The Washington herald., 1911-12-03
Conditions in China
Call for Heroic Service
and Generous Support

is IN IL some particular frlend OF SnTis-
tan missionary work in China. Few
communities there are that have not
furnished one or more of the almost
5000 missionaries now in that country.
The missionary societies report that moth
ing in the present uprising in China
seems aimed at foreigners, while there
are. many reasons why rebels and loyal
lists alike will protect them, if for no
other one than to prevent Intervention
by American or european powers and
possible division OF their empire.
The committee of reference and counsel
of all foreign missionary societies OF the
United States and Canada, the Rev. DR..
Arthur ]. Brown, OF the Presbyterian
board, chairman, has just sent to
churches in both countries requests for
microscopy prayer by Christian people,
giving as reasons many startling facts.
These facts are under three heads:
l. For the people of China, great and
virile nation, which. awakened from the
! torpor of ages by the quickening forces
of the modern world. is convulsed by
civil war at a time when all its energies
are needed for the legislative, economic,
educational, and moral readjustments
which the new era involves. Flood, FAM
| inc, and pestIlence are intensifying the
| tragedy of internal strife. Vast areas
| have been inundated in the provinces of
| NSanhwei, Kiang-su, and Human, the
two former facing desolation and famine
| for the third time in five years. The
Yangtze River is forty-hve miles wide
and 80 miles from the sea, and thou
| sands of villages have been submerged.
| Five hundred thousand families must be
aided through the winter at an average
cost of SIS per family. or ten times more
| people will die Of starvation than OF
wounds in battle.
2. For the Chinese Christions, who
share in full measure the privations and
sorrows that are the common lot of
their countrymen, and often the de-
spairing reproaches Of their non-Chris-
tan neighbors, who imagine that these
multiplied calamities are due to the
wrath of the spirits against those who
! have abandoned the ancestral faith.
Hundreds of Chinese pastors. teachers
| and evangelists, who have been sup
ported wholly or in part by the Chris
| tians on the field, cannot now be main
| tanned by their impoverished people,
! Churches and schools have been swept
away by floods, families have been scat
/ tered by war, and multitudes Of Chris
! tians are without food and shelter for
/ the winter.
| 3. For the missionaries, who are ir
/ positions of extraordinary difficulty. With
myriads of ruined and starving Chinese
Q
/ ployment. with throngs of the sick and
I injured daily brought for treatment, with
4 Chinese and foreigners alike expecting
them to perform the herculean task OF
/ purchasing and distributing food, they
must necessarily toll in circumstances OF
almost unbearable physical and mental
strain.
In addition to the special burdens which
revolution and famine entail, there are
! increased responsibilities for the great
and varied missionary work under theiT
! care a work which is now represented
/ by 1929 foreign missionaries, n,61 Chi
nese ministers, teachers, and evangelists
:, 4S5 stations and out stations. 2,02S prim'
airy schools, 1,116 academies, colleges
/ Industrial, medical, nurses and norma
schools, 40 hospitals, IA orphanages, Il
leper asylums. 3 homes for unframed
children of Iepers, II institutions for the
blind and for deaf mutes, 3 rescue home:
for fallen women, 16O opium refugees,
| industrial homes, l asylum for the in
sane, 2,341 churches with 27SJ6S mem
bers, a Christian community of 10000
and property valued at millions OF dol
lars-aII this not including the missions
of the Roman Catholic Church.
Christian work." says the committee
has been greatly prospered, the growtl
in a decade having been 1I5 per cent. INT
missionaries are in immediate charge o
this extensive enterprise. The American
Minister at Pekin has ordered womel
and children out of the zones of hostili
ties, but as a rule the men heroically re
main at their posts. They feel that the!
can no more leave at such a time thai
a physician could leave his patient
when contagious disease is epidemic, o
a chaplain his regiment in time of war
This is the day when the faithful mis-
siouary OF Christ is most needed, no
only to care for the mission property an
work, but to comfort and serve the ex
cited and distressed people and to ali
in caring for the sick and wounded"
Speaking for the American and Cana
dian missionary societies themselves, tn
committee refuses to emphasize thei
needs, but reminds Christian people o
both countries that societies must STAN
by their workers. and that famine an
. other special funds ought not to &C
to decrease regular gifts, for regular ex
penditures are being increased as a neces
sary part of the present situation.