p. 26 | No Use for It

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 19, 1882

No Use for It.

When Dr. Legge, of the London Missionary Society, had been working for some time in Hongkong and had obtained a number of converts, it seemed to be time to have the Westminster Catechism translated, and he got the help of his preacher and teacher to put it into Chinese. The work proceeded very nicely until they came to Question 20, the answer to which is:—

"God, having out of his mere good pleasure, from all eternity elected some to everlasting life, did enter into a covenant of grace to deliver them out of the estate of sin and misery and to bring them into an estate of salvation by a redeemer."

The preacher began it, but threw down his pen, with the words: "I can't translate that." "Why not?" asked Mr. Legge. "Because," said he, "we have been preaching that anybody might come and be saved, and this says that only those can who have been elected. I can't translate this."

In telling the story, Dr. Legge concludes by saying: "I put the Catechism upon a shelf and there it stays." When Dr. Burns, the distinguished Free Church of Scotland missionary to China, was once asked, "What do you do with Calvinism in China?" He replied, "I don't say anything about it. The Chinese don't need it." And we believe he was himself a genuine Calvinist, as well as a grand evangelist.—Independent.