CHINA: Undercurrent of Joy

A Paterson, N. J. evangelist had a letter last week from his missionary son in China. John C. Stam wrote of the menace of Communist-bandits and enclosed a poem which, he said, expressed his own feelings about them:

Afraid? Of what?

Afraid to see the Savior’s face?

To pass from pain to perfect grace?

The glory gleam from wound of grace?

Afraid of that?

By the time Father Stam read the letter, Son John and Son John’s wife had, in fact, “passed from pain” at the hands of Chinese Communist-bandits.

Typical of the plain-living, courageous line of U. S. missionaries in China were the John C. Stams. Both children of Protestant churchmen, they looked remarkably alike: serious, firm-jawed young people with tortoise-shell glasses. Married 14 months ago, Mrs. Stam had her first child, a girl, by a caesarean operation, last September. Outposters of the interdenomi national China Inland Mission, they taught the way of the Lord in Tsingteh in Southern Anhwei Province, 200 miles from Nanking, which is Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek’s stronghold of law & order.

Last month Generalissimo Chiang an nounced that he had “broken the backbone of Communism in China” by chasing the Communists out of Kiangsi Province. Nanking authorities added that nearby districts were “safe.” Nonetheless, a band of Communists bobbed up at Tsingteh and kidnapped Mr. and Mrs. Stam and Daughter Helen Priscilla. One morning last week the Communists paraded the two missionaries through the muddy streets of a nearby village, then slashed off their heads with a great curved sword, supposedly in a shrewd effort to embarrass Generalissimo Chiang. A Chinese Christian pastor found the Stams’ baby girl alive in a deserted house, a $10 bill and several clean diapers tucked inside her blanket. Chinese mothers volunteered milk until the infant could be taken to the Wuhu hospital where she was born three months ago.

Genuinely embarrassed, the Generalissimo sent 10,000 soldiers boiling after the murderers last week. And in Paterson, N. J. Mr. Stam’s brother Jacob said: “We know we will see our dear ones in Heaven, and while there are tears there is an undercurrent of joy, because we know the way of the Lord. They were worthy to be in His service and they were worthy to die a martyr’s death.”