1900 - Vera Green

October 10, 1900

Baoding, Hebei

Vera Green.

In the midst of the carnage that took place in Hebei Province during the summer of 1900, there were some remarkable testimonies of God’s protective power. While dozens of missionaries were butchered without mercy, a small band of five Westerners managed to miraculously escape from a remote part of Hebei all the way to freedom in foreign-controlled Tianjin. One of the survivors, Charles Green, retold the story in vivid fashion in his book In Deaths Oft.[1] The story was reprinted for new generations of readers in 1912 and 1923, in all totalling more than 25,000 copies.

China Inland Mission workers Charles and Eliza Green, their two children Vera (aged five) and John (two), along with single missionary Miss Jessie Gregg, were stationed at Huolu, a small town west of Shijiazhuang City. The Greens had only just arrived back in China on March 31, 1900, after a furlough in their native England. They knew they returning to a tense cauldron of conflict. Boxers were rampant throughout the countryside, and rumours abounded that all foreigners and their Chinese converts were to be killed.

On July 5th the tension in Huolu seemed to reach fever-pitch, and the missionaries decided to take up an offer from a local temple-keeper to hide in his temple on a nearby mountain. Soon after arriving there, locals alerted the Boxers. The party of five was forced to flee on foot into remote caves. The Boxers searched everywhere for them. Local Christians then arranged for the group to shelter in an isolated farmhouse. After four weeks the Boxers found out where the missionaries were hiding and surrounded the farmhouse. They shot Charles Green in the head, yet miraculously he survived.

Realizing there was no point in trying to defend themselves, the five besieged Christians committed their lives into the hands of God and surrendered to the Boxers. Charles Green walked out carrying one of the children in his arms, followed by his wife Eliza and Jessie Gregg, carrying the other terrified child. Charles Green later reported,

“We were immediately seized, and those great knives brandished over our heads.... Seeing the distress of the children they told us to tell them that they would not kill us. Having secured all that was left of our bedding, clothing, etc., they proceeded to search our persons, even to the tearing off of my wife’s wedding ring, keeper and spectacles.... Much to our surprise, having secured all the booty, they led us off to the city, and actually hired two men to carry the children, seeing how weak I was from loss of blood.”[2]

Not knowing whether to protect the foreigners or hand them over to the Boxers, the local magistrate sent them onward to Baoding, where the entire missionary community had been brutally massacred just six weeks before. The long 40-hour cart ride over rough roads exacerbated Green’s injuries. When he was shot, he had been crouching at such an angle that several pallets from the bullet fragmented upon impact and lodged into his head, back, and neck. He continued to bleed and lapsed in and out of consciousness.

In Baoding the officials arranged to put the five Westerners on a boat to “freedom in Tianjin,” but it was a trick to kill them once the boat got further downstream. When the boat stopped at Anxin, Charles Green said he was

“seized by the hair, dragged to the ground, and was conscious of blow after blow on different parts of my body, then of being trampled on by many feet as others rushed over to seize my wife and Miss Gregg. I remember a pang as I heard the heartrending shrieks of the children, and then a sweet calm filled my soul and I committed my spirit to God.... We have each been able to testify that this was the calmest moment in our lives, so soon to be given up to Him; we never doubting that we should immediately be killed.”[3]

Once again, God spared their lives, and for reasons unknown the Boxers decided to imprison the foreigners in Anxin until they decided what to do with them. After a few weeks it was decided to send the Green family and Jessie Gregg back to Baoding, so that the provincial governor there could finally decide what to do. Eliza Green was so weak she had to be carried to the boat. They arrived in the morning of September 6, 1900.

Charles and Eliza Green and their two beloved children. Only Vera died, the others escaped from the Boxers.

Little Vera Green had been suffering from dysenteric diarrhoea for weeks. Her parents helped her as much as they could, but she slipped further towards death’s door. Eliza Green remembered those sad days while she watched over the demise of her precious little daughter:

“Sorrow too deep for words filled our hearts as we watched our darling suffer and were powerless to help her, though the Lord gave many seasons of semi-consciousness, in answer to prayer. Could it be that when deliverance was so near, the Lord wanted to take her to Himself? ....

On October 8th she seemed much better, even asking me to make some paper toys, though the desire for them had gone almost as soon as expressed. In the afternoon she began to complain of pain again, and that night she grew rapidly worse, though the dysentery did not return. The next day we were shocked to see the change in our darling, but we did not realize the end was so near….

At about 4 a.m., October 10th, after nearly a fortnight’s illness, she fell asleep. In the solemn hush of that hour God drew very near, and bound up our broken hearts, as with faltering lips we said, ‘He is worthy.’ We did not sorrow as those who have no hope, for we know that those who sleep in Jesus, God will bring with Him, and it is only ‘till he come.’ His purposes through her had been fulfilled. She was undoubtedly used of God to preserve our lives. Her bright, loving ways touched the hearts of the people and led them to spare us. Yes, her work was done, and in a very real sense her life was laid down for Jesus’ sake and for China.”[4]

Charles Green could hardly bear the strain of his five-year-old daughter’s death when finally, on October 19, 1900, Allied troops from Beijing entered Baoding and rescued the four foreign prisoners. They were taken under armed guard to the river where they were put aboard a boat to safety. Three pallets were removed from Charles Green’s arm, leg and face. Little Vera’s body was laid to rest in the English cemetery in Tianjin.

1. See C. H. S. Green, In Deaths Oft (London: China Inland Mission, 1901).
2. Green, In Deaths Oft, 28-29.
3. Green, In Deaths Oft, 48-49.
4. Green, In Deaths Oft, 69-70.