A TRIBUTE FROM A JOURNALIST.

Waiapu Church Gazette, Volume 26, Issue 8, 1 August 1936, Page 5

A TRIBUTE FROM A JOURNALIST.

H. Anstice. Every unbiassed observer of recent years has borne witness to the remarkable progress made m China. Not always, however, have the Christian bodies received the credit due to them for the part they have played making this progress possible. While they may not appear on the surface to be doing much, yet it is they who laid many of the foundation stones on which modern China is being built; who, to employ another metaphor, prepared the soil m which the new spirit of national endeavour has been able to take root and grow. Even to-day the majority of China's leading women, from Madame Chiang Kai Shek down, are Christians, and the organised women's movement, which is doing so much m the way •of social reform, is largely Christian m composition. Last, but not least, there. is the New Life Movement. Its language and philosophy do not, it is true, contain a single direct Christian reference. They go back rather to Confucius and Confucian ideals. Chiang Kai Shek, however, is not a Confucian, lie is a Christian, and one cannot but think that his Christian associations and Christian influences have been mainly responsible for his decision to

attempt to bring about a national spiritual revival. Modern China owes more to Christianity is indeed more the creation of Christianity than is on the surface apparent or is generally admitted. In terms of converts, m the formal acceptance of Christian dogma and Christian doctrine, progress may seem to be slow, but progress is not to be reckoned only m these terms. It is the spirit that matters, and if the individual Chinese is less self — or rather family — centred, and has a wider conception of his social responsibilities, if public life is cleaner and graft, nepotism and inefficiency are no longer regarded as the natural thing, and if , as a result, public works forge ahead and industry thrives, then the credit must largely go to those Christian bodies which for long years have waged almost a lone fight.