CHINA-ITS NEEDS by Lizzie Nelson Fryer

Pacific Press Publishing Company · OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA · Feb 22, 1899

CHINA—ITS NEEDS.

By Lizzie Nelson Fryer

NEARLY four hundred millions of people—our brothers and sisters—endowed as ourselves with many possibilities for growth and expansion into upright, moral, and spiritual lives, living without hope and without God; taught from early childhood to pray to heathen deities represented by hideous idols, and to look to them for aid and guidance; living for no object beyond the gratification of self; their good deeds done only with the idea of bettering their condition here and gaining merit in the other world; bound down by a constant and heavy draft upon their time and means by their obligations to keep up the worship of their ancestors; enduring all manner of privations in order to continue this tremendous expenditure, which affects nearly every family over the whole empire—this in part is a picture of the people in China. Priest-ridden are they, with millions of Buddhists and Taoists who, like wolves, prey upon the people and rob them of their hard-earned money because of boasted powers to ward off evil and threatening influences.

The people are everywhere oppressed by a corrupt officialdom and an iniquitous government. Their women are degraded and kept in an ignorance that is but little better than slavery. Naturally bright and active, but having learned to accommodate themselves to their conditions, their minds remain undeveloped, and they become superstitious in the extreme. In order to be married into respectable and influential families little girls are made to undergo the tortures of having their feet bandaged and cramped until they are unable to walk naturally, and are restricted in their work because of the inconvenience and suffering which they must bear all their lives. Foot-binding is practised in nearly all parts of the Empire and among all classes. The high and low, rich and poor, old women of seventy as well as young girls of six, are deprived of the natural use of their feet because of this atrocious custom. Among the higher classes each official usually has two or more wives and several concubines, so that the lives of the women are most neglected and unhappy, and their dispositions are trained to jealousy and depression. "No cheer in this life and no hope for the next," have I often thought after talking with them.

Add to all these things the curse of the opium habit, which is increasing its power over men, women, and children of all classes, deadening the voice of conscience within them, causing them to kill time and forget their responsibility in its stupefying fumes, and the China of to-day reveals a picture of an immense downtrodden mass of humanity which unaided human help can never relieve or lift to a higher plane. The victims of this habit gradually lose all self-respect, ambition, and the power to speak the truth. They become unfitted to gain a livelihood or live respectably. The people themselves see the ravages, and denounce it, but are helpless to stay its progress. Like a canker it is threatening the vitality of the very nation itself.

What Has Been Done for China?

It is now more than fifty years since a little band of noble Protestant men and women began their life-work in this empire. They were strong in the faith that God had a people there and that they were called to bring them out of darkness into the light of God's truth, else they could not have had the courage to endure the trials, hardships, and privations of those early years of missionary life. The work was slow and discouraging and oftentimes disheartening, but by perseverance, obstacles were overcome, schools established, and the work carried on. From such small beginnings the work has extended till now the Christian portion of China has become composed of intelligent men and women who are prosperous and thrifty and in many stations are sending out laborers from their own numbers into the neighboring towns and cities, bearing the whole burden of their support. In the country may often be found churches and schools which are entirely carried on by the native Christians.

Within the last five years there has come a great change over mission work in China. Where the people were difficult of access and turned deaf ears to the Gospel message, they are now crying out for more help to be sent from the home lands. Their schools are crowded as never before. The Bible has been translated into the many different dialects and taught in the schools of the various missions and portions of it scattered by native colporters, until the "Jesus doctrine" has been heard of in nearly all parts of the empire. The people are coming, in this time of unrest, to feel their need of something they do not possess, and are gaining the courage to approach the missionaries and talk over their needs.

The attention of the whole world is now turned toward China, and more information about that country can be gained from the periodicals and newspapers in one month now than in all the years of the past. The day of her long-talked-of and prayed-for awakening has, in the providence of God, arrived. The burden of those who have her best interests at heart will no longer be in regard to her conservatism, but will be about the influences which shall direct her progress as she enters into a freer intercourse with the rest of the world. Just at this time, when the demands of other powers bear heavily upon her, seems the hour for Christianity with a new impetus to press her advanced civilization and true and pure religion upon the people of this whole empire. While there is special encouragement among the different workers in China, still the seventy thousand Christians scattered here and there are only as a handful compared with those who have never been in the least influenced by Christianity.

But the greatest need of all is for many more consecrated men and women to come to her assistance—men and women who will be willing to give up home and country and friends and devote their whole lives for the help of that people, for the chiefest influence one can have among such a people is that which is exerted by a consistent, true, earnest, every-day life. This counts far more than do all the sermons and talk of a lifetime. I speak what I do know of this matter. Those are wanted who will not fear sickness or the trying climate, who have a knowledge of the laws of our physical being, and obey them as far as possible, and will leave all the rest to Him who careth for such and will sustain and guide in their labors. And, above all, Bible teachers are needed, for it is the entrance of the Word which giveth light.

LIZZIE NELSON FRYER.