Golden Lilies Read online

  We are in the Yamen where I lived as a young girl, but now all is changed. Instead of the guard of honor, with their great flapping hats, their gaily decorated jackets, baggy trousers tucked into velvet boots, pennants flying from their spear points as their small ponies dashed madly in front of the official carriage, we were met by a body of foreign-dressed soldiers who conducted us with military precision quite different from the old-time dash and lack of discipline.

  Inside the Yamen, things are also different. Everything is orderly and moves with a machinelike regularity that seems totally foreign to an Eastern official’s residence. There is not the democracy of other days; the man from the street, the merchant or the coolie with his burden on his shoulders, did not follow us into the courtyards to see what was being done, nor were there crowds of idle men gazing with mild curiosity at the visitors to their city.

  We hear much of the old-time power of the officials; but things are not nearly as democratic under this new government as in former times, when, it is true, the governor had the power of life and death, but still was obliged to deal leniently with his people. A little larger demand for tribute, a case of rank injustice, and he became the object of the people’s wrath and would quite likely see his Yamen in a blaze, or pay with his life for his greed. The masses held real power within their hands. If their officials did not deal justly with them, they caused a riot, and if the frightened official could not still it within a certain time, he was told that he evidently could not control his people and so was removed.

  My husband inspected the regiments stationed here. I saw them from a veranda in the Yamen where we women were unseen. Fifteen thousand men marched past him; they were a sight for one who loves his country. They were all young men, none seeming over twenty-five, and as they marched my heart was filled with pride and hope in them. I thought, it is of just such men, such sons of peasants and working people, that Japan made her army that gained a victory over one of the greatest nations in the Western world. Why cannot we, with our unlimited numbers, make an army that will cause our country to be respected and take its place among the powers of the world? We have the men, myriads and myriads of them; men who are used to hardship and privation in their daily life, who, on a bowl of rice, a morsel of dried fish, can fight the whole day through. Our men are not accustomed to the luxuries of the foreigners, who, even in times of war, carry great stores of what seems to Eastern nations unnecessary baggage. With them their endless string of wagons is their greatest pitfall, and with us these latter could be reduced to the smallest count.

  Yet we hear on every hand that the courage of the Chinese soldier is held at low value. But why? When sent unarmed, or with guns for which there were no bullets, into the Japanese war, against troops with the latest inventions in weapons to kill, the only thing to be done was to retreat. But when they are paid, fed, and armed, and have leaders who will go to the front with them, instead of saying “There is the enemy. Charge! I will go back to the hills and await your hour of glory,” they are found to be courageous to the verge of fanaticism. Under trusted leaders there is no forlorn hope or desperate service for which they would not volunteer. Let them have confidence in their new generals, and, even though not understanding the cause, they will make the best soldiers in the world.

  But I must not talk to you of war; we do not want more bloodshed and the fatherless homes and lean years that follow in the track of great armies. Yet, if we cannot be without it, let it serve war’s ends—the ultimate safety of our people, and bring them peace and tranquillity, their heart’s desire.

  I visited the ruined homes of friends of mine, who are no more. It made me feel life is nothing but a mirage, a phantom, or as foam, and “even as all earthly vessels made on the potter’s wheel must end by being broken, so end the lives of men.” I went out to the home of Yuan Tai-tai, who, to my childish mind was the great lady of my dreams. I can close my eyes and see her still, like a brilliant butterfly, dressed in her gay brocades, her hair twined with jewels of pearl and jade; with hand in mine she wandered over her garden, bending over goldfish ponds, or clipping fading flowers from off their stems. There reigned a heavy silence in her palace, with its memories, full of sadness and a vague regret, reminding me of an old blue China bowl, which a hand of other days had filled with roses. The flowers trying to struggle from beneath the thorns and brambles that always come where troops are quartered, seemed to say, “Behold, they are not here who once have cared for us and cherished us, but the gardens breathe of them and we are fragrant for their sakes.” I picked a branch of cherry blossoms, and swiftly the perfumed petals fell to the ground—symbols of the dainty lives that bloomed so short a time in this fair garden of my lady. Liu Che, the poet of the olden time, seems to have been speaking to this, my friend, when he says:

  The sound of rustling silk is stilled,

  With dust the marble courtyard filled:

  No footfalls echo on the floor,

  Fallen leaves in heaps block up the door ...

  For she, my pride, my lovely one is lost.

  We went from Yuan’s palace to the Temple of Kwan-yin, which I often visited as a child. It also was a ruin, but it spoke to me of the dead thousands of weary feet that had climbed the steps leading to its shrines; of the buried mothers who touched the floor before its altars with reverent heads and asked blessings on their children’s lives; of their children, taught to murmur prayers to the Mother of all Mercies, who held close within her loving heart the sorrows, hopes, and fears of woman’s world. Ghosts of these spirits seemed to follow as we wandered through deserted courtyards, and an odor as of old incense perfumed the air. I went out and stood upon the tortoise that is left to guard the ruined temple; the great stone tortoise that is the symbol of longevity of our country, that even armies in their wrath cannot destroy.

  From the gateway we could see the river, a gleaming thread of silver, and the hillsides, tree clad, flower wreathed, painted with the colors that the gods give to the spring—the spring that “thrills the warm blood into wine.” But I miss the natural songs that should float upward from the valley, and down the reed-strewn banks of the canals, where laborers in olden days were happy in their toil.

  Even as we left, the pattering raindrops came as rice grains falling upon the threshing floor, and the hills seemed “folding veils of sorrow round their brows.” It was brought to our remembrance that we must return to a city where war and famine may come thundering at her gates, and we must stand with helpless hands.

  Dear Mother mine, stay upon your flower-scented balustrade, and drink great draughts of that wine of spring, the vintage of the wise, which the gods give to you freely in your mountain home, and leave to younger hands the battles with the world. You must not come; write no more that you would be amongst us. We love you dearly, but we would cherish you and keep you from all care.

  Kwei-li

  15

  My Dear Mother,

  I have had a most interesting day, and I hasten to tell you all about it. I have just returned from opening a home for motherless children, given by a mission of a foreign land. It is a beautiful thought, and a kindly one, to give a home to these poor waifs of an alien land, all in the name of their Savior of the World. I saw for the first time a picture of this Christ, with little children around Him. The message I read within His eyes seemed to be: “I will be father and mother and playmate to all little children.”

  I looked at the picture and at the people around me on the platform, and wondered why in all the Christian world that claims this loving Master there should be such exceeding bitterness among His followers. How can they expect us to believe in this great Teacher when they themselves are doubtful of his message, and criticize quite openly their Holy Book? If it is true, should education and science make its teaching less authentic? We do not want a religion that is uncertain to its own people, yet we take with many thanks what it can give us, the things we understand, such as their schools and hospitals. Where there is pain
or ignorance, there is no distinction in the god that brings relief. We may not believe in the doctrines that we are taught in the waiting rooms of their hospitals, but we do believe in the healing power of the medicines that are brought by religious zeal from over the seas.

  If their teaching has not as yet made many converts, the effect has been great in the spread of higher ideals of education. And much of the credit for the progress of our modern life must be given to the mission schools, which, directly or indirectly, have opened new pathways in the field of education for our country, and caused the youth of China to demand a higher learning throughout the land. This aggressive religion from the West, coupled with the education that seems to go hand in hand with it, is bound to raise the religious plane of China by forcing our dying faiths to reassume higher and higher forms in order to survive.

  But I believe that these teachers from the foreign lands should understand better the religions they are so anxious to displace, and instead of always looking for the point of difference or weakness in our faith, should search more anxiously for the common ground, the spark of the true light that may still be blown to flame, finding the altar that may be dedicated afresh to the true God.

  Every religion, however imperfect, has something that ought to be held sacred, for there is in all religions a secret yearning after the unknown God. This thought of God “is an elixir made to destroy death in the world, and unfailing treasure to relieve the poverty of mankind, a balm to allay his sickness, a tree under which may rest all creatures wearied with wanderings over life’s pathways. It is a bridge for passing over hard ways, open to all wayfarers, a moon of thought arising to cool the fever of the world’s sin, and whatever name His followers may call Him, he is the one True God of all mankind.”

  Whether we see the coolie bowing his head before the image of the Lord of Light, the Buddha, or the peasant woman with her paper money alight in the brazier at the feet of Kwan-yin, we ought to feel that the place where he who worships stands is holy ground. We hear it said that he is worshiping an image, an idol, a thing of stone or wood or clay. It is not so; he is thinking far beyond the statue, he is seeing God. He looks upward toward the sky and asks what supports that cup of blue. He hears the winds and asks them whence they come and where they go. He rises for his toil at break of day and sees the morning sun start on his golden journey. And Him who is the cause of all these wonders, he calls his Life, his Breath, his Lord of All. He does not believe that the idol is his God.

  “ ’Tis to the light which Thy splendor lends to the idol’s face, that the worshiper bends.” ...

  We of the East “have sounded depth on depth only to find still deeper depths unfathomed and profound,” and we have learned to say that no sect or religion can claim to be in possession of all the Truth. Let the teachers from other countries learn of our doctrines. Let them learn of Buddha. To one who reads his pure teaching, nothing so beautiful, nothing so high, has been heard in all the world. We admit that, little by little, changes have come, simplicity has been lost, and with every addition something departed from its purity and it became stained. Yet I believe that much of the kindliness, much of the gentleness now so marked in Chinese nature, may be traced to the teaching of this great apostle of peace and quietude. ...

  All have a hunger of the soul for something besides life’s meat and drink; all want a remedy for the sorrows of the world. The Buddhists believe that it can be found in the destruction of desire, by renouncing the world and following the noble path of peace until death shall open the portals of the unknowable, everlasting stillness from which there is no return. The Confucianists say the remedy is found within the world by fulfilling all its duties and leaving to a greater Justice the future and its rewards. The Christians give a whispered message of hope to the lonely soul beating against the bars of the world about him, and say that a life of love and joy and peace is the gift of their great Messenger, and when the years have passed that He stands within an archway to welcome those, His chosen, to a land of bliss where we shall meet all who have loved us and whom we have loved in life, and gaze upon His face.

  Which is the Way, which path to God is broad enough for all the world?

  Kwei-li

  16

  My Dear Mother,

  I received your letter, which was full of reproaches most unjust. I have not broken my word, given to you so long ago. I opened the home for friendless children, not because it belonged to a mission of a foreign religion, but because I think it a most worthy cause.

  There are many homeless little ones in this great city, and these people give them food and clothing and loving care, and because it is given in the name of God not found within our temples, is that a reason for withholding our encouragement?

  You have made my heart most heavy. Twenty-five years ago, when my first son was taken from me, I turned from gods who gave no comfort in my time of need: all alone with hungry winds of bitterness gnawing the lute strings of my desolate mother-heart, I stood upon my terrace and fought despair. My days were without hope and my nights were long hours filled with sorrow, when sleep went trailing softly by and left me to the old dull pain of memory. I called in anguish upon Kwan-yin, and she did not hear my prayer. The painted smile upon her lips but mocked me, and in despair I said, “There are no gods,” and in my lonely court of silent dreams I lost the thread of worldly care until my tiny bark of life was nearly drifting out upon the unknown sea.

  You remember that the servants brought me from out the marketplace the book of the foreign god, and in its pages I woke to life again. I looked once more from out my curtained window, and saw the rosy glow of dawn instead of gray, wan twilights of the hopeless days before me; and, as on a bridge half-seen in shadows dim, I returned to the living world about me. You said nothing until it had brought its healing, then you took the book and kept it from me. You told me with tears that it would bring your head in sorrow to your resting place upon the hillside if I left the gods of my ancestors and took unto my heart the words and teachings of the gods of an alien race. I promised you that I would not cause you grief, and I have kept my word.

  In my ignorance I have longed for knowledge, for someone to explain the teaching that rolled away for me the rush of troubled waters that flooded all my soul; but as I looked about me and saw the many warring factions that follow the great Teacher of love and peace, I did not know which way to turn, which had the truth to give me; and I wanted all, not part. I have this book, and have not sought wisdom from outside, but only search its pages to find its messages to me.

  You must not say I have deserted China’s gods, nor is it just to write that my children are wandering from the Way. I have observed the feasts and fastings; each morn the Household God has rice and tea before him; the Kitchen God has gone with celebrations at springtime to the spirit up above. The candles have been lighted and the smoke of incense has ascended to propitiate the God of Light, Lord Buddha, and Kwan-yin, and my children have been taught their prayers and holy precepts. It is not my fault, nor should you blame it on my teaching, if rites and symbols have lost their meaning, and if the gods of China are no longer strong enough to hold our young.

  Oh, Mother of mine, you know I would not cause you sorrow, and you have hurt me sorely with your letter of bitterness and reproach. If you could have seen within my heart these many years, and known the longing for this light that came to me in darkness, then you would not have burned the book that brought me hope and life again when all seemed gone.

  You asked me to promise you anew that I will not trouble your last few years with thoughts that seem to you a sacrilege and a desecration of your gods. You are the mother of my husband, and it is to you that I owe all loyalty and obedience. I promise you, but—that which is deep within my heart—is mine.

  Your daughter,

  Kwei-li

  17

  My Dear Mother,

  I, your son’s wife, have been guilty of the sin of anger, one of the seven deadly sins—and
great indeed has been my anger. Ting-fang has been bringing home with him lately the son of Wong Kai-kia, a young man who has been educated abroad, I think in Germany. I have never liked him, have looked upon his aping of the foreign manners, his half-long hair which looks as if he had started a queue [braid] again and then stopped, his stream of words without beginning and without end, as a foolish boy’s small vanities that would pass as the years and wisdom came. But now—how can I tell you—he asks to have my daughter as his wife, my Luh-meh, my flower. If he had asked for Man-li, who wishes to become a doctor, I might have restrained my anger; but, no, he wants the beauty of our household, and for full a space of ten breaths’ breathing time, I withheld my indignation, for I was speechless. Then I fear I talked, and only stopped for lack of words. My son is most indignant, and says I have insulted his dear friend. His dear friend, indeed! He is so veiled in self-conceit that he can be insulted by no one; and as for being a friend, he does not know the word unless he sees in it something to further his own particular interests.

  I told my son that he is a man who leads a life of idleness and worse. The teahouse knows him better than his rooftree. He is most learned and has passed safely many examinations, and writes letters at the end of his name, and has made a special study of the philosophers of the present time; and because of this vast amount of book learning and his supposedly great intelligence he is entitled to indulgence, says my son, and should not be judged by the standards that rule ordinary people, who live upon a lower plane. I say that his knowledge and greater intelligence (which latter I very much doubt) increase his responsibilities and should make of him an example for the better living of men.