Judged by this test, indeed, what wanton extravagance might not the Shanghai Cathedral be pronounced! To some follower in our friend Dr. Morrison's footsteps I commend the calculation of the cost of its services to be divided by the number of converts thereby made. The sum would probably not be a difficult one, though the result might not be gratifying. For it costs more to redeem souls, etc.
But to return to twenty-six little girls, who were not converts. They passed an examination in the Old Testament, as it appeared, most creditably, although the eldest were thirteen. There was no hesitation in the answers, as one heard them affirming Jezebel was not a good woman, and telling about the hair by which Absalom was caught in the tree. And, after all, Jezebel and Absalom lived nearer to them than to us, and at least in their own quarter of the world. It is really odder to hear village children in England telling about the Old Testament kings, though it seems odder to hear Chinese children doing so. The younger children were also examined. Five little round-about bodies—for they were pretty well as thick as they were long—aged only six, repeated a hymn. Other hymns were repeated by other little detachments. All this was not surprising. But I was surprised when the first class, being led up to an outline map of Africa without names, called out Congoland, Madagascar, Natal, and the like as the examiner pointed. They did the same by Asia, cheeringly shouting out Japan, and equally readily indicating China. If into these little girls' heads it really had penetrated that there were other kingdoms in the world besides their own, they were in so far better taught than most of the literati of the land, and no knowledge would seem more to be desired for a Chinaman just now. After this the usual eye-trying needlework was exhibited, under protests from the European teacher that any one's eyes should be so tried, yet in this she felt obliged to conform to the fashions of the country.
But what struck me most (for it is the one matter on which I really felt qualified to form an opinion) was the expressions of the children. They were interesting, they were attractive, simply because the mind in them evidently had been aroused, and was working. The blank, dead-wall Chinese stolidity was gone. What may be the end of those children, what may be the outcome of it all, it is not for me to say; nor how far it is right to teach little girls who are not Christians Christian hymns. There are plenty of beautiful hymns they could learn, avoiding those about a Christ for whom they have no reverence. But one thing is clear: for good or for evil those little girls are with their awakened intelligences in a perfectly different position from those around them; and if their education is carried further forward—about which there are many difficulties in China—they will be in an increasingly critical position. And then seems to come the great danger. If they become Christians, well and good; they will have the ethics of Christianity to guide their daily life. But if not, removed from Buddhist influences, yet more in need of a guide than those around them, because themselves more susceptible of outside influences, one feels a certain uneasiness about them.
The proceedings wound up with what certainly seemed to give great pleasure: a gift of an article of clothing for every little girl from one member of the Mission, and then the great ceremony of choosing. Little collections of presents, sent out by the Missionary Helpers' Union, had been carefully sorted out and arranged upon the table,—a doll, a needle-book full of needles, an emery cushion, and a bag perhaps on one; woollen muffettees and a picture-book on another; and so on. The little girl who had most marks had first choice, and so on to the last, who had no choice at all, said the kindly lady teacher in great distress, her heart evidently aching for the little one, who must sit by and see all the best things chosen from before her eyes. "But she could have got more marks; it is her own fault," she added indignantly, the severity of the teacher once more gaining the upper hand; for this lady, young though she still was, was not a mere novice, but was teaching in England in a large and well-known Friends' School in the west country before ever she came to China, and came to China with the distinct purpose to teach little girls; into which work she appeared to put her whole heart, until ill-health forced her to come home. Some of the little girls had evidently studied the presents well beforehand, and came up to choose with their minds made up, making the Chinese reverence all round and up and down, then off to their mothers to put their treasures in safe keeping before going back to their seats. But it was pretty to see the indecision on some childish faces, growing redder and redder as first they pressed a white wool doll to their little bosoms, then fondled lovingly one in grey silk. All the dolls had been carefully dressed to suit Chinese notions of etiquette, with sleeves well down to the wrist, and the longest possible lace-trimmed drawers under their long dresses. But one wondered if the little Chinese children would not have preferred Chinese-clad dolls to nurse.
Anyway, each year, being presented with such useful and tempting-looking foreign gifts, although certainly not intended that way, must predispose the little girls to wish to buy foreign things when they grow up, recollecting the delight that foreign things gave them as children. In this way all the trouble of the Missionary Helpers' Union, formed of children at home, thus early trained to interest themselves in missions by being led to work for them, may have commercial results not dreamed of by the little workers. With its reflections my account seems nearly as long as the little ceremony. But I must not omit one feature of it. The Chinese mothers sat on benches all round, flushing with pride as their children distinguished themselves, and the Mission ladies sat in front behind the prizes. Then in came all the Mission babies, with their faces so startlingly clean by comparison with the Chinese as to look like beings from another sphere, rosy, and kicking about their white fleecy shawls and other pure whitenesses. Disdainful, indeed, the babies appeared, and were themselves probably the crowning feature of the show; for the Chinese certainly delight in foreign babies, and are never tired of examining them. I cannot emulate An Australian through China, and reckon up the cost per head; but I think the whole proceeding must have resulted in a certain amount of friendly feeling, and some of joy. Can we confidently say even as much of the Marlborough-Vanderbilt wedding?
There is, however, besides the climate, another sad element in life in China, and that is the dislike of the Chinese to foreigners and distrust of them.
SOOCHOW, WITH MISSION CHURCH.
It was sad to hear, shortly after this prize-giving, that there were again anti-foreign placards out on the walls of Chengtu, the capital of the province, of a very violent description, and that the Canadian Mission had already been more than once the object of hostilities in a small way. Yet one would like to know whether in their new buildings they were consulting Chinese taste, or building some hideous European erection which must offend the æsthetic feelings of every Chinaman that sees it. In this city of beautiful roof-curves a foreign house, without any proportion being observed between its windows and wall space, without any sweep of overhanging eaves, and built as no architect, European or Chinese, would build it, strikes a dissonance like a wrong note in music, and must be very irritating to those attuned from childhood to the laws of beauty in architecture. Why we should insist upon the Chinese swallowing our ugly clothes and ugly houses before they receive our beautiful gospel of glad tidings, I never can understand, except by reminding myself that that gospel never came from Shanghai or New York, but from that very Asia where still truth and beauty seem to Asiatics synonymous and interchangeable.