China for Christ.
REV. W. C. POND, SAN FRANCISCO.
A venerable Presbyterian minister of New York, to whom we are indebted for a generous gift to our mission, writes as follows: “I firmly believe that God in his providence is sending the heathen to our doors, in order that they may carry back the blessed news of the gospel to their own land; and if we turn them selfishly away, He will surely require their blood at our hands.”
The truth thus expressed is a chief source of our enthusiasm in our Chinese mission work. “China for Christ” is our motto. I wish to lay before the readers of the Missionary some of the facts in view of which we believe that we do reach China, though we are working here 10,000 miles away.
There is nothing improbable in the idea. Indeed, it scarcely could be otherwise. Hardly a steamer sails for China that does not carry one or more of our pupils back to his native land. Most of these are heathen still; but they are heathen with their eyes at least half-opened. These, even, cannot be exactly what they were. But many of them are Christians, as we confidently hope. Will these go there to be silent? When neighbors and friends gather about them, to hear the accounts they have to give of things in the Sunrise Land, will they forget to tell of the Saviour they have found? I do not believe it would be possible. The message to which they have listened will be as a fire in their bones, and they will feel that they must bear it on. Letters, too, are passing back continually; and these are not empty of gospel. A missionary at Canton writes me that the mother of one of our brethren lives near his mission-house. “She enjoys the money he remits, but is not pleased with his urging her to be a Christian.” I hear incidentally that the parents of another of our brethren have been visiting all the shrines near them, and, with wailings and prayers, have placed their votive offerings where they thought they would do good, hoping that thus he would be won back from Christian heresy to their ancestral orthodoxy. What passes here in this regard is not unknown at the old Chinese homesteads; and what is known is felt.
But we ought not to be content with these spontaneous and sporadic operations. We do not rise to the height of our great opportunity while we leave this thing to work itself. It ought to be worked energetically, systematically. Never was battery better placed for storming a stronghold than we are here, for pouring shot, hot with the love of Christ, into that empire-fortress of selfishness and superstition across the sea; but we need heavier guns, more ammunition, and a truer aim.
About four years ago, Wong Min died at Canton. He was spoken of after his death as “the distinguished native pastor of the Baptist Church in Canton.” It was said that, in the absence of American missionaries, he had carried the pastoral care of three Baptist churches, and all were flourishing. Wong Min was converted at Sacramento, in this State. Returning to his native land, he began to tell in the streets and elsewhere the good news of redeeming love. His work attracted the attention of Baptist missionaries, and they took him into regular mission work. He had been at it more than twenty years when the Master called him higher. But he has left a son walking in his father’s steps—a preacher of great promise. Why have we not by this time sent back to China a hundred Wong Mins? It might have been done; it ought to have been done. How large the blessing if it had been done! We are verily guilty in this matter.
You will think me extravagant. “One hundred,” you say, “is a large number; it would be a large proportion of the whole number reported as converted in California from the beginning of missionary effort to the present time.” I know it; but I do not flinch. It could have been done, and the doing of it would have reacted on the work here, and helped us to larger harvesting.
1. I observe that our Christian Chinese have a strong desire to do this work. One of them once wrote me as follows: “In China, those who live in the villages don’t know Jesus and never heard of Him. I am sorry I cannot go home. If I could fly I would go home immediately, and tell how good and how kind Jesus is. Then I think they would all learn to love Him also. I want all our people in China to be Christian, and our mothers and sisters and friends to get the key, so they will go to heaven when they die.” I shall never forget the joy that shone in the face of our Jee Gam when he told me, a few months since, that a mission had been established near his home. Soon after, I found him writing for other eyes than mine—“Oh, how glad I feel whenever I think of this mission-house in my own beloved district. How much I am indebted to the ever-living and merciful Father for sending these missionaries there!” In expressions like these, these brethren represent the almost universal feeling among our Chinese believers—not from San Francisco and Oakland alone, but from San Leandro, from Petaluma, from Santa Barbara, from Stockton. As conversions are reported, there comes again and again the suggestion that such or such a one wants to learn how to preach the Gospel in his native land.