The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-10-02

made mistakes, fewer than anybody
else on the best testimony under the
sun. Mainly their mistake seems to
| have been mistake to which we are
not at all given in this country the
! mistake of urging the Christian con-
yerts to stand by each other and stand
ing by them themselves. The Roman
Catholics have been more direct and
material in this respect apparently than
| the Protestants and the Chinese charge
that many criminals and unworthy
| characters have taken refuge behind
| the power of the Christians. 1t may
be so, the church is fallible, but doubt
the whole charge without doubling the
| honesty of the Chinese either. 1t Is
| just what they said in Rome 1900 years
! ago, and is a more or less honest mis-
| take arising from ignorance of the diff
| ference between a sinner and a con-
verified sinner. So they said of Jesus
| the pubicans and sinners take refuge
with Him.
| Do we not begin to discern now the
real nature of the situation; it certain
| ly is the closing in Of great struggle,
fight to the finish this time between
struggle between nations, 1t is a strug-
gle between Christendom and heathen-
dom 1t is unfortunate that guns and
diplomats and commerce are just now
so prominent in it because they obscure
the fundamental issue and make those
who have no sympathy with their ut
ter selfshness and hypocrisy slow foot
ed to the inevitable conflict. The con-
fiict is old and has often slumbered for
a thousand years or so. Cain went out
from the face of the Lord a marked
man. China scored the next success
apparently and big one, for 1t Is now
believed that the erection of the great
wall by closing all progress to the Tar
tars east and south hurled them baf-
fled ocean back westward and precpi-
tated the Huns on Rome ending that
great empire and civilization. AS
American Indians the Mongol vanished
easily before the Saxon, and descending
as Chinese on our Pacific coast
we shut him out. But the Pacific and
the Hymilayers no longer separate, the
west has overtaken the east, Christen-
dom and heathendom touch all along
their lines, and Christendom can never
can save itself only by saving China
and Russia. You can't conquer four
hundred million people though you
should overrun them with armies every
year and establish corporation selling
American goods on every corner Meth
er England nor any other free people
can conquer or stay Russia. Russia
must be born again. become herself
free, China must be regenerated her
self. If tribes of a few hundred thous-
and eavages in Africa, dying out any
way by their own quarrels and vices
kill missionaries and expel traders
there is no particular menace to civii-
cation in 1t. But when enormous grow
ing peoples like the Russian and Chi
nese lift themselves up against you you
can neither disregard, exterminate nor
conquer them All you can do Is render
them not only harmless but helpful by
making them free and Christians like
yourselves. Moral and political quar-
antines are mere expedients; the only
safety is the sanitation of the plague
breeding areas. The missionary of the |
cross, the evangelist of human freedom.
will be the victor in this last struggle
Tartar himself will be victor
/ doubt If even those who have long
dwelt among the Chinese and Tartars
can tell truly which would most hasten
the victory which alone is possible,
the Open Door" or the sphere of In
f1uence." 1t looks to me as though the
open Door" was best In theory but
absolutely impracticable We should
simply have another sick Turkey play
Ing off the nations against each other.
But in any case the real solver of the
situation, the evangelist Of the cross
and the common school will keep right
at it, getting his instructions from
neither Washington, London st. Pc
nor Berlin and Paris, but
rom the lips of Him who said "I, If 1
De lifted up, will draw all men unto
Me-"