An Outcrop of Christianity by E. M. Adams

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 16, 1913

An Outcrop of Christianity

By E. M. Adams

THE readers of the REVIEW have been greatly interested and enlightened by the pen of Elder J. N. Anderson in his series of articles on missions. In speaking of China, he attributed the cause of the revolution chiefly to the influence of the missionary. In this connection I was peculiarly interested in a short article that appeared in the last issue of the Manila Times Weekly, one of our local papers. The following is a copy of it:—

“Recently, at one of the treaty ports of China, there met a leader of the republican movement that swept away the old monarchy, and a well-known American. Their talk was of the republic, the revolution that had brought it into being, and the chances of the new government in the difficulty and dangers that beset it. ‘What produced the revolution?’ asked the American. ‘The Christian missionary,’ responded the Chinese. ‘He came to give us a new religion; he gave us a new government, a new social order. His purpose was not to achieve what he did, but he is primarily and largely responsible.

“The Chinese people did not, to a large extent, accept his religion, although they have accepted many of its principles, but they did take from him the principles of his political and social life. They took his literature and its lessons. His presence, his teaching, his work, aroused the people to newer and larger realizations of life and of the world, and started the Chinese into the world. The machinery of his system helped. It taught foreign languages to many Chinese, and through those who support it in foreign countries, offered the means to hundreds of young Chinese to go abroad.

“The mission schools, hospitals, and refuges added to the spread of this new political and social knowledge among the people. The number of Chinese influenced by what the missions taught, unconsciously perhaps, of social and political science was enormous. The movement had its origin, growth, and culmination within the span of my life, and it has all passed under my eyes. I know the men who formed and fought the revolution, and I know the influences that controlled and inspired them. I repeat, the Christian missionary made the republic in China.” . . .

“Remarkable fruit is this to spring from the seeds of Christianity sown in China, but who will say that it is not good fruit? And when China shall have parted finally from the prejudices of the centuries, may not the chances of the missionary to win converts for his religious as well as his political creed be greater than before?”

E. M. ADAMS.