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BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 JAMES W. BASHFORD: 
 Pastor, Epucator, BisHop 
 
 
 

 
 
 THE NEW SOUL 
 IN CHINA 
 
 BY f 
 
 GEORGE RICHMOND ‘GROSE 
 
 One of the Bishops of the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 THE ABINGDON PRESS 
 NEW YORK CINCINNATI 
 
Copyright, 1927, by 
 GEORGE RICHMOND GROSE 
 
 All rights reserved, including that of translation into 
 foreign languages, including the Scandinavian 
 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 
VIL. 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 EGREWORDIALI Ue ae 
 
 Toe MEANING OF THE 
 PRESENT CIVIL STRUG- 
 
 . Tae Cauristian Move- 
 
 MENT IN CHINA....... 
 
 . THe AnTI-CHRISTIAN 
 
 NVLOVEMENT 6. Gielen gene 
 
 . Wuy MiUISSIONARIES IN 
 
 PRESENT MISSIONARY 
 NEOR ATE acer iey aera) ok 
 
 . Tue PLACE OF THE CHRIS- 
 
 oF: 
 
 TIAN CHURCH IN CHINA. 118 
 
 A New Sout In Cuina.. 142 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2021 with funding from 
 Princeton Theological Seminary Library 
 
 https://archive.org/details/newsoulinchina0Ogros 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 Tuis little volume of addresses 
 is published in response to numerous 
 requests at the time of their de- 
 livery. The form of direct speech 
 has not been’ changed. The 
 addresses are published substantially 
 as delivered. They are designed to 
 present an apologetic for Christian 
 missions with special reference to 
 present conditions in China. The 
 mind of the world respecting the 
 things of religion is much the same. 
 The same thought currents which 
 prevail in Europe and America are 
 running strong in Japan and China. 
 
 “East is East and West is West 
 And the twain have met,”’ 
 
 and are seriously taking account of 
 their common spiritual heritage and 
 their mutual obligations. 
 
 7 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 These pages are sent forth in the 
 deep conviction that in Jesus Christ, 
 “the Way, the Truth and the Life,” 
 Orientals and Occidentals are to find 
 “the life which is life indeed.”” The 
 writer also cherishes the hope that 
 they may quicken interest in the 
 cause of Christian missions. If he 
 has helped any to see through and 
 beyond the strife and confusion 
 which now prevail in China to the 
 mighty ongoing of Christ toward the 
 redemption of the land, and has in- 
 spired any to make the high resolve 
 that he shall not go alone, the author’s 
 purpose will have been richly fulfilled. 
 
 Parts of Chapters I, II, and V 
 have appeared in The Christian Cen- 
 tury, The Christian Advocate, and 
 The Chinese Recorder respectively, 
 and the courtesy of reprinting is 
 hereby acknowledged. 
 
 GY RaiGi 
 Peking, China, March, 1927. 
 8 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 THE MEANING OF THE PRES- 
 ENT CIVIL STRUGGLE IN- 
 CHINA 
 
 Waar is the meaning of the pres- 
 ent civil struggle in China? To 
 many people in the West the present 
 wars in China are utterly bewilder- 
 ing. To some it appears that a 
 people who have been peaceful for 
 ages have in the past decade _ be- 
 come strangely warlike. To others 
 it seems that the Chinese are in- 
 capable of self-government and of 
 managing successfully their own 
 affairs. Still others claim that since 
 the overthrow of the Empire in 1911 
 the masses of the people have been 
 victimized by selfish and unscru- 
 pulous war lords and that under 
 existing chaotic conditions the only 
 
 9 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 hope of peace and orderly govern- 
 ment is through the domination of 
 Western powers. Again there are 
 others who lay all the troubles of 
 the past few years at the door of 
 Russian Soviets, who are promoting 
 a world-wide revolution against exist- 
 ing political and economic order. 
 There is doubtless a measure of 
 truth in each of these interpreta- 
 tions of the situation in China. But 
 in no one of them nor in all of them 
 combined is to be found the real 
 meaning of the present civil strug- 
 gle. On the surface it is unques- 
 tionably true that militarism has a 
 strangle hold upon China. At the 
 same time, to the farmer class, which 
 constitutes eighty per cent of the 
 population, and to the merchant and 
 student class the horror of militar- 
 ism is becoming increasingly intol- 
 erable. It is true that the mass of 
 the people have had no experience 
 10 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 in self-government on a_ national 
 scale. With ninety per cent of the 
 population illiterate, it is impossible 
 to have a responsible republic set 
 up by popular mandate. But it 
 does not follow that the way out 
 of the present disorder is in some 
 form of foreign intervention. It was 
 proposed recently at a dinner party 
 of panaceists who were dining in 
 Tokyo that a group of Western na- 
 tions should buy off the war lords 
 in China, making each one respon- 
 sible to his national purchaser for 
 the proper administration of his 
 own territory. This naive sugges- 
 tion fails to take into account the 
 difficulty of delivering the goods 
 purchased. It is unquestionably true 
 that the Russian Soviets have taken 
 a shrewd advantage of a strategic 
 opportunity for extending their influ- 
 ence in China. But it should be 
 remembered that the Chinese are 
 11 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 using their Russian friends for a 
 purpose, and when that purpose has 
 been measurably accomplished the 
 “Reds” will likely be dropped. On 
 the surface there are still other cross 
 currents that are contributing to a 
 nation-wide disorder. 
 
 But the real meaning of the civil 
 strife which is becoming increasingly 
 determined and desperate lies be- 
 neath the surface. It is a struggle 
 between the North and the South. 
 The Yangtze River has become the 
 nation-wide battle-line. And the 
 issue is at last as clearly defined as a 
 battle-line. It is a fight to the death 
 between the old autocratic conserv- 
 ative regime and the new democratic 
 movement: the old order, repre- 
 sented by Yuan Shi Kai, Tsao-Kun, 
 Tuan Chi Jui, Wu Pei Fu and 
 Chang Tso Lin, against the National- 
 ists or People’s Party, represented by 
 
 Sun Yat Sen, Feng Yu Hsiang, and 
 12 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 the Cantonese. It is militarism and 
 special privilege over against Na- 
 tional sovereignty and democracy. 
 On the one side are war lords with 
 armies of hirelings, grown fat and 
 powerful, impoverishing the people 
 by oppression and cruelties which 
 rival the tyrannies of the Dark 
 Ages. On the other side, students 
 and teachers in the schools and uni- 
 versities, the merchants, though often 
 intimidated into silence, and the 
 Christian population of China in an 
 overwhelming majority. The slogan 
 of the Northern armies is “Destroy 
 the Reds.”” The watchword for the 
 Southern forces is “For the cause 
 of the people.” The nationalist 
 movement has been discredited in the 
 minds of many foreigners by excesses 
 and crimes which have been com- 
 mitted by radicals. But the whole 
 movement cannot be damned by the 
 use of an ugly word calling it ““Red.”’ 
 13 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 The revival of nationalism is the 
 most outstanding fact since the close 
 of the Great War. Superficial think- 
 ing concluded that this world ca- 
 tastrophe would bind the nations 
 together in a world peace. We fool- 
 ishly thought that when the allied 
 nations fought together in the 
 trenches of Europe the nationals 
 would henceforth be brethren. But 
 in less than a decade the great dis- 
 illusionment has come. Not alone 
 are Western nations but the Orient as 
 well is being swept by a tidal wave 
 of nationality. Inno country of the 
 world is the nationalistic movement 
 so dramatic and so irresistible in 
 its urge as in China. This is due 
 to no accident. Until 1911 Chi- 
 nese political history had been a 
 long succession of dynasties. In a 
 dynasty there can be no true na- 
 tional spirit. When the dynastic 
 rule was thrown off the awakening 
 
 14 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 minds of the country began to be- 
 come nationally self-conscious. After 
 the Washington Peace Conference 
 it became evident to the thinking 
 Chinese that China, as the outcome 
 of the war into which she had been 
 reluctantly drawn, was in a position 
 of humiliating weakness among the 
 other belligerent nations. The dis- 
 crimination of the United States 
 government against both Japanese 
 and Chinese has intensified the feel- 
 ing of Chinese nationalism. But 
 most of all the brutal arrogance 
 which has characterized the treat- 
 ment of China by Western nationals 
 has stirred the soul of a proud and 
 independent people with a just re- 
 sentment. The French Revolution 
 was the beginning of a new era for 
 Europe. None the less certainly did 
 the Revolution in China mark the 
 beginning of a movement, again 
 threatening the peace of the world. 
 Lo 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 The deep significance of the new 
 nationalism in China none can 
 doubt. It has become so _ wide- 
 spread and so imperative in its 
 demands as to disturb seriously the 
 commerce of Western nations with 
 China. The treaties which have 
 been honored by China for two 
 generations are being challenged and 
 not infrequently ignored or violated. 
 During the past six years Western 
 trade activities, religious, educational 
 and all other philanthropic enter- 
 prises have been profoundly affected 
 by the rising spirit of nationality 
 in China. 
 
 The movement has some features 
 which are almost melodramatic. A 
 few hundred students literally held 
 up a whole city. By their prop- 
 aganda and colossal assumption in 
 dictating political policies they in- 
 timidate business firms, chambers of 
 commerce, and government officials. 
 
 16 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 In not a few instances brutal cruel- 
 ties, outrages against decency and 
 justice, and wanton crimes against 
 both property and life have been 
 committed in the name of national- 
 ism. Strikes when there was no 
 grievance, boycott against foreign 
 nationals, riots and mobs inflamed 
 by hireling agitators are disgracing 
 and threatening to delay the suc- 
 cess of true nationalism in China. 
 The national movement lacks wise 
 and responsible leadership which can 
 command the confidence of the 
 masses. The merchant class 1s in- 
 different, wishing to be let alone to 
 carry on their traffic. The politicians 
 for the most part are corruptionists. 
 The militarists, with few exceptions, 
 are brutal spoilsmen. The students 
 in the main are genuinely patriotic 
 but lack sober judgment and expe- 
 rience in public affairs. But in 
 spite of all these weaknesses the 
 17 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 national cause in China has in it 
 the passion of the early crusades. 
 At its bottom there is a mighty 
 conviction. It has become to mil- 
 lions of Chinese a kind of religion. 
 Sun Yat Sen is its living soul. 
 Washington is no more the patron 
 saint of American liberty, and Joan 
 of Arc of France, and Lenin of 
 present-day Russia than Sun Yat 
 Sen is the embodiment of Chinese 
 nationalism. 
 
 The real issue between the North 
 and the South as set forth in Sun 
 Yat Sen’s “Three Principles of the 
 People’ is national freedom and 
 power for the service of the people 
 of China. Its basal ideas are taken 
 from the American Declaration of 
 Independence and Constitution. It 
 is the people’s revolution. Some of 
 its leaders have been unwise in their 
 methods. Others have been crim- 
 inal in their measures. Some of the 
 
 18 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 alliances have been unholy. But 
 with all of its mistakes and sins it 
 is the cause of the people, who are 
 rising up with a strong national 
 consciousness against foreign exploi- 
 tation or domination and against 
 military tyranny. At bottom it is 
 a spiritual revolution. The great 
 social and political ideals which 
 lighted the fires of the French Rev- 
 olution and the American Revolution 
 have set China aflame. And the 
 fire is unquenchable until the ancient 
 tyrannies have been burned up and 
 the people have a chance to live 
 their own life. After a decade of 
 apparently senseless warfare there 
 has at last emerged a great na- 
 tional issue which 1s stirring the 
 people of China with a loyalty they 
 have never known before. And be- . 
 cause of the deathless devotion which 
 is burning in the breasts of students 
 
 and peasants the Revolution is as 
 19 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 irresistible in its onward movement 
 as the tides of the sea. 
 
 The people of China are told by 
 Western nations with an air of 
 benevolent paternalism to set their 
 house in order. How long will it 
 take to fight this issue to a finish? 
 How long until the conflict is de- 
 cisive? Who knows? We never ask 
 how long it took France to break 
 the power of a military dictator- 
 ship, or the American colonists to 
 win their independence. Our only 
 concern now is the fact of the 
 achievement of the Revolution. So 
 it should be with China. Whether 
 it requires fifteen years or fifty years 
 for the cause of the people to come 
 to its own is not the important 
 matter. It only matters whether 
 democracy wins. 
 
 What is the prospect? I do not 
 pose as a prophet. I make no fore- 
 cast as to time and persons. There 
 
 20 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 are certain signs of hope that are 
 writ large across the sky. 
 
 First, the big battalions are be- 
 ginning to destroy themselves. Re- 
 cently the staff officers of an army 
 division were experimenting with 
 eight-inch guns. They tried four 
 measures of powder without success. 
 With six measures the great gun 
 discharged. With eight measures 
 the cannon exploded, killing all the 
 officers. This tragic incident is a 
 parable. The guns of the militar- 
 ists are now shooting both ways. 
 By a series of treacheries and ill 
 fortunes the militarists are gradually 
 exterminating each other. The pa- 
 tient people are becoming so out- 
 raged by the oppressions of the 
 militarists that farmers and mer- 
 chants will one day rise up and 
 declare these selfish wars shall be 
 no more. The handwriting is on 
 
 the wall. 
 21 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 Another omen of hope is that the 
 people are utterly united in the 
 nationalist movement. Heretofore 
 the interests of China have been 
 largely provincial or sectional. Now 
 the spirit of nationalism is every- 
 where dominant. National aspira- 
 tions are shaping the course of all 
 commercial, educational, and reli- 
 gious activities. When the Chinese 
 boycott a foreign nation’s goods, 
 the argument has a deadly effective- 
 ness. The demand for the registra- 
 tion of all private and foreign sup- 
 ported schools is interpreted by some 
 as being anti-Christian or anti-for- 
 eign. In fact it is neither. It is 
 only an insistence that all educa- 
 tional institutions shall become Chi- 
 nese in spirit and conform to the 
 national standards of education. It 
 is not unreasonable therefore, to ° 
 demand that the president or vice- 
 president of schools of higher learn- 
 
 22 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 ing should be a Chinese. Religious 
 liberty is to be accorded to all 
 private or Christian schools so long 
 as the primary purpose of the school 
 is educational and not religious prop- 
 aganda. In short, the schools of 
 China are striving determinedly to 
 promote true Christian culture and 
 are refusing to accept a foreign 
 system of education if it is also 
 foreign in spirit. 
 
 The nationalist movement is also 
 influencing profoundly the work of 
 the Christian missions and churches. 
 There is a wide demand for an 
 indigenous church—that Christianity 
 should become naturalized. The 
 foreign control of churches and pub- 
 lic philanthropies is increasingly re- 
 sisted. The statement of Christian 
 doctrine and forms of Christian 
 worship imported from the West do 
 not adequately express the religious 
 conceptions and aspirations of the 
 
 23 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 Chinese people. There is much un- 
 certainty of mind and much crit- 
 icism of the Christian Church in 
 China, largely because when this tre- 
 mendous intellectual upheaval came 
 the Christian movement was not 
 prepared to meet the demands of 
 the new day. ‘The demand for 
 equality of human rights, for indus- 
 trial justice, for international fair 
 play, and for a chance for the poor, 
 have exposed the barrenness of much 
 so-called religious work. There is 
 no revolt against the missionary 
 whose life embodies the spirit of 
 Jesus and whose service is personal 
 rather than professional. But the 
 tremendous needs of this awful time 
 in China can be met only by a 
 religion that has a mighty spiritual 
 dynamic and that is represented and 
 presented by men and women who 
 have the spirit of Jesus. 
 
 In the deepest sense the struggle 
 
 24 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 in China is a spiritual revolution 
 which is shaking the very founda- 
 tion of the old social, economic, and 
 political order. The people are 
 thinking for themselves. They are 
 too little inclined to profit by the 
 experience of the Western nations 
 in their struggles for a true na- 
 tionalism. But it is the rising tide 
 of a new life; it is the dawn of a 
 new civilization. 
 
 What should be the attitude of 
 Western nations toward China in 
 this crucial time? It should be one 
 of strict noninterference so far as 
 working out her own internal prob- 
 lems is concerned. No form of 
 domination by force, no establishing 
 spheres of influence by financial 
 subsidy, no “‘peaceful penetration” 
 can solve the problems of China 
 or permanently improve conditions. 
 Western nations may rightly demand 
 that China protect hfe and prop- 
 
 25 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 erty of nationals so long as for- 
 eigners show mutual respect for life 
 and property of Chinese. Western 
 nations must meet the present situa- 
 tion in China with patience and with 
 friendly co-operation, at the same 
 time trusting the people to work 
 out their own national salvation. 
 What should be the attitude of the 
 Christian churches of the West? 
 They should not seek to transplant 
 the religious machinery of the West 
 unless there is breathed into it the 
 life-giving spirit that will minister 
 effectively to the moral and spiritual 
 needs of the people. The present 
 chaotic conditions in China are a 
 call to the Christian forces of the 
 West to come to her help in build- 
 ing up a real living Church of 
 Christ. In China, as in America, 
 the very existence of supernatural 
 religion is being challenged by a 
 mechanistic philosophy of life. If 
 26 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 the civilization of to-morrow is not 
 to be submerged by a pagan ma- 
 terialism, and if the new nationalism 
 does not defeat itself by selfish ends, 
 it must be permeated by the ideals 
 and by the creative power of a 
 vital religion. A Western member 
 of the recent Customs Conference 
 and Extraterritoriality Commission 
 in Peking, bore this significant testi- 
 mony: “The situation in China is 
 dark in the extreme. I see only 
 one hope. That is in the work of 
 the Christian missionaries and the 
 Christian Church in laying the moral 
 foundations of a true state and a 
 new civilization.”” To become im- 
 patient and hopeless in the present 
 upheaval is to forget the history of 
 all the democratic governments of 
 the West. For the Christian forces 
 of the West to slacken their efforts 
 for the evangelization of China in 
 this time of unparalleled need is to 
 Q7 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 be recreant to their highest trust. 
 The present struggle will go on, and 
 must go on, until the power of the 
 militarist is broken, and the people 
 are willing to pay the price of a 
 government that is founded upon 
 honesty, justice, and freedom. 
 
 28 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MOVEMENT 
 IN CHINA 
 
 Wuat is the present state of the 
 Christian movement in China? Any 
 adequate answer to this question 
 must take into account the present 
 conditions of the country. The 
 situation is so complex, and the 
 changes so rapid, that it is exceed- 
 ingly difficult to discern the signs 
 of the times. 
 
 It is difficult for Westerners to 
 understand the demoralized condi- 
 tions that have prevailed in China 
 for a decade and a half. The chaos 
 was never more widespread than at 
 present. The central government 
 has but little power beyond the 
 Peking Wall. The only government 
 that is effective is a type of military 
 
 29 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 feudalism. The people of the coun- 
 try are being bled to death by 
 military leaders who for the most 
 part have no other purpose than 
 the gratification of their own greed 
 for money and power. Vast sec- 
 tions of the country are terrorized 
 alternately by invading armies and 
 bandits. The great student and 
 industrial centers within the past 
 few months have been scenes of 
 agitation, strikes, boycotts, and riot- 
 ous disorder. 
 
 What is the meaning of the un- 
 rest and chaos? In the first place, 
 the republic was born at least a 
 score of years before the people were 
 ready for it. They had no back- 
 ground in experience to fit them 
 for representative government. The 
 masses are not only uneducated, but 
 are not interested in political mat- 
 ters. Their all-absorbing concern is 
 the daily struggle for existence. 
 
 30 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 Naturally, under these conditions 
 they become the easy prey of venal 
 politicians and selfish war lords. 
 Secondly, the meeting of the East 
 and the West in trade, education and 
 religion has called for adjustments 
 which are exceedingly difficult to 
 make. In his book on Western 
 Ciwilizations and the Far East, King- 
 Hall well shows that the advance 
 of such civilization has of necessity 
 created a great upheaval. The forces 
 of the Western world which have 
 been let loose in China have made 
 confusion and chaos the like of 
 which has not been seen in modern 
 times. The three great forces of 
 Western civilization—the intellectual 
 awakening, political democracy and 
 modern science applied to industrial 
 development—which have been at 
 work in the Western world for three 
 hundred years, have been released in 
 China simultaneously within the last 
 31 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 fifteen years. It is no wonder there 
 are unrest, upheaval, and revolution 
 everywhere. The present movement 
 is irresistible. It has in it not only 
 the dynamic of Western progress, 
 but the germinative, creative forces 
 of the gospel. The moral standards 
 and spiritual ideals of Christianity 
 are turning the Far East into a 
 topsy-turvydom. But this is the 
 hope of the hour. It is the working 
 of the leaven of the kingdom of 
 heaven. ‘“‘Not all the king’s horses 
 nor all the king’s men” can put the 
 old order together again. 
 
 Out of this chaos there is emerg- 
 ing a clear national consciousness. 
 The first problem of China is the 
 development of a true nation. The 
 country is now in the throes of a 
 crude nationalism. A tidal wave of 
 nationalistic feeling that is danger- 
 ous unless wisely guided, is sweeping 
 over the country. China’s pride has 
 
 32 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 been wounded. She has been stung 
 into resentment by her own national 
 weakness and by the discriminating 
 treatment of the Western nations. 
 But one thing is increasingly evident 
 —the day of Western domination in 
 politics and in business, in education 
 and in religion has passed forever. 
 China and Japan are determined to 
 live their own life, and that is their 
 right. Under the terrific tension of 
 the times it would be strange if 
 there were not blunders and excesses 
 and even crimes committed in the 
 name of freedom. But we do well 
 to remember that the historic path 
 of human progress has always been 
 “from authority through anarchy 
 into insight and freedom.” 
 
 With the normal foreign trade of 
 the country demoralized, with all 
 the railway lines commandeered for 
 military uses, with the central gov- 
 ernment financially bankrupt and 
 
 33 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 cabinets continually changing, with 
 the helplessness and suffering of the 
 people ripening into desperation, na- 
 turally the work of the schools and 
 the churches is seriously hindered. 
 The Christian enterprise in China 
 faces greater difficulties than ever 
 before. Not even the Boxer up- 
 rising in 1900 presented so grave a 
 crisis as that which now confronts 
 the Christian forces in China. 
 
 Pass in a hurried review the hin- 
 drances to the evangelization of 
 China which are most formidable: 
 
 1. A rapidly rising tide of na- 
 tionalism which tends to subordinate 
 everything else to national interest. 
 Some preachers are preaching patri- 
 otism rather than the gospel, in the 
 conviction that Christianity cannot 
 make headway until the government 
 is stabilized. 
 
 2. A current of materialistic think- 
 ing which discredits all religion as 
 
 34 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 either unnecessary or as a supersti- 
 tion. The prevailing skepticisms of 
 young China to-day are a kind of 
 chop-suey of the materialistic philos- 
 ophies of America and Great Britain 
 in the latter half of the nineteenth 
 century. 
 
 3. Failure to adjust missionary 
 methods to meet changing conditions 
 so as to insure sympathetic co- 
 operation of Chinese and foreigners. 
 
 4. The malicious misrepresentation 
 of Christian missions as being allied 
 with foreign powers politically, or as 
 serving foreign economic interests. 
 
 5. The lack of suitable Christian 
 literature to instruct educated people. 
 
 6. The failure of some missionaries 
 to appreciate Chinese culture and to 
 seek to give to Christianity a truly 
 Chinese expression. Christianity has 
 not yet been naturalized in China. 
 The Chinese think of it as a foreign 
 religion. 
 
 35 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 7. The divided front presented 
 by denominational divisions and 
 especially by intolerant doctrinal 
 controversies. ‘The fundamentalist- 
 modernist controversy is_ tenfold 
 more harmful to the Christian cause 
 in China than the anti-Christian 
 movement can possibly be 
 
 8. The unsettled political and 
 economic conditions of the country, 
 producing unrest and untold suffer- 
 ing among the people. 
 
 9. The opposition aroused by 
 Christianity’s attack upon the moral 
 evils which are strongly intrenched 
 by social custom, ancient tradition, 
 and financial income. 
 
 10. But the greatest barrier of all 
 to the progress of Christianity in the 
 Orient is the association of Chris- 
 tianity in the minds of the Orientals 
 with the deeds of Western nations 
 and nationals, that outrage both 
 decency and justice, to say nothing 
 
 36 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 of religion. The shame of Judas 
 Iscariot in betraying his Lord for 
 silver is heavy upon the body of 
 Christ’s disciples in China until this 
 hour. 
 
 In the face of these difficulties one 
 cries out in helplessness, ““Who is 
 sufficient for these things?” Hu- 
 manly speaking the task of effec- 
 tively evangelizing China was never 
 so difficult as it is to-day, and at 
 the same time the task was never 
 so challenging as now. 
 
 There are signs which are big 
 with promise. 
 
 1. The intellectual awakening 1s 
 furnishing both the field and the tools 
 for the greatest religious revival of 
 modern times. The mind of China 
 is clamorous for knowledge. The 
 masses are learning to read. Leaflets 
 and tracts are the favorite forms 
 of propaganda for every cause. The 
 conditions are ripe for such a reli- 
 
 | 37 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 gious movement in China as the 
 Wesleyan revival of the eighteenth 
 century. But the religious move- 
 ment in China must be in line with 
 the great thought currents of the 
 day. Just as the Renaissance and 
 Reformation in Europe re-enforced 
 each other, so the Christian faith 
 must seize upon all that is fruitful 
 in the present intellectual awaken- 
 ing. No great revival of religion in 
 the history of Christianity has ever 
 run counter to the main currents 
 of human thinking at the time. 
 Just as Luther embodied in his 
 religious movement the intellectual 
 freedom dominant in his age, and 
 as Wesley incarnated in the revival 
 of the eighteenth century the spirit 
 of individualism and_ brotherhood 
 which throbbed violently in the 
 French Revolution, so China is 
 speaking the language of the great 
 social ideals and_ scientific truths 
 38 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 of the twentieth century. A keen 
 present-day writer observes that 
 any worth-while religious movement 
 must express itself in the thought 
 forms of to-day, otherwise it will 
 not produce the needed revival. It 
 is true in China. It is utterly futile 
 to-day to try to “galvanize into 
 life the old dogma of an inerrant 
 Bible,” or to preach with intolerant 
 dogmatism the doctrine of the virgin 
 birth and antiscientific theories of 
 nature. Whether these beliefs are 
 true or false is not the point at issue. 
 They are not the path of approach 
 to present-day Chinese thinking. 
 The gospel preached in terms of 
 medieval thinking does not get un- 
 der the skin of the Chinese. 
 
 This does not mean that Chris- 
 tianity must conform its teaching to 
 the levels of the present-day world, 
 or that it must preach an accom- 
 modated gospel suited to the caprices 
 
 39 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 of men’s thinking. It does mean 
 that Jesus Christ must be inter- 
 preted to the Chinese in the thought 
 terms of their own world. And if 
 the divine message is spoken in 
 terms of the thinking and feeling 
 of China, the mind of the people is 
 wide open to the gospel. No nation 
 in the past half century has pre- 
 sented a more fruitful soil for a 
 revival of true religion than China 
 in her present mood. The present 
 opposition to Christianity, be it 
 remembered, is not an attack upon 
 the moral principles or spiritual 
 ideals of the Christian religion. It 
 is opposition to the excrescences of 
 the Christian faith and to the tra- 
 ditions of men which have been 
 proclaimed as the oracles of God. 
 It is a just resentment toward 
 the arrogance of Western nationals 
 assuming their own superiority and 
 baptizing it with missionary respect- 
 40 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 ability. China is thinking in terms 
 of modern science and the new 
 freedom. The intellectual awakeness 
 of the people makes this the favored 
 time for God’s visitation. 
 
 2. Another hopeful factor in the 
 religious situation in China is the 
 central place which ws being given to . 
 Jesus Christ an the thinking of the 
 people. When the gospel message is 
 preached in China in its New Testa- 
 ment simplicity—personal loyalty to 
 Jesus Christ—there is a new enthusi- 
 asm for the Christian faith. When- 
 ever Christianity is interpreted in 
 terms of the loyal following of Jesus, 
 there is a new interest in its mes- 
 sage. When Jesus Christ is pro- 
 claimed as “the power and _ the 
 wisdom of God” Christianity has 
 nothing to fear from competition 
 with the other religions of the 
 world. 
 
 There is a revival of Buddhism 
 
 41 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 and the other religions of China. 
 Societies are being formed for the 
 development of an eclectic system 
 of religion which seeks to combine 
 the best there is in all religions. 
 These movements are not enlisting 
 large numbers of students and of 
 the thinking classes of China. When 
 they see the perfect love of God 
 revealed in the perfect life of Jesus 
 he is being hailed as the hope of 
 the nation. The figure of the strange 
 Man on the cross is still the ever- 
 lasting symbol of human redemption. 
 In spite of the bitter anti-Christian 
 feeling the sale of Bibles in China 
 in 1924 exceeded that of any pre- 
 vious year by two and a half million 
 copies. Last year the sale of Bibles 
 exceeded the figure of the previous 
 year. I have never witnessed any- 
 where in student audiences in Amer- 
 ica a more earnest response to the 
 message of the gospel than in the 
 42 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 schools and universities of North 
 and West China. 
 
 Beyond the pale of the churches 
 and the regular channels of Christian 
 effort the ideals of Jesus Christ are 
 permeating society. The steady, 
 silent infiltration of Christian truth 
 in circles outside the church is doing 
 quite as much for the redemption of 
 China as direct Christian efforts are 
 doing. Judged by every test, the 
 dominant moral and spiritual force 
 in China to-day is Jesus Christ. He 
 alone is leading an aggressive move- 
 ment for the freedom of the people. 
 His principles of living are being 
 recognized more and more as final. 
 
 3. The moral mood of the country 
 is favorable for a great religious 
 awakening. ‘The people view with 
 increasing concern the ravages of 
 vice, of official corruption, and of 
 the opium traffic. China is waiting 
 for an Isaiah or an Amos to arise 
 
 43 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 with a vision of God’s will concern- 
 ing Peking and China. A prophet’s 
 voice that will denounce the sins of 
 the present and advocate the rights 
 of men as men, that will expose the 
 hell of the opium traffic in spite of 
 international complications, that will 
 denounce as intolerable every form 
 of discrimination in the family of 
 nations, and that will champion the 
 cause of justice and freedom and 
 religion as the only foundation of 
 public welfare—for such a prophet’s 
 voice China is waiting to-day. 
 
 4. I see on the horizon a fourth 
 hopeful omen. Underneath all the 
 present movements in China is a 
 strong undercurrent of spiritual 
 expectancy. There is profound dis- 
 trust of the material forces for the 
 bringing in of a better day. Chinese 
 Christian leaders are becoming in- 
 creasingly dissatisfied with a church 
 which is primarily an organization 
 
 44 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 for the promotion of denominational 
 policies, for the safe-guarding of 
 doctrinal statements, or for the 
 furthering of philanthropic enter- 
 prises. They are calling for the 
 New Testament Church—an insti- 
 tution of love—a society for spiritual 
 fellowship. Such a church is indis- 
 pensable in breaking down the bar- 
 riers of racial prejudice and in 
 building up a new civilization. Such 
 a church will protest against every 
 form of selfish nationalism, because 
 God hath made of one blood all the 
 nations of the earth. The Church of 
 Christ in China already promises to 
 give back to Western Christianity a 
 fuller understanding of the matchless 
 Christ. With its own distinctive 
 contribution of religious faith and 
 feeling it will enrich the life of the 
 Christian Church of all nations. 
 
 To sum up, this is the promise of 
 Christ’s greater coming in China: 
 
 45 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 An intellectual awakening which is 
 furnishing both the field and the 
 tools of the greatest religious revival 
 of modern times; the mind of Christ 
 becoming more and more dominant 
 in the thinking of the people; Chris- 
 tian discipleship being redefined in 
 terms of personal loyalty to Jesus; 
 the moral mood of the country call- 
 ing for justice and righteousness in 
 the land; and, lastly a living church 
 discovering its apostolic mission in 
 promoting the things of the Spirit 
 rather than dispensing material 
 bounties in the name of religion. 
 Furthermore, the whole social sys- 
 tem of the country is being per- 
 meated by the moral convictions and 
 spiritual hopes of Christianity. The 
 vast changes taking place to-day 
 have at their center the mighty 
 dynamic of the gospel. Already the 
 voices of true prophets of God are 
 heard in the land calling their people 
 46 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 to repentance. Already the barren- 
 ness of materialism, the despair of 
 atheism, and the degradation of 
 paganism are their own sufficient 
 indictment. If Jesus Christ is ex- 
 alted so that the people see in him 
 “The Master Light of all their see- 
 ing,’ the outlook for the Christian 
 movement in China was never so 
 bright as it 1s to-day. “In him was 
 life; and the life was the light 
 of men. And the light shineth in 
 darkness, and the darkness compre- 
 hended it not.”’ China will yet be 
 his. 
 
 47 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE ANTI-CHRISTIAN 
 MOVEMENT 
 
 THE most serious attack that has 
 been made on Christianity in the 
 past one hundred years Is the present 
 anti-Christian movement in China. 
 To many it came as a great sur- 
 prise. Why should it be? Persecu- 
 tion is no new thing in the history 
 of the Christian faith. ‘‘Christian- 
 ity has ever been a suffering reli- 
 gion.” Its Founder died by the 
 hands of violent men. The first 
 missionary apostle came from the 
 ranks of the persecutors. Tertullian 
 recorded not only the experience of 
 the church in his own day but also 
 the history of fifteen centuries of 
 Christian believers when he wrote: 
 
 48 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 “Go on; rack, torture, grind us to 
 powder; our numbers increase as 
 ye mow us down. The blood of 
 Christians is their harvest seed.” 
 
 There have been three stages of 
 opposition to Christianity in China. 
 
 The first was the opposition of 
 ignorant villagers when the first 
 missionaries began their work. There 
 followed a long period of indifference 
 to the preaching of the gospel, espe- 
 cially on the part of the intelligent 
 classes. The new religion seemed 
 harmless and was therefore generally 
 ignored. 
 
 The second stage of opposition to 
 Christianity was directed by the 
 official classes. The officials in China, 
 becoming alarmed at the threatened 
 encroachments of foreign nations 
 upon their country, instigated fanat- 
 ical mobs in the Boxer uprising 
 of 1900. 
 
 The present anti-Christian move- 
 
 49 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 ment originated in the intellectual 
 group. The movement began in- 
 tensively in 1922 as a reaction to 
 the World Student Christian Fed- 
 eration which met in Peking. When 
 the students of China saw in the 
 World Student Christian movement 
 the extent and virility of Christianity 
 among the thinking classes of the 
 world, they organized to protect the 
 culture of China against its further 
 aggressions. Their first attack was 
 against all religions as being either 
 unnecessary or superstitious. The 
 movement revived again after the 
 Nanking Educational Conference in 
 the summer of 1924. This second 
 attack was directed particularly 
 against Christianity. It was led 
 chiefly by students. But within the 
 past three years the movement has 
 enlisted the industrial classes and 
 not a few of the intellectuals. Lat- 
 terly the movement has become 
 50 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 hydra-headed with a strange ad- 
 mixture of dissimilar motives. 
 
 The underlying causes and mo- 
 tives of this widespread and violent 
 attack upon Christianity should be 
 carefully studied. It cannot be dis- 
 missed lightly. It is a large factor 
 in creating the most difficult situa- 
 tion which has confronted the Chris- 
 tian movement in the past century. 
 Its reactions will be profoundly felt 
 throughout Christendom. 
 
 The movement has several con- 
 tributing causes. 
 
 1. First, a misunderstanding of 
 what real Christianity is. The 
 essential teachings of Christianity 
 have been confused with nonessen- 
 tials in doctrinal statement. Denom- 
 inational shibboleths, intolerant doc- 
 trinaires, and religious faddists are 
 to no small extent responsible for a 
 serious misunderstanding of true 
 Christianity. Christianity is com- 
 
 51 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 monly represented by the anti- 
 Christians as being opposed _ to 
 modern science. Dayton, Tennes- 
 see is known to every Chinese 
 student. The Christian faith is 
 charged with attacking China’s social 
 system, and seeking to substitute 
 the ideals and the customs of the 
 West. The effect of Christian edu- 
 cation, it is claimed, is denational-: 
 izing the youth of China. The 
 Christian Church is also declared to 
 be in league with capitalists for the 
 economic exploitation of China 
 and for the furtherance of the 
 aggressions of foreign powers. A 
 representative of the municipal gov- 
 ernment in Canton said: “The anti- 
 Christian movement is not opposi- 
 tion to Christianity but opposition 
 to Christianity as dominated by 
 commercial and imperialistic mo- 
 tives. The missionary comes to 
 China with a Bible in one hand 
 52 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 and a package of free cigarettes in 
 the other.” Thus Christianity is 
 charged with the total impact of 
 the West upon the East, commercial, 
 educational, and political. The most 
 fruitful source of all the popular 
 misunderstandings of the Christian 
 religion is a blind prejudice and a 
 complacent conceit which pass by 
 on the other side and refuse to in- 
 vestigate. 
 
 2. In the second place the methods 
 of the Christian schools have been 
 interpreted as an attempt to force 
 Christianity upon the students. Re- 
 quired courses in the Bible or in 
 religious subjects and compulsory 
 attendance upon religious worship 
 are strongly resisted in the schools. 
 Not even some of the teachers of 
 religious courses have discovered that 
 part of the opposition may grow 
 out of the dull and profitless way 
 in which their subject is being taught 
 
 53 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 rather than out of the total per- 
 versity of the Chinese students. 
 
 3. Another cause of the anti- 
 Christian agitation is the intellectual 
 awakening which is promoting wide 
 reading and independent thinking. 
 The honest questioning which is 
 developed by the study of modern 
 science, which is a healthy sign of 
 intellectual growth, may, in a pagan 
 atmosphere without wise guidance, 
 become cynical and destructive un- 
 belief. Furthermore, the revival of 
 interest in China’s ancient culture 
 has led some minds to the mistaken 
 conclusion that the Chinese classics 
 are opposed to the Sacred Scrip- 
 tures, and that the teachings of 
 Mencius and Confucius are to be 
 arrayed against the teachings of 
 Moses and Jesus. 
 
 4. There can be no doubt that 
 the most alarming cause of the 
 attack upon Christianity is found in 
 
 54 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 the faulty lives of Christians and 
 in the superficial work of the Chris- 
 tian Church. In the desire to mul- 
 tiply converts, and to build up 
 organizations, and to promote inter- 
 ests, men have been brought into 
 the church who lacked both decent 
 morality and true piety. Christian 
 schools in pride of numbers and 
 under financial stress have sometimes 
 failed to create and to maintain an 
 atmosphere that is distinctively and 
 positively Christian. It is a sobering 
 fact that not a few violent anti- 
 Christian leaders have come out of 
 the Christian schools. 
 
 5. Probably the most violent at- 
 tack that is made against organized 
 Christianity comes from the sus- 
 picion of the motives of the Christian 
 movement. The church is identified 
 with Westerners. Christianity 1s 
 thought of as a foreign religion, for- 
 getful of the fact that it is no more 
 
 55 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 a foreign religion than electricity is 
 a foreign force. The charge that 
 Christianity is but a part of the 
 system of Western political and com- 
 mercial propaganda has been cap- 
 italized with a singular effectiveness 
 by Soviet emissaries. These ma- 
 ligners of religion have taken shrewd 
 advantage of the psychology of the 
 nationalistic movement to the serious 
 hindrance of Christian evangelism. 
 6. The anti-Christian movement in 
 its present extent and _ bitterness 
 would not be possible without the 
 thought atmosphere favorable to its 
 growth. Its background is in the 
 naturalistic philosophy prevalent to- 
 day. The mind of Young China is 
 being soaked in the mechanistic 
 philosophy, and in the _ behavior 
 psychology which undermine the 
 foundations of all supernatural reli- 
 gion. The most dangerous anti- 
 Christians are those who are being 
 56 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 trained in the philosophic material- 
 ism of the universities of England 
 and America. 
 
 While there are these several con- 
 tributing causes to the present attack 
 upon Christianity, it should be borne 
 in mind that in recent months the 
 movement is taking on new aspects. 
 In one place it centers chiefly in 
 personalities. In another it is anti- 
 foreign. In another it is jealousy 
 of the success of Christian schools. 
 In still another it is hireling Bol- 
 shevism supported from abroad. 
 Lastly, there are honest doubters, 
 who, witnessing the failure of the 
 church to take seriously the teach- 
 ings of Jesus and to reproduce his 
 life of love, conclude that Chris- 
 tianity is not what China needs to 
 build up the right kind of civiliza- 
 tion for the present generation. Be- 
 cause of the complexity of the forces 
 operating in the anti-Christian move- 
 
 57 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 ment Christian believers must face 
 it with the greater seriousness. 
 
 How is the Christian Church to 
 meet this attack? 
 
 1. With honesty and generosity of 
 mind. Not by meeting attack with 
 counter attack, but in the spirit 
 of open-minded search for the truth. 
 Let the Christians of China, both 
 native and foreign, humbly confess 
 their faults in personal conduct and 
 their failures in Christian work. 
 By honest inquiry, set about finding 
 the mistaken methods and removing 
 the defects in plans. Make an end 
 frankly of pious bluff and arrogant 
 pretense. Remove misunderstanding 
 of the Christian religion by intelli- 
 gent information and by holy living. 
 Generously recognize and utilize the 
 work of the ancient culture of China 
 for the interpretation and for the 
 furtherance of the gospel of Christ. 
 The best there is in Confucianism 
 
 58 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 and Buddhism will not detract one 
 whit from the truth and grace of 
 Him ‘“‘who in all things has the 
 pre-eminence.” 
 
 2. The anti-Christian movement 
 must be met by more enlightening 
 and more earnest preaching and 
 teaching the Christian evangel. 
 There is a great dearth of literature 
 adapted to the instruction of the 
 thinking classes in the essentials of 
 the Christian faith. Christian con- 
 verts in China are not to be made 
 by exhortation but by instruction. 
 The country is being literally sown 
 with tracts and pamphlets, and the 
 city walls are being plastered over 
 with posters containing poisonous 
 and extravagant attacks upon Chris- 
 tianity and upon foreign nations. 
 There is need of a great program 
 of Christian education, interpreting 
 in a direct and telling manner the 
 essentials of the Christian faith and 
 
 59 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 the aims of the Christian Church. 
 There is need too of a rational 
 philosophy to offset the naturalism 
 and behaviorism and _ Russellism 
 which furnish the intellectual back- 
 ground of the present anti-Christian 
 movement. 
 
 3. This attack on the Christian 
 faith must be met with certain 
 confidence in the victory of the 
 Christian cause. ‘No one is really 
 a Christian,” declared a Christian 
 Chinese, “who does not believe in 
 the victory of Christianity.” Christ 
 has overcome the world and his fol- 
 lowers are to share and to extend 
 his victory. If Christianity were a 
 doctrine alone, it could be discredited 
 for a time. If it were only an 
 organization, men could destroy it 
 or supplant it. If Christianity were 
 a mere ceremony or intellectual sys- 
 tem, they could dispense with it. 
 But it is a life—the life of Jesus 
 
 60 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 Christ in a man, in a group of men, 
 in a nation. And because that Life 
 was the light of men shining in the 
 darkness, the darkness has not over- 
 powered it. It cannot. 
 
 The anti-Christian movement is 
 the brightest spot on the horizon 
 to-day. Why? 
 
 First, because it is focusing the 
 attention of China on Jesus Christ. 
 
 The gaze of the people is riveted 
 on Him as on no other. The name 
 of Jesus is appearing on more printed 
 pages and is being pronounced by 
 more lips in China daily than is 
 any other name. 
 
 Furthermore, this attack upon 
 Christianity brings the Christian 
 forces into close grips with their 
 real problem, namely, making life— 
 all life—genuinely Christian. The 
 Christian faith is in competition 
 with the other religions of Asia. 
 Christianity is challenged to show 
 
 61 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 its uniqueness and superiority in 
 comparison with the religions of 
 China by its fruits in men’s lives. 
 Nothing is to be feared by the 
 Christian forces from the revival 
 of Buddhism and Confucianism. The 
 moral teachings of Confucius and 
 the stress of Buddhism on subjec- 
 tive experience may be used to 
 promote the Christian faith rather 
 than to supplant it. There are 
 many independent religious move- 
 ments searching for the _ spiritual 
 elements in life, looking for the best 
 there is in all religions, and turning 
 men’s thoughts from things to the 
 inner life. These also are the allies 
 and not the enemies of the Chris- 
 tianity movement. At the ‘same 
 time it must be borne in mind that 
 the issue between Christianity and 
 all other religions is clear-cut. The 
 issue is whether Christianity as pre- 
 sented by the Western church is 
 62 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 superior to the religions of the East, 
 whether the lives produced by the 
 religion of Jesus are like the life 
 of Jesus, and whether Christian 
 civilization as developed in the West 
 is what China wants and needs. 
 
 Already the opposition to the 
 Christian movement is making for 
 the furtherance of the gospel. It 
 is leading honest minds to study 
 for themselves the Christian faith. 
 In response to the challenge of the 
 Christian, ““Come and see,” Christ 
 is being exalted in China to-day as 
 never before. 
 
 One of the student leaders of the 
 anti-Christian movement in Peking 
 was led to visit a Bible class and, 
 as the result of his search for the 
 truth, became an earnest believer. 
 One of the leading generals in the 
 army in Szechuen was attracted by 
 the antagonism to the Christian 
 Church and began to investigate all 
 
 63 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 its activities in the community. On 
 Christmas day he declared in the 
 presence of a great gathering his 
 confidence in the Christian people, 
 and pledged his protection and sup- 
 port. The persecution of the Chris- 
 tians is proving to be a clarion call 
 to the Chinese to contend earnestly 
 for their faith. 
 
 In Chengtu, West China, on 
 Christmas day mobs filled the streets 
 in front of several churches and for 
 more than five hours by jeers and 
 shrieks sought to intimidate the 
 worshipers who were entering or 
 leaving the churches. A few days 
 later after the close of the Annual 
 Conference session, the pastors and 
 teachers held an all-day meeting, 
 forming an organization for aggres- 
 sive evangelism. Soberly facing the 
 danger which threatens them, they 
 provided for raising from their mea- 
 ger income a kind of insurance fund 
 
 64 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 for the relief of the families of any 
 who might lose their lives in defense 
 of the faith. The Christian Church 
 in China, by this persecution, is 
 being purified, revitalized, and 
 trained for a great forward move- 
 ment in spiritual conquest. 
 
 The anti-Christian movement 
 sounds a clarion call to the Church 
 of Christ in China and throughout 
 the world. It is a call to preach 
 Jesus Christ as Saviour and Master 
 and Lord of all life. It is a call to 
 preach the gospel in the terms of 
 China’s thinking and feeling. It is 
 a call to live holy lives such as will 
 fitly present and represent Jesus to 
 men. It is a call to complete that 
 which is lacking in the sufferings 
 of Christ, remembering ever that 
 “Christianity is a suffering religion.” 
 It is a call to bring every sphere 
 of life—industry, government, inter- 
 national relations as well as personal 
 
 65 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 conduct—into the domain of Christ. 
 It is a call to believe with joyful 
 confidence in the complete and final 
 victory of Him at whose name 
 every knee shall bow, and every 
 tongue confess that Jesus Christ is 
 Lord to the glory of God the Father. 
 
 66 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 WHY MISSIONARIES IN 
 CHINA? 
 
 A LITTLE more than a decade and 
 a half ago a young professor in the 
 University of Strassburg resigned 
 his chair to become a medical mis- 
 sionary in Africa. It seemed in- 
 credible that Dr. Albert Schweitzer, 
 who had already become eminent 
 as an author and as a musician, 
 should abandon the world of letters 
 and art to go into the heart of the 
 Dark Continent as a medical prac- 
 titioner. What was it that led this 
 renowned musician to exchange his 
 organ-seat for a scantily equipped 
 hospital in darkest Africa? In his 
 fascinating volume, On the Edge of 
 the Primeval Forest, and in his illu- 
 minating studies in philosophy and 
 
 67 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 religion we discover the secret of 
 his heroic career— 
 ““Desperate tides of the whole great 
 world’s anguish 
 Forced through the channels of a 
 single heart.” 
 
 This is the story in his own memor- 
 able words: 
 
 “The operation is finished, and in 
 the hardly lighted dormitory I watch 
 for the. sick man’s awakening. 
 Searcely has he recovered con- 
 sclousness when he stares about him 
 and ejaculates again and again, ‘I 
 have no more pain!’...His hand 
 feels for mine and will not let it go. 
 Then I begin to tell him and the 
 others who are in the room that it 
 is the Lord Jesus who has told the 
 doctor and his wife to come to the 
 ~Ogowe, and that white people in 
 Europe give them the money to live 
 here and cure the sick Negroes. 
 Then I have to answer questions as 
 
 68 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 to who these white people are, where 
 they live and how they know that 
 the natives suffer so much from 
 sickness. The African sun is shining 
 through the coffee bushes into the 
 dark shed, but we, black and white, 
 sit side by side and feel that we 
 know by experience the meaning of 
 the words, ‘And all ye are brethren.’ ” 
 
 Every missionary to-day, whether 
 in the ministry of teaching or preach- 
 ing or healing, is met by the same 
 challenge, “Why are you _ here? 
 What is the motive and purpose 
 of the missionary enterprise? Why 
 should you preach the gospel of 
 Jesus to the whole world? Do you 
 expect the gospel to leaven the 
 thought, the will, and the hope of 
 all mankind?” 
 
 The cause of world evangelization 
 is more seriously challenged than 
 ever before. The missionary enter- 
 prise is under a fierce fire of crit- 
 
 69 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 icism. Some of this criticism is 
 cheap and flippant; much of it is 
 honest; but all of it should be 
 squarely faced. If this largest for- 
 eign philanthropy supported by 
 Western nations is a piece of mis- 
 guided: sentimentality, 1t is time we 
 were finding it out. If Christian mis- 
 sions will not bear the light of closest 
 scrutiny, I welcome the disclosure. 
 There are approximately eight 
 thousand Christian missionaries in 
 China. By many fellow foreigners 
 in the Orient engaged in trade they 
 are branded as impractical ideal- 
 ists. ““Damned missionaries” is all 
 too common an epithet on the lips 
 of commercialists in the East. The 
 missionaries are accused of disturb- 
 ing the peace of a people who are 
 satisfied with their own religious 
 beliefs; of giving the Orientals stand- 
 ards of physical living beyond their 
 reach; of mixing into international 
 70 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 affairs and complicating the political 
 relations of the nations. From an- 
 other quarter comes the charge that 
 the schools, hospitals, and other 
 philanthropies that have been estab- 
 lished are only the tools of imperial- 
 istic nations wishing to exploit the 
 country. The missionary is accused 
 of being the advance agent of the 
 capitalist, and under a benevolent 
 guise seeking to open the doors of 
 trade for his fellow countrymen. The 
 missionaries, actuated by the complex 
 of race superiority, are, it is said, seek- 
 ing to transplant Western institu- 
 tions and customs to the Orient. 
 And then it is claimed that Chris- 
 tianity has nothing of permanent 
 value to give to the ancient civil- 
 izations of the East. A country 
 that can produce a Confucius’ and 
 Mencius, or a Tagore and Gandhi, 
 does not need the gospel of Jesus 
 for its salvation. 
 waa 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 These are grave indictments. Will 
 the facts bear them out? Can we 
 justify the missionary enterprise in 
 the minds of sober-thinking men? 
 Or is it the outcome of religious 
 enthusiasm and sentimentality? 
 
 Whatever our final answer to these 
 questions may be I am perfectly 
 sure that some of the motives that 
 were appealed to for the support 
 of Christian missions no longer 
 awaken any response. We are no 
 longer moved by the desperate hope 
 of rescuing from a future perdition 
 the millions of Christless souls who 
 die every year without having heard 
 the name of Christ. We have a 
 better thought of God, the Father 
 of all, than that. Thirty years ago 
 we used to hear the call for student 
 volunteers to evangelize the world 
 in the present generation. Now we 
 see that such a plan of wholesale 
 evangelism is so utterly superficial 
 
 712 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 as to have but little moral or spir- 
 itual significance except to the evan- 
 gelist. We are no longer strongly 
 moved by the conviction that the 
 Western type of civilization is so 
 essential to the higher happiness of 
 the world that we should seek to 
 establish our democratic institutions 
 in all the world. In the past eight 
 years, since we fought to “make the 
 world safe for democracy,’ we have 
 found that democracy is not always 
 safe for the world. However val- 
 uable our social, political, and reli- 
 gious Institutions may be to Western 
 nations, it is certain that in their 
 present forms they are not always 
 equally useful to the Orient. 
 
 The Christian missionary is no 
 longer to be regarded as the herald 
 of a doctrine for men’s salvation. 
 His mission is not to give the bap- 
 tism of a nominal Christianity, or 
 the veneer of Western civilization. 
 
 73 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 Much less is the missionary purpose 
 to justify the ambition of a world- 
 wide ecclesiasticism. Ardently as I 
 believe in the doctrines and _ polity 
 of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
 I am sure that the doctrinal state- 
 ments and denominational polity of 
 Methodism are not essential to the 
 spiritual hope of any people. We 
 are in bigger business as mission- 
 aries than building up a world-wide 
 ecclesiasticism. In short, we are 
 not in China to extend an ecclesi- 
 astical system, to transplant West- 
 ern institutions and customs, or to 
 propagate a set of rigidly fixed reli- 
 gious beliefs. 
 
 What, then, has the missionary to 
 give to China that is distinctive 
 and everlastingly worth while? My 
 answer is Jesus Christ. To make 
 known to the Chinese “the un- 
 searchable riches of Christ” is the 
 unique and glorious task of the 
 
 74 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 Christian missionary. The value of 
 the missionary enterprise depends 
 entirely on our appraisal of Jesus 
 Christ. Christian missions center 
 around the personality of Jesus. If 
 he is the “fairest among ten thou- 
 sand, the one altogether lovely’’; if 
 there is “no other name _ under 
 - heaven given among men by which 
 we may be saved”; if “in all things 
 he has the pre-eminence’; if “‘he is 
 all in all’; if he is the Son of God 
 and the power of God; if he is the 
 life of men and the “light of the 
 world,”’ he is the all-sufficient reason 
 for the missionary enterprise. Our 
 faith in Christian missions is just 
 as big, and no bigger, than our 
 faith in Jesus Christ. If he is the 
 best I know, if he is the surest way 
 to the feet of God, if in him I find 
 the fullest, richest life, by all the 
 compulsions of my own experience 
 of his worth and power, I must 
 75 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 preach his gospel to every creature 
 in all the world. Because I believe 
 that Jesus is indispensable to the 
 East and to the West alike, I be- 
 lieve that Christianity is essentially 
 a missionary religion. 
 
 There are three fundamental needs 
 of East and West and of men every- 
 where. They are the great basal 
 human needs, which stand out with 
 arresting vividness in the Orient. 
 
 First, Truth for the interpretation 
 of life. ‘There are some questions 
 that will not down. They must be 
 answered anew by every generation 
 for itself. Each of us is confronted 
 every morning afresh with such ques- 
 tions as these: What is God like? 
 Does he care for my little life? 
 What meaning and value has my 
 lifep Why am I in the world? 
 What am I in the world for? What 
 may I hope for in this world? Is 
 there some power by which every 
 
 76 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 man can conquer evil and find peace 
 in struggle and comfort in sorrow? 
 Can life for the individual and for 
 the multitudes be made permanently 
 worth-while and satisfying? Does it 
 issue in anything beyond the grave? 
 These are the great questions for 
 all religions and for all time. 
 
 Jesus has an answer—the best 
 answer that I can find in the great 
 religions of the world. His answer 
 is, “I am the Truth.” His daring 
 claim has been vindicated by the 
 experience of sixty generations. The 
 title given him by his own genera- 
 tion—the Great Teacher—has been 
 acclaimed by twenty centuries. His 
 words have been recorded in the 
 New Testament by a half dozen 
 writers. Their influence is out of 
 all proportion to their volume. They 
 can all be repeated in forty minutes. 
 They would make an average mag- 
 azine article in length. The volume 
 
 V7 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 of his teaching is far surpassed by 
 that of Confucius and Plato, of 
 Buddha and Mencius. Jesus was 
 not a formal teacher or platform 
 lecturer. He wrote no book. He 
 founded no system of philosophy. 
 And yet his words concerning God 
 and human duty and destiny have 
 taken hold of the mind and imag- 
 ination of men for all time. While 
 other teachers have been outgrown 
 there is perpetual vitality in the 
 teaching of Jesus. To men of all 
 races with different cultures and 
 customs the gospel of Jesus comes 
 giving rational meaning, infinite 
 worth, and eternal hope to human 
 life. Judged solely by its own self- 
 evidencing truth Christianity is the 
 inalienable birthright of every hu- 
 man soul. 
 
 But why should Christianity claim 
 superiority among all the religions 
 of the world? Because of Jesus’ 
 
 18 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 answer to fundamental human need. 
 Let every religious faith be judged 
 by the way it meets the appeal of 
 the universal human heart. It must 
 stand or fall by the fruit of its truth 
 in men’s minds and by their expe- 
 rience of its power in their lives. 
 The Greco-Oriental religions say 
 to man: “The world is evil; free 
 thyself from the world.” Jesus says: 
 “My truth shall make you free; 
 work in the spirit of the love of 
 God for the redemption of the 
 world.” Brahmanism says to man: 
 “The world is evil; you must escape 
 from its evil by knowledge.”’ Jesus 
 says: “You are to conquer the evil 
 of the world by faith in God.” 
 Buddhism says: “‘Life is full of un- 
 fulfilled desire and suffering; find 
 peace by self-annihilation.”’ Jesus 
 says to man: “I came that you 
 might have life and have it abun- 
 dantly. In fullness of life is your 
 V9 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 peace and triumph.” Brahmanism 
 and Buddhism are spiritual religions 
 only in ideal. They are religions of 
 intellectual compassion. ““They are 
 not religions for ordinary men but 
 solely for monks.” Christianity is 
 the only religion of the good Samar- 
 itan. Jesus is the teacher of the 
 common people. The popular Chi- 
 nese religion says to men: “Find re- 
 demption through knowledge; know 
 nature and you will find life at its 
 highest.’’ But it lacks moral power. 
 It has no life that gives deliverance 
 from sin and quickens eternal hope. 
 It has wealth of ethical culture but 
 lacks saving power. The religions 
 of the East are formule for explain- 
 ing everything. The religion of 
 Christ is the power of God for the 
 saving of men. “The gospel of 
 Christ is not a religion but religion 
 itself, in its most universal and 
 deepest significance. Christianity 
 80 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 penetrates and transcends all knowl- 
 edge and brings men into conscious 
 experience of things eternal. In a 
 world where multitudes have guessed 
 about God, philosophized about God, 
 and groped after God, Jesus lived 
 a life of such self-authenticating 
 spiritual grandeur that when men 
 try to think about God they can 
 say nothing so satisfying and so 
 adequate as to say that God Is like 
 Christ. The final test of the in- 
 herent truth of Christianity is that 
 Jesus Christ brings men to the feet 
 of God the Father and leaves them 
 there. In response to the age-long 
 cry of humanity, “Show us the 
 Father; that is all we need,” Jesus 
 answers: “He that has seen me has 
 seen the Father.’”’? And in the rap- 
 ture of their own living experience 
 for sixty generations men and women 
 have been answering back—“My 
 Father and my God!’ The ever- 
 —6Bl 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 lasting vindication of the Christian 
 missionary is that he brings a doc- 
 trine of God which is immeasurably 
 superior to any other, and truth in 
 which men find their highest free- 
 dom. The Infinite Father of all, 
 sharing with us the shame of our 
 sins until they are lost in his for- 
 giveness, the Chief of Burden- 
 bearers, the Hero and Leader of 
 all men in self-sacrifice and suffering 
 for our redemption, as being exactly 
 represented by Jesus Christ—he is 
 our glorious God forever. 
 
 It is worth while going to the 
 ends of the earth to make known 
 to men a God like that. 
 
 Another great need of the Orient 
 which Jesus meets is In showing 
 men a way of life which satisfies 
 their highest conscience. It was a 
 high tribute to the commanding 
 quality of Jesus’ life that the earliest 
 designation of the Christian religion 
 
 82 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 was “The Way.” The conviction 
 of twenty centuries is nobly voiced 
 by K. Natarajan, editor of the 
 Indian Social Reformer: ““The per- 
 sonality of the Master stands before 
 the world in compelling grandeur.” 
 The everlasting fascination of the 
 personality of Jesus is the unap- 
 proached moral ideal of his life. 
 His declaration, “I am the way’’— 
 the new way of living—has never 
 been successfully challenged. The 
 highest standard by which we can 
 measure character is the actual 
 life of Jesus. The noblest ex- 
 ample of human conduct that has 
 been found is the way Jesus went 
 about doing good. With all the 
 progress which the human race has 
 made in ethical codes and in right 
 _ jiving, the moral standards of Jesus 
 have not been outgrown. Nothing 
 that he declared wrong twenty cen- 
 turies ago has since been found to 
 83 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 be right. The moral judgments of 
 Jesus have never been reversed. 
 John Stuart Mill, sage of the nine- 
 teenth century, was right: ““The best 
 rule of conduct for the ordinary 
 man is to live so as to have the 
 approval of Jesus Christ.” Could 
 you find a better rule for any kind 
 of man than to test his action and 
 motives by the life of Jesus? 
 When Charles M. Sheldon wrote 
 In His Steps, or What Would Jesus 
 Do? who would have dreamed that 
 it would have the largest sale of 
 any English publication in twenty 
 years? The little book had no 
 such literary merit as would send its 
 millions of copies throughout the 
 English-speaking world. The secret 
 of its spell was the question of its 
 titl—_What Would Jesus Do? That 
 question arraigns every man before 
 the judgment seat of his own high- 
 est standard of conduct. “What 
 84 
 
 
 
 : 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 would Jesus do if he were where 
 I am?” is the most arresting chal- 
 lenge ever made to the conscience 
 of men. We are making anew the 
 discovery to-day that Jesus Christ 
 is not to be explained. He is not to 
 be admired and wondered at chiefly. 
 His kind of life is to be lived. And 
 if we are looking to find the best 
 pattern after which to fashion our 
 own life, where will we find a better 
 than Jesus? As soon as a better 
 man than the Man of Galilee can 
 be found, I am ready to forsake 
 Jesus and follow him. But until 
 then, 
 
 “Of all mankind I cleave to him, 
 
 And to him will I cleave alway.” 
 
 If you are trying to find prin- 
 ciples of conduct by which you can 
 rid life of selfishness and cruelty, 
 of dishonesty and prejudice; if you 
 are trying to rebuild the torn and 
 
 85 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 wasted elements of human society 
 into a brotherhood of races and 
 nations, what better thing can you 
 say to men than to live as Jesus 
 would approve? At the close of 
 the Washington Peace Conference, 
 Viscount Grey declared there is no 
 hope for international peace unless 
 the nations will act on the prin- 
 ciples of Jesus Christ. Cynical 
 George Bernard Shaw admits that 
 after sixty years of observation he 
 sees no way out of the world’s 
 misery save the application of 
 Christ’s way and will to the prac- 
 tical problems of life. Matthew 
 Arnold was right, tremendously 
 right: “Nothing will do except right- 
 eousness, and no other conception 
 of righteousness will do except Jesus’ 
 conception.”” Dr. Harry E. Fos- 
 dick, one of the spiritual leaders 
 of the West, voices the _ loftiest 
 moral conviction of to-day when he 
 86 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 declares, ““The high business of tak- 
 ing Jesus seriously is the most 
 important task of our time.” The 
 moral collapse of Western civiliza- 
 tion in the last decade is a severe 
 indictment against organized Chris- 
 tianity. Institutional religion has 
 failed to represent truly the gospel 
 of Christ. If the real gospel were 
 accepted, it would pull down some 
 of the cherished institutions of 
 Christian nations. It would make 
 war impossible. It would put an 
 end to exploiting other people for 
 private gain or political power. But 
 with all the failures and crimes of 
 Western civilization there are vast 
 differences between pagan and Chris- 
 tian morals in the actual life of 
 pagan and Christian natives. And 
 Christ makes the difference. The 
 high task of the missionary, then, 
 is to call upon men to follow Jesus 
 Christ. He is to show men the 
 87 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 character of Jesus and to help create 
 a society dominated by the spirit 
 of Jesus. And if the Christians of 
 America and China would dare live 
 like Jesus Christ, it would not be 
 long until China would crown him 
 Lord of her millions. 
 
 It is worth while going to the 
 ends of the earth to make known 
 to men the Man of all the Ages. 
 
 There is a third demand for Jesus 
 Christ which none of the great 
 ethnic faiths can meet. Men need 
 Jesus’ truth for the interpretation 
 of life, and his example of right 
 living. Even more, they need power 
 for new life. Before men can reach 
 Jesus’ standard of conduct their 
 mind must be renewed, their char- 
 acter must be transformed. There 
 is upon men everywhere, East and 
 West, the sense of moral failure. 
 We are conscious that our life is 
 weak and thin where it ought to 
 
 88 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 be strong and noble. We lag back 
 when we ought to lead in a forward 
 march. We fall down when others 
 are depending on us to stand strong. 
 But in every battle for personal or 
 social goodness when Jesus appears 
 there goes up a triumphant shout 
 of victory. 
 
 The most impressive thing about 
 Jesus Christ is not the truth he 
 taught, though that has held the 
 minds of men _ with increasing 
 strength for twenty centuries. It 
 is not the character of Jesus, though 
 he is the Master of all right living. 
 The most impressive thing is his 
 power to change men’s lives—to 
 make bad men good, with a good- 
 ness like his own. For sixty gen- 
 erations, men have been coming to 
 him with their secrets of sin and 
 shame and trouble, and finding for- 
 giveness and joy and peace. He 
 saves people from their sins. His 
 
 89 
 
 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 Saviourhood is his unique and un- 
 paralleled glory. 
 
 The miracle of character trans- 
 formation in China is being repro- 
 duced daily. In the Boxer days 
 ten thousand Chinese Christians gave 
 their testimony in blood that “Christ 
 is all in all.”” The second and third 
 generations of Christians in China 
 present as radiant examples of say- 
 ing grace as can be found in any 
 land. 
 
 In the first General Christian 
 Conference of West China, in 1924, 
 there were five hundred delegates 
 —the fruitage of fifty years of Chris- 
 tian evangelization in Szechuan. A 
 hundred Christian students of West 
 China Union University sang the 
 thrilling chorus, ““The Whole Wide 
 World for Jesus.” ‘This was a small 
 cross-section of the product of Chris- 
 tian missions in the midst of China’s 
 millions. 
 
 90 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 Recently a young Chinese taking 
 his advanced degree at Columbia 
 University came to make his first 
 public confession of Christ. He 
 was going back to be a_ superin- 
 tendent of schools in a large city 
 in China. He said: “I want Christ. 
 I want Christ because I want spir- 
 itual power to serve my people in 
 this generation.” 
 
 At the close of a church service 
 in Chunking a wrinkled, radiant- 
 faced old woman said to the preacher, 
 “TI do not know the characters, but 
 I have the peace of God in my 
 heart.” 
 
 A feast was given by the gentry 
 of a large city to a few missionaries. 
 One of the guests said to the chief 
 magistrate of the city at whose 
 side he sat, “What message would 
 you lke to speak through me to 
 my people in America?” His quick 
 reply was: ““Tell them we need your 
 
 91 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 help in our schools and _ hospitals. 
 I am a Confucianist, but we need 
 your religion.” 
 
 What does China need? A stable 
 government? Yes. The extension 
 of her system of education? Yes. 
 Increased facilities of communica- 
 tion? By all means. The full rights 
 and privileges of a sovereign nation? 
 Assuredly so. A sound policy of 
 finance and the raising of her 
 economic standard of living? A 
 thousand times “Yes.”? The multi- 
 plication of hospitals for the arrest 
 of disease and suffering? By all 
 our human compassions and by every 
 sense of the value of human life, 
 I answer “Yes.’”? But most of all 
 China needs a Saviour. The nation 
 is morally bankrupt; the people are 
 perishing for lack of a vision of God. 
 
 Why go on? From students and 
 from gentry, from the ignorant and 
 the learned, from publicists and men 
 
 92 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 of affairs, there comes one testi- 
 mony: “China needs Jesus Christ. v 
 Christ is her only hope.’? Militar- 
 ism and opium are spelling out ruin 
 to the nation. Ignorance and super- 
 stition like a vast pall hang over 
 the land. But the light of Christ 
 is shining in the darkness and the 
 darkness has not overpowered it. 
 Place the light on ten thousand 
 thousand human candlesticks, and 
 one day, one blessed day, China 
 will be his. Jesus Christ is all we 
 have to give to China, but he | 
 everything. 
 
 It is worth while going to the 
 ends of the earth to make known 
 to men Christ the Saviour of the 
 
 world. | 
 Site GH Heian rircs(onaricsvidn | pene 
 China? vf To show men the Infinite 
 Father in the face of Jesus Christ; 
 to bring men into living fellowship 
 with him, the power of a new life; 
 93 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 and to proclaim by word and deed 
 that all men of all races and nations 
 are brethren. 
 
 The Christian missionary stands 
 under the indictment of turning 
 the world upside down. When 
 preaching the Christian message 
 means interfering with business that 
 makes gain by exploiting the people 
 of pagan lands let him plead guilty. 
 The gospel everywhere does disturb 
 and ought to disturb a social and 
 economic order founded on unright- 
 eousness. Giving to the Orient the 
 truths of modern science is com- 
 pletely revolutionizing the domestic 
 and industrial life of people, who 
 were satisfied with the primitive 
 tools and the superstitions of past 
 ages. Just so certainly is Chris- 
 tianity making a new world in 
 standards of physical living, in social 
 ideals, in political rights and in 
 national aspirations. Jesus’ is the 
 
 94° 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 one voice that is raised in every 
 land in behalf of the poor and the 
 down-trodden. He is the Friend of 
 men. The only power that can 
 cope with racialism is the touch of 
 Jesus. National prejudices cannot 
 live in his presence. Christ, and 
 Christ alone, is teaching men the 
 secret of living together. In him 
 is life. 
 
 There is one vision that haunts 
 my sight day and night. I see the 
 gaunt and stunted forms of little 
 children robbed of the joys of child- 
 hood; the joyless and hopeless faces 
 of women stubbing along their weary 
 way on bound feet; men stooped 
 and staggering under loads too heavy 
 for beasts of burden to bear; and 
 in the features of all, marks of sin, 
 disease, suffering, despair. In the 
 midst of this welter of human misery 
 I see One like unto the form of the 
 Son of man. I hear him saying, 
 
 95 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 Mey was an hungered, and ye gave 
 me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave 
 me drink; I was a stranger, and ye 
 took me in: naked, and ye clothed 
 me: I was sick, and ye visited me: 
 I was in prison, and ye came unto 
 me.”? When, Lord? ‘Inasmuch as 
 ye have done it unto one of the 
 least of these my brethren, ye have 
 done it unto me.” If Christ is 
 incarnate here in the need of all 
 these millions I must answer their 
 cry. This is the irresistible appeal 
 and apologetic of Christian Missions. 
 
 Why missionaries in China? There 
 are not many answers. Only one 
 —Christ, Christ, Christ. y 
 
 96 
 
 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 PRESENT MISSIONARY 
 MORALE 
 
 I propose in this chapter to 
 interpret the present missionary mo- 
 rale. In order that the survey 
 might not be questioned as being 
 the reflection of a personal mood, 
 a letter was addressed to more than 
 a score of representative mission- 
 aries of seven different denomina- 
 tions requesting an answer to the 
 following questions: 
 
 1. Do you find the missionaries 
 with whom you are in contact dis- 
 couraged or hopeful in the present 
 situation? 
 
 - 2. Do you find disturbing doubt 
 as to the worth-whileness of mis- 
 sionary service under existing con- 
 ditions? 
 
 97 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 3. If you have found a weakening 
 of missionary spirit, to what do 
 you attribute it? 
 
 4. Should there be any change in 
 the policy of Mission Boards? If 
 so, what change? 
 
 The replies are candid and _ illu- 
 minating. While expressing different 
 points of view, there is_ striking 
 unanimity in their appraisal of the 
 essential features of the present 
 missionary situation in China. 
 Guided by these letters and by 
 personal contacts with many mis- 
 sionaries in different sections of the 
 country, the writer aims to interpret 
 the present missionary mood. 
 
 It must be borne in mind from 
 the outset that there is not one 
 missionary mind but many. Dif- 
 ferences in personal temperament, 
 surroundings, denominational policy, 
 and the rapidly changing conditions 
 in China make for wide differences 
 
 98 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 in missionary outlook. However, 
 there is a strong and steady current 
 of missionary thinking which is easy 
 to follow. At the same time there 
 is much confusion and uncertainty 
 of mind concerning the fundamental 
 problems of Christian missions. 
 Formerly the missionary task seemed 
 simple. It was the conversion of 
 pagans to faith in Jesus Christ. 
 Its chief objective was the baptism 
 of converts. The ministry of teach- 
 ing and healing was important 
 mainly as contributing to the work 
 of evangelizing the people. Now, the 
 work of Christianizing a community 
 or nation is exceedingly complex. 
 Schools, hospitals, social and indus- 
 trial enterprises are closely related 
 to the work of evangelization. The 
 closer contacts of East and West, 
 the interchange of ideas of different 
 nationals, and the nationalistic move- 
 ment of recent years have created 
 99 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 a new social and intellectual atmos- 
 phere for the Christian worker in 
 mission lands. The changing polit- 
 ical conditions in the Orient and 
 the new attitude of Orientals toward 
 Western civilization have multiplied 
 the problems of the Christian mis- 
 sionary. ‘The serious challenge of 
 the Christian faith on account of 
 unseemly international contacts and 
 the spread of a naturalistic philos- 
 ophy in the schools and universities 
 make the work of Christian evan- 
 gelization increasingly difficult. 
 
 Has anything happened to affect 
 the morale of present-day mission- 
 aries? Many things. 
 
 First, the disturbed conditions in 
 the country have been a tremendous 
 handicap to all Christian and phil- 
 anthropic enterprises. The ravages 
 of war and banditry are incessant. 
 For the past three years there has 
 been a steady growth of the anti- 
 
 100 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 Christian movement. Along with 
 the growing appreciation of Chinese 
 culture there has developed a severe 
 criticism of Western civilization. 
 The rising tide of nationalism has 
 developed in its extreme forms an 
 attitude of disrespect for everything 
 foreign. This has made the work 
 of the missionary more difficult. 
 Under the stress of the popular 
 movement in not a few instances 
 Chinese students have shown seem- 
 ing ingratitude and disloyalty toward 
 those who had helped them to every 
 opportunity of education and ad- 
 vancement. The mission as a for- 
 eign organization has been too slow 
 in becoming an integral part of 
 the Chinese Christian Church. As 
 the result of raising up trained 
 Chinese leaders and the reasonable 
 demand of the church for autonomy, 
 administrative positions formerly 
 held by foreigners are being trans- 
 101 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 ferred to Chinese. The mental 
 strain incident to the perils of wars, 
 riots, and disease, also isolation in 
 the interior, is insidious and con- 
 tinuous. Another fact that has had 
 to be reckoned with in the past 
 few years is the retrenchment in 
 work on account of falling income 
 from Mission Boards. The heavy 
 reduction in working staff, the un- 
 certainty of tenure of service, the 
 inadequacy of salaries for modest 
 comfort and for educating children 
 create grave personal problems for 
 the missionary. In treaty ports 
 and commercial centers there has 
 been a constantly widening breach 
 between business and missionary 
 groups. There are many foreign 
 business men in the Orient whose 
 personal standards and business prac- 
 tices make for international good 
 will. On the other hand there are 
 those who look upon the protection 
 102 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 of foreign trade as the chief duty 
 of the Chinese government, and who 
 regard the missionary as an un- 
 warranted meddler in international 
 affairs. The missionary in protest- 
 ing against the economic and political 
 exploitation of the people with whom 
 he labors alienates his own fellow 
 countrymen. In addition to all 
 these things, the loneliness of life 
 in a foreign land among people of 
 another tongue with a different social 
 point of view, long separations from 
 home friends, with the constant 
 pull of pagan surroundings, enter 
 into the very marrow of missionaries. 
 
 Now, in view of the conditions 
 above outlined it would not be 
 strange if there were confusion in 
 thinking and depression of spirit on 
 the part of many missionaries. One 
 finds more discouragement among 
 the older missionaries than among 
 the younger. It is not easy for a 
 
 103 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 benevolent paternalism to pass into 
 a true fraternalism. If turning over 
 their long cherished work to the 
 control of their less experienced 
 Chinese associates involves the risk 
 of mismanagement, some mission- 
 aries seem unwilling to take it. 
 And yet this risk must be taken 
 by every new generation as it comes 
 to its own in responsibility. The 
 younger group of missionaries in 
 close personal contacts with the 
 Chinese are, as a rule, in full sym- 
 pathy with the national aspirations 
 of the Chinese and are earnestly 
 promoting the development of a 
 truly indigenous church. One finds 
 also a small number of young mis- 
 sionaries who have become so en- 
 amored of Chinese culture and have 
 so fully identified themselves with 
 the nationalistic movement that they 
 are in danger of losing their identity 
 as Christian missionaries. They are 
 104 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 only a Western echo of Chinese 
 sentiment. They have become such 
 ardent advocates of treaty revision 
 and the abolition of extraterritori- 
 ality and other popular causes that 
 their passion in preaching Christ 
 and him crucified is burning low. 
 Others have not yet found them- 
 selves. They have been disillusioned 
 concerning missionary life. For a 
 time missionary work was danger- 
 ously popular. It had a touch of 
 adventure with an open road to 
 leadership. Now the task is seen 
 stripped of all its glamour. Instead 
 of professional preferment it means 
 patient, self-sacrificing giving of one’s 
 best to the training and inspiring 
 of Chinese leaders until Christ be 
 formed within them. 
 
 But the instances above cited do 
 not represent the predominant mis- 
 sionary sentiment. Notwithstanding 
 the difficulties of their work the 
 
 105 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 great body of missionaries in China 
 are not discouraged. They see that 
 the task of evangelizing China on 
 the quantitative side, with only two 
 million Christians among four hun- 
 dred millions, is only begun. They 
 are calling to the Western church 
 in the language of Livingstone 
 to the London Missionary Society: 
 “Send me anywhere so long as you 
 send me forward.” 
 
 Unquestionably, the Christian 
 movement in China faces to-day 
 a great crisis. The crisis arises not 
 from the desperateness of the sit- 
 uation but from the magnitude of 
 the opportunity. The future of 
 Christianity in the Orient for a 
 hundred years to come will be 
 determined largely by what Western 
 churches and nations do in the 
 next five years. With the rapid 
 unifying of China into a true na- 
 tionalism, with the progress of the 
 
 106 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 mass-education movement, with the 
 raising up of well-trained Christian 
 leaders, with the growing determina- 
 tion of Chinese Christians to build 
 up a self-supporting  self-perpetu- 
 ating church, and with the more 
 intelligent hearing of the - gospel 
 stimulated by the anti-Christian 
 movement, it is only nine o'clock 
 in the morning for the cause of 
 Christ in China. 
 
 But there is need of a new 
 appraisal of missionary work. There 
 is need of a new apologetic for 
 Christian missions. There is need 
 of a clear analysis of the mission- 
 ary mind and motive. Four things 
 will tremendously strengthen mis- 
 sionary morale. 
 
 First, a clearer understanding of 
 the real function of the Christian 
 missionary. What is his chief ob- 
 jective? It is not to proclaim a 
 formal doctrine for men’s salvation. 
 
 107 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 It is not to transplant Western 
 institutions as indispensable to the 
 welfare of the people of the Orient 
 except as they may be adapted by 
 the people themselves to meet their 
 needs. Much less is the task of 
 the missionary to give to the East 
 the veneer of Western civilization. 
 The function of the Christian mis- 
 sionary is to interpret the teach- 
 ings and spirit of Jesus Christ so 
 vitally that he becomes to men 
 the power of a new life. The plan 
 of foreign missions no longer con- 
 templates bringing the whole world 
 under the dominion of one vast 
 organization, uniform in creed and 
 in sacrament. It is, rather, the 
 communication to the Oriental world 
 of the spiritual tradition and the 
 abundant life of Christ. Christian- 
 izing a nation does not mean 
 denationalizing a people. The Chris- 
 tian missionary recognizes “racial 
 108 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 differences of thought and _ senti- 
 ment’” and undertakes to penetrate 
 all the relationships of his world, 
 commercial, political, social and 
 educational, by the moral energy 
 and the spiritual ideals of the 
 gospel of Christ. The call of Christ 
 to the modern missionary is to seek 
 to save the lost—but not alone 
 lost souls of a heathen world. The 
 world itself—its intellectual achieve- 
 ments, its literature, social institu- 
 tions, political and commercial in- 
 terests—must feel the quickening 
 touch and the transforming power 
 of the Christian life. The mission- 
 ary is a herald of the kingdom of 
 God—a social and spiritual kingdom 
 which is like leaven hidden in three 
 measures of meal, steadily and cer- 
 tainly leavening the whole mass. 
 To undertake to penetrate the entire 
 area of Oriental thought and life 
 
 by the spiritual power of the Chris- 
 109 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 tian life is a vastly more important 
 task than the mere baptizing of 
 converts from paganism. To master 
 all the interests and vocations of 
 men by the spirit of good will, to 
 make Jesus’ ideals of character and 
 of service the standards of personal 
 and social life, to dominate all the 
 institutions of business and of gov- 
 ernment by the principles of mutual 
 respect and fair play is the only 
 objective of Christian missions that 
 will stand the test of modern times 
 and answer the call of Jesus. The 
 essence of the missionary enterprise 
 is found in Jesus’ parable of, the 
 seed. To put the living seed in 
 contact with the soil and air and 
 then trust the eternal forces of the 
 harvest is the alluring task of the 
 Christian missionary. The resistless 
 vitality of good men constantly in- 
 vigorated by the Spirit of God is 
 the sure promise of the world-wide 
 110 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 triumph of the gospel of Christ. 
 With this interpretation the mission- 
 ary enterprise is implicit in the very 
 heart of the gospel. It is the supreme 
 business of the Christian Church. 
 Second, wherever there is lack of 
 a compelling conviction of a divine 
 vocation there is inevitably a weak- 
 ening of missionary spirit. As long 
 as the sense of our commission to 
 go into all the world and preach 
 the gospel to every creature is clear 
 and strong there is no discourage- 
 ment. As soon as the conviction 
 that ours is a spiritual mission on 
 which we are sent by the will of 
 God begins to die out, the difh- 
 culties of the task begin to loom 
 larger. The missionary to-day needs 
 to soak his mind in the Epistles of 
 Paul. The opening salutation of 
 every Epistle save one breathes this 
 compelling conviction: “I am an 
 apostle of the good news of Jesus 
 111 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 Christ, not by the will of men but 
 by the will of God.” Men may 
 not appreciate me but I am sent 
 by the will of God. Persecutions 
 and perils may await me, but I 
 count not my life dear unto myself 
 if I may finish the ministry which 
 I have received of the Lord Jesus. 
 The difficulties may multiply but I 
 am ready to preach the gospel in 
 the face of danger and of death. In 
 the presence daily of his divine com- 
 mission the missionary rises above 
 discouragement. The divine call to 
 evangelize the world is not ob- 
 solete. Our missionary consecration 
 must be brought up to date. This 
 alone will sustain missionary morale. 
 
 Third, there is evident in some 
 quarters a weakening of conviction 
 as to the unapproachable uniqueness 
 of the Christian revelation. The 
 apostle Paul’s missionary career was 
 born in the inner certainty that to 
 
 112 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 him was given the gracious task 
 of making known unto the Gentiles 
 “the unsearchable riches of the Gos- 
 pel of Christ.”” Unless Christianity 
 is something more than one of the 
 great religions of the world, mis- 
 sionary passion cannot be sustained. 
 Unless Jesus Christ is something 
 more to us than one of the world’s 
 great teachers and leaders, mission- 
 ary zeal will burn out. If in all 
 things and among all men He has 
 the pre-eminence, if he is the best 
 I know of all mankind in ideal and 
 in power for righteous living, if 
 his gospel is the power of God unto 
 salvation to every one that believes, 
 that conviction is the very life nerve 
 of Christian missions. In this faith 
 a missionary writes, “I believe the 
 spread of the gospel is the most 
 important thing in the world.” The 
 missionary with this conviction will 
 have all the greater hospitality of 
 113 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 mind toward the truth of all other 
 religions. The fullest appreciation 
 of the teachings of Mencius and 
 Confucius will only prepare the way 
 for the completer revelation of God 
 in Jesus Christ. Christianity is 
 not the foe of other religions, but 
 their fulfillment. Knowing the fail- 
 ures of organized Christianity, it 
 becomes the Christian disciple to 
 be humble. Knowing the culture 
 of the Chinese, it becomes the Chris- 
 tian evangelist to be _ teachable. 
 Whenever he speaks for Christianity 
 in contrast with other world reli- 
 gions he must do it in meekness of 
 spirit and in assurance of the final 
 triumph of the Christian faith. 
 Other religions in their ethical teach- 
 ings closely approach the religion 
 of Jesus Christ, evidencing the fact 
 that in no time or place has God 
 left himself without witness among 
 
 men. But the lack of the great 
 114 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 ethnic faiths, the lack for which 
 nothing else can atone, 1s Christ. 
 They have no Christ, the Saviour 
 and Lord, and without him life 
 lacks its supreme necessity. This 
 unfaltering conviction is the very 
 heart of the missionary enterprise. 
 When this conviction wavers, mis- 
 sionary enthusiasm dies. So long 
 as the Christian missionary believes 
 with all his heart that “in him was 
 life; and the life was the light of 
 men. And the light shineth in 
 darkness; and the darkness has not 
 overpowered it,” so long will the 
 Christian faith triumph and_ the 
 ehurch will sing its hymns of hope. 
 
 Fourth. Another important ele- 
 ment in missionary morale is the 
 attitude of Mission Boards and the 
 home church. A larger confidence 
 on the part of the boards in the 
 ability of the workers on the field 
 to administer the affairs of their 
 
 115 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 work would be tremendously heart- 
 ening. The lack of flexibility in a 
 system dealing with persons and 
 with human situations at the long 
 range of twelve thousand miles 
 makes for friction and inefficiency. 
 The continued discussion of policies 
 of retrenchment or of advance takes 
 the very heart out of those who are 
 on the front lines eager to push 
 forward. Further, if the Mission 
 Boards would transfer nine tenths 
 of the details of administration of 
 mission affairs to the mission 
 fields, and would devote the bulk 
 of their energies to spreading abroad 
 in the home church information that 
 is fresh and appealing, and to arous- 
 ing the conscience of the church 
 to take seriously the great enterprise 
 of world evangelization, it would 
 make mightily for the strengthening 
 of missionary morale. One mission- 
 ary who is giving the full measure 
 116 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 of devotion writes, not in complaint 
 but in a ringing appeal for re-en- 
 forcements, ‘“Tell the mission boards 
 to ‘buck up’ and send some more 
 missionaries.” In short, what is 
 needed from the home base to put 
 new hope and courage into the 
 missionaries is more vision and less 
 machinery; more spiritual agony for 
 the redemption of men, and _ less 
 devising of methods and “setting 
 up” programs; more calling the 
 church to real consecration to Jesus 
 Christ and less reliance upon the 
 mechanics of money raising. The 
 victory of the cause of Christ depends 
 not chiefly but solely upon our faith 
 in God. If he lives and leads in lives 
 transformed, in minds renewed, in 
 social consciousness awakened, and in 
 efforts to build a world of righteous- 
 ness, we will not fear to follow. “The 
 light shineth in the darkness, and 
 the darkness cannot overpower it.” 
 117 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE PLACE OF THE CHRIS- 
 TIAN CHURCH IN CHINA 
 
 Is there a real place for the Chris- 
 tian Church in China? That de- 
 pends upon what the Church is 
 and what it has to contribute to 
 the spiritual forces of the nation. 
 Jesus declaration, “I will build my 
 church, and the gates of Hades shall 
 not prevail against it,” Is an im- 
 pressive utterance. He declares his 
 purpose to build in the world the 
 Christian Church. His _ prophecy 
 concerning its future is, ““The powers 
 of evil shall not destroy it.” Ever 
 since these memorable words were 
 spoken the Christian Church has 
 been in existence. It is at the same 
 time the most-hated and the best- 
 loved institution of mankind. Now 
 
 118 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 perhaps as never before it is the 
 storm center of criticism. Men are 
 asking with a new eagerness, “What 
 is the church? How did it come 
 into existence? What is its mission? 
 What service is it actually render- 
 ing to society? What is to be its 
 future?” I purpose to face these 
 questions with you very candidly. 
 The origin of the Church of Jesus 
 Christ is simple. The first genera- 
 tion of Christians formed themselves 
 into a society to perpetuate the 
 teachings and the spirit of Jesus. 
 So intense was the personal devo- 
 tion of the first disciples of Jesus 
 to their Master that they determined 
 to keep fresh his memory and to 
 carry out his purpose. And so by 
 regular meetings, first in private 
 houses and later in public places, 
 they recalled the words of their 
 Lord and celebrated his two sacra- 
 ments, baptism and the Holy Supper. 
 119 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 The early form of church organiza- 
 tion was simply a society of love 
 for promoting fellowship with God 
 through Jesus Christ. 
 
 During the course of the church’s 
 history it has had different forms 
 of government; it has expressed its 
 teaching in a variety of doctrinal 
 statements; it has celebrated the 
 Christian sacraments and worship 
 with manifold forms and _ rituals. 
 But in every generation and under 
 whatever name, whether Greek or 
 Roman or Protestant, it is one and 
 the same Church of Jesus Christ. 
 
 The very existence of the church 
 to-day challenges our thought. Here 
 is this institution after nearly two 
 thousand years of history. It was 
 founded in the midst of persecution. 
 In every century since, the blood 
 of its martyrs has been its harvest 
 seed. But in spite of persecution 
 which has prevailed until the present 
 
 120 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 it has more members and a greater 
 influence in the world to-day than 
 ever before. ‘The Christian Church 
 is the teacher in morals and religion 
 of one third of the population of 
 the human race. It is the dominant 
 spiritual influence in the most pro- 
 gressive nations of the world. It 
 commands vast financial resources 
 which are being devoted to works 
 of mercy and help. 
 
 The church bulks big in the his- 
 tory of modern civilization, fostering 
 learning, crowning and uncrowning 
 kings, promoting philanthropy and 
 supporting good morals. Only one 
 historian has undertaken to write 
 the history of Europe and ignore 
 the Christian Church. In doing 
 this Gibbon signally failed. Because 
 the church is a human institution 
 it has made many failures. Its 
 members are faulty and sinful men. 
 Its methods have sometimes been 
 
 12] 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 mistaken, its ministers sometimes 
 selfish and inefficient. But in spite 
 of all of its failures it is the one 
 institution in the world devoted to 
 the spread of faith in a loving God 
 and the establishment of a world- 
 wide human brotherhood. 
 
 The Christian Church holds a 
 prominent place in the New Testa- 
 ment. This most reliable historical 
 document of the first century is 
 hopelessly marred if you leave out 
 the Christian Church. Why? Be- 
 cause the church is the outgrowth 
 of the spirit and teaching of Jesus. 
 The church of the New Testament 
 is the household of God. It is the 
 bride of Jesus Christ. It is the 
 body of which Jesus is the living 
 Head. It is the instrument for the 
 accomplishment of the divine pur- 
 poses which were incarnate in the 
 life of Jesus Christ. The Christian 
 Church is religion organized for the 
 
 . 122 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 spiritualizing of life and for the 
 moralizing of human society. 
 
 But this statement concerning the 
 history of the church and its sacred 
 place in the Holy Scriptures does 
 not answer the questions which men 
 are asking to-day concerning its 
 place in the life of the nation. 
 Severe criticism is being heaped 
 upon the church as an institution. 
 Its enemies declare that its creeds 
 are obsolete, that it fosters super- 
 stition, that its efforts for human 
 welfare are inefficient, that its min- 
 isters are selfish, lacking both spir- 
 itual vision and moral courage. Its 
 foes declare that its work is a 
 failure because it has not cured 
 the poverty and the misery of the 
 world and because it has not abol- 
 ished war and established peace 
 and good will among the nations. 
 And many who do not join in the 
 popular clamor of criticism of the 
 
 123 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 church believe we can have religion 
 without sacraments and a redeemed 
 society without organized religion. 
 The question is pressed upon us 
 from many sides, ““Why the church?”’ 
 First, the church stands for the 
 reality and value of the things of 
 the Spirit. Its primary task is the 
 promotion of spiritual life through 
 fellowship with God. Man has a 
 spiritual side with aspirations and 
 longings which only the sense of 
 the Infinite can satisfy. Every 
 church building stands as a silent 
 witness to the reality of man’s 
 inner life. As an institution the 
 church ministers to man’s spiritual 
 nature by interpreting the truth of 
 Jesus and by seeking to perpetuate 
 the spirit of Jesus in the lives of 
 men. It is trying to make his way 
 of life common among men. The 
 Christian Church by its teachings, 
 its sacraments, and its worship is 
 124 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 trying to reproduce the spirit of 
 Jesus’ life in every new generation. 
 Its alluring task in the develop- 
 ment of man’s spiritual life is 
 making the sense of God real to 
 men. Its unchanging message to 
 men is the love of the Eternal 
 Father. It proclaims the primacy 
 of personal character. It offers to 
 sinners the forgiveness of a Divine 
 Father. It proclaims faith in God 
 as the power by which men are to 
 overcome the evils of the world. 
 In the midst of the misery and 
 despair of the world it bids men 
 hope in God, and wait patiently 
 for the revealing of the Sons of God. 
 When the darkness of death gathers 
 about men’s way the final ministry 
 of the church is its song of immortal 
 hope. The church is evermore say- 
 ing to men, “Have faith in God.” 
 In every worshiping congregation 
 I seem to see a composite human 
 125 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 face made up of_all the upturned 
 faces before me, wistfully asking the 
 preacher, “Can you make God real 
 to me?” The young man burning 
 with the passions of youth and of 
 ambition in the eagerness of his 
 face is saying to the preacher, “Can 
 you make God real to me?” The 
 busy man absorbed in the cares of 
 the world has always one question 
 of consuming interest, “Can you 
 make God real to me?” The old 
 man, his work finished, with the 
 shadows of life rapidly lengthening, 
 sums up all the pent-up longings and 
 aspirations of his life in the same 
 burning question, “Can you make 
 God real to me?” Is there a God 
 like Jesus whom men can know and 
 trust and love? The Christian 
 Church, by its teaching and worship 
 and by its manifold ministries to 
 human life, is creating an atmosphere 
 in which it is easier for men to find 
 126 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 God. The church is constantly re- 
 minding men of the reality and the 
 value of the things which are spir- 
 itual. It is ever calling to men 
 who are absorbed with the materi- 
 alities of life, ““You are souls, souls, 
 souls.” The first reason, then, for 
 the existence of the Christian Church 
 is that it will not let men forget 
 God and their kinship to him. 
 
 The second reason for believing 
 that the Christian Church is indis- 
 pensable is that it has ever been 
 the greatest: force for the promo- 
 tion of popular education. There is 
 no other institution that has had 
 so profound an influence in awak- 
 ening men’s minds to think for 
 themselves and inspiring them in 
 the search for truth. No other 
 organization has been so potent a 
 factor in the education of the masses 
 as the Christian Church. No one 
 of the ancient classics is comparable 
 
 127 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 in its influence to the open Bible 
 in promoting the enlightenment of 
 the masses. The translation of the 
 Bible into the vernacular of the 
 people marked the beginning of a 
 new era in the growth of the Ger- 
 man Empire. Wyclif’s translation 
 of the Bible, put into the hands of 
 the common people, was the begin- 
 ning of the’ greatness of the British 
 kingdom. The textbook of the 
 Christian Church has had a _ pro- 
 founder influence in the history of 
 the United States of America than 
 all the ancient classics combined. 
 In America only twenty-five per 
 cent of the young men are members 
 of the Christian Church, but this 
 one fourth of the young manhood 
 of the country furnishes more than 
 three fourths of all the students 
 enrolled in American colleges and 
 universities. Every student of early 
 American history is familiar with 
 128 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 the fact that the church and the 
 schoolhouse were the first public 
 buildings erected in every new set- 
 tlement. In China and in all other 
 non-Christian lands the Christian 
 Church has been the pioneer in the 
 promotion of the education of the 
 common people. With China’s age- 
 long veneration of learning, no seri- 
 ous and successful attempt was ever 
 made to enlighten the masses of 
 the people until the gospel and the 
 Christian Church came to China. 
 The inspiration of the mass-educa- 
 tion movement in China and of the 
 development of the _ public-school 
 system of the country is in no 
 small degree due to the influence 
 of the Christian Church. Wherever 
 the new life comes into men’s hearts, 
 the desire for knowledge is awakened 
 in their minds. The life of Christ, 
 the Head of the church, is_ the 
 light of learning, the world around. 
 129 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 In spite of the fanaticism and in- 
 tolerance of individual churchmen, 
 now and again, the faith of the 
 church and modern science are not 
 foes. To declare that the church 
 as an institution is opposed to science 
 and to the enlightenment of the 
 masses is to advertise one’s ignorance 
 of the history of the church and of 
 modern civilization. Simply in the 
 interest of popular education alone 
 you can better afford to close all 
 the schools of the land than to close 
 the Christian churches. And_ be- 
 cause the Church of Jesus Christ 
 has been and still is the mightiest 
 factor in fostering culture and the 
 love of learning and in promoting 
 the enlightenment of the masses, 
 I believe in the Church of Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 Third. From the beginning of its 
 history until the present the church 
 has been a dynamic force for good 
 
 130 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 morals and the creating of orderly 
 society. The church is the high- 
 est conscience of the community. 
 It represents the most enlightened 
 moral sense in society. From the 
 point of view of promoting the 
 moral virtues, which are the founda- 
 tion of prosperous business and 
 stable government, the service of the 
 church is indispensable. A promi- 
 nent American publicist declared 
 recently that the fundamentals of 
 business prosperity are the old- 
 fashioned virtues of honesty, truth 
 speaking, and fair play. A ‘,con- 
 siderable degree of honesty is neces- 
 sary in order to hold together human 
 society. There is no more potent 
 factor in the community in the pro- 
 motion of those moral qualities which 
 are essential to civilized communities 
 and a peaceful social order than the 
 Christian Church. 
 
 The moral influence of the Church 
 
 131 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 of Christ in the development of 
 personal character and orderly so- 
 ciety grows first of all out of its 
 teaching. From childhood to old 
 age the church is sounding in men’s 
 ears the “Thou shalts’” and the 
 “Thou shalt nots” of Almighty God. 
 The standard of human conduct and 
 of social behavior which the church 
 is evermore presenting is the life 
 of Jesus. The church is calling 
 upon men to live Jesus’ kind of 
 life. It is saying to every new 
 generation: “You are to reproduce, 
 under the changed conditions of 
 your own time, the spirit of the life 
 of Jesus.” The moral educative 
 value of the teaching of the Ten 
 Commandments and the Sermon on 
 the Mount is unmatched in making 
 for the right life of individuals and 
 for an orderly society. There is no 
 other force in the community so 
 potent in the restraint of vice and 
 132 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 crime and in the maintenance of 
 law and order as the Christian 
 Church. The judge of the Supreme 
 Court in one of the commonwealths 
 of the United States said it would 
 not be possible to execute the laws 
 of the land, whether municipal, ' 
 State, or national, but for the influ- 
 ence of the teachings of religion 
 in the Christian churches. A former 
 chief of police in New York City 
 said it would be impossible for 
 all the policemen in the world to 
 maintain order in New York but 
 for the influence of the Christian 
 pulpits in the city. Close the Chris- 
 tian churches of any Western nation 
 and you would immediately open 
 the flood gates of vice and outlawry 
 of every sort. Men no sooner cease 
 to hear the voice of God command- 
 ing them in righteousness than they 
 tend to become lawless. Men no 
 sooner lose God out of their world 
 133 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 than they become moral anarchists. 
 There is no need of the present-day 
 world that is so imperative as the 
 need of deepening men’s sense of 
 personal obligation to the God of 
 righteousness. If you would make 
 business honest, if you would estab- 
 lish just industrial relations among 
 men, if international good will and 
 peace are ever to come, men must 
 hear the voice of the church inter- 
 preting to them the will and the 
 ways of a righteous God. 
 
 It has become tragically evident 
 during the past ten years that the 
 peace of the world cannot be main- 
 tained by physical force, however 
 powerful. No walls are strong 
 enough to resist the attack of in- 
 vading force. No treaties are bind- 
 ing enough to guarantee the rights 
 of nations. No League of Nations 
 will secure to the signatories inter- 
 national justice. The peace of the 
 
 134 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 world waits upon men of good will. 
 There is no protection of the rights 
 of the individual, there is no security 
 for human society, there is no per- 
 manency of free institutions except 
 on the basis of good morals inspired 
 by true religion. Multiply in the 
 cities of China Christian churches, 
 and you may pull down with safety 
 every city wall. Let the people 
 hear the voice of God _ speaking 
 through the teaching of righteous- 
 ness, justice and kindness and you 
 have the surest guarantee of peace 
 and prosperity throughout the land. 
 But there can be neither prosperous 
 trade nor permanent government 
 without law and order. True respect 
 for property and life rises out of 
 the conviction of the sacredness of 
 both life and property as the gift 
 of God. I believe in the Church 
 of Jesus Christ because it is indis- 
 pensable both to the higher life of 
 135 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 the individual and to the social 
 welfare of the community. 
 
 There is a fourth commanding 
 claim for the Christian Church in 
 China. It exalts the human values. 
 The cheapest thing in China is 
 human life. In the eyes of the 
 church human life is the most 
 precious thing in the world. When 
 Jesus in the synagogue claimed the 
 words of the ancient prophecy ful- 
 filled in himself, he announced the 
 greatest charter of human rights 
 ever proclaimed: 
 
 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon 
 
 me, 
 
 Because he anointed me to preach 
 good tidings to the poor: 
 
 He hath sent me to proclaim re- 
 lease to the captives, 
 
 And recovering of sight to the blind, 
 
 To set at liberty them that are 
 bruised, 
 
 To proclaim the acceptable year of 
 the Lord.” 
 
 136 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 All the principles of political de- 
 mocracy, all the movements for 
 industrial justice, all the social ser- 
 vice efforts of modern times, find 
 their inspiration and driving mo- 
 tive in Jesus’ ministry to human 
 need for the sake of the love of 
 God. The Christian Church is the 
 perpetual incarnation of that spirit. 
 First, last, and always the church 
 stands for the rights of man as 
 man, without any of the artificial 
 or superficial distinctions of race, 
 class, wealth, or culture. 
 
 Near the entrance in the corridor 
 of Johns Hopkins University Hos- 
 pital in the city of Baltimore, stands 
 a gigantic figure of the Christ in 
 marble. There is a look of tender 
 sympathy even in the face of stone. 
 The arms are extended and the 
 hands outspread as if welcoming 
 the multitudes. On the base of 
 the pedestal are inscribed his own 
 
 A137 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 words: “Come unto me, all ye that 
 labor and are heavy laden, and I 
 will give you rest.” When I first 
 saw this statue of the Christ I 
 wondered why it was placed there 
 —the first thing one would see upon 
 crossing the threshold of the hos- 
 pital. Later, when I came to know 
 some of the eminent physicians and 
 surgeons and the nurses who cared 
 for the suffering with tender skill, 
 my wonder was answered. I found 
 in this home of healing the rich 
 from far, and the poor from the 
 near-by streets and alleys, all alike 
 treated with the same skill and 
 devotion. Without respect to wealth 
 or race or position, every physician 
 and nurse were answering with self- 
 forgetful devotion the call of human 
 need. It was the spirit. of Jesus 
 reincarnate throughout the great 
 hospital. 
 
 That is a parable. Wherever the 
 
 138 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 Christian Church has been planted, 
 hospitals for the sick, homes for 
 the helpless, and a hundred tender 
 ministries to human need have 
 sprung up. 
 
 The Christian Church is the only 
 institution that makes no distinc- 
 tion in its ministry to men. It is 
 the. very genius of democracy. Its 
 doors swing wide open to rich and 
 poor alike, to the ignorant and 
 learned, to the social nobodys and 
 the social somebodys. In one of 
 the Christian schools of China are 
 three girls of promise. They were 
 homeless little beggars on the street. 
 They were led by the hand of the 
 church into a home and school to 
 be educated. Such ministries are 
 not exceptional. The spirit of Jesus 
 in the Christian Church is calling 
 men and women of all races and 
 classes and kinds, ““Come unto me, 
 all ye that labor and are heavy 
 
 139 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 laden, and I will give you rest.” 
 This is the voice that China’s mil- 
 lions need to hear. Because the 
 Church of Christ places supreme 
 value upon every man as a child 
 of God I prize my membership in 
 the church above that of any other 
 organization or institution. 
 
 What of its future in China and 
 in the world? If it continues to 
 proclaim its message of the love of 
 God, if it declares the teaching of 
 Jesus with fidelity to the truth 
 without servility to the forms of 
 truth, if 1t evermore calls men to 
 the ancient morality of justice, kind- 
 ness, and humility before God, if it 
 becomes in very fact a society of 
 love for the service of men, it will 
 meet the world’s greatest need. And 
 for a thousand ages men will sing 
 in an everswelling chorus, 
 
 “T love thy kingdom, Lord, 
 The house of thine abode, 
 140 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 The church our blest Redeemer 
 saved 
 With his own precious blood.” 
 
 Because the Christian Church 
 stands for the reality and value of 
 the things of the Spirit, making 
 God known to men; because it is 
 the mightiest force for the awak- 
 ening of men’s minds and for the 
 spread of useful knowledge; because 
 it has ever been the inspiration of 
 good morals and the bulwark of 
 orderly society; because it exalts 
 the value of man as a child of the 
 Eternal God, I owe to the Church 
 of Christ my love, my loyalty, my 
 life. 
 
 141 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 A NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 “East is East and West is West.” 
 It was inevitable the twain should 
 meet. For the past four hundred 
 years the contacts have been closer 
 and closer until now the world has 
 shriveled into a small community. 
 It is not strange that nations with 
 different racial traditions and feel- 
 ings, with different civilizations and 
 cultures, with different arts and 
 religions should clash. The East 
 and the West are now in process 
 of becoming acquainted and learn- 
 ing to live together. 
 
 The first impression which the 
 West made upon the East was the 
 strength of Western | civilization 
 through the development of material 
 resources by means of modern sci- 
 
 142 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 ence. When China saw the power 
 and prosperity of Western nations 
 she abandoned the old classical sys- 
 tem of education and introduced 
 Western learning. She established 
 a public-school system fashioned 
 largely after that of Germany and 
 Japan. The political system of the 
 country was cast in an American 
 mold. Through the influence chiefly 
 of Great Britain an admirable sys- 
 tem of maritime customs, postal, 
 and telegraph service has been de- 
 veloped. The mass-education move- 
 ment is being rapidly extended, even 
 to the coolies. The two hundred 
 million feet-bound women of China 
 are slowly being liberated from more 
 than one kind of bondage. The 
 popular superstitions of the Chinese 
 religion are being dissipated through 
 the spread of modern science and 
 Christian truth. The social ideals 
 and national aspirations which are 
 143 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 the by-product of Christianity are 
 sweeping through the country with 
 convulsive violence. China is now 
 in process of assimilating Western 
 learning, democratic principles of 
 government, new social standards, 
 and the ideals of the Christian 
 religion. 
 
 At the same time China has 
 made no inconsiderable contribution 
 to the West. Both paper-making 
 and printing have come to the West 
 from China. Her treasures of art 
 are enriching the imagination of the 
 West. It is probable that China 
 invented the compass which is now 
 guiding the ships of the world to 
 her shores. But the gain of mutual 
 exchange of material and spiritual 
 commodities is not fully appreciated 
 either by the East or West. Each 
 has much to give the other in trade, 
 in international relations, in philan- 
 thropic and religious endeavor on 
 
 144 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 the basis of mutual respect and 
 good will. 
 
 There 1s grave danger in the 
 present situation that Western na- 
 tions will become impatient with the 
 political chaos, the economic weak- 
 ness, and the moral inertia of the 
 country. On the other hand, there 
 is equal danger that the Chinese 
 will seize upon the physical sciences 
 as the secret of Western progress 
 and become militaristic in govern- 
 ment and naturalistic in philosophy. 
 There are also signs of a growing 
 disrespect for foreigners and con- 
 tempt for Western civilization. In 
 this the Chinese have had no small 
 provocation. The greatest barrier 
 to the Christianizing of China has 
 been the unseemly contacts with 
 Western nationals. But there can 
 be no greater calamity to East or 
 West than to fail to solve the prob- 
 lem of living together in a spirit 
 
 145 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 of good will, each giving to the 
 other its best. 
 
 What of the future? It is un- 
 thinkable that China with a civil- 
 ization that has persisted through 
 changing dynasties for four millen- 
 niums will not some day be one of 
 the powerful progressive nations of 
 the world. By what road she is to 
 come to her providential place in 
 the family of the nations is far from 
 clear. But these things are certain 
 —the strangle-hold of militarism 
 must be broken. A million and a 
 half soldiers under arms are suck- 
 ing the life-blood out of the country, 
 making no constructive contribution 
 whatever to the public welfare. A 
 responsible government, free from 
 shameless intrigue and corruption, 
 must be established. China’s ninety 
 per cent illiterates must be given 
 the fundamentals of education. Her 
 millions who are now satisfied “to 
 
 146 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 toil untiringly for a bare living” 
 must be fired with a passion to 
 improve their lot. The soul of the 
 people must be awakened with a 
 new sense of social responsibility. 
 In his admirable book, China and 
 the West, Professor W. E. Soothill 
 well says: “The need of China is a 
 new soul in her men of capacity. 
 She has millions willing to die for 
 her, but few in high places willing 
 with a single mind to live for her.”’ 
 A stable government cannot be 
 established by pronunciamentos. 
 Official mandates do not bring in 
 order and peace. The merchants 
 and scholars and statesmen of China 
 must rise up and deliver their 
 country from ambitious militarists 
 and political pirates. China’s great 
 ones must tread the road of  self- 
 sacrifice and public service.” 
 Whasmust China do to be saved? 
 She must rebuild the foundation of 
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THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 her government upon personal in- 
 tegrity, public righteousness, and 
 true humanity. The leaders of the 
 country must have an awakening 
 of their moral sense. The people 
 must learn that righteousness alone 
 exalteth a nation and that peace 
 and prosperity are the fruitage of 
 morality and religion. 
 
 For fifteen long years China has 
 been torn by civil strife and by 
 revolution. Every year is becoming 
 bloodier. ‘The burden of the poor 
 is becoming heavier. The oppres- 
 sion of militarists and the indiffer- 
 ence of the wealthy are fast driving 
 the country to ruin. Nationalism 
 will not save China. “‘Patriotism is 
 not enough.” Religion is the one 
 hope of the land. And religion that 
 centers in and flows from God. One 
 of China’s foremost scholars said 
 recently, “I am an atheist, but I 
 am religious.” There is little help 
 
 148 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 for China in a religion that has 
 no God in it. The present greatest 
 need of the country is the religion 
 of Jesus Christ. There are minor 
 needs that must be met promptly 
 and courageously. The treaties with 
 foreign nations should be revised. 
 Industrial methods and economic 
 practices must be squared with jus- 
 tice. The standard of living must 
 be raised. A score of other needs 
 are crying aloud in the name of 
 humanity. But China’s major need 
 can be met only by religion. The 
 demons which are tormenting her 
 millions most are greed for money, 
 blind superstition, race prejudice, 
 national antagonism; and these de- 
 mons can be cast out only by the 
 power of true religion. China is 
 in a state of political chaos and of 
 moral decadence, because she has 
 no adequate religious foundations. 
 
 China’s supreme need is God. 
 149 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 A renewed mind is at once China’s 
 greatest need and surest hope. How 
 is the mind of an individual or 
 nation to be transformed except in 
 obedience to the apostolic injunc- 
 tion—““Be ye transformed by the 
 renewing of your mind, that ye may 
 prove what is that good, and ac- 
 ceptable, and perfect will of God’’? 
 Her educated youth must give their 
 full measure of devotion that China 
 may be saved. But the only power 
 that can purge the land of its 
 appalling iniquities and establish the 
 nation in intelligent freedom is true 
 religion. In a brilliant study of 
 Western civilization, Hu Shih sum- 
 marizes his conclusions in the state- 
 ment that “it is impossible for the 
 civilizations of the East, whose chief 
 characteristic is contentment, ever 
 to satisfy the spiritual demands of 
 mankind. Only a veritable ideal- 
 
 istic civilization, whose motive force 
 150 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 is a divine discontent, will be able 
 to satisfy man’s spiritual needs.” 
 But we need to remember that the 
 political freedom of the eighteenth 
 century and the social movement of 
 the nineteenth century were born 
 in the ideals of the gospel of Christ. 
 The only power that can sustain 
 these great humanitarian movements 
 is the religion of the Man of Galilee. 
 “In him was life; and that life was 
 the light of men.” The greatest 
 contribution which the West can 
 make to the East is the gift which 
 the East first brought to the West 
 —the gospel of Jesus Christ. He 
 is the Desire of the nations. 
 
 That China will be saved is cer- 
 tain. The God of nations will not 
 leave this ancient and mighty people 
 to the monstrous outrages of sol- 
 diers, brigands, and corruptionists. 
 The future of world civilization is 
 
 bound up inseparably with what 
 151 
 
THE NEW SOUL IN CHINA 
 
 China does in the next fifty years. 
 And what China does in the next 
 fifty years depends upon the trans- 
 formation of her mind, the finding 
 of a new soul. When the people 
 find God—the God who is seen in 
 the face of Jesus Christ—they will 
 get a new soul. That will make 
 the New China. 
 
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