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The image of physician as evangelist predominates early literature on Canadian missionary medicine in China. When James R. Menzies graduated in Toronto on 1895, his dual degrees in theology and medicine made him an ideal missionary candidate. The Presbyterian Church in Canada dispatched the reverend doctor to China to begin the first medical mission at Changte in Honan province (Anyang, Henan). In those years the practice of medicine by missionaries was considered an evangelistic strategy aimed at gaining the trust of prospective converts; the medical doctor was welcomed where the preacher and teacher were barely tolerated.1 Canadian Methodist physicians in Szechwan (Sichuan) were reportedly winning their way to the hearts to the people, finding opportunities “multiplying” upon them “every day and hour, for preaching the Gospel in the most effective way.”2 Two of the earliest Honanese to embrace Christianity were Chou Lao-Chang and Li Chi Ching, blind patients cared for by Canadian doctors Frazer Smith and James Menzies.3,4,5 Such legendary conversions solidified support for medical missionaries within the Presbyterian community, and may explain the subsequent official emphasis on doctors' evangelistic role with their patients. This role was sometimes exaggerated, as a comparison between the published and unpublished versions of a photograph of Menzies will illustrate.
In 1913 the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions published a photo featuring Menzies standing and reading before a small Chinese audience.6 Its title, “Preaching to patients,” contrasts with the caption of the original photo, which reads, “Dr. Menzies with his workmen at morning prayers.” There is a subtle but significant difference between the notion of patients receiving Biblical instruction from a physician before receiving care, and employees participating in morning prayers. Illness and injury make patients particularly vulnerable to exploitation, and it is possible that they could interpret conversion to Christianity as the price of receiving treatment, or interpret Christian rituals as magical cures. The discrepancy between the photographs suggests that evangelism by physicians may have been more rhetoric than reality. Whether or not it was common, mission supporters expected and idealized the practice of preaching to patients. For his part, Menzies believed that, while practical skills might improve lives, the Christian message could transform them. He lived by his Christian convictions.
Arguably, he also died by them. On Mar. 17, 1920, Menzies was murdered while coming to the aid of Sadie Lethbridge and Janet Brydon, two missionaries whose home had been stormed by a band of robbers.7 Having heard a call for help, Menzies approached the women's residence unarmed, and was beaten and fatally shot while Miss Lethbridge watched from a hiding spot on her verandah. This was the first time in the perilous history of the mission that the tragedy of a violent death occurred. Lethbridge never recovered from the shock and, as it happened, died 4 months later.8 Nurse Brydon, however, remained in China until 1939.9 Menzies' untimely death ushered in a new generation of medical missionaries to China, including his replacement at the new Menzies Memorial Hospital, Dr. Robert McClure,10 and Menzies' daughter Jean, who was a nurse.11 With the construction of three modern hospitals in Honan in the early 1920s, the practice of medicine in China gained acceptance as a legitimate expression of the Gospel in itself and was no longer presented as simply a means to an evangelistic end.12 The subsequent shift in Canadian missions from evangelism to service rendered the dual purpose “to heal and to preach” obsolete.
Sonya J. Grypma PhD Candidate Killam Scholar (Hon.) University of Alberta Edmonton, Alta.
References
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