Religious Liberty in China

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 27, 1913

Religious Liberty in China

Says the Continent of Oct. 30, 1913:—

Christian missionaries of all names in China are deeply exercised over the sudden and surprising development of a deep-laid plan to force into the constitution of the new Chinese Republic a clause reading: “Confucianism shall ‘be state religion of China, but religious liberty shall be accorded to all the people.” The missionaries have been quite taken off their feet by this outbreak of Confucian sentiment, because from the moment that the republican movement became an assured success every one had taken it for granted that the national government, constructed on American models, would be wholly impartial among the varying religions professed in China.

This is credited to Dr. Chen, an ardent advocate of Confucius and his school. Of the effort to defeat this proposed legislation the Continent continues:—

Though dazed at first, the friends of the American ideal of religious freedom have rallied and appointed a strong committee of seven, with headquarters in Peking, who are already setting afoot a great national agitation to protest against Chen’s shrewd propaganda.