Stories of the Middle Kingdom

History and Legacy

Yesterday I went to the Chinese city of Zhenjiang. I had never heard of it this time last week, but it turns out it has significance in history. The American author Pearl S. Buck (winner of Nobel prize in literature 70 years ago and author of The Good Earth) lived in Zhenjiang (jen-jahng) for at least 18 years, starting when she was 4 months old. Also, it is where Hudson Taylor, founder of the China Inland Mission was buried with his first wife and three children who all preceded him in death.

Taylor's cemetery was destroyed by Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution. The land has buildings on it now. A church in Zhenjiang has a small memorial to Hudson Taylor. I went to see it.

In one corner of the courtyard, I saw two other tombstones leaning against the fence. One little white tombstone was for a little girl named Isabel Sibley who died at as a child in 1916. The other larger grey tombstone was for a Leonidas William Pierce. This is what his tombstone said:

"Leonidas William Pierce, born Oct 24, 1864 in Fannin County, Texas, USA. Thirty-one years missionary of the Southern Baptist Convention at YangChow China. Lost his life by the capsizing of the mission launch, the Morning Star on July 16, 1922 at SooChow, China."

The lady at the church said that when the cemeteries were destroyed in the Cultural Revolution, the poor farmers used the tombstones as building materials for their homes. Now that the economy is better in China, those homes are being torn down, and both the Sibley and Pierce tombstones were discovered in 2008, and brought to the church by the farmers who discovered them. There are no telling how many other tombstones are out there yet to be discovered.

They were not well-known or until now even remember by the world, but they left a legacy that cannot be hidden or destroyed.