Page 136 - Three Score Years & Ten
P. 136
“THREE SCORE YEARS AND TEN” MISSIONARY WORK IN CHINA
Amy Moore
something they dimly sensed but still could not fully see, content to know they could trust the One who
led them. So there was a seriousness of purpose which drew the little group together.
They had their fun times too. They were not young and full of the joy of life for nothing! Men and
women were kept strictly segregated, but the men managed to make tea in their rooms and lower
some down from their windows to the girls on the floor below. They stole down at midnight to wash
the faces and decorate the heads of the
busts of revered and long dead members
of Council or other famous men in the
entrance hall. To show their disapproval
of one lecturer who treated them like
Prep. School children, they piled his
notes into the lift, set fire to them, and
sent them shooting up to the top floor!
But beneath the fun there was that deep
search after God, and Percy never forgot
some of those prayer meetings on the 5th
floor when they all gathered in one of the
bedrooms to seek the mind of the Lord.
This happened regularly each week on
the night before the open air meeting was
held. It was the custom to seek the Holy
Spirit’s guidance, first as to the number of
conversions they could ask for on the
following day, and then to pray in faith for
that number until there was not a shred of
doubt in any mind. Invariably the
number they were given was the number
of conversions the following day, but it
was the power of God in that little room
as they prayed on and on until they were
all ‘of one mind in the Spirit’ that left a lasting impression on Percy’s life and ministry.
Some of the ‘follow up’ to this work led Percy and his friends into homes so filthy and so impregnated
with the smell of urine that he found it hard to believe that these were white people. His life in China
had not prepared him for such degradation nor such depths of poverty in the Western world. On one
occasion, faced with a man ill and shivering, clothed in the thinnest of thin garments, he felt moved to
take off his own warm Canadian overcoat (the only one he had) and give it to the man. He hadn’t any
idea how he would manage without a coat in the cold Scottish winter, but he knew the impulse was of
God and he must obey.
The following night was the regular China prayer meeting at the CIM centre in Glasgow. All China
candidates were expected to go. Wrapping himself up as warmly as possible in all the sweaters he
owned (but without an overcoat), Percy went with the others as usual to the meeting, which was led by
Dr. Arthur Taylor, who had been a Master in Chefoo until 1922. He was now Secretary for Scotland
of the CIM. When the meeting was over, Mr. Taylor called Percy in to a side room and said, “Percy,
do you need an overcoat? There is one here somebody gave me to pass on. Try it on and see if it fits
you.” It did and he accepted it gratefully, but greater than his gratitude for the coat was his joy in this
136
Amy Moore
something they dimly sensed but still could not fully see, content to know they could trust the One who
led them. So there was a seriousness of purpose which drew the little group together.
They had their fun times too. They were not young and full of the joy of life for nothing! Men and
women were kept strictly segregated, but the men managed to make tea in their rooms and lower
some down from their windows to the girls on the floor below. They stole down at midnight to wash
the faces and decorate the heads of the
busts of revered and long dead members
of Council or other famous men in the
entrance hall. To show their disapproval
of one lecturer who treated them like
Prep. School children, they piled his
notes into the lift, set fire to them, and
sent them shooting up to the top floor!
But beneath the fun there was that deep
search after God, and Percy never forgot
some of those prayer meetings on the 5th
floor when they all gathered in one of the
bedrooms to seek the mind of the Lord.
This happened regularly each week on
the night before the open air meeting was
held. It was the custom to seek the Holy
Spirit’s guidance, first as to the number of
conversions they could ask for on the
following day, and then to pray in faith for
that number until there was not a shred of
doubt in any mind. Invariably the
number they were given was the number
of conversions the following day, but it
was the power of God in that little room
as they prayed on and on until they were
all ‘of one mind in the Spirit’ that left a lasting impression on Percy’s life and ministry.
Some of the ‘follow up’ to this work led Percy and his friends into homes so filthy and so impregnated
with the smell of urine that he found it hard to believe that these were white people. His life in China
had not prepared him for such degradation nor such depths of poverty in the Western world. On one
occasion, faced with a man ill and shivering, clothed in the thinnest of thin garments, he felt moved to
take off his own warm Canadian overcoat (the only one he had) and give it to the man. He hadn’t any
idea how he would manage without a coat in the cold Scottish winter, but he knew the impulse was of
God and he must obey.
The following night was the regular China prayer meeting at the CIM centre in Glasgow. All China
candidates were expected to go. Wrapping himself up as warmly as possible in all the sweaters he
owned (but without an overcoat), Percy went with the others as usual to the meeting, which was led by
Dr. Arthur Taylor, who had been a Master in Chefoo until 1922. He was now Secretary for Scotland
of the CIM. When the meeting was over, Mr. Taylor called Percy in to a side room and said, “Percy,
do you need an overcoat? There is one here somebody gave me to pass on. Try it on and see if it fits
you.” It did and he accepted it gratefully, but greater than his gratitude for the coat was his joy in this
136
