1900 - Edith Dobson

August 30, 1900

Xi Xian, Shanxi

Edith Dobson.

Edith Isabel Dobson was converted to Christ in 1889, shortly after commencing work as a hospital probationer. God called her to missionary service in 1890, although China was the last place she wanted to go. Gradually the Lord tugged on her heart, asking her to use her valuable medical training for His glory in China. She finally surrendered to the call and applied to the China Inland Mission and sailed to China in November 1894.

For the first two years she mostly treated sick missionaries at Yantai in Shandong Province, and was then transferred to Xi Xian in the inland Shanxi Province. As soon as she arrived she was required to treat Edith Nathan, who was ill with typhus fever. The two became close friends from that moment, up until the time they were both martyred by the Boxers in 1900. It was said of Edith Dobson, “Her services were much valued, both as worker amongst the Chinese, and as a nurse to her fellow missionaries when sick.”[1]

In the summer of 1900 Dobson wrote in her last letter, “We know naught can come to us without His permission. So we have no need to be troubled: it is not in my nature to fear physical harm, but I trust, if it come, His grace will be all-sufficient.”[2] On August 30, 1900, Edith Dobson was slaughtered at Xi Xian by the Boxers along with the Peat family and Emma Hurn. One of the tributes in honour of the martyred nurse said,

“What if some of the Chinese among whom she laboured could speak to us? I know what they would tell. They would speak of weary journeys taken by her to tend them in sickness and of words of comfort and cheer spoken. When at home, besides giving attention to a girls’ school, she would be receiving many patients who came to her for help, and thus get opportunities of preaching the Gospel…. What always struck me in her, was her evident desire to do well all that she found to do.”[3]