such are very glad if among the inmates of the mission-homes
for Chinese women they can find a Christian for a help-meet. But this is
often impossible. There are not enough Chinese Christian women to meet
the demand. And therefore it has seemed to me not to be my duty
strenuously to insist on the restriction placed on union with
unbelievers, but rather when such a union has been arranged for, and is
to be consummated, to hold out a hope that the unbelieving wife may be,
not only in form and in her relation to the church--which seems to be
the sense of the text cited--but in truth and fact sanctified in the
brother.
This hope was fulfilled some years ago in the home of our oldest
missionary helper, Jee Gam. His father having at last yielded to the
son's entreaties and sent his wife to him, the narrow quarters in our
Central Mission House to which the bride was brought became at once a
sanctuary, and the Family Altar was established and the Family Saviour
recognized and worshiped. When a son was born to them, he was brought in
due time to our Bethany to be baptized, the heathen mother consenting
and attending. It was not long after that the mother herself stood with
us to enter into covenant and be baptized, and since then,--though
preferring to live in her home in a seclusion which American ladies
would regard as imprisonment and torture,--she has sought there to do
service to her Master in bringing up her children in the nurture of the
Lord. In her husband's absence from home she takes his place at the
family altar, and many an American mother might well pattern after her
fidelity in teaching her children the good and right way.
Several years ago, one of our steadfast Chinese brethren in Sacramento
requested me to come and conduct his marriage service. He had procured
the bride in Marysville, purchasing her (I suppose) of her parents after
the Chinese custom. I obeyed the summons; obtained for him the necessary
license, and then at the Mission House awaited the coming of the bride.
That which at length arrived resembled more a moving package of rich
and brilliant dry-goods of Chinese manufacture than a bright and
blushing bride. Something could be seen of the shoes she wore, and when
at length, in the course of the service, I somewhat firmly insisted on a
joining of hands a hand was made to appear, but there was no bridal
kiss, nor any sight or semblance of a face beneath the quadrupled or
quintupled veils. However, the marriage was effected in a Christian way,
and the next morning there came to me an invitation to call upon the
bride. I found her to be the most beautiful Chinese girl I had ever
seen, with manners all the more pleasing because so very shy. Her
husband had prepared quarters for her which, as compared with the
average Chinese home, were almost palatial, and everything seemed to
promise a future peaceful and joyous.
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