1900 - Xu Huifang

July 1900

Zunhua, Hebei

In an era where very few females learned to read and write, Xu Huifang had attended school from the age of four until she was 19. For most of her education she had been taught by missionary ladies who had come to China to give their lives for the salvation of Chinese girls just like Xu. From an early age Xu loved Jesus Christ. After graduating from school, she was appointed to teach at a Christian girls’ school in Zunhua. She served there for eleven years.

When the trouble began in the summer of 1900 Xu was visiting Beijing. Many of her friends encouraged her to stay in the safety of the mission compound, but she felt an overwhelming sense of responsibility for the welfare of the students in Zunhua. Somehow, she made it safely through the Boxer lines and returned to her school. The missionaries in Zunhua were ordered to go to Tianjin just days later. The Boxers rounded up all the Chinese Christians they could find, including Xu Huifang and the young schoolgirls. A local Christian desired to hide Xu from the Boxers. They fled into the mountains under the cover of darkness, but the Boxers were alert to such tactics. They followed the pair and shot Xu in the face. One account recorded the events that followed:

“As the wound was made by a Chinese matchlock it did not prove fatal, and being without food or drink they were forced to come down to the plain. She was once more caught and twice offered life and wealth, either as the concubine of a high official or the second wife of a wealthy farmer, but she refused to give up her religion for any inducement they could offer—and this through thirty days of trial the severity of which will probably never be known. She was finally carried off to Ping’ancheng, where an attempt was made to behead her, but the headsman’s sword broke in twain upon her neck and the rabble rushed in and pierced her with their spears, after which she was sliced and burned.”[1]

Xu Huifang’s spirit rushed to the side of Jesus, where she received martyr’s crown as one who ‘loved not her own life unto death’.