China as a Protestant Mission Field.

59

ple above ground than any of the nations have to-day. This tremendous burden of years is entitled to respect. "Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head and honor the face of the old man and fear thy God." If there is to be any sort of missionary precedence among the tribes and nations, then China, the ancient field, has a prominent claim. The younger are not all to be waited upon first and the elders left to the last.

V. The Chinese are physically a tough and hardy and wiry people. Their ability to endure vicissitudes and tension and hardship impresses even the passing stranger. They are not made of that fragile kind of clay which enters into the composition of so many Asiatics. They will outwork and outstrip and outwear any of the common tribes of Southern Asia. They have wearing qualities and lasting qualities beyond those exhibited by the common run of Javanese, Burmese, Malays, Siamese, Tamils, and Bengalis. The native Indian cannot endure any great change of climate. Take him away from his own warm sunshine, and he shrivels like a frost-bitten leaf. The

60

China as a Protestant Mission Field.

Chinaman can live anywhere. Send him to Singapore, directly under the equator, and before the year is up he is inured to it like a Malay. Put him in the cold regions of Canada and Siberia, and he learns to endure snowstorms like a Canadian or Cossack; and so he will wear and wear on after Greenlanders and Sandwich Islanders and hill tribes are worn out and used up, with but odds and ends and tailings left, to be like old tools in the junk house of humanity. We do not believe in a policy of skipping over weak and helpless tribes and picking out the great nations to be the recipients of missionary grace, but neither do we believe in a policy of giving the great nations the go-by without a fair proportion of men and means being given to them. It was the promise of Christ that his disciples should bring forth fruit, and that their fruit should remain. Staying qualities in a race are worth something. "Amos, what seest thou?" "A basket of summer fruit." See how carefully the summer fruit of the Sandwich Islands has been cared for. We should not be less anxious to gather in fruit that will remain in a missionary sense.

In

VI. The intellectual traits of the Chinese are as striking as their physical. tough and rugged and often ungainly bodies there are rugged, brusque, and sturdy intellects. As there is no rundown vitality in the one, so there is no rundown mentality in the other. The distinguishing characteristic of their intellectual makeup is common sense. They are an intensely practical people; they reason slowly and cautiously along the lines of their premises; and when they reach conclusions they hold on to them with the grip of bulldogs. That they blunder in their reasoning it is true; but the cause of it is to be looked for in defective premises, through excessive ignorance, rather than in lame logical process. Enlighten them, and they will be behind no people in the world for sound reasoning. They are not given to fanciful theorizing and ingenious speculation. Like so many Asiatics, the practical value, the common sense application, the real availability of things is what always enlists their attention. A speculation which starts in mist and ends in fog, which amounts to nothing and achieves nothing, has no attraction for them. This of itself is a characteristic of great value. Asiatic drift is in the other direction. A great corrective is needed, and it will be found in this part of the world in the assured solidity of the Chinese.

Beyond dispute the Chinese are gifted with a high and lofty quality of human intellect. It is capable of mighty achievements; its possessors can compete with champion men in Western universities, and its diplomatists can vie with statesmen in Western cabinets. The political economist has his feelings moved by seeing vast stretches of territory overgrown with weeds, or vast mineral resources beneath the soil unworked. More moving than all this, and moving to an infinite degree to the Christian economist, is all this unworked mass of human intellect and human heart-such a tremendous mass of power-all running to waste, and so much of it worse than running to waste, utilized to turn the devil's mills and grind the devil's grist.

VII. The moral capacities of the Chinese, their qualities of heart and conscience, are also to be taken into account. Corrupt and wicked and addicted to various vices, to gambling and opium smoking, more particularly selfish and hard-hearted, they are as matters of course; for they are worshipers of idols and are led captive by Satan at his will. Yet in some things the Chinese stand head and shoulders above others around them. They have been taught to honor their parents, to rise up before the hoary head, to exalt the practice of virtue, to honor benevolence, propriety, good faith, wisdom, and righteousness, to pay profound respect to the requirements of human relations. In all their heathenism they never deify vice and lust. Dwell on that fact. The Greeks and the Romans and the Hindus have deified lust, and placed courtesans and debauched females in their pantheon of gods. The Chinese have never done that.

China as a Protestant Mission Field.

61

They have debauched plays in their theaters, but they never introduce women on the stage, nor have Nautch girls as part of their troup. They have no caste among them. They profess a recognition of merit and of moral worth only as the standard of the true man. Granted that they fall immeasurably short in practice, but though they have not lived up to the standard, they have not changed the standard. The same high and lofty rule of procedure which obtained before the days of Confucius is the only one recognized as valid to-day. They do not say, "Evil be thou my good." They lie, but they denounce lying. They smoke opium, but they reprobate opium smoking. They gamble, but they censure gambling. They have not tried to sear their own moral sense, and their moral sense is not seared. They are guilty of immorality, but public opinion does not allow them to glory in it. They are not shameless. Some regard for fair dealing, some sense of honor, some manliness, some faith between man and man, some sense of gratitude, some sense of mutual obligation, some recognition of the equality of human brotherhood-some of these and other things of lofty mold are there still. They have sunken to low levels, but they are not stamped out. Indeed, they claim far more than we usually give them credit for, and they have a deal to present in support of the claim.

Now, salvation is not built on morality, but morality of a new, lofty, and intensified kind is one of the fruits of salvation. It is a vast deal, though, to find here so many correct ideas, so much conscience already developed under the law of nature, so much recognition of the second table of the law, so many remains of the primitive knowledge of one supreme God, so much in the moral consciousness of the people which supports our assertions, so much basis on which to build an appeal to their sense of ill desert, so much that bears witness to the Scripture doctrine that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness.

These things, too, enter in and help make China the greatest mission field in all the world-all this mass of human beings, all this mass of human intellects, and this mass of human hearts, each with its own capacity for everlasting bliss and its liability to everlasting pain. The Christian heart again is moved to think of what possibilities of praise and thanksgiving to God are here, and yet the field so greatly neglected. Three hundred and eighty millions of human hearts, each of which ought to be an altar of sweet incense in due time and order! What a revenue of glory ought to be coming in to the Lord Jesus! On all this round globe is there any where such a unique and peerless field? None. The world has but one.

VIII. China is to be a determining factor in the world's future. As already stated, the nation has had a mighty past. Great statesmen have been produced, great scholars have come forth, great philosophers have arisen, great warriors have sprung up, works of art of stupendous magnitude have been executed, the grand canal was a wonderful conception in its day, the great wall would reach from Boston to St. Louis. Discoveries of great value have antedated our own. The mariner's compass, the use of gunpowder, the art of printing, are all ancient things with them. Let us not forget such names as Fo Hi, Kang Hi, Lau Chau, Confucius, and Mencius, and let us not forget that from this same region went forth two of the greatest generals the world ever saw-Tamerlane and Genghis Khan. The facility with which their military genius handled vast masses of men is without a parallel in some respects in the history of warfare. These men moved their conquering armies across Asiatic deserts as though they had been selected fields for "autumn maneuvers." They set up a Mogul dynasty in India, the greatest that ever ruled in its history, headed by such men as the mighty Akbar and the magnificent Shah Jehan. Note well that fact. The glory of Indian

62

China as a Protestant Mission Field.

greatness, as the world counts glory, was an outcome of these same northern Mongols. Nor did they move alone in that direction; the sheen of their spears was seen on the Dnieper as well, and the clattering hoofs of their squadrons of horses made Europe tremble.

And now this mighty past is to be followed up by a mighty future. Her population is increasing with rapidity. Her towns and villages swarm with children, myriads of them coming on. She could take a contract to supply with a working population all the waste places of the West, and she is sending out her colonies and squads already, wherever she can find a place for them, and still the home population is on the increase. China's greatest history is ahead of her. It is true that in the great movements of our day she has not counted for much hitherto. She has been asleep, as one of her statesmen says. But the sleeper of the ages has begun to wake. Her ancestral cradle has ceased to rock; she has risen to his elbows and is looking around; her snores have ended; her yawns have attracted the attention of the nations. "A huge boneless giant," a public speaker once called her; but the giant's bones have begun to form, and the growing pains have startled statesmen in America and Europe. She is already a problem, her wandering children already a bewilderment. Years ago the nations of the West sought to get into China. The walls were broken down, the nations got in, but the Chinese got out, and now the nations are almost ready to fight to get them in again. The copper globe of the fisherman has been opened to let out the imprisoned genii, but no power of the West will ever get them back again. Half a century ago a Chinaman with his cue was a sight so rare as to call for a long newspaper paragraph to tell abouthim and the far-off land he came from. Nowadays where is he not to be found? He has already become a cosmopolitan. He is in Australia and New Zealand and the Sandwich Islands and Demarara and the West Indies, and in England and Canada and Mexico and the United States. He has insinuated himself into our towns and villages, here and there, one and two and three, and has established his "quarters" in our large cities, and jostles along, determined to vindicate his right to live.

China is to have a great commercial future. Her people are born merchants and traders, and, given time and experience, they will make their own opportunity and compete with the sharpest for a full share of the world's gains. Formerly her dealings were of the second-hand and the petty shopkeeper kind. Her merchants in HongKong and Shanghai operated through foreign merchants, and bought all their supplies second and third hand. Now they have become wholesale dealers and importers; they keep run of New York and London prices; they know the mutations of Western markets; they have their own agents abroad, get their own quotations, and transact their own business by telegraph. It has become a fact that old and established English and American firms in China, that once did colossal buying and selling with their own funds on their own account, have tapered down to be largely mere commission merchants for Chinese. They have become thankful for their patronage as well as their custom. In foreign settlements, away from home, they show the same ability to keep up with the Anglo-Saxon. In Penang they are the moneyed men of the colony; there are millionaires among them; they live in style and ride in carriages. In Singapore, the garden city of the tropics, they own two thirds of all the property in the settlement outside of the government buildings. They own bank shares, and lines of steamers, and mines of tin, and forests of timber, and make fortunes, and ride around, some of them, in costly carriages quite equal to the governor's. But for them the colony could not pay its way. England furnishes the governor with his secretaries, the soldiers with their rifles, and the police with their batons, to keep order; but Chinamen pay for the food they eat and the very clothes they wear upon their backs. The business of the whole

China as a Protestant Mission Field.

63

region round about is largely in their hands. Not only do they run their own affairs, but, as a prominent official said, "there is not a heavy transaction among the foreign merchants in Singapore which a Chinaman has not got his finger in somewhere." Nor is it with Europeans only that they compete successfully. They lead all Asiatics-Hindus, Arabs, and even the shrewd Moguls. And so they are progressing every year, getting experience, widening their scope of vision, broadening their field of effort, branching out, taking new ventures, becoming bolder operators, and pushing themselves into business whether other people want them or not.

China is to have a great political future, not one which is to concern simply herself, but one which is to affect the world. Who would have said such a thing fifty years ago? Who would have said then that China would ever become a consequential factor in European politics, or that her attitude would affect the moves on the diplomatic chessboard? Yet already has that thing come to pass. England and Russia are rivals in Asia. If the Lion and the Bear should lock jaws on each other anywhere on the long range of the Hindu Koosh both of them will have to watch the coils of the Dragon. Neither England nor Russia cares to provoke China. Humanly speaking these three powers hold the destiny of Asia in their hands. England is the most powerful at present, but the others have the best foothold. In a sense each holds the balance of power between the other two. Of course China holds her share. To hold the balance of power between these two nations is to hold it for all Asia; and to hold it for all Asia is to make herself felt in all the council chambers of Europe. Some things already spoken of have been referred to as "ancient things." These are modern things-so modern that they have come up in the last quarter of a century; so very modern that many people at home, supposed to be well informed, have not heard of them. Be assured that China has begun to apprehend the situation. Her statesmen are aware of it, and intend to profit by it. Indeed, they have begun to do so already; their political winnings are coming in. If rumors are to be taken Russia has been trying her hand on the Chinese ambassador, and the Chinese ambassador has been trying his hand on the Russians, to get them to hold off from the proposed demonstration on the Yang-tse. Strangely enough, Russia has dropped out of the coalition, and now England makes haste slowly. European problems are being manipulated in As yet the Chinaman is a green player on a European chessboard, but he is going to school and taking lessons. Give him practice, and he will get there along with the others.

IX. China is the greatest mission field in the world, because success in it is essential to the conservation of missionary success in so many other great fields. Missions remain no longer local; they have become cosmopolitan. In the beginning of a war there may be separate campaigns, none of which may be decisive. Not until the movements become parts of a combined whole is the crisis really on. So it is in missions to-day. We have skirmished and fought around outskirts and among peoples who occupy no determinative position among the forces of the nations. Now we are approaching the center. China is the largest of all the camps occupied by the God of this world, and it is the strongest fortified in not a few important particulars. It will be useless to hold all these outlying tribes around China firm to the truth unless the great empire itself is reached. It will be too much to expect that Christianity will be safe in Asia at all should such a mighty and influential mass remain unleavened by the truth. Unconverted China will be enough to corrupt all Asia, and will keep in corruption; but unconverted China will powerfully affect and mold all Asia, and we boldly declare will religiously affect the whole world. The conversion of the Chinese will tell powerfully on all the Malays and Siamese and Javanese and Laos and hill tribes and