Excerpt from The Passing of the Dragon: The Story of the Shensi Revolution and Relief Expedition

The author of The Passing of the Dragon is no mere theorist. He has travelled much and seen life in many lands. His enterprising Spirit has carried him to different parts of the Continent, across the United States and to the cities of busy Japan. He has lived and worked among the farmers of Canada and the millhands of Lancashire. As a student he is known in the Univer sities of Oxford and Manchester as a teacher and friend he has been a familiar figure in many parts of Northern China to country people, students and officials of different kinds. The call to service there came through the lack of volunteers after the Boxer rising, and in China his chief work has been done. Into the ten years since he first left England for the East he has crowded all the work his energetic nature could do, even at great cost to himself; so that overwork necessitated a furlough. Then in 1911 he returned to take up his duties once more. Great was his eagerness to return because of his deep interest in the Chinese. Before leaving England a friend said to him: I cannot understand why you go. It seems to me a sheer waste of your powers. The simple reply followed: It is my duty. I am more needed out there. After events proved this to be true beyond his conception. While in his native land he spoke of the unrest that prevailed in China and the struggle for freedom that might soon take place. When he landed there the Revolution had begun. At once he learnt of the dangers that threatened his colleagues, and immediately began to plan their rescue. The opportunity to do his duty found him ready, though of it he writes I only did what any Englishman would have done. What was accomplished is told in this book.

After the excitement of Relief Expeditions was over (for on his return to Pekin he and three others were asked by the Swedish Minister to attempt the relief of Swedish Missionaries in n.w. Shansi, and for this second expedition he received a gold medal from the King of Sweden), he went back quietly to his ordinary work at Sianfu. There he is now, busy amongst the Chinese whom he loves, and at the mission work it is a delight to him to do.

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