The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-03-23

remarks of Bystander as printed in
your issue of March 20.
| The only error in my letter of March
Is was that a misprint stated that the
Chinese purchased land for a Christian
graveyard in 1887 1t should have read
| 1S77. If the bones of those buried so
long ago are ever to find their way
to zone of those little roadside cene-
teries where Buddha watches over his
own" haste had better be made or
bones win be hard to find. Meanwhile
the graves remain undisturbei.
was not aware that Bystander had
ever lived in China. presume he had
tailor shop there as he says he has
here, in which case he must have been
so closely confined to his shop IN order
| to make a living in competition with
Chinese taflors that he had no time TO
know any thing about Christian Mis-
sions or their work.
In relation to his liking a heather
youth who remains a pagan because
as Bystander says he never could
abide the idea of the converted son go
ing to heaven while his unconverted
parents went to he'll" etc, 1 would
state that in my varied life, lived in
several countries, I have never yet met
a Christian who imagined that the said
heather parents necessarily, because
they were heathens, went to hell"
always thought that the Apostle st.
Paul in the first portion of his Epistle
to the Romans stated clearly the Chris
tian position, when he wrote nearly
nineteen centuries ago that the Gentiles
(which have no law are "a law unto
themselves" and their thoughts "accus
ing them or else excusing them in the
day when God shall judge the secrets
of men,"
The fact is that the Bystander has
fully made up his mind that Missions
are useless and that if Chinese, Hawai-
ians or others confess themselves Chris
tians it is all a sham and a farce, and
that money and labor are wasted when
given to Missionary effort. The By
stander represents class. Their views
are those which many centuries ago,
proud Romans or supercilious Greeks
had in relation to Missionary work
among the tattooed inhabitants of Brit
ain or the barbaric tribes in the Ger
manic forests. What was the use of
thinking for a moment that Christian
influences could prevail among the
fierce Picts or bloodthirsty piratical
Norsemen. Keep the money and effort
for work among our own race! Those
people are incapable of rising to Chris
tan ideas and manhood. If they should
profess to believe in Christ in the hour
of death they would return to their
trust in Wooden or Thor!
But the Christian Missionaries went |
on with their work and the time came |
when these despised tribes developed
under Christian ideals into the most adj
vanced nations of the world. I know
my cynical friend may say that this
is natural development and not the
result of Christianity. The fact remains
that this development has been Chris |
tian and the laws, customs, modes of
thought, of these nations are saturated
with Christianity, and that there is
not a spot on the earth which IS a fit
place to bring up a family with high
ideals, unless the religion of Jesus
Christ has cleared the way.
As I passed the tailor shop" of the |
Bystander yesterday and saw him at
his trade I thought that if the Mis-
sionaries had not carried the Gospel TO
his barbaric ancestors he might then |
have been bound to a tree in some
dense forest and his enemies might !
have been debating around the council !
fire whether to fay him alive or to offer
his large and well fed body to the gods
on the altar.
The truth is the people of the class
which the Bystander represents do not i
wish to pass on the blessings which |
they enjoy. They are willing to let oil |
the horrors of paganism go on, men
debased with no idea of the loving god, |
women and children in the hopeless deg |
radiation of heathenism and TO stand !
back and sheer at every effort made to
give light to souls in darkness. In the |
face of history this conduct is utter |
perfectly content to enjoy |
all the blessings of a Christian civiliza- |
ton, and to deride and belittle every |
effort made to carry on the work which |
viii not stop until the kingdom of man
shall become the kingdom of God.
The Bystander asserts that he knows
the Chinese thoroughly, and intimates |
that 1.-The Bishop" does not know them
very well and may be readily deceived. |
have lived for twenty-five years
where Chinese We're numerous. I have
OIL 10