A Shining Night in Amour Clad

   

This little piece was occasioned by a wedding, and  transmogrified with help from C. C. Wilson.

                           A SHINING NIGHT IN AMOUR CLAD

                                  Lines for Lovers: Male Variety                                                       

        One of our greatest poets made the simple cosmic claim that love makes the world go around.  An even greater poet limned its complex human reality starting with the sardonic claim that men have died from time to time and worms have eaten them but not for love.

     For comic defiance I am fond of Touchstone’s wry description of his Audrey:  A poor ill-favor’d thing, sir, but mine own.

     More seriously and perhaps most famously in Sonnet 116 which begins:

                Let me not to the marriage of true minds

                Admit impediment…

                [Love] is an ever-fixed mark,

                That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

                It is the star to every wandering bark.

     Many of us have learned much from becoming fast friends with both young and old lovers like (1) Romeo and Juliet, (2) Hamlet and Ophelia, (3) Othello and Desdemona, (4) Antony and Cleopatra and we could learn from (5) Rosalind and Orlando, (6) Hotspur and Kate, (7) Berowne and Rosaline (8) and the delightful BENEDICT and Beatrice.

     Every Gentle man (becoming a benedict) has thought these thoughts of his Lady Fair:  (I) cognition, (II) commitment, (III) comprehension, and (IIII) confidence.

      (I) Beshrew me, but I love her heartily;

              For she is wise, if I can judge of her,

              And fair she is, as she hath prov’d herself;

              And therefore, like herself, wise, fair, and true

              Shall she be placed in my constant soul.

     (II)  Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul

              But I do love thee! And when I love thee not

              Chaos is come again.

   (III) Love first learned in my lady’s eyes

             Lives not alone immured in the brain.

              A lover’s eyes will gaze an eagle blind.

               A lover’s ears will hear the lowest sound,

              And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods

              Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.

  (IIII) Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale

               Her infinite variety.

And these lovely words repurposed:

             [When in sad] thoughts myself almost despising,

             Haply I think on thee,-and then my state, 

            Like to the lark at break of day arising

             From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;

              For thy sweet love remember’d such wealth brings

              That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

  It is a Shining Night who can hear from his Lady Fare:

               My bounty is as boundless as the sea, 

               My love as deep; the more I give to thee,

               The more I have, for both are infinite.

   May God grant to us all the bounty of a boundless deep love.

Boxers or Briefs

At Bottom, A Choice

            Some people think the Boxer Rebellion describes the refusal of young males to wear a certain style of undergarment.  Actually, it was an event which took place at the beginning of the twentieth century in China.  Old movie fans or fans of old movies might enjoy Charleton Heston and Ava Gardner in “55 Days at Peking”.

            My trip to China some years ago can be brief-ly covered.  My regular traveling companion was my wife of nearly 50 years at that time, which, as every man knows, is not nearly enough time to get to know a really interesting woman.  After flying from Pittsburgh to Los Angeles to Hong Kong, we joined a groggy group in Beijing.  At this first meeting, we were asked to state our names and tell a little about ourselves.  When my lady wife introduced herself she informed the assembled company that as a little girl in Africa she had seen a picture of The Great Wall of China, and one of her life-long ambitions, soon to be realized, was to walk on it.  I was first dismayed and then hurt that she had NEVER told me about this dream.  The explanation, however, soon occurred to me.  Margaret had kept her dream secret from me because she knew I would try to build a replica of the Great Wall in our backyard as a surprise birthday present for her, meaning there would be no room for her flowers.

            My own small dream for the China trip was to stand on the sacred soil of Paoting, which we reached on the third day.  I trust Presbyterians have not forgotten their family members who perished in the Boxer Rising – still the single largest massacre of Christian missionaries in the history of the world.  Also not to be forgotten, the Boxers killed thousands of faithful Chinese Christians.  Historians still argue whether the Boxers (or Society of Righteous Fists) were simply patriots or simply murderers.

            In 1900, sixteen Americans were serving Our Lord in Paoting (modern, Bao Ding) at two isolated and defenseless mission stations.  The best known of the Congregational missionaries was Horace Tracy Pitkin.  Pitkin was studying the language in preparation for a life of evangelism in China. He also played the piano for worship. In addition to Christian zeal, Pitkin was handsome, athletic, and rich – the kind of man most of us guys find easy to resent.  At Yale he had been a fine musician and athlete (football, tennis, rowing, and boxing).  He was a close friend of Henry Winters Luce, Presbyterian missionary and father of Henry Robinson Luce, who founded TIME magazine.  Pitkin’s wealth was such that he did not need and never accepted his missionary salary.  For a wedding present in 1896, he took his bride around the world ending in Paoting.

            In 1900, when unrest in China became dangerous, Pitkin sent his wife and two-year-old son back to America, but he stayed to offer some protection to the two single missionary ladies who would not leave.  Both chivalry and Christian obedience can get you killed.

            On July 1 when the Boxers attacked the “foreign devils” in Paoting, Pitkin fought back for a few minutes with a single pistol against hundreds of Boxers.  Add bravery to his list of qualities.  The missionaries were quickly captured and all were led away and beheaded except for eight-year-old Gladys Bagnall who, crying and running alongside her mother, was speared to death.  In the impending and helpless hours before the Boxer attack, Pitkin wrote a letter to his wife expressing the hope that their son would some day return to China to continue his father’s mission.  The memorial service at Yale concluded with these words;  “Truly God loves China very dearly and holds her redemption at a high price when her ransom demands such choice ones as Mr. Pitkin, the two ladies, and our Presbyterian friends.”

            At the Presbyterian mission, the best-known name was Cortlandt van Rensselaer Hodge, M.D., who had been baptized by his renowned grand uncle, Princeton theologian, Charles Hodge.  The station owned one rifle, a fowling piece, and two revolvers.  With these firearms the Presbyterians defended themselves until the Boxers set the house on fire.  The Rev. Frank Simcox, Pittsburgh Seminary, class of 1893, was last seen on the roof surrounded by flames holding the hands of his sons, Paul, age 6, and Francis, age 4.  His wife, May Gilson, attempted to hand their baby girl through a burning window to the Boxer mob, but she and eleven-month-old Margaret were forced back into the consuming fire.  “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints” (Psalm 116.15) – especially the very small ones.

            Sent to me by the Rev. Dr. Douglas S. Pride (PTS M.Div 1983, D. Min 1993), and carefully preserved between the covers of Ketler’s The Tragedy of Paotingfu (1902) was a copy of the Clearfield (PA) Presbyterian Church’s order of service in grateful memory of the Simcoxes.

A century later I offered the Clearfield prayer again, this time on-site.

“Almighty God, by whose grace Thy servants have been faithful even unto death, grant that the memory of their sacrifice may live in our hearts, winning us from selfishness and inspiring in us a true witness.  Perfect the cause for which they lived and died; graciously minister to bereaved hearts, and seal us all Thine into eternity, through Jesus Christ our Lord.   Amen.”