:f{ 
 
 AROUND the would 
 
 \ ■WWk.fTiM \V3BIr 
 
 FOR THE 
 
 American 
 Society 
 
 ft M: 
 
 SKrafflM 
 
 ■ ‘•JBVrt - A Ck / 1 ,1, . 
 
 I 
 
 1 . V- - t '■ -J : 
 
 BHB 
 
 ■ 
 
 ^”r' 1 * /r’i 
 
 
 E3p j .. 
 
 fc 
 
 ® v^y ■ 
 
 L-rfSfc rWL /•<.■<' 
 
 »4' 
 
 ij$ •y^^S- 1® 
 
5‘, f J . o S ' . 
 
 a \\\t Shwtojtt#/ 
 
 en, K, 
 
 PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
 Presented by ^S\~\ <Es d^\-A'VV'\ o V ~ , 
 
 BV 2370 . A7 F69 1908 c.2 
 Fox, John, 1853-1924. 
 Around the world for the 
 American Bible Society 
 
Co a Cljtnese Colporteur 
 
 O TILL doth the ancient miracle , begun 
 ^ With flaming tongues of harmless fire, proceed 
 In Sinim old ; nova would the Shepherd lead 
 Into the fold. His other sheep, not one 
 Is lost, and He would suffer none 
 To lack the Word, whereon their souls must feed, 
 Wenli or Mandarin, as each hath need. 
 
 Quick as the jewelled light flashed from the sun 
 From Chihli to Tibet His Word must run. 
 
 Haste thee, O Colporteur! sow well the seed; 
 
 Bear His reproach, who soon will give thee meed 
 Of gracious praise, ‘I know thy works, ' * Well done. ' 
 Then shalt thou know the Son of Heaven, the Lord 
 Of the celestial country. The Eternal Word. 
 
 J. F. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2016 
 
 https://archive.org/details/aroundworldforam00foxj_1 
 
AROUND THE WORLD 
 
 for the 
 
 AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY 
 
 Being Twelve Letters Descriptive of a Visit to the 
 Society’s Agencies in the Far East 
 
 • • • 
 
 By JOHN FOX, D.D. 
 
 Corresponding Secretary 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY 
 1908 
 

Foreword 
 
 'T^HE readers of these letters will note that they are neither 
 official reports nor the mere recital of a traveler’s various 
 experience. They seek to describe informally from the stand- 
 point of the American Bible Society, first of all, its own work 
 — especially the self-denying labors of its Agents and Colpor- 
 teurs in their several stations in the East. Connected with 
 this, very naturally, are the operations of its sister societies, 
 and along with both of these the missions and missionaries to 
 which they are so vitally related. These are not viewed as 
 isolated phenomena, but as set in their actual environment in 
 the historic lands and among the living people for whose 
 benefit they are alike undertaken. Such letters can, at the 
 best, but faintly portray the vivid hues and forms of the living 
 realities which they aim to describe ; and these letters in par- 
 ticular were, of necessity, so brief, and many of them written 
 in such haste under the stress of travel, that they must not be 
 considered more than impressionist sketches. They appeared 
 first, month by month, in the Bible Society Record, with the 
 exception of the tenth letter, written last of all, and are now 
 reprinted with few changes and additions. They will serve 
 their purpose if they lead to a better understanding and ap- 
 preciation of our Foreign Missions in the East — and chiefly, if 
 they incline the friends of missions to set greater value on the 
 work of the Bible Societies as an integral and essential part of 
 Missionary organization. 
 
 JOHN FOX. 
 
 Bible House, January, 1908. 
 
Table of Contents 
 
 I. New York, London and Paris 
 
 Crossing the Atlantic — Exeter — The Bible House in London — Creed 
 Lane — Paris — The Bible House — The Religious Controversy. 
 
 II. Bible Societies in Rome 
 
 The British and Foreign Depot — The Society of St. Jerome — Father 
 Genocchi. ........... 
 
 III. First Impressions of India 
 
 Kandy and the Temple of the Tooth — Southern India — The Madura 
 Mission — Vellore and its Mission — Lahore — The Punjab — Dr. 
 Ewing — The Marathi Mission — Dr. Hume — Allahabad — The Work 
 of the British Bible Society. ........ 
 
 IV. To Siam by Way of Burma and Malaysia 
 
 Geography of the East — Indo-China and the English Possessions — 
 Burma — Rangoon — The Shwe Dagon Pagoda — The Baptist Mis- 
 sion — The Karens — Penang and Malacca — Singapore. . 
 
 V. Siam— En Route to China 
 
 Koh-Sichang — Delays of Travel — Evangelizing en-route — Bangkok 
 — Ayuthia — Mr. Carrington and his Work — The Presbyterian 
 Mission — The Siamese Princes. ....... 
 
 VI. China— First Impressions 
 
 Hongkong — Canton and its Sights — The Presbyterian Mission — Mr. 
 Alf and his Colporteurs — The Chinese Memory. .... 
 
 VII. Shanghai and the Valley of the Yang-tse-Kiang 
 
 Shanghai, Foreign and Chinese — Base-Line of Missions — The Head- 
 quarters of the American Bible Society — Detail of the Work — 
 Trip through China — Peking — Hankow — Yang-tse Valley — Kiu- 
 kiang — Nanking. .......... 
 
 VIII. The Shanghai Conference and Bible Translation 
 
 Reports of Conference — Its Organizations — Personnel and Methods — 
 Value of Conclusions — Bible Translation — Labor of Union Com- 
 mittees — Languages of China — New Testament Versions — Pro- 
 
vision for Old Testament Versions — Dialect Versions — Number 
 of Versions — Women and the Chinese Bible. . 
 
 IX. A Peep at Peking and Beyond (for Boys and Girls) 
 
 The Wheelbarrow in China — Mr. Wang — Peking a City of Cities — 
 Signs of the Boxers — The Altar and Temple of Heaven — The 
 Rev. Mr. Elliott and the Bible House — Ming Tombs — Chinese 
 Wall 
 
 X. North China and New China 
 
 The Chinese Wall — Mongolia and the Region Beyond — Manchuria — 
 Need for Colportage — New China — Tien-tsin and its Improve- 
 ments — Governmental and Educational Progress — A New Bible 
 House for New China. ......... 
 
 XI. A Glimpse of Korea 
 
 Routes to Korea — Fusan — Seoul — The Missions, Methodist and Pres- 
 byterian — The History of Korea — Its Spiritual Condition and 
 Extraordinary Progress — The Relation of the Bible Society 
 Thereto. ........... 
 
 XII. Three Weeks in Japan 
 
 The Beauty of Japan — Nikko — High Character of the Missionaries — 
 Kobe — Kyoto — Colportage at a Heathen Festival — Work of the 
 Bible Societies — The Fukuin Printing Company — Mr. Loomis and 
 his Work — San Francisco via Honolulu. . 
 
(1) DR. ARTHUR H. SMITH. (2) DR. J. C. GIBSON. 
 
 THE CENTENARY MISSIONARY CONFERENCE, SHANGHAI. CHINA. APRIL 25-MAY 7, 1907 
 
EXETER CATHEDRAL, CHURCH HOME OF CANON EDMONDS 
 
 I. New York, London and Paris 
 
 C ROSSING the Atlantic has become so 
 commonplace a matter in American life 
 that it will hardly need description. This 
 does not, however, lessen the charm, the com- 
 fort, or the marvel of it. A floating palace like 
 the Kaiser Wilhelm II, equipped with every 
 modern appliance, mechanical or electric, is in 
 itself a veritable wonder-world* Its very 
 contrast with the more august wonder of the 
 ocean on whose bosom it floats makes it 
 seem all the more marvelous. The wireless 
 witchery surpasses all other magic. We left 
 New York Tuesday morning, and up to 
 Thursday evening we were within wireless 
 reach of America ; by Friday night across 
 1,200 miles of water tidings flashed out to us 
 from England — startling tidings, too — of an 
 accident to the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse. 
 We dare not speculate what new wonders the 
 future contains. We may hope for interna- 
 tional telephones, by which modern business, 
 and especially the Lord’s business, may be 
 transacted, with only occasional necessity for 
 the ocean ferry. 
 
 On Sunday morning our kindly captain 
 was but too glad to have me and my com- 
 panion — apparently the only clergymen on 
 board — hold service and preach in the first- 
 class saloon, with the excellent orchestra to 
 play our hymn tunes. But my own heart 
 went out to the steerage, where it was not 
 possible to hold service, but which I visited 
 in the afternoon. Eight hundred people 
 packed four decks deep beneath the topmost 
 
 3 
 
 steerage deck are not averse to a little 
 friendly greeting even from a stranger, 
 though he be unable to say much to them. 
 Our New York, Pennsylvania, and other 
 Bible Societies must indeed meet the for- 
 eigner as he lands — perhaps as he departs. 
 Some day we may offer him the Book in 
 transitu. Transatlantic colportage is a prob- 
 lem to be studied. 
 
 We landed at Plymouth early Monday 
 morning, November 26th. 
 
 After a day at Exeter — a delicious frontis- 
 piece to England — where we caught a glimpse 
 of Canon Edmonds, whose address at the 
 Ecumenical Conference of Missions in 1900 
 is still remembered of us all, we found our 
 way to London and in due time to the Bible 
 House — for wandering Bible-men the natural 
 Mecca and goal of aspiration. It would take 
 too long for me to describe, and it has 
 already been better described in print in the 
 Centenary pamphlet, “Our Treasure House,” 
 to which we would refer all who cannot see 
 the House for themselves, or more recently 
 in the November number of The Bible in the 
 World. Let me add (for those unlearned) 
 that this is the monthly magazine of the Brit- 
 ish and Foreign Bible Society. Begun in 
 1866, its foundation stone laid by the then 
 Prince of Wales (now His Majesty the King), 
 and finished in 1868, it is a model of simple 
 elegance and dignity to the eye and a well- 
 planned and well-equipped workhouse for the 
 officials and committees, who send out from 
 
8 
 
 Around the World for the American Bible Society 
 
 it, in round numbers, 7,000 volumes every 
 working day. Of all its treasures, doubtless 
 the choicest is the library of 10,000 Bibles in 
 500 or more languages, and time would fail 
 me to tell of this or of a dozen other things 
 only less interesting. The Bible House is 
 situated in a neighborhood full of fascination 
 to the lover of England and English history. 
 Its nomenclature is saturated with the memo- 
 ries of an elder day. 
 
 Creed Lane 
 
 Right next to the Bible House stands an 
 old parish church where William Romeyn, 
 among others, once preached. It is named 
 after two saints, St. Anne and St. Andrew, 
 who, once separated, are now joined in this 
 edifice. “ St. Andrew’s by the Wardrobe ” is 
 quaintly so called because Edward III cos- 
 tumes were 
 once stored 
 thereabouts. 
 
 I found my- 
 self, as it fell 
 out, in War- 
 wick Lane , 
 and asked my 
 way. “Go 
 down Creed 
 Lane,” one 
 
 said, “or ” 
 
 but I heard no 
 more , for I 
 said, “ Creed 
 Lane is good 
 enough for 
 me but, as 
 will some- 
 times happen 
 to those who 
 follow creeds, 
 
 I grew a little 
 perplexed, 
 and this time asked a policeman, one of those 
 good ge?iii who have oversight of the wander- 
 ing mazes of London town, and he replied, 
 “ Go right down Godlyman Street,” and so I 
 did ; for although I believe in creeds, even 
 more I love the society of godly men, and so 
 presently found myself as in a dream, won- 
 dering whether I had been transformed into 
 a somebody in the Pilgrim’s Progress as I 
 came over St. Andrew’s Hill, and then in a 
 little while was received into the goodly fel- 
 lowship of all the saints of the Bible House. 
 I had begun my day by worshiping in St. 
 Paul’s, but found the church in the Bible 
 House not less comforting. 
 
 An Englishman’s house may be his castle ; 
 the Bible House, however, is not unlike a 
 palace and yet more like a home, first for the 
 
 Bible itself, then for the Society, who have in 
 a measure custody thereof. It was my rare 
 privilege to be made at home there and to 
 taste the warmth of an English welcome, 
 which can only be described by saying that 
 the very essence of Christmas cheer was in it, 
 as is meet and right no doubt at the Advent 
 season. It was not, however, courtesy alone ; 
 discussions and conferences over the knotty 
 problems of versions, editions, and circula- 
 tion followed during the week which followed, 
 but the most vivid impression from beginning 
 to end was that these two Societies are truly 
 auxiliary to each other in the fulfillment of 
 the great tasks committed to them. 
 
 Now we are in Paris, with a day at Cher- 
 bourg. The picturesque coast of Normandy 
 had nothing more picturesque for me than its 
 children, of whom it seemed to have, judging 
 
 from Cher- 
 bourg, a full 
 share. Some 
 of our “ Bible 
 lovers ” may 
 be interested 
 to look on the 
 pictures of 
 one of these 
 little groups. 
 In Paris our 
 kind Dr. Ber- 
 trand, Secre- 
 tary of the 
 Societe Bib- 
 1 i q u e d e 
 France has, 
 with his fam- 
 i 1 y , greatly 
 helped me to 
 do what need- 
 ed to be done. 
 
 Paris is — 
 Paris, unique, 
 fascinating, mysterious, but how the heart 
 longs to see the Bible set in its proper 
 place ! The modest Bible House on the Rue 
 de Lille stands outwardly in notable contrast 
 with the glitter of the Opera House or the 
 Louvre or the Sainte Chapelle. A hasty vis- 
 it to the Sorbonne, with its crowds of eager 
 student enthusiasts deepens one’s impression, 
 already strong enough, that America has a 
 debt to France, not yet fully paid. We must 
 help give the saving salt of a divine literature 
 that the learning, the wit, the philosophy, the 
 aesthetic culture of La Belle France may 
 be delivered from the corruption of this 
 world and its fictitious glories. May we be 
 able to help the Societe Biblique de France 
 in years to come as in years past. 
 
 We seemed to have happened in France at 
 
 STREET SCENE IN NORMANDY 
 
New York, London and Paris 
 
 9 
 
 a psychological moment in its checkered re- 
 ligious history. The government has made a 
 new law providing for the due recognition of 
 all religious organizations as legal ; all equally 
 entitled to the protection of the State, and all 
 alike subject to its authority in matters be- 
 longing to the civil sphere. Each worship- 
 ing congregation is required to form . an 
 “ association culture lie,” or ''‘'worship associa- 
 te,” much as our own congregations are 
 wont to do. I was present at the American 
 Chapel on Sunday, and witnessed what 
 seemed to correspond to the election of a 
 Board of Trustees, mutatis mutandis. This 
 law all Protestant churches comply with, but as 
 if to mark the contrast, the Pope rejected even 
 the generous compromise which M. Briand, 
 Minister of Public Worship, had offered to 
 save the Roman conscience, and peremptorily 
 ordered his clergy to disobey the law. “ They 
 wish war,” M. Clemenceau is quoted in the 
 Matin as saying, “war they shall have,” and 
 war a I'outrance it seems likely to be — shut- 
 
 ting the doors of Roman churches generally 
 as a penalty. Never was the papal theory of 
 church government reduced to more palpable 
 absurdity. His Holiness cannot even per- 
 mit his clergy (though they are many of them 
 not of his mind) to obey the most necessary 
 law of a modern state, and render to Caesar 
 Caesar’s due. The contrast between this and 
 the Bible-governed Reformed Church of 
 France is marked. 
 
 The loveliest sight that my eyes beheld in 
 Paris was not the Boulevards nor the Champs 
 Elysees nor any temple of art or culture : but 
 a little group of children in the Ecole de 
 Dimanche (the more familiar Sunday School, 
 dear to our American speech), where a young 
 girl, baton in hand, taught the children to 
 sing their “Chansons Noel.” I heard, though 
 with imperfect understanding, the good pas- 
 teur open the Scriptures to these eager little 
 listeners, and felt my own heart burn within 
 me as our intercessions for each other ascended 
 to the Throne of the Heavenly Grace. 
 
 THE KAISER WILHELM II 
 
10 
 
 Around the World for the American Bible Society 
 
 II. Bible Societies in Rome 
 
 B AEDEKER’S GUIDE 
 1 has earned so rare a 
 place in the good opinion 
 of travelers that it is al- 
 most counted like finding 
 spots on the sun to pick 
 flaws in it. But the good 
 Baedeker nods once, even 
 in the latest edition, in that 
 it makes no allusion what- 
 ever to the British and 
 Foreign Bible Society and 
 its well-appointed depot at 
 63 Via due Macelli. Inas- 
 much as the learned au- 
 thor mentions everything 
 else, from the Vatican and 
 the Coliseum down to 
 fans and umbrellas, it 
 would not be amiss to no- 
 tice a place which, though 
 devoid of pretension to 
 earthly renown, is likely to 
 become a center of power 
 in Rome. Christian people 
 might profitably pay a visit 
 to the Rev. John Thomas, 
 the Society’s Agent, whose 
 office it is thus to minister 
 the Eternal Word in the 
 Eternal City. The Bible 
 Society of Scotland is also 
 well represented by the 
 Rev. Dr. Gray, the pastor 
 formany years of the 
 Scotch Presbyterian 
 Church. The former soci- 
 ety reports for last year a total circulation in 
 .Italy of 116,578 copies, at an expenditure of 
 ^7,734, and with thirty-two colporteurs. This 
 is a good record indeed, considering that in 
 Italy every third man and every second 
 woman is illiterate. 
 
 Our own American Society also makes a 
 vearly grant to the mission of the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church in Italy, whose headquarters 
 ere in Rome. 
 
 But there is another agency, more recently 
 begun, of which the Record has already 
 spoken — the Society of St. Jerome, nomen 
 clarissime , organized under the authorization 
 of the Vatican itself. It has already published 
 the Gospels and Acts in popular and excellent 
 Italian (with notes), and now contemplates 
 the publication of the Epistles. These books 
 the society circulates at very cheap prices, and 
 the number of copies scattered thus all over 
 
 Italy now reaches 400,000. 
 In Rome it can be obtained 
 at 63 Via due Macelli, 
 though not as a part of the 
 ordinary transactions o f 
 the Bible Society. 
 
 Encouraged and aided, 
 therefore, by Mr. Thomas, 
 I ventured to present my- 
 self at the College of the 
 Sacred Heart, in which 
 Father Giovanni Genocchi, 
 prominently connected 
 with the Society of St. 
 Jerome, is a professor. All 
 doubt as to what my wel- 
 come would be vanished 
 when Father Genocchi met 
 me on the threshold with 
 a greeting so hearty that 
 it made me feel at home 
 at once. Sitting in his par- 
 lor chatting familiarly on 
 topics of mutual interest, 
 especially in connection 
 with the Bible and what it 
 stands for, it was hard to 
 realize that we were not in 
 the Bible House. A day or 
 two later my host became 
 my guest at afternoon tea 
 at our hotel, where a few 
 congenial friends were 
 gathered ; an informal ex- 
 pression was given to the 
 reality of that spiritual 
 oneness which binds to- 
 gether all who love our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 My party went on next day to Naples in order 
 to be ready to take ship there, while I tarried 
 a few hours longer at Rome to enjoy again 
 Roman hospitality. 
 
 This time I was Father Genocchi’s guest at 
 the college commons in their refectory. It is 
 a missionary college ; its students are mostly 
 the missionaries-to-be to New Guinea, where 
 Father Genocchi himself labored for years, 
 coming there into spiritual touch with a Scot- 
 tish Presbyterian, St. James — the devoted and 
 now martyred James Chalmers. It was my 
 great privilege to break bread with professors 
 and students in the fellowship of college life, 
 bowing at first as we stood about the table in 
 the use of the solemn and beautiful Latin 
 “ Benedicite.” A spirit of Christmas cheer 
 seemed present. Father Genocchi speaks ex- 
 cellent English, and so do some of his students, 
 
 THE REV. P. GIOVANNI GENOCCHI 
 Professor in the College of the Sacred Heart, 
 Rome, Italy 
 
Bible Societies in Rome 
 
 11 
 
 THE COLISEUM AND ARCH OF TITUS 
 
 who are Americans 
 and Italian- Americans. 
 
 With the rest, we soon 
 fell into a kind of patois 
 of French and Spanish, 
 in condescension to my 
 linguistic infirmities. 
 
 Dejeuner finished, we 
 adjourned to the col- 
 lege library for “ coffee 
 and repartee,” or, 
 rather, for frank and 
 sympathetic converse 
 over the topics that 
 are natural to such an 
 occasion and amid such 
 learned surroundings, 
 in the library and after- 
 ward in my host’s 
 parlor. 
 
 The Codex Vaticanus, 
 the Septuagint, the 
 place of St. Augustine in theology, even the 
 intellectual rank of John Calvin, were touched 
 on. It was interesting to note that besides 
 shelves full of patrology, there were others al- 
 
 SCALA SANTA 
 
 most as full of modern theological works, and 
 that in English, which tongue I was told was 
 commonly learned, at least as a reading lan- 
 guage. The young men seemed alert and 
 awake to modern thought, as well as to an- 
 cient precedent. Such an atmosphere, let us 
 be sure, means a searching of the Scriptures, 
 and our Lord will, as of old, open the Scrip- 
 tures to these with whom he still walks and 
 makes himself known in the breaking of bread. 
 May he never vanish out of their sight. 
 
 I have wandered during the last few days, 
 visiting the familiar places that I learned to 
 love twenty-five years ago. Father Genocchi 
 was a student in Rome then, he told me. 
 ‘‘Rome has changed much in twenty-five 
 years,” he added, “and for the better; yes, 
 for the better.” 
 
 The Coliseum still stands, and Rome with 
 it. In St. Peter’s the poor peasants were still 
 kissing away the bronze toe of the statue, 
 and I heard again the antiphonal chanting of 
 the priests in the choir chapel. “Italy has 
 no religion,” a young Italian sadly confessed 
 to me, he himself having been partly educated 
 by the Benedictines in a famous monastery. 
 But the Lord has his faithful ones in whom his 
 Word abides. Let us lift our hearts in prayer 
 — the true sea/a santa — that Rome may again 
 become the Light of Italy, or, if it please 
 God, of the world — a veritable mater ecclesi- 
 arum. 
 
 And may the Society of St. Jerome live to 
 publish more abundantly the Verbum Dei. 
 
 Since the above was written the Pope has addressed a letter 
 to Cardinal Cassetta. the Honorary President of the Society, 
 commending it in glowing terms for what it has done, but alas ! 
 requiring it to “ hold as a sufficient field of labor for itself to 
 publish the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles." This restriction 
 must be a sad interruption, and perhaps foreshadows others 
 still more serious. 
 
12 
 
 Around the World for the American Bible Society 
 
 III. First Impressions of India 
 
 T HREE weeks in India can hardly entitle 
 the traveler to do more than set down 
 
 his first im- 
 pressions, to- 
 gether with 
 such facts as 
 he may have 
 gathered. In 
 the present 
 case this is 
 further lim- 
 ited by the 
 point of view 
 of the traveler, 
 which is gen- 
 erally mis- 
 sionary and 
 specifically 
 what centers 
 in the Bible 
 House. 
 
 Landing at 
 Colombo, Kan- 
 dy is within 
 easy reach — a 
 charming bit 
 of greenery 
 1,700 feet 
 above the sea 
 and surround- 
 ed by moun- 
 tains 5,000 or 
 6,000 feet 
 higher, which 
 are clad with 
 verdure to 
 their very 
 summits. It 
 might easily 
 mislead the 
 uninformed, 
 for it throws 
 Buddhism in- 
 to the fore- 
 ground of the 
 picture quite 
 out of focus, 
 as though In- 
 dia were a 
 Buddhist 
 country. Re- 
 membering 
 that Sakya- 
 muni first ap- 
 peared as a re- 
 ligious leader 
 in Benares, it is 
 
 easy to forget that he failed in India, and that 
 his followers number much less than one per 
 cent of the population of the empire. 
 
 As we rode along in the train en route to 
 Kandy, a picturesque procession of priests in 
 their saffron robes and umbrellas heightened 
 the impression of Buddhism as a living real- 
 ity. In Kandy the attraction to sightseers is 
 the famous “Temple of the Tooth.” This is 
 not, sit venia verbo, a glorification of dentistry, 
 but is due to a large tooth (as large as an 
 alligator’s, people say), carefully kept in a 
 shrine, which no one may see without special 
 permission from some very high official. It 
 is said to be Buddha’s tooth, and before its 
 shrine his followers worship, although, as is 
 well known, “ Lord Gautama’s ” first message 
 was against all idolatry. The beautiful tem- 
 ple and its sacred enclosure are quiet and sug- 
 gestive of meditation, rather than the showy 
 and sensuous spectacles to which we were 
 soon to be introduced in southern India. 
 
 I found my way to the library, which is not 
 unworthy of the name and traditions of the 
 sage. The librarian-priest brought forth his 
 treasures to show me — one precious manu- 
 script which he said was eight hundred years 
 old. Seeing a book in a locked case, I asked 
 what it was. “ It is a Roman Catholic Bible,” 
 he replied, but when brought out it was seen 
 to be a Sanskrit Bible published by the Ameri- 
 can and Foreign (Baptist) Bible Society. 
 Near it in this Buddhist arcanum was a copy 
 of the Singalese Bible published by the Brit- 
 ish and Foreign Bible Society. Thus the 
 seed is sown beside all waters. Since then 
 we have seen many Hindoo temples and some 
 Mohammedan mosques, but no Buddhist 
 shrines. 
 
 From Colombo we went, of course, to 
 southern India, visiting the great Hindoo 
 temples at Madura, Trichinopoli, Tanjore, 
 Vellore, and, latest of all, at Benares in 
 northern India, and worst of all also. One 
 may read of it and hear of it all his life, but it 
 is with an altogether new sense of the strength 
 of the clutch of false religion on its devotees 
 that we behold the worship of the grinning 
 monkey god, and the grotesque elephant 
 god, and a long array of other hideosities 
 which still hold these hapless children of the 
 East in cruel bondage. 
 
 The marks of Siva and Vishnu are daubed 
 on the foreheads of coolie and scholar alike. 
 You see them everywhere. Ganesh, and the 
 dark Durga, and the malign Kali are your 
 familiars until it is easy to understand with 
 
First Impressions of India 
 
 13 
 
 what a spell these dark phantoms of the mind 
 must hold these poor people, who have never 
 known anything else. All the more is this 
 true when the roots of these evil supersti- 
 tions are tangled with the meshes of the black 
 magic of the caste system. It seemed the 
 more pitiful when it is so plain that this peo- 
 ple is itself of a noble caste when compared 
 with other peoples, not only capable of higher 
 things but of having achieved them. The Taj, 
 an exquisite love poem in stone, and the Pearl 
 Mosque are enough to prove this. 
 
 It is pleasant to remember that we are of 
 the same Aryan stock and have many points 
 of natural affinity. Linguistically we and 
 most of Europe inherit from the Sanskrit. 
 Nor need we disparage 
 the greatness of their 
 earlier sages and the al- 
 most splendor of their 
 later philosophical pan- 
 theism. Nevertheless, 
 and with all the abate- 
 ments made which one’s 
 heart impels him to make, 
 it is the sobering fact that 
 the valiant band of Chris- 
 tian missionaries are 
 wrestling not with flesh 
 and blood, but with giant 
 forms of hoary iniquity, 
 and the great mass of the 
 common people in India 
 must be lifted as a man 
 lifts a dead weight. It 
 it a grim and deadly bat- 
 tle, but no one who has 
 seen, as I have seen, as 
 many as five well-organ- 
 ized missions out of the 
 many that exist can doubt 
 the issue. 
 
 At Madura we were 
 hospitably treated by the 
 missionaries of the American Board of Com- 
 missioners for Foreigr Missions, at their 
 head Dr. J. P. Jones, whose praise is in all 
 the churches. At Vellore I had but part of 
 the day to see, with Dr. Wyckoff, the splen- 
 did Arcot Mission of the Reformed (Dutch) 
 Church of America. From there it was a far 
 cry to Lahore in the north to see the Punjab 
 (Presbyterian) Mission, and especially the 
 Foreman Christian College, with Dr. J. C. R. 
 Ewing at its head, a man with a boundless 
 influence in the Punjab ; and it was delight- 
 ful, midway between these two, to receive 
 the generous welcome of the master mission- 
 ary, Dr. R. A. Hume, and his choice com- 
 pany of scholars and well-skilled laborers in 
 the Marathi Mission at Ahmednagar. 
 
 A glance at the map will show those who 
 have patience to follow that it is no light un- 
 dertaking to cover so much territory in a 
 short time. From Lahore to Allahabad, with 
 its thriving Presbyterian College under Dr. 
 A. H. Ewing, and thence, via Benares, to 
 Calcutta, where we are to embark for Ran- 
 goon and Singapore at dawn to-morrow, has 
 brought up our total to about 4,000 miles of 
 travel. It is impossible within the limits of 
 such an article to paint details or give the 
 minutiae relating to these five important 
 strategic centers of missionary operations. 
 They are probably, taken together, fairly 
 typical of the American missions in India. 
 In their range they embrace all forms of 
 evangelizing activity. 
 There is, first, education 
 from the kindergarten, 
 where it was sweet to 
 hear little girls sing our 
 western music to Ma- 
 rathi words, up to the 
 full academic and post- 
 graduate courses of a 
 well-organized college, 
 leading its students to 
 university degrees of 
 B. A. and M. A., San- 
 skrit and Persian taking 
 the place of Latin and 
 Greek. Then comes 
 “ evangelizing ” in the 
 more restricted sense 
 of the word — that is, 
 preaching in the bazaars, 
 itinerating in the vil- 
 lages, and in various 
 ways. 
 
 Medical work in the 
 hospitals, both for men 
 and for women, bulks 
 largely — industrial train- 
 ing also ; and then the 
 usual forms of organized church life. To men- 
 tion one shining instance, I saw a Bible class 
 of young women who have been studying with 
 careful exegesis the Book of Amos. Their 
 teacher, Miss Swift, of the Madura Mission, is 
 a gifted, scholarly woman who has published 
 her own text-books. She assured me that she 
 found no lack of interest in the study of the 
 Old Testament as well as the New among her 
 pupils. How many women at home study 
 Amos ? I count it one of the privileges of a 
 lifetime to have spoken to two audiences of 
 four hundred college men at Lahore and again 
 to one hundred at Allahabad, of which the vast 
 majority were either Hindoo or Mohammedan 
 in creed. More responsive and eager listeners 
 I never had anywhere. 
 
14 
 
 Around the World for the American Bible Society 
 
 At Ahmednagar Dr. Hume asked me to 
 speak of the Bible to his inspiring audience 
 of twelve hundred Hindoo Christians gath- 
 ered in the splendid church recently finished 
 for them, and at Lahore I had an audience 
 less in number, but of like quality. 
 
 These impressions of the growth and power 
 of Christian missions in a country still non- 
 Christian, and in general intensely anti-Chris- 
 tian, were sharpened one morning when a 
 native face, with that charming smile which 
 I have learned to think characteristic of India, 
 appeared at the window of our railway car- 
 riage and in broken English besought us to 
 buy some Tamil Gospels and other portions 
 of the Bible. This was “ Chota hazri ” (the 
 “ little breakfast ” of India), which everyone 
 takes before the heavier breakfast, in a sense 
 novel and refreshing. What would all this 
 mission work amount to minus the Bible ? 
 The early morning colporteur is a fair sample 
 of what the British and Foreign Bible Society 
 has done and is doing all over India. We 
 met it first at Kandy, where the pastor of the 
 Scotch Church (composed largely of the 
 Eurasian people, but having a Scotch elder 
 of the best type) gave the Bible work his 
 supervision and support, his elder helping 
 him in it. 
 
 From Ceylon to the Punjab the same im- 
 pressions meet us wherever we go, of a well- 
 planned and well-executed programme for the 
 supply of the Scriptures to the missionaries 
 and their churches, and through them as 
 rapidly as possible to all readers. So far as 
 figures can tell it, 650,000 copies annually is 
 the net result, but figures can only adumbrate 
 
 the magnitude of the blessing brought to 
 India by this mother of Bible societies, whose 
 adequacy for the task divinely committed to 
 her never seems better illustrated than in 
 India. 
 
 The Bible House at Allahabad is under the 
 direction, it is pleasant to record, of an 
 American Presbyterian missionary, the Rev. 
 T. S. Wynkoop, who represents the British 
 and Foreign Bible Society officially, and 
 who has long been familiar with India 
 and its needs. It is not exclusively a 
 ‘‘Bible House,” but the Tract Society in 
 it provides the religious literature needed 
 for mission work, a storage reservoir both 
 for the Bible and the literature which it has 
 created. Though not as beautiful as the Taj, 
 it means more for India. With this as a base, 
 Mr. Wynkoop has a carefully planned system 
 of colportage by which, with fifty or more 
 colporteurs, he reaches (with the co-opera- 
 tion of the missionaries) an immense popu- 
 lation. 
 
 As the illiterate millions learn to read, and 
 this we may be assured they will do in the 
 not distant future, the resources of the Bible 
 Society and its supporters may be more 
 severely taxed. Our British and Foreign 
 brethren are able to say that they have never 
 refused a request from any mission. It is a 
 noble record and will never, we hope, need to 
 be changed. The tale of blessings brought 
 by the British to India must include this as 
 one of the chiefest. We may envy them, 
 with innocuous envy, their splendid oppor- 
 tunity, and congratulate them that they use it 
 so well. 
 
 THE TAJ MAHAL 
 
To Siam by IMay of Burma and Malaysia 
 
 15 
 
 IV. To Siam by Way of Burma and Malaysia 
 
 T HE geography of this part of the world 
 is rather obscure in the minds of many 
 Americans, even those ordinarily well in- 
 formed. Letters to Penang, we were told, 
 are often addressed to China, and one had 
 just come when we arrived addressed to 
 South Africa. It is not strange that there 
 should be some confusion. Indo-China is 
 charted on some maps as stretching from 
 Burma to Annam, including the whole of that 
 great peninsula of which northern Siam is 
 about the center. The name is applied, how- 
 ever, by others and more usually rather to 
 the French possessions, Cambodia, Cochin 
 China, Annam, and Tonquin. The approach 
 to Bangkok, therefore, from Calcutta is by 
 way of Rangoon, where we were compelled 
 to wait three days for a steamer connection. 
 It was not at all hard to be resigned to this, 
 for it gave us at least a glimpse of Burma 
 and forms a good introduction to the Indo- 
 China peninsula, the pendant to the Indian 
 peninsula. 
 
 Burma is indeed classed politically as part 
 of India, being under British rule, but its geo- 
 graphic and ethnic relationship puts it into a 
 different category. It is a good way to ap- 
 proach Siam for another reason — it is pre- 
 dominantly Buddhist, just as Siam is, though 
 the latter is so in even a greater degree. The 
 Buddhism of Burma is compounded appar- 
 ently with the aboriginal nature-worship 
 which the race now dominant there found 
 when they entered it from the north. The 
 worship oinats (good and evil spirits, or genii) 
 is a curious phenomenon, and is strangely 
 fused with the system of religious atheism 
 known as Buddhism. 
 
 Rangoon is not thoroughly Buddhist by any 
 means, just as India is not all Hindoo. The 
 day of our arrival one of the daily papers 
 contained an account of a serious riot be- 
 tween Hindoo and Mohammedan laborers at 
 Insein, ten miles outside of the city. The 
 Hindoos resented the proposed killing of a 
 cow by the Mohammedans as an insult to 
 their religious faith, attacked the Mohammed- 
 ans, killed two and wounded six, and were 
 even then with difficulty subdued by the po- 
 lice. A large fraction of the population come 
 from India and are either Hindoo or Moham- 
 medan in religion. In Mandalay, the old 
 capital, however, 152,000 out of 178,000 are 
 Buddhist, and this is more truly an exponent 
 of Burma in general. In Rangoon Buddhism 
 is the dominant cult. 
 
 Here is the greatest of Buddhist shrines, 
 
 the famous Shwe Dagon, or Golden Padoga. 
 It contains — mirabile dictu — eight hairs of 
 Buddha, besides other relics only less sacro- 
 sanct. These are buried in an edifice so 
 unique that it deserves its rank among the 
 wonders of the Orient. It is quite impossible 
 to describe it briefly. In architectural fame 
 it is not improperly classed with the Taj 
 Mahal, from which, however, it is separated 
 by a chasm if considered with reference to 
 any ideal of beauty. The chasteness, deli- 
 cacy, and exquisite grace of the Indian mas- 
 terpiece must be forgotten before we can ad- 
 mire the Shwe Dagon. Yet it has its own 
 fascination. One of our party, on the theory 
 that architecture is frozen music, likened it 
 to the Hungarian Rhapsody, and another, 
 with more audacity, suggested the most 
 Browningesque of Browning’s poems, “ Sor- 
 dello,” for instance, as belonging in the same 
 order of architecture. 
 
 The pagoda proper is 1,350 feet in circum- 
 ference and 375 in height, or a little higher 
 than St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. This 
 vast erection, beginning as an octagon of 
 brick, swells into a dome shape, and then, di- 
 minishing as it rises higher into a cylindrical 
 spire, reaches its climax in a htee, or metal 
 umbrella. It is covered with gold leaf almost 
 from the base to the very top, and its htee is 
 further adorned with costly jewels. 
 
 “ If thou wouldst view fair Melrose aright, 
 
 Go visit it by the pale moonlight.” 
 
 But no Sir Walter of Burma has yet sung, 
 as some wizard of the East might, the Shwe 
 Dagon by moonlight. Its magic bewitches 
 the eye, while the ear is carried captive by a 
 chime of 1,200 or 1,500 gold and silver bells 
 hung in the very top. This unseen chime, 
 usually inaudible by day, is swayed by the 
 night wind into an irregular but altogether 
 delicious symphony, now swelling, now dying 
 away, but never quite ceasing its aerial tin- 
 tinnabulation. Shakespeare never fancied 
 anything more enchanting for the fairies of 
 a midsummer night’s dream ; or Tennyson, 
 with his ‘ horns of elfland faintly blowing.’ 
 
 But at the base of this strange and splendid 
 structure, echoing with its midnight min- 
 strelsy, a picturesque but saddening spectacle 
 is never absent by day, continuing often far 
 into the night. Around the greater are lesser 
 shrines, containing innumerable marble and 
 gilded colossal images of Lord Gautama. I 
 counted forty more shrines. He who forbade 
 all images to his followers, yea, even forbade 
 God himself to be in their thoughts as a per- 
 
16 
 
 Around the World for the American Bible Society 
 
 sonal God, is imaged everywhere, with vain 
 repetition. In a thousand bizarre and gro- 
 tesquely carved shrines and pillars, some of 
 them echoing with greater bells than those 
 hanging far above, a throng of men and 
 women are bowing down, as in ancient times 
 idolaters bowed before the golden image of 
 Nebuchadnezzar. Flowers and incense are 
 for sale in the approaches to the shrines, and 
 the great stone-paved court about the pagoda 
 seemed like a rendezvous for friends and 
 acquaintances (and for dogs also), as well as 
 a shrine. 
 
 The Burmese are famous for their kindly 
 manners and pleasant ways, and all these 
 may be seen and felt by the passing stranger 
 as he mingles with them. He must be dull 
 of heart, though, who can pass by without 
 seeing the infinite pitifulness of it all — the 
 bondage to puerile superstition hardly mask- 
 ing an essential atheism. No gilding or re- 
 gilding either by oriental architects or occi- 
 dental poets can effectually disguise its true 
 inwardness. 
 
 Burma is filled with pagodas, some scarcely 
 less beautiful than this. Its “ tinkly temple 
 bells ” ring everywhere and bear witness to 
 the groaning desires of the human heart for 
 the true God and eternal life. It was a keen 
 pleasure over against these empty splendors 
 to see, as it happened I was able to see, the 
 results of half a century and more of Baptist 
 missions in Rangoon. The Karens, once de- 
 spised by the Burmans, are a hill tribe ruder 
 than their neighbors of the plains. These 
 have been taken by the Baptist apostles and 
 their successors and lifted up to the stature of 
 manhood. I was present first at the graduat- 
 ing exercises of the women’s school for Bible 
 readers, and heard them singing English 
 anthems and reading Karen essays on Scrip- 
 tural topics ; then at the commencement ex- 
 ercises of the Theological Seminary at In- 
 sein I heard the orations of the first twelve 
 of a class of thirty-five Karen graduates. One 
 of them had for his theme, “ Come over into 
 Macedonia and help us”; and as he spoke with 
 fervor to his class-mates on this well-worn 
 theme, one of the missionaries sitting by me 
 interpreted to me how he was pleading with 
 his brethren to go into the outlying regions 
 with the Gospel — a true foreign missionary 
 appeal. Nearly 50,000 Karen converts, with 
 a native ministry, trained thoroughly, is a 
 glorious record. 
 
 It was instructive to hear from the lips of 
 Dr. Smith, the president, and his colleagues, 
 reminiscences of Bible translation by the 
 earliest pioneers, and even more quickening 
 to sit in a classroom where English was used 
 (in the high school). Close exegetical study 
 
 was there given to a chapter in Isaiah, each 
 lad reading a written analysis of it. This was 
 part of a graded course of Bible study occu- 
 pying the first part of every school day in a 
 school which numbered in all 1,500 pupils. 
 
 The American Baptist Mission Press in 
 Rangoon is a power for righteousness and 
 enlightenment worth far more than all the 
 pagodas in Burma. It is hardly necessary for 
 me to point the moral for the Bible Society. 
 Every detail of the business of Bible trans- 
 lation, printing, publishing, and circulating, 
 needs the most careful and thorough atten- 
 tion in all eastern lands if the missionary 
 propaganda is to be permanently successful, 
 nor must Christians fall behind Buddhists, 
 who lavishly furnish gold for their shrines. 
 
 From Rangoon, after three crowded days, 
 we took ship for Penang, a charming seaside 
 city, and there disembarking, caught a still 
 briefer glimpse of Malaysia, but one truly 
 astonishing. The wonders of the jungle, the 
 thrill of strange adventure on the pirate coast 
 of Malacca, are things familiar enough in 
 books read perhaps in boyhood, but who 
 would have thought it possible to be whirled 
 along in the luxury of a well-appointed rail- 
 way (wiring in advance for “tiffin”) nearly 
 through the length of the Malay peninsula, 
 often in dense jungle, which is even yet the 
 haunt of troops of wild elephants, tigers, and 
 pythons, and where thirty years ago savage 
 beasts and still more savage men roamed 
 supreme. 
 
 From Penang to Kuala Lumpur in one day, 
 and then, after a night’s rest, to old “ Malacca 
 Town” which we reached at noon; and then at 
 night to be rowed in a Malay pralvn out over the 
 shallow sea to intercept and board the steam- 
 ship “ Malacca,” a little coaster which took us, 
 along with a load of Chinese, to Singapore — 
 all this made a journey so unlike the ordinary 
 routine of travel that we seemed to be living 
 in dreamland. Yet it was not dreamland but 
 Malaysia, thronging with not only Malay but 
 especially with Chinese life. We felt our- 
 selves already under the spell of the Middle 
 Kingdom, for the streets of Penang, Malacca, 
 and, much more, of Singapore, echoed with 
 the tread of Chinese invaders. The “yellow 
 peril ” is upon Singapore. Of its 220,000 in- 
 habitants 120,000 are Chinese ; yet, strange to 
 tell, these Chinese speak Malay rather than 
 their own tongue. Indeed, the “ Babas,” that 
 is, those born in the Straits Settlements, con- 
 sider Malay their mother tongue — not the 
 “high ” Malay, but the low or “ Baba ” Malay. 
 
 At Kuala Lumpur we saw Bishop Oldham, 
 of the American Methodist Episcopal Church, 
 and some of the group of devoted ministers 
 who were soon to meet in Conference. 
 
Siam — En Route to China 
 
 17 
 
 V. Siam— En Route to China 
 
 W E have just left the harbor of Koh- 
 Sichang, the largest of a little group 
 of islands lying fifty miles south of Bangkok, 
 where we took on cargo. It was our last 
 glimpse of Siam and at the same time a kind 
 of prelude to China. The harbor held a little 
 squadron of ships, several of them Nordeutsch 
 liners, including our own, the Phrancuig, of 
 1,800 tons. Such vessels cannot take on their 
 cargo in the river at Bangkok, for the bar at 
 its mouth, thirty miles below, would be im- 
 passable for them ; so they must come to this 
 roadstead, followed by “lighters.” They are 
 officered by Germans, but with Chinese crews, 
 as are the 
 lighters also, 
 though some 
 of them are 
 junk-rigged 
 and add pic- 
 turesqueness 
 to the harbor. 
 
 It is an odd 
 sight to see 
 the Chinese 
 coolie, almost 
 naked and 
 dripping with 
 perspiration, 
 carrying a 
 200-pound 
 rice bag, flut- 
 t e r i n g his 
 pretty fan 
 meanwhile 
 with the grace 
 of a Pompa- 
 dour. The 
 Bangkok 
 n e w s p a p ers 
 advertise the fleet of twenty-eight steamers 
 of this line between Bangkok and Singapore, 
 or Bangkok, Hongkong, and Swatow, and 
 almost every steamer going out from Bangkok 
 flies the German flag. Even a two weeks’ 
 trip in Siam reveals the degree in which 
 European nations are contending for the trade 
 of the East. 
 
 It emphasizes the inevitable delay of travel 
 in these parts that we were obliged to spend 
 three or four days in the little port of Koh- 
 Sichang. At the last moment our ever-faith- 
 ful Mr. Carrington, long known to the readers 
 of the Record, as the Agent of the Society 
 for Siam, was persuaded to accompany us 
 and stay part of the time. Thereby we had 
 the unique and happy experience of helping 
 
 him to preach the gospel where probably it 
 never had been preached before. 
 
 Koh-Siehang 
 
 Koh-Sichang has two fishing villages lying 
 quite near together. In the midst of the 
 larger of these we took our places one morn- 
 ing and began to sing “Take the name of 
 Jesus with you,” and other familiar hymns. 
 In a few moments a small audience, first 
 of children and then of their elders, came 
 flocking out of their huts and shops — fifty 
 or a hundred in all. There were four of our 
 party besides Mr. Carrington and the good 
 
 captain of the 
 P h ran a ng . 
 Mr. Carring- 
 ton stood 
 forth and 
 preached to 
 the villagers 
 of God as the 
 Creator of the 
 world and of 
 all mankind, 
 the children 
 of one family, 
 and as their 
 Redeemer in 
 Jesus Christ. 
 They seemed 
 to give good 
 heed. One 
 old man, evi- 
 dently the 
 head man or 
 elder of the 
 village, sat 
 cross-legged 
 on the ground 
 with serious mien, as if listening to every 
 word. 
 
 At Mr. Carrington’s request, I spoke briefly 
 in English, while he interpreted, telling them 
 of God’s book and our reason for being there, 
 promising to try to send them some copies 
 in the near future. After some further words 
 and more singing the little service closed with 
 prayer, and we went on to the next village, 
 followed by some bright-faced children who 
 seemed unwilling to part with us, and brought 
 us little gifts of flowers. A few minutes 
 brought us to the next village, but it was im- 
 possible to repeat our efforts there, as it was 
 mainly a Chinese village. 
 
 It may be added that we found one bright- 
 looking young man, a Burman, who declared 
 
 WAT SUTAT, BANGKOK 
 
18 
 
 Around the World for the American Bible Society 
 
 “ I am a Christian,” and two young women, 
 children of a Portuguese trader, who were 
 Roman Catholics, but without priest or church. 
 So, doubtless, God has his hidden ones. 
 What we saw here may be seen all over 
 Siam — “ multitudes scattered abroad as sheep 
 having no shepherd.” Who will minister to 
 them ? 
 
 High up on the hill overlooking Koh-Si- 
 ■chang we had seen from the ship the now 
 familiar outline of a little pagoda, which we 
 subsequently visited. It is one of a group 
 of buildings erected by the King of Siam as 
 a summer palace, and almost the only one 
 now left standing. His Majesty, it is said, 
 spent millions of ticals upon them, laying 
 out Italian gardens, with huge pools of water 
 in cavernous reservoirs hewn in the solid 
 rock, terrace after terrace exquisitely adorned, 
 connected with flights of magnificent stone 
 steps, which still lead the traveler through 
 the jungle thickets which now have rapidly 
 overgrown the planned beauty of this royal 
 pleasure-palace — such a garden as Solomon 
 might have loved. It was occupied, and, we 
 were told, wrecked, by the French invaders 
 of 1893, and the king has never returned to 
 it, though other reasons are assigned by 
 some for the fact. The climax of misfortune 
 seemed reached when a Norwegian sea cap- 
 tain stole the Buddha from the shrine on top 
 of the hill, and though he was compelled to 
 give up his plunder, the image has vanished 
 from its throne under the dome of the pretty 
 pagoda. 
 
 As we made our way through the thickets 
 in the dusk of the evening, it was impossible 
 not to feel the pathos of the situation. All 
 this is perhaps worth noting, because Koh- 
 Sichang is not a bad epitome of Siam itself — 
 beautiful, full of a quaint, archaic charm, over- 
 shadowed by the huge bulk of more powerful 
 eastern neighbors, menaced by the aggression 
 of European states, yet 
 with quiet dignity main- 
 taining her own individu- 
 ality, making the best of a 
 difficult situation; and, in 
 spite of obstacles which 
 even the best diplomacy 
 finds it hard to overcome, 
 gaining in prestige and in 
 respect the attention of the 
 civilized world more and 
 more every year. 
 
 Siam, and Bangkok es- 
 pecially, is made by its 
 river — Menam, foreigners 
 call it, which simply means 
 “ the river.” Great ocean 
 vessels, though they can- 
 
 not cross its bar when fully laden, find in 
 some places ninety feet of water in the heart 
 of the city. No grand canal in Venice or 
 elsewhere is like the Bangkok Menam. It 
 is a curious experience to step out of a boat, 
 make your way through a tropical growth 
 into the house of a great banking institution 
 having many branches through the East, and 
 have a clerk cash your draft while the birds 
 fly in at the windows and hop about his ears. 
 The city, with a population exceeding one- 
 half a million, covers an area of fifty or sixty 
 square miles, lying not only on both sides of 
 the river, but along the banks of many klongs, 
 or canals, so that one can ride through miles 
 of watery streets and a thick population, 
 whose front doors and doorsteps open into 
 the water, and can see whole families, old 
 and young, men and women, and even with 
 babies, plunging and splashing on every 
 hand. He may stop if he will and buy from 
 the shops whose fronts are open river- 
 ward, or he may disembark and visit a temple, 
 or factory, or palace, almost any kind of 
 building, modern or antique. On other streets, 
 more like our own, lined with the usual ori- 
 ental structures, street-car lines run, appar- 
 ently, with as reckless unconcern as New 
 York street-cars. 
 
 We visited the royal palace, a rare combi- 
 nation of Italian and Siamese architecture, 
 which, however, strangers usually must see, 
 as we did, only from the outside. We looked 
 at the Emerald Idol in its beautiful shrine, 
 the sleeping Buddha, 150 feet long as he lies 
 in his temple bed, and the white elephants, 
 which are not as white as they are painted. 
 
 A day was given to Ayuthia, once the capi- 
 tal of Siam until the Burmese armies attacked 
 it and the Siamese retreated to the present 
 seat of government — Ayuthia, a city, even 
 more than Bangkok, built on the banks of 
 river and canal, where ruins of temples, once 
 
Siam — En Route to China 
 
 19 
 
 ENTRANCE AT WAT POH, BANGKOK 
 
 immense and splendid, now are rapidly being 
 buried in jungle. 
 
 We crowded all that could be crowded into 
 an all too brief two weeks, including four days 
 at Koh-Sichang. To us the chiefest, and the 
 best, of course, was the American Presby- 
 terian Mission, of which our Mr. Carrington 
 was for years, prior to his appointment as our 
 own agent, an honored member. His work 
 still interlaces so closely with that of the mis- 
 sion that it is easiest to speak of them to- 
 gether. A morning was spent with him and 
 his colporteurs, a fine band of native Chris- 
 tians, tried by years of experience in the work, 
 who have this year sold between 17,000 and 
 18,000 copies of the Scriptures or some of its 
 parts. It is no reflection on them to add that 
 Mr. Carrington, himself, sold nearly 19,000 
 copies, and that the total circulation, greater 
 than that of any previous year, is largely due 
 to his unwearied faithfulness. He would not, 
 perhaps, permit me to make this statement if 
 he knew it, but it is simple justice to him to 
 do so. His modesty is such that his own 
 pen would never describe all his extensive 
 journeyings, his self-denying labors, his con- 
 secration to the cause ; so it is a joy to 
 me to make public this tribute to his devo- 
 tion. 
 
 From one end of the country to the other 
 he is known by all classes, Christian and Bud- 
 dhist, as a veritable apostle to the Siamese, 
 not only selling books, but ministering to 
 them in a score of ways — at times even to 
 their physical and always to their spiritual 
 needs, with a self-effacing zeal which is be- 
 yond praise. He sells Bibles in temples, 
 railway cars, gambling houses, and country 
 villages alike. He has been associated in 
 evangelizing tours with Dr. Eugene P. Dun- 
 lap, the evangelist par excellence of the mis- 
 
 sion, and these two have 
 made many a long journey 
 to “the Bengal side,” suf- 
 fering privations that they 
 are slow to tell about, but 
 which ought not to pass 
 unnoticed by the church at 
 home. In addition to this, 
 Mr. Carrington has the care 
 of the stock of books, all 
 the business details of 
 handling them, keeping the 
 accounts of the Agency, 
 and laboring at the trans- 
 lation and revision of the 
 Scriptures into Siamese, in 
 which he is an acknowl- 
 edged master. 
 
 But the chief thing, ever 
 pressing upon him, and 
 which came through him to press more heav- 
 ily upon me, is the burden of “the regions 
 beyond.” It was impossible to go to the 
 Laos country, where the Presbyterians have, 
 as is well known, quite as important a mis- 
 sion, which it takes six weeks to reach from 
 Bangkok, and this Mr. Carrington finds im- 
 possible to visit, and it should be visited, of 
 course. Then, too, the Siamese provinces in 
 the Malay peninsula demand equal or greater 
 attention, for there are almost no mission- 
 aries ; and beyond the eastern border of Siam 
 lies Cambodia, and beyond that again other 
 unevangelized states. 
 
 Under Mr. Carrington’s wise and gentle 
 handling, Buddhist priests in their temples 
 made translations for him of two books of the 
 New Testament into Cambodian, writing them 
 out in beautiful script with their pens. These, 
 through a photographic process, the Society 
 published, and of course he now desires to cir- 
 culate them, if possible in Cambodia itself. So 
 it will be seen that our work in Siam principally 
 needs enlargement — a “forward movement.” 
 To say this, indeed, is but to repeat what is true 
 of most missions everywhere. The nations 
 are ready — the church at home is unready. 
 
 Oh, that every Presbyterian congregation 
 at home could see Siam as I saw it — even for 
 two weeks. Their firing line is a gallant 
 band, men and women bearing in a peculiar 
 sense the burden and heat of the day — the 
 dispiriting burden of almost ceaseless tropi- 
 cal sultriness. They have their fine mission 
 press, under the Rev. J. B. Dunlap ; an 
 admirable high school for boys, under the 
 Rev. W. G. McLure ; the Wang Lang high 
 school for girls, under Miss Edna S. Cole ; a 
 day school at Suwray, and three organized 
 churches, reaching both Siamese and Chinese. 
 In prospect, the Boon Itt Memorial — not to go 
 
20 
 
 Around the World for the American Bible Society 
 
 outside of Bangkok, to Petchaburee, Pitsa- 
 nooloke, and elsewhere. But fine as all this 
 is, what are these among so many — the seven 
 millions of Siam ? Those of us who have seen 
 the dark shadow in which they live must re- 
 echo the Macedonian cry — which the mission- 
 aries themselves raise — " Come over and help 
 us.” 
 
 It was given me to lead the missionary 
 prayer meeting, attended not only by Presby- 
 terians, but by such men as the veteran Bap- 
 tist scholar, Dr. Samuel Smith, who at eighty- 
 six is bringing out his Siamese dictionary ; 
 and Canon Greenstock, another veteran of the 
 Church of England, and to preach three 
 times on Sunday. The first impression needed 
 no correction — Bible work and mission work 
 in general imperatively needs immediate in- 
 crease of men and means. This is the more 
 clamant because of the extraordinary recep- 
 tivity of the Siamese in their attitude toward 
 Christianity. 
 
 Through the courteous kindness of the 
 American Minister at Bangkok, Mr. Hamilton 
 King, I was given, along with him, audience 
 with the four chief princes of the kingdom : 
 His Royal Highness Prince Damrong, Minis- 
 ter of the Interior, who is widely recognized 
 as one of the most eminent Siamese states- 
 men; His Royal Highness the High Priest, 
 Prince Vajiranana, the head of Buddhism in 
 Siam ; the Queen’s brother, His Royal High- 
 ness the Crown Prince of Siam; and the Min- 
 ister of Foreign Affairs, His Royal Highness 
 Prince Devawongse. It would take a separate 
 letter to describe in detail the minutiae of these 
 interviews. Though they were none of them 
 very long, there were yet many circumstances 
 of interest connected with them, but for my 
 present purpose it will be sufficient to say 
 that Prince Damrong expressed himself in 
 terms of unqualified approval of Christian 
 missions in general, and of our own work 
 and its representative, Mr. Carrington, in 
 particular. 
 
 “ Say to your friends,” he remarked, “that 
 the missionaries are as useful as ever,” and 
 followed this with expressions which showed 
 how very useful this was. “ Such men as Mr. 
 Carrington,” he added, “will always be wel- 
 come in Siam.” 
 
 He touched on the need of missionaries 
 being men of discretion and without fanati- 
 cism, but spoke as though it were a matter of 
 course that Siam would welcome them. It 
 was interesting to hear him speak also of the 
 efforts of the Siamese Government to sup- 
 press gambling ; and when I told him of the 
 sympathy and approval which were felt among 
 Americans at these efforts, he seemed pleased 
 and responded warmly, and presently asked 
 
 what he could do to make my stay in Siam 
 pleasant and profitable to me. 
 
 An alert, resolute, thoughtful man of affairs 
 this notable minister appeared devoid of any 
 hauteur , but with entire grace and dignity, 
 suggesting by his demeanor a master in the 
 serious business which he has in hand. 
 
 We found Prince Devawongse overburdened 
 with affairs of state, but kindly eager to ac- 
 commodate us by an interview. He, too, 
 touched on the welcoming attitude of Siam to 
 Christian missionaries. “We have no Boxers 
 in Siam,” he said with a twinkling smile, and 
 this, with some kindly expressions, made the 
 gist of his remarks. 
 
 His Royal Highness the Crown Prince 
 had all the dignity becoming his high rank, 
 but was simple, direct, and wholly kindly 
 and sympathetic in all that he said, especially 
 when his recent visit to New York was re- 
 ferred to. 
 
 Buddhism is a tolerant religion. Mr. Car- 
 rington, as noted above, is able often to dis- 
 tribute his books in the precincts of Buddhist 
 temples and find ready purchasers. We were 
 not, therefore, unprepared for the kindly 
 
 TYPES OF PEOPLE, BANGKOK 
 
 greeting and welcoming hand-shake of His 
 Royal Highness Prince Vajiranana. Before 
 him the highest princes of the realm are 
 wont to prostrate themselves in humblest 
 abasement ; yet if ever dignified simplicity 
 found outward embodiment, it was here. A 
 
Siam — En Route to China 
 
 21 
 
 slight, delicate, scholar-like man, bare-footed 
 and with close-shaven head, clothed only in 
 the famous yellow 
 robe — and that not 
 of silk, but the com- 
 mon stuff worn by 
 every priest — he sat 
 in his simply fur- 
 nished reception- 
 room, accompanied 
 by his abbot, dressed 
 in similar garb, and 
 chatted familiarly, at 
 times with a little 
 touch of humor, 
 about Buddhism, re- 
 ligious literature — 
 more especially 
 English books on 
 such subjects. He is 
 a Pali scholar of emi- 
 nence, having edited, 
 if I am rightly in- 
 formed, some edi- 
 tions for the libraries 
 of American univer- 
 sities. I told him of 
 the studies in com- 
 parative religion 
 which, as a student 
 in the Theological 
 Seminary, had been 
 required of me, and 
 he at once kindled 
 into interest and told 
 me of a volume in 
 the “ Encyclopaedia 
 of Religions” in English in which he took 
 great interest, and expressed his great will- 
 ingness to receive from me other similar work. 
 “We read the Bible and the Koran,” he said, 
 and then assured me of the kindly regard in 
 which the Christian teachers were held. 
 
 The time soon came for our departure, for 
 
 we knew from his note (written with his own 
 hand) our host had put himself out some- 
 what to give us au- 
 dience ; but after we 
 had parted with re- 
 peated cordial hand- 
 shakings, the prinee- 
 priest followed us 
 to the porch outside, 
 and, when we de- 
 scended the flight 
 of steps, repeated his 
 kindly expressions, 
 leaning a little over 
 the railing and shak- 
 ing his hand to em- 
 phasize his last sig- 
 nificant words, “We 
 ■ are not jealous.” 
 
 I Such is the open- 
 I ing for the gospel and 
 the Bible in Siam, as 
 I saw it. There is a 
 right and a wrong 
 way of entering this 
 open door. It is not 
 needful for the am- 
 bassadors of Christ 
 to conceal or abate 
 His claim to be the 
 one and only Master 
 of all men and all 
 nations. Let us pay 
 no empty compli- 
 ments and offer no 
 mock homage to any 
 other king. But may 
 grace of speech and wisdom of demeanor be 
 given to every missionary of every church, 
 not to repulse nor undervalue the gentleness 
 and kindly sympathy shown in so extraordi- 
 nary a degree by the Royal High Priest of 
 Siamese Buddhism. May he find our Royal 
 High Priest and learn His grace ! 
 
 HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS, MAHA VAJIRAVUDH, 
 Crown Prince of Siam 
 
 MR. CARRINGTON TRAVELING IN SIAM 
 
“seven young girls of canton’’ 
 
 VI. China — First Impressions 
 
 H ONGKONG is not China, but it is Chi- 
 nese enough for a beginner — a good 
 stepping-stone to Cathay. It is related to 
 “China proper” somewhat as “pidgin” English 
 is to both Chinese and English. This amus- 
 ing patois is one of the first impressions. It is 
 English in vocabulary and Chinese in syntax 
 and accent. A thousand years ago Anglo- 
 Saxon and Norman French were jumbled to- 
 gether roughly in a similar fashion, and out 
 of it came the speech of Shakespeare and the 
 English Bible. In the making of language 
 necessity knows no law, and no one can pre- 
 dict what may come out of “pidgin” Eng- 
 lish, so largely used in the ports — another 
 Bible language perhaps. Who can say ? 
 
 The streets of Hongkong are very British 
 looking, and the buildings also. The King 
 Edward Hotel seems quite in place. From 
 the ship the streets look like great, massive 
 honeycombs, sparkling at night with a thou- 
 sand glowing eyes; and by daylight they are 
 seen to overflow the narrow levels by the 
 water front, climbing up the steep sides of 
 the rough mountain range which girdles the 
 harbor, whose glorious beauty recalls the 
 finest Scottish coast scenery. Its blue-green 
 waters bear on their bosom the ships of many 
 nations — warships, ocean liners, and merchant- 
 men, but the Dragon flag flies with the others, 
 and the fleet of junks and sampans of many a 
 curious shape and sail is all Chinese. 
 
 The summit of the Peak, a mountain shoot- 
 ing up 1,800 feet out of and above the city, 
 has English buildings to the very top, but 
 Chinese sightseers climbed up, or were car- 
 ried up with us, and in the English streets 
 far below the throngs were Chinese. The 
 hotel “boys,” the coolies, the ’ricksha men, 
 and in many streets the shopmen also, dispel 
 any illusion that Hongkong is purely British. 
 Across the bay at Kowloon, where some of 
 the ocean liners lie, and for thirty miles far- 
 
 ther inland, the British have recently “ac- 
 quired,” by purchase, a new patch of China. 
 That was the second impression — the desper- 
 ate struggle of western nations to pre-empt 
 Chinese territory. 
 
 As I write now, two hundred miles up the 
 Yang-tse River, a German warship lies a few 
 yards off the shore, and this is quite a fa- 
 miliar sight. 
 
 How can we pre-empt this land for the 
 King of Nations ? That is the next and 
 most burning impression. How is the Bible 
 to be put in the place of the Confucian clas- 
 sics ? God can, no doubt, use the commer- 
 cial ambitions, the political diplomacy, even 
 the wicked wars of rival nations, to bring this 
 to pass, but all the victory must, after all, be 
 won by spiritual weapons. Surely the Bible 
 Societies have a great enough task — if they 
 had not other than this — to help give the 
 Chinese Bible to the Chinese churches as 
 speedily, as abundantly, and in as perfect a 
 form as possible. 
 
 We found our British and Foreign friends 
 well established in Hongkong and busily at 
 work ; and at Canton, in the Kuang Tung 
 Province, eighty miles up the Pearl River, 
 the British and American Societies are work- 
 ing hand in hand, thoroughly auxiliary to each 
 other. The generous gift of Dr. C. C. Sel- 
 den, an American Christian physician, of two 
 large, well-situated building lots, to the two 
 Societies, has enabled the British Society to 
 at once erect a fine residence and office for 
 their representative, the Rev. Mr. Burkwall ; 
 and our own representative, the Rev. Alfred 
 Alf, had just made the contract for some 
 necessary filling in of our lot. 
 
 Canton is thoroughly and typically Chinese, 
 a labarinthine city of crooked ways, so intri- 
 cate and tangled that a guide was indispensable 
 at first and desirable always. One must learn 
 his way by something that corresponds to 
 
China — First Impressions 
 
 23 
 
 HONGKONG FROM THE HARBOR 
 
 woodcraft in a forest. There is, to be sure, 
 an island of refuge, Shameen, where the 
 foreign consulates, the banks, the one hotel, 
 and the foreign residences are situated; and 
 on the edges and suburbs of the native 
 city there are some more open places and 
 passable roadways. But usually the street 
 called “straight” does not run. There 
 is no wheeled vehicle— not a ’ricksha, scarcely 
 a horse— in the city. One must either foot 
 it or else be carried in a chair strung on 
 poles ten or fifteen feet long. Our party 
 started out for the first day (seven of us 
 in all) with twenty-one bearers and one 
 extra, a procession of nearly thirty. For 
 myself, I must confess to a subconscious 
 feeling of being at my own funeral, though 
 very much alive to the thousand sights and 
 sounds— and smells— that astonish and be- 
 wilder, and all but overpower the novice 
 in the school of Chinese city life. The 
 simple difficulty of getting about is one of 
 the minor difficulties of missionary labor, 
 and it is not a negligible 
 difficulty, though it must 
 be tried to be realized. 
 
 But along these tortuous 
 alleyways, from which 
 in my swinging seat I 
 could o'f t e n touch the 
 houses on either side, 
 and where the passage 
 of chairs usually needed 
 caution there was every 
 evidence of extraordin- 
 ary thrift, skill, and in- 
 dustry in every handi- 
 craft of finer or coarser 
 order. Business enter- 
 prise and success were 
 obvious. 
 
 Canton is an immense, 
 
 rich, prosperous hive of 
 labor for a million people. 
 The river front is an as- 
 tonishing spectacle, with 
 it myriad fleet of boats 
 and ships of every shape, 
 and size, and degree. 
 Seven or eight hundred of 
 the smaller river steam- 
 craft are owned and run by 
 the Chinese themselves. 
 One of the surprises was 
 to see the number of sam- 
 pans owned, “manned,” 
 and run by women and 
 young girls. Women are 
 not foot-bound there, at 
 least. Often with a baby 
 strapped to their backs, 
 or playing at their feet, or clutching at their 
 mother’s pantalooned leg, these Cantonese 
 naiads handle their heavy oars, standing up 
 to drive them with mighty strokes through 
 the water, making difficult landings with huge 
 bamboo boathooks, and all with an athletic 
 grace and skill worthy of Hiawatha in his 
 birch-bark canoe. 
 
 We visited the missions as far as possible, 
 especially the Presbyterian Mission, which 
 touches hands now (it is a sign of the 
 times) with the New Zealand Presbyterian 
 Mission recently established at Canton, the 
 Hospital, the Medical School, the College and 
 Theological School, the School for the Blind, 
 the only asylum for the insane in China (with 
 accommodations for fifty or seventy-five pa- 
 tients), and one of the Chinese churches on 
 Sunday — all of which I was able to crowd 
 into my few days ; nor must I forget the 
 Canton Christian College, the Women’s Hos- 
 pital and Medical School, where already 
 young Chinese medical doctoresses are suc- 
 
 CANAL SCENE, SHAMEEN, CANTON 
 
24 
 
 Around the World for the American Bible Society 
 
 cessfully performing major operations. It 
 was my privilege to preach to the missionary 
 body on Sunday evening and to seek to im- 
 press upon them the duty of caring for their 
 own bodies as well as for the souls and bodies 
 of these perishing millions. Mr. Alf, our in- 
 defatigable host and helper, with his wife, 
 provided an entertainment for them at his 
 own house to meet me. He also had the col- 
 porteurs come for conference — a noble band 
 of Christian workers. 
 
 The experience which most of all appealed 
 to me as a “ Bibleman ” was a colporting trip 
 to the country. The Swedish- American Mis- 
 sion maintains on the river a steamboat, 
 owned, manned, and run by missionaries and 
 their converts, with which they aim to reach 
 the populations contiguous to the river for 
 miles around the city. Miss Eriksen, of the 
 mission, was our kindly hostess on the boat. 
 We ran for an hour and then landed at a typi- 
 cal Chinese village. Mr. Alf and a couple of 
 his colporteurs, armed with “ portions,” lead- 
 ing the way, we started through the stone- 
 paved streets of this ancient hamlet, looking 
 in at shop and smithy and temple and home, 
 followed by an ever-increasing crowd of boys 
 and girls, like the Pied Piper of Hamelin 
 Town. Across the plowed field we took our 
 way for miles to a second village, returning 
 at high noon to rest under the spreading 
 
 boughs of a great banyan tree. As we sat 
 there the villagers gathered about us — a mot- 
 ley throng — and the ladies of our party made 
 friends readily with their Chinese sisters, who 
 eagerly examined them, and their clothes 
 especially — for a woman’s a woman “for a’ 
 that.” 
 
 The pitying heart of womankind at home 
 could not but be deeply stirred to behold the 
 pains and sorrows of that great shut-in soci- 
 ety — the women of China. Foot-binding is 
 bad enough, but mind and heart-binding are 
 worse. Yet the dawn of a better day is nigh. 
 Women are learning to read and to think. 
 The Word of God is not bound. A good 
 many of our Bibles are in the homes, and 
 that means the hearts of the women. Christ 
 is making new Bethanies and has many 
 Marys and Marthas in lonely Chinese vil- 
 lages. One great thing we can count on — 
 the miracle of memory wrought in the Chi- 
 nese mind by centuries of training. It is hard 
 to believe the facts, they are so wonderful, but 
 they are facts. I saw one young girl who ac- 
 tually learned the whole Westminster Shorter 
 Catechism in a day and a half. Better still, 
 the seven young girls, of Canton (whose 
 photograph is here reproduced), have each of 
 them repeated from memory the whole of the 
 New Testament. What a sign of promise for 
 the coming China ! 
 
 THE SWEDISH -AMERICAN MISSION STEAMER 
 
THE BUND, SHANGHAI 
 
 VII. Shanghai and the Valley of the Yang-tse-Kiang 
 
 S HANGHAI is the best gateway into “ new 
 China.” It is the chief city of the prov- 
 ince of Kiangsu — “ the undoubted queen of the 
 eighteen provinces,” Dr. Martin calls it; and 
 another recent authority declares that what 
 is done in Kiangsu to-day sets the pace for 
 all China to-morrow. It is traversed by the 
 Grand Canal (650 miles long), a much more 
 important instrument of civilization than the 
 great wall, and by the mighty Yang-tse-Kiang, 
 the Mississippi of China. Although Shang- 
 hai is better known to us at home than any 
 other Chinese city, we found many things to 
 surprise us. There is, first of all, here a 
 Chinese city distinct from the foreign city. 
 Its ancient walls and gates recall Shakes- 
 pere’s phrase, “ a worm-eaten hold of ragged 
 stone,” but it is hidden to the newcomer 
 when he lands by the International Settle- 
 ment, the Shanghai of the foreigner. In this 
 settlement, according to the latest figures, are 
 11,500 British, Japanese, Portuguese, Ameri- 
 cans, Frenchmen, and other non-Chinese in- 
 habitants ; and outside a few hundred French 
 subjects in a settlement of their own. Within 
 this foreign cordon no Chinaman has a legal 
 right of residence, yet nearly half a million 
 Chinese are there. This influx began when 
 the Taiping rebellion, half a century ago, 
 brought swarms of refugees. The latest au- 
 thority estimates in all the Shanghais a million 
 Chinese. It needs no argument to show how 
 serious a Chinese uprising would be under 
 these circumstances. 
 
 Ocean steamers transfer their passengers 
 at Wusung, sixteen miles down the Wusung 
 River, and coming in the North Lloyd steamer 
 from Hongkong, we were carried thence by 
 the company’s tender up to the city, where 
 we were instantly surrounded by a multitu- 
 dinous sea of Chinamen, who seemed ready 
 to swallow us up, repeating the impression, 
 made on us everywhere, of the indescribable 
 
 populousness of this amazing country. This 
 impression never left me while I was in China 
 — of “ a great multitude that no man could 
 number,” though alas ! far from being an elect 
 host. 
 
 The “foreign” city is beautifully laid out, 
 in the general style of an American or Euro- 
 pean town. There is a Bund,” or street, 
 facing the river, with its brilliant water pano- 
 rama of ships of all nations, a public garden, 
 banks, clubs, hotels, churches, and mercantile 
 palaces. The Sikh police are an interesting 
 souvenir of India which the traveler finds in 
 many places in the East. The city has its daily 
 morning and evening newspapers, especially 
 the North China Daily Herald. One set of 
 streets is named for Chinese cities — Nanking 
 Road, Peking Road, etc. — and the cross streets 
 for the provinces ; so that the nomenclature 
 is a good lesson in the geography of all China. 
 Our hotel was on the Bund and the Nanking 
 Road. 
 
 A “ ’ricksha ” ride up the latter is a thing 
 long to be remembered. Jehu, driving furi- 
 ously, was surely the father of such as run in 
 the Nanking Road. At breakneck speed they 
 dash madly on for miles, dodging in and out 
 among the intricate masses of men and vehi- 
 cles by a dozen hairbreadth escapes, only 
 avoiding collisions by the magical skill with 
 which everybody gets out of everybody else’s 
 way. The road at first leads through foreign 
 buildings, then enters a Chinese section, 
 where the shop fronts have a barbaric gor- 
 geousness of red and gold and brilliant green, 
 and the yellow dragon flag swings from many 
 a bamboo pole, until at last, flying by the 
 gay race-course and into the famous “ Bub- 
 bling Well Road,” the wondering traveler 
 is ushered into a land of quiet villas and 
 sweet fields, dressed in living green and 
 yellow rape flowers, and great open vistas 
 of plain and sky where on a May-day a 
 
26 
 
 Around the World for the American Bible Society 
 
 Maypole and some old English songs would 
 seem much in place. 
 
 A glance is enough to show why such a 
 city is the best base-line for foreign influence, 
 and why the headquarters of mission work 
 are here. There are more than 200 mission- 
 aries living here, representing 32 missionary 
 societies. The Young Men’s Christian Asso- 
 ciation, the Methodist Publishing House, the 
 Presbyterian Mission Press, St. John’s Col- 
 lege of the (American) Protestant Episcopal 
 Church, and other similar institutions are here. 
 It is, therefore, quite natural that the two 
 Bible Societies, the British and American, 
 should have their chief offices here. Their 
 headquarters, at the present, are side by side, 
 diagonally across the street from the Angli- 
 can Cathedral, where, one Sunday, in company 
 with Dr. Barton, of the American Board, we 
 heard a fervent and admirable discourse by 
 the venerable Bishop Moule on the Bible, with 
 some incidental reference to the Bible Society 
 and its work. 
 
 The British Society is to move soon to 
 larger quarters next door to the Presbyterian 
 Mission Press, some squares away, so that 
 we shall lose our best neighbor. Here, at 
 14 Kiukiang Road, we found Dr. Hykes and 
 Dr. Meyers and, at present, Mr. Gammon, 
 ordinarily one of our superintendents, all 
 busily at work, their headquarters the center 
 and rendezvous for many missionaries from 
 all parts of China, especially as the forces 
 gathered for the great Conference. Our first 
 business was to come to a better understand- 
 ing of the plans, ways, and means by which 
 the extensive distribution of the Scriptures in 
 the empire is carried forward, and by which, 
 prior to that, the books are produced which 
 must be distributed. This is not a light un- 
 dertaking, and the little staff at the Bible 
 House has, each man, his place and duty, and 
 is systematically occupied with this great and 
 responsible task. 
 
 Dr. Hykes is known and loved all over 
 China as a veteran missionary, and has pecu- 
 liar qualifications for the work he now is vig- 
 orously pushing. He had arranged his affairs 
 so as to visit as many of the five superintend- 
 ents (and we did visit three of them) as pos- 
 sible in connection with my own trip through 
 China. We had, therefore, the great advantage 
 of his company, his knowledge and his mas- 
 tery of the language as we went from city to 
 city and province to province. As a veteran 
 missionary, and for the last fourteen j 7 ears 
 the responsible head of the work of the So- 
 ciety, he has a host of acquaintances and of 
 warm personal friends. This was unmistak- 
 ably evident wherever we went. The oversight 
 of the field through all its vast length and 
 
 breadth is, of course, one of the most necessary 
 of his functions, yet the right discharge of 
 these duties is not always easy, considering 
 the equal necessity of a close and careful 
 superintendence of the general administration 
 of affairs at Shanghai. He is a veritable 
 episcopos for the Bible and needs the gift of 
 ubiquity. 
 
 Some account of the methods pursued in 
 the office will be of value to the friends of the 
 Society. Let me begin with a single item 
 that might be accounted the least. Every 
 business institution in Shanghai, and, I sup- 
 pose, in China generally, has what is called a 
 compradore, a name and office uniquely Ori- 
 ental. His duties are that of a petty cashier. 
 The banks in Shanghai will not cash checks 
 for less than $10. This necessitates a petty 
 cash account, which is in the hands of Mr. 
 Siao Lin Sung, an honored member of the 
 Presbyterian Church, who has been for many 
 years our compradore . He receives small 
 sums in settlement of accounts or in payment 
 for cash purchases, and disburses them on 
 compradore' s orders, taking vouchers on the 
 same and rendering a monthly account. The 
 importance of such an office being in good 
 hands is obvious. I noticed in the news- 
 papers the report of a suit in court against a 
 compradore in one of the large banking estab- 
 lishments for misuse of funds, who had evi- 
 dently been intrusted with the handling of 
 very large sums and greater responsibilities ; 
 and this will suggest the fact that business 
 methods learned in the West need a certain 
 adaptation to Eastern custom wisely made by 
 a competent hand. 
 
 In the general accounts in the office the 
 usual method of double-entry bookkeeping 
 was carefully pursued according to the forms 
 in use at home. Dr. Meyers, the assistant, 
 draws nearly all the checks and keeps the 
 money accounts. The most difficult part of 
 the office work was the book account, which 
 is kept according to a very thorough and 
 accurate system, so that at any time it is pos- 
 sible to account for all books published and 
 circulated by the Societies. The report for 
 the present year, for example, will show that 
 the publications for 1906 consisted of 358,300 
 volumes in seven different dialects and with 
 two sets of terms for God ; and, further, that 
 the issues for the Agency, not to be con- 
 founded with the publications, amounted to 
 435,904 copies. 
 
 In the publication of these books the proofs 
 must be read, which is in itself a serious un- 
 dertaking, and many details carefully super- 
 vised, so that apart from the larger outlook 
 over the empire, the handling of details 
 at Shanghai must be thoroughly and broadly 
 
Shanghai and the Valley of the Yang-tse-Kiang 
 
 27 
 
 intelligent. The agent of such a society must 
 also be, as our Agent has been, closely con- 
 nected with the work of perfecting existing 
 translations of the Scriptures. 
 
 The report for the present year will show 
 that there were ninety-five native colporteurs 
 employed under our six superintendents. 
 Under missionary superintendents, but still 
 under our pay and concerning whom we must 
 have regular reports, there were fifty-five 
 more — that is to say, the supervision of this 
 little army of one hundred and fifty Bible dis- 
 tributers still further takes the energy of a 
 strong man. It is not, therefore, possible 
 for Dr. Hykes to engage, like Mr. Carring- 
 ton, in Siam, in personal colportage, though 
 the will on his part is not lacking to do so. 
 His eye and his hand must be upon every 
 man under him, and he must maintain very 
 close, sympathetic relations with the whole 
 missionary body dependent upon the Bible 
 Societies for the Scriptures needed for 
 successful evangelization and church build- 
 ing. 
 
 In passing, let me make appreciative men- 
 tion of one unusual privilege. Our excel- 
 lent compradore opened for us the door into 
 the unknown country of Chinese social life 
 by giving us a Chinese feast. It was served 
 in thirty or forty courses, which included 
 sharks’-fin soup, and edible birds’ nests, and 
 lily roots, and bamboo shoots, and I know 
 not what further miracles of cookery, which 
 were eaten with chopsticks chiefly and en- 
 livened by a cunning conjurer’s tricks. We 
 had a special room in a large restaurant, but 
 the diners in the main room crowded and 
 peered curiously at the “ foreign devils ” as 
 they ate. 
 
 Our route from Shanghai was northward 
 to Peking via ocean steamer to Tientsin, 
 thence across the country to Hankow by rail, 
 thirty-six hours on a “ once-a-week ” train. 
 From Hankow we returned to Shanghai by 
 steamer down the famous Yang-tse-Kiang, 
 the great natural highway of travel for cen- 
 tral China. I shall speak in another letter 
 of northern China, but now must confine 
 myself to the Yang-tse valley. 
 
 This mighty river flows three thousand 
 miles from Tibet, “ the roof of Asia,” drains 
 a basin of six hundred thousand square miles, 
 and touches, in its long flow to the sea (be- 
 low Shanghai), nine Chinese provinces con- 
 taining one hundred and eighty million souls, 
 or more than twice as many as there are 
 in the whole United States. As it pours its 
 tawny flood toward the ocean, it meets the 
 incoming tide three hundred miles from its 
 mouth. Both ocean and river steamers come 
 as far as Hankow, six hundred miles from the 
 
 sea, but the Yang-tse is navigable for one 
 thousand miles farther by steamers of lighter 
 draft. 
 
 What a mission field is this Yang-tse valley, 
 and what a field for Bible work ! 
 
 Hankow is in the province of Hupeh, which 
 has an area of about seventy thousand square 
 miles, considerably larger than England and 
 Wales, and a population of thirty-four mil- 
 lion. It is one of a trio of cities related to 
 each other geographically, somewhat as are 
 New York, Brooklyn, and Jersey City. The 
 
 SIAO LIN SUNG, COMPRADORE AMERICAN BIBLE 
 SOCIETY, SHANGHAI 
 
 Han River, emptying into the Yang-tse at 
 this point, separates Hankow and Han Yan; 
 and across the vast breadth of the Yang-tse 
 from both lies Wuchang, the population of 
 the three cities reaching, perhaps, a mil- 
 lion. Wuchang, the smallest, is politically 
 the most important of the three, as it is 
 the capital of the province and the seat 
 of the government of the famous Viceroy 
 Chang Chih Tung, around which, naturally, 
 both Mandarins and would-be Mandarins 
 are gathered. Mr. Arnold Foster, a com- 
 
28 
 
 Around the World for the American Bible Society 
 
 petent authority, describes Hankow as the 
 great center of gravity for the trade not 
 only of the province, but also of the em- 
 pire, the rendezvous for all central China, 
 whose trade and manufacture indicate the 
 commercial progress of the empire. In 1884, 
 469 steamers entered the port of Hankow, 
 with a tonnage of half a million ; twenty 
 years later 1,417 steamers, with a tonnage of 
 a million and a half. Iron works, mints, 
 and factories of every kind are to be seen 
 here. 
 
 We had time for but a glimpse of a “ model ” 
 foreign settlement which extended for three- 
 quarters of a mile along the river, then a 
 brief visit to some of the missions in Han- 
 kow and Wuchang. It is a stronghold of the 
 American Episcopal Church, and Bishop 
 Roots hospitably received us, sitting beside 
 me in the pew of his cathedral at the noon- 
 day service, while one of the inferior clergy 
 conducted a simple service with earnestness 
 and simplicity, afterward showing us some of 
 the admirable work of his mission. In the 
 afternoon we saw a notable group of buildings 
 of the same Episcopal mission at Wuchang, 
 and some of the Methodist missions also, 
 and were overwhelmed at every turn by the 
 magnificence of the opportunity before the 
 Church of Christ. Who is sufficient for these 
 things ? 
 
 Then we went on by night to Kiukiang, 
 where our superintendent, the Rev. T. C. 
 Crouse, is stationed. With him we spent 
 part of one day, long enough to take a hasty 
 glimpse of the quaint old city, with its little 
 foreign settlement adjacent to a characteris- 
 tically Chinese city, and, best of all, we met 
 our own colporteurs, who had gathered at his 
 house. 
 
 Mr. Crouse is doing effective work, but 
 in place of a single laborer there ought to 
 be half a dozen like him in the valley of the 
 Yang-tse. 
 
 The openings for the gospel are sometimes 
 extraordinary. Quite recently a heathen tem- 
 ple in a village which Mr. Crouse and some 
 members of his family reached, has been 
 turned over to Christian missionaries as a 
 Christian church, the leading man of the vil- 
 lage coming a long distance to talk with our 
 agent about the new doctrine, begging for 
 himself and his neighbors that the gospel 
 might be preached to them. One can under- 
 
 stand the meaning of the Acts of the Apos- 
 tles when one travels from city to city and 
 province to province in China. The Apostles, 
 however, had no such splendid steamer service 
 as we had. 
 
 We stopped on Sunday at Nanking, which, 
 though smaller, is hardly less important than 
 Hankow itself. 
 
 Nanking is an ancient and very Chinese city, 
 twenty-two miles in circumference and seven 
 in diameter. It was the metropolis in the 
 fourth century and is still a seat of culture. 
 Here we saw bodies of troops well enough 
 uniformed and drilled to be taken for Japa- 
 nese. China is organizing her army, as can 
 easily be seen, and we got our first glimpse 
 of the new army here. 
 
 We drove across this strangely fascinating 
 bit of antiquity clear to the other side and 
 into the country, to find the Presbyterian, 
 Methodist, and Christian missionaries well 
 established and ready to listen to Dr. Hykes 
 and to me at their services Sunday after- 
 noon. 
 
 Early on Monday morning I spoke to the 
 Theological School, ably conducted by the 
 missionaries of the Presbyterian Churches 
 (North and South) ; then in the Union School, 
 jointly conducted by two denominations, Pres- 
 byterian and Christian, and we heard much 
 from the missionaries of the proposed Nan- 
 king Christian University ; then we were off 
 again by another fine river steamer for 
 Shanghai. 
 
 An amusing incident shows the rapid fer- 
 mentation of the new ideas. As we sat in 
 the saloon one evening a Chinese official, well 
 dressed and well bred, was busily engaged with 
 what I took for a Chinese and English dic- 
 tionary. He was a superintendent of the 
 new public schools, and had attended a con- 
 vention of the Young Men’s Christian Asso- 
 ciation as the Viceroy’s representative. Pro- 
 ducing with great enthusiasm a paper, he 
 showed us, carefully written out in English 
 and Chinese, what he called the “ holy poems,” 
 viz., “Hail Columbia” and “My Country, 
 ’Tis of Thee!” 
 
 To his great delight we joined him in a 
 laborious effort to render the music so 
 familiar to us and so unfamiliar to him. 
 The result was unique. Perhaps it was the 
 “music of the future.” Who can say what 
 China may yet become musically ! 
 
The Shanghai Conference and Bible Translation 
 
 29 
 
 VIII. The Shanghai Conference and Bible Translation 
 
 T HE Shanghai Conference could not be 
 fully described in even one whole num- 
 ber of the Record. The official report, when 
 issued, will make a large volume, and the 
 excellent unofficial publication of the North 
 China Daily Herald and News is a pamphlet 
 of fifty large and closely-printed pages. Such 
 reports, however accurate, cannot picture the 
 living, glowing reality. This remains, bright 
 and beautiful, in the memory of those of us 
 whose high privilege it was to sit with the 
 glorious company of missionaries, men and 
 women, from April 25th to May 7th, and to 
 share their goodly fellowship in the Martyrs’ 
 Memorial Hall (one part of the new Chinese 
 Young Men’s Christian Association), com- 
 memorating all the martyr missionaries of 
 the century. The noble army of martyrs 
 must surely have been present in spirit in 
 this upper room, which has been finished just 
 in season for the Conference ; for there had 
 newly come to share the estate of the mar- 
 tyrs, out of the great tribulation in China in 
 the year of grace 1900, some who else might 
 have been here. 
 
 The last Conference met in 1890. Ten years 
 later was the natural date for this one, but 
 the chronology of divine purpose read differ- 
 ently. In 1900 came the volcanic “Boxer” 
 outburst. North China was drenched in the 
 blood of saints, until it seemed as if the gates 
 of hell would prevail. But lo ! instead there 
 has come out of the ashes of despair new life 
 from the dead, until the phrase, “the renais- 
 sance of China” has become a hackneyed 
 commonplace, so clearly is it recognized that 
 the sleep of centuries has broken and China 
 is swinging into the stream of human prog- 
 ress. The value of this Conference consists 
 first of all, therefore, in its providential rela- 
 tionship to the extraordinary circumstances 
 and conditions of “new China.” Its discus- 
 sions have a bearing upon the great question 
 of her national destiny. Not unmindful of 
 the past, it looks to the future. 
 
 Never, for instance, has there been such a 
 demand all over the empire for the Bible as 
 since 1900. At times the presses could 
 hardly meet it. Never could there be a time 
 more opportune, therefore, for the churches 
 of Christ in China to press on toward the 
 speedy perfecting of the Chinese versions. 
 The limits of space will require me to dis- 
 regard a score of other matters in order to 
 speak of this subject, which particularly con- 
 cerns the Bible Societies. 
 
 First, however, let me give some general 
 
 account of the Conference itself. Its voting 
 membership was limited strictly to Chinese 
 missionaries duly appointed as delegates, and 
 of these there were 476, representing 3,833 
 missionaries in all China, with 694 visitors, a 
 total of 1,170, coming from two dozen differ- 
 ent countries, representing eighty or more 
 boards. Of these, seventy or more were, 
 like myself, the official representative of 
 such boards. We were not expected to vote, 
 and were only given the privilege of debate 
 under rather close restrictions, which some 
 objected to, but on the whole the rule seemed 
 wise and was not abused. 
 
 At the opening reception in the Shanghai 
 Town Hall, where the evening meetings 
 were held, 1,500 persons were present when 
 our Dr. Hykes, as President of the Shang- 
 hai Missionary Association, had the honor of 
 making the address of welcome to the dele- 
 gates. Prior to this, in the afternoon, the 
 formal organization had been effected. There 
 were two Presidents — Dr. J. Campbell Gib- 
 son, an English Presbyterian, and Dr. Arthur 
 H. Smith, an American Congregationalist, 
 both men admirably typical of the nations 
 and churches which they represented — Dr. 
 Smith, brilliant, witty, and resourceful ; Dr. 
 Gibson, slower of speech, but with a weight 
 of wisdom and steady poise which made 
 his occupancy of the chair not less acceptable. 
 There were eight Vice-Presidents — three 
 American, three British, one German, and 
 one Scandinavian — and a sufficient corps of 
 Secretaries and other officers. The Execu- 
 tive Committee, prior to the Conference and 
 during its session, was headed by Bishop 
 Graves of the American Episcopal Church, 
 whose hand was on the helm constantly and 
 effectively. Nor must we forget Mr. Bond- 
 field, Agent of the British and Foreign Bible 
 Society, whose invaluable service as secre- 
 tary of the committee was recognized at the 
 close of the Conference by the present of a 
 gold watch from its members. 
 
 We cannot speak at length of the personnel 
 of the Conference. There were such veterans 
 as Dr. Hunter Corbett, Dr. C. W. Mateer, 
 and Dr. W. A. P. Martin ; Dr. Graves, Bap- 
 tist ; Bishop Roots of the Episcopal Church, 
 and Bishop Bashford of the Methodist ; Dr. 
 Ament came from North China, and Dr. H. 
 H. Lowry, Methodist, and Dr. J. Walter 
 Lowrie, Presbyterian ; and Dr. Sheffield, who 
 had the singular distinction of wearing scars 
 of thirty-five stab wounds made by a Chinese 
 assassin a dozen years ago — a walking mir- 
 
30 
 
 Around, the World for the American Bible Society 
 
 acle he seemed ; Mr. Hoste, successor to Dr. 
 Hudson Taylor as head of the China In- 
 land Mission, was there with some of his 
 associates, costumed a la Chinois, one of 
 whom made the only quotation from Skakes- 
 peare I heard during the sessions. A dis- 
 
 tinguished delegate from the home-lands was 
 the Rev. Lord William Cecil, Anglican, a 
 son of the late Lord Salisbury. It would 
 be easy to name a longer list of men of 
 high distinction and notable ability whose 
 presence gave weight and significance to the 
 assemby. 
 
 Then, too, one somehow felt as he looked 
 upon the faces of this peculiar company, that 
 the lowliest and least distinguished may be 
 best known in heaven, where is written down 
 many a life story, precious to God and holy 
 angels, of weary years spent in lonely out- 
 posts, remote from social joys and home 
 comforts. The privations of women in iso- 
 lated stations, borne with heroic patience, are 
 chief among the glories of the evangelic con- 
 quest. The missionaries do not like over- 
 praise, for they know their own limitations 
 and frailities, but they are as a class schooled 
 in the habit of self-denial, and the best of 
 them carry an atmosphere of such serene 
 goodness that a fortnight in their society is 
 an education in piety. 
 
 Two things were blended in the Conference 
 in rare degree — devotion and business method. 
 At 8.30 punctually every morning there was 
 a devotional service, continuing until 9.15. 
 Each day a different speaker preached, se- 
 lected from the visitors — not from the mis- 
 sionaries. The business, save for a noon 
 recess for “tiffin,” lasted until five o’clock; 
 
 then there was usually a prayer meeting in 
 the Union Church, which ran on for an hour or 
 more, and it was understood that a “continuous 
 prayer” meeting was maintained in a room 
 above the Conference by a succession of earn- 
 est souls. The Sunday services were rich 
 and inspiring — Dr. 
 Bevan, formerly of 
 New York, especially 
 stirring a great audi- 
 ence. The fervors of 
 prayer were not mere 
 interludes, but genuine 
 auxiliaries to the 
 prompt, practical, and 
 efficacious handling of 
 the mighty themes 
 which taxed the best 
 wisdom of the mission- 
 ary body. 
 
 The Conference of 
 1890 left, ad interim , 
 committees to consider 
 and digest various im- 
 portant matters to be 
 reported to this Con- 
 ference, and other 
 committees were cre- 
 ated later. These all 
 presented their reports, each printed in pam- 
 phlet form and furnished in advance to the 
 members of the Conference. Later we were 
 given a printed set of resolutions proposed 
 for adoption. The subjects thus predigested 
 by the committees were then discussed and 
 rediscussed, amended and reamended, after 
 very free debate by the Conference itself. 
 Only rarely were other subjects introduced. 
 So it was secured that time and thought 
 should be concentrated on what is vital to 
 missionary progress, and not wasted in side 
 issues and mischievous hobby-riding. 
 
 The result was a solid body of mature con- 
 clusions not lightly to be set aside. While 
 devoid of any shred of ecclesiastical author- 
 ity, they must have great spiritual power. It 
 is not necessary to claim that they could not 
 have been bettered. Unum in Christo was 
 the motto of the Conference, and its un- 
 changing keynote, yet not all “union” pro- 
 posals passed unchallenged — the Union Uni- 
 versity for all China, for instance, gave 
 pause to many. The missionaries felt that 
 they were struggling with things too high for 
 human wisdom, and it would be easy to sug- 
 gest here and there corrections or additions 
 from various points of view. They attempted 
 to settle for China, pro tempore at least, some 
 questions which have been the recognized foci 
 of debate and often of divisive controversy 
 in the Church of God in all ages. The 
 
The Shanghai Conference and Bible Translation 
 
 31 
 
 Chinese Church and the Chinese ministry, for 
 instance, were the first topics discussed. This 
 involves the very crux of the chief problems 
 of all church organization. It naturally con- 
 nected itself with the report of another com- 
 mittee, made later, on “ Comity and Federa- 
 tion.” It was observable that the action 
 finally taken under the latter head seemed to 
 vary somewhat from the line drawn under the 
 former. At first the Conference declared its 
 purpose to plant one Church in China, but 
 afterward when substantially the same goal 
 was set up as the consummation of a plan of 
 Provincial and General Councils, the com- 
 mittee’s language was reduced by amend- 
 ment to the less definite declaration — “ the 
 establishment of the Kingdom of God in 
 China.” This shows the care with which 
 phraseology was considered, and also that 
 there were latent differences of view ready to 
 emerge. But there was no difference what- 
 ever in the catholic temper in which they 
 were handled. “ The Missionary and Public 
 Questions ” raised the old puzzle of Church 
 and State in another form, and one with new 
 perplexities peculiar to China. The question 
 of creeds was touched at the very outset, and 
 might easily have wrecked the Conference, but 
 
 These details must be enough to sug- 
 gest the scope and temper of the Con- 
 ference as it dealt with Education, Chris- 
 tian Literature, Evangelistic Work, Medical 
 Missions, Woman’s Work, and other like 
 matters, a truly Chinese flavor being imparted 
 by the half day’s discussion on Ancestor 
 Worship. Considering the difficulties of the 
 problems attacked, the general unanimity at- 
 tained was a wonderful tribute to the breadth 
 of mind, depth of insight, and above all the 
 unfailing brotherliness of the missionaries, 
 all and singular. A good epitaph for this 
 oriental Assembly of Divines would be, “ Be- 
 hold how these misionaries love one an- 
 other.” 
 
 The discussion of Bible translation could 
 hardly be called a debate. The only debat- 
 able question had been avoided by ruling out 
 the ' term ” question altogether from discus- 
 sion — a question, that is, of the proper terms 
 for the translation of the words “ God” and 
 “ Holy Spirit.” This has been a moot point 
 from the beginning. It affected the Bible 
 Societies very directly. This Society, for 
 instance, has found it necessary to print 
 Bibles containing two or three sets of terms 
 perferred by different classes of missionaries. 
 
 REVISION COMMITTEE AT WORK ON CHINESE BIBLE (HIGH WENLI VERSION), PEI-TAI-HE, CHINA 
 
 a mitigated assent was finally agreed on to 
 the Apostles’ and theNicene creeds as “ sub- 
 stantially expressing the fundamental doctrines 
 of the Christian faith,” while not indorsing 
 any creed as such, leaving “confessional 
 questions ” to the Chinese Church. 
 
 A compromise — “ Shangti ” for God, and 
 “ Shengling ” for Holy Spirit — seems now 
 pretty generally agreed upon, though there 
 is a weighty minority averse to the compro- 
 mise. 
 
 The most important matter connected with 
 
32 
 
 Around the World for the American Bible Society 
 
 Holy Scripture before the Conference was the 
 presentation and acceptance, without demur, 
 of the reports of the three committees on Bible 
 translation which had been sitting since the last 
 Conference. Some explanations are necessary 
 to show what this means. These have indeed 
 been made before in various forms in the 
 Record. For a hundred years missionary 
 scholars have been busy in making and perfect- 
 ing translations, but only in 1890 was there a 
 definite, organized plan for Union versions 
 representing not individuals or groups, but 
 the whole missionary body. So one commit- 
 tee was set to make a Union version into 
 Mandarin, based, of course, on the existing 
 versions, and two more into the Classical or 
 “Wenli.” Wenli is not the spoken but the 
 written “classical” language of China, and 
 is wholly different from the spoken speech. 
 It is the language of letters — of belles-lettres , 
 of formal correspondence, and of business and 
 official communication — the pet and pride 
 of the literati and the scholars, unknown to 
 the ignobile vulgus. Dr. Gibson calls it “an 
 elegant literary artifice.” It is ceremonious, 
 elegant “Johnsonese ” at its stiffest, when it 
 is called High Wenli ; but it can be made 
 easier and more pliable, and then the trans- 
 lators call it “Easy” Wenli. The Bible al- 
 ready exists in it. Committees were ap- 
 pointed to translate it. 
 
 Although a written language, it can be 
 read aloud, but when it is read in church it 
 is pronounced according to the spoken dia- 
 lect of the reader. This, of course, varies in 
 different parts of China. When the Bible is 
 thus read it is translated by the reader or 
 paraphrased into the spoken speech ; or, it 
 maybe, he does not pronounce the written 
 language at all, but simply makes an im- 
 promptu translation as he reads it into the 
 spoken language. This spoken language is 
 for more than 300,000,000 Chinese the Man- 
 darin, the most important, because used by the 
 largest number of people, and also because it is 
 the official speech used in courts of justice and 
 elsewhere. But besides this there are at least 
 eight principal “ dialects,” which might better 
 be called languages, for they differ from each 
 other and from Mandarin as widely as Euro- 
 pean languages generally differ from each 
 other. In addition to these eight on nine prin- 
 cipal languages, there are twenty or thirty 
 minor ones, not counting mere patois. When, 
 therefore, critics sneer at missionaries for their 
 failure to translate the Chinese Bible to their 
 own satisfaction, they forget what a linguistic 
 jungle Chinese speech is. Sir Robert Hart 
 fitly speaks of the “ China sea of language.” 
 
 The committees at the present Conference 
 placed on its table complete versions of the 
 
 New Testament in Mandarin, in High Wenli 
 and in Easy Wenli, and it was resolved that 
 the two Wenli Committees (High and Low) 
 should now aim at the production of one 
 Wenli version. Meanwhile the Bible Socie- 
 ties are asked to print these three versions, 
 that they may be tried by use for three 
 years. All this refers to the New Testament. 
 Steps were taken in the Conference to go on 
 at once with the translation of the Old Testa- 
 ment. 
 
 To this end executive committees were 
 constituted, having entire supervision of the 
 work of producing one “ Standard Union Bible 
 in Chinese.” These committees are to select 
 five qualified missionaries as translators for 
 Wenli and another five for Mandarin. 
 
 The Conference expressed the gratitude of 
 the missions and churches in China to the 
 three Bible Societies for their help, asked 
 them each to appoint an agent as an ex-officio 
 member of both executive committees, and to 
 provide all fiends needed to meet the expenses of 
 this work. 
 
 The italics are mine, for the words deserve 
 emphasis. Translation is only one of the 
 many tasks of most translators, so that their 
 salaries are not usually borne by the Bible 
 Societies, but the other expenses are. The 
 Conference appealed to the mission boards to 
 relieve translators of other duties, so that 
 they may give themselves as far as possible 
 to this one thing. This is a point of para- 
 mount importance, which I ventured to urge 
 in the few moments that I had before the 
 Conference. Naturally translators are much 
 in demand for other things. But is there 
 anything more needful than this ? If it in- 
 volved the payment of the salaries by the 
 Bible Societies, their supporters should fur- 
 nish the means if the missionaries furnish the 
 men set apart to this high use. 
 
 All this gives an impression of what the 
 function of the Bible Society is in China. It 
 is no light responsibility to do what we are 
 asked, but there is still more. Other actions 
 of the Conference refer to the use of the Bible 
 in the home, school and Church. Nothing is 
 here said about the “dialect” versions, nor 
 of Romanization, i.e., the printing of Chinese 
 Bibles in the Roman alphabet — a practice 
 growing in favor, but at first requiring a 
 duplication of our issues in many cases ; nor 
 of the further complication due to the neces- 
 sity of printing the text with different terms 
 for God ; nor of the whole business of dis- 
 tributing the books all over the Chinese 
 Empire, without which our printing would be 
 of little use. The catalogue of our Chinese 
 Agency shows a total of seventeen different 
 versions and 400 or more different editions 
 
The Shanghai Conference and Bible Tra7islation 
 
 33 
 
 ready for use, and there are others to be added, 
 without counting those in English and other 
 Western languages. Surely our modest an- 
 nual appropriation, which amounts usually to 
 about $35,000, needs to be doubled at least 
 if we are to do what must be done. 
 
 With this we must leave the Shanghai 
 Conference, passing over many a theme of 
 fascinating interest : That heroic figure in 
 the far background of the century, Robert 
 Morrison, whom Carlyle might well have 
 
 painted for his gallery, “ The Hero as Mis- 
 sionary ” ; the visit of the Viceroy’s repre- 
 sentative ; the various social functions ; the 
 sparkling facetta, wherein our American 
 President bore his full part — it was all good 
 and pleasant to see brethren dwell together 
 in unity and the precious oil running down as 
 of old. 
 
 The women had their field day, when the 
 peculiar need of Chinese womanhood was 
 treated, largely by women themselves. 
 
 The first resolution passed 
 by them was an urgent 
 appeal to the Bible So- 
 cieties and the translators 
 to see that the whole Bible 
 is speedily put into the 
 Roman alphabet, both in 
 the Mandarin and the 
 other colloquial dialects, 
 because the women of 
 China can learn to read this 
 much more easily than the 
 Chinese characters. 
 
 I called attention in my 
 last letter to the extraor- 
 dinary memories of the 
 Chinese women as indicated 
 by seven young girls, each 
 of whom committed to 
 memory the whole New 
 Testament. Christian 
 women of America, will you 
 not help us for Christ’s sake 
 to put the Bible that you 
 teach your daughters 
 into the hands of these your 
 suffering sisters in China ? 
 “A Bible for every home 
 in America” was a potent 
 cry in the beginning of 
 Bible Societies. A good 
 one now would be, “A 
 Bible for every home in 
 China.” 
 
 From nil engraving hi/ Turner, Engraver to Uis Majesty 
 
 THE REV. DR. MORRISON AND HIS ASSISTANTS TRANSLATING THE 
 BIBLE INTO THE CHINESE LANGUAGE 
 
CHINESE AND MANCHU LADIES 
 
 IX. A Peep at Peking and Beyond 
 
 (For Boys and Girls) 
 
 D EAR “BIBLE LOVERS”: On the cover 
 yon will notice a picture of a colporteur 
 of our Society wheeling a load of Bibles. 
 This will give you a hint of some of the 
 strange things to be seen in China. The 
 wheelbarrow, to be sure, is familiar enough 
 at home, but the use made of it in China 
 would quite surprise you. Not only does it 
 carry Bibles and other things, but people 
 also. It is sometimes built on the model of 
 an Irish jaunting-car, where one or two per- 
 sons sit back to back, looking not ahead or 
 behind, but to the side. Peking people nat- 
 urally like the Peking cart, and one can see 
 whole familes crowded into them. They are 
 very jolty and bumpy, for they have no springs; 
 and the wheelbarrow, though a humbler car- 
 riage, is perhaps a little easier. 
 
 I wonder if you have ever heard of Wang 
 the Wheelbarrow Man, a Chinese Christian 
 who in twenty-five days wheeled his mother 
 four hundred miles in a wheelbarrow. She 
 sat on one side, with her household belong- 
 ings packed on the other. She had been 
 thrown out of a Peking cart and injured, and 
 found the wheelbarrow rather more comfort- 
 able. “ Honor thy father and thy mother ” is 
 a commandment well known in China. Our 
 colporteurs, of course, can make good use 
 both of carts and wheelbarrows, as the pic- 
 ture suggests. 
 
 The streets of Peking seemed to me more 
 
 strange and wonderful than anything I had 
 ever read of in story books. They were filled 
 with people like ourselves, yet oh, how quaint 
 and peculiar in costume and looks ! The 
 “ ’ricksha” men have poor and scanty attire; 
 but a Chinese gentleman, in light blue trousers 
 and with a heavy outer coat reaching to his 
 ankles, made of darker or richer silk, usually 
 blue or something more gorgeous still, and 
 with his queue, nicely braided and long enough 
 maybe to carry round like a watch chain, 
 fastened to his pocket in front, deserves, if 
 anyone does, to be called a “dandy.” 
 
 One of the strangest sights that I saw was 
 a factory for making queues by American 
 machinery. It was humming noisily away, 
 not in Peking, but in Canton, hard by the 
 very spot where Robert Morrison, the first 
 Protestant missionary, lived. The Manchu 
 women of Peking wear headdresses which 
 eclipse the smartest Easter bonnets. A fash- 
 ionable street in Peking, filled with Mandarins, 
 soldiers, coolies, shopmen, gaily head-dressed 
 Manchu belles, Chinese women with painted 
 faces, tottering along in shoes tiny as a doll’s 
 and as dainty as any Parisian shoe could be, 
 looks like a kind of animated flower garden. 
 Joseph, in his coat of many colors, would 
 feel quite at home. 
 
 Our train rumbled through the ancient wall 
 of this strange city and drew up near to one 
 of its famous gates just as evening fell, and 
 
A Peep at Peking and Beyond 
 
 35 
 
 in a few moments we were whisked away in 
 a ’ricksha, that curious two-wheeled car- 
 riage with its human horse, to the only hotel 
 — the “ Wagon Lits.” It stands near what is 
 known as the “ Legation Quarter.” Here the 
 ministers and ambassadors of foreign nations 
 have their residences in a street much like 
 the streets of Europe or America. Each 
 legation has its little army of soldiers in its 
 national uniform, French, British, Austrian, 
 Italian, with their flags, including “Old Glory,” 
 flying overhead. 
 
 Peking is not one city, but a city of cities. 
 China is now ruled by a race of kings (and 
 queens) who were once Tai'tars in Manchu- 
 ria. So in Peking there is a Chinese city 
 and a Tartar city. The great wall encircling 
 them both is twenty-five miles or so in cir- 
 cumference, but they are separated from each 
 other by another wall. Within the Tartar 
 city there is another called the “Imperial 
 City,” with its wall, and then within that a 
 still smaller called the “Forbidden City,” 
 where the Emperor and the Dowager Em- 
 press and the Court dwell, and where no 
 foreigner can go unless bidden. The Dow- 
 ager Empress has a name that you may 
 think funny — Tsze-Hi Toanyu Kangi Chaoyu 
 Chuangcheng Shokung Chinhien Chungsih — 
 but she is called “Tsze-Hi” for short. The 
 principal gates leading through these walls 
 we would hardly call gates at all. They are 
 more like fortresses, and this, indeed, they 
 are sometimes. 
 
 How would you like to take a walk on top 
 
 of a wall ? I walked on one broad enough 
 for carriages to pass abreast, and was shown 
 the place where seven years ago a fierce bat- 
 tle was fought, on top of the wall and beneath 
 it. This was during the dreadful “Boxer” 
 war, when hundreds of thousands of furious 
 Chinese fanatics sought the lives of all for- 
 eigners. 
 
 I looked out from the wall over the place 
 where missionaries, and merchants, and am- 
 bassadors, and foreigners generally, were 
 penned in the British Legation for fifty-six 
 days while an avalanche of shot and shell 
 poured upon them day and night. For two 
 weeks before that the Methodist missionaries 
 were shut into their own mission compound. 
 Here it was (Dr. Headland has told the story 
 in his book on “ Chinese Heroes,” which you 
 ought to read) that Wang the Wheelbarrow 
 Man was shot down. Soon after his death 
 his comrades fled to join the other foreigners 
 in the British Legation. 
 
 In one part of the legation wall, peppered 
 with shot and shell, there are three English 
 words graven in the stone — “Lest we for- 
 get”; but those dreadful summer days are 
 not likely to be forgotten very soon. 
 
 I cannot begin to tell you of all the won- 
 derful temples and palaces of Peking. Per- 
 haps there is none more wonderful than the 
 “Altar of Heaven” — there is a “Temple of 
 Heaven,” but the “Altar” is itself a temple 
 — a temple without a roof and without walls. 
 It is a magnificent, polished white marble 
 pavement, which you ascend by successive 
 
 flights of steps to 
 a central Altar. 
 There under the 
 open heaven, with 
 no priest, no choir, 
 no splendid pomp, 
 the Emperor of 
 China goes once 
 a year alone to 
 worship. What he 
 worships we can- 
 not say — perhaps 
 he could not say 
 himself; but in 
 some way he 
 seems to worship 
 God, even though 
 it be as the Un- 
 known God whom 
 the Bible tells us is 
 not far from every 
 one of us. As 
 the Jewish High 
 Priest went once 
 alone into the 
 presence of God, 
 
 THE HATA-MEN GATE, PEKING 
 
36 
 
 Arou?id the World for the American Bible Society 
 
 STONE ANIMALS — THE APPROACH TO THE MING TOMBS 
 
 so this Emperor 
 of the most ancient 
 empire now on 
 earth goes in some 
 way representing 
 his people. 
 
 Do you not think 
 that there ought to 
 be close to this 
 Temple of Heaven 
 something that will 
 make known to him 
 and his people the 
 right way of ap- 
 proach into the 
 presence of our 
 Heavenly Father, 
 through him who 
 said, “ I am the 
 way”? Well, 
 there are such 
 places all over Pe- 
 king, for we found 
 not only great and 
 splendid heathen temples, but churches of the 
 Living God, better built than they were be- 
 fore they were burned down by the “ Boxers.” 
 In any of these churches the Emperor may 
 hear of the great High Priest who is passed 
 into the heavens, there to appear in the pres- 
 ence of God for us. 
 
 There is one spot that you particularly 
 ought to know about. Quite close to the 
 great gate into the Imperial City, and not far 
 from the Forbidden City, is the depot of the 
 American Bible Society. Since I was in 
 Peking it caught fire and was partially burned, 
 but fortunately none of the books were burned. 
 Our agent, the Rev. Walter S. Elliott, writes 
 me that not long ago one of the officials 
 dressed in the uniform of the palace came out 
 from the palace of the Emperor (as he was 
 passing by selling Bibles) and bought from 
 him several portions of the Holy Scriptures. 
 These portions are themselves enough to tell 
 the Emperor of the true God and eternal life. 
 Thank God that the Bible can go where the 
 missionary is forbidden to go. I am sorry 
 to say that our headquarters in Peking are 
 by no means as handsome as they ought to 
 be, for the main building is really nothing 
 but an old gate-house, and rather forlorn ; 
 but some day you may be able to help us 
 build a better one. If you went there now 
 you would probably find Mr. and Mrs. Elliott 
 and his little children, boys and girls, living 
 in a rough stone house across the court from 
 the gate-house; for when I was there they 
 were arranging to have it fixed up a little for 
 their home, though it is even yet not what it 
 ought to be. 
 
 Thirty miles outside of Peking there is a 
 cemetery like none other upon earth. It con- 
 sists of a vast plain, I should think thirty 
 miles long, surrounded by mountains. In it 
 thirteen emperors lie in solitary grandeur. 
 These are the emperors of the Ming Dynasty, 
 the first of whom began to reign more than 
 five centuries ago, when Chaucer was telling 
 in England his Canterbury Tales, and the last 
 of them hung himself in Oliver Cromwell’s 
 day. Each monarch lies alone in solemn 
 state, surrounded by a group of splendid 
 buildings, a few miles away from his next 
 royal dead neighbor. The one whose tomb I 
 had time to visit is approached by an avenue 
 lined on either side with huge stone camels, 
 lions, elephants, and horses, so lifelike that 
 one of our horses ran away when he saw his 
 stone image before him ; and besides these, 
 statues of famous men who lived in that long- 
 gone day. 
 
 From there, after a night’s sleep on a stone 
 bed in a Chinese inn, we rode up the mountain 
 pass of Nankou to see another wonder of 
 the world — the great Chinese Wall — 1,500 
 miles long and more than twenty - one 
 centuries old. It was built to shut out the 
 wild tribes of the north, one of whom, how- 
 ever, in spite of the wall, conquered China, 
 and, in the person of the great Dowager Em- 
 press Tsze-Hi, now rules China. In visiting 
 these two great wonders I rode nearly fifty 
 miles on a donkey, sometimes over rocks, 
 and once when the donkey took a notion, 
 partly into a Chinese house, and I would have 
 been glad, indeed, for a wheelbarrow and 
 good Mr. Wang to wheel me. 
 
THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA 
 
 X. North China and New China 
 
 T HE famous Church in Rome, “St. Paul 
 Without the Walls” has a parallel in 
 China, for there is a China without the Wall, and 
 a Chinese Church without the Wall has been 
 planted — it is but a question of how fast 
 it will grow. In our rapid journey, the near- 
 est that we could come to seeing it was in the 
 Nankou Pass through which one of the great 
 high roads of travel and commerce passes 
 from Peking to Kalgan and on to the regions 
 beyond. Ours was scarcely a holiday jaunt. 
 First six miles in ’rickshas across the City of 
 Peking, then thirty slow miles by the new 
 Peking and Kalgan railroad to Nankou, where 
 (after a visit to the Ming Tombs) we spent 
 part of the night in a pretence of sleep on a 
 Chinese bed. At half-past two the next morn- 
 ing we started by moonlight, on donkeys, for 
 the summit of the pass. It was a breathless 
 excitement to see, in the cool of the early 
 dawn, that strange, wonderful, mountain ave- 
 nue. As soon as it was light it filled with a 
 throng of passengers — some on foot and some 
 on horse or mule back, with flocks of sheep, 
 and still more picturesque caravans of camels, 
 the living tide ever flowing until it seemed 
 
 crowded as a city street ; at first running 
 through sleeping villages on the plain, then 
 through the stern grandeur of rough, craggy 
 mountain scenery, higher and higher up until 
 we reached our goal, the famous ancient Wall 
 itself, one of the wonders surely of this Orient 
 world. 
 
 All along the road Chinese engineers and 
 laborers, hundreds of them, were busy with 
 drill and pick pushing the line of the railroad 
 up the pass and on to Kalgan. It is not a 
 foreign built road, but of Chinese construc- 
 tion — a fact profoundly significant of what the 
 future contains. Here was “new” China 
 visibly pictured before our eyes. Sometimes 
 our mules had to pick their way over the very 
 railroad ties, and again on one side or the 
 other all the way up the pass, the railroad 
 having reached almost the summit. When at 
 last we clambered to the top of the Wall and 
 looked off to the north into the great beyond, 
 it seemed as if we were given almost a vision, 
 not only of the things that are, but the things 
 that are to be. Who can set a bound to the 
 new world, slowly at first but now with amaz- 
 ing rapidity, shaping itself here ? 
 
38 
 
 A round the World for the American Bible Society 
 
 In the south Shanghai is naturally the focus 
 of the new light; but Peking is the official 
 head of China and the North in general, and 
 has peculiar relations to official progress. If 
 we had followed the road further, we should 
 have found ourselves presently in Mongolia, 
 which the old geographers used to call Chi- 
 nese Tartary. There is an Inner Mongolia 
 and an Outer Mongolia, stretching far away to 
 the north and west, clear to the boundaries 
 of the Russian Empire, 1,700 miles from east 
 to west, 1,000 miles from north to south, with 
 an area of 1,400,000 square miles, and the 
 population estimated at anywhere from two to 
 ten millions. The central part of this vast 
 region is the Gobi desert, lying 4,000 feet 
 above the sea ; not a torrid, but an arctic 
 desert. Yet the other parts of the region are 
 livable and arable. I counted 269 dromedary 
 camels, besides other pack animals, going and 
 coming along the Kalgan Road, laden with 
 various merchandise (including Standard Oil 
 cans). As we approached the summit of the 
 pass, it was easy to notice the distinctive type 
 of the Mongol as distinguished from the Chi- 
 nese. Great stalwart, hardy fellows they 
 were, with their fur caps and rough coats 
 suggestive of their wintry home ; some of 
 them well armed, too, to protect the treasures 
 of the caravan. To the far west lies Zungaria, 
 to the north of the Tienshan Mountains, the 
 home of a tribe of western Mongols, who 
 rose to great power two hundred years ago, 
 having, it is said, a million armed warriors. 
 They captured and sacked L’hassa, in Tibet, 
 and were not overthrown for half a century, 
 when, it is said, the Chinese put to the sword 
 a million persons, men, women and children. 
 The natural route for a railway from Russia 
 is through Zungaria, and thence on eastward 
 through Chinese territory. The present 
 population of the country too does not in 
 itself afford a true index of its probable future. 
 The Chinese are swarming out beyond the 
 great wall, pushing the Mongols before them. 
 The British and Foreign Bible Society with 
 commendable zeal has pushed its colporteurs 
 out to follow them. Since I visited the great 
 wall, our own Mr. Elliott has made a journey 
 into Mongolia beyond Kalgan (the eastern 
 terminus of the caravan route) , meeting mis- 
 sionaries of the American Board at various 
 points, and a few colporteurs of the British and 
 Scotch Societies. When he reached the first 
 table-land in Mongolia, he was entertained 
 in the tents of Sa Lung Gult, said to be the son 
 of the former Prince of that region. This chief- 
 tain, now sixty-four years of age, learned 
 something of Christian truth long ago, though 
 he is not a Christian. As he and Mr. Elliott 
 sat talking over a Gospel of Matthew, he hap- 
 
 pened to catch sight of a copy of the Christian 
 Herald lying on his cot. This he eagerly 
 caught at ; and, finding a picture of an auto- 
 mobile in it, he began to tell of the five auto- 
 mobiles he saw flying past his tent door a 
 few weeks before on the race from Peking to 
 Paris. The mail now brought by camels to 
 Peking may, it is said, soon be carried in 
 automobiles. In his trip of twenty days, Mr. 
 Elliott sold 1220 Scriptures and Scripture Por- 
 tions. This is enough to give an impression of 
 this terra incognita and its possibilities, not 
 only for ordinary commerce, but for that better 
 commerce — the circulation of God’s Holy 
 Word. It is true indeed that the Mongols are 
 illiterate and that they are cursed with the 
 most degraded form of Buddhism, the “Lama 
 Buddhism” of Tibet, but the railroad is sure 
 to open up their country in many ways and 
 we must be ready with our colporteurs. Mr. 
 Elliott met a Mongolian Prince en route to his 
 station in “Outer Mongolia,” who had been 
 commanded by the Throne in Peking to 
 establish schools for Western education in his 
 distant home. Then far to the west lies 
 Tibet. It has been called the “ Forbidden 
 Land,” but already the newspapers report 
 that the Dowager Empress has declared that 
 a telegraph line shall be established at 
 L’hassa and a newsaper published. The 
 world has followed the adventures of Colonel 
 Younghusband and the British expedition 
 which he led to L’hassa. Crossing the Pacific 
 I happened to meet one of his officers, who 
 had marvelous things to tell. 
 
 Lying to the northeast of the great wall is 
 Manchuria, better known to us than Mongolia. 
 When it is said that the Dowager Empress is 
 a Manchu, we must recognize that a race who 
 can produce one such woman is not a weak 
 race. 
 
 Dr. Martin, in his recent book, “ The 
 Awakening of China,” calls her the typical 
 Manchu woman, and her reign the most bril- 
 liant in Chinese history. He draws a curious 
 historical parallel between the Normans of 
 Great Britain and the Manchus of China, 
 whom he judges, on the whole, to have given 
 a better government to China than any Chi- 
 nese dynasty. The Manchus in Manchuria 
 remain, as he says, rude and ignorant, but in 
 China they certainly are not so ; and even in 
 Manchuria, they, too, feel the touch of the 
 new spirit. 
 
 The Japanese war has taught us something 
 about Manchuria, but there is much to learn. 
 It has a population of 8,500,000, and its cap- 
 ital, Mukden, 200,000. The significant thing 
 now worthy of our attention is that, as in 
 Mongolia and probably even more, Chinese 
 settlers are taking possession of the deserted 
 
North China and New China 
 
 39 
 
 districts. Invited by a faction in China to 
 aid them against their rivals three centuries 
 ago, the Manchus, once admitted, now rule 
 China, while the Chinese themselves, many 
 of them, are exchanging their own homes for 
 homes in Manchuria. Both Roman Catholic 
 and Protestant missionaries have followed 
 them. 
 
 The Scotch Presbyterians sent the Rev. 
 John Ross there in 1872. There is now a 
 Presbytery of Manchuria with two native 
 pastors, 270 churches and chapels, and a 
 communicant membership of over 11,000, and 
 besides these other missions less extensive. 
 
 There are several Mongolian versions of 
 the Scriptures, the history of which is full of 
 interest. The alphabet of the Mongolian lan- 
 guage was derived from the Syriac, and it is 
 noticeable that the Mongolians have, unlike 
 their Chinese neighbors, our familiar Arabic 
 numerals. The Tibetan and the Manchurian 
 versions all have a history, and a fascinating 
 one, if there were time to relate it here. The 
 British and Foreign Bible Society has pub- 
 
 Y. M. C. A. are busily engaged in teaching 
 Young China the best lessons of that world- 
 embracing organization. We went from mis- 
 sion to mission, talking with the brethren; 
 one of them, the venerable Dr. Stanley, a 
 pioneer and now a veteran in China. They 
 all felt what great things are happening and 
 were likely to happen in such a center of 
 power as this city. 
 
 There are some amusing instances which 
 show how recent, yet how real, is the taste of 
 new learning which the Chinese are so eagerly 
 enjoying. In Tien-tsin the Viceroy’s band, 
 not long before, had marched down the street 
 playing on Western instruments 
 
 “ Abide with me, 
 
 Fast falls the eventide ” 
 
 and 
 
 “ God be with us till we meet again.” 
 
 This infallibly betrays the real origin of many 
 of the improvements. It is doubtful if the 
 Chinese would ever have learned anything 
 about our music except through the Christian 
 Church. They are likely to learn not only 
 sacred but some secular 
 
 IN THE NANKOU PASS 
 
 lished all or nearly all of these versions and 
 a good beginning has been made, but America 
 as well as Britain must do her share in evan- 
 gelizing “ China without the Wall.” 
 
 Important as such a program may be, it 
 would be impossible of execution but for its 
 connection with the New China that is in proc- 
 ess of formation, within as well as without 
 the Wall. We began to see and hear of it 
 at Tien-tsin, the port of Peking, a city of 
 1,000,000 people, already astir with new life. 
 
 The streets and houses, some of them, were 
 plainly made on Western models. Mr. Robert 
 Gailey and his associates at the head of the 
 
 music, as I realized when 
 I heard Chinese girls 
 singing English songs in 
 chorus, and doing it well. 
 About the time we were 
 in Tien-tsin, the city 
 adopted and has put into 
 actual operation a Western 
 form of city government — 
 mayor, board of aldermen 
 and all the rest — locally 
 adapted, of course, and, we 
 may trust, free from some 
 features sadly familiar in 
 some American cities. It 
 has now been extended to 
 a larger area. This is 
 likely to supply a model 
 for other cities and larger 
 districts. On returning 
 from the Wall, I had the 
 pleasure of being enter- 
 tained by Dr. Morrison, the famous corre- 
 spondent of the London Times, who told me 
 that he could name probably a hundred Chi- 
 nese cities which had installed a modern po- 
 lice system. This in itself is a great step in 
 advance. We saw these policemen in Peking, 
 uniformed and drilled into fair shape, and 
 some other things besides, both in Peking and 
 Tien-tsin, which afforded ocular demonstra- 
 tion that the Boxer uprising and all that ac- 
 companied it was the beginning of a new 
 chapter in Chinese history, and that means a 
 new chapter in the annals of mankind. It 
 will not do, of course, to assume that there 
 
40 
 
 A round the World for the American Bible Society 
 
 will be no let or hindrance — all such move- 
 ments suffer reverses, and it would be strange 
 if this did not. Already there are signs of 
 disaffection and reaction, especially in the 
 south, where revolt against the Manchu dy- 
 nasty may break out at any time. We must be 
 prepared for unwelcome surprises, and cannot 
 expect that the New China is to be built in a 
 day any more than Old Rome was ; yet the 
 signs of the times surely indicate that after all 
 setbacks, China must move forward as Japan 
 has done. Dr. Morrison has since said in a 
 public address (Nov. 5) that, “Sporadic dis- 
 turbances might occur in the empire, but 
 nothing could now stay the progress of the 
 people. That progress within the last five 
 years was one of the most surprising and 
 agreeable phenomena of recent history.” He 
 calls attention to the 200 newspapers now 
 published and the 420 Chinese students at the 
 great colleges of America. It would be inter- 
 esting to recite the imperial decrees, not one 
 or two, but the many which are now issuing 
 from Peking, commanding, exhorting, even 
 threatening under severe penalties, with the 
 one general end clearly in view, the establish- 
 ment of Western methods of government and 
 Western forms of science and learning for all 
 China. Paper reforms, of course, are not real 
 reforms, but the reality is already visible. 
 
 In Tien-tsin, for instance, there is a gov- 
 ernment training-school, of industrial educa- 
 tion, handsomely housed in a well-equipped 
 building, and more recently a girls’ school 
 established under government supervision. 
 Everywhere the schoolmaster is abroad in the 
 land, or is commanded to be. The difficulty 
 is that, even with teachers imported from 
 Japan by the hundreds, and with thousands of 
 Chinese students learning how to teach in 
 Japan, and with the outp.ut of teachers from 
 the mission schools, there is a shortage of 
 teachers which must continue for a long 
 while. 
 
 Mr. Elliott reports that he made a careful 
 investigation of the bookstores inPaoting-Fu 
 to ascertain what books were now published 
 in Chinese containing in general the branches 
 of knowledge hitherto unknown in China. 
 He found over ninety different treatises on 
 such subjects as military science, law, the 
 science of government, and a wide variety of 
 topics ranging from the kindergarten to as- 
 tronomy and international law — the largest 
 number significally on military science, and 
 
 the next largest on law and the science of 
 government. This whole literature has come 
 into being since the “Boxer Year” and 
 largely through the instigation of the great 
 Viceroy \uan Shi Kai, who is now virtually, 
 for the time being, the “ Prime Minister” of 
 China. To this may be added the statement 
 that a publishing firm in China, in a single 
 year, issued a million copies of text-books and 
 other literature embodying similar material. 
 
 These criteria indicate the amazing forces 
 at work creating the New China. One of the 
 things which Mr. Elliott discovered we must 
 recognize with deep thankfulnes to God and a 
 keener sense of responsibility as Christians 
 and especially as servants and friends of the 
 Bible'Society. In the treatises on law there was 
 frequent reference made to the giving of the 
 moral law by Moses on Mt. Sinai. What a 
 fine proof is this of the way in which God has 
 mortised into the fabric of human history 
 the fundamental verities of divine revelation ! 
 Doubtless the missionaries are here also to 
 be credited with what the new Chinese writers 
 on law are now teaching their pupils. But it 
 would seem also that the traditional convic- 
 tion that underlies the whole body of European 
 law as to the divine legation of Moses, has 
 found its way into the Chinese mind through 
 Western law books. We can but hope that 
 this sane and wholesome conviction that the 
 law was given by Moses may remain un- 
 disturbed in the Chinese mind. It will be 
 much easier thus to persuade China of its 
 antithesis that grace and truth came by Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 The Christian Church surely cannot pause 
 or hesitate in completing what she has begun 
 through the Bible Societies of Christendom. 
 She must put into the hands of these new 
 pupils in the School of Christ the Holy Scrip- 
 tures, in the best translations and in the 
 cheapest form ; so that every man, according 
 to the old phrase made new in the light of 
 these later day miracles, may hear in his own 
 tongue the wonderful works of God. 
 
 Mr. Elliott has had thirty colporteurs at 
 work in North China. He could use, he says, 
 one hundred. Who will help us to provide 
 them ? and who will give us what we sorely 
 need, a new Bible House in Peking ? that we 
 may, in this New Year of grace, the more 
 speedily 
 
 “ Ring in the Christ that is to be.” 
 
 January, 1908. 
 
A Glimpse of Korea 
 
 41 
 
 XI. A Glimpse of Korea 
 
 K OREA, though no longer the Hermit 
 Nation, is not very easy of access even 
 yet. I had planned to go from Peking, via 
 Dalney and Port Arthur, entering Korea thus 
 from the north and going through the penin- 
 sula to Fusan at the extreme south. After 
 laborious inquiries, begun weeks before, there 
 seemed no sure prospect of anything except 
 delay and discomfort. It was possible to 
 cross the Yellow Sea from Chefoo or Tien- 
 tsin to Chemulpo, 
 the port of Seoul, but 
 this, too, was very 
 uncertain. So finally 
 I hastened back from 
 Peking, via Hankow, 
 to Shanghai (1300 or 
 1400 miles), caught 
 a Japanese steamer, 
 the Yamashiro Maru, 
 to Nagasaki, crossed 
 the western end of 
 Japan to Moji in ten 
 or twelve hours by 
 rail, and embarked 
 on another Japanese 
 steamer, the Iki 
 Maru , for Fusan. 
 
 -A companion du 
 voyage , who balanced 
 these alternatives 
 with me in Peking, 
 concluded to try the 
 northern route. We 
 started the same day. 
 
 He was laid up six 
 days in Port Arthur 
 waiting for a steamer, 
 so that I reached 
 Seoul, after my long 
 journey, a day or two 
 ahead of him. 
 
 On the Iki Maru 
 I found a fellow- 
 traveler, the Rev. 
 
 Dr. Moore, president of the mission of the 
 German Reformed Church in Japan, who, 
 after a quarter of a century in the island 
 empire, was making his first trip to Korea. 
 
 Ta-Cho-sen — “the Great Land of Morning 
 Calm” — is the ancient and poetic name of 
 Korea, but by the irony of fate, we landed 
 at Fusan in a veritable tempest of wind and 
 rain, and spent a soppy morning in a half- 
 finished railway station crowded with Japa- 
 nese. Fusan is a picturesque port, suggestive 
 of the best scenery on the Maine coast. 
 
 After a hasty but hearty handshake with 
 Dr. Irwin of the Presbyterian Mission, we 
 found ourselves gliding along on a railroad 
 that seemed strangely familiar, for the rails, 
 the cars, and the locomotive were all Ameri- 
 can, though the management was Japanese. 
 All day long we gazed on dripping skies, 
 now clearing a little and then settling down 
 to rain again. Great black mountains, with 
 occasional patches of farm land and thatched 
 
 villages, picturesque 
 beyond description, 
 and here and there 
 larger towns, kept 
 our eyes ever gazing. 
 Here was another 
 chapter of the Ori- 
 ent, as quaint or 
 more quaint, than 
 China or Siam. What 
 a land of strange, far- 
 off, unique sugges- 
 tions is this blood- 
 stained Korea — the 
 bridge between China 
 and Japan ! 
 
 Between showers 
 we ventured off, when 
 the train stopped at 
 a station, and looked 
 with wonder and 
 amusement at the 
 curious native cos- 
 tumes. Not, indeed, 
 that everyone is 
 dressed alike — the 
 coolies, and ’ricksha 
 men, and the poorer 
 sort generally, were 
 clothed simply 
 enough; but the 
 chief impression was 
 of men in long white 
 coats, reaching well 
 below the knees, tied 
 tightly across the chest, and of the round- 
 brimmed, stiff black hats tied under the 
 chin with black strings, like an old lady’s 
 bonnet. This certainly gives a Korean 
 gentleman a curious appearance, especially 
 when he wears huge stone spectacles. The 
 next day we saw these costumes in their 
 full force in the churches, and there they 
 seemed strangely in place, giving the men an 
 ecclesiastical aspect. An audience, all men, 
 wearing as they did these hats all through 
 the service, and dressed thus in pure white, 
 
 Courtesy Doubleday , Paijc «fc Co. 
 
 A WOMAN IN CORRECT STREET COSTUME 
 From “The Passing of Korea" 
 
42 
 
 Around the World for the American Bible Society 
 
 is a sight to see. The women’s coats (as 
 shown in the picture) are usually a vivid 
 green ; the children often wear pink and azure. 
 
 Night came on and our train still dragged 
 along, reaching Seoul at midnight. I have 
 rarely arrived at a station in the East or 
 gone to one, no matter how late or how 
 early, how hot or how wet the weather, with- 
 out a missionary to welcome the coming or 
 speed the parting guest, and Mr. Reynolds, 
 of the South Church, was at the Seoul station 
 waiting to tramp with me (for it was too late 
 for anything else) to the house of the Rev. 
 Mr. Bunker, of the American Methodist Mis- 
 sion. Here I was hospitably entertained 
 during most of my stay in Seoul, passing 
 only the last night with the Rev. Mr. Hall, 
 of the Presbyterian Mission. On Sunday 
 morning it was a stirring experience to sit 
 in the Methodist church and hear a heart- 
 searching sermon by the venerable Bishop 
 Foss, which had manifest power with the 
 audience of something like one thousand or 
 twelve hundred men and women, separated, 
 according to the Korean custom, by a cur- 
 tain from each other. Fifteen Korean men 
 arose to say that they had begun to follow 
 Christ. 
 
 In the afternoon I preached, through an 
 interpreter, first at the Presbyterian Mission, 
 then in English to all the missionaries, and 
 briefly in the evening to yet another Korean 
 congregation. It will be impossible to recite 
 in particular the thronging engagements and 
 meetings which followed during the next 
 week in Seoul, Pyeng Yang, and Fusan. 
 They carried me from school to school, 
 church to church, and mission to mission, 
 until I had no strength left. Who could 
 
 help preaching in Korea? The Koreans 
 love to preach and love to be preached to. 
 One of them, as I was informed by his mis- 
 sionary superintendent, 
 preached for six hours to 
 willing listeners. 
 
 My special business in 
 Korea was, however, not 
 preaching or visiting 
 missionaries, but to attend 
 the regular meeting of 
 the “Bible Committee of 
 Korea,” composed of the 
 representatives of the 
 various denominations. 
 This important organiza- 
 tion has at present 
 executive oversight and 
 direction of the transla- 
 tion of the Scriptures, 
 which is not yet com- 
 pleted, and also of their 
 publishing and circula- 
 tion. Through this com- 
 mittee the three Bible 
 Societies do their work. This session of the 
 committee was held at the Bible House and 
 lasted nine hours, dealing with the problems 
 affecting the three Bible Societies — British, 
 Scottish, and American. They are jointly 
 and efficiently represented by Mr. Hugh 
 Miller as their Agent, and through him they 
 are all kept in constant touch with the mis- 
 sionary body. (Since this letter was written 
 he has presented our best edition of the New 
 Testament to each of the seven ministers 
 whose pictures are here reproduced.) 
 
 Korea is not only unique in history, and 
 tradition, and political relationship, but in the 
 extraordinary successes of Protestant Chris- 
 tianity. Dr. William Elliott Griffis has told the 
 tale, an almost incredible one, of the struggle 
 of the Roman Catholic Church to establish it- 
 self in Korea, beginning in 1791. Protestant 
 missions were begun twenty-five years ago, 
 but they were anticipated fifty years before 
 that by Charles Gutzlaff, who dared to land 
 on an island near the mainland for a short 
 season. There were others ready to cross 
 the border from Manchuria when the way 
 was opened. The Methodists led the van 
 in 1883; the Presbyterians (1884) were very 
 little behind. Bishop Foss, sitting with me 
 in the pulpit at Seoul, told me the story of 
 the first baptism which, perforce, must needs 
 be done in secret twenty-one years before. 
 Now the church membership is counted by 
 tens of thousands. One mission officially 
 estimates the conversions this year at 30,000, 
 in all denominations, and it may be larger. 
 
 The relation of the Bible work to this 
 
A Glimpse of Korea 
 
 43 
 
 progress is unmistakable. It is a chief factor 
 in bringing it about, and at the same time 
 such progress necessitates extraordinary effort 
 and expenditure. In Bible work there are 
 difficulties of adjustment here which cannot 
 be touched on, nor can I enter upon the new 
 and interesting chapter in the history of 
 Bible translation which the Korean version 
 affords. The missionaries have been labor- 
 ing to complete and perfect their transla- 
 tions, and the three Bible Societies are 
 conjoined to aid them. The great majority 
 of them are Americans, and so, of course, 
 the American Bible Society may feel at 
 home. 
 
 The feature of the situation, at present of 
 burning interest, is the extraordinary mani- 
 festation of spiritual power in many places, 
 especially in Pyeng Yang, 
 once the northern capital 
 of Korea. It was my 
 privilege to make a fly- 
 ing journey to this town, 
 famous in the history of 
 the wars of Korea — more 
 than famous in the history 
 of the wars of the Lord 
 now being waged. I ar- 
 rived on a Wednesday 
 evening, at about seven 
 o’clock, and found my 
 way to the church, where 
 Western custom has 
 brought them the mid- 
 week prayer meeting. 
 
 When I got to the Presby- 
 terian church, a mile or 
 two from the station, I 
 found a meeting of a 
 thousand or twelve hun- 
 dred persons just begin- 
 ning. The Rev. Mr. Hunt 
 at once announced that I 
 would speak to the audi- 
 ence, as I did through an interpreter, an- 
 nouncing again, with my consent, that I 
 would speak twice the next day. 
 
 In the blaze of an afternoon sun, it was a 
 goodly sight to behold five hundred women 
 and children throng into the church on Thurs- 
 day afternoon, many of them having their 
 Bibles fastened in the front of their dresses, 
 and all of them eager to hear, as I spoke to 
 them through the interpreting of Mrs. Baird 
 of the Presbyterian Mission. At night a 
 thousand men sat on their mats on the floor 
 — there are no pews or chairs in a Korean 
 church — and listened eagerly again to the 
 message, Dr. Baird interpreting this time. 
 
 The missionaries told me the wonderful 
 story of meetings lasting until midnight and 
 
 later, when the Spirit came to Pyeng Yang, 
 and when missionary and convert, gentle and 
 simple, all classes and conditions, were broken 
 with unwonted and overpowering conviction 
 of sin and a deep and tender penitence that 
 has made the present year an annus mirabilis 
 in the history of Christianity in Korea. 
 
 I returned next day two hundred miles to 
 Seoul. I cannot stop to tell of its streets 
 filled with a throng of the white-robed and 
 black-hatted, and, yet more astonishing, the 
 three-bushel-basket-hatted ; and the women 
 in their gay green coats; the soldiers, Japa- 
 nese and Korean; the palace guarded in front 
 by gigantic stone fire-dogs, with its lovely 
 gardens, its lotus pond, and alas ! its grewsome 
 memories of the queen murdered in her own 
 palace at night, and the frightened king fleeing 
 
 to the foreign consulate for protection, only 
 twelve years ago. Mr. Ritson, of the British 
 and Foreign Bible Society, and I agreed that 
 we had seen no city more picturesque than 
 Seoul, with its girdle of jagged mountains in 
 the near distance. 
 
 I found time to spend an evening with 
 Mr. Miller, going over accounts in the Bible 
 House, and then flew back to Fusan for Sun- 
 daypreaching and speaking, as much as I had 
 time and strength for, until at last the Iki Marti 
 again carried me to Moji, and we boarded, 
 with much difficulty, yet another Japanese 
 steamer, the Suniki Maru, bound from Yoko- 
 hama for Europe, which set me down at Shang- 
 hai after just two weeks’ absence and just in 
 time for the Shanghai Conference. 
 
THE CRVPTOMERIA AVENUE, NIKKO 
 
 XII. Three Weeks in Japan 
 
 ’TJ OUND-THE-WORLD travelers should 
 JLV visit Japan last and not first, if they lay 
 much stress on aesthetic pleasure. Other 
 countries would make an anti-climax after the 
 unique beauty and charm of “ The Land of the 
 Rising Sun.” 
 
 Dr. Johnson’s exclamation — “ See the Medi- 
 terranean and die” — is all very well, but let 
 no one die if he can help it before he has 
 seen the Inland Sea, for the Mediterranean 
 from the Riviera coast can hardly match it. 
 The impression is apt to obtain of a certain 
 mere prettiness, not to say pettiness, as char- 
 acteristic of Japan. It is quite contrary to the 
 fact. The Japanese, to be sure, know well 
 how to handle delicate things and themes. 
 They have a genius for whatever is dainty. 
 Their exquisite politeness is a lesson to the 
 world, and their love of children also. Their 
 household art and decoration is distinguished 
 by an incomparable simplicity. One feels 
 himself in contact with a people gifted with 
 rare delicacy of taste. They have an inborn 
 love for flowers and an intuitive feeling of 
 their harmonies. The finer shadings and col- 
 orings constantly astonish and charm ; but 
 
 this is not all. Some of their temples have a 
 stately, solemn dignity which quite relieves 
 any impression of pettiness. The scenery both 
 on the coast and inland is more than pretty. 
 Snow-crowned Fujiyama, rising 12,500 feet 
 from sheer sea level, gives character and 
 dignity — or shall we say grandeur — to Japan, 
 and Nikko is indescribably beautiful. 
 
 The Japanese have a saying: “One must 
 never say “ kekko ” (“beautiful”) until he 
 has seen Nikko ; and, we may add, when he 
 has seen it he will feel the poverty of language 
 as never before. It is the name both of a 
 town and of the region about it — a great 
 mountain mass not unlike the Adirondacks in 
 general, but with peaks nearly twice as high 
 and covered with a wealth of verdure, almost 
 tropical, when we were there in May. Its 
 charm centers about the solemn beauty of the 
 shrine of Iyeyasu, one of the greatest of the 
 Shogun rulers, who is buried there, and 
 the nearby shrine of his scarcely less famous 
 grandson, Iyemitsu, also a Shogun. These 
 shrines, especially that of Iyeyasu, are sur- 
 rounded by a group of noble buildings set in 
 a forest of magnificent cryptomeria trees — 
 
Three Weeks in Japan 
 
 45 
 
 giants of the forest, rating only second to our 
 California monsters — the avenue approaching 
 the shrines bordered on either side by these 
 glorious trees for twenty-five miles — a mar- 
 velous spectacle truly. 
 
 All this may seem at first remote from 
 Bible work or missions, but in reality it has a 
 bearing on our special task. The missionary 
 or the colporteur in any country must take 
 account of the people and their environments 
 and adapt himself to them if he can. 
 
 He who would minister in spiritual things to 
 a people so sensitive to outward beauty and 
 propriety, must approach his task with some- 
 what of sympathy and refinement of feeling. 
 
 They are sometimes called the French of 
 the Orient, and it is natural to compare them 
 with the Greeks, for art and the beautiful 
 are national ideals, and one feels that kaXoq 
 kayxQoq would easily translate into Japanese 
 — perhaps “ Bushido ” is not far from an 
 equivalent. But behind the mask of beauty, 
 the religions of Japan, whatever aspects of 
 truth they contain, are after all a gilded and 
 adorned idolatry, powerless to save Japan 
 from its sins. The simplicity of Christ and 
 
 ENTRANCE TO THE KASUGA (SHINTO) SHRINE, NAEA 
 
 the beauty of holiness must supplant even the 
 best in Buddhism, Shintoism, and Confucian- 
 ism. There is but one Christ and one Bible. 
 
 It was a pleasure to find so many mission- 
 aries, men and women, reaching a high stand- 
 ard of intellectual qualification. We began to 
 meet them indeed in China and Korea, where 
 some of them had come — Dr. J. P. Moore of 
 the German (American) Reformed Board, Dr. 
 Deering of the Baptist Board, and Dr. D. C. 
 Green of the Congregational Board. Our own 
 Agent, Dr. Loomis, is known and loved far 
 and wide as a veteran among missionaries. 
 His enthusiasm for Japan and the Japanese 
 is boundless, and his home in Yokohama a 
 recognized center of evangelic power. It was 
 a great joy and advantage to me to have 
 his companionship during almost my whole 
 stay. 
 
 The only ecclesiastical body that it was 
 possible to attend, and that but briefly, was 
 the Methodist Conference, which was- in ses- 
 sion at Tokyo. Here Methodism was putting 
 its best foot foremost. The meeting was the 
 first one pursuant to a new arrangement by 
 which all Methodist churches in Japan are 
 united in one body. 
 
 Without attempting to describe too mi- 
 nutely the twenty-one days spent in Japan, let 
 me give briefly our itinerary. We landed in 
 Nagasaki on May 9th and spent a day with 
 the Dutch Reformed missionaries there — the 
 Rev. Mr. Pieters especially and the Rev. Mr. 
 Peeke, the latter having come sixty miles to 
 meet me. Re-embarking on the Doric , we 
 passed on to Kobe, where we visited briefly 
 the Congregational and Southern Presbyterian 
 missionaries, and called on Mr. Parrott, the 
 Agent of the British and Foreign Bible So- 
 ciety, who hospitably entertained us as we dis- 
 cussed our mutual affairs ; then on to Kyoto, 
 the ancient capital of Japan, full of the sugges- 
 tions of the past, taking half a day for a glimpse 
 of Nara, a still more ancient capital and, if 
 possible, still more magically beautiful. 
 
 From Kyoto an express train carried us in a 
 day’s ride on to Yokohama and Tokyo, where 
 the rest of our time was spent, which included 
 visits to Nikko and one or two mountain 
 places in the neighborhood. In Yokohama 
 and Tokyo we found the best opportunities for 
 conference on Bible matters and other things 
 related thereto, not only with such mission- 
 aries as Dr. Imbrie, of the Church of Christ 
 in Japan (which represents the Presbyterian 
 and Reformed family of churches) , but with 
 one of the leaders of the Japanese church, Dr. 
 Ebuka, President of the Meiji Gakuin (Col- 
 lege), where I had the pleasure of addressing a 
 splendid college audience and also the gradu- 
 ating class of the theological school. 
 
Around the World Jor the American Bible Society 
 
 4o 
 
 There have been for some years past some 
 proposals made looking to the revision of the 
 Japanese Scriptures, and one of the main 
 purposes which took me to Japan was the 
 necessity for making some inquiry as to this. 
 
 It was interesting to learn from first-hand 
 sources of information of the curious process 
 of change going on in the Japanese language, 
 which, so far as I could understand, might be 
 described as a partial Occidentalizing of its 
 idioms. The old elaborations of formal speech 
 seem destined to yield in a measure to the 
 terser forms of our Western tongues. 
 
 The English Bible might be called a popular 
 book. It is surprising to find how much it is 
 used, especially the American Revised Ver- 
 sion. No doubt the Japanese cannot know 
 the relative value of “ King James ” and the 
 “ Revised,” but they like whatever is latest, 
 as likeliest to be best. 
 
 On the first Sunday that I spent in Japan, 
 the first religious service which I attended 
 was a Bible class in Kyoto, taught admirably 
 by the Rev. Mr. Gorbold, of the Presbyterian 
 Mission. His scholars were mainly Chris- 
 tians, but there were some Buddhists, and 
 their text-book was the English Bible. Their 
 faces lighted up with keen interest when it 
 was explained to them that I represented the 
 Society which published the Bible, and they 
 crowded around to shake my hand. 
 
 It so happened that while we tarried at 
 Kyoto, the time came for a famous festival, 
 held in connection with the ancient Shinto 
 temple, Shimo-Gamo, one of the twenty-two 
 chief temples of the empire founded, it is 
 said, in the seventh century, or even earlier. 
 It stands in a grove of ancient maples, crypto- 
 merias, and evergreen oaks. On this day of 
 the “Aoi,” or Hollyhock, festival, an imposing 
 and picturesque procession marched into and 
 through the grove and up to the temple, 
 where certain religious rites were performed. 
 An immense multitude, perhaps twenty thou- 
 sand or thirty thousand people, were gathered 
 together as spectators. It was a picturesque 
 and imposing pageant, for those who marched 
 in solemn parade up to the temple were clothed 
 in the ancient costumes of Japan. The Dai- 
 mios and their retainers seemed to live again. 
 Gorgeously attired in brilliant silks and armed 
 with antique weaponry, they swept past, a 
 representative of Mikado, mounted on a 
 horse gaily caparisoned, giving imperial 
 dignity to the cavalcade. 
 
 Here was an opportunity for good colpor- 
 tage, so Mr. Gorbold thought, and early in the 
 morning we took our stand by the roadside 
 near the temple. Sheltered by the overhang- 
 ing branches, we swung our sign boldly out, 
 — “Jesus Christ’s Book,” inscribed in large 
 
 letters on a white banner hanging from a bam- 
 boo pole, with specimens of the book for sale 
 attached to its corners by cords. Mr. Gorbold 
 
 PROCESSION AT THE AOI (HOLLYHOCK) FESTIVAL, 
 KYOTO 
 
 assigned to me the task of offering to every 
 passerby a little tract in Japanese, explaining 
 briefly the contents of the book ; and I had the 
 great pleasure of placing about two thousand 
 of these tracts in the hands of as many per- 
 sons, men, women, and children of all classes 
 and conditions. It was a wonderful exhibi- 
 tion of the unfailing politeness of a Japanese 
 crowd. Though there was the greatest eager- 
 ness, especially on the part of the children, 
 to get what was offered, there was never the 
 slightest approach to incivility of any kind, as 
 we distributed the tracts, sold the Testaments 
 and Gospels, 150 or so — sometimes whole 
 Bibles. Probably in no way could a stranger 
 get so vivid an impression of the Japanese as 
 a people in the same length of time. 
 
 In the afternoon we moved two miles up 
 the river bank to another temple, where the 
 procession wended its way. Here our sales 
 were not so large, as our stand was not so 
 good a one for business, but when the crowd 
 slackened Mr. Gorbold played “ Marching 
 through Georgia,” on his cornet, and drew 
 them flocking to us until the day was far 
 spent. My last glimpse of the festival was 
 
Three Weeks in Japan 
 
 47 
 
 a little company of Japanese women in their 
 picturesque dresses seated on the river bank 
 reading the books they had gathered from 
 us. This will give a suggestion of the pos- 
 sibilities of Bible work in Japan. 
 
 After this it seems strange to have to say 
 thatcolportage is not as easy here as in some 
 countries. There is a certain national preju- 
 dice to sales in the streets ordinarily, so Mr. 
 Loomis reports. He has depended largely 
 on other modes of distribution. These have 
 proven very successful, as will be seen from 
 the figures — the circulation in the year 1906 
 being 120,455 volumes, on an appropriation 
 of about $5,000. During the whole period 
 from 1876, 1,870,289 volumes have been dis- 
 tributed. 
 
 The country is divided between the three 
 Societies, the British and 
 Foreign and the Scotch 
 taking the southern half, 
 and our own Society the 
 northern portion of the 
 country, according to an 
 agreement since 1904. 
 
 I found our headquar- 
 ters in Yokohama well 
 chosen, on the principal 
 business street, one of 
 the best and best-situated 
 Bible houses that I had 
 seen in the East. It con- 
 sists of salesroom and 
 office, where Mr. Loomis, 
 with four Japanese assist- 
 ants, maintains an efficient 
 oversight of the distribu- 
 tion throughout our as- 
 signed territory. Mr. 
 
 Loomis finished his thirty- 
 five years of residence in Japan and his 
 twentieth year of service to the Society while 
 I was in Japan, and it was easy to see the 
 high esteem in which he is universally held 
 and honored in Yokohama especially, but in 
 general throughout the country wherever the 
 missionaries are at work. 
 
 I saw nothing that pleased me more or 
 promised better things than the printing es- 
 tablishment of the Fukuin Insatsu Goshi 
 Kaisha (Gospel Printing Company, Limited) 
 in Yokohama. For many years all our Bibles 
 have been published there — not only our Jap- 
 anese Bibles, but now many Chinese, Korean, 
 and Philippine Scriptures as well. There are 
 two manufactories, the larger in Yokohama. 
 Three of the four directors are earnest Chris- 
 tians, who inaugurated the business with a 
 religious service. Now, every Monday morn- 
 ing the employees gather in an upper room 
 to acknowledge God and again invoke his 
 
 blessing on their daily toil. Mr. Loomis is 
 often present, and it was my great privilege 
 to go with him and take some minor part in 
 the service, which was conducted by one of 
 the Japanese ministers with simplicity, dig- 
 nity, and devoutness. 
 
 It is said that the Japanese character is 
 weak on the commercial side — that though 
 heroic in war, it is not very honest in trade, 
 and other failings are pointed out, but for 
 them all there is a remedy. It was not sur- 
 prising to hear from Mr. Loomis that in all of 
 our dealings with the Fukuin Company there 
 had never been the slightest ground for 
 criticism. The book which it prints, if rightly 
 used, is a cure for the moral ills of all human 
 society. 
 
 The Christianity which Japan needs is not 
 
 FUJIYAMA FROM LAKE HAKONE 
 
 a superficial veneer, nor an alloy compound- 
 ing the gospel with baser metal. Nothing 
 less than the whole Bible and the whole 
 counsel of God will avail. 
 
 We sailed from Yokohama May 29th on 
 the Japanese steamer Hofigkong Maru, this 
 being the sixteenth ocean-going vessel on 
 which I had traveled since leaving New 
 York, and after the seventeen days on the 
 Pacific, having been afloat nearly three 
 months. 
 
 Our ship stopped for twelve daylight hours 
 in Honolulu, whose enchanting beauty seemed 
 the aftermath of Japan. Better than that 
 was a memorable hour spent there with a 
 master Bible translator, Dr. Hiram Bingham, 
 who, after thirty-one years, finished in 1890 
 his translation of the Bible for the Gilbert 
 Islanders in Micronesia. 
 
 Such an interview was a good finale to all 
 our journeyings.