{"id":4166,"date":"2013-10-10T14:06:02","date_gmt":"2013-10-10T18:06:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/?p=4166"},"modified":"2026-03-13T00:10:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T04:10:12","slug":"shi-shengmo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/?p=4166","title":{"rendered":"Shi Shengmo"},"content":{"rendered":"

I once heard from Dr. Tong of an opium addict who's very good at literature: Won all three top prizes with the essay titled \"The bad influence of opium\" while Xi Sheng Mo (\u5e2d\u52dd\u9b54)<\/a> himself was still an addict.<\/p>\n

I could not find any other information about him until I heard his name mentioned again when Mefferd interviewed Bob Fu<\/a> on his book \"God's Double Agent\".<\/p>\n

The name's the same, but I do not find Dr. Tong's account of Xi's story. I did not know that Xi Shengmo had become a pastor. Perhaps there is a biography.<\/p>\n

Update 3\/12\/2026:<\/strong> I finally found some articles about Dr. Tong's version thanks to AI, though the literary contest<\/a> (1879) was mentioned (held by missionaries, David Hill and Timothy Richard<\/a>) on Christian theme topics such as dealing with opium. He submitted 4 essays under 4 different names and won 3 of 4 prizes. He was hired by the impressed David Hill as teaching assistant and fought with his withdrawal<\/a> and converted.<\/p>\n

Here's more from google AI:<\/p>\n

We know he wrote on subjects including \"the source of true doctrine,\" \"the regulation of the heart,\" and \"the evils of opium<\/strong>\".<\/p>\n

The story of his literary victory is preserved in detailed missionary records, most notably in the biography\u00a0Pastor Hsi: One of China's Christians<\/a>\u00a0by\u00a0Mrs. Howard Taylor<\/strong>, which is available through digital archives like\u00a0Missiology.org.uk<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

He's written some hymns<\/a>: i.e. A Song of Sacrifice<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I once heard from Dr. Tong of an opium addict who's very good at literature: Won all three top prizes with the essay titled \"The bad influence of opium\" while Xi Sheng Mo (\u5e2d\u52dd\u9b54) himself was still an addict. I … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-projects","category-theologization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4166"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20391,"href":"http:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4166\/revisions\/20391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}