China’s Progress Toward Civilization
THE progress which China has made toward civilization during the past few years is the Lord’s doing, and marvelous in our eyes. A missionary in western China makes the statement that the past decade has been crowded with centuries of advance and development. Ten years ago the most inland post-office was the “local post” at Hankow, six hundred miles from the coast. The mail for the missionaries of western China was sent to that point. There it was put up into large packages, weighing from fifty to sixty pounds, and forwarded to Chungking by native transportation companies. Here it was received by friends, and again forwarded by private conveyance. “Now,” he adds, “we have the new Chinese Imperial Post, that brings our mails to our doors every three days, and takes them away for us; a modern postal service with its parcels post, registration and money-order departments, and up-to-date system, the produce of two hundred years’ evolution in England and America. . . . Progress has stamped itself indelibly on the affairs of this great province, and still it is only the beginning of good things compared with what is coming.”