1900 - Flora & Faith Glover

August 29 – October 1900

Hubei

The Glover family going out to preach, March 1900.

Flora Glover (neé Kelly) was born on New Year’s Day 1872 in Dover, England. The daughter of a minister, her parents lovingly dedicated Flora to God from birth. As a young lady Flora was known for her joyfulness and strong desire to obey God’s Word. She commenced fulltime Christian work at the age of 20 when it was said of her, “Her lovely gentleness, strong faith, humility, and heavenly-mindedness were very marked. All loved her.”[1]

Having received a call to missionary service in China, Flora met Archibald Glover, a man with the same call. In 1894 they married in England. For the next few years Archibald worked as a chaplain, before the family, which already included two children—Hedley and Hope—sailed from England to China on the Bayern in 1897. Working with the China Inland Mission, the Glovers’ three years of ministry in China contained times of great joy coupled with moments of deep despair. In 1900 the lonely figure of Archibald Glover returned to England, ironically on the same ship his family had come on, having laid his wife and daughter to rest in China’s soil.

The Glovers were among a group of missionaries who tried to flee to safety through Boxer infested towns and villages. Dreadful trouble came to the missionaries. Near the town of Shunde, Archibald Glover reported, “We were stoned, and captured, and given over to death…but the Lord delivered us after a manner which I cannot account for, except on the ground of direct unseen interference.”[2]

Some of the Chinese Christians who accompanied the Glovers on their epic journey.

Left to right: Pao Re, Sheng Min, Ji Fa. In front: Mrs. Zhang.

The missionaries tried to send messages through some Chinese Christians travelling with them, but they were murdered and not seen again. At Handian, bitter mobs shouted abuse at them, even tearing the clothing from the missionaries’ bodies. The Boxers decided to put them all to death that night. Glover wrote:

“When morning dawned we were…taken in a sort of sacrificial procession, to the beat of a gong at regular intervals, to a place outside the village. The road was lined on either side with spearmen, and nearly every male carried some implement or weapon. At a given signal they attacked us and fought like wild beasts over our baggage. Before the melee I jumped down with Hedley, but my dear wife with Hope was literally buried under a heaving mass of human ferocity. I never believed she could possibly come out alive.”[3]

Some people further down the road threw rags to the missionaries with which they covered their nakedness. At the next town the same experiences awaited them, and a gong was beaten to announce their impending deaths. The missionaries suddenly took a side path off the road, and even though there were hundreds of angry locals following, “the whole procession came to a dead halt, and not a single man ventured to follow us—to this hour, I cannot tell why—and soon we were left alone.”[4]

A short time later the bedraggled party came across four men armed with mattocks. They snatched the remaining clothes off the group. The two ladies were stripped to the waist, but after Archibald Glover protested the men surprisingly threw back some clothing so they could cover their nakedness. The group found a graveyard and fell asleep among the tombstones from sheer exhaustion.

Flora Glover.

The next day found Flora Glover faint from the intense summer sun and lack of water. As they lay half-dead in the graveyard an official’s cart came and ordered them to get in. The missionaries by this time were desperate and did not hesitate to obey the orders even though it may have been a ruse.

For the next nine weeks the party of desperate missionaries trudged southward, enduring obscenities and abuses every day. How Flora, in the seventh and eighth months of pregnancy, made it successfully to Wuhan with the other missionaries, only heaven knows. The survivors were immediately rushed to hospital, where they commenced on the long road to recovery. Just four days after the arrival, on August 18th, Flora Glover gave birth to a baby daughter, Faith. Due to the physical and emotional stress of the escape, the little girl was emaciated and struggled from her first breath. It was little surprise when Faith Glover passed away on August 29th, the span of her life encompassing just eleven days. Despite the sorrow and hardship of the previous months, Archibald Glover wrote to his mother on September 20, 1900:

“My own darling Mother, we had the joy of receiving, last night, the home mail, which told us that your mind had been at least relieved by…our safe arrival at Wuhan. You all shared in our sufferings, and perhaps the suffering of suspense was even more trying to you all than that which we were called to go through. But now we can rejoice together in the common mercy of our God, and with one heart and one mouth glorify Him, having indeed tasted that the Lord is gracious.”[5]

The Glovers were transferred by boat to Shanghai, so that Flora could receive the best available medical treatment. Her body had been destroyed by the ordeal, and the death of her new-born added woe upon woe. Her emotional state was already fragile, and losing her baby daughter seemed to crush her beyond repair. Despite her valiant fight, Flora Glover died on October 25, 1900. The following day, Archibald Glover again raised his pen to break the news to Flora’s family back in England. With a trembling pen he wrote,

“In the Lord’s good pleasure, sweet darling Flora departed to be with Christ yesterday morning (Oct. 25th) at 4 a.m. It was a very sudden call at the last—so quiet and gentle that it was a literal falling asleep…. In those last precious moments, I held her hand and breathed into her ear such sweet consolation for her departing spirit as the Spirit gave me. The breathing got slower, until it culminated in three deep breaths, taken at intervals of several seconds—like deep sighs of relief—and her gentle, lovely spirit was with Christ….

My heart is broken, dearest parents, and the hand of God is heavy upon me. But I praise Him, in all the anguish of the stroke. For His tender love has been covenanted to me in Christ as Father, and ‘He keepeth covenant and mercy with them that fear Him.’”[6]

Flora Glover was just 28-years-old.

1. Broomhall, Martyred Missionaries of the China Inland Mission, 64.
2. Archiband Glover, “Flight from Lu-gan, Shansi,” China’s Millions (November 1900).
3. Glover, “Flight from Lu-gan, Shansi.”
4. Glover, “Flight from Lu-gan, Shansi.”
5. Glover, A Thousand Miles of Miracle in China, 311-313.
6. Glover, A Thousand Miles of Miracle in China, 319-320.