Though the Roman Catholic missions were first in the field by several centuries, it must not be supposed that they are now the only Christian influence at work. The work of other bodies is extensive and very important. The pioneer society was the London Mission, which began work under Dr. Morrison in 1807. Very soon after them the British and Foreign Bible Society began work in 1812. But no great mission work was undertaken till after the treaty of 1842. Then society after society sprang up. One of the earliest was the Church of England Missionary Society, which has a very extensive work, especially in Eastern China. Among the earliest of its missionaries were the two veteran brothers, Bishop Moule and Archdeacon Moule, who have for half a century ordered its ranks with courage and self-denial. The Presbyterian Mission was not long behind them, and the American Methodist Missions began work practically at the same time; and so missions have gone on increasing till there are over sixty missions, over and above the Roman Catholic Missions, at work in China, with a staff of over three thousand five hundred white workers and abody of converts numbering over a quarter of a million.
The people who are opposed to missions will immediately say what a regrettable thing it is that Christianity should present such a picture of division to the heathen, and they will probably find a great number of people who are sympathetically inclined to missions and who cordially agree with them. There can be no doubt that it would be far better if the Christian Church presented a picture of unity to the whole world. It would be far better that we should all think alike; but if we cannot think alike, it would be a great mistake to seek for unity by encouraging people to suppress their convictions. Unity is very valuable, but it can never be so valuable as are truth and honesty. Far better to accept the truth and say that there is a difference of opinion rather than by denying the truth and concealing the divisions that really exist to give a false appearance of unity. If this is true of other parts of the world, it is even more true of China. Her national tendency is to regard conviction as of little importance, and on the other hand to lay great stress on uniformity. Perhaps one should say that this is the natural result of an autocratic government. Autocratic government naturally encourages the doctrine that everybody should agree with the autocrat. Now the advance of the West has been accomplished by encouraging liberty of opinion, therefore the people who are to expound the great doctrines of Western civilisation rightly appear beforethe Chinese world showing a great diversity of view.
It is most regrettable when liberty is exchanged for tyranny, when the acceptance of one opinion involves the persecution of another, when Christians not only differ but persecute and thwart each other's efforts. This may be an evil in our own land, an evil which we hope will soon pass away, but in China that evil does not exist except between the Roman and the non-Roman bodies.
There are great differences of opinion. The extreme Ritualist position is ably represented in China, the ultra-Protestant position has equally able representatives, and I have seen them uniting in the Shanghai Conference in defence of the Apostles' Creed against a Latitudinarian attack. To the Chinese I think they present not the aspect of different bodies opposing one another, but rather different regiments of the same army intent on overthrowing the same enemy; and though they are clothed in a different uniform and use different weapons they serve under the same general.
TRAVELLING IN CHINA--OLD STYLE. A RAILWAY STATION--NEW STYLETRAVELLING IN CHINA—OLD STYLE. A RAILWAY STATION—NEW STYLE
The American bodies are far the richest. Whether it is that the United States is a richer country than England, or whether it is that they are more liberal in their gifts to missions, or whether it is that they are more inclined to spend their money on Chinese missions, the result is certain, the American missions have every advantage that money can give. Their splendid educational establishments are a feature inmany towns. If the American missions have the advantage of the English missions in money, both British and American missions have an equal right to claim that they have as representatives in China a body of self-denying and enthusiastic men. It would be invidious to make any reference to the excellence of any special mission. Among the British missions, the London Mission claims indeed the greatest number of converts, though the Church Missionary Society does not come far behind it. Again, the Presbyterian Missions and the China Inland Mission have a large and growing work. The latter is a most curious development of missionary policy. The missionaries, differing in many doctrinal particulars, have agreed to co-operate under the name of China Inland Missions in the west of China; they have agreed not to oppose each other in any way, and to give each other mutual support. They are under the head of a director who organises and arranges their separate provinces. A great feature of this scheme is that they effect a large saving in the expenses of mission work by co-operation. A white man cannot live in many districts in China without a supply of medicines and some Western comforts; they arrange for the forwarding of these things, and help the missionaries in their journeys.
Bishop Cassels is at once a member of this mission and of the C.M.S. He is a splendid example of the courage that is necessary for missionary work. He has been through the Gorges of the Yangtsze twentytimes. Once he was unwise enough to forsake the small native boat in which he habitually travels and to entrust himself to a steamer, which, under the pilotage of a German captain, was going to attempt the rapids. They did very well till they happened to bump on a rock, when the captain lost his head, and instead of beaching her, he tried to anchor. The water surged in and soon put out his fires, thus preventing him from raising his anchor, with the result that the ship gradually filled and sank and the passengers had to swim for their lives.
The S.P.G. Mission is excellently manned, but suffers much from want of pecuniary support. I cannot help feeling that if it was but once realised how important it is that the capital of China, whither resort all the intellectual and ambitious men of China, should thoroughly understand the logical position and the reverent worship of the Church of England, that the necessary funds would be forthcoming. It is most desirable that China should understand that there is avia mediabetween Rome and Protestantism.
Without wishing in any way to detract from the necessity for missions to other parts of the world, we may point out that China has at this moment a very special claim. No one would say that the mission work in India or in Africa demands within the next few years that the intellectual side of Christianity should be thoroughly explained, but this is actually the case in China. The intellectual men ofChina who gather together at Peking are now demanding to know what truth there is in Christianity. They must be answered by men as intellectual as themselves, who will be able with courtesy and force to convince them that Christianity is a religion that is thoroughly consistent both with modern science and with the intellectual progress of the world.
No better mission to undertake that work can be conceived than the North China Mission of the Church of England. This mission, under the leadership of Bishop Scott, represents with dignity the tolerant and reverential attitude of the Church of England. One cannot help thinking that if he had a sufficiently liberal support, so that he could have a college where he could undertake the education of some of those future statesmen of China who are desiring to understand Western things, that his mission might be the means of encouraging a movement towards Christianity among the scholars and statesmen of China. That distinguished Baptist missionary, Dr. Timothy Richard, told me that he thought that the dignity of the Church of England, especially as so ably represented by Bishop Scott, might be a great asset in convincing the Chinese literati that Christianity was a religion which would harmonise with their love of order and dignity.
Of missions of other nations we saw one or two examples, but they are few in number if you except the Roman Catholic Missions. It is rather a pity that the Scandinavian Missions do not throw all theireffort into work in Manchuria; few races would endure the bitter cold of Manchuria better than they, and Manchuria is readier to accept Western ideas than perhaps any other part of China. She has felt and realised the pressure of the West, she has suffered under the burden of Russian domination, she has seen the Westernised armies of conquering Japan put to flight the northern invader. As we stood on the 203 Metre Hill and realised on that shattered hill-top how Manchuria has seen the full force of the destructive power of Western civilisation; as we counted the wrecks that then lay at the mouth of the harbour; as we looked at each shattered homestead, yes, and at the bones that were still unburied, we felt that the great land of Manchuria has a special need that some one should show her that Western civilisation can indeed produce something more lovely than shells and bayonets.
I am happy to be able to say that a splendid work is being carried on by the Presbyterian Missions; they have shown to the Northern Chinese another form of courage than that which was shown by the warriors of Russia and Japan. Two stories remain in my mind among many. First a story of the old days before Russia had made the Trans-Siberian Railway, before the Japanese had for the first time taken Port Arthur. A British mission doctor was at work. The Chinese,more suo, had determined to get rid of this example of the mercy of Western civilisation. They did not dare to kill him openly, so they sent amessenger who feigned to have come from a sick man out in the country. The doctor and his Chinese dresser, unconscious of the plot, readily obeyed the summons. They noticed that a child followed them, and they did their best to induce him to go home, but he would not. When they arrived at the village inn they discovered that the sick man did not exist. They were in doubt what to do, when suddenly the door was thrown open and several of the soldiers of the Viceroy's bodyguard rushed in, and seizing the two, they declared that they had stolen a child to make medicine out of his eyes. They then proceeded to torture the doctor by tying his hands behind his back and suspending him by them to the roof. Such was the agony that the doctor lost consciousness. They then took him down, and he was put into a loathsome Chinese prison, where he was exposed to mental torture as severe as the physical torture which he had already endured. He was told that he would be beheaded, and every preparation was made, and then at the last moment he was taken back to the prison. This was repeated till they thought they had shattered his nerve, and then he was allowed to go free. With that calm courage which has so often characterised the action of the members of the missionary body he returned to his work fearless of death and torture.
Another story, which has its humorous side, was also told us. At the time of the Russian occupation of Newchwang, the Russians had, as we havedescribed above, been "pacifying" the town, and a crowd of terrified Chinese had taken refuge in the Presbyterian Mission compound, where there was only one lady. She, however, came from Belfast, and had all the courage of the Northern Irish in her veins. A body of Russian soldiers came towards the mission with the intention of shooting the Chinese. She took a horsewhip in her hand, and regardless of the loaded rifle or the bloody bayonet, commenced to belabour the soldiers with it. There are some things which are understood by all nations, and the use of the horse-whip was at once appreciated by the Russians, who fled before her, leaving her a victor and the saviour of her Chinese friends.
I know people say that women should not be exposed to the risks of a missionary's life, but the answer is that were women not employed, half the mission work would be left undone and the heroism with which women have endured death and danger has been no small factor in the spread of Christianity and in producing the change in China.
Among the influences that have awakened China, outside the great lesson of political events, none has been more influential than literature in its many branches. The Chinese have always been a literary race. They invented printing about the same time that the savage Saxons welcomed the first book written by the Venerable Bede, and the influence of literature has therefore held sway many hundred years in China. But for the last six hundred years there have not been many works of original thought produced in native literature. Most of their writings have been commentaries on the Classics following along the beaten paths, or works of poetry full of references to the Shi-King or the classic poetry of the Chinese. The literature of China is characteristic of her civilisation. It is confined by an artificiality which has its origin in an inordinate respect for the past and an absolute distrust of the future. Every book looks backward to the period when China's thought was pure and great.
This period continued till the Anglo-Saxon influence made itself felt through its missions. Very early in the history of Protestant missions it wasperceived that in a country like China some other appeal must be made than could be made by the white missionary. A nation reverencing the printed page to such a degree that men will carefully pick up a piece of paper and put it on one side rather than trample it heedlessly, for fear lest that piece of paper should contain words of wisdom, is obviously a nation that can best be reached through printed matter, and so Dr. Morrison, the pioneer of Protestant missions, devoted the greater part of his missionary life to translating the Holy Scriptures. The matter was not so simple as might appear to those who are only conversant with the civilisation of younger and less artificial races than the Chinese. It is not enough to translate a work into Chinese; the spoken language is nowhere used for literature. The literary language commonly called Wenli probably never was spoken, and is so full of artificial rules of construction that it is only after many years that a man can hope to write it efficiently. Chang-Chih-Tung says that it requires ten years for a Chinaman to become an efficient translator. That does not mean that it takes ten years for a Chinaman to learn English, but ten years for a man to be able to put into good Chinese the thoughts that he has learned from the West.
The written language of China, it should be remembered, is not a language in which sounds are portrayed by means of signs as it is with Western languages. Each character represents an idea, the only analogy in our language being the numerals andsome few signs we have for simple words such as "cross" or "and." Therefore when new ideas are developed new signs are required. These can be created out of old signs. For instance, I understand that a railway engine is called a fire carriage. This, by the way, caused great confusion of mind in a certain district to the Christian converts who were conversant with the story of Elijah, for some of them erroneously concluded that Elijah left this earth in a railway train.
Another instance of the difficulty of expressing new things was afforded when a certain mission started work in China. They were in some perplexity as to the title that they should choose for their society. They wanted to convey to the Chinese that their denomination claimed especially to feed the souls of men. They explained all this to an educated Chinaman, and quoted some well-known texts. He immediately wrote down two characters, and assured them that they represented what they had said about the spiritual food that they provided, and would also be very popular with the Chinese, as indeed it proved. The moment they opened the door of the chapel they were besieged by hundreds of Chinese of the poorer class, who, after listening for a short time, went away discontentedly. The missionaries found out afterwards that the title they had been given literally translated was "Health-giving Free Restaurant," a most attractive title to the hungry Chinaman.
There is indeed another way of representing newwords. The word can be borrowed bodily from another language and pronounced in a Chinese way, and the word-signs which best represent the sounds can then be employed. This is often done with proper names. For instance, a great Chinese statesman told me that he referred to Sir Edward Grey in his despatches to China by three signs which had the three sounds Ga La Hay, but this system is obviously open to misconstruction, because the reader might be tempted to give the words their normal meaning. I believe that such terms as X-rays and ultimatum have been so adopted bodily into the Chinese language. Ninety per cent., however, of the new word-signs which go to make up what the Chinese call modern style are new combinations of ancient ideographs.
One of the pioneers in this translation work said at the Shanghai Conference that the first thing a missionary had to do before he could convert the people was to convert the language. Until he had invented a new set of word-sounds to convey Christian ideas, the preaching of Christianity laboured under the very greatest disadvantage. The "term controversy," that is, the controversy as to what sign should be chosen to signify the Christian's God, was an example of this. It arose first in the Roman Communion and afterwards gave great trouble to other Communions. The choice lay between three terms—one signifying originally "Supreme Ruler," one "Heaven," and the last "Spirit," none of which quiteexpressed our idea of God. What Christians felt was felt by other translators also, and one of the great causes of advance in China has been the formation of a language which can now thoroughly express all the ideas that are characteristic of the West. Many of these word-signs come from Japan. Japan, using the same written script as China, and having accepted Western thought, is more easily able to compose the word-sign necessary for its expression, and it is in this way among many others that the influence of Japan will be very important if not paramount in far Eastern countries.
Every missionary body has tried to produce Christian literature; the great difficulty has been to get the translator. The method usually employed is to get a Chinese graduate, too often not a Christian, and to make him, under careful supervision, write down the phrases rendered by the missionary into Chinese. Even so the difficulties are very great. The object of literature is differently understood in the West and in the East. A Chinese scholar who was very conversant with both languages explained the difficulties by the following anecdote. Engrossed in the study of Western knowledge he had neglected his Chinese literature, and was in imminent danger of failing in his examination. Happily for him the night before his examination he read a classical author much admired by connoisseurs but not much read owing to his great obscurity of expression. A particularly reconditephrase dwelt in his memory because it had cost him so much trouble to discover its meaning. Next day he used the phrase in his paper, and when his paper was returned to him with the marks of the examiner upon it, it was obvious that it was this phrase, surrounded on all sides by the marks of his examiner's approbation, which had been the means of his passing that examination. Subsequently he went to Chicago University. "There," he said, with the quiet humour of a Chinaman, "I learnt that the object of an essay was to convey an idea in as simple a manner as possible. This is not the Chinese plan."
One of the pioneers in this work was the body which is now called the Christian Literature Society for China. Assisted by a brilliant staff, Dr. Timothy Richard has produced a great mass of excellent work which has profound influence on thought in China. No better test can be found of the wonderful work that they have done than the fact that the greatest statesman that China possessed, and also her greatest Confucianist scholar, should refer to one of their publications,The Review of the Times, as one of the causes of China's enlightenment. The Christian Literature Society has not, however, been the only labourer in the field. Good work has been done by the Religious Tract Society, which has depôts in various parts of China for the sale of good literature; and there have been other societies which have also published books, including the Mission Press, belongingto the Roman Catholics, which is situated at Hong-Kong.
But in speaking of Christian literature we must not forget the various Bible Societies which have done such varied and excellent work in China, chief among which has been the British and Foreign Bible Society. Far beyond where the white missionary could reach, the productions of this Society have penetrated; even right across the deserts of Mongolia have their colporteurs carried their wares. Of the conversations which I had with various Chinese gentlemen one was especially remarkable as a testimony to their activity. My interlocutor was one of those fat lazy men who enjoy the good things of life and care but little for serious matters, and yet I was surprised to find that he was obviously acquainted with, at any rate, some of the tenets of the Christian faith, and I wondered how this indolent man had obtained such knowledge. I felt certain that his dignity would never have permitted him to have talked to a Christian missionary, much less to have listened to a Christian sermon. At last he incidentally mentioned that though a Confucianist he was well acquainted with the Gospel of St. Mark. I could not well ask him how he had obtained it, but no doubt it had come to him through the means of the British and Foreign Bible Society.
We happened upon another example of the influence of the Bible Society. We were coming down on the boat from Canton, and, walking on the Chinesedeck, I saw a man smoking opium and reading an English book. As I saw he knew English, I addressed him; under the influence of opium, he was wonderfully communicative. The book turned out to be St. John's Gospel, and he was reading about our Lord's Crucifixion. He had only picked it up because he wanted to improve his English, but he was deeply impressed by it, and his comments were most interesting. He asked me whether it was true that when our Lord was crucified He had stood alone against all the power of the Jews and the Romans, and when he received an answer in the affirmative, he added, "Then He must have been Divine, for no man who was not Divine could have stood alone." To the Chinese mind, which is incapable of any separate action, which is powerless unless it has the moral support of the Government, of a Guild, or even of a secret society, the story of the Crucifixion appeals most strongly as an example of Divine strength of purpose. This strange contrast between the opium-smoker and the Bible was typical of China. The forces of good and evil were wrestling together for the possession of that man's life; the forces of good having been put into his hands no doubt by the instrumentality of some Bible Society.
But the good work that has been directly done by all these societies has been greatly augmented by the good work that they have done indirectly through the medium of some of their converts. A body of Christian young men determined to starta publishing house on their own account, the object of which should be that the published books, both translations and original works, should best convey to the Chinese mind lofty and noble ideas in Western thought. If these books were not intended to be definitely propagandist they were at least calculated to teach the ethical system of Christianity. The work of the Shanghai Commercial Press has had a great influence on the thought of China; from thence has issued forth a mass of literature both for schools and for the general public which has introduced Western thought to the Chinese. Many of our standard authors have been translated, and the Chinaman, moved by his love of literature, is now becoming intimately acquainted with every literary activity of our civilisation. When one looks at those strange word-signs it seems hard to believe that any one could read them with ease and rapidity; yet Chinamen say, though writing is a matter of great difficulty and requires much time, reading the characters is quicker than reading our system of printing, each idea being conveyed by one sign, instead of, as in our language, by many letters.
These signs are apparently things to which sentiment attaches. We heard a most interesting debate at the Conference of the Anglican Church at Shanghai as to the title by which the Anglican body should be generally known, and it was instructive to watch the differences between the views of the English and the Chinese minds on the question, as the debatewas translated by a most able interpreter, Mr. Tsen. We began with what threatened to be a rather dreary Anglo-Saxon debate between the High and the Low Church. One felt the old atmosphere of the sixteenth and seventeenth century of English history very present in the room. The debate was on the question as to whether the word "Catholic" should form part of the title. I need not detail the arguments that were advanced on both sides; they are too well known. Then we turned to the Chinese translation, and at once the fires of Smithfield and the thunders of the Reformation disappeared as by magic, and the blue-robed men from all parts of China woke up to an interest that was as extraordinary as it was instructive. We gathered, by means of our interpreter, two or three most interesting facts. First, there was unanimity in the room that the title should not in any way, indirectly or by allusion, convey the idea that the Anglican Church had anything to do with England. The view of China for the Chinese obviously commanded the assent of all in the room; even those who had been influenced the other way by their teachers, had to allow that the word Anglican would be fatal to the popularity of the Church. When "The Holy Catholic Church of China" was proposed as a title, it was suggested by the white men that it savoured of insolence, as implying that the other communions did not belong to it. This met with no favour from the Chinese. Their argument was simple; we areall going to be one body in a short time, so the others can share in our title if it is a good one, and if it is not, we can share theirs. Then there was this feeling, which it was impossible for a stranger to appreciate, that each ideograph had a sentiment attached to it, and that therefore the title must be composed of ideographs which had not merely a suitable meaning but also a beautiful association. In the end they adopted for their title the ideographs that are used in the Creed for the Holy Catholic Church, not meaning thereby that they were the only branch of the Catholic Church in China, but that they were a true branch of the Catholic Church. There was another point made obvious to the onlooker, a point which will be dealt with further on in this book, namely, that owing to the different policies of the missions, the American body dominated in debate because they were represented by an extremely able body of Chinamen, while the English missions had as Chinese representatives only men of ordinary education.
But to return to the question of literature. Though literature has been instrumental in disseminating both the truths of Christianity and the noble ethical teaching of the West, it has also been instrumental in disseminating much that is evil and corrupt in Western literature. Perhaps it is not extraordinary that the Japanese bookseller finds that the erotic novel from Paris sells more freely when translated than the English story whose wholemotive depends on a proper comprehension of the Christian ethical position.The Dame aux Camélias, by Dumas, is the most popular of the Western works, and one cannot but tremble to think what incalculable injury such stories will do to a nation which does not understand the relative positions in which those works are held by men of high character in the West. Chang-Chih-Tung refers in one of his works to the apparent immorality of Western thought; and if we grant that books like these are typical of Western thought, we shall not be able to wonder at his conclusion. Through the distorted medium of such translations Western civilisation must seem wholly detestable. The Chinaman will naturally say, "Your boasted morality is merely a hypocritical covering for a profligacy which we should never permit in our land."
Not only are French novels translated, but all the works which Western thought has produced against the Christian faith. Haeckel's "Riddle of the Universe" is a typical example. In literature, as in every other department of life in China, two elements of Western civilisation strive for mastery. On one side there are arrayed the powers of Christianity and the interpretation of Western civilisation as a product of Christian thought; on the other side lies materialism, and the explanation of Western civilisation as a natural result of evolution which is developing an irreligious but most comfortable world. If China listens to the first, she will become like othernations, a great power, not only rich, but honourable, true, and merciful, the result of the teaching of Christian faith and ethics. If she listens to the second, the efficiency of China will be rendered terrible by a low morality, which will not only desolate and depress many millions, but even have a deleterious effect on the West which so mistaught her.
After literature perhaps we should place medical missions as one of the most effective ways of placing before the Chinese the difference between our civilisations and of showing them the truth and beauty of Christianity. There are three or possibly four reasons why medical missions are a right and effective way of conducting the Christian propaganda. First, they are an object-lesson of the love which Christianity inculcates. In school teaching we find that the object-lesson is the most efficient and easiest way of getting the human mind to understand a quite new idea; medical missions are object-lessons of the essential character of Christian teaching. Chinese ethics are very distinct in limiting the duty of man to certain well-known relations. They are five in number: the relation of the sovereign and minister, of the husband and wife, of the father and son, of the elder and younger brother, and of friends. No Confucian recognises the universal brotherhood of man; that is solely a Christian doctrine. Thus Confucius reproves the man who wishes to offer sacrifices to some one else's forefathers; that appears to him to be as officious as the duty ofoffering sacrifices to his own ancestors is important; a man has no obligations to any one else but to those who stand to him in one of these five relations. Very different is the tone of the Apocrypha, which is not of very different date, and which puts burial of the dead among one of the first duties of man without specifying the necessity of any close relationship.
The action of missionaries in coming to China was therefore wholly misunderstood by the Chinese. They were regarded as merely the emissaries of foreign powers, sent to spy out the land. Considering the way in which the Roman Catholic missions did as a fact identify themselves with the foreign policy of France, one cannot altogether wonder that the Chinese attributed to their mission the selfish principles they themselves would have followed. The first purpose, therefore, served by medical missions is to demonstrate to the Chinese that Christianity has higher ideals than Confucianism.
Their second great object is one that must appeal to the heart of everybody who has been in China. It is impossible to work among the Chinese without being rendered miserable by the appalling amount of suffering and misery that exists at the present day. The poverty of England cannot be spoken of in the same breath nor can in any way be compared with the poverty of China. Deplorable as is the condition of many individuals in England, harsh as is the action of some of our casual wards,any one who has studied both will freely allow that the poor in England are rich compared to the poor in China. Among the vast crowd that wanders along the North Road to London, you will scarcely see one without boots; there is scarcely one who does not get a piece of bread to eat when he is hungry; there are none who are suffering from untended wounds or unalleviated sickness. The workhouse infirmary will always open its doors, however harsh the Guardians, to those who are absolutely ill. But in China, starvation is quite common. Missionaries tell you how at certain junctures they have travelled along a road, passing man after man lying at the point of death, and those who are sick have too often no resource but to wait with patience the pain and death they foresee as their fate. The missionary feels, as he preaches the doctrine of love, that he cannot consistently ignore these suffering multitudes.
The third reason why medical missions are maintained is because they are a means of approaching people who otherwise would not hear the Christian truth. The man who has successfully healed the body has some reasonable hope to expect that the patient will accept that medicine that he offers to cure the soul. So medical missions have been started in every place. We visited many excellent medical missions, from chilly Mukden to torrid Canton. There are many stories told how in the days when the Chinese would not listen tomissionaries, the medical missionary obtained that hearing which was refused to his clerical brothers. I was told one medical missionary found that the moment that he was extracting teeth was the moment when he could best advance his teaching. I have never heard the story substantiated; unless the Chinese are very different from us, one would have thought that the teaching would have had a distinctly painful association. Perhaps he took as his thesis the extraction of sin from the character. His success was equalled by that non-medical missionary who had the advantage of having a set of false teeth; these he used to take out before the astonished coolies and replace them; then having attracted their attention by this manoeuvre, he took up his parable on the need for taking away their sins from them and for putting new life into them.
The Chinese coolie loves a jest, and once he is on the laugh he will, unlike his English brother, be much more inclined to attend to serious teaching. One of the missionaries who understands this trait of the Chinese best is Dr. Duncan Main of Hangchow, where we spent two most interesting days seeing his hospitals and work and visiting his patients.
There is no better testimony to his great work than his obvious popularity. Wherever he goes there are smiles and greetings. He explains as we walk who are the individuals who salute him. That great fat man who stands bowing and smiling is amerchant of some wealth; his wife has been in the hospital; she has been tended by Dr. Main and by his skill has been cured. That old woman who stands by him smiling is another ex-patient. That young man with an intellectual face and a dark robe is an old medical student, now a doctor himself with a large practice, and he has settled near Dr. Main's hospital. And so his work increases and grows and the good he does must live after him. He takes us into the out-patients' room; they are a motley crowd, with strappings and bandages on various parts of their persons. While they are sitting there a lay-reader expounds to them the elements of Christian teaching. What a contrast to their minds must be the plain forcible teaching and the simple effective remedies and medicines of the Christians to the incantations and nauseous compounds of their native doctors. There is a great doubt as to what is the nature of many of the Chinese drugs. They always prescribe a vast number, many of which are apparently innocuous in their effect; they always give them in large quantities, and do not in any way attempt to isolate and extract the active properties of the things they use. You see a man eating a large bowl of some nauseous compound and you are told he is taking Chinese medicine. You ask a captain what his cargo consists of, and he tells you that it is largely made up of Chinese medicine. Some of the medicine seems to be prescribed on the principle of our old herbals; that is, there is a fancied resemblance between the plant and the disease. Others seem tocome from well-known remedies administered in various ways; ground-up deer's horns from the mountains of Siberia has probably much the same effect as chalk has in our pharmacopoeia. But there also seems to be some possibility that the Chinese doctors have certain useful remedies which are unknown to Western medicine.
There is a strange story told in Shanghai about a certain remedy for a horrible disease called "sprue." The story is well known to every resident in Shanghai, still it will bear repetition. A certain quack called "French Peter"—I do not know his proper name—habitually cured sprue. Cases which English doctors had absolutely failed to cure, and which threatened ruining a career or loss of life, he cured in a few weeks. He had two remedies—a white powder and a black draught. He himself was a most unattractive-looking man. My informant told me that his career was being threatened by this horrible disease, and that he was expecting to leave China in a week or two, when some one suggested that he should try "French Peter." When they met, "French Peter's" appearance was so unprepossessing that the sick man's courage nearly failed him. He had been for weeks on a milk diet, and the first thing that the man said to him was, "Look here, take these medicines and go and have a good beefsteak for luncheon." He decided to try them. He ate his beefsteak, he took the white powder and the black draught, and I think within three weeks was quite well. "French Peter" wouldnever tell his secret or where he got his remedies; at least he used to give different accounts to different people. I believe he is now dead, but on talking the matter over with some Chinese friends they assured me that the remedies were well known to Chinese doctors, and that "French Peter" had got them from one of their compatriots.
Dr. Main deals with his patients in the same cheery way that he addresses every one; a word or two suffices to discover the nature of their ailment. If the case is very serious, the patient is detained for further examination; if it is trivial, it is attended to at once by a native dresser. For the rest he himself prescribes.
Then he takes us up to the wards, and explains that the great difficulty is to get the Chinese to care for cleanliness. That is the same story in every hospital; they cannot believe it matters very much whether the thing is kept clean or not. The medical students will proceed to handle anything after they have washed their hands and think that the previous washing insures asepticism, regardless of the fact that they have touched many septic things.
Dr. Main's hospital is typical of mission hospitals—Dr. Christie's hospital at Mukden, Dr. Gillison's at Hankow, Dr. Cochrane's at Peking, and many others. There are also hospitals for women. We saw many; the first we visited, the Presbyterian Hospital at Canton, was a good example, impressing us not only by its efficiency, but also by the great service it performed to the sufferingmasses of China by training women doctors, who are permitted to minister to their sisters when etiquette does not permit of male medical attendance. The lady who showed us round the hospital spoke English fluently; she was dressed in the dress of the Cantonese woman, which suited her profession admirably, as it consisted of a long black coat and trousers. Some hospitals are reserved for the very poor; at Nanking, for instance, Dr. Macklin showed us over his beggar hospital. He follows the parable of the Good Samaritan most literally, and wherever he finds a poor, starving, dying man, he brings him in. Clearly he cannot afford anything but a limited accommodation for these poor creatures, but he is on the whole most successful, and there is many a man whom poverty had brought near to death whose life he has saved. As one looked at those types of suffering humanity and realised the good that Dr. Macklin was doing, one felt that the days of saintly service were not over yet.
Another beautiful work is Dr. Main's leper hospital at Hangchow. It was a weird and strange experience to hear those lepers singing our old English hymns. Leprosy, as my readers doubtless know, does not often leave open sores; it slowly eats away the body while it leaves the skin intact; and so you see men without hands and arms yet with finger nails upon the stump, blind men without noses, and very commonly men whose voices are cracked and broken. These lepers are housed in an old temple, in one of the most beautiful situations in China—asituation which is supposed to be the original of the landscape on the old willow pattern plates; and the beauty of their surroundings contrasts strangely with their hideous forms and harsh voices. There was an infinite pathos when by that blue lake and purple mountain, those harsh but plaintive voices sang the old tune of "Jesu, lover of my soul"; and though we could not follow the Chinese words, the faces of these poor sufferers were eloquent in expressing how fully they felt the meaning of that hymn.
But above all we should mention the great work that is being carried on by Dr. Cochrane at Peking. He has managed to induce all the medical missions in Peking to unite in founding a great hospital—a hospital which has received the approval of Government. This successful example of federation has solved a difficult problem. No doubt the efficiency of medical missions in many a town is impeded by their want of unity. A mission body will open a medical mission, and will send out a doctor or even two in charge; one doctor must go on his furlough, another is perhaps ill, and the result is that the mission is closed. The commercial community are rather ready to point out that the mission hospital is closed in the summer when there is the greatest need for it. The answer to the taunt is the policy of federation. While it is next to impossible to keep open the mission hospitals in an unhealthy climate with a limited staff, it is perfectly possible to do it if the staff is increased. Every doctor in Central and Southern China musthave a certain period of rest, otherwise he will not be able to stand the enervating effects of a semi-tropical climate; and however possible it is to keep white men at work for three or four years without a holiday, and I know commercial people claim that this has been done in certain individual instances, it is in reality the very poorest economy. The mission doctor is far too valuable a person to have his life cast away by such a foolish policy of extravagance. He must have his rest every year and his furlough every seven years. But it is not necessary that the hospitals should be closed if the staff is big enough; a certain number of the hospital staff can go on leave, and when they are rested, can come back and allow others to go in their turn. Dr. Cochrane has shown at Peking that such federation is possible, and the China Emergency Committee is making every effort to encourage a similar federation in other parts of China. Medical missions are splendid examples of Christian charity and love, but they are rather sad examples of the lack of unity among Christian men.
Analogous to the medical mission are the missions to the blind and the deaf. The blind are a striking example of how Christianity alleviates misery, for the blind in China learn to read more quickly than those who have sight. The teachers of the blind have invented a system of raised type by which the Chinaman can read every word that is pronounced in Chinese. It is not our letter system, which theywould find difficult to understand, but something after the nature of the Japanese system. Each syllable is represented by a sign; so, strange as it may appear, the blind man not having to study the character learns to read more quickly than the man with normal sight. There is an excellent school for the blind at Peking, under Dr. Murray's superintendence. There is another at Hankow, where we saw a most striking instance of the beauty of holiness. One of the masters at this blind school was a blind man himself; he was a most ardent Christian; he had been taught to play the organ, which, indeed, is a speciality at that school, many of the organists in the mission churches in Hankow coming from it, and one could not look upon his face without feeling a conviction that his spiritual vision was as clear as his physical sight was dark.
There is a fourth reason, and one which applies as much to educational missions as to medical missions, why both are fitting and proper ways to teach Christianity. Christianity claims to and does benefit the whole of man, not merely his spiritual side. Mankind cannot properly be cut up and divided into spirit, mind, and body. He is essentially one, and it is most necessary that those who are learning about our religion, should understand that while we claim every benefit should come from the spiritual part of our nature, we are prepared to show that we in no wise despise the body, which needs religious care as much as the soul. Neither are we careless about themind. So the three parts of mission work go hand in hand, for preaching and prayer will heal the ills of the soul, the medical mission deals with the ills of the body, and the educational mission makes the mind healthy and strong. We shall deal with the educational side of mission work later on.
One of the movements which will affect Christianity all over the East has had its origin in Korea. Just as the suffering and miserable heart of the individual man is that which Christianity finds most suitable for its home, so it is with a nation. It is at the moment of national adversity and humiliation that religious movements most readily rise. Korea had looked upon herself as the equal of Japan. From Korea came much of the civilisation which adorned Japan before the great Western movement. When Prince Ito with the eyes of a statesman was realising that Japan must either accept the domination of the West or its civilisation, Korea was immovably entrenched in her belief in her national greatness and in her contempt for the Western world. So Westernised Japan has overcome her ancient rival and teacher, and Korea is humbled to the very dust.
In many ways that humiliation is rendered more poignant owing to the lack of sympathy between the races. Though they both have taken their civilisation from China and have a common classical literature, they are diametrically opposed in many things. The Japanese are essentially a clean race.They wash constantly; they will not enter a house with their shoes on their feet. No one who knows them will accuse the Koreans of excess in cleanliness. On the other hand, the Japanese very frequently lack modesty. Many are the stories that residents will tell; and we have seen the Japanese women clothed in the garb of Eve appear in the public bath and even in the street. On the other hand, the Koreans may be corrupt and immoral, but they are modest. The women of Seoul as they walk through the streets cover their faces with their green cloaks, till one almost thinks one must be in a Mohammedan land. Those green cloaks are a perpetual reminder of the ancient hostility between the races.
The picturesque story is worth telling. The Japanese, knowing of the absence of the Korean armies, determined to surprise Seoul. They thought they had succeeded, when to their amazement they saw the walls of Seoul covered with what they took for warlike Koreans. The ready wit of the women had saved their town. They had dressed themselves in their husbands' clothes and so deceived their hereditary foes. The Emperor rewarded them by giving them the right to wear the man's green coat, which they wear not in coat fashion, but over their heads, the sleeves partially veiling their faces; and as one wanders down the main street of Seoul and watches the modest but gaily-dressed crowd of Koreans—the women in their green coats with red ribbons, the men in white garments wearing their curious top-knotsand quaint hats—one understands the antipathy they must feel for the short, muscular, soberly-dressed Japanese who by his courage and daring has subdued them and now tramples on their national susceptibilities and ignores their national rights.
There are several missions in Korea, but there is one which,primâ facie, would call for no special remark. It ministers to the white-robed Koreans in the same way that many another mission ministers to these Eastern peoples—teaching and preaching. Externally there is nothing exceptional about the missionaries. I will not say that their mission is uninteresting, but it is unexciting. They are Americans by nationality and Scotch by name and blood, and they follow the national Presbyterian faith with all its cautious teaching, with all its prim simplicity. No one would regard them as the mission that was likely to create a great excitement or raise a great enthusiasm, neither indeed do they so regard themselves. Their conception of mission work was the sensible and reasonable plan of converting a sufficient number to make them teachers and preachers, and then having educated them, to send them out to convert their own fellow-countrymen. In 1906 and the beginning of 1907 they were filled with dark forebodings for the future of Korea. The temporary occupation of Korea by the Japanese was obviously going to be changed into a permanency. The murder of the Queen had shown what the Japanese would do, and the victory over Russia had shown what theycould do. Korea was at their mercy. Subdued yet not conquered in spirit, the missionaries, knowing their people well, foresaw that a bitter friction must arise between the two races; that rebellions and the consequent fierce repression must bring to their infant church a time of great trouble; and so, like the wise Christian men that they were, they took themselves to the Christian's weapon, namely, prayer. They earnestly prayed that in some way a great blessing should fall on their converts. That prayer was seemingly unanswered, the grasp of Japan was not relaxed. Except for the wisdom and gentleness of the great Prince Ito, there was nothing but oppression and sufferings for the Koreans. The Japanese army had learnt not only their military art but their statecraft in Germany, and the latter is traditionally harsh. Break, crush, and bully are the maxims which find general acceptance in the Prussian Court. Prince Ito, however, was a great admirer of English imperial policy with its maxims of justice to the weak, mercy to the conquered, and reverence for all national traditions; but Prince Ito could not control the Japanese soldiers, and the moans of the oppressed Koreans echoed throughout her land.
In the spring of 1907 the Presbyterian Mission held what is called its country class—that is to say, that the men who had been converted were summoned from all the country villages to the town of Pyeng-Yang, and there they attended for several days' instructions in the Christian faith. Thisexcellent rule enables Christians who believe but who are ignorant to acquire a more ultimate knowledge of the truths of Christianity. These meetings are wholly unemotional; they are in no sense revival meetings, nor even devotional; they are essentially educational. Their object is to teach and not to excite. For the Scottish-American has a double national tradition that knowledge is strength. These meetings had been held one or two days; they had followed their usual uneventful if beneficial course, and showed every probability of ending as they had begun, when one of the Koreans rose from the centre of the room and interrupted the ordinary course of the meeting by asking leave to speak. As he insisted, permission was given him. He declared that he had a sin on his conscience that forbade him listening to the teaching of the missionaries in peace, and that further he must declare this sin. The Presbyterian missionaries do not encourage this kind of open confession of sin, but still to get on with the meeting and to quiet him they gave him leave to speak. He then declared that he had felt some months ago a feeling of bitterness towards one of the missionaries, a Mr. Blair, who was our informant. Mr. Blair assured him that so far from feeling that there was any need for this confession he regarded the matter as trivial, and hoping again to bring the meeting back to the point he suggested that they should say the Lord's Prayer. Hardly had he uttered in Korean the words "Our Father," whena sudden emotion seemed to rush over all those who were there present. The missionaries described it as at once one of the most awful and one of the most mysterious moments of their lives. They were not revivalists; they had not encouraged it; they did not believe in it; they disliked an emotional religion with which they had no sympathy; and here they were in the face of a movement which was beyond, not only their experience, but that of the greatest revivalists. They tried to stop it, but unavailingly. The Koreans, unlike the Chinese, always sit upon the floor, and as the missionaries looked out over the meeting from the platform on which they stood, they saw the faces of their converts racked with every form of mental anguish. Some were swinging themselves forward striking their heads on the ground, hoping, as it were, to obtain by insensibility peace from their torturing thoughts; some were in the presence of an awful terror; some were leaping up demanding to be heard, longing to free their souls from the weight they felt would crush them; others with set faces were resolutely determined not to yield to the inspiration of the spirit which suggested that they should gain relief by frank confession. The missionaries having failed to bring the meeting to a close, submitted to what they felt was the will of a higher Being, and the meeting went on till fatigue produced a temporary and a partial rest. Though the meeting was closed, the missionaries learnt afterwards that manyKoreans went on all through the night in agonised prayer.
The next day they hoped the thing was over, and that the incident might be reckoned among those strange experiences which workers in the mission field must occasionally expect to encounter; but not so—the meeting next night was the same as its predecessor. They noticed several interesting facts. One, for instance, was, that the women were far less affected than the men. The movement did not reach them till later, and never so fully. Another remarkable thing about this movement was that though the Methodists are by tradition a revivalist body, and though they have a vigorous mission working in that town, yet the revival only spread to their converts after many days, and then neither with the spontaneity nor the fire with which it had been manifested in the Presbyterian Mission.
Of the reality of the confession of sin there could be no doubt. One man, for instance, confessed to having stolen gold from a local gold-mining company, and produced the wedge of gold which he had stolen, and asked them to treat him as he deserved. The manager of the company luckily was a European, who wisely refused to punish a man who had so spontaneously confessed his theft. Many of the sins that were confessed would not bear repetition. Some confessed even to such awful sins as that of murder of parents. One man in particular, a trusted servant of the mission, resisted confession, and day by daybecame more and more racked with mental agony, till the missionaries feared that his health would not endure the terrible strain of such mental anguish, and they advised him to make a free confession of his sins. At last he came to them with a sum of money in his hand; he had raised it by selling some houses which he had bought as a provision for his old age, and he confessed to the sin that was torturing him. He had done what is constantly done in the East—he had peculated. His position had been that of an agent whom the missionaries employ to make many of their small payments, and out of each of these payments he had taken "a squeeze." With these he had bought the houses which now he had sold. He left the missionaries happy in heart though empty in pocket.
This movement spread more or less over the Presbyterian missions in Korea, but never with such intensity as manifested at Pyeng-Yang. We heard it spoken of by a non-Christian Korean, a member of the Court of the Emperor of Korea. He had heard of it, and said men were saying this movement is a wonderful thing, for under its influence men confessed crimes of which even torture would not have induced them to own themselves guilty. A Chinese merchant also heard of it in Manchuria. The man came down to Pyeng-Yang, and happened to stop with the Chinese merchants. He mentioned that there were Christians in Manchuria, and the Chinese merchants immediately took an interest. When he asked whatthey knew of the Christians, they answered, "Good men, good men." One of them was owed by a Korean twenty dollars, who would only allow that he owed ten, and the merchant having no means of redress, had written off the debt; but when this revival took place, the Korean came with the other ten dollars together with interest, and what of course would appeal even more to the Eastern mind, with the frank confession that he had lied. This practical illustration of the effects of Christianity greatly impressed the Chinese.
When we arrived at Pyeng-Yang the movement was over. We went to some of their meetings. They were very common-place ordinary meetings. All that struck us was that there was a tone of reverence, a sense of reality, which made one feel that Christianity was as sincere in Korea as it is in our own land.
The movement has spread from Korea to Manchuria. In Manchuria the movement had not quite the same spontaneity that it had in Korea; it savoured more of the revival meetings of the West. It needed the stirring words of a great preacher, Mr. Goforth, to start it, yet there were one or two curious manifestations of power. One is worth telling. One brother was heard expostulating with another; he was asking why his brother had, forgetful of his family dignity or "face," confessed to sins which brought not only himself but his family into disrespect. The other answered, "When the Spirit of God takes hold of a man, he cannot help speaking."Two still more curious instances are worth recording: one in which two soldiers who were not Christians were so moved that they confessed their sins; another which seems to prove the presence of a force exterior to human influence or to the emotions caused by eloquence or moving hymns. An elder of the Church had forgotten or been detained from going to one of these meetings; when the speakers went to inquire next day why he had not been there, he asked them in return to tell him what they had done at the meeting, and they told him that many people had confessed their sins. He was deeply interested, and said: "I was sitting in my house at the hour of your meeting; I suddenly felt as if all my sins were laid before me, and I realised as I had never done before my many shortcomings."
And so the movement has spread through Manchuria to China. If it has lost something of its freshness, something of its force, it still remains a movement that may accomplish great things. No one who has read the history of the Wesleyan movement, and of the wonderful manifestations that accompanied its commencement, will look without interest and expectation for the work which this movement may accomplish. Let us hope that it will bring to China a sense of reality in spiritual things which the present materialist teaching threatens to eliminate from her national life.
At the great Shanghai Conference we always spoke of the "Church in China," implying thereby that there was to be one Christian body in the Chinese empire. This ideal is lofty and not impossible. There is a reasonable expectation that the great intellectual movement in China will render the Chinese very ready to accept new ideas, and the rate of conversion in China gives one reasonable hope that the new ideas may be Christian and not those of Western materialism. If China becomes Christian there will no doubt be a great tendency to accept the unity of Christianity as an essential doctrine. As a race they clearly tend towards union as much as the Anglo-Saxon race tends towards disunion. The British empire has been held together by its fear of its enemies; the Chinese empire has been held together through their natural love of union, which is the dominant characteristic of the race. Remove the enemies of the British empire and she will naturally divide, but force the Chinese empire apart and she will naturally return to one body. Chinese Christianity will, if it is truly Chinese, tend to one body. This truth, which I think would have beenallowed by the whole Shanghai Conference, opens up a train of thought which is full of foreboding and yet of hope.
One obvious criticism of what was said of the Church in China was kept largely out of sight at the Shanghai Conference, namely, that as the Roman Communion far outnumbers the whole of the non-Roman Communions put together, the Church in China, therefore, if it is to consist of all Christians, will be something very different to what the majority of those present at that Conference would like. Some men maintain that the Chinese love of unity will not go so far as to compel the union between Protestant and Catholic, and that in China the schism which has rent Christianity in twain in Europe will be continued. I would ask those who think thus if they think this is desirable even if it is possible. Once foreign influence and support has been removed, would not such a division soon produce a state of great friction, resulting probably in the destruction of the smaller body. But it is most improbable; a race which has habitually put together Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism will have no difficulty at all in uniting Romanism and Protestantism. I do not mean to say that Rome will conquer; it does not seem likely. The power of the Romans is great when they are preaching our common Christianity, but their peculiar doctrine of the pre-eminence of Rome is most unattractive to the Chinaman. After all, Rome is a very small place to a man who lives in China. Think how littlewe know of ancient Chinese history, and realise how little China knows of the history of our civilisation. Home at the present day is to the Chinaman merely the capital of Germany's weakest ally. The reasoning of the universality of the Roman Church, always faulty, seems almost ridiculous in China. The Chinaman on one side is conversant with America, on the other side she is in touch with India, while on the north she has a frontier which stretches for thousands and thousands of miles between her and the great Orthodox Church of Russia. One's eyes naturally turn to this immense line of frontier between Confucianism and Christianity, and one wonders how any Chinaman can possibly think of Rome as the one Catholic Church. If the Roman Church, with its foreign domination and its tacit acceptance of the fact that only members of the Italian nation can receive Divine authority to guide the Church on earth, is unattractive to the mind of the man who lives in the Far East, on the other hand its ornate and dignified services must be most attractive to a race whose national philosophy puts pre-eminent weight on dignity and decorum in dress and demeanour. If the Roman Church could give up her Latin services, could frankly become a national Church which owed no obedience to any Pontiff outside China, one would regret the possibility but one would have to allow the probability of her complete domination over the Chinese empire. Again one's eyes turn to the northern frontier, and one asks oneselfwhether that great Orthodox Church, the dignity of whose services is without parallel, and which frankly accepts the national Church as a reasonable Christian position, will not one day be a large factor in the future missionary work in China. After what we had seen and heard at the Centenary Conference, and after we had realised the great extent of the Roman work, we felt that till one understood why the Russian Church conducted no missionary work one could not understand the whole missionary problem; for when the Russian Church does undertake such work, her geographical position must render her important.
The whole of this question is of the greatest interest to the student of missions, but especially to an Anglican. The great value of the Anglican position has always seemed that, to use an election phrase, we offer a platform on which all those who call themselves Christian might possibly unite. The great rent which divides Protestant from Catholic seems not only to make it impossible for Latin Christians to unite with the Teuton Protestant Churches, but also renders it hard for the latter to unite with the great Churches of Eastern Europe. Of course all this has only an academic interest in England, but in China with its rapidly growing Christianity and an intellectual revolution surging forward to unknown possibilities, all this is of vital interest. What will Chinese Christianity be? Is it to be an ornate Christianity to which the convertsof Rome and possibly the converts of the Orthodox Church will adhere, an ornate Church sullied no doubt with the faults of her parents, a Church possibly attractive to the Buddhist, for he will not need to traverse any great distance in thought to enter her portals; or is it to be a great Protestant Church, cold and bare, vigorous and energetic, a Church in which the uniform of the Teuton mind will sit badly on the Chinese convert, a Church which may in many things represent truly the will of our mutual Master, but a Church which leaves the Oriental cold and miserable, while it practically tears from our Bible those endless chapters on the decoration of Temple and Tabernacle, those constant commands to an exact and ordered ritual.
I write with what the Germans call "objectivity"; the Teuton within me dislikes ritual; but the Chinaman is no Teuton, and the Chinaman loves ritual as much as any man on earth. No one who has been received by a Chinese Viceroy in his Yamen can have the very slightest doubt on this subject. If the Protestant bodies hope to force on the Chinese a non-ornate form of Christianity, they will be doing exactly what the Italian Church did to the Northern races, and which produced the great upheaval of the Reformation. The Reformation was essentially the rebellion of the Teuton mind against a forced acceptance of the Italian view of Christianity. To force on the Chinese converts a Christianity shorn of all ritual and display will produce in years to come some similar upheaval.There is yet a third possibility. The Anglican position affords the means of avoiding such an upheaval, and of permitting a union of all Christians on the basis of an ornate service and evangelical Christianity. For while it permits a service equal in dignity to that of Rome or of Russia, it insists equally with the bodies who pride themselves on the name of Protestant on the supreme value of the Bible.
The very hope I have that Christianity will conquer China makes me fearful for the future. The age of persecution is past, the blood of the martyrs has been shed, and the seed of a Church freely sown. But after the age of persecution comes the age of heresy, and to preserve Christianity in China from future dangers, not only is union necessary, but a well-ordered Church bound by creeds, respecting tradition, which shall embrace all those Christians by whomsoever they have been converted who love the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. The great danger I fear for the future Church in China is one of Eastern and not Western origin. I do not fear the domination of Rome. I doubt that the Protestant Communions will succeed in ultimately persuading the Chinese to worship God in a bare building and without vestments.
China and Japan will, if they are conquered by Christianity, be neither Protestant nor Catholic any more than we are Nestorian or Eutychian. Their divisions, their dangers, their struggles, will arise from a wholly different set of circumstances. I fearthe dangers will come from an effort to incorporate Buddhism and Christianity in one religion. This is all the more probable as it has doubtless happened before. Nestorianism and Buddhism are the probable parents of the present Chinese Lamaism. It is, however, not given for us to see into the future, but we can look back into the past, and we can see that our predecessors in the faith nearly invariably made the mistake of supposing that the old dangers were going to recur, and of therefore depending on the old measures of defence.
The future Church in the Far East must fight her own battles. She must solve her own problems. All we can do is to hand over to her the truth in all its fulness, and teach her to look for divine guidance, to forget such words as Protestant, Roman Catholic, Nonconformist, and Anglican; to learn merely the word "Christian" and the word "Love." If Far Eastern Christianity will have its battles to fight, it will have also its message to give to the West, "that they without us should not be made perfect." It may be that the message of the East to the West will be that as God is One, so must His followers be; that strong and mighty as is the West, there is in her an element of the very greatest weakness; that the discord that reigns between Christian and Christian, between race and race, between class and class, is not the will of the Creator, but is the result of the national sins of the white races. The Far East, with its greater power of unity,may illumine the West with a higher conception of this great virtue, and the world may be a far holier and happier place when the yellow race has preached to the world the great doctrine of peace on earth and goodwill to men.