The age-herald., 1900-07-15

1 ican, or bank notes. for s1,00O gold, and, as 1 a rule, $ Mexican in China will buy as much and will go as far $2 in gold in | this country. For instance. had suits of clothes made there for $10 which could not be duplicated here for less than $40 Shirts underwear, hats and all manner of wearing material were furnished at the same proportionate prices. Ask any naval officer who has served on the China station and he will tell you that his uniforms made in China or Japan cost him one-fourth of the price he pays in Washington or New York Fish, vegetables, eggs, chickens, rice mutton; indeed, nearly everything Is cheap in the far East, therefore the mis- sionaries can live well, and they do as a rule, live upon the fat of the land. Yet, as l have said before, they are entitled to 1t, | but still assert, and I am sure that many missionaries of long experience VIII ell dorse my statement that quantities of | money are being wasted in the mission service in China.
 There are some Chinese youths now be- ing educated by the churches in this coun- | try More of them should be brought here. Let few men with the knowledge and | common sense possessed by pr. Young G. Allen do their work In China in the right way-educate the youth in the fundamental principles of the English language and the fundamental doctrines of Christianity; | then send them to this country, educate them thoroughly and return them to China to go forth and preach the Gospel 10 the
 multitudes of that Oriental kingdom. They
 will be competent. They will be listened to. Their arguments will have force and effect while the arguments or the mlssloh- ary from this country who Is sent there' and who after years of study can only ac- quire a little pigeon Chinese, cannot nave much force or effect.
 The Chinaman, rule, has a gooo mind. But take the highest type or her- l chant in San Francisco for instance, who has been in this country ten, hfteen or l twenty years Few of them can speak Eng 1 fish well enough to go on the lecture plat | form or in the pulpit and speak to an American audience with any degree or l force or effect on any subject. How, there- | fore, can you expect an American man | from 25 to 35 years of age to go to China and become effective in religious teachings in many, many years!
 The medical missionary has accomplished good by relieving suffering and dealing | with disease, but I feel quite sure, rom | knowledge acquired from missionaries | themselves and from American merchants I in China that fully 80 per cent of our ex- | penditures for mission work in China is l wasted, because we go into the work wrong 1 end foremost
 I give facts, which, though brief, think | should appeal to the thoughtful mind. | believe in mission work. I am not attempt | ing to instruct the American public con- 1 corning the conditions of missionary life. | but do know that the work as it is going 1 on today is not what Dr. Newman thinks it
 i is and I believe that 1t can be greatly i'm 1 proved by the methods, which are not my l suggestions, but which were acquired by me from missionaries of great and long ex- perience, and from those who have repeat l edly made such recommendations l know missionaries who were in that country | whose English education is far below the | ordinary standard in this country - men who could not get a chance in the ministry l in this country, and who were sent there
 l to teach people ten thousand times hard
 CT to teach than our people at home.
 1
 | Any naval officer who has served on the l China station can tell you of mission on 1 the gulf of Pechili for which a fund - a l great fund-was raised in this country to 1 build church. The church was built A l letter was written back to this country by l the missionary in charge of it stating that 1 he had used the few remaining brick from | the structure to build him a small resi- l dence, and that he and his family were now 1 comfortable. The residence and the church are there. The church is an outhouse in | the yard of the residence-Small and over ' shadowed by the splendid dwelling -house
 l The mass of money went to the residence | the remainder to the church. Yet what can l these men do? Sent to foreign country to preach to a people of whose language and | customs they have no knowledge - just 1 dumped in among them to teach
 them. Of course, some of them are | apt scholars, . and soon learn the l language and become effective but
 the great mass of them amount to ab- solutely nothing except, of course, to aid 1 in the extension of trade. which the mis-