The storm grew worse as the Mary Ellen rounded the Cape of Good Hope and moved into the Indian Ocean. Shipwreck seemed inevitable. She plunged into towering waves, her tom sails flapping in the gale. Water rushed over the decks. It was all the captain could do to maintain headway.
Below in the main cabin, passengers huddled around Dr. Peter Parker, a young medical missionary on his way back to Canton and the hospital he had founded. He encouraged the frightened passengers with prayers for the safety of the ship. Perhaps even more reassuring to them was the quiet faith of Dr. Parker's young wife, Harriet, who knelt beside him. Inwardly she was as apprehensive as any of them. But she tried to keep her mind calm by thinking of the day when she and Peter had stood together in the spring sunshine waving good-bye to friends and family as the Mary Ellen pulled away from the New York dock.
At last, the wind dropped, the sea quieted and the crew set about repairing the damage of the great storm. The voyage continued to Macao, where the Parkers waited for the schooner that would take them up river to Canton.
Dr. Parker had been away from the hospital two years and looked forward with enthusiasm to resuming the practice of medicine in China. He told himself he would keep in mind the warning of the Board of Missions. "You should relieve suffering," he was told, "but never forget that your medical skill is only a handmaiden to the Gospel."
Harriet Parker's greatest desire was to set foot on land. She wanted to see the strange country that her husband loved and meet his Chinese friends. Her reception was completely different from that she expected. As she and her husband walked up the road from the Canton wharf, they were surrounded and all but overwhelmed by excited, pushing, shoving Chinese who were seeing an American woman for the first time. The crowd swarming around them commented on her long skirts and her hair style. Some wanted to touch her clothes. Others thought she would bring bad luck.
Putting her between them, Dr. Parker and one of his Chinese doctors hustled her into the haven of the house. There she remained for weeks, going out only as far as her own terrace. Even so the curious took to rooftops and climbed trees to look at this strange creature.
Dr. Parker's first voyage to China had been as smooth as this one had been rough. His first stop then had been Christmas Island, where the Dutch resident received him cordially and accepted letters to be sent home by the next returning ship. It was here that he had learned the tragic news that two of his missionary friends had fallen into the hands of cannibals.
Peter Parker looked back on the way that had led a boy who revolted against religious training into the life of a missionary. He thought of the day on his father's farm at Framingham, Mass., when he was digging earnestly in his assigned row of the potato field. His basket was nearly full when the austere figure of his father, Nathan Parker, limped over to him and said impatiently, "Hasten, son, it is growing late." Instead of reacting fearfully, as he usually did, Peter was surprised to hear himself say boldly, "The world wasn't made in a day."
"True," answered Nathan, "but we must leave it in a single instant." The boy's newly found courage evaporated. His father had touched a hidden spot of sensitivity. Peter burst into tears and poured out his pent-up fear of death. He knew terrible things would happen to him for not having achieved Christian salvation. He believed he hadn't been saved because he resented his parents' strict discipline and their refusal to let him play with other children on Sunday. He disliked the hours of religious study at home and at church.
His father tried to comfort him but it was not until evening, when both parents sought to reassure him, that his fears of death were somewhat allayed. Even so, he longed for the day when he would be old enough to be free of churchgoing and no longer have to endure long and tedious sermons.
By the time Peter reached his teens, the required morning and evening prayers had become an accepted, if not a religious habit. He found the time could be quietly used for his own thoughts. Then, out of fear of what he believed were his many sins, he began to read the Bible for himself. He had hope of finding his own way to the salvation in which he had been taught to believe. He began to see Christianity in a new light - free of the fearsome beliefs, of his childhood and as a way of life he could accept and perhaps enjoy. He knew now that he wanted an education. But college seemed unattainable. He was needed on the farm to help his partially paralyzed father. He read and studied alone until he was 22. Then his father died, leaving to his daughter and her husband the farm and the responsibility for his widow.
Peter at last was free to begin his formal education. He went at once to Amherst, then transferred to Yale Medical School. By 1834, at the age of 30, he had finished his theological studies and received a medical degree as well. The American Board of Missions gave him financial help. Upon graduation, he was appointed a medical missionary to China.
In his farewell sermon at the Beekman Street Church in New York, he said "I am happy to be going to that great country, the Celestial Empire that has mind, wealth, civilization and millions of immortal souls."
On a balmy day in June, a little band of well-wishers watched him board the Morrison. Her sails filled and blue water widened between Dr. Parker and his friends. The ship caught the light breeze and sailed out of New York harbor, past Sandy Hook and into the Atlantic for a voyage that was to take almost five months.
The peaceful days at sea gave Parker time to improve his knowledge of the Chinese language. A young Chinese student on board helped him with his studies.
The doctor hadn't expected a warm welcome in Canton. He was as strange to the Chinese as they were to him. But word of his healing art spread quickly. Day after day, hundreds of people crowded into his small dispensary. Bright young men came to learn from him. More space was urgently needed.
This came to the attention of Howqua, a wealthy merchant and a good friend of Americans from the early days of trading ships. He offered free use of one of his big factory buildings as a hospital. So was born the Parker Hospital in Canton.
Dr. Peter Parker, missionary extraordinary. (File photo)
Dr. Parker's skill in general surgery first brought patients to the hospital. However, the prevalence of eye diseases persuaded the doctor and his Chinese assistants to specialize in opthamology. Excellent descriptions of his many operations have been preserved in paintings by talented Chinese artists.
An old Chinese gentleman who was successfully operated on for cataracts, remarked as he stroked his flowing beard, "I have lived until my beard has become long and hoary, but never have I seen or heard of such things as are done in this hospital. "
The Opium Wars with England led to house arrest for foreigners. Dr. Parker left his work in the hands of the Chinese doctors he had trained and returned to the United States. He reported on his work to the Board of Missions and urged President Tyler to send an official representative to China.
A few days after Dr. Parker's arrival in Washington, his friend Daniel Webster took him to call on Dr. Harvey Lindsly, founder of the District of Columbia Medical Society. No doubt there was interesting medical talk that evening. More important to the visiting missionary was his meeting with Mrs. Lindsly's sister, Harriet Webster. He fell in love with her on sight. He later described her as "a comely but sensible young woman with sparkling eyes and brown curls."
The courtship was necessarily brief. Dr. Parker was to visit France and England to speak about his work. They were married in the Lindslys' house at 824 Connecticut Avenue. The bride wore a gown of soft white muslin and lace. Her brown curls were partly covered by a tule veil.
Their honeymoon letters tell of being received at the French court, of talks with Louis Phillippe, and in England of visits with the Duke of Suffolk and Princess Sophia. Other names also have the sound of history - the Duke of Wellington, Bishops of Durham and London, the Archbishop of Canterbury and Robert Peele. Everyone wanted to learn of little known China on the other side of the world.
Back in China, Dr. Parker plunged into his work and slowly introduced his wife to her new life and friends. For her, the strangeness eventually were off. She was accepted and loved, especially for her interest in children and their care.
Dr. Parker was a dedicated missionary as well as a skilled surgeon. His converts to Christianity may have been as much influenced by his kindly manner and medical confidence as by his preaching. His refusal of valuable gifts offered by grateful patients may have struck the Chinese as more remarkable than his cures.
One Chinese patient said, "This doctor heals me at his own cost. It is he who does it, yet he takes no credit for himself but ascribes all to heaven." The Board of Missions nevertheless cautioned him, "You spend too much time on their bodies and not enough on the souls of the heathens."
Besides his surgery and hospital work, Dr.Parker was drawn into the service of the U.S. government. His love for the Chinese people and their culture and his fluency in the language made him a useful bridge of understanding between the two countries.
He was prevailed upon to accept appointment as interpreter and secretary for the new U.S. Legation. He then became charge d'affaires and finally U.S. Commissioner to China. These new responsibilities were always undertaken with the provision that he would continue to have time for his hospital.
A letter from Hwang Gan-tung, lieutenant governor of Canton, expresses the feelings of his Chinese friends at learning of Dr. Parker's appointment as secretary of the Legation. Hwang wrote:
"I wash my ears to hear the good tidings and have raised my hand to my forehead and congratulate you on your good fortune.
"I desire you may ascend the clouds on an ethereal steed at the rate of a thousand Ii, and that your surprising plumage (Dr. Parker's white side whiskers) may shine like the sun and your effulgent appearance be like the elegance of the land of Keu Paou." ……My name is on a spearate paper, namely.
"Hwang Gan Tung (lieutenant governor of Canton) January 4,1846."
After 23 years in China, Dr. Parker felt the strain of overwork and the need for a change of climate. He and his "Mrs. Hattie" returned to Washington and built a retirement house at 7 Jackson Place opposite the White House.
A feature of the new home was a bay window, reputed to have been the first in Washington. Here Dr. Parker could sit in the sun and watch the comings and goings of officialdom. In this house to their great joy, so late in life, was born their first and only child, Peter Jr. For 30 years the Parkers lived here, receiving notable and interesting visitors from around the world. In the summers they visited the old house at Framingham.
As Dr. Parker grew older, a little niece who liked to visit him was greatly embarrassed when the pious old gentleman rebuked her for calling a basketful of darling white kittens "Little Angels." Nevertheless, she and her cousin, Peter Jr., found it a great comfort to smuggle the kittens into the living room for the ordeal of morning prayers.
The family and servants were expected to kneel in the long sunny living room each day while Dr. Parker, forgetting his childhood feelings about religion, prayed at length for the U.S. government and each and everyone of his dear friends in China. Mrs. Parker knelt patiently through the endless service but kept a rolled-up newspaper by her side to kill uninvited flies. The doctor was so absorbed in his devotions that he never noticed the swatting or the kittens.
When Dr. Parker was well past 80, he and his wife were walking across Lafayette Square on their way home from Sunday morning services at the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church.
The doctor was groaning even more than was his wont in consequence of aches and pains.
"What is the matter, Dr. Parker?" his wife asked.
"Mrs. Hattie, my dear, I put a ten dollar gold piece in the collection plate this morning."
"Well, that's all right. It's all for the glory of the Lord."
"Yes," moaned Dr. Parker, "but the Lord knows I only meant to put in a dime."
Many distinctions and honors came to Dr. Peter Parker. When he died at 84 in the red brick house on Jackson Place, few of his most admiring friends really comprehended the magnitude of his services to China and the United States. Today, his greatest fame rests on his work as a pioneer in medical missionary work. The services of those early doctors, Bible in one hand and lancet in the other, contributed greatly to goodwill between the American and Chinese people.
The door of the Parker's house at 7 Jackson Place is still open to the great and near-great of the world. It is the setting for meetings between U.S. presidential guests staying at Blair House next door and the members of their staffs.
Dr. Peter Parker was a regent of the Smithsonian, corresponding member of the Historical Society, honorary member of the Massachusetts Medical Society, member of the American Evangelical Society, member of the Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions, vice president of the Oriental Society and president of the Yale Alumni in Washington.
He was also a friend of China and the Chinese who will be forever remembered by those who are free to read and learn of his contributions.