LITTLE PASTOR AND STUDIOUS

SCHOLAR
1913-1917

The fires of the Hinghwa Pentecost burned on for several more years. During this period, insofar as Pastor Sung was concerned, there was a doubling of his thousand-member congregation. As the old Church was too small, a campaign to build a bigger one was set in motion. In the spirit of the Revival members gave liberally to the building fund, so that with further help from well-wishers a new auditorium, capable of seating 2,000, was erected the next year. The gentry of Hinghwa began to take notice of this new surge of power in God's Kingdom. The Prefect of Hinghwa, in matters that concerned the populace, would call on Pastor Sung for consultation.

With the building of the new Church, the pastor was in need of an assistant. Little did he know that God had prepared one who was standing by his side - his own son! Although the Little Pastor, as Chu Un now came to be known, began with stammering lips, he soon got over this nervousness. With a little more training under his Pastor father, the boy-pastor^-was soon preaching from the pulpit of the new church, and wherever he was needed. For, by the year 1913, Pastor Sung had added to his ministry an orphan­age and two Bible Schools, a boys high school and another for girls. No doubt these increases were outflowings from the Hinghwa Pentecost.

A bundle of energy, young Sung was ever ready to venture out with his father to outlying villages on evangelis­tic tours, or on circuit, as the Methodists call it. He stood in for Father on not a few occasions when the latter was preoccupied with more urgent business, or when he was indisposed. To make the most out of his work the Little Pastor would pack a satchel of tracts for distribution and Bibles to sell. He delighted in open-air preaching and was his own songleader. God had surely endowed the budding preacher with a melody in his heart for, as Martin Luther has said, "Music is next to theology."

From a young age Chu Un loved to study. Like his father, whose name Hsueh Lien means Scholarly Link, the son was a bookworm. Pastor Sung, poor as he was, was a spender on books. So, whenever he could spare a little cash, which were strung together like a row of beads, he would unloose a few from the cash-string to bring home a paperback or two - to the dislike of his illiterate wife. Slowly and surely a small library took shape which grew to sizeable proportions in the city parsonage. This became young Sung's happy browsing ground. Of an ever-inquiring mind he would leave no book in Father's study unturned, including women's magazines and periodicals. With such a love for books it was no wonder that Chu Un stood first in his class at every school examina­tion.

Now it was the custom for a young scholar, as he progressed in school, to take on a new name above what was given him at birth. Thus, apart from Chu Un, his birth or "milk" name, he now called himself, at father's suggestion, Shang Chieh. Roughly translated, it means Noble and Frugal. And what a young scholar, noble in thought and frugal in life, Shang Chieh was!

About this time there appeared an advertisement from the Fukien Naval College. It was an invitation to the Entrance Examination to he held in Foochow, the Provincial Capital and naval station. When Pastor Sung saw this opening he told his son to prepare for it. (In old China father's word was law.) Now, Foochow lay 100 miles to the north of Hinghwa along many a narrow and tortuous mountain track. Over this terrain every young aspirant from the south must tread.

Why did Pastor Sung now change his mind about the young man's career? Did he not offer him to the Lord at birth, yea, even while he was in his mother's womb, in thanksgiving for what the Lord had done? Wasn't his wife sick unto death and was restored in answer to prayer, and born again upon her recovery? The pressure of livelihood (there were ten young mouths to feed and educate) and the opportunity to a free education for Shang Chieh could have been the reasons.

To qualify for a naval cadet officer one must have good physique and a good head. Endowed with robust health, young Sung had no qualms about the physical test. As for the written examination, there was only one requirement: Write an essay on "The Princely Man Does Not Strive." This aspect of Confucian philosophy was well taught in the schools inasmuch as every young scholar had to memories chapters from the Four Books of Confucius.

"A man's heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps" (Prov 16:9). Though high were the hopes of the Sung family for their illustrious son, the restraining hand of God dashed every lofty and haughty thought to the ground. For when the day of examination drew near Sung Shang Chieh, the respected young scholar from Hinghwa, was overtaken by a sudden swelling of the legs. Despite the ailment he made it by sheer determination to the capital city. But though the spirit was willing the flesh was weak. In a state of near exhaustion at the end of such a laborious journey, Shang Chieh failed the physical test. Try as he would to do better in the written examination, the result was the same. What a let down and deflation of pride to one hitherto borne high on wings of success. O the shame of loss of face so poignant to such a princely man as Shang Chieh!

But a Christian will never say "die", for he has "the God of all comfort who comforteth us in all our tribulation" (II Cor 1:9). For Sung's future success, the Father above must put him through the mill of failure. To a Christian each failure is a stepping-stone to success.

Of the hundreds that took the Naval College Examination only two were chosen. The irony of it all was that in after years when duty called them to battle they were lost in action. When Shang Chieh learned of this, would he not have thanked the Lord for his overruling power? "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose" (Rom 8:28). All things, including failures and disappointments!

As it is also said that "failure is the mother of success" the rebuff Shang Chieh sustained in Foochow spurred him to greater heights of study. Now, China at this time had become a Republic with the fall of the Manchus in 1911. As a young nation, political activities and patriotic demonstra­tions were the order of the day, and not the least affected were middle and high school students. Though it was fashionable as well as exciting to join in the "strike-down" campaigns, particularly against Japan at this time, Shang Chieh would have no part with the rabble rousers. Standing like a crane among the crows he was nevertheless ostracised and dubbed a "slave without a country." His courage to stand alone on what he believed to be right was beginning to be noticed.

Notwithstanding the taunts of his classmates and fellow students, Shang Chieh was elected editor of the school weekly newspaper. In Church he helped his father to produce the Revival magazine which had a widening circula­tion. It was about the year 1917 that he started, in the steps of his father, to keep a diary, which habit he maintained without fail to the end of his life.

Soon Graduation Day came. Up to now school boy Shang Chieh paid little attenton to his attire. Most of the children and young people went to school barefooted, and some almost bare-backed. When it was noised that the young scholar had come first in the School Graduation Examina­tions, his father was so pleased that he had a light blue gown specially tailored for him by his mother. This he wore with great satisfaction on Prize-giving Day. And this blue gown he would wear for every function and festival after this.

After High School the thought of going on to Ginling University in Nanking was broached by the whole family. As Shang Chieh began to pack up his baggage with many stirrings of heart for a brighter future, there came a bolt from the blue in the sudden death, within a few hours, of his eldest sister. "Man's life's like morning dew," a common Chinese saying, must have flashed across his mind. Or, as God's Word says it, "For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appeared for a little time, and then vanished away." (James 4: 14). Young Sung's aspirations for higher study was again thwarted by this sudden turn of events. "Why must a man die?" made him sit down and ponder.