Reynolds focuses on the Christmas celebrations of the local Chinese communities. Through this, she unveils the intricacies of Chinese Christians at the turn of the twentieth-century as the variety of belief-systems in China converged and repelled one another. The focus on performance in this letter can perhaps be connected to Reynolds’s participation in theater at Carleton, as referenced in previous writings.

Peking, China

Jan 6 – 1906

My dear Miss Evans –

I’m going to write this letter with a particular purpose because I want to tell you of something which it is fresh in my mind and I wonder if after you have read it you would send it on to Miss Danforth, I am not certain where she is. I think she would be interested. It is simply about the Chinese way of celebrating Christmas this year. The foreigners encouraged them to plan their own programs and the results was very interesting. In ten different churches that I have heard of they gave what very much resembled the old …

… mystery plays. 

At the north church, here in Peking, (which is supported entirely by the Chinese, except for the Little girls Boarding School which is a memorial to little Emily Ament) one of the Deacons dressed to represent Satan. 

He sat before the audience and talked something after this style “Things are looking pretty bad for me, these Christians are attracting the people and they are leaving off their op? and wine? And sending their children to school etc. then he would say “Yell my servants we’ll have to do something” chores of voices “yes, yes” “Will have to lay some flame and change our tactics” “yes, yes” etc. This was all done with the deepest reverence and the feeling that they were presenting to the …

… people a practical picture of what Christianity was doing. 

At Fengchow, fourteen miles south, where is the union men’s college, they had a staging fixed in their school room. First four men came in one a Confucian, one a Buddhist, one a Jew, and one a Christian. 

They each talked of what his religion meant to him, and showed by his remarks what sort of a man he was. 

Then they all fell asleep and a curtain behind them was pulled away and above each stood his respective prophet – Confucius, Buddah, Moses and Christ. Each one spoke to his disciple and told him that he had degenerated from what he had been taught, that he was not living up to the truth etc. then the curtain descended again and the men awoke and told their dreams and then suddenly the curtains … 

… was again rolled away and with the four – Confucius, Buddha, Moses and Christ was a chorus of angles, who proclaimed Christ the true prophet and savior and sang several hymns. There was a special boy to represent the different angles and since they had borrowed all sorts of conditions of garments it was rather amusing, for instance, Gabriel was wrapped in red white and blue bunting and they were all Chinese boys with dark faces bright black eyes and their black hair streaming over their shoulder. But to them it was very serious and equal to a sermon. 

I really cannot write more now for I must write letters to acknowledge Christmas Boxes (Miss Russell and I from three boxes which I received and one she had got over 300 presents for Chinese) and do some other things; I am busy and happy. 

Lovingly Mary Reynolds