Gladys Aylward - Wikipedia

Gladys Aylward - Wikipedia

Gladys Aylward

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Gladys May Aylward
Born	24 February 1902 Edmonton, London, England
Died	3 January 1970 (aged 67) Taiwan
Resting place	New Taipei, Taiwan
Other names	艾偉德
Citizenship	British subject (1902–1936) Republic of China (1936–1970)
Education	Silver Street School, Edmonton, London
Occupation	Christian missionary

Gladys May Aylward (24 February 1902 – 3 January 1970) was a British-born evangelical Christian missionary to China, whose story was told in the book The Small Woman, by Alan Burgess, published in 1957, and made into the film The Inn of the Sixth Happiness, starring Ingrid Bergman, in 1958. The film was produced by Twentieth Century Fox, and filmed entirely in North Wales and England.^[1]

Early life[edit]

Aylward was born in 1902, one of three children to Thomas John Aylward and Rosina Florence, a working-class family from Edmonton, North London.^[2] From her early teens, Gladys worked as a domestic worker (housemaid). Following a calling to go overseas as a Christian missionary, she was accepted by the China Inland Mission to study a preliminary three-month course for aspiring missionaries. Due to her lack of progress in learning the Chinese language she was not offered further training.^[3]

On 15 October 1930, having worked for Sir Francis Younghusband,^[4] Aylward spent her life savings on a train passage to Yangcheng, Shanxi Province, China. The perilous trip took her across Siberia with the Trans-Siberian Railway During a time when the Soviet Union and China were in an undeclared War.^[5] She was detained by the Russians, but managed to evade them with local help and a lift from a Japanese ship. She travelled across Japan with the help of the British Consul and took another ship to China.

Work in China[edit]

On her arrival in Yangcheng China, Aylward worked with an older missionary, Jeannie Lawson, to found The Inn of the Eight Happinesses,^[6] (八福客栈 bāfú kèzhàn in Chinese) the name based on the eight virtues: Love, Virtue, Gentleness, Tolerance, Loyalty, Truth, Beauty and Devotion.^[7] There, she and Mrs. Lawson not only provided hospitality for travellers, but would also share stories about Jesus, in hopes of spreading nascent Christianity. For a time she served as an assistant to the Government of the Republic of China as a "foot inspector" by touring the countryside to enforce the new law against footbinding young Chinese girls. She met with much success in a field that had produced much resistance, including sometimes violence against the inspectors.^[4]

Aylward became a national of the Republic of China in 1936 and was a revered figure among the people, taking in orphans and adopting several herself, intervening in a volatile prison riot and advocating prison reform, risking her life many times to help those in need.^[8] In 1938, the region was invaded by Japanese forces and Aylward led more than 100 orphans to safety over the mountains, despite being wounded, personally caring for them (and converting many to Christianity).

She did not return to Britain until 1949, at which point her life in China was thought to be in great danger from the Communists – the army was actively seeking out missionaries. Settling in Basingstoke, she gave many lectures on her work. After her mother died, Aylward sought a return to China. After rejection by the Communist government and a stay in British administered Hong Kong, she finally settled in Taiwan in 1958. There, she founded the Gladys Aylward Orphanage,^[9] where she worked until her death in 1970.^[10]

The Inn of the Sixth Happiness[edit]

A film based on her life, The Inn of the Sixth Happiness, was released in 1958. It drew from the book The Small Woman, by Alan Burgess. Although she found herself a figure of international interest due to the popularity of the film, and television and media interviews, Aylward was mortified by her depiction in the film and the liberties it took.^{[citation needed]} The tall (1.75m/5' 9"), blonde, Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman was inconsistent with Aylward's small stature, dark hair and North London accent. The struggles of Aylward and her family to effect her initial trip to China were disregarded in favor of a movie plot device of an employer "condescending to write to 'his old friend' Jeannie Lawson." Also, Aylward's dangerous, complicated travels across Russia, China and Japan were reduced to, "a few rude soldiers", after which, "Hollywood's train delivered her neatly to Tientsin."^[11] Many characters and place names were changed, even when these names had significant meaning, such as those of her adopted children and the name of the inn, named instead for the Chinese belief in the number 8 as being auspicious. For example, in real life she was given the Chinese name 艾偉德 (Ài Wěi Dé- a Chinese approximation to 'Aylward' – meaning 'The Virtuous One'), but in the film she was given the name 真愛 Jen-Ai,( pronounced- Zhen-Ai, meaning "true love").^[12] Colonel Linnan was portrayed as half-European, a change which she found insulting to his real Chinese lineage, and she felt her reputation was damaged by the Hollywood-embellished love scenes in the film. Not only had she never kissed a man, but the film's ending portrayed her character leaving the orphans to rejoin the colonel elsewhere,^[13] even though in reality she did not retire from working with orphans until she was 60 years old. She dedicated her life to the orphans in Taiwan, and was buried in Taipei. Her ministry continues to develop, and is now called Bethany Children's Home in Taipei, The new director, Sharon Chiang (Chinese: 江秀圈), is called from Seattle to further develop Bethany Children's Home for its new vision and new building. ^[14]

Death and legacy[edit]

Aylward died on 3 January 1970, about a month and a half short of her 68th birthday, and is buried in a small cemetery on the campus of Christ's College in Guandu, New Taipei, Taiwan. She was known to the Chinese as 艾偉德 (Ài Wěi Dé- a Chinese approximation to 'Aylward' – meaning 'The Virtuous One').

A London secondary school, formerly known as "Weir Hall and Huxley", was renamed the Gladys Aylward School shortly after her death.

There is a blue commemorative plaque on the house where Gladys lived near the school at 67 Cheddington Road, London N18.

A "house" was also named after Gladys Aylward at Fernwood Comprehensive (formerly Secondary Modern) school in Wollaton, Nottingham.

Numerous books, short stories and films have been developed about the life and work of Gladys Aylward.

Notes[edit]

1. ^ Crowther, Bosley (14 December 1958). "The Inn of the Eighth Happiness". New York Times. Retrieved 24 May 2015.
2. ^ http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/b/l/i/Ian-Blight/WEBSITE-0001/UHP-0060.html^{[self-published source][permanent dead link]}
3. ^ Latham, pp4-6
4. ^ Jump up to:^a b "GLADYS AYLWARD – MISSIONARY TO CHINA". Berith. Archived from the original on 26 November 2017. Retrieved 20 February 2017.
5. ^ "Gladys Aylward, Missionary to China".
6. ^ "Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. 44: 118. 2006.
7. ^ "Yangcheng and the Inn of the Eight Happinesses".
8. ^ Burgess, Alan. Gladys Aylward, The Small Woman.
9. ^ IDEA – Magazine of the Evangelical Alliance Jan/Feb 2018 p.18 with photo
10. ^ "GLADYS AYLWARD, MISSIONARY, DIES". New York Times. 4 January 1970. Retrieved 4 August 2019.
11. ^ Wellman 1998, p. 197
12. ^ Cast Script. British Film Institute.
13. ^ Wellman 1998, p. 198
14. ^ Wellman 1998, p. 201

References[edit]

• Hero Tales by Dave & Neta Jackson
• These Are My People by Mildred T. Howard
• The Woman with the Book by M. A. Mijnders-VanWoerden

Further sources[edit]

Archives[edit]

• The archive of Gladys Aylward, including artefacts from her time in China, is held by SOAS Special Collections^{[permanent dead link]}. Digitised material from the collection is available to view online here Archived 9 April 2021 at the Wayback Machine.

Bibliography[edit]

• Aylward, Gladys, MS 291571: Letters and relics of Gladys Aylward, missionary to China, School of African and Oriental Studies, University of London
• Aylward, Gladys (1980), Gladys Aylward: The Little Woman, ISBN 978-0-8024-2986-5
• Burgess, A (1957), The Small Woman (New Impression ed.), Pan Books, ISBN 0-330-10196-X
• Hunter, C (1971), Gladys Aylward: Her Personal Story, Coverdale House Publishers, ISBN 0-902088-25-4
• Latham, R. O. (1952), Gladys Aylward, One of the Undefeated: The Story of Gladys Aylward, Edinburgh House Press, OCLC 24941398
• Thompson, P (1971), London Sparrow: The Story of Gladys Aylward, Word Books, ISBN 0-85009-026-1
• Benge, Janet; Benge, Geoff (1998), Gladys Aylward: The Adventure of a Lifetime, ISBN 978-1-57658-019-6
• Purves, Carol (2005), Chinese Whispers: The Gladys Aylward Story, ISBN 978-1-903087-57-2
• Jackson, Dave; Jackson, Neta (1994), Flight of the Fugitives: Gladys Aylward, ISBN 978-1-55661-466-8
• Wellman, Sam (1998). Gladys Aylward: Missionary in China. Barbour.

Videography[edit]

• The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958) – feature film
• Gladys Aylward, the Small Woman with a Great God (2008) – documentary
• Torchlighters: The Gladys Aylward Story (2008) – animated DVD for children ages 8–12

External links[edit]

• China portal

• Biography of Gladys Aylward
• An anecdote on how the book came to be written
• Photos of the Inn of Eight Happinesses at Yangcheng (2006)
• Article on Llanelli Community Heritage with images

show v t e Protestant missions to China

Do Quakers Celebrate Christmas & Easter? - Holiday Celebrations

Do Quakers Celebrate Christmas & Easter? - Holiday Celebrations

Do Quakers celebrate Christmas and Easter?

This is another one of those seemingly simple “yes/no” questions about Quakers that we actually have to answer “sometimes” or “it depends.”

From a theological standpoint, Quakers don’t buy into the notion of religious holidays; every day is a “holy day,” and every day is a good day to remember the Good News heralded by Jesus’ birth, his ministry, and his crucifixion and resurrection—assuming, that is, you’re working from a Christian mindset. (Some Quakers don’t!)

In that sense, then, Quakers don’t “celebrate” Christmas or Easter. As a practical matter, however, Friends live in the same world as everybody else, and we all know how much “the spirit of Christmas” permeates public culture at the end of the year, even if it often feels like a secular holiday that pays lip service to its religious roots. Although there might be considerable debate about whether to put up a tree in the meetinghouse, many Quakers do exchange presents with friends and family on Christmas, and though hymns are rarely heard in unprogrammed Quaker meetings, some Friends might be inclined to stick around after silent worship for a carol singalong, and it’s quite likely that during worship someone would share a message attuned to the spiritual themes of Advent or Christmas. 

Easter may be less overwhelming than Christmas in the world at large, but it’s a very intense time in the Christian liturgical calendar. Less so for Quakers:

Few if any Friends give up anything for Lent, we don’t do a Palm Sunday processional, and we don’t have any of the other church services that take place in Catholic or Protestant communities through Holy Week on to Easter Sunday. 

Of course, Friends probably know when Easter is approaching, and if they’re of a Christian persuasion they’re likely to have Jesus on their mind, 

so again you might very well hear an Easter message in meeting.

(A meeting with a significant number of children might hold an Easter egg hunt, or it might not; it would all depend on what the adults decided.)

In short, Quakers may not make a big deal out of Christmas or Easter, but they also don’t act as if either holiday doesn’t exist.

Ask Me Anything: Do Quakers celebrate Easter and if so, how?

Ask Me Anything: Do Quakers celebrate Easter and if so, how?

QUAKER RANTER

A Newsletter & Blog from Martin Kelley

Ask Me Anything: Do Quakers celebrate Easter and if so, how?

A question From Jessica F about Friends and Easter.

On the face of it, this is an easy question. Early Friends were loath to recognize any liturgical practices and they were lower‑p puritanical about anything that smacked of paganism. Famously, they didn’t use the common names of the week or months because many of them referred to non-Christian deities, like Thor and Janus.

They were especially grumpy about anything that smacked of latter-day syncretism. Many of the church holidays were seen as pagan festivals with a superficial Christian overlay. I’ll be the first to admit they could get kind of obnoxious this way. Wikipedia explains some of this attitude:

Other Protestant groups took a different attitude, with most Anabaptists, Quakers, Congregationalists and Presbyterian Puritans regarding such festivals as an abomination. The Puritan rejection of Easter traditions was (and is) based partly upon their interpretation of 2 Corinthians 6:14 – 16 and partly upon a more general belief that, if a religious practice or celebration is not actually written in the Christian Bible, then that practice/celebration must be a later development and cannot be considered an authentic part of Christian practice or belief — so at best simply unnecessary, at worst actually sinful.

In Latin, Easter is called Pascha, a reference to the Jewish Passover festival. But in England, Pascha took place in the month the old English called Ēostre after a goddess whose festival was celebrated in that month. This made it doubly hard for English Protestant groups that wanted to cleanse Christianity of “popish” or “pagan” influences. So for right or wrong, they ignored it like they did the day the world calls Christmas.

Symbolically, Quakers love the idea of Easter. One of George Fox’s most key openings was that “Christ has come to teach the people himself!” The idea that Jesus rose again and is with us is pretty central to traditional Quaker beliefs.

These days Easter is largely celebrated by Friends standing up on Sunday to break the silence of worship with nostalgic stories of Easters in their pre-Quaker youth. Sometimes they’ll admit to having attended a Easter service at another church before coming to meeting that morning. If you’re really lucky, you’ll get ministry about flowers or hats.

What Did Easter Mean To Early Quakers? - The Quaker Perspective On Christs' Resurrection

What Did Easter Mean To Early Quakers? - The Quaker Perspective On Christs' Resurrection

What Did Easter Mean to Early Quakers?

March 1, 2020

By David K. Leonard

Originally published March 2020.

What does Easter mean to Quakers? It clearly means different things to different individuals and groups of us. From the earliest days of the Religious Society of Friends, we have resisted having a creed, and George Fox considered theology nothing but “notions” that got in the way of true Christian experience.

Furthermore, Quakers have always resisted the idea that some days in the Christian calendar are more holy than others. Every day is equally important to our spiritual life. After all, none of the dates for our religious holidays are rooted in historical fact. Even Easter weekend, which the Bible clearly puts at the time of the Jewish Passover, perversely is usually celebrated at a different time. Although public and Christian schools give a holiday for Easter, spring break in many Quaker schools is separate from Easter and doesn’t include it.

Nonetheless, Easter is a celebration of the resurrection of Christ, about which there are a variety of “notions” in most meetings, partly rooted in distinct views about Christ held by early Friends. Quakerism arose in the mid 1600s in part as a result of the widespread availability of the Bible in English; it was also a response to the discovery that the established church hierarchies had been distorting the message of the gospel and the practices of the early Christian Church, as presented in Acts and the Epistles. People at that time didn’t have available to them higher criticism, hermeneutics, or early Church manuscripts. So early Friends all would have seen the resurrection as an uncomplicated fact. Their understanding of the resurrection, however, was colored by their experience of the presence of God in their midst. Continuing revelation was a tool for understanding Scripture and extending our understanding of God’s will.

The quarter of the English populace that was influenced by Quakerism in the seventeenth century were deeply dissatisfied with various theologies offered by those with divinity school educations (then provided in England only by Oxford and Cambridge). These people considered themselves seekers and disassociated themselves not only from the Church of England and the Catholic Church, but also from the other available theologies of the day, such as those of Calvinists and Baptists.

The foundational experience of these seekers is exemplified by Fox, who after talking with a wide variety of ministers and being dissatisfied with their notions received an opening that “There is one, even Christ Jesus, who can speak to thy condition.” By this he meant not only were trained ministers not needed to mediate his relationship with God but that Christ could be  experienced directly. Fox wrote: “Though I read the Scriptures that spoke of Christ and of God, yet I knew him not but by revelation.” Fox insisted again and again that he “knew experimentally” the truths he ministered—that 

• the Inward Light, 
• the Presence of Christ, 
• the Indwelling Seed 

gave him a direct experience that affirmed particular insights or “openings” for him.

Thomas Ellwood, another founding Friend, similarly wrote: “Now also did I receive a new law, an inward law superadded to the outward, ‘the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus,’ which wrought in me against all evil, not only in deed and in word, but even in thought also.”

Quakers insisted that the spirit of Christ that was experienced by Jesus’s disciples after the resurrection, by Paul on the road to Damascus, and in gatherings of the early Church, is universally available to everyone in all ages, locations, and cultures.

For early Quakers, 

Christ was 

• not tied just to Jesus, 
• but, as with the Word in the Gospel of John, was present from the beginning
•  and is manifest in the prophets of Judaism and other religious traditions. 

One might say today it does not matter if the resurrection of Jesus was physical or spiritual, for, from the beginning, 

Quakers have insisted that Christ’s spirit can be experienced by any of us anywhere. 

Hence Mary Fisher, one of Quakerism’s founding Valiant Sixty, felt confident she could minister to the Sultan of Turkey, because he would know the same universal spirit of God or Christ that she did.

It is significant that 

when Fox and Ellwood speak of their experience of the divine presence, 

they speak of Christ Jesus, 

thereby distinguishing themselves from Calvinists’ claims (and later, Methodists’) that “Jesus Christ is my personal lord and savior.” 

Calvinists stress that we are convicted of sin and liberated from it only by the sacrificial crucifixion of Jesus. 

Fox explicitly criticized Calvinists for “preach[ing] up sin.” 

The traditional Quaker view instead is that

 the active presence of God, of the universal Christ, 

received into our lives 

gives us the self-understanding, commitment, and divine support—the Inward Light—

to improve the ethical content of our lives.

As a consequence of the effect of the Light, they were changed people. William Penn observed:

They were changed men themselves before they went about to change others. Their hearts were rent as well as their garments changed; and they knew the power and work of God upon them. . . . The bent and stress of their ministry was conversion to God; regeneration and holiness. 

Not schemes of doctrines and verbal creeds, nor new forms of worship; 

but a leaving off in religion the superfluous, and reducing the ceremonious and formal part, and 

pressing earnestly the substantial, the necessary and profitable part to the soul.

Let us then think of the risen Christ as a transforming experience of the Divine that is available on any day of the year without regard to religion or theology.

March 2020

David K. Leonard

David K. Leonard is a member of Birmingham (Pa.) Meeting, which invited him to share these thoughts as a talk on Easter Sunday in 2019.  

Current Issue

April 2023

April 2023

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10 thoughts on “What Did Easter Mean to Early Quakers?”

===

Patricia Dareneau

March 26, 2020 at 9:13 pm

An interesting and thought provoking discussion. Meets Jesus for the First Time Again by Marcus Borg held that a lot of “miracles” were thrown in to make Jesus seem more appealing to the masses. So I started to think of the resurrection as a season of forgiveness, hope, when the earth wakes up and produces new life

Reply

Ken Truitner

Burbank, California, April 2, 2021 at 11:33 am

This is very clearly stated. It allows for a much broader vision of Jesus and the resurrection than dogmatic presentations. I look forward to an expanded discussion of how this vision applies to the social awareness and community caring that extends out from a personal experience to others.

Reply

David Gagne

Minneapolis, MN, April 2, 2021 at 11:12 am

One of the worst aspects of our Christian celebration of Easter is that we point to the physical resurrection of Jesus, this one man, with a sense that he had a special relationship with God, which he did of course. But then we fail to understand that we ourselves can have a special relationship with God if only we will quiet our minds and hearts and become receptive to the Spirit within and around us. Like placing saints on pedestals we place Jesus in such a historically unique setting that we fail to understand our own coming to life in the Spirit. Instead, like the saints that we honor, we place Jesus’ experience out there, not available to us, not a spiritual encounter we can have. Instead, if we can find the silent, liminal places where we can experience the presence of God we will experience resurrection in our own lives in some ways that continue to be mystery.

Reply

Forrest Curo

San Diego, California, April 2, 2021 at 1:43 pm

My computer is not a concept of my computer nor an experience of my computer (although this is how I become familiar with it.

Likewise the resurrection was neither a concept of Jesus being resurrected nor an experience of Jesus being resurrected. Something happened that various people experienced on different occasions and evidently had different thoughts about. After which they behaved in ways that would not have made sense unless they firmly believed that God had restored Jesus to life to vindicate all the things he’d said and did that led to his crucifixion.

Reply

Bill Jefferys

Fayston, Vermont, April 2, 2021 at 2:44 pm

Interestingly, although Easter in the Western (e.g., Roman Catholic and churches that follow their calendar) is often celebrated a month earlier than Passover, this is not true for the Orthodox churches. The reason is the Gregorian calendar reform of 1582, which redefined the length of the year to be more in line with the actual length of the year. At the same time, 10 days slipped from the Gregorian calendar relative to the old Julian calendar. In particular, October 4, 1582 (Julian) was followed the next day by October 15, 1582 (Gregorian). This made the Spring solstice come about 10 days earlier on the Gregorian calendar, and it is now about 13 days earlier, relative to the Julian calendar. But the calculations for Passover were not affected by the Gregorian reform, hence Passover comes late almost half the time. The Orthodox church continued to use the Julian calendar to calculate Easter and so it is usually (always?…the calculations are different) in step with Passover.

I taught a course on “Time” and discussed some of these issues, particularly what happened with the Gregorian calendar reform. Some of this is discussed in this page:

http://billandsue.net/BillInfo/doomsday.html

[Actually the main point of this page is a very neat way to calculate the day of the week, given any date in history. It can easily be done in your head, once you know the rules. Kind of fun, like telling people what day of the week they were born on. And useful since it’s easy to remember the key information…the “doomsday” for a given year, so that when you write a check or do something similar that requires writing down the date, you can know what date to write without having to look at a calendar or your smartphone. But it also discusses what happened in 1582 and the differences between the Julian and Gregorian calendars.]

Reply

Bob Oberg

Charlotte, NC, April 4, 2021 at 1:19 pm

I very much appreciated the quote from William Penn at the end of the article. (What is the source?)

You do have important ideas to contribute towards the good of all. And to do so is important, to be the best person you can be, to not hide your lamp under a bushel. It is not a matter of if but when.

Jesus said to take the beam out of your own eye … and then you can see clearly to …

Reply

Don Badgley

New Paltz, April 15, 2022 at 1:00 pm

Beautifully said and well led. Thank you.

As Inward Light transforms the tomb of fear,

The stone that is my doubt is rolled away,

And love is risen in my heart.

Don Badgley

Reply

George Powell

Carmel Valley California , April 15, 2022 at 3:58 pm

Thank you for an inspiring essay. “That of God in” every person is an experiential phenomenon only, and is central to Quaker faith and practice.

In Meeting for Worship, however, it may be emphasized to the point where the Transcendent Father/Mother God is not given adequate attention, praise, thanksgiving and love.

Some modern Quakers minimize the importance of sin. But those of us who have experienced “that of God within” are humbly aware of our frail humanity.

Reply

George Powell

Carmel Valley California , April 15, 2022 at 4:50 pm

———————

…for I saw there was none among them all that could speak to my condition. And when all my hopes in them and in all men were gone, so that I had nothing outwardly to help me, nor could tell what to do, then, Oh then, I heard a voice which said, “There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition,” and when I heard it my heart did leap for joy. Then the Lord did let me see why there was none upon the earth that could speak to my condition, namely, that I might give him all the glory; for all are concluded under sin, and shut up in unbelief as I had been, that Jesus Christ might have the pre-eminence, who enlightens, and gives grace, and faith, and power. Thus, when God doth work who shall let [i.e., hinder] it? And this I knew experimentally.

Reply

David Seargent

Cowra, New South Wales, July 23, 2022 at 10:36 pm

Unless Jesus had been physically raised and had appeared to his disciples, Christianity would have faded away after the Crucifixion. None of the disciples expected that Jesus would rise again and the whole movement seemed to them to be doomed. Something far more than a spiritual experience was needed to turn them around.

We may add that two religious leaders predicted that they would rise from death. One was Jesus (whose disciples did not understand or believe) and the other was Cyrus Teed (whose disciples DID believe him). 

The whole world (just about!) has at least heard of Jesus, but how many have heard o Cyrus Teed? The follows of Jesus number in the millions 2,000 years later. After a little more than 100 years, Teed’s movement has disappeared. Why do we suppose that this is so? The obvious answer is that Jesus rise while Teed did not!!!!

Reply