By Rev. W. C. Pond.
The new fiscal year opens most hopefully. It began September 1, and the statistics for September which I have just compiled show a larger enrolment and a larger average attendance than was ever before reported in the whole history of our work. The figures are these: 15 schools; 661 pupils enrolled; average attendance, 332. Among these pupils are 200 who are reported as having ceased from idol-worship, and 137 who give evidence of conversion. There are other hopeful features—a good band of teachers and helpers, numbering 27, not one among them now whom I would like to have resign, and a spreading and deepening interest in this work among our churches, and peace in all our borders. The hoodlum element is measurably quiet, and we work without molestation, except as now and then the heathen cousins or uncles of some of our young converts try what virtue there is in stripes to exorcise from them the Christian devil. The boldness and the constancy which some who are still children—scarcely in their teens—have shown, declaring to their persecutors when dragged before an idol, “I will not worship it, though you kill me,” remind one of the legends of primitive Christianity.
But I turn from all points of interest in our work here to press once more on the members and friends of the Association the opportunity there is and the need there is for its commencing a
WORK IN CHINA.
I will venture to assume that much of what I myself have written before about this, and what Jee Gam wrote nearly a year ago, is still remembered. I am glad to say that in the populous districts from which our Chinese come there is now one American missionary—Rev. D.D. Jones—American, though born in Wales. Bro. Jones as a layman at Cheyenne, Wy. Ter., had his heart stirred for the Chinese in that place. Commencing a mission among them, he afterwards went to Chicago to do like work there, and then to Boston on a similar errand. At length he sought ordination, and went forth, appointed by no society, to become a self-sustaining missionary in China. It is a comfort to me to give to each of our returning Chinese a letter to him, though probably in many instances the probability of their seeing him is very small.
Is it asked: “What would we do by our mission, if we had it established?” We would, first of all, give a cordial Christian greeting at Hong Kong to every Christian Chinese returning from California: we would bring them off ship into an atmosphere warm with Christian love; we would bring them into meetings for prayer; and would then let them go out to their old heathen homes, baptized with the Holy Ghost. In the same spirit we would meet them as they come back on their return to California, calling for reports of their experiences, the temptations they have met, the testimony they have borne, and the results which have followed their words. Then, we would make our mission house at Hong Kong a rendezvous and training school for such of our Chinese as may be fitted or could become fitted for evangelistic work among their countrymen. We ought to raise up many such through our work in California. The wise word, “Africans for Africa,” has double wisdom when you read it “Chinese for the conquest of China for Christ!” They have the hard language already; they know from childhood the ways of the people; they know from personal experience the darkness, the fear, the soul-hunger and the woe of heathenism. It would not be wise to send them forth with no American supervision; but evidently here is a great force at present little used, that, properly directed, might be wielded for the salvation of multitudes, and the Christianization of the greatest empire of darkness the world now knows; perhaps has ever known.
“But isn’t the ground already occupied? How many missionary societies are already operating in and around Canton? Why add one more?” I have no statistics at hand, and speaking thus from general knowledge alone I must keep far within the truth; but I am surely safe in saying that of competent missionaries, either Chinese or foreign, there are not in the provinces of South China one to 100,000 people; I know that I am safe in saying that, in the districts from which our Chinese come there is not more than one to 350,000. I risk nothing, I think, in affirming that Central Africa has to-day more missionaries in proportion to its population than these districts of China to which I have referred. Certainly many a helper might be added before any society now on the ground could possibly find itself jostled by neighbors.
Besides, we should have our own special methods and our own special field, growing naturally out of the relationship between the mission here and the mission there; such that while we should largely enter into the labors of brethren who have preceded us; using the books that they have prepared; availing ourselves of various conveniences that they have contrived, we should in turn supplement and extend their work and multiply their joys. We should be then, not as competitors, but as co-workers—one in spirit and mutually helpful.
“But wouldn’t it cost too much?” Too much for what? Too much for the souls that would be saved? More that these souls are worth? Not one of our readers thinks this. But this is the question: Would it not cost too much for our treasury to bear, loaded as it already is with such heavy responsibilities? I reply that it would not be very costly. Two American missionaries, a little property in Hong Kong, a rented chapel here and there in the larger villages and the small stipends of the Chinese evangelists; this would be all. It would not call for a larger sum unless, in the good providence and by the dear Spirit of God, it came to be, by virtue of its own success, a large work; and then contributions would flow in for it, so that by means of it the treasury would be enriched rather than depleted. I seldom prophesy; but I will venture to say this, that when the American Missionary Association has once taken hold of this work, and adopted as one of its mottoes: “China for Christ,” it will take but a brief period—a very few years—to give it such a place in all our hearts that we would sooner think of cutting off our right hands than of relaxing our grasp on that land as ours to be won for Christ.