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My Dear Amelia: The Doty Letters from Amoy, Christian Parenthood, the Heathen Chinese, and the Missionary Enterprise

Ting Man Tsao, LaGuardia Community College, CUNY

Letter 5

Amoy Jan. 21 1851@
How I am going to send a little birth day letter to my Amelia Caroline because she is six years only on the day of the date of this letter. Six years old then[,] my Amelia must be quite a large girl able to read her Bible and other books and perhaps can write some too. Oh how I would love to see Amelia and know just how she looks, just how tall she is and hear just how she talks and reads and all these things. But this cannot be. There I am far off in China and my dear daughter is far away in that happy land called America and I know she is far better off, with her dear pa and ma there, than she would be with us among this heathen and wicked people. And I dare say, my dear Amelia will think it best that I should be here and try to teach the poor ignorant Chinese not to worship idols but to worship God our heavenly Father and to love the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. Oh! these Chinese have very dark and wicked hearts or they would not be such foolish heathen. But why is not my dear Amelia Caroline just like one of those poor ignorant Chinese girls? Yes, dear Amelia you was born in China – in Amoy and in the very house in which I am now writing to you. And yet you are not like these Chinese. You can read but these girls are not taught to read. You every day pray to our Heavenly Father, but these girls, if they worship at all, only burn incense sticks before idols made of clay or wood, just such things as I have sent in a box to your dear pa. How do you know why it is that you are not like these ignorant Chinese girls? Do you think it is because you have a better heart than they have. No, this is not so. Unless you have a new heart your old heart is just like theirs – all wicked. It is only because your Heavenly Father has been wonderfully kind to you that you differ from these little heathen girls.
When you was a very little baby your Heavenly Father took your first Ma to heaven but he did not leave you without a very kind ma to love you and care for you and teach you. When the dear Lord Jesus told me your first Pa to go back to China and teach the heathen about God and how to save their precious souls, he gave you another dear pa to take care of and love you very much. Is not this all very wonderful and has not your heavenly Father loved you very much indeed? Truly it is so. And does my dear Amelia love this Heavenly Father very much too? You ought to. But unless you have got a new heart, you do not love Him and you must have a new heart. And do you know who only can give you this new heart? You cannot make you own heart new. But you can and must pray to the Lord Jesus to send his Holy Spirit to create in you a clean new heart. Then you will love God and the dear Savior. You are not too young to seek a new heart: Nor are you too young to die and, if you have this new heart, to go to heaven and be forever holy and happy there. Others seek earnestly and constantly for this new heart. Every day do I pray for you that your young heart may be the temple of the Holy Spirit. So you have gone to live in a new home. I hope your pa and ma and you find Cicero a pleasant place, and your new home a very happy one. I have a very imperfect recollection of that region of country, for when I was a very small boy, only a few years old, my father and mother lived for a short time in the adjoining county of Cayuga, not far from Auburn and near the Owasco Lake. There the County was New Auburn, was just beginning to be a small village and what I can remember more distinctly than anything else is that there was red cedar wood on the shore of the lake; and that there was a neighbor not far off, a farmer whose name I feel pretty sure was Johnson. Everything must be very much changed. Now and then there was no Cicero in that region. So you will not find fault any more that you have to study your books. It would be very wrong to be always unhappy and ill tempered that [Pa and Ma?] wants you to study and learn. If you should not very diligently study and learn all you can now, if you live to become a woman, you will be very sorry for it. Pa and Ma are much older and wiser than little Amelia Caroline and know what is best for her. And more[:] if Amelia was not cheerful and happy in doing as Pa and Ma wish her to do, it would be disobedience, and that would make their hearts sorry, and would make her Heavenly Father angry too.
And now would dear Amelia like to hear about her little brother Charles here in China? He now runs alone all about the house, and is just a [babe?] of mischief. Sometimes he plays with his pretty white dog named José and sometimes he plays with a stick. He is very fond of pictures and soon as he sees Ma and Pa have a book, he wants to look in it to see if there is not a picture. When he thinks a picture very nice he likes it. He begins too to say a few words, but it is as much in Chinese as in English. I dare say he would love to play with you and now if he were not asleep and could talk, he would send you many kisses for he is fond of kissing.
Give Ma and Pa Doty’s love to Pa and Ma and get from them many kisses from us. Our heavenly Father bless my dear Amelia Caroline – now just six years old – is the prayer of her Pa Doty.