Christian Nations and Their Evidence
ONE of the objects of the great interchurch federation recently launched in New York City, is to furnish evidence that the United States is a Christian nation. The National Reform party, which has long labored to this same end, would furnish this evidence by having “all Christian institutions and usages of the government” placed “on an undeniable legal basis in the fundamental law.” Evidence of this sort already exists in proof of the Christianity of the nations of the Old World, which have long had their “Christian institutions and usages” established by law; hence the great world powers are quite well agreed among themselves that they are Christian nations, in fact if not in name. But there is a great class of people on the earth, comprising several great nations which are not Christian either in name or in fact, who are not convinced by the evidence which they see in support of the Christianity of these powers. A representative of this class made an address recently before the National Civic Federation in New York City, in which this point was made clear. The address was deemed worthy of note by the Washington Post, which speaks of it thus:— Perhaps the most interesting of all the addresses delivered before the immigration conference of the National Civic Federation in New York, the latter part of last week, was that of Poon-Chew, editor of a Chinese paper in San Francisco, who, after a critical survey of Western civilization in the twentieth century, concluded that “a nation has no right except what she can enforce by might.” That is not highly flattering to Christianity, but it must be conceded that the treatment received by the Chinese from some of the Christian nations at the time of the Boxer outbreak and on several other occasions could not reasonably be held to justify exuberant compliments. But Editor Poon-Chew is hopeful of what he calls “a more advanced civilization” for the four hundred millions of the Celestial empire. Hence he says: “China is preparing now to be able some of these days to be a great nation, so as to kill the largest number of men in a given time with the least expense to herself, and then, and not till then, will she be looked upon as a great nation.” It is China’s chief anxiety to-day to become “great” so as to be able to protect herself from the aggression of her western neighbors, who have so long looked with greedy eyes upon her territory.