Now what is to be the result in this case? It must be reaction. There must come reaction against American commerce, losing more than it gains, reaction against American integrity as to treaty stipulations, awakening Chinese distrust and hate, casting a blight upon Western civilization and, worst of all, defeating American Christianity.
The great American nation has divided at the Chinese quarter. Say what you will, that Chinese quarter in San Francisco has become the great moral divortium or water-shed of America where Christian and anti-Christian sentiment divide. On one side the Chinese workman is mobbed, excluded; on the other he is educated and led to Christ. On the one side men act for party ends and call the Chinaman a “heathen dog;” on the other they recognize him with all his infirmities as a man for whom Christ died, and call him brother. This is a tremendous responsibility we assume when we thus prejudice a fifth part of the human family against the religion of Christ.
Now, then, if we make special pleas for the Indian because we have manifestly wronged him and ought to make amends; if we are under special obligation to the freedman because we have sinned against him, or because he may become an important link between our Christianity and perishing Africa, why is not the same argument good for the Chinese on the Pacific coast? Surely, in God’s sight, these ten black years ought to be ten very bright years for the Christian schools for Chinamen in California. China ought to have at the end of that time a larger force of native missionaries trained up on the Pacific slope than all the Christian workers employed in that great empire to-day. The truth is, we are all taking one side or the other of this question. In deciding which it shall be let us keep in mind the noble sentiment of Henry Richard. Speaking on the opium question in the House of Commons, he said, “I am not ashamed to say that I am one of those who believe that there is a God who ruleth in the kingdom of men, and that it is not safe for a community, any more than an individual, recklessly and habitually to affront those great principles of truth and justice and humanity, on which, I believe, He governs the world. And we may be quite sure of this, that, in spite of our pride of place and power, in spite of our vast possessions and enormous resources, in spite of our boasted force by land and sea, if we come into conflict with that Power we shall be crushed like an egg-shell against the granite rock.”
Better still, let us listen again for the serious tone of the Divine prayer in that upper room. “I pray for them; I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me, for they are thine. And now I am no more in the world but these are in the world. Holy Father, keep them!” While the shadow of to-morrow’s cross was already darkening his path, his thought was not for himself but for them. “These are in the world,” and to be in it, to work, to choose, to suffer in it—“in the world,” and so are tempted to use the world’s tactics, tempted to lose sight of their great commission and to become callous to the world’s needs—“in the world,” and so they have to settle momentous questions—“in the world,” having to meet its pains, its storms, its falsehood, its curse, its fascinations, and so, may lose sight of the claims of thy kingdom of love: Holy Father, keep them! Keep them!
REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON FINANCE.
Your Committee on Finance beg leave to report that they have examined the Treasurer’s statements of receipts and expenditures and find them properly certified as correct by the auditors. Also the trial balance, and the list of trust funds, and the books of accounts are so certified.
The trust funds appear to be securely invested and wisely administered for the purposes for which they were created.
We find that the accounts of the Treasurer are carefully kept and that the control and disbursement of the current funds of the Association are conducted in a thoroughly systematic and business-like manner, with ample safeguards against error and loss.