THE "HEATHEN CHINEE."

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10235, 11 May 1911, Page 3

THE "HEATHEN CHINEE."

REMARKABLE CHALLENGES TO MISSIONARIES. A BOOK OF QUERIES. The "heathen Chinee," educated, civilised, and equipped with a ; sound knowledge of modern civilisation, is appealing to the Christian co\intries I to their "Bibliolatrous misI sionaries" from the Celestial Kingdom, Mr Lin Shao-Yang, in a book i just published entitled "A Chinese I Appeal to Christendom concerning Christian Missions" protests against' the "absurd, contemptible, and de- I moralising medley that forms the stock-in-trade of missionaries," and j urges that China be left to work oxit her own salvation, as far as religion is j concerned, without Western interfer- i ence.

His method of argument is mainly a bland astonishment and questioning. Dealing with the present condition of C'kristianity in Europe lie observes : What we wonder at is that your missionary zeal should not only remain unabated, but should actually show signs of increasing activity during an epoch which is obviously one of religious unrest throughout all Christian lands, and in historical research and scientific methods of criticism have caused the' gravest doubts to be thrown on the truth of some of the fundamental propositions of the Christian faith. . . . .Do the missionaries propose to convert China and then wait for the Chinese to reconvert the West? . . . It is be-1 cause I am firmly convinced that some I of the teachings and methods of very ! many foreign missionaries are serious- j ly defective in themselves, harmful to i the people of China, and disastrous to ' the causes of truth, civilisation, and j international harmony, that T have j obliged myself to undertake the diffi- j cult and cheerless task of issuing this i appeal to the People of the Christian <' West. I

SERIES OF QUERIES. Mr Lin Shao-Yang puts a series of questions to the Western peoples. Are those who are not earr.ost, professing Christians, he asks, worse than their more ardent neighbours in England? Can it be that the people of China, half the population of the world, are really doomed to everlasting damnation as the missionaries' creed, as he understands it postulates? Cannot the missionaries understand that Christianity must he to tho Chine-so in a form "that will bear the closest critical .scrutiny"? How aro the catch words of the missionaries, he asks, superior In tho'e of Buddhism and Shintoism and Mnhommedanism? The Christianity of the missionaries, he asserts, is crude and out of date. Why .is it not expounded in its modern and most intellectual form? "If I pay a visit to a. mndorn.l observatory shall I bo told that tho | sun goes round the earth beeau e, for-1 sooth, the astronomer's ancestors be- I lieved.it?" I

What will the unlettered Chrh-tinn missionary do with a Chinese who has read Hume, or Spencer, or McTasrjrnrt. or Bradley, or Nietzsche, and DeiAntichrist and is prepared to discuss them with him. It cannot he too strongly emphasised that the Chinese do not want Europe's cast-off theology, and if you insist upon thrusting it upon them it is not-unlikely that some day there will bo a terrible reaction, resulting in the definite exnulsiori from. China of all Western religion. MISSIONARY'S REPLY.

The Rev. B. Baring-Gould, Hie foreign secretary of the Church Mi-sion--ary Society, said: "I am convinced that even if every foreigner now withdrew from China a Christian Church •will still continue. There will also be people in every country who object to tho teaching of religion of any kind, and we could not cease our w-orK on that account: Against Mr Lin Shao-Yang there aro numerous instances of educated Chinese in high positions welcoming the missionaries. The merchants of Hongkong. nonChristians, raised thousands of pounds for St. Stephen's College for boys and have given us entire control ftf it. "When their boys have been educated there and sent to English universities they came to us and said. 'Xovr our sons want cultured and educated I wives. You must educate our daughters.' They gave largo s-tcs towards the founding of a girl's college for tke daughters of tho upner-olass Cbincse. "A cause of a great deal of the unrest which is evident in India and tho Far East is due to the doubt-, and religious unsottlement among the adherents of the old religions. Tins unsettlement is brought about by tho introduction of the Western education, which necessarily discredits the old religions and fails to sunnlv anything in their place. Christianity is the onlv substitute."