Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1916-09-16
CHAPTER "

|
ton. began to conduct meetings in
| their native village. Their own
knowledge had limitations. and they
| found the task of preaching uneX-
pectedly hard. But the neighhors
would not let them off, and. when
ever they failed to appear on time,
sent a delegation to summon them.
East of the river at Tungchou, a
Christian farmer has opened his home
and invites in the neighbors to we'll
| attended meetings, in the leading of
which college students assist. Re-
quests for such meetings are coming
in from more places than the COM
mittee can fill. ....@-... ,....... +
For the first time since the ter
rible Boxer year, the gospel is show
ing in the Tungchou countryside it's
ancient power to propagate itself.
Mellow old ivory Of tall stored pa.
CODA: scarlet tip of the modern church
spire; square gray college tower, half
circled by lower battlements; these
three stand out against the vivid
blueness of the North China sky and
catch the eyes of every traveller The
pagoda looks out on northern and
western mountains, and across the
fertile plain to Peking's yellow tiles,
and down on SCARED but bustling city
streets; while the church spire is
nearer quiet paths, filled, of a Sun,
day, with worship-seeking folk; but
the college towers not only look out
to mountain, walled city and green
fields, but look down on eager stu
dents, hurrying to class with faces
intent on open books, or leaping out
toward tennis court and ball field, or
strolling intimately arm in arm
How the Gray Towers Grew
And what those gray towers see at
their feet is most wonderful all, be
cause that eager life spells promise,
promise that is Janus-faced: one peer.
ing hopefully into the near future,
when the long planned for union with
the Methodist college in Peking shall
bring greater power and equipment by
the forming of one great Christian uni
Versity in the capital city, and one
face toward the rich. fulfilled pasta
past of large hopes and infinitesimal
beginnings, of planting and uprooting
and planting again. Some 40 years
ago DR.. Sheffield gathered roomful
of surprised and none too well dressed
boys to study new things in a new
way That little home school, father
ed and mothered out Of its wilderness
into loyalty and discipline graduated
into an academy, and in 1880 into an
embryo college, outgrowing its old
quarters stage by stage, until it was
housed at last in a fine new plant out
side the city. Then came 1900, and
the young college seemed buried be-
meath ugly heaps of broken brick. Yet
that very autumn a remnant of faculty
and students gathered in Picking to re-
sumo their studies. Two years later
these same gray towers, guarding the
administration building, the labora-
tories and dormitories, bravely fronted
the same blue sky that in 1900 had re-
Elected the funeral flames of their
predecessors. With gorgeous banners
and professions, with fireworks and
feasts and flattering words, did the
ship city's people try to wipe out these
dreadful memories. Back came such
of the scattered students as had
escaped the Boxer storm, and year by
year the circle has widened its reach
till it includes students from Korea,
from distant SZechuan, Fukien and
Yunan. r..
Back of the story of it's growth, of
changes slowly wrought in the attitude
of the community and its own steady |
development of its earliest ideals, lies |
the life of its founder. The quaint and !
solemn Chinese words inscribed on |
the brass tablet of the college chapel.
though expressing singularly we'll the |
universal appreciation of DR.. Shelf
fields genius and devotion, still seem
but an insignificant summary of an |
eventful life whose years kept step |
with epochs. From the first it was he |
who made the school, the academy, |
the college. It was his dignity and |
firm kindness that maintained order,
his quiet word that settled hot dis
putes. AS faculty of specialists was
not at hand, ne became the major
portion of the faculty himself, and
taught nearly every subject in the
catalogue. AS text books in Chinese
We're practically non-eXistent, he pre-
pared them on wide range of SUB
jects and thus made a large contribu-
ton to the naturalization of Western
learning in China. From the first he
stamped his own character on the
college and gave it reputation for
earnest purpose, patient study and
honest endeayor. Through crisis after
crisis he guided the turbulent young
men under his charge, and step by
step he guided the development of the
college from UNCONVENTIONAL to inter.
UNCONVENTIONAL lines. For the grace.
Jul gray towers, set each year in a
deeper bower of green trees, lock
Town on union college. The triple
strength of the American PresbyteT
ma, London Mission and the Ameri-
IAN Board is going into the upbuild-
ng of the college, for the first two
are not only sending picked
Students, but professors who give
earnest and loyal help in making the
TEST things possible for the college.
n all, six Chinese and seven foreign !
professors are enrolled as faculty X
ONE of whom assist in the classes Of ]
he 40 odd students of the American I