The Watchmans Myrrh

Childhood Friends. Zhang Ruzhou, Pinhuis father, became a Christian before the Boxer Uprising while training at the Imperial Medical College in Tianjin. The family moved to Fujian, where Pinhui was born in 1902. Her father was a good friend and distant relative of Ni Wengxiu, whose son Tuosheng would be known in the West as Watchmen Nee. The Zhang and Ni children were playmates, but when Pinhui was still a young girl, her father moved the family to Shanghai.

Young Lovers. The Zhangs prospered in Shanghai, and Pinhui grew to be a beautiful, intelligent, and vibrant young woman. While she was earning undergraduate and graduate degrees from Beijings prestigious Yanjing University, Tuosheng both fell in love with her and gave his life to Christ. Pinhui, not then a Christian, mocked his new zeal for the Lord, and Tuosheng came to realize that her worldliness would pull him away from his Savior. Tuosheng struggled with his feelings for two years, and finally one day in 1924, after meditating on Ps. 73:25, he gave Pinhui up to the Lord. He wrote a poem, Boundless Love, which became No. 128 in the Little Flock Hymn Book: 

Thy love, broad, high, deep, endless, is truly without measure, 
For only so could such a sinner as I be thus abundantly blessed.
My Lord paid a cruel price to buy me back and make me His. 
I can but carry His cross with gladness and follow Him steadfastly to the end.
All else I relinquish since Christ is now my goal. 
Come life, come death, what can it matter? Why should I look back with regret?
Satan, the world, the flesh, seek if possible to confound me. 
O Lord, empower Thy weakling lest I disgrace Thy name.

Life Partners. After several years passed, Pinhuis sister contacted Tuosheng with the news that Pinhui had become a Christian and was living in Shanghai, where his ministry was then based. Tuosheng soon wrote home and asked his mother to come to Shanghai and make the wedding arrangements. His mother took Pinhui to another city for a series of gospel meetings, and after they shared a hotel room for a week, she approved the match. On October 19, 1934, Tuosheng and Pinhui were married in Hangzhou. Tuosheng developed a successful ministry as founder of the Local Assemblies (or Little Flock). Later in life, however, he regretted that he had traveled so much and spent so little time with Pinhui. Pinhui supported Tuoshengs ministry, translating some messages into English for wider distribution. She was known for her faithfulness and kind-heartedness (expressed by her English name, Charity) and was sometimes called the fragrant myrrh in Tuoshengs life.
Tuosheng was arrested on April 10, 1952 and sentenced to 15 years in prison. He and Pinhui did not see each other for the next five years. She was also arrested, in January 1956, but was released the following year due to heart disease and severe hypertension. After her release, she was allowed to visit him once a month. Tuosheng should have been released in 1967, but the Cultural Revolution intervened and he was transferred to a labor camp in distant Anhui Province. Pinhui was once again denounced and tortured. In 1971, she suffered a stroke but was denied medical treatment as a counter-revolutionary, dying peacefully on Nov. 7. Tuosheng died in Anhui the following year, and when Pinhuis sister went to the labor camp, she was shown a note that he ended with these words: I shall die believing in Christ. Tuosheng and Pinhui, who had lived apart for so long, were finally reunited in the presence of their Lord, and their ashes were buried in Suzhou.

References:

Go Back