Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1921-02-24
COMMUNICATED.
.,- Mr. SNYDER


- TWO dollars for the China Fam
-" r,nd which | am going to send on
-, nut there have been so many
..s,orses % the appeals you have put
!. the Register from time to time that
a., asking you TO do VI again as there
-. 10 others VINO wish TO add their
IFS 70 this before it is sent on. Lei
- -eo1.e read this from w T. Ellis
p,rsdelphit editor, who has beer
.,,,r.5 in this famine relief work il
yr-h China Just recently, as he writes
=, article in the Sunday School Time5
-, FEBRUARY 5;h. and open their hearts
10 the need.
Sincerely yours,
CHARLES GHISELIN.
There is nothing in American ex-
,.-ence that enables us to understand
-. kinds and measures of suffering
,5,, are to-day common in China. As
oos who has seen more than my sharS
If the woes of the world, am convinc-
81 that there is to-day nothing or
Earth and that there has been nothin.
within the memory of living persons, to
rarallel the calamity that has sudden
/, come upon north central China.
The dead number ten thousand a day,
Official reports say; the proportion
of the forty million persons menace
who are likely to die before the violets
bloom in our fields of beauty and plen-
" is estimated at fifteen million; or q
greater total than fell in the World
War.
Outside of every city in the five pro-
vinces affected by the drought there
camp to-day great companies of ref
u.eeS, who have fled from the farms
and villages. They cover in the cold
and how cold north China can bel
beneath straw mat shelters, with only
their unstable rags to cover them.
On the bare ground babies are born
and persons of all ages die.
In one such camp saw three tim
tots who had sat for twenty-four hours,
uncomprehendingly, beside the corpse
OF their mother.
One widow that beheld was par
tcularly disconsolate because there
was nobody TO help her bear the dead
body of her husband from she waysidc
where he lay.
As memory travels back to thos
Soul-Straining experiences | can agair
feel the emaciated, talon-like finger
OF the furnishing clutching at M
clothes. Still the cry rings in my ears,
"Lao-yea! Lao-yea"- honorable
foreigner, help U.s."
At night, in the mission homes,
could not sleep for the deSolate wall
ING of the beggars at the gate, plead
ing for succor ere they should die; an
sometimes We would find them dead
IN the morning, at the beginning of
our days work of relief: work that
would have been impossible had we al
lowed the mission gates to become
mobbed by famine victims and pro-
ieSsional mendicants. Food was dis
tributed with skill, and according 70
need and deserving.
One horror greater than the recol-
lection of the myriads of starving
Chinese upon whom have looked,
nowadays overwhelms me. 1t is ?
Panlcky heart-clutching fear that
America, the America of which
nave been so proud as | have seen her
matchless ministry to mankind in many
lands, NAV this time miss the unusual
significance of the call from China.
Our peoples nerves are calloused BY
familiarity with woe. We have given
with royal bounty. Now, at the close
OF taxing succession Of intense
drives" comes this Chinese calamity,
greater than any of the Others; prob
aoiy greater than all of the others put
'ogether. Our dulled imaginations
may not react to the meaning of what
We read and hear. And America may
Ian IN this supreme opportunity; not
because she does not care, but simply
because she has not been able to I'M
derstand
before laying down this paper, will
Tie reader do something about tor
use definitely decide that he will do
no'ning? Let us be brave enough to
race critical issue squarely.
mere IS more Catarrh in this sec
.aon OF the country than all other dis
vases put together, and for years it was
supposed to be incurahle doctors