At a great fête given in an Eastern city they built most cunningly out of boards and canvas a grand old tree; they painted it with wonderful skill and crowned it with paper leaves and blossoms. It was a marvel whereat the world stood open mouthed for a day, but the rain descended and the floods came and the wind blew and beat upon the tree and it fell for it had no roots.
The Korean Christians are learning fast, we hope, that better civilization of which our dictionaries give but one or two definitions: “The humanization of man in society; the satisfaction for him in society of the true law of human nature,” and “The lifting up of men mentally, morally and socially.”
This never was, never will be done by tramways and new clothes. It can never be brought about by armies and men of war. It will not follow in the train of art and of luxuries, though they follow it. Men, however well dressed and well informed, may be after all no better than the manufactured tree, without the vital principle of life that is in Christianity to “lift them up mentally, morally and socially” above the material and sensual and hold them there unshakenly rooted in the rock.
They are learning that all that is best in Western civilization, the motor power that stirs the energies of men and brings out the choicest results is Christian faith and love. Christian principle, and that where this principle is implanted, this spirit breathed, there is a civilization made or making, for the choice things of which heathenism has often not even a word whereby they may be expressed. Test them by such words as God, Heaven, Home, Love, Faith or Sin—where do they stand?
This is the reason that to-day Korean statesmen are saying that in Christianity is the only hope for Korea’s national salvation.
And here let me quote Dr. J. D. Davis of Kyoto who says, “If this work of Christianity can go on unchecked and unchilled Korea will be rapidly evangelized and filled with millions of happy, enlightened Christian homes and this little kingdom, despised though it has been, will give to the world a priceless example of the way and the only way that the Gospel can be carried to the whole world during the present generation.”
Again Mrs. Curtis, another American missionary to the Japanese, writes, “By God’s blessing, within the next ten years, if the Church in America will do its part, this whole nation (Korea) may be reached with the Gospel. Korea is fast becoming Christian, and, if Japan does not soon respond to God’s call to her, there is the prospect of a Christian people, producing the first-fruits of true life, brought under the sway of a nation yet dead, who have appropriated the fruits of centuries of Christian growth, but who refuse to share the life which alone can make those fruits sweet and wholesome and bring them to perfection. A Christian nation ruled by another whose real God is National Glory! It will be laid to the charge of the Christian Church if this becomes a fact. Every man and woman who is ‘looking for the kingdom of God’ and faithfully seeking to hasten its coming ought to consider this.”[12]
[12] Missionary review, March 1908.
Books which may be relied upon to give trustworthy accounts of conditions in Korea during the period above referred to are: Hulbert’s “Passing of Korea,” Doubleday, Page & Co.; McKenzie’s “Unveiled East,” Hutchinson & Co.; Story’s “To-morrow in the Far East,” Chapman & Hull, H. G. Underwood’s “The Call of Korea,” Revell (Mission study book); Hulbert’s “History of Korea.”