Page 50 - incense-bearers of han

my place, say at 10:00 A. M. tomorrow morning?”

We both assured him that we would be there at the time appointed.
With a nod and a smile to all he quickly made his exit. His personal body guard
escorted him to his car, and he was whisked away to his offices.
The next morning at five minutes before ten, Ernest Yin and I were ushered into

the parlors of the Governor‟s Mansion and severed tea. On the tap of ten the Governor
appeared, this time attired in a close-fitting military suit of gray gabardine.
He welcomed us cordially, inquired as to whether we had been served tea, and then
drew up a chair close to mine and said, “Tell me more of the matter of which you

were speaking yesterday, of which the man spoke seven hundred years before it
occurred.”
Unhurriedly I explained the purposes of God through the ages, and told of the
Lamb the sacrifice for sin, slain, in the counsels of God, before the foundation of the

world, and of His sure coming again to reign. The issue was made ever so personal
and the necessity of individual recognition of one‟s own sinful and lost estate before
God.
He listened with intense and unflagging interest and then said, “Then what shall I

do about it?”
“Kneel right here with me and acknowledge Christ as Lord and Savior. Are you
willing to do so?”
“Certainly, I am! Indeed, I must!

Down on the beautiful Tientsin rug we knelt, and I first uttered a prayer and then
led the Governor in a prayer of acceptance of and committal to Christ. He spoke the
words as sincerely and earnestly as a little child, and I feel sure that at that moment he

became a child of God. No one who knows his Bible can escape the similarity of this
experience to that of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch.

Governor Shang never missed another one of the night meetings held at the home

of Commissioner Yin while I was there, and at the last invited us all to a dinner at his
home where only the things of God were discussed. As I went to the northern cities of
Tientsin and Pecking to preach he wired to friends in Tientsin to greet and entertain
me and wrote his wife who was residing at their fine home in Peking to come and

hear the word of God, a thing which she was careful to do. He wrote me a letter in
English—not very good English to be sure, but with unmistakable sincerity in which
he said he was thankful to God for bringing me to Kaifeng to “lead him into the way
of truth and life.”

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