Exclude them, said the politicians, and close out thus forever the problem their presence involves. This seems, at first sight, a simple and easy, albeit a rather rough, answer. And so the Exclusion bill became a law. But it is almost certain that there are more Chinese in America to-day because of that law than there would have been without it. They came in such great numbers after the law was enacted and before it went into operation that (as I think) the decrease in immigration since that date has not as yet offset that increase.
For nearly three years on our shore our King Canute has sat in his royal chair forbidding the tide to rise. As long as ebb-tide lasts his authority seems to be respected, and the problem of these diurnal encroachments of the sea upon the land seems to be solved. But when the time for flood-tide comes again, Canute will have to move his chair, his mandates to the contrary notwithstanding. Already, if rumor is to be believed, a profitable business is conducted upon Puget Sound in smuggling Chinese from Vancouver's Island to our forbidden soil. Certain it is that many Chinese, failing to get tickets at Hong Kong for San Francisco, buy them to Victoria. Already it becomes a serious question what fence can be built along our northern frontier so close, so strong, so high that no Chinese can anywhere climb over, or crawl under, or work through. Mexico wants the Chinese, we hear. How far is it from the northern line of Mexico to the southern line of California and Arizona? And once across that line our Chinese invaders, coming slyly one by one, have won the fight and go and come at their own pleasure.
Exclusion has not solved this problem, and it is safe to add that, as it should not, so it never will. For this policy is in contradiction to the vital principles of our national existence; and either it must be abandoned, or sooner or later this contradiction will develop into conflict irrepressible. Those vital principles are two: "All men created equal," and "All men endowed with certain inalienable rights," etc. Our fathers counted them to be self-evident, and placed them as twin pillars in our temple of liberty. Now, a nation cannot knock out its own foundation stones, cannot defy the laws of its own organic life without becoming divided against itself; and in the conflict ensuing, either its vital principles will be reaffirmed and rehabilitated, or else the nation dies. We have had one lesson at this point, and we ought not to need another for a dozen centuries. Exclusion is only a make-shift of the politicians, not the offspring of real statesmanship. It has not solved the problem, and it never will.
What then shall we do? Educate and Christianize these heathen, we reply: So you will make them to be Chinese no longer, but Americans. This is the right answer, but, alas, how much easier said than done! The undertaking, hard enough at first, grows harder, in some respects, as the years roll on.
One added difficulty is the wider diffusion of these strangers over our whole country. The prejudice which their peculiarities excite is thus extended, while the number to be reached in any one locality is diminished. Work for the Chinese ought now to be prosecuted, not simply in Sunday schools, but in Mission schools, kept in session every evening and alt through the year in most of the principal cities of the whole Union, as well as on the Pacific Coast. But the outward and visible encouragements will be smaller, because each Mission finds its particular field reduced in size.
Another added difficulty is in an increased and deepened antagonism on the part of the great mass of Chinese to real Christianity. Multitudes have seen enough of the true light to reject it; and having rejected, now to hate it. Oh, it drives one back to God in an agony of mingled longing and despair to see this mighty multitude that will not come and be saved, drifting along in darkness and wretchedness through this life to the blackness of darkness beyond! And this is intensified by the thought of the children now quite numerous in our Chinese communities. We know to what the daughters are destined. We know what it is that gives them, in this country, a special money value; and as to the sons, one can scarcely conceive circumstances more perilous than those in which they are placed. Breathing our free American air, entering readily into the Young America spirit, they will not brook the harsh discipline which, in their native land, would have been submissively and perhaps with profit accepted. At the same time, the parents ill understand that discipline of love which adjusts itself to these new circumstances, and when it can no longer compel, succeeds in wooing and winning and molding aright the boyish heart. Demons incarnate, both American and Chinese, tempt these boys, while they are unprotected by any reverence either for the ancestors and idols of their own people or for the American God whom Americans by their conduct so cruelly belie.
And this suggests another added difficulty: the contrast which our Chinese Christians cannot but observe between the precepts of the Bible, the example of Christ, the exhortations of those who led them to Jesus, and the practices of multitudes of American professors of religion. And, too often, they are led to do as we do, and not as we say. While at the same time the indifference of many professed Christians to the salvation of this Chinese, and the attitude of many churches toward those already converted, loads the problem down with difficulties such as might well drive us to despair.
But, no; nothing shall drive us to despair. This problem must be solved. This mountain mass of heathenism must be—not removed and cast into the sea, but transformed into the mountain of the Lord's house, and made an element—an element of untold value and efficiency—in our American Zion. Let us have faith as the grain of mustard seed. Let us hear the voice which adds to our great commission the promise: "Lo, I am with you alway." Let us take courage at the remembrance of mercies past. With all these difficulties upon us it still remains true that no other non-Protestant foreigners are as accessible to us as the Chinese; and that in proportion to the resources of men and money used, scarcely any evangelistic work yields equal visible returns. There is only one thing to do—for Christ's sake, for our country's sake, for the sake of the uncounted millions beyond the sea—we must, and we will, claim and conquer these precious souls for their Redeemer and our Lord.
Wm. C. Pond.