“A bit of fun with a country bumpkin!” laughed the student holding the rope. “Hold him down, boys!”
Jonathan felt the bite of the rope against his wrists as it was tied around them, and then on around his body. He tried desperately not to panic, even though he had no idea what was going to happen next.
“What’s this?” yelled a student.
Looking towards his bed, Jonathan saw that the student was holding up the length of fabric he had bought earlier in the day.
“Going to get a new look, were you?” said the student. “Well, let’s get you into that new look right now!”
Another student, the tallest in the group, jeered. “Yeah, maybe we can dandy you up so you can go and visit those girls in the Ward again.”
Everyone laughed.
Jonathan watched in horror as a pair of scissors were produced and someone hacked a large hole in the center of the piece of fabric. The student who had cut the hole then pulled the fabric over Jonathan’s head and wound it tightly around his body until he looked like a mummy in black.
The next thing he knew, Jonathan was lifted into the air and carried out into the corridor. The students lined up along the wall as Jonathan was deposited at the far end. “Get back to your room if you can!” screamed one of the young men, kicking Jonathan to start him moving down the corridor lined with students.
Jonathan was so tightly bound he could only hobble, but he could see that no one was going to let him alone until he reached the other end of the hall. So he set out on the nightmare thirty-foot journey back to his room. Along the way the students taunted and jeered and pushed him. Somehow, though, he got to the other end, but to his dismay, he was turned around and sent back down the line. It was half an hour before the students were finished with their “fun” with Jonathan and he was allowed to return to his room. Someone unwound him and loosened the rope, and then he was left alone. He could hear the laughter of the other students recede down the corridor as they returned to their rooms.
When he had finally untangled himself from the rope and fabric, Jonathan fell onto his bed. His whole body shook with deep sobs. His hopes were as crumpled as the length of suit fabric that now lay on the floor. He had wanted so much to be a part of the college, to be friends with the other students, to pray and learn with them, but now he knew that he was alone. How stupid he had been to think that all that separated him from the others was a fancy new suit! He would always be a simple country boy, and the other students would never let him forget it. He had no one to comfort him. He could never tell his parents what had happened; they would be appalled and probably make him return home. No, Jonathan knew he had a lonely path ahead of him—four years of taunting and ridicule before he had the qualifications he needed to reach his goal. In deep despair he slipped to his knees and reached for the only thing he knew could bring him comfort—his Bible.
Although he was deeply hurt by the actions of his fellow students, Jonathan had set his sights on a goal, and he would not give up. A few days after his humiliation by the other students, he joined the William Street Mission and became one of its most successful workers. His work took him not only to the streets of the Ward but also to Don jail. At first the warden would only allow him to stand in the assembly hall and yell down the corridor. Although Jonathan could not see any of the prisoners, he was certain they were listening to him as he preached to them week after week. Eventually the warden came to trust Jonathan and one day allowed him down the corridor into the cellblock. Jonathan was very happy about this. Now he could see face-to-face the prisoners he had been preaching to. The prisoners were not so happy to see Jonathan, though. One of them growled, “Go away. You’re wasting your time! I don’t even believe there is a God.”
The rest of the prisoners cheered their vocal comrade on. Thinking quickly, Jonathan waited for the noise to die down and then replied to the prisoner, “Well, my good friend, it’s strange you should say that, because the book I am holding talks about you.”
“Ha,” scoffed the prisoner. “What does it say?”
Jonathan turned to Psalm 14 and began reading: “‘The fool has said in his heart there is no God.’”
The prisoner was silent. Sensing an opportunity, Jonathan spoke for about twenty minutes on the verse. By the time he was finished, a number of the prisoners were weeping openly. Jonathan went from cell to cell talking to the prisoners, many of whom begged him to tell them how to become a Christian. Jonathan went away very encouraged, promising to return and talk to the prisoners again the following week.
Once back at Knox College, he was bursting to tell someone the good news from the prison. He chose to tell one of the three students who had come and apologized for the way they had humiliated him during the first week. This time as he shared, his fellow student did not mock. In fact, he seemed as pleased as Jonathan at the turn of events. Jonathan allowed himself a moment of hope, hope that one day he would feel part of the college after all.
Meanwhile, Jonathan made it his goal to visit every home in the Ward slum, even though there were thousands of them. His plan was simple. He would knock on a door, and when someone opened the door a crack to see who was there, he would stick his foot into the doorway so that the door could not be shut. Then Jonathan would ask the person if he could come in and talk with him or her about Christian matters. He was turned down only twice in his four years at college. His success and his fearlessness in venturing into areas filled with criminals and misfits slowly won him the respect of his classmates.
After a few visits to the Ward, Jonathan befriended a local policeman. “How do you have the courage to go into those alleyways? My fellow officers and I never go there unless we are in groups of two or three!”
“I never go in alone either,” replied Jonathan, chuckling. “I always take someone with me too: God!”
A year later, Jonathan needed to remind himself of this fact. There were many times when he was scheduled by Knox College to speak at outlying churches. When he didn’t have the money to pay for a train fare to get to these locations, he walked to them. One spring morning on his way to speak in a church, he took a shortcut through some thick woods. As he rounded a corner on the trail, he froze in his steps. There in front of him was an enormous black bear. The bear stood up tall, its long claws glinting in the morning sunlight, before settling back on its haunches. Jonathan knew it was useless to run; a bear could easily outrun a man. As he wondered what to do, the thought came to him: I am not alone. God is with me, and I am about His business. He will protect me.
With that, Jonathan began to edge slowly and smoothly forward. He could feel the bear’s fur as he inched past the animal. He kept his eyes looking frontward and his steps as steady as he could. The bear stood completely still, as if stuck to the path. Jonathan never looked back, and the bear never followed him. Later when he wrote to his parents about the incident, he imagined it would be the most dangerous situation he would ever find himself in. He was wrong, very wrong, about that.
Chapter 3
You Go to China, We’ll Supply the Money
No one was more surprised than Jonathan that within a year of beginning at Knox College he had gone from being the butt of everyone’s jokes to one of the most popular students in the class. One by one, all the students in his class had sought Jonathan out and apologized for the way they had treated him during the first week of college. They confided that they had expected him to go home after their merciless humiliation of him. The fact that he had not only stayed on at Knox College but also been kind and courteous to them had made them ashamed of their behavior. Their attitude changed so much that when Jonathan shared with them about his ministry in the slums, they marveled at his bravery and waited eagerly to hear each new report about his work. Donald McGillivray, the top language student in the class, became Jonathan’s closest friend. He often helped Jonathan with his Greek and Hebrew studies, which were his weakest subjects.
By the end of their second year at Knox College, many of the students gathered in Jonathan’s room on Friday nights. Earlier in the year Jonathan had purchased ten copies of a booklet titled China’s Spiritual Needs and Claims, written by the famous English missionary Hudson Taylor. Jonathan had sent copies of the booklet to a number of local pastors asking them to take the time to read it. Soon he found other books and leaflets that discussed the spiritual needs of people in China. Before Jonathan knew it, the floor of his room was stacked with books waiting to be sent off to pastors. He had continued to do this for months, as finances would allow, and slowly news of what he was doing spread. Christians started sending him money so that he could send the challenging books to pastors all over Canada. It soon became an overwhelming task to wrap, address, and mail all the books. As a result, a group of Jonathan’s classmates stepped in to help each Friday night.
The first thing Jonathan would do when they got together on Friday nights was read aloud the letters he had received during the week. Then they would total up the cash donations that came with the letters and see how many books they could afford to mail out that week. After a prayer thanking God for the letters and money and asking Him to bless the people who received the books, they set to work wrapping and addressing parcels of books.
On Saturdays Jonathan would study and prepare sermons to preach at the churches in his home mission field—an area on the outskirts of Toronto twenty-two miles long by twelve miles wide over which his professors at Knox College had given him responsibility. Jonathan took his home mission field duties seriously. As he had done in the Ward slum, he challenged himself to visit every house in the area. At each door he introduced himself and invited the people to come to hear him preach at one of the local churches on Sunday.
Most people had never had a preacher personally invite them to church before. So many responded that the churches where Jonathan spoke were soon overflowing with people. When the pews were all filled, people would stand at the back and in the aisles; some even found places to sit and stand around the pulpit. But no matter how crowded it got, Jonathan never complained. He was delighted to have so many people come to hear him preach the gospel.
When Jonathan wanted to make an important point during a sermon, he would fling his arms backwards. On one occasion as he did this, he managed to swipe several of the people crowded in behind the pulpit to hear him. The congregation roared with laughter. They had never seen a pastor hit members of the congregation!
All of this preaching, along with studying about China, convinced Jonathan more than ever that he wanted to be a missionary. In particular, he wanted to be a missionary to China. He could think of no other place on earth where so many people had never had the opportunity to hear the gospel, and he was determined to do something about it. Jonathan had two more years left at Knox College, and during that time he would keep his eyes and ears open for the right opportunity to serve in China.
Every now and then, the thought crossed Jonathan’s mind that he should find a wife to go with him to China. He was much too busy, though, to do anything more than think about it. However, during his third year at Knox College, he met Rosalind Bell-Smith. Jonathan was returning home with a large group of students who had all been visiting the Niagara-on-the-Lake Bible Conference. On board the boat as it was crossing Lake Ontario was a group of artists who had been on a picnic to the far shore of the lake.
Jonathan was chatting with Donald McGillivray when he noticed Mr. O’Brien, his friend from the Toronto Mission Union, engaged in a serious conversation with a young woman from the group of artists. The woman nodded and smiled as they spoke, and it was obvious to Jonathan from her actions that she and Mr. O’Brien knew each other. As the conversation seemed to be winding down, Mr. O’Brien spotted Jonathan and called to him. “Over here, Jonathan. I have someone I want you to meet.”
