One of the most charming places in China, is Macao, three hours distant
by steamer from Hong Kong, the people of which place resort to Macao
in the hot season, as the fine sea-breezes there greatly mitigate the
heat. The drives about the place, commanding in every direction an open
sea-view, are beautiful. The old church of St. Paul, the most of which
remains, though ruined by fire, is a fine specimen of architecture. The
most notable thing in Macao is the grotto where Camoens, the Portuguese
poet, died in banishment for publishing a satire on the viceroy. The
wild botany of the place, and the geological upheavals which give clear
signs of glacial action, are remarkable. Bowlders are piled up here
in ways which show a hydrodynamic force beyond human skill. Near the
grotto is a cemetery for foreigners; and, among the many sainted dead
from missionary circles there entombed, the christian traveller lingers
with deep interest around the burial-place of Morrison.
One Sabbath morning I went with a christian friend through a wild
district, in the neighborhood of a large city in China, to a mission
station. The people were everywhere at work; nothing suggested the
Sabbath, till we heard the little church-bell, whose notes were in
pleasing contrast to the hum of business. We came to the mission
compound, where two missionaries and their wives had their abode.
The joy with which they welcomed us made us feel most deeply their
isolation from christian society. The sight of friends from America
seemed to intensify their loneliness. Here were four beloved christian
people who were living in these wilds, to teach these heathen tribes
the knowledge of God and of his Son. On inquiring what encouragement
they found in their work, we were told that two or three women had
lately shown a disposition to hear religious conversation, and listen
to the Scriptures. Immediately we thought of four hundred millions in
China and its dependencies, who were ignorant of the true God. Here
were three native women who were persuaded to listen to religious
reading. As we were preparing to leave, our missionary friends
seemed to cling to us with strong affection. We were going back to
America, leaving them in the solitudes of heathenism. They were far
from unhappy, and their few tears were only the natural expression
of awakened memories. One of the missionary brethren, showing us the
way to the gate, passed with us through a room where we saw, among
gardening tools, some sheets of paper, lying loose. There were so many
of them, looking alike, that they attracted our notice. We found that
the specks on them were the eggs of silkworms. They were mere dots,
as the reader familiar with the sight in books or nature, is aware.
It occurred to me what a display of silk fabrics, with their rainbow
colors, we had been looking upon! how many ships are freighted with
them! how many millions of wealth they represent! what a world of
thought and feeling is associated with them! On those pieces of paper
were the beginnings of silk,--a word, taken in all its connections and
associations, of mighty power. In those little specks one might fancy
himself reading, “By whom shall Jacob arise? for he is small.” We told
our missionary brother that, while he raised silkworms and saw their
cocoons, he surely would never despise the day of small things,--a
lesson, he assured us, which was often repeated to him, and gave him
encouragement.
It is well for one who believes in the ultimate prevalence of
Christianity to come into China by the way of the Sandwich Islands. He
will receive confirmation to his faith, he will be defended against
temptations to unbelief when surrounded as he will be in China with
one-half the population of the earth ignorant of the true God, by
having seen in the Sandwich Islands what the gospel has done among a
race who were as unlikely to be converted as any portion of the human
family. If he comes from his ship and steps ashore on the Sabbath
in China, and sees coopers and blockmakers and boatbuilders busily
at work, the tailors’ shops filled with men plying their needles,
the stationers ruling paper, the coolies instead of horses and mules
carrying everything which ever lades a ship, from the quay to the
storehouses, the thought will come over him, What progress is the
knowledge of the gospel likely to make among this people? Perhaps he
spends a Sabbath in the country. Here he may look to see the people
withdrawn from the requirements which the business of a seaport makes
of the inhabitants; but in the country he will find the people as busy
with their handicraft or trade as the people of the city, giving no
sign that the idea of the Sabbath and of the God of the Sabbath has
visited their minds. He will be overwhelmed with the contemplation
of four hundred millions of human beings utterly destitute of the
knowledge of God. He remembers how at home his heart used to glow on
hearing accounts of additions to native churches, and the rehearsal was
followed by joyful missionary hymns sung impromptu,--
“Yes, we trust the day is breaking;
Joyful times are near at hand;”
and he asks himself whether he is losing his confidence in the ultimate
triumph of christianity, and in the sufficiency of divine power to
turn the hearts of nations as the rivers of waters are turned. If he
be a firm believer in the Bible, he will say that while he remembers
the conquest of Canaan, especially its first great achievement,
the capture of Jericho, his faith never can falter. Were not the
aborigines of Canaan devoted to destruction by the Almighty, and their
land apportioned to the tribes, with minute directions how to take
possession of it, the very line of march prescribed, the great tribe
of Judah in the forefront? And did not our Lord spring out of Judah?
Has he not “upon his vesture and upon his thigh a name written,--King
of kings and Lord of lords?” While, on returning to his christian
ordinances at home a christian traveller in China may be less excited
than he used to be there at the report of a few conversions among the
heathen, because he will have an enlarged idea of the gross darkness
which covers the people, he will only have exchanged his former
confidence in man for a more entire confidence in God. The accumulation
of difficulties in the way of the gospel he will regard only as those
barrels of water which were poured on Elijah’s altar, serving to make
the fire from heaven more triumphant.