And to the affront perpetrated in the halls of Congress in addition to the offset furnished by the public attitude, there has been a special one, too remarkable not to be mentioned. It was a most lamentable spectacle to see a man like James G. Blaine, of New England, in the eminence of his position, his great gifts and his reputation, stand up in the United States Senate, and before the world turn the power of his rare eloquence against the cause of the weak. It was too bad. It cannot be excused. But not only did his utterances call out replies from the most capable and influential sources, notably from Dr. S. Wells Williams, long resident in China, but now of Yale College, than whom there is no higher authority on China and Chinese affairs living; from Henry Ward Beecher, in a splendid address given in Philadelphia on the 3d of last March; and from William Lloyd Garrison, in a noble letter of protest, his dying deliverance, the last shot the old warrior for humanity fired;—not only, I say, did Mr. Blaine provoke these replies by which he was convicted of ignorance and fallacy and his argument throughout annihilated; but it happened that almost at the same time he was misrepresenting both China and us at the Capitol, another citizen of this country, in the eminence of a still more illustrious fame, was in the far East, in the audience of China herself, speaking our true mind for us; for it was to a delegation of the Chinese merchants of Penang that, in the month of April of the present year, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, in that felicity of well-chosen and straightforward simple speech that is characteristic of him, said, “The hostility of which you complain does not represent the real sentiment of America, but is the work of demagogues. * * * I do not doubt, and no one can doubt, that in the end, no matter what effect the agitation for the time being may have, the American people will treat the Chinese with kindness and justice, and not deny to the true and deserving people of your country the asylum they offer to the rest of the world.” And may God bless him for saying it.
Moreover, in the month of June following, this same man of great deeds and weighty speech, in an interview with certain of the highest officials of the empire at Peking, and at their request, offered counsel, which a few weeks later, on a like request, he repeated in an interview with the Emperor of Japan, to the effect that the time had now arrived when the two nations of China and Japan, in peace and close alliance with one another, should no longer submit as they had done to the interference and dictation of foreign powers in their affairs; should assume control of their own commerce, and together stand for their independence and their proper rights, as it became so great nations to do, and as they were able to do against the world. God bless him for saying that, too! It was the most seasonable word, next to the Gospel, that has been spoken on that side of the world in this age. And I, for one, am thankful and proud that it was an American who had the breadth of vision and the magnanimity to speak it.
And now there remains to be spoken of an outcome of good from the anti-Chinese agitation that is of more immediately practical consequence than any other. It has been the occasion of calling universal and earnest attention, such as had not been drawn to it before, and such as it is scarcely conceivable could have been drawn to it otherwise, to the fact of the presence within our borders of so many of the Chinese people. The nation at large is now aware of them and informed with respect to them. While it is not yet settled what is to be done with them politically, and while no doubt there will be further contention over them, it does seem to be settled that they are not to go by a violent dismissal. Here they are, then, more than a hundred thousand souls of them, and here they are to stay. They are an object of the very highest interest, and that for more reasons than one. Not only are they such in themselves, but they constitute by far the most vital point of our contact with that great nation beyond the sea, and afford the most available means and medium of reaching it that we possess. And we are interested in them on our own account. By their presence we have already been put to the test in one way, and we are still to be tested by them in other ways. We are to be tested as to the capacity of our civil institutions, and as to the power of our religion—no, not as to the power of our religion, but as to our power in it.
It is one of the most humiliating confessions that can be made, to say that these people cannot be granted room on our soil, with liberty and justice under our laws, with safety to ourselves. It is a still more humiliating confession to say that the attempt to Christianize them is a hopeless one.
Is it so that in their case we have come to the end of our resources for securing men the exercise and enjoyment of their few inalienable rights under our Government? Then they are vastly less than we had thought. Is it so that the encounter of our Christianity with heathenism in the persons of a few score thousand pagans, here on our ground, within hearing of our Sabbath bells, is too much to be ventured, lest heathenism win the day? Then there is not enough to our Christianity to make it much matter.
It is all absurd to say such things. It is not indeed to be questioned that the problem of dealing with this strange element thrown in upon us is a perplexed and difficult one; but it is not the first perplexed and difficult matter we have had to accommodate, nor is it the last. Our labors as a nation are not over. The time when there will be no perilous or incommoding exigencies arising to disturb our ease as citizens is far distant. Who thinks it not so is greatly mistaken. As other vexing problems in the past have been solved, so with patience this Chinese problem can be without sacrifice of principle.
OUR CHRISTIAN DUTY.
It is a work in which the state and the church must co-operate. But we are here to-day to look especially to the part which the latter has in it—as servants of Christ and as representatives of the Christian community to attend to the cry of the poor that comes to us from the Pacific coast, and to consider how we shall respond to it.
The one thing which we are disallowed, be it first of all observed, is to deem that our principal duty in the premises is discharged by giving hard words to California. We are not to sit in judgment on California. We are not in a position to do so, and I trust we are not disposed to do so. There are reasons which the rest of the country does not perceive, certainly does not feel as California does, why the presence in her population of this unassimilated foreign mass is very undesirable and very trying. Not a doubt of it. I have heard Yung Wing himself say it. We may with propriety, in view of some reasons, on the other hand, that naturally enough we see more clearly than they do in California, plead with our fellow-citizens there to try and discern the larger aspects of the situation, and to bear whatsoever ills it entails upon them till they can be remedied in the way that is best for all of us and for all men. If I had the ear of the Irish citizens of California I would plead with them, as lately foreigners themselves, and as sons of a church that for more than five hundred years has befriended China through her missions, and is still doing it, to regard these new foreigners with more kindness.
California is a grand State—splendid in her youthful prime—a queenly figure sitting there on her golden shore—our own flesh and blood. Our warmest sympathies, our best hopes are with her. To look upon any fault of hers with less than a generous charity is out of character, and besides, in the present instance, it is nothing to the purpose. The only course for Christian America to take at this juncture is to offer California our Christian service. That we can do, and the way of it is plain. There are faithful brethren and faithful churches in California ready and waiting for help in the work already by them inaugurated, and carried on sufficiently far to prove beyond cavil the practicability of its success, bringing these Chinese thousands under the sway of the gospel of Christ. Some help we have sent them, but not enough. There ought to be abundance of it; not only abundance, but a sufficiency—all that can be used to advantage. This is a mission that ought to be lavishly supported, that ought not to be stinted as respects either money or men. And the time to push it is now. If the churches of the country will encourage and assist the enterprise in a free-handed, free-hearted, neighborly way—the churches of our order, through the agency of this vigorous and patriotic Association—the Chinese question would ere long be satisfactorily and permanently disposed of. Nothing would be so effectual to modify and reshape the public sentiment of California upon it as such a Christian demonstration. Nothing would more effectually contribute to the evangelization of China. Nor is there anything at present within our power that would apparently do more to hasten the conversion of the world.