This article was first published in the January 1, 1950, issue of The Living Church.
Christmas Falls on Sunday
By the Rev. Robert E. Wood
Before the Communists came to “liberate” us, we were often told what difficulties we should have to encounter when they arrived. So far none of these forebodings have come true. However, we fear enormous difficulties, in taxes and so forth, when the military government gives way to the civil.
Here at St. Michael’s everything has gone on as usual, except in school regulations. Our people have been more regular at our two Sunday Eucharists than ever before. For several months the number of communicants at 7:30 has averaged about 100, with about 40 more at the Sung Eucharist at 9:30. Also at the early service on Fridays and Holy Days, the average has been about 40.
We have been under strict orders forbidding religious instruction, during school hours, in our parochial school. That, however, has not prevented us from having a good Sunday school and a volunteer choir of nearly 40 Christian boys and girls at the Sung Mass. Not long. ago, our Chinese fellow priest went to the government office to consult about our school affairs, and he found the officer very friendly. He evidently is a Wuchang man, and was kind enough to inquire about me. He asked, “Is that old man still here, and does he still love children?” Next day he came around and paid a very friendly visit to our school.
Amiable Soldiers
Our personal contacts with Communist officers and soldiers have been most friendly. These young soldier-boys are just like the Chinese boys everywhere who have been our friends these many years. Let me give you one little instance. The playground of a school adjacent to St. Michael’s is used as a place for the training of soldiers. I sauntered in one day, to watch one of their exercises which reminds me of a cake-walk; and as soon as it was over, quite a crowd gathered around me for a chat.
My local Wuchang brogue was a little different from theirs (like a Scotchman talking to an Irishman). But we got on fairly well. They were delightfully friendly. In fact, it was a bit difficult to get away from them, they had so many questions to ask. Naturally they wished to know who I was, and what was my native country. When I told them that I was an American, I said, “I imagine that you do not like Americans very well,” but their reply was, “Nationality does not matter with us, just so you treat your fellow men fairly, all nations are the same to us.”
The army has a health center near us, and one day when I stopped to talk with the doctor, he was so polite that he came almost immediately to St. Michael’s to return my call. We not infrequently have soldiers present at our services. They are always very well behaved and of course are most welcome. Recently when we had a narrow escape from an accident and fire, a number of soldiers rushed into the church to help put out the fire. It is truly wonderful to have such kind neighbors.
Interest in the Church
Two officers from our local government came to pay a friendly call, and were most interested in everything. They kept us answering all sorts of questions about our religion, and when I emphasized the fact that we were absolutely free from both papal and state control, and that our religion was completely voluntary, they obviously approved. They were interested to hear that we had the same ancient tradition as the Orthodox Church of Russia and the East.
Pardon me for being a bit boastful, but I’m sure that there is no church in our diocese where the Prayer Book is more appreciated by the people than it is here. To be sure, most Anglicans have plenty of reason to criticize poor old Cranmer, but here we try to take him at his best. For example, with all his faults, he never once dreamed that his really beautiful Office of Morning Prayer was ever to be so misused as to make it a substitute for the Lord’s Own Service of the Holy Eucharist for every Lord’s Day. But as we all realize now, after 400 years, this perfectly good Office has been responsible for leading more people away from God’s altar, on the Lord’s Day, than the forces of evil themselves. It makes one weep to read the service-lists in many American Church papers, and still more, when we see these errors propagated in China.
But here at St. Michael’s, it has never been so. Our Morning Prayer, every Sunday, precedes the first Eucharist and is always used to lead our people to the altar, not from it. We also find it a very good preparation for Holy Communion, just as Cranmer planned it in the 1549 Prayer Book. We are also old-fashioned enough to love our Evensong on Sundays and weekdays, with the Litany on Fridays. We gather like a family for Evening Prayer. We rejoice in the religion of the Incarnation, and we love to thank God for it, by the constant hearty singing of Our Lady’s Magnificat. The systematic reading of the New Testament makes us realize that “our eyes have seen Thy salvation,” and Simeon’s Nunc Dimittis is full of meaning for us.
“No Misnomer Like ‘P.E.’”
We rejoice that we, in the Holy Catholic Church of China, have no sectarian local misnomer like “P.E.” (Protestant Episcopal), nor are we perplexed by the local controversies of 300 years ago, for (bless the Lord) no one in our diocese has ever attempted to translate the Thirty-Nine Articles into Chinese.
As I said above, we are allowed religious liberty on Sundays, but our parish school teachers are obliged to spend their Sunday mornings attending lectures on Communism! It doesn’t matter much at St. Michael’s, however, for our teachers are first of all loyal to Christ, and come to the 7:30 Eucharist before they go to their other “Sunday duties.” We are strictly forbidden to observe Christmas in our school — no vacation, no school decorations — but the Lord is on our side, for Christmas day this year falls on Sunday!
The Rev. Robert E. Wood (1872-1952) began his ministry at St. Michael’s Mission in Wuchang, now a district of Wuhan, the largest city in Central China, in 1899. He witnessed the Boxer Rebellion, served as a Chinese interpreter in France during World War I, and was captured and imprisoned by the Japanese during World War II. His sister, Mary Elizabeth Wood (1861-1931), served alongside him for much of his ministry, and opened China’s first public library as a project of the mission in 1909.
The Chinese Communist Party began expelling foreign missionaries in 1950, and the congregations of the Chung Hua Sheng Kung Hui (Holy Catholic Church in China) were gradually merged into the state-controlled Three-Self Patriotic Movement. Wood was deported to America in the summer of 1951, and died the next year.
The Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui (Hong Kong Anglican Church) and the Diocese of Taiwan continue the Chung Hua Sheng Kung Hui’s ministry, which formally suspended operations within the People’s Republic of China in 1958. St. Michael’s still has an active congregation in what is now a historic district of a megacity best known as the origin point of the COVID-19 virus.
TLC Editors