PROJECT INFORMATION American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions
14 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass.Mary D. Uline, Secretary
Paotingfu, North China
January 7, 1937(NOT FOR PUBLICATION)
Dear Holyoke Girls:
The Christmas radiance still lingers over these first days of the new year. It was such a shining, happy Day for hundreds of us here in Paoting that I must tell you something about it. A few of us are still a bit breathless after it, too.
Can you picture the Holy Birthday, in an old walled inland Chinese city? Forget the gay insistent reminders with which Big Advertising surrounds you in America. Forget the streets lined with candle-lit windows and glowing outdoor Christmas trees; the beautiful, evergreen-scented churches. On our narrow Paoting streets there were only the everyday, indifferent, jostling crowds. But in little Christian churches and schools there was a surge of subdued excitement and a bustle of anticipation for days beforehand. In our small Congregational Church, for instance; the dear, fat, elderly pillars of our Women's Society trundled excitedly about to rehearsals of their play for the neighborhood women. Groups of laughing, chattering boys and girls from the primary and Tung Jen Schools overflowed breathlessly into our houses at all hours, to practice carols or pageants. The Decorating Committee cheerfully decked the Christmas tree in the big courtyard, then placed it in the church, and hung bright paper garlands. (Evergreens are almost impossible to get, here.)
At the Christmas Sunday service, full of happy music, we all brought gifts for the poor, -money, millet, thick-wadded stockings and garments. When the Sheng Dan, "Holy Birthday," actually arrived, there was a big family gathering of all our Christian families in the city and nearby villages, all alughing and talking, and dressed in their best long garments. Such a good meeting! That was in the morning. In the afternoon there was a meeting for only the women neighbors. The jolly old ladies gave their play, and Mrs. Sun told, in an unforgettable way, just why we celebrated Christmas. So many guests, you see, hand never heard of the Christ-child. -- Such crowds came to the evening celebration that the men from the Farmer's Winter Class and from Tung Jen, who had prepared the plays, could hardly make themselves heard.
On the next afternoon there was a meeting for students only. They conducted their own program in a very reverent, eager way. A quartette of girls in their long blue garments sang "Holy Night" in Chinese. Another group gave an original play of how Christmas came to a striken family in Manchuria, with the audience in tears part of the time. A second group gave "There was No Room at the Inn", followed by a reverent pageant of the Nativity. It ended by an appeal from one of the "Wise Men" for gifts of our best for the child. One slim girl came up to lay a gorgeous bit of Chinese embroidery in the manger; a boy took his school-books; a housewife a dish of steamed cakes; a farmer, a bunch of red kaoliang seed-heads; -and so on. The boys and girls watched solemnly, intently, as the different symbolic gifts were laid in the rough manger.- Two girls from my Bible class stood up in church the next Sunday and offered their lives to Him. It was all part of our Christmas. We heard that the church at the little market-town of Chang Teng, made a happy village festa of the Birthday. Each tiny Christian group int he surrounding villages made ready a Christmas hymn, a play, or some verses from the Bible. A group of men who could play Chinese musical instruments met often to practice, and on the Holy Birthday, they gathered early at the church. As soon as any group of families, trudging over the dusty roads, or riding luxuriously in an ox-cart, clad in their clean cotton best, arrived at the edge of the town, one of the small boys was despatched to notify the waiting band. Out they would sally in a body, blowing their flutes and picking the shrill strings of their lutes and guitars, to meet the smiling new arrivals and escort them back to the large church courtyard. Can't you imagine the happy excitement, the bows and smiles, the children dashing here and there? And then, when all the groups had arrived and the flutes could be laid down, on the sunny open-air stage put up in the courtyard, each little Christian group gave its offering in honor of the Christ-child,--its play or its music. For we know Christmas means giving.
But to me the most moving service of all was in Fan Village. It was held in a small room, but freshly papered by the hands of the little group of Christians. The deft fingers of a young widow had cut out of scarlet paper.the [sic] figures of the Wise Men, and of the Madonna bending over her child, and they looked down on us from the snow-white walls. A few sprigs of cypress decked the picture of Christ hung high in honor over the pulpit-table, and the candles of a little Christmas tree twinkled on a high stand. It was the very first Christmas in Fan Village, and we sat in hushed awe. I wish you might have shared it with us. The first Holy Birthday! The sturdy head-man of the village was one of us; the highest military official from a nearby encampment, too, but most of us were plain farmer-folk. Some were boyish young soldiers; and there was also a little group of school-boys and girls.
It was such a simple honoring of the Birthday. Three or four men and women went forward, one by one, bowed three times in deep reverence before the cypress-hung picture, and then quite naturally and simply told how knowing Christ, whose Birthday they were met to celebrate, had made a difference in their whole lives. "I talk with Him when I am out in my fields", said a sunburnt man quietly. "I feel He is my friend, truly."
Later, some of the young soldiers, who had begged for the privilege, threw some sheepskin coats and bright draperies over their gray cotton uniforms, and came before us as the Shepherds and the Wise Men, with a dramatic dignity that was amazing. Their last scene was of a white-clad Mary kneeling reverently beside a crude manger, whose soft glow lighted up the young dark wistful face bending over it. A soldier-angel, in the dusky background, stretched white protecting arms toward them. Invisible voices, fresh and youthful, sang exultantly, "Joy to the world!"
Joy to the world! Joy to China, to America, to you and to me.
New joy to you!
Your friend,
Alice B. Frame