1900 - 27 Chinese Martyrs at Linfen

July 1900

Linfen, Shanxi

The martyred missionaries who tried to escape, pictured with members of the church at Linfen. The Boxers savagely murdered many of those pictured here.

The Chinese Christians at Linfen (then known as Pingyang) in the southern part of Shanxi Province, underwent a terrible trial. The anti-foreign sentiment at Linfen was so strong that even the Chinese man who had rented a house to the missionaries was killed, even though he was not a Christian. Under such duress, some of the believers recanted their faith.

One man was dragged by the Boxers into a temple and told he would be instantly killed unless he agreed to burn incense before the idols. His shaking hand accepted the incense sticks, and he prepared to do what was asked of him. When he looked up and saw the hideous, grotesque idols, he realized there was no way he could turn his back on the pure faith he had enjoyed. He threw the incense sticks on the floor, and shouted, “I can’t!” He was immediately dragged out of the temple and cut to pieces.

The Boxers at Linfen murdered 27 Christians, while 18 others had knife wounds in the shape of a cross dug into their foreheads. The hellish Boxers

“kept them in the scorching sun to make the scars permanent. Later these men were taken to the local official, and there they were beaten from four hundred to five hundred strokes with the bamboo, after which they were imprisoned for several weeks. Truly they bore branded on their bodies the marks of Jesus.”[1]

The 18 men somehow escaped death, but macabre memories of the Boxer Rebellion stayed etched into their flesh for the remainder of their lives on earth. Many Christian women at Linfen were beaten on their hands the same number of times (400 or 500) that their husbands had been beaten on their thighs. In some cases, the women’s hands were permanently crippled and rendered useless for the rest of their lives.