Mexico weekly ledger., 1886-10-28
THE STRONGHOLD OF SATAN.
china as n Missionary Field, a Lecture
by j. W. DAVIS, ID. ID.

CHURCH III IHe OulLeu OJdteS.
The reverend lecturer introduced
his subject by reading from the Scrip
lures to inform his hearers OF how
God looked upon heather and idola-
trous nations. 1t would be 3 great
mistake, continued he, to conclude
that Cinnamon had no consciences.
They had consciences as described
by the Apostle Paul, that prompted
to the excusing and accusation of
one another. They had no true con-
ception of holiness; but were not
ignorant of the fundamental prirci-
pies of uprightness. They have light
enough to understand fully the God
of nature, if they were willing to
listen to natures voice and wished
to retain God in their knowledge.
China, continued the lecturer, is
an extensive and fertile country. 1t
is considerably larger than the United
States, China proper being about of
the same size. 1t consists of three
great plains, drained by the rivers
Hoang-ho, or Yellow River, and
Yang-tse-Kiang or Son of the Ocean,
as the Chinese love to call it. The
basins drained are estimated to cover
over one million of square miles. These
are exceedingly fertile, and abound
in nearly all the trees of America,
with many unknown to this country.
Besides these are numerous varieties
of vegetables, grains, not to mention
rice, upon which Cinnamon principal
ly live; there were also wheat oats, and
barley, with sugar and cotton. AS
a sugar growing country only Cuba
could be compared to it. Then tea,
tobacco and silk were produced in
immense quantities for domestic and
foreign consumption. The noun
tains in China are full of ~undevelop-
ed minerals awaiting transportation.
Besides coal, which exists in mex
haustable quantities, there are iron,
copper, silver and gold. The coun-
try abounds in cattle and horses, and
in Northern China are camels, sheep,
goats, with every variety of fowls ex-
cept turkies, ducks being in great
abundance; fish are also plentiful of
both Of the fresh and saltwater
varieties.
This vast country has three hun
dred and twenty millions of inhabit-
ants, who don't live, as some imagine,
on rats, cats and puppies. They are
a wicked but not a barbarous people.
Of their civilization there are many
incontestable proofs; of these one is
the great wall called Wan-le-chang,
built over 1000 years ago, over large
rivers, through deep valley and
across almost every possible natural
obstacle for the distance of 1850
miles, and Of the heighth of twenty
feet. Another of these proofs is the
family of Confucius existing after the
passage of seventy generations, CIV
ing such a vivid illustration of con-
servatism and endurance as a be
found nowhere else. Still another
is the language, simple enough as
spoken. but complex beyond Ameri-
a conception as written; some Of
their characters having as many as
twenty-six strokes, and yet these
are in every day practical use in
business, schools, courts, &c.
They are a civilized people and it
will not do to judge of them by the
Cinnamon that come to this country.
One might as well go to the prisons
and take the men breaking rock there
as specimens Of the A~nglo-Saxon
race.
Still the missionary is justified in
calling China the great modern bull
wark of Satan. Travellers visiting
the Colosseum of Rome said of that
city as long as the Colosseum stood
Rome would stand, and that when it
fell Rome would fall. And now it
may be SAID as long as heather
China stands, Satan will have an en-
pire. The great crimes of China are
male and female vileness, suicide,
infanticide, dishonesty and idolatry.
Forty-two years ago there were but
six protestant converts in China;
to-day there are over thirty thous-
and. Forty years ago there were
but five missionary stations to-day
there are a hundred, with one thous-
and missionaries. There are also
many millions OF pages of the Bible
and tracts printed annually and mis-
sienary medical hospitals number
from twenty to thirty.
When the Savior was on earth he
ministered to the sick and destitute
and healed them, and the coed effects
of these hospitals issfelt throughout
China.
The Missionary work in China, said
the reverend lecturer, in closing,
may be compared to the work done
several years ago at Hell-gate in New
York harbor-blow after blow was
struck upon the rocks, holes drilled,
trenches formed and filed with dyna-
mite, but it was not until the engineer
took his little daughter to his Of
flee and bid her press upon the but
ton of the electric wires connected
with the powder, that the effect of that
vast labor vas realized. The result
of missionary work in China ia not