My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard — Part 2 Letters 14 - 15

Thy daughter, Kwei-li.

14 My Dear Mother, I have not written thee for several days.

We are in Nanking, where my husband is presiding at a meeting of the officials in order to discuss the question of a compromise, or to try in some way to settle the questions that are causing this dreadful rebellion, without more loss of life.

He is also acting as judge in the case of some of the men who have been caught pillaging and destroying the homes of the innocent people.

It is hard for him to act with strict justice, remembering the many friends he has lost, and it is necessary to see things without their individuality in order to be wise in all judgments.

I came, ostensibly to see the friends of my childhood, but really to take care of thy son and see that he eats with regularity and takes his rest.

He is working far too hard.

He gives himself to whatever task arrives, greedy for the work, like one who lusts in the delight of seeing tasks accomplished.

But he is trusted by all, both sides agreeing to rest on his decisions, all realising that personal feeling is put far into the background of his mind when the interests of new China are at stake.

We are in the Yamen where I lived as a young girl, but now all is changed.

Instead of the old guard of honour, with their great flapping hats, their gaily decorated jackets, baggy trousers tucked into velvet boots, pennants flying from their spear-points as their small ponies dashed madly in front of the official carriage, we were met by a body of foreign-dressed soldiers who conducted us with military precision quite different from the old-time dash and lack of discipline.

Inside the Yamen, also, things are different.

Everything is orderly and moves with a machine-like regularity that seems totally foreign to an Eastern official's residence.

There is not the democracy of other days;

the man from the street, the merchant or the coolie with his burden on his shoulders, did not follow us into the courtyards to see what was being done, nor were there crowds of idle men gazing with mild curiosity at the visitors to their city.

We hear much of the old-time power of the officials; but things are not nearly so democratic under this new government as in former times, when, it is true, the governor had power of life and death, but still was obliged to deal leniently with his people.

A little larger demand for tribute, a case of rank injustice, and he became the object of the people's wrath and would quite likely see his Yamen in a blaze, or pay with his life for his greed.

The masses held real power within their hands.

If their officials did not deal justly with them, they caused a riot, and if the frightened official could not still it within a certain time, he was told that he evidently could not control his people and so was removed.

My husband inspected the regiments stationed here.

I saw them from a veranda in the Yamen where we women were unseen.

Fifteen thousand men marched past him; and they were a sight for one who loves his country.

They were all young men, no one seeming to be over twenty-five, and as they marched my heart was filled with pride and hope in them.

I thought, it is of just such men, such sons of peasants and working people, that Japan made her army that gained a victory over one of the greatest nations in the Western world.

Why cannot we, with our unlimited numbers, make an army that will cause our country to be respected and take its place among the powers of the world?

We have the men, myriads and myriads of them; men who are used to hardship and privation in their daily life, who, on a bowl of rice, a morsel of dried fish, can fight the whole day through.

Our men are not accustomed to the luxuries of the foreigners, who, even in times of war, carry great stores of what seems to Eastern nations, unnecessary baggage.

With them their endless string of wagons is their greatest pitfall, and with us these latter could be reduced to the smallest count.

Yet we hear on every hand that the courage of the Chinese soldier is held at low value.

But why?

When sent unarmed, or with guns for which there were no bullets, into the Japanese war, against troops with the latest inventions in weapons to kill, the only thing to be done was to retreat.

But when they are paid, fed, and armed, and have leaders who will go to the front with them, instead of saying, "There is the enemy.

Charge!

I will go back to the hills and await your hour of glory," they are found to be courageous to the verge of fanaticism.

Under trusted leaders there is no forlorn hope or desperate service for which they would not volunteer.

Let them have confidence in their new generals, and, even though not understanding the cause, they will make the best soldiers in the world.

But I must not talk to thee of war; we want not more bloodshed and the fatherless homes and lean years that follow in the track of great armies.

Yet, if we cannot be without it, let it serve war's ends-- the ultimate safety of our people, and bring them peace and tranquillity, their heart's desire.

I visited the ruined homes of friends of mine, who are no more.

It made me feel that life is nothing but a mirage, a phantom, or as foam, and "even as all earthly vessels made on the potter's wheel must end by being broken, so end the lives of men."

I went out to the home of Yuan Tai-tai, who, to my childish mind was the great lady of my dreams.

I can close my eyes and see her still, like a brilliant butter-fly, dressed in her gay brocades, her hair twined with jewels of pearl and jade; with hand in mine she wandered o'er her garden, bending over goldfish ponds, or clipping fading flowers from off their stems.

There reigned a heavy silence in her palace, with its memories, that seemed full of sadness and a vague regret, reminding me of an old blue China bowl which a hand of other days had filled with roses.

The flowers trying to struggle from beneath the thorns and brambles that always come where troops are quartered, seemed to say, "Behold, they are not here who once have cared for us and cherished us, but the gardens breathe of them and we are fragrant for their sakes."

I picked a branch of cherry-blossoms, and swiftly fell the perfumed petals to the ground-- symbols of the dainty lives that bloomed so short a time in this fair garden of my lady.

Liu Che, the poet of the olden time, seems to have been speaking of this, my friend, when he says: [Illustration: Mylady22.

] "The sound of rustling silk is stilled, With dust the marble courtyard filled;

No footfalls echo on the floor, Fallen leaves in heaps block up the door...

For she, my pride, my lovely one is lost."

We went from Yuan's palace to the Temple of Kwan-yin, which I often visited as a child.

It also was a ruin, but it spoke to me of the dead thousands of weary feet that had climbed the steps leading to its shrines; of the buried mothers who touched the floor before its altars with reverent heads and asked blessings on their children's lives; of their children, taught to murmur prayers to the Mother of all Mercies, who held close within her loving heart the sorrows, hopes, and fears of woman's world.

Ghosts of these spirits seemed to follow as we wandered through deserted courtyards, and an odour as of old incense perfumed the air.

I went out and stood upon the tortoise that is left to guard the ruined temple; the great stone tortoise that is the symbol of longevity of our country, that even armies in their wrath cannot destroy.

From the gateway we could see the river, a gleaming thread of silver, and the hillsides, tree clad, flower wreathed, painted with the colours that the Gods give to the spring-- the spring that "thrills the warm blood into wine."

But I miss the natural songs that should float upward from the valley, and down the reed-strewn banks of the canals, where labourers in olden days were happy in their toil.

[Illustration: Mylady23.

] Even as we left the place the pattering rain-drops came as rice grains falling upon the threshing-floor, and the hills seemed "folding veils of sorrow round their brows."

It was brought to our remembrance that we must return to a city where war and famine may come thundering at her gates, and we must stand with helpless hands.

Dear Mother mine, stay upon thy flower-scented balustrade, and drink great draughts of that wine of spring, the vintage of the wise, that the Gods give to thee freely in thy mountain home, and leave to younger hands the battles with the world.

Thou must not come; write no more that thou wouldst be amongst us.

We love thee dearly, but we would cherish thee and keep thee from all care.

Kwei-li.

15 My Dear Mother, I have had a most interesting day, and I hasten to tell thee all about it.

I have just returned from opening a home for motherless children, given by a mission of a foreign land.

It is a beautiful thought, and a kindly one, to give a home to these poor waifs of an alien land, all in the name of their Saviour of the World.

I saw for the first time a picture of this Christ, with little children around Him.

The message I read within His eyes seemed to be: "I will be father and mother, father and mother and playmate to all little children."

The words of the Japanese poet describe Him: "He was caressing them kindly, folding His shining robes round them; lifting the smallest and frailest into His bosom, and holding His staff for the tumblers to clutch.

To His long gown clung the infants, smiling in response to His smile, glad in His beauteous compassion."

I looked at the picture and at the people around me on the platform, and wondered why in all the Christian world that claims this loving Master there should be such exceeding bitterness between His followers.

How can they expect us to believe in this great Teacher when they themselves are doubtful of his message, and criticise quite openly their Holy Book?

If it is true, should education and science make its teaching less authentic?

We do not want a religion that is uncertain to its own people, yet we take with many thanks what it can give us, the things we understand, such as their schools and hospitals.

Where there is pain or ignorance, there is no distinction in the God that brings relief.

We may not believe in the doctrines that we are taught in the waiting-rooms of their hospitals, but we do believe in the healing power of the medicines that are brought by religious zeal from over the seas.

If their teaching has not as yet made many converts, the effect has been great in the spread of higher ideals of education, and much of the credit for the progress of our modern life must be given to the mission schools, which, directly or indirectly, have opened new pathways in the field of education for our country, and caused the youth of China to demand a higher learning throughout the land.

This aggressive religion from the West, coupled with the education that seems to go hand in hand with it, is bound to raise the religious plane of China by forcing our dying faiths to reassume higher and higher forms in order to survive.

But I believe that these teachers from the foreign lands should understand better the religions they are so anxious to displace, and instead of always looking for the point of difference or weakness in our faith, should search more anxiously for the common ground, the spark of the true light that may still be blown to flame, finding the altar that may be dedicated afresh to the true God.

Every religion, however imperfect, has something that ought to be held sacred, for there is in all religions a secret yearning after the unknown God.

This thought of God "is an elixir made to destroy death in the world, an unfailing treasure to relieve the poverty of mankind, a balm to allay his sickness, a tree under which may rest all creatures wearied with wanderings over life's pathways.

It is a bridge for passing over hard ways, open to all wayfarers, a moon of thought arising to cool the fever of the world's sin, and whatever name His followers may call Him, he is the one True God of all mankind."

Whether we see the coolie bowing his head before the image of the Lord of Light, the Buddha, or the peasant woman with her paper money alight in the brazier at the feet of Kwan-yin, we ought to feel that the place where he who worships stands, is holy ground.

We hear it said that he is worshipping an image, an idol, a thing of stone or wood or clay.

It is not so; he is thinking far beyond the statue, he is seeing God.

He looks upwards towards the sky and asks what supports that cup of blue.

He hears the winds and asks them whence they come and where they go.

He rises for his toil at break of day and sees the morning sun start on his golden journey.

And Him who is the cause of all these wonders, he calls his Life, his Breath, his Lord of All.

He does not believe that the idol is his God.

"'Tis to the light which Thy splendour lends to the idol's face, that the worshipper bends."

[Illustration: Mylady24.

] The difference between us all lies not in the real teaching of our Holy Men, Confucius, Buddha, Lao Tze, or Christ, but in the narrowness of the structure which their followers have built upon their words.

Those sages reared a broad foundation on which might have been built, stone by stone, a mighty pagoda reaching to the skies.

There could have been separate rooms, but no closed doors, and from out the pointed roofs might have pealed the deep-toned bells caught by every wandering breeze to tell the world that here spoke the Truth or the One Great God.

But, instead, what have they done?

The followers have each built separately over that portion which was the work of their own Master.

The stories have grown narrower and narrower with the years; each bell rings out with its own peculiar tone, and there is no accord or harmony.

I do not dispute with those who have found a healing for themselves.

To us our religion is something quite inseparable from ourselves, something that cannot be compared with anything else, or replaced ith anything else.

It is like our bodies.

In its form it may be like other bodies, but in its relation to ourselves it stands alone and admits of no rival; yet the remedy that has cured us should not be forced upon a people, irrespective of their place, their environment or their temperament.

We of the East "have sounded depth on depth only to find still deeper depths unfathomed and profound," and we have learned to say that no sect or religion can claim to be in possession of all the Truth.

Let the teachers from other countries learn of our doctrines.

Let them learn of Buddha.

To one who reads his pure teaching, nothing so beautiful, nothing so high, has been heard in all the world.

We admit that, little by little, changes have come, simplicity has been lost, and with every addition something departed from its purity and it became stained.

Yet I believe that much of the kindliness, much of the gentleness now so marked in Chinese nature, may be traced to the teaching of this great apostle of peace and quietude.

That other great religion, the religion of the Way, has become steeped in superstition and has been made a reproach in all our land.

Yet Lao Tze had noble sentiments and lofty thoughts that have helped generations of mankind in many struggles.

Confucius, it is said, presented high ideals without the breath of spirit;

his system was for the head and did not feed the heart; yet he taught that, from the highest in the land to the lowest worker in the field, personal virtue, cleanness of heart and hands, is to be held the thing of greatest value.

Men are urged to cherish all that is of good in them, to avoid evil living, to cultivate right feeling, and to be true and faithful to their tasks.

We should not value the teaching of our religion "as a miser values his pearls and jade, thinking their value lessened if pearls and jade are found in other parts of the world."

But the searcher after Truth will welcome any true doctrine, and believe it no less precious because it was spoken by Buddha, Lao Tze, Confucius or Christ.

We should not peer too closely to learn what the temple may enshrine, but "feel the influence of things Divine and pray, because by winding paths we all may reach the same great Ocean's shore."

We all are searchers for the Way.

Whence do I come; where do I go?

In this passage from the unknown to the unknown, this pilgrimage of life, which is the straight path, which the true road-- if indeed there be a Way?

Such are the questions that all the world is asking.

What is the true answer; where may we find it?

Whose holy book holds the key that will open wide the door?

All have a hunger of the soul for something beside life's meat and drink; all want a remedy for the sorrows of the world.

The Buddhists believe that it can be found in the destruction of desire, by renouncing the world and following the noble path of peace until death shall open the portals of the unknowable, everlasting stillness from which there is no return.

The Confucianists say the remedy is found within the world by fulfilling all its duties and leaving to a greater Justice the future and its rewards.

The Christians give a whispered message of hope to the lonely soul beating against the bars of the world about him, and say that a life of love and joy and peace is the gift of their great Messenger, and when the years have passed that He stands within an archway to welcome those, His chosen, to a land of bliss where we shall meet all who have loved us and whom we have loved in life, and gaze upon His face.

Which is the Way, which path to God is broad enough for all the world?