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GUINNESS OF HONAN Photo by Yamamoto G. WHITFIELD GUINNESS For thirty years Doctor and Missionary in the Province of Honan GUINNESS OF HONAN BY HIS SISTER MRS. HOWARD TAYLOR THE CHINA INLAND MISSION, LONDON PHILADELPHIA, TORONTO, MELBOURNE, AND SHANGHAI •..•..•...••.•••.• AGENTS: THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY 4 BOUVERIE STREET, LONDON, E.C.4 . • • 1930 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY R, & R, CLARK, LIMITED, EDINBURGH TO THE ONE WHOSE LOVE AND STEADFAST SPIRITUAL LIFE MADE WHITFIELD GUINNESS 1S HOME WHAT IT WAS AND TO THE SON AND DAUGHTER WHO BY THE GRACE OF GOD ARE FOLLOWING IN HIS STEPS FOREWORD HONAN is one of China's most populous provinces. South of the Yellow River it has some thirty million inhabitants, and north of the river several millions more. Its influence is evident from the fact that it has ruled China under seven dynasties, one or other of its cities having during 2500 years been the capital of the empire. To-day it is one of the chief storm-centres in that land. Among the pioneers of the China Inland Mission in Honan was the "~eloved physician" whose life-story is recorded in these pages. He had the privilege of open­ ing, with Dr. Sydney Carr, the first hospital in Honan south of the Yellow River, and of being throughout most of his thirty years in China the leader in its fruitful spiritual work. That work, to-day, needs our prayers, sympathy, and succour more than ever before. Two doctors are trying to fill the place of four or five. The opportunities around them are overwhelming. They long to reach out to other parts of the province, in the sphere of the mission, where Christian communities exist which could give much assistance, where no doctor or hospital is to be found, and where multitudes might be blessed with healing for body and soul. The Kai-feng Hospital stands to-day amid a veritable welter of confusion and suffering. Like a lighthouse vii viii GUINNESS OF HONAN on a stormy coast, or a haven of refuge, it is needed by those in peril, buffeted amid dangers and distresses of which we in the homelands have little conception. And all over China such succour is needed. Surely that land, "the open sore of the world" to-day, presents the greatest opportunity the Church has ever known for her ministry of healing, in fellowship with Him Whose heart is still "moved with compassion" for the suffering bodies and perishing souls of men. That this book may show something of the joy of such a life and of its rich reward is the prayer of those who, in His Name, send it forth, having given in it of their best. CONTENTS CIIAF• PAGB 1. p ARIS AND BEGINNINGS I 2, LONDON AND DEVELOPMENTS 20 3· HOME LIFE 40 4• TASMANIA 52 5• CAMBRIDGE: SCHOOL AND UNIVERSITY 68 6. THE LoNDON HOSPITAL 86 7. HONAN AT LAST 96 8. "CALLED INTO THE FELLOWSHIP" II,S 9• "HENCEFORTH • • • UNTO HIM" 141 10. "GATES OF BRASS" 161 n. "WaAT GoD HATH JOINED TOGETHER" 181 12. HAPPY YEARS-PART I • 195 13. HAPPY YEARS-PART II 208: 14. GROWTH AND CHANGE • 221 15. THE TRUE MISSIONARY OBJECTIVE 233 16. DEEPENING AND OVERFLOW 256 17. "THE SECOND WATCH" 275 18. "Up FROM THE WILDERNESS" . 297 19. "THE ISSUES FROM DEATH., 314 ix ILLUSTRATIONS G. Whitfield Guinness Frontispiece H. Grattan Guinness, D.D. facing page 19 "Cliff'• ,, 48 Mrs. H. Grattan Guinness ,, 94 The Haunted Loft . ,, 121 Kai-feng City ,, 161 Miss Jane af Sandeberg } ,, 182 G. Whitfield Guinness, after 1900 A C.I.M. Group at Ku-ling In the Operating Room ,, 200 The Hospital, Kai-feng ,, 208 On the Sands at Pei-tai-ho ,, 218 Dr. Sydney Carr and Dr. G. W. Guinness with Students ,, 229 The Governor's Wife and Sons ,, 258 Mary Geraldine Guinness . ,, 265 The Annual Picnic from the Hospital ,, 300 xi CHAPTER I PARIS AND BEGINNINGS WHITFIELD GUINNESS was born in Paris on the 25th of April, 1869. The gaiety and beauty of the French capital were enhanced with the charm of spring, and there was little to presage the serious crisis that was drawing near. Napoleon III. was on the throne and at the Court of Versailles the Empress Eugenie reigned in the height of her loveliness. But the war she was pleased to call "ma guerre" was soon to lay her unfortunate ambitions, together with the empire, in the dust. Almost at the moment war was declared (July, 1870), while the fateful message from Paris was on its way to Berlin, Mr. and Mrs. H. Grattan Guinness left the doomed city to return to England, according to previous arrangement, little realizing that the events taking place were to have far-reaching issues in their lives. With them, too, a time of crisis had been reached, but a crisis that was to lead upward to undreamed-of developments. Processions were parading the streets; groups of French ouvriers in cap and blouse were to be met with in all directions shouting, "a Berlin, a Berlin!" Whitfield was only a baby of fifteen months, but the older children could never forget the tumult and excitement, and the sight of the nurse carrying their little brother thrown down in the crowd of passing vehicles and nearly run over. The child's life was saved that day-for impos- B 2 GUINNESS OF HONAN sible as it seemed, he was recovered from the horses' hoofs without injury. For him, too, a life-work was waiting. Though still comparatively young, to Mr. and Mrs. Guinness had been given the privilege of widespread usefulness. Even before he left College, at twenty-two years of age, the former had for three months supplied the pulpit of Whitefield's great Tabernacle in London, and had received a unanimous invitation to undertake the pastorate. As the venerable Dr. Urwick of Dublin, who had baptized him in infancy, himself a noted preacher, wrote at the time: His engagement at the Tabernacle did much to determine Mr; Guinness's career. In that spacious edifice, revered and almost accounted holy, as having been built and occupied by the illustrious George Whitefield, he had the memory of that great evangelist vividly present with him. He sat in the vestry which Whitefield once used. As he entered the pulpit he could not but feel that Whitefield had ascended it before him. When he surveyed the crowd assembled around him he reflected that equal or greater numbers had crowded the same pews, benches and aisles, as Whitefield's congregation. On rising to offer prayer or to preach the Word, he was conscious that Whitefield had risen there to pour out his soul in supplication and declare the whole counsel of God, his labours being followed by astonishing effects. With these associations telling week after week upon him he was deeply moved with firm resolve, by the help of God, according to his measure, to live and labour for Christ and souls as Whitefield had a century before him. Pursuant to this resolution he was ordained as an "evangelist" in July, 1857. The service was held in the Tabernacle, ministers of several denominations taking part in it, as recognizing that he was in their judgment called of God to the work, and devoutly commending him to the favour of the Divine Lord in whose employ he was engaged. The proceedings were deeply solemn, and opened to him a range without limit or PARIS AND BEGINNINGS 3 trammel, save such as his own infirmity and God's providence might impose.1 Leaving London the day after his ordination, he paid a passing visit to Cheltenham, where his mother lived, and the very next Sunday began an evangelistic journey throughout the whole of Wales. While many of the meetings were held in churches, some had to be in the open air-thousands of people flocking to hear the Word. Similar work was undertaken in many parts of England and Scotland, attended with so much blessing that a generation later his own children met with hundreds of people widely scattered throughout the world who attri­ buted their conversion, under God, to Grattan Guin­ ness's ministry, and who in almost every case could tell the passage of Scripture and the very words from which the young evangelist had spoken. Invited by Dr. Urwick and other ministers in Dublin, Mr. Guinness commenced .there in 1858 a series of me~tings which extended to every town in Ireland. His life was more than once in danger in Limerick and other places, but the hunger for the Word of Life evinced by crowds of eager hearers drew him on. In Dublin, ad­ mission had to be by ticket, the throngs were so great, but even so buildings were crowded to their utmost capacity long before the hour for commencing, and that twice daily. A leading daily paper wrote: 1 Of these circumstances Mr. Guinness himself wrote: "On the 10th of June (1857) at a meeting of the deacons of the Tabernacle, I was invited to become the Pastor, but after serious and prayerful consideration declined the proposition, feeling called to evangelistic work in the wider sphere opened to me in the country at large. "On Wednesday the 29th of July, I was ordained in the Tabernacle, in the presence of an audience which filled the place, to the work of an itinerant, interdenominational evangelist .•.. The whole service was deeply moving." 4 GUINNESS OF HONAN Few preachers have ever addressed congregations more influential. ... The wealth, the respectability, the cultivated intellect as well as the evangelistic piety of the city have been represented in a measure unprecedented, we believe, on such occasions in this country.

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