Laid Bible Scenes in China

1921

Native Artist Had No Conception of Any Other Land Outside His Own

In north Fukien province there dwelt an artist who painted pictures on silk for the gentry of his little village. The people in this secluded hamlet nestled amid the hills had never seen automobiles or airplanes, nor did they take the long journey to Shanghai to watch the great steamers come in laden with merchandise and messages from the ports of the world. But they knew the words of Confucius and Lao-tse and they lived and died with simple dignity as their fathers had done before them.

One evening the artist, who had been working all day on a memorial portrait, strolled out into the dark, cool street to refresh his tired soul, writes Elsie F. Weil in Asia Magazine. The tiny white church of the foreign god beyond the tea shop was brilliantly lighted. The artist stood a moment in the open door. The young missionary was talking most eloquently; he was not preaching, but he seemed to be telling stories that were as fascinating as those recited in the bazaars. Almost in spite of himself the artist sank unobtrusively into an empty seat. For the first time he heard some of the beautiful old stories of the Bible, which have held the people of the West enthralled for 2,000 years.

And the artist returned to his home and made pictures of the story of Noah and the flood, and of the parables of the lost sheep and of the prodigal son and of many others that were in the book of the western missionary. But he had never heard of the Palestine. To him Noah was Chinese, and the lost sheep belonged to a farmer of his province and the prodigal son might well have been a dissolute youth of his own village.