Directors: Rev. George Mooar, D. D., Hon. E. D. Sawyer, Rev. E. P. Baker, James M. Haven, Esq., Rev. Joseph Rowell, Rev. John Kimball, E. P. Sanford, Esq.
Secretary: Rev. W. C. Pond. Treasurer: E. Palache, Esq.
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE.
The report opens with stating the greatness of the problems with which the Association has to grapple, protests against the discriminating legislation of State and nation, and concludes as follows:
We regard the work of this Association among the Chinamen in America as fruitful in good results. Its Superintendent on the field has said: “I doubt whether any evangelistic labor in connection with our churches has yielded larger results, in proportion to the funds employed and the breadth which we have been permitted to give to the work.” That work has been limited. Out of $179,000 expended by this Association last year, only $6,596 was given to this work. This was increased a little by other funds in California. But this sum, applied to twelve schools, with twenty-one teachers and 1,489 pupils, is too small for the greatness of the work, for the 100,000 Chinamen in this country have the closest relations with the millions left at home. They are constantly coming and going. The Rev. W. C. Pond said in 1876 that during the fourteen preceding years nearly 130,000 had landed in San Francisco, or about 9,000 annually; but they are returning nearly or quite as fast as they come. They are “picked young men, industrious, enterprising, persistent.” As they come to us, feel our molding touch to harden or to soften, and then return home, we owe it to them, to ourselves, and to Christ, to pass as much as possible of this moving stream of immortal souls through our schools and under the influence of One greater than Confucius. We want the returning stream to bear on its bosom the glad tidings of the Lord Jesus Christ. We, therefore, recommend the enlargement of this work to its utmost demand. It touches vitally the evangelization of 400,000,000 of brothers and sisters. This work is broader than that among the Indian and the Negro; it is broader than the evangelization of Africa. We press its importance, therefore, both upon the officers and the constituent members of this Association, for by and by we may see in it the Divine purpose to redeem China by means of the Chinamen returning home laden with the riches of grace, more precious than gold.
Your committee desire to express their high appreciation of the able and exhaustive paper on the Chinese question read before the Association by the Rev. J. H. Twichell, and submitted to this committee, and recommend its publication.
Your committee deem it of great importance suitably to recognize the action of President Hayes in saving us by a veto from national disgrace. When Congress had so far forgotten the whole past policy of our Government, and the principles of Christianity imbedded in the foundations of the Republic, as to pass a bill indirectly abrogating a treaty unmentioned in the bill, the Executive interposed and saved both our treaty and our honor.
We would suggest, therefore, the expression of our appreciation of his action in the adoption of the following resolution, viz.:
Resolved, That the American Missionary Association, assembled in its thirty-third anniversary, believing that the treaties existing between the United States and China, so far as they relate to the rights of emigration from one country to the other, and the treatment such emigrants should receive from the people and nation among whom and in which they live, are right, just, wise and Christian, does heartily record its appreciation of the high services which President Hayes, under God, has, by his timely veto of the anti-Chinese bill, been enabled to render the Republic, in preserving inviolate its treaty obligations and also the cause of Christianity, in removing a threatened formidable barrier to the evangelization of the Chinese, not only in America, but also in their native land, and the Association hereby tenders him its profound thanks for the same.