A CHINESE IDEA | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 9, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 15.

A CHINESE IDEA.

A KIND of “National Reform” idea is reported to have come to the front in China. Of course it is a call to the government to establish religion. A Mr. Perkins, of Lin Ching, reports an antichristian document which has been presented to the emperor by a large number of scholars who are ambitious for an increase of scholastic degrees, as well as for a new impetus to Confucianism. He quotes as follows from the call for religious reform:—

“Found a religious department of education. The customs of our country are degenerating fast because we have no religious teachers. Thus it is that the depraved religions of foreign barbarians spring up and deceive our people. Every province is full of chapels, whilst we have only one temple in each county for our sage Confucius. Is not this painful? Let religious instruction be given in each county. Let all the charitable institutions help. Let all the unowned temples and charity guilds be made into temples of the Confucian religion, and thus make the people good, and stop the progress of strange doctrines. Let the most advanced students of Confucianism be called up by the emperor to the capital and given the Hanlin degree and funds to go abroad. If they succeed in establishing schools in foreign countries where are gathered 1,000 pupils, let

them be ennobled. Thus we shall take Confucianism, and with it civilize all the barbarians, and, under the cloak of preaching Confucianism, travel abroad and quickly learn the motives of the barbarians and extend the fame of our country.”

With reference to the suggestions in the foregoing appeal, Mr. Perkins comments as follows:—

“Here, then, is a plan for a Chinese Board of Missions. In spite of the painful fact that there is but one Confucian temple in each county, and ‘no religious teachers,’ everybody knows that the literary ranks are full of men who would be glad at short notice to become missionaries to the barbarians, and who only wait for the ‘outward call’ and the cash. But right here lies a formidable difficulty; for the emperor is known to be short both in cash and in credit. Under these circumstances it would seem fitting for these lovers of Confucianism and also of distant and scheming barbarians (who, by the way, have all the institutions called for in this petition, and many more), to open a subscription list among themselves, and give this society a start at least. But here again the above difficulty reappears, and tenfold stronger. No measure could be proposed so well calculated to extinguish enthusiasm suddenly and completely.”

“There is, however, one plan whose success ought speedily to follow its suggestion. This plan is the expansion of a remark said to have been made by a lady of means who was appealed to for a subscription toward an enterprise for converting the Jews. She declined, saying that she understood that the Jews were rich enough to convert themselves. So is it with many to-day who live in Boston, Chicago, and other leading cities. All they need to do to get a new cult and culture, directly imported from the one and only central kingdom, is to subscribe readily and liberally, and the thing is done. The men are ready. The signers of this petition all have the degree corresponding to the D.D. of western (but barbaric) lands, and those that come to you will have, if the emperor follows the suggestions quoted, far higher degrees than this.”