DR. SUSIE C. REJNHART.

      Susie Carson Rijnhart is the daughter of the late J. S. Carson. M. A., a prominent Canadian educationalist. Slip was born in Western Ontario, in 1868, and under her father's direction received a liberal classical education. On the completion of her academic course, she entered upon the study of medicine in Toronto, where, after a four years' course, she was graduated from Trinity University at the age of twenty, with the enviable distinction of being the first lady in Canada to obtain first-class honors in medicine. She was a successful practitioner at London, and also at Newbury, [462] Ontario, where she met and married Petrus Rijnhart. She had been an ardent Christian from the age of sixteen, when she joined the Methodist church. Early the missionary fires had begun to burn. Active in Epworth League and Christian Endeavor work, she was longing for foreign service. The call came very distinctly to her through Mr. Rijnhart's stirring addresses on Tibet. She was married to him in September, 1894, at her mother's home, and at the close of the same year sailed for the Orient. Meanwhile they had both worked their way to the scriptural position occupied by the Disciples of Christ, and before leaving America, united with the Church of Christ at Tacoma, Washington.

      The story of Dr. Rijnhart's subsequent life and work has become known to a large class of readers through her book, "With the Tibetans in Tent and Temple," published in 1901, and generally recognized to be one of the most strikingly original contributions to the literature of missions that has appeared in many years. The experiences therein described with the most artless humility and self repression, have gained for her a place in the temple of heroic souls. Crossing China with her husband, she reached the scene of his former labors, the great Buddhist lamasery of Kumbum, on the Northeastern frontier of Tibet. Here her medical skill was immediately in demand. High official dignitaries and Buddhist priests, not only from the lamasery, but from the interior also, came to consult her, and thus great opportunities were presented for preaching the gospel. For many months, during 1895, her friends were alarmed for her safety. No letters were received from her and only vague rumors of the terrible Mohammedan rebellion that had broken out in Western China. Later on a dispatch reported her abducted by the rebels. Only when the struggle was over did the labors of this devoted servant of Christ become known to the civilized world. Surrounded by imminent danger, she had been on the battle field during all those months of bloodshed and pillage, caring for the wounded soldiers, and ministering to the Tibetans, who were not to be deserted in their time of distress. During the rebellion she made her headquarters at the home of the lama-superior of Kumbum, an experience unparalleled in the annals of missions.

      In the spring of 1898, she accompanied her husband's expedition to the interior of Tibet. The object of the journey was to discover how far inland missionary work was possible. Copies of the Scriptures were distributed in many nomadic camps. They had not proceeded far when their guides deserted them. At the foot of the Dang La Mountains their child died, and occupies under "the great boulder" the first and only grave in all Tibet. A few days afterward the little caravan was attacked by mountain brigands and left destitute. Mr. Rijnhart went to a Tibetan encampment for aid, but never returned, having been murdered by the natives. After waiting on the mountain side in painful anxiety for some days, Dr. Rijnhart, realizing the fate of her husband, set out on a most hazardous journey over mountain-passes and torrents, to the Chinese border, where she arrived after two months of heart-rending peril. Since 1899 she has been in America, devoting all her talents and energies to the work of arousing interest in the evangelization of Tibet. She spoke at the Jubilee Convention at Cincinnati, in 1899, and, since that time has been in constant demand among the churches. Shortly after the Omaha Convention she was appointed by the Foreign Christian Missionary Society to open a mission in Tibet. At the present date, she is on the eve of sailing with other workers. She goes out as the special representative of the church at Springfield, Illinois, and of the Christian Endeavorers of Ontario. She will open a hospital and school at Ta-Chien-Lu, an important town on the Chino-Tibetan boundary, having mail facilities and a telegraph office. Gradually, she hopes, other mission stations along the great caravan road leading to Lhasa will be established.

[COC 462-463]