THE STRATEGIC TIME IN CHINA.
UNDER the head of “Noticeable Changes in China,” a missionary of the American Board names these seven illustrations of radical revolution in progress in Peking: “The macadamized pavement; the new shops along the streets, instead of spreading goods upon the ground; the first woman’s newspaper which, better than anything else, shows the new attitude toward women; the many girls’ schools; the popularity of lectures upon Western science; the reception into the missionaries’ homes of the sisters of the third prince, one a Mongolian princess herself, and that these ladies are willing to speak in the church at lectures for women; the open attacks made in the newspapers upon many superstitions and practises of worship in the various temples, and the numerous other things quite as noticeable.” Commenting on this statement, Christian Work says: “This is the opportunity of the Christian church, and the strategic time in China’s history, when there is such wholesale turning from and rejecting the old.” It is well to remember also that the adversary of souls will not be asleep while the people are letting go the delusions with which he has so long deceived them. He is fruitful of schemes of that character, and in the guise of new light and progressive reform he will present new perversions of truth, some of which will be very close imitations. If the friends of genuine truth are not alert in bringing to the attention of these newly-aroused people the unadulterated Word of God, other false theories will be fastened upon them—even in the name of Christianity—that will lead them shy of the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” Verily now is our opportunity in the Orient.