1910 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



393 



Our Homes 



V.\ A. I. IvOOT 



Rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the 

 evil.— Romans 13 : 3. 



I am not come to send peace on earth; I came 

 not to send peace, but a sword. — Matt. 10 : 34. 



Yesterday, ^lay 19, at the State confer- 

 ence of tlie Congregational churches of 

 Ohio, at the annual meeting held in Kent, 

 Rev. W. L. Beard, District Secretary of the 

 American Board, who has recently returned 

 from a trip to China, gave us the following 

 facts in regard to sending cigarettes over to 

 China. See Home papers in our last issue; 

 also page 324, Gleanings for May 15, 1909. 

 Well, you may be sure I not only got as 

 close to the speaker as I could conveniently, 

 but I listened with unusual attention to 

 what he said about the cigarette trade. Re- 

 cently in Foo-chou, China, a city with over 

 a million population, the American Tobac- 

 co Co. undertook to develop a trade in their 

 brand of cigarettes. First they sent a good 

 man to canvass the city, with samples; but 

 he was unable to find a single dealer who 

 would take hold of them. (Dr. Ament, just 

 before he died, told us, you may remember, 

 that a most wonderful change is now taking 

 l)lace in China.) The salesman reported to 

 headquarters his want of success. Then 

 they sent a better and more experienced 

 man (great God! think or it — "better and 

 more experienced" in what?). Well, this 

 man failed also. Then they sent out a third 

 one — the best man they could find, and 

 Slid, "Surely he will get our business start- 

 ed in Foo-chou." But he failed likewise, 

 and cabled back for further orders. They 

 told him, before deserting the field, to take 

 a great quantity of cigarettes and scatter 

 them broadcast among the children. The 

 children would smoke them, as they did not 

 know any better, and in this way they 

 would "create an appetite." They worked 

 along the line outlined by the fellow who 

 was making an address at a convention of 

 saloon-keepers when he said, "(Gentlemen, 

 nickels spent now among the boys in creat- 

 ing an appetite will bring in good round 

 dollars later on." So this exjierienced sales- 

 man employed a dozen runners to go about 

 the city and give cigarettes to the children! 

 They reasoned that, when the children got 

 a taste for them, they would go to the deal- 

 ers with their pennies, and thus induce 

 them to keep in stock goods that were ur- 

 gently called for. But, may God be praised, 

 they failed even in this. With all their 

 shrewdness and persistency the great Amer- 

 ican Tobacco Co. had not caught on to what 

 the missionary is doing. Even the Chinese 

 children refused to accei^t them, and others 

 took their free samples and trampled them 

 in the mud before the eyes of the distribu- 

 tor. Dear friends, our prayers and my own 

 poorly worded petitions to the wise and kind 



Father were answered, and I and the rest of 

 you did not know if. Once more may God 

 be praised; and now a verse of that beauti- 

 ful hymn comes bubbling up in my soul 

 again — 



Hall to the brightness of Zion's glad morning. 

 Long by the prophets of Israel foretold! 



Hail to the millions from bondage returning! 

 Gentiles and Jews, the blest vision behold. 



But this is not all, dear friends. This 

 missionary said he well remembered the 

 time when the leading officials of Foo-chou 

 said they did not want any more mission- 

 aries; they had caught a glimpse of what 

 was going on in America and the rest of the 

 world, and they were ready to adopt new 

 methods of doing business: but when it in- 

 cluded "missionaries^'' they said, "No, no! 

 we do not want them — haven't any use for 

 them. If you will take the whole lot who are 

 here already, and take them away and send 

 them back, we shall be a great deal better 

 off." 



They made this statement, put in differ- 

 ent form, at every turn; and I do not know 

 but many of the missionaries were a poor 

 discouraged lot. They kept on, however, 

 working and praying; and later on the Y. 

 M. C. A. was established in Foo-chou, and 

 I presume in other Chinese cities too. The 

 Y. M. C. A. seems to have obtained favor, 

 as it has in thousands of other places where 

 other lines of missionary work have failed, 

 and now we have open doors for the spread 

 of the gospel of Christ; and not only "open 

 doors," said Bro. Beard, "but the doors are 

 pulled clear off the hinges, and carried away. 

 They have no more use for them," 



And this reminds me that it is not only 

 in Foo-chou where cigarettes are ruled out 

 by law, but the whole great nation of China, 

 with its four hundred millions of people, 

 has passed an edict or law to the effect that 

 no man, woman, or child under 25 years of 

 age shall use the baneful thing. Why, 

 come to think of it, China — yes, heathen 

 China (as we have been wont to call it) has 

 outstripped the United States in this much- 

 needed reform. 



"But," says some one, "does China en- 

 force the law? We have laws in the United 

 States; but what is the good of laws while 

 we have police and mayors who are not in 

 sympathy with those laws? " 



Just listen while I tell you how China 

 does things. You know about her banish- 

 ing opium and the opium-dens. Well, in 

 and around Foo-chou they used to have 

 great poppy-fields — fields of beavitiful pop- 

 pies — beautiful if one would just use his eyes 

 and did not stop to think. China has not 

 only ruled out the opium-dens, but she has 

 orderetl her people to stop fjrowing poppies. 

 When Chinamen of wealth were making 

 great fortunes in growing opium they were 

 not inclined to obey the law. They said, as 

 some people say here in America, "It is no- 

 body's business what crop you raise on your 

 own land." But the government sent sol- 

 diers and mowed down the poppies. The 

 owners, with their money to back them. 



