Chapter 24 Series 1 My Faith 1. Childhood and Youth

I was born at the end of the nineteenth century.That year was 1895, the year China and Japan signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki, which stipulated the cession of Taiwan and the recognition of Korea's independence. It was the second year after China lost to Japan in the Sino-Japanese War.China suffered a disastrous defeat at the hands of Japan because the widow of the Manchu Qing government diverted the money for building a modern navy to the construction of the famous Summer Palace outside Beijing.The old summer palace was looted and burned by the British and French forces in 1860, and this ignorant and stubborn woman and her xenophobia contributed to the outbreak of the Boxer Rebellion a few years later.I once heard my father talk about the escape of the widow and the emperor during the Boxer Rebellion, when I was five years old.Checking the yearbook, I found that the year when the Treaty of Shimonoseki was concluded was also the year when the German physicist Leqin discovered X-rays.

One of my earliest childhood memories is sliding off the roof of a church.The church has only one house, and it is next to a two-story vicarage, so standing on the balcony of the vicarage, one can look down through a small window at the back of the church and see the interior of the church.Between the roof of the church and the beams of the vicarage there was only a narrow space through which a child could climb up the roof on one side, squeeze through the narrow space, and slide down on the other.I remember being that little kid standing on the balcony, marveling at the omnipresence of God.It confuses me so I wonder if God is omnipresent, if he is just inches above my head.I also remember defending myself for the idea of ​​daily thanksgiving, and coming to the conclusion that this is a general gratitude for life, that we should be grateful for all life in the same way, and that the inhabitants of the Empire should also be grateful for being able to live in Thanks to the emperor for peace and order.

Childhood is a time of novelty. Standing on the balcony of the parsonage, one can discover many new things.In front of you are the ten peaks of Nanshan Mountain, and behind you is the stone wall of another high mountain.Deep inland and surrounded by high mountains, our countryside is known locally as "The Lake".From here to the nearest port—Xiamen, it is almost sixty miles, and at that time, it took about three days by sailing boat.Traveling by sailing boat is another experience that will always be imprinted in my heart.Because I live in the south, the road from the countryside to the Xixi River Valley in Zhangzhou is really beautiful, unlike the bare Huangtugang in the north.But being so far inland, about six miles out of the country, that the river couldn't sail, we had to change to a much smaller canoe, the kind that the boatmen actually lift over the rapids, the boatmen. Roll up your trousers to your lap and jump into the river with the boat on your shoulders.

Something has to do with living in this village surrounded by mountains, because being close to the mountains is like being close to the greatness of God.I often stand and look at the gray-blue changes on the hillsides, and the strange and arbitrary roaming of the white clouds on the top of the mountains, feeling confused and surprised.It makes people ignore low mountains and everything artificial, false, and small.These mountains have long been part of who I am and what I believe in, because they enrich me, give me a sense of strength and independence, and no one can take them away from me.This mountain also confirms the sentence in the "Bible": "How beautiful are the feet of this man climbing the mountain", I began to believe that if a person can't feel the pleasure of putting his toes in the wet grass, he can't really know God .

There are six brothers and two sisters in our family, and we boys often take turns drawing water from the family well.Learning to fetch water is fun.Shake the bucket when it gets to the bottom of the well so it flips over to fill up with water, we didn't know there were little machines because that was the time of kerosene lamps; we had two of those and a couple of peanut oil ones tin lamp.Soap didn't enter our lives until I was about ten years old.My mother used a kind of "bean cake" made from soybean residue; it was only slightly foamy.When soap first came out, it was shaped like a square wooden bar, and farmers often dried it in the sun to make it firmer so that it would not be used too quickly when washing.

Father was the vanguard at that time.He's a dreamer, sharp, imaginative, funny, and never-ending.Everything new and modern that he imparted to our children was a strong interest in what is called "new learning" in Western knowledge.Mother was just the opposite, a simple, innocent soul surrounded by admiration, and we brothers and sisters often ganged up on mother.We often make up some ridiculous stories to tell her.She would listen, but not quite believe it, until we burst out laughing, and she would wrinkle her face and say, "You're teasing the stupid girl again." By the time I was 5 years old, my older sisters had taken care of household chores such as cooking and washing.We say family prayers every night before going to bed, and we were raised in a godly, loving, harmonious home with a good working order.People used to think we brothers would fight, but we never did.

Father is unconventional.The boys in our family don't wear their hair in braids like other children, but have short boyish hair; my sister often weaves a kind of cap for us, which is the kind worn by French sailors on Gulangyu Street opposite Amoy.My father was a very active person. On summer nights when the moon was bright, he would often go to the river bank near the bridge to preach on the spur of the moment. He knew that the farmers gathered there, sitting in the summer breeze and admiring the moon.My mother told me that he once nearly died of pneumonia because he had sweated profusely while out preaching after the full harvest moon and hadn't wiped off when he came home.He often built churches, and he built one there when he was sent to preach in Tong'an.When I was ten or eleven, I saw him building a new church in Banzai. The church was made of sun-dried mud bricks, covered with tiles and plastered on the outside.There was a great commotion as the weight of the roof gradually pushed the surrounding walls apart.The Reverend A. L. Warnshuis, who lives by a creek sixty miles away, heard of this situation and ordered some steel rods from the United States.These bars are held in the middle by a big nail which allows the bars to be rotated to the proper length required.They are connected to the wooden bars that support the roof. When the screw nails are tightened, the steel bars pull the wooden bars together. You can clearly see that the roof of the church has been raised by several inches.This is a great and memorable moment.

Although my father is a pastor, it by no means means that he is not a Confucian.I remember helping him mount a couplet by the great Confucian Zhu Xi for hanging on the wall of the new church.The font of this pair of couplets is about one foot wide and narrow. My father took a trip to Zhangzhou to retrieve the rubbings of these calligraphy, because Zhu Xi had once been the magistrate of Zhangzhou.Zhu Xi, born in the twelfth century, is supposed to have brought "culture" into our province by introducing the method of binding women's feet.As far as I can see, his work is not considered successful, because the women in this province have bound feet that are neither small nor shapely.

My first contact with the West was when a pair of missionaries lived in our house and visited.They left a sardine can and a shirt collar button with a shiny gilt bead in the middle.I often find it very strange and don't know what it is for.After they left, the smell of butter was still everywhere in the house, and my sister forced the windows open to let the wind blow it away.My first contact with English books was an American women's magazine that someone left in my house, probably "Ladies Homejournal" ("Women's Home" magazine).Mother used to keep it in her sewing box, and use the smooth pages inside to hold the embroidery threads.I believe that no American magazine can be used for such a long time.When building the church, Fan Liwen also sent us a set of tools used by Western carpenters, including a rotary machine. I am very curious about them and think they are quite well made.

Father and Pastor Fan Liwen became good friends and good partners, because Pastor Fan Liwen discovered that his father was interested in all Western and new things.He introduced us to a weekly Christian newspaper called The Inquirer, which was printed in ink.He sent us various pamphlets and books, including Christian literature and books about the Western world and Western science published by the Shanghai Christian Association.This is how Xixue came to my house.I believe my father read everything useful about the West, I remember one day he said with a sarcasm: "I've read all about airplanes, but I've never seen one, I don't know if it's believable .” This was around the time the Wright Brothers were experimenting with flying.I don't know how he got the news, but when he talked about Berlin University and Oxford University as "the best in the world" to our brother, his eyes lit up, and he half-truly hoped that our brother could be there one day study.We are a family of absolute dreamers.

When I was ten years old, my two younger brothers and I left home to go to school in Xiamen, and my father asserted that the four local schools were not good enough.Because the journey takes many days and costs money, I didn't go back during the winter vacation, which means being away from my mother for a whole year.But boys are boys, and I soon learned to miss home and indulge in school activities, including barefoot kicking wooden balls sawn from dumbbells.It's a common sport for kids at school, but there's nothing like being back with your mother.After entering the Banzai River Valley surrounded by mountains, there was still a mile to our home. We three brothers couldn't bear the slow rocking of the boat any longer, so we set off on foot.We had planned how we would announce our return to Mother, whether to yell "We're back!" at the door, or to tease Mother again, in an old beggar's voice, asking for some water; or to sneak into the house, find her, and suddenly yelled at her.This world is too small to restrain the hearts of children. This is what those Westerners who have lived in China for a long time call "Chinese naughty character". Our home becomes a school during the holidays.I said that my father being a priest does not mean that he is not a Confucian. When the boys cleaned the floor and the girls washed the dishes for breakfast, when the bell rang, we climbed into the seats around the dining table and listened to my father. Confucian classics, which contain many beautiful love songs. (I remember a shy young teacher who blushed when he had to explain the love songs chosen by Confucius himself.) When the class reached eleven o'clock, the second sister looked at the shadow of the sun on the wall, stood up slowly, with a look of joy on her face. Reluctant expression said: "I'm going to cook lunch." Sometimes we also gather to read at night, and then she has to stop reading, get up and say: "I'm going to do the laundry." The reason why I have to write about my second sister is not only because she occupied most of my childhood, but also because it can show the meaning of college education in our family.I remember my second sister doting on me (all Freudian talk, fuck me!) because I was a big-headed but somewhat unruly and mischievous kid.While the brothers were studying their homework peacefully and carefully, I went to play in the yard.When I grew up, she told me that when I was a child, I was quite naughty and often lost my temper. Once after arguing with her, I got into a mud hole in the back garden and rolled in it like a pig. Say to her, "Okay, now you're going to clean me up!" It must look dirty and cute to me at this moment! My sister has read "Solomon's Treasure" and "The Arabian Nights" by Scott, Dickens, Conan Doyle, and Haggard. These books have long been translated into Chinese by Lin Shu, a fellow villager.In fact, Lin Shu didn't know English, so he had to rely on Mr. Wei to translate into Fuzhou dialect.Then the great author wrote the whole story in beautiful ancient prose.Lin Shu became very famous, and he went on to translate Maupassant and Alexandre Dumas's "La Traviata". This book shocked Chinese society because the heroine was a beauty with tuberculosis, very similar to Lin Daiyu in the Chinese romance. .The typical beauty in China seems to be either a consumptive lady or a noble lady who is almost dying.Even in ancient times, the most famous Chinese beauty was either suffering from angina pectoris or some kind of neurosis, and her most famous pose was the moment when she frowned while enduring extreme pain.My sister and I, having read the detective novels of Holmez and some French author whom we cannot remember, compiled a long detective story of our own to amuse my mother, a story that continued day by day, full of Chilling escapes and adventures.My sister is a genius, like Deborah Kerr, she has a smart and sensitive expressiveness, so when I saw Kerr for the first time on the screen a few years ago, my heart beat so fast and I held my daughter's hand in shock. Call: "That's what my second sister looks like!" My wife has met my second sister, and she agrees with me very much. After my sister graduated from high school in Xiamen, she wanted to go to Fuzhou Women's University to study.I heard her request after family prayer, but in vain.She doesn't want to get married right away, she wants to go to college.That's why I tell this story, but my father doesn't think so.My sister pleaded, coaxed me with kind words, and made all kinds of promises, but my father said "no".To me, it's scary.I don't blame my father. In fact, it's not that he doesn't want to have a daughter who is capable and highly educated. I still remember that he said after reading an article by a female writer in a magazine in Shanghai: "I really hope to have a daughter." Such a girl as my daughter-in-law!" But a dreamer like himself, he couldn't see how it could be done.A college education for girls is a waste, and our family really can't afford it.What's more, this is an era when even the sons of wealthy families in Xiamen will not go to Fuzhou or Shanghai to study.My father heard that St. John's University in Shanghai is the best university in China for learning English. I believe he read most of it from the "Inquirer".I heard my father himself tell a friend that when he signed the contract to sell our only house in Zhangzhou so that the second brother could go to college, tears could not stop falling on the paper.This is the limit of a priest's ability.Son, yes; daughter, no; in this day and age, no.It's not a matter of tuition fees, because I'm convinced that my second sister can get a place at a Christian university.It is a matter of travel expenses and pocket money, which may cost fifty to sixty silver dollars a year.In this way, my second sister had no choice but to hesitate and hesitate, teaching in Xiamen, waiting to get married.This is an era where girls must rush to marry as soon as they turn twenty.My second sister has a suitor who has been waiting for a long time, but every time my mother asks her to talk about this issue at night, the second sister just blows out the lights and avoids talking about it.She couldn't go to college, and she was already twenty-one at that time. When my second brother was about to graduate and could earn money to support my studies, my extended family suggested that I study at St. John’s University, but I didn’t make the decision until the last day because my father wanted to borrow a hundred silver dollars from a former student who was also a good friend of his.According to the rules of ancient China, the teacher is the master of life and one of the Confucian "lord, relative, and teacher".The student has become a rich man now, and every time his father goes to Zhangzhou, he lives in the student's home.Because there is a deeper relationship between them: this rich man used to be a smart but poor child. When he was studying under his father, his father gave him a hat. He will never forget this gift, and so on. When it was too tattered to wear, he swore he would never wear another hat in his life, and he did.This is the so-called loyalty in ancient China-the strong loyalty taught in Chinese novels or on the stage, whether it is military commanders and civil servants, domestic servants, and husband and wife, all pay attention to loyalty. Father knew that as long as he asked, he would be able to borrow the money.To this day, I still don't know if the money has been repaid. In this way, I sailed straight down to Xixi with my second sister and my family. She was going to a small village called "Mountain Village" for her wedding, and I was scheduled to go to Shanghai to study in my first year of university.The question of the one-hundred-dollar loan hung over my head like a sword of Damocles, but I was happy.I was sixteen at the time.After the wedding, the second sister gave me 40 cents from the pocket of the wedding dress.When we broke up, she said tearfully: "Hele, you have the opportunity to go to university, but my sister can't go because she is a girl. Don't let down your chance, make up your mind to be a good person, a useful person, and a famous person." This is All of my family patterns. My second sister died of the plague two years later, but these words have always echoed in my ears.I speak of these things because they have had a great influence on the formation of my personal virtue.Want to be a Christian, just like my second sister told me, do you want to be a good person, a useful person?In the eyes of God, a scholar is meaningless to the law and all the knowledge and learning of the prophets; for a humble and simple person, he tries to find the best in him; but for a fallen person, he can lift him up. stand up.This is the most simple and unobtrusive outline of the teachings of Jesus Christ.I can still picture myself as the kid who rolled in the mud to get back at my sister, and I believe she loves me for it.What is most special about Jesus, what is incomparable about him, is that the tax collectors, the prostitutes, are nearer to him than the learned men of his day. At that time, St. John's University had already enjoyed a considerable reputation internationally, because it produced several Chinese ambassadors, Yan Huiqing (from my hometown Xiamen), Shi Zhaoji, and Gu Weijun.It is indeed the best university for learning English, and in the minds of students, this is why St. John's University exists.Although it was run by the Anglican Church, its secret mission to most of the students was to train them to succeed as compradors and assistants to the Shanghai tycoons.In fact, the average level of English of the students does not exceed the requirements of a comprador.The headmaster, Dr. Boo Fong Chi, was a truly great man, and he understood his task as well, I think, as the headmasters of Ruby or Eton schools in England. His fatherly influence on the students is undeniable.Every morning, after the morning prayer meeting, he held a black leather bag in his hand and carried a general secretary to patrol the entire campus.I believe this is his morning routine before sitting in the office at nine.He is a meticulous person, so some people say that he reads a novel a year to make himself relax for an hour a week.As for the library, the collection does not exceed five or six thousand books, one-third of which are theological books.In fact, it doesn't matter which university you study in. The most important thing is to have a good library.The essence of learning, like the kingdom of heaven, lies in itself and must come from the heart.Our mind is like a monkey, the only thing to do is to take that monkey into the forest, you don't have to tell it where to find the fruit, you don't even have to lead it to the good fruit.I roamed in that barren forest, reading Darwin, Heckel, Lamarck, and novelist Winston Churchill's "Inside the Cup and Plate."Also, I learned to play tennis, soccer, and even baseball from my classmate from Hawaii, though I could never grow it into curves.I was on the rowing team and the five-mile track team.To be fair, one of my takeaways from St. John's was developing my own chest; if I had gone to a public school, that would have been impossible. The heart of youth is eager to try, I look around for what I can find, greedy for everything that is edible, like a squirrel in the park, no matter what he eats, he can absorb and grow.Once the thoughtful heart enters the water, it sails on the boundless and sometimes stormy sea.Man looks up at the stars and marvels, while the ship struggles and bumps, rocks back and forth and side to side in the waves.I remember going home for the summer when I was in second grade.My father asked me to preach (which I did many times even in my teens, because my father didn't like to stick to conventions and wanted to impress my garrulous me).I chose a topic: "Reading the Bible as Literature".It was pointless indeed to speak of the Bible as literature to peasant Christians, but the idea was at the forefront of my consciousness at the time, and so it slipped out.Remember I once said that Yahweh is a tribal god who helped Joshua wipe out the Amalekites and the Kenai people, and the concept of Yahweh evolved, from an idol worshiped by tribes to the only true God of all nations and peoples , no one nation is particularly "chosen".You can imagine my father's face at Sunday dinner!He may see that he has done a wrong thing.He knew a man from Xiamen who spoke good English, but he was an atheist.This is a bad omen, "English is good, but I am an atheist." So he was very afraid that I would also walk on the road of atheism. I liked that university very much but didn't pay much attention to homework.During the week of the exam, other students were working hard on tutoring, but I went fishing in Suzhou Creek. It never occurred to me that I would fail the exam.In middle school and college, I was often the second place, because there are often stupid people who are dead on reading and take the first place. Here I must mention the Chinese course, because it caused a great reaction in my later Christian beliefs.For example, I read Chamberlain's "Fundamentals of the Nineteenth Century" under my desk during Chinese civil law class.Why there is a subject of civil law, I still can't understand.The Chinese teacher was an old scholar with large glasses and weighed at least eighty pounds.A scholar has never learned to teach or give a speech.That civil law textbook is a thing with only a hundred pages in large print, and you can sit down and read it in one go, but we treat it as a textbook for the whole semester.Because it's included in the curriculum, we're going to force it through.Every week the civil law "professor" read us about ten to fifteen lines, and it took about fifteen minutes. He stared at us through his glasses, and we watched him in silence.Unfortunately, this is a performance that I can't pass, the absolute emptiness inside is hard to suppress, and I don't want to enter into meditation like Zen Buddhism.This is typical of Chinese classes at St. John's University.The worst thing is that even if you fail the Chinese course exam for several years in a row, you can still get a diploma from St. John's University.In fact, the school did not pay much attention to the study of Chinese affairs, and this phenomenon did not improve until after 1930. At the beginning, I was interested in Chinese history, but when I entered St. John's University, it stopped suddenly.I can't do two things with one mind, and I fell in love with English.I put aside the brush and picked up the fountain pen. Even when I was studying in Leipzig, my father often wrote to say that he was very ashamed of my calligraphy.Chinese calligraphy is an art that requires a lifetime of hard work to achieve perfection. It must be done with full dedication and hands-on, and it must be part of education after university.The continued growth and maturity of the mind is largely dependent on letting go of what you have learned in high school and college.In my case, this process of abandonment is to go back to Chinese academic research in a curved line, and to abandon my Christianity along with it. At this time I studied to be a pastor, which was my own choice.I was enrolled at St. John's University Divinity School and this was the first time I was hit by a storm.Exegesis is more suitable to others than to me, because I want to pursue great ideas and ideals.Before long I became an admirer of Flutter, although I did not discuss Flutel directly until I left St. John's.To my questions, I sometimes find conflicting answers, and sometimes no answers.Assaulted, I run away, assailed again, fall back again.All theological falsity is an insult to my intelligence.I can't faithfully fulfill it.I lost all interest and got extremely low grades, which is a rare thing in my schooling process.The overseer thought I was unfit to be a priest, and he was right.I left seminary.