THE CHINESE.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE.

Although in the Report of your Committee very brief mention is made of the work among the Chinese of this country, it is not therefore to be inferred that that work is being neglected, nor that it is failing in the ends for which it was undertaken. Rather is there a deepened conviction of its importance and increased encouragement in the prosecution of it; but in estimating the importance of the work we are not to consider alone the Chinese in this country, though they are a body of men of sufficient number to call for all, and more than all, that has been done for them. But we look beyond the 75,000 Chinese in California to the 400,000,000 in their own land. The Christian world through their missionaries, and by personal intercourse, are coming to understand this people better than they once did. Instead of the race of barbarians, stupid and immovable, which they were once thought to be, those who are well-informed accept the assertion of the Rev. John Ross, who says, “They are beyond comparison the most intelligent of non-Christian peoples; if any race surpasses them in industry, it is only the Anglo-Saxon.” * * * * *

But how is the Christian church to have a part in remodeling the institutions and customs of that vast nation? Not by any one method alone, but one of those which Providence has opened, is doubtless to be through the agency of Chinamen converted here and returning to their homes to preach the Gospel to their countrymen. It cannot be questioned that there will be a place and need for those trained under the institutions of the Gospel to go to China and plant the same institutions there; yet the converted Chinamen can do some things and exert an influence in some directions not open to others.

The career of Yung Wing furnishes a striking illustration of this. Of humble parentage, converted while at school in this country, he conceived the plan of bringing Chinese youth of promise to this country to be educated. He returned to China in 1855, without money, without influential friends, having almost forgotten his own language. For sixteen years he studied, taught, served the government, worked his way upward, and won to his views officers high in authority. In 1871 his plan was adopted by the government, $1,500,000 placed at his disposal, and more than 100 selected Chinese youth were brought to this country. Though his experiment has now received a check, and perhaps will not be carried on further, even its success so far is a standing proof of influence exerted by a Christianized native such as no other could hope to exert. And not only so, it has by no means been a failure even in itself considered. The young men who have gone back to China from our colleges and schools and Christian families have gone back far other than they came.

It is even a question whether they may not be more to be feared by the Chinese government as revolutionists than as though they had returned thoroughly converted Christians. But all will have received new ideas. Even those who have been chased through the streets by the hoodlums of San Francisco have learned some new ideas. They can distinguish between a Christian and a politician and know who are their friends and what makes them so.

If in a generation we could send back to China a score of Yung Wings we should do more for the conversion of China than by any other method open to us.

The Report speaks of a plan for establishing a new mission in Southern China as being under consideration. To your Committee it would seem the part of wisdom to move slowly in this matter so long as the present facilities are offered for labor in this country, especially as it is uncertain how long these facilities may continue to be enjoyed.

Thirty different Mission Boards are already occupying points in China, and though their 1200 laborers are wholly inadequate for the work of evangelizing China, yet they furnish in their various stations, points from which laborers may go out, so that the call would seem to be for men to recruit the missions already established, rather than for forming new ones. Especially will a separate movement of this kind be unnecessary if the converted Chinese of this country are able to carry out their purpose of establishing a mission of their own in the country back of Canton. The very fact that they are entertaining such an idea, and earnestly pressing it, speaks volumes for the work which this Society has already accomplished, and opens a glorious vista for its ever expanding career in the future.

Your Committee would propose the following resolution:

Resolved, That in view of the small demands made upon the treasury of the A. M. A. by the work among the Chinese, and the great returns which that work promises, the constituency of this Society are under the most solemn obligations to furnish for this branch of its work all the means that can be employed consistently with a wise economy and with due regard for the encouragement of self-help by the converted Chinese themselves.—Rev. A. E. P. Perkins, Chairman.

THE CHINESE TO EVANGELIZE CHINA.

BY REV. C. H. POPE

Great good has been done in China by missionaries, but against what odds! Now in the free United States, the country whose government has been his nation’s most generous friend, and whose people have shown him most personal attention, the Chinaman can examine Christians with a criticism no less keen, but far surer to be correct. He has had no difficulty in seeing the difference between a “hoodlum” and a Sunday-school teacher. He has even been able to distinguish one reverend from another, and neither trusted “brother” Kalloch nor distrusted “brother” Pond. The international lesson he here learns as he could not at his home—that a line between the children of light and the children of darkness runs through many families, through all communities.

Now let him go back to China, if he must—that is, if he will! He goes tenfold more potent than any of us to find the way to his countrymen’s hearts. I once doubted Chinese interpreters of our teaching and preaching. On examination I came to believe that the English language is the best medium for us to tell the Gospel in—a language born of Christian civilization, enlarged by Christian teaching, ornamented by Christian poetry, matured by the translation of the Bible, developed in Christian education, carrying in its common phrases less of grossness or corruption, and more of plain goodness, than any other tongue. In the day and evening schools, and in the Sunday-schools and prayer meetings which this Association maintains, the Chinese interpreter plays a prominent part only for a short time. Soon he becomes little needed; the pupils rapidly gain knowledge of our words: from step to step they catch gleams of new ideas and find new words not numerous in comparison with their language, but wonderfully clear and helpful. Daily observation is their best interpreter; the winning tones of ladies and children gain their ear and reach their perception easily; they get broad, practical ideas of Christianity; and they can be trusted to preach the Gospel in Chinese to Chinese. No process has ever gone so healthfully and hopefully into the Mongolian heart.

We are not concerned to explain the presence of any race in our land, nor can we parley over the motives which brought them to it. Enough for us to see that these Sauls of Tarsus come into the “straight” way before they leave Damascus; and that when their eyes have been opened, and our forgiving Saviour has accepted them, we call them “brethren,” and kindly protect them from enemies. Enough for us to train them in all Christian truth and service, until they and we together get an adequate notion of the part they are fitted to take in their nation’s conversion. Then, unless our sister society, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, shall take them into the far-off field for that grand work, we must formally equip and send them; for the Holy Ghost has said, “Separate me Paul and Barnabas for the work whereunto I have called them.”