THE CHINESE by MRS. SUSAN BIRDSALL ROBERTS.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA · Sep 5, 1900

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 26, No. 36.

THE CHINESE.

By MRS. SUSAN BIRDSALL ROBERTS.

IT was our pleasure to listen to a returned missionary not long since, and I should like to tell the little boys and girls some things he said. You have no doubt seen Chinese idols, and have been sad to think there are people so ignorant of the knowledge of the true God as to worship them. This missionary said that these idols are all over the country, not only in houses and shops, but by the roadside. In some places there are many together, the middle one the tallest, and the smaller ones ranging along the row. The Chinese will not enter a shop where there is no idol.

The Five Idols in the Joss Temple of Lung Gong, Chinatown, San Francisco, Cal.

Superstition covers the whole empire like a pall. The people do most absurd things to appease evil spirits. They have in many places no horses, or mules, or beasts of burden of any kind, the men and women being their own burden-bearers; consequently they have no roads, but only foot-paths, which they make very circuitous indeed, in order to cheat the evil spirits, who, they think, are ever on their track.

Now would you not like to tell them the true way to escape evil, that is, to keep in straight paths morally? They can do this by accepting the dear Redeemer, and by keeping close to His side in prayerful living. I am sure I hear you say, "Yes, indeed." You can tell them by denying yourself some things, and thus saving the money, which is so much needed to send the Gospel to them. Some of you can go yourselves and teach them, when you are older. They are eager to learn, and when converted make very earnest Christians. They believe in a Great Spirit, that He is omniscient and omnipresent; but they know so little about Him! How pleasant it seemed to this missionary to break to them the bread of life, to explain to them the truths of the Bible, as he journeyed with them in their boats to and from market, and sat in their shops, mingling with them, and seeking opportunities to do them good, as did the Saviour when He was here among men! Until only a few years ago China kept her doors closed against foreigners, and the Gospel could not reach her people. Now the missionaries may preach and teach, without lot or hindrance. O, how white the fields for the harvest!

The Chinese are reverential, but very superstitious. If they find a stone that they can fancy bears any resemblance to a person with arms folded, they count it good luck, and make it an object of worship.

Only think of the difference the Gospel makes in our condition. To it we owe the best that we have,—schools, churches, and all the blessings of a Christian civilization. Even the common comfort of a bed the Chinese do not enjoy. A lady physician who has spent much time in observation says they sleep on shelves, almost packed in, and that one smokes his pipe of opium until he drops asleep, when another takes it up and smokes it, and so it passes on. "Not very fastidious," you say. No; but with the Gospel they receive our ideas of cleanly and sanitary habits, as well as of morals and religion. A missionary said long ago that when a native was converted, the first thing he wanted was a clean shirt.

The refining, elevating tendency of the Gospel is felt in all lands wherever it is known. It is, indeed, heaven-born, yet so condescending, ever reaching down to the poor and degraded, but ever to lift them up, to bring them into a higher life, a life above mere animal enjoyment—even eternal life, already begun in the soul, with all its sweet and hallowed influences, joys, hopes, anticipations, and expectations. How anxious we should be to bear some humble part in this great work of spreading this glorious Gospel, and cheerfully give up some of our superfluities!

If half these, with the diamonds and other jewels so needless for our comfort, went into the treasury of the Lord, how soon would the heathen world rejoice, and blossom as the rose!

MRS. SUSAN BIRDSALL ROBERTS.