![]() ![]() Gladys did this with plucky determination which won her the respect of the prison officers and convicts alike. Perhaps the small woman “with the living God inside her” could calm the frenzied man and stop the prisoners fighting? A convict had run amok with an axe and no one could take it from him. Shortly after this success, Gladys was asked by the prison governor to help quell a riot in the local jail. Gladys started to learn Chinese, and after some weeks of dragging in clients, the muleteers and coolies began to visit the inn of their own accord. Gradually the two “foreign devils” became an accepted part of the Yangcheng life. In due course the mules were unpacked, and the men were listening with full stomachs and open mouths to wonderful stories about a man called Jesus Christ who lived many years ago in a country called Palestine, and who cared more for others than for himself. Then she would grab at the reins and haul the animals and the muleteers into the courtyard. Gladys would wait with arms folded in the doorway until a mule team came by. And if they could be induced to listen to sermons while they ate, then the Inn of the Sixth Happiness would really be a place of God.Īt first the “guests” were so unwilling that they had literally to be pulled into the inn. If the men were well looked after, fed tasty meals and given comfortable beds they would tell everyone they met that the “foreign devils” were not so fearsome after all. ![]() The town was a recognised stopping place for mule caravans, and they could cater for the hardy muleteers who led their teams all over north China. She became friendly with another missionary in Yangcheng, a frail Scottish woman called Jeannie Lawson, who had spent more than fifty years teaching the Gospel in the rough, mountainous country north of the Yellow River. She cared little for ordinary life, and felt she owed it to God to live selflessly. ![]() The children called her a “foreign devil”, laughing when their mothers jeered at her, and throwing dried mud after her in the street.īut neither mud nor insults could dissuade Gladys Aylward from her purpose. She spoke no Chinese, and she was greeted by the people she hoped to help with great hostility. It took her months of hard work to raise money, and when she eventually arrived in the Chinese town of Yangcheng, she was practically penniless. She couldn’t help wondering, too, whether she would ever see England and her home in London again.Įleven years previously, in 1930, Ai-weh-deh had been Gladys Aylward, a young London parlourmaid who dreamed of becoming a missionary in China, and who had saved every penny of her meagre wages to pay her fare out there. The millet was quickly eaten and, as the children fell contentedly to sleep, Ai-weh-deh wondered who would befriend them next. On the first of the twelve nights of their march, they sheltered in a Buddhist temple which was presided over by a single priest. The children would never sleep in it again, and Ai-weh-deh had somehow to provide for a hundred boisterous youngsters, aged between four and fifteen, who had no money, and nothing to eat but a basketful of millet. The mission there – the beautifully named Inn of the Sixth Happiness – was a bomb-shattered ruin. Soon they had left Yangcheng behind them. They watched her lovingly as she marched along with them, making sure that the stragglers and younger ones weren’t left behind, and keeping the more daring boys in check with strong blasts on her whistle. In Chinese her name meant “The Virtuous One”, and the mission children knew her only as this. And they all had faith in Ai-weh-deh, the small Englishwoman who was their friend and leader.Īi-weh-deh would guide them and protect them from the Japanese soldiers who were devastating the nearby towns and villages. To many of them the journey was a wonderful adventure. They knew they might not reach Sian alive, but despite this they showed few signs of fear. Singing hymns at the top of their voices, they left the only real home most of them had known, heading towards the mountains and the walled city of Sian, in North China. Shortly after sunrise, the band of orphan and refugee children started out on their long march to safety. The children at first called her a “foreign devil”, and threw dried mud after her in the street.Īfter they had eaten, the muleteers would settle down to listen while Gladys Aylward told them stories from the Bible. Tired, footsore and half starved, the children straggled on, day after day, across the mountains, sustained only by the courage and encouragement of the frail little women who was leading them to freedom. ![]() Gladys Aylward and the March of the Little Children ![]()
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