THE CHINESE AND KOREANS ON THE PACIFIC COAST Rev. J. H. Laughlin 1. THE CHINESE The Baptists, Christians, Congregational- ists, Cumberland Presbyterians, Episcopali- ians, Methodists, Presbyterians, Salvation Army and Roman Catholics carry on re- ligious work among the Chinese on the Pacific Coast. The main centres of the Pres- byterian Church are as follows: 1. San Francisco. This may appropri- ately be styled the mother of all the others, as it is to this day the largest and most influential. Chinese immigration commenced at this port in 1848. Only three arrived that year, but the discovery of gold soon after, and the enlarging opportunities for labor speedily brought larger numbers. Of these people the first public assembly ever held in this coun- try was convened on the twentieth of Octo- ber, 1850, under the auspices of John W. Geary, Mayor of the city; F. A. Woodworth, Acting Chinese Consul, and Rev. Albert Wil- liams, Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, for the purpose of distributing among them religious books and tracts in their own language. Mr. Williams records in his auto- biography that the first Chinese Christian with whom he became acquainted was Ah Chick, who had been baptized in Hong Kong. He and three companions were organized into a Bible Class in connection with the Sunday School of the First Presbyterian Church in the winter of 1851-1852. It was in response to a petition from the session of this church that the Board of Foreign Mis- sions, in October, 1853, commissioned and sent Rev. William Speer as the first mission- ary to the Chinese on the Pacific Coast. He organized the first Chinese church on No- vember 6, 1853, with eleven members, in the edifice of the First Church, By the close of the same year the first mission building was erected and occupied on the northeast cor- ner of Sacramento and Stockton Streets. Failing health compelled Mr. Speer's re- linquishment of the work after four years of faithful effort. He was succeeded, consecutively, by the following superintendents: Reverends A. W. Loomis, D.D., A. J. Kerr, D.D., I. M. Condit, D.D., and the writer. The first building proving, in time, to be too small for the growing mission, it was sold in 1882, and the property of the First Presbyterian Church— a little more than a block to the north — was purchased by the Foreign Missions Board. This building per- ished in the great holocaust of 1906, and a new one, rhuch better adapted to the needs of the. mission, was completed and dedicated to God in January, 1908. Side by side with the mission — affiliated, and in hearty co-operation with it — has been, for a third of a century, the Presbyterian Mis- sion Home. It is mentioned here as an im- portant and highly esteemed adjunct of this mission. 2. Los Angeles. — This Mission was founded in 1875 by Rev. I. M. Condit, D.D., when on a visit to the city in quest of health. Finding Chinese there in large numbers, he organized a Sunday School of eighty or ninety members in connection with the First Pres- byterian Church. In 1876 he located there, taking regular charge of the Chinese work, speedily organizing it into a mission, and housing it in a building erected for it on Wellington Street. Many conversions fol- lowed, seventeen being received into the o church on one occasion. A Httle later it was deemed wise to turn over the work to the United Presbyterian Church, which was willing to assume the responsibility therefor. The property was sold to that body, but the members refused to be transferred. Accord- ingly, a new building was erected for them, and Dr. Condit was able to return and take charge of the work between the years 1885 and 1891. Later superintendents have been Rev. William P. Chalfant, a missionary, who subsequently was able to return to China, and Rev. J. H. Stewart, who after ten years of faithful service, went home to his reward in February of the Present year. 3. Oakland. — Coming to this city from Los Angeles in 1877, Dr. Condit found al- ready in existence a flourishing Sunday School and evening school. Out of them a mission and church were soon organized. He is still in charge of the work of Oakland and Alameda although over eighty years of age. 4. Portland. — That the Board of Foreign Missions should establish a mission to look after the religious interests of the Chinese in the two great states of Washington and Oregon was the petition sent up to it by the Synod of Columbia in 1884. The Board re- sponded by sending Dr. Condit to counsel with Rev. W. S. Holt, D.D., a returned mis- sionary from China, and Portland was select- ed as the site for the mission. Dr. and Mrs. Holt, after twelve years' experience in China, were admirably fitted to be the first superintendents of this large field. A house was rented near the Chinese quarter of the city and services of preaching, prayer meet- ing and night school speedily instituted. Branch missions were organized in other cities and towns as Astoria, Salem, Eugene, Ashland, Baker City, Pendleton and Walla Walla, to be fostered and cared for by the 3 good people of local American churches. In connection with the Portland mission the Northern Pacific Board ladies, in 1887, estab- lished a refuge for Chinese women. Later a free dispensary was opened by the mission. More recently a school for the study of Chinese has been founded for women and children. For some years the Board of For- eign Missions, under pressure of the ever- increasing demands from the foreign fields, has granted to this mission only partial sup- port, the deficit being annually made up by the Presbytery of Portland, through its For- eign Missionary Committee, and by the Chinese themselves. It is supplied with a Chinese helper who both teaches and preaches. 5. Seattle. — About 1902 an organized work for Chinese was undertaken by the First Church of Seattle. Some three hundred men and boys have profited from the advantages it proffered. No help has been received. This one church, single-handed, has borne the entire responsibility and financial burden. Other missions, many of them organized a long time ago, exist in outlying towns, such as Santa Barbara, San Rafael, Santa Rosa, Marysville, Chico, etc., most of them getting their fostering care from the local Ameri- can churches. All the missions mentioned carry on their work with practically the same methods, namely: evening schools, prayer meetings, Sunday schools and preaching. Most of them have buildings, with a few bedrooms in addition to the auditorium, so that the members who are out of work may find temporary lodging without exposure to the temptations and pitfalls of the ordinary Chinatown. To these homes they are much attached. Value of the Work An approximate estimate may be made by a consideration of its benefits to the Chinese 4 members of the missions, the American com- munities in which they dwell, and the Chinese nation at large. 1. The Chinese Members. — Intellectually they obtain a mental awakening, develop- ment, and acquisition of knowledge which is of immense advantage to them in their struggle for a living in a strange land. Some of them get a start on a long road of edu- cation which leads them through some uni- versity, and on to useful, responsible posi- tions in their own lands. Spiritually, great numbers of them have acquired answers to the three questions that Ruskin says every man ought to know: "Where I am, wither I am going, and what, under the circumstances, I had best do." An uplift they have received that has almost, if not quite, Edenized the desert of their world and given them glimpses into the world eternal. Out of the three hundred students handled by the mission in Seattle about one hundred have become Christians. Into the San Francisco mission since the beginning over five hundred members have been re- ceived. Four ordained ministers have been produced, besides evangelists and colporteurs many. Every one of the missions mentioned has borne fruit both good and abundant. Physically, too, these people have received much help from the missions. Free dis- pensaries have sometimes been provided and often medical service at greatly reduced rates, while American teachers and workers could always be relied upon for counsel, sympathy, unflagging effort to obtain for their charges beds in hospitals, or even the shelter of a haven in some comfortable American private home. 2. The American Communities. — These have profited by the higher grade of citizen- ship given to the Chinese by the mission teaching, by the better service the boys were 5 trained to give in homes and shops, and by the friendly feelings for the Americans gen- erally which the boys had, in the missions, imbibed from those who taught them. Their native fear, doubt, suspicion, prejudice against foreigners has been, by the missions, mitigated and transformed into a degree of trust and regard. 3. The Chinese Nation at Large. — It, es- pecially the southern portion from which these immigrants come, has received an ac- cumulated share of blessing from the mis- sions in three ways: a. From the financial contributions of the Chinese Christians of America to the work of the Lord in China. The Chinese Christians in America have built many chapels and school-houses, have distributed Christian literature in vast quan- tities and maintained from year to year a large number of preachers, evangelists, col- porteurs, teachers and Bible women in China. During the last year the Christian College of Canton was the recipient of several thousand dollars from the Chinese Christians of the Pacific Coast. A year ago our Chinese Presbyterians collected and sent to the famine sufferers of Central China nearly two thousand dollars, and this year repeated the effort with another donation of twenty- four hundred. b. By periodical visits to their native land. Such visits mean propagation of the glad tidings. One of the workers connected with the Portland Mission writes: "We have yet to hear of the first Christian Chinese who has failed to take his religion with him and put it in practice among his people. In- deed it is my own judgment that the mission is more valuable for what it does for China than for the visible results here." From the Mission Home in San Francisco one young girl married and was taken to her husband's 6 home in interior China. A returned mission- ary later reported that she, by her holy in- fluence, had transformed the entire village. A year ago one of our members went back to his ancestral home after an absence of over thirty years. He remained only a few months, but in that period obtained a strong- hold upon the hearts of his clansmen. They permitted him to remove 200 of their queues, albeit it was eight months before the out- break of the Revolution. He was also al- lowed to remove the idols from the village temples and from the homes of the people. When he expressed a desire to return to America they urged him to remain and teach them the better way, promising that they would follow his lead absolutely. c. By developing preachers and other helpers for the field in China. Scores of those who to-day in China are preaching righteousness and proclaiming the glad news of salvation were themselves saved in the missions on this coast. Having obtained the blessing themselves, the spirit that gripped the Apostle Paul siezed them — "Woe is me if I preach not the gospel" — and to that form of service their lives are devoted. Presbyterian Responsibility for the Future That it is as large, proportionately, as it ever was may be laid down as a postulate. The other denominations at work on this job are no more than they have been for many years — almost from the beginning. Of the task yet to be achieved we Presbyterians must do our full share. No letting down can be tolerated, or the work will not be done. How large is the task yet to be achieved? The last census reveals but 71,000 Chinese in the United States, as compared with the 150,000 supposed to be here just prior to the enforcement of the drastic laws of the 7 early eighties. No census ever reported the presence of more than 106,000, but even supposing the numbers to have been cut down one-half, 71,000 mostly unevangelized people are surely sufficient to furnish the few missions of all denominations — a task still not small. There are many untilled fields. For ex- ample, the word from the North is, "Out- side of Portland and Seattle we are doing absolutely nothing for the Chinese in the two great states of Washington and Oregon." In California three different independent in- vestigators reached precisely the same con- clusion: that in this state there are at least four thousand Chinese for whose religious welfare nothing is being done, and on the entire Pacific Coast must be from six thous- and to eight thousand who can truthfully say, "No man careth for our souls." And those Chinese who have the Truth have it in very meager proportions, because of the paucity of teachers, and generally in un- assimilable form, because given to them in a foreign language, of which the most of them have the merest smattering. The re- cent uniting of our denominational superin- tendents, teachers and visitors into an or- ganization called "The American Workers Among the Orientals", bodes well for the more efficient conduct of the work. China's political resurrection now in pro- cess, lays the responsibility of opportunity more heavily upon the Christian Church than ever before — opportunity among the Chinese in America, as well as in their own land. The establishment of a new government, modeled after that of the United States, and with a powerful leaven of Christianity in its make-up — Sun Yat Sen, the Provisional President; Li Yuan Hung, Vice-President; Wu Ting Fang, Minister of Foreign Affairs; Wong Heng, Secretary of War; Wong Chung 8 Wei, Attorney General — all these baptized Christians, and Yuan Shih Kai, the first regu- lar President, most friendly to missionaries and their religion, and promising the largest liberty in its promulgation — his own children taught by a missionary lady, and four sons now in the Anglo-Chinese College at Tien- tsen — has thoroughly arrested the attention of our American Chinese. And if the con- verted ones did good work, religiously, for their own country under former conditions, how much better chance they will have under the new. Hundreds of temples have been emptied of their idols and thousands of hearts emptied of the old false faith. A waiting expectancy seems to be the attitude of the nation. Nineteen hundred years ago China was in the same frame of mind. The em- peror, hearing of the wise words and wonder- ful works of Jesus Christ, sent an embassy of "other wise men" to find Him who was born King of the Jews, and bring back his religion to bless China. Ignorant of the world's geography, these men arrived in India, instead of Palestine, and, seeing Budd- hism in its flower, supposed they had reached their appointed destination, and found what they sought. So Buddhism (alas, for the fatal blunder) was taken to China, instead of Christianity. Now that China is once more on the same quest, let blunders be avoided by letting her own people — enlight- ened here, carry to their fellow-countrymen the blessing they have found. II. THE KOREANS Organized groups of Christians are loca- ted in Los Angeles, Claremont, Upland and Riverside, besides fifty or more scattered ones in other towns. Quite a number of Presbyterians reside at Redlands, but be- cause of the presence there of a returned missionary of the Methodist faith, and be- 9 cause, too, the Methodists have a good church building, it has been deemed wise to turn the Korean work over to the Methodists. On the other hand, some 150 Christians and 250 non-Christians in the central part of the State have recently been discovered to be without religious oversight whatsoever; the Methodists being without funds, so the pros- pect looms large that we Presbyterians will have to assume the responsibility for them. The groups in the South have this year enjoyed unusual privileges in the way of visits and preaching. Besides the regular tours of the evangelist, most, if not all, the Stations have been visited by returned mis- sionaries who were able to preach to these Koreans in their own tongue. The achievement of the year that bulks largest is the erection of a new Mission building in Claremont. It was especially needed because of the very considerable number of students preparing to enter Pomona College, which is situated in that beautiful town. The cost of the building was $2,200, of which the Koreans gave about $1,700. Another advance was at Los Angeles, where the Korean brethren raised more than $50 to establish what they call an Educational Department, making it possible for young Koreans from all parts of the State to make their home in the Mission while attending the public schools of Los Angeles. Number of Christians: 1909, 377; 1910, 483; 1911, 560. Total contributions to the Lord's work: 1909, $720.75; 1910, $1,112.10; 1911, $1,- 446.15. These sums have been expended chiefly in building and maintaining the Mis- sion homes and in defraying the traveling Expenses of their evangelist. 10 Present Home of Occidental Board 920 Sacramento Street, San Francisco III. THE OCCIDENTAL BOARD Mrs. E; V. Robbins The work of the Occidental Board has been so closely identified with the effort to evangelize the Chinese on the Pacific Coast that it seems fitting to insert a short account of this organization which has done such efficient service for many years: The Occidental Board was organized in 1873. Mrs. Gulick of Japan addressed a meeting at the First Presbyterian Church, San Francisco, and at the close assisted in organizing a Foreign Missionary Society. Later on, through Mrs. Williams, the Phila- delphia Board consented to accept this little organization as a branch and it bore the name of the California Branch of the "W. F. M. Society of Philadelphia. 11 Plan for Work The first President was Mrs. Albert Wil- liams; the first Secretary, Mrs. I. M. Condit, missionary to the Chinese in California. A few- other women were added to the list but did not serve. The Presidents of the Occidental Board have been: Mrs. Albert Williams, Mrs. George Bar- stow, Mrs. P. D. Browne, Mrs. G. S. Wright, and Mrs. H. B. Pinney, at present in office. Missionaries of the Board — Miss S. M. N. Cummings, Miss H. N. Phillips, Mr. Preston (six months). Miss Margaret Culbertson and Miss Donaldine Cameron. The First Mission Home In 1874 a flat was rented across the street from the present building, 920 Sacramento Street. There were thirteen Chinese inmates during the first winter, but the arrangement did not prove satisfactory, as the family be- low the flat occupied by the Mission had access to the Chinese girls by a back stair- way. This decided the Occidental Board to have a building of its own and a house was purchased, the parent Society in Philadel- phia furnishing half the needed amount. When the time came to move the mission family of Chinese girls, the man who moved the furniture picked up on the street a negro to help him. The negro, when he saw the Chinese girls, quit, saying "I can't stand this." This house was occupied by the matron and missionary with their family of girls, but public opinion was so strong against Chinese work that it rendered it somewhat unsafe for two women to be there alone. After two years and ten months the Home was free from debt. 12 The Occidental School In July, 1878, an Occidental School was opened in the basement of the residence of a Chinese Christian, an employee in the California bank. This man, through Dr. Condit's, influence secured $200 for the school and persuaded the merchants to send their children, boys and girls. It was a very interesting school, Poon Chew was a pupil, and was promoted from there to our Theo- logical Seminary. After graduation he be- gan to preach, but he could not get support financially, and published a paper to earn enough for support. This paper was so successful that he enlarged it and now it is very popular among the Chinese in the United States as well as in China. /' Our Rescue Work If it were not for the rescue of Chinese slave girls the efforts of the Occidental Board would have been in foreign lands. These girls were and still are brought to California for immoral purposes. On March 17th, 1912, a Tong war was fought over a pretty slave girl in which several Chinese men were killed. One party got possession of her and was putting her aboard a steamer when a policeman rescued her. Policemen made a raid on dens and siezed sixteen girls who will probably be deported, but, as the daily paper states, they have been placed in the Mission Home pending a trial. The Home has been trusted by the Courts all these years, and the number rescued by the Home has been more than a thousand, including quite recently, little girls. These are much less care than the older ones. Besides this rescue work in San Francisco the Occidental Board supports forty mission- aries in foreign lands. 13 Dr. E. A. Sturge and Japanese Assistants IV. THE JAPANESE IN THE UNITED STATES Dr. E. a. Sturge A Japanese artist, seeking the most per- fect emblem of the autumn, traveled far from home, making sketches of chrysanthemums and of hillsides covered with the frost-kissed maple leaves; but finding on his return, in his own door-yard, in a persimmon tree hung with golden fruit, a better symbol than he had seen elsewhere. This has been the ex- perience of the writer, who went to the ends of the earth to seek a needy mission field, only to find upon his return five years later, just within the Golden Gate, as fine an opportunity for mission service as could be had in any part of the world. There he found a company of eager Japanese students without a teacher, and with these as a nucleus, a work was begun which has con- tinued to grow, with an ever-increasing fruit- age on both sides of the Pacific. In 1886 there were only a few Japanese in San Fran- cisco. They were students and the pioneers of their people. They had come to this western shore seeking for something that would be of benefit to Nippon, and many of them here found the Pearl of Great Price, and carried the same back as their best con- tribution toward the progress of their beloved home land. A church was organized, the members scattered, and by this means ten Presbyterian missions have come into exist- ence. These now have a combined member- ship of about six hundred believers, while about double that number have received baptism in this half score of religious centres, which have exercised a powerful influence for good over the Japanese on the Pacific Coast. The Japanese in America may be 15 roughly divided into two classes, students and laborers. The object of the first men- tioned class is to get knowledge and trans- mit the same to their people on the other side of the Pacific. Plenty of work for better wages and under more favorable conditions is responsible for a large influx of the less de- sirable toiling class, but even these have proved a blessing to our country thus far, and the Pacific Coast is to-day millions of dollars richer than it would have been be- cause of the part they have played in its development. When in 1898 Hawaii was annexed to the United States, the flood gates were opened to the thousands of Japanese who were working on the plantations in those islands. They had been standing on tiptoe and gazing with eager eyes toward this land of promise. They came in such numbers that many good people began to fear an inunda- tion from that quarter. The cry was raised, which grew in volume: "The Japanese must go!" Japanese exclusion bills were framed by western legislators, which would have be- come laws had not wiser counsels from Washington prevailed. The Japanese gov- ernment, ever anxious for peace and friend- ship with America, took the matter in hand and controlled the situation perfectly by issuing passports to none of the laboring class, not even to students who would be obliged to work their way through our edu- cational institutions. The latest statistical returns show that there are not quite one hundred thousand Japanese in the United States. This is certainly not an alarming number, as it only allows one Nipponese to every thousand of our population. The high water mark of immigration from Japan appears to have been reached and the tide has now turned and is flowing in the opposite direction. The number of Japanese leaving our country is much larger than that coming 16 to our shores. Many Japanese women are coming and homes are being established, especially in rural districts, and a new gen- eration of Japanese children is springing up both on the Pacific Coast and in Hawaii. There is room for hope that these American born Japanese, fully understanding our lan- guage and customs, will bring about a better understanding between America and her nearest neighbor on the west. There is a strong desire on the part of the Japanese residing in this country to come into closer touch with our people. The barring out of the students without means, those who would gladly support themselves by working while at the same time getting an education, seems an unnecessary restriction and is an act of injustice both to them and to us. The mem- bership of our churches and missions is com- posed almost entirely of students, and the cutting off of the chief source of our supply means the retarding of our growth. Missions have been established in the country places in order that the gospel might be given to the tillers of the soil, but even in the rural districts we find that the Glad Tidings make their strongest appeal to the minds of think- ing men. We are glad that it is so, not that all souls are not equally precious in the sight of the Creator, but because the influ- ence exerted by an educated Christian counts for so much more in this life, whether he remain in this country or return to the land of his birth. The Japanese, being intensely patriotic, usually go back to the home land after a few years, and it is still an unusual thing to see one with grey hair among the thousands who have come to this land. We are glad to have them go back and carry the gospel with them into every province of their island home. Our Japanese Presby- terian Church of San Francisco has given nearly a score of men to the gospel min- 17 istry, and others have this blessed work in view. The culture of the Japanese has been along different lines, but it may be as ad- vanced as our own. The former are poetical while we are exceedingly practical. They are content with the flowers while we have more satisfaction in the fruit. They need our ma- chinery and we need their love of the beau- tiful. Above all they need our religion, for this more than anything else will help us to understand one another, making us all the members of one great family as children of the same loving Father. Four thousand out of the hundred thousand Japanese in the United States are Christians. This may not seem to be a large number, but it is four per cent., while only one-half of one per cent, of the people in Japan are connected with the Christian churches. The results would be much more encouraging if only the lives of our American church members were more consistent. What an opportunity Provi- dence has given us through the Orientals in this country to evangelize the world! V. THE CHINESE MISSION IN NEW YORK CITY The Mission was begun in 1868 and sup- ported by individual effort until 1872 when the Fourth Avenue Presbyterian Church took it in charge. In 1889 the Foreign Board re- ported to the General Assembly that "The Board had consented to take charge of this work provisionally in the hope of seeing it placed upon a broader basis, and securing for it a wider degree of interest and sympathy among the churches." The Presbytery of New York assumed charge of the Mission in 1898. In 1885 the Rev. Huie Kin, a native of China, but educated in this country, was appointed superintendent of the Mission and is still at the head of the work. In his report pre- 18 Headquarters of Chinese Mission 225 Bast 31st Street, New York City sented to Presbytery for 1911 he gives the following interesting facts concerning the work as it is now conducted. The work among the Chinese in New York City has been carried on along the same 19 lines as in former years, except that tlie First Chinese Church was organized a year ago with 37 charter members. Since that time six more members have been added. Three of these were admitted on confession of their faith and were baptized. This makes the total membership 43. Fifteen of our men are in universities and other institutions of learning. Six of our former members are actively engaged in Christian woric as leaders in Chinese Sun- day Schools of our denomination. The en- rollment in the Sunday School last year was 112 and the average attendance was 64. The contributions for various purposes amounted to $1,510. Educational classes are held four evenings in the week and afford individual instruction for the ambitious. They are taught English subjects and given higher social and religious ideals. The reading room, which is open to all, is supplied with good English and Chinese books and newspapers. The. dormitory and four small rooms with the other privileges of the building make it an ideal place for living quarters and Chris- tian fellowship. Boy Scouts, under the direction of Mr. Ralph Chant, one of our elders, has a class in First Aid to the Injured and a class in Military Drill. The social life is constantly improving. The equipment is such games as bowling, checkers, ping-pong and crokinole. During the year many students passing through New York have enjoyed the privi- leges of this' Christian Church and building — men who are destined to become the lead- ers in the affairs of our new China. 20 Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. 156 Fifth Ave., New York Price, 3 cents 1786 June, 1912 THE WILLIAM DARLING PRESS, NEW YORK