“STEADFAST, IMMOVABLE.”
BY REV. WM. C. POND.
It was in the last week in July that one of our Chinese brethren at Marysville, a lad of only 13 years—Ng Gan Don by name—called on one of his cousins to inquire whether money which he had deposited with this cousin to be sent to his father in China, had yet gone forward. The cousin declined to satisfy him upon this point, but wished himself to be satisfied upon another. So, taking Gan Don with yet another cousin into an inner apartment, they inquired into his religious views and practices. They had been specially commissioned, so they said, by Gan Don’s mother, to see to it that what he might hear and see in the land of the Golden Mountains should work no detriment to the religious ideas she had instilled in his mind. Gan Don acknowledged that he had exchanged those views and practices for some which he saw to be wiser and more true; that he no longer worshipped idols or ancestors, but that he believed in Jesus and was going to worship Him. They argued with him, but found him more than a match for them on that arena; and so, being two against one, and that one but a boy, they were easily emboldened to see what virtue there might be in blows. The blows fell fast and hard, and the poor lad’s head on which they fell was suffering sorely, but he maintained his integrity, and told them that he would never worship idols, even if they should undertake to kill him. At length he was released, and went, battered and bleeding, to the mission house. Our brethren, thinking that a little insight into Christian laws might do these persecutors good, entered a complaint against them, and they were fined $30 each.
EXCITEMENT IN SACRAMENTO.
The Record-Union, of Sacramento, tells the story under this heading:—“Chinatown Preaching. Chinese Missionaries Ku-Kluxed, but not Terrified.” I wish you had space for the entire article, but it would cover too many pages. Suffice it to say, that in connection with other Chinese Christians, our helper, Lem Chung, maintains a regular street-preaching service each Sabbath afternoon, in the very heart of the Sacramento Chinatown. Last Sabbath (August 14), as he and his companions approached the place, they found themselves confronted by a large white poster covered with Chinese characters. White is the emblem of mourning among the Chinese, and gave to the poster much the same significance that black, emblazoned with skull and crossbones, would have done to the colored voters of the South some years ago. Many of the heathen Chinese had gathered to watch the effect of this woful paper on the advocates of the American heresy; and mingled surprise and horror seized them when Lem Chung proceeded coolly to take it down from the wall and read it aloud to them all. I give you his translation of its contents;—“It is claimed by the Christian preachers that Christ is the Lord of heaven and earth and the Creator. They only preach to make money, and it is useless to dispute with them; but something must be said to inform the people against this new false religion. It is learned from Christianity that Jesus was born only 1,881 years ago, which proves that it is false that he made the world; and telling a falsehood about this, they cannot be believed about anything else. Or, if Jesus was born before the world was made, then there was no world to hold Him when He was first born, or for Him to be upon, and His parents would have starved to death. How is it that you fellows keep so happy when you preach such news as this to us? Notice is hereby given that such of the Chinese people as have been converted to Christianity must not follow that way any more. Moreover, this religion must not be preached any more on the street, and if any shall do so they shall be arrested by the Six Companies and punished for preaching false doctrines and deceiving the people. They shall be given eighty lashes, and then dragged to the grave-yard and buried alive; their bones shall not be taken back to China, but shall remain foreign ghosts forever; and then they can believe in Jesus all they are a mind to. Whoever shall dare to take this white notice down shall be the son of no father.”
The effect of the placard was simply to secure a larger audience and a closer attention at the preaching service, to demonstrate the futility of gods that men could make and men destroy, and to give our helper and his friends the best possible opportunity to do two things: 1st, to show that Confucius urges all men to study and seek for the truth wherever they can find it, and those who propose to beat and kill and doom men for doing this, are no followers of that great master; and, 2d, to illustrate the Christian spirit by inviting those who had “put up the white poster to come to the mission-house, where they would be kindly treated,” and find themselves in the midst of good friends.
FONG GET LOY IN CHINA.
Fong Get Loy was one of our earliest converts, and though only a house servant, has long been a pillar in our Sacramento mission work. Somewhat more than a year ago he returned to China and spent several months. I have been greatly interested in his account of his experiences there, and at my request he has written them out, as follows, (the original in Chinese; the translation by Lem Chung):
Dear Brother in Christ: According to your request, I will at this time send you account of my late visit in China; and what I doing while there. When I sailed from San Francisco, two of our Sacramento mission boys go with me on the ship. Every day we prayed together and talk about Jesus. We take thirty-three days sailing to Hong Kong. Before we landed, just as we casting anchor, we three gathered to hold prayer meeting, that God keep us from evil and temptation in China, and help us to work for Him. At the same time our heathen countrymen sacrificed to the goddess of the sea. I met our Christian brother, Fung Affoo, in Hong Kong; stayed there one day and two nights. Then I take Chinese schooner, sail hundred fifty miles to my own town, which took two days more before I get home. One year before I return to China I sent have house built. When I arrived home, I found idols in some of the rooms to worship: in the kitchen, to the god who takes care the cooking; at the front door, the one who looks and guards the door to let no evil spirits come in to trouble us; also, in the parlor I found the one who watches the whole house. I found blocks of wood with names of ancestors, carefully keep time of birth and death. All these they expect me to worship on my return. I told them: “My father dead—gone away. If he bad man when he live, God punish him now. He would be shut up in prison; can he come? They say ‘No.’ I say: ‘If my father good man, he happy now; he in a good place; he don’t want to come here, eat anything.’ I tell them: ‘You put up the god to take care the cooking; you sit down, do nothing; by-and-by you not have anything to cook. Somebody else have no god in the kitchen; they go to work; by and by they have something to eat!’ I say: ‘You place the idol by the front door; you leave the door open, not watch; you think no thief come? God made all things. He is the one to worship. Idols cannot help you.’ They say to me: ‘You no worship idol, by and by you have no house, no children, no money.’ I answer: ‘Other nations that not worship idols have more money and better houses than any we have in China. We go work for them to get money. We do not have to worship idols to get money.’ I say: ‘Whomsoever worship gods made by men’s hands, it is transgress to God.’ They say: ‘How is this our nation so great, so many wise men all worshipping idols; are they all transgress to Him? Is your experience higher than they?’ I say to them: ‘The idols and ancestors have no spirit nor power to help them any.’ Once in a while the people are crowded at my door. They shouted and said: ‘Well, if you dare to destroy your gods and ancestors, and nothing happen to your family, we will believe you.’ I then took a chair, got up in the parlor, took the goddess which my wife put there, and most all the family help her. I take a hatchet, chop it into pieces, and boil the tea with it. Oh! what astonishment to them! So they disperse. After that, my wife and my son both received the doctrine of the Bible, and every morning and evening we all would offer prayer, and at our meals asked God’s blessing. My wife more faithful than I. She willing to put away the idols, and like to go from house to house, when she have a chance, to tell the people about Jesus. My son attends school. All his school-mates laugh at him, but still he pray to God that He give him more faith, that he not care about the laughing. At the school they have a person’s name which they required to worship, that he may help them study and learn; but my son not want to worship him, after he believe in Jesus. He told them: ‘That’s nothing, only a piece of paper.’ The teacher compel him to do like the others. One day a woman in my town came to me, and asked me to pray for her son. He gone away from her. He send no money to support her. She said: ‘Pray for me that he thinks what he doing now, and may change his conduct, send something to help me.’ I knelt down with her, and pray God that He answer our prayer and bless this woman. Not many days after this God answered that prayer, and sent the money, and, with it, a new heart, for she believe, and thank our Heavenly Father, and came to be a Christian. Now a few others with her and my family keep the holy Sabbath, and have a meeting together. Sometimes they go to the mission station a few miles off, to hear the Gospel. Before, when I went back to China [i.e., on his former visit to his home], no Christian or missionary at that part of the province of Canton, but last year I find several hundreds become Christians not far from my home. Many times I go to hear the missionary talk about Christ. Oh, how I thank the Lord that He sent the missionary over there to speak the Gospel to them, and take away the darkness, that they may, by and by, more and more come into the sheep-fold and glorify God! I stayed at home seven months. Every day I work for Jesus while I there. When the time come for me to say good-by, and return to California, I feel I like great deal better to stay and work there for Christ. I promise myself, as soon as I can gain enough to live upon, I will return and give my whole time to work for my countrymen, and bring all I can to bow down to the true God.”
When will the American Missionary Association be ready to keep such men at work in their native land, preaching Jesus?
GLEANINGS.
—A friend has anonymously contributed the entire cost of the new steel boat required for the Baptist expedition on the African Lakes, and it is to be named the Plymouth.
—A Virginia negro has recently taken out a patent for a fire escape, which is composed of lattice work that can be shut up into very small space or extended into a safe ladder, and can also be used as a pike to throw in tottering walls.
—The following plan for the abolition of slavery in Egypt has been approved by Col. Gordon, and will probably be adopted by the Khedive’s Government:
1.—Registration of all existing slaves in the Mudiriehs of the Soudan, and of Cairo (Lower Egypt), by the Governors.
2.—Registers to be kept in each Government office of the names of slaves and their owners, with description of each.
3.—Every slave to be free if not registered after expiration of six months (the period given for registration). All slaves born after signature of this decree to be free.
4.—Register books to be closed forever after the expiration of six months.
5.—Owners of slaves thus registered to be bound to produce Government certificates corresponding with the register books, when required to do so by the Government of Egypt.
6.—The Governors of Egypt and of the Soudan to proclaim this throughout the land.
7.—All purchases or sales of slaves from family to family are to be endorsed on the registration papers and inscribed in the Government books of registry.—Anti-Slavery Reporter.
—One of the most successful and trustworthy farmers in Georgia is a negro named Harper, who has just paid $32,000 for 2,100 acres of land lying on Broad River, in Oglethorpe County. He is reported to be one of the best farmers in the country. He is economical; his family all work: most of his money was made by renting land and growing cotton.
—Prof. Wm. S. Scarborough, formerly a pupil at Atlanta University, has published a neat volume of 150 pages, entitled “First Lessons in Greek.” The work was designed to be an imitation of Jones’ “First Lessons in Latin,” and to give a clear and concise statement of the rudimentary forms of the language, with copious notes and references to the grammars of Goodwin and Hadley. Under Part II. Mr. Scarborough gives a few selections taken from the Anabasis and Memorabilia of Xenophon. The work is a good indication of what may be expected from the colored people when they shall have had the advantages of a higher education.
—“Worship in Song,” edited by Jos. P. Holbrook, Mus. Doc., and published by A. S. Barnes & Co., contains 450 pages, and is handsomely bound and attractive. Those best acquainted with Dr. Holbrook recognize his excellent judgment and taste, and the great attractiveness of his compositions. The author and publishers invite a practical test of their book, and it appears to quite meet the expectations of those who may adopt it for public worship.
—Bishop Hurst, in the Quarterly Review, writes on this wise respecting the work of the Methodist Episcopal and the Congregational churches at the South:
The two churches which are pre-eminently American, which have grown out of the ideas, convictions and the religious wants of the people under the free institutions of this country, are the Methodist Episcopal and the Congregational. They have laid foundations in the north and west which will endure for all coming time, and both are now doing the same in the South. If considered as antagonistic, which it is not, but rather co-operative, the real rival of the Methodist Episcopal church in the South is the Congregational, with its institutions of learning sustained by the American Missionary Association. It moves upon those lines which will give it a future, while other and older denominations are sleeping, apparently unconscious of the mighty revolution that has taken place, and indifferent to those principles which will inevitably impress themselves upon the church of the next century. Intelligence and morality are everywhere seen in that communion. That it is gaining a foot-hold in the South is obvious to every observer—a fact for which we are thankful. It is not carrying New England ideas into the cabins of the colored people, but it is doing better by bringing them out of their cabins and squalor and ignorance into the New England atmosphere and society created among themselves and for their posterity. We do not entertain a doubt that this denomination will become strong in the South, and we shall rejoice to see the time when it will devote as much attention to the white people as it now does to the colored. Southern ecclesiastical bourbonism is sadly, if not hopelessly, fossilized, and it is very desirable that various churches unite in bringing new spiritual life to the masses in the South, both white and colored.
—Some have made a considerable ado about “Yankee school-teachers” in the negro schools in the South, and in some cases our heathen have acted much as the heathen of Canterbury Green (Ct.) acted in 1831. Perhaps some of them have not been altogether to our taste; perhaps some of them have mixed in with the “three R’s” some things not to our edification. But what else could be done? Would qualified Southern men and women have taken these places when the Northern teachers came? Would they do it now? Not generally, though some of the best would, as a very few of the best have begun to do. Suppose these Northern teachers had not come—that nobody had taught the negroes, set free and citizens! The South would have been uninhabitable by this time. Some may resent this. Be it so; they resent the truth.—From “Our Brother in Black” by Atticus G. Haygood, D. D., Pres. of Emory College, Oxford, Ga.