NEW SPIRIT IN CHINA

Dominion, Volume 38, Issue 278, 23 August 1945, Page 5

NEW SPIRIT IN CHINA

Strength And Confidence Gained During War

“China is alive today in a way she has never been throughout, the long centuries of her history,” said the Rev. Kate Iliitley, of the London Missionary Society, when addressing Wellington Rotarians at a luncheon. “Even the uneducated people of China are different from similar people of other countries because they have centuries of culture underlying their civilization. The rediscovery by the Chinese of the spiritual strength’ of their own civilization has more than antiquarian interest, and the long history of China and the stirring record of the renaissance of today raise the hope that civilization may yet be preserved in that Asia from which it sprang.” . . Airs. Ilutloy has been engaged in missionary work in China for many years and has worked under most difficult conditions. At present she is spending a short furlough in New Zealand, after which she is to return to her work in China. “The war has decidedly affected the psychological outlook of the Chinese people. There is a new self-confidence, a belief now that China, with all its weaknesses, is really unconquerable. The confidence is found all over the nation. It involves a new self-respect, a feeling that China can solve her own problems. It has grown with the realization that foreign Powers found themselves unable to work miracles in resistance to Japan, yet China fought alone for several years, and ended stronger than she began.’’