1900 - Edith & May Nathan

August 13, 1900

Daning, Shanxi

Edith Nathan.

Frances Edith Nathan heard God’s call to serve overseas when she was still a young girl. Her first inclination was to apply to go to Africa, but the Holy Spirit showed her that it was to China where he wanted her to go. She applied to the China Inland Mission in 1894 and sailed for the Orient in September the following year. After a time studying Chinese at Yangzhou in Jiangsu Province, she was transferred to the large town of Daning in western Shanxi Province. In 1899 she was joined by her younger sister May.

May Rose Nathan was born in 1870 and came to faith in Christ at the age of 20. She often wept as she contemplated how much love Jesus had for her, and thanked God daily for his forgiveness. Although she has started a career as a schoolteacher, May longed to join her sister in China. She applied to the China Inland Mission in 1898 and sailed for the Orient one year later.

The two Nathan sisters worked with Mary Heaysman until the time of their martyrdom in 1900. They were popular among the local people, many of whom delighted to listen to them share Bible stories. By July 8th the Nathan sisters reported that there had been no disturbances at their station. Edith wrote:

“I believe we shall be quite safe here as regards the Daning people, but if outsiders come the case might be altered…. We have very faithful men about us, who will do their best in case of trouble…. I hope I shan’t be ordered off anywhere; if my Christians are in trouble I trust I may be allowed to stay and help.”[1]

Just four days later the Nathan sisters and Heaysman fled into the mountains surrounding Daning. For several weeks they lodged in small villages, other times in remote caves and ravines. Edith Nathan penned a long letter, in diary form, which she managed to send to her loved ones back home:

July 12—

“One knows not what may come, and our hearts are sick and sad; but we know ‘Our God is able to deliver,’ and He has given us promises from His Word, ‘I will save thee.’ Here all is peace, but all know of troubles, and any day we have to go father away…. Truly these ‘Child Boxers’ are devilish, and a device of the devil. We in England know little of what the power of Satan can do over the mind of a child. God deliver us from a like fate.”

July 16—

“The time is trying; we know not what a day may bring forth, and it is a strange sensation to be running or hiding away from people who want to kill or injure you. One does not know how it will all end.”

July 17—

“The Christians are all bringing us presents. To-day we have had three fowls, heaps of eggs, and some sugar-candy; on Sunday some wheat, a fowl, and eggs. Truly our people are good to us. It does gladden our hearts when we see their love. Our labour is not in vain, and those whom I have especially helped are now giving it back tenfold.”[2]

May Nathan also wrote a farewell letter to her mother back in England, telling her:

“Darling Mother, don’t be anxious, whatever news you may hear of me. It will seem useless in the eyes of the world to come out here for a year, to be just getting on with the language, then to be cut off. Many will say, ‘Why did she go?—wasted life….’ God does His very best, and never makes mistakes…. We are called to suffer with Jesus. Very literally one takes the Scriptures nowadays, just as the first Christians did; they endured physical suffering for Jesus. We often endure mental and spiritual, and now we are called to endure, perhaps, extreme bodily suffering. But, darlings, death is but the gate of life, we shall see His face, and, darling Mother, I’ll wait and long for you there!”[3]

On September 24, 1900, confirmation was received of the deaths of the Nathan sisters and Mary Heaysman. Pastor Zhang Qiben wrote to the parents of the three martyrs, lamenting,

“The three ladies were seized (beloved sisters, alas! alas!), dragged to the outside of the city to a temple where it was difficult to either stand, sit, or lie down, hungry and thirsty, with no one to look after them, and surrounded by a gang of evil men. At early dawn on the morning of the 19th of the 7th Moon [August 13th], the three were killed.”[4]

1. Broomhall, Martyred Missionaries of the China Inland Mission, 42.
2. Broomhall, Last Letters and Further Records, 34-37.
3. Broomhall, Last Letters and Further Records, 44.
4. Broomhall, Last Letters and Further Records, 47.