’= ^ . NEW CHAPTERS ON THE AWAKENING OF CHINA BY BISHOP JAMES W. BASHFORD THE BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH CHINA CENTENNIAL COMMISSION 150 HFTH AVENUE. NEW YORK Price Five Cents Printed May. 1908 NEW CHAPTERS ON THE AWAKENING OF CHINA “And these from the land of Sinim.” As sixty thousand copies of “The Awakening of China” have been called for, I assume that the reader is familiar with the progress of the empire from 1900 to 1905, so I shall aim to bring the report down from that date to the present. When I wrote the first article for The Christian Advocate on “The Awakening of China” some three years ago, I had never heard that phrase apphed to the Chinese people. It was only after receiving re- ports from more than a hundred missionaries, that I ventured to send the facts to The Christian Advocate. Even then I feared that my report might be regarded as the exaggerated estimates of an enthusiast, and not the sober result of careful investigation. This re- port does not present another startling view of China, but aims to confirm the thesis of 1905. The booklet of 1906 was in error on one detail of the awakening: namely, the adoption of the Bible as a textbook in the government schools of two provinces ruled by Chang Chih Tung. But the fact of the awakening of the empire and the other details given 2 New Chapters on were confirmed, in 1907 by more than nine hundred missionaries present from every province at the great Centennial Conference of Missions in Shanghai. These missionaries unanimously adopted resolutions em- bodying the conviction that the Christian church now has in this vast empire such an opportunity as has never confronted the church before in China, such an opportunity as has never been surpassed in the history of the church, such an opportunity as may never occur again in the history of the world. Thus the judgment of one formed in 1905 was confirmed by the judgment of nine hundred missionaries after two years of further developments. Note some concrete facts upon which this conviction is based. Chapter I. Intellectual, Civil and floral Progress First, in proof of the new intellectual life of the em- pire, I spoke, while in America two years ago, of the decree which made western learning one condition of all future office holding in the empire as “the most spectacular change of modern times.” I used the word “spectacular” in characterizing the decree be- cause it was not to go into effect for ten years, and many missionaries thought it was only a paper decree issued to captivate the foreigners. But at the very time I was thus characterizing the educational decree, a supplementary decree was issued, putting the reform into immediate effect. This proves that the original decree was issued in good faith, and not for mere spectacular purposes. The original and supplementary decrees do not prescribe that every future official must The Awakening of China 3 be a modern degree man; there are not sufficient officials as yet trained in the new learning; hence all who now hold degrees received under the old regime are eligible to appointment. But all future degrees must certify to the holder’s proficiency in western learning in order to make him eligible to official ap- pointment in China. The decree has already been put so far into operation that examinations have been held in Peking for the highest degree, and in these applicants were allowed to choose the language in which they would take the examination, and some took the exam- ination in English instead of Chinese; this is unparal- leled in the Hterary history of China. Again, com- petitive examinations in western subjects have been held for the selection of students to be sent to America, while in Chentu, the capital of the great Szechuen Province, the examination stalls have been entirely destroyed and the brick used for building modern schools. Thus western learning is already the standard of education for the officials of the empire. It was the demonstration in .1905-6 of the genuineness of the educational reform which sent fifteen thousand young man to Japan in a single year for the western learning, and some three or four thousand more to Europe and America — a far wider and swifter movement in educa- tion than even the Japanese made in their eagerness for the western learning, a far larger number than ever went from America to Europe for university training in a single year. This reform, which is now in full progress, revolutionizes the intellectual training which has prevailed among four hundred million people for 4 New Chapters on twenty-five hundred years. It promises to become the greatest single change which has ever taken place in the intellectual history of mankind. Another sign of the intellectual awakening is the demand for books. Doctor Griffith John of Hankow told me in 1905 that whereas he was unable to give away the Bible fifty years ago, the sales of the Central China Tract Society were then aggregating a million copies of tracts, of portions of the Bible, and of the Bible a year. The statement seemed startling. But I now bring back the report that the sales of this same Central China Tract Society for 1907 aggregated a million and a half copies, an increase of fifty per cent since the report of two years ago. The Presbyterian Press at Shanghai published a million six hundred thousand copies of religious books and tracts in 1907 — a large increase over 1906. The British and Foreign Bible Society in Shanghai reports that its sales in that city for 1907 were 1,400,000 copies — so great an increase during the past year as to tax their resources to the utmost. The Commercial Press, es- tablished by the pupils of Doctor Young J. Allen of the Methodist Church, South, is selling a million dollars (Mexican) worth of school-books a year and is unable to supply the demand. This is only one of several publishing houses in that city. Streams of litera- ture are pouring from the presses in Peking, Hong- kong, Canton, Hankow, etc., as well as from Shanghai. Second, turning to political progress, the city of Tientsin, the metropolis of North China, with a popu- lation of a million and a quarter on July 5, 1907, 5 The Awakening oi China held the first municipal election ever known in the history of the Chinese empire. Yuan Shih Kai, the man of power in China today, believes that the Chinese from their centuries of village government and of guild government are far more ready for republican institu- tions and indeed are far more democratic than the western world dreams. In proof of this, last year he successfully established municipal government in this northern metropolis of the empire. Note the require- ments for voting in the first city in China ever holding a municipal election. Each voter must be a male citizen, twenty-five years of age, born in Tientsin, or he must have lived in Tientsin for five years and be worth two thousand taels; and all the voters must be able to read and WTite. These four classes are de- barred the franchise: all who have ever failed in busi- ness; all who are now engaged in any disreputable business, like selling opium, etc.; all who are opium smokers; Buddhist and Taoist priests. Passing through Tientsin recently, I saw a lecture hall, capable of accommodating more than a thousand listeners, and was told that half a dozen such halls have just been opened in the city in which illustrated lectures on western geography, western science, western inven- tions, etc., are delivered two or three times a week to audiences which fill the haUs to overflowing. If Tientsin persists in demanding this high standard of morality and intelligence in her voters, possibly fifty years hence American cities will be sending delegations to China to learn the secret of successful municipal government. 6 New Chapters on It is significant that while Buddhist and Taoist priests are denied the franchise by a pagan ruler on account of their ignorance and superstition and their oppo- sition to all progress, our Chinese ministers of the Gospel are freely admitted to this privilege. This is due to the fact that wherever Christianity has been introduced it has been followed by w'estern learning, western science, western medicine, and western in- ventions. In proof that we are winning in China, not only the lowest classes, but the intelligent middle classes of the empire is the fact that our own church in the Szechuen Province, two thousand miles west of Shanghai, has a membership ninety per cent of whom are adult men, and every one of whom is able to read a Bible as compared with some twenty to thirty per cent of the men outside of the church in that province who are able to read. Do you wonder that a dis- tinction is made between our ministers and Buddhist and Taoist priests? Third, in moral progress, we are able to report a vastly increased impetus toward the abolition of foot- binding. Mrs. F. D. Gamewell, then Miss Mary Por- ter, after much prayer and after consultation with the other missionaries of our Board in North China, opened a school for girls in Peking in 1872 to which only girls were admitted whose parents consented to unbind their feet. At first this condition was severely criti- cised by the Chinese, and its wisdom was doubted by some visitors and missionaries. This great reform, setting free the womanhood of this vast empire, for which our churches struggled so nobly and against such 7 The Awakening of China immense odds thirty-six years ago, is now gaining such an impetus that the Chinese themselves outside the church are carrying it forward. The Dowager Empress recently established several schools for girls in Peking, and the royal princesses also have estab- lished schools for girls in the Chihli Province, and these have insisted that every girl entering the royal schools shall observe the same condition of unbinding her feet which the women of our mission established in 1872. The Empress Dowager and several governors recently have issued proclamations urging the women to unbind their feet. At the present rate of progress it looks as if the womanhood of China would be unfettered physic- ally within the next fifty years. Doctor Arthur Smith said of a meeting in Chentu last February that the awakening of Chinese women is one of the greatest changes among womankind recorded in history. The reform against opium also has made remarkable progress during the last two years. The officials of the Chinese empire, and especially the Chinese people, have inaugurated a genuine crusade against the greatest curse which threatens the Chinese empire. Mr. Morrison, the Peking correspondent of the London Times, in a recent speech in London, said: “The prog- ress of China during the last ten years is one of the most surprising phenomena of recent history. Since my return to London I have met with skepticism in regard to these progressive movements, and especially in- regard to the abolition of opium. With that skepticism, I do not find myself in agreement. The awakening of the consciousness of nationality, the 8 New Chapters on growth of the native press with its two hundred news- papers, the spread of education, the increased efficiency and economy of the Chinese army, the attempt, im- perfect as it naturally is, to bring reform into different departments of the administration, are features of modern China full of promise for the future.” As a concrete illustration of the progress in opium reform, three years ago in travelling through the Chungking prefecture, containing a population of some three to five million people, we saw from one- fourth to one-third of the land in opium. Last January we travelled through the same prefecture and no mem- ber of the party discovered a single poppy growing. The Chungking official had forbidden the planting of the poppy, and the order had been universally obeyed. In other parts of the province the campaign against opium had not been so fully carried out. But per- sonal observation and the reports of the two hundred missionaries at the Chentu Missionary Conference from all parts of Szechuen lead to the conclusion that in large parts of this greatest opium-growing province in the empire, about one-half as much opium was planted in 1908 as was planted in 1907. As the government decree allows ten years for the complete abolition of opium, the progress which has been made during the first year is full of encouragement. If the foreigners in the port cities vdll cooperate with the Chinese in closing opium dens and disfranchising opium smokers, if Great Britain will surrender the fateful boon which she secured as the result of the opium war and permit China to prohibit the importation of opium. 9 The Awakening of China and if other nations will respect the integrity of the empire and permit the Chinese to devote their energies to internal reforms, we believe the Chinese will uproot the opium traffic and the opium habit, as they up- rooted the liquor traffic three thousand years ago. Chapter II. Spiritual Progress First, when I went to China four years ago, we had twenty- two thousand members and probationers in the entire empire. We now have over thirty thousand members and probationers, a gain of thirty-seven per . cent. Some of you will recall the story of the village elders who offered us their temple for service and asked us to baptize all the people of the village. Plainly it was impossible for us to baptize people and receive them into the church before they understood the Gospel. But the money for which I asked two years ago was readily subscribed, the temple was ac- cepted, we now have a school and religious services in this former heathen shrine, and every family of the village has become Christian. On the island of Haitang we are now offered four or five additional temples which we will open as churches as soon as we can secure one thousand dollars to refit them. Rev. Huong Pao Seng and Rev. Harry Caldwell, delegates to the General Con- ference of 1908, express the conviction that one mis- sionary with Chinese helpers in that island can enroll twenty thousand church members in twenty years as compared with thirty thousand members whom we have been able to gain in the entire empire 10 New Chapters on with our whole missionary force during the last sixty years. Similar gains have been made in parts of the empire. The harvest indeed is plenteous, but the laborers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He will send forth laborers into His harvest. Second, we are also able to report remarkable progress on the subject of Christian unity during the last two years. We have already reported the intense eagerness of the Chinese for western education, and that as many as fifteen thousand young men from China went to Tokyo in a single year in search of the western learning. Under the devoted and intelligent service of the representatives of the Young Men’s Christian Association, some of these young men were converted and desired baptism. But the Association clearly could not itself organize a Christian church and administer the ordinances without abandoning its fundamental attitude as a helper to all the churches and becoming a distinctly ecclesiastical organization. Hence the Association came to the Shanghai Confer- ence last year and asked the Conference, in view of the providential opportunity in Tokyo, first, not to send half a dozen or more churches to open work in Tokyo among the Chinese and engage in a struggle to secure membership, but second, to select one Protestant church to represent our entire Protestantism in the work among the Chinese students in Japan. The conditions were unprecedented, but the Shanghai Conference rose to the demands of the occasion and by a unanimous vote selected a Committee of Fellow- The Awakening of China ship with full power to choose one church to represent all the Protestant churches in China in the work among these leaders of the empire. On the motion of the two Chinese members of the committee, our church was unanimously selected for this responsible position. The selection of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the committal to us of this important task of representing Christianity among the yoimg men who are to be among the future leaders of China is in the view of Doctor Goucher the greatest honor which has come to our church in the Far East. Do not, however, expect great immediate results from this work. Remember that these young men in a large measure come from pagan homes; they have a pagan inheritance; they are surrounded by another people who are largely pagan. Remember that in almost every boarding house they are as freely solicited to the social vice as was Joseph in the house of Potiphar; and they know not the God of Joseph. Remember that they are seeking a preparation for official life in China and that official life in China at present is so based upon graft that they cannot become Christians and then enter upon the career for which they are seeking preparation. But while we may not expect large immediate results, we must bear in mind, on the other hand, that we are presenting Christ to the future leaders of the empire; that we are presenting Him to these leaders at the formative period of their lives; that along with the western civilization, western ideas, and western ideals, which these young men are seeking, their minds 12 New Chapters on at least are open to the western religion. The mere presentation of the Gospel to young men at this turn- ing point of their lives mil have a profound influence upon the entire official attitude of China toward Christianity during the next fifty years. Moreover, out of the chosen few who have already accepted Christ and are passing through the fires of temptation, we are praying that some may prove as great administrators for the four hundred million people of China as Joseph proved for the ten or fifteen millions of Egj’pt. We therefore fully agree with Doctor Goucher that this is the greatest honor, and the greatest responsibility, which has ever come to Methodism in China. And yet I hold that an even higher honor will be put upon the other churches by God for denying themselves and inviting us to represent them than can ever come to our church by discharging this duty, however well she may do the work. Third, further progress toward the federation of our churches was made and heartier cooperation secured among the Christians in China at the recent Chentu Conference. In company with Doctor Arthur Smith, I went last winter to Chentu, a journey of fifty da5's from Shanghai. The three western provinces, Szechuen, Kweichou, and Yunnan, form an empire in themselves with a population of some ninety million people. Two himdred missionaries of ten missionary boards gathered for the Chentu Conference. In divid- ing up our territory so as to have as little overlapping as possible and so as to cover as large an amount of the field as possible, the question arose: in case territory PROGRESS OF A QUADRENNIUM Comparative Statistics of the Missionary Work of the Methodist Episcopal Church in China for the years 1903 and 1907 COMPARATIVE STATISTICS CHINA MISSIONS 1903-1907 11 11 1 .11 1903 1907 Increase Percent op Gain Church Membership: Full Members 12,085 17,597 5,512 45.6 Probationers 10,006 12,885 2,879 28.7 Total 22,091 30,512 8,421 38.1 Inquirers, inc. Baptized Children 11,972 25,873 13,901 116.1 Total who have left Heathenism 34,063 56,385 22,322 65 . 5 Sunday Schools — Number 354 533 179 50.5 Number of Sunday school Scholars 13,174 18,497 5,323 40.4 Epworth Leagues, Number of Chapters 113 116 3 2.6 Number of Leaguers 3,201 3,457 256 7.9 Educational Work: Number of Theological and Biblical Schools 2 7 5 250.0 Enrollment 45 124 79 175.5 No Report 16 Enrollment No Report 337 Number of Colleges 2 5 3 150.6 Enrollment 455 1,046 591 129.8 Number of Boarding and High Schools 31 29 Enrollment 1,554 2,272 718 46.2 Number of Day and Other Schools 284 396 112 39.4 Enrollment 5,504 9,380 3,876 70.4 Total Number of Schools 319 453 134 42.0 Total Enrollment 7,558 13,159 5,601 74.1 Medical Work: Total Number of Hospitals. 11 23 12 109.0 Total Number of Dispensaries 14 29 15 107.2 Total Number of Ward Patients 2,758 4,674 1,916 69.4 Total Number of Dispensary and other Treat- ments 84,199 191,627 107,428 127.5 Missionary Force: Number of Missionaries Board of Foreign Mis- sions 56 80 24 42.8 Number of Missionaries’ Wives 42 66 24 57.0 Number of Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society Missionaries 58 82 24 41.3 Total Missionary Force 156 228 72 46.1 Chinese Workers: Ordained Preachers 112 123 11 9.8 IJnordained Preachers 149 463 314 210.7 Local Preachers 277 273 Exhorters 429 249 Bible Women 207 328 12i 58.4 Other Workers 109 217 108 99.0 Total Number of Workers 1,283 1,653 370 28.8 Number or Churches and Chapels Owned 240 391 151 62.9 (Many additional rented) Contributions of Chinese Church — Contributed for Self-Support, including Home ♦Mexican ♦Mexican ♦Mexican Missionary Society $16,404.09 $30,355.09 $13,951.00 85.0 Total Other Contributions 16,577.07 32,089.71 15,512.64 93.5 ♦♦Total Contributions Chinese $32,981.16 $62,444.80 $29,463.64 89.3 Average per Member and Probationer SI. 49 $2.04 $.55 36.9 Contributions of Missionaries to same 164,031 . 00 Mexican ♦Two dollars Mexican=one dollar American money. ♦♦Educational and Medical fees not included; only voluntary offerings Chinese. The Awakening of China 13 is left wholly to one church, will that church receive as in good standing a Chinese member from any other church in West China who may move into that terri- tory, on a letter from the church of which he has been a member and of the missionary under whose care he has been, stating that he has abandoned idolatry and has a clear Christian experience? In a word, in divid- ing our forces and agreeing not to trespass on each other’s fields, will each missionary recognize every other missionary in West China as a representative of our common Christianity? In raising this question, it was distinctly stated that while the various missions were to receive persons into membership without putting upon them any additional burdens, neverthe- less the church receiving the new member from another church would be at liberty, after he had been received, to administer any further rites which the member, after he had been instructed, might wish to have administered. With this understanding, over two thirds of the missionaries present voted upon the question and every vote cast was in favor of the propo- sition. The Christian churches of America took a great step forward in the organization of the Federa- tion of Churches in 1906; but the American churches will do well if within the next twenty-five years they can reach the position which the churches of West Cliina attained in 1908. I may add without boasting but with profound gratitude to God, that on the unanimous invitation of the Committee of Arrangements I administered the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper at the close of the 14 New Chapters on Conference to Missionaries of the Church of England, of the Baptist Church, of the Presbyterian, Congrega- tional, and Methodist Church, and of the Friends, members of all these churches joining freely and with- out distinction in partaking of the emblems of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Upon the whole, therefore, there is here presented, not the report of a single person who had been in China two years, but the report of over nine hundred missionaries throughout the empire, some of whom have been in China for fifty j'^ears, that China is awakening and opportunities are multiplying far more rapidly than the Christian churches are meeting them. We bring you the report of the operation of reform educational decrees, revolutionizing the in- tellectual life of the empire. We bring you the report of the increase by leaps and bounds in the publication of books on western learning, and especially of the Bible. We bring you the report of the successful organization, under the leadership of the greatest statesman of the empire, of a republican form of government in the metropolis of the north. We bring you the report of the remarkable progress made during the last two years by the Chinese in the abolition of foot-binding and of opium. We bring you the report of the remarkable honor and responsibility which has come to Methodism in the selection of our church, perhaps as occupying the golden mean, to represent the common Protestantism of China in presenting the Gospel to the thousands of young men in the Japanese capital, who are, many of them, to become PROGRESS OF A QUADRENNIUM Comparative Statistics of the Missioneury Work of the Methodist EpiscopeJ Church in China for the years 1903 and 1907 COMPARATIVE STATISTICS CHINA MISSIONS 1903—1907 1903 1907 Increase Percent OF Gain Church Membership: Full Members 12,085 10,006 17,597 12,885 5,512 45.6 2,879 28.7 22,091 11,972 34,063 30,512 25,873 56,385 8,421 13,901 22,322 38.1 116.1 Total who have left Heathenism 65.5 354 533 179 50.5 13,174 113 18,497 116 5,323 3 40.4 2.6 3,201 3,457 256 7.9 Educational Work: Number of Theological and Biblical Schools 2 45 7 124 5 79 250.0 175.5 No Report No Report 2 16 337 5 3 150.0 455 1,046 591 129.8 31 29 1,554 2,272 718 46.2 284 396 112 39 4 5,504 9,380 3,876 70.4 319 453 134 42.0 7,558 13,159 5,601 74.1 Medical Work: 11 23 12 109 0 14 29 15 107.2 Total Number of Ward Patients 2,758 84,199 4,674 191,627 1,916 107,428 69.4 Total Number of Dispensary and other Treat- 127.5 Missionary Force: Number of Missionaries Board of Foreign Mis- 56 80 24 42.8 42 66 24 57.0 Number of Woman^s Foreign Missionary Society 58 82 24 41.3 156 228 72 46.1 Chinese Workers: Ordained Preachers 112 123 11 9 8 Unordained Preachers 149 463 314 210.7 Local Preachers 277 273 Exhorters 429 249 Bible Women 207 328 12 i 58 4 Other Workers 109 217 108 99.0 Total Number of Workers 1,283 1,653 370 28.8 N UMBER OF Churches and Chapels Owned 240 391 151 62.9 (Many additional rented) Contributions op Chinese Church — Contributed for Self-Support, including Home ♦Mexican $16,404.09 ♦Mexican $30,355.09 32,089.71 ♦Mexican $13,951.00 15,512.64 85 0 16,577.07 93.5 $32,981.16 $62,444,80 $29,463.64 89.3 $1.49 $2.04 $.55 36.9 Contributions Chinese to the Centennial Collection (Part included in above) 840,353 . 72 Mexican Contributions of Missionaries to same 164,031 .00 Mexican *Two dollars Mexican=one dollar American money. ♦♦Educational and Medical fees not included; only voluntary offerings Chinese. The Awakening of China 15 the future leaders of the empire. We bring you the report of the providential progress toward Christian fellowship and Christian cooperation among the Protestant churches for the redemption of the empire. Surely these facts amply confirm my earlier report on the awakening of the empire. Chapter III. China To-morrow The emergence of the Pacific Basin as the chief theater of the world’s activity in the twentieth cen- tury is now foreshadowed. What part are the leading nations of the earth to play in the drama which is to be enacted around that ocean? We take a hopeful view of Russia. A recent trip across northern Asia on the Trans-Siberian Railway reveals a strip of country in Siberia some three hundred and fifty miles north and south by some three thousand miles east and west, much of it rich, black soil, very similar to southern Canada and the northern row of American states. We can well accept the statement of LeRoy Beaulieu that Siberia alone has nine hundred thousand square miles of arable land. Russia’s fair- haired, blue-eyed, stalwart peasants are unsurpassed for natural strength and vigor. If Russia liberalizes her institutions, establishes public schools, prohibits the liquor traffic, and grants her people freedom of conscience and the Word of God, we may ultimately expect a population of three or four hundred million people within the bounds of that vast empire who will contribute their fair share toward the Christian- ization of the world. But imperative internal reforms present tasks so overwhelming and the people move so 16 New Chapters on slowly that Russia during the next half century may be able to furnish only shght help in recasting the civilization of the Pacific Basin. We may well marvel at the sudden and splendid emergence of Japan into western civilization. But however favorably we may estimate the prospects of Japan, it is simply incredible that a people numbering only forty-five million and acknowledging themselves unequal in industry and commerce to the Chinese can ever absorb or supplant their neighbors, four hundred million strong. I hold a favorable judgment of the unrest arising among the three hundred million of India and reckon much upon their English guidance. But however much their half-century start of China in western civilization and their dash of Arj'an blood promise them control of the Pacific Basin, plainly they are two thousand miles further removed from the activities of that basin than are their Chinese neighbors. More- over, wherever the Indians and Chinese meet, as in Burma, Penang, Singapore, and Sumatra, all onlookers recognize the distinct superiority in industrj' and com- merce of the Chinese race. The United States, with her present leadership of the race in wealth and inventions, with her youthful and unexhausted energies, now pushing to a rapid conclusion the Panama Canal which will put even her eastern shores three thousand miles nearer China than is Europe and mth the probability of increasing her population within her owm territory to four or five hundred million people before the close of the century 17 The Awakening of China is destined to exercise a dominant influence in the Pacific Basin during the twentieth century. China, now numbering four hundred million, a nation so virile that she doubles her population every eighty years, a nation with the possibility before her of overflowing into the three hundred and sixty- five thousand square miles of Manchuria and into the more than a million square miles of fertile tropical lands upon the south, in all human probability will have a population rising toward eight hundred million before the close of the twentieth century. Any candid study of the future, therefore, forces upon us the conviction that the people of the United States and the people of China have every prospect of dominating the Pacific Basin in the twentieth century. Whether, therefore, we will or not, we Americans and we Chris- tians must play a great part during the next one hundred years: and the only question is whether we shall play that great part well or ill. We are not a nation or a church which can stand aside and see the battle of the world go on. We have been thrust by Providence into the center of the conflict. The race has compassed the globe, and the sons of the newest west now stand on the borders of the Pacific and look into the eyes of the sons of the oldest east. Christ’s church and the last great paganism on earth now face each other, and we shall either gloriously succeed or ’ else ignobly fail. The opportunity is the greatest which has confronted the Christian church since the days of Luther, if not since the days of Paul. 18 New Chapters on Chapter IV. The Divine Providence No man can form a just estimate of the probable future of China and the other great nations of the earth without reckoning with the Divine Providence. We caimot in a spirit of blind optimism conceal from ourselves the fact that the tasks which confront us at home and abroad are absolutely beyond our wisdom and our strength. The church still has before her the evangelization of two thirds of the human race, and the far greater task of the Christianization of the w'hole. We must abolish drunkenness, the strife be- tween capital and labor, worldliness and the social evil. We must Christianize our politics, our art, our litera- ture, and make the golden rule supplant the rule of gold. Who is sufficient for these things? Only as al- mighty God guides us by His wisdom, heartens ns with His courage, and fills us with His strength shall we be able to succeed. But Christianity, which has already been the source of several civilizations, is rising unwearied by past tasks and undaunted by the problems which confront her to inaugurate a new era. Nor are there wanting signs of a fresh manifestation of the same Divine Providence which has guided us in the past. Historians recognize two great eras in the history of the kingdom of heaven upon earth — the era of the incarnation and the era of the reformation. Is a third era, similar to these great epochs in history, now dawning upon Christendom? God chose the Mediterranean Basin with its eighty million people as the theater for the activities of the first era; the Atlantic, with its five hundred million people, as the The Awakening of China 19 theater for the second; He selects the Pacific, including the Indian Ocean, with its eight hundred million as the theater of the coming era. God inspired the Greeks to perfect a language as the medium for pre- serving His truth and for spreading it among the eighty million of the Mediterranean Basin. He guided Guten- berg in the invention of movable types for the spread of His truth among the five hundred million of the Atlantic Basin. He guided missionaries in translating His word into the language of India, China, Malaysia, Mexico, and South America, for its spread among the eight hundred million of the Pacific Basin. Not rest- ing with inspiring Gutenberg God has also guided us in the improvements of the printing press, the adoption of the penny post, and in the discovery of the telegraph and the telephone, the use of steam and electricity, thus turning the world into one great neighborhood. God, having granted man freedom, is compelled to wait upon free moral agents for the carrying forward of His plans. Hence He was compelled to choose as the political powers of the first era Judea, which failed Him in the crisis and delivered up the Lord to cruci- fixion; Greece, which frittered away her liberties in petty jealousies; and Rome, who unconsciously built the roads and preserved order for the first generations of evangelists but who always regarded Christianity with suspicion and at last threw herself in a life and death struggle against the church. God secured as the political powers for the second era the European governments of the sixteenth century, fighting between themselves indeed the great battles of the reformation, 20 New Chapters on but all of them nominally Christian, and all of them far more Christian in reality than Hellas and Judea and Rome. God has secured as the political powers which largely will dominate the third basin the nations of the Anglo-Saxon world who now rule sixty per cent of the human race and are far less bitterly divided, far kinder to the weak, far more Christian in spirit than the warring principalities of the reformation era. But the power which alone can inaugurate the new era is Jesus Christ — the Creator of the world, the Light and Life of the race. God’s chief aim in earthly history is to bring men into union with Himself through Jesus Christ. To this end He inaugurated the first era by Pentecost. But Christ was imperfectly apprehended by the followers of the apostles, and the church of the early centuries largely lost His presence and His help. God inaugurated the second era by revealing to Luther the great truth of salvation by faith. This indeed resulted in a church in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries wider spread and stronger than the church of the early centuries. But the children of the Reformation were diverted from the divine goal by wars and worldliness and soon sank into a dead conformity. God inaugurated the third era with Wesley’s discovery of Christian experience. Wesley did for theology what Bacon did for science. The Christian experience which Wesley discovered is the exact counterpart in the spiritual realm of Bacon’s discovery of experiment as the test for truth in the material realm. Each called the world back from the theory of abstract speculation to the realities of life. The Awakening of China 21 Wesley’s discovery already has been apprehended and appropriated by the entire evangelical church and by the saints of the Roman Catholic and Greek Churches ; it is in perfect accord with the scientific tendencies of the age. Go ye into all the world and make disciples of all nations is the goal of history which Christ sets before the church. Christ passed beyond Judaism and led Paul after Him to find the Greek and Roman world in the first era. He passed beyond the Greek and Roman world, leading Augustine and Ulfilas with him to discover our Saxon and Teutonic ancestors in the second era. He is passing beyond the western world, accompanied by ten thousand missionaries, to find the last one of the belated races in the third era. If the hand of God is seen in the strange meeting of Judea and Hellas and Rome in the Mediterranean Basin in the first era; in the Reformation, the dis- covery of printing, the discovery of the new world and the emergence of the Atlantic Basin with its five hundred million people in the second era; surely prophetic souls will recognize in the gathering of eight hundred million around the Pacific Basin, in the trans- lation of the Bible into all the languages of the earth, and in the fellowship of the modern church with a living Christ through the scientific method of expe- rience the presence among His children of the living God by whom and for whom and in whom all things consist. The common people, perhaps dimly and half con- sciously, more by instinct than through reason, are 22 New Chapters on beginning to realize that God is calling them to prov- idential tasks in the redemption of the race. The Laymen’s Missionary Movement is the most significant spiritual enterprise thus far in the twentieth century; and other churches have led us in this movement. But Methodism distinctly has led the other churches in placing special gifts upon the altar for the crises which now confront us. The bishops of India asked for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars as a jubilee offering for the magnificent work which has been ac- comphshed in that empire; and the church laid the gift upon the altar. After conference with our mis- sionaries, I returned to America to ask for a similar amount for China, not, I confess, from any strong faith at that time that the amount could be raised, but from the conviction that I ought to place the facts before the church and trust the Lord and the people for the results. It is not necessary to rehearse at length the various stages in the struggle; the hearty cooperation of the bishops in signing the appeal and in giving it endorsement in the Conferences and upon the platform and in relieving me from part of my Con- ferences that I might work for China; of my struggle during the summer of 1906 with malaria, contracted in China; of the offer of a noble layman to give one hundred thousand dollars if my faith rose to the point of asking the church as a whole to raise four hun- dred thousand; of the six months’ spiritual struggle before the conviction was born that the church and this friend would contribute $500,000; of the splendid response of the Woman’s Board that they would try The Awakening of China 23 to secure one hundred thousand dollars; of my return to China and of the call to aid in the China famine, of the tens of thousands of lives saved by the gifts of Americans for famine relief, and of the gratitude of the people of the famine district to America for saving their lives and of their openness for the Gospel; of the absorption of time in the famine relief and our fear that the Centennial funds would suffer from the famine offerings; of my agreement with the Cen- tennial Commission to return to America for a two months’ campaign in the summer of 1907 if my strength permitted and the interests of the campaign demanded it; of the conviction of the bishops that the need of presenting China and also of Episcopal service de- manded my presence in America for the fall and winter of 1907-08; of my own conviction that I ought not to leave without supervision the great interests in China for which the General Conference had made me in some measure responsible by fixing my residence in Shanghai; of the panic, greatly disturbing business interests of Americans and sweeping our generous friend into bankruptcy so that his pledge cannot be counted for the present; of the heroic giving of the missionaries and friends in China and of the Chinese to aid the Centennial Offering; of the splendid achieve- ments of the Woman’s Board in meeting its pledge of one hundred thousand dollars; of the great and lasting service rendered China by the editors, by the secre- taries of the Board of Foreign Missions, by the field secretaries, by the China Centennial Commission, and especially by Doctor Gamewell and such younger 24 New Chapters on workers as Keeler, Fahs, and Elliott; of such provi- dential aid that in spite of the famine and the financial panic, all the gifts of the men and women in China and America reached not simply the two hundred and fifty thousand dollars we originally thought of asking for, not simply the three hundred thousand dollars we did ask for, but four hundred and fifty thousand dollars, not counting the one hundred thousand dollars our friend had hoped to give. “Not by might nor by power; but by my spirit, saith the Lord.” We do not wish any church which has once con- tributed to this centennial fund to take a second offering in order to enable Methodism to reach the five hvmdred thousand dollars. But in ^^ew of our near approach to the goal of our faith and hope for China, in view of the inspiration which success in this enter- prise will lend to every other heroic struggle in the church, and in view of the deep needs and great pos- sibilities of our work in the empire, ■null not every pastor who has not yet done so give his people an op- portunity to present their gifts before the close of the Centennial Offering, May 31, 1908. We must not mar the gracious feeling in the church by an effort to reach a mere numerical sum. Above all, we must not leave the impression that five hundred thousand dollars once raised, the church is through with China, as if four hundred million people could be evangelized, educated, healed, and Christianized and their civiliza- tions transformed by half a million dollars 1 We must not embarrass the general collections of the church, especially the missionary collection. We must not The Awakening of China 25 forget India and Japan and South America, Europe and Africa, and the islands of the sea. But I still hold the conviction born of prayer that God will put it into the hearts of our pastors and churches to place the five hundred thousand dollars upon the altar for China and that our local churches and all other causes will prosper all the more through the triumph of this enterprise. Surely the Divine Providence, who has guided our people thus far, has still greater work for us to do. Let us apprehend that for which we are apprehended by Jesus Christ and so meet responsibiUty that each at last may be able to say udth the Master, “Father, I have finished the work thou gavest me to do.”