It is now four years and more since I wrote (for the Missionary of Sept. 1878), an article under this title, “China for Christ.” I said that this was the motto of our mission—inscribed, indeed, as the legend on our corporate seal—because one chief source of our enthusiasm in our mission work in California, is that we hope by means of it to help dissipate the darkness of the great empire across the sea. The object of that article was to invite our American Missionary Association to undertake a mission having its headquarters at Hong Kong, but reaching out especially into those districts of the province of Kwang Tung, from which our Chinese came. It would be extravagant to hope that that appeal might be fresh in the memory of many of the readers of our magazine. But the matter of which it treats has never been absent for a day from the thoughts and prayers of the more earnest and advanced of our Chinese brethren. Nothing has sufficed to discourage their prayers. Repeatedly we have been made to understand that the Association could not undertake this work in addition to its other tasks, but the brethren prayed on. I thought that I had said all that I could say, and done all that I could do, to bring to pass what seemed to me so pressingly important, and had become almost silent, waiting, I trust, on the Lord. But the prayers and the faith of these brethren would not let me be still. They seemed deaf to the negatives I brought them. “What are you going to do with this money?” I said to one of them, referring to a sum of several hundred dollars which the Congregational Association of Christian Chinese has gathered and placed at interest. “We are keeping it till the Hong Kong mission is established,” was the prompt reply. Year after year they have counseled, prayed and waited, and, it seems, have waited not in vain.
Through the influence of individuals belonging to the Executive Committee of the A. M. A., and with the cordial and joyful God-speed of the Committee as a whole, the American Board has determined to listen to this appeal, and—to use the apt expression of Dr. Alden in his letter to me—“to accept this sacred trust.” Our readers may be assured that no time was lost in sending the good news to the brethren. At their assembly at our Central Mission House that evening there was glad thanksgiving, and with it fresh and fervent prayer. To receive what one has long been craving, sometimes almost makes one tremble. Our mission, as a “sacred trust,” seems doubly sacred to me, now. Its possibilities are magnified beyond computation, and the mistakes into which we shall certainly fall, unless we are guided by a wisdom better than our own, look fraught with such loss, such disaster, that I shrink from the responsibility which I knew all along the answer to our prayers would certainly involve. Let all our friends pray for us with new faith and new ardor, that from among the Chinese in California a genuine Salvation Army may be gathered—Bible readers, colporteurs, pastors, teachers, evangelists—that, under the direction of some wise and warm-hearted American missionary, residing at Hong Kong, may advance to the conquest of China for Christ.
The Closed Gates.
On the 4th day of this month of August, the new law against Chinese immigration went into effect. The hardships and inconveniences it involves, already—in some minor instances—begin to appear. But the main effect has been to stimulate immigration to such an extent that the Chinese population of our Pacific slope is at least 33 per cent. larger to-day that it was seven months ago. The arrivals during the six months ending July 31 were 25,733; the departures, 3,627; the gain, 22,106. This increase will diffuse itself to some extent over the entire country—not all of it remaining on this side the continent—but almost all of it staying in America, a permanent addition to our Chinese element. More and more will the privilege of returning be prized by those who go back to their native land for with a temporary stoppage of the immigration there will come a relative diminution of the supply, and a consequent increase in the compensation of Chinese labor. Let no one imagine then that the passage of this law is likely to bring to a speedy close our missionary opportunity. Thus far it has greatly increased our work, and never before did we look over the rapidly approaching line between the old year and the new and see such hopeful indications as we see to-day. Let me give a few figures from the statistics for July; New pupils, 230; total number enrolled, 971; average attendance, 467. Total number enrolled as pupils in our schools during eleven months of this fiscal year, 2,373. These numbers are greater by almost 35 per cent. than those of the corresponding month of last year, and those of that month were greater, I believe, than any ever before recorded. The gain will not be so great in the future, but it will not cease because for a time the immigration ceases. Nothing can stop it but a stoppage of supplies. And of that—thank God that I may speak so confidently by faith in Him and in his people—of that I have no fear.
MISSIONARY CLASS IN CHINA.
An Interesting Scene.
The last communion season in Bethany Church occurred August 6th. It was one of the few such seasons in which we have received no Chinese to membership. But when from two Christian Chinese families four children were presented for baptism, I felt with fresh joy and power that God’s seal of blessing was manifest upon our mission work. Two of the children were boys, sons of Jee Gam, our veteran helper, who made so many friends while on a visit eastward two years since. The other two were daughters of Chung Mon, one of the first group of Chinese whom it was my privilege to baptize—a staunch and steadfast believer, long president of our Christian Association. His wife is a faithful Christian, a member of the Methodist Church, and if you go into his home you will see, in the tenderness and affection with which the Christian father fondles his daughters, what Christ-life in a Chinese heart has done for budding womanhood. Sons could not have been welcomed more heartily or cared for more lovingly. Nothing there of that sentiment prevalent in all heathendom, illustrated in the story of “China Mary,” in our August Missionary, that the birth of a daughter is a token of the anger of the gods. The wife of Jee Gam has been in California only about a year, the older son having been born in China. She does not yet call herself a Christian, but hopes to become one, she says—when she can learn a little more. Our brother looks on his two boys and tells the longing of his heart, by saying, “I hope they may both become missionaries in my native land.”