THE MORALS OF AMERICAN PEOPLE ASTONISH THE HEATHEN.
By Wm. Penniman
The following quotation from the Missionary Herald, August, 1869, published at Boston, which advocates the evangelization of the world, or the doctrine that it is growing better, does not speak very well of the morals of our nation, and especially of its Christianity:
“Rev. J. L. Nevins, of the Presbyterian Mission in China, on his recent return from this country, stopped a few days in San Francisco, and respecting the Chinese there, and efforts for their conversion, he writes: ‘I was struck with the seeming indifference of the Christians of that city to the spiritual wants of119these heathen in their midst. A consideration of the influence which the Chinese meet with on coming to our shores, will show the great difficulties in the way of evangelizing them. They see, at once, that only a small proportion of our population are in the habit of attending church, or seem to have any regard to the claims of religion. To their view we seem much less religious than they are. On every hand they meet with manifestations of vice, immorality, and licentiousness, which may well shock their sense of morality and propriety, and excite their astonishment. The first words with which they become familiar, are those in which the name of the Christian’s God is taken in vain. In visiting a Chinese temple, almost under the shadow of some of the churches, just before reaching it, we saw one of our people lying dead drunk in the middle of the street. The Chinese hardly noticed him as they passed, such sights being evidently familiar to them in their new home, though seldom seen in their own land. These facts, together with the harsh treatment which they too often receive from the hands of Americans, are not calculated to predispose their minds in favor of the Christian religion, but, on the contrary, add much to the difficulties and discouragements of the work of the missionary.’” Our nation is called a Christian nation, and yet her crimes and enormities shock heathendom. Why call the Chinese, heathen, when their “sense of morality and propriety” is shocked on witnessing such manifestations of vice, immorality, and licentiousness, in a so-called Christian land? Alas! our nation is Christian only in name. We boast of our superiority, of our literary, and religious institutions, of the enlightening and ennobling influence of Christianity, and yet our morals astonish the heathen. How true it is that “evil men and seducers are waxing worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.” Of late, one can hardly take up a county paper without being astonished in reading the records of crime which it contains, and even those religious papers which advocate the doctrine that the millennium is near, often show their inconsistency by publishing articles which prove the contrary. Wm. Penniman.
Woodburn, Ill.