Buddhism, the religion of China which owns most of the finer pagodas and temples, celebrated in 1912 the 2500th anniversary of Buddha. They do not celebrate Buddha’s birth in the body, but rather birth in the mind or soul, the celebration being called “the anniversary of Buddha’s enlightenment.” Despite the troubles that Buddhism has encountered at the instigation of the government’s amban in Tibet, the celebration occurred there with avidity, as it did also in Mongolia, at Kuren, etc. Throughout the rest of the land, despite the prominence of Confucianism, Taoism and Christianity, the Buddhists made their anniversary well known. Every one was interested in those who once taught that man should be clean, and sincere in good works, and should love his fellow man disinterestedly. The thousand little rules for purchasing a specific pardon in the next world have, however, confused the Chinese mind, and many of those who looked on called the ritual now merely a mass of superstition. No one can deny that this is the world’s most picturesque religion which the Chinese imported from India so long ago, and of which they are now the leading exponents. There are temples in San Francisco, San Jose, Sacramento and London also. If Buddhism were purified from its accretion of rites, and took up again vigorous sermons on the virtues, responsibility and self-sacrifice, as in the days when Asoka’s preachers started out to convert the world to doctrines of service, it would not be a long step from Buddhism to Christianity.

Architecturally, the world enthuses over Buddhism, and now that travel to China is increasing, a cry is going up over the artistic world: “Save the incomparable pagodas and temples for art’s sake, for they can never be repeated, the spirit having departed.” Many of the temples are dropping to pieces, as in the break-up of old faiths the bonzes have been unable to collect the money which is necessary for upkeep. The government is maintaining some of the temples, but it uses them as schools, and the monks themselves have turned some of the temples into inns. The nation, rich merchants and interested foreigners might take part in preserving these beautiful monuments, and Christianity, which is spreading in China, is wide enough in its charity to appreciate and wish to preserve the beautiful architecture of Buddhism. Let experiments be tried; let the government, with its supreme authority, buy out some beautiful Buddhist temples and pagodas and turn them over as headquarters to Christian schools or medical missions. The Buddhist monks are a forlorn-looking set, their parishioners contributing too little for their support. This parsimony has induced the monks to invent the system of superstitious credit indulgences and absolutions, which, by working on their fears regarding the future life, they compel the Chinese—particularly the women—to buy.

As a rule the statues of Buddha are solemn or gentle-faced, as in the Temple of the Five Hundred Genii at Canton. But there is one hilarious exception, the laughing gilded Buddha of the Ming Hong Temple, near Shanghai. The god’s eyebrows, nose, eyes, mouth and chin all curve into great bows of mirth, like the irresistible Coquelin’s face in a full-blooded comedy, or DeWolf Hopper’s face in Wang! The Buddhist priests who run inns keep a guests’ literary book, in which one will find sentiments written by many of the world’s noted travelers. The priests wear a yellow gown. Over the left shoulder hangs an over-gown, made of square red patches, sewed together, typifying the vow and rags of poverty. On the walls of the famous Lung Chang Buddhist Monastery, near Chingtu, in Szechuen province, hangs a celebrated text reconciling Buddhist and Christian teachings on the doctrine of peace. The Chinese hang a popular text on the walls, which corresponds with “God bless our home.” It is “Tien Kun Kong Fuk” (May Heaven send happiness).

Disfiguring by branding, just as the Romanists used to flagellate themselves, has not died out in China, for some of the Buddhist and Taoist monks of Soochow and elsewhere bear regular scars on their shaven heads and on their limbs, placed there to show penance during fasts, and to gain a reputation for holiness, or to use the Chinese phrase, “attain virtue.” The late Empress Dowager Tse Hsi liked to assume the character of the Buddhist goddess Kwan Yun, and have herself painted with bare feet riding on a lotus leaf; in her hand a rosary; and wearing a blue veil, gray robes, a gold, garnet and pearl crown, earrings and necklaces. The eunuchs and friends of the empress always referred to her as the “Old Buddha,” which was the nickname that she liked the best. It is worthy of note that the Taiping rebels in the 60’s destroyed Buddhist temples and slew the bonzes, largely because the Buddhists of that time were opposed to progress and oppressed the poor with their “privileged orders.” On account of his not marrying, the Chinese call a bonze a “Chek Ke” (forsake family). They are, therefore, despised by Chinese men, but have a stronger hold on the women, with their picturesque religion, and good omens whenever they are paid for them.

On the first and fifteenth of each month, a musical service is held before dawn in the two thousand Confucian temples scattered throughout China. These temples all contribute a little toward the support of Confucius’s seventy-seventh direct descendant, Prince Kung Fut Tsze (which Latinized is Confucius), of Shangtung, though some of the Kungs are Christians. The Confucian temples contain red and gold tablets of Confucius and his disciples instead of the statues appearing in the Buddhist, Taoist and War temples of the land. When Kwang Hsu, the reform emperor, issued an edict in 1898 that modern schools should be formed, he ordered that some of the Confucian temples should be impressed. Confucius did not institute ancestor worship in 550 B.C. He found that it existed in his own state of Lu (present Shangtung province) and in the adjoining states of Tsi on the north and Wei and Sung on the west, all of whom had taken it, with the sacred tripods, from the parent Chou clan, which brought them from misty prehistoric days thousands of years back. To Confucius, credit should be given for adopting ancestor worship as an indispensable rite in the organization of the growing Tsu clan and of the future conqueror and federator of China, the Tsin clan, which latter eventually ended feudalism, which was then, however, adopted by Japan and carried forward to our own day. Let us quote here the stern Carlyle’s sympathetic tribute to the ancestor worship of the Chinese: “The emperor and his millions visit yearly the tombs of their fathers; each man the tomb of his father and his mother; alone there, in silence, with what of worship or of other thought there may be, pauses solemnly each man; the divine skies all silent over, the divine graves—and this divinest grave—all silent under him; the pulsings of his own soul alone audible. Truly it may be a kind of worship. Truly if a man can not get some glimpse into the Eternities, looking through this portal, through what other need he try it?” Attempts have been, and doubtless will continue to be made to revivify or modernize Confucianism. The most notable of the viceroys, Chang Chih Tung, of Wuchang, wrote a book called China’s Only Hope with this in view. Confucius was averse to liquor. One of the odes of the Book of Odes, written 1100 B.C., and edited by Confucius, rails against drunkenness. The ode realistically describes a riotous banquet which might have taken place in hilarious Vladivostok in 1904, previous to the war, when sweet Roederer ran like water.

The Pope of Taoism dwells on Lung Hu Mountain, in Kiangsi province. Taoism’s book, the Tao Teh King, written in 604 B.C. by Lao Tsz, speaks of the Triune God of reason, nature and virtue. The sect is now one of astrologers and nature worshipers, and is strong in the southern and eastern provinces. It builds temples and teaches the nature superstition of Feng Shui (Wind and Water), which until recently held the land in thrall against mining, industry and railways. The Taoists have been bitterly anti-foreign. Bows and arrows are sometimes hung up in the green Taoist temples as votive or thank offerings, the sentiment being that they are to kill one’s unpropitious influence or adverse Feng-shui. Taoist priests sometimes wear gorgeous gowns completely covered with embroidery of flowers, insects, birds, animals and the exorcised devil himself. They make a pretty penny by publishing or interpreting an almanac, the day selected possibly reading as follows:

June 10th

LUCKY:

To set sail to-day.
To begin a land journey to-day.
To begin a suit to-day.

UNLUCKY:

To bury your father to-day.
To begin a new well to-day.
To bargain for a wife for your son to-day.
To buy oil to-day.
To sweep your shop to-day.
To hire a cook to-day.

The traveler who has everything ready at Ichang to start on the long journey through the glorious Yangtze gorges and rapids often wonders why his men can not be induced to start. The reason is that they are wading through the Luck Book, thus wasting an unnecessary week. Oil is needed, but it can not be bought on June 5th. Fish are needed, but can not be bought on June 6th. Rope can not be bought on June 7th, and when June 9th comes along it is unlucky to sail on that day. The Taoist priest makes his money by selling your laota (captain) an indulgence to sail on June 9th, for which you have to pay handsomely about ten cents, and the kinshan incense and firecrackers extra! The tiger and the dragon represent the early gods of the terrified aboriginal Chinese, and predate the ancestor worship of the first Chou clan of the north. These emblems have been adopted by the Taoist priests. The grotesque shrines are found among the mountains, a dominating view being necessary for the casting of the “influence.”

Among the aboriginal Lolo tribes of Yunnan an animal represents each day of the month. Accordingly the body of a caravaner is kept for burial until the lucky day of the horse arrives. A coin is put between the lips to pay the way, which shows that the rites are Taoist, and quite similar to old Grecian and Egyptian rites. When the revolutionists were fortifying Hanyang, in October, 1911, they did not hesitate to use a Taoist monastery as a fort in the hills. This marks a step forward against old superstitions, which were once insurmountable. The Chinese declare that a positive omen of a coming conflagration is the crowing of a cock during the night. Of course, all the cooks of Hankau recited this to their masters on the day when the imperialists burned the native city. Statues are many in the temples, monasteries, guild halls, pagodas and road shrines. Although Confucius is generally represented by a tablet merely, there are some temples which have statues of him and his disciples. Buddha is represented by three statues of the Past, Present and Future Buddha. Emperors of popular dynasties have statues erected to them in the temples. Then the Taoists have innumerable gods, including the famous gods of the War Temples. The guilds of the three hundred trades and twenty-one provinces all have patron gods, and it is orthodox to rub your finger on the god’s body in the place that corresponds with your sore spot, if you feel ill! You touch his back if you have lumbago (and find out that he is hollow!); his nose if you have asthma, and so on.

There are household gods; a god “Tsan” of the kitchen; pictures of gods to paste on the gates of the compound, and the God of Literature, who is very popular and has many temples. All over the north the Manchus have erected temples to the Fox, their wily patron god. This dependence on idols is not so dense as in India. The Chinese do it more as a good luck omen, just as we wear an opal or a turquoise, and not always as an essential religious rite. They have too much humor really to be as foolish as they may look when in the god’s presence. A god who doesn’t do his business well is as quickly dragged out by a rope and burned in times of stress as a human being would be treated with contumely whose prophecies always failed. In the south, religious edifices are being occupied for educational and civic purposes. When in 1908 the new learning broke over China like the full burst of a tropical day, the schools at first had to be housed in temples and monasteries. Recently, at Canton, the Wah Lum Monastery was used to entertain a public-spirited Chinese of Singapore, Chang U. Him, who brought both new learning and new wealth. “All interested in industries, self-government, charities and new education” were invited by circular to come up and see him “at the temple!”

Some of their religious proverbs, often touched with humor, are:

“If you must thrash a priest, wait until he has finished praying for you.”

“Man’s myriad schemes are not equal to a thought of God.”

“God gives birth and death to every man, but honors only to the few who deserve them.”

“The deeper your cave, the smaller is your heaven.”

“Man’s blow hits everything but heaven.”

“Do no wrong by light, and you’ll see no devil at night.”

“Penitence is good, but it should be proved by pennies.”

“Though the face is paler, the sin isn’t any whiter.”

“When things go well, we are so hungry that we eat all the meal; when trouble comes, we are glad to give it all to the idol.” “Forget the priest on a fair day, but hug his idol on a foul.”

“A maker of idols never goes to a temple.”

“Fire for gold and trial for the soul.”

“Sorrow for the saint, and chisel for the statue.”

“Sorrow ends where sin begins.”

“Speak of the devil and he drops in.”

“Kind words outlive much frost.”

“Heaven calls the good soon, but doesn’t want the bad till the last.”

“The devil disguises himself less than his followers do.”

“When you forgive your enemy, the wrong pains less.”

“The silver whisper is loudest in the idol’s ear.”

“The whole earth is a coffin; only for the living the lid is not yet hammered down.”

“A lie is like burying the dead in the snow; the secrecy doesn’t last long.”

“The brows of the saints prop the pillars of heaven.”

Says a northern pessimist: “Oh! the hypocrisy of religion; sacrifice a bullock once a year, and steal bullocks all the rest of the year.”

The supercilious man threw this sarcastic shaft at his accoster: “I pick my company.” The mission school man heaped coals of fire on his head with this bland reply: “And your company is proud to pick you.”

The Chinese love to contrast life and death, as is shown in their paintings of pear trees in bloom and willows in bud, while snow lies on mountain peak and hillside.

The Americans at home have established a beautiful custom of casting wreaths into the sea on Decoration Day in commemoration of the dead who were buried or lost at sea, and there is a similar custom at Venice and elsewhere. The Chinese, too, have a Decoration or All Souls’ Day, which is observed by the adherents of the three religions in the first week of September. Red boats and lanterns are set afloat, and the priests burn paper clothing, money and food, and set off firecrackers. Where the ceremony takes place on land, it is customary to throw copper money to the street gamins. The festival is also observed at the magisterial yamens and temples, and Wing Lok Street, Hongkong, is noted for the characteristic observance of the ceremony. The rise of republicanism is going to strike a hard blow at one of the main teachings of Confucianism, “serving the prince,” because there will be no prince to serve and also at “li,” the rule of blind obedience to those in power; following the trade of the parent; destroying children; self-disfigurement; concubinage; expensive funerals and priest-craft; abuse of women; blind worship of the past; suicide of purchased wives; exaggeration of man and minimizing of God; neglect of organized charities and of science and comparative history. This change will make the introduction of Christianity more hopeful. It is to be expected that the worship of ancestors will also weaken, and with it will weaken the custom of early marriages. The Chinese have too many children to educate properly, as the Americans and French have probably too few. A somewhat smaller China would mean a richer and better China.

Catholic missions began in China when by caravan Corvina visited Kublai Khan, at Peking, in 1292 A.D. Ricci arrived at Canton in 1582 and worked in many of the provincial capitals and at Macao and Peking. Schaal worked from 1622 to 1664 and had influence with the greatest and most artistic Manchu emperor, Kang Hi. AbbÉ Huc covered the country from Peking and Tibet to Macao from 1844 onward. The chief educational centers of the Romanists are at Peking, Tientsin, Canton, Macao, Saigon and Hongkong. The large press and college of the Missiones d’Etrangeres is at Hongkong (Aberdeen side of the island). At Peking is their extensive Pei Tang press. They have large, two-spired Gothic cathedrals at Canton, Peking, etc. The square towered cathedral on Caine Road, Hongkong, is the architectural crown of the lovely colony. The Catholics number 1,500,000, their work being strong in orphanages, among women, etc., and in comparison with Protestant missions very weak in higher education and the distributed Bible itself. They consider it expedient to train the child rather than to make the expensive experiment of reasoning with and educating the man. Therefore most of the modernized Chinese officials are Protestants. Naturally the Catholic method brings more converts than does the Protestant.

The American missions almost dominate in the expensive higher education of the land, and it now seems certain that American educational methods, thoroughly tried in China, will be adopted over the world because of their efficiency and altruism. The Protestant missions of Europe, working in China, are as follows: The Scandinavians work in Hupeh and the northern provinces, and while not rich, they have developed effective fearless men of great resource. The German Lutherans are active at Kiaochou, and in the north and the Yangtze valley. The English Baptists, dating back to 1792, have many missions, notably in Shangtung province. The London Missionary Society (mainly Congregational), dating back to 1795, operates largely along the coast, in the south, and at Peking. The Church of Scotland (both Free and Established), which is strong in medical missions, operates notably in Manchuria. The Presbyterian and Methodist Churches of England have many missions throughout the land. The Anglican Church operates chiefly in the great ports; is now strong in higher education, and has erected many fine cathedrals. It has taken under its wing the foreigner in China, who, Kipling charged, did many reckless things “east of Suez!” Even the Friends’ Society of England has missions in China. The China Inland Mission, founded by the noted Doctor Hudson Taylor in 1862, has eight hundred missionaries who altruistically accept the smallest salaries paid in China. Many of them live on the land, in the “faith” method. The method of the organization is by personal contact rather than by expensive, highly organized education. For years this was the most dramatic and heroic mission in the darker provinces of the land. The Salvation Army has also come to China through the world-binding love of that extraordinary man, “General” Booth. American missions dominate in Protestant China, British and Colonial missions being one-half as strong, which means an equal zeal when the population of the two countries is considered.

American missions are stronger in educational, political and medical activities; the British make a specialty of preaching, charities and personal work. The Americans develop more native preachers and translators than any of the other missions, and their confidence in the Chinese is producing wonderful results in reaching toward the establishment of a self-sustaining church some day. No work, except the medical missions, has, however, ever surpassed the aim of the British and Foreign and American Bible Societies to put a translated Bible in the hands of every Chinese. China, foremost of all lands, ranks learning above everything else. By its attitude in specializing in education, the American church has attracted the sympathy of the leaders of the nation. No nation has a monopoly of mission heroes, but the wisdom of the American decision has been at once apparent.

The Roman missions work largely on the medieval plan of: “Give me the child till he is thirteen and I don’t care who gets it after that.” The American Protestants and some of the British say: “Give him to me from thirteen to twenty-three, so that he can understand.” One proselytizes possibly by prejudice and association. The other, imparting all the knowledge possible, trusts to the mind and sense of cultivated justice in the pupil. The Roman orphanages in China outnumber the Protestants five to one. The high-grade schools and colleges of the Americans are almost alone in the field, though the British propose now to follow vigorously. The difference is in attitude. There is no difference between Romanist and Protestant missionary in China in braving death from the hands of pirates, persecution from “Boxers” and others, misery, disease and alienation. The heroes are numberless; their lives are thrilling; their aims are the most altruistic the world has known, and the orchard is in such a flower of fruitage now as to dazzle the altruist’s eye.

It was a matter of great interest to foreigners when the October, 1911, revolution opened, that the chief leader and organizer of the movement, Doctor Sun Yat Sen (Sunyacius) was a Christian, the son of a Cantonese (Fatshan) evangelist. It will be remembered that Siu Tsuen, the leader of the 1848 Taiping rebellion, which marched from Canton to Nanking via the Mei Ling pass, was also a Cantonese Christian, but infinitely inferior to Doctor Sun in education and experience, as well as in character. Eventually Siu fell away from the faith, under the influence of bad advisers, into savagery. The missions were all given advance information previous to the October, 1911, revolution, showing that the Chinese esteem missionaries ahead of diplomats. This is a very precious compliment, and marks the vast advance of Christianity in the hearts of the Chinese “Hoi Polloi.” Even before the October, 1911, rebellion, officials of the old class were throwing away their prejudices against missionaries and welcoming them as angels of light in a way that would have delighted Paul and Barnabas. General Tsen Chun Hsuan, a bloody enough loyalist leader in war, when viceroy of Szechuen province, made this address: “My hope is that the missionary teachers and medical missionaries of America and Britain will spread their gospel more widely than ever, and that the influence of the gospel may bring boundless happiness for our people of China. I shall not be the only one to thank you for your good work. Long live your Gospel.”

The literal name by which the Roman church goes in China is “Tien Chu” (Heaven Lord church), and the Protestants are generally called by the Catholics and by the Chinese “Jesus church,” or “Shangti” (Supreme Ruler church). The American Episcopalians and the British Anglicans in April, 1912, decided to call themselves the “Holy Public church” (Sheng Kung Hwei). The Roman missionaries had much to do with the annexation of vast Tonquin (population twenty-two millions) by France, and their activity is similarly ambitious in Yunnan province, lower Szechuen, and in Kwangsi and Kweichou provinces. As long ago as 1844, so brave a traveler and learned a priest as AbbÉ Huc insisted on wearing the yellow robe of the privileged mandarin class. Not only at one station or in one province did he do this, but on his journey of 1849 through Tibet, Szechuen, Hupeh, Kiangsi and Kwangtung provinces, he wore the robe and demanded the reception of a mandarin, the thinly veiled implication being that if he was interfered with, there were French guns that could pound the Taku and Bogue forts on the way to Tientsin and Canton, respectively, which they really did ten years later. As late as 1899, when China was torn by dissensions between the reformers and the reactionaries, and while the wounds of her defeat by Japan were still open, the Roman church, with the diplomatic aid of France, forced from the then Tsung Li Yamen (Foreign Board) an imperial rescript granting Roman priests the rank and insignia of a Chinese perfect (mandarin), and Roman bishops the astoundingly high title and insignia of a viceroy, which honors affected eleven hundred priests and forty-six bishops. It was not until 1909 that China resolved to throw off this incubus. The rescript was rescinded by the new Wai Wu Pu (Foreign Board) and Li Pu (Board of Rites). Enlightened Romanists in America of course do not uphold such militant Romanism, which smacks rather much of the bizarre days of Cortez. Let it be said too that the French Romanist abroad is more medieval than the French Romanist in France. While sailing in the Red Sea, talking with French clerics from Tajoora, which faces the hot Gulf of Aden, and while walking along the red banks of the Saigon River in Indo-China, I have heard bitter criticisms from French priests which would have been deemed lÈse majestÉ in the home republic itself.

A traveler can not pass through China without being mobbed by the sick to be cured. “You are a foreigner, you must be a doctor; cure me and mine; I have heard that the foreigners can cure any ill; cure me, man of Jesus.” It is agonizing. I knew a man who only carried a caustic stick and two drugs (quinine and salts). Wherever he was mobbed with appeals he administered these drugs to those whom he thought they would benefit. Almost better if he had not done so. The cured who leaped about with new life were enough proof that he was “lying” when he said that he could not heal the wounded, the seriously ill, the leprous and the ulcered. He was almost torn apart. Were I a billionaire, I am a thousand times sure that I would send a thousand medical missionaries to China for five years, each man to hire a Chinese understudy, and carry a full surgical and medical chest, and the Bible and medical text books only. Then I would leave the Chinese pupils to carry on the work; they would be stationed as radiating centers at proper distances apart throughout the land. I would then spend the rest of my life listening to the marvelous stories which my five thousand friends had to tell of what they had seen and done. No man who ever lived—not even Paul when he wrote the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians; not even the beloved John when he saw the Heavenly City in seraphic dreams—would have experienced such real and wide happiness as I. No man could pass away with more ecstatic memories, such a delirium of too much joy.

I want to write a word of commendation of the missionary, for detraction by some in high places, and by some authors who write as they fly and flit at the ports, is not uncommon. The attacks upon missions in Henry Norman’s Peoples and Politics of the Far East, and in Pumpelly’s Across America and Asia, are well known, and have been repeated by others. One may be a cynic at home, and with reason sometimes criticize some pulpits because they fear the magnate at the end of some pews, and color their sermons accordingly. One may in a supercilious way sneer at the seeming lack of personality in the missionary candidate, who in a gentle faith stands up in her or his church to answer the call: “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” But follow the worker into the China field, and see what that call and the altruistic opportunity has done by its very immensity. The gentle missionary has soon become many things: a brave pioneer in exile; a scholar and linguist; an organizer of great power and tact; a local foreign minister of great ability in adapting the West to the East; a scientist, housekeeper, traveler, physician, explorer, ethnologist, nurse, orator; the only host of explorers; the most generous of mankind; an ideal example of what the West should be; the most inspired of human beings in self-sacrifice and wonderful accomplishment under difficulties. Their expenses are many; their resources few. Many have to live on the slimmest of contributions from home, such as the missionaries of the China Inland Mission, the Scandinavian Mission, and the Scottish Missions, which are not rich.

Many, like the American and English missionaries, receive fair help from home, but spend on their equipment, and educational and hospital buildings the money that was due to themselves and their families as salaries. The highly cultured, brave president of the Nanking University accepts only $1,500 as salary, whereas if he were in America, on a purely business basis he would be expected to demand $15,000 for the same services and expenses of his high position. The writer does not mean to select one board as doing better than another. All have done marvelously, and China can never forget. In the Yangtze valley at Shanghai and Wuchang, along the whole front of the rebellion of 1911, the American Episcopalians have universities and training schools, which were especially noted by the republicans. The missionary does not always desire money. Such a simple thing as a magazine, or a new book of travel, or a standard work of fiction, or a weekly newspaper from some metropolis, is a god-send to the missionaries at the outposts, under the idol’s hills, who like to feel that though they are thousands of miles from a treaty port, they are yet in touch with civilization. Any one can get from the Mission Boards the names of missionaries who are off the beaten track from Yunnan province up to the Amur River in China, and send them now and then at trifling cost this cheering literature, which will shine upon them like the beloved sun of the far-away home land. Treat them as American and British men and women, and not only in the high light of missionaries, for they are the ambassadors from the West to the East, and there is no form of our civilization in which they are not active, efficient and heroic.

England and America contribute the same sum to missions, but as England is the smaller, the statistics reveal that America is doing only half what she should do in the China mission field. Of the denominations, the American Methodists easily lead the world, followed in order by the Anglican Church of England, the Presbyterian Church of America, the Baptist Church of America, and the old Congregational Church of America with many heroes on its old roster, which dates back to 1812. If you ask what the Chinese think of missionaries I will quote the following prayer spoken by the Confucian viceroy, Hsi Liang, in the Scotch chapel at Mukden for the hero physician, Doctor Jackson, who died as a voluntary martyr in the pneumonic plague in 1910, and you can answer whether you do not think it eloquently pathetic: “Doctor Jackson, with the heart of your Christ, who died to save the world, came to our aid when we besought him to help our country in its hour of distress. Daily, where the plague lay thickest, amidst the groans of the dying, he struggled to help the stricken to find medicine. Worn out by his efforts the pest seized and took him long before his time. Our sorrow is beyond all measure; our grief too deep for words. Oh! Spirit of Doctor Jackson, we pray you to intercede for the twenty million people in Manchuria, and ask the Lord of Heaven to take away this plague so that we may once more lay our heads in peace upon our pillows. In life you were brave; you, therefore, now are a spirit. Noble Spirit, who gave up your life for us, help us still, look down with sympathy upon us all.”

Y.M.C. A’s. are being built in the treaty ports, largely through American endeavor. The Japanese sphere, Tientsin, etc., are provided for, and the Chicago Y.M.C.A. raised a large sum of money for a Y.M.C.A. in Hongkong. The sailors in Hongkong contribute the third largest amount to their missions (being exceeded only by Wellington and Liverpool) of any port in the world. I am not referring to amounts collected from passengers on steamers, but the support given by the sailors themselves. This shows that Jack Tar and John Celestial recognize the manly and godly worth of the “sky pilot”, even if they pivot many of their jokes on his solemn patience.

Since Morrison’s translation, there have been quite a number of translations into the official Mandarin, and even into Romanized letters expressing the dialects of the southern provinces. This latter Bible can only be understood by mission school pupils. In 1890 the missionary bodies met at Peking and determined to translate the whole Bible into approved characters which idiomatized better certain words which had been improperly understood in former translations. The committee meets once a year at different cities in China. By 1910 the New Testament and the Psalms had been completed, and the whole Bible will probably be completed by 1918. The head translator is the American Presbyterian educator, Doctor Mateer, the founder of Shangtung Union University at Wei Hsien and Tsinan, and the noted Doctor W.A.P. Martin, the author and educator of Peking, is another translator.

Shintoism (the Japanese adaptation of Confucianism) has been found lacking in Japan, as it raises no positive God-fearing sentiment in the masses, no national morality, no individual conscientiousness which can be relied on when the letter of the law fails. This is the rock strength which Christianity has given the West, and the Chinese republicans see what they have missed in not adopting Christianity. On February 9, 1912, the Japanese home minister called a conference of the Buddhist, Confucian (Shinto), and Christian religions, to see what could be done to strengthen Japan’s creeds, so that the state would benefit in that moral and God-fearing power which Christianity has given to the western masses. Christianity makes but one answer to China, and that is to take Christianity and the Bible as a religion and a revelation, and reduce Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism to the ethical and literary place which Socrates, Plato, Homer, Virgil, etc., occupy in western thought and practise. President Sun Yat Sen, of the Nanking Confederated Assemblies of South China, appreciates this, and has promised the Chinese Christians that he will do all he can in time to form a Chinese Christian church; not a Roman or Greek or American or British church, but a free Chinese Christian church. When China takes the Bible nearest of all books to her heart, and has her own head bishop in each denomination absolutely free, she will then have achieved greatness and glory, and found joy and truth.

The troublesome temperance question of the military canteen has been solved, I think, under severest tropical conditions at Hongkong, where there is a large garrison, and despite well meaning W.C.T. U’s. at home under different conditions, the canteen, where “vice is regulated”, has, I believe, come to stay for a while. At one time the soldier drifted into the slums. He sighed for company as only an alien among the heathen can sigh. He drank bad liquor and was robbed when drugged thereby. That he will drink liquor must be accepted, as he is the rougher sort of man, although worthy for all that. He committed offenses before the tender eye of the public, brought the service into ill repute, and cost the municipality money for trials and police. He endangered international peace, for in his “cups” he was always seeing differences instead of amenities when he met a soldier of another nation. He made himself unfit for real war. The Army and Navy Canteen, or Club, was adopted, I think, largely on Lord Roberts’ suggestion (and who will question “Bob’s” wisdom). The soldier was put on his honor and he rose fully to his opportunity. The sergeants on guard permitted sufficient indulgence, but regulated rows. Most of the men drank less, because they felt that they were drinking in “their own home”, but if they over-drank, their fellows were on hand to see that they were taken to barracks without being dragged through the public streets. Good liquor was supplied. Disease decreased, as the men were contented in barracks. Authority was respected, for it comes as second nature for even a drunken soldier to obey a soldier. The soldier is now never robbed; his life is safe; he saves money, and he drinks less because he drinks “as a gentleman what ’as ’is Club wi’ the best on ’em.” The W.C.T.U. is a necessary theory; the Soldiers’ Canteen of Hongkong, Manila, and Delhi, is a brilliant compromise which should be accepted as a solution until the world is so good that the brave and perhaps rough soldier is needed no more. Candy is sold to the soldiers, as it is found that the absorption of carbohydrates greatly decreases the appetite for alcohol. The Officers’ Army and Navy Cooperative Stores sell goods to men and their families at cost, and the American army is to adopt this method to reduce the cost of living at foreign army posts.