Arthur Matthews (missionary)
Arthur Matthews was a Protestant Christian missionary who served with the China Inland Mission in China. He and fellow CIM missionary, Dr. Rupert Clark, were the last foreign missionaries to leave China in 1953 following the takeover of the Communist Party of China in 1949. Their wives, Wilda Matthews and Jeanette Clarke, had been allowed to leave with other missionaries before.
Rev. Robert Arthur Mathews “Shima Liang Zhen” was born February 4, 1912 in China. He was the son of CIM missionary/ sinologist Robert Henry (Australia) and Annie Ethel (Smith) (New South Wales) Mathews. Annie Smith Mathews was also a CIM missionary. Arthur spent his childhood in China, but grew to manhood as a farm hand in Australia. His mother died on the field and he was first not accepted by China Inland Mission because of that event. He persisted and in 1936, he attended Melbourne Bible Institute in preparation for mission work. He arrived in China in 1938.
From 1943 to 1946, he was a major with the 12th Frontier Force Regiment in the British Indian Army during World War II. The regimental center was in the town of Sialkot, in what is now Pakistan, but then it was known as Punjab. He was influenced by the leaders of the Punjab Prayer Union and the prayers of Praying Hyde as a revival had broken out there at the turn of the century.
He married Wilda Anita Miller was born on October 29, 1909 in Compton, Los Angeles, California. She was the daughter of Alvin Washington (Kansas) and Margaret Maude (Eastman) (Wisconsin) Miller. Their daughter Lilah was named after Wilda’s younger sister. Wilda went to Biola College in California in the early ’30.
After twelve years in China, the China Inland Mission assigned the Mathews “to teach Christianity” to the Mongolian people. He studied Mongolian for a year at Lanchow.
Just the year before they returned, in 1949, the Chinese Civil War ended and the People's Republic of China came into power. They knew the country was now under communist rule, but they didn't know what that would entail. The Chinese church had invited them to come, with the approval of the Communist government. “Hwangyuan, Tsinghai is the crossroads in the north”, says Arthur, in the February 1, 1951, China’s Millions, “It is the import center with Tibetans coming here from roads reaching through Lhassa and on to India. All the Mongols from the areas to the north and west of Kokonor were expansion routes for the Gospel.” He closes the article with a prayer, “Prayer that we may be ready to tread in the road open for us, no matter how great the cost and that Christ may be glorified in Mongols being saved.” The Chinese version of Micah 2:13 declares, “The Road Opener goes before them.”
They felt this was a miraculously opened door God would have them go through. At their arrival, the Chinese Christians were noticeably fearful of their political situation, and following their arrival, the Chinese pastors informed Arthur and Wilda that they would not be allowed to evangelize during their stay in Hwangyuan. As time went on, they were not allowed visit homes and preach within the city. Eventually, they were not allowed outside of the missionary complex, or even distribute of medicine.
After recovering from his shock and dismay, Arthur came up with an idea to start a Mongol Gospel Inn for traveling Mongolians. The building was rented, renovated, with new floor board and complete with Gospel posters in Tibetan, Moslem, and Chinese, when just before the opening day, Arthur discovered that Chinese troops moved in, taking over the nicely cleaned and painted structure. There was nothing he could do to salvage his enterprise. Arthur protested, but soon found it would have been wiser to have said nothing. In two days a policeman came to the mission compound to announce that no one there could do village work without permission, and the white people were forbidden everything.
The China Inland Mission organization advised all their missionaries to evacuate communist China (At that time there were 601 adults and 284 children participating). They finally decided that since they were more of a hindrance than a help, they would apply for exit visas. They thought, since the government did not want them, they would be allowed to leave quickly. Arthur and Wilda with daughter Lilah, applied for their exit permits on January 3, 1951, but they were denied. While hundreds of other missionaries were leaving for the safety of the China Inland Mission's headquarters in Singapore, the Mathews, their daughter, and a handful of other missionaries were detained in the North to be abused, accused, starved, and emotionally tortured.
Arthur was summoned to the police station and asked to sign a statement that he was for world peace. He had heard of another missionary having to sign some document before leaving, so he signed without thinking much of it. The government official then asked what contribution Arthur was then willing to make toward world peace, outlining a plan in which Arthur would go to India and essentially be a Communist spy. Arthur realized that the Communist definition of world peace was a world dominated by communism, and of course could not consent.
A government official called Arthur in and promised his exit visas if he would do something for them, like write a report of five other missionaries. At first Arthur did write glowing reports of the missionaries in question, but someone told him he dare not turn that in: the Communists would change what he had written but keep his signature. So Arthur threw his report in the fire and told the official he could not be a Judas. The official then told him that he could have given him a pass, if he had cooperated, but now a charge had been laid against him which must be investigated, and “investigations take a long time.”
Thus began a two and a half year ordeal. Their provisions from their mission were frozen by the government, which made Arthur submit a report of what he would need, and then they doled out to him much less than what the report said he needed. Every victory they mentioned in a letter seemed to be immediately challenged by the enemy of their souls: once when they wrote what a blessing Lilah was, she then came down with scarlet fever, and they almost lost her. All of them had turns being ill. Eventually they were told that no one could speak to them, and they could only leave home to draw water from the creek and get food.
They had to trust that the Lord was in control and had them there for a reason, though it was hard to discern that reason when they were so restricted. Yet the Lord did use them even when they could not speak to the people. The few weeks they had had to minister before restrictions set in, people knew their hearts and saw their love. “We have His promise,” said Arthur, “We are not the prey of the terrible. We are the prisoners of the Lord Jesus Christ—just lent to evil men to show forth the abundance of His power! Our days are on deposit with Him; let Him hand them out to use as He will.”
When the Mathews could no longer speak openly, the people saw them in tattered clothes, persecuted, attacked by illness without much medical aid, laughed at, jeered, humiliated, doing menial, degrading work just to survive, tantalized by the government offering release and then not giving it or doling out money that was theirs in the first place. They saw the Lord provide miraculously for them in many ways.
But the six missionaries in Hwalung, including the Clarkes and the Mathews, were not allowed to go. Eventually he was put in jail, but imagine his delight when he found a fellow missionary in the opposite cell! They were brought to trial facing strange accusations and as punishment were “eternally and everlastingly” expelled from China forever. They were the last two missionaries to leave China Miraculously, in God's timing, all the CIM missionaries got out without a single one being martyred, the last being Arthur Mathews. They bore witness to the reality of Christ in their lives. They came through suffering so that other would learn. Not mistakes—no surprises from God’s hand. Following Arthur’s release from captivity in China in July of 1953, Arthur Mathews sailed on August 11 for Vancouver, British Columbia and was reunited with Wilda and daughter, Lilah.
After their return, Arthur and Wilda ran the CIM mission home in Chicago. Many of the Moody students attended the prayer meetings and enjoyed the fellowship and invaluable teaching in their home. Arthur became the OMF/CIM United States Midwest Director from 1955-1964. The Mathews served at the headquarters from 1964-1970 as Candidate Secretary and from 1971-1974 as Public Relations Secretary. Arthur also served on the board of Colombia Bible College from 1964 to 1973. From 1969 to 1977 he was editor of the mission magazine, East Asia Millions.
Arthur wrote a book entitled, Born for Battle, which is a collection of articles written originally as editorials in East Asia Millions, the Overseas Missionary Fellowship’s magazine. His book was an examination of the spiritual battle for God’s soldiers. Arthur writes, “The thing that we need to be afraid of today is that the spirit that produces world trends should invade Christ’s mighty army and argue us off the offensive into a compromised coexistence with the world’s attitudes—so that we end up like the world, taking lessons in French and practicing détente.” “I fought long and hard for my Lord, and through it all I have kept true to Him; and now the time has come for me to stop fighting and rest” (2 Timothy 4:7)
The Lord trained him throughout his lifetime of experiences and tests, to face his final battle – the suffering and wasting of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s disease). The Born for Battle book was released just after Arthur went home to be with his Lord. “Arthur Mathews was indeed a man born for battle with penetrating insight,” wrote Dr. Alan Redpath, Pastor of the Moody Church.
Arthur went Home to be with the Lord on July 29, 1978 at the age of 66 with “Born for Battle” on his tombstone. Wilda went home to be with the Lord on September 13, 1988. Both are buried with a host of other Overseas Missionary Fellowship missionaries and workers at the Mellinger Mennonite Cemetery in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
References
- Kuhn, Isobel. Green Leaf In Drought. Singapore: OMF Books.
- Broomhall, Alfred (1982). Hudson Taylor and China's Open Century: It Is Not Death To Die. London: Hodder and Stoughton.
- Lewis, Jonathan (1994). World Mission: The Biblical. Pasadena, California: William Carey Library. ISBN 0878082379.
- https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/78024245/robert-arthur-mathews
