1900 - Peter Ogren

October 15, 1900

Linfen, Shanxi

Peter Ogren.

Peter Alfred Ogren was born in 1874 on a little farm near Jonköping in Sweden. When he was 14 his family moved into the city, where Ogren found Christ. After leaving school he took an apprenticeship in carpentry, a trade he laboured in until 1892. During those years he was a member of the YMCA. His friends remembered that “he was never absent from a meeting, and was a diligent labourer in every department of Christian work. Although busy as a carpenter, he found time for much prayer and Bible study.”[1]

In 1892 the famous preacher Frederik Franson visited Jonköping and appealed for people to give their lives as missionaries. Ogren responded, and after study he found himself at Yongning in Shanxi Province, with his wife Olivia and son Samuel.

When the Boxer troubles began the magistrate at Yongning said he could no longer guarantee the missionaries’ safety so on July 13, 1900, the Ogrens attempted to flee to the coast. They started for the Yellow River, hoping it would carry them to safety. The pregnant Olivia Ogren, their little son Samuel, and eight-month-old baby daughter, made it out safely after experiencing great hardship and suffering, but her Peter Ogren died from injuries sustained at the hands of the Boxers. The Ogrens managed to escape across the Yellow River into Shaanxi Province,

“but falling into the hands of evil men, they were compelled to re-cross the river near Daning. Here they were dragged before the Boxer chief, who condemned Mr. Ogren to death…. Though he was terribly cut about the head with a sword, he managed in his agony to spring from the hands of his would-be murderers, jump into the river, and under cover of darkness escape.”[2]

The next morning the seriously wounded missionary was found by church leader Deacon Wang, who lovingly bound up his wounds. Barely conscious, the missionary heard that his beloved wife and child had been cast into prison and somehow dragged himself to his feet and returned to the place of his persecution. The Boxers were shocked, both that he was still alive and secondly that he had bravely returned to their midst unafraid. His wife, grief-stricken and detained in a filthy cell, later told of her astonishment at her husband’s return, for she had given him up for dead:

“Just as day began to break I was falling into a doze when I seemed to hear someone call my name. Soon waking, I ran out into the courtyard and looked up to the hill over-shadowing the prison. My heart was beating wildly, thinking, ‘Is it possible that my beloved is still alive and calling down to me?’ Again that longed-for, tender voice—Olivia! oh, Olivia!”[3]

The courageous Peter Ogren was arrested and thrown into the same with his family. His serious injuries and the lack of medicine caused him to become delirious. His brave, heart-broken wife could only cry out to God for help. Her description of his injuries leaves little to the imagination: “A great piece of the scalp hung down loose; one ear was crushed and swollen; his neck bore two sword gashes; near the shoulder were two spear cuts, one very deep.”[4] Because of her husband’s deliriums, Olivia Ogren asked other prisoners to bind his hands to the bed. She later wrote:

“God only knows the horror and the misery of those hours. Here lay my poor husband, who had lately been so strong and cheerful, there was our baby, the picture of health and the admiration of all when we left our home, now a living skeleton, and I—well was it for me that I could not see my own face, for surely there would have been little comfort in the sight. My cup of suffering was now full to overflowing.”[5]

Olivia Ogren and children after the death of her husband. A Chinese friend is holding Samuel.

During one moment when Peter Ogren was calm he told his wife what had happened when the Boxers attacked him. His remarkable testimony is worth repeating at length:

“The Boxer General ordered me down on my knees. He asked me how many people I had misled and ruined. I assured him, I had never in my life harmed anyone. He would not listen to such talk, and had my hands tied behind my back, and I was bound to a block of wood, when all the crowd began to kick and beat me…. As I lay there bound to the block they said jeeringly, ‘Now ask your Jesus to deliver you.’ I began fervently to pray, ‘Jesus, forgive them, for they know not what they do. But show forth Thy great power, that Thy name may be glorified.’

After a little while they loosened me from the block and led me to the river side, to kill me as they said, my hands still bound behind my back. When we came to the river, they forced me down on my knees and set upon me from all sides, but as their weapons clashed one on another they did not kill me at once. Loss of blood soon made me feel faint, but I was so happy! The sweetness of His presence filled me as never before. Cutting and stabbing were as nothing, and I felt no pain. To my inward vision heaven seemed open, and one step would take me there. I longed for deliverance.

Then came to me suddenly as a flash of lightning the thought of my wife and child. I asked myself whether you were still alive and whether we should not die together. Roused by the thought, I suddenly leaped from the midst of the crowd into the water. Thirty or forty men were standing round me, Boxers and helpers. Two started to follow, but feared the deep water. The others cried, ‘Good! Good! He will die in the water.’ I managed to get to the other side, and with my hands still bound behind my back, started to run up the steep hillside. Then there was a great hubbub; but under cover of darkness I got out of sight.”[6]

God had answered his servant’s prayer as a witness to the astounded Boxers, miraculously preserving Ogren’s life and enabling him to see his beloved family again. Finally, after weeks of suffering in prison, the Ogrens were allowed to leave and travel to the coast. The bumpy roads and summer heat immediately made Peter’s condition worse. On October 12th they stopped at the mission house at Linfen. He fell into a delirious fever and screamed with terror as he imagined the Boxers were chasing him. The long-suffering Olivia Ogren wrote:

“A terrible fear seized me, and I almost seemed to lose my senses. For the first time I realized that he was dying. I begged him to speak, but he was unable. Oh, how I cried out to God in the anguish of my soul! …. A few minutes later I rose to look at him. A single glance revealed the truth. The weary, suffering pilgrim had gone into the presence of the King, to receive the martyr’s crown.”[7]

The wounded warrior passed away on October 15, 1900, but the lives of his long-suffering wife and children were saved.

1. Broomhall, Martyred Missionaries of the China Inland Mission, 150.
2. Broomhall,  In Quest of God, 148.
3. “The Flight of Mr. and Mrs. Ogren from Shan-si,” China’s Millions (August 1901), 110-111.
4. “The Flight of Mr. and Mrs. Ogren,” 110-111.
5. Broomhall,  In Quest of God, 149.
6. Broomhall, Last Letters and Further Records, 77.
7. Broomhall, Last Letters and Further Records, 82.