CHRISTIAN MISSIONS IN CHINA. To TIM EDITOR Or TPLE SPECTATM"1
Sin,—Some attention has recently been directed to a work entitled "A Chinese Appeal to Christendom concerning Christian Missions, by Lin Shao-Yang." Your readers will remember that in a recent newspaper controversy Sir Hiram Maxim urged any who were interested in the subject to turn to this Chinese presentation of the position, which no doubt. he rightly supposed—as a carefully worded criticism of Christian missions—would carry more weight to the average reader than his own less moderate attack.
Having studied the book, partly on his recommendation and partly because of my keen desire to understand the Chinese view-point on this question, I confess to having laid it down with a certain measure of disappointment. I may say at once that with many of the views put forward by the writer I am in hearty accord. "Do not assume too hastily," he says. " that the teaching is all to be on your side and the learning to be anon the side of the Chinese Be exceedingly tender in your treatment of the old philosophers of China. . . . . A China that ceases to respect her own past will deserve the scorn, not the admiration, of her Western teachers."
In criticising missionaries, moreover, the writer is extremely careful to differentiate, and he freely grants that there are many who do not fall within the scope of his strictures. Some of the points are well made, and should be borne in mind by all missionaries, as, for example, the strenuous insistence upon the need for presenting Christianity in as tindogmatic a form as possible, leaving the Chinese to work out their own form of expression. The need of sympathy with Chinese thought and the avoidance of doing anything to outrage Chinese feeling are rightly pressed home.
• Where I should wish, however, to challenge the writer of this able book is in his representation of the typical missionary attitude. That missionaries are to be found "who paint our bad qualities in the most lurid colours," and "who touch most lightly and with the least enthusiasm on such of our qualities as are worthy of praise," may unfortunately be true. It was perhaps truer half a century ago, when the amazing sentences quoted in illustration of this dictum were written. My per- sonal contact with a large number of Chinese missionaries of nearly all societies gives me confidence in emphatically rejecting this description as true of more than a small and decreasing minority at the present day.
Much the same maybe said of some other points,but I forbear to mention them in detail. How far the modern missionary enterprise is from the position criticized in these pages can readily be seen by a perusal of the Report of the World Missionary Conference held last year.
What, however, chiefly disappoints me is the feeling, from which I cannot get away, that this book is not a genuine Chinese production. If written by a Chinese it must surely be by one who has become so far Westernized as to throw all his arguments into Western form. Numberless quotations are made from recent Western philosophical and theological works, while for one who professes so profound an admiration for the Chinese sages it is surprising that they are not quoted once. I have failed to discover any passage which is dis- tinctly Chinese, and could not have been penned by an Englishman. One not infrequently stumbles on a phrase which is scarcely conceivable from a Chinese pen, such as "the old philosophers of China—Confucius and the rest," "that attractive and daring thinker Frederick Myers."
What I should like to ask through your columns is that the publishers should make a clear statement as to the author- ship. If we have here an original contribution from a Chinese, we are bound to treat what he says with the greatest respect. Missions have nothing to fear from open criticism, even from those who, like this author, approach the question from the frankly materialistic standpoint. The value attaching to the t.,riticism must, however, depend to some extent on the per- sonality of the critic. The present volume is put forward as being worthy of special attention because of its authorship. It is presented to us as a true Chinese view of the situation, and this it is which gives peculiar weight to the criticism. . What is certainly a one-sided view of missionary work is therefore especially liable to be accepted as the whole truth and the last word on the subject.
I have the more confidence in putting this question because I see the author described in the Annual Report of the Rationalist Press Association as "a resident in the Far East who has special means of knowing the real facts of the case," words which can hardly be taken as indicating a Chinese author.
I procured along with the so-called "Chinese Appeal" a recently published novel by that versatile author, Mr. B. L. Putnam Weale. It seems to have been written with the object of discrediting Christian missions in China. There is a striking similarity in the point of view from which these two books are written.—I am, Sir, &c., HENRY T. HODGKIN.
7 Old Park Ridings, Winchmore Hill, N.
[We think that Mr. Hodgkin, as one of the incriminated missionaries, has a right to receive from the publishers of this able book an answer to his question whether they do or do not mean to suggest that it is written by a native Chinese, as the name on the title implies, or only by a European resident in China. The importance of the book depends on the answer to this question, and it is one which we hold that the Rationalist Press Association ought to give if they wish the book and the Association to be taken seriously.—En. Spectator.]
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