Fighting Angel
Pearl S. BUCK
Hardcover
(John Day, March 15, 1936)
This is the biography of an American missionary in China. It is the life story of Pearl Buck's father. Only the names of the people are changed. Absalom Sydenstricker (1852 1931) (renamed Andrew in the book) was the eighth of nine children born to a Presbyterian farming family in what would become West Virginia. At 22, Sydenstricker left home to complete high school. He went on to graduate from Washington and Lee College and Union Theological Seminary in Richmond. His resulting honors degrees were in classical languages. In 1879, just prior to seminary graduation, he was accepted by the Southern Presbyterian Mission Board to be sent out to China. A marriage was arranged, he was wed just after graduation, and a month later the couple was on their way to China. Sydenstricker would serve in twenty missions spread all over China during his career. His background in languages and his exposure to many regional forms of spoken Mandarin molded his approach to mission work and, indeed, led him to insist that the bible, hymnals, and tracts be translated into popular Mandarin instead of the scholarly classical Chinese used by Western missionaries for more than a half-century in order to reach the common people with the gospel.