Sophie Newton served on the front line of missionary work in China from 1897 to 1931. Robert and Linda Banks have retraced the life of this indomitable and brave woman who was Robert’s great aunt in View from the Faraway Pagoda (Acorn Press 2012).

John Sandeman interviewed Robert and Linda Banks for Eternity.

What was it like to visit China and see the places Sophie Newton had worked?
(Robert) It was quite amazing. We were a little apprehensive at first because it was a country we had never been to. And we were uncertain as to whether we would find very much, but very good local Chinese Christian guides were able to find a number of places associated with Sophie’s life and work.

Did you find the fruit of her work?
(Robert) We were keen to find out about local Christian churches – but it took an hour to get beyond the expressions of gratitude for people like (Sophie) – because the group we spoke to first contained people from a family from the places she worked in from when she was first in China. One of our guides was the son of the doctor who cared for her in hospital, a deeply Christian man who has be resurrecting the history of the early Christians in Foochow (Fuzhou), especially those from Australia.

(Editor: Fuzhou was a major growth point for Christianity in China in the late 19th and early 20th century)

(Linda) And we also saw things like the very large University High School that she had a hand in founding in the 1920s. I would see that as fruit as well as the people we met. (Robert) And it’s still standing in the same place.

Tell me about when Sophie was in China.
(Robert) She was there for 35 years. She had a very compelling desire to go based on the mission challenges that she heard at places like St Barnabas Broadway. It took her several years to go, for various family reasons. But it was (as she said on several occasions) her “hearts desire to go, it was her hearts desire to remain and the very hardest thing when she had to leave was giving up her hearts desire to stay.”

What was her life like in China?
(Linda) I think her life in China was quite difficult in lots of ways (although she had some good support) as a single female leaving Australia in 1897 – people did not travel interstate, much let alone to a place like China. It would have been like going to the moon. No knowing any of the language, she had to start from scratch. She had some little training at what is now Deaconess House (Mary Andrews College) but very little preparation for going to a place like that. She had to adjust to new food, a new environment.

She was working with two other Australians, which would have helped to make her life a little bit more stable. They were pioneering stock – one was Amy Oxley who had John Oxley the surveyor as a grandfather and another Samuel Marsden. So she was a strong lady who helped establish Sophie and her other colleague Minna Searle from Tasmania.

Her life would have been very stressful at times. She was often in earshot of gunfire and knowing there were warlords around. This was not just at the start of her time in China during the Boxer Rebellion but right through the period. There was always the threat of danger from some new warlord who was establishing himself. I think she loved it, but life was tough.

(Robert) With her Chinese colleagues she had to face almost annual cyclones, famine, plague and cholera. And she suffered throughout with migraines, which took her out of action for several weeks at a time. We don’t want to make too much of the difficulties, but life was not easy.

(Linda) When she came home people did not know what to ask her because they could not identify with what she had been through. I think that is hard enough for missionaries now, let alone at the beginning of the 20th century.

What did she do during her time in China?
(Robert) At the heart of it was education: founding schools – day schools and boarding schools – and training “Bible Women”. Bible women were village evangelists and pastoral workers and Sophie was involved in that work herself. Any opportunity she got she itinerated around a number of the local villages around Foochow.

Robert, you met Sophie as a boy. What was that like?
(Robert) I was only sixteen and I only had one meeting with her, for an hour and a half in the last year of her life. She was very alert and very interested in me. She wanted to know how I was going spiritually —whether I was a Christian or not.

I had become a Christian a year or two before—and that was good. She was a little intimidating, not in a bad way, because she was so full on as a Christian.

As I discovered from everyone who ever met her, she wouldn’t let you get away with getting down on her knees to pray with you. When I was given her family papers I discovered my name and my brothers name in the prayer diary she had in her last few years. As I look back I wonder how much her prayers actually shaped my life.

Was Sophie Newton a different sort of Christian to us today? What effect has she had on you?
(Robert) One thing that struck me in researching and writing the book was how unified a vision she had of what it is to be a Christian. It wasn’t carved up into different territories.

Yes she was involved in teaching, but she did not see that as separate from evangelism. She could do medical work – but that was part of responding to the call of the gospel. She was involved in working against infanticide – this was extremely common among girls in South China – and was against foot-binding and opium addiction.

I don’t think she had to sit down and work out “is this part of my vocation as a Christian called by Jesus Christ to serve him?” A balance developed naturally out of the situation she was in – and the constant prayers she made concerning what she should give most of her time to. It was a seamless, and this was not only true of her but also her colleagues.

Do those passionate women have something to teach us?
(Linda) They have a huge amount to teach us. The women were setting up a next generation of women, modern China. They had a huge vision of what the gospel was and a beating heart for the world.

Sophie’s story challenges me as a woman not to be held back and to use your gifts fully.

I think she believed that it was God who gives people ministries – it is God who opens up the doors and provides the opportunities, money, whatever it is. At one point in her life she was willing to forgo any financial support – she might not continue with CMS (her mission society) – but that God would continue to use her. That’s impressive, she is not relying on human wisdom but she is trusting God.

(Robert) I don’t think we put it in the book, but her initials were S.S. Newton and she was known by all her friends and colleagues as “Steamship Sophie.””