“… Thankful for your partnership in the gospel, from the first day until now …” — Paul, Philippians 1:5 (RSV) Partnership in the Gospel FROM THE JUNKINS’ FIRST DAYS IN CHINA TO THE SUQIAN THREE-SELF CHURCH Robert G. Patterson 1746 Autumn Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee, USA 2005 Table of Contents Chapter Page PART I. PLANTING THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 1 The First Day Was Sunday 1 2 Early Years 16 3 Into the Work 27 4 Social Service 46 5 The Quality of Conversion 64 6 Crisis, Mediation, Peacemaking 77 7 Japanese Aggression 99 8 Messages Across the Sea 115 PART II. ALIVE AND GROWING 9 An Independent Church 125 10 The Three Self Patriotic Movement 136 11 The Suqian Church – I (1894-1942) 145 12 The Suqian Church – II (1945-2000) 153 13 From the First Day Until Now 164 A Word of Appreciation I was fortunate in the selection of the two central personages for this study: Will and Nettie Junkin. They were great people whom I remember well from the overlap of their later years with my earlier ones. They bequeathed to us, moreover, a substantial body of written sources, consistently excellent, some not previously published. My thanks are extended to many who contributed to the study. Foremost among them are members of the Junkin family, especially Jessie McCall and Agnes Junkin Peery†. I deeply appreciate their help and their generous permission to use family papers. I also was assisted in a variety of ways by Margaret P. Mack of Harrisonburg, Nancy Patterson of Bristol, Don McCall† of Montreat, Jameson M. Jones of Memphis, and G. Thompson Brown of Decatur. My daughter, Mary Moore Patterson, has patiently answered a long stream of questions about pinyin transliterations and other Chinese puzzles. My wife, Jane, has given unfailing help and encouragement. To have been associated with all these people in the project has been a source of great personal satisfaction. I appreciate the cheerful help given by staff members at libraries and research institutions, especially The Presbyterian Division of History, Montreat, North Carolina; the library and archives, Union Theological Seminary, Richmond, Virginia; the National Archives, Maryland; the Jesuit Library, St. Louis; Burrow Library, Rhodes College; and the Bureau of Religious Affairs, Suqian County, Jiangsu Province, China. I hope that others will let me know of errors they find here, whether in accounts of the Junkins’ lives and work or in descriptions of the Church in later China. While many have helped in the accomplishment of this project, clearly I alone bear responsibility for the final product. R. G. P. Memphis, Tennessee Note from the Author Some parts of Partnership in the Gospel are not yet finished. I in- tend eventually to include maps of places and photographs of people and to provide an index, or perhaps several indices. In a subsequent version I will also include information about impor- tant developments in the life of the Suqian church that have taken place since 2000. Pending these later additions, I hope that the present version of the book will prove useful to readers. Robert G. Patterson Memphis, Tennessee, U. S. A. October 14, 2005 PART ONE. PLANTING THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 1 The First Day Was Sunday WHEN ANYONE ASKED WILL why he chose to go to China, he always replied that it was in response to the “call of the Lord.” But his awareness of that call seems to have developed only gradually. Accounts of the first twenty-six years of his life do not mention any Damascus Road experience to bolster his decision. Rather, his life seems to have proceeded in a straight path, from baptism by Leighton Wilson, to attendance at a church-related college, to seminary, to commitment as a young adult to go to the mission field. Many years afterward, Nettie Junkin — Nettie Lambuth Dubose, that is, until Will persuaded her to become Mrs. Junkin — considered what influence his earlier life might have had on his decision to go to the mission field. On the day after Christmas of the year 1870 (she wrote), a little boy was born to the Rev. and Mrs. E. D. Junkin in the manse at New Provi- dence, Rockbridge County, Virginia, and named William Francis. Before the day was out six older brothers and sisters had filed into the room to stand and look at the new little brother, for he was the seventh in the family which was later increased to ten children. The family was a lively one, and the big house rocked with laughter and pranks. No school was near by, so for the first few grades, “Willie” and the younger children went to school to their eldest sister, Julia. In summers they ran barefoot over the countryside or swam in the creek down behind the house. But there were other influences which came into the boy’s life. Many missionaries spoke in the old church of New Providence and stayed at the manse, and each day the father gathered his family together for family prayers and prayed for “the nations that know not Christ.” The young boy’s thoughts would go wandering off to far lands when he heard 2 Partnership in the Gospel these words. He would think of what his mother told him of when he was baptized, of how the honored Leighton Wilson, who had been a mission- ary to Africa, had laid his hands on his baby head and prayed that this child might grow up to be a missionary. And he would think to himself: “I want to go to Africa as a missionary some day.” But of this he told no one for fear that they would laugh. And then, when Willie was ten years old, the father accepted the call to the First Church in Houston, Texas, and they went to that city to live. The fields gave way to city streets and schools were near by. The Virgin- ia days were over and “Willie” became “Will.” Austin College saw a tall, slender Will Junkin in the year 1889. It had not been easy to get to college. Funds were scarce and there were many in the family to send to school on a preacher’s salary. Will had worked for a year as a drugstore clerk and “soda jerk” before he had enough to start, and he found jobs of various sorts in summer vacations. After college came Louisville Seminary. During this time the desire to be a missionary had grown, and he offered himself as a missionary for Africa. All during college and seminary days he preached in the summers in the lumber belt of Texas, and many came to know and love the young man and to follow the Saviour about whom he preached.1 Will’s deep desire to go to Africa was perhaps in part because Leighton Wilson had once served there. But when he volunteered as a missionary, the Foreign Mission Committee mentioned that there was a special need in China just then and asked him if he would be willing to serve in that land. He replied, “I am willing to go anywhere that the Lord calls.” When his appointment came, it was for China. On December 10, 1896, he and several other missionary candidates departed through San Francisco’s Golden Gate, bound for Shanghai. They sailed aboard the S. S. Doric, a hybrid ship powered by both steam and sail. While the liner was out on the open seas, Will’s little coterie celebrated with him the arrival of his twenty-sixth birthday on December 26. The winter voyage of the Doric was a stormy one, but eventually she managed to reach her The First Day Was Sunday 3 destination safely, as most ocean liners usually do. (Usually, but not al- ways. That same Doric, fourteen years later, ended her career in a wreck.2 ) BY CANAL TO THE SUQIAN MATOU WILL REACHED SHANGHAI about the second week of January, 1897. Grad- uated from seminary only a few months earlier, still young and unmar- ried, he learned that he was to be assigned to the town of Suqian [Su- tsien]* in northern Jiangsu [Kiangsu] Province. He took a few days to pay courtesy visits at Shanghai. He then board- ed one of the British-owned river steamers that made regular trips on the Chang Jiang [Yangtze River] and after an easy overnight cruise reached Zhenjiang [Chinkiang] the very next day. He had looked forward to this particular stop as it would give him a chance to meet Dr. Absalom Syden- stricker, a man with previous experience in Suqian. In the course of his career, Dr. Sydenstricker made some valuable contributions to the work of missions, and his name will come up again in our story. But his one accomplishment most likely to be known to modern Americans is that he was the father of Pearl S. Buck (the “S” is for Sydenstricker), author of The Good Earth. At the time of Will’s first visit, Pearl was five years old. Will’s journey from Texas had been long, but it was now nearly over. After Zhenjiang, a gentle northward sail on the Imperial Grand Canal aboard a wind-driven Chinese junk was all that remained. As the wooden boat moved slowly along the canal, Will could hear the soft ripple of wavelets breaking against the hull and the complaints of the timbers as they stretched with the boat’s dignified and rhythmic sway, and he shared with crew and passengers the stir of excitement caused by the passing of vessels going in the opposite direction.