Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-11-07
THE CLOSING SESSION
Woman's Board of Missions
Completes Its Work.
ADDRESSES DELIVERED
WORK IN CHINA DESCRIBED BY
MRS. GOODRICH.
The Mission in Mexico - Board Ad-
journs to Meet Next in
New Haven.
ADDRESSES DELIVERED

The thirty-ffth annual meeting of the
woman's board of missions, which began
sessions Wednesday morning at the First
Congregational Church, at 10th and q
streets, came to a close yesterday after
noon. Miss Ellen NJ Stone of Salonica,
Turkey. delivered the closing address, TAX
ing as her theme, Lessons Learned from
My Captivity.
Miss Stone gave detailed account of the
experiences of herself and Madame Tslka
from the time they were captured until they
were liberated She described the various
types of brigands who infest Macedonia,
and told of the good lessons she had learned
through her capture.
Mrs. Chauncey Goodrich, member of
the North China mission, who was in the
siege of Pekin, addressed the gathering on
'China-the Open Door" she said in part:
During all these centuries China, by
every means known to statecraft and the
passions of men, has resisted an open door
Two reasons have animated those who, In
spite of every obstacle, have steadily
pressed in. The first has been the hope of
gain, with the belief in the inalienable right
of intercourse and the mutual beneht OF
trade: the second, the belief that life, real
life, which enables man to reach his high
est possibility, was only found by the
knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ.
Inch by inch has that great door been open
ing. The war with Japan revealed China
by foreign men-of-War. Russia pressed
down on the NORTH France pressed up on
the south, while Russia, England and Ger
many planted their forts right upon the
mainland-forts bristlng with foreign guns
and manned by foreign soldiers"
"A few of her own men, possessed with
patriotism and inoculated with the virus of
reform, but without experience and with
slight knowledge of history, saw and saw
rightly-and, better still, led their emperor
to see-that in warfare they would fail, but
by removing the ignorance of China's peo-
pie and by placing worthy officials in posi-
tons of power and trust, there was hope
for the nation.
How should a young lad not know that
an emperor possessed of autocratic power
could not do as he would with his sub
jects? BY his DEGREES he struck blow
at the Manchu power by removing incapa-
bic and conservative ManChus from office
and putting Chinese in their stead. He
struck at the old learning by demanding
knowledge of western mathematics, his
tory, geography as a sine qua non for ali
applicants for degrees. He struck a blow
at Buddhism and Taoism by ordering the
turning of many of the temples into school
houses for teaching western branches, thus
striking a blow also at superstitions and
thereby lessening the revenues of the tenn
pies. He struck blow even at Confucian-
ism itself by putting into the head of young
China the notion that there might even be
better days ahead than the boosted days of
Yao and Shun, and possibilities for the
children yet unborn, which would lead to
greater heights than their ancestors had
ever attained. He would even turn the face
of all China from contemplating a glorious
past to a still more glorious future and
thus weaken the acknowledged right of the
parent or elder to govern body and soul,
mind and heart of son and daughter.