WHAT HAVE THE CHINESE LEARNED?
The Examiner of the city of the Golden Gate, has two articles on “The Chinese Christian.” The first is written by a missionary who knows in his experience of years that there are Chinese Christians. The other is a criticism of the missionary’s article, saying that the missionary sees but one side of it. After raising all the doubt possible as to the sincerity of any profession which the Chinese might make, the writer pens this paragraph:— “So much in preface for the information of the reader abroad, and perhaps for the enlightenment of the doctor himself on one or two points. As for the average San Franciscan, it would be as difficult to tell him anything new about the Chinaman as it would be to tell the Chinaman anything new about him. Each knows the other for all he is worth, when it comes down to business—business, the omnipotent errand that brought the Oriental here and has kept him here for years, a mass of unconverted paganism in the very heart of Christianity, 6,000 miles from the inspiration of his own faith and a generation removed from the personal recollections of his fatherland. What an opportunity to convert him if he were convertible—if he were susceptible to any permanent change from the ingrained, eternal superstition of his race! Here we have him, and have had him for an age, at our mercy, profitably pocketing our insults, thriftily tolerating our attacks upon his religion, opulently blinking his inscrutable eyes while simultaneously we have persecuted and patronized him.” Yes, in a business way each knows the other. “The average San Franciscan” has learned that the Chinaman is wily, false-hearted, two-faced, cruel, vicious, etc., etc. But what has the average Chinese learned in this “very heart of Christianity” in San9Francisco? Is it that which would inspire confidence in Christianity? The writer intimates in the above paragraph that the Chinese has been treated meanly—“here at our mercy,” so tender at times has it been! He has been “insulted” and “persecuted;” and all this right “in the very heart of Christianity.” What must he think of the municipal government and the political bosses and rings of this “very heart of Christianity,” if that government and these bosses and rings are only half as bad as the papers say? What must he think of the “Christian” police who are bought by Chinese gamblers? What must he think of the “Christian” lawyers who defend the law-breakers in the courts? What must he think of the “Christians” who frequent the gambling-shops, opium joints, and worse places? This is another point of view, isn’t it? Are there Chinese sinners?—Yes, many of them. Are there American sinners?—Yes, in abundance,—gamblers, false-hearted, insincere, cruel, and selfish by nature as any “heathen Chinese.” But the grace of God has made many of them Christians, not by education, but by regeneration, by recreation. And the grace of God is just as able to regenerate a heathen Chinese as it is a heathen American. By nature there is no difference; the manifestations of nature differ, all are under sin; but “the same Lord is Lord of all, and is rich unto all that call upon Him, for, Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Those who talk of even the best conditions of American cities as “the very heart of Christianity” do not know what Christianity is, and are not extremely well fitted to recognize a Christian Chinese if they should meet him. We do not say this as a fling of any sort. It is a cold fact, resting in the very belief that this is a “Christian” country and nation, when it is as sadly wanting as Capernaum of old.