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| How Benjamin West became a missionary |
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'DR WEST was a physician with a
good practice at home when one day Bishop Thoburn came to his
town to speak, met Dr West and induced him to give up his practice
and come to Malaya to work as a missionary.
When he arrived in Singapore, he found that he could not carry
on as a practising physician, as he lacked the necessary British
credentials … He was then appointed to teach small wriggling
boys in Standard IV in the ACS in Singapore.
Once, I heard him say that many a night, he had walked the streets
of Singapore, and had fully made up his mind to go down the next
day, take passage on the first boat leaving Singapore, and go
home. When asked why he did not do it, his reply was characteristic
of the man. He said, "Because I could never quite get the
consent and approval of my conscience to actually do the thing."
… To me one of the finest things about Dr West was the close
contact he maintained throughout his stay in Malaya with the Asiatic
people. He spoke Hokkien, and gave himself unstintedly in service
to anyone in need. When he started the Jean Hamilton Training
School, he went to live with the men.
The mother of one of our most active young men in one of our largest
churches today told me how Dr West found her ill and about to
die. During the night, heart complications arose, and for hours
she hovered between life and death. All night long, Dr West sat
beside her; now his hand on her pulse, now administering the medicine
that was to keep her alive.
She was not a Christian and could not understand
why he watched over her so carefully. She finally remonstrated
with him, told him she was but a poor woman with no money to pay
him, and that he would better leave her to die. Still, he sat
and watched as the night deepened, and the danger of her dying
increased. Again she told him she was poor, and had no money to
pay him.
Finally, Dr West said, "But, Nonya, I am not here for pay."
Then she said she looked at him in amazement and asked, "You
do not want pay? You will not take pay? Then why are you watching
over me so carefully?"
Then Dr West told her why he had come to Malaya and that God wanted
her to recover and give her life to Him and serve Him. He then
told her of Christ and asked her to think of this when she was
better and able to do so, and if she could, to give herself in
service to Christ.
In telling it later, she said, "Oh Missie, I had to believe
in Jesus as he told me that Jesus loved me and wanted me to live
and be a follower of Him. Why, Dr West was doing just the things
that he told me Jesus went about doing, and I had to believe."
That woman became an active worker in the church as long as she
lived, and her children today are all active in the work of the
church ...' -- MM October 1933, p. 13-14.
DR WEST:
Gave himself unstintedly in
service to anyone in need.
-- Methodist Church Archives picture.
Earnest Lau, the Associate Editor of Methodist Message, is also the Archivist of The Methodist Church in Singapore.