Susanna (Susie) Rijnhart and Petrus Rijnhart (1860-1898)

Petrus Rijnhart, who was from Holland, had worked with the Salvation Army until he had to leave for Canada in 1886 “to avoid charges of sexual assault” (Austin). He eventually sailed to China in 1890 and worked for three years with the CIM. He was dismissed by CIM in 1893 as an “imposter,” “after stirring up ‘Rijnhart’s hornet’s nest’” (Shenk). Then, as an independent, he set out for Tibet. 

Crossing the Chinese Empire, he reached Lusar in 1892, resided for ten months in the vicinity of the lamasery, been well received by the priests who called him a ‘white lama from the West,’ and had labored diligently to make known the Gospel. His work consisted principally of private conversations with the lamas and of short journeys among the nomads of the surrounding country, preaching and teaching, and wielding what little medical knowledge he possessed in the treatment of the sick. Among his patients were people of high and low degree, lamas from the great monastery, Tibetan and Mongol chiefs of the Koko-nor tribes, officials, merchants, shepherds, and even robbers. The interest with which his ministrations were received gave him great encouragement and deepened the intense longing he had already conceived for the evangelization of the Tibetans (Rijnhart 10).

He returned to Canada, where his lectures on Chinese culture and the need for missionaries there captured the excitement of Christians, including Dr. Susie Carson. 

Susie Carson was born c. 1868 in Chatham, Ontario, the daughter of Joseph Standish Carson and Martha.

Susie had been active as a child in the Methodist churches of Chatham and Strathroy. She was heavily involved and active in the Epworth League and in Christian Endeavor work. As a child, she developed a strong interest in foreign missions. Her father was a prominent educator who “demanded academic excellence from all his children” (Austin). He was fully supportive of Susie when she entered Woman’s Medical College in Toronto. She graduated in its second class with an MD CM from Trinity College in 1888, the first woman in Canada to obtain first-class honors in medicine. Her sister also attended medical school, and they practiced medicine together in London, Ontario, and then in Strathroy after their father died in 1889.

Listening to Petrus’s lectures in 1894, Susie was struck by his dynamic speaking, missionary fervency, and appeal for missionaries to go to Tibet. Whether Susie knew about Petrus’s past is not known. During this time, they both accepted the doctrines of the Disciples of Christ Church and became members of that denomination. When they set out for China, they received warm support from the Cecil Street Congregation in Toronto and the Church of Christ in Tacoma, Washington.

After a brief courtship, they were married in Susie’s home in 1895 and left for China soon afterwards. Sensing a direct call from God, they did not join an existing missionary society. Susie wrote: 

We went forth, however, with a conviction which amounted to absolute trust that God would fulfil His promise to those who ‘seek first the Kingdom,’ and continue to supply us with all things necessary for carrying on the work to which He had called us. From the outset we felt that we were ‘thrust forth’ specially for pioneer work, and although anticipating difficulties and sacrifices we were filled with joy at the prospect of sowing precious seed on new ground (Rijnhart 12).

Susie believed firmly in apostolic initiative: “Christ does not tell his disciples to wait, but to go” (Austin). In Shanghai, they gathered additional supplies for their journey. In addition, “knowing the advantage of traveling in native costume, each of us donned a Chinese suit. It was my first experience with oriental attire, and I shall not soon forget it. After adjusting the unwieldy garments to my own satisfaction, I attended a service in the Union Church, where, to my consternation, I discovered I had appeared in public with one of the under garments outside and dressed in a manner which shocked Chinese ideas of propriety” (Rijnhart 13).

Leaving Shanghai, the couple took a six-month journey by houseboat and mule car beyond Lanzhou to Lusar, where Petrus had lived as a missionary with no hindrance, as we have seen. Along the way, Susie saw and recorded the multitude of new sights and sounds that struck her. In sharp and lively detail, she described the dress, food, houses, temples, religious beliefs and ceremonies, history, customs - and much else - of the people and places she encountered. This keen and sympathetic eye for a wide variety of things sustains the entire narrative of With Tibetans in Tent and Temple and makes the book not only fascinating but extremely valuable as a work of Sinology.

They received a warm welcome from CIM missionaries at different points, an indication that Petrus was still in good standing with them, perhaps because earlier accusations against him had proven to be unfounded. Reaching Xining, they stayed with the resident CIM workers. Then Petrus and William Neil Ferguson, their partner in this venture, went to Lusar to renovate the dilapidated house he had secured for them. Susie wrote:

Mr. Rijnhart had left me at Sining (Xining) and had gone on to Lusar to complete the preparation of our house; but I had become impatient, not having too much confidence in masculine ability to set a house in order in a way altogether pleasing to a woman, so I rode up to Lusar with Mr. Hall [one of the CIM missionaries]. Half a day’s journey brought us within sight of the hills that surround Kumbum, and as we approached, we could see some of the lamas attending to their horses or gathering fuel (Rijnhart, 28).

Susie began medical work at once, mostly treating people who came to their house and using the room they had prepared for this purpose. They treated all sort of ailments, the most common being “diphtheria, rheumatism, dyspepsia, besides many forms of skin and eye disease.” They couldn’t get the Tibetans to listen to a sermon, so they shared the gospel in conversations with visitors.

They had learned Chinese but wanted to acquire Tibetan, since it was the heart language of the people. They engaged a teacher, but he couldn’t read the Tibetan script very well or explain it to them, so they switched to a more conversational method, in which they would give him a Chinese word or phrase for him to render into Tibetan for them. But he taught them a mixture of Tibetan and Mongolian, so they didn’t learn the pure spoken language from him.

From Paul Hattaway, Tibet:

The 1890s was a time of fierce conflict between the Han Chinese and the Hui Muslims, with thousands of Tibetans being drawn into the conflict. To safeguard the missionaries, the lama who served as their language teacher invited the Rijnharts to live within the safety of the monastery walls. This afforded Petrus an excellent opportunity for evangelism, while Susie used her skills as a doctor to treat the wounded from the conflict. After one major battle, Petrus angered both the Chinese and the Tibetans when he went to the Hui headquarters and treated Muslim wounded. 

Susie recalled:

It had been misunderstood that because we had helped the Chinese and Tibetan soldiers, we also must share their hatred of their enemies and could not possibly have a kind thought for them. When they saw that the missionary was just as kind and tender to the Muslims as to themselves, they were utterly amazed. The law of Christian kindness impelling love and mercy even for one’s enemies was vividly brought to their attention.

[From Lusar the Rijnharts moved to Tankar (now Huangyuan in Qinghai Province).]

While they were living in Tangar (Tankar) the Rijnharts treated many Tibetan patients and made friends with four “kushoks” - representatives of the Dalai Lama who looked after his interests in the Amdo region. Perhaps buoyed by these connections, in 1898 the fearless couple, with their infant son Charlie, set out on a months-long journey toward Lhasa, despite being warned against going by friends and co-workers.

Lhasa lay 800 miles (1,296 km) to the southwest, across arid deserts and snow-bound mountain passes up to 16,000 feet (4,900 meters) above sea level. It was a journey no team of strong men had been willing to undertake because of the dangers and difficulties, but the young married couple, with their infant son, set out into central Tibet, accompanied by three guides and pack animals carrying a huge supply of food, which the Rijnharts estimated would last them a year.

Petrus and Susie were determined to make it to Lhasa no matter what, but it turned out to be a disastrous trip, with two of the three Rijnharts losing their lives. Not long after their departure, they were stopped by Tibetan officials, who ordered them to go to Dajian Lu (Kangding). 

Anything that could go wrong did go wrong!  They were faced with incredibly bad weather, bad trails, and the suspicions of religious leaders who did not know them and had no reason to accord them the respect they had had in Kumbum or Tangar. Their guides deserted them and then, to add misery upon misery, their one-year-old son, carried on his father’s back, died suddenly. They had the sad task of burying him under the rocks along the trail (Covell 71). 

Susie wrote:

Our only child had brought such joy to our home and had done so much by his bright ways to make friends for us among the natives. To leave his body in such a cold, bleak place seemed more than we could endure. As we stood over the grave, the little box was lowered … and the cold earth of Tibet, the great forbidden land, closed over the body of the first Christian child committed to its bosom – little Charles Carson Rijnhart, aged one year, one month and 22 days. Dr. Rijnhart rolled a large boulder over the grave to keep the wild animals from digging it up (Rijnhart 250).

The Rijnharts were paralyzed with grief at the loss of their beloved son and decided to turn back along a southerly route. Near the Zhaqu River, a gang of robbers trailed them, however, looking for an opportunity to strike. After noticing an encampment of Tibetans across the river, Petrus set out to reach them and ask for help.

No details emerged to reveal what happened next, but Petrus simply never returned to his waiting wife. The robbers [or Tibetans] had presumably murdered him. Petrus Rijnhart was only 32 years old.

For days Suzie patiently waited for her husband to return, before realizing he was probably dead. Now alone and stuck in the middle of Tibet surrounded by violent men and wild animals, she clung to her faith, and later recalled:

I must admit it was a faith amid darkness so thick and black that I could not enjoy the sunshine. Evening found me still alone with God, just as I had been the night before. My undefined fear had shaped itself into almost a certainty, leaving me with scarcely any hope of ever seeing my husband again, and just as little hope of my getting away from the same people who had seemingly murdered him … I sat down once more and reviewed the situation, when the thought came: ‘I can never get away from here safely anyway. I will never be able to get out of the country, and I am so far from the border that I may as well be killed … and go where my precious husband has gone’ (Rijnhart 315-318).

Susie realized she couldn’t proceed to Lhasa, but the only other option was to proceed hundreds of miles toward one of the Tibetan border mission bases. She put her pain and grief aside and courageously continued eastward, without shelter and with little food after some of the pack animals escaped. She employed local guides to help, but they turned against her, and she was forced to threaten the men with a revolver to prevent them from raping and killing her.

For two months she advanced, one step at a time. When she finally reached the CIM (China Inland Misson) base in Kangding in Sichuan Province, the resident missionaries Edward Amundsen and James Moyes mistook her for a Tibetan beggar due to her filthy sheepskin clothes and her skin having turned almost black from exposure to the sun. Her feet were frostbitten, and it took months for her to recover from the harrowing ordeal.

Susie returned to Canada in 1900, where a close friend observed that she had “changed from a bright, dark-haired girl into a quiet, white-haired woman.” (Covell 71). She was asked if it would be a cross to return to Tibet.

“No,” she replied, “it would be a cross not to return” (Hefley, 14, quoted in Hattaway, Tibet).

A contemporary wrote that after her return to North America the year before in 1899, she devoted “all her talents and energies to the work of arousing interest in the evangelization of Tibet. She spoke at the Golden Jubilee Convention of the Disciples of Christ at Cincinnati, in 1899, and since then has been in constant demand among the churches. Shortly after the Omaha Convention she was appointed by the Foreign Christian Missionary Society to open a mission in Tibet. At the present date, she is on the eve of sailing with other workers. She goes out as the special representative of the church at Springfield, Illinois, and of the Christian Endeavorers of Ontario. She will open a hospital and school at Ta-Chien-Lu, an important town on the Chino-Tibetan boundary, having mail facilities and a telegraph office. Gradually, she hopes, other mission stations along the great caravan road leading to Lhasa will be established” (C.T Paul 1904).

On a lecture tour of Canadian churches, Dr Rijnhart was described as ‘a Canadian heroine’ with a ‘most thrilling story of missionary exploration, sacrifice, and possible martyrdom.’ She was persuaded to write With the Tibetans in Tent and Temple, a testament, she stated, to her husband’s ‘burning ambition to be of service in evangelizing Tibet – whether by his life or his death, he said, did not matter.’ The book’s second purpose was to use her long acquaintance with Tibetan culture to correct accounts written by other travellers after brief sojourns.

Susie Rijnhart returned to Tachienlu (Kangding) with several associates in 1902 to found the Disciples of Christ mission to Tibet, which would eventually count seven converts. In 1905 she married James Moyes, the first missionary to greet her after her tragic trip in 1898. Like Petrus Rijnhart, he had limited education, having been a shop assistant and a coal miner in Scotland before joining the CIM. He had to resign [from the CIM] in order to marry Susie, because she belonged to another mission society. When her health failed, they moved to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan, to work with the Christian Literature Society. In 1907 they returned to Canada and settled in Chatham, where Susie died in the local hospital, attended by her sister Jennie. Her final illness may have been complicated by childbirth, for she left a two-month-old baby (Austin, Dictionary of Canadian Biography).

James Moyse returned to China in 1911 and in 1915 was working with the Bible Society in Nanjing.

Evaluation

Petrus and Susie Rijnhart serve as examples of the strong and weak points of independent missionaries.

On the one hand, the Rijnharts’ independent spirit, refusal to join an existing missionary society, and rejection of the advice of friends and fellow missionaries, all of which led to the total disaster of their ill-fated attempt to travel to Lhasa, displayed an attitude of self-confidence that exposed them to fatal folly.

On the other hand, their example of devotion, faith, courage, sacrifice, and suffering inspired many to pray for people in other lands and stirred some people to offer themselves for foreign service. In some ways, they were model missionaries: They learned Chinese, the “trade language” of China and Tibet, and then seem to have masted Tibetan. By living among the people in utmost simplicity and by welcoming them into their home, as well as by ministering to the medical needs of both sides of the conflict between Muslims and non-Muslims, they demonstrated the love of Christ to friend and foe alike. In short, the Rijnharts exemplified “incarnational” missionary ministry, and at great cost to themselves.

The chief lama of the Kumbum monastery invited them to live in his palace. Clearly, they had earned his trust – a remarkable feat under those circumstances.

Susie’s book, With Tibetans in Tent and Temple showcases her considerable literary talent and keen observation of everything around her. She describes the homes, dress and customs of the people whom they met, as well as religious ceremonies and beliefs. She writes simply but elegantly and with admirable attention to detail and to the overall context of their life and the societies in which they lived. Their simple faith in God and total consecration to the kingdom of God shines through at every point. She writes with respect, but without obscuring the dark realities of pagan religion and culture and the urgent need for Christians to go and declare to them the good news of salvation by faith in Christ.

One can see immediately why her narrative quickly became so popular and why it deserves wide and careful reading even today.

G Wright Doyle