XII.  DR.  SUNG'S LAST ILLNESS, SORROW, HUMILITY, DEATH

       The fifth period of Dr. John Sung's ministry was the "Sepulcher" or "Tomb" period.   Near the end of the "Blood" period, when he was in Indonesia, Dr. Sung had to sit down to preach, and in his final meeting there he lay on a camp cot and preached.  Then he came home to Shanghai, and was unable to travel anymore in evangelism.

       During this time of illness in Shanghai, Dr. Eugene Erny, chairman of the Oriental Missionary Society, himself a fervent evangelist and soul winner, went to see Dr. Sung.  In the course of their conversation, Dr. Erny asked why Dr. Sung was so sick when God had used him in the healing of so many others.  Sung replied that now he needed someone to pray for him.  However, none of us were able to pray effectually for him, and he got worse, and had to go to Peiping to the hospital for several operations.  Later, they found that he had cancer.  Evidently he had “run his course.”

       This was the “Tomb” period, 1939-1942, in which Dr. Sung was shut up.  And China was also shut up: all the ports of China were closed by the Japanese blockade.  There wasn't as much bloodshed as there had been, because the Chinese had learned guerrilla warfare and had gone into the interior, but China was definitely sealed.  At first, Dr. Sung was in the hospital, then he and Mrs. Sung went to the Western Hills in the mountains out from Peiping.  He was in bed, and people came to him from all over China.  He still had three meetings a day, preaching from his bed, and two Chinese lady secretaries wrote letters for him.