A Foreign Devil in China: The Story of Dr. L. Nelson Bell

by John Charles Pollock

Book Overview

The story of Dr. L. Nelson Bell This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0890661413
• ISBN13: 9780890661413
• Release Date: January 1988
• Publisher: Grason
• Length: 355 Pages
• Weight: 0.48 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.2" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

An intriguing, even powerful biography!

Dr. Nelson Bell led a life of serious, committed service to the people of China. This little book is packed with marvelous insight and spiritual encouragement. A great life lived devoted to God!

Foreign Devil, Angel of Mercy

I would assess this book on a couple of different levels. First of all, it is a very interesting story. A young physician with a promising future decides to spend his life as a medical missionary in China giving much needed medical care to the poor and destitute. Dr. Bell and his wife began their service in China in 1916, and remained there until 1941, at the beginning of World War II. As a missionary story, it embraces all the familiar themes: sacrifice for a cause greater than oneself, spending one's own time and resources to help those who are less fortunate, adapting to a new culture, improving the lives of people through basic health care, raising children in a foreign culture and so on.At another level, though, this book is a very important contribution to missionary literature, because it deals with so many of the issues that are fundamental to the development of effective missionary efforts. Nelson Bell was a physician, but he never minimized the importance of addressing the spiritual needs of the people as well as their physical needs. So many have yielded to the temptation to come down hard on one side of the other. But if we would follow the example of Christ himself, we will always insist on meeting both kinds of needs. Dr. Bell had dedicated his life to help the Chinese people, but he never pretended to be Chinese. Of course one must accept a certain amount of sacrifice to live for a prolonged period of time in a developing culture. But Dr. Bell never fell into the all too familiar trap of "sacrifice for the sake of sacrifice" which is sometimes found among sincere folks who have given themselves for the "great cause" and sometimes suffered deprivations that were not really necessary. One interesting anecdote illustrates this. A new missionary doctor had come to China to intern under Dr. Bell. This young couple stood on the deck of the ship as it pulled into the harbor in Shanghai. They felt somewhat overcome by the change they were going to have to adapt too. As they left the ship, and braced themselves for the rigor of this transition, they were met on the dock by Dr. Bell with a greeting that caught them by surprise, "How would you like a chocolate sundae?" Finally, this book shines as an example of how to deal with a difficult government. As the Japanese moved into China in the thirties, foreign consulates urged their citizens to leave the country, since their safety could no longer be guaranteed. But Dr. Bell refused to go. As soon as the Japanese occupied the city where he was working, he presented himself to the commanding officer, and reported on what he was doing, and that he intended to stay. His calm, levelheaded approach established his neutrality, and won him the unqualified respect of the Japanese officers. At one point, he had gotten a letter from his daughter, who had been evacuated from her boarding school in Korea. All the children were in Shanghai, waiting to be sent to America, but she sen

A good biography of an industrious man

John Pollock's biography of Dr. Nelson Bell is well researched and written in straightforward, easily understood prose. Dr. Bell led an unusually active life, being a missionary physician in China in the 1920s and 1930s when war, thieving, highway robbery, murder, and corruption were pervasive. Despite this, Dr. Bell and his wife managed to rear a family, expand the services of the hospital where they worked, make many friends, and give health care to many in need. As a surgeon, Dr. Bell operated on a variety of ailments, but it was the spiritual ills of the people that ultimately concerned him the most. War and ill health forced Dr. Bell to finish his medical career in North Carolina, where his daughter Ruth resided with husband Billy Graham (the evangelist) and where he, along with Graham, founded the magazine Christianity Today. He lived a long and highly productive life, and Pollock's rendering of it is done with engaging diplomacy.