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Notable Women of Modern China by Margaret E. Burton
page 10 of 176 (05%)
pulpit oratory gave to his fine six-foot physique a princely bearing."

A striking testimony to the power and beauty of this Christian man's
character is a picture, painted by a Chinese artist, an old man over eighty
years of age. This man was not a Christian, but after hearing Mr. Hü's
preaching, and watching his consecrated life, he embodied in a painting his
conception of the power of the "Cross Doctrine" as he knew it through Hü
Yong Mi. The picture, which is five feet long and nearly three wide, and is
finely executed in water colours, was presented to Mr. Hü by the artist. At
first glance its central figure seems to be a tree, under which is a man
reading from a book. Lower down are some rocks. But looking again one sees
that the tree is a cross, and that in the rocks are plain semblances of
human faces, more or less perfect, all turned toward the cross. The thought
which the artist wished to express was that the "Cross Doctrine," as
preached and lived by such as Hü Yong Mi, would turn even rocks into human
beings.

The wife of Hü Yong Mi was brought up in a home of wealth and rank in
Foochow. Her aristocratic birth was manifested by the size of her tiny
embroidered shoe, which measured exactly three inches. When Hü Yong Mi was
asked by the missionaries to become a minister, he was somewhat dismayed to
learn that in the Methodist Church the minister's family must frequently
move from place to place. In his own words, "The Chinese greatly esteem the
place of their birth; if a man goes abroad it is considered a matter of
affliction; for a family to move is an almost unheard of calamity." He
replied, however, that although he had not known of the existence of the
custom, he was entirely willing, for Christ's sake, to undertake the work
of a minister in spite of it. The missionaries then asked if his wife would
be willing to go with him. He answered that he could not tell until he went
home and asked her. But when he had talked the matter over with her, this
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