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.”
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