walk a little further with hong, as he journeys towards being a brother to jesus!!!!
these are my notes from jonathons spence's book.... " god's chinese son" and follows on from a previous topic.
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christianity does not spring fully grown from the earth, even tho jesus claimed the very stones would cry out, if his followers failed to pass on his message.
so it is with hong's journey to realisation that he was a son of god. there had to be a link with europeanised christianity.
and there was. the great religious awakening that swept up the millerites in the easter united states, also affected other denominations. men consecrated their lives to christ and wandered off to strange places to shine the light of christ on the heathen.
such a man was edwin stevens. while attending yale university, he made christ his life's passion. he went onto study in the new haven theological seminary, was ordained and then, in 1832, accepted a posting to canton as chaplain to the american seaman's friend society.
living in the american compound in canton stevens followed a rigorous schedule of study, preaching and tract distribution. nominally, his mission was to american seaman. but, like all christians, stevens was fired with the thought of converting heathens.
to understand how this may be possible, stevens associated with liang a fa, a local chinese convert. liang had been baptised in 1816 by a scottish protestant missionary, william milne, and became an expert in writing, printing and distributing tracts. by 1832 liang often would hand out as many as 7000 tracts during a 250 mile mission trip within china.
stevens became an associate of liang, and shared with him in many missionary trips. it should be noted, that this was strictly against the law. imperial edicts forbad the preaching of 'foreign doctrines'.
liang had also developed the practise of distributing tracts around the examination halls for students hoping to enter the administrative ranks of the chinese government.
these examinations, although heavily formalised, allowed even poor families to advance, if a son could pass the examination and enter government service, the lives of poor people could be transformed.
hong, the future heavenly king, was such a poor student from a typical poor family. late winter of 1836, he competed in and passed the first round of the qualifying exams. now, in early spring he must compete with the brightest students in the whole canton prefecture. the ambitions of an large extended family and village (where he was the local schoolteacher, ride on his study skills.
hopes die when hong fails !!!
but outside the examination halls, hong received a religious tract (possibly from stevens), and learned for the first time of a god called ye-huo-hua, who could become angry and destroy people.
but failure in the examinations was centremost in hongs mind!!!!
failure would influence the rest of his life, in a way that he could never have imagined.