State

Volume VI Number 27 December 3 1938 THE STATE A Weekly Survey of North Carolina Enter'd ll tecond «!»•» l»4Ur. June 1, 1933, it lb* PoiloSe. >( R.I.Ifih. North ГагоПаа. under «he Ae« ot March 3, 1879 Conversion of Charlie Soon If if IkhIii'I 1ич*п for a revival ineefiiiji. for General Julian S. Carr anil for .several oilier contributing' factors, the liestiiiics of China might have Iiccmi completely changed. HO i« Madame C'hiang Kai Slick? Practically everyone knows flic answer: site is the wife of flic (ieneralissimo of China. But the chances are that if her father had not attended a religious meeting in Wilmington. North Caro¬ lina, the Madame would never have been heard of. Neither would some of his other distinguished *ons and daughters. For instance, one of his sons is T. V. Soong. financial adviser of China, who recently visited America. II i< eldest daughter married II. 11. Kung, Minister of Finance of China, and another married Sun Vet-sen. “the father of the Chinese revolution." The father of these distinguished individuals was named Charlie Jones Soong. lie admitted himself that his attendance at the religious meeting in Wilmington undoubtedly was the most important thing in his life and did more to influence his future activi¬ ties than anything else. Hitherto Unpublished Facts There are still people in Wilming¬ ton who have a clear personal recol¬ lection of the occurrence. The story of the conversion of Charlie Soon (he was known as Soon in those days) has been published ltoforc, hut there are some details which have not yet appeared in print. It all came about from a very small thing— the bringing of a Chinese boy to the services of the Fifth Street (now Fifth Avenue) Methodist tty Andrew Л. Howell church, of Wilmington. The prophet Kzekiel asked, “Who hath despised the day of small things t” lie received no answer. One would he very foolish to ignore little beginning' : for small tilings often develop into great tilings. This is illustrated in the conversion and subsequent life of Charlie Soon. “Uncle Ricaud” It was in the year ISSI. and the old Methodist church had as its pastor the Rev. T. Page Ricaud. lie was even then a rather old man. but he was, as usual, a minister of great fervor and untiring energy. He was known as “Uncle Ricaud” by nearly every one who knew him. Mr. Ricaud held many pastorates in the southeastern section of North Carolina, several times in Wilming¬ ton. He was an old gentleman of striking appearance, with long hair and an earnest, prophet-like bearing. He was generally rather reticent, but, in preaching, his voice would often !«• raised to a loud peal, such o' old- time preachers frequently gave forth. Then it would drop to a soft note, from which an intense feeling would lift it to another loud flight. He was a type of earnest, emotional minister that Stirred the people in former days to religious convictions which are •com i ugly lacking to a large extent in our own matter-of-fact time. But tin occasional injection of such old-time intensity would doubtless do я lot nf good in our modern churches. At about the lime of which we are thinking there was a warm atmos¬ phere of revival in the Fifth Street church. Uncle Ricaud was his own evangelist, and he had many zealous co-workers in his congregation. The Г. S. revenue cutter Colfax was sta¬ tioned in the harbor of Wilmington; and it is well remembered that Wil¬ mington was her home port for a long period. She was commanded by many different officers during the years. The one in 1**1 was Captain Charles Jones, who was a good Christian man. Soon was employed on the ship as a cabin boy or young seaman. His name was not really Charlie at the time. There was another Chinese word along with Soon, hut this cannot mm I** recalled. Captain Jones thought a great deal of the Chinese hoy. and carried him one evening to the service, in the Fifth Street church. An Interesting Conversion Uncle Ricaud. as usual, conducted the service that night, and Sooil moved to accept the Christian religion and indicate his desire to liecome a member of the church. As such he was promptly received, to the re¬ joicing of the members of the con¬ gregation. At once lie expressed a wish to go back to hie native China and lead his fellow countrymen to the Christian faith. Ho remained in the servi . if the cutter, but was soon released. Mr. (Continued on page eighteen)