The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1909-07-24

languages; Bishop Schereschewsky,
who translated the whole Bible; Eli
Jah Bridgman, also Bible translator;
and such living veterans as W. A. P.
Martin, D. z. Sheffield, Arthur H.
Smith, DR.. Wherry, and the lately de-
! ceased Calvin J. Matter. The new ed
ucation of China is in the hands of
Christian missionaries and their stu
dents.
No hero of missions regards himself
as such.
Morrison. Milne. Chauncy Good
rich, Walter Lowrie, J. Hudson Taylor,
John L. Nevius, DR.. Peter Parker.
Blodget. DR.. Griffith John. James
Meadows, Hunter Corbert-how the
names of the great servants of China
mount UP. The western world little
knows what they have done, but some
day China will enshrine them in her
hall of great ones.
To say that missionaries are great
and noble and heroic is, of course,
ridiculous. They are not. I have met
all kinds in China alone. But remem-
Der most clearly such men as the re-
served and scholarly B. C. Patterson, a
Southern Presbyterian; DR.. ]. Walter
Lowrie, the great son of one of China's
great missionaries, and himself the
savior of his CITY from destruction by
the Allies in 1900; the sturdy, tirelesS
Courtenay H. Fem, miller of the Pc
king siege and now teacher of teach
ers and a Christian administrator;
Isaac T. Headland, cOnnoisseur in Chi
nese art and literature; Fletcher
Brockman and D. Willard Lyon, major
generals of the new army of Chinese
young men; DR.. w. H. Park, the be-
loved doctor of Soochow. and DR.. H.
c. DuBoSe, of the same city, father
of the anti-opium movement that is
relieving China and the world of this
curse.
An increasing number of natives
are to be numbered among the Chris
tianizing forces of China. Once we
reckoned upon the missionaries to con-
vert the nation; now we see clearly
that if China is ever won to Christ the
chief agency will be the Chinese native
church. Already there exists a China
evangeliZation society, manned and
supported wholly by natives. The spirit
and ability of these young Chinese
V ere among the finest evidences of
Christian progress that I encountered
in China. There are a nuGber of self
governing native churches, and the
day is approaching when these bodies
will be even stronger in China than
they now are in Japan.
official who lives d Christian life in
China is to be reckoned among the
real missionary agencies at work in
that empire.
A new form of Christian co-opera-
ton now at work in China is the Mis-
sionary Service Association. This is in
line with the complete modernization
of the whole missionary enterprise.
The aim is to serve as business agent
for all the mission boards and sOcie-
ties, supplying missionaries with the
necessities of life at the lowest pos
sible prices, through the cooperation
of wholesale merchants and manu-
facturers in America, Great Britain
and Australia.
After all has been said, it remains
patiently and profoundly true that the
greatest of all missionaries is the mys- |
FERROUS and inscrutable Spirit of the !
Living God. The latest news from |
China is like a breath from Pente- |
cost. It tells of wonderful outpour- |
ings, with extraordinary manifesto |
tons, of the Spirit upon the stolid ma |
tives of Manchuria, SO that now the |
gospel is sweeping like fire through |
the whole region about. The revival, !
overlapping vast stretches of country, |
has since gone to Marking, the ancient |
Southern capital of the empire. This !
is no mere warning of CHRISTIAN fervor,
such as the homo churches OCCASION
ally know. 1t is a consuming fire,
that is purifying the native church
and imparting to it a new radiance, so |
that the non Christian neighbors are
being won in numbers to the company
Of peace-filled believers.