The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1900-09-24
CENTRAL UNION CHURCH
HEARS A PEKING REFUGEE

night the word came that we needed 400
sand bags to place in one of the breach
es. That night We all worked. Cloth
was obtained from one of the Chinese
shops valuable silk some of it, that
would have sold at a very high price
anywhere outside of Picking, and we
made sand bags with it. Even the chill
dren helped, and when the word came
for those bags we had 1900 of them in
stead of the 400 that were needed. That
only shows how every one helped.
1t was a hard thing for all or us, but
ii was made easier by the fact that
every one was helping every one else.
we ran short of ammunition towards
the last. The English and Americans
had husbanded their ammunition, while
the French and Italians wasted It
frightfully all through the earlier days
Of the siege. We were not well pro-
vided with big guns. If we had had
a fifteen-p FOUNDER we might have swept
the whole city, but we hadn't any gun
as large as that.
Food was low and it was bad. For
tunateIy We had about a hundred
horses and mules. and during the siege
we ate eighty-five Of them, and were
very glad indeed to have them. Then
we had some wheat which had fortu-
nately come into the city shortly before
the siege, and from some Chinese shops
We bOA Il ADA u llNEf 81 We AleAU tA4Ohe H.
but It was well that the relief came
when it did, for it would not have been
long before We should have been in a
very bad way for food. The food was
not good at any time after the first of
IL, but we We're fortunate to have any
thing, so We were thankful
There were about 500 Europeans and
Japanese in the compound. and nearly
5000 Chinese servants. These latter
worked well for us, and we were able
TO entrust most of the work about the
legations TO them, SO that every pos
sible man could be put at manning the
walls and carrying arms. And We need
ed every man. for the Chinese were
constantly attacking US.
! 1T is not true that the American le-
cation was entirely destroyed. One
shell went right through the Office OF
, the legation, however, and struck
against the safe and wrecked 1t badly
for the contractor q am sorry to say
that he was an American) had not done
the cement work honestly, and instead
of putting in solid cement, had stuffed
Ii with straw and odds and ends of al
kinds.
! ITO show how close we all came tc
destruction we found after the relief g
tunnel from the Chinese city under the
| British legation, and in II, directly un-
der the legation, was a chamber filled
Il with gunpowder, l do not know how
much, and a fuse a hundred feet long
led almost to the wall. If they haC
ever set that gunpowder off 1 don''
know what would have become of al
Of us
Not until we got out and heard again
from the world did we know how al
the world had been watching PekinE
and praying for US. There had beer
really no time to think Of ourselves
and we were surprised to learn how TIT
: eyes Of the whole civilized portion o
the globe had been upon Picking. 1
, was only by Gods blessing that we al
escaped. 1t was not His purpose to lie
} US be destroyed; He would not let tn
enemy triumph over Us. He saved al
: OF those wounded men whom we had t
care for during the siege. Despite wha
: was going on around US, the terribl
heat and the lack Of proper food bu
r few Of them died, marvelously few o
. them
: Il do not believe that all of this ha
! been for naught. It is part Of God
great purpose to build up a new Chin
on the old empire. He saved US be
? cause he has work yet for US to do /
|, China; He saved all those Chimes
: Christians because he had need c
2 them. They are a great and grand pee
a pie, and they can serve Him and wi
e serve Him in years TO come"