THE CHRISTIAN PRESIDENT

Hokitika Guardian, 15 December 1930, Page 3

THE CHRISTIAN PRESIDENT

General Chiang Kai-shek, the President of C|iina,- has joined the Methodist Episcopal Church South. It. -would j be easy to he biyiiitial about Chiang’s qon,cersion to Christianity. It was in China that the phrase “rice Christians ’ arose,, describing those who in times oi hunger abandoned their ancient gods for the gods of missionaries who could fill their rice bowls. To-day Chiafig’s Government needs foreign capital and the joreigners are, at least in name,. Christians, is Chiang a rice Christian on a new and larger scale P asks the “New York Times.” Or one might recall' the history of Chiarig’s rival, General Feng, known as the. “Christian general” until lie went to Moscow and found, according to report, that Moscow paid better than Methodism. But Feng was never a rice Christian ; he was always engagingly frank. He found Christianity useful for disciplinary purposes, he said : his soldiers marched better to “Onward, Christian Soldiers,” than to any other tune. And the conversion of Chiang i s not quite so sudden as it seems. Three years ago he married a Christian girl, a graduate of Wellesley College, by a ceremon y xYhicii;tvas >stra nge rn ing 1i n g of Christian ..gpd Ghihese .'fbrms. Her brother, T. Y.feSopng, the, present Minister of man in, Chiang’s Cabinet, .ik;aiso ia second-gen-eration Chinese .GhrisiihrL The present Minister of Foreign Affairs of China; was for many years; .national ■.cor. n ry. of the Chinese Y,M.,C.A.. . Yet it is a strange ,phenomenon, fh : s. co 11 ve rsi on, wh e n Chi via is• reported to rn with . anti-Christian propaganda, when missionaries are being forced to give: up posts where they, had .work for three decades, when Cjiiang’s own Government has just banned religious n..- friction even in the mission schools, ft .s a portent, probably, not so much of anv sudden turn to one Western form of religion as of the universal drift in China. Chiang himself lias always lat n marked by a curious, stormy, mvst'.c temper. He was once a follower -if the white lights of Shanghai; at other times he has suddenly left his and taken refuge for days in solitary meditation in a mountain Buddhist monastery. There is more in common between Buddhism and Christianity than most of us realise, and to a Chinese adoption of one religion does not necessarily mean abandonment of 11other: to the philosophical Chinese mind all religions are hut partial apnroximations of universal truth. And Chiang, when lie sees his country adrift, unsatisfied with old loyalties, old rqfi'dous, old traditions eff every sort, undisciplined and chaotic, must feel the need of something to tie to. Chiang speaks no Western language, unless lie has learned English from his wife, .who used to write very good pottery for the old “Freeman.” Tf he has turned to Christianity, it is a tribute to the character of the Chinese Christians with whom lie has come in contact. He believes in them, and that