Page 31 - incense-bearers of han

nevertheless!

For the sake of those who do not know, be it known that the Chinese of the better
classes always prepare their coffins and their grave clothes long before their demise.
They have no intention of being placed in just any kind of box or clad in just any sort

of clothes for the body‟s long rest, so they superintend the construction of their own
caskets and the tailoring of their own grave clothes!

After giving a casual glance at the two coffins, one intended for himself and the

other for his wife, I asked him why he was at such pains to show me the coffins, and
assured him that I was not the least interested in such things! He stamped his good
foot with the least touch of irritation and commanded me to look well.

I turned again and scanned the two big caskets and noticed something about them
both that I had previously overlooked.

At the bottom of each were four large characters carved from the wood and

embossed with gold. The first four were Wen sheng ts’u mo—which literally
translated means “Hear the sound and emerge from the grave,” and the other four read
Chu lai fu ch’ee which can be freely rendered “At the Lord‟s coming I shall rise
again.”

Now I knew the reason why he showed me the coffins! I bowed to the waist and
congratulated the venerable gentleman on his sure hope of resurrection.
“That,” he beamed, “will be my final testimony! When they bear me out in that

box and the people along the street will say, ‟Mr. Hu, the Jesus-believer is gone! But
what mean those characters?‟ Then my own people are instructed to inform them all
what „Wen Sheng ts‟u mo‟ means. They are to say „Think not the Elder Hu is to be
buried for all time! The characters mean that one day he will hear the voice of the

Archangel and the trump of God, and he will come out of the grave and be raptured to
heaven with a glorified body! God‟s Word declares it and it will be so!‟ My wife will
also give the final testimony, „When the Lord comes I shall rise again!‟”

We have not found such a shining hope among the Christians of Western lands!

THE MESSAGE ON THE LORD‟S COMING

So keen was the old gentlemen on the truth of the Lord‟s coming that he insisted

23