1900 - Fan Haoze

June 1900

Yanshan, Hebei

One of the better-known martyrs in Yanshan County was a man named Fan Haoze, who came from the village of Zhanhua. A small church had existed for many years in Zhanhua after a missionary visited and preached the gospel. The London Missionary Society later handed the station over to the Methodist Mission, which they determined were in a better position to operate it than themselves.

Fan heard the gospel and put his faith in Christ. He was eventually given the job of postmaster and carrier for the mission, frequently walking the 90 miles (146 km) between Yanshan and Tianjin, from where all outgoing and incoming mail to this part of China flowed. He fulfilled his duties faithfully and without complaint for many years. One missionary wrote,

“Fan was always delighted to do a kindness for anyone, and was never so happy as when one gave him an additional parcel, even though it added to the weight of his mail bags, which he carried on his own back…. On one occasion he even refused a rise in wages, on the ground that he had enough to live upon, and ‘did not wish to grow a covetous disposition.’”[1]

In June 1900 the missionaries in Yanshan advised all Chinese Christians to scatter far and wide to places of refuge before the Boxer attacks commenced. Fan and his family travelled to the village of some relatives far from Yanshan, only to find that the relatives refused to accept them, even threatening to murder Fan and his family if they didn’t depart immediately. Indeed, it was one of the relatives who informed the Boxers of the Fan family’s presence. The murderers rushed to the village to find the Christian family had already left and gone into hiding. The Boxers seized one of Fan’s cousins, a non-believer, and threatened to behead him in Fan’s place. When Fan heard this, he came out of hiding at once, saying, “It is I only who am a believer in Jesus. I do not wish to involve anyone else in trouble on my account. You can do with me what you will.”[2] He was bound and dragged to a place outside the village. As Fan Haoze stood by, a deep pit was dug,

“deeper than the height of a man, and into this he was lowered, till his head was below the level of the ground. Then with jeers and taunts they urged him to give up the faith of the foreigners and save his life, while they filled the earth up to his knees. He kept on speaking to the cruel mob, kindly and sweetly, of the love of Jesus, and of all the joy He had brought into his heart. ‘How can I give him up? How can I deny such a Master?’ he asked.

They got so angry that they pierced his body with the points of their spears till the blood flowed. Then filling up the grave for the living man, first to his breast and then to his lips, they gave him a last chance of life.

‘No, I can never give up Jesus,’ he said.

Then they hurriedly covered his noble head with earth, stamping it down over the still living body, and so Fan went home to the Lord he loved so well.”[3]