DOES IT REPRESENT CHRIST?
THE Kansas City Journal prints a letter from a captain serving in the United States army in the Philippines, describing a banquet that was given on the occasion of the baptism of a Chinaman into the Catholic faith. The opening paragraph of the letter expresses the surprise of the captain at the ability of those semi-civilized people to give a banquet, in the following language:— "I was a witness the other day to an event that, had I not seen with my own eyes, would not have believed was possible among a people who in many things are no farther advanced than the civilization of 2,000 years ago, and in a country village, too, containing not over 600 inhabitants, and eight miles from the only railroad in the island." The letter then gives some personal matters in regard to how enthusiastically the captain was received by those assembled at the banquet, and describes the feast in the following words:— "The table was decorated in fine linen, silver, cut glass, and china. At every plate was a bottle of red wine, champagne, and glasses. Everything was served in courses in ultra fashionable style, a change of plates, knives, forks, and spoons at each course. It began with baked Spanish mackerel, then followed three or four other varieties of the 'finny tribe,' then baked duck, turkey, and chicken, with a French dressing; strange but delicious salads. One, I remember, consisted of sliced oranges, tomatoes, onion wafers no larger than a silver three-cent piece. After chopped lettuce came a world of fancy dishes that were new to me, but simply elegant. The last course was fresh and candied fruits and other sweetmeats and confections; then cigars, cigarets, and fancy toothpicks, one end of which was whittled to represent some one of the different tropical plants of the country. Thus ended a banquet that would have done credit to the first-class hotels of the inland towns of our own country." Any one who will study the real life of the real Christ of God until he becomes imbued with the spirit of the Gospel, will feel a sense of such sadness as words can not express at the thought that those poor, confiding heathen are being made to think that such things as are indicated by such a banquet are to be associated with Christianity. Those who really know the Lord, and who are more anxious to see that Christ is properly represented in the earth than they are to build up some man-made ideas of theology, should stand ready to answer the call at any moment to go to those lands and let the light of the Master's teaching and life as it is in very fact, shine out through them.