THE CHINESE.

“CALIFORNIA CHINESE MISSION.”

Auxiliary to the American Missionary Association.

President: Rev. J. K. McLean, D. D. Vice-Presidents: Rev. A. L. Stone, D. D., Thomas O. Wedderspoon, Esq., Rev. T. K. Noble, Hon. F. F. Low, Rev. I. E. Dwinell, D. D., Hon. Samuel Cross, Rev. S. H. Willey, D. D., Edward P. Flint, Esq., Rev. J. W. Hough, D. D., Jacob S. Taber, Esq.

Directors: Rev. George Moor, D. D., Hon. E. D. Sawyer, Rev. W. E. Ijams, James M. Haven, Esq., Rev. Joseph Rowell, E. P. Sanford, Esq., H. W. Severance, Esq.

Secretary: Rev. W. C. Pond. Treasurer: E. Palache, Esq.

China for Christ.

REV. W. C. POND, SAN FRANCISCO.

A venerable Presbyterian minister of New York, to whom we are indebted for a generous gift to our mission, writes as follows: “I firmly believe that God in his providence is sending the heathen to our doors, in order that they may carry back the blessed news of the gospel to their own land; and if we turn them selfishly away, He will surely require their blood at our hands.”

The truth thus expressed is a chief source of our enthusiasm in our Chinese mission work. “China for Christ” is our motto. I wish to lay before the readers of the Missionary some of the facts in view of which we believe that we do reach China, though we are working here 10,000 miles away.

There is nothing improbable in the idea. Indeed, it scarcely could be otherwise. Hardly a steamer sails for China that does not carry one or more of our pupils back to his native land. Most of these are heathen still; but they are heathen with their eyes at least half-opened. These, even, cannot be exactly what they were. But many of them are Christians, as we confidently hope. Will these go there to be silent? When neighbors and friends gather about them, to hear the accounts they have to give of things in the Sunrise Land, will they forget to tell of the Saviour they have found? I do not believe it would be possible. The message to which they have listened will be as a fire in their bones, and they will feel that they must bear it on. Letters, too, are passing back continually; and these are not empty of gospel. A missionary at Canton writes me that the mother of one of our brethren lives near his mission-house. “She enjoys the money he remits, but is not pleased with his urging her to be a Christian.” I hear incidentally that the parents of another of our brethren have been visiting all the shrines near them, and, with wailings and prayers, have placed their votive offerings where they thought they would do good, hoping that thus he would be won back from Christian heresy to their ancestral orthodoxy. What passes here in this regard is not unknown at the old Chinese homesteads; and what is known is felt.

But we ought not to be content with these spontaneous and sporadic operations. We do not rise to the height of our great opportunity while we leave this thing to work itself. It ought to be worked energetically, systematically. Never was battery better placed for storming a stronghold than we are here, for pouring shot, hot with the love of Christ, into that empire-fortress of selfishness and superstition across the sea; but we need heavier guns, more ammunition, and a truer aim.

About four years ago, Wong Min died at Canton. He was spoken of after his death as “the distinguished native pastor of the Baptist Church in Canton.” It was said that, in the absence of American missionaries, he had carried the pastoral care of three Baptist churches, and all were flourishing. Wong Min was converted at Sacramento, in this State. Returning to his native land, he began to tell in the streets and elsewhere the good news of redeeming love. His work attracted the attention of Baptist missionaries, and they took him into regular mission work. He had been at it more than twenty years when the Master called him higher. But he has left a son walking in his father’s steps—a preacher of great promise. Why have we not by this time sent back to China a hundred Wong Mins? It might have been done; it ought to have been done. How large the blessing if it had been done! We are verily guilty in this matter.

You will think me extravagant. “One hundred,” you say, “is a large number; it would be a large proportion of the whole number reported as converted in California from the beginning of missionary effort to the present time.” I know it; but I do not flinch. It could have been done, and the doing of it would have reacted on the work here, and helped us to larger harvesting.

1. I observe that our Christian Chinese have a strong desire to do this work. One of them once wrote me as follows: “In China, those who live in the villages don’t know Jesus and never heard of Him. I am sorry I cannot go home. If I could fly I would go home immediately, and tell how good and how kind Jesus is. Then I think they would all learn to love Him also. I want all our people in China to be Christian, and our mothers and sisters and friends to get the key, so they will go to heaven when they die.” I shall never forget the joy that shone in the face of our Jee Gam when he told me, a few months since, that a mission had been established near his home. Soon after, I found him writing for other eyes than mine—“Oh, how glad I feel whenever I think of this mission-house in my own beloved district. How much I am indebted to the ever-living and merciful Father for sending these missionaries there!” In expressions like these, these brethren represent the almost universal feeling among our Chinese believers—not from San Francisco and Oakland alone, but from San Leandro, from Petaluma, from Santa Barbara, from Stockton. As conversions are reported, there comes again and again the suggestion that such or such a one wants to learn how to preach the Gospel in his native land.

2. They are doing this thing now. The missionary sent to Jee Gam’s district was converted in California. The story is full of interest, and I give it in Jee Gam’s own words. It illustrates well the truth I wish to state on more sides than one: “Six years ago, a Chinese fortune-teller, while in California, heard a Chinese missionary speaking to a crowd of his countrymen on the subject of superstition. His heart was deeply touched. Not long after he went home, and at once commenced to build a house for his family, without going to an appointer of days to ask him to select a lucky day to begin upon. And so his friends and relatives told him that he must have a day selected before he put a single man to work, or his house could never be built to stand, or somebody would be killed by evil spirits before the house was completed. He told his friends that he had done with that superstition, and that he would keep on building. Finding they could not persuade him, they left, saying they would have no more to do with him, for he had become a foreigner. Then he was not only despised by these friends, but by every one who lived in that village. They said the evil spirits would soon take his life, or some great trouble would surely visit his family. Finally, his house was completed. He moved in and lived in perfect safety. People then began to wonder why the evil spirits did not visit this house. Some said they were busy elsewhere; but others said they must have gone away, and, on their return, they would cause this home and this obstinate family to be desolated. So they waited, but in vain; for this man prospered, and in due time, in that very house, a son was born to him. When, now, the people saw the joy of this household, they said one to another, ‘He must have worshipped the foreign God, and so the spirits dare not touch him.’ He came back to California and went to fortune-telling again. This time he determined to learn more of Christ, and every opportunity he could find he attended the Chinese meeting, and searched for truth by reading the Bible. He was finally converted, gave up his profession, and was baptized by Rev. Mr. Loomis. He then went home the second time, and studied at Rev. Dr. Happer’s mission in Canton, where he was fitted to be a very able missionary, for he had a very good Chinese education before he became a Christian. When he got through his studies, he was sent to a large city, not far from his own home. There he labored successfully for about two years, and he had been the means of converting a number of his countrymen, among whom was one of his villagers, a professor of Confucius. He was on his way to a county examination; he visited the chapel where this missionary was preaching, not that he might learn about Jesus, but merely for curiosity. But the Lord’s design was otherwise. He sent him there to be converted by the Holy Spirit, and fitted for the great work which He intended to assign him.

“After his conversion, this missionary and a delegate were sent to visit Chuck Hum, a city about six miles from my home. When they reached there, great was their surprise to learn that a man named Quan Lang, who lived close by, had been Christianized in Australia, and had been preaching there, in the open air, for the last three months. They searched and found him earnest in the faith, glad and anxious to join himself with these missionaries. They consulted together about opening a chapel there. Then they wrote Dr. Happer about it. He consented, and they began. But oh, what a hard time they met! Opposition came upon them from every side. Even the whole city firmly united against them. After violent persecution, the governor was consulted. He sent proclamations to the head man of the city and the judge of the district, commanding protection to his person and property. Then this missionary could have as many police officers to protect him as he pleased. They even became burdensome to him, and he had to dismiss them. When the chapel was dedicated, it was crowded to its utmost capacity.” This brings the story down to the present time. The work in that district, it will be perceived, was begun by an Australian convert, and is now carried on by one from California.

Two of our Oakland brethren, Joe Jet and Lee Sam, have recently returned to China, and intend to commence at once their studies at a mission-school, in order to preach the Gospel. One of our San Leandro brethren, Jee Wee, started for China last October, and has just returned. On the westward voyage he fell in with some missionary families and a Chinese evangelist. The result was that at once, on reaching Canton, he began evangelistic work, opening a room for the distribution of Bibles, and preaching. He encountered opposition and persecution at first, but, on application at headquarters, was protected in the same manner with those of whom Jee Gam writes above. The crowds that listened sometimes numbered 300 or 400. More than twenty were hopefully converted, his own father and mother being among them. Another Lee Sam, who returned to China about three years ago, and who, though a Christian, had not at the time he left us been baptized, in his first letter to his brethren here, told of the conversion of his brother, an educated man and a sort of college professor, to whom he had been speaking of the way of life.

We have lost sight of this Lee Sam, of Lui Chung, also, a most hopeful convert and Christian worker, whom I ought to have retained in California, and many others likewise. It is not strange that this should be. Indeed, it could not be otherwise. We, 10,000 miles distant, could not possibly follow them, save with our prayers. But they ought to be followed, and nurtured and edified. And not only that, but set at work, as light-givers and soul-savers, where-ever they go.

It is easy to see that a Chinese, returning to his native land from California, would be likely to have special advantages for doing missionary work. In the first place, by a process of natural selection, they are picked men. It is not the dullards or the drones that undertake to cross the Pacific, and make their way to fortune in a land so strange to them as this. And by the same process it is, again, among those who come, the picked men that enter our schools. The great mass do not care enough about learning to follow up each hard day’s work with two hours of evening study. Those that come do care, and care so much that they brave bitter reproaches in coming, from those whom they leave behind.

Then, besides the limited education which they are able to get in our schools, there is an unconscious education, which they must be, all the while, unconsciously receiving, as they breathe the air of a free and Christian land. Their views are broadened; the old crusted conservatism is broken; and they can speak out, with a force and an authority which, it seems to me, no Chinese who had never left his native district could possibly use.

Then, there cannot but be an interest gathering about them, as having been in “the land of the golden mountains.” They have the story of this to begin with where-ever they go; they gather a crowd by means of it; they gain attention; and the gospel of Christ will come in after it as easily as if it belonged—as, indeed, it does—to the very theme.

Now, what have I to propose? It is this: We ought to have a mission at Hong Kong. It ought to be in close, vital relationship with our California Mission. It ought to be at Hong Kong, because there our steamers land their passengers, and from that point our brethren scatter. Most of them do not enter Canton at all. We ought to have, then, at least one American missionary—not necessarily a great man, but a man of earnest piety and business capacity, and sound common sense—a man who would give to his mission the atmosphere, which, I am sure, our brethren recognize in the mission here, of Christian kindliness and brotherly love—not that of a condescending benevolence, but that of a hearty Christian brotherhood.

He ought to meet every converted Chinese—at least, from our own mission (others, if they are willing)—and take him home to his mission-house; find out his destination, and arrange to keep track of him, and make use of him as an errand-bearer for Christ. And we, on our part, ought to be raising up and sending men who, educated either here or in China, may give themselves, under direction of this missionary, to district gospel work.

So far forth, I am confident. It is no new thought with me, and, in proposing it, I feel that I am walking on solid ground. I feel that I speak in God’s name when I say this ought, forthwith, to be done. Whether the proposed mission should be sustained by the A. M. A., or by the American Board; whether more than one efficient American missionary will ever be needed; what sort of mission work he should go about in Hong Kong itself—concerning these and other matters of detail, any suggestion I could make would be crude, and, likely enough, mistaken. But the proposal itself, as to its essentials, I stand in no doubt about, and I ask the prayers and co-operation of all who love Christ and souls, that it may be speedily fulfilled.

Let me add, as if by postscript, that a Chinese brother, Wun Ching Ki, a member of one of the London Missionary Society’s churches at Canton, who is in business at Hong Kong, has been doing something in the line above marked out; has kindly welcomed and aided our brethren on their arrival; has suggested that, in that English city of Hong Kong, mission work among the Chinese could be conducted most successfully, upon the very plan which we use here; and is very desirous himself to send native preachers into the neglected interior districts, asking whether our Chinese brethren here could not help him so to do. The emphatic testimony which these bear to his good judgment and general efficiency, as well as to his Christian character, makes both the work he has done, and the work he wants to do, confirm my confidence in the suggestion I have made.