156 Through the Yang-tse Gorges 



nations have each their deities, why not we ours ? In any 

 case, T'ien is above all ; and whether the relation of inferior 

 deities to High Heaven be that of Sonship or Motherhood " 

 (latterly the Catholics have started separate Sheng-Mu, i.e. 

 Mother of God Temples), " or anything else, can never be 

 exactly ascertained, and is consequently a matter of indiifer- 

 ence to every thoughtful and educated person." No one 

 can doubt that the Chinese would be all the better for 

 accepting the teachings of the Great Founder of our Western 

 religion : what I do doubt is whether the spending of so 

 much competitive energy and money does not rather repel 

 educated Chinese instead of leading them to respect Christ's 

 teaching. 



It is one thing to convert African savages or Polynesian 

 fetish worshippers, and another thing to spend millions of 

 money in attempting to convert Chinese who possess an 

 ancient and admirable system of ethics of their own, adul- 

 terated, it is true, by many foolish superstitions. But who 

 is competent to decide where religion ends and superstition 

 begins? The riots and consequent massacres resulting 

 from mission-work throughout Indo-China may be justified 

 by the end ; but it is certain our relations with the Chinese 

 would be far more cordial than they are, were our diploma- 

 tists not engaged in a ceaseless struggle with the Chinese 

 Government in order to compel the people, nolens volens, 

 to respect and accept missionaries of all denominations and 

 with endless idiosyncracies. This leads the Chinese to 

 regard "missionaries as political agents, and will always 

 prevent their being cordially welcomed by the ruling classes. 

 Further, how can the Chinese reconcile the treatment 

 they have received at the hands of Christian nations as an 

 example of the superior ethics of Christianity ? 



My evenings in the hong where I am staying were spent 



