This is the fullest letter we have from Reynolds, and her last letter to the Friends of the Carleton Mission. This letter is a reflection on her first year in China, and she connects events and people only briefly noted in her other letters. This is also the only full-page letter we have of her, perhaps connecting to her move to Foochow and increased access to paper.

Foochow, Aug 30 – 1906.

Dear Friends of the Carleton Mission – 

At your request, I will give a brief account of my work in Peking, as your representative. 

On Oct. 25 – 1904, I sailed from San Francisco on the “S.S. China” for Peking, Miss Nellie Russell, and Dr. and Mrs. C.W. Young were on the same steamer and bound for Peking also, so pleasant travelling companions, and learned something of their work before I reached their American Board Compound. There were on board forty-six missionaries, six were returning the others were all out for the first time and from them I got such an impression as never before that some of the brightest and most energetic young people are those who give themselves to foreign missions – 

We’ve reached Shanghai Nov. 19 and from there went up the coast to Tsingtao, very slowly. Lest we meet a floating mine from Port Arthur. Monday, Nov. 28 we reached Peking. Miss Miner, of American Board Division, met me, and took me to the American Board compound where I was “taken in” in the least sense of the word. I lived in the “Ladies House” and many beautiful lessons I learned there, in the nearly two years I was with them. The hope, when I came out, was that I might have as pupils, two children of the Duke Jêh as the Duchess had told Miss Miner, they wished they might have a lady from our mission (Cc.B.C.) to teach them. The Empress Dowager had appropriated eighty tacks as month for their English education by a foreign lady but before I reached Peking, the …

Duke, who was sadly in need of money, discovered an English speaking Chinese who were willing to teach them for six tacks a month and the bargain was closed, thereby saving, for the Duke seventy-four tacks monthly and the Empress Dowager none the wiser. 

Miss Miner acting as interpreter, solicitor and general advisor we set about and got out hand bills announcing the arrival of a young lady from America to teach English at reasonable rates etc. etc. and then waited developments. During the days of waiting I had an opportunity to visit the Institution for the Blind; the House for Destitute Old Women; the North Chapel Church (an independent Chinese church); our men’s college at Fung Chow, and other missions in Peking as well as to meet many Chinese pastors and helpers and hear of their home missionary society and much of the country work. The second week after my arrival Mrs. Ament brought me a Chinese lad who wanted to exchange Chinese for English, and so he gave me two hours of Chinese and I gave him one of English and we struggled on together making about equal progress. Several young Chinese who wanted to study English, presented themselves, and inquired about prices, provisioning to come again but they did not. My rates were (all in Mexican currency) seventy-five cents for one hour for single pupils; fifty-cents an hour (each) for two pupils or less than six. I offered special rates for classes one over five and not more than …

… ten.

These rates were carefully discussed with the missionaries and they all agreed that I should not go below those prices I intended charging more in classes where I went out to the house of the pupil. The above rates were for those who came to my study.

I offered reduced rates for girls and hoped every week that some girls might come over but they never did. Several came inquiring my prices and I hoped several times that they might decide to study but they never did. There was nothing practical about a girls learning English, if she had to pay for it.

For a few weeks a young man, from the telegraph office, studied with me but my first permanent pupil was a Japanese, K. Nishida by name, short, dark and energetic with a limited knowledge of English and a most peculiar accent.

He was employed in the Japanese legation as translator and interpreter (Inter-prāte-or) he called it. He knew a great deal about China and the East in general. The war between Russia and Japan was in progress then and he loved to tell me of every Japanese victory and the heavy odds against them, and kept me supplied with the most delicious of Japanese tea.

I invited him to come on Sunday to read the Bible which he did during the year and a half he was with me. We began with the book of John, the sixth chapter seemed to impress him very much for it was …

… then that he first began to understand that there was a spiritual meaning lack of figurative expressions. One day he heard the church bell ring and I told him it was for the Christian Endeavor meeting and tried to explain to him what the Christian Endeavor was. “Ah,” he said, “from this time I am a Christian Endeaveror,” and I think he was tho he did not seem to realize his need of a savior not to grasp the idea of prayer and still hold to the belief that his Mikado (japanese emperor) is divine, yet I believe he was and is seeking the truth and that God will care for his now.

About the middle of march 1905, Kuo Bow Liu and Ruo Bow Kuo, brothers, sixteen and fourteen respectively, presented themselves as students. They are the sons of a well-to-do curio dealer. They were faithful and industrious and studied with me as long as I taught. They were interested in every thing new and foreign except Christian Truth. They came to my Bible class occasionally but only out of courtesy and felt and were most noncommittal. In April I was able to form a class at special prices. Young men from the Post office, Telegraph office, bicycle shop, and such places, were those who made it up. I organized them (she added also) into a Bible class for Sunday and many of them came regularly.

One, a Mr. Yü, became very much interested and I had great hopes for him when he suddenly stopping coming to the class at all and some one who knew his people said it was because his parents were very much opposed to Christianity. Later I met him on the street and he told me he was attending a government school.

In the latter part of May, a young, English speaking Chinese, Mr Hsiang, came to call and see if I would teach his sister and cousins. He wished me to go to the home each day to teach them and invited me to call on them before we should decide the matter.

In company with Miss Miner, I started, next day to call at the Hsiang home. We found it a cart ride of more than an hour length, through the city streets and alleys. There we met a levy of pretty, painted girls who could say “how-do-you-do” and “good-bye.” The house was furnished partly in foreign style but with very bad taste. There was a piano upon which one of the girls played with one finger of each hand. They offered us wine and cigarettes and this we refused, indulged freely themselves. After a long discussion they decided that they could not pay so much for English but Mr Hsiang thought i might be willing to teach his two nephews who lived …

… very near us, upon inquiry we found that they were another branch of Duke Tehi family, the two boys being nephews of the Empress Dowager.

We went with Ms. Hsiang to call upon them and arrangements were made by which I was to go to them five?four? Mornings a week, in their cart which they sent for me.

They live at the old family palace, called “Chao Kuing Fui” (Chao Duke’s Palace) this the family name is now Jeh. Every morning about a quarter before eight the cart appeared and I scrambled in, then we went thro narrow, dirty, winding streets to the Fw, where I was met by a servant who carried my books, parasol, etc. He conducted me thro the first court down a long curved passage or corridor, at the end of this corridor the two young men met me and conducted me through the next court and into their little school room.

I call them young men and so they were, though they seemed much more like boys. The older one was eighteen and a father, the younger one was seventeen and also had a wife. They were delighted over the pictures in my Montgomery brand and co. catalogue and loved to talk of [unclear] bicycles etc. 

They had a small knowledge of English but so small that our conversations were very limited. They called several times at our compound …

… and were full of interest in the foreign things but never accepted the invitation to visit our church service. Their mother was a lady, one could feel that, once in her presence and the boys had been well raised according to Chinese ideas and alltho they smoked cigarettes, they never did it in my presence. 

The dear old lady used often to invite me in to drink Tea or to show me the garden and she would hold my hand and say nice things which the boys tried to translate and I tried to reply to. The last week in July, I went to Pei-tau-hê (the missionary summer resting place) for Peking had grown very hot and it not being overly cleanly is not considered a very safe place for a newcomer to spend the whole summer. 

I spent a month there and met many people who were a help and inspiration as were also the religious meetings I had the opportunity to attend during that time. 

Then I returned to Peking, my work continued as before with a few new pupils. Just after Christmas, my eldest pupil at the Fw, departed with in the retinue of one of the five commissioners to foreign countries and the younger one did not wish to study until the brother returned.

They were very much excited over the expedition and the fortunate youth urged me to write a letter to my father and let him carry to him for he was to pass through the W.S. and would surely see him.

In January, Mrs. Nishida brought me another Japanese pupil, Mr. Hatori, who, having studied English in the Japanese schools, read very well but could not speak nor understand when spoken to though he learned both to speak and understand, very soon. 

Still later another Japanese pupil came to me. Mr. Sonomera, and he proved most interesting. He spoke English very well as he did also Chinese, and he had a fund of the most interesting folk lore and myths of his country. 

He joined the Bible class and became so interested that he asked me if he might study the Bible thro the week as well. Of course I was very happy to have him do so and he began with the sermon on the mount.

He had heard of new religion and talked with missionaries and Japanese Christians before so his heart was prepared and before he had finished that wonderful sermon, he said that now he felt he had found …

… the Truth and wished to be a Christian. He told me of his father and grandfather’s religion and how he had lost faith in it and now he felt that he had found the true religion. He seemed genuinely converted and very much in earnest. Business called him to Shanghai about Easter time and he did not return but wrote me that he was among Christian friends in the Japanese quarters. Another pupil, a lad of sixteen whose parents were Rome Catholics, came wanting English very much for his father was a cloisonné merchant and wanted him to be able to speak to English customers. He was most amazing, just a great big boy, He brought his bird, one day to show me, and told me most remarkable tiger stories, insisting they were true, but he could not learn to use the proper tense in the proper place. 

I left Peking, with a photograph of him in his best clothes, and a beautiful cloisonné Belt buckle which his father had made purposely for me, he said, and the earnest request thatI should write him an English letter “from Fenchow to Peking.”

During the time I was in North China I also taught a short time each, a german soldier, and these Russian students driven from Vladiovastofe during the trouble there.

I studied the language as I had time and opportunity met and talked as much as I could with Chinese women and girls who came to the house and in many ways came to know the chinese people and to love some of them very much. 

Tho’ I did not see much result from my work I know that all those with whom I came in contact had some of their prejudice toward foreigners removed and would be more ready to listen to the next foreigner they might meet. 

Sometimes during the winter months, I had very very little work. Sometimes I had eight hours work, a day, and sometimes only five or six. 

The Carleton mission paid my passage money and sent me $86 at one time, otherwise I was self supporting during that time. 

It was a blessed experience to me, and though I left the Carleton mission in June 1906 to join Mr. Newell in mission work in Foochow, it was through the Carleton mission that I came to be a missionary at all. 

With deep and prayerful interest in all further work of the mission of my alma mater.

Sincerely, 

Mary Reynolds Newell 

(Mrs. and M. Newell)