A Chinese Minister by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Feb 16, 1882

A Chinese Minister.

By Editor

AMONG the arrivals from the East yesterday was Yung Wing, who for the last three years has occupied the position of Second Minister for China at Washington. He has been a resident of the United States since 1846, and is said to be a naturalized citizen of this country. He is a graduate of Yale College, where he won high honors, two of our most distinguished lawyers being his classmates. It was by his efforts chiefly that the Chinese Educational Commission was established at Hartford, Connecticut. He belongs to the "advance party" of China, of which La Hung Chung is the leader, and has done more than all others of his countrymen to break down the barriers of Chinese exclusiveness. He is now en route to Peking.—S. F. Chronicle, Feb. 9.

At a Methodist Conference in Los Angeles we heard Bishop Wiley say: " You dislike the Chinaman in California because you do not know him."

We have always believed that in California we see the worst side of Chinese life, and for this California is partly responsible, for the means of assimilating to our civilization have been persistently denied to them. Mostly shut out of the public schools, denied the privilege of becoming citizens, treated as outcasts from their arrival upon our shores, and almost entirely deprived of the humanizing influence of female society, it is too much to expect that our civilization should have any elevating influence upon them. They are heathen, but they are not ignorant. Crossing the bay on the boat which took the "overland" passengers on the 8th inst., we had a fair opportunity to observe the appearance and manner of Yung Wing and his attendants, which indicated the refinement and culture which he possesses. The "hoodlum" element of this country has no reason to look down upon the Chinese, even in the unfavorable light in which they are presented in this State.

Bishop Wiley said that the Methodist mission in the Foo Chow District was commenced about the same time that Methodism began its work in California. With all the difference of surroundings, the Conferences in that district are as large as those in California, have as many preachers and as many members. And it is probably