THE DESCENT OF BAD TRAITS AND. GOOD. 253 



beneficent law in California to both white men and 

 yellow men. [Applause.] The Chinaman divides 

 all Americans into two classes, — the men who fleece 

 him and those who would educate him. Let us put 

 ourselves on the side of those who would educate 

 the reflux Chinese immigration ; a rill now, but likely 

 to deepen and broaden, and to become a most valu- 

 able means of evangelizing the Chinese Empire. It 

 is more than important that America should not 

 obtain a bad name in Asia. Let us remember that 

 when the American scholar Van Dyke, at Beirut, 

 sits down, and gives the Scriptures voice in an Ara- 

 bic translation so perfect that native scholars of Da- 

 mascus and Mecca say it resembles the Koran itself 

 in purity of diction, — he is probably addressing 

 more people than speak the English language. The 

 Arabic, in its common and in its printed forms, 

 taken together, is the language of a hundred mil- 

 lions of people. I saw, when at Beirut, an extended 

 list of books which have been translated by our 

 scholars there into Arabic. Some of them were 

 mathematical works, some of them medical, some of 

 them astronomical, a great majority of them religious ; 

 and I remember that as I held this list up under the 

 shadow of Lebanon, and waved it to and fro in the 

 hot wind that moved out of Egypt, I said to Dr. 

 Van Dyke, " There is the best flag that America has 

 raised abroad." Let us not dishonor that ensign. 

 Let us permit no Russian or Asiatic power to dis- 

 honor it. Lord Shaftesbury and Sir Stratford de 

 Redcliffe affirm that the American missionaries are 



