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- various congregations of Chinese churches, which had been established by a variety of Western Protestant missions, decided to unite in the Church of Christ in China. After this union the Chinese Church controlled property and policy even though it still needed financial and personnel assistance from abroad. Thereafter, foreign missionaries operated only on the invitation of the Chinese Church.
When Chiang Kai-shek�s Kuomintang armies began their Northern March toward Peking in 1927 the British Consulate General in Tianjin ordered the evacuation of Canadian missionaries from Henan to avoid the dangers of the civil war. During these hostilities the mission compound in Zhangde was occupied by troops of the northern warlord Wu Peifu. All of the Menzies collection of oracle bones, pottery and books, except a small amount that had been shipped out, was destroyed.
The Menzies family moved first to Tianjin and then to Peking in September 1927 where Mr. Menzies continued his research and lectured on early Chinese history in the College of Chinese Studies at the Peking Union Language School. Here he had the assistance of a Manchu scholar who had many connections with Peking dealers in art objects coming on the market because of the civil war. Mr. Menzies was also pleased to be able to visit the Imperial Palace Museum and to have access to the best libraries in China.
In December 1928 the Menzies family of five left China on furlough leave, using nine to twelve months to travel back to Canada by ship, train and car through India, Mesopotamia and Palestine, visiting archaeological sites en route. Mr. Menzies was recruited for several months beginning in June 1929 as temporary surveyor at two archaeological excavations in Palestine. One of these was Tell En-Nasbeh, seven miles north of Jerusalem, believed to be the Biblical Mizpah.
This excavation was done by a field party of American archaeologists headed by Dr. William Frederick Bade, Director of the Palestine Institute and Professor at the University of California at Berkeley. During this period Mr. Menzies was able to
The Menzies family, left to right: Frances, Arthur, James Menzies, Mrs. Annie Menzies and Marion at Capernaum, spring 1929.
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