Waterbury Democrat., 1900-10-23
{ a DIFFICULT os TASK.
That of the Christian Miss;cnarie5
 in China.
Alnoxf Insuperable obstacles to suc- cess in Their Work of Consert-
 ing the MonEohans-Meth- ods Employed.

of thes empire. Many of them, in in. tellectual and spiritual gifts, are far above the average ofour home workers. In their doiiSs With the natives they prove to be influenced by the highest principles of good will and humanity, as we'll as by Christian charity. They are men and women of whom America may well feel proud. says Prof. John Fgyev in AinSles's. ..-.
 some who criticise the labors of mis- -aaries dspsnd only upon bare sta ..sics. They reckon up the number 5st mission stations and church mem bers with the number of years of work, and take these as the measure of use fulness. Such people do not realize the difficulties of the situation, which make the results beyond the reach of arith metical computation. The re.i. gious beliefs, the customs and preju- dices, of the Chinese are intrenchcd
 behind centuries upon centuries of su.
 perStition. It must be remembered that China is the most ancient empire in the world. Before the Jews became nation. say, 25 centuries before Christ, China's civilization had already reached a high standard. Her wealthy inhabitants wore silks and satins while the Israslites were in Egypt. and long centuries before Greece and Rome were thought of. Her ethics, her laws and administration of government have come down almost unchanged through all those thousands of years. As far back as history goes the Chinese were gov erned by almost the same form of pa.
 ternal or patriarchai government that has stood unshaken amid the rise and
 fall of western empires, and is still as influential in it's strength and vigor.
 It is this antiquity which the Chinese fall back upon with so much pride that stands in the way of their accepting anything so modern as Christianity.
 But in the consideration of the diffi- culties the missionary has to encoun- ter there is not only the antiquity bu. also the enormous size of the nation
 and the extent of country. Out of
 total of 5.0oO,0e0 square miles the 1S provinces, or China proper, contain 1900, GOO of square miles. In the mid
 dle of China is one of the greatest and most denssiy populated plains in the world, through which flow the Yel- low river and the 1angtse. This one
 plain supports population of l75.0CC,-
 coo, or nearly three times as many people as inhabit the United States. The emperor of China rules over one tenth of the surface of the inha bitable
 globe, and nearly half the popu-a tion of our planet. Both the land and the people are not only immense and over. whelming. but strange, unique and
 without analogy. The methods used for preaching the Gospel in our own lands or among uncisilized races have
 to be modified greatly. if not entirely changed, when applied to the civiliza ton of China. The mass to be moved is enormous. and the power applied must
 be great in proportion. .. Added to this difficulty of the size of the nation there is the comple1ity of the language. The old saying that
 "ths devil invented the Chinese char
 acters to keep Christianity out or China" appears to have some show of reason when we find that in place of Chinese alphabet there are tens
 thousands of formidable hiero2lyphic- of pictorial characters. and that eaca, l constitutes separate monosyl!ab, word. Furthermore, this written lam gua.s is to be seen and not heard, to be read and not spoken. Then there is the official or court language used in
 the northern and ceatral provinces, with hundreds of different dialects spoken south of the Ian1tSe. The mis- | sionary there has therefore to learn | the local dialect, the court language
 and the written CT classical language before he can preach, read the trans lations of the Scriptures and carry on
 oral and written intercourse with all
 the dfferent Classes Q" natives he
 meets. This alone is the work almost of lifetime.
 But when the missionary has over 1 come these difficulties, which few sue | caed in doing beyond certain limited
 extent, his task is only just begun. He
 has to learn all that the ordinary Chi
 ness know from their classical and oth-
 CT books and teachers in order to meet / them on their owa ground. Then he mus. begin to attack the sentiments |! ths Chinaman holds most dear and
 which are haLowed by the earliest as l sociaticns and parental love. These
 ancestral teachings and examples, with his methods of religious worship, are .dseply imbsddsd in his inmoSt heart. l. let the missionary has to ask him to + give up many or mos. of them and &C., tspt m tried foreign doSmas and III eth-
 qds in their place. Is it any wonder
 that the conservative principle in Chi | sIe$s human n3 tUr2 rsp.ls. and that he
 Chinaman naturally is opposed to all.
 missionary propa2andisrn? I. is al- ] most impossible to realize the immense
 sacrifice Chinese. even of the lower clnSs has to make when in, the face
 sf the opposition and the contempt of his family, his kinsmen, his whole clan
 and his friends. he deternines to be- come a sincere Christian and to follow
 ths teachin.s of uncouth-.ooking
 strangers from far-ofr lands who are i po2ular!y known as foreign devils!" 1srlia as . Eisi MaEkat