Scroll of honour
I wonder whether Friends would like to see a translation of the words on the Suining scroll which featured in the news of 24 July?
They appear in my mother Joanna Kirby’s book The Two Oceans. She was the daughter of John and Dorothy Rodwell, and was born in Szechuan in 1919. (She is also the mother of my brother Richard Kirkby, who returned the scroll.)
It reads as follows: ‘You, in your kindness, have come across the Seas, and it has become well known here that you have your hearts full of the preaching of the Truth, and your widely displayed love has shown the true benevolence of your hearts. Regarding Righteousness as of great price, you have travelled far like pilgrims, fearing no danger, whether to the remotest East or most deserted regions of the West. Since, in your hearts you have identified yourselves with all mankind, you are, in spite of the differences of our national customs, at one with us.
‘When, within the last few years, you came to live with us at Suining, the inhabitants enjoyed peace as if we had partaken of good wine to repletion. But times changed and the beacons burned to warn the people. There was fighting over all the land so that we could not sleep in peace. Then you arose in your boldness, displaying hundredfold bravery.
‘You and we, the people of Suining, helped one another. In sympathy with our hearts you went in and out among the combatants as a snake wriggles in its progress. Thus it came to pass that, without firing an arrow or casting a stone, they freed us from the danger that was impending.
‘How we admire your action! Truly you may be styled righteous. Well may you be compared to Lu Lien, the hero of olden story. We, people of Suining, ponder on this and can never forget it, and so that the true perfume of the good deed may be preserved, we have written this record.’
Quakers and other Protestant missionaries were expelled in 1926 following an upswell in anti-western feeling (not without cause).
Quakers no longer proselytise as we did a hundred years ago, and there is no Quaker church in China. But, as my mother says, we do not know what seeds were planted and lie dormant.
The welcome Richard received was very warm, and they also gave him a free operation he needed at the very modern new Suining hospital, to whose museum the scroll has gone.
Meg Hill
Flood of memories
Tony D’Souza’s article about anger (‘Shower of blessing’, 22 August) brought back a memory from post-apartheid South Africa. John and I were privileged to attend a session or two of the Truth Commission, led by Desmond Tutu, when people came and told their painful stories of the abusive treatment they had suffered.
We had been introduced beforehand to the woman whose task it was to care for families who had come to give their witnesses to their appalling treatments under the apartheid regime. Their stories were harrowing. We asked this woman afterwards how she managed to carry so much pain day after day. She told us that after each day-long session she went home and had a shower and, with tears running down her face, she watched that day’s pain bit by bit disappear down the plughole freeing her so she could be there for the next day’s victims.
Diana Lampen
