p. 16 | China by Rev. Wm. Ashmore

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Jan 21, 1904

China

By Rev. Wm. Ashmore

IN all the Chinese empire a hundred years ago there was not a missionary. So far as we can ascertain, there was not a Christian Chinese, nor a single individual who had a definite knowledge of Jesus Christ. Darkness covered the land and gross darkness the people of that mighty nation. In their great imperial dictionary of hundreds of volumes, which has a biographical department including the name of everybody ever heard of, the name of Jesus Christ does appear. He is described as a kind of sage or wise man among the men of the East. In a dozen words he is disposed of, and something else taken up. In the streets of Athens, amid its multitudes of shrines and altars, was one to “the unknown God.” In that imperial dictionary with its ten thousand elucidations is a stubby little sentence which serves as an altar to “the unknown Saviour.” The God whom ye ignorantly worship, and the Saviour whom ye ignorantly seek, him declare I unto you.

First of all, Marshman, a Baptist, the coadjutor of Carey, began to give them the Scriptures; then in 1801 came Morrison; then for six years nobody, after which Milne came; then for four years nobody, after which came Medhurst and Slater. Then there came two and three and even four and five in one year till 1842. By this time the Bible had been translated in a tentative form, and there were six converts in all China. The war of 1842 took place, five ports were thrown open, and missions to China were fairly begun at last; for be it remembered that up to this time the missionaries, with one or two exceptions, were not allowed to live in China proper; they had to carry on their work at an enormous disadvantage at Singapore, Penang, and Batavia, places fifteen hundred miles away. Missions in China, therefore, are only sixty years old, and yet what hath God wrought!

We look down on the scene to-day. Instead of one man, Morrison, and his wife, we now behold 2,785 missionaries, men and women. Instead of one convert, Liang Afa, we now see one hundred and twelve thousand disciples. Instead of one preaching place in a dirty, out-of-the-way alley in Canton, we now see six hundred and fifty-three preaching centers, and 2,476 subordinate places where the gospel is sounding out probably ten thousand times a week, to say nothing of all the wayside preaching that is done. We see great cities occupied, and great audiences gathered, sometimes as many as two thousand at a time. We see great school buildings going up, colleges and universities being founded. We see great Bible societies at work, and great power printing-presses which turn out in a year sometimes as high as ten million tracts, and portions of the Word of God. We see also numerous hospitals, in which are engaged two hundred medical missionaries, and in which during one single year nearly seven hundred thousand patients have been treated.

All this means that the work of evangelizing China is advancing with giant strides, and the time is hastening when the saints of the Most High are to possess the kingdom.—Rev. Wm. Ashmore, D. D.