EULOGY BY DR. CHIA YU-MING

(my teacher in Nanjing, 1946-7)

Rev. Ting Li Mei, the servant of Christ, spiritual giant and bastion of the faith, has gone above to receive his crown. Everyone who knows him joins in singing, thanksgiving and praise to the Father Almighty.

I count my friendship with Rev. Ting most happy and glorious. When I became his friend, I was a child just going to school and he already a College student. He was then an educational supervisor with Rev. Sun Hsi Sheng. He came sometimes to our school to teach singing. That was forty years ago. I can never forget those days. In my composition of Spiritual Songs, No. 174 on "Faithfulness in the Lord's Work" is based on the tune Rev. Ting taught us. Incidentally, this song written under his inspiration now truly describes Rev. Ting's life. He served the Lord faithfully.

While in College, I consecrated my life to serve the Lord fulltime when Rev. Ting came to conduct meetings. On that occasion I covenanted with him to pray for one another. That I am able to serve the Lord in His holy fields is due in no small measure to Rev. Ting's praying for me.

During the Boxer Rebellion ,1900) Rev. Ting came under the persecution of the Prefectural Governor and was cast into prison. After his release he visited our school. He related his prison experiences, and how the scars he now bore from the beatings were "the marks of the Lord Jesus." Even as the Apostle Paul has said, "From henceforth let no man trouble me: For I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." (Gal. 6:17). It made a deep impression upon me that to suffer for Christ is most glorious.

When I began to pastor a church thirty years ago, I had occasion to go on a summer vacation to Tsingtao with Rev. Ting and Rev. Sun Hsi Sheng. The three of us held an all-night  prayer  meeting on  the sea-shore.  The  purpose  of  this prayer meeting was to ask God to raise up one like Wesley and Moody to revive the Church of China. Beyond my expectation that prayer was answered in the raising of Rev. Ting and Rev. Sun. From that year onward both of them began to revive the Church in power. Thereafter Rev. Ting and others went north, south, east, west to every province. Not only were many churches revived, but many young people were also challenged to serve the Lord with a lifelong covenant. It was an all-night prayer meeting that yielded such great result!

When I was pastoring a church in Shantung in 1911, he came there to conduct a revival meeting. After the meeting he met with some members of my church in my house for prayer. At that prayer meeting we brought out three items for intercession: 1) to publish a spiritual newspaper named "The Spiritual Light." Today the work of the Spiritual Light Publication is traced to that prayer meeting. 2) To ask the Lord to raise an Evangelistic Band that would be given to spiritual culture on one hand and to reviving the Church on the other. This has resulted in the beginnings of a Spiritual Training Seminary. 3) To form a Prayer Band from 37 co-workers and pray for more to join God's family as effective workers. In January 1936, Rev. Ting, Rev. Pan and Miss Chiau Wei Chen and I visited Tsingtao with a view to founding the Spiritual Training Seminary. We held discus­sions with Rev. Ting and Mr. Ning and prayed. Soon after our return from Tsingtao, Rev. Ting fell ill, so that the much prayed-for Seminary which needed Rev. Ting's leadership was bereaved by his sudden home-going. But his works do follow him, as it is written, "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them" (Rev. 14:13). Hallelujah, glory he to the Lord!

dated 1936.