Читать книгу: «The American Missionary. Volume 43, No. 07, July, 1889», страница 5

DAKOTA WIND

The next morning we started out for the return to Oahe. The day was warm and pleasant and uneventful. I was comfortable and happy, and as we stopped for lunch when we got hungry, I began to wonder where the hardships of my journey were coming in, but people who are never so happy as when they are uncomfortable, ought to get their just deserts. I got mine. After we started from James Brown's, the wind rose. It rose and it rose. It kept rising. How that wind did blow! It blew us up hill and threw us down hill. It fairly hurled us along. It blew Mr. Riggs's hat off and we chased it for half a mile. It blew my hat off; it blew my hair down; we put into a ravine for repairs. We went through long stretches of burned prairie, and clouds of fire-black dust were flying. We hoped when we got down into the ravine it would not be so bad. Vain hope. It was worse. The dust was blacker and thicker and more dusty. The gravel stung our faces and blinded our eyes. For the entire distance of thirty-five miles, that wind howled and raved and tore. It almost took the ponies off their feet. I have not exaggerated it one bit. It would be impossible to exaggerate. When we reached the house where we had taken dinner going up, we found the dirt blown from the roof, likewise the tar-paper, leaving great cracks through which the dirt rattled. Everything was an inch deep in dirt, but we were welcomed to the shelter of the four walls, and what was left of the roof. The dirt did not matter. We were already done in charcoal. Mr. Collins was here, caught by the wind, and before dark the Agency farmer came. It was impossible to cross the river in such a gale, and here I knew we must stay.

The next morning was still and clear and beautiful. It was difficult to realize that the elements had been on such a tear the day before, so after breakfast we embarked for home, going the seven miles by water this time, and I reached the mission a gladder and a wiser woman.

This glimpse of out-station work is something I have long wanted, and anyone who does not believe in Indian education should see the results of it as they appear here. In the audience on Sunday, were three young women former students, one at Hampton, one at Santee, one at Oahe. Their dress, the expression of their faces, their whole appearance proclaimed the power of Christian education, and it is only in the faces of the Christian Indians that there is any expression of gladness. There is no gladness in their life outside of this. Oh, that the work at these stations may be blessed! There are hundreds and hundreds, yes, thousands of Indians who will never be reached by Hampton, Carlisle, Santee, by all the Indian schools put together, and who will never be Christianized or civilized by "edict from Washington." Christ must be taken to them, lived among them in such a way that his true loveliness may be made apparent to them. Without this, all else goes for naught; with this, life and light must come, and darkness and ignorance and superstition must flee away.—Word-Carrier.

THE CHINESE

THE CHINESE WORK

BY REV. M. McG. DANA, D.D., LOWELL, MASS

I never read any report of this, without feeling both humiliated and inspired. Humiliated, because I have regarded the field so unpromising; inspired, because such glimpses of gracious possibilities and achievements are caught. We have been so incredulous as to certain alien races, that we have only partially and feebly brought to bear upon them the saving influences of the Gospel. We are not, indeed, responsible for the presence of these Orientals in our land. Ours is a different responsibility; it is for their evangelization, now that they have been led to our shores. This work is laid upon us, and never was it more urgent or hopeful than at this hour. It was one of the methods of our Lord to arouse men to noblest service by reminding them of the obligations imposed upon them by their circumstances and opportunities.

Whether the call came to them from a promising or unpromising field, on them rested the duty of responding. In the great Sermon on the Mount, our Lord, after finishing with his gentle and sweet benedictions, abruptly turned and, with changed tone and impressive words, said to his disciples, "Ye are the salt of the earth." On you rests the obligation of becoming the conservative element in society. Confronting as they did a decadent civilization and a vanishing religious faith and a general heart-despair, they were to be the saviors of men. Pungent and preservative as salt, are ye to be in the midst of a putrid age. Few, too, as they were in numbers, and without honor as well, yet they were to be the light of the world. On their luminousness depended their power to influence. The radiancy of their life and teaching was to penetrate the surrounding gloom. Later on follows the divine imperative to "Go forth and disciple all nations."

However unfavorable the outlook, however inadequate they seemed for the undertaking, they were to attempt what was enjoined. It lifted them to an altitude never before reached, and made them conscious of a power never before possessed.

This is the principle which we need to apply to the emergencies in which we are called to act. We get from others what we tell them we expect. There is something in human nature that likes to be trusted with responsibility; something in us that responds to great occasions. You remember when Nelson fought that pivotal naval engagement at Trafalgar against the combined fleets of France and Spain, he gave to his command as a motto to inspire them to do their best, "England expects every man to do his duty." That brought every soldier and sailor under the eyes of the country whose interests they were upholding, and nerved each one to deeds of valor. It awakened a sense of responsibility and called forth their noblest service. So our Lord seems to be saying to American churches and to the constituency of this Society, "'Ye are the light of the world.' On you depends the evangelization of these despised Chinese. Treating them now contemptuously and now even brutally, ye are called to be salt to them, thus saving them from moral deterioration, and inoculating them with the spirit of the Gospel. Ye are to illuminate them with the light you have to shed as followers of Christ, and the responsibility is laid upon you to carry to them the principles of that faith which has given to us whatever excellence we have as a Nation. I expect you to Christianize these representatives of the Orient, to convert them to the worship of the God of the Bible." In this expectation of the Master, lies at once our obligation and our privilege. Much is laid upon us, but the trust brings with it honor, and inspires to grandest service.

The progress already made in this work, the cheering tokens of success that are reported by all laborers in this field, ought to awaken a far greater sympathy for those in whose behalf we are called to make our Christ-like expenditures. It is time we rose above the mean political enmities which have embarrassed not a little this imperative evangelism. Our treatment of these people is but another chapter in our history on which other and larger hearted generations will look with shame and sorrow. In the animosities born of our commercial greed, we have acted as if our religion had made us neither in life nor doctrine better than they. Eager to send the Gospel to distant heathen, we have been reluctant to exemplify, and slow to practically apply, to the heathen in our midst the teaching of Christianity. Now has come a new era, and the evangelistic efforts among the Chinese are assuming greater proportions than ever, and are engirt with every sign of gracious success. We have yet to learn to respect the manhood in these emigrants from the great kingdom beyond the Pacific. It is said of our Lord, when he came across the Publican Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom, that "he saw a man," and it was oftentimes the lowly, the shunned, the socially despised he called to become his disciples. It is a great art, this of seeing in a man the ideal, the possible man. When Jesus Christ looks upon a man, he looks him into a nobler manhood. We need to rise above class distinctions, to regard no one common or unclean, to speak of no one as hopeless or worthless.

One word as to opportunity. God always matches opportunity with ability, and when we stand face to face with opportunity, we must go forward or be recreant to every trust.

Here is this man—the Chinaman—on our coast, for whom we are doing exactly the same work that this Society has been urging us to do for the black race, in raising up preachers amongst them to go back to the homes in their own country and there become the proper evangels to their own people. When we realize that this is our work, and this is the opportunity before us, we shall talk of the Chinese question with more seriousness.

We are like the two American boys. One says to the other: "My father is a Christian; is your father a Christian?" The other boy replies, not wishing to be outdone, "Oh, yes, my father is a Christian, but he is not working much at it just now." That is about the way with this nation, nominally a Christian nation; we are not working much at it in the way we are treating the Indian, Chinese and colored man. We want the nation to act out the principles it believes in.

Mr. Gladstone said he divided the English nation into classes and masses. The masses, he added, have as little regard for the doctrines of the Gospel, as the upper classes have for its precepts. Now we have not only to give the precepts of the Gospel to the Chinaman, but we must inculcate its principles in the heart beyond all danger of eradication. If we do not do this, we shall act little better than the Chinese do themselves. A man was once asked how much he weighed. He replied, "I weigh 160, but when I am mad I weigh a ton." We need the madness born of a great zeal, the enthusiasm kindled by the Gospel, then shall we be able to lift up all classes and conditions of men.

When we get anointed for this work, and carry the Gospel with all the earnestness of our faith, and all the patience born of the example of Christ, then we shall realize our fondest hopes for the Christianization of the Chinese and of other races in our country.

We have only a few thousands of Chinese in our country, and whenever one of these becomes a Christian he is much like a Christian in apostolic days. He is raised above his former life, loses largely the sympathy of his own people, and is regarded as an apostate from his ancestral faith. It costs, therefore, a great deal to become a Christian under such circumstances, yet there are joyous, devoted Chinese Christians preaching, with signal power, the Gospel to their brethren, and living so as to be Christian luminaries among their idolatrous kindred.

I consider it no inferior part of this Association's work that it is expending its efforts among the Chinese now resident on the coast. We have, however, only made a beginning; much, very much, remains to be done. We have to conquer political prejudices, and invite to our faith with warmest welcomes those for whom Christianity has such priceless boons. If we raise up amongst them missionaries to go back to the crowded Mongolian Empire, this society will become an institution not only for Christianizing the conscience of our nation, but also an agency for training up and sending forth missionaries for the neediest of lands. Let it be ours to evince a friendly fellowship and true devotion to the despised, and kindle a manlier faith and larger Christian service.