MR WONG TAPE AND CHINESE MISSIONS. TO THE EDITOR.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 11360, 1 March 1899, Page 3

MR WONG TAPE AND CHINESE MISSIONS. TO THE EDITOR.

Sir,—l am glad to see by a paragraph in Friday's Times that notice is again drawn to the fact that other religions besides our own retain an honoured place, and do their part efficiently in aiding the evolution of the human family. Mr Wong Tape is right insaying that, as a, .nation, we have not yet decided among ourselves what it really is that we believe. We are, nominally, Christians; but, if even a majority of us were actually so, could such a taunt-as that contained in his remarks be truthfully cast at us—viz., that "the lower class in China live on a higher moral plane than European people of the same class "■? ■' That this is true is being constantly affirmed by unprejudiced travellers; and, while I agree with him concerning the effects of our missionary efforts in lands where the people are satisfied with their own religion, I at the same time sympathise heartily with our missionaries. Could they but go to these lands' with ' the broader and more brotherly idea of helping the people, especially the uneducated among them, to get the best possible meaning and the greatest amount of comfort out of their own religion, Tarn sure much better results would follow their teachings, for all .religions have' the same inner meaning, presented in the garb most suited to the nation which adopts it. It is a fact, too, that we ourselves need Christianising. Christianity is our religion, and the awakened among us welcome anyone who brings added light to throw upon its mysteries; but we would most certainly resent the intrusion of an educated Chinese missionary were he to conic hero decrying our religion and trying to convert our youth to the.Chinese faith. It is herein that we are so illogical. Few of us can see that this is precisely our position in sending missionaries to China. There.'is' not one. whit of difference. That which they resent we would also resent, and rightly so. When the devotees of any form of religion get beyond it, and wish a higher, more spiritual faith, there is a Higher Intellio^nce than ours which will see they get it. Travellers in India tell the same tale of Indian missions as Mr. Wong Tape tells of the Chinese; and Miss Lilian Edger, M.A., of New.Zealand, who will shortly revisit Dunedin, after- a- lengthy lecturing tour in India, will have an interesting story to relate concerning the mon and women of India, and the effect .of Christian missions there. She has met hundreds of people of all classes, among them "many Parses ladies, who entertained her at their own homes and attended her public lectures, so it is evident that all Indian ladies are not doomed, to the seclusion of the zenanas....ln defence of the action of our missionaries, I say that any earnest man or woman who feels, drawn to the field of foreign mission has a perfect right to go. No one pan say what is another's duty, and I honour them for their devotion to what they think right; but to go with the idea that no religion but our own has the truth, and that there is no revelation from God save that contained in our own Scriptures, is absurd, and missionaries going out in that spirit must expect disappointment.—l am, etc., . ■ ;. . ; Yasodhaea.

: The disease of men is to neglect their own fields, and to weeding those of otliers. 1 TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—Those who know the late Mr Wong Tape, of Stafford street will not be surprised to'find in his son the. cultivated Chinese gentleman whose well-chosen words, quoted by you the other day, convey a well-merited rebuke not 'only to those hoodlums ■ who abuse and maltreat the Chinese, but also to. those foolish enthusiasts who imagine1 that any half-educated boy or girl who has passed through the change kno\yn as "conversion is fit to be- sent as a missionary to convert the Chinese to Christianity. One is not surprised to find a man like Mr Wong Tape, the product of immemorial Chinese culture and New Zealand secular education, resenting as an insult to his race the idea that so eminently rationalistic a people as the Chinese are to be "converted" from their own immemorial civilisation to a new religion by such teaching. And well might Mr Wong Tape have rebuked us with the words of the Chinese sage at the head of this letter,' and in confirmation of his remarks I . quote the following from Neu-mann-—"A Chinese who has seen the habits of Hongkong, or who has suffered from the persecution oT Californians, will hardly show desire to be converted to Christianity. A sagacious Chinese once said to me: 'True, yon are our superiors in science and discovery, but our moral principle is much more efficient. Our masses are much less vicious and self-seeking than your Christians, such at least as we see in our country.' " Williams; in his " Middle Kingdom, mentions similar argumenta ad hominem, such as that the Christians were proved fit instructors in benevolence, by sending opium to China; in morals generally, by the intemperate 'lives and reckless cupidity of

nrofessed Christians in Cliina; and ili. filial' piety, by neglect of parent.. A Chinese would starve rather tlifc do as so many amongst us who affect to'despise Him do— aUow his aged parents to accept charity in dm form of an old-age pension. . I ha™»o doubf thai if Mr Wong Tape had been questioned on the subject he would have admitted the great good ha people have dorived from one form of missionary work--, the medical institutions. If has been said of the reports of Drs Parker and Lockliarfthat ''they constitute one of the noblest records o' offoctive ■humanity in history, and they must be counted to the credit of the Christian faitb. in bo far as they proceeded from religious mot&oi" But Dr Lockhart admits the effort ' to impress on the native mind that the ultimate motive and end of all.this humanity is "to convert it from the service lof idols to the living God" to be a faihire. Mr Samuel Johnson, in his great work on " Oriental Religions, ( just published, says'rH- " No feticliism on eartli compares with the enormous expenditure of money, machinery, and labour in printing and circulating Bibles among the heathen, whose wssto of them is fully equal to the supply. Even; the Catholic condones his own priest-and-image worship by ridiculing this scheme of coiryertmg men by the contact and authority of a printed book." There is a well-authenticated story of an incident m the experience of th»t eminent Chinese scholar, Dr Lily, which illustrates the connection between supply and deh m'and in the case of Bibles. In one particular district of China Dr Lily was gratified to find that the demand for the Scriptures was suoht that ho was unable to supply it.- Being of an inquiring turn of mind, he took stepsjto discover the.explanation, which he found to be very simple—the Chinese had discovered that tho paper of the Bibles was of Buch a texture that it made excellent soles for their shoes, and tho Bibles had all been applied to that useful purpose! Needless to say, Dr Lily soon stopped tho supply. This form of " contact" did not serve Dr Lily's purpose— I am, etc., ■ Nicodemot.