University of Nanking - Linguist Yearbook (Nanking, China)

Page 26 text:

THE GLAD EVANGEL. - 23 , A religious procession is passing. It consists of the most disreputable looking women carrying torn banners, little children. half-clothed in rags and dragging little wagons filled with the most inane looking wooden dummies Iever saw, a few priests in dirty brown gowns complete the procession. Such a procession often. presents the most despicable travesty on religion that could well be- lmagined. . Step inside this temple, to one side is a ragged shake-down in. which the dirty, stolid-looking priest sleeps. Behind the idol are some dirty tables on which tea is served if you order it. Before the Idol is an old can lilled with sticks. For the fraction of a penny you may have the priest shake the can and the stick that first tumbles out will tell your fortune. One's ideas of a temple suffera sudden. eclipse. This dirt and squalor a temple? Yes indeed! And that represents religion to masses of people in many towns and villages we- have seen. NW .t4159.1.-ff:-5'3jjQ :H '. ' j'3'i'7 ' 7 - J. 1 - ' . qt. Vg . V it v half' V . 55121. X ' I . t. F1 l l is i . .-W , f.j,l '-ue. 'y uf 'A,ist.. ' in I v Ul mer ? ' A..-M, -K rx. A+ .tigvi - ,r L ' E 'U 'mfr '1:p.,,, . t . .- ' -' -is A, ' -swf ' ' ' W ifffxfftliiir' X . , X 'Ki tt, Children in the Street. A woman sits beside the dusty road dressing a child's sores. She- Was tearing the scabs off the suitering child's head, as the little one Sat in the dust and dirt of the hot street, swaying in its weakness and exhaustion. A tilthy, agonized little child, an ignorant, stolid mother' Outside a hovel of a home. Do they need Christ? Of course many Chinese deplore these conditions just as we do, but they have no remedy. Christian friends, you have. You have life and love and hope and joy in Christ. We are overwhelmed with the immensity oi our task, Come over and help us l So universal is the feeling that the missionary is somehow not just an ordinary mortal that one aspect of his life almost came as a. surprize to us. We discovered that the missionaries' life is a perfectly normal, vigorous human life. Most people have the tendency to Drovincialism which makes them feel that the particular spot on the- globe with which they are familiar is the mosh, if not the only,-

Page 25 text:

,22 THE LINGUIST' will find every imaginable kind of complication in the work, all of which he is expected to straighten out. ln short, he is responsible for guiding the education in Christian ideals of all his constituency from kindergarten to native pastors. ln the Language School are new missionaries connected with many denominations. They represent every shade of theological belief, yet to the best of our knowledge there has not been a shade of dissensionor unpleasant controversy during the whole year. This is because we are faced with a gigantic taskg the winning of China for Christ. When our many denominations realize the world's sad and bitter need they can and will unite, not on statement of doctrine, but on something far more important, i.e.g the winning of the world to its Savior. Don't interfere with them, their religion is all right for them and they get alongall right. it hardly seems necessary to answer that objection to mission work, but perhaps a 'few illustrations will show the reasons for evangelistic work in China as we see it. A few brief word pictures will perhaps enable you to judge for yourself whether or not we should give them a knowledge of Christ. Outside our gate the women are washing their food in a filthy pool witha green scum on it. In the same pool they wash their clothes and let the ducks and geese paddle. Filthy sewerage empties into it and a vile stench arises, but every day they sit on the bank and wash their rice and vegetables there. Of course disease sweeps off multitudes. The 'Village Washtub A

Page 27 text:

24 THE LINGUIST desirable place in which. to live. W'e are all somewhat like the man in the Arkansas mountains who, when he heard ol New York said, How can people bear to live so far away. So people as they consider missionary work, think that life in the mission field, a place so far away, cannot be quite normal. The first year at Nanking quite disillusions one. Here we have electric lights, a large daily newspaper, from Shanghai with as up-to-the- minute news as the' average American paper. We turn to Mut and Jef and Bringing up Father before perusing the news columns just as do the folks at home. There are three or four deliveries of mail a day. One may have the tradesman call, including the barber and tailor if he wants them. We have regular train and boat service several times daily, automobiles and even radio broadcasting. You may have your library and typewriter and almost anything else you have at home. The fact is China is no further away than London or New York or Berlin or San Francisco or Melbourne, in fact one rapidly comes to feel that the Chinese were partly right when they called China the Middle Kingdom. When we go to our stations we do not have so many conveniences, but we have something worth more than all of them put togetherg we have the most fascinating work that ever falls to the lot of man to do, the building of a great people in the knowledge of Christ. we-TTR-Iliff -N W ' is This building constructed of bamboos and matting is the type of building used for evangelistic meetings in Nanking