Untitled article by W. H. M.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · April 21, 1892

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 7, No. 16

They Mistake It for Christianity.

By W. H. M.

THE Sun has received copies of the Chinese cartoons, ridiculing Europeans and Christian missionaries, which are now circulated in great quantities throughout China. Of these it is said:—

They are distributed freely among the people, as religious tracts are distributed with us, and the money for the purpose is furnished by individuals and associations, animated by a spirit of patriotism as they regard it. The movement is a veritable Chinese propaganda with the purpose of preserving the native religion and customs and protecting them against the invasion of Christianity and all European influences. A totally vicious character is ascribed throughout to the Christians. They are represented as guilty of the grossest immorality and the most horrible and revolting crimes, gouging out eyes and inflicting the most cruel tortures. This atrocious assault upon Christianity is the more remarkable because it is made by the representatives of everything that stands for civilization and high intellectual cultivation in China. It is the work of men of letters, men of a really lofty scholarship, measured by any standard we may apply. That such men, whose ordinary concern in life is with philosophical speculations, high political economy, statesmanship, should stoop to expedients not only absolutely depraved but of childlike imbecility, is something that does not readily explain itself.

On the contrary it does quite readily explain itself. These educated Chinamen know Christianity from the same point of view from which such men as Thomas Paine, Robert Ingersoll and the scores of writers for various infidel, atheistic, and “free thought” journals know it. Much of the published thought of these men of intellect and learning is as grossly repugnant to the religious sense of the experimental Christian, in proportion to the civilization from which it emanates, as the vulgarities of these Chinamen. Not only is this not surprising, but on the contrary it would indeed be surprising if just this use were not made of the terrible facts in the history of professed Christianity. The history of Christianity as it is now written, read, and understood throughout the world, is not the history of the gospel of Jesus Christ, but quite the contrary. The saddest, bitterest, most utterly hopeless fact, that the true Christian has to deal with in this world, is, that Christianity, so-called, as, led by the great deception, it has made itself known to men, is in reality the most deadly enemy and dangerous foe of the Christianity of the gospel pure and undefiled.

W. H. M.