Throughout her life of whole-hearted service for the women and girls of her country, Mrs. Ahok has been a most devoted mother to her adopted son, Charlie, and her own child, who was always known as Jimmy.  The latter inherited his mother’s quick mind, and made such a good record at the college which his father’s generous gift had founded many years before, that after his graduation he was asked to return as one of the faculty.  The beauty of his life was the crowning tribute to his mother.  At a meeting held in Foochow, an American, who had recently come there as an insurance agent, told how much impressed he had been by a young Chinese to whom he had been talking, and added that if the Christian schools turned out young men like that, he thought the work was indeed worth while.  The young man was Jimmy Ahok.

In the summer of 1904 the young man’s wife was very ill, and through the hot summer weeks he cared for her night and day with such devotion that his own health gave out.  It was some time before he would admit that he was ill; but he was finally forced to succumb to a severe attack of pneumonia, which ended his life within a very few days.  His only anxiety seemed to be that he had not done enough work for his non-Christian neighbours.  “I have not tried enough to influence the neighbours,” he told his mother.  “When I get well I will have a service for them and teach them to worship God.”  His death was a great blow to his mother, but her work has again been her solace.

One of her friends wrote to England, at the time of her son’s death, that the thought that her friends in England would be praying for her was one of the greatest sources of comfort to Mrs. Ahok.  In the midst of her busy life in China she has never forgotten England nor her friends there.  Some years after her return to China, she sent her greetings to her English friends by one of the returning missionaries, and bade her ask them:  “Have you done, and are you doing, all you resolved to do for my sisters in China?  So many missionaries have been called home, there can be no lack of knowledge now as to the needs of the heathen.  With so many to witness to them, how great is the increase of responsibility to Christians at home.”

She wrote to the women of the Church of England Zenana Society:  “You rejoiced to help many ladies to come to Foochow to act as light-bearers and induce those who were sitting in darkness to cast away the false and embrace the true, and to put away all the wicked and evil customs.  The work which these ladies are doing is of great value and has helped many.  They have preached the gospel in all the region; they have tended the sick in the Mission hospitals; they have opened schools for women and girls in several places, and in my own house.  In my own house there are now thirty-nine scholars, some of whom have unbound their feet; and some have been baptized.  I myself every week teach in this school, and I also go to the hospital and talk to the sick people.  I trust that this seed so widely sown will presently bear fruit, some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred fold.  You will remember that when I was in England I told you of the state of things in China; and I hope you will not forget my words but will do your utmost to help China, that God’s promised reward may hereafter be yours.”